Bret Taylor: preference

Transcript context

…That is an awesome story. One I think it's really empowering for people to hear, even you Bret, who I'm going to share all the successes you've had, have had a massive failure with the CEO of Google [inaudible 00:11:30] just like Bret, you screwed up. And it was such a big bet. So one, just it's possible to succeed as you have succeeded in spite of a massive failure like this. And then some of the product lessons you shared, just to highlight a few of these things because I think this is great, is just you will often not win if you just make something that's a better copy of something else, what you want to look for is something that is an entirely new experience, something that's differentiated, something that's a lot more compelling. Let's flip to talk about what you've learned from actually being very successful at a lot of things. So I was looking at your resume and you basically have been very successful at every level of the career ladder and in such a huge variety of roles. So let me just read a few of these things for folks that aren't super familiar with your background. You were CTO of Meta, you were co-CEO of Salesforce, you're also CPO and COO at Salesforce. At Google, you joined as an associate product manager where you famously, you didn't mention this but you rebuilt Google Maps on weekend. We're not going to talk about that. You're chairman of the board at OpenAI. You were chairman of the board at Twitter. You've also founded three different companies, one social network, one productivity docs company called Quip, and now, Sierra. Fun fact, at FriendFeed you invented the like button and I don't know if people know that and also just the newsfeed, I'll just throw that out there to give you some credit. So you're basically an associate product manager, an IC product manager, an engineer, CPO, COO, CTO, CEO of three different companies including a public company. Very rare that somebody is successful at all these types of roles and all these levels. So, let me just ask you this question. What mindsets or habits or just ways of working have you worked on building in yourself that you think have most contributed to you being successful in such a variety of roles and levels? Yeah. It's actually something I am proud of. I like the fact I've worn different hats. It's actually amusing when I meet colleagues that I've known from one of those jobs, they'll often think of me through the lens of that job. And so, I'll go to meet folks from Facebook and they think of me largely as an engineer. I'll meet folks from Google, they think me largely as a product person. At Salesforce, a lot of the folks there interacted with me as like a, lack of a better word, a suit, the boss. And I'm not sure they think of me as an engineer at all, even though I was still probably coding on the weekends for fun. And one of the things that is a principle for me is to have a really flexible view of my own identity. I probably would self-describe as an engineer, but more broadly I think of myself as a builder and I like to build products and I think companies are one of the most effective ways to build products. There's also things like open source, but I think I'm a huge believer in the confluence of technology and capitalism to produce just incredible outcomes for customers. And as a consequence, I think to really build something of significance, I think to be a great founder, you really need to be able to not have such a ossified view of your identity that you can't transform into what the company needs you to be at that point. And every founder you'll talk to, one day, I think selling is a big part of being a founder. You have to sell investors on wanting to invest in your company. You have to sell candidates on wanting to work at your company. You have to sell customers to want to use the product that your customer produces. You have to have good design taste, not just for your product but for your marketing and essentially, soliciting your customers. You have to have good engineering. If you're building a technology company, the technology comes first. It's why this industry is so transformative. I probably credit, and I've told this story before, but I'm very grateful for her, but I probably credit Sheryl Sandberg for really changing the way I approach new jobs. The story, and I might be embellishment a little bit, but I think it's broadly accurate. So I had just become the chief technology officer of Facebook and when I first got the job, it was the flavor of CTO or that relatively small group reporting into me, but contributed almost as a very senior architect on a number of projects. And then at some point, Mark Zuckerberg reorganized the company and split it into a bunch of different groups. I ended up with a very large group, 100 under me and I was essentially running our platform and mobile groups, products, design engineering. So I went from a handful of reports to, I don't know, over 1,000 or something. It was a big group. And it was the largest management job. I had become a manager at Google, but a modest team. And so, I was doing okay but not great. ports to, I don't know, over 1,000 or something. It was a big group. And it was the largest management job. I had become a manager at Google, but a modest team. And so, I was doing okay but not great. And I had this moment where Sheryl saw me, I think I was editing a presentation for a partner just because the presentation I got didn't meet my quality bar and I was editing it and griping about it. She pulled me into a room and gave me talking to a little bit about holding my team to as high of a standard as I have. If someone wasn't meeting my expectations, what was my plan to manage them out of the company or... Just giving me management one-on-one. And she's a remarkable mentor in the sense she can give you feedback that's very direct and often, a bit uncomfortable, but you know she cares about you. And so it was the type of feedback you listen to. I went home that night and I was stewing on it and not very happy. I was like, you get naturally a little defensive in those moments. Is that really true? Am I really fucking it up or is she overreacting? And then I woke up the next day, I was like, "No, she's right." And I had realized this subconscious limiter that was limiting my success in the job, which is, I was trying to conform the job to the things I thought I liked to do. So, I was spending a lot of my time on some product and technology things that I was passionate about, thinking I'm the boss. I should focus on what I want to focus on instead of thinking about, okay, I'm running the mobile and platform teams at Facebook. What's the most important thing to do today to make our mobile and developer platform successful? And when I reframed the job that way, I did different things. And the thing that was the biggest pleasant surprise to me was I liked it. I thought I liked engineering and product, but in fact, when I changed an organization and it turned out to be more successful, I derived a great deal of joy from seeing that success. Our developer platform had a lot of partners and when there was an issue there and I'd spend time on partnerships and it worked and our platform became healthier, the partner became more successful. I took pride in that success and then I just started being better at my job and I realized that the actual act of engineering or product design or all the things I thought I liked, what I really liked is impact. And so, that conversation led to my waking up every morning, sometimes literally, but certainly, in the broadest sets of the words saying, "What is the most impactful thing I can do today?" And really thinking almost like, if you had an external board of advisors telling you what are the things where if you focus on them, you can maximize the likelihood that what you're trying to achieve will happen? Sometimes, it's recruiting, sometimes, it's product, sometimes, it's engineering, sometimes, it's sales. And I've become much more self-reflective just about what is important to work on. And I have become much more receptive to doing things that I previously would've said aren't my favorite things to do because I derive so much joy from having an impact that I enjoy a lot more things now.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.