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I'm at Callan and this is 
scaling up. 

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I like to see about 60% of the 
energy of the team going into 

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building things for customers 
users in the business. 

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I like to see about 30 percent 
of the energy going on platforms

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and technologies that are 
scalable and that leaves 10%. 

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And I like to see that ten 
percent spent on innovation. 

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This podcast aims to educate and
Inspire by telling the stories 

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of great growth companies As 
Told by their CEOs. 

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And Founders TDM is an 
Australian based investment firm

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that invests globally in 
fast-growing public, and private

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companies for more insights 
visit our website TDM growth 

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partners.com. 
Welcome to a special episode of 

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scaling up and episode where we 
trying to uncover. 

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What does great look like? 
When it comes to technology 

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leadership and building Great 
Tech teams my guests to help 

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decode. 
All of this is Hugh Williams, 

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and I'm probably not all that 
familiar to many listeners, but 

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someone who has had a 
significant impact on many of 

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our Lives. 
Regardless, he truly is one of 

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Australia's greatest technology,
exports a leader, who's been at 

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the Forefront of some of the 
biggest Innovations of the Two 

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decades amongst inventing the 
infinite scroll, something that 

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we all use every day for getting
that was not always the case. 

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The content could be loaded 
continuously as we scroll away, 

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relentlessly on our web 
browsing. 

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He was also one of the leading 
experts globally on internet 

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search his career and journey 
spans. 

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The Global Tech Giants at 
Microsoft, eBay and Google where

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Hugh led the Google Maps team as
VP of engineering and product 

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and we dig into the traits Hugh 
look. 

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When he was hiring great 
technical Talent as well as how 

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great teams in the tech 
functions are built, I really 

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felt it was necessary to dive 
into a bit of a lane of 

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Discovery here to better 
understand the impact, great 

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engineers and leaders can have 
on a wider organization, both 

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structurally and culturally. 
I hope you enjoy this special. 

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What does great look like 
episode that hopefully 

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complements, our previous mini 
series on both the CFO and CP 0 

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function? 
And of course, for other great 

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content, the TDM medium page Is 
a great place to start. 

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And as always, the link is in 
the show notes. 

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Q. 
Welcome to a special episode of 

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scaling up. 
It's a series interlude of sorts

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I guess regular, listeners know,
both the founder stories that we

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try and tell. 
But also sporadically, we also 

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try to illuminate what great 
looks like when it comes to 

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other key areas of company 
building and there's no one 

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better in my mind to really 
explore, what makes a great 

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technology leader and what great
technology teams look like. 

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But what I am deeply fascinated 
with is how the best business Is

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a built. 
And so, I think it's really 

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important to illuminate this 
technical side of businesses and

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their role in building 
companies. 

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My friend Fraser, who I sit next
to it work, here has this great 

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poster above his desk and it 
says mediocre Engineers. 

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Don't build great technology 
companies and aside from 

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alluding to the technical 
skills. 

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Directly, it also talks to the 
fact that these wonderful 

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generational technology 
companies are built by people. 

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And so I do want to dig into To 
not just what a great engineer 

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looks like. 
But also what great engineering 

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cultures can look like that 
allow for people to do their 

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best work now. 
I think that's already too much 

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from me, so let's get into you 
and a quick thumbnail sketch of 

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your career because I think it's
nice for listeners to get a feel

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for you. 
Your upbringing, what brought 

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you to technology and of course 
maybe some keys of tombstones in

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your career as you see them. 
I was a phenomenally lucky kid. 

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Ed I was maybe six going on, 
seven years old, my parents 

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decided around the dining table 
to make a career move and the 

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career move was my Dad. 
Decided he wanted to be a 

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computer programmer as they were
as they were called back then 

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and he had no knowledge of 
computing. 

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So this is 1976. 
So what they did was they bought

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a Fortran book man. 
I wish I'd kept it and they 

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basically went from chapter one 
through to the end pencil piece 

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of paper and taught themselves 
around the dining. 

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Abel how to write Fortran and 
then my dad bluffed his way 

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through a job interview with 
Esso in sale in gippsland here 

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in Victoria and became a 
computer programmer with no 

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prior background, which there's 
something about, you know, the 

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entrepreneurial Spirit, perhaps 
of my parents and the good thing

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for me was I guess two things 
really and the first thing was, 

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there's a Fortran book in the 
house. 

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And so I kind of went the seems 
kind of interesting. 

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And so started at chapter 1, in 
tried to sort of figure out how 

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to program in Fortran. 
And then the second Was amazing 

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for me, was my dad now had 
access to mainframe computers. 

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And so I could, you know, write 
down simple programs that I 

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wanted to try, you know, print 
out the numbers from 1 to 100. 

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And then I could give that to 
Dad, he could take it to work on

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the weekends book some time on 
this Mainframe computer. 

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Run it for me and bring home the
printouts. 

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So, I was madly writing for 
training when I was like, six, 

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seven years old in the same way 
that you know, maybe kids learn 

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maths at school, you know, very 
Elementary, sort of simple. 

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Stuff putting together simple 
Concepts but started doing that 

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when I was six or seven. 
When I was about ten my dad 

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built us a computer at home out 
in the garage and and then all 

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of a sudden had a computer at 
home which was a massive 

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Revolution. 
So I kind of fell in love with 

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Computing. 
When I was when I was a really 

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small kid and back then it was 
very much a solo thing, you 

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know, like, it was nobody, I 
knew who was interested in 

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computers or probably even knew 
what a computer was little own 

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and Regional Victoria, what are 
unique upbringing and this 

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passion and curiosity LED you to
rmit. 

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In Melbourne, the early 90s, the
internet just was in its infancy

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and started to get going. 
How does the narrative Arc 

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continue from here University to
working at some huge 

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generational companies, 
Microsoft, eBay, Google let you 

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take it from here. 
So I am, I took a year off after

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school. 
Actually, I went to Indonesia 

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and live there for a year and 
then came back and sort of fell 

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back in love with computer 
science, and went to went to 

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rmit University, started there 
in 1988. 

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Did the classic undergraduate 
computer science degree and made

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a ton of good friends who had 
similar upbringings? 

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It was real interesting. 
Sort of come finally come 

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together with a set of people 
who had, you know, a common 

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interest in a common passion. 
But as you say it, I mean, it 

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was before the internet. 
So back, then, it was still 

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somewhat mainframes IBM. 
Sort of PCS, but largely was 

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about building, desktop 
software, and, you know, and it 

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is it sort of really was back. 
Then was a support function in 

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most companies, you know, they 
weren't really terribly many 

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technology companies except The 
likes of Microsoft and those 

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kinds of folks, but the internet
sort of existed. 

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At that point. 
I think it had a there was a 

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single modem at Melbourne, uni 
that connected Australia to the 

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rest of the internet. 
So it wasn't common to be able 

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to access the internet but then 
in the early 90s, the World Wide

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Web was born. 
And I remember that light bulb 

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going off. 
I remember going to a talk, 

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actually, I think it was in 
1994, it's guy got up and he 

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said, one day, I believe there 
could be over a million pages on

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the world wide web. 
Member like you could hear it, 

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you hear a pin drop it, but it 
wouldn't have taken along didn't

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take long for there. 
But everybody's like, wow, that 

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is a lot of pages because, you 
know, that that point in time, 

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you kind of went at nasa.gov and
there wasn't a lot else to do, 

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and then obviously it exploded. 
And then, you know, the internet

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companies were born and search 
became a thing and so on and so 

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forth. 
It's about accelerate, the story

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of little bit, you know, I 
finished the undergraduate 

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degree in 1990. 
I started my own company, and 

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then I went back to University 
in 94, to do the honours year, 

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and then I went on and did. 
PhD in computer science and this

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sort of research area. 
I got interested in was search 

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technology which back then, was 
sort of called information 

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retrieval and was largely about 
searching information in 

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libraries, but that technology 
it turned out was incredibly 

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valuable technology because it 
became the basis of the first 

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generation of search engines. 
So if you think back about you 

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know look smart excite infoseek 
Altavista, you know that crowd 

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of search engines, became the 
technology that underpins those 

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and then later became the 
technology that underpins Google

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in the late 1990s. 90s. 
So so my area of expertise 

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turned out to be a valuable area
of expertise. 

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And I think it was 1999, Google 
pinged me and said, would you 

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like to come and work for us? 
And at that point, they were 

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vacuuming up, people like me 
from all over the world. 

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You know, people who had this 
research, interest in search 

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technology, they wanted all of 
them Flew Over the California 

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went through the interview 
process, got the offer letter, 

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which was almost like hand 
typed, you know, I still got it 

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somewhere, I should find it and 
then I came back and my wife and

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I went through a lot of angst. 
Should we move to the United 

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States? 
Is this the right time? 

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The pay was terrible, by the 
way. 

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Like it wasn't even enough to 
pay for the rent, in the Bay 

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area. 
So I was actually gonna go 

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backwards by taking the job and 
there's these things called 

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options, heavy Equity, component
of the equity component, crazy 

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options, didn't understand what 
they were. 

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Of course, at that point in time
search was a terrible business 

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to so Google. 
At that point had an invented, 

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their ads model and a whole 
bunch of other search companies 

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have gone broke. 
So you know it seemed like going

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and taking a research job with 
some awesome people. 

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People that I would lose money 
doing. 

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My wife is actually very, very 
keen on the job but I kind of 

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went, I don't know, I'm not 
really sure. 

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And so we passed and obviously, 
you know, hindsight suggest that

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wasn't the best best financial 
move and then later on I got a 

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similar offer from Yahoo. 
We're now sort of getting into 

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the early 2000s to come and do 
the same thing. 

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Similar crowd of people, you 
know, similar kind of job and 

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then eventually in 2003, 
Microsoft ping me and said would

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you like to come work and I'll 
sort of foundational? 

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Team we're gonna go and take on 
Google, we're going to build a 

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better, search engine change the
world, and so I flew over and 

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met them. 
A few of my friends worked 

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there. 
There's a couple of Australians 

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who worked there and I thought 
this is the time, let's do it. 

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And so I took this job working 
at Microsoft and we moved to the

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us and that was, you know, the 
beginning of a career. 

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In the US, the 10th engineer is 
you just called out helping to 

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build being from there, move to 
eBay, which, you know, the Tori 

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is pretty well-known. 
I think, by now is a VP of 

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engineering and product and we 
can dig into what you learnt in 

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really playing a pivotal role in
building that business. 

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And then, of course, this little
thing called Google Maps, you 

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did end up at Google many years 
later, essentially running the 

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team and the project around 
Google Maps, which is now part 

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of everyone's life day to day. 
So we can now imagine you as one

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of the leading technologists 
globally and we're lucky to have

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you in a Raelia now giving back 
and we can touch on that later 

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but maybe just zoom out a little
bit before we Zoom back in as a 

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stray lien from Regional 
Victoria going to the valley. 

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It's almost this Disneyland for 
technologists and really a 

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beehive of counterculture. 
It was attracting people that 

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maybe had felt that they weren't
needed or wanted elsewhere in 

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the corporate world. 
Can you give a sense of what it 

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was like to be part of Silicon 
Valley? 

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But also Oh, maybe some of the 
big lessons that you took from 

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your time, the best and the 
brightest in my area of 

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expertise absolutely work on the
west coast of the US. 

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So whether it's Seattle 
Washington where Microsoft and 

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Amazon are headquartered or 
whether it's, you know, the 

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Silicon Valley, proper where, 
you know you find our people and

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Facebook and Google of course. 
And so I think what's really 

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amazing about working in 
companies on the west coast of 

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the US is the people are just 
off-the-charts amazing and I 

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don't just mean intellectually. 
But I mean me a phenomenally 

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driven and phenomenally focused 
on on results and outcomes, and 

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Building Things fast, and making
a difference. 

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So you get these incredibly 
motivated people who are really,

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really smart want to be in teams
and go and drive and and do 

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things. 
So that was some of the 

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eye-opening thing. 
For me, I suppose the big 

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difference between, you know, 
working in Australia as a 

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researcher and working as a, an 
engineer at Microsoft was 

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suddenly we Were all working 
together. 

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You know, we were we were a 
group of people focused on one 

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outcome and we were driving as 
hard as we could to go and get 

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that outcome. 
And you know, I remember in my 

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early days at Microsoft being a 
bit sad when it got to be the 

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weekend no I got to be sort of 
Friday at 5:00 and I'm like oh 

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what a bummer. 
I got a day off tomorrow. 

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Now of course I love going home 
and hang out with my wife and we

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were young kids at the time and 
that was that was fantastic to. 

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But you're like, oh my God, we 
have to stop now, you know, this

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is this is awesome. 
And so I worked phenomenally 

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hard and the time went 
incredibly quickly because it 

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was just such a great set of 
people to work with and I felt 

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like we were really making a 
difference really, really fast 

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and I think that's sort of the 
culture of the West Coast of the

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US is people. 
Just work phenomenally hard 

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because they love what they do 
and they feel like they're 

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creating creating the future. 
You mentioned Google Maps. 

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A moment ago, I mean, I had to 
pinch myself when I had that 

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job. 
I mean, a billion people a 

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month. 
Use Google Maps. 

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Maps. 
And where do you get a job like 

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that? 
You know, where do you get a 

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job? 
Where you can do something and a

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billion? 
People are impacted by it? 

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It's just amazing. 
And so, I think, I think that's 

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what attracts people to the West
Coast to is jobs like that or 

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the opportunity to create new 
companies. 

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That might be like that he's 
probably a nice time to just 

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reflect on this. 
It was obviously a honey pot for

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talent but covid is sort of 
dissing mediated that a little 

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bit. 
We're hearing the war for talent

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is still there, but On his now 
dispersed globally, in many 

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respects around these great 
technology companies, you have a

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view on the Labour market and 
where you think it's heading, 

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because we were hearing about 
the great resignation. 

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And the power was certainly with
the employees, but it's felt as 

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on the last few months and we're
sort of recording this mid year.

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2022, there's been a bit of a 
shift in power back to the 

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employer and maybe just some 
color from your Viewpoint as to 

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how this might play. 
Way out. 

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It's a great question. 
Ed, I wish I had a crystal ball 

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and whatever I say is going to 
be wrong but I'll say a couple 

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of things. 
The first thing I'd say is that 

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the A+ people, the best of the 
best have either not moved or 

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can still move wherever they 
want to move. 

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If their company still alive and
and successful and has 

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prospects, I think they are 
still heads down doing amazing 

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things. 
It reminds me a bit of some 

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2008-9 in the west coast of the 
US. 

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I think the best of the Is it 
still kept their head down and 

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sort of road that out? 
So I think by and large, the 

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best people that I know are 
still doing what they were doing

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where they were. 
I think thing, number two, 

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though is you rightly point out 
is I think that the Power 

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Balance is somewhat shifted. 
It was a seller's market as a 

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00:15:18,708 --> 00:15:20,500
software engineer. 
You could basically ask for 

291
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anything anywhere anytime. 
I think that has changed 

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00:15:23,700 --> 00:15:28,400
particularly, if you are not in 
that a plus kind of bracket, I 

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worry a lot about the remote 
work piece and the flexibility 

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00:15:32,100 --> 00:15:35,400
piece, I mean, I think we've all
watched Scott Farquhar and Elon 

295
00:15:35,400 --> 00:15:38,700
Musk have a little tussle on 
Twitter about their opinions, 

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00:15:38,700 --> 00:15:40,800
you know, musk said, right? 
Come back to the office. 

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00:15:40,800 --> 00:15:45,300
And then Scott said, this feels 
like the 1950s and anyone had a 

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00:15:45,500 --> 00:15:47,900
had a shot back saying something
like the great thing about 

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00:15:47,900 --> 00:15:50,200
recessions is a little weed, out
the weaker companies or 

300
00:15:50,200 --> 00:15:52,400
something, something like that. 
So they're, they're having a 

301
00:15:52,408 --> 00:15:55,900
tussle about it, it's above my 
pay grade to have those kinds of

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00:15:55,900 --> 00:15:58,400
opinions, Ilan. 
Forgot that atlassian was build 

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00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:01,300
in the greatest recession of the
modern area and was completely 

304
00:16:01,300 --> 00:16:03,200
bootstrap. 
But you got to pick your fight 

305
00:16:03,200 --> 00:16:04,700
somewhere. 
That's I'd like to keep the 

306
00:16:04,700 --> 00:16:07,700
ashes of these these these 
tweets, you know, heaven knows 

307
00:16:07,700 --> 00:16:09,900
what time of the day and what 
sort of mood, he's in. 

308
00:16:10,300 --> 00:16:13,500
But I think back to the early 
part of my career in the US. 

309
00:16:13,500 --> 00:16:16,200
And I think about working at 
Microsoft and I think the best 

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work that I did was sitting 
around a table with the best and

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00:16:19,000 --> 00:16:22,000
the brightest, or those sort of 
incidental conversations that 

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00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:24,600
weren't planned in a one-hour 
online meeting. 

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00:16:25,200 --> 00:16:27,100
And so, I look back at some of 
the Innovative interesting 

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00:16:27,100 --> 00:16:29,100
things. 
We did that really mattered, and

315
00:16:29,100 --> 00:16:33,100
I wonder, would those happen if 
we set up a zoom call to 

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00:16:33,100 --> 00:16:36,600
brainstorm, About Innovation and
I suspect not. 

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00:16:36,800 --> 00:16:41,000
And so I think he'll on to my 
mind has a point, you know, I 

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00:16:41,000 --> 00:16:43,600
think if you want to create a 
generational company, whether 

319
00:16:43,600 --> 00:16:47,500
it's a generational battery and 
car company or solar technology 

320
00:16:47,500 --> 00:16:50,900
or SpaceX, there is an enormous 
benefit to having a set of 

321
00:16:50,900 --> 00:16:54,700
people buzzing in an area and 
having those those kind of 

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00:16:54,700 --> 00:16:59,700
informal interactions, I think 
it's very hard to program a ties

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00:16:59,700 --> 00:17:03,400
that and and expect that you get
that kind of innovation at least

324
00:17:03,400 --> 00:17:06,599
with We have today from a set of
people who are sitting in, you 

325
00:17:06,608 --> 00:17:10,400
know, bedrooms all over the 
world in different time zones, 

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somewhat distracted, and 
somewhat isolated. 

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So I think your point is valid 
now whether technology catches 

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00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:18,900
up and were able to have those 
kind of interactions in sort of 

329
00:17:18,900 --> 00:17:21,800
interesting fun ways, who knows?
I mean, I guess that's the 

330
00:17:21,800 --> 00:17:26,700
premise of matter and a, our VR 
technology, but I think that's 

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00:17:26,700 --> 00:17:28,200
got a, it's got a long ways to 
go. 

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00:17:28,200 --> 00:17:31,100
So I worry about it. 
I think probably the truth, of 

333
00:17:31,100 --> 00:17:33,500
course, is in the middle, 
nothing is black and white, but 

334
00:17:33,500 --> 00:17:36,200
I I worry about completely 
remote organizations. 

335
00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:38,500
And I worry about the kinds of 
decisions that some of these 

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00:17:38,500 --> 00:17:41,600
larger companies are making and 
what effect that will have on, 

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00:17:41,700 --> 00:17:45,700
not just the culture, but their 
ability to create generational 

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00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:48,600
companies, that, that really 
Define the future of technology 

339
00:17:49,300 --> 00:17:52,100
and one step removed from you. 
But I'll tend to agree with you 

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00:17:52,100 --> 00:17:54,700
without trying to create too 
much of an echo chamber. 

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00:17:54,700 --> 00:17:59,800
You talked of is a one talent 
and it's still doing its best 

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00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:01,600
work. 
You've done a lot of hiring and 

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00:18:01,600 --> 00:18:06,300
searching for great technical 
Let's dig into what you are 

344
00:18:06,300 --> 00:18:09,700
looking for and what in your 
mind makes a great engineer 

345
00:18:09,700 --> 00:18:13,000
because I think this can help 
frame up other technology, 

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00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,500
leaders internationally and 
domestically here in Australia, 

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00:18:16,500 --> 00:18:20,300
when they are hunting for, what 
traditionally has been, very 

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00:18:20,300 --> 00:18:23,400
hard to find the first thing I'd
say, is that skills. 

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00:18:23,400 --> 00:18:26,000
Come and go. 
So I learned the fundamentals of

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00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:27,900
how to code in the Fortran 
programming language. 

351
00:18:27,900 --> 00:18:31,700
I can pretty much nobody writes 
Fortran anymore, but those 

352
00:18:31,700 --> 00:18:35,500
fundamental competencies, you 
know the ability You to write a 

353
00:18:35,500 --> 00:18:39,200
loop, the ability to use 
variables, the ability to have 

354
00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:41,000
an if statement print things 
out. 

355
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:43,600
I mean, these are these are 
fundamental things that exist in

356
00:18:43,700 --> 00:18:47,100
almost every language. 
And so I think skills come and 

357
00:18:47,100 --> 00:18:50,900
go, but competencies that Roar 
ability to problem-solve is 

358
00:18:50,900 --> 00:18:53,300
timeless. 
And so when I'm hiring I'm 

359
00:18:53,300 --> 00:18:56,600
interested in just that so I 
would never look for somebody 

360
00:18:56,600 --> 00:19:01,500
who's a Ruby programmer or PHP 
expert or Java? 

361
00:19:01,500 --> 00:19:03,800
Never look for those things I 
would say. 

362
00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:08,200
Are you smart Problem? 
Solver who understands 

363
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:11,500
fundamental computer science and
maybe put a bit more succinctly.

364
00:19:11,500 --> 00:19:14,000
I'd say I really look for for 
things when I'm hiring people. 

365
00:19:14,100 --> 00:19:15,700
Look at people who are super 
smart. 

366
00:19:15,900 --> 00:19:18,100
I look for people who are great 
problem solvers because the 

367
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essence of computer science is 
problem. 

368
00:19:19,500 --> 00:19:23,600
Solving I look for people who 
are incredibly action-oriented. 

369
00:19:23,600 --> 00:19:25,700
So they just want to get up and 
get on with it, right? 

370
00:19:25,700 --> 00:19:27,500
They don't want to talk forever 
about it. 

371
00:19:27,500 --> 00:19:31,100
They just like, let's just get 
on with it and I look for people

372
00:19:31,100 --> 00:19:35,400
who are very driven for results.
So they're very very Focused on 

373
00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:38,200
a user outcome. 
A customer outcome, a business 

374
00:19:38,200 --> 00:19:39,900
outcome. 
They want to build something 

375
00:19:39,900 --> 00:19:42,500
that matters to people and I 
think you need both of those 

376
00:19:42,500 --> 00:19:44,100
things. 
Those last two things you need 

377
00:19:44,100 --> 00:19:47,200
somebody who wants to get after 
it and wants to get after it for

378
00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:49,200
a reason, you need both of those
things. 

379
00:19:49,400 --> 00:19:52,000
You've only got one of those, 
it's pretty dangerous. 

380
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:54,000
Actually, if you have an action 
oriented person who just wants 

381
00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:57,800
to build things and it's not 
especially helpful if you've got

382
00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:01,300
somebody who's very driven for 
results but can't get started. 

383
00:20:01,400 --> 00:20:04,200
So get stuck all the time. 
Then I think. 

384
00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:06,500
It's not super helpful, so you 
definitely need both of those 

385
00:20:06,500 --> 00:20:08,000
things. 
So when I'm interviewing people 

386
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:10,000
and looking for people to add 
two teams, I'm looking, you 

387
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,100
know, very simply for those four
things. 

388
00:20:12,100 --> 00:20:14,100
And, of course, because I'm a 
software engineer, I'm looking 

389
00:20:14,100 --> 00:20:16,300
for those underpinned by 
computer science. 

390
00:20:16,300 --> 00:20:19,600
So when I'm testing, if somebody
can problem solve, can you solve

391
00:20:19,600 --> 00:20:22,600
problems in code because that, 
of course, is that the essence 

392
00:20:22,600 --> 00:20:24,400
of computer science. 
But I don't care what language 

393
00:20:24,400 --> 00:20:27,200
they solve it in. 
It's a great answer, I guess to 

394
00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:29,800
wrap all that up. 
You're also looking for good 

395
00:20:29,800 --> 00:20:33,200
humans that you feel can make 
positive contributions to the 

396
00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:36,300
team that they're in. 100%. 
And I should have said that, I 

397
00:20:36,308 --> 00:20:38,700
mean, there's lots of other 
competencies of humans, right? 

398
00:20:38,700 --> 00:20:43,600
So you know, humor or Integrity,
all these kinds of all these 

399
00:20:43,600 --> 00:20:46,500
kinds of things ability, to lead
people, I want all of those 

400
00:20:46,500 --> 00:20:50,700
things to be at par or better. 
I would not hire somebody who I 

401
00:20:50,700 --> 00:20:53,400
thought would destroy the 
culture of a team or would not 

402
00:20:53,400 --> 00:20:56,100
fit in, well, with the setup 
people that, you know, I've been

403
00:20:56,100 --> 00:20:57,900
lucky enough to work with 
throughout my career. 

404
00:20:57,900 --> 00:21:01,800
So, it's incredibly important 
you're listening to scaling up 

405
00:21:01,800 --> 00:21:04,200
with Ed Cowan, a podcast brought
to you. 

406
00:21:04,300 --> 00:21:09,500
By TDM growth Partners visit the
website TDM growth Partners.com,

407
00:21:09,800 --> 00:21:12,000
or for interesting insights and 
commentary. 

408
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:15,600
Follow us on Twitter at TDM 
underscore growth. 

409
00:21:17,700 --> 00:21:21,600
Let's dig in one step further 
and of course, you led a massive

410
00:21:21,700 --> 00:21:25,000
teams and teams over a thousand.
People in some respects that 

411
00:21:25,000 --> 00:21:30,200
were broken up into smaller sub 
teams in terms of retaining the 

412
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:32,600
best talent. 
I imagine the great Engineers 

413
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:36,300
want to be at the Forefront of 
what's possible and fostering 

414
00:21:36,300 --> 00:21:39,000
innovation. 
In these larger teams requires, 

415
00:21:39,300 --> 00:21:41,900
fostering Innovation and smaller
teams and ultimately fostering 

416
00:21:41,900 --> 00:21:44,700
Innovation at an individual 
level and encouraging. 

417
00:21:44,700 --> 00:21:49,000
That can you just give Sense of 
strategically, as a technology 

418
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:52,200
later. 
How you ensure that from the 

419
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:54,800
individual right through to the 
larger teams that you are 

420
00:21:54,800 --> 00:21:56,700
leading? 
How you got the most out of 

421
00:21:56,700 --> 00:21:59,200
these teams. 
It's a great question it. 

422
00:21:59,300 --> 00:22:01,800
I have this sort of rule of 
thumb that I like to use when 

423
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:05,100
the team gets large enough. 
And that is, I like to see 

424
00:22:05,100 --> 00:22:09,000
about, let's say, 60 percent of 
the energy of the team. 

425
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,400
The person power within that 
organization, I like to see 

426
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:16,200
about 60% of that energy going 
into building things that are 

427
00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:18,900
on. 
The roadmap for customers users 

428
00:22:18,900 --> 00:22:20,900
in the business, right? 
So they're the kinds of things 

429
00:22:20,900 --> 00:22:22,700
that I think the commercial 
people in the team would 

430
00:22:22,700 --> 00:22:25,500
appreciate the product. 
Managers would appreciate, the 

431
00:22:25,500 --> 00:22:27,700
customers will be thankful that 
were released. 

432
00:22:28,300 --> 00:22:32,000
I like to see about 30% of the 
energy going on, making sure 

433
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:36,300
that we build platforms and 
technologies, that are scalable 

434
00:22:36,300 --> 00:22:40,500
and last into the future. 
And so often that work is 

435
00:22:40,600 --> 00:22:45,300
unappreciated immediately by the
business or by the customer, but

436
00:22:45,300 --> 00:22:47,900
it's the work that you need. 
Do to make sure that you can 

437
00:22:47,900 --> 00:22:51,000
keep on delivering right to keep
things healthy under the under 

438
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:52,500
the hood. 
It's kind of things that the 

439
00:22:52,500 --> 00:22:54,700
engineers always talked about 
and want to do and I'll talk 

440
00:22:54,700 --> 00:22:57,300
about things like technical debt
and they'll talk about wanting 

441
00:22:57,300 --> 00:23:00,600
to adopt new technologies and 
they'll say that this needs to 

442
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:03,500
be re-written to allow us to do 
something or other. 

443
00:23:03,800 --> 00:23:06,800
And you often find people 
outside of that engineering 

444
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:09,600
team, say do we have to do that?
Now is this busy work? 

445
00:23:09,600 --> 00:23:12,300
Why are we doing this? 
But I've found over time that, 

446
00:23:12,300 --> 00:23:15,100
you know, you need to have a 
good amount of energy going into

447
00:23:15,100 --> 00:23:17,900
that so that you can continue. 
In you to deliver for the future

448
00:23:18,500 --> 00:23:21,100
and that leaves 10% and I like 
to see that 10 percent spent on 

449
00:23:21,100 --> 00:23:23,900
Innovation. 
What does innovation make to me?

450
00:23:23,900 --> 00:23:28,200
It means things that are not 
planned chaotic stuff and is 

451
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:31,000
nothing better I reckon than 
when you're a leader when 

452
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:33,700
somebody knocks on your door or 
sets up 15 minutes with you and 

453
00:23:33,700 --> 00:23:36,800
says, I want to show you 
something that we built, there's

454
00:23:36,800 --> 00:23:39,400
nothing better than that. 
You know, they come in and they 

455
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:42,600
load up some URL in the web 
browser and they say try typing 

456
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:45,000
in whatever. 
And then you you play with this 

457
00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,300
scene, you think. 
That is super interesting. 

458
00:23:48,800 --> 00:23:51,200
I remember when I was back at 
Microsoft, this guy, Michael 

459
00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:53,100
Cameron, who coincidentally is 
Australian. 

460
00:23:53,100 --> 00:23:56,900
He's the founder of Rome to Rio.
He came into my office one day 

461
00:23:56,900 --> 00:24:02,000
and he said, try typing in some 
local things like buses, things 

462
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,000
like that and he'd basically 
re-engineered search. 

463
00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:08,600
So if you typed in a word that 
had local, meaning it would 

464
00:24:08,600 --> 00:24:12,000
prefer results that were near 
you so you can type in bus and 

465
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:15,100
it wouldn't just have the most 
popular bus in the whole of the 

466
00:24:15,100 --> 00:24:17,000
world. 
So you wouldn't get Some bus 

467
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:20,300
from Central Station in New York
or whatever it is you'd get the 

468
00:24:20,300 --> 00:24:23,900
bus that was near you and I'm 
like that's super interesting 

469
00:24:23,900 --> 00:24:26,700
and he's like yeah try all sorts
of local Concepts, you know like

470
00:24:26,700 --> 00:24:30,100
dog kennel and yeah just set the
typing local Concepts and the 

471
00:24:30,108 --> 00:24:33,600
search results made sense in the
context of where I was and he's 

472
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:36,400
like, pretty cool, isn't it? 
I'm like when can we get this 

473
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,600
out the door. 
So nobody was doing this at the 

474
00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:43,000
time and you know, Michael filed
a patent on this thing of how 

475
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:45,500
this piece of technology work 
and the idea of biasing search 

476
00:24:45,500 --> 00:24:47,000
results. 
Based on where You wear and 

477
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:50,200
whether a concept was local and 
we just paid on as hard as we 

478
00:24:50,200 --> 00:24:51,700
could to get this thing out the 
door. 

479
00:24:51,700 --> 00:24:53,900
And, you know, being was the 
first search engine to have 

480
00:24:54,200 --> 00:24:56,100
local results for local 
Concepts. 

481
00:24:56,700 --> 00:24:59,400
That's the kind of thing. 
I mean is somebody just turns up

482
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:01,600
one day and says, had a bit of 
Spare Time. 

483
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,000
Build something interesting. 
What do you think of this? 

484
00:25:04,300 --> 00:25:05,600
And it could be a physical 
thing. 

485
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:08,200
Could be a you know, something 
in a web browser could be 

486
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:11,500
anything but something thats 
related to the business and the 

487
00:25:11,508 --> 00:25:14,400
customers of the users. 
But not something that we asked 

488
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:16,300
for. 
And I love to see about 10. 

489
00:25:16,400 --> 00:25:17,800
Tenth of the energy going on to 
that. 

490
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:20,600
So I think it's a huge mistake. 
If you're a technology leader to

491
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:24,800
100% book your roadmap and just 
flog everybody, you don't get 

492
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:27,700
those opportunities to do really
amazing things. 

493
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:29,800
If everybody's booked a hundred 
percent of the time, you've got 

494
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,200
to let people like Michael have 
time and space to just you know,

495
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:38,200
just tinker and marinate ideas 
and talk to other people and 

496
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:42,200
work in a more chaotic way. 
What I'm hearing is in amongst 

497
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:46,300
this chaos, it's still thematic.
It's still focused and it has 

498
00:25:46,500 --> 00:25:50,600
Customer Centric, it's not just 
chaos in its true sense of 

499
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:51,800
building. 
Something that might be 

500
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:55,100
interesting to them. 
Exactly, when I was at eBay, we 

501
00:25:55,100 --> 00:25:56,800
had this thing called the 
hackathon. 

502
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,300
It was not themed at all in the 
first few years. 

503
00:26:00,300 --> 00:26:02,200
I was there. 
And so you'd walk around these 

504
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:05,000
boobs and there was people just 
doing things that were just not 

505
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,000
relevant to our customers, our 
users and our business. 

506
00:26:08,500 --> 00:26:10,800
So you know walk up to a booth 
and somebody's figured out 

507
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:13,700
better ball bearings for a wheel
or something and you're like, 

508
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:18,300
okay that's cool but What do we 
do with that? 

509
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:20,700
And I think, again, if we go 
back to the hiring point, if you

510
00:26:20,700 --> 00:26:23,000
hire people who are smart, great
problem, solvers 

511
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,400
action-oriented, and driven for 
results, then those people will 

512
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,800
innovate in the areas that 
matter. 

513
00:26:29,900 --> 00:26:32,800
They will understand the 
customer the user, the business,

514
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,800
and they will do interesting 
things within that context. 

515
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:37,500
What we did at eBay for what 
it's worth. 

516
00:26:37,500 --> 00:26:39,700
Was we announced that the next 
year you had to innovate within 

517
00:26:39,700 --> 00:26:43,100
themes and so we kind of 
directed people towards things 

518
00:26:43,100 --> 00:26:46,200
that we were interested in. 
There was some pushback on that.

519
00:26:46,500 --> 00:26:48,500
I think the people working on 
being a better ball bearings for

520
00:26:48,500 --> 00:26:51,000
wheels or whatever it is, didn't
necessarily want to do local 

521
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:54,200
Commerce but, you know, this 
wasn't a research lab, you know,

522
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,300
we're paying people in return 
for their services and we wanted

523
00:26:57,300 --> 00:26:59,300
them to innovate within spaces 
that were relevant to the 

524
00:26:59,300 --> 00:27:01,800
company and so I wasn't terribly
apologetic about that, but I 

525
00:27:01,808 --> 00:27:04,200
think we had a much better 
hackathon the next year, but you

526
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,500
don't have to tell the best and 
the brightest to do that. 

527
00:27:06,700 --> 00:27:09,900
There's a great call-outs for 
all technology leaders while 

528
00:27:09,900 --> 00:27:13,600
we're in the technology teams. 
Let's talk to org structure and 

529
00:27:13,600 --> 00:27:17,200
Reporting lines. 
As I said, you manage larger 

530
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,500
teams of a thousand but I'm sure
that's not managing a thousand 

531
00:27:20,500 --> 00:27:23,400
individuals, that's managing a 
whole heap of smaller teams. 

532
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:28,000
Can you talk to your experience 
and the models that you use 

533
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,300
that? 
You knew work that helped frame 

534
00:27:30,300 --> 00:27:33,900
what an optimal structure was 
for technical Talent. 

535
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,600
So Jeff Bezos said Amazon, 
coined this term the to Pizza 

536
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,900
team and the idea there is that 
you can feed the team with two 

537
00:27:40,900 --> 00:27:45,300
pizzas and I love that. 
And what that means to me is 

538
00:27:45,300 --> 00:27:49,500
that team should be About six to
ten people in size, you know, no

539
00:27:49,500 --> 00:27:52,200
more, no less. 
So I love teams that are that 

540
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:56,900
size and I love empowering teams
to really own Something That 

541
00:27:56,900 --> 00:28:00,200
Matters To the End user. 
And another way to say that is 

542
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:02,600
you want people who are within 
these teams to be able to go 

543
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:06,000
home to see their parents and in
a couple of sentences explain to

544
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:08,900
their parents, what they do, 
maybe show their parents what 

545
00:28:08,900 --> 00:28:11,700
they do on the website and for 
their parents to go, that's 

546
00:28:11,700 --> 00:28:13,000
pretty awesome. 
I'm going to tell my friends 

547
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,100
about that. 
If I think back to sort of the 

548
00:28:15,100 --> 00:28:17,400
early days of my career in the 
US, U.s. that would mean, things

549
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:19,400
like there is an image search 
team. 

550
00:28:19,700 --> 00:28:22,600
There is a new search team, 
there's a team that does 

551
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,700
autosuggest in web search. 
There's a team that injects, you

552
00:28:26,700 --> 00:28:31,000
know, heterogeneous data modules
into web search, that gives you 

553
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:34,000
previews of videos and images 
and a bit of news when you're 

554
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,500
running web search. 
So these are things that make 

555
00:28:36,500 --> 00:28:39,500
sense as an entity that you can 
describe to your parents. 

556
00:28:39,500 --> 00:28:40,600
So you can go home and see your 
parents. 

557
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,400
You say I build image search the
team's only nine people in size.

558
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:47,500
And if you click on the images 
tab and Utah, Query that's us. 

559
00:28:47,500 --> 00:28:50,200
We do that. 
And so I think that's the the 

560
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,900
eye is get the team size right? 
And get the team focused on a 

561
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:59,600
end-user problem that matters 
and then Empower that team to do

562
00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:02,600
its best work. 
Now what that means to me is 

563
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:07,600
that as a leader, my job is to 
help that team set its goals and

564
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,400
I love numeric goals. 
So I would say things like let's

565
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:12,600
talk about image search for a 
second. 

566
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:15,700
I would say things like let's 
improve the relevance of image 

567
00:29:15,700 --> 00:29:17,500
search. 
So Oh, that our results are as 

568
00:29:17,500 --> 00:29:22,100
good as Google's by October 23. 
So my job is to help teams set 

569
00:29:22,100 --> 00:29:26,000
those kinds of audacious goals 
and then let the team run. 

570
00:29:26,500 --> 00:29:29,100
Let's assume that they know more
about image search than anybody 

571
00:29:29,100 --> 00:29:32,100
else in the organization that 
they're more customer-centric, 

572
00:29:32,100 --> 00:29:34,600
that they know their users 
better, that they get the 

573
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:37,700
technology, let's assume that. 
Then let's ask them to build an 

574
00:29:37,700 --> 00:29:40,900
aggressive roadmap to go and hit
that goal. 

575
00:29:41,300 --> 00:29:43,800
So, I think that's the art. 
And then when you're managing, a

576
00:29:43,808 --> 00:29:47,700
thousand people or two thousand 
people or 5,000 people, Your job

577
00:29:47,700 --> 00:29:51,300
is to create teams like that 
throughout your organization 

578
00:29:51,300 --> 00:29:54,800
that feel empowered that are 
super customer-focused and then 

579
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:58,200
rally them all together to 
achieve an overall goal. 

580
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,200
So when I was at eBay, for 
example, at a team of 1,000 

581
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:05,000
people or so, you know, my job 
was to set an audacious goal 

582
00:30:05,100 --> 00:30:07,700
that inspired that whole 
organization and then that 

583
00:30:07,700 --> 00:30:09,400
organization run towards that 
goal. 

584
00:30:09,700 --> 00:30:12,100
And the goal I was particularly 
interested in at the time was 

585
00:30:12,100 --> 00:30:15,400
basically sell more stuff. 
So you know, I'll make up a goal

586
00:30:15,400 --> 00:30:19,000
for Twelve. 
Our goal was sell 8% more stuff 

587
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:23,500
in 2012 than we did in 2011. 
So, if you compare, you know, 

588
00:30:23,500 --> 00:30:27,000
eBay at the end of 2012, if you 
could run a test of that versus 

589
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,400
eBay at the end of 2011, it was 
sell 8% more stuff. 

590
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:32,100
It's okay. 
Let's go do that and it's just 

591
00:30:32,100 --> 00:30:33,600
super customer-centric do. 
Right. 

592
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:36,600
Because if you're a seller boy, 
do you want to sell more stuff? 

593
00:30:37,100 --> 00:30:39,700
If you're a buyer, you want to 
find things that that you want 

594
00:30:39,700 --> 00:30:42,500
to buy at a great price in great
condition that shipped to you. 

595
00:30:42,700 --> 00:30:45,100
So, you're happy and as eBay, of
course, you happy. 

596
00:30:45,100 --> 00:30:47,700
So everybody's a winner when we 
I mean, if we sell more stuff 

597
00:30:47,800 --> 00:30:50,900
and so my goals are L was to 
inspire the team, but that was a

598
00:30:50,900 --> 00:30:52,900
great Gulf, great customer 
Centric goal. 

599
00:30:53,500 --> 00:30:56,800
Make sure that we had the right 
teams in the right swim lanes 

600
00:30:57,000 --> 00:31:00,100
and then let him swim and you 
know it's a simple as that if 

601
00:31:00,100 --> 00:31:03,000
you can get it right? 
And of course within these teams

602
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,800
great micro cultures can be 
built and they come together 

603
00:31:07,100 --> 00:31:09,800
maybe just lifting to the next 
level. 

604
00:31:09,800 --> 00:31:13,800
How did you feel that the 
technologist best integrated 

605
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:16,100
with the wider org? 
Because without great. 

606
00:31:16,300 --> 00:31:20,900
Product you can't sell and so it
affects sales and fax marketing.

607
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:25,000
The collaboration of different 
silos within an organization to 

608
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:27,400
ensure that that was functioning
effectively. 

609
00:31:27,700 --> 00:31:30,700
I think a problem in a lot of 
technology companies and a lot 

610
00:31:30,700 --> 00:31:33,500
of organizations that try and 
harness technology is that they 

611
00:31:33,500 --> 00:31:37,300
assume that software Engineers 
can do a really good job of 

612
00:31:37,308 --> 00:31:40,500
talking to business people. 
It tends to end, really, really 

613
00:31:40,500 --> 00:31:42,700
badly. 
You've got people who just want 

614
00:31:42,700 --> 00:31:45,100
to put headphones on and write a
lot of code and solve hard, 

615
00:31:45,100 --> 00:31:47,500
technical problems. 
The business people who are 

616
00:31:47,500 --> 00:31:50,600
thinking about pricing 
marketing, the brand, you know, 

617
00:31:50,600 --> 00:31:54,000
advertising all these kinds of 
things and you're hoping that 

618
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:56,500
these people will talk to each 
other and come up with great 

619
00:31:56,500 --> 00:31:58,300
plans, and that doesn't usually 
end very well. 

620
00:31:58,300 --> 00:32:01,900
And so, in the u.s. in 
particular, there's a discipline

621
00:32:01,900 --> 00:32:04,900
called product management, 
Amazon calls a technical product

622
00:32:04,900 --> 00:32:08,500
management, Microsoft calls it 
program management, Google 

623
00:32:08,500 --> 00:32:10,800
Facebook and apple call it 
product management. 

624
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:14,100
It's the same thing. 
But basically, these are the set

625
00:32:14,100 --> 00:32:16,100
of people whose job it is to 
sit. 

626
00:32:16,300 --> 00:32:19,600
Between the technology team, the
software Engineers, the 

627
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,200
business, and the customer. 
So if you sort of, think of a 

628
00:32:22,208 --> 00:32:25,200
Venn diagram of sort of, you 
know, things, business things, 

629
00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,300
customer things technology and 
those those circles overlap. 

630
00:32:28,400 --> 00:32:30,500
The product manager is the 
person who sits smack in the 

631
00:32:30,500 --> 00:32:34,100
middle of that and it typically 
computer scientists, but they 

632
00:32:34,100 --> 00:32:37,300
typically don't write code. 
That typically people who love 

633
00:32:37,300 --> 00:32:39,600
hanging around with other 
people, they're fascinated by 

634
00:32:39,600 --> 00:32:43,100
the business, the user, the 
data, they're inspirational 

635
00:32:43,100 --> 00:32:45,600
people, they can come up with 
really interesting ideas, they 

636
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:47,400
can sell something It doesn't 
exist. 

637
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:50,600
So they can go and persuade an 
executive audience about a 

638
00:32:50,608 --> 00:32:53,300
future that hasn't been built 
and get them excited about a 

639
00:32:53,308 --> 00:32:55,100
roadmap. 
And so then these really 

640
00:32:55,100 --> 00:32:57,800
interesting, really interesting 
multidisciplinary people who 

641
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,700
kind of sit in the middle that 
everybody likes to talk to and 

642
00:33:00,700 --> 00:33:02,600
then can run this kind of 
translation. 

643
00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:06,400
And so I think the trick in 
getting technology, team sort of

644
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,000
welding two faced with the rest 
of the organization is having 

645
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:11,500
great product. 
Managers, you typically need one

646
00:33:11,700 --> 00:33:14,600
in those two peaks of team. 
So you have the 10-person team. 

647
00:33:14,900 --> 00:33:18,300
One of those people is a Chuck 
manager and their job is to 

648
00:33:18,300 --> 00:33:22,100
figure out the why and the what 
that we should be doing. 

649
00:33:22,200 --> 00:33:24,600
So the engineers can figure out 
how to build it and when to 

650
00:33:24,608 --> 00:33:28,300
build a bar and that requires 
these super multidisciplinary 

651
00:33:28,300 --> 00:33:30,400
people. 
And so I think that is the 

652
00:33:30,400 --> 00:33:34,400
answer is you've got to have 
great product managers in order 

653
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:36,800
to be able to build great 
technology, that actually 

654
00:33:36,800 --> 00:33:40,600
matters to the customer the user
and the business that was the 

655
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:42,500
inside. 
I was hoping you'd give but 

656
00:33:42,500 --> 00:33:44,900
didn't want to spoon feed you 
too much. 

657
00:33:45,200 --> 00:33:49,500
It's In terms of building 
generational businesses and 

658
00:33:49,500 --> 00:33:53,400
you've been a part of so many 
now and you talk to in your team

659
00:33:53,700 --> 00:33:57,800
really narrowing, the focus 
around goal setting, in eBay's 

660
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:02,400
case, down to one from many. 
What about wider company goals 

661
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:04,700
and ensuring that they're 
aligned? 

662
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:07,600
How do you think about those 
sessions when you're with the 

663
00:34:07,600 --> 00:34:11,100
other leaders within the 
organization as to how company 

664
00:34:11,100 --> 00:34:13,900
goals are set? 
So, when I was at eBay, when I 

665
00:34:13,908 --> 00:34:17,699
first joined, which was And 89 
somewhere around there. 

666
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:22,600
We had 43 goals as a company. 
That's a very difficult 

667
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:25,800
environment to operate in 
because typically what you find 

668
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:29,400
is, if they've anybody pushes 
forward on their goal, it hurts 

669
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,400
somebody else's goal. 
An example from my world was 

670
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:35,900
that if you improve the 
relevance of search so if you 

671
00:34:35,900 --> 00:34:39,199
made searching on eBay better, 
then people would click on less 

672
00:34:39,199 --> 00:34:43,199
banner ads and text ads and we'd
make less money off the ads. 

673
00:34:43,800 --> 00:34:46,100
And one of the other company 
goals was make more off. 

674
00:34:46,300 --> 00:34:48,400
The sizing. 
And so you had this crazy 

675
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:51,100
situation where you're improving
the core product, you're helping

676
00:34:51,100 --> 00:34:54,199
the buyers and the sellers. 
But you're upsetting the ads 

677
00:34:54,199 --> 00:34:58,600
team whose goal, you know, sits 
alongside your goals at the 

678
00:34:58,607 --> 00:35:01,300
company level and so there's all
these arguments going on. 

679
00:35:01,300 --> 00:35:04,700
If you can't do that right now, 
can you wait a month because 

680
00:35:04,700 --> 00:35:07,300
we'll miss our quarter goal? 
And you know everybody will be 

681
00:35:07,308 --> 00:35:10,600
unhappy with us and of course 
looking back. 

682
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:14,000
I mean it's very obvious that 
adds goal shouldn't have sat at 

683
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:17,200
the same level as improving the 
core It's right, and it took 

684
00:35:17,200 --> 00:35:20,900
some courage of the CEO and the 
leadership team to say, let's 

685
00:35:20,900 --> 00:35:23,800
let's put a line through that. 
Let's say that's less important.

686
00:35:23,900 --> 00:35:26,400
Let's say to the ads team that 
their work is less important. 

687
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:29,000
Let's not have them on the 
company goal sheet and let's 

688
00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,000
manage that team through that 
and help them realize that what 

689
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:35,000
they do is important, but it 
can't be in conflict with 

690
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,600
improving the overall core 
product and making Commerce 

691
00:35:37,600 --> 00:35:40,500
better online. 
So, very difficult thing to do, 

692
00:35:40,700 --> 00:35:44,600
but the leadership team, 
literally went from 43 goals to 

693
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:46,100
one goal. 
So they go, I see. 

694
00:35:46,300 --> 00:35:50,100
About earlier of sell more stuff
was the only company all by 

695
00:35:50,100 --> 00:35:53,000
about two years. 
After I got there, there was no 

696
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:55,100
other company goal. 
Now, of course there are people 

697
00:35:55,100 --> 00:35:58,100
on the periphery the ads team. 
You know, people working on deep

698
00:35:58,100 --> 00:36:01,500
dark platform, things in the 
engineering team people, working

699
00:36:01,500 --> 00:36:05,000
on future ideas, who couldn't 
look at that one goal and say I 

700
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:07,400
work on that. 
And so you had to sell to those 

701
00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:10,100
folks that what they were doing 
was important and it was sort of

702
00:36:10,100 --> 00:36:13,000
second order effects of what 
they were doing that enabled 

703
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:16,600
others to work on that goal. 
So definitely, it's hard to Sell

704
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:20,200
one goal across an organization 
but I don't know maybe 60 70 

705
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:22,600
percent of the people We're 
working directly on that goal 

706
00:36:22,900 --> 00:36:24,300
and not in competition, you 
know? 

707
00:36:24,300 --> 00:36:26,700
Everybody was celebrating 
everybody else's success. 

708
00:36:27,100 --> 00:36:31,700
Everybody sunk or swam depending
on how the company did on that 

709
00:36:31,700 --> 00:36:33,600
one goal. 
So it's incredibly unifying if 

710
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,200
you can get down to one goal but
it's it's not easy takes a lot 

711
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:39,900
of courage and it takes a lot of
sales as a leader. 

712
00:36:40,300 --> 00:36:44,100
What I'm hearing is also a focus
on the metrics that matter. 

713
00:36:44,100 --> 00:36:47,300
And in eBay's case, there's no 
big Metric that matters. 

714
00:36:47,300 --> 00:36:51,300
Then jmv and also just the 
importance of that goal being 

715
00:36:51,300 --> 00:36:54,600
customer-centric. 
And so in regards to the story 

716
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,500
around the advertising Banner 
that diminishes, in many 

717
00:36:57,500 --> 00:37:01,800
respects the customer experience
of going to eBay to buy stuff 

718
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,400
that they want to look for and 
so having that centricity when 

719
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:09,000
it comes to goal-setting seem so
important it's incredibly 

720
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:12,600
important and you know it's hard
to come up with goals. 

721
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:14,700
Sounds simple right? 
Look back at eBay and you say 

722
00:37:14,700 --> 00:37:17,200
well sell more staff as Measured
the following way by the 

723
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,200
following date. 
It sounds easy, but Having the 

724
00:37:20,200 --> 00:37:23,600
courage to pare it down to be 
one goal. 

725
00:37:23,900 --> 00:37:28,200
Having the deep understanding of
what that goal is and how to 

726
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:30,200
drive that goal. 
The ability to sort of divide 

727
00:37:30,200 --> 00:37:33,500
that goal up amongst the team, 
the understanding that that goal

728
00:37:33,500 --> 00:37:35,900
encompasses most of the work 
that's going on in the company. 

729
00:37:35,900 --> 00:37:38,800
I mean I think it's a I think 
it's an incredible art, business

730
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,600
goal setting, when I was at 
Microsoft working on search, we 

731
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:44,800
only had one goal there as well.
I guess a lot of what I learned 

732
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:47,300
was from Microsoft. 
And our goal was around the 

733
00:37:47,308 --> 00:37:49,800
relevance of the search engine. 
We wanted to build a search 

734
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:51,300
engine that gave people great 
answers. 

735
00:37:51,700 --> 00:37:53,300
And that was it there's nothing 
else to it. 

736
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:57,500
If we're honest enough to hold 
ourselves up against the best in

737
00:37:57,500 --> 00:37:59,500
the business, which was Google 
is Google. 

738
00:37:59,900 --> 00:38:02,600
A task, how relevant of a and 
how relevant are we, and what do

739
00:38:02,600 --> 00:38:05,400
we need to do to close that Gap?
Because that's why people choose

740
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:08,000
a search engine because it gives
them great answers and being 

741
00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:10,600
honest enough to admit that 
being careful enough to measure 

742
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:14,000
that and being diligent enough 
to measure your competitors and 

743
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,100
understand where they're at is 
also super important. 

744
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:20,200
Portent part of the role is a 
great technology leader is to be

745
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:23,200
a culture carrier and contribute
to the wider culture of the 

746
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:27,200
organization to build 
generational businesses, it's 

747
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,000
the greatest competitive 
advantage that they can build. 

748
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,000
Is this sustainable strong 
culture and I'm sure there are 

749
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,700
no silver bullets but maybe just
quickly. 

750
00:38:35,700 --> 00:38:39,300
Some of the key things that you 
learned as a leader in regards 

751
00:38:39,300 --> 00:38:43,700
to Building Company cultures the
the kind of culture that I went 

752
00:38:43,700 --> 00:38:46,000
about setting throughout my 
career. 

753
00:38:46,200 --> 00:38:50,300
Is one where I wanted people to 
shoot for the moon. 

754
00:38:50,700 --> 00:38:55,400
But be realistic about what 
they're shooting for and there 

755
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:59,500
was this phrase be hag Microsoft
which stood for big hairy 

756
00:38:59,500 --> 00:39:03,000
audacious goal. 
And so we used to set B hags and

757
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:07,400
what they are is is things that 
are just attainable if 

758
00:39:07,400 --> 00:39:10,600
everything goes right so they're
not impossible, nobody's 

759
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:12,500
laughing going, will never be 
able to do this. 

760
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:15,500
They're not things that, you 
know, you can kind of just sort 

761
00:39:15,500 --> 00:39:17,900
of phone. 
And get their things where 

762
00:39:17,900 --> 00:39:20,600
everything has to go, right? 
And everybody has to be at their

763
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:23,300
best. 
I love that about Microsoft. 

764
00:39:23,300 --> 00:39:27,000
And so, in all of the jobs that 
I've had and an advisory work 

765
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:29,400
that I do, I kind of push for 
that. 

766
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,000
I try and create a culture where
everything has to go, right? 

767
00:39:33,100 --> 00:39:38,200
We all have to be our best and 
work together as a unit to just 

768
00:39:38,200 --> 00:39:41,000
make it to this goal. 
And that's sort of the essence 

769
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:43,700
of the cultures that I love. 
And of course, we've got to play

770
00:39:43,700 --> 00:39:46,000
as a team. 
We've got to be respectful with.

771
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,500
Show up. 
I'm gonna be the best people we 

772
00:39:48,500 --> 00:39:52,300
can be that that's got to happen
to reach the be hag and so I 

773
00:39:52,300 --> 00:39:54,300
think it brings out the best in 
people. 

774
00:39:54,300 --> 00:39:56,700
If you kind of you kind of get 
that dial right? 

775
00:39:56,700 --> 00:39:59,100
And I think it's an art, 
especially when you're new to 

776
00:39:59,100 --> 00:40:01,200
setting a goal in the new 
organization because you're not 

777
00:40:01,200 --> 00:40:02,800
quite sure where to put the 
dial, right? 

778
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,600
So you kind of want the dial at 
sort of nine and a half. 

779
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:08,900
You don't know what mine and a 
half is so you might miss, you 

780
00:40:08,900 --> 00:40:10,000
might. 
Whoops, I accidentally set up 

781
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:11,700
two, three. 
That was a bit too easy or 

782
00:40:11,700 --> 00:40:12,900
whoops. 
I set it to 12. 

783
00:40:12,900 --> 00:40:16,200
We're never going to get there. 
So I think it's an absolute Art 

784
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,400
to get this white, but if you 
can do that and push an 

785
00:40:19,400 --> 00:40:22,200
organization to go and Achieve 
something again, that's 

786
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:25,400
user-centric customer-centric, 
that really matters and it's 

787
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:27,600
really stretchy and 
uncomfortable. 

788
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,300
Then I think you can create 
these cultures that are amazing.

789
00:40:30,300 --> 00:40:33,600
I love further. 
And of course, that relies on 

790
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:38,500
monitoring and celebrating and 
iterating and fixing and leading

791
00:40:38,500 --> 00:40:41,900
in many respects to make sure 
that that's being upheld. 

792
00:40:41,900 --> 00:40:46,100
I do want to just finish on the 
next phase of your career, 

793
00:40:46,200 --> 00:40:49,900
Having talks so much and so 
deeply around the earliest 

794
00:40:49,900 --> 00:40:52,100
stages. 
What you're doing now is just as

795
00:40:52,100 --> 00:40:55,700
important as the co founder and 
chairperson of Cs in schools, 

796
00:40:56,200 --> 00:41:00,600
you're really giving back to the
Australian technology Community.

797
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:05,800
Also lecturing through rmit, but
what CS in schools is ultimately

798
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:08,500
trying to achieve is bring Digi 
Tech skills to the next 

799
00:41:08,500 --> 00:41:11,200
generation of Australians, 
particularly and 

800
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:15,100
underrepresented groups, like 
females and those growing up in 

801
00:41:15,100 --> 00:41:18,000
disadvantaged areas. 
Has love you to give some color 

802
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:22,100
to this Mission and also maybe 
to understand the key unlocks in

803
00:41:22,100 --> 00:41:26,100
your mind for Australia as a 
country, to be a driving force 

804
00:41:26,300 --> 00:41:28,700
of Technology progression. 
You know, it? 

805
00:41:28,700 --> 00:41:31,600
I look back on my life we talked
about it at the start and I 

806
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:33,800
realized just how fortunate I 
am, right? 

807
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,800
So I was born in one of the 
greatest countries on the earth.

808
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:39,000
I mean, you basically won't know
what I ticket by just being born

809
00:41:39,000 --> 00:41:41,100
in Australia, right? 
Like let's let's be clear about 

810
00:41:41,100 --> 00:41:42,800
that. 
And then I was lucky enough to 

811
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:46,000
have two parents that I had and 
the opportunities that I had 

812
00:41:46,500 --> 00:41:50,500
Getting to Computing and write a
really interesting wave and that

813
00:41:50,500 --> 00:41:53,100
wave is still going. 
We're in the middle of one of 

814
00:41:53,100 --> 00:41:55,700
the most profound Revolutions in
humankind. 

815
00:41:55,700 --> 00:41:59,200
Right, is technological 
Revolution and I think Australia

816
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:04,200
has the opportunity to Surf this
wave, but you've got to create 

817
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:07,000
for everybody in Australia, the 
opportunity to have the kinds of

818
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:11,400
experiences that I had when I 
was a kid and not, everybody 

819
00:42:11,700 --> 00:42:14,000
will get that opportunity at 
home by having you know, 

820
00:42:14,000 --> 00:42:17,400
entrepreneurial parents and a 
set of Come stances that but I 

821
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,500
had. 
And so the best place to create 

822
00:42:20,500 --> 00:42:25,000
opportunity for the next 
generation is of course it's 

823
00:42:25,000 --> 00:42:27,300
cool. 
We're lucky in Australia that 

824
00:42:27,300 --> 00:42:30,000
there is a mandatory Australian 
digital Technologies. 

825
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:32,400
Curriculum. 
So there's a federal curriculum 

826
00:42:32,700 --> 00:42:34,800
most of the states and 
territories have adopted it and 

827
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:38,000
said it's you know it's critical
to teach in our public and 

828
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:42,300
Catholic schools but if you go 
to the schools they're not 

829
00:42:42,300 --> 00:42:45,400
typically teaching that in its 
entirety. 

830
00:42:46,100 --> 00:42:51,400
Why not well you know crowded 
curriculum busy school teachers 

831
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,800
who are not computer, scientists
a curriculum, that's somewhat 

832
00:42:54,800 --> 00:42:56,500
impenetrable. 
So if you sit down and read it 

833
00:42:56,500 --> 00:42:59,500
as a non technology, like what 
exactly is this that I'm 

834
00:42:59,500 --> 00:43:01,600
supposed to be teaching that my 
school is supposed to be doing. 

835
00:43:01,900 --> 00:43:05,700
And so it's very, very hard for 
principals leaders in schools 

836
00:43:05,700 --> 00:43:08,900
and teachers to grab this 
curriculum and run with it and 

837
00:43:08,900 --> 00:43:11,500
make sure that students get 
these kinds of experiences in 

838
00:43:11,500 --> 00:43:14,400
the classroom. 
Now if we can give students that

839
00:43:14,400 --> 00:43:17,000
experience then we can move on 
from being just users of 

840
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:19,700
technology to being creators of 
Technology. 

841
00:43:19,700 --> 00:43:22,500
We can create amazing 
Technologies and amazing 

842
00:43:22,700 --> 00:43:25,300
companies. 
So how do we think that that 

843
00:43:25,300 --> 00:43:27,700
should be solved? 
Well, we think the fastest way 

844
00:43:27,700 --> 00:43:30,400
to solve that and the best way 
to solve that is to 

845
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:32,000
professionally develop the 
teachers who are in the 

846
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:35,000
classroom today. 
So we've built a program where 

847
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:37,800
we work with in-service 
teachers, teachers of any 

848
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:40,500
background, they're most 
commonly maths and science 

849
00:43:40,500 --> 00:43:43,800
teachers, but we work with PE 
teachers, language, teachers, 

850
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,900
all kinds of teachers. 
So we work with those teachers 

851
00:43:46,900 --> 00:43:49,500
to upskill them in digital 
technology, and that means 

852
00:43:49,700 --> 00:43:52,600
understand the curriculum, and 
appreciate it. 

853
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:55,800
Understand why it's relevant. 
And then actually develop the 

854
00:43:55,800 --> 00:43:59,200
core skills themselves to be 
computer scientists. 

855
00:43:59,200 --> 00:44:02,700
So learn how to code and then 
they can pass those skills on to

856
00:44:02,700 --> 00:44:05,900
their students, you know, term 
after term year after year. 

857
00:44:05,900 --> 00:44:08,200
And so that's the core of the 
system schools program that 

858
00:44:08,200 --> 00:44:10,600
we've built is a professional 
development program for 

859
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:14,100
teachers, that comes with free 
materials, the teachers can use 

860
00:44:14,100 --> 00:44:16,500
in the classroom With industry 
connections. 

861
00:44:16,500 --> 00:44:19,300
So that the students and the 
teachers can see the relevance 

862
00:44:19,300 --> 00:44:21,900
of what they do. 
And then, you know, we're 

863
00:44:21,900 --> 00:44:23,400
rolling that out across 
Australia. 

864
00:44:23,700 --> 00:44:27,000
In our first year, we worked 
with eight schools in our second

865
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,100
year, we worked with 21 schools.
In our third year, we work with 

866
00:44:30,100 --> 00:44:31,900
42 schools. 
And this year, we're working 

867
00:44:31,900 --> 00:44:34,500
with 64 schools. 
And I can promise you next year 

868
00:44:34,500 --> 00:44:37,800
will work with 128 schools so 
we're doubling the size of the 

869
00:44:37,800 --> 00:44:40,200
program every year. 
That more than doubles the 

870
00:44:40,200 --> 00:44:43,200
number of teachers who are 
involved there's 250 teachers 

871
00:44:43,200 --> 00:44:46,000
involved this year and that more
than Bulls the number of 

872
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:49,400
students who get the opportunity
to do, fundamental Computing at 

873
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:51,900
school and in great, DigiTech 
classes this year. 

874
00:44:51,900 --> 00:44:54,400
If you believe our website 
statistics, I mean, I do the 

875
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:57,500
back of the envelope calculation
and came up with 18,000 students

876
00:44:57,500 --> 00:44:59,900
learning to code this year 
through our programs. 

877
00:45:00,100 --> 00:45:02,200
If you believe our website 
statistic is going to be much 

878
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:04,200
closer to forty thousand 
students this year. 

879
00:45:04,500 --> 00:45:06,900
So there's lots of people 
grabbing our materials and using

880
00:45:06,900 --> 00:45:10,000
them all over Australia that 
we're not even helping which is 

881
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:12,800
fabulous to see. 
I'd love to know what the the be

882
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:16,800
hag for CS in schools is I 
double the Schools every year by

883
00:45:16,800 --> 00:45:20,200
a mess is about 2,700. 
Secondary schools in Australia, 

884
00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:23,400
we work with secondary schools 
exclusively right now, and so, 

885
00:45:23,408 --> 00:45:27,700
we're only in 64. 
But next year, 128, 256, 512, 

886
00:45:27,700 --> 00:45:33,600
1024, 2048, and then bang, 
we've, we've done all 2700 and I

887
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:35,900
should say not all 2,700, need 
our help. 

888
00:45:35,900 --> 00:45:39,000
Of course, there are schools out
there with Incredible, DigiTech 

889
00:45:39,000 --> 00:45:42,500
teachers, who are super highly 
skilled in this space and doing 

890
00:45:42,500 --> 00:45:45,000
a fantastic job. 
So when we bump into a school, 

891
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:46,900
that's Really doing a great job.
We say look, here's some free 

892
00:45:46,900 --> 00:45:49,400
materials if you'd like them, if
there's anything we can do to 

893
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,100
help call us anytime and then we
move on to the next school. 

894
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:54,600
So we're here to help the 
schools that want to create this

895
00:45:54,600 --> 00:45:57,000
opportunity for their teachers 
and for their students. 

896
00:45:57,000 --> 00:46:00,000
And we think that's certainly 
the majority of secondary 

897
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:02,200
schools in Australia, but we 
should we should get there 

898
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:04,500
pretty quick. 
If we keep on doubling every 

899
00:46:04,500 --> 00:46:07,000
year, which is a super scary, 
gold keeps me awake every night.

900
00:46:07,300 --> 00:46:11,300
It's a gift that you should be 
incredibly proud of and you are 

901
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:14,100
a National Treasure here. 
It's an absolute privilege to 

902
00:46:14,100 --> 00:46:15,600
have you on scale. 
Up. 

903
00:46:15,600 --> 00:46:17,400
Thank you so much for your time.
Thanks. 

904
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:18,600
It's been a privilege.