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Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
Ep. 573 - WEBTOON Global CFO and COO David Lee - Why Most Leaders Play Small… and How to Escape
00:41:36
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- [00:00]
David Lee
I, as you know, tend to be drawn to missions where there's something brand new being created or at least something that the consumer hadn't experienced in the same way. And one of the great limits I've learned is when you frame something narrowly as high probability outcomes. Here's where we are and here's what I think we can achieve. And then let's start with that and then determine what do I have to do in order to achieve that high probability outcome. I find it incredibly limiting if you're interested in how technology can change future outcomes because you're framing the problem in terms of what is high probability. Today, when I talk about this golden nugget of start with what do you have to believe? It's not meant for steady eddy situations where you really aren't being asked or want to break through. This is about when you're at a company or in a business situation where there's a lot of unknowns and volatility. So, for example, if you start with what you'd have to believe to deliver an outrageously ambitious outcome.
- [01:10]
Cameron Herold
Welcome to the Second in Command podcast produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herold. In the second in command podcast, we talk to top COOs who share the insights, strategies and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. And now here's your co host, former COO of a multi eight figure remote company and alumni member of the COO Alliance, Savannah Brewer.
- [01:38]
Savannah Brewer
We are live with David. Welcome to the show.
- [01:40]
David Lee
Thank you so much for having me.
- [01:42]
Savannah Brewer
Of course. Well, I personally have never heard of Webtoon before, knowing that we were going to talk and I started looking into it and I realized this is a really, really big thing. So kick us off. For anyone who's listening that also doesn't know, tell us a little bit about webtoon. What do you guys do and who do you serve?
- [01:59]
David Lee
Well, I'm not surprised. You may not have heard about us. In fact, two years ago, when I was looking at the company, I hadn't either. But my Gen Z daughter certainly had. What's amazing about Webtoon is we're a global storytelling hub. On one side, we have 24 million creators who are powering 120,000 stories that arrive every day to our platform. And on the other side, we have these 155 million monthly active users all throughout the world. And in the palm of their hand, right on their app, they can flick a finger and see where one of these great stories is going. Or they can spend an average actually of 30 to 60 minutes reading from inspiring creators from all over the world. I bet that you and your readers and listeners may have actually seen a movie or two as we've powered a hundred what we call rich film adaptations. So these are movies on the big and the small screen or the great anime or animations. And we like to think that we're empowering creators globally to have a voice and tell their stories.
- [03:04]
Savannah Brewer
Very cool. And so who is the kind of ideal client or avatar for who's using your guys company?
- [03:11]
David Lee
Well, here in the US we call our target consumer Maddie. Maddie is between 18 to 25 on average. Let's say she's 24 and she has a full time job like everyone and she enjoys so many of the other platforms available to her. But the thing is Maddie tells us that what's unique about Webtoon is she can't find the stories she finds on our platform anywhere else. So we find that this format what's called a webcomic. But for this generation of app native consumers, they've never seen a paper based anything, right? So for them it's how can they find a cool story that they feel like they discovered they're native digitally, right. So they're interested in something they can find on their phone. And increasingly as Maddie finishes one story or another, she gets more confident she'll find the next because we have every genre that 24 million creators can imagine and the amount of human merchandising for stories is kind of limited because we use technology and market signal to empower the next generation of stars as creators on our platform.
- [04:20]
Savannah Brewer
So cool. I'm curious to know a little bit about the through line for you because from my understanding of your background, you have quite a diverse path from like advertising, gaming. I think you were behind also the launch of the Impossible Burger and now storytelling kind of tech. What is the through line that connects all of those career moves for you?
- [04:43]
David Lee
You know, I'd love to characterize my career as extremely well thought, you know, with a carefully crafted through line from the beginning. I think the truth of the matter is I've really enjoyed partnering with brilliant founders who oftentimes have a technology or a vision that the world hasn't seen yet. And when you can find a founder and a great technology and you can reimagine what the consumer is willing to pay for that, reimagine what the consumer really wants before they tell you directly. To me, those are the best jobs I've ever had functionally. I've always wanted to be on the bus and grab whatever seat is most useful. So you're right. I started advertising marketing, spent probably as much time in marketing and ops as I have in strategy and finance. But here at Webtoon, since we went public about a year and a half ago, the was really important to help our founder Jungkook Kim, adjust to the league, so to speak, of being listed here in the US and operating as a global public company. I've always also benefited from mentors that allowed me to be generalists. Being able to look at a problem on a first principle basis has oftentimes served many of these roles I've been in. Well, like whether it's launching Impossible Burger or turning around Zynga or Bioer creating this rocket ship, I've always been interested in how does a great technology enable a different vision of the future?
- [06:13]
Savannah Brewer
What do you think is the benefit of kind of that generalist approach versus just staying in one lane and being as expert as you can in just one area?
- [06:25]
David Lee
Well, I think it's a question of personal taste and risk rewards. So to be clear, when you're running into transformations, it can feel like you're running to the most intense either hyper growth startup or big company turnaround, or a little bit of a combination of both. And so the benefit of being a generalist is that you can walk in the shoes of a lot of your colleagues and you can help a founder that's looking for everything. In hypergrowth, there's never one function only that is in desperate need. There are multiple functions, I think that I'm not built for extremely large steady Eddy companies. I'm built for companies that are trying to change the future. And being a generalist helps. I think the cost of being a generalist is that you are betting on your ability to become an expert faster than your experience has allowed in a variety of functions or situations. And that is not always an easy thing to do. So there's definitely a benefit, but there's a cost.
- [07:32]
Savannah Brewer
What did you learn from all of those prior roles, especially in different areas that you are using today?
- [07:39]
David Lee
At Webtoon, I think I use a little bit of everything I've tried to learn in the past at Webtoon. I think first as a marketer and as an advertiser, you always have to ask yourself, what does Maddie want? What does she want next? And if you have an unconstrained view, if you start with what will the consumer reward and what will the creator be empowered to create? If you start on a first principle basis about A reimagining what the consumer wants, then enabling it with ops and governance and finance and profitability, all these things. If they come second, then I think you're starting problem solving in the right way. For me at Webtoon, I really value the fact that we are empowering creators using tech, but we're fundamentally a storytelling company and allowing these creators to have their own free will to determine the story they want to tell and trusting what we call the flywheel to reveal to the world. Stories that I never expected to be a hit has been really gratifying. So I think a little bit of everything I've ever done here at Webtoon,
- [08:50]
Savannah Brewer
I love that idea of consistently asking, what does Mati want? Because I think oftentimes it can be so easy. Once you already have something going, you've got clients to just keep fulfilling on that same problem. And one of the things that I learned from one of my old mentors was before they even know what their next problem is, we're trying to solve it so that when that problem comes up, we already have the solution. So you keep them loyal over time and you get to expand out with what you're able to provide to that ideal client avatar, which I think is a really great just question of asking, what do they really want? Speaking of what they really want, what was it about you that they really wanted when you stepped into coo? Like, why did they choose David Lee to come in to be COO at Webtoon?
- [09:42]
David Lee
Well, I can only partially guess, but I would say I think we both wanted the mission of the founder. We have a founder named Jungu Kim who created over 20 years ago this company where his idea was never to be parochial or local or regional. He really thought that the world deserved a global storytelling platform to enable creators like himself actually to have a voice and that technology. Its time had come and could power this. I mean, he was very visionary. And so I think what the company needed from me and others was the ability to take that vision and turn it into a plan that could be achieved. A big part of it was being on the global stage. Being listed as a public company on NASDAQ wasn't because we desperately needed to raise public company funds. It was because we wanted to be able to get exposure for our creators and increasingly serve more global consumers. These great stories. And so looking for someone who had been around the block as a public company person, who had been on public company boards and maybe who believed in the power of a vision enabled by hardcore business management was, I Think what Webtoon was looking for. And so a number of us that have joined in the last few years, I think are enabling that, not just me. Having three great independent board members join us as we went public, having the rigor of being public enable us to be more disciplined. I think all of that has contributed to trying to enable JK's vision.
- [11:23]
Savannah Brewer
And so when you say going public has enabled us to be more disciplined, what do you mean by that?
- [11:28]
David Lee
Well, there's a brutal reality in having public company investors to be held accountable to every quarter. There is a transparency that's required when one is public. In some ways, I like to think of the rigor of being public enables you to raise capital from any investor in the world. Whereas when you're private, and I've loved and enjoyed with companies, startups like Possible Foods, as a private organization, there are pros and cons. But when you're private, you aren't under the spotlight or glare, but you're also not being held accountable to the same level of rigor by board members, by investors, by your own executive team. So I think it's great for companies that have a ability to transcend the limits of being private and benefit from the transparency of being public. But it certainly is a transition for every company that goes through this IPO process.
- [12:24]
Savannah Brewer
Is there a lesson that you would share to anyone who is running a private company that isn't planning on going public anytime soon, but might benefit from some of those principles or learnings where you would say, this is absolutely something I've learned from going public, that if every company focused on this, no matter the size, you'd be in a much better place. What would that be?
- [12:46]
David Lee
I don't know if it's a lesson, but one frame of thought I'd love to for private company executives to think about is going public isn't about one ipo. It's about imagining that you're ipoing every quarter forever. Because after that debut as a public company, every quarter anew, you are filing a Q. Every year, you're filing a K. You're listed here in the US the level of transparency, the level of thought and care is like ipoing every quarter after that initial debut. Now, the good news is once you have the team, the skill set, the rigor to be listed as a public company, hopefully you've kept that and you can continue to exercise it and get better and better at it. But this isn't an event to be considered. It's. It's a series of radical Transparency to your investors that I think you need to think of as a complete change for a long period of time, not just a single event to prepare for.
- [13:54]
Savannah Brewer
That's great. You mentioned, I think you guys call him jk, the owner of the company.
- [14:00]
David Lee
Yeah, jk. Jk. His name's Jungkook Kim. He's our founder and CEO.
- [14:04]
Savannah Brewer
Great. So jk, he seems to be very focused on the mission and he's been dedicated to this for over 20 years, which I find interesting. Incredible. What is that relationship like between you and him as CEO and owner?
- [14:18]
David Lee
It's interesting. I think like all relationships, it changes and enhances over time. When you're first meeting a founder and you're joining a new team, there's the wonderful part of the relationship where you're just coming up to speed. It's like a holiday every day as you discover all the great things that have been built, in this case by jk. And then over time, after you have a sense of where the business is, there's a part of the relationship which is to really understand where the founder and the CEO want to go. What is good enough, what is absolutely not. And then in sequence, the third part is to figure out, well, how can you uniquely make it happen, reduce the risks, but also create a path, I think for particularly visionary founders who have a mission that will be bigger than any of us at any moment at the company. When you feel like you're part of something that the needs in multiple generations will benefit from, it elongates time in the relationship and you begin to realize that you become more grateful about the amount of time that you can spend as part of this relationship with the founder and his vision. JK and I talk a lot about this thing that we've created at Webtoon we hope is bigger than any of us, including him. He's a very selfless, high integrity founder that's trying to enable creators globally to have a voice. And I think that if you frame the relationship with your founder in terms of the vision and the intent of the mission, it helps get you through the normal challenges we all face in any relationship day to day, week to week.
- [16:02]
Savannah Brewer
You mentioned he has super high integrity. I think even in your answers you'd mentioned one of the highest of anyone that you've worked with. I'm curious, how does that show up and like, what specifically brings him to be like the top of mind for someone with integrity?
- [16:20]
David Lee
I think how it shows up is in the consistency of behavior every day. Like big moments are wonderful, but everyday consistent Interactions, I think are the basis of trust. And integrity is a big word, but it's the notion that you feel that the person you're in a relationship with is honest with themselves and with you up the good and the bad and always tries to do the right thing. I think that characterizes JK very well. It is unusual to have a founder who has had this much success stay true to that notion of being honest with him or herself and always trying to do the right thing. I think it's very easy to get distracted with or become obsessed with, as many founders I've worked with have with the things that come with the success of reaching kind of the fruition of your dreams. And what I find remarkable about JK is he's laser focused still on what is the long term mission for creators and consumers of great stories globally. And that's what I mean by integrity. And it shows up in everyday actions and in meetings that happen frequently versus, you know, big moments are great, but I think integrity is something you have to sense every day. And JK definitely has it.
- [17:48]
Savannah Brewer
I love to hear that. It really sounds like, to me is the focus on, like you said, the mission, so that even when you hit these certain milestones where it sounds like other people get distracted or blown away by maybe even ego or status, if you're really connected to what you're here to do, it doesn't really matter what any of those are, as long as we're still working towards the ultimate grand mission.
- [18:18]
David Lee
Yeah, that's right. And I think when the mission is particularly large, like when it's about. I mean, I happen to think human storytelling has always been a fundamental need. But I could make the argument that today in particular and in the future, we need it more than ever. When the mission is that big and you feel like your job is to enable a founder to achieve, can be extremely difficult if you feel you're on that path alone. And so one of the things about being a number two, a second in command as coo, is trust in the relationship you have with the founder, I think is the limiting and the enabling factor. I wouldn't have a mission as large as the one we're on here at Webtoon.
- [19:02]
Savannah Brewer
What advice would you have for any CEO that might be listening where they hear that and they're like, wow, that would be so amazing to work with someone with that level of integrity. But maybe their CEO, they don't experience that same level. Would you recommend people stay in those positions until the kind of or the point of which it makes sense to leave if this is a common thing that as CEOs gain more success, that can often come with distractions or a loss of integrity. What advice would you give that COO that might be experiencing that with a founder?
- [19:38]
David Lee
Well, first, I think most number two, second in commands by definition of the relationship are going to go through highs and lows. I think the first piece of advice I give is go back to that first principles concept. Why did you take this role? Why did you want to be part of this team? Why are you choosing? Why did you choose in the beginning to be part of the mission that you're on? And the reason why I think number two's benefit from picking missions that are bigger than the personality of a founder or a CEO is it frames that decision against something bigger than any single week or day or month of challenges. But it also is a pretty strong litmus test because if the day to day ups and downs are fundamentally inconsistent with why you chose to take the job. Fundamentally for whatever your reason may be because for me in my case it's mostly around mission. But I've Talked to many COOs and CEOs who join companies for something very specific. Personal development or to achieve a certain level of leadership outcome or a financial outcome. But if for whatever reason you've picked at the beginning is out of reach and never will be, that's a pretty clear indication to find another mission.
- [21:04]
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- [21:56]
David Lee
The other thing I would say is framing relationships as the outcome is really dangerous when you are the coo because there are ups and downs with every relationship. And so to me it's less about how great am I feeling about how I'm interacting with a single person or group of people at the company. It's much more about do I still believe that. The reason why I joined in my case I joined Webtoon to be part of an enormous. To enable storytellers globally. Are we on that path? Can I uniquely help us on that path? And if the answer remains yes, it helps me take a breath and get past the day to day limits that we all face when we're making tough decisions at work.
- [22:40]
Savannah Brewer
Great. That was really well said. I'm curious about your energy. I have noticed that some of the biggest companies that I've interviewed, their coo, they're so calm. And there is a certain difference like I've noticed from smaller companies where there just seems to be more like nerves or intensity or like fast talking. Even in myself I find this. What do you. Is that not. Has just been ingrained in you from like is that a personality thing or is this something that you've worked on over time? Because I imagine when you are running a company the size that you are and you've got such a big mission, there's gotta be a lot of chaos that comes with that. Also, how have you developed that ability to stay grounded and calm despite all the changes?
- [23:30]
David Lee
It's a really hard question to answer. I think. What about what others observe in me, who I've known for a long time, throughout the 30 plus years I've been working? I would say that there is a part of it which starts with your personality. There's fundamentally a part of it which is can you find clarity in moments of greater chaos? Like can you find within you the ability sometimes I liken it to. It's not literally taking a breath, but it's being able to kind of let go of the immediate reaction and focus a little bit more in a crisis. I don't think that has to be your personality, but it certainly helps if you had that before you started your journey as a professional. But absolutely. I think the vast majority of anyone who is faced with multiple crises just experience when you're used to walking into a room where I used to say that there are some days in different where I'd walk in, it was like a crazy circus tune was going off in my head, like in a good way, like amazing things were popping out from the left and the right developments I didn't expect. But then there are some times where quickly that circus tune goes minor in key and it's like the worst horror film that I'm stuck in. When you experience that and you choose to voluntarily pick those kind of roles because you like transformations like I do, where you really want to be parts of missions that are risky by definition, but have huge Ability to potentially change the world. You just develop through history and time the ability to walk into a crisis and not be overly swayed. But one thing I would tell you though is there's a risk in being a trauma surgeon, so to speak, like it is. There are times when oversteering, not letting the silence remain, jumping in because you feel like you've seen this problem before becomes a risk where there are times when you need to let things play out, even though you may have seen 17 other emergencies that feel really similar to the one that you think you just walked in on. So there isn't a single answer. I think it's just one of those things where you have to like being in the fray to be, I think in a crisis oriented, transformational situation. It's what I enjoy to my discredit or credit. I like the situations where leadership has a premium, where there's an acknowledgement that we better be better operators because the situation is fundamentally volatile, but it's not for everybody.
- [26:09]
Savannah Brewer
When you mentioned sometimes you just have to let things play out, what do you mean by that?
- [26:15]
David Lee
I use the term sometimes oversteering. When you are growing up as a leader, the amount of hands on the wheel steering that you're rewarded for is really high. Like when you're starting out, when you're individual contributor, or even when you're managing a smaller team, jumping on that metaphorical grenade when you see it right, taking the hill right, you can use whatever tortured cliche metaphor you want. Individual action can turn the day, I think later, when there are more types of teams, more cultures, more global parts to a company, the ability to personally determine an outcome far less valuable than the ability to enable a team to overcome a problem. This is, I think one of the best lessons for being a CEO is to be on a board. Because you know, when you're on a public or private board, I think this is true in both cases. In my experience, you know, your job as a board member is not to be the management team, is not to actually solve the crisis. And you may actually think as an advisor or a board member more than the management team you're trying to serve. There's something akin as one grows up, I think, as an executive, where your individual ability to determine an outcome is oftentimes much smaller than your ability to help a team determine an outcome. That's what I mean by not oversteering, maybe focusing, excuse me, on the team more than individual action is what I meant by that.
- [27:42]
Savannah Brewer
I don't know too much about the concept of being on a board. And so when you say CEOs should look at potentially doing that, can you talk a little bit about what does that really mean and what would that look like for anyone that's listening? That's like, ooh, that sounds interesting to me.
- [27:58]
David Lee
Well, for me, being on boards was a remarkable shift in mindset. We serve so many boards as members of management. I don't know how many board decks I've written. That feeling of walking in, it almost feels like you're walking into a stadium as a gladiator. When you're an executive and you're presenting to either a private equity board or a public company board, as I've experienced both, you can imagine what it's like to be on the other side because you're preparing for them to hopefully understand the business situation you're describing as management. But it's very different when you're actually on the other side. And in fact, I think one of the harder transitions when you go from being a member of management to being on a board is exactly what we just were talking about. You want to oversteer, you know, you. You desperately help that CEO, founder. You've been in the shoes of the cfo. You're listening carefully to a management team, and usually when you join a board for the first time, you're desperate to demonstrate you should be on a board. Right. You really want, out of your own ego to say, hey, I can really help here, and that's great. But over time, you realize that the relationship you have with management means you're working through several colleagues on the board. And the board's role, for example, at a public company, board is really about ensuring that public company investors have great governance, helping thinking through CEO succession. But it certainly isn't helping on what you think to be the operational issue minutely at any given time. I think that what it helps is to calibrate being an advisor versus being an executive. And I think as COOs or number twos, you have to be able to do both. You have to personally lead through a team, but you also have to be a coach and advisor oftentimes to a founder or CEO if you're in tech. And being able to develop a little bit of that comfort with both ends of that relationship, I think, is the reason why I think boards are really useful if you choose to still engage as a member of management.
- [30:02]
Savannah Brewer
Thanks for sharing all of that. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. When it comes to global teams, which you had mentioned, how do you take care of your People, how do you make sure that they are still engaged and online and feeling excited about what they're doing when there's things like zoom fatigue and these remote environments that we're now navigating? How do you make sure that you're in that role where, like you said, you're not getting super deep in the weeds anymore, but staying high level but still taking care of your team. How do you do that in today's age?
- [30:39]
David Lee
Well, that's a great question. I don't have, like, I wish I had the secret recipe for solving this problem. I actually think the first principle I'd approach it with is to not apply the same playbook every time you're in a situation. I find even within a company, in particular the subcultures, what's rewarded around here, so to speak. And the language here, I don't mean just literally the language, I mean the way people interact, the way people manage conflict and surface conflict. I find culture to be extremely diverse even within a single company, depending upon the type of the geography, the country, but also as well like the function. And so when you're in the number two position as COO or if you're the CEO, I think the first thing is to recognize that it's heterogeneous, it is not homogeneous. Like we all think about culture as the common thing that everyone. What's rewarded around here is usually the definition of culture for many of us, but it's different. Even if there's a common notion of mission, for example, or common values, the way it shows up day to day, if you're at a large global company is really diverse. And so having a common set of values, but enough flexibility in business management to be able to accommodate within a culture differences, I think is one of the hardest things. Lessons on that I'm still learning every day. We're very global at Webtoon. We have this emerging growth business here in North America. We're the number one consumer app, including mobile games in Japan. We started in Korea and so I was just in Toronto and I frequently fly between Toronto, LA Seoul, Korea and Tokyo. So we're really global. I think the founder, having established this mission, gives us that glue, though. We're extremely different in the way in which we operate in different pockets. We all know why we signed up for our jobs. And so I think hearkening back across diversity to what matters why webtoon in this case, I think is the second principle. Recognize the diversity. And the second is remember the glue. In our case, we're very mission oriented company. We're trying to serve global storytelling for creators. We're trying to democratize storytelling access to consumers in this area. That helps. And then I think it also helps to physically actually spend time in reality, not just virtually, like I'm a big proponent of flexibility, but deliberately putting people together, even if it's infrequent and for a reward or even a simple meal, makes a huge difference. Breaking bread, it turns out, transcends a lot of cultural and language differences if you make the time to do it. That's hard to do when you're the CEO or the coo, because you have a lot of meals you could be at. But I think prioritizing that in whatever way you can, I would also recommend
- [33:55]
Savannah Brewer
With a golden nugget. This is one of the questions that I asked in the preform and you submitted Start with what you would have to believe. There's like an approach to dreaming big. I'm curious to hear more about why is that your golden nugget?
- [34:12]
David Lee
I, as you know, tend to be drawn to missions where there's something brand new being created, or at least something that the consumer hadn't experienced in the same way. And one of the great limits I've learned is when you frame something narrowly as high probability outcomes. Here's where we are and here's what I think we can achieve. And then let's start with that and then determine what do I have to do in order to achieve that high probability outcome. I find it incredibly limiting if you're interested in how technology can change future outcomes, because you're framing the problem in terms of what is high probability. Today, when I talk about this golden nugget of start with what do you have to believe? It's not meant for steady eddy situations where you really aren't being asked or want to break through. This is about when you're at a company or in a business situation where there's a lot of unknowns and volatility. So, for example, if you start with what you'd have to believe to deliver an outrageously ambitious outcome, but you don't just leave it there, you keep on double clicking on it. Well, if that were true, what else would have to be true? You end up getting to some really impossible, really operational problems, right? In order to deliver that outcome, the most important thing today is to do X. And X usually doesn't seem possible. This is, by the way, not my practice. Apparently. I've been told by business schools that this is the practice that NASA used to get to the Moon or how many tech companies have progressed to launch something breakthrough for which there was no protocol or empirical example. I like it because I think it frames a level of ambition. Even if you're in a mundane situation, it makes you realize that your preconceived notions, or just the act of questioning your preconceived notions focuses you on, on the possibilities. And then it's very pragmatic, like what do you have to believe? And then you ask yourself like, well, can that become true? Like what would make that true is a pretty strong test of whether that believability is ever going to happen or whether you believe it's ever going to happen. Oftentimes think that in particular folks in finance or operations need to apply this the most. I mean as marketers we constantly do this, right? As marketers we always think about what the we vision board, what the consumer might love one day. But we don't really do it operationally and it's hard to do financially. But I stand by the advice. I think it's important to expand possibilities and then brutally assess what must be true to deliver them to determine a path.
- [36:52]
Savannah Brewer
Love that. And what I specifically like about that is it can also be used just in day to day life, like you can use that in business. But even personally, I've had mentors of mine ask me that question many years ago of what would need to be true in order for you to have X, Y, Z. So given the example of I want to find my dream partner and this is what that man looks like and what our life would be like, how he, what the values that he has, well, what would need to be true in order for me to attract that level of person. And then it kind of cuts away all of the things that we can loop around in our mind trying to think of different actions that we might be taking to just clarifying this is like the one core thing, like the one domino that might help in that. So I love that. I love your golden nugget.
- [37:41]
David Lee
That's great.
- [37:42]
Savannah Brewer
Talking about the next six months, kind of where we're going. I think a lot of people are really interested to see what's going to be evolving in 2026. I feel most probably more excited and anticipatory about 2026 than most years that I've had. Just with so many different things that are happening. What are you most excited about? Both with webtoon and then also personally.
- [38:07]
David Lee
Well, with webtoon in the next six months, I would love to cross that two year anniversary as a public company and have our team feel like they know what the reality is like to be globally listed on Nasdaq, to to have a place as a public company where they feel like we're just getting going, but they know exactly what to do every quarter. And we're still young. I like to tell our team we're an infant as a publicly listed company, But I think 2 years old is a bit of a milestone for me with my children and my puppies and my companies too. I think it's a big step. Personally, I am really eager over the next six months to see signs where human creativity is at the forefront of having us hope again. Everything I read today is about the destruction of humanity in some form that I define it. And we all have different values politically. We all have different views on AI. I'm a big believer in human creativity. Webtoon is too by the way we use our technology, I think to defend and enhance are human storytellers, protect them from piracy, enable their productivity, et cetera. I'd love to see in the next six months that story become more of a headline. There are already examples. There are so many examples even at Webtoon where I know of amateur creators I've worked with or met that emerged out of nowhere with a full time job and a dream to be a storyteller. And I'd love to see that become a headline for our world. Personally, that's why I'm at Webtoon. But I beyond Webtoon it would be great where human creativity is defended and is brought to the forefront and becomes an example of hope versus what I read and see today.
- [39:59]
Savannah Brewer
Love that. Is that kind of your personal excitement too or do you have something specific?
- [40:07]
David Lee
Well, listen, I have a daughter that I have two daughters, but one daughter just entered college at the Rhode Island School of Design. And if you don't know this college, it's where they focus on creativity in the arts. And I think my personal interest in human creativity is also reflected in my hope that as a young freshman she finds her footing over the next six months in her first year. I think as a parent there's another milestone not even in every six months. It feels like every week there's something we hope and pray for. But that's definitely top of mind for me.
- [40:38]
Savannah Brewer
Exciting. Well David, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom. It was really enjoyable having this conversation and I'm excited to keep seeing Webtoon grow and develop and sharing your mission. I love that I now know about Webtoon and getting to meet you was a pleasure. So thank you so much for being here.
- [40:57]
David Lee
Thank you so much. Take care.
- [41:00]
Cameron Herold
You've been listening to Second In Command, brought to you by COO Alliance Founder Cameron Harris. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry leading COOs, visit COOAlliance.com.