Leading People Series: People First, Growth Always: Leadership Lessons on Culture, Feedback, and Scaling Organizations

Welcome to Leading People, a special series on the here at Haas Podcast. I'm Leakantowski, a Haas MBA student in your host for this episode. Today, we're joined by Dave Alberga, a former Army Officer and successful founder, CEO, and investor who sits on several boards. We'll talk about Dave's leadership philosophy, how to build and sustain organizational culture. how to make the right hires. The importance of continuous honest feedback and the value of maintaining a strong professional network rooted in genuine connection. Let's jump into the conversation. All right, everybody.

Lee Kentowski, James DeKami here from the hospital climbing BA Class of 2027. thrilled and excited to be joined by a friend and mentor Dave Alberga. Dave has assisted in the launch of numerous startup organizations and in their growth in the large companies. His background includes leading the active network from pre-revenue to 480 in annual sales and a $1 billion exit for investors.

Prior to active Dave served as a COO of the city search city guide business from just after Dave currently serves as a board director of govx, firestorm labs, and try market associates renewable power control's company. They've has independently invested in a number of additional private companies, including Peloton, Semantic AI, the Rise Festival, and Wind, among others. Earlier in his career, Dave held a number of physicians with linear technology, the leading analogs in my conductor, manufacturer, the boss and consulting group, and procuring the sample. Mr.

Alberga holds an NBA and an MA from Stanford University and a BS and general engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. Dave, thank you so much for agreeing to do this and joining us today. How's it going?

It's great. I'm glad to be here. Thanks.

awesome, awesome. Thanks again, Dave, and just kind of jumping right into it, you know, we've, we've kind of touched on the subject of today and for this assignment for leading people, but, you know, reading your bio, I mean, there's just lead companies from pre revenue to billion dollar exits, then heavily involved in the startup space and certainly including to include your West Point army experience as well. But before we dive into sort of your leadership philosophy and how it's sort of manifested over time leading companies.

Can you share, you know, the experiences that most shaped how you think about leadership?

Yeah. So for James, this is going to be a little bit of new stuff, and for you, Lee, it's kind of, I think it's going to be familiar territory, which is, look, I was lucky to be given an opportunity to lead people at a really young age on really important stuff, right? And that included spending four years in what is essentially a leadership lab at West Point. I think, I didn't know I know that I didn't really appreciate what that was about.

Certainly, the first two years, I feel like I got it after that and really dug in and took advantage of what the place had to offer for my junior and senior year. And I think maybe I still wasn't quite aware just what an opportunity it had been much of kind of the skills and my thoughts on leadership and the skills I have in the leadership came from those kind of formative years in undergrad. I'd have to say it kind of, I'd have to say it's really started in truth there, right? Yeah, so.

Yeah, no, and something that I can certainly recently transitioned from the military into now business school on curious, but what was what would that change like for you post army and what how did those lessons that you learned kind of carry on early on in your you know graduate degree kind of experience and into your early days in business.

That's a pretty broad question. I I think, honestly, initially, as I, after I got out of the army, there were a bunch of really tough lessons about how to be successful as a civilian, or at least what was expected in the environments or cultures that I went into versus what had been expected and led to success in the army. And those were pretty tough lessons to take, right? Let's face that I left the army and I ended up at Proctor and Gamble in Brand Management. And it was not a job that, first of all, I was not very good at it.

And there was no one tried, there were no, you know, heroic efforts to save me when I decided to leave for business school. You know, I'd say I was middle of the pact to, you know, mediocre at best at that job. And I think some of that was a result of it kind of focuses on the stuff that I'm really not that great at anyway. So it was probably not a great fit for my skill set. And then I think, I think it also kind of ran, they've got sideways with the way I was seeing people being led and how I wanted to lead people or be led.

And it was very, very, what I would have considered to be very kind of spotty leadership that was not focused on, I never really felt like I had much of a champion there seeing me, you know, seeing me to success there. And as a result, it just didn't fit so great with kind of my approach to leadership. And so it was a very, very tough lesson to take. And then I got to business school and I realized, okay, this is really not a knock on PNG. You know, that culture's been around forever and it's been an incredibly successful company, right? So they're formula works for them.

But I really did not want to subject myself to kind of an up or out type of a culture, again. I don't get it. I don't think it focuses on employees. I think it puts the emphasis on just the company. And that's certainly not what most of the army is about. Certainly the army has some elements of that that are a necessity of you can't have top-heavy organizations, You know, only a few of you are going to make it to the next level kind of by design kind of around ran counter to the way I want to lead and build cultures and organizations.

Yeah. And I think that kind of the overarching theme of our discussion here today is kind of the central question of what do you owe your employees as a leader, right? And you've said in our conversations in the past that your job as a leader is to make leaving the company really hard. And where did that velocity come from and was it something that you learned like was there a pivotal moment in business post MBA that that really solidified it for for you?

Well, so there were a few things that in a little bit of background on that. I'd actually further define it to say that it was my job is the CEO to make finding a better option really, really difficult. Right. That was my job is it was to create an environment that was going to be very hard for people to replicate elsewhere and in the form of professional development, satisfaction, feeling Compensation, compensation often times to a lesser extent. It's less important if it turns out if you can actually bring some other things to the table. So, that's what I was trying to create, right?

There were a few things that occurred kind of early in my career, both prior to that that kind of left me is kind of scratching my head. I'd say one was, You know, I remember announcing to folks not my really close friends, but to a broader audience at Proctor and Gamble that I had somehow, you know, to some kind of clerical error had gotten into, to, to, to, to business school had Stanford and the reaction was not holy shit like congratulations like you're, you know, that's a really great opportunity. It was like, well, how can you leave here? Why would you leave here?

That was the, and then there was followed by somehow I, I was being disloyal to the organization by leaving, right? And that just ran, you know, it just further solidified the correctness of my decision to leave. But it also further solidified in my head like I never want to create an organization that treats people that way. not placing what's right for me really high on the priority list, right? I understand the need to balance employee needs and the needs of the organization. I get that, right?

It's just that in the vast majority of organizations, the second part of that is almost not even a consideration. Everything is done in deference to the mission of the company and the mission of shareholders. And I think it's counterproductive. team members, every team members priorities and how they define success and try to build a culture in which they can be successful, right? I think you ultimately achieved the company gold better and maybe more effectively than if you were really focused on the company gold. You focus on people. It's amazing kind of what happens, right?

It's a much shorter term thing to essentially consider people expendable and at the service to the mission or the service to shareholders, right? So I don't want to be misunderstood. I don't want to be misunderstood and suggest that. success of my employees, trumps that of shareholders. It's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that if you focus on the success of your employees, you're actually going to deliver more effectively to your shareholders than if you don't.

Yeah, and I think that's a really important takeaway, right? And I think that's a really salient point. I'm curious how focusing on the success of those around you and on your team, how that impacts the broader culture of the organization itself.

Yeah, so look, my objective was to build a more organization that was one and a culture was one that I wanted to be in, right? So it was very solicited, it was very self-circuit. But I wanted to create one that had some fault tolerance. I wanted to create one that was where people felt like they were better off being in the organization than not. where leadership was interested in their personal success and their achievements, not at the exclusion or to the detriment of company mission, but rather as part of achieving the company mission.

And that if people feel like I want to see them, what I want it was, I want to work for people who want to see me succeed and who are there to help me succeed. So as a leader, why not create an organization if you can start from a blank sheet of paper? Why not create an organization or culture where everyone is encouraged to, where the organization is designed, and the culture is designed to help individual succeed, you know, achieve their individual goals, right?

That makes sense and I think that's articulated super well. I wanted to just dive into that a little bit because obviously, like, that makes a lot of sense of just kind of building a culture that you want to be in. And I think that really resonates with me. I'm curious how you would kind of view that translating to the hiring process and building finding and attracting like the right talent. Obviously, kind of the culture that you build, you know, precedes your company and you can go to good reputation elsewhere.

But how do you generally kind of apply this framework to you know, attracting the type of employees that you want to kind of work together and win with?

It's hard to figure out in the hiring process than it is in the going operational process. And honestly, in the dare I say firing process, right? I don't really want to use the word fire, but it kind of rhymed and so it seemed okay. The separation process, right? Let's talk a little bit about the hiring process. I don't think I run the typical interview, I don't think.

I'm not sure any of what I do is terribly, in this case is terribly original or creative, I think I've followed other really smart people and how they approached it, but I really hire almost entirely for less around aptitude and more around attitude. Energy, whether you come in with a fire in your belly, whether or not you have a proven track record of working well on a team, less around your technical skills, you know, short of very specific technical engineering jobs.

I'm looking for someone, look, I'm going to build a, I'm going to go from five team members to 4,000 team members over the course of the next 13 years. So, I'm not hiring you for the job, I'm hiring you for the job wreck that's open now. I'm hiring you for the job, I would like you to have in five years, or in three years, right? I'm looking for people who can grow in the organization and do dramatically different things than what I'm hiring you for today. Kind of what I'm hiring you for today is a bit irrelevant, right? So I'm looking for, I'm trying to identify a desire and ability to grow.

a professional both curiosity and will to get stuff done. I'm hiring for that, which I kind of turned attitude versus very specific, what's on your resume and what have you done specifically in the past? Unless I'm less interested in that. Now look, I think if I was in a 10% growth company, where you're gonna be in that role for the next, You know, the next five to 10 years and the same role the next five to 10 years, maybe your, your, you know, your aptitude is becomes a higher priority.

But in the types of organizations I was trying to build, I was looking for people who could, who, who were change loving and adaptable, who I knew would grow into bigger and bigger roles as rapidly as possible, right? Has very little to do with what's on their resume and actually, how they work, not what they did, right? Does that make sense? Now, let's take it to the next level though, because I think that's where it becomes more interesting and where I think there's a little bit of original thought on my part.

If I set myself up as the a source of success for those on my team for lack of a better way to define it. Um, what does that mean? Executionally, right? So for me with that man was, I wanted to walk in every day into the front doors of our office at a time when, you know, this was at a time when we weren't working in a distributed organization, which I'm not sure I'm outfitted to lead a distributed organization terribly well. It doesn't fit that well with my leadership technique and my, my kind of style of leadership, right?

Um, but, I wanted to walk in the front doors of the office every day, surrounded by people who were there every morning by choice, who were making a choice to be there every day. And so how could I achieve that? And literally thought about how can I achieve that? Such that I'm sure when I'm walking in next to someone in the morning that they made the decision to be there that day because who wants to be on a team full of people who have nowhere else to go. So that's kind of how I defined it, right? You have choices in your life.

Your talents and enough to have a lot of choices in your life and you choose to be here every day. That's the kind of team I want to be on. And so I literally, every all staff meeting from the time we were probably 15 employees up I would encourage people to go out and interview with other for other jobs on a regular basis. Particularly when they were happy with their role in my organization or in our organization, versus when they're unhappy. There are two reasons for that.

The first is if you go out and interview and you're happy, you actually make a lot better decisions around your career, you actually see things for what they are rather than for what you hope they are. Because what I wanted people to know was that there are other options out there for them. But, and then I wanted them to choose to come back in the next morning after deciding to turn down those other opportunities. It does a couple of things. One is, it retoubles your commitment to the organization.

You come in a different person after you've turned down another role on deciding, oh, this is where I'm going to be for the next year or the next two years or whatever it is. The other thing it does is it holds my feet to the fire to create an environment that is very hard to replicate and create an opportunity. That's ideally impossible to replicate somewhere else. And if you're able, if I've got a really terrific performer who comes to me with what is truly a better opportunity, then it's on me, it's not on them, shame on me, that I allowed that to happen, right?

So to me, it always had me on notice to say, look, these people are here because they made a choice to be here and they have options to be almost anywhere else. They're that talented. It's my job every day to create a place that they want to come back to every day. It doesn't mean it's easy, right? I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying I'm going to coddle them. I'm not saying I'm going to, like, it's going to be a pretty, you know, my organizations have had pretty tough operational environments to be in, right?

You're going to be able, you're going to have your feet held to the fire, right? But you're never going to one's question whether I want you to succeed or not. It was my job to put together an environment and a set of, you know, that whole set of things that go into what a job. You know, of which compensation is one thing. And like I said, it's kind of a low on the totem pole for most of the people who are low on the Pareto, right, or low on the Pareto ranking of for most of the people who do well in my organization. They were looking for truly other enriching experiences.

And yeah, they wanted to get paid well and we were successful and they were. But I rarely was rarely about, I just need more money, right?

Yeah, and I think you, the really interesting part of that, and I think it's a, it's such a useful philosophy and such a good way to think about, I mean, as we talked about a good way to talk about military leadership, the leadership in general, and certainly business, but as you said, it's not always going to be easy and I'm really curious about a moment or a time period where it was particularly hard for you to kind of stick to this philosophy and where you were challenged, whether it was investor pressures, as you said, a difficult operational environment, What was that experience like, and what did you really kind of fall back on as kind of the core value and navigate through while sticking to that philosophy?

Yeah, you know, it's hard to pick out singular instances, but let's talk about a couple of things. The first is, over the years, I've had some really great contributors to the organization leave because they decided there was a better opportunity for them somewhere else. Rather than the experience I had at Proctor and Gamble, which was, you know, your kind of, you know, somehow, you know, treasonous for thinking about this, right? The, my response was always, really dispassing an assessment of whether I thought it was really a great opportunity for them or not.

With none of my own personal agenda in mind, just simply, is this a great opportunity for this great performer, right? I was generally very, very open with people about what I thought about them, solely with their success in mind, their career advancement in mind, right? Sometimes there were things that sounded really terrific, right? But regardless of whether I thought it was the right thing for them or not, if they had made the decision to leave, but they had been a great performer in the organization and had contributed and were a great team member.

I more than left the door open for them to come back. I made it very clear that I'm not offended by this. I told you it is your job to optimize your situation for you, right? Regardless of whether I think this is right for you or not, it sounds like you need to go and do it. So go and do it and if it doesn't work out, give me a call and come back. I got a job for you. And it's kind of surprising the number of times that actually came back around. I got a call in nine, 12, 18 months later, like, oh, this wasn't what I thought it was gonna be. This is kind of shit.

And he changed, he's still got that role for me. And look, I will always find a role for that person, right? It's kind of my, a little bit of my sacred duty, right? And so what I also found was those people who came back after a less than ideal situation outside the company, honestly came back more dedicated and more committed to the mission than at any time All right, they had kind of seen the other side.

And while it clearly, I had not done my job in making it really clear that this was a unique opportunity for them here, they now had come to that conclusion on their own, having experienced something else. And I found those people tended to stay and they tended to advance really rapidly in the organization. Right, because see, we're really on it. And I think in some respects, thankful for the opportunity to come back in and be a full, full fledged member of the team, not snow, there's no asterisk next to your name. If I come back with the experience you had, right?

And, you know, I don't understand these organizations that somehow take it personally when you leave, like somehow it's a statement about them, I'll give you an example, right? You maybe years a good example. I've raised two daughters, they're now 20 and 21. And there's a lot of people will tell you, daughters between the ages of 13 to 17, like it's like, you know, there are times when you just don't recognize them anymore, right? And it's not you, it's what raising daughters is like, right? I think it's easier on dad than it is on mom, but it's still really difficult for both parents.

And you can decide to take it personally, as some kind of personal affront and get your ego involved and go to war with them and potentially, you know, kind of screw your relationship with them forever and have them resent you forever. Or you can decide to go with and figure and recognize it. This is not about you, it's about them and try not to get your ego involved and take it personal.

And what I did, what got my head wrapped around it, I realized I had more patients for my friend's daughters who were of the exact same age and acting out the exact same way than I had for my own because it wasn't a statement about me when it was them doing it, right? And so I just started treating my daughters the way I treated my friend's daughters. With much more patients, much less personal affront. Right? You know, being able to laugh at ridiculous behavior rather than be insulted by it, right?

And the net, and you know, I'd be lying to you if I told you I was 100% successful at that, but it really dramatically changed the way I thought about and parented daughters at that age, in that age, that age bracket, right? And the net result of that is my relationship with my girls is as strong as it has ever been or better than maybe it's ever been. I think because I was able to place their needs above kind of my own ego and my own the personal upfront when a child pushes back. So I don't know, maybe that's an example.

Absolutely. I think it's a really interesting one too, kind of drawing the parallels between just family interactions and how we interact with people in our, you know, day-to-day lives and then kind of translating lessons learned into a business setting. On the flip side of the, on the, on the business side of things, when things don't go according to plan, when you've hired How does your philosophy kind of play out when they're not exactly meeting the mark? Yeah, you've really felt like you've done all that you can to make them succeed.

I'm glad you came around that to that, because I said, I did say before I wanted to talk about in process and then at the end of, you know, whatever, you know, if for some reason, someone's not successful. So I'm glad you brought that back up because I've totally dropped a bit there. So, um look. I think if you approach, there are people who are not going to be successful in your organization. It's the way it is, right? No matter how hard you try, no matter how much you want them to be successful, they're not going to be successful in your organization.

And there are steps you have to take prior to a company that concludes, like trying to move them into a role where they can be successful, right? Coaching them, dedicating yourself to their success. And if in the end, You finally come to the conclusion that, despite all of your best efforts and your desire to see them succeed, they are not going to be successful in your organization. Then I would say the exact same philosophy applies.

So it's just an extension to the exact same philosophy, which is if they're not being successful and can't be successful in your organization, don't you owe them success? So let's go find a place where they can be successful. It turns out that's not here, right? just telling them that and throwing them out the back door, doesn't constitute helping them succeed. I feel my responsibility is actually to help them well beyond that into finding roles where they can be. Let's sit down and help you with a job search and for, this is what we know you're great at.

This is what we know you kind of stink at, right? Let's be really honest with each other, right? Let's go find a role that, that emphasizes this stuff you're great at. And I'll help you find it. It turns out I don't have it at the company here. Otherwise, I'd give you that role, right? Look, I've met very few people who don't want to be successful. In whatever it is, and I don't mean monetary success. I just mean success, achieving your goals, achieving your dream, whatever it is, right? most people even though some will fight you on it.

You got to be like, it's really the rare individuals kind of like I guess a psychopath or something like that or a sociopath who somehow doesn't really want to be successful. The vast majority of people want to be successful. The vast majority of people know when they're not being successful even though they may not be telling themselves the truth on that.

And if you've gone, if you've truly in your heart of heart's gone through all the efforts that are required to help someone be successful in your organization, you come to the conclusion that despite all your efforts and their efforts, they're not going to be successful. Then the next logical step is to go help them be successful somewhere else. And honestly, it makes that discussion dramatically easier, like you're not being successful here, we've tried and tried and tried. Most 95% of people will eventually acquiesce to that. Yeah, you're right. I'm not being successful there.

Well, you want to be not successful. No, of course not. Okay. Well, let's go figure out a place where you can be successful. All right. And so it's surprising the number of people who have ended up leaving one of my organizations as a result of just not necessarily being a great fit for it with whom I'm still really close friends. It's not about, it's not personal, it's not about them being a failure in life. It's about this just not being a great fit for what their skill set is. Let's go find a great fit for your skill set. I care about you. Let's see you be successful.

It's a very different message than you get at most companies when you're not performing, or when you have to be move, it's like graduated from the organization, right? It's time to graduate you, right? The, you know, that's not the way it works at most companies, right? Most companies, it's, you're out and it's kind of this, right? And so, you know, there's a corollary to that, which is, and I say it kind of to be a little bit tongue-in-cheek, a little bit shocking, a little bit funny, which is I've never fired someone too soon, right?

And what I mean by that is, Normally, by the time I get to the actual mechanics of moving someone out of the organization and into something where they could be more successful, I've known it for a long time that they were not going to be successful. Like, I've conflict avoided. I've kind of equivocated. I've tried to find any way around that really, really difficult discussion, right? I've never once Separated someone from the organization and said, oh, I should have kept them around for another three months or another six months.

And, very early, I say, I knew that nine months ago, why didn't we have this tough conversation nine months ago? All right, you're not doing anyone any favors by leaving them in a role where they are being unsuccessful. Now, that only applies. If one, you really care about people in their success and two, you put in the effort to see them, to see them be successful and not get over the bar numerous times, right? So you can't fake that. They will be on to you every time. If you don't care about people, this approach to leadership doesn't work, because you can't fake it.

And it should be even for some of your worst performers. You should feel like it was a failure on your part as a leader that they were unsuccessful in your organization. And it should hurt. And it does. It hurts. It hurts to see someone unsuccessful and need to find success somewhere else. And because it was my failure, I was unable to get them successful in this organization.

That's a great answer and I guess one thing that's like really coming through when you speak and I think just from the beginning of our conversation to now and. the quote, I've never fired someone too soon. I guess it's just this concept of honesty and it's being kind of like, realistically assessing the situation with, especially kind of in the context of performance management. You know, we had a case that we looked at in our reading people class. There was an exercise of sorts where one person in the exercise was surprised at the performance.

They were receiving a negative performance appraisal from the other person and they were surprised by that. You should never be surprised. I was going to say something tells me that.

Surprise lands on the shoulders of the leader.

Yeah, so it's something tells me like just from hearing you speak that that, that, you know, would not have any organization. So I was wondering if you could just speak to, you know, just kind of building a culture of like honesty and maybe how that relates to kind of performance feedback. How do that look at your organizations? What was kind of the expectations? You know, is it kind of like kind of project by project? Do you have kind of formal feedback cycles? Or is it more kind of like embedded into the day to day reality?

So let me start by saying that because you mentioned this thing about honesty, right, and I think honesty is a little bit of a term that is It's a little bit used as an excuse for bad behavior by some leaders I'm just being honest, right, like, well Honesty works when you're coming from the right place when you're kind of a lazy leader who hasn't done the work leading up to that point, honestly, kind of becomes a crutch, right? Like, I'm just being straight up with you in honest.

Well, okay, I appreciate you being straight up in honest with me, but where were you when I was originally struggling? Where were you to help me when I was struggling, right? And so I think there are some kind of not-so-great leaders out there who use honesty as like, who use honesty somehow as like a excuse for bad behavior, right? It's not an excuse for bad behavior, right?

So yeah, I believe in honesty when it truly is married or coupled with the right culture So look, I encourage people, and look, you end up, especially when you end up with the organization with lots of different levels of management or large organizations where you're not sure how everyone will, you know, in your organization is leading their organization. It's just not certain, right? It's hard to, hard to know, right? I believe, you know, feedback should be given as soon as possible and in as compassionate away as possible, right?

And that positive feedback is more important than negative feedback. And I think a lot of times we don't hear from people unless we're, you know, from kind of bad management, we don't hear from them unless we're screwing up. because it hasn't been delivered, it doesn't come, it doesn't come after realizing this person really is recognizing what I am doing well, right? So they're just kind of focused on what I've screwed up. Trust me, I've been a screw up in jobs like this is, you know, I'm not, I'm no rock star, right? I just wanted to fair shake it things, right?

And I was always willing to work hard. I wasn't necessarily great, but I was willing to work hard, right? And so, yes, of course, there's a formal feedback process, which are performance reviews twice a year or whatever it is. And I hate that process, because it feels so formalized than it feels so, and it's mostly kind of illegal requirement in many ways, right? And it's a backstop for leaders in your organization who aren't doing it on a regular basis.

But the reality is, if I always felt like if I'm delivering news in a formal performance review that I hadn't given informally multiple times before, that was on me. That was my screw up. And of course it happened. It happens. You know, you've got a big organization and you don't have time to really sit down with everyone all the time. And I'd be lying if I sat out and surprised some people with some negative feedback that I haven't been great at giving them, you know, along the way simply because, you know, you're overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that there is to do.

So, but it's on me that when that happens. It's not on All right, it's my responsibility. There should be no surprises in a performance rear ever. Yeah, no, I think that's a really great point and makes a ton of sense to it. And I'm curious now. You know what I'm noticing? The lighting for you guys is way better than it is for me. I look like I'm out of like a felining movie. Like I look really kind of frightening because I've got this overhead like, you guys must have these like lighting circles in front of you where something's going on there. You guys are lit very well.

And I'm just getting a benefit of the sun setting. So like you're a little bit like I'm being a bit like I've been like I've been wear around here, but let's just keep going and I'll I'll improve our my podcast production, you know, maybe you can pick it up and post post production. Yeah, well, we'll do it, we'll improve it in a post. Now, how is this approach kind of fed into I guess like your personal network now and I don't need personal network right like I don't really can I go off script for a minute? Yeah absolutely.

Um, you know, it occurred to me a little while ago, you know, maybe a couple of years ago. And it's kind of stuck with me since that There was this thing, and James, I'm sorry, into the audience, I'm going to dive into some corkiness of West Point and what occurred at West Point. That we were forcing people to, and I'll go in and describe what this is, but we're forcing people to memorize something called Scofield's definition of discipline, word for word. And at the same time, we were using that as a way to essentially haze people, right?

We were, we were subjecting people to harsh and tyrannical treatment as Scofield would call it. In the very context of memorizing his speech about harsh and tyrannical treatment, right, it was so unbelievably hypocritical. And that hypocrisy hit me while I was at West Point, like I'm getting yelled at for not, understanding Scofield's definition of discipline, which talks about specifically about how a harsh and tyrannical treatment doesn't lead to like performance, right?

And I think that combined with a few really good instructors, I had a West Point kind of where the formative things around how I decided to approach leadership. Like it's funny, I have, I have Skowfield's definition of discipline in a frame of my desk here. And it was such a, like a throwaway thing for so long, but then I looked up, did you know that the, do you know the origin of it? The old Skowfield was, The superintendent of West Point, like in the 18th, post-World War, a post-civil war, like 1870s, 18, maybe during the 1870s at some point, right?

And there was multiple, there was also a time when post-week construction when the Academy was being integrated, right? When the first African-American cadets were being accepted to West Point. That didn't go over so easily. And there was, while hazing was rife, both physical and emotional hazing was rife, it was point during those times.

It was, you know, there was an extra helping of it for those who were any, any, any, any people of color, whatsoever were essentially driven, you know, I think of the first, like, This is coming from a memory from a while ago, but something like 12, a dozen cadets were of African-American cadets were accepted during kind of a 10-year period, probably before, probably, you know, probably before we went backwards on reconstruction, right? We're accepted and something like two or three of them have graduated in that 10-year period, right? Because life was just so brutal there for them.

And Scofield was responding to an incident, hazing incident, and I can't remember what the actual incident was, but was responding to a hazing incident and speaking to the entire core, that's as the superintendent. We never learned this as cadets. We learned Scofield's definition of discipline out of kind of thin air, but we had no idea that it was a, that it was actually given in response to a hazing incident at West Point, right?

And I'll read off this thing that's hanging on the wall behind you guys, which is the discipline which makes the soldiers of a free country reliable and get battle is not to be gained by harsher tyrannical treatment. On the contrary, such treatment is far more likely to destroy than to make an army. So it goes on and what it really goes on to say is that respect given results and respect You know, who knew in 1980 when I was a plea but West Point, just trying to survive, right? That the thing I learned there as a plea, right?

Really, really, really kind of came home to me as a way to actually think about leadership in the real world. We're talking about a guy who was a general in the 1870s, who eventually I think got relieved over a bunch of the issues that were happening or was pointed the time, but he gave this speech before he was relieved. They don't tell you that story, I'd it, right? But it turns out it's so prophetic and so profound today, right? Turns out that just really showing deep love and respect for members of your team comes back to you, you know, tenfold.

Um, and so let's talk about now the question you asked, I think, right? The net result of that is the people who have cycled in and out of my organization, organizations that I've been on my organization, organizations that I've led over the years, right? I have a really deep bench of friends and colleagues who, we stay in really, really close touch, right? People go on to build companies, ask me to join their boards, ask me to coach, ask me to, Um, not because I'm graded all these things. I'm not. It's, I'm not graded out there, right?

But I hope it's because they felt respected while they were working in the organizations I led and felt and feel like they want to bring some of that to the organization today. All right.

Um.

the vast majority of great opportunities that come my way today from a just a coaching or a board, you know, directorship or a investment opportunity come from people who grew up in the organizations I led. Who've gone on to do amazing things, right? And wanted me to be a part of that somehow, right? And that's candidly. If you were to ask me, what's the thing I'm most proud of that I achieved in my career? It was exactly that, right? Is that those and my organizations, the organizations that I had the privilege to lead, come back and ask for help.

And you know, I can count on one hand, the number of people who I really don't want to interact with anymore. Cause I feel like there may be some moral ethical issues that I just don't want to be around. The vast majority of people, I mean, whether they were successful or not in the organization. I'm in some form of touch with. So.

I think that's that that kind of last piece, there is really, I think that's such a huge takeaway extending it a little bit further, because I think, yeah, literally, I think that was the main takeaway for like in DAs and then what do what is. What does success look like for them and how they can sort of manifest that in organizations that like we will lead post-graduation? I am curious what advice you give or what you look for because there are classmates of ours who are involved in startups.

Number two, trying to do my best to paint a target for people, right, for the organization. And number three, in which the thing I spent more time on than any of the, any of the, the other two, it was actually spending one-on-one time with as many people in the organization as I possibly could understand how they define success for themselves. You know, when leaders apply their definition of success to others, there's like there's assumption like you just here to make money. Right? Like that's a really common one.

Like there's an assumption on the part of leaders that people are much more, I think, mercenary than most people really are. It turns out most people are not that mercenary. They just want to feel success. And that comes in all different forms. And it's not just money, sure. People want to be compensated for their success, right? Rarely does that make up for a lack of feeling success in other more important metrics, right? For them, right?

And actually spending the time to understand at each individual to find success for them and finding ways to build that into the organization for them, how to achieve that within the context of the organization. was almost the most valuable thing I could do besides making sure we could pay to keep the lights on, right? So, it's a lot of one on one time. You got to really care about people. And, you know, look, there are lots of people out there who are way more successful than me who don't really get a rat's ass about their stuff, right?

Who are very, very kind of mercenary in their approach as soon as everyone in their organizations mercenary in their approach. And those organizations see tremendous turnover kind of toxic culture. But there's always someone willing to come in and take an empty roll. And so they see this kind of crazy turnover. But these people are far more successful than I've been. I just don't want to do it that way. So, because of the way I define success, right?

Oh, 100% and I think the effort, you know, speaking to the effort that that requires on the part of the leader is, um, is really an important lesson. Um, and David, do you all agree with me?

I'll get out of your office and walk around.

Yeah. And I want to be respectful to your time. I know we're over, but just before we wrap up, just thank you so much. I think this is just chock full of a ton of just amazing takeaways for my classmates, for James and I, in business and life and James, just want to turn it over to you for any kind of last questions before we wrap.

Yeah, David, again, as I said, I have like three pages of notes just handwriting. I know we're recording this as well, but this has been awesome just to hear from you. Really appreciate you taking the time. When you took the last question right out of my mouth, just you know, looking at kind of sort of founders, I guess. the last question I would just have is, you know, I know we is, is transition in careers. I'm doing kind of, you know, maybe a little bit less of a pivot, but also transition in careers.

You just touched on how you kind of transitions careers from being a founder to you're being a board member and being an investor. I was just curious, you know, maybe just on the topic of kind of networks and just kind of like the the your reach kind of as a professional and as as a as a leader, I'd be curious just to hear your comments on just how maybe some like practical tips on just how to maintain those like relationships over time, because obviously, you know, the some of the best relationships kind of compound over, you know, year many years and decades. So that's it.

Get your take on that.

Yeah, let's talk about that. It turns out that's something I am good at. There's this, you know, I'm good at a handful of things. And I'm kind of lucky that I'm good at a handful of things. There's a lot of things I'm not good at. But the fact that I'm good at a handful of things, I think I feel lucky, right? To me, I love finding really talented, driven people, ethical, talented, driven people who are as curious as I am, right? Curiosity maybe is maybe one of the nuance, but maybe the most common theme amongst those who I consider to be the closest to the people on closest to.

And I've curated, I've really worked hard to curate in that work, or I don't really like to use the word network, but a group of friends who I know are always working, thinking about interesting things and working on interesting things and I don't agree with them on everything, like lots, you know, but they are talented, ethical, curious and And interested in, yeah, interested in discovery, right? When I find those people, you don't come across these people every day, you don't, right? When I find those people, like I hang onto them. And I put work into staying in touch with them.

Because we're all so busy, it's very hard to stay in touch with people. I try to stay in touch with people who I know enrich my life. And I don't mean, again, I don't mean that monetarily My life is better with them in it because I'm learning and I'm growing as a result of being around them. Those are the people who I know are going to generate, or always work on interesting things, and tend to generate opportunities, but I never do it to generate opportunities. I do it because it makes my life more interesting, right?

And you know, when we're all busy and focused and trying to just survive in the job we have, it's hard to take the time to maintain those relationships. But it's, to me, it's been, it's been critical in, in the way it has ended up steering my career and providing opportunities want to be really clear, I'm not, I view networking is a little bit of a dirty word because it seems opportunistic, not doing it opportunistically. I'm doing it because it grows me and it makes me like being around these people enriches me emotionally and intellectually.

It has turned out to generate some really interesting business opportunities as well, but I don't care if that, that's not the measuring stick I use as to whether you're on the list or not. I think a lot of people do, what can you do for me? It's not really interesting to me. The world is full of some percentage of people who are just always going to be working curious people, right, those people I want to surround myself with because life's just better when you do. You're lucky. There's a bunch of those folks in your class, I guarantee you. Right?

It's harder to come by them after you leave business school. You will, but when you do hang on to them, I invest time in them. so awesome.

Yeah. Thank you, Ed. I think that's an awesome note to end on and I know we're over time. Again, really appreciate you to spend in a time with us and the alvinus in part some some wisdom to work towards him.

Oh great guys, so I love it. I wish I was I I really wish I was over again exactly where you are. I mean, you guys are right at the front of what's going to be an amazing opportunity and career and I would encourage you to prioritize to really understand what your priorities are. When you choose to in your choice of opportunities you take and if you violate the ranking of your priorities, you will not be happy. All right, so, and I know you can always cut this off at the end, but the way the ranking of priorities for me and looking for opportunities have always been what is the team like?

Am I gonna learn from them and as it really strong was strong team? Are they on it up elevator? right so are they in an expanding space where there's wheel opportunity or are they fighting in a shit fight for share right it's miserable right who wants to play that game right that's stuck for lots people are stuck in that game it's no fun right so up elevator that was coined by it's coined by another fellow west point grad of friend of mine um get on an up elevator so the team get on an up elevator what is the company actually working on and does Followed fourth by what is the actual role?

It's kind of a material. Just get your foot in the door and some great opportunity. Right? The actual job is kind of a material. Followed last by what is the compensation. Turns out, if you got on an up elevator with a great group of people and you actually contribute and you're a valuable contributor to the team, the compensation, the job title, the jobs take care of themselves and the compensation takes care of itself. I never really found it was very fun to hang out with people whose top priority was making money. It's just boring. What's the point?

I get up every day and say, let's go make money. That just sounds horrible to me, right? Let's go create something really cool. Yeah, we'll get paid for it eventually, right? It's always been my approach. sector, growing sector, company and what its product is, you're interested in it and does it, does it get you fired up and jazzed up? What is the actual job and what are you getting paid? That's the priority for me. That's the my list of my priorities. And the only time I've ever gone wrong is when I violated that. When I placed one above something that should be above it.

Thank you so much. That's amazing stuff, and again, really appreciate your time, your perspective. I think that's great. We've tried to say goodbye three times now, but seriously Dave, just thank you, thank you so much.

Yeah, it's been really fun. It's always fun to talk you guys.

Yeah.

All right, bye guys.

All right. All right. Take care. Thanks for listening to leading people on the here at Haas podcast. If you enjoy this conversation, please follow and subscribe so you don't miss upcoming episodes. This series is produced by students and professor Don Moore's leading people class at UC Berkeley House in partnership with University FM. Until next time, go Bears!