Venture with Grace
00:47:52 · Ashley Kramer
[00:47:52] S1: So for me, I think, I wouldn't call it a superpower, but it's kind of been just my mantra is like, very rarely say no to opportunities, particularly like within organizations, that's how I ended up with four C level titles at GitLab, is I'm always up for the unique challenge, but when you're holding roles like CMO and CTO at the same time, you've gotta make sure you have an incredible team around you. And I did have that benefit there, I have that benefit here. So for me, it's kind of funny, I was just thinking about this over the weekend. I think the most lessons I've learned is actually from leaders that I look at and think like, well, I never want to make somebody feel that way again, right? Like I never want somebody to come out of a meeting feeling like that. And so I've even had moments at this company where I'm trying to get to know the team, I move fast, I'm pretty direct, and I think that's for somebody that's not for others, but I find myself slowing down and pausing and saying like, okay, the intent behind the why behind why I'm asking this question is I'm a constant learner, and, you know, I've held all of these different roles because I never say no, but I also realize that you have to understand all of the people around you and they're not all just like you. We're not cookie cutters for a reason. And we all bring unique things to the table when it comes to skill sets, when it comes to just how we operate, how we feel, our emotions. And so the majority of time that I invest, of course, need to make sure I'm there to support the team and what they need and how they operate and how we're going to market and serving customers, but also how they feel when they go home at the end of the day. Because the one thing I'll say about the majority of companies that I've been with, and particularly for ElevenLabs is people come to this company because of the mission and the culture. There's low ego, everybody's extremely hardworking and we're in it for the good of the business as a whole, not for us individually, not for just our team, but for the good of how can we get this great technology, these great models and this great AgenTek platform to the world.
00:50:10 · Ashley Kramer
And I think too often leaders, and again, this is the learnings I've had from the past where I felt this way, which is do I make sure this is an environment that people continue thriving, feel good about their work, even when it's not the best of days? And even when it's not, I've certainly had situations where I'm like, boy, that was not my best work, but I need somebody to help bring me along and get me over that slump or whatever it is. And so that's how I try to stay true as a leader. I'm positive I'm not perfect. I try to call myself on it, I try to be the first one to call myself on it, but that's kind of a lead by example. And that's another thing I would say that the founders have done a really amazing job of at this company is just from the top down, having that very low ego, always learning and listening, but extremely hardworking and on an extremely important mission together. I love that.
00:51:08 · Grace Gong
[00:51:08] S0: I guess when you're thinking about your own day to day, so you mentioned about you would do a lot of thinking during the weekends. What's your... I guess, how do you think about what is the biggest things that you have to accomplish that week? How do you kind of mentally scheduling out your own personal milestone as well? Because sometimes it's really difficult to actually create some sort of KPI for yourself, especially at a place that ElevenLabs, which grows really fast. Maybe after a month or so, you already hit the goal that you set a few weeks ago. How do you reset yourself on, Oh, what is our new mission? Obviously, I guess, what would be... What is the, you mentioned about the culture's low ego, how do people really collaborate with each other as well to achieving these of
00:52:06 · Ashley Kramer
[00:52:06] S1: Yes, I think for me, particularly, like I'm only a little over a month in this role. And so like the number one most important thing for me was understanding what are the business priorities, right? Like what from our founders and from the business, the board, the executive team, where do we wanna be in a quarter? Where do we wanna be in a year? I think in AI, it's pretty hard to go beyond like a year. I got asked on stage once where we're gonna be with AI in five years. And I laughed and said, If anybody answers that for you, they're wrong. You've got a question that... Nobody knows this. But you can look out a year, you can look out a quarter and understanding, okay, these are the goals that we have as a business and as a company to better serve our customers, then I back into them. And so, being new in the role, it was a lot of like understanding where the team is and where they think our priorities need to be. I just asked all of them in a survey directly, Give me advice, what should I focus on? And then of course I used AI to collaborate and all the I got my nice bar chart of what everybody thinks. And so that gives me like internal intent and signal. Then there's the data analysis. It's easy for me to look at our revenue and know where we are tracking to target, but you have to really dig deep to understand where the growth is coming from. And if there are any issues, where that's coming from and which different parts of the world are performing and which different verticals. And so there's the data exercise of it. And then there's, we've talked about this a lot, but the customer side of it too, like how are they feeling as far as us being a partner? And then I bring that all together. I actually, it's a timely time to, or it's timely for this question on, I think it was yesterday or maybe it was on Friday, I sent out the Q4 revenue strategy to the team and it had three top level things that we're gonna focus on together, I, and then three KRs under each. I was the owner of several of them. This is experiment. So for some of them, I think they're important enough, I'll roll up my sleeves, I'll take them on as the KR owner. I was informed by those based on all three of those, and of course, Mati and his company goals, and we'll track progress against those.
00:54:23 · Ashley Kramer, Grace Gong
And each of my leaders will have their own of how their individual team will achieve those as well. We won't be perfect, but it'll at least help everybody align a little bit more about the why of what we're doing and where we're going and make sure that we're achieving the goals that are gonna be set for us. And my hope is they get more and more ambitious over time because that means we're performing both as a team, but our ultimate goal as a company for customers. [00:54:51] S0: I love that. I wanna be mindful of the time, maybe we wrap with like a [00:54:55] S1: one minute firearm for you. Sure. Okay, what's your favorite book? This one, it feels like it's gonna keep getting dated. I've said it in other podcasts, but I still really fundamentally love Innovator's Dilemma because I think it's so relevant to every era that we go into. It's really quite fascinating, but I feel like I need a different answer because I keep using that one, but I read it every single year. I go [00:55:19] S0: back Now to I will read it this year, but who would you invite [00:55:23] S1: to your dinner party? Who would I invite to my dinner party? Oh man, that is a tough one. [00:55:30] S0: You're like, who have I not made? But it's heckling. I feel like you probably meet everyone. [00:55:35] S1: Who have I not met? I mean, I've definitely not met everyone, by the way. Are you sure? [00:55:43] S0: I'm just kidding. [00:55:44] S1: Can I invite several people? Yeah. [00:55:46] S0: That's your part.
00:55:46 · Grace Gong, Ashley Kramer
[00:55:46] S0: That's your part. [00:55:46] S1: I would love for all of the, what you would consider AI greats, the CEOs including Mati, I would like to be at dinner with all of them at once. I would love to see that dinner and the interactions because I think lots of them philosophically have the same mindset, but different approaches about it. And so I would love to see, let's call it the frontier labs, the AI innovative companies like ElevenLabs. Might have [00:56:14] S0: come to our, like the summit executive dinner, it was a lot [00:56:19] S1: of them, but... I would have loved that. [00:56:21] S0: I'll invite you next time. [00:56:22] S1: Okay, So [00:56:23] S0: who make the biggest impact in your career?