Grit

Joubin Mirzadegan
Grit

Grit explores what it takes to create, build, and scale world-class organizations. It features weekly episodes highlighting the leaders who are pushing their companies to make a difference. This series is hosted by Joubin Mirzadegan, go to market operating partner at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm investing in history-making founders.

  1. #232 CEO NetApp, George Kurian: New Chapters

    2 NGÀY TRƯỚC

    #232 CEO NetApp, George Kurian: New Chapters

    Guest: George Kurian, CEO of NetApp For almost 10 years, George Kurian has been CEO of the data infrastructure firm NetApp, overseeing its pivot to cloud services. After he  took the job — a surprise promotion dropped on him just days before it was announced — he had to learn on the job how the job could be. “ There are a lot more stakeholders that a CEO has to deal with than a chief product officer,” George says, referring to his previous role. “There's also a lot more external commitment ... It was a really all-consuming effort to get the company turned around.” He said the CEO job can be “fairly lonely” because you may want to be peers or friends with your team and your board — but in fact, they are sometimes your subordinates and your superiors, respectively. “ We wouldn't be here without others having contributed significantly on the journey,” George says. “[But] there are times when you have to step back and say, ‘I see a pattern that my team is not seeing,’ or ‘Do I think that we can do a better job than we are doing?’” Chapters: (01:10) - Commuting to Sunnyvale (04:49) - Growing up in India (08:04) - Protect the child (09:33) - Raising kids in Silicon Valley (12:44) - Money motivation (15:04) - NetApp’s renaissance (21:39) - Writing new chapters (23:15) - Culture shifts (26:38) - Coming to NetApp (29:41) - Surprise! You’re the CEO (32:41) - Making sacrifices (35:04) - Work vs. family tension (37:18) - Doubt & lonely decisions (42:38) - The data wave (45:27) - Enterprise AI (51:36) - Starting your own company (53:33) - Navigating difficulty (56:28) - Who NetApp is hiring (57:11) - What “grit” means to George Mentioned in this episode: EMC, OpenAI, DeepSeek, CalTrain, the San Francisco 49ers, Princeton University, Subway, Vons, Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud, Stanford University, Brian Cox, Oliver Jay, the Quakers, Jay Chaudhry, zScaler, Manmohan Singh, Oracle, IBM, Sun, Amazon, Microsoft, Glean, Kobe Bryant, Steph Curry, McKinsey, Akamai, Cisco, Gwen McDonald, and the San Francisco Friends School. Links: Connect with George LinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    58 phút
  2. #231 CEO & Co-Founder Harvey, Winston Weinberg w/ Ilya Fushman: Worthy Sacrifices

    24 THG 2

    #231 CEO & Co-Founder Harvey, Winston Weinberg w/ Ilya Fushman: Worthy Sacrifices

    Guests: Winston Weinberg, CEO & co-founder of Harvey; and Ilya Fushman, partner at Kleiner Perkins “If you think about pretty much any job out there in the world, we will have some sort of [AI] copilot,” says Kleiner Perkins partner Ilya Fushman. “The question is, who are the right folks to build it, and what’s their vision?” For Harvey CEO & co-founder Winston Weinberg, the vision is clear: Silicon Valley cannot and should not try to disrupt the legal profession by automating the job of lawyers. Instead, he says, they need to have “respect for the industry” before designing AI solutions that speed up specific tasks. “These industries are incredibly complex,” Winston says. “Legal is one of the oldest professions known to man. There are firms that are over a hundred years old. There are firms that are hundreds of years old, and having a brand that says, ‘We are partnering with the industry to transform it’ versus ‘We are just going to steamroll the industry’ is really important for us.” Chapters: (01:16) - The zeitgeist switch (02:58) - What is Harvey? (06:10) - Chief Law Officers (07:58) - Agentic workflows (09:43) - Ilya’s investment thesis (12:48) - Collaborating with AI (16:05) - Task automation (20:52) - Why is it called Harvey? (23:14) - Respecting the legal industry (26:43) - Winston’s past jobs (28:47) - First steps (32:13) - Scaling the company (35:02) - Scaling yourself (37:19) - Who works for Harvey (40:50) - Making mistakes (43:15) - Making sacrifices (45:51) - Growing too fast (50:50) - Setting priorities (54:54) - Harvey’s competitors (57:38) - Internal virality (01:00:46) - Testing Harvey’s limits (01:03:29) - Who Harvey is hiring (01:04:01) - What “grit” means to Winston Mentioned in this episode: ChatGPT, the Fortune 500, Microsoft Copilot, Gabe Pereyra, Activision, Excel, Counsel AI Corporation, Suits, Harvard University, Netflix, Dell, O'Melveny & Myers, Hueston Hennigan, Meta, Reddit, Jason Kwon, Anthropic, Marissa Mayer, Eric Schmidt, Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Glean. Links: Connect with Winston TwitterLinkedInConnect with Ilya TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    1 giờ 6 phút
  3. #230 Co-founder & CEO, Wolt & Head of DoorDash International, Miki Kuusi: The Next Mountain

    17 THG 2

    #230 Co-founder & CEO, Wolt & Head of DoorDash International, Miki Kuusi: The Next Mountain

    Guest: Miki Kuusi, head of international at Doordash + CEO & co-founder of Wolt + co-founder of Slush tech conference Before Miki Kuusi launched the Finnish delivery startup Wolt, which DoorDash acquired in 2022, he wasn’t just another startup entrepreneur. From 2011 to 2015, Miki was the CEO of the hugely influential European tech conference Slush, which brings thousands of founders and VCs to Helsinki every winter.  “You could argue that Slush was my university for things leading up to Wolt, and what I do today,” Miki says. “That's where I learned most of the core lessons that I put into action.”  One thing he remembers thinking in those early days: Everything was going to be redefined by the internet. “I just wanted to get a shot at building one of these services of the next hundred years,” he says. “And that was the driving motivator for me. If the driving motivator had been money, I don't think we would be here today.” Chapters: (01:14) - Act 3 (03:36) - Unlocking local commerce (06:13) - Selling Wolt (09:27) - The competition (14:20) - DoorDash’s and Wolt’s origins (17:50) - “Maybe we’re the idiots in the room” (22:44) - Difficult years (25:13) - Startups in Europe vs. U.S. (28:56) - Learning from DoorDash (31:51) - Market correction (35:24) - Delivery around the world (39:17) - “ Glorified recruiting companies” (42:31) - Convincing restaurants (44:11) - Slush (48:21) - The next mountain (54:13) - Ambition and concentration (59:58) - Family and distractions (01:04:34) - Email overload (01:07:07) - Time as currency (01:09:25) - Priorities and onboarding (01:15:49) - The power of culture (01:19:32) - Who Wolt and DoorDash are hiring (01:20:39) - What “grit” means to Miki Mentioned in this episode: Tony Xu, Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats, Postmates, Delivery Hero, GrubHub, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, Kees Koolen and Booking.com, 83North, Supercell, DashPass, Wolt+, Microsoft Excel, Amazon, Parker Conrad and Rippling, Andreeseen Horowitz, Fortnite, WhatsApp, Barry’s Bootcamp, and Slack. Links: Connect with Miki LinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    1 giờ 22 phút
  4. #229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game

    10 THG 2

    #229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game

    Guest: Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision Blizzard; and Bing Gordon, Advisor at Kleiner Perkins In 2020, when President Trump signed the executive order that would ban TikTok in the U.S., Bobby Kotick called his old friend Steven Mnuchin. The former Secretary of the Treasury told him that, if TikTok’s U.S. operations were to be sold to an American company, Microsoft would be the only bidder. A couple calls later, he reached ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming, who said he’d rather sell to Bobby than Microsoft. Concerned about his ability to get the deal done solo, Bobby called Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and offered to make a joint bid.  Nadella declined, but added, “ if the deal doesn't get done, we should sit down and talk about us buying Activision.” TikTok currently remains Chinese-owned, but three years later, Microsoft paid $75 billion for Activision Blizzard. Chapters: (01:16) - Forming Activision Blizzard (04:19) - Good acquisitions (09:21) - Electronic Arts and “Schedule C” (15:08) - Nintendo and Mediagenic (21:19) - Steve Wynn (29:24) - Wynn cashes out (35:14) - Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (40:38) - Blizzard’s many sales (44:44) - World of Warcraft and Call of Duty (47:59) - Jurassic Park (50:40) - Chris Metzen (55:06) - David Geffen (58:11) - New competitors (01:02:25) - The harassment lawsuits (01:06:53) - Trying to buy TikTok (01:08:51) - Hardware design (01:12:52) - Polymarket, Donald Trump, and TikTok (01:15:19) - The Call of Duty Endowment (01:18:31) - Brian Stann and Hire Heroes USA (01:21:49) - Steve Jobs and Pixar (01:29:41) - The first Macintosh (01:31:29) - The Wii demo (01:33:42) - Nintendo 64, PlayStation and VR (01:37:35) - The hardest year (01:40:17) - Working with Brian Kelly (01:41:26) - Satya Nadella and Microsoft (01:44:39) - Xbox Game Pass (01:49:35) - What “grit” means to Bobby Mentioned in this episode: Vivendi, Bruce Hack and Arnaud de Puyfontaine, EA, Call of Duty, Bizarre Creations, Atari, Apple II, Commodore 64, Jean-Louis Gassée, Apple Lisa, Howard Lincoln, Philips, Magnavox Odyssey, Sutter Hill Ventures, Infocom and Zork, Toys-R-Us, Howard Hughes, E. Parry Thomas, Sun Valley, Thom Weisel, William Morris Endeavor, Guitar Hero, Davidson & Associates, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, World of Warcraft, Medal of Honor, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Chris Roberts, Overwatch, Tencent, Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In, Lina Khan, Samsung, Elon Musk, James L. Jones, UFC, E. Floyd Kvamme, Toy Story 2, Procter & Gamble, Ron Doornik, John Lasseter, Xerox PARC, Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, Goldeneye 007, James Bond, Barbara Broccoli, Oculus, Apple Vision Pro, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Sam Altman, Mustafa Suleyman, Spotify, Candy Crush Saga, Disney, Phil Spencer, Clarence Avant and Motown Records.  Links: Connect with Bobby TwitterLinkedInConnect with Bing TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    1 giờ 52 phút
  5. #228 Co-Founder Alinea & Tock: Selling Experience

    3 THG 2

    #228 Co-Founder Alinea & Tock: Selling Experience

    Guest: Nick Kokonas, co-founder of the Alinea Group and former CEO of Tock As of October 1, 2024, Nick Kokonas is no longer an owner of the Alinea restaurant group, which he co-founded and ran for almost 20 years. When he bought a vineyard in Napa Valley prior to the exit, one of his sons remarked, “He's given up. Time to go out to pasture.” Nick admits that the work ahead of him is “not the same” as the high-pressure world of a Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago. But he’s started working with the magician Nate Staniforth on a new restaurant concept that will present diners with illusions and surprises over the course of a two-hour experience.  “If you want to feel wonder and feel childlike again, go see a magician,” Nick says. “[But] there’s so much bad cultural baggage ... what we wanted to do was create an experience that is not really about magic.” Chapters: (02:29) - Celebrity restauranteurs (07:14) - The next act (12:30) - Buying the vineyard (15:37) - Fear is motivating (17:59) - Opening night (22:03) - Tongue cancer (27:56) - “OK, let’s fix this” (31:10) - Selling experience (38:32) - The table plate (42:40) - Feeling full (44:14) - Next Restaurant and Tock (49:33) - Being still (51:19) - Nate Staniforth’s lottery illusion (56:57) - The magic restaurant (01:02:29) - Being misunderstood (01:07:44) - Working via email (01:11:43) - “Enemies” (01:18:23) - Who Nick is hiring and what “grit” means to him Mentioned in this episode: Mike Gamson, Shaquille O’Neal, Jeff Kaplan, Steve Bernacki, Robin Anil, Grant Achatz, OpenTable, American Express, The Big Lebowski, The New York Times, eGullet, Gourmet Magazine, Roger Ebert, Eddie van Halen, Goodfellas, The Devil Wears Prada, Batman, the Chicago Bears, Madonna, Taylor Swift, Bavette’s and Brendan Sodikoff, Pablo Picasso, Chef’s Table, Google, Brian Fitzpatrick, Finding Real Magic, David Blaine, Mark Cuban, Mark Caro, Chicago Magazine, John Mariani, Cat Cora, Homaro Cantu, Dave Portnoy, Pete Wells, and Eric Asimov. Links: Connect with Nick TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    1 giờ 20 phút
  6. #227: CEO & Founder Axon, Rick Smith: Push Risk

    27 THG 1

    #227: CEO & Founder Axon, Rick Smith: Push Risk

    Guest: Rick Smith, CEO & Founder of Axon (formerly TASER) Being a founder-CEO is a “unique superpower,” says Axon’s Rick Smith: People like him get a longer leash from the board to try things that outside CEOs might not. “My job is to push risk into the organization,” Rick says. “If there's a project with a 50 percent chance of success, a 50 percent chance of failure, but it's going to pay 100 to 1, any finance person will tell you, you should take that bet all day long.” One of those bets was the transition from running a weapons company called TASER into a broader public safety firm called Axon, which makes cloud-supported body cameras fro police, tactical drones, AI records management software and more. “If we never have a product failure, then we're not taking risks anymore and we're going to end up getting disrupted,” Rick says. Chapters: (01:09) - Tasers vs. guns (03:35) - Axon’s growth (07:09) - Biggest surprises (09:33) - How TASER got started (13:11) - Reinventing the taser (17:24) - A humiliating launch (23:33) - Rick’s family (26:14) - The Auto Taser failure (30:21) - The darkest days (34:26) - Hans Marrero (37:25) - Family and burnout (42:49) - Rick’s family (45:49) - Pivoting the business (51:37) - Axon body cameras (53:46) - Axon’s current products (58:08) - Re-educating the cops (01:02:09) - Pushing risk (01:05:44) - Competing with the gun (01:10:16) - Exponential stock plans (01:14:17) - Who Axon is hiring (01:14:46) - What “grit” means to Rick Mentioned in this episode: UnitedHealthcare and Brian Thompson, Harvard University, human-machine interfaces, Star Wars, Timecop, Star Trek, Jack Cover, Project Apollo, Ed Owen; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; Tom Smith, Rodney King, the Sharper Image, Steve Filmer, Phil Smith, Silicon Valley Bank, Emil Michael, Bob Kagle, Benchmark, Norwest Ventures, Molly Wuthrich, Josh Isner, The Terminator, Ferrari, Richard Branson, Burning Man, Steve Jobs, Brenda Smith, Hadi Partovi, Amazon AWS, Microsoft, DraftOne, Ambience Health, OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Brown, Computer Aided Dispatch, Elon Musk and SpaceX, and Luke Larson. Links: Connect with Rick TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    1 giờ 16 phút
  7. #226 President & COO Coinbase, Emilie Choi: Through the Storm

    20 THG 1

    #226 President & COO Coinbase, Emilie Choi: Through the Storm

    Guest: Emilie Choi, president & COO of Coinbase After the collapse of FTX in 2022, “the whole industry was tarnished,” recalls Coinbase COO Emilie Choi. “Politicians came out criticizing crypto, saying it was a fraud.” But unlike FTX, Coinbase was a public company in the U.S. So when the SEC served it a Wells notice, announcing its intent to charge the company with violating securities laws, the executive team took an unusual step: They went on the offensive, publicly calling BS on the agency. “Well-regarded CEOs from TradFi, they were like, ‘You don’t do that,’” Emilie says. “’You don’t antagonize your regulator.’ ... It was a combination of chutzpah and maybe desperation that we were like, ‘We have to go tell our story, because if we don’t, nobody else will.’” Chapters:  (01:14) - Working with founder CEOs (04:12) - Mission first (07:16) - Reviewing candidates (09:48) - Unusual hiring (11:22) - Crypto after FTX (16:29) - Operation Choke Point 2.0 (19:19) - Grin and bear it (21:24) - Channeling negativity (24:21) - Going to war with the SEC (26:20) - Donald Trump and Gary Gensler (28:38) - Was it worth it? (31:19) - Shipping challenges (34:03) - OKRs and personal goals (36:41) - Brian Armstrong and structure (40:56) - The COO guidebook (43:30) - Removing bureaucracy (46:50) - Investing in crypto (49:41) - After Coinbase (53:03) - Constantly on (54:53) - Favorite interview questions (56:28) - Who Coinbase is hiring (58:28) - Standing for something Mentioned in this episode: Google Chat, executive coaches, Mark Zuckerberg, LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, speed reading, Warner Bros., Elizabeth Warren, Sam Bankman-Fried, Wells notices, Paul Grewal, Chris Lehane, Airbnb, OpenAI, FOIA requests, Balaji Srinivasan, Dan Romero, Kevin Scott, Microsoft, Patrick McHenry, Ritchie Torres, Fairshake PAC, A16z, Ripple, Stand With Crypto, Dogecoin, Robinhood, Charles Schwab, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Paul Ryan, Faryar Shirzad, Kara Calvert, Elon Musk, Earn.com, Ben Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, Claire Hughes Johnson and Scaling People, Directly Responsible Individuals, Fidelity, BlackRock, Yahoo!, Stewart Butterfield, Brad Garlinghouse, Alibaba, Flickr, cognitive tests, and Loom. Links: Connect with Emilie TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    1 giờ
  8. #225 CEO Lattice, Sarah Franklin: Trailblazer

    13 THG 1

    #225 CEO Lattice, Sarah Franklin: Trailblazer

    Guest: Sarah Franklin, CEO of Lattice As the CEO of a growing company, Lattice’s Sarah Franklin has learned that one of her most important contributions is taking a leap of faith. “You have to have the courage to be the first one to do it,” she says,” and to show that it can be done, and to pave the way so that then your team feels trust.” Sarah cautions, though, that sometimes courage is deciding to stop and go a different direction. As agentic AI becomes more common, the people building companies like Lattice should look to the “cautionary tales” of how social media and mobile phones have changed society, she says. “We can have the courage to say, what are the outcomes that we want to prevent? Or what are the outcomes that we want to make sure happen? This all takes, courage, because it’s all unknown.” Chapters: (01:14) - Schooling in Mexico (04:09) - Raising brave children (10:28) - Sarah’s upbringing (13:29) - The pursuit of money (16:23) - Measuring success (19:28) - Learnings, not regrets (22:55) - Make an impact (26:44) - Pitching Trailhead (32:56) - Elevating a B2B company (35:27) - How to colonize Mars (38:39) - Marketing, the Salesforce way (44:21) - Dolphining and truth-tellers (50:56) - Renewed purpose (56:30) - The challenges of being CEO (01:00:18) - Pave the way (01:03:25) - “Humanizing AI” (01:06:57) - Handling controversy (01:11:04) - Who Lattice is hiring and what “grit” means to Sarah Mentioned in this episode: FaceTime, Salesforce, Marc Benioff, Mahatma Gandhi, Instagram, the Fortune 500, Java, Jerry Maguire, National Parks, Nike, Michael Jordan, Apple and “Think Different,” Sara Varni, Scott Holden, Andy Kofoid, Databricks, Datadog, Behind the Cloud, Oracle, Microsoft, Elon Musk, Amazon AWS, George Hu, Mike Rosenbaum, Cheryl Feldman, Zac Otero, Guidewire Software, AI agents, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and LinkedIn. Links: Connect with Sarah LinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    1 giờ 12 phút
Xem tất cả (233)

Trailer

4,9
/5
183 Xếp hạng

Giới Thiệu

Grit explores what it takes to create, build, and scale world-class organizations. It features weekly episodes highlighting the leaders who are pushing their companies to make a difference. This series is hosted by Joubin Mirzadegan, go to market operating partner at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm investing in history-making founders.

Thông Tin

  • Nhà sáng tạo
    Joubin Mirzadegan
  • Năm hoạt động
    2020 - 2025
  • Tập
    233
  • Xếp hạng
    Thô tục
  • Bản quyền
    © Kleiner Perkins
  • Trang web chương trình
    Grit

Có Thể Bạn Cũng Thích

Nội dung bị hạn chế

Không thể phát tập này trên web ở quốc gia hoặc vùng của bạn.

Bạn cần đăng nhập để nghe các tập có chứa nội dung thô tục.

Luôn cập nhật thông tin về chương trình này

Đăng nhập hoặc đăng ký để theo dõi các chương trình, lưu các tập và nhận những thông tin cập nhật mới nhất.
Chọn quốc gia hoặc vùng

Châu Phi, Trung Đông và Ấn Độ

Châu Á Thái Bình Dương

Châu Âu

Châu Mỹ Latinh và Caribê

Hoa Kỳ và Canada