← Liftoff with Keith: Conversations with Super Founders and Growth Experts sharing useful insights
Liftoff with Keith: Conversations with Super Founders and Growth Experts sharing useful insights
Rethinking Work with Rishad Tobaccowala: Super Founders, Smarter Leadership, and the Future of Work
00:46:02
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- [00:00]
Keith
Foreign this episode is brought to you by the outstanding team at Compass Strategic Advisors, your trusted partner in driving strategic growth. Whether it's expanding into new territories, launching products, rebranding, or hiring key staff and board members, they offer expert guidance every step of the way. With a versatile approach and a proven track record, Compass is the go to resource for both startups and established companies looking to scale with confidence. Show some support for this podcast by sharing this appreciation and checking out their website at www.compass-strategic-advisors.com. well, this is so fun. We live in such chaotic times, even, even frenetic times, that it's good to sometimes find someone you can catch up with and maybe zoom out a little bit. And as he shared with me, see the forest through the trees a little bit and I will suggest help us make sense of it all. And with that I welcome Rishad Tobacco Wallah to the podcast. Rashad, welcome.
- [01:23]
Rishad Tabakawala
Thank you Keith. Thank you for having me.
- [01:26]
Keith
Well, great. Now to set just a little bit of context and please help me add a layer if I forget something because there's a lot here. But you're still with Publicist Group, which you've been with for quite a while. The title of Global Strategist and Chief Growth Officer does some of that to define what you do, although we'll get into much more of that fun detail. But Publicist is because I know the ad agency world to some degree have dealt with it and they are about the top firm and one of the largest firms, the most respected in all the advertising marketing world. And your job in part is helping unleash some of those creative powers in building some of those super founders there within the advertising world. And you know, that's about as tumultuous world as there is right now too.
- [02:16]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah. So a couple of things. I remain connected to the company as a right now I'm a senior advisor but I was the chief Growth Officer and chief strategist until six years ago. For the last six years I've been advising them because I started my own one person company but it sometimes confuses people because my email works and my key cards work everywhere. Okay, right. But I'm. But yeah, but I'm not, I'm not an employee but I was obviously with the board and with a gentleman by the name of Maurice Levy and then the current CEO Arthur Sedun and bunch of other people. We were part of a team that helped transform Publicis, which went from in about a decade from being the third largest of the groups of the holding companies and the second or third largest in market cap. And a company that was very analog with most of its business in Europe and a little bit else to today being a company that is the largest in revenue, a market cap that is bigger than the next two holding companies combined, that is primarily digital. And with the majority of its business in the United States and a majority of its employees in the United States and India. So the entire business has been transformed in a decade.
- [03:47]
Keith
It is an amazing and it is a mega and it is a, you know, beyond unicorn.
- [03:52]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah. And it's 106,000 people now.
- [03:56]
Keith
Of course, I don't want to talk about advertising or marketing except as a byproduct of what I really want to talk to you about, which is partly your new book, which I saw you have shared some posts and please, everybody, follow Rashad's work. See his work on. You're going to really love this conversation because it is about rethinking work. And look, we've had so many crazy things happen over the last decade or so that it's caused us to really rethink, whether it's Covid and, you know, the corresponding work from home trend. And then we have the technology waves and the latest one being a tsunami called artificial intelligence and AI. So when I think about the frenetic pace and the chaos that we're all living under now, we're supposed to build a company and we're supposed to do it in an intelligent, logical way, whereas so much of what goes on in terms of building a company is, is done on a foundation of, of just the, the, the, the ground is moving. So how do you start when you say your new book, rethinking Work, what do we, how do we start to formulate an understanding to rethink work as we are, you know, basically trying to move at the speed of sound?
- [05:09]
Rishad Tabakawala
Sure. So I'm going to start with some roots, and I'm then going to start with some wings. Okay.
- [05:16]
Keith
Yes.
- [05:16]
Rishad Tabakawala
So the roots are both why I wrote the book and what I believe is happening on the ground and how that is going to actually change what companies grow up to being or what companies evolve into being, which are the wings. But I'd like to start with the roots because if you don't understand that, you sometimes wonder like, am I hallucinating on the wing parts of it? Right. So at least we've got to have the roots. So the first three are very philosophical and I'll give you five facts, but I'll give you three philosophical thoughts. So number One is, I believe, having read a lot, that there are three things that keep people happy. One of them is physical health. A second one is quality relationships with people. Third is meaningful, purposeful, rewarding work. If somebody has physical health, good relationships, and meaningful, purposeful, rewarding work, the chances are they're more likely to be happy with those three things than people who don't have those three. I'm not saying people who don't have those three aren't happy and everybody who has these three are, but that seems to be the direction. Number two, if you actually have meaningful, purposeful, rewarding work, you are likely to live longer and live healthier. And it significantly aids the quality of your relationship because you don't go home and kick the cat and the dog. Okay, so what I've now just said is work is very important.
- [06:48]
Keith
Yes.
- [06:49]
Rishad Tabakawala
The second is I believe that work is going to change more between 2019 and 2029. So that's this decade that we're about halfway through than the previous 50 years. And number three, most companies and leaders don't have a clue as about what to hit them and they're fixating on a red herring called return to the office. So I wrote the book and you.
- [07:15]
Keith
Know, I love that last part the most.
- [07:18]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah. So my whole basic belief is the single most important thing that is happening to human beings and into companies is work. It's going to change more in the next decade or this decade than it has in the previous 50 years. No one is paying attention to the right thing. I said it's time to write a book. That's the reason I wrote the book. Now, the five facts, which I'll quickly give without going into detail that we can discuss, are there are five factors that change work, of which the least important is Covid people are fixating on the least important as being the right one that isn't. Four things were happening for a long time. So what is social changes? Social meaning more demographic, not even social. So the US population, I'm going to focus on the US but this is happening outside of seven countries globally. Seven countries which are three in Africa, four in Asia are different. One is the worst. Population is in decline, which will impact both business growth and workers. Number two, the world's population is aging dramatically with the exception of Africa. Number three, there are five generations of work. And baby boomers have a completely different mindset than Gen Z. Not that gen Z is one mindset and baby boomers are one mindset, but baby boomers, 66% believe in capitalism. 22% of gen Z believe in capitalism. 76% of gen Z want to work for themselves. They 67% of gen Z who have a full time job have a side gig or side hustle with which they make money. Right. Those are just some of the.
- [08:57]
Keith
And those are dramatic. I think they can kind of just, you know, water up a duck's back. But those are really.
- [09:02]
Rishad Tabakawala
So those are just some facts in the first chapter. Then the second one is apparently there's this thing called technology of which AI happens to be one of many technology changes. The biggest one. But I also believe xr, which is obviously related to, which is everything from augmented reality, voice, virtual reality, and then blockchain as trust. All of those things are a set of technologies that are changing. Third is the rise of marketplaces. Everything from Uber to Etsy to Shopify to Deal to everything else. So you can stand up a company, you can access markets, you can sell markets. Really? Really. And going to things fast. Fourth is the rise of the side hustle and the side gig. More people in the United States will have a 1099 this year than a W2. Okay, now remember, many W2 people also have a 1099, but because they also.
- [09:55]
Keith
Have a cycle, this is the first time ever.
- [09:58]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yes, this year. This year is free. People who do some freelancing, whether they do full time or freelancing. So somebody who does freelancing either part time or has a job and also does freelancing is bigger than people who only do a job.
- [10:14]
Keith
Mark the tape. Because that's fundamental. We'll come back.
- [10:16]
Rishad Tabakawala
Okay. And then there's this thing apparently called Covid, and people got everything about COVID wrong about what the impact of COVID was. The impact of COVID is not that much on where you work. The impact of COVID is what you think about work and what you think about your boss and what people basically said. One of the reasons people aren't coming back to the office is they don't want to come back to the boss. We have entered an age of debossification and nobody told the bosses that. Okay, you take those five, mix them up, turbocharge it and see how stupid you sound. Let's go back to the office, which is a world that should not have even existed in 2019.
- [11:00]
Keith
Yeah. So your whole point would be really focus on how you build your team and how you build your culture, you build your relationships with people.
- [11:11]
Rishad Tabakawala
Absolutely. And by the way, I'm a big believer and the book has an entire chapter. I'm A big believer on in person interaction. Yes, but whoever said, like, I looked at the agency business. Yeah. So here's what they say. In the agency business, or in any business, but let's say the agency business particularly, we have to be all together in the office to do the following things. Creative brainstorming, relationship building, learning, and banging into each other idiosyncratically as we go to the water cooler. Those are the four reasons I've been hearing about. Okay, so let me begin with the most miserable of those, which is banging into each other idiosyncratically when we go to the water cooler. Okay. Most of these places don't have a water cooler. Most people bring their own Dasani or Perrier bottles. So nobody goes, well, there are those.
- [12:00]
Keith
Espresso machines too, Right, okay, exactly.
- [12:04]
Rishad Tabakawala
But the other thing, to a great extent, which I think most people don't realize, is on Rethinking Work, I'm going to have a sort of a show. And my first guest is a Harvard Business School professor. He's just shown that if you aren't working with people who are within 25 meters of you, which is 75ft for the Americans, okay, you'll never meet them. So if they're 75ft away from you, there's going to be no idiosyncratic banging together. And who do you think sits next to you? People who exactly are in your own department. So there's no cross fertilization of any sort. So that is a lie all the way down to the goddamn water cooler. It's bullshit. All the way down to bullshit. Okay, that's number one. And the other, we are even more bullshit. When we wanted to create a brainstorming, we'd go to off sites. When I wanted to build a relationship, I go in a bar, in a restaurant.
- [12:53]
Keith
Yeah.
- [12:53]
Rishad Tabakawala
When I wanted to learn, I went to Cairns and ces. Nothing that's basically done in the office is what in person interaction does they require in person interaction. But whoever told you it has to be in a big fat building that you pay high real estate costs for and people have to slog two hours to come to whoever said that? And that is a big thing that people are not beginning to realize, and they suddenly wake up and they said, do you realize you masters and mistresses of the universe are solving for the wrong problem even on this office thing? The question should be how do I maximize the benefits of in person interaction while ensuring flexibility and cost agility in a world where talent matters so that.
- [13:37]
Keith
The employee still is excited about getting to know these people that they work around.
- [13:42]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yes, yes, I can tell you there are companies in my book shows them. There are companies who basically, literally fly their entire company once a quarter to a resort somewhere in the world, put them up for a week, and that's cheaper. Better bonding, better interacting, better relationship building than basically having lots of real estate in a city where everybody goes 52 weeks a year. It's so obvious. The same companies that say we're going to be personalized, we're going to be agile, we're going to be whatever one size fits model for all of our workers. Come on now, Marshmallow minds and jujube spines is the modern leadership.
- [14:25]
Keith
So how do we go about architecting these super founders who understand how to do it from a product standpoint, from an engineering standpoint. In my world, Right. I'm Talking about the B2B enterprise and tech and all that space. But I think it applies as well to the agency world and the other modern technology or modern businesses. It's, it's the. We, we sort of put them on a pedestal. They're working so hard, they're coming up with all these ideas. They, they just got a meeting with this company, they got a new client, they're writing emails over the weekend, they're calling us, scheduling time at night, late into the evening. We put that sort of behavior on a pedestal. Yet we want to also reward the person that's building a culture and letting people live a normal, sane life as well. How do we rebalance?
- [15:12]
Rishad Tabakawala
So the way we balance is the first thing you basically ask is what is a great culture?
- [15:17]
Keith
Yeah.
- [15:18]
Rishad Tabakawala
And a culture I don't believe is a spa. So a lot of people think a culture is a spa. Like I think many of these large technology companies don't have cultures, they have cults. You need a compound in which you drink Kool Aid. Okay. And they're scared that people won't drink the Kool Aid and then they'll think for themselves. But whatever. Okay, so culture is not a place as people think it is. It isn't a place. A culture is four things. It's excellence, excellent talent, excellent financial results, excellent products and services. Second, it's a growth mindset. And we've seen that with Satya, Nadella and others proving it. A third is collaboration and a fourth is open and honest communication. If you have open and honest communication where I can say, Keith, this thing that is on the table, brown and moist, is not a garland cookie. It's a piece of shit. That's good Open communication, talking about the turn on the table. But so many companies have a meeting to prepare a meeting to prepare for a meeting so that nobody can actually say something truthful in a meeting. That's not a goddamn culture. That can be in a spa. That ain't a culture, okay? Collaboration is how we work together. Communication and then obviously growth, mindset and excellence. So what I basically say is first say, okay, that's what we're aiming for, right? So the goal is I want to open and honest communication, people working together, creating excellent stuff. Then the next step is where am I in my company or in my product life cycle? And who are my customers and who is my talent? You have to triage those three. Your customers may require handholding from a salesforce or somebody in their office all the time. You have to plan for that. You can't basically say customer, you don't care. Right? Talent, you may have younger talent or you may be younger in your life ecosystem. And you need to bond people together. It's early in the product cycle. People have got to know each other so you have a little bit more in person interaction. On the other hand, you've got a world class engineer and she may not be able to come into work because she's either looking after her kids or an aging parent or she's living somewhere. So the whole idea basically is keep always. How do I basically get excellent products, let people communicate and collaborate and then make sure that I do it in a way that I don't lose my customers. That means what you will come up with is not a one size fits all model, which is what we all keep wanting, like a silver bullet. There is no silver bullet to the future of work. There are likely to be two or three models, right? So I would say, for instance, let's suppose Keith, you and I, because we are amazingly talented people, which I am not. But let's suppose both of us were deeply talented and for a variety of reasons, we couldn't leave where we were. Okay? And one company basically says, rashad, we can hire you, but you have to be in my office in New York City. And I said, I can't leave Chicago right now for the next six months. So they say, okay, you're not available and therefore we're not using you. A competitive company would basically say, hey, Rashad, we would like to hire you. We'd like you to be here, but we still need you. But we think we'll lose a little bit not having you all the time. Would you be willing to do that? And be paid 10% or 20% less. I said, sure. So now what happens is they've got me less cost and everything is fine. Right. And what basically happens is another company just said, I'm a loser. In a world where you think like, everybody is talented, it isn't. There's lot. Some people are talented and some people who aren't, and the most talented people are the ones who have the most flexibility. Literally, like, when I talk to these people, I say, are you talking about humans? Are you talking about algorithms?
- [19:09]
Keith
Yeah. It is really kind of fascinating to think about when you walk into these companies and everyone is siloed and in meeting rooms and, yeah, here's what they do.
- [19:20]
Rishad Tabakawala
They sit in the room. First of all, now, because I don't know about facts across all industries, but I think this is true in the tech industry, But I obviously know a lot of facts in the services industry. Most of the service industry over the last five years increased their headcount by about 20%. Over the last five years, they grew, so they increased their headcount about 20%, and they reduced their real estate footprint by an average of 40%. So when people come back to the office, most people have no space. I've seen companies where people come in and say, there's no place to sit, there's no place to stand.
- [19:59]
Keith
Shared desk. Go sit in the coffee room.
- [20:02]
Rishad Tabakawala
So what you then do is you have to have an entire plot on how to find a place to sit. Yeah. Okay. And then you resent the fact that you are driving or in a train for one and a half hours to go for a scrimmage, to find a place to sit in front of a screen that's not as good as your screen drinking coffee that's not as good as your coffee at home. And you think, this is the future of work.
- [20:24]
Keith
I get to go to the free commissary, though, the cafeteria that they opened up for everybody. Hey, Rishi, let me ask you, though, okay, so we've done a fair job of laying out the table in terms of what the challenges are, where the roadblocks are. And I work with a lot of companies in tech, and I also see them at the early stage, so they're, like, in that growth mode. And I believe, like, that's where you kind of set the DNA, right? That's, you know, you don't want to wait till you're $100 million company and you go, okay, now we got to work on culture. So how does that early stage company. What are some tips you give the founder, the executive team, you know, to help them get straight right away, what are some ideas?
- [21:02]
Rishad Tabakawala
So here's one of the key things that I often suggest is early on, try to basically take as many of your key employees and other employees and create a boot camp. It doesn't have to. Right? And it could be a. And if you go off season, you can do a boot camp in very nice places, fly everybody there for about a month, you hang out for a month, and what you're doing is simultaneously creating the product roadmap and all the things that you need to do altogether. But also you are all together. So you're building relationships, having drinks, doing whatever is necessary. And then you basically say, okay, how often after that do we all have to get together? And are there some people who have to get together more often versus less important? Now everybody goes to wherever they want because they've had that boot camp. Then the conversation between people, even on.
- [21:55]
Keith
They'Re more familiar with everything.
- [21:57]
Rishad Tabakawala
So they start by saying, hey, remember you got completely drunk and you fell into the beach sand or the castle. So, so you start like that. So you have that and then I call that the vaccination. Very, very important because you.
- [22:09]
Keith
Right, but then vaccination's an interesting word today, but. Okay, yes, please.
- [22:13]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah, yeah. But my whole stuff is if you work in technology and don't believe in science, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Okay, so what tends to basically happen is the vaccination and then what you decide is how many booster shots do you need in the future? Like you come back together maybe every three months for a week. But there may be some people who need to come back in a different way. But I think in today's world with technology, you can do so much and every. Research has shown there's actually more cross pollination of distributed people than together people.
- [22:45]
Keith
So you're really saying that, look, work is a central fabric. It brings us together, it makes us happy, it delivers all kinds of mana. But at the same time, we're supposed to achieve that through some superficial relationship and casual correspondence. It doesn't connect.
- [23:02]
Rishad Tabakawala
Right. And so what basically happens is what you do is you create those relationships. And remember, nobody said relationships cannot be created virtually. Because the truth of the matter is people create a whole bunch of the relationships first and then they even including match.com. okay? So my whole stuff is you can do a whole bunch of stuff, right? And there are people all over the place in fact. And so I think it's not that it's like intentional, which is the. All my research says in person interaction early on in a relationship helps relationships.
- [23:35]
Keith
And I want to be a great founder. I want to be a great founder. I want my employees to love me.
- [23:42]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah.
- [23:42]
Keith
I also want to drive the business. And that means really pushing them hard too. What else can I do?
- [23:48]
Rishad Tabakawala
Well, the three things you want to pushing them hard is basically asking to create cool shit and not constantly telling them to push on their colon. Okay. Too many people basically are hitting and whipping people's colon. That doesn't. So I said like you're telling me how your colon works, how many hours you're spending in the bathroom, how much Metamucil you're having, all the colon exercises you're doing. I just want to see the cool shit. And if you created cool shit in 15 minutes, I don't care. Right. So what happens is this driving people hard is actually not driving outcomes. It's basically driving the process, but the process is not the product. In most places, especially in a world that we're moving to where we've always. For a long time, it's not necessarily in the software industry, but in many industries and sometimes some parts of software industry and hardware industry, they've associated outcome with input. How much input did you put in? And therefore that has something to do with outcome. Okay. And my basic belief is let's just drive what outcomes are. What outcomes are you expecting? And you drive hard against the outcomes. I want those outcomes. And if you can't deliver those outcomes, give me three reasons why you can't deliver those outcomes. Reasons that have to do with you, which is, Rashad, you can't do the outcome. Can you tell us why you can't do the outcome with the company, which is something in your. In the company. And third is with me, the person who's driving you to the outcomes. If you cannot drive the outcome, is it because it's not a fair outcome? I'm not giving you enough of the support you need from the company? Or that at this particular stage you aren't trained enough to do the outcome or not. In this part, that is what people do, but instead what people do is. Rishad, you're an idiot. You haven't been able to do the outcome. You must work harder. Well, my problem is I start working harder, you're calling me every 15 minutes, boss, telling me where's the outcome? How can I draw an outcome if you're calling me every 15 minutes? Okay, and. And you're also all the people I'm supposed to work with, when I'm supposed to work with them, you're calling them and saying, where the hell is the outcome? Why don't you just get out of the process for a moment, okay? And, and so all these folks, they, their whole belief is because they can't see. I think the world's best companies are built on something. What this collaboration and open communication does is it generates in many ways trust. And my basic belief is you want to run a great culture, have a culture of trust, which also means writing positive as well as negative, but with, you know, with ways to collected feedback. So my whole stuff is if I'm constantly in a good communication, like I worked for all these years at Publicist, I left and I'm still working with them. I think one reason is because they think without some help from them, I'll be like completely on the street, worthless. So, okay, that's okay, that's probably true. Okay. But the other reason is they trust me. And what they basically say is, you're really good and you sometimes come up with some stupid ideas and you come and you like yell and scream at us saying we don't know what we're talking about. And similarly they call me and say, why are you doing it like this? Right? And so the whole idea is when you talk to somebody, and I've always believed that you can engender trust without having 50 year relationships or 30 year relationships. And I discovered the three ways to build trust, which if nothing else, founders, you know, you're trying to create cultures, you're trying to be trusted relationships, trusted VC partners, trusted investors. Three ways you do these three, you'll have trust, okay? It doesn't need 50 years of relationships. Number one, whenever you're saying something, show people the data. Okay? Why did you just say that? Show them the data. So I'm going to go and talk to a bunch of very senior people to try to basically tell them the way they're thinking about things are wrong. And one of the pieces of data I'm going to show them is that 51% of all automobile sales, new automobile sales last year were to women, okay? Because they think it's all a male oriented industry. And my stuff is years of fact. Okay? So show me the data. If you're going to give me an argument, show me your data and where you got it from. So I'll show the data. The second is, can you be very clear about your intention? What are you trying to do? So my whole stuff is, I'M here in this meeting to try to convince you that you all see the market this way, and I think the market is this way. So I'm going to share you some data. So my intention is to get you to change your mind because I don't think you're seeing it correctly. So that's what my intention is. I'm not some fourth dimensional chess thinker. How many times you basically sit around and say, I wonder what my boss actually is trying. I wonder what my investor actually is thinking. They're telling me this, but what's really on their mind? Well, you should tell people what's on your mind. Here's what I'm trying to do. Right. Or here's what I'm concerned about. So intention, clear data. And then the third thing is transparency. So transparency is. I am trying to convince Keith that Rashad is a smart person. That's my intention. Okay. The data is, I'm not going to behave like an idiot. I'm going to give you some data points. Right. Transparency is. See, Keith, I'm doing all of this to show you that I'm not stupid. That's transparency. You try that data, intent and transparency, you win. Trust. And by the way, none of that requires you to be in the room with a person.
- [29:17]
Keith
You know, Rashad, that's fantastic. I'm going to definitely have a few good call outs from this conversation to share, but I think the word trust is coming up more and more in conversations at executives. Probably a bunch of reasons for that, but I think it's very important right now. So I'm glad you pointed that out.
- [29:35]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah. And by the way, I believe for everyone who's creating anything in industry, I believe the most important two words in your business are going to be ti, not AI, and TI is trust. Integrity. Oh, okay. So there's a big difference between trust and integrity. Trust is how you feel about a person. Okay. Integrity is how you behave.
- [30:04]
Keith
Yes.
- [30:05]
Rishad Tabakawala
Okay. Yeah. And my whole stuff is you will find that companies and leaders and brands that have a disproportionate share of trust and integrity are going to win.
- [30:18]
Keith
And I can't get it from an app.
- [30:20]
Rishad Tabakawala
You can't? Well, your app could try to get you to become more trusted and more integrity through an exercise, but it's going to have to actually be you. And, you know, it's a very simple thing and most people don't realize this, so we do a lot of math and algorithms and things like that in our industry and all these industries. And I have an advanced Degree in math, I have an MBA in finance, I bought data companies. So let's assume I'm not an anti data clown. Okay. I maybe get a little bit of it. Right. So why do I go running around telling people that both AI as well as data is like electricity. You weren't able to operate without it, but it's a commodity. Do you go running around saying I have a better company than yours because I have access to electricity?
- [31:06]
Keith
Not a lot.
- [31:07]
Rishad Tabakawala
Unless you're competing with someone with candlelight. Right, right. So when people basically say I've got this amazing AI that is built on seven foundational models that I can access for $20 a month, what exactly is that about? Right.
- [31:19]
Keith
So the point being, it's not who has the most data wins, it's who uses it the best. Right?
- [31:23]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yes. The whole idea basically is that if that is true, it's something that you add to it. What basically happens is what I truly believe is both brands and companies and products and salespeople and everything, which is the ecosystem, CEOs relationships with, you know, venture capital, private equity, whatever, is basically the person who's making the decision is choosing with their hearts and they're using numbers to justify what they just did.
- [31:55]
Keith
Yeah.
- [31:56]
Rishad Tabakawala
Okay. And I've talked to everybody. Okay, what are you betting on? I'm betting on a founder. I'm betting on this. Right. Because the reality of it is if you're starting something new, there is no actual facts and data to convince people that you actually are going to succeed when you start something new. So when you tell me you're doing it through data and facts, the only data and facts is your track record in the past, which doesn't mean it will be repeated in the future. But if you're really starting a pioneering product, a pioneering service, a pioneering something, what you're actually basically doing is you're winning the trust of your investors and your team to come and join you. And what they're doing is they're choosing with their hearts and then you're giving them some data points and for them to justify what they just did.
- [32:41]
Keith
Nice, nice. I, I hope that served your investment theses well.
- [32:47]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yes, yes. It literally, I mean, look, yes. You know, I, I, in the world of like I'm, I'm in the world of marketing and other things. So a lot of people tell me, you know, it's all about data driven. So I said, okay, let me get, take this back, let me figure this out. What is the most it changes these days, but because in the us, but the most valuable company in the world for a lot of time. And now Bob's up and down tends to be Apple. Okay, here's a bit of Nvidia Microsoft action, but it's basically Apple. Okay. What's the most valuable companies in Europe? Hermes and Louis Vuitton. Moet Fantasy. Okay, I can go around the world. Okay. And I'll say, okay, do you believe that those companies are data driven? Better technology, better products and better service company, or do they use logistics and all of that? But actually what separates them is everything from provenance to design to storytelling, to craftsmanship and to history, to tradition, to rituals. And they said, oh, that's true. So I said, listen, if it's all about math, it has no meaning.
- [34:07]
Keith
Which is funny. Yeah. Because you said, hey, I got to bring data to the meeting, otherwise I just have an opinion.
- [34:13]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah. But if you notice, but I'm now using data, I'm using intent and I'm using transparency and I'm getting further and further from data. So I've got data, intent. Here's what I'm trying to do. Transparency. And then suddenly magically. Right, yes, there's an alchemic effect and I get trust.
- [34:30]
Keith
Okay, well, I have to pivot now because I've already taken too much of your time. But I have to pivot to a couple more questions that are a little bit different. Okay. You obviously have worked with a great many people and you've done a lot of public speaking and consulting, advising board speaking, all of that great stuff. Tell me somebody on the founder level who's really had the, you know, the hand on the wheel that you really admire and why.
- [34:57]
Rishad Tabakawala
So, you know, I'll give you a couple of people. So the two people, what I admire what he has done and the other I admire about what the person has done and the person, okay, so the person who I admire as sort of a founder, because what he really did was he was not the original founder, but he built it both as a person and what they did is the person I reported to, which is a guy called Maurice Levy, who's still alive. Okay. And Maurice had so Publicis in its 100 years, it's going to turning 100 years next year is only on its third CEO. Okay. And this guy got a company that was basically built, that had a few people in Paris and a couple of other things, and he built it into the world's largest company being hands on right through the whole thing. So for instance, he could tell you, like even today, six years after I've left and he's like the executive chairman. He'll say, hey, can you tell me what you think about this person? Confidentially? So I'll say, here's what I think. And he said, yeah, and if you remember on that day, this happened on that time, which I myself have forgotten, okay. But at the very same stage, he could think broadly that the future of this French company in advertising was going to be in America and with technology. That's one. The other person who I actually admire, but I don't know him as a person, and I'm not exactly sure what his personal thing is. What Zuckerberg has done with Meta, he's pivoted. He's done stuff. He's learned really fast. He learned when Apple basically hit him at the knees what to do, right? He. He pivoted from Meta to this. He has llama. He has a bunch of interesting stuff. If you think he's got WhatsApp, he's in the virtual world. I mean, that's pretty remarkable. You might like or not like the person, but my God, you surprised me with the pick.
- [37:02]
Keith
But I understand. I mean, so.
- [37:05]
Rishad Tabakawala
So I try to find somebody who I really admire and like, and then somebody from far away, I think. I don't know if I like him as a person, but I don't know him. So I can't say, you know, you don't. If you never met the person outside of, like, shaking his hand at the back of a conference room. I don't know the person.
- [37:23]
Keith
And just finally, have you seen somebody become transformed? In other words, they started off as being a person with sort of a questionable TI and then became a. A TI ninja, like an expert. Like, they really understood. They really understood what they did. Like, their first company, you know, they just ran it into the ground after, you know, tremendous potential, raised a lot of money and. And crap. But then, you know, they started another company and it really blossomed.
- [38:00]
Rishad Tabakawala
So a lot of people that I've met, like in the advertising and other space, there have been people like Mike and Cass Lazaro, who built a company called Golf.com, which is okay, but then they built this company called Buddy Media, which they sold for $850 million to Salesforce. And they learned from their first sort of lessons. A lot of the people, like, who, you know, there been a lot of people who originally did the first version of like, sort of advertising, then went to advertising.com and made that happen. But interestingly, even within large companies, not that they were not successful, but they Morphed. And in their morphing and transforming themselves, they transform companies. So I'm going to basically talk about three Indian guys. Okay. Not that I'm fixated on Indian guys, but I always said, okay, here are three Indian guys because they just happen to be the CEOs of three very successful companies. One's called Google, one's called Microsoft and one's called Adobe.
- [39:06]
Keith
Never heard of them.
- [39:06]
Rishad Tabakawala
Okay.
- [39:07]
Keith
Yeah.
- [39:08]
Rishad Tabakawala
And if you think about it, there was a period of time, there was about 12 months to 18 months, maybe 10 years ago, late, longer that Adobe was given up for dad because they thought that Shantanu Narayan had lost his mind. And what did Chantan do? He did two things that confused the hell out of people. I remember their stock price went something from 90 to 18 or $20. They decided that he was not going to basically focus on Shrink Rank software. So he basically said, okay, no, two, $300 Adobe Photoshop, it's $19 or whatever it was a month. One second is, I have to think broader than this. So I have to go and buy a company called Omniture and get into data. And people said, what are you doing? Okay. Now that company today has everything from its marketing cloud, a whole bunch of stuff. And it went from A$19 to A$450 stock. And he reinvented himself and reinvented the company, but he went to the valley of pain. Similarly, the same thing happened in the case of Satya Nadella, who was always there. But he basically quickly. In those days, if you remember, the big thing about Microsoft were three things. They're a bully.
- [40:21]
Keith
Yes.
- [40:23]
Rishad Tabakawala
They release fake products so they can piss in a big fat circle and everything is seen through the world of Windows. What did he do? He said we're going to go from a know it all mindset to a growth mindset. Yeah.
- [40:37]
Keith
And they jumped to the cloud and he championed that where.
- [40:40]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah. And by the way, we are going to now have no Windows operating division. There's no Windows operating division.
- [40:46]
Keith
And by the way, they went hard at AI.
- [40:49]
Rishad Tabakawala
And then the person who by the way, actually was cautious and therefore I think he's in the process of becoming uncautious. So watch out. This is my. I don't know. I don't know these people. I mean, I know Shantanu, but I don't know anybody. I don't know any of them. Well, but who was the first person who actually understood among all these C level executives? AI. And I truly believe it was Sundar Pichai. So you go Back the day he became the CEO, long before that, he said, and people wondering what he said, Google is an AI first company who went on board DeepMind. Right. And everything else. But at the same time, he was cautious. And so OpenAI went all the technologies that most of the OpenAI people used to work at Google or at DeepMind or other places. Right. He was cautious. I think that those days of cautiousness are over.
- [41:48]
Keith
Well, a lot of times you're the guy in with the title, but there's some people behind the, you know, the screen that they're maneuvering and pushing buttons.
- [41:59]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah. But basically he's genuinely. He understands the whole spectrum of stuff. He's attracted amazing people like cannabis and all these people. And so what tends to happen is you see these people reinventing themselves from success to success or from taking the company through a valley of failure where people say, what are you doing? And the fact that these large companies can do the term that most VCs and most young people talk the famous pivot. Okay. And pivot usually is, okay, this thing I tried didn't work, so I'm trying something else. But instead of saying the other thing was a failure, I think I'm pivoting. Okay. That's what we normally say. Right. And so what happens is they pivoted companies from success to greater success. That's the hardest pivoting of all.
- [42:48]
Keith
I agree. I agree. Well, Rishad, this has been fantastic. I can't believe how fast this all went. And I promised you a half hour. We went quite a bit over. But I, I really appreciate the time and the insights. These are important, important points. And I hope our audience of, of a lot of movers, shakers, influencers, founders can learn something from this and maybe make their companies a little bit better. I know, personally, one of the greatest compliments I get is when somebody who's worked for me in the past suggested they, they look back and find those were some of the most rewarding times they would work for me again. And they take my opinions and they value those. I know you feel the same way, but what a great way to measure your success or your legacy. Right. Do people still value your opinion? Would they want to work for you again? Do they value that time they spent with you?
- [43:47]
Rishad Tabakawala
Yeah, I mean, you know, my basic belief is that they do. And in fact, today someone basically selected me for this big award on mentorship, which is. Right. And one of the. I would basically say that in our seasoned state, which is a better way of, more nice way of saying Older and aged. So I call myself seasoned. It also sounds spicy, right? And what I would basically say to everybody is there are three pieces of advice I would give everyone. The first one is, regardless of how senior and how well you are doing, allocate an hour every day to learn. Okay? That's number one, because the half life of knowledge is declining. Second is the more successful you are, the more you want to make sure that you spend time to think like an immigrant. And the reason is because we're all immigrating into the future. I'm not saying we're all immigrants. Okay? And what do immigrants do? They think like outsiders, they think like underdogs, and they think with a future focus. And often when you have arrived, you don't think like an outsider, you don't think like an underdog, and you don't think like a future focus. So you make decisions for your quarterly number. You've already arrived, so you live in your castle. And my basic belief is your castle and your moat. For me, as an underdog, your moat is nothing but a source of water to drive you out of the castle. Okay? So build a case for the exact opposite. Because when you get very senior, everybody says you're really cool, you're surrounded by rich people or famous people, and you begin to believe that your flatulence smells like Chanel 5. Don't do that. And the third is, if nothing else, be generous. Because it's like the two songs I like, Eric Clapton, Plant yout Love, and Let It Grow from Let It Grow. And My favorite Band and supposedly the last song off their last album, which isn't necessarily true, is and in the End by the Beatles. Right? Which is the love you take is equal to the love you make. And people don't realize your generosity is the world's best strategy if you want to actually build relationships.
- [45:50]
Keith
Well, now I got a new song to add at the end of our Rishad. Thanks so much.
- [45:55]
Rishad Tabakawala
Thank you very much. Thank you. You bet. Bye.
- [45:58]
Keith
Bye.