[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_138":-5,"_139":-5,"_140":141,"_142":143,"_144":145},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/3021/empower-your-tech-team-to-lead-and-push-back","id",3021,"title","Empower your tech team to lead and push back","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.080\nwe had to go to our technical leadership and say, \"Hey, you guys actually have\n\n2\n00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:05.040\na really,\n\n3\n00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:10.150\nreally important vote in what we do. You're not there to just take orders from\n\n4\n00:00:10.150 --> 00:00:11.200\nanybody else.\"\n\n5\n00:00:11.200 --> 00:00:14.850\nAnd if someone tries to tell you to take their order, like, \"I need this, get\n\n6\n00:00:14.850 --> 00:00:15.520\nthis done. I need\n\n7\n00:00:15.520 --> 00:00:19.080\nit done by Tuesday.\" You need to be able to tell them that that's not the right\n\n8\n00:00:19.080 --> 00:00:19.760\nthing because we're\n\n9\n00:00:19.760 --> 00:00:22.840\ndoing something here. We're going to bring these 25 sites together onto a\n\n10\n00:00:22.840 --> 00:00:23.600\ncommon platform,\n\n11\n00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:26.720\nand that's our mission. And you need to be strong in that mission. You need to\n\n12\n00:00:26.720 --> 00:00:27.360\nbe the leaders of\n\n13\n00:00:27.360 --> 00:00:30.750\nthat mission. And I think in many ways, it was a change in our technical\n\n14\n00:00:30.750 --> 00:00:32.080\nculture, the engineers\n\n15\n00:00:32.080 --> 00:00:37.560\nand programmers who write the code to think of themselves, not as people who\n\n16\n00:00:37.560 --> 00:00:38.240\nwere receiving\n\n17\n00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:41.330\npeople's instructions, but as the people who were giving them. And that\n\n18\n00:00:41.330 --> 00:00:42.080\ntransformation,\n\n19\n00:00:42.080 --> 00:00:46.080\nit took a couple of years, and it took a lot of coaxing and getting people out\n\n20\n00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:47.040\nof their comfort\n\n21\n00:00:47.040 --> 00:00:51.740\nzone to say, \"Hey, we used to call it this phrase for it. We called it \"develop\n\n22\n00:00:51.740 --> 00:00:52.560\ner spine.\"\n\n23\n00:00:53.440 --> 00:00:57.680\nThey had to learn that no one could push them around, and that when it came\n\n24\n00:00:57.680 --> 00:00:58.320\ndown to the most\n\n25\n00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:01.120\nimportant things, they had to be the drivers of that change.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1468636,"end_time",1529419,"keywords","engineers, tech, technology, talent management, empowerment, ownership, developer spine, pushback","slug","empower-your-tech-team-to-lead-and-push-back","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","T9uZeLwqObTORk6VT2b02ZuILLMciZoRDGY0201BUlbeJ8","mux_asset_id","V5Kd6BjX5wDts6NLZfiscdXQLOgBD01mcd8FvzVRUVrs","leader_id",242,"episode_id",394,"updated_at","2025-08-28T16:49:54.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/3021/empower-your-tech-team-to-lead-and-push-back","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_102":103,"_104":105,"_106":107,"_25":108,"_109":110,"_61":111,"_58":111,"_112":113,"_68":114,"_39":115,"_116":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_117":118,"_90":119,"_44":120,"_121":122,"_123":124,"_46":-5,"_125":126,"_127":128,"_94":129,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":54,"_55":56,"_18":57,"_20":-5,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_35":36,"_39":75,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_76":77,"_78":79,"_80":81,"_82":83,"_84":-5,"_85":-5,"_86":87,"_88":89,"_90":-5,"_46":-5,"_91":92,"_93":-5,"_94":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Be a balancing force","be-a-balancing-force","Listen to this leadership podcast with Tom Hale, CEO of Oura, and see what balanced leadership looks like, especially in times of rapid change and growth.","summary","

What does it take to grow a breakthrough product … without losing your balance as a leader?

Tom Hale, CEO of Oura, shares how he’s scaling one of the most innovative wellness companies out there—the one behind the popular (and powerful) Oura Ring.

See how he’s constantly calibrating to offer the right blend of support and challenge, value and pricing, innovation and trust. You’re going to love this one, especially if you’re developing a product or running a subscription-based business.

You’ll also learn:

A simple (but game-changing) formula for running a subscription-based business
The management move you need to make if your tech team is lagging
How to think about product value in a fresh (and profitable) way
The #1 skill to develop if you want to be better at everything else

","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.350\nIt's like being on a boat because if things are going great, everyone goes to\n\n2\n00:00:03.350 --> 00:00:04.080\none side of the boat\n\n3\n00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:06.560\nand it's like things are going great and the boats sort of kind of tips this\n\n4\n00:00:06.560 --> 00:00:06.880\nway.\n\n5\n00:00:06.880 --> 00:00:09.910\nAnd only the leader can go to the other side and kind of balance it and say,\n\n6\n00:00:09.910 --> 00:00:10.320\nhey,\n\n7\n00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:13.200\nhere's some ways that it's not going great or that it could go better.\n\n8\n00:00:13.200 --> 00:00:19.280\nAs a leader, it can feel like you get pulled in a million different directions.\n\n9\n00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:23.520\nSo how do you balance it all? And what does balance really look like?\n\n10\n00:00:23.520 --> 00:00:27.840\nWelcome to High Leaders Lead. I'm David Novak. And every week I have\n\n11\n00:00:27.840 --> 00:00:29.280\nconversations with the very\n\n12\n00:00:29.280 --> 00:00:32.960\nbest leaders in the world to help you become the best leader that you can be.\n\n13\n00:00:32.960 --> 00:00:38.250\nMy guest today is Tom Hale, the CEO of Aura. Aura makes one of the most\n\n14\n00:00:38.250 --> 00:00:39.280\ninnovative health and\n\n15\n00:00:39.280 --> 00:00:44.780\nwellness wearables out there, the Aura Ring. And under Tom's leadership, the\n\n16\n00:00:44.780 --> 00:00:45.760\ncompany has scaled\n\n17\n00:00:45.760 --> 00:00:50.150\nrapidly while staying focused on helping people live healthier, more balanced\n\n18\n00:00:50.150 --> 00:00:50.720\nlives.\n\n19\n00:00:50.720 --> 00:00:57.920\nAnd that word, balance, really captures how Tom leads. He's always calibrating\n\n20\n00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:03.120\nbetween vision and execution, innovation and trust, supporting his team and\n\n21\n00:01:03.120 --> 00:01:03.920\nchallenging them.\n\n22\n00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:09.350\nAnd in this conversation, you'll see what it looks like to lead from the place\n\n23\n00:01:09.350 --> 00:01:10.080\nof balance.\n\n24\n00:01:10.080 --> 00:01:14.480\nBecause let me tell you, the world is moving faster than ever.\n\n25\n00:01:14.480 --> 00:01:18.680\nAnd the leaders who thrive in it are the ones who bring a balancing force to\n\n26\n00:01:18.680 --> 00:01:19.600\ntheir people\n\n27\n00:01:19.600 --> 00:01:25.190\nand their priorities without losing their center. So here's my conversation\n\n28\n00:01:25.190 --> 00:01:26.320\nwith my good friend\n\n29\n00:01:26.320 --> 00:01:28.320\nand soon to be yours, Tom Hale.\n\n30\n00:01:28.320 --> 00:01:38.560\nYou know, before we get into Aura, I've got to ask you, I mean, how much sleep\n\n31\n00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:39.120\ndid you get\n\n32\n00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:42.160\nlast night? And what was your readiness score this morning?\n\n33\n00:01:42.160 --> 00:01:48.560\nLet me check, let me check. So it would appear that I got about almost seven\n\n34\n00:01:48.560 --> 00:01:49.440\nhours, which is pretty\n\n35\n00:01:49.440 --> 00:01:54.400\ngood for me. And my readiness is 91, which is extremely good, I'm going to say.\n\n36\n00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:55.040\nAnd that's because\n\n37\n00:01:55.040 --> 00:01:58.710\nit's Sunday night, you know, to Monday night, I get a good night sleeping on a\n\n38\n00:01:58.710 --> 00:01:59.440\nSunday night.\n\n39\n00:01:59.440 --> 00:02:03.630\nSo you got that good sleep and your readiness score is good. What's readiness\n\n40\n00:02:03.630 --> 00:02:04.080\nmean?\n\n41\n00:02:04.080 --> 00:02:09.650\nWell, so the story of the ring is a couple pretty interesting things. One is\n\n42\n00:02:09.650 --> 00:02:11.520\nthat by tracking overnight,\n\n43\n00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:16.640\nyou get to see someone's physiology at rest. And that's really powerful because\n\n44\n00:02:16.640 --> 00:02:17.840\nevery night,\n\n45\n00:02:17.840 --> 00:02:20.770\nnight overnight, you're kind of seeing the body in the same state. There's no\n\n46\n00:02:20.770 --> 00:02:22.000\nconfounding factors\n\n47\n00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:26.400\nduring the day. Like you're running around your, you know, boss yells at you,\n\n48\n00:02:26.400 --> 00:02:26.960\nsomething else that\n\n49\n00:02:26.960 --> 00:02:31.360\ncould make the day be a little bit noisy. At night, it's pretty level. Your\n\n50\n00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:32.320\nbody also goes through a\n\n51\n00:02:32.320 --> 00:02:36.940\nvery typical cycle of changes as you go into deep sleep and into REM sleep and\n\n52\n00:02:36.940 --> 00:02:37.600\nwaking up\n\n53\n00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:42.210\nbased on your chronotype. So it's actually a really great time to measure\n\n54\n00:02:42.210 --> 00:02:43.760\nsomebody. And one of the\n\n55\n00:02:43.760 --> 00:02:46.750\nthings that started very early on in the product is that we wanted to measure\n\n56\n00:02:46.750 --> 00:02:47.840\nsleep. That's where\n\n57\n00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:52.250\nit started. And so as a result, you kind of have this nighttime wear pattern.\n\n58\n00:02:52.250 --> 00:02:53.360\nPeople wore the ring,\n\n59\n00:02:53.360 --> 00:02:59.040\nthe first ring, the only word at night. It was this enormous, looks like a ring\n\n60\n00:02:59.040 --> 00:02:59.600\nthat maybe had\n\n61\n00:02:59.600 --> 00:03:04.160\nbeen dropped from an alien spaceship and landed on the side of a Nordic fjord.\n\n62\n00:03:04.160 --> 00:03:04.800\nAnd then, you know,\n\n63\n00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:08.480\ntrolls had polished it. It was big. It looked like a Super Bowl ring. But you\n\n64\n00:03:08.480 --> 00:03:09.440\nwould wear it at night.\n\n65\n00:03:09.440 --> 00:03:13.480\nAnd the thing is, is that that unlocked the ability to say, well, how is your\n\n66\n00:03:13.480 --> 00:03:14.720\nday going to go the next\n\n67\n00:03:14.720 --> 00:03:19.680\nday based on your biometrics from the previous night? And that became readiness\n\n68\n00:03:19.680 --> 00:03:20.720\n. And basically,\n\n69\n00:03:20.720 --> 00:03:24.080\nthe way people use it is they wake up and they go, Oh, how did I sleep? And\n\n70\n00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:25.120\nthey check their little\n\n71\n00:03:25.120 --> 00:03:30.870\napp and say, Oh, my readiness is 92 today. I'm normally a 75. I'm going to have\n\n72\n00:03:30.870 --> 00:03:31.760\na great day\n\n73\n00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:36.650\nbecause my heart rate is low. I had a good night's sleep. My heart rate\n\n74\n00:03:36.650 --> 00:03:38.640\nvariability is high. My\n\n75\n00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:42.820\nrespiration is low. All these things that would indicate, you know, biometr\n\n76\n00:03:42.820 --> 00:03:43.680\nically, that you're going\n\n77\n00:03:43.680 --> 00:03:47.400\nto have a very good high performance day. That's what readiness is. It's a\n\n78\n00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:49.120\nscore from one to 100\n\n79\n00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:52.720\nthat tells you how's your day going to go? Fantastic. And you know, I love\n\n80\n00:03:52.720 --> 00:03:53.440\nreading a lot of\n\n81\n00:03:53.440 --> 00:03:57.810\nyour customer reviews and my research. And you've got phenomenal reviews on the\n\n82\n00:03:57.810 --> 00:03:59.120\nordering. And one of\n\n83\n00:03:59.120 --> 00:04:03.830\nthe one of the takeaways that one customer said is that it's like having my\n\n84\n00:04:03.830 --> 00:04:06.320\npersonal lab. You know,\n\n85\n00:04:06.320 --> 00:04:10.620\nwhen you think about or, you know, and you think about the kinds of things that\n\n86\n00:04:10.620 --> 00:04:11.600\nyou'll measure and\n\n87\n00:04:11.600 --> 00:04:17.100\nyou'll give, give a customer, where do you see that going? Well, I think, I\n\n88\n00:04:17.100 --> 00:04:18.160\nthink you're right.\n\n89\n00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:21.780\nThe personal part of it is really important, meaning that like it's not some\n\n90\n00:04:21.780 --> 00:04:22.800\ngeneric information\n\n91\n00:04:22.800 --> 00:04:26.570\nthat could be applied to anybody. It's applied to you and applied to your\n\n92\n00:04:26.570 --> 00:04:27.840\nsituation and your day\n\n93\n00:04:27.840 --> 00:04:32.620\nbecause your physiology is not fixed. It changes over the day. It changes over\n\n94\n00:04:32.620 --> 00:04:33.600\nthe months. It changes\n\n95\n00:04:33.600 --> 00:04:36.550\nover the years. If you're a woman, it changes every 30 days. And so that change\n\n96\n00:04:36.550 --> 00:04:37.680\nin your physiology\n\n97\n00:04:37.680 --> 00:04:41.870\nis really powerful and targeting and personalizing to you is I think one of the\n\n98\n00:04:41.870 --> 00:04:42.400\nsort of\n\n99\n00:04:42.400 --> 00:04:46.790\nsecret sauces of the ordering. It actually gets to know you over the course of\n\n100\n00:04:46.790 --> 00:04:47.760\nonboarding. At first,\n\n101\n00:04:47.760 --> 00:04:50.680\nyou know, sort of a couple of weeks at sort of figuring out what normal looks\n\n102\n00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:51.200\nlike for you.\n\n103\n00:04:51.200 --> 00:04:55.010\nI'll give you a really interesting example. One of the things that we measure\n\n104\n00:04:55.010 --> 00:04:55.680\nis temperature.\n\n105\n00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:59.200\nAnd so temperature, of course, if you have an elevated temperature, that could\n\n106\n00:04:59.200 --> 00:04:59.920\nbe a sign of you\n\n107\n00:04:59.920 --> 00:05:03.070\nbeing sick or maybe you had some alcohol or some other factor that's driving\n\n108\n00:05:03.070 --> 00:05:04.720\nyour temperature high.\n\n109\n00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:09.280\nAnd of course, everyone knows what normal human temperature is, right? David,\n\n110\n00:05:09.280 --> 00:05:09.920\nwhat is it?\n\n111\n00:05:09.920 --> 00:05:15.290\nYeah, 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. But the truth is that not everybody has a normal\n\n112\n00:05:15.290 --> 00:05:15.600\nbaseline\n\n113\n00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:20.290\ntemperature of 98.6. In fact, one of my colleagues at work, his normal baseline\n\n114\n00:05:20.290 --> 00:05:21.920\ntemperature is 98.1\n\n115\n00:05:21.920 --> 00:05:25.480\ndegrees. So when he goes to the doctor and they put a thermometer in his mouth\n\n116\n00:05:25.480 --> 00:05:26.240\nat the doctor's\n\n117\n00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:30.850\noffice and they say, \"Hey, your temperature is 98.6. You know what he's got?\" A\n\n118\n00:05:30.850 --> 00:05:31.360\nfever.\n\n119\n00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:36.720\nYeah, a fever. Right? So this idea that the ordering gets to know you, it's\n\n120\n00:05:36.720 --> 00:05:37.840\nsuch a powerful,\n\n121\n00:05:37.840 --> 00:05:42.130\nmaybe kind of idea behind this product, is that everybody's different.\n\n122\n00:05:42.130 --> 00:05:42.960\nEverybody's health\n\n123\n00:05:42.960 --> 00:05:47.070\ncondition, their life circumstances, their fitness level, all these things are\n\n124\n00:05:47.070 --> 00:05:47.680\ndifferent.\n\n125\n00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:50.630\nAnd so getting to know you is really powerful. And then if you can kind of\n\n126\n00:05:50.630 --> 00:05:51.760\ntranslate that into\n\n127\n00:05:51.760 --> 00:05:56.730\na set of insights, words that the system is telling you about how today is\n\n128\n00:05:56.730 --> 00:05:57.600\ngoing to go,\n\n129\n00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:01.890\nor how your health is doing, or numbers that help you track it, you start to\n\n130\n00:06:01.890 --> 00:06:03.760\nsee really interesting\n\n131\n00:06:03.760 --> 00:06:07.390\ninsights more at the margins. And I'll give you a pretty interesting example.\n\n132\n00:06:07.390 --> 00:06:08.000\nAnother colleague\n\n133\n00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:14.160\nat work, his wife was going through chemotherapy and he could see her scores.\n\n134\n00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:15.200\nAnd so in seeing her\n\n135\n00:06:15.200 --> 00:06:18.610\nscores, he actually had a sense of sort of how her day was going. And so for\n\n136\n00:06:18.610 --> 00:06:19.680\nexample, he might see\n\n137\n00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:24.260\nthat her biometrics were somewhat depressed, her readiness was low, maybe her\n\n138\n00:06:24.260 --> 00:06:24.880\nheart rate was\n\n139\n00:06:24.880 --> 00:06:28.000\nelevated, her temperature was elevated. And then he would change his behavior\n\n140\n00:06:28.000 --> 00:06:28.800\nthat day\n\n141\n00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:32.880\nto better support his partner. He might come home from work early or pick up\n\n142\n00:06:32.880 --> 00:06:33.520\nthe kid or\n\n143\n00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:38.060\nprepare dinner, whatever it was. He had this really maybe insight about what\n\n144\n00:06:38.060 --> 00:06:39.360\nwas going on with his\n\n145\n00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:42.240\npartner's physiology in a way that maybe she couldn't even say because it was\n\n146\n00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:43.040\non the margins.\n\n147\n00:06:43.040 --> 00:06:46.100\nIt wasn't like, you know, she was laid out and couldn't move. It was just like\n\n148\n00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:47.440\nshe didn't feel great.\n\n149\n00:06:47.440 --> 00:06:50.660\nAnd instead of her having to say, hey, I don't feel great, could you pick up\n\n150\n00:06:50.660 --> 00:06:51.360\nthe kid from school\n\n151\n00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:55.370\nand make dinner? He knew that. And he knew it in a way that like was\n\n152\n00:06:55.370 --> 00:06:56.720\ntrustworthy and accurate and\n\n153\n00:06:56.720 --> 00:06:59.640\nscientifically validated. And I think that's just incredibly powerful. So this\n\n154\n00:06:59.640 --> 00:07:00.320\nidea of where we're\n\n155\n00:07:00.320 --> 00:07:04.140\ngoing is we want to give your body a voice. And the thing is your body does\n\n156\n00:07:04.140 --> 00:07:05.360\nhave a voice. And usually,\n\n157\n00:07:05.360 --> 00:07:08.320\nif it's talking to you, you're going to listen. But sometimes it's hard to hear\n\n158\n00:07:08.320 --> 00:07:08.800\nand it's hard to\n\n159\n00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:12.690\nunderstand. And that's a lot of what work does. You know, just I love that idea\n\n160\n00:07:12.690 --> 00:07:13.440\n, the word picture\n\n161\n00:07:13.440 --> 00:07:19.360\nof giving your body a voice is a great clear communication of what your vision\n\n162\n00:07:19.360 --> 00:07:20.640\nis. How did you\n\n163\n00:07:20.640 --> 00:07:25.840\ndevelop this capability to be that concise about what you're really trying to\n\n164\n00:07:25.840 --> 00:07:26.400\ndo and\n\n165\n00:07:26.400 --> 00:07:32.660\ncome up with a phrase like that? Well, geez, I think that's a tall order. You\n\n166\n00:07:32.660 --> 00:07:33.280\nknow, if you can\n\n167\n00:07:33.280 --> 00:07:37.630\ncome up with something that's what I like to refer to as impactfully brief, you\n\n168\n00:07:37.630 --> 00:07:38.400\nknow, and I talk a\n\n169\n00:07:38.400 --> 00:07:42.910\nlot to my team about the importance of impactful brevity. Because it's really\n\n170\n00:07:42.910 --> 00:07:43.760\nimportant to\n\n171\n00:07:43.760 --> 00:07:48.440\nnot say a lot, but say a lot. And if you can say a lot in a small amount of\n\n172\n00:07:48.440 --> 00:07:49.840\nspace, it's really,\n\n173\n00:07:49.840 --> 00:07:52.310\nit's really powerful. It's great. It's actually it's a great leadership\n\n174\n00:07:52.310 --> 00:07:52.640\nattribute.\n\n175\n00:07:52.640 --> 00:07:58.020\nYeah. So how did we do it? Great question. You know, we worked at it for quite\n\n176\n00:07:58.020 --> 00:07:58.480\nsome time.\n\n177\n00:07:58.480 --> 00:08:04.140\nWe had a lot of people working on it who, you know, went through like a six to\n\n178\n00:08:04.140 --> 00:08:05.040\nI think seven-week\n\n179\n00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:09.280\nprocess of talking about what our vision was and all the different permutations\n\n180\n00:08:09.280 --> 00:08:09.520\nof it,\n\n181\n00:08:09.520 --> 00:08:12.710\nall the details. And then finally, somebody came back and said, Hey, we got a\n\n182\n00:08:12.710 --> 00:08:13.680\ncouple of ideas for\n\n183\n00:08:13.680 --> 00:08:17.920\nyou. This is one of them and we really like it. And we said, is that what is it\n\n184\n00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:18.400\n? I said,\n\n185\n00:08:18.400 --> 00:08:22.960\nOh, it's giving your body a voice. We're like, that's it. You nailed it. And so\n\n186\n00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:23.360\nin some\n\n187\n00:08:23.360 --> 00:08:25.900\nsense, I think that's that's true of most creative processes. You want to give\n\n188\n00:08:25.900 --> 00:08:27.440\na really clear brief.\n\n189\n00:08:27.440 --> 00:08:30.750\nYou want to give people the opportunity to really, you know, expand their\n\n190\n00:08:30.750 --> 00:08:31.760\nthinking as broadly as\n\n191\n00:08:31.760 --> 00:08:34.670\npossible and then come back and narrow down to the one or two things that are\n\n192\n00:08:34.670 --> 00:08:35.760\nreally the best ideas.\n\n193\n00:08:35.760 --> 00:08:40.000\nYeah. Oftentimes, you know, being in the marketing world myself, you know, it's\n\n194\n00:08:40.000 --> 00:08:40.240\nlike,\n\n195\n00:08:40.240 --> 00:08:43.920\nI used to say, when it's great, there's no debate. You know, when you hear a\n\n196\n00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:44.640\nphrase like that,\n\n197\n00:08:44.640 --> 00:08:48.240\ngiving your body a voice, you kind of go, Oh, that's it. You know, not a whole\n\n198\n00:08:48.240 --> 00:08:48.880\nlot of debate about\n\n199\n00:08:48.880 --> 00:08:52.660\nthat. There might be debate about the process of getting there. And you know,\n\n200\n00:08:52.660 --> 00:08:53.760\nbut that just pops\n\n201\n00:08:53.760 --> 00:08:58.030\nout and really makes so much sense. You know, Tom, I want to get into how you\n\n202\n00:08:58.030 --> 00:08:58.880\n're leading it\n\n203\n00:08:58.880 --> 00:09:03.040\nor a bit. But first, I want to learn more about your journey. And what's the\n\n204\n00:09:03.040 --> 00:09:03.760\nstory from your\n\n205\n00:09:03.760 --> 00:09:07.030\nchildhood that really shaped the kind of leader you are today? So I was an\n\n206\n00:09:07.030 --> 00:09:08.400\nathlete as a kid.\n\n207\n00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:15.200\nI used to track my workouts. I was a cyclist. And so I would write down all my\n\n208\n00:09:15.200 --> 00:09:15.840\nnumbers, you know,\n\n209\n00:09:15.840 --> 00:09:19.840\nhow fast, how far, what my arresting heart rate was, what my peak heart rate\n\n210\n00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:21.040\nwas. And it was pretty\n\n211\n00:09:21.040 --> 00:09:25.630\nrudimentary what we had. So that really, like, I think can't call it data\n\n212\n00:09:25.630 --> 00:09:26.880\norientation around\n\n213\n00:09:26.880 --> 00:09:29.520\nfitness has always been a part of my life. I've always had wearables. I've\n\n214\n00:09:29.520 --> 00:09:30.720\nalways tried every\n\n215\n00:09:30.720 --> 00:09:35.680\npiece of technology I might possibly use to optimize my performance. And I\n\n216\n00:09:35.680 --> 00:09:36.640\nthink that I think\n\n217\n00:09:36.640 --> 00:09:40.640\nI brought that very much with me to Aura. But the thing about Aura when I\n\n218\n00:09:40.640 --> 00:09:41.520\njoined it was,\n\n219\n00:09:41.520 --> 00:09:45.120\nit was a relatively small company. You know, it was a few hundred folks,\n\n220\n00:09:45.120 --> 00:09:52.770\nlargely based in Finland. You know, it was maybe a challenging time. If you\n\n221\n00:09:52.770 --> 00:09:53.920\nremember 2022,\n\n222\n00:09:53.920 --> 00:09:59.280\nthe spring of '22 was right after COVID. I think the Ukraine war had just begun\n\n223\n00:09:59.280 --> 00:09:59.760\nand the stock\n\n224\n00:09:59.760 --> 00:10:03.800\nmarkets were swooning. It was kind of a challenging moment. And you know, I\n\n225\n00:10:03.800 --> 00:10:04.080\nkind of\n\n226\n00:10:05.040 --> 00:10:09.790\ncame onto the company and had to sort of set a course for the company. And for\n\n227\n00:10:09.790 --> 00:10:11.120\nme, the course\n\n228\n00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:16.930\nthat I wanted to set was, hey, we have this big mission in the company, which\n\n229\n00:10:16.930 --> 00:10:17.920\nis that we want\n\n230\n00:10:17.920 --> 00:10:21.190\nto make health a daily practice. We want to change health from being\n\n231\n00:10:21.190 --> 00:10:22.960\nintervention at the end of life\n\n232\n00:10:22.960 --> 00:10:26.380\nto being prevention over the course of your entire life so that you live a\n\n233\n00:10:26.380 --> 00:10:27.680\nbetter life longer.\n\n234\n00:10:27.680 --> 00:10:31.040\nThat's what we're all about. And that mission, by the way, is super motivating\n\n235\n00:10:31.040 --> 00:10:31.680\nfor employees.\n\n236\n00:10:31.680 --> 00:10:34.480\nAnd everybody signs up for that mission. Like, could we make the healthcare\n\n237\n00:10:34.480 --> 00:10:35.280\nexperience better at\n\n238\n00:10:35.280 --> 00:10:39.640\nUBECHA? Can we help people live better lives longer at UBECHA? How do we do\n\n239\n00:10:39.640 --> 00:10:40.640\nthat? It's really\n\n240\n00:10:40.640 --> 00:10:44.720\na question. And the thing was, is that we had also kind of lost sight of the\n\n241\n00:10:44.720 --> 00:10:46.000\nfact that like,\n\n242\n00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:49.680\nif we weren't successful as a business, we weren't going to be able to fulfill\n\n243\n00:10:49.680 --> 00:10:50.560\nthat mission.\n\n244\n00:10:50.560 --> 00:10:55.600\nAnd so the first thing that I had to do was kind of combine the mission with\n\n245\n00:10:55.600 --> 00:10:56.640\nthe\n\n246\n00:10:58.080 --> 00:11:01.660\nreality that we had to be a better business. And those two things had to come\n\n247\n00:11:01.660 --> 00:11:02.640\nglued together.\n\n248\n00:11:02.640 --> 00:11:05.920\nDo you mean by business, you mean a business model that makes money?\n\n249\n00:11:05.920 --> 00:11:11.120\nYeah, like, you know, we couldn't, if we were the best company in the world and\n\n250\n00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:11.920\ndidn't make money,\n\n251\n00:11:11.920 --> 00:11:15.950\nwe wouldn't be able to fulfill our potential or fulfill our mission. And if we\n\n252\n00:11:15.950 --> 00:11:16.960\ndidn't stay focused\n\n253\n00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:20.900\non making money and being a great business, then we weren't going to actually\n\n254\n00:11:20.900 --> 00:11:21.760\nhave as big of an\n\n255\n00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:25.790\nimpact on the world as we could. And I think that idea of kind of blending the\n\n256\n00:11:25.790 --> 00:11:27.680\ntwo ideas, this idea\n\n257\n00:11:27.680 --> 00:11:31.370\nthat we were a performing company as a performance company, as well as a\n\n258\n00:11:31.370 --> 00:11:32.400\ncompany that had a big\n\n259\n00:11:32.400 --> 00:11:35.630\nmission around people's health. Those two ideas had to come together. The idea\n\n260\n00:11:35.630 --> 00:11:36.400\nwas pretty simple.\n\n261\n00:11:36.400 --> 00:11:40.850\nIt was that we make a product that allows people to look at their metrics to\n\n262\n00:11:40.850 --> 00:11:41.840\nunderstand how to\n\n263\n00:11:41.840 --> 00:11:44.770\noptimize their life or make decisions about their life or their health. And I\n\n264\n00:11:44.770 --> 00:11:45.680\nsaid, we have our\n\n265\n00:11:45.680 --> 00:11:49.550\nmetrics in our own business and we need to look at those metrics. And we need\n\n266\n00:11:49.550 --> 00:11:50.240\nto look at those\n\n267\n00:11:50.240 --> 00:11:53.720\nmetrics and use them to drive our business because the business metrics that\n\n268\n00:11:53.720 --> 00:11:54.880\ncome out of the business\n\n269\n00:11:54.880 --> 00:11:58.400\nis just like your biometrics coming off your body and you have to optimize it.\n\n270\n00:11:58.400 --> 00:11:59.280\nSo I used to\n\n271\n00:11:59.280 --> 00:12:02.860\ncall it an idea and a bit of language that made sense to everybody because that\n\n272\n00:12:02.860 --> 00:12:03.760\n's what the product\n\n273\n00:12:03.760 --> 00:12:07.980\ndid. And that's what we did. We built a really high performing, really, really\n\n274\n00:12:07.980 --> 00:12:09.280\nsuccessful business\n\n275\n00:12:09.280 --> 00:12:12.720\nin that moment because everyone realized that it wasn't enough to just be great\n\n276\n00:12:12.720 --> 00:12:13.200\nand have the best\n\n277\n00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:16.560\nproduct we had to build a great business. Now, you had asked a question. Your\n\n278\n00:12:16.560 --> 00:12:17.440\nquestion was,\n\n279\n00:12:17.440 --> 00:12:22.120\nwhat is it about your growing up that kind of connects to that? And I said,\n\n280\n00:12:22.120 --> 00:12:22.560\nwell, look, it's\n\n281\n00:12:22.560 --> 00:12:26.640\nreally about being someone who tracked everything and analyzed it, tried to\n\n282\n00:12:26.640 --> 00:12:27.680\nunderstand it. But there's\n\n283\n00:12:27.680 --> 00:12:32.440\nanother element as well. And I think anybody in business knows this, which is\n\n284\n00:12:32.440 --> 00:12:33.440\nthat sometimes it's\n\n285\n00:12:33.440 --> 00:12:37.420\nnot about just skill or it's not just about leadership. It's not just about\n\n286\n00:12:37.420 --> 00:12:39.120\nknowing what to do or doing\n\n287\n00:12:39.120 --> 00:12:44.240\nit, which are important things in business. Sometimes it's about luck. And I\n\n288\n00:12:44.240 --> 00:12:44.480\nthink...\n\n289\n00:12:44.480 --> 00:12:52.300\nWe've all seen that. And that combination of being ready at the moment when\n\n290\n00:12:52.300 --> 00:12:52.480\nluck\n\n291\n00:12:52.480 --> 00:12:57.600\nstrikes or when the opportunity surfaces. And that is the key being ready. And\n\n292\n00:12:57.600 --> 00:12:58.560\nthat goes back to,\n\n293\n00:12:58.560 --> 00:13:03.200\nif you create a performance culture, when the market starts to warm up and you\n\n294\n00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:04.240\nsee some opportunities\n\n295\n00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:08.140\nand then you can really capitalize on that, that's what drives the outside's\n\n296\n00:13:08.140 --> 00:13:09.040\nperformance.\n\n297\n00:13:09.040 --> 00:13:15.360\nI think that's where Aurora is today. We've grown this business north of 100% a\n\n298\n00:13:15.360 --> 00:13:16.400\ncouple years in a row.\n\n299\n00:13:17.040 --> 00:13:22.480\nWe're at a scale which is very, very significant from a revenue standpoint. We\n\n300\n00:13:22.480 --> 00:13:23.040\nflipped over to\n\n301\n00:13:23.040 --> 00:13:26.130\nprofitability. All these things that are great about the business, but what\n\n302\n00:13:26.130 --> 00:13:27.520\nthey are in service of\n\n303\n00:13:27.520 --> 00:13:32.880\nis fulfilling this mission. So you want to have both... You want to be able to\n\n304\n00:13:32.880 --> 00:13:33.040\nsee\n\n305\n00:13:33.040 --> 00:13:37.760\nkind of the performance of the business coupled with kind of the passion, the\n\n306\n00:13:37.760 --> 00:13:38.720\nthings that move\n\n307\n00:13:38.720 --> 00:13:43.030\npeople, that move their hearts is we want to make a difference in the world. We\n\n308\n00:13:43.030 --> 00:13:43.520\nwant to wake up\n\n309\n00:13:43.520 --> 00:13:46.880\nevery morning and make people healthier and happier and live longer. And that's\n\n310\n00:13:46.880 --> 00:13:48.160\na great reason to make\n\n311\n00:13:48.160 --> 00:13:52.210\na great business. With technology being what it is today, I mean, you almost\n\n312\n00:13:52.210 --> 00:13:53.440\nhave to be a scientist\n\n313\n00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:57.340\nto do your job. Yeah, I mean, look, I think when I got to the company, I was\n\n314\n00:13:57.340 --> 00:13:58.560\npretty much a software\n\n315\n00:13:58.560 --> 00:14:04.390\nperson, but by and large. And I'd always been kind of science and math oriented\n\n316\n00:14:04.390 --> 00:14:06.400\n. But what you\n\n317\n00:14:06.400 --> 00:14:11.390\nrealize here is that to make these things work, there's the interaction of\n\n318\n00:14:11.390 --> 00:14:13.760\nphysiology, physics,\n\n319\n00:14:13.760 --> 00:14:20.430\nsoftware algorithms, scientific validation of those software algorithms, and a\n\n320\n00:14:20.430 --> 00:14:21.840\nuser experience,\n\n321\n00:14:21.840 --> 00:14:25.000\nlike a software user experience. So of those five or six things, I had\n\n322\n00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:26.160\nexperience and maybe one of\n\n323\n00:14:26.160 --> 00:14:31.030\nthem. And thank goodness that we have an incredibly capable science team at the\n\n324\n00:14:31.030 --> 00:14:31.760\ncompany,\n\n325\n00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:37.660\nsome 30 plus PhDs who, you know, these people are incredible. They're\n\n326\n00:14:37.660 --> 00:14:38.720\nspecialists in,\n\n327\n00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:45.300\nyou know, the physics of light, they're specialists in physiology, in biomechan\n\n328\n00:14:45.300 --> 00:14:45.760\nics,\n\n329\n00:14:45.760 --> 00:14:52.470\nin all these, these very, very important and very, very rigorous kind of areas.\n\n330\n00:14:52.470 --> 00:14:52.720\nAnd so\n\n331\n00:14:52.720 --> 00:14:57.120\none of the things that I think has been incredible for me is the opportunity to\n\n332\n00:14:57.120 --> 00:14:58.480\nlearn about all of the\n\n333\n00:15:00.080 --> 00:15:04.220\nreally interesting things that the ring does or is capable of doing or what it\n\n334\n00:15:04.220 --> 00:15:04.800\nmight do in the\n\n335\n00:15:04.800 --> 00:15:10.240\nfuture based on its capabilities. But also the way we validate it, you know, we\n\n336\n00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:11.680\nhave massive\n\n337\n00:15:11.680 --> 00:15:17.050\nresearch studies to make sure that we get people of every health condition and\n\n338\n00:15:17.050 --> 00:15:17.840\nevery, you know,\n\n339\n00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:22.050\nethnicity and every skin color to make sure that the data that the ring is\n\n340\n00:15:22.050 --> 00:15:24.400\ngenerating covers them\n\n341\n00:15:24.400 --> 00:15:29.510\nand, you know, meets some standard of accuracy that is extremely high. We want\n\n342\n00:15:29.510 --> 00:15:29.840\nto be\n\n343\n00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:34.960\nas close to a clinical grade that we can be. And in some cases, exceed that. We\n\n344\n00:15:34.960 --> 00:15:35.760\njust don't happen to be,\n\n345\n00:15:35.760 --> 00:15:41.110\nwe don't happen to be regulated as a medical device. We're not a medical device\n\n346\n00:15:41.110 --> 00:15:42.480\n, but we aspire\n\n347\n00:15:42.480 --> 00:15:46.380\nto the level of accuracy and the level of quality that would be appropriate for\n\n348\n00:15:46.380 --> 00:15:47.440\na medical device.\n\n349\n00:15:47.440 --> 00:15:52.320\nAnd that's such a powerful idea because that means that you have to be really\n\n350\n00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:53.040\ngood. This is not,\n\n351\n00:15:53.040 --> 00:15:57.210\nyou know, good enough is not good. It has to be great. And so again, if you're\n\n352\n00:15:57.210 --> 00:15:57.520\nthinking about\n\n353\n00:15:57.520 --> 00:16:03.150\nleading any organization, I always think you have to throw, you know, the stone\n\n354\n00:16:03.150 --> 00:16:04.560\ntwice as far to go\n\n355\n00:16:04.560 --> 00:16:08.780\nhalf the distance. You have to set a huge aspiration so that you can inspire\n\n356\n00:16:08.780 --> 00:16:10.320\npeople to do the impossible.\n\n357\n00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:13.530\nAnd, you know, if they only make it halfway, it's still incredible because you\n\n358\n00:16:13.530 --> 00:16:14.960\nmade it. We throw\n\n359\n00:16:14.960 --> 00:16:19.230\nthat rockle, you know, twice as far. And in science and in accuracy, we make it\n\n360\n00:16:19.230 --> 00:16:20.960\n. We make it all the\n\n361\n00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:25.360\nway there. And so it's just, it's such an important lesson, I think, for any\n\n362\n00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:26.320\nleader to realize that\n\n363\n00:16:26.320 --> 00:16:31.010\nthey need to push further, farther, faster than they think is possible and to\n\n364\n00:16:31.010 --> 00:16:31.680\npush outside the\n\n365\n00:16:31.680 --> 00:16:35.750\nboundaries of what's known. And when you're doing that, you end up making new\n\n366\n00:16:35.750 --> 00:16:36.880\nscience. And that's,\n\n367\n00:16:36.880 --> 00:16:40.330\nthat's very inspiring for our scientists and PhDs that they get to create\n\n368\n00:16:40.330 --> 00:16:41.760\nsomething that hadn't\n\n369\n00:16:41.760 --> 00:16:45.950\nexisted before. Yeah. And as you push for go outside the boundaries, how do you\n\n370\n00:16:45.950 --> 00:16:47.440\n, how do you stay in\n\n371\n00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:52.000\ntune with what your customers are really looking for? Well, I think, you know,\n\n372\n00:16:52.000 --> 00:16:52.800\nit starts by talking\n\n373\n00:16:52.800 --> 00:16:56.590\nto your customers a lot. And we do that through a lot of different ways. We\n\n374\n00:16:56.590 --> 00:16:58.400\nhave a, we have something\n\n375\n00:16:58.400 --> 00:17:02.300\ncalled the Inner Circle, which is about, you know, 2,000 folks who are like,\n\n376\n00:17:02.300 --> 00:17:03.360\nyou know, on the leading\n\n377\n00:17:03.360 --> 00:17:06.570\nedge of anything we develop and they're constantly giving us feedback as we\n\n378\n00:17:06.570 --> 00:17:07.520\nintroduce new things. And\n\n379\n00:17:07.520 --> 00:17:11.280\nwe iterate over the product very, very quickly with them with their feedback.\n\n380\n00:17:11.280 --> 00:17:12.720\nWe also listen to,\n\n381\n00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:16.300\nyou know, kind of these broad based communities, you know, whether it's Reddit\n\n382\n00:17:16.300 --> 00:17:16.960\nor Facebook.\n\n383\n00:17:16.960 --> 00:17:21.040\nWe kind of interface there to gather information from, you know, kind of the\n\n384\n00:17:21.040 --> 00:17:22.160\nsignal of the room\n\n385\n00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:26.340\ntone of what's actually going out, going on out in the world. And then I make\n\n386\n00:17:26.340 --> 00:17:27.440\nit a point, and I make\n\n387\n00:17:27.440 --> 00:17:31.490\nit a point for all of my leaders, that we have conversations with, with members\n\n388\n00:17:31.490 --> 00:17:32.640\n, you know, whenever\n\n389\n00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:36.690\nwe can. I make a point of my Thursday's Thursday morning being at time, a block\n\n390\n00:17:36.690 --> 00:17:37.680\nof time, which I\n\n391\n00:17:37.680 --> 00:17:41.230\nset aside for conversations with customers and interactions with customers,\n\n392\n00:17:41.230 --> 00:17:42.160\nbecause there's no\n\n393\n00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:47.520\nsubstitute for direct interaction. When someone, you know, recently, someone,\n\n394\n00:17:47.520 --> 00:17:48.080\nyou know, sent me a\n\n395\n00:17:48.080 --> 00:17:51.160\nnote and said, Hey, you know, this is not working out the way I want it to work\n\n396\n00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:52.240\nout. And I got a\n\n397\n00:17:52.240 --> 00:17:55.380\nproblem. I need, you know, you to do something about that. When I engage on\n\n398\n00:17:55.380 --> 00:17:56.320\nthat, I'm learning\n\n399\n00:17:56.320 --> 00:17:59.250\nsomething. I'm learning about something about our business that needs to be\n\n400\n00:17:59.250 --> 00:18:00.400\nfixed or improved or\n\n401\n00:18:00.400 --> 00:18:04.110\nbetter. And that means I will be a better leader. And I can push on the\n\n402\n00:18:04.110 --> 00:18:05.840\norganization to raise the\n\n403\n00:18:05.840 --> 00:18:11.320\nbar. And I could do that credible, because I have an example. Conversely, I got\n\n404\n00:18:11.320 --> 00:18:12.240\na reach out from\n\n405\n00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:15.490\nsomebody who said, I had the best customer experience I've ever had with your\n\n406\n00:18:15.490 --> 00:18:16.400\ncompany. I thought you\n\n407\n00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:21.470\nshould know. And that kind of insight, that's gold, because it teaches you what\n\n408\n00:18:21.470 --> 00:18:22.320\nyou're doing,\n\n409\n00:18:22.320 --> 00:18:25.740\nwhat you're doing right. And you should do more of that. Absolutely. And your\n\n410\n00:18:25.740 --> 00:18:26.880\nbackground is,\n\n411\n00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:33.520\nis clear that you are in some really interesting, creative companies where you\n\n412\n00:18:33.520 --> 00:18:34.560\ngot prepared to step\n\n413\n00:18:34.560 --> 00:18:38.500\ninto this role and to begin to make a difference in terms of changing the world\n\n414\n00:18:38.500 --> 00:18:39.760\n. So, you know,\n\n415\n00:18:39.760 --> 00:18:43.280\nyou've been a number of really great companies. I just kind of like to pull out\n\n416\n00:18:43.280 --> 00:18:43.840\na few of the\n\n417\n00:18:43.840 --> 00:18:47.850\nhighlights from some of the learnings that you got along the way. You know, and\n\n418\n00:18:47.850 --> 00:18:48.560\nfor example,\n\n419\n00:18:48.560 --> 00:18:53.310\nyou know, you, you were at Adobe, which is a great software company. And what\n\n420\n00:18:53.310 --> 00:18:53.840\nwas the biggest\n\n421\n00:18:53.840 --> 00:18:58.510\nlesson you learned about leadership at Adobe? Well, it's funny. I got to Adobe\n\n422\n00:18:58.510 --> 00:18:59.520\non the back of an\n\n423\n00:18:59.520 --> 00:19:03.700\nacquisition of a company called Macromedia. I'd been at Macromedia for 10 years\n\n424\n00:19:03.700 --> 00:19:04.480\n. Some people\n\n425\n00:19:04.480 --> 00:19:09.790\nmay remember this. They made tools for people to make websites during web, you\n\n426\n00:19:09.790 --> 00:19:10.640\nknow, kind of one\n\n427\n00:19:10.640 --> 00:19:15.600\ndotto had a product named Flash, Flash enabled, you know, kind of sound and\n\n428\n00:19:15.600 --> 00:19:16.560\naudio interactions\n\n429\n00:19:16.560 --> 00:19:20.700\ngames. So I was at this company called Macromedia. And when Adobe acquired Mac\n\n430\n00:19:20.700 --> 00:19:21.200\nromedia,\n\n431\n00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:24.810\nthey took a lot of the leaders from Macromedia and made them leaders at Adobe.\n\n432\n00:19:24.810 --> 00:19:25.600\nAnd Adobe was a\n\n433\n00:19:25.600 --> 00:19:31.640\nmuch larger company, maybe 6,000 employees to our call it, maybe 1,800 to 2,000\n\n434\n00:19:31.640 --> 00:19:32.480\nemployees,\n\n435\n00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:38.510\nsomething like that. And they put us, you know, and me included in these roles.\n\n436\n00:19:38.510 --> 00:19:39.520\nAnd they were very\n\n437\n00:19:39.520 --> 00:19:42.460\nthoughtful about it, because what they didn't want was a bunch of these, you\n\n438\n00:19:42.460 --> 00:19:44.000\nknow, young people who\n\n439\n00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:48.230\nthought they were really great to come in and like, you know, ruin things that,\n\n440\n00:19:48.230 --> 00:19:48.560\nthat, that\n\n441\n00:19:48.560 --> 00:19:53.000\nwere great about Adobe. You know, it's a very, very successful company, very\n\n442\n00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:54.720\nmature, very thoughtful.\n\n443\n00:19:54.720 --> 00:19:58.000\nWe were kind of like, maybe more like a startup, you know, kind of\n\n444\n00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:01.120\nentrepreneurial and willing to\n\n445\n00:20:01.120 --> 00:20:05.890\ntry anything and willing to do it, you know, at a pace that was really unreason\n\n446\n00:20:05.890 --> 00:20:06.720\nably fast.\n\n447\n00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:10.640\nSo they came in and they said, listen, we have some advice for you guys. Here's\n\n448\n00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:11.280\n, here's the first\n\n449\n00:20:11.280 --> 00:20:15.610\npiece of advice. When you're in a group of people at Adobe, and there's maybe,\n\n450\n00:20:15.610 --> 00:20:16.640\nI don't know, 100 or\n\n451\n00:20:16.640 --> 00:20:21.850\n200 people listening to you, be really thoughtful about what you say, because\n\n452\n00:20:21.850 --> 00:20:23.440\nyou might find that\n\n453\n00:20:23.440 --> 00:20:26.330\nif you're not thoughtful, and by the way, as a, as a group, I think at Macrom\n\n454\n00:20:26.330 --> 00:20:27.280\nedia, we're more like,\n\n455\n00:20:27.280 --> 00:20:30.000\nlet's think with our mouths, let's go, let's have the ideas, let's get them out\n\n456\n00:20:30.000 --> 00:20:30.720\nthere, let's go,\n\n457\n00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:34.560\nlet's go, you know, and like kind of getting people excited. Is it a bit, be\n\n458\n00:20:34.560 --> 00:20:35.840\nthoughtful, because you\n\n459\n00:20:35.840 --> 00:20:38.860\nmight just say something that you don't really mean, and then six months later,\n\n460\n00:20:38.860 --> 00:20:39.760\nyou're going to look\n\n461\n00:20:39.760 --> 00:20:43.380\naround, you're going to see that 250 people are off working on something, just\n\n462\n00:20:43.380 --> 00:20:44.080\nbecause you thought\n\n463\n00:20:44.080 --> 00:20:48.030\nyou had a, you know, an interesting hairbrained idea, and we're like, oh, that\n\n464\n00:20:48.030 --> 00:20:49.360\n's super interesting.\n\n465\n00:20:49.360 --> 00:20:54.760\nYou're saying we should use our ears more than we use our mouths. We should be\n\n466\n00:20:54.760 --> 00:20:55.680\nlistening to what's\n\n467\n00:20:55.680 --> 00:21:01.040\ngoing on, not trying to generate, as you do in a smaller company, where like,\n\n468\n00:21:01.040 --> 00:21:01.840\nyou know, the ideas\n\n469\n00:21:01.840 --> 00:21:05.030\nfor the currency of keeping people motivated. So that was one of the big\n\n470\n00:21:05.030 --> 00:21:06.000\nlessons that we learned\n\n471\n00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:09.190\nfrom Macromedia and Adobe, and Adobe is an incredibly successful company,\n\n472\n00:21:09.190 --> 00:21:10.080\nbecause it is so\n\n473\n00:21:10.080 --> 00:21:13.840\nthoughtful, it is so considered. And Tom, how about Lyndon Lab, where you were\n\n474\n00:21:13.840 --> 00:21:14.640\nthe chief product\n\n475\n00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:19.860\nofficer, and there you designed the revamp of Second Life? Well, you know,\n\n476\n00:21:19.860 --> 00:21:21.600\nSecond Life was one\n\n477\n00:21:21.600 --> 00:21:25.080\nof the very early on virtual worlds, and now it's very typical, right? People\n\n478\n00:21:25.080 --> 00:21:26.480\ngo into 3D spaces and\n\n479\n00:21:26.480 --> 00:21:30.080\ndo stuff and play video games with each other. This was relatively early on,\n\n480\n00:21:30.080 --> 00:21:32.720\nand, you know, one of\n\n481\n00:21:32.720 --> 00:21:38.500\nthe things that, that it had gotten really successful early in kind of the\n\n482\n00:21:38.500 --> 00:21:40.080\nearly 2000s,\n\n483\n00:21:40.080 --> 00:21:44.140\nit had, you know, kind of jumped up to be a, I think it was about 100 million\n\n484\n00:21:44.140 --> 00:21:44.640\nrevenue,\n\n485\n00:21:44.640 --> 00:21:47.550\nif you ever take or something like that, and it was on the cover of Time\n\n486\n00:21:47.550 --> 00:21:48.400\nMagazine, you know,\n\n487\n00:21:48.400 --> 00:21:52.120\npeople were really interested in this idea that you could buy virtual goods,\n\n488\n00:21:52.120 --> 00:21:53.200\nlike, you know, fashion\n\n489\n00:21:53.200 --> 00:21:56.480\nor architecture, stuff like that, and didn't cost anything, it was just bits on\n\n490\n00:21:56.480 --> 00:21:57.120\na server.\n\n491\n00:21:57.120 --> 00:22:01.760\nWhat was happening when I arrived was everything was switching to the web.\n\n492\n00:22:01.760 --> 00:22:07.040\nAll social media was just starting to have about 2007, 2008. So social media\n\n493\n00:22:07.040 --> 00:22:08.000\nwas becoming a thing,\n\n494\n00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:12.400\nand all of that was like on your mobile device, or, you know, on the web, you\n\n495\n00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:13.520\nknow, with Facebook,\n\n496\n00:22:13.520 --> 00:22:17.190\nand Facebook games and stuff like that. And so as a leadership team, we\n\n497\n00:22:17.190 --> 00:22:18.720\nrealized we really needed to\n\n498\n00:22:18.720 --> 00:22:22.730\nlike transform the company to take advantage of this new opportunity, and that\n\n499\n00:22:22.730 --> 00:22:23.680\nwe needed to go and\n\n500\n00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:27.600\nfigure out, you know, how we were going to address this changing world where\n\n501\n00:22:27.600 --> 00:22:28.240\npeople were spending all\n\n502\n00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:32.380\nthis time, you know, on websites clicking on likes and thumbs up and that kind\n\n503\n00:22:32.380 --> 00:22:32.960\nof stuff,\n\n504\n00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:36.720\ninstead of these really rich, immersive experiences where you're inside of a\n\n505\n00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:38.080\nvirtual world in 3D,\n\n506\n00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:45.760\nand we tried and we failed. And so the lesson is is that like, if you really\n\n507\n00:22:45.760 --> 00:22:46.560\nwant to try and do\n\n508\n00:22:46.560 --> 00:22:50.850\nsomething different, sometimes you can't do it with just the same people, you\n\n509\n00:22:50.850 --> 00:22:52.640\nknow, you might need\n\n510\n00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:56.430\nto find the new people with the new outlook and the new skills and the new\n\n511\n00:22:56.430 --> 00:22:57.840\ncapabilities to address\n\n512\n00:22:57.840 --> 00:23:02.740\na new opportunity. And I've always thought about that because it's just such a,\n\n513\n00:23:02.740 --> 00:23:03.840\nit's a tempting\n\n514\n00:23:03.840 --> 00:23:07.070\nthing to say we were great at this, and so that we're also going to be great at\n\n515\n00:23:07.070 --> 00:23:07.760\nthis other thing,\n\n516\n00:23:07.760 --> 00:23:10.710\nyou know, we were great at 3D virtual worlds, so we're going to be great at\n\n517\n00:23:10.710 --> 00:23:11.360\nsocial media.\n\n518\n00:23:11.360 --> 00:23:17.840\nWell, turns out that's not always true. And then you were the chief product and\n\n519\n00:23:17.840 --> 00:23:19.200\nofficer and you\n\n520\n00:23:19.200 --> 00:23:23.750\nbecame the chief operating officer at Homeaway. You know, what's something you\n\n521\n00:23:23.750 --> 00:23:24.560\npicked up there\n\n522\n00:23:24.560 --> 00:23:31.150\nthat really shaped your leadership? Well, you know, Homeaway was very early on\n\n523\n00:23:31.150 --> 00:23:32.800\nin what is now known\n\n524\n00:23:32.800 --> 00:23:38.390\nas vacation rentals by owner or Verbo or many people know what is Airbnb. The\n\n525\n00:23:38.390 --> 00:23:38.880\nthing that I took\n\n526\n00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:44.230\naway there, and I think this goes to, you know, how do you think about\n\n527\n00:23:44.230 --> 00:23:46.480\nleadership inside of a company?\n\n528\n00:23:46.480 --> 00:23:53.560\nIn a tech company, your tech leadership needs to be empowered. And when I got\n\n529\n00:23:53.560 --> 00:23:54.560\nto the company,\n\n530\n00:23:54.560 --> 00:23:59.550\nyou know, Homeaway was an amazing company. It had acquired some 25 different\n\n531\n00:23:59.550 --> 00:24:00.560\nwebsites and kind of\n\n532\n00:24:00.560 --> 00:24:05.520\npulled them all together. And, you know, in many ways, like the SEO benefits of\n\n533\n00:24:05.520 --> 00:24:06.160\nall those websites\n\n534\n00:24:06.160 --> 00:24:08.850\nwere driving the business. If you were looking for a rental in the south of\n\n535\n00:24:08.850 --> 00:24:09.520\nFrance, you were\n\n536\n00:24:09.520 --> 00:24:12.560\ngoing to end up on a Homeaway site. That was where you were going to end up.\n\n537\n00:24:12.560 --> 00:24:14.960\nAnd what we had to do\n\n538\n00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:18.660\nwas re-platform all of those sites onto one platform so we could run it\n\n539\n00:24:18.660 --> 00:24:19.680\nefficiently and then\n\n540\n00:24:19.680 --> 00:24:22.850\nadd e-commerce to it so you could book those sites, you know, you had to be\n\n541\n00:24:22.850 --> 00:24:23.840\nable to book them.\n\n542\n00:24:23.840 --> 00:24:29.090\nAnd so the change that was really required was we had to go to our technical\n\n543\n00:24:29.090 --> 00:24:30.320\nleadership and say,\n\n544\n00:24:30.800 --> 00:24:36.290\n\"Hey, you guys actually have a really, really important vote in what we do. You\n\n545\n00:24:36.290 --> 00:24:37.520\n're not there to\n\n546\n00:24:37.520 --> 00:24:41.380\njust take orders from anybody else. And if someone tries to tell you to take\n\n547\n00:24:41.380 --> 00:24:42.640\ntheir order, you know,\n\n548\n00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:45.840\nlike, \"I need this. Get this done. I need it done by Tuesday.\" You need to be\n\n549\n00:24:45.840 --> 00:24:46.560\nable to tell them\n\n550\n00:24:46.560 --> 00:24:49.430\nthat that's not the right thing because we're doing something here. We're going\n\n551\n00:24:49.430 --> 00:24:50.320\nto bring these 25\n\n552\n00:24:50.320 --> 00:24:53.870\nsites together onto a common platform. And that's our mission. And you need to\n\n553\n00:24:53.870 --> 00:24:54.720\nbe strong in that\n\n554\n00:24:54.720 --> 00:24:57.890\nmission. You need to be the leaders of that mission. And I think in many ways,\n\n555\n00:24:57.890 --> 00:24:58.800\nit was a change in our\n\n556\n00:24:58.800 --> 00:25:03.720\ntechnical culture, the engineers and programmers who write the code to think of\n\n557\n00:25:03.720 --> 00:25:05.120\nthemselves, not as\n\n558\n00:25:05.120 --> 00:25:08.780\npeople who were receiving people's instructions, but as the people who were\n\n559\n00:25:08.780 --> 00:25:10.000\ngiving them. And that\n\n560\n00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:13.830\ntransformation, it took a couple of years and it took a lot of coaxing and\n\n561\n00:25:13.830 --> 00:25:14.800\ngetting people out of\n\n562\n00:25:14.800 --> 00:25:19.900\ntheir comfort zone to say, \"Hey, we used to call it this phrase for it.\" We\n\n563\n00:25:19.900 --> 00:25:21.280\ncalled it \"developer spine.\"\n\n564\n00:25:21.280 --> 00:25:26.560\nThey had to learn that no one could push them around and that when it came down\n\n565\n00:25:26.560 --> 00:25:26.960\nto the most\n\n566\n00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:30.510\nimportant things, they had to be the drivers of that change. Developing your\n\n567\n00:25:30.510 --> 00:25:31.040\nspine makes\n\n568\n00:25:31.040 --> 00:25:38.600\nsomething we all have to learn. And then at SurveyMonkey, which is the world's\n\n569\n00:25:38.600 --> 00:25:39.280\nmost popular\n\n570\n00:25:39.280 --> 00:25:44.080\nsurvey platform, you were, as I understand it, celebrating this big acquisition\n\n571\n00:25:44.080 --> 00:25:46.240\nwith Zendesk\n\n572\n00:25:46.240 --> 00:25:50.330\nand then it fell apart. What did it teach you about the role of a leader when\n\n573\n00:25:50.330 --> 00:25:51.600\nplans suddenly\n\n574\n00:25:51.600 --> 00:25:58.160\nchange? When you go from exaltation to OSHA? Well, yeah, and that was certainly\n\n575\n00:25:58.160 --> 00:25:59.840\nactually a big one too.\n\n576\n00:25:59.840 --> 00:26:04.560\nI think I kind of knew it actually the day that Zendesk, who was the acquiring\n\n577\n00:26:04.560 --> 00:26:05.040\ncompany,\n\n578\n00:26:05.040 --> 00:26:08.600\nannounced it. I kind of had this feeling in my gut that it was not going to go\n\n579\n00:26:08.600 --> 00:26:09.120\nwell.\n\n580\n00:26:09.120 --> 00:26:16.480\nI think that leaders have a particularly CEO. I was not the CEO at the time,\n\n581\n00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:18.320\nbut this is true of\n\n582\n00:26:18.320 --> 00:26:23.040\nCEOs, maybe most true of it, that in some sense, when things are going great,\n\n583\n00:26:23.040 --> 00:26:28.880\nthe CEO has to be the one who says, \"Hey, guys, things are going great.\" But\n\n584\n00:26:28.880 --> 00:26:31.440\nbad news could be\n\n585\n00:26:31.440 --> 00:26:34.360\nright around the corner. And we got to be careful that we don't rest on our\n\n586\n00:26:34.360 --> 00:26:35.360\nlaurels or get over\n\n587\n00:26:35.360 --> 00:26:38.960\nconfident. We've got to be thinking about where we're going next. We got to aim\n\n588\n00:26:38.960 --> 00:26:39.520\nhigher for the\n\n589\n00:26:39.520 --> 00:26:44.160\nfuture. We got to watch out for these threats. And I liken it to being on a\n\n590\n00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:44.640\nboat because if\n\n591\n00:26:44.640 --> 00:26:47.090\nthings are going great, everyone goes to one side of the boat and it's like, \"\n\n592\n00:26:47.090 --> 00:26:47.600\nThings are going\n\n593\n00:26:47.600 --> 00:26:50.960\ngreat.\" And the boats kind of tips this way. And only the leader can go to the\n\n594\n00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:51.520\nother side and\n\n595\n00:26:51.520 --> 00:26:54.920\nkind of balance it and say, \"Hey, here's some ways that it's not going great or\n\n596\n00:26:54.920 --> 00:26:55.520\nthat it could go\n\n597\n00:26:55.520 --> 00:27:00.430\nbetter.\" And conversely, and this is the example with the Survey Monkey and Z\n\n598\n00:27:00.430 --> 00:27:00.960\nendesk,\n\n599\n00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:05.280\nwhen people are all, you know, they're down in the mouth because they feel like\n\n600\n00:27:05.280 --> 00:27:05.600\neverything's\n\n601\n00:27:05.600 --> 00:27:08.180\ngoing poorly. They all go to that side of the boat and they're like, \"Oh my God\n\n602\n00:27:08.180 --> 00:27:08.880\n, what was me?\n\n603\n00:27:08.880 --> 00:27:13.560\nWe're doomed.\" The leader has to be the one who says, \"No, actually, there's\n\n604\n00:27:13.560 --> 00:27:14.560\nlight in this darkness,\n\n605\n00:27:14.560 --> 00:27:17.160\nand if you follow me, we're going to make it. We're going to get to the other\n\n606\n00:27:17.160 --> 00:27:18.560\nside.\" And I think\n\n607\n00:27:18.560 --> 00:27:24.880\nthat kind of maybe power and need and responsibility of a leader is to kind of\n\n608\n00:27:24.880 --> 00:27:27.040\nbe that counterbalance.\n\n609\n00:27:27.040 --> 00:27:29.640\nNow, I believe in something called servant leadership, where the leader\n\n610\n00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:31.200\nactually is in service of\n\n611\n00:27:31.200 --> 00:27:35.040\neverybody. You know, everybody works at the company. It's not, \"I'm going to\n\n612\n00:27:35.040 --> 00:27:35.920\ntell you what to do and\n\n613\n00:27:35.920 --> 00:27:38.580\nyou need to do it this way, and I'm the expert and I'm the smartest one.\" It's\n\n614\n00:27:38.580 --> 00:27:39.840\nlike, \"How do I get\n\n615\n00:27:39.840 --> 00:27:44.100\nthe best out of you? How do I make you do your best work?\" And so you have to\n\n616\n00:27:44.100 --> 00:27:45.600\nhave both of those.\n\n617\n00:27:45.600 --> 00:27:49.900\nYou have to have this ability to balance the boat by saying things that, you\n\n618\n00:27:49.900 --> 00:27:50.480\nknow, people don't\n\n619\n00:27:50.480 --> 00:27:54.330\neither see or agree or understand and lead into a new place, but you also need\n\n620\n00:27:54.330 --> 00:27:55.200\nto be able to say,\n\n621\n00:27:55.200 --> 00:28:02.860\n\"Hey, you know, as a leader, I'm here to make you successful.\" And that's my\n\n622\n00:28:02.860 --> 00:28:03.200\ngoal.\n\n623\n00:28:03.200 --> 00:28:07.040\nHey, everyone. It's Kula from How Leaders Lead. And if you've watched our\n\n624\n00:28:07.040 --> 00:28:08.240\npodcast for any number of\n\n625\n00:28:08.240 --> 00:28:12.160\nepisodes, you probably know that a common theme from all of the great leaders\n\n626\n00:28:12.160 --> 00:28:13.040\nwe interview\n\n627\n00:28:13.040 --> 00:28:17.350\nis that they are active learners. They had this commitment to continuing to\n\n628\n00:28:17.350 --> 00:28:18.640\nlearn and grow so that\n\n629\n00:28:18.640 --> 00:28:22.400\nthey don't say a statement and so that they continue to see success in their\n\n630\n00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:23.840\nleadership and in their\n\n631\n00:28:23.840 --> 00:28:28.140\nlife. This theme of active learning is so important and it's what David's\n\n632\n00:28:28.140 --> 00:28:29.520\nlatest book, How Leaders\n\n633\n00:28:29.520 --> 00:28:33.570\nLearn, is all about. It's all about helping you develop that skill of active\n\n634\n00:28:33.570 --> 00:28:34.720\nlearning so that you\n\n635\n00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:39.040\ntoo can continue to see success in your leadership and in your life. The book\n\n636\n00:28:39.040 --> 00:28:40.240\nis really entertaining.\n\n637\n00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:44.210\nIt pulls stories from some of our greatest podcast guests and pairs those\n\n638\n00:28:44.210 --> 00:28:45.040\nstories with\n\n639\n00:28:45.040 --> 00:28:49.080\ninsights that you can incorporate into your leadership and into your life right\n\n640\n00:28:49.080 --> 00:28:50.240\naway. Grab\n\n641\n00:28:50.240 --> 00:28:53.570\nHow Leaders Learn on Amazon or wherever books are sold. And I think you're\n\n642\n00:28:53.570 --> 00:28:54.640\nreally going to love it.\n\n643\n00:28:54.640 --> 00:28:58.640\nYou feel David's personality through the pages and through history telling and\n\n644\n00:28:58.640 --> 00:28:59.760\nit's a really powerful\n\n645\n00:28:59.760 --> 00:29:04.900\nway to level up your leadership. What do you think if you could pick one thing?\n\n646\n00:29:04.900 --> 00:29:05.360\nWhat do you think\n\n647\n00:29:05.360 --> 00:29:10.950\nis the most important thing a leader has to do with people to make them\n\n648\n00:29:10.950 --> 00:29:11.920\nrecognize that\n\n649\n00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:18.080\nthey can rise and they can achieve and be even more than what they are today?\n\n650\n00:29:18.080 --> 00:29:23.520\nWell, it's a great question and I think you're sort of in this business today a\n\n651\n00:29:23.520 --> 00:29:25.200\nlittle bit. You're\n\n652\n00:29:25.200 --> 00:29:29.370\ntrying to find out what it is that motivates somebody and if you can figure out\n\n653\n00:29:29.370 --> 00:29:30.640\nwhat it is that motivates\n\n654\n00:29:30.640 --> 00:29:35.360\nthem, maybe conversely what it is that demotivates them, you can help them\n\n655\n00:29:35.360 --> 00:29:38.080\nunderstand what's possible\n\n656\n00:29:38.080 --> 00:29:41.190\nand you can ask them to do things that they didn't think they could do. I'll go\n\n657\n00:29:41.190 --> 00:29:42.000\nback to the\n\n658\n00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:46.270\ndeveloper's buying example. A lot of times there wasn't any problem with the\n\n659\n00:29:46.270 --> 00:29:46.960\ndevelopers being\n\n660\n00:29:46.960 --> 00:29:50.580\nleaders. They were perfectly capable of being leaders but they just sort of had\n\n661\n00:29:50.580 --> 00:29:51.120\ncome to believe\n\n662\n00:29:51.120 --> 00:29:54.770\nthat in this company they didn't have a vote. They didn't have a seat at the\n\n663\n00:29:54.770 --> 00:29:55.760\ntable and so I had to\n\n664\n00:29:55.760 --> 00:29:59.430\nsay to them, listen you guys, not only do you have a vote but it's an important\n\n665\n00:29:59.430 --> 00:30:00.480\none and you guys need\n\n666\n00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:05.180\nto rise and you need to see that glass of water at the center of the table and\n\n667\n00:30:05.180 --> 00:30:06.160\nsay, hey, I am going\n\n668\n00:30:06.160 --> 00:30:09.480\nto take a sip of that. That glass is the glass of leadership. I'm going to grab\n\n669\n00:30:09.480 --> 00:30:10.080\nit. I'm going to\n\n670\n00:30:10.080 --> 00:30:15.010\ndrink it and then I'm going to be a leader too. That idea of inspiring people\n\n671\n00:30:15.010 --> 00:30:15.920\nto do something that\n\n672\n00:30:15.920 --> 00:30:21.740\nthey don't think they can do or maybe don't feel capable of doing. We have a\n\n673\n00:30:21.740 --> 00:30:22.320\nway of talking about\n\n674\n00:30:22.320 --> 00:30:27.050\nit at Ora and I'll call it, this is a quote that I'll make from my colleague\n\n675\n00:30:27.050 --> 00:30:28.960\nMichael Chapp. He's the\n\n676\n00:30:28.960 --> 00:30:32.430\none who told me about it and I love it. He says, listen, you got to get outside\n\n677\n00:30:32.430 --> 00:30:33.600\nof your comfort zone\n\n678\n00:30:33.600 --> 00:30:37.210\nbecause when you get outside of your comfort zone, that's where the magic\n\n679\n00:30:37.210 --> 00:30:38.480\nhappens and that's\n\n680\n00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:42.880\nwhat the leadership has to do is to help you get outside of your comfort zone.\n\n681\n00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:50.240\nWhen you stepped into the role of CEO of Ora, how comfortable were you? What\n\n682\n00:30:50.240 --> 00:30:51.120\nbrought you to Ora\n\n683\n00:30:51.120 --> 00:30:56.930\nand why are you sitting at that desk today? Let me just say this. It was a big\n\n684\n00:30:56.930 --> 00:30:57.680\nstep and\n\n685\n00:30:57.680 --> 00:31:01.600\nmaybe I was pretty far outside of my comfort zone. Maybe that's why that\n\n686\n00:31:01.600 --> 00:31:02.720\ncomment really resonates\n\n687\n00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:08.330\nwith me. It was a complicated business. It was a new space. I was climbing a\n\n688\n00:31:08.330 --> 00:31:09.680\nlearning curve that\n\n689\n00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:16.960\nwas as steep as any as I've ever climbed. I had a great reserve of passion and\n\n690\n00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:17.760\nenergy and love for\n\n691\n00:31:17.760 --> 00:31:22.560\nthe product and the reason for that was because after the zen desk survey\n\n692\n00:31:22.560 --> 00:31:23.840\nmonkey situation,\n\n693\n00:31:23.840 --> 00:31:28.300\nI'd lost sleep for the first time in my life and I got this product and it\n\n694\n00:31:28.300 --> 00:31:29.680\nchanged my life.\n\n695\n00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:34.800\nI was very personally motivated and very personally passionate about the\n\n696\n00:31:34.800 --> 00:31:36.320\npotential for Ora.\n\n697\n00:31:36.320 --> 00:31:40.490\nThat came through even though it was outside of my comfort zone. That passion\n\n698\n00:31:40.490 --> 00:31:41.440\ncarried me through\n\n699\n00:31:41.440 --> 00:31:46.480\nthe discomfort. I think people saw that. Every employee, if you asked them\n\n700\n00:31:46.480 --> 00:31:46.720\ntoday,\n\n701\n00:31:46.720 --> 00:31:51.360\nif they were there when I got there, would they say, \"Hey, was it obvious that\n\n702\n00:31:51.360 --> 00:31:52.400\nTom loved this product\n\n703\n00:31:52.400 --> 00:31:54.800\nand that believed that it was going to be incredible and that this company was\n\n704\n00:31:54.800 --> 00:31:55.440\ngoing to be a once\n\n705\n00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:59.330\nin a generation company?\" They would say, \"Absolutely.\" Came right through,\n\n706\n00:31:59.330 --> 00:32:00.480\nshown through his eyes like\n\n707\n00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:07.760\nsome light. How did you develop the know-how on the brand and the category that\n\n708\n00:32:07.760 --> 00:32:13.200\ngave people a sense that you really did know what needed to be done and that\n\n709\n00:32:13.200 --> 00:32:14.160\nthey would follow you?\n\n710\n00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:20.110\nBefore people will follow you, they got to feel like you actually know what you\n\n711\n00:32:20.110 --> 00:32:21.120\n're talking about.\n\n712\n00:32:21.120 --> 00:32:27.050\nIt's so true. If they don't trust you, they don't follow you. In fact, an old\n\n713\n00:32:27.050 --> 00:32:27.760\nboss of mine used to\n\n714\n00:32:27.760 --> 00:32:32.160\nsay, \"How can you tell the leaders in the room, Tom?\" I'd be like, \"I don't\n\n715\n00:32:32.160 --> 00:32:32.720\nknow. The one with the\n\n716\n00:32:32.720 --> 00:32:37.250\nleadership qualities.\" He'd say, \"No, no, no. The followers. That's how you\n\n717\n00:32:37.250 --> 00:32:38.400\nknow who the leaders are.\"\n\n718\n00:32:38.400 --> 00:32:42.400\nHis point was that leaders aren't always at the top of the org chart. They're\n\n719\n00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:43.120\nthe ones that people\n\n720\n00:32:43.120 --> 00:32:51.250\nfollow. How did I do it? Honestly, I think a couple of things. One is, look, I\n\n721\n00:32:51.250 --> 00:32:52.880\n'd been somebody who had\n\n722\n00:32:52.880 --> 00:32:57.250\nbeen used in wearables since the early 2000s. I had some skills and some\n\n723\n00:32:57.250 --> 00:32:58.400\nunderstanding.\n\n724\n00:32:58.400 --> 00:33:03.580\nI'd also had a really recent experience where I had lost sleep because of the\n\n725\n00:33:03.580 --> 00:33:04.640\nstresses of COVID\n\n726\n00:33:04.640 --> 00:33:10.660\nand because of the unraveling of the Survey Monkey acquisition and then had\n\n727\n00:33:10.660 --> 00:33:11.760\nrecovered sleep\n\n728\n00:33:11.760 --> 00:33:15.640\nand knew exactly how powerful that could be for somebody, how transformative. I\n\n729\n00:33:15.640 --> 00:33:16.640\nliken it to\n\n730\n00:33:18.640 --> 00:33:25.150\nwalking out of a black and white television set onto a 4K technical or movie\n\n731\n00:33:25.150 --> 00:33:26.560\nwhere all of a sudden,\n\n732\n00:33:26.560 --> 00:33:30.820\nyou realize what experience could be like and that was transformative. So\n\n733\n00:33:30.820 --> 00:33:31.920\npeople could see that.\n\n734\n00:33:31.920 --> 00:33:36.730\nI think another dimension of it was I approached it with a tremendous amount of\n\n735\n00:33:36.730 --> 00:33:37.200\nrespect.\n\n736\n00:33:37.200 --> 00:33:43.360\nOne of the first things that I did was actually to travel to Finland where the\n\n737\n00:33:43.360 --> 00:33:44.240\nmajority of the\n\n738\n00:33:44.240 --> 00:33:49.520\ntechnical staff was located at the time. I wanted to go within the first week\n\n739\n00:33:49.520 --> 00:33:50.160\nbecause I wanted to\n\n740\n00:33:50.160 --> 00:33:54.760\nshow them that they had my respect and that I understood that they were the\n\n741\n00:33:54.760 --> 00:33:55.440\npeople who created\n\n742\n00:33:55.440 --> 00:33:59.230\nthe value in the company, the algorithms, the hardware, the software, the\n\n743\n00:33:59.230 --> 00:34:00.480\nexperience that Ora\n\n744\n00:34:00.480 --> 00:34:05.350\ndelivers. I got COVID that week and I was like, I'm still coming. I'm going to\n\n745\n00:34:05.350 --> 00:34:06.080\ncome and they were\n\n746\n00:34:06.080 --> 00:34:11.050\nlike, yeah, no, please don't come. You've got COVID, please don't come. So I\n\n747\n00:34:11.050 --> 00:34:12.080\ncame, whatever it was,\n\n748\n00:34:12.080 --> 00:34:16.720\nI get like 10 days after and I came and expressed my respect and I think that\n\n749\n00:34:16.720 --> 00:34:18.560\nmade a huge impact on\n\n750\n00:34:18.560 --> 00:34:23.750\nthem because to know that the person who's been anointed as the leader of the\n\n751\n00:34:23.750 --> 00:34:25.200\ncompany both understands\n\n752\n00:34:25.200 --> 00:34:30.110\nthem and wants to learn more about them and wants to respect them, I think it\n\n753\n00:34:30.110 --> 00:34:30.640\njust went\n\n754\n00:34:30.640 --> 00:34:36.620\nan incredibly long way. So when you took over in 2022, Ora had sold about a\n\n755\n00:34:36.620 --> 00:34:37.440\nmillion rings.\n\n756\n00:34:38.160 --> 00:34:42.960\nNow you've more than doubled that to two and a half million. What's the single\n\n757\n00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:44.000\nbiggest strategic\n\n758\n00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:48.500\ndecision that you made that really unlocked that growth? Yeah, I don't know\n\n759\n00:34:48.500 --> 00:34:49.360\nthat I could say that\n\n760\n00:34:49.360 --> 00:34:53.210\nit was any single decision. There's never a silver bullet, which I think is a\n\n761\n00:34:53.210 --> 00:34:54.560\ngood leadership lesson.\n\n762\n00:34:54.560 --> 00:35:01.440\nIt's any successful businesses built through a lot of some big ideas but a lot\n\n763\n00:35:01.440 --> 00:35:02.480\nof small,\n\n764\n00:35:03.040 --> 00:35:07.400\nimportant ideas that are executed well. But if I had to sort of pin it down to\n\n765\n00:35:07.400 --> 00:35:09.200\nthree, I think one\n\n766\n00:35:09.200 --> 00:35:13.750\nwould be the focus on women. One of the things that the Ora ring can do quite\n\n767\n00:35:13.750 --> 00:35:15.280\nwell is measure\n\n768\n00:35:15.280 --> 00:35:20.300\nyour temperature and that is a key to unlocking where you are in your cycle. We\n\n769\n00:35:20.300 --> 00:35:21.360\nkind of realized\n\n770\n00:35:21.360 --> 00:35:27.630\nthis early on and it unlocked a bunch of applications for women, one being the\n\n771\n00:35:27.630 --> 00:35:29.120\nability to predict the\n\n772\n00:35:29.120 --> 00:35:33.120\nday that your period is going to arrive. Another is understanding when you're\n\n773\n00:35:33.120 --> 00:35:39.600\novulating and therefore your fertility is at its peak. Or maybe better yet and\n\n774\n00:35:39.600 --> 00:35:40.320\nwe do this with a\n\n775\n00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:44.730\npartner called Natural Cycles when you can have sex without worrying about\n\n776\n00:35:44.730 --> 00:35:45.840\ngetting pregnant.\n\n777\n00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:52.400\nUnderstanding how your body changes as you go through your cycle. These were\n\n778\n00:35:52.400 --> 00:35:53.120\nall things that\n\n779\n00:35:53.120 --> 00:35:57.660\nwere just not in the marketplace and so we really nailed it for women and that\n\n780\n00:35:57.660 --> 00:35:58.800\nwas a huge unlock\n\n781\n00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:03.920\nfor the business. Most people think of wearables as sort of a fitness tool. How\n\n782\n00:36:03.920 --> 00:36:05.040\ndo I get fit?\n\n783\n00:36:05.040 --> 00:36:10.740\nAnd at the time, no one was really solving for even the fitness needs of women\n\n784\n00:36:10.740 --> 00:36:11.360\nspecifically.\n\n785\n00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:15.760\nThey had a pink bracelet or something like that, a pink fitbit but it wasn't\n\n786\n00:36:15.760 --> 00:36:16.080\nreally\n\n787\n00:36:16.080 --> 00:36:21.200\nspecifically tuned to a woman's physiology. So that was one. The second was\n\n788\n00:36:21.200 --> 00:36:24.320\nretail. You look\n\n789\n00:36:24.320 --> 00:36:28.390\nat this device here and you kind of see it. It has the properties of jewelry.\n\n790\n00:36:28.390 --> 00:36:30.000\nIt has a\n\n791\n00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:34.010\nparticular finish. It looks a certain way on your hand. It has to sort of fit\n\n792\n00:36:34.010 --> 00:36:34.880\ninto your life as a\n\n793\n00:36:34.880 --> 00:36:41.040\npiece of kit that you would wear on your body 24/7. What we realized was that\n\n794\n00:36:41.040 --> 00:36:42.480\npeople wanted to see\n\n795\n00:36:42.480 --> 00:36:47.360\nit. We had been up until that point just a purely D to C business where you\n\n796\n00:36:47.360 --> 00:36:48.480\ncould go to the website\n\n797\n00:36:48.480 --> 00:36:51.550\nand you could see it or maybe you could see it on a friend and a lot of our\n\n798\n00:36:51.550 --> 00:36:52.640\nsales came from\n\n799\n00:36:52.640 --> 00:36:57.440\nreferrals. But if you wanted to see it, try it on, look how it looks against\n\n800\n00:36:57.440 --> 00:36:58.160\nyour skin. You\n\n801\n00:36:58.160 --> 00:37:01.770\nneeded a way to do that and retail really unlocked that. So we went big into\n\n802\n00:37:01.770 --> 00:37:02.240\nretail.\n\n803\n00:37:02.240 --> 00:37:07.040\nAnd this was a controversial decision at the time because we had been D to C up\n\n804\n00:37:07.040 --> 00:37:07.520\nuntil that\n\n805\n00:37:07.520 --> 00:37:13.760\npoint but we went deep with Target, Best Buy, Amazon to really unlock retail.\n\n806\n00:37:13.760 --> 00:37:14.560\nAnd that was a\n\n807\n00:37:14.560 --> 00:37:18.540\nbig second factor. And then the third factor, and this is really interesting,\n\n808\n00:37:18.540 --> 00:37:20.160\nand maybe most\n\n809\n00:37:20.160 --> 00:37:23.740\npeople may not even know this, but you can use what's called your health\n\n810\n00:37:23.740 --> 00:37:24.480\nsavings account\n\n811\n00:37:24.480 --> 00:37:31.140\nor your flexible spending account, HSA or FSA funds to purchase an OR ring. And\n\n812\n00:37:31.140 --> 00:37:31.680\nat the time,\n\n813\n00:37:31.680 --> 00:37:36.610\nbuying a wearable, the kinds of wearables you could get were the sorts of\n\n814\n00:37:36.610 --> 00:37:37.760\nthings that you would get\n\n815\n00:37:37.760 --> 00:37:43.120\nfor a purely kind of medical context. They were not more broadly written a\n\n816\n00:37:43.120 --> 00:37:43.760\nhealth wearable. They\n\n817\n00:37:43.760 --> 00:37:47.120\nwere like things that you would get very specific to a particular health\n\n818\n00:37:47.120 --> 00:37:48.960\ncontext. So when we got\n\n819\n00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:55.300\nthe HSA, FSA kind of unlock, we turned that on and all of a sudden we helped\n\n820\n00:37:55.300 --> 00:37:55.920\npeople realize that\n\n821\n00:37:55.920 --> 00:37:59.750\nthey could have access to this product and they could use these funds which are\n\n822\n00:37:59.750 --> 00:38:00.480\neffectively\n\n823\n00:38:00.480 --> 00:38:03.480\npre-tax funds and apply them to something that was going to help their prevent\n\n824\n00:38:03.480 --> 00:38:04.320\native health.\n\n825\n00:38:04.320 --> 00:38:08.480\nAnd that was a huge unlock. That was remarkable. So those three things were big\n\n826\n00:38:08.480 --> 00:38:09.920\nstrategic elements\n\n827\n00:38:09.920 --> 00:38:13.900\nthat drove the business. We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with\n\n828\n00:38:13.900 --> 00:38:14.880\nTom Hale in just a\n\n829\n00:38:14.880 --> 00:38:20.240\nmoment. I'm sure you can see Tom is a deeply empathetic leader. And you know,\n\n830\n00:38:20.240 --> 00:38:21.680\npeople sometimes\n\n831\n00:38:21.680 --> 00:38:27.200\ntry to make empathy seem like something soft and fluffy. But Johnny Taylor at\n\n832\n00:38:27.200 --> 00:38:28.400\nthe Society of Human\n\n833\n00:38:28.400 --> 00:38:33.590\nResource Management has a different take and I love it. He encourages leaders\n\n834\n00:38:33.590 --> 00:38:34.720\nto treat empathy\n\n835\n00:38:34.720 --> 00:38:40.050\nlike a business imperative because it is one. People hear empathy and conflate\n\n836\n00:38:40.050 --> 00:38:41.200\nit with sympathy.\n\n837\n00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:47.630\nThat's the number one problem. And sympathy is softer by definition, right? It\n\n838\n00:38:47.630 --> 00:38:48.000\n's you,\n\n839\n00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:53.280\nsomeone loses a parent or sibling, whatever, and you sympathize with them\n\n840\n00:38:53.280 --> 00:38:55.360\nversus empathizing\n\n841\n00:38:55.360 --> 00:39:00.860\nthis whole concept of every day trying to experience life not just through your\n\n842\n00:39:00.860 --> 00:39:01.840\neyes but through the\n\n843\n00:39:01.840 --> 00:39:06.280\neyes of the person on the other side of the conversation. It's built into why I\n\n844\n00:39:06.280 --> 00:39:06.960\nthink we've\n\n845\n00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:10.810\nhad this real diversity problem in our organizations. It's because we can\n\n846\n00:39:10.810 --> 00:39:12.000\nachieve diversity. We go\n\n847\n00:39:12.000 --> 00:39:16.400\nhigher people who are different by definition. You get diversity. But then we\n\n848\n00:39:16.400 --> 00:39:17.440\n're not looking at\n\n849\n00:39:17.440 --> 00:39:21.490\nthem through their diverse experiences and trying to do it through the lens of\n\n850\n00:39:21.490 --> 00:39:22.000\nempathy.\n\n851\n00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:27.120\nAs a result, you're bringing them in and they're leaving very quickly. So it is\n\n852\n00:39:27.120 --> 00:39:27.840\nnow a business\n\n853\n00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:31.670\nimperative and a knowledge-based economy, David. You don't have the luxury of\n\n854\n00:39:31.670 --> 00:39:32.560\nhaving people just\n\n855\n00:39:32.560 --> 00:39:35.700\ncome and leave, bringing people into an environment that's not particularly em\n\n856\n00:39:35.700 --> 00:39:36.720\npathetic when they can\n\n857\n00:39:36.720 --> 00:39:40.720\ngo get other jobs means you're going to lose them and thus lose the game. We\n\n858\n00:39:40.720 --> 00:39:41.680\ndid some research just\n\n859\n00:39:41.680 --> 00:39:48.000\nrecently at SHRM. 93% of employees said they would leave a job that they like,\n\n860\n00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:49.520\nokay? A job we're\n\n861\n00:39:49.520 --> 00:39:54.580\nimperfectly fine to go work for a more empathetic organization. So if that\n\n862\n00:39:54.580 --> 00:39:56.080\ndoesn't make the case\n\n863\n00:39:56.080 --> 00:40:00.200\nthat this empathy is a business imperative and not just to feel good moral\n\n864\n00:40:00.200 --> 00:40:01.120\nimperative,\n\n865\n00:40:01.120 --> 00:40:05.120\nI don't know what does. Nine out of ten of your employees are saying, listen,\n\n866\n00:40:05.120 --> 00:40:09.520\nI'll go to the guy across the street in a place where I think people are more\n\n867\n00:40:09.520 --> 00:40:10.400\nempathetic in their\n\n868\n00:40:10.400 --> 00:40:16.210\napproach. Again, not to be confused with sympathy. It's empathy. Go back and\n\n869\n00:40:16.210 --> 00:40:17.280\nlisten to my entire\n\n870\n00:40:17.280 --> 00:40:23.210\nconversation with Johnny. Episode 52 here on How Leaders Lead. You're in a\n\n871\n00:40:23.210 --> 00:40:24.160\nbusiness where\n\n872\n00:40:24.160 --> 00:40:28.320\nmonth after month you have to earn your customers trust so they renew your\n\n873\n00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:29.680\nsubscription. What's\n\n874\n00:40:29.680 --> 00:40:34.720\nthe most important things you do to keep people engaged and loyal? Look, I love\n\n875\n00:40:34.720 --> 00:40:35.200\nsubscription\n\n876\n00:40:35.200 --> 00:40:38.740\nbusinesses for just that reason, which is that you kind of got to earn your\n\n877\n00:40:38.740 --> 00:40:40.640\ncustomer loyalty every\n\n878\n00:40:40.640 --> 00:40:45.200\nmonth. We were at the time just a monthly subscription. If you're not\n\n879\n00:40:45.200 --> 00:40:47.280\ndelivering enough value,\n\n880\n00:40:47.280 --> 00:40:51.440\nthey're not going to retain. If you're delivering plenty of value but your\n\n881\n00:40:51.440 --> 00:40:52.400\nprice is too high,\n\n882\n00:40:52.400 --> 00:40:56.480\nthey're not going to retain. A way to think about is there's an equation in my\n\n883\n00:40:56.480 --> 00:40:57.760\nhead that's\n\n884\n00:40:57.760 --> 00:41:04.080\nV over P, value over price. In a subscription business, if your V over P ratio\n\n885\n00:41:04.080 --> 00:41:05.200\nis right around\n\n886\n00:41:05.200 --> 00:41:09.120\none, meaning your value and your price are roughly equal, you're not going to\n\n887\n00:41:09.120 --> 00:41:10.240\nretain people because\n\n888\n00:41:10.240 --> 00:41:14.310\nthey have to think about it. Am I getting enough value this month and not a...\n\n889\n00:41:14.310 --> 00:41:15.200\nThink about Netflix\n\n890\n00:41:15.200 --> 00:41:19.240\nor something like that. We're like, \"Oh, do I want to subscribe to this now or\n\n891\n00:41:19.240 --> 00:41:20.240\nnot?\" The thing is the\n\n892\n00:41:20.240 --> 00:41:24.330\nV to P ratio for Netflix or Spotify or anything like that. It's huge. You get\n\n893\n00:41:24.330 --> 00:41:25.360\naccess to every song\n\n894\n00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:29.470\nyou might ever possibly want to hear for $9.99 a month. Wow, that's a great\n\n895\n00:41:29.470 --> 00:41:30.640\nbargain. I'm going to\n\n896\n00:41:30.640 --> 00:41:36.510\ntotally retain on that. I really love subscription business models. For Aura,\n\n897\n00:41:36.510 --> 00:41:37.760\nwhat I realized and\n\n898\n00:41:37.760 --> 00:41:41.400\nwhat maybe the company realized, there was a lot of anxiety about going to a\n\n899\n00:41:41.400 --> 00:41:42.560\nsubscription business\n\n900\n00:41:42.560 --> 00:41:46.770\nmodel. It's a little bit unusual in the world of hardware. Generally, you buy a\n\n901\n00:41:46.770 --> 00:41:47.760\npiece of hardware\n\n902\n00:41:47.760 --> 00:41:50.930\nand then you pay for it and then you get to use it as much as you want. You don\n\n903\n00:41:50.930 --> 00:41:51.760\n't have to pay\n\n904\n00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:56.460\na monthly fee. What we realized was that if what we're providing is a check\n\n905\n00:41:56.460 --> 00:41:57.520\nengine light for your\n\n906\n00:41:57.520 --> 00:42:01.310\nbody or we're providing you insights about your body that you don't know, that\n\n907\n00:42:01.310 --> 00:42:02.480\nyou're not aware of,\n\n908\n00:42:02.480 --> 00:42:09.020\nthe value of that, the V is huge. The price, we charge $6 a month, the price is\n\n909\n00:42:09.020 --> 00:42:11.040\nlow. If the V to\n\n910\n00:42:11.040 --> 00:42:17.570\nP ratio is more than two or more than 10, you're going to retain customers. We\n\n911\n00:42:17.570 --> 00:42:18.560\nwere both, I think,\n\n912\n00:42:18.560 --> 00:42:23.040\na little apprehensive but very, very positively surprised at the retention\n\n913\n00:42:23.040 --> 00:42:23.760\nbecause that V to P\n\n914\n00:42:23.760 --> 00:42:28.060\nratio is so strong. That makes so much sense. Another thing you said makes a\n\n915\n00:42:28.060 --> 00:42:28.720\nlot of sense is\n\n916\n00:42:28.720 --> 00:42:31.720\npeople want to see the ring. They want to see what it looked like and that\n\n917\n00:42:31.720 --> 00:42:32.880\nretail really helped to\n\n918\n00:42:32.880 --> 00:42:39.600\nkick off your business. Has there been a challenge in how you look at the\n\n919\n00:42:39.600 --> 00:42:41.760\ndesign of the ring versus\n\n920\n00:42:41.760 --> 00:42:46.480\nthe capacity of the ring to deliver all the health monitor stuff that you\n\n921\n00:42:46.480 --> 00:42:48.960\nwanted to do?\n\n922\n00:42:48.960 --> 00:42:54.720\nYeah, I think it's so interesting because there's this utility part of it. It's\n\n923\n00:42:54.720 --> 00:42:55.520\nthe features,\n\n924\n00:42:55.520 --> 00:43:02.230\nit's the benefits, it's the data. In fact, I think utility is how technology\n\n925\n00:43:02.230 --> 00:43:02.720\nmarketing has\n\n926\n00:43:02.720 --> 00:43:08.790\nbeen for ever. It's like, \"Oh, we've got the 32 megabytes. The next generation,\n\n927\n00:43:08.790 --> 00:43:10.000\nit's all about\n\n928\n00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:13.190\nthe utility and the features and the feeds and the speeds.\" I think what was\n\n929\n00:43:13.190 --> 00:43:13.920\nreally interesting\n\n930\n00:43:13.920 --> 00:43:18.070\nfor me about Aura was that it was also a design and maybe aesthetic decision\n\n931\n00:43:18.070 --> 00:43:19.360\nthat people were making\n\n932\n00:43:19.360 --> 00:43:23.170\nand that they really liked the aesthetic. I'll give you the very concrete\n\n933\n00:43:23.170 --> 00:43:23.680\nexample,\n\n934\n00:43:23.680 --> 00:43:27.280\nwhich is that we have different finishes for the ring. There's black and silver\n\n935\n00:43:27.280 --> 00:43:27.280\n,\n\n936\n00:43:27.280 --> 00:43:33.840\ngold and what we call brushed silver, which is basically a matte titanium. Then\n\n937\n00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:34.640\nwe have the premium\n\n938\n00:43:34.640 --> 00:43:42.640\nfinishes, which include gold. What we learned was that people actually felt\n\n939\n00:43:42.640 --> 00:43:43.840\nthat seeing a different\n\n940\n00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:47.380\nprice point for those rings actually made sense to them. They were happy to\n\n941\n00:43:47.380 --> 00:43:48.480\nhave an entry price\n\n942\n00:43:48.480 --> 00:43:53.610\npoint for black and silver and happy or maybe willing to pay a premium for gold\n\n943\n00:43:53.610 --> 00:43:54.720\nand for brushed\n\n944\n00:43:54.720 --> 00:44:00.470\nsilver. It was a really interesting learning to understand that there's value\n\n945\n00:44:00.470 --> 00:44:01.440\nin here that's not\n\n946\n00:44:01.440 --> 00:44:06.480\njust the utility. Does it fit in with my jewelry? I'm a gold jewelry person. I\n\n947\n00:44:06.480 --> 00:44:08.240\n'm somebody who wants\n\n948\n00:44:08.240 --> 00:44:12.000\nit to look a certain way. I almost want to call it fashion, even though I don't\n\n949\n00:44:12.000 --> 00:44:12.480\nthink we would ever\n\n950\n00:44:12.480 --> 00:44:17.460\ndescribe ourselves as a fashion company. It really came to roost. I learned\n\n951\n00:44:17.460 --> 00:44:18.560\nthis first hand when we\n\n952\n00:44:18.560 --> 00:44:25.060\nintroduced a ring that we partnered with Gucci. This ring was amazing. It was a\n\n953\n00:44:25.060 --> 00:44:26.160\nGucci design\n\n954\n00:44:26.160 --> 00:44:31.730\nand it was black and had gold braid around the edge and the interlocking, gold\n\n955\n00:44:31.730 --> 00:44:32.480\nG and stuff like\n\n956\n00:44:32.480 --> 00:44:37.520\nthat. It looked like something that if you were Caesar, you might wear to a gl\n\n957\n00:44:37.520 --> 00:44:38.880\nadiatorial combat in\n\n958\n00:44:38.880 --> 00:44:46.090\nthe Colosseum. It was a really amazing thing to look at. When we were talking\n\n959\n00:44:46.090 --> 00:44:48.080\nto the team at Gucci,\n\n960\n00:44:48.080 --> 00:44:51.120\nwe were trying to decide how to price it. They said, \"Oh, well, you should\n\n961\n00:44:51.120 --> 00:44:52.080\nprice it in a thousand\n\n962\n00:44:52.080 --> 00:44:55.900\neuros.\" I was like, \"You're kidding me. There's no way we can charge a thousand\n\n963\n00:44:55.900 --> 00:44:58.080\n.\" The utility,\n\n964\n00:44:58.080 --> 00:45:01.620\nwe charge $300 for that utility. They're like, \"No, no, no. You don't\n\n965\n00:45:01.620 --> 00:45:02.880\nunderstand what you've got here.\n\n966\n00:45:02.880 --> 00:45:09.060\nIt's amazing.\" We priced that at a thousand euros and we sold through in five\n\n967\n00:45:09.060 --> 00:45:09.840\nweeks,\n\n968\n00:45:09.840 --> 00:45:14.160\neverything we'd built. We had to go and do another manufacturing run. It's one\n\n969\n00:45:14.160 --> 00:45:14.480\nof these things\n\n970\n00:45:14.480 --> 00:45:19.700\nwhere the intangible value, how it looked, what it meant to own it, what it\n\n971\n00:45:19.700 --> 00:45:20.720\nsignified,\n\n972\n00:45:20.720 --> 00:45:24.490\nthe fact that it was Gucci, all these things really carried through into that\n\n973\n00:45:24.490 --> 00:45:25.200\nvalue.\n\n974\n00:45:25.200 --> 00:45:29.440\nThere were intangibles in the V over P in that case. What's the single biggest\n\n975\n00:45:29.440 --> 00:45:30.480\nbehavior that\n\n976\n00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:36.400\nyou're really trying to drive and reinforce and or? I know you have a number of\n\n977\n00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:37.120\ncore values\n\n978\n00:45:37.120 --> 00:45:42.160\nlike most companies, but what's the thing that you think's the most important?\n\n979\n00:45:42.160 --> 00:45:47.550\nWell, I think maybe the most important is trust. One of our values is earned\n\n980\n00:45:47.550 --> 00:45:48.160\ntrust.\n\n981\n00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:56.560\nMaybe that relationship that a company has with, in our case the ORA member,\n\n982\n00:45:56.560 --> 00:46:00.970\nwe have to earn their trust, which means that we have to be right. If we make a\n\n983\n00:46:00.970 --> 00:46:01.600\nprediction about\n\n984\n00:46:01.600 --> 00:46:07.330\nyou being sick in a couple of days or what we call your major symptoms are\n\n985\n00:46:07.330 --> 00:46:08.960\nbeing flagged,\n\n986\n00:46:08.960 --> 00:46:15.360\nwhich tells you that your body's been stressed in a certain way, you have to be\n\n987\n00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:15.600\nright.\n\n988\n00:46:15.600 --> 00:46:19.210\nIf you do that a bunch of times and you're not right, then it's like, \"Why don\n\n989\n00:46:19.210 --> 00:46:19.680\n't trust this\n\n990\n00:46:19.680 --> 00:46:23.440\nthing? It's not going to tell me anything. It's actually subtracting value from\n\n991\n00:46:23.440 --> 00:46:24.080\nmy life.\"\n\n992\n00:46:24.080 --> 00:46:31.840\nAnother way of thinking about trust is we have a sacred duty to protect and to\n\n993\n00:46:31.840 --> 00:46:33.120\nserve you as the\n\n994\n00:46:33.120 --> 00:46:36.130\nORA member. We're here for you. We're not here for anybody else. We're not\n\n995\n00:46:36.130 --> 00:46:37.040\ntrying to sell you ads\n\n996\n00:46:37.040 --> 00:46:41.460\nor sell you some other product. We are here to protect you and make you healthy\n\n997\n00:46:41.460 --> 00:46:43.280\n. That's such an\n\n998\n00:46:43.280 --> 00:46:47.480\nimportant part of what we do. It's such an important value. I think that we at\n\n999\n00:46:47.480 --> 00:46:48.400\nthe company,\n\n1000\n00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:53.200\nwe've made one of the core things that we do is that we earn your trust. That\n\n1001\n00:46:53.200 --> 00:46:54.080\nstarts with\n\n1002\n00:46:54.080 --> 00:46:59.920\ngetting it right, but it also continues with making sure that we're there only\n\n1003\n00:46:59.920 --> 00:47:00.480\nfor you. We're\n\n1004\n00:47:00.480 --> 00:47:06.320\nnot trying to sell you something else. We're not trying to make sure you're\n\n1005\n00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:06.960\nliving a long and\n\n1006\n00:47:06.960 --> 00:47:13.160\nhealthy life. How do you assess somebody's ability to engender trust when you\n\n1007\n00:47:13.160 --> 00:47:14.640\n're interviewing?\n\n1008\n00:47:15.680 --> 00:47:21.890\nGod, it's such a great question. I think authenticity, I think we've had\n\n1009\n00:47:21.890 --> 00:47:23.840\nroughly 100,000 human generations\n\n1010\n00:47:23.840 --> 00:47:32.480\nof humanity, based on how someone is looking at you or talking to you or moving\n\n1011\n00:47:32.480 --> 00:47:33.200\ntheir body or\n\n1012\n00:47:33.200 --> 00:47:37.740\nexpressions on their face, whether or not you believe them. I think we've\n\n1013\n00:47:37.740 --> 00:47:39.760\ndeveloped some incredible\n\n1014\n00:47:39.760 --> 00:47:43.040\nkind of subroutines in our brains for determining as to somebody who's going to\n\n1015\n00:47:43.040 --> 00:47:45.280\ntry and help me or\n\n1016\n00:47:45.280 --> 00:47:51.450\nhurt me. Back from the very early days of humanity where we were just lifting\n\n1017\n00:47:51.450 --> 00:47:53.120\nup from the savannas\n\n1018\n00:47:53.120 --> 00:47:58.920\nof Africa. I think we have a lot of actually gut instincts that come to mind.\n\n1019\n00:47:58.920 --> 00:47:59.520\nPeople can see\n\n1020\n00:47:59.520 --> 00:48:03.520\nauthenticity and they can sense it. They can also just as easily sense in\n\n1021\n00:48:03.520 --> 00:48:04.720\nauthenticity. In many\n\n1022\n00:48:04.720 --> 00:48:10.080\nways, for me, it's a sense. If someone uses a lot of phrases like, \"Well, to be\n\n1023\n00:48:10.080 --> 00:48:11.120\nhonest, David,\"\n\n1024\n00:48:11.840 --> 00:48:15.690\nto be honest, you sort of have to be like, \"Well, wait, are you saying you're\n\n1025\n00:48:15.690 --> 00:48:16.400\nnot being honest the\n\n1026\n00:48:16.400 --> 00:48:20.630\nrest of the time?\" I think some of it is just like, \"Can you feel that trust\n\n1027\n00:48:20.630 --> 00:48:21.920\ncoming off that person?\n\n1028\n00:48:21.920 --> 00:48:25.950\nCan you do that?\" Now, engendering trust is different. You have to be authentic\n\n1029\n00:48:25.950 --> 00:48:27.120\n, but you also have to\n\n1030\n00:48:27.120 --> 00:48:32.400\nhave something that you want to build trust in. I do lean hard on people who\n\n1031\n00:48:32.400 --> 00:48:33.120\nhave a commitment\n\n1032\n00:48:33.120 --> 00:48:37.160\nto the mission and commitment to the values and have a passion for it. Someone\n\n1033\n00:48:37.160 --> 00:48:37.680\nsays to me,\n\n1034\n00:48:37.680 --> 00:48:42.540\n\"I'm coin-operated and I want more money.\" I'm immediately like, \"Okay, yeah.\"\n\n1035\n00:48:42.540 --> 00:48:43.040\nBut this is what\n\n1036\n00:48:43.040 --> 00:48:46.320\nwe do here. We're about making people healthier and live longer lives. That's\n\n1037\n00:48:46.320 --> 00:48:47.280\nwhat we're doing.\n\n1038\n00:48:47.280 --> 00:48:50.750\nI want someone who's to join the company who wants to do that. That's great\n\n1039\n00:48:50.750 --> 00:48:53.200\nstuff. You mentioned\n\n1040\n00:48:53.200 --> 00:48:58.460\nthat you're in a wearable category that may not be the broadest definition of\n\n1041\n00:48:58.460 --> 00:48:59.760\nit. In that category,\n\n1042\n00:48:59.760 --> 00:49:06.330\nyou've got Apple, Samsung, Woop. How do you look at competition? They're\n\n1043\n00:49:06.330 --> 00:49:07.600\nconstantly innovating\n\n1044\n00:49:07.600 --> 00:49:14.720\nwhen you see competitors do something, what gets on your radar screen? Because\n\n1045\n00:49:14.720 --> 00:49:15.680\nyou can follow them\n\n1046\n00:49:15.680 --> 00:49:19.830\nand try to match everything they do. How do you stay true to who you are but\n\n1047\n00:49:19.830 --> 00:49:20.880\nstill change?\n\n1048\n00:49:20.880 --> 00:49:26.750\nYeah, it's such a great question. Obviously, you keep track of what everybody's\n\n1049\n00:49:26.750 --> 00:49:27.280\ndoing.\n\n1050\n00:49:27.280 --> 00:49:33.040\nI think we've got some things that are very special about the product that I\n\n1051\n00:49:33.040 --> 00:49:33.520\nthink are\n\n1052\n00:49:33.520 --> 00:49:38.650\ncalled your defensive mode. Part of it is that it's a very comfortable thing to\n\n1053\n00:49:38.650 --> 00:49:40.240\nwear. It doesn't\n\n1054\n00:49:40.240 --> 00:49:43.300\nlight up in the middle of the night when you're trying to sleep. It doesn't do\n\n1055\n00:49:43.300 --> 00:49:44.080\nthat. It has a\n\n1056\n00:49:44.080 --> 00:49:50.240\nvery long battery life. It's the most accurate because when you measure from\n\n1057\n00:49:50.240 --> 00:49:50.800\nthis side on the\n\n1058\n00:49:50.800 --> 00:49:55.390\nhuman body, it turns out this is a very accurate place to measure from. When\n\n1059\n00:49:55.390 --> 00:49:57.120\nyou go to the hospital,\n\n1060\n00:49:57.120 --> 00:50:00.640\nwhere do they put the sensor? They put the sensor on the tip of your finger.\n\n1061\n00:50:00.640 --> 00:50:01.200\nThey don't put on the\n\n1062\n00:50:01.200 --> 00:50:05.440\nback of your wrist. The reason for that is that it's arterial blood flow that\n\n1063\n00:50:05.440 --> 00:50:06.400\ncomes down your arm.\n\n1064\n00:50:06.400 --> 00:50:11.920\nIt's the strongest right there. The sensors are looking through two millimeters\n\n1065\n00:50:11.920 --> 00:50:12.560\nof uniform\n\n1066\n00:50:12.560 --> 00:50:17.600\ntissue, not a bunch of hair bones in you, tattoos, sun discoloration that you\n\n1067\n00:50:17.600 --> 00:50:18.640\nmight have on the outside\n\n1068\n00:50:18.640 --> 00:50:25.920\nof your arm. Your distal skin coloration is generally lighter. No matter if you\n\n1069\n00:50:25.920 --> 00:50:26.720\n're wet but\n\n1070\n00:50:26.720 --> 00:50:29.910\nshade of color skin you have, it's lighter on the inside. All these\n\n1071\n00:50:29.910 --> 00:50:31.040\ntechnologies around light.\n\n1072\n00:50:31.040 --> 00:50:39.040\nThat is really a fundamental advantage. What you can't do is forget that you\n\n1073\n00:50:39.040 --> 00:50:39.520\nhave to serve\n\n1074\n00:50:39.520 --> 00:50:43.520\nyour customer and your customers different. Most of our competitors are really\n\n1075\n00:50:43.520 --> 00:50:44.080\noriented\n\n1076\n00:50:44.080 --> 00:50:49.130\naround fitness. Fitness is a part of the health equation, but it's not all of\n\n1077\n00:50:49.130 --> 00:50:49.600\nit.\n\n1078\n00:50:49.600 --> 00:50:54.620\nI'll give you an example. If you're somebody who's managing a chronic illness,\n\n1079\n00:50:54.620 --> 00:50:55.360\nand your fitness\n\n1080\n00:50:55.360 --> 00:51:00.640\nwearable says, \"Hey, you need to get your workout in. You're not straining\n\n1081\n00:51:00.640 --> 00:51:01.360\nyourself enough.\"\n\n1082\n00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:07.650\nIt's kind of the wrong message for that person. If you're somebody who's had\n\n1083\n00:51:07.650 --> 00:51:08.240\nheaven forbid\n\n1084\n00:51:08.240 --> 00:51:14.060\nsome kind of eating disorder, and it's like, \"Hey, you've burst through your\n\n1085\n00:51:14.060 --> 00:51:15.280\ncalorie target for the day.\n\n1086\n00:51:15.280 --> 00:51:20.720\nYou need to stop eating. All these things are triggering to people who maybe\n\n1087\n00:51:20.720 --> 00:51:21.280\nhave a different\n\n1088\n00:51:21.280 --> 00:51:24.850\norientation.\" Our strategy has been to really focus on health and maybe think\n\n1089\n00:51:24.850 --> 00:51:25.680\nabout health\n\n1090\n00:51:25.680 --> 00:51:29.600\nvery broadly and over a long period of time. It's not just about like, \"Hey,\n\n1091\n00:51:29.600 --> 00:51:30.400\nwhat's your heart rate\n\n1092\n00:51:30.400 --> 00:51:33.190\nright now?\" It's like, \"How has your heart rate changed over the last six\n\n1093\n00:51:33.190 --> 00:51:34.160\nmonths? What does that\n\n1094\n00:51:34.160 --> 00:51:38.140\nsay? What does that mean?\" Let's interpret that. Let's just not give you data.\n\n1095\n00:51:38.140 --> 00:51:38.960\nLet's give you an\n\n1096\n00:51:38.960 --> 00:51:42.620\nexperience that interprets that and guides you in terms of healthy behaviors\n\n1097\n00:51:42.620 --> 00:51:43.520\nand guides you in\n\n1098\n00:51:43.520 --> 00:51:47.930\nterms of the things that might be going on with you. In some sense, what do\n\n1099\n00:51:47.930 --> 00:51:50.000\nthey say? A tiger can't\n\n1100\n00:51:50.000 --> 00:51:54.800\nchange its stripes. That's a real advantage because if you've anchored yourself\n\n1101\n00:51:54.800 --> 00:51:55.760\non one thing or another,\n\n1102\n00:51:55.760 --> 00:51:58.080\nit's very difficult to be something else because then you're like, \"Well, we're\n\n1103\n00:51:58.080 --> 00:51:58.640\nnot that thing\n\n1104\n00:51:58.640 --> 00:52:01.700\nanymore that you used to buy us for. We're something else.\" That's tricky. It's\n\n1105\n00:52:01.700 --> 00:52:02.160\ntricky for\n\n1106\n00:52:02.160 --> 00:52:06.720\nany business. This has been so much fun, Tom. I want to have some more with my\n\n1107\n00:52:06.720 --> 00:52:07.360\nlightning round\n\n1108\n00:52:07.360 --> 00:52:12.040\nof questions. Are you ready for these? Okay. Go for it. The three words that\n\n1109\n00:52:12.040 --> 00:52:13.360\nbest describe you.\n\n1110\n00:52:13.360 --> 00:52:18.320\nCurious, driven, and approachable. If you could be one person for a day beside\n\n1111\n00:52:18.320 --> 00:52:19.200\nyourself, who would\n\n1112\n00:52:19.200 --> 00:52:24.330\nit be? It would be Steve Jobs. What's your biggest pet peeve? I used to say, \"\n\n1113\n00:52:24.330 --> 00:52:25.600\nYou cannot work at a\n\n1114\n00:52:25.600 --> 00:52:29.020\ncompany with me and have conference room cake.\" Do you know what I mean by a\n\n1115\n00:52:29.020 --> 00:52:30.080\nconference room cake?\n\n1116\n00:52:30.080 --> 00:52:35.600\nThey explain it. It's like, \"Wait, it's your birthday.\" They're like, \"Hey,\n\n1117\n00:52:35.600 --> 00:52:36.000\ncome into the\n\n1118\n00:52:36.000 --> 00:52:39.370\nconference room. We're going to have a birthday celebration for you.\" They\n\n1119\n00:52:39.370 --> 00:52:40.240\nbring out a conference\n\n1120\n00:52:40.240 --> 00:52:44.400\nfrom cake and it's like, \"Happy birthday, David.\" They spelled it with two V's\n\n1121\n00:52:44.400 --> 00:52:45.040\nor something like that.\n\n1122\n00:52:45.040 --> 00:52:48.880\nYou're just like, \"It's the most inauthentic thing.\" I really believe if you're\n\n1123\n00:52:48.880 --> 00:52:49.120\ngoing to\n\n1124\n00:52:49.120 --> 00:52:54.000\ncelebrate something, do it with real gusto and real authenticity. If you're\n\n1125\n00:52:54.000 --> 00:52:54.400\ngoing to have a\n\n1126\n00:52:54.400 --> 00:52:57.910\nbirthday celebration, don't do it in a conference room. Do something really\n\n1127\n00:52:57.910 --> 00:52:59.200\nlegitimately authentic and\n\n1128\n00:52:59.200 --> 00:53:05.200\nfun. Who would play you in a movie? Nick Cage. What's your current streak of\n\n1129\n00:53:05.200 --> 00:53:07.600\nnights in bed by 9.30?\n\n1130\n00:53:07.600 --> 00:53:12.800\nOh my god. I don't know if I can tell you that off the top of my head. I guess\n\n1131\n00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:14.240\nzero because I went\n\n1132\n00:53:14.240 --> 00:53:20.800\nto bed at 10.15 last night. But I'm generally in bed by 9.30. I'd say, \"Pretty\n\n1133\n00:53:20.800 --> 00:53:20.960\ngood.\"\n\n1134\n00:53:20.960 --> 00:53:25.860\nWhat's the best part about living in San Francisco? San Francisco is just such\n\n1135\n00:53:25.860 --> 00:53:27.920\na vibrant place.\n\n1136\n00:53:27.920 --> 00:53:31.200\nSo much of the future is being invented here. Just think about it a couple of\n\n1137\n00:53:31.200 --> 00:53:31.760\nyears ago,\n\n1138\n00:53:31.760 --> 00:53:37.520\nself-driving cars started appearing on the streets. It was amazing. I can't\n\n1139\n00:53:37.520 --> 00:53:38.400\nbelieve it. I just saw\n\n1140\n00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:42.640\ncargo by. There was no one driving it. Now, of course, it's completely banal.\n\n1141\n00:53:42.640 --> 00:53:43.040\nYou're just like,\n\n1142\n00:53:43.040 --> 00:53:48.110\n\"Oh, yeah, here's 30 Waymo's queued up outside of this conference venue. Big\n\n1143\n00:53:48.110 --> 00:53:49.360\ndeal.\" And the thing is,\n\n1144\n00:53:49.360 --> 00:53:55.200\nit's like, it's a miracle. These cars are driving around. So this idea that the\n\n1145\n00:53:55.200 --> 00:53:55.840\nfuture is being\n\n1146\n00:53:55.840 --> 00:53:58.860\ninvented here is just not equally distributed. And that's the thing I love\n\n1147\n00:53:58.860 --> 00:53:59.840\nabout San Francisco.\n\n1148\n00:53:59.840 --> 00:54:07.190\nThe biggest lesson backgammon is touching. The worm will turn. I played backgam\n\n1149\n00:54:07.190 --> 00:54:08.160\nmon with my dad\n\n1150\n00:54:08.720 --> 00:54:12.400\nfor a good portion of my life. And he was a very good backgammon player. And I\n\n1151\n00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:13.280\nthink I'd lost my\n\n1152\n00:54:13.280 --> 00:54:20.050\nallowance to him more or less from a very young age late until more or less his\n\n1153\n00:54:20.050 --> 00:54:21.120\ndeparture from\n\n1154\n00:54:21.120 --> 00:54:25.760\nthis planet. And the reality is that you can be the best player. And over time,\n\n1155\n00:54:25.760 --> 00:54:26.480\nyou will win.\n\n1156\n00:54:26.480 --> 00:54:29.970\nIf you're a better player, you will win. But there will be moments when your\n\n1157\n00:54:29.970 --> 00:54:30.880\nopponent will roll\n\n1158\n00:54:30.880 --> 00:54:34.660\nthree double sixes in a row and you will lose. And it'll be heart-crushing. And\n\n1159\n00:54:34.660 --> 00:54:35.040\nyou have to be\n\n1160\n00:54:35.040 --> 00:54:38.240\nprepared for that because that's the world. The world is a place where luck\n\n1161\n00:54:38.240 --> 00:54:39.040\nwill turn against you\n\n1162\n00:54:39.040 --> 00:54:47.520\nat some point. Besides your family, what's your most prized position? Well, I'm\n\n1163\n00:54:47.520 --> 00:54:48.400\na big fan of books.\n\n1164\n00:54:48.400 --> 00:54:53.070\nI love to read. And I have a big book collection. And some of those books are\n\n1165\n00:54:53.070 --> 00:54:53.520\nspecial. They've\n\n1166\n00:54:53.520 --> 00:54:57.240\nbeen autographed by the author. So I'd say my book collection. If I turned on\n\n1167\n00:54:57.240 --> 00:54:58.640\nthe radio in your car,\n\n1168\n00:54:58.640 --> 00:55:05.090\nwhat would I hear? St. Vincent is my favorite. She's a songwriter and a\n\n1169\n00:55:05.090 --> 00:55:06.480\nguitarist and a rocker.\n\n1170\n00:55:06.480 --> 00:55:10.320\nAnd she is incredible. And if she's listening at all, St. Vincent, I love you.\n\n1171\n00:55:10.320 --> 00:55:12.480\nAnd I would do\n\n1172\n00:55:12.480 --> 00:55:16.540\nanything to see. I've seen her probably five times this year. She's amazing.\n\n1173\n00:55:16.540 --> 00:55:17.040\nWhat's something\n\n1174\n00:55:17.040 --> 00:55:20.870\nabout you few people would know? Well, I think most people don't know that I'm\n\n1175\n00:55:20.870 --> 00:55:21.600\na really, really\n\n1176\n00:55:21.600 --> 00:55:25.480\ngood backgammon player. So if you ever want to roll some dice, I'm always ready\n\n1177\n00:55:25.480 --> 00:55:26.160\nto play.\n\n1178\n00:55:27.840 --> 00:55:30.960\nThat's great. And you're out of the live view, right? It's a good job there,\n\n1179\n00:55:30.960 --> 00:55:31.680\nTom.\n\n1180\n00:55:31.680 --> 00:55:35.320\nYou know, we've talked a lot about leadership. But how do you think about\n\n1181\n00:55:35.320 --> 00:55:36.000\nleading at home?\n\n1182\n00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:44.000\nYeah. I mean, my kids are my greatest pride and joy. They're amazing. They're\n\n1183\n00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:44.800\ncreative and\n\n1184\n00:55:44.800 --> 00:55:50.960\nsurprising and challenging and wonderful and brilliant. And I think in many\n\n1185\n00:55:50.960 --> 00:55:51.680\nways,\n\n1186\n00:55:52.480 --> 00:55:56.400\nI think the biggest thing that I had to realize was that they are very\n\n1187\n00:55:56.400 --> 00:55:58.880\ndifferent from me. And I\n\n1188\n00:55:58.880 --> 00:56:03.370\nthink this is true with every generation. So this is no great insight. But you\n\n1189\n00:56:03.370 --> 00:56:04.400\nhave to let your kids\n\n1190\n00:56:04.400 --> 00:56:08.180\nfind their way. And I think that is actually true of a team or of people that\n\n1191\n00:56:08.180 --> 00:56:09.280\nyou're managing.\n\n1192\n00:56:09.280 --> 00:56:15.340\nAnd the story I would tell is that I was the youngest in my family. I had a\n\n1193\n00:56:15.340 --> 00:56:16.080\nyounger sister,\n\n1194\n00:56:16.080 --> 00:56:20.280\nbut there was a big gap between the older ones and us. And so I was kind of\n\n1195\n00:56:20.280 --> 00:56:21.680\nlike the youngest for a\n\n1196\n00:56:21.680 --> 00:56:30.080\nlong time. And I was not really, I think, maybe confident in my ability to care\n\n1197\n00:56:30.080 --> 00:56:30.800\nfor people until\n\n1198\n00:56:30.800 --> 00:56:34.240\nI became a manager and realize that part of the job of being a manager is that\n\n1199\n00:56:34.240 --> 00:56:34.880\nyou have to\n\n1200\n00:56:34.880 --> 00:56:40.640\ncare and feed and guide and school and direct the people who work for you. And\n\n1201\n00:56:40.640 --> 00:56:41.600\nthat that is a\n\n1202\n00:56:41.600 --> 00:56:47.120\nit's a sacred kind of duty that you've undertaken as their manager, let alone\n\n1203\n00:56:47.120 --> 00:56:48.640\ntheir leader, just a\n\n1204\n00:56:48.640 --> 00:56:52.640\nline manager with four or five reports. And I realized that through that\n\n1205\n00:56:52.640 --> 00:56:53.760\nexperience of becoming\n\n1206\n00:56:53.760 --> 00:56:57.460\na manager and learning how to manage, that that was going to be some incredibly\n\n1207\n00:56:57.460 --> 00:56:58.400\npowerful tools\n\n1208\n00:56:58.400 --> 00:57:05.360\nfor being a father. And in fact, I became a father in my mid 30s, but I became\n\n1209\n00:57:05.360 --> 00:57:06.240\na manager in my late\n\n1210\n00:57:06.240 --> 00:57:11.090\n20s. And I think that those seven years of being a manager taught me a lot\n\n1211\n00:57:11.090 --> 00:57:12.160\nabout what it means to\n\n1212\n00:57:12.160 --> 00:57:16.640\nbe a good father. Now that'd be, I don't manage my kids. But you know what,\n\n1213\n00:57:16.640 --> 00:57:17.360\nwhen they come to me\n\n1214\n00:57:17.360 --> 00:57:21.040\nand they're like freaking out or they're upset, one of the things that they\n\n1215\n00:57:21.040 --> 00:57:22.080\ntaught, I learned as\n\n1216\n00:57:22.080 --> 00:57:28.530\na manager is you just keep calm, calm everybody down. Just just receive it, don\n\n1217\n00:57:28.530 --> 00:57:29.760\n't react. You know,\n\n1218\n00:57:29.760 --> 00:57:33.360\nkeep your mouth shut. Listen, don't talk. And those are the same skills that I\n\n1219\n00:57:33.360 --> 00:57:34.400\nemploy as a parent.\n\n1220\n00:57:34.400 --> 00:57:38.280\nYeah, fantastic. And and looking ahead, what do you see as your unfinished\n\n1221\n00:57:38.280 --> 00:57:39.040\nbusiness?\n\n1222\n00:57:40.800 --> 00:57:46.460\nGood gosh, unfinished business. Well, let's see, I probably should make my bed.\n\n1223\n00:57:46.460 --> 00:57:47.200\nThat's that's\n\n1224\n00:57:47.200 --> 00:57:52.770\nthat's something I didn't do this morning. But you know, look, I think I would\n\n1225\n00:57:52.770 --> 00:57:54.080\nlove to have a big\n\n1226\n00:57:54.080 --> 00:58:00.680\nimpact on the health of people across the planet. And I think, you know, the\n\n1227\n00:58:00.680 --> 00:58:02.000\nwork that I'm doing at\n\n1228\n00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:05.540\nORA is some of the most meaningful work that I've had the opportunity to do in\n\n1229\n00:58:05.540 --> 00:58:06.480\nmy entire life.\n\n1230\n00:58:06.480 --> 00:58:11.040\nAnd I think I won't rest until we've made a huge, huge impact on, on, you know,\n\n1231\n00:58:11.040 --> 00:58:11.680\ntens of millions\n\n1232\n00:58:11.680 --> 00:58:14.860\nof people. And this doesn't mean we have to win to the exclusion that everybody\n\n1233\n00:58:14.860 --> 00:58:15.680\nelse needs to lose.\n\n1234\n00:58:15.680 --> 00:58:19.200\nI don't think that's it. It's that I think wearables are going to be incredibly\n\n1235\n00:58:19.200 --> 00:58:20.320\npowerful for humanity\n\n1236\n00:58:20.320 --> 00:58:24.200\nbecause everyone, you know, has a super computer. And everyone should have a\n\n1237\n00:58:24.200 --> 00:58:25.280\ndevice on their body,\n\n1238\n00:58:25.280 --> 00:58:28.730\nwhich is measuring their, their health and helping them, you know, understand\n\n1239\n00:58:28.730 --> 00:58:29.520\nit. And\n\n1240\n00:58:29.520 --> 00:58:32.900\nthere should be some sort of machine intelligence that's looking over them to\n\n1241\n00:58:32.900 --> 00:58:33.680\nhelp them live the\n\n1242\n00:58:33.680 --> 00:58:38.060\nbest, longest, healthiest life with their family and with their loved ones. And\n\n1243\n00:58:38.060 --> 00:58:39.040\nif you can do that,\n\n1244\n00:58:39.040 --> 00:58:41.820\nI think that's that's a pretty, pretty good reason to get out of bed in the\n\n1245\n00:58:41.820 --> 00:58:42.400\nmorning.\n\n1246\n00:58:42.400 --> 00:58:46.460\nLast question. What's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be\n\n1247\n00:58:46.460 --> 00:58:47.120\na better leader?\n\n1248\n00:58:47.120 --> 00:58:54.150\nYou know, I think sometimes people think that home and work, you know, can be\n\n1249\n00:58:54.150 --> 00:58:55.600\nthe same thing.\n\n1250\n00:58:55.600 --> 00:59:00.400\nAnd they're not, you know, maybe during COVID, you know, you ended up sleeping\n\n1251\n00:59:00.400 --> 00:59:01.120\nat the office by\n\n1252\n00:59:01.120 --> 00:59:06.560\nworking at home, you know. And so they're not the same thing. But they are two\n\n1253\n00:59:06.560 --> 00:59:07.920\nsides of the same coin.\n\n1254\n00:59:07.920 --> 00:59:12.780\nAnd so maybe the piece of advice I would give is that don't forget that\n\n1255\n00:59:12.780 --> 00:59:14.880\neverybody has a personal\n\n1256\n00:59:14.880 --> 00:59:18.130\nlife and that people are complicated and that you need to think about the whole\n\n1257\n00:59:18.130 --> 00:59:18.960\nperson, not just\n\n1258\n00:59:18.960 --> 00:59:22.630\nthe person who shows up at work. You need to, you need to have some empathy and\n\n1259\n00:59:22.630 --> 00:59:23.680\nunderstanding for\n\n1260\n00:59:23.680 --> 00:59:27.800\nwho someone is and where they are in their journey. And you got to meet them\n\n1261\n00:59:27.800 --> 00:59:28.480\nwhere they are. And you\n\n1262\n00:59:28.480 --> 00:59:33.080\ngot to do that not just for your employees, but for your customers. And not\n\n1263\n00:59:33.080 --> 00:59:33.840\njust for your employees\n\n1264\n00:59:33.840 --> 00:59:36.550\nand your customers, but for your stakeholders and for your board, your\n\n1265\n00:59:36.550 --> 00:59:37.680\ninvestors. And you got to\n\n1266\n00:59:37.680 --> 00:59:41.200\nshow up for everybody in the world in a way that has some empathy for them.\n\n1267\n00:59:41.200 --> 00:59:42.240\nBecause if you do that,\n\n1268\n00:59:42.240 --> 00:59:47.840\nyou're going to think of them as a whole person. And that's going to help you\n\n1269\n00:59:47.840 --> 00:59:48.800\nserve them better.\n\n1270\n00:59:48.800 --> 00:59:51.440\nThat's going to help you make better products for them. That's going to help\n\n1271\n00:59:51.440 --> 00:59:52.240\nyou make better\n\n1272\n00:59:52.240 --> 00:59:56.550\ndecisions for them or with them. And it's going to make you, I think, a better\n\n1273\n00:59:56.550 --> 00:59:57.760\nperson, the best person\n\n1274\n00:59:57.760 --> 01:00:03.360\nyou can be. That's great, Tom. And you've offered so much insight in this\n\n1275\n01:00:03.360 --> 01:00:04.400\nconversation that we've\n\n1276\n01:00:04.400 --> 01:00:09.390\nhad. And I want to thank you so much for your time. And I love your mission.\n\n1277\n01:00:09.390 --> 01:00:10.320\nAnd I love the\n\n1278\n01:00:10.320 --> 01:00:13.880\nsuccess that you're having, making the world a better place. So congratulations\n\n1279\n01:00:13.880 --> 01:00:14.400\nfor all you're\n\n1280\n01:00:14.400 --> 01:00:18.550\ndoing and congratulations to the Ora team. Well, thank you, David. Appreciate\n\n1281\n01:00:18.550 --> 01:00:19.040\nyou having me on\n\n1282\n01:00:19.040 --> 01:00:20.960\nthe show today. And it was a great shot with you.\n\n1283\n01:00:26.960 --> 01:00:32.080\nIn every leadership role, there are these dynamic tensions. You got to meet\n\n1284\n01:00:32.080 --> 01:00:33.360\npeople where they are,\n\n1285\n01:00:33.360 --> 01:00:38.610\nwhile also pushing them forward. You've got to deliver on short-term results\n\n1286\n01:00:38.610 --> 01:00:39.840\nwithout losing\n\n1287\n01:00:39.840 --> 01:00:45.510\nsight of the long-term goals. It's a balancing act. But listening to Tom, you\n\n1288\n01:00:45.510 --> 01:00:46.880\nrealize the balance\n\n1289\n01:00:46.880 --> 01:00:50.580\nin leadership doesn't just mean staying in the middle and hoping things even\n\n1290\n01:00:50.580 --> 01:00:52.160\nout. It's about\n\n1291\n01:00:52.160 --> 01:00:57.520\nsensing the tilt and knowing how and when to shift your weight. You're always\n\n1292\n01:00:57.520 --> 01:00:58.000\nreading the\n\n1293\n01:00:58.000 --> 01:01:02.300\nroom, scanning ahead, and using your own force to keep all those dynamic\n\n1294\n01:01:02.300 --> 01:01:03.600\ntensions in check.\n\n1295\n01:01:03.600 --> 01:01:08.920\nSo here's your challenge this week. Think back to that boat analogy that Tom\n\n1296\n01:01:08.920 --> 01:01:09.760\nshared.\n\n1297\n01:01:09.760 --> 01:01:13.520\nIs there a part of your business where it feels like everyone is rushed to one\n\n1298\n01:01:13.520 --> 01:01:14.640\nside of the ship?\n\n1299\n01:01:14.640 --> 01:01:19.440\nIf so, what kind of rebalancing does your team need for you to do?\n\n1300\n01:01:20.960 --> 01:01:25.900\nResponding thoughtfully when everybody else is reacting is exactly what great\n\n1301\n01:01:25.900 --> 01:01:27.040\nleaders do,\n\n1302\n01:01:27.040 --> 01:01:31.150\nand why their teams trust them to be at the helm. So do you want to know how\n\n1303\n01:01:31.150 --> 01:01:31.920\nleaders lead?\n\n1304\n01:01:31.920 --> 01:01:35.920\nWhat we learned today is that great leaders are a force of balance.\n\n1305\n01:01:35.920 --> 01:01:39.900\nComing up next on how leaders lead, just in time for the start of the NFL\n\n1306\n01:01:39.900 --> 01:01:40.400\nseason,\n\n1307\n01:01:40.400 --> 01:01:45.430\nI'm talking with Clark Hunt, the chairman and CEO of the Kansas City Chiefs,\n\n1308\n01:01:45.430 --> 01:01:47.680\nand it is my football\n\n1309\n01:01:47.680 --> 01:01:52.230\nteam. So be sure you subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcast so\n\n1310\n01:01:52.230 --> 01:01:53.120\nyou don't miss it.\n\n1311\n01:01:53.120 --> 01:01:57.280\nThanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders Lead, where every\n\n1312\n01:01:57.280 --> 01:01:58.080\nThursday you get\n\n1313\n01:01:58.080 --> 01:02:02.030\nto listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I\n\n1314\n01:02:02.030 --> 01:02:03.280\nmake it a point to\n\n1315\n01:02:03.280 --> 01:02:08.520\ngive you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business\n\n1316\n01:02:08.520 --> 01:02:09.120\nso that you will\n\n1317\n01:02:09.120 --> 01:02:11.760\nbecome the best leader that you can be.\n","is_pinned",false,"pinned_at","is_featured","featured_at","mix_url","https://chtbl.com/track/DCB44F/traffic.megaphone.fm/DVL9210439489.mp3?updated=1756337549","dx_media_id",2449,"video_media_id","thumbnail_image_media_id","published_date","2025-08-28","itunes_episode_id",254,"youtube_id","1ZJZ4Ad1ep8","2025-08-28T15:57:02.000000Z","dx_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/vITOTbhKXikuIcv0Gac8XRpCXmJT3AECCtJuFaeh.mp3","dx_filename","vITOTbhKXikuIcv0Gac8XRpCXmJT3AECCtJuFaeh.mp3","dx_mux_playback_id","IGsn2wfhuaTNOQBH023wsL8m6OtO43XzOOLcrWopGkWI","dx_waveform_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/waveforms/2449.json","video_url","video_mux_playback_id","duration",3731635,"thumbnail_url","https://img.youtube.com/vi/1ZJZ4Ad1ep8/maxresdefault.jpg","thumbnail_image_url","dx_media",{"_13":66,"_95":79,"_96":77,"_97":-5,"_31":81,"_33":98,"_99":-5,"_100":83,"_86":87,"_101":-5},"video_media","thumbnail_image_media","filename","url","status","zxsro8D7ZDzM8pzdNFo02MQccoRXeDGbwW3mp7pExzyo","mux_upload_id","waveform_url","preview_media_id","first_name","Tom","last_name","Hale","job_title","Oura, CEO","Tom Hale, Oura, CEO, healthcare, tech","external_links","https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomeghale,https://ouraring.com/blog/author/tom-haleouraring-com/,https://www.raconteur.net/leadership/ceo-on-the-spot-ouras-tom-hale,https://x.com/tomeghale",0,"image_media_id",2443,2444,"2026-07-20T20:44:52.000000Z","send_push_notification_at","image_url","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/VIerqpzI9hDBm8GtvtYSv4IV5zZ1ULRVqDlEZ6BS.jpg","https://dnl.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/uploads/qEnu1nljb9KWEe803Gg5QfGXK29S81tmvxVfGSSR.jpg","https://www.howleaderslead.com/leaders/242/tom-hale","industry_id",2,"industry",{"_13":122,"_133":134,"_135":137},"industries",[132],"image_media",{"_13":113,"_95":131,"_96":118,"_97":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_99":-5,"_100":-5,"_86":-5,"_101":-5},{"_13":114,"_95":130,"_96":119,"_97":-5,"_31":-5,"_33":-5,"_99":-5,"_100":-5,"_86":-5,"_101":-5},"qEnu1nljb9KWEe803Gg5QfGXK29S81tmvxVfGSSR.jpg","VIerqpzI9hDBm8GtvtYSv4IV5zZ1ULRVqDlEZ6BS.jpg",{"_13":122,"_133":134,"_135":136},"name","Technology","pivot",{"_35":36,"_121":122},{"_35":36,"_121":122},"user","token","favorites",[],"collections",[],"env",{"_146":147,"_148":149,"_150":151,"_152":153,"_154":155},"GOOGLE_CLIENT_ID","644017954836-qpllhu38r0tsrtfq85ukntcvsb0akbht.apps.googleusercontent.com","APPLE_CLIENT_ID","com.howleaderslead.webapp","APPLE_REDIRECT_URI","https://www.howleaderslead.com/auth/apple-callback","APP_URL","https://howleaderslead.com","GTM_ID",""]