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

    5일 전

    #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

    1시간 22분
  2. #229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game

    2월 10일

    #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

    1시간 52분
  3. #228 Co-Founder Alinea & Tock: Selling Experience

    2월 3일

    #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

    1시간 20분
  4. #227: CEO & Founder Axon, Rick Smith: Push Risk

    1월 27일

    #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

    1시간 16분
  5. #226 President & COO Coinbase, Emilie Choi: Through the Storm

    1월 20일

    #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

    1시간
  6. #225 CEO Lattice, Sarah Franklin: Trailblazer

    1월 13일

    #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

    1시간 12분
  7. #224 CTO & Co-Owner 37signals, David Heinemeier Hansson: Perfect Flow

    1월 6일

    #224 CTO & Co-Owner 37signals, David Heinemeier Hansson: Perfect Flow

    Guest: David Heinemeier Hansson, CTO & co-owner of 37signals and creator of Ruby on Rails  37signals CTO David Heinemeier Hansson has organized his life around his passions: Writing, racing sports cars, and coding. “ Why aren't we all doing that?” he wonders. “Why aren't we all trying to optimize our life in such a way that much of it is enjoyable?” Part of the problem, David argues, is that it’s impossible to find a creative or productive flow inside of mainstream work culture. Open offices, managerial over-hiring, and sloppy scheduling prevents people from reaching a flow state. “40 hours a week is plenty than most people,” he says. “... So many people today are focused on just adding more and more hours. They're not thinking about how those hours are spent.”  Chapters: (01:19) - 24 Hours of Le Mans (06:48) - Amateurs in sports car racing (10:54) - Flow and meditation (15:25) - Mundane bulls**t (18:14) - Optimizing for flow (21:09) - Calendars and open offices (24:30) - Full-time managers (29:06) - Small companies (32:20) - Selfishness and work (40:21) - Taking other people’s money (45:43) - Temptation (49:49) - Moderately rich (55:19) - “The day I became a millionaire” (58:56) - The hassle (01:03:58) - Achieving the dream (01:08:34) - Shopify and Tobias Lütke (01:14:50) - Trade-offs and downsides (01:18:43) - The impact of Ruby on Rails (01:22:02) - “I love being wrong” (01:25:37) - DEI and illegal drugs (01:29:49) - Not hiring (01:30:35) - What “grit” means to David Mentioned in this episode: TikTok, Minecraft, Mario Kart, Formula One, NASCAR, Lewis Hamilton, the NBA, Tesla Model S, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Steve McQueen, Jason Fried, Tetris, B******t Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber, Elon Musk and Twitter, the Dunbar number, Zappos, Google, Adam Smith, Stripe, Meta, Jeff Bezos, Basecamp, Zapier, 1Password, GitHub, SpaceX, private jets, Aesop, the Pagani Zonda, the Porsche Boxster, Lamborghini, Coco Chanel, LeBron James, Hey, Steve Jobs, Michael Arrington and TechCrunch, Y Combinator, Dr. Thomas Sowell,Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, Grit by Angela Duckworth, and LEGO.  Links: Connect with David TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin TwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com  Learn more about Kleiner Perkins This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

    1시간 34분
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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.

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