Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
00:36:32 · G2 Patel, Lenny Rachitsky
Is that where we want to go or do we want to go where there's so much opportunity in the areas where we can actually prosecute with the ability to operate from a position of strength that you'll just get a much better return for the dollar that you invest. [00:36:51] S1: You mentioned Aaron as a CEO that you learned a lot from. I'm curious what other CEOs you've learned a lot from and what's something you learned from them?
00:36:59 · G2 Patel
[00:36:59] S0: Chuck Robbins is one of my favorite humans. And not just because I work for him, I work for him because he's one of my favorite humans. And what I've learned from him, he had this kind of great line. There was this piece of press that our media is very sensationalist by definition. They will try to create a very polarized view about the world where there actually isn't one. And most things in my life, things are not as extreme as you hear of the headlines of the media. It's somewhere in the middle. And there was one time that there was this article that ran, and it was about giving me an unnecessary amount of credit, and frankly, not giving Chuck as much credit about something that he has actually done. A lot of the movements that we've had internally wouldn't have happened if he had not hired me and given me agency to go do the things that I needed to get done. And he was very much completely in sync with me on what needed to happen. And so, when I saw this article, I had no idea who the report, I reached out, I'm like, "Hey, I just want to let you know, this was not me saying it's someone." And she said, "Don't worry about it, man." What I've learned in life is, if you don't care about who gets the credit, you just go a lot farther in life." And it's so profound in so many ways that he's just way too confident to let anything. And so, the thing I've learned from Chuck is the importance of confidence and the importance of knowing what you're good at and where you're not good at. And where you're not good, you're going to assemble a team of people around you. He's just masterful at that, and it happens-
00:38:58 · Lenny Rachitsky
[00:38:58] S1: And by the way, he's the CEO of Cisco, in case people-
00:39:03 · G2 Patel
[00:39:03] S0: That's right. He's the CEO of Cisco. He is the chair of the business round table. He's very dear friend of mine. And I feel like there's a lot to learn from that kind of mental model and mindset. And I've been lucky enough, Lenny, that, and this is just dumb luck. The people that I've worked with and for are all very, very close to me, and I just don't let them go from my life. And so, one of the things, for example, is I worked with Aaron and then when I was leaving, it was very emotional, but I wanted to do something different. But we committed to each other that we are going to have dinner every six weeks. And Aaron, and there's another co-founder, Jeff Kweiser, and I, three of us. Every six weeks in Palo Alto we have dinner. And it's one of the most special things that I still do, and it's a tradition now, it's been going on for six years, and I love it. You look at someone like Chuck, I start with my day with talking to him in the morning, we text each other. And then I end the day talking to them in the evening. And we probably touch base at least four or five times a day. They're not long conversations at all points in time, but we're constantly in contact with each other. And I feel like that only happens when you've established enough trust. My first post when I moved to California is this guy named Rick Devenuti and then another guy named Jeremy Burton. Rick Devenuti is still my coach. I see him every two weeks. Jeremy is someone that's a very dear friend of mine, and we're neighbors and be moved and bought a place next to his just so that we could be close to him. And these are special people in your life that have enriched your life in very different ways that I think you just have to make sure that you treasure. We have about 30,000, but-
00:42:11 · Lenny Rachitsky, G2 Patel
[00:42:11] S1: 30,000 people. Okay. [00:42:13] S0: Yeah. [00:42:14] S1: What's something that you wish you'd known before taking on this role?
00:42:18 · G2 Patel
[00:42:18] S0: I don't know if it was ... I mean, I instinctively kind of knew it, but it was very, very accentuated at Cisco, because when people say, "Oh, is scale hard?" And my perspective has always been that the absence of scale is way harder than scale. What do I mean by that? If I have a startup with three people and we need to prosecute another idea, and that idea requires five people working on it, I have to go raise money, or I have to pivot my entire business. If you have 30,000 people and you have an idea that requires five people, you just figure out a way that you allocate the dollars internally and say, "Let's go prosecute this idea." So, in my mind, I always felt like absence of scale was way harder than the presence of scale. And operating within scale seemed like it was like, yeah, you have more opportunity to do it. What I found over the years, not just at Cisco, but even when I ... Because I ran a small startup in Chicago for 17 years before I moved over to the Valley, what I found in the large companies is, the communication framework and the lossiness of communication, the telephone game, so to say, has a profoundly negative effect if you're not intentional about it and if you're not careful of it. And there was this board member that we had, there's a couple board members, our lead director, Michael Capellas is amazing. There's this other board member, Kevin is amazing, and then there's this one board member, Wes Bush, who we recently rolled off, but he used to be on our board. And when I got this job, he pulled me aside, said, "Jeetu, I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to give you some advice, and take it or leave it, but I think it's going to be important for you to keep it in mind." I'm like, "What's that?" And he goes, "Whatever you do, don't think about your story of the company as a marketing exercise. Think about it as the most intrinsic foundational exercise of the company. And always be the custodian of the message. Don't delegate that to someone else to give.