# Session 3, Part 2: Organizational and People Issues

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** MIT OpenCourseWare
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00)

Well, as you saw in the first day when I talked about new ventures and the elements that have to come together to have a successful venture and Bob also said it, it's the people issues that tend to sink ventures more often than not. It's not the technology, it's not the funding, it's people issues. So it seems very important then that we have something that talks about people issues and organizations and um tonight we have a panel unfortunately one of whom is sick and not able to come but Vivian Batitali is our moderator. Um I met Vivian a few years ago. Um I'm on the board of a public company that is uh still run by one of the founders and I'm on the I'm chair of the nomination and governance committee. So when we were looking to expand the board uh that was what our committee does. So after doing a search etc we had some candidates and I met with Vivian and it became clear pretty soon in talking to her that she was a great candidate for a founders for any company but a founder one in particular. I remember uh we talked about the things you had worked on with as senior management and at least two of the three you worked on. I think I knew the founders and I think I had incorporated one of those companies. And so the idea that we'd have a board member uh with HR experience, organization experience that knows how to deal with a founder company that was growing seemed really great. So I couldn't think of a better candidate to put this panel together. And last year I did the dope slap and said Vivian's the person. And I convinced her again with our highly paid compensation uh these beautiful water bottles. And u Vivian assembled a panel of uh other people that she thought would be useful in the organization, people issues. And so I'm going to turn it over to Vivian. And uh we're going to um we want to make it interactive. So if you have questions, we hope you have a bunch. You know, put your hands up. We'll have the mics run around. We do have some questions sort of pre-anned, but if you have some issues, uh, best say them and we'll see what we can do with them. So, without further ado, Vivian, thank you once again. — Excellent. We did this last year and we really enjoyed it and what made it really great was people were very interactive and we do have you know questions that people have submitted here ahead of time but um you know this can I think it might work best free form with people raising their hands and what you want to talk about um the areas that you know as many people are building their companies are interested in and really what you do as a founder early stage age, you know, what are the things that you need to do in terms of um building your organization, you know, how do you hire people, how do you pay deal with problems, you know, all those hopefully we'll be able to touch on with you tonight. We have different experiences. Um I'll tell you a little bit about my experience. I worked many years. Um right now I'm not working full-time anymore. I have a small consulting practice uh where I do really just the work that I like to do which is working with people building their business or helping people grow in their roles particularly when someone is um new to a position particularly if they're um you know working in an HR or people function. I like to have people get started doing that. Um and then I'm on two um public company boards with Joe. I'm on the NetScout system boards. God bless you up there. and um and also progress software and then I also work on a couple of nonprofits. Um I work on um entrepreneurship for all which some people may know about. Um you know works outside the Boston area helping um you entrepreneurs get going and help them you get their business launched. And then I work with a company, an organization called Family Services of Marramac Valley, which is a nonprofit that helps uh the disadvantaged in the greater Lawrence area. So, it's a little bit about me. So, I'm going to turn it over to my colleagues here. Uh we've worked together before and I thought that they would be able to um provide a different view of some of the questions you might have than I might have. And um I think really highly of them and I know that they'll offer a lot tonight. So, start with Kim here. — Hi. So, I'm Kim Crowley. Um, I have um I've had the pleasure of working for uh Viv as one of my my first bosses in my career in my HR career. So, 25 years of um HR experience. I am a VP of HR with Thermoffrofisher Scientific. Um I started with them in 2010. Um I

### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00)

sidestepped and went to a much smaller company a few years ago uh by the name of Vizenta Life Sciences. So, I've always really kind of grown up in much more of the life science industry. Um I did go back to Thermoffisher. So there are now um and um you know just I have on the flip side while Viv has had smaller companies you know co-founders I've been on the flip side of it with larger companies as we start to look um you very acquisitive companies start to look at acquisitions what do we look for how do we handle different scenarios um and how do we introduce them into a larger company so um hap very happy to be there here and looking forward to the conversation. — Hi. Um I'm Michelle Bonafant. I too am very happy to be here with you today. So similar to Kim, I started my career um working for Vivian. She was one of my first I call real bosses when I was toying with uh following in the legal field or if I would head into uh technology. Um my career has spanned um high-tech. So, I have spent all of my space in high-tech. I currently am the senior director of um global people operations for QuickBase. Um but I pivoted away from HR for a number of years. So although I started in that space, I had an aptitude for technology and I leaned into the goto market space um with a human capital management uh organization. I worked for um Ultimate Software. They merged with a company called Kronos um to become UKG. And I had the privilege of working with um hundreds of companies um small companies, mid-size companies, large companies operationally to understand their infrastructure and how to set them up for um success. So, I'm happy to be here with you today. I'm happy to share the learnings that I found along the way. I've participated in many different mergers and acquisitions of small companies, large companies um and really put that infrastructure in place. — Okay. Thank you very much. So I um just tell you a little bit about how I always approached my work. Um I never ever thought I wanted to work in a capacity where I would be um doing, you know, people or HR work, but I started out really more in public relations, marketing, and what have you. But I just I ended up being a person where people came to for advice and counsel. And I started to see that you could really help people and help people be more effective, you know, by, you know, providing clarity often around what needed to be done or um even just explaining a policy that I might know something about. I was the writer in the company I worked for initially. And so um in addition to doing some of the public relations work that I did, I ended up writing kind of the onboarding materials and the company manuals and all of that. And so I I got to see that you could just have such an impact by helping people um realize what organizations wanted them to do, but also helping facilitate them be successful. And I was very fortunate in um I worked I grew companies in the companies that I work for and I shared similar values with the founders of those companies, the leaders of those companies and um it's my belief that that's what helped make those companies successful. Certainly it was the products and it was the right market. But when you have the right combination of um people with similar values and and similar goals, you know, and you put those together, you can you can, you know, work miracles. And so, um, you know, I'd like to see what questions you may have as those of you that are thinking about starting your business or have a business or things that you'd like to know about. We have different points of view. Kim has definitely seen it at scale. U Michelle has done both sides of it as she mentioned. She's um you know understands a lot of more about technology than than probably Kim or I do. Um but I think that she also has seen you know different companies through growth and acquisition as I have as well. So hopefully we can help you with things that you want to talk about tonight. So, I don't know if anybody wants to start off or I can read off one of the questions here and we can give you some uh we can start from there. — How about I do that?

### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00)

— We got one. — Okay, got a question. — I'll get started. Um, so culture is key especially empower women. When should you start of thinking of that HR function? And uh in order that to keep that DNA that you have with maybe those co-founders that special spark — uh that you want to instill in the company how do you ensure that uh goes on even with investors coming — okay I think that you know whenever you're starting anything right um I think if it's your product or if it's your company um you know typically maybe you're doing that on your own but most likely you're doing it with one or two other people at least to start. I think it's important for you to talk about what's important to you um and to make sure that the people that you're working with particularly I've been in situations where there's been you know co-founders that co-managed um and you know built their companies from there and having alignment I think around what's important to you important around what you're trying to develop in terms of the quality that you want to put into it. You know, what are the values around what you're producing? Um, and then, you know, how do you operate together, right? What things are important? Um, you know, trust is something that gets built over time. Um, if you're going into business with someone, hopefully that you have some measure of trust or understanding there. But I think it starts very early, right? And I think whoever builds that organization um he or she being conscious about it from the beginning um particularly if it's something you want to grow and expand um you're going to create an environment and a livelihood hopefully for yourself and for others. You want to make sure that has elements that not only are sustainable but also things that you believe in. And in terms of where I think you start that early on, right? And then I think you know when you bring people into an organization, I did consulting with companies that were really small. Um I used to say that you know my rule of thumb was around 50 people or more. Um you you needed some sort of help in that area. Um it could be maybe somebody outside, it could be an advisor. um you know could be family, it could be somebody you need somebody outside your circle um to help you figure out how to structure you know how to build your business and maybe it's even a little smaller than that depending on you know what the nature of the work is that you have and then I think you know as you go through it um you know your how you hire um is probably one of the most important things whether you're a small company or whether you're a large company, what that process is and how you vet people and how you treat people in that process, whether or not you hire them or not, is all a part of of creating that culture. And I also think that early on um it's important for companies to have a cadence. Um you know, just like I had one boss that used to say that u managing was was often like parenting, right? So sometimes if you have regular routines around how you do things, it becomes predictable, but it also gives people um a sense of security. Um and that you do that as you parent, but you also do that when you manage and you build an organization. Um and then I think you know as you go through that um you go through a lot of um you make mistakes um you know sometimes it's their hiring mistakes sometimes they're um directional mistakes and having the ability um with your team to figure out how to move on from that um you start to create the environment and then you build upon it from there and I think it changed I mean I saw uh largest growth I saw was probably from a company of 55 people to probably around I guess we were about 2,000 people when RSA was sold. I worked at a company called RSA Security that was bought by EMC. At each stage of growth, it was sometimes a different company and you needed different things. But I think what was important is we came back to the values that we had around how we wanted to run our business, treat one another, um what was important, what we measured. Um, you know, I would say the organizations that

### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 20:00)

worked best for me and the ones that I was most proud to be associated with was the were the ones that were organizations of high achievement. Um, but also human kindness and I don't think that um they're mutually exclusive. Um, I we very high standards. I think that you don't compromise those. But I do think that you still have can have a how and even if you have the tough things that you have to do in an organization. We were just talking about that now. Um you can there's a how in terms you can treat people even if you have to make a change in the organization or if you had to do a workforce reduction or whatever the case may be um where you can still treat people with respect and kindness even in difficult times. So my point of view on that question I ask these guys to jump in a little bit. — I think um you asked the question also around culture and I think um you know when you think about how do you build culture and how do you maintain that as you kind of start your organization it's really building that foundation. So even just as simple as like what is your mission statement and something that I think you know in the core leadership team can kind of build upon so that you reemphasize that as you continue to grow you know what is your mission what was it that you were set out to accomplish and even a company like thermoffishers with the 130,000 employees you know our mission is to make the world healthier cleaner safer and you know it why it is so critical and it's so important is because even on our worst days when I'm trying to motivate finance professionals, you know, how do you contribute to the overall culture of the organization, it comes down to a patient and saving lives, you know, and the patient becomes your family member. It's your mother, your brother, your sister, your child. And that, you know, that's what culture does. It brings you back and it makes um for you as entrepreneurs, it makes your mission and what you're trying to do just as important to your employees as it is to you, right? So, you use that as a um a tool to motivate your workforce, but also to attract your talent. So, you know what I've noticed growing up in HR over the past couple of decades is that the younger generations, they want something that they can connect to. They want to know that what they're doing is symbolic and it's important to them. And so, when you think about culture and how do you articulate your culture and what you're trying to do, you know, keep that in mind. And how do you do that? and you leverage that brand for um your people purposes as well. — Um I agree with what Kim stated. So I was actually focusing on the culture piece of the question that you asked. I can tell you that one of the companies that I am most proud to have worked for and worked with um started relatively small with a problem. Um, the founder worked for ADP and he was unhappy with how things were being processed. He was a salesperson. He thought he had a better way to um create a product that companies could use. And so he took himself and a gentleman that he worked with and just really kind of out of his, you know, garage, um, started a product with his, uh, with his brother who was more the technical piece. But I think what I admired most about their philosophy and how they approached it, um, they really cared about people. It was people first. And the motto was that if you took care of your people, your people would take care of your customers and everything else would work out. And it seems very simple, but it was true. And he never shied from that. He didn't formally hire an HR person um to kind of run the business. But what he did do was he hired people who believed in people and they were hard workers. They were um really high achievers. And then naturally what happened was people kind of um gravitated to the roles within the business that they had their strengths and weaknesses with and then he hired over time where there were gaps. But the philosophy never changed. and watching that company from, you know, a very small number of people in revenue to expand to be um a significant number of people revenue and ultimately sold. Um it was public at one point. Um it

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=1200s) Segment 5 (20:00 - 25:00)

became private. It was, you know, then picked up and bought by a private equity firm that basically wanted it for 20 years and they weren't willing to sell it. um because of the people and their connection, the profitability was extraordinary and it was shared um throughout the organization. So I think Kim is right. I think that you have to have a mission statement. something that your organization ties to that throughout the business. So for me, I wasn't in HR, but it was something I always thought of. I knew that I was going to be taken care of as an employee, and so I took care of my customers. And so as a result revenue was generated. So I think it's very important um the line with culture personal and professional relationships within the teams should be — I think that you're in a small business you're going to have that right. Um I think that it can get difficult, right? Um particularly friendships, you know, and and I think what helps with that, okay, um what helps it work is a level of understanding about say two people as friends going into business together or friends working together. Um I think role clarity in terms of who is really responsible for what. Um and an awareness of what's own one's own strengths and weaknesses are. Um particularly in in sort of a co-ounding situation or an early stage situation where you're maybe bringing together people you were in school with or maybe people you've worked with before, what have you. Um and you know those relationships may have started out as friendships and then had a prof professional component or vice versa, right? Um but I think the role clarity is really important and also norms of behavior and really having discussions, not waiting for those to evolve. if you decide you're going to go into business um with someone you've developed something with for example I think talking about that is really really important and setting that up as organizations evolve um you know I think there has to be sort of rules of the road for how people operate I mean we always we work together we were very social we're still we're very good friends now and um but when we work together our friend it was uh we had a collegial work environment. The friendships really developed more later and the friendships developed out of really mutual respect um and from working together and achieving something together building something together. I mean once you've had the opportunity to build something together it's successful. I mean, it's euphoric and there's nothing like it. And the my best experiences were really building organizations that could thrive. Um the company that I grew up at, I was there 10 years and um the company was sold on the week of my 10y year anniversary there, which was and my birthday. And it was just one of those things. And I um but I was so proud of it, you know, and I will tell you, I I remember crying that day with my children when that happened because I was I didn't spend as much time at home often as I did at work. Um it was just the nature of what I did. And you know, I'm telling my kids, this is you know, part of your legacy now. You know, it's like, "Mom, you were fine. You know, you were just a guilty working mother. " But you know, having that pride in building something together, right? So I think having a dialogue around it and early days doing that and establishing who does what and also knowing um sometimes when to back away right um I have seen a couple of situations where I consulted where you know there were co co-ceeos for example that really doesn't typically work very well you know uh one person usually needs to be in charge it's not that the other person doesn't add equal value and that's often why you often have your CTO person and maybe your person that runs the other side or um the last company I worked at um the founder never wanted to run the company. He just wanted to be the evangelist for the product that he helped develop and he decided that early on. So there were other people that came in and ran that organization. So I hope that

### [25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=1500s) Segment 6 (25:00 - 30:00)

helps um answer your question. Uh so the question I have is entrepreneur who like a new company so it's a founder and subsequently there's some people who want to join the company and they try to be also have a title of co-founder something like that difference between founder and co-founder so that's number one question. Second one is actually like in terms of for like a startup company some has a high growth so you need bring a lot of people in and sometime I'm not sure whether eventually that person will work out whatever you're working on so I wonder whether in terms of how to structure that kind of relationship uh going to be using a time frame of six month or a year or three month which time of reasonable to work with that person try to figure out whether or not in terms of compensation wise or equity wise is it the best thing is the only way to kind of make this kind of management question that's a lot — It's a lot of good ones. — Yeah, I know. I don't know where to start with that. So, I what I guess I will say is that sometimes I think it's a good situation even not in just a founding situation. Um to sort of try before you buy, you know, if you will. Um particularly if you're uncertain um about that person's capability. um you know sometimes people may represent their skills different you know better than they are um you know and so if you can have someone come in as a consultant um I think you know depending on how what the nature is that they're providing the service about I usually could assess that I would say in less than three months sometimes a day you know sometimes you would No, you know, but I trust my intuitive judgment on that. That was one of my things that I was always good at doing. But I think that within three months, I mean, that's why in the past, people used to have these 90-day probation periods. You know, when people came in, they don't do that so much at work anymore, but you can usually tell if people are going to be contributing. And most importantly, you're going to be able to tell if you're going to have good give and take with them. and um and so you know to bring in someone in that respect and then it depends on what you can afford. It depends what that person's expertise is. Um I think early on if you can do it in a way that it's um you know some sort of finan a monetary compensation you know versus stock or anything like that. I wouldn't do anything like that early on. You're limited in money. you know, you can try to negotiate something or if someone really does want the job, they'll maybe accept, you know, um a little bit of a less of a consulting fee if they think that you might be hiring them. So, I hope that answers some of your questions. In the beginning um your question was about who should about co-founder uh title — founder co-ounder is that kind of difference or like let's say someone who join couple month later then they just uh love to have this kind of co-ounder title in that case the founding co-ounder — it can be ambiguous you know and yeah I think that you know in situations where I've seen the co-founders, they really did come in together, — right? It wasn't that somebody came and asked for that, you know, coming in. I've personally have not seen that. You know, I guess what I would say is it would depend on the value that person was bringing in. So, if he or she had an expertise that you really needed to make your business be successful and it complemented you, then that might be something I would do. Okay. But I don't know that I would give it away right away. I think I would, you know, take the time to get to know that person. Um, you know, whether it's coming in and working as a consultant, whether it's, you know, problem solving on something together. I also think that you know in that whole

### [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=1800s) Segment 7 (30:00 - 35:00)

recruitment process if it's a small organization that you have or you know whenever we hired executives um we would all I would always have more than one you know of course your interview inside but I'd always take try to take people out to dinner — right um you know and just in an or an informal environment I mean I used to always look for how well people treated the weight staff in a restaurant when we were going to hire an executive, you know, did they treat that person with respect? Um, how did they behave around others? Um, because it's someone can interview very well, but you might miss some of the subtleties for how their human interaction is. And so that's what I would advise. I would take my time um and try to really get to know the person and the whole person, not just, you know, what they're bringing to the table or their particular technical expertise or skill set. — One in the back there. — Thank you for your answers. Um I have a question regarding your kind of about your experience that you mentioned in mergers and acquisitions of that sort. So I wanted to kind of ask you for that underlying advice that not everybody might know but you guys might have found regarding or for a startup that's trying to be against these big large companies but at the same time is basic battles in being acquired by those large companies. What advice do you have for those startups to be disruptive and to kind of dominate in that sense and overtake those larger companies? — So you want me to take this one? — I'll take that. — So being with a very large company and um when I think about the competitive landscape and so right now I I'll give you a real time story. Um we're a multinational company. We have a very large business that we do in China and the China competition can do it better and faster and they're small. They're much smaller than us. So, you know, just I was in China over the summer and we got the opportunity to go meet with a bunch of customers and the difference is that our cell is size and scale. We can service anything you need. The problem with doing business with a larger company is the pace is slow and the rigidity is large. Okay. So the smaller companies build on the relationship and how flexible, nimble and fast they can be. And um and that's the difference. You know, it really is in terms of, you know, customer service. And then there's always different dynamics that are playing from an economic standpoint that you just got to get ahead and kind of, you know, be on top of and think about. But frankly, those are the things that being a large company, it irritates us. It's like, oh, we just can't move fast enough or we cannot accommodate for this particular customer because that would mean we have to extend that to other customers or, you know, things of that nature. But um you know, that's that's one thing. And then certainly, you know, depending upon what is going to be, you know, what you're selling, um, it's whether it's quality. What we find with the smaller companies, it's usually price. They can do it at a for a better price. So, if it's a good enough type of product where the customer is looking for, they're not necessarily going to go for our bigger quality product that we've invested a lot of R&D dollars in, but they're going to look for for the good enough product that's at a better price point. I would say also um one of the companies that I'm on the board for we we've you know we company's been around a long time. It's a infrastructure company um and we've our our direction now is growing through acquisition. Um and you know we've been very selective and disciplined in that process. um the prices for companies over, you know, private or um ones that are being divested or whatever is because of all the money that's been in the market, it's been really hard um to compete sometimes with what private equity could do. Um but what I would say is that with the right approach when we've been acquiring been really careful to keep the right talent particularly um the people that understand the technology and whatever and many times you know the people that have founded these companies have a very strong following of the people that work for them right and so in order to re retain them and also make sure you get the most out of that acquisition investment to make sure that you're keeping um you know a founder at least

### [35:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=2100s) Segment 8 (35:00 - 40:00)

for a period of time and make it it a win-win situation um that I think works the best and um and the smart companies I think [clears throat] understand that and know how to um make it attractive for people to stay. — Um I would agree with that. So in my current organization it's a strategy that we have. So rather than building out the product offering that we have now um we're looking outside to see you know what products can be complimentary or um for something that the customer will utilize. We acquired a company last year ago June and um the revenue component on that organization is extraordinary. It ran intact um as a separate part of the business for almost the better part of a year so that we could really assess the talent that was there. The founder is still there. he had a great say in you know how the operation would come into the business and it's only been the past six months that it's now that the I would say outside of the GNA functions um that part of the organization is now rolling up into the engineering organization. So I think there's lots of opportunity there and I think from my experience companies want their acquisition to be successful and the talent and the people that are there oftenimes it's not simply the product that's the most important piece. — Yeah. A lot of times too, I think if you do it the right way, you look at the talent that you're bringing in through an acquisition and um sometimes it's you have better talent that you're hiring and you may not have the same talent inside. And you know, it's not always popular to do that, but I can think of organizations that um you know, in the past I was a part of and we made acquisitions. I actually made changes on my staff because the people that we got through the acquisition, you know, just have a better skill set. And that's never an easy conversation, but at the end of the day, you have to do, you know, what's best for the business and you know, hope and you know, you got to go with as a meritocracy in my opinion. — Question up there. My question is — yes I actually find myself to be more um you know I value relationship more than interest like that's just the way I am but sometimes I feel like the way also You know I think sometimes uh being too understand and that somehat — by looking forward come across as you — I think you know some fun like fun comes very a variety of boxes like they're different so maybe there's a dynamic for a certain type of draw your experience was very — um so here the best advice that I can give you is and it's interesting because I just had this conversation with one of the executives that we have and um I think the best thing that you can do we try and try oftent times to look at the faults that we have and change them and there's going to come a certain point in your career where you have to step back and be very self-aware of who you are and you look at the strengths where you have opportunity right so you said in you know oftentimes you may not have the boundaries that you need that's who you are you know so even when you think about that from a leader stand standpoint that is who you are so you say okay these are the things that I'm really good at I need some help with and you go higher and you put people that trust that fill in those gaps around you. So, you know, my advice to my colleague as we were talking about it, he's incredibly strategic in nature. He's very broading. His issue is that he has a really hard time bringing strategy to execution and mobilizing his workforce. And so instead of sitting there and trying to change him forever around how do you articulate that strategy better, it's we try to put folks around him that he trusts that are executionoriented and then they go off and they and they mobilize the rest of the workforce. So um you might want to think about, you

### [40:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=2400s) Segment 9 (40:00 - 45:00)

know, how do you complement your own style with people that are a little bit different that you trust their advice, you know, because that's going to be hard. those conversations will be difficult, but you know that when the person comes to you, you okay, they mean it with the best of intentions and um and they can balance, you know, some of that out for you. — Yeah, I agree with that, too. I think you um we are who we are, right? And so I can think of a point in my career when I first got into a more senior role. I started to be try to be somebody different than who I was, you know, and more hard-nosed about things for lack of a better way to describe it. And um I didn't trust my intuitive judgment as much as I used to. And I wasn't as effective, right? So, I think, you know, if that's who you are, I think Kim's advice is good [clears throat] advice. You know, um, understand who you are and and, you know, we change a little bit, but, you know, over time, we're pretty fully formed by the time we get to around 30, 35, even more when you're over 50. Um, and then you you just hire to your compliment and um and and take trusted advice of people that are different from you and have a different point of view. But I think that, you know, understanding who you are and having people probably appreciate the fact that you are like you are, right? And um that you do show it sounds like you show empathy and consideration. U very much so. And that's a gift. — It is a gift. It's also, you know what, it's a muscle. So the more you use it, the better you'll get at it. So the more you recognize that that's not your strength and you need to lean on someone else to do it, the better you'll get at being able to recognize that and it won't be as painful um for you to do because I think when you do have that element of empathy, it's hard to push people away at first. But just know that you're doing better by them by putting them in front of people who are better able to lead them in the direction that they need to and then you can focus on the things that you need to. You'll get better at it. I promise. We have one way in the back there. — She's been she was waiting. — Yeah. — Getting your workout tonight. — I know. I already hit my bowl. — Hi. Uh, my question is around female authors and balancing the some of the traits that some might not find as common with founders. Um, and how to balance being yourself and being that other persona that some people are used to, especially when you're raising and you're scaling or hiring senior members to join your team and board. The first question is more technical about as a startup there are no processes in place. Maybe you just set up milestones and goals for your employees that change regularly based on performance, but at what point should you actually put that down to paper and start writing processes for the company so that I mean like it's it's a it takes a lot of time, a lot of thought um that can learn strategies just how do you see like when do you see that as very important? Okay. So, I'm the process girl here. Um, so my bias is that you should have SOPs out of the gate. You should have you should document, you should put them in place, it doesn't mean that they live forever. But if it's so much easier to do business when you know what you need to do and you know and you have c you have guidelines and you have a place that you can refer to and you can send people back to. Um it's easy to find worth in all the other work. But what will happen is if you don't put policies in place and you don't put process in place, inevitably you're going to spend more time having to stop and address issues that you wouldn't have had to if you had them in place. And I think the earlier you do that, the better that you are at them. Um they certainly can be changed. They're not there forever. — Um — I agree with that. And I think that it doesn't mean you have to be bureaucratic. Yes. — Right. Um but I think process is

### [45:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=2700s) Segment 10 (45:00 - 50:00)

important again back to you from my early comments routines. So people have guidelines and um guard rails for work. Um I think the thing that makes organizations people effective is having really clarity around you know when things are wrong whether it's at home or whether it's in a relationship or whether it's at work the degree to which you can be clear about what your expectations are own needs the outcome is you want to be always focus on clarity I think always makes things better. It may lead to some conflict, but the conflict also if it helps you get to better clarity, you're going to be in a better place. Conflict isn't conflict is good if it gets you to a better place. — You your first question though, I just my own personal advice to you, you just be you. — Exactly. — You know, female or whatever. You be your authentic self and um that'll take you a whole long way. Lots of questions. Good questions. Yeah. — Uh thank you. I would like to bring back again to the co-founder context when you have the different set of people right technical co-ounder and business co-founder as we have seen in previous session over the time the value technical model starts going down and business starts getting down and that naturally creates some kind of insecurity for other person right any thoughts experience how you actually try to solve that particular situation or your experience. — Well, I think that you know personally I've been in some situations where I would help facilitate that. Okay. If it but usually when someone asked me to do that there was already you know more of a problem than you would have wanted it to be. Right? So I would say, you know, if you that in business, okay, you're going to have um that natural conflict that's going to come about because of sometimes the amount of time people take to develop the technology or the quality with which they will and what the go to market needs might be and and so that that's part of what happens. But I think that um having you know being able to have a dialogue and be able to to try to problem solve together if you have outside financial advisors or you know professors or whoever is helping you get going you know chances are you have trusted resources around you. if you had a trusted resource that you both parties, you know, respected. Um, you know, hopefully that person could help um maybe even just facilitate a dialogue to help you come to more common ground. I think it's important to understand know um and also to be honest always in these interactions. You know, sometimes we get angry and, you know, we walk away and you may not really have really gotten to the issue. One of the things I used to always try to do, I still try to do this in my life when I'm having a conflict with someone, I'd say, well, do you have any when we were done, undelivered communication? Chances are more stuff came out, you know, and you say, you know, is there anything else here you have to say? And you sure there's nothing else you're holding back? Well, maybe they were, right? And a person said to me once, when you take what's uh covert, what's behind, and you can make it overt, then you can problem solve. And a lot of times people don't always honestly dialogue. — So hopefully that that helps. But I think don't be afraid to ask for help with people that you know and trust and who that other party would trust as well. — Some more hands. [clears throat] — I thought it was a problem. in the past but I'd like to post to you and then I'll tell you how I resolved — so this may not be atypical for the kind of companies that come out here so one of my co-founders [snorts] my [clears throat] co-founder was a MIT computer science professor brilliant guy and you know just fantastic um I began to notice over time we weren't meeting schedules and you know the team seemed to not be functioning well. So I went and I started asking people like why are we behind and um what slowly came out [clears throat] was people said and I

### [50:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=3000s) Segment 11 (50:00 - 55:00)

had to piece this together. Well, I go to the co-founder and I say, "Here's here's what I'm proposing to do. " And immediately so brilliant said, "What did you think of that? " And they would feel like — he was used to dealing with posttos, you know, that motivated and brilliant and so they would go back and over time they sort of were afraid to bring issues forward because you know, — so once I So what would you do in a situation like that? I'll tell you what I did. — Well, I think what you have to do in a situation like that is you have to tell the person what they're doing. Now, they may not want to hear it. Um, you know, and they sometimes people sometimes their egos are such, right, that they have to be better, smarter, whatever. Sometimes they're just are smarter and think faster and that's sort of where they go, right? A lot of times I think when people do that they aren't aware of it and sometimes by bringing a level of awareness to it makes it better if it's really driven by ego. Um chances are that won't fix it but I think the other way potentially. I don't know if you guys have any other thoughts on that. — Yeah I took a class on radical cander and um it is phenomenal. if any of you are interested. But it's just that it's having, you know, very honest conversation and putting it in the room in a kind way, not in a, you know, not in a not in a mean way, in a kind way. So, it's very valuable. — Is that what you did, Joe? — I'm laughing because my first response would be, "You're making everybody feel stupid. Stupid. " — Well, that's Jim's kind. — What I did once I figured it out a while to figure out what's going on and I talked to him about it and it wasn't eco. It was just the way he was. — And so I said, "Well, why don't we try this? " Whenever you have meetings with the team, you know, oneonone I'd be there, too. — And you know, people come and say, "Well, did you think of this? " And I would show that I was just as stupid as they were. And but I would point out to push back a little bit against them and sort of get to something so they realized they weren't the stupid ones. It was just and so we did that for a while. It was painful, but eventually he understood it. — That's good. — If you don't figure this out, you're never going to get anywhere because, — you know, and by the way, some of the stuff you ask for is totally off our plan because, you know, So we worked it out that way, but it was it took a while and uh that's all — well he learned. So — I was you mentioned bureaucracy a little bit and I was wondering like what level of a company does that start to be a concern from an HR perspective and how do you avoid the pitfalls of falling into kind of the bureaucratic tendency? That's a good question. Well, the nature of the beast of what we do is some of it is, you know, HR function has so much to it and a lot of it is it there's administrative, right? Because we're paying people um we have to figure out where we slot people um in an organization. Um you know, you want to make sure you have fairness. Um, and then you have benefits, you know, and then there's the whole other side of it that's more helping your business be successful. So, you know, um, I think that you I always liked um, Michelle can probably speak to this more. I think if you had systems and this is where I think technology can help if it's managed appropriately right when you're structuring um and putting systems in place and I'm all for process in place early on because it's much easier to build upon it than it is to go back. I joined one company, it was 500 people when I joined. There was no everybody was doing everything on spreadsheets. I mean, it was ridiculous. And everybody, you know, there was no job structure. It and to go back and retrofit that was was, you know, just crazy. But I think you can do it in a way if you do it early on to keep it simple but yet do the things that you need to do from a reporting compliance and fairness standpoint. And I don't know what you

### [55:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=3300s) Segment 12 (55:00 - 60:00)

would add on that because Michelle that's what she her her wheelhouse. — Yeah. You know I also think you're at a major advantage right now with AI. So the you know when I think back to was kind of starting to put businesses operationally strong um I was starting from scratch and now you have so much technology at your fingertips that help you know do things even easier. So when you were talking about you know policies and documentation I mean my gosh you could you know ask chat GPT to throw up you know a policy for you and then it's not you take that and then you iterate on it and you make it you know you make it yours but it's a starting place and it takes such little time. The other thing I would say to you is technology is your friend. you can have really lowcost solutions that help put that infrastructure in place that creates um really the basis for fairness because your business is if it's successful, it's going to grow. You're going to hire more people. You don't want to have to stop and take the time to go backwards and put things in place so that you can ensure that you're, you know, it's not noise for your employees. you know, you're paying your employees effectively. You're giving them the benefits that are the right, you know, benefits for them. You're staying compliant because the government and um, you know, legal is going to want to make sure you're doing all of the things that are you're staying legally compliant and there's a lot of opportunity for you to do it with lowcost um, technology today. — Yeah, I think the bureaucracy comes in honestly in organizations that get too hierarchical. I believe in organizations being very flat. I believe in in you know letting your decision making be as low in the organization as possible. People are more engaged. They're more empowered and generally they know what needs to be done. But that's something as an organization grows sometimes you get away from and sometimes it's necessary but I've seen more bureaucracy get put into organizations. Sometimes people like to empire build because it makes them more important. Right. And so, you know, I always believed in flatter and um and not a lot of hierarchy. — I think the test is when it doesn't make sense anymore. Then, you know, you've got too much in and it, you know, 13 30,000 employees. I can't tell you how many times it's, you know, somebody will tell me, "Well, Kim, this is what the process is. " Okay, the process is going to prohibit us from either meeting customer needs or driving revenue. It just doesn't make sense anymore. It's just that I mean I'm making I'm oversimplifying but it you know so ask yourself the question is it getting in the way of you actually running your business — all right I started my car business a couple years ago and as a founder I have to learn a lot to do that and of course all the time you actually get better was also processing this and now I'm in position where I hire people and I found it super difficult to actually know how to delegate because it does not matter how much people work and how much love they put into the sport which [snorts] just doesn't meet my standards — and I find it so difficult to keep myself away from stepping in because it's my baby — and I don't know it's like trying to but It's uh difficult. — Well, I've seen that movie — every day. Y — yeah. Um it's hard, right? Um I think though as you lead Okay. One of the hardest thing to do is you kind of have to turn over a little bit of control of your destiny to others, right? And um that's hard to do. Um, and you have to trust have the right people and all of that doesn't happen overnight, but it takes a certain um, it's a personal growth to be able to do that because we want to control the things ourselves, especially if it's something that we've built, right? — And, you know, I think it's very hard very [clears throat] hard for founders to to let go. It's literally their baby, right? and um having that balance is I think will always be difficult um for anybody that's founded an organization and has to stay with it. Um you know I think hopefully the key is having people around you know like in the example that Joe gave that'll help you and give you feedback um to know maybe when you need to jump in and pull back. — Um

### [1:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=3600s) Segment 13 (60:00 - 65:00)

that's I think the best advice I could give you. I think it's reminding yourself too that doing it yourself all the time is not a scalable model, right? So, I mean, that's the hard reality of it is, you know, is it scalable if I continue to do it myself? — Yeah. — And you'll burn out, you'll get tired, you'll get angry, you'll start napping, people will leave, they're not going to want to be around you. Um, all of those things. I trust me, high control right here. I have four children. Trust me, I have learned that it's better to let go and better to um to help when they need you. — Hi, so my question is to hiring. Now you already touched that say for inance you have your team and they are engineers from one is software one is front and back end machine learning AI and everything and now you're at a phase where your product has gained attention and it's time to expand your team further so your family team is not responsible to hire that talent but they also fear that they might find someone who's better than them at it now you're trusting the founding team but you also have that sense they would be doing this. How does the founder navigate that really problematic scenario? — It is problematic. You want to jump? — Yeah. Um I think you have to stay close to the team that's hiring to have a common ground in terms of what you're hiring. Um there's a level of letting them do it and trying to go through the candidate selection process, but also keep keeping your finger. You know, we talk about our general management team. You know, anybody who's in a kind of a GM role, you're an inch off the ground. So, you're keeping, you know, a close enough level to the detail and kind of how they're hiring or what they're looking for. You'll see the insecurities in it if it's there. Um and and you know quite honestly you know how you quickly rectify it you become you know you take it much more on a personal level helping them feel good about you know what they're hiring and the experiences that they can convey to you know the new hires and things of that nature. You can bolster their ego up so that they you know the the insecurity that's there is a little bit less. But I think as you're growing, you probably want to stay a little bit closer to who you're hiring and who is making the hiring decisions for you because it's costly. — I also think that in all the companies I've worked in, we had a very elaborate hiring process. I mean, almost everybody in their mother would interview the people that were coming in and the good news about that is it does give you more buyin for the candidate ultimate, but it it's sometimes it it lengthens the process. I' I've seen us lose candidates because our hiring process included was too inclusive. The other thing too is you know the hiring manager um should make that final decision and I think having clarity around that yes I'll take all your input but ultimately say you see a candidate that is higher skilled and you know that's going to complement the team. Some of the other people that might have been a peer you know may not have supported that. they may have felt threatened by something like that. So I think real clarity around who the decision maker is and and I think a group think is isn't always the best. I think it's good to take everyone's input but then you make your own decision. — Um another question regarding interpersonal relationships within a team of sorts. Um now another scenario you actually responded to him about that you can have a judgment from everyone in them all an opinion and discuss it with — um but I've seen a scenario where obviously the founder has authority and although everyone's sitting in front of them on the ground table uh people are fear that if they talk about office politics that's disrupting their normal operations or productivity. Uh and the reason being is someone close to the founder. Uh they fear that mentioning that would obviously have the other person mention to the founder that this is the reasoning that politics. Now that's another scenario where you're trusting someone but you are getting everyone's opinion. — Yeah. — But you still have to decide who to lean on in such a situation. Yeah, I think that that's hard. Um, and I can see how that has that can be

### [1:05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=3900s) Segment 14 (65:00 - 70:00)

an issue especially in a small organization. I think that over time you will have or may or will have you know that you will always have a more trusted colleague, right? But trust goes both ways. And I think that I would judge people by their behavior and actions. Um and if someone is not um operating in good faith or breaching confidences or whatever the case may be, you know, I would I would think about my level of trust with that person. I would try to talk about it or get it to be better. But I think that those are human dynamics that are always going to happen, right? And there's going to be people that um that you know you can just count on and I might wait that person's input you know more heavily based on my experience and their honesty and what have you if that's helpful. — Yeah. So um all these issue discussed are quite complex as they relate to human behavior emotion and stuff like that. uh at the current age of AI. I wonder like in terms of all this practice, all this experience, all this insight they have when a founder like people sit here looking for assistant. — Is that any particular like tool that you would recommend resource that I consult with you? Of course, — tons of experience, tons of at some guidance. — There's a lot of different things. So, why don't you guys talk about some of your experiences and I can jump in on that. — Yeah, there are a lot. Um, do I believe that there's an assistant that would take over our role today? No, I don't. Um, and but I'm an embracer of AI. I know that there are um folks that are nervous about it and um you know, rightfully so, but I do see a lot of potential coming. Um, and this may be more than what you're looking for right now, but I have uh spent a lot of time with LinkedIn and uh in the hiring space with LinkedIn and LinkedIn Learning and the technology that they have embedded in their product that you can use is extraordinary. So, it's not quite an assistant yet that you're that you may be looking for um you know outside of like chat GPT or you know the bots that are kind of popping up everywhere. But from a platform perspective that gives you good guidance at a relatively reasonable price. Um LinkedIn has a lot embedded in it and they're really investing in their AI technologies. I think from a self-development standpoint, there are things that you can do too. I think that, you know, hopefully we're all a work in progress as long as we are around this earth, right? And so I think it's important to um try to be as self-aware as we can. So if um there's programs that you know we participated in, we we made an investment in the company we worked in together. This model still exists and it's one of the most powerful models I ever worked for work with. I still use it. It's called process communication model. Um and it's it's very similar. It's sort of like a basis of a MyersBriggs. People seem to know that a personality type. Um but this talks about how people evolve and change over time. It also talks about how people um react under stress. You know, at one point many years ago, I was certified to teach this program, but we incorporated it into um you know, our work and training and our management development and all that. And then I did it in in three different companies and it really helped um for a level of self-awareness first of all but also help people for self-standing and working together and there may be some better tools out there now but I think the degree to we can work on their our own self-development and that will come through our own work not so much you know AI can maybe give us some tools that we can look at for that to use for a level of self-awareness. I think that that's helpful, too.

### [1:10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=4200s) Segment 15 (70:00 - 75:00)

So, it's my understanding that the first few employees that you hire company are crucial to [clears throat] forming the culture to start a company. So, let's say hypothetically you start a company and you're hiring your first few employees and you're interviewing someone and you think that they're very technically qualified for the position, but you're not sure if they'd be a good fit for the culture that you're trying to cultivate. Firstly, is there anything you think you could do about that to sort of meld down the second think might be less technically qualified but better fit for the culture that you want to create. — That's hard. — It is a hard one. — I have a bias. — It's just like a spouse though. You're never going to change them. — them — 100%. Yeah. So, I don't know. I I'm a gut hirer. So if I feel in my gut that person's not going to meld with the rest of my team, I never hire them regardless of what their technical acumen is, but that may not be the case for everyone else. — I'll give you another example of um I agree with Michelle. I think in a small environment, it's critical to have the connection. Um however I will give you an example of we have um you know somebody in the com in the company that I worked with he's like mass spectrometry god and he drives us crazy and [clears throat] so but because he is who he is. So, a couple of things. One, if they're so technically competent, two things that I'll tell you. If they're going to advance your technology and you can figure out how to manage them and manage the relationship. Okay. Second, if you want to keep them out of the hands of your competitors. Okay. So, I think it's a balance of how disruptive their behavior would be to your culture versus the benefit of the capabilities they bring. — Yeah, that's fair. And you know, and maybe like the instance that Joe talked about, is it something, you know, is it the core of that person? Okay. Is it a character flaw? Okay, if it's a character flaw, those aren't easy to fix. And you know, if someone is mean-spirited or so ego or narcissistic or any of those things, even they might be brilliant, it would be toxic. But if it's, you know, sometimes people are oblivious or they're so focused on something or they're not aware that they're, you know, doing something, then, you know, that that can work. So, but Kim's advice is good, too. — You know, sometimes you put that person over in a box, you know, — how bad do you need it? — Yeah. — You know, and what is that person's needs, too, right? That person might just want to go develop the technology. They may not care so much about the interactions. Who knows? I don't know if we have Do you have any questions for the people in the online at all? No. Okay. — Yep. There's someone up there. — Right there. — Right up back. Nope. — Nope. Right up back behind you. — Yeah. Go ahead. Just following up to that question I mean sometimes okay I'm still young but uh so I don't so much experience uh but I've seen people change over whatever time and like they were very mean before but then certain experiences made change so uh in that aspect like you think people can change they were like not easy to work with but then certain things in the life and what other kind of examples have you seen and what kind of personage would you put? — I I think people can so that model that I told you I like um the premise of how people change and this is true to my own life experience. Okay, people change under periods of profound stress when their own needs aren't being met anymore. So, you have to do something different because life isn't working for you. And it isn't necessarily I mean sometimes it happens with a tragedy unfortunately. Sometimes someone dies um sometimes someone gets ill um and sometimes you know life's just not working for you and so you have to do something different. I have seen people change with that. I've also seen people go through real tragedies. Okay. — And they they were still wonderful

### [1:15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=4500s) Segment 16 (75:00 - 80:00)

right? they were and they didn't let the tragedy get them down or whatever. And so, you know, as human beings, we I think we are remarkable and that we can still change and we can learn and whatever. And um but I do think that's when I've seen the change happen um with people. And um sometimes, you know, people aren't successful. I've seen a person that was very good at what she did. She got fired from a lot of jobs because she didn't work well with others. You know, she was but the quality of her work was really good. And this person now is I've known her almost her whole life. She's I'd say in her mid50s. She's finally come to it that you know it was her own need to have high achievement and not be colleial that got in the way and caused her to lose her jobs over time. and she's been much more successful later in life, but she's kind of learned what she had to learn. I think what I would ask you is people change when they want to or experience changes. And as founders, do you want to take the time, the precious time at the beginning of your journey to hire people that may have to change to fit into your organization? — Yeah. I have two questions before I would like to have a start very few small group and um they're at the very early stage and they're not really familiar with the business world probably not at all but they have a very good product and um they're very good at what they do just don't have a lot of knowledge in that area. So um at that stage probably uh having an HR person is not the main concern on the found maybe having a lawyer would be having an accountant who would like to do their taxes anyway. um when is an appropriate time for someone to start being hiring an HR person and why does that relate to the number of people working in the company the type of the company um or the stage I would like to part and second many people already talked about um the culture um again this is a term that not everybody is necessarily familiar because um that can affect how the whole system operates, your business plan, your marketing strategy. So for people who are not familiar with this area again uh what are some questions they should think about when they're in the process of choosing their culture and if you could give us an example maybe — we have a bunch of questions there. I'm going to let you guys talk about the culture part and I'll talk about who you hire. — Um I think that it it depends what your needs are. Okay. If early on you need some help in terms of thinking of your structure, thinking about what you want your culture to be or whatever, you know, I would say work with a trusted advisor, you know, or people to help you do that. Um, I did some um some consulting and work with um a venture capital company that um had invested in the last company I worked in and I would do um you know some sessions with those folks. What I found and this is just on the basis of my own experience it around 25 to 50 people in an organization you needed some sort of outside advice. Typically people would bring in um have outside legal advice if they needed it and hire that sort of on a contract basis. They tended to bring in a financial person before they would bring in a human resource person. And probably that is more the need. You have to pay people. You have to do some of the more financial things early on. Um the one thing I would say though is a lot of times in most of these early companies when they do hire their HR person, they have the HR person work for the finance person. Don't do that. Um you it really is better to have that function separate because it it's as important in a different way. um and to give that person sort of equal status and so that's what I would say about that you know and I think that second part of your culture question maybe these guys can chime in on — yeah I think that the um when you think about you know culture and what are some of the questions that you ask um you go

### [1:20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=4800s) Segment 17 (80:00 - 85:00)

back to again the you know what is your mission or the value of the company or your product um how do you take that into your employee population how do you want it to feel what are going to the common values that you have you know amongst your employees is it level of integrity is it the amount of intensity that you have how do you want to be known and then I think you take that into okay how do you how do you take what you're producing you take the values and you enable you know a level of excitement amongst you know yourself and your colleagues to um to achieve that and that could be you know there's different exercises that you can do and so when you look into culture and how create a culture. You can do a lot of re like different research on how do you do that? You create values, you create your mission statement, but I think it's something that you actually put pen to paper — just like you would goals so that you can you know it's something that you pick up even on your hardest days and you're like okay are we living the c we live the mission? Does the culture still there? And it's something that you can you know that's constant. Yeah. Um I agree with Kim. I think that it's an exercise you have to go through. What is important to you as a company? So to those founders, what do they get up for every day? What is important for them to see in their employees every day? And I do I think you put it, you know, pen to paper and you write it down. And it's your values and your mission. And I think your culture comes out of that. I um and I wish I knew how to spell his last name, but um I so the last company that I was at, it was a smaller company and it was a conglomerate of a bunch of small companies that were bought. And what I first realized is each one of them had very separate cultures of the you know the acquired company that came in. And so we were really trying to rebrand and how do we allow them to keep their culture but also kind of have much more of an open corporate culture. I had um somebody come in who used to be the culture um officer of Facebook and he talked about he's fascinating working with Mark Zuckerberg and you know Zuckerberg's whole um philosophy was I want every employee to feel like Facebook is their company and so that's how they started on new hire onboarding is this is now your company and um you know the different aspects of like didn't want people dressing up wanted it to be a casual environment ment um wanted different spaces for people to think freely um and to be creative about ideas. So um and coming from a life science company which is slightly different I mean that whole it was just fascinating. So um Mike Ranglagen was his name. I cannot spell the last name but um it was fascinating. You could look up like Facebook creating culture. It's just kind of neat. — Yeah. The thing is as a leader, as a CEO in particular, you have so much power. — You really do. And you have the power to create that organization. And people will look to you to create the culture and what have you. And in the strongest cultures that I was a part of, um, I'd like to think that I was a part of it and I was, but it was really the CEO that set the tone — and he or she, you know, how they behaved and what have you. And the really good CEOs as the companies got, they never lost their relationships to the employees in the company. They and they didn't have the hierarchy. um they would drop into people's offices and find and they would travel if it was a global company and uh one of the nicest thing about when we were at RSA security together we were global in I don't know 20 some odd countries or whatever you could go to RSA Japan Australia go RSA Vancouver you go RSA India you could go RSA I Ireland and of course it had its culture for where country you were in but it was still the RSA culture. — Yeah. — Um in terms of how people treated one another, um what was important, what was valued, what was rewarded. Um that's part of also how you set the tone for your culture. — Well, we've come [clears throat] up on the time. This is fantastic. You know, I've done this course for a number of years. I've been around the track a few times. like this panel is always a great session because I always learn — and you know that's something important. So I there's been a lot imparted here. I hope you think about it as you grow your companies you know from dealing with a co-founder to you know maybe acquiring companies when you get really big and uh thank you all for your

### [1:25:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcH04FusUbU&t=5100s) Segment 18 (85:00 - 85:00)

impact. You're welcome. — Thank you very much. Enjoy it. Thank you.

---
*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/20888*