· Peter Rahal, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: I just don't like it. The founder isn't a role. It's not a job. You never hire it, so it doesn't have a role in the company. So, I think it's actually people abuse its power, and I don't think it should get special treatment. So, I don't use it. I think it's an abuse of power. Everyone has a role, everyone has duties, and either you do them well or you don't. [00:00:00] S0: This is what's getting more and more interesting about me having more of these conversations, is to start seeing the same similarities between the people. Because I mentioned Luca Ferrari earlier. Adam Foroughi mentioned a few times. They both said the same thing. Like, Luca Ferrari is just like, "We don't even like the term founder in the company." And I think it was four founders of Bending Spoons. He's like, "We all have the same job, and that job is to do whatever's best for the company." [00:00:00] S1: Mm-hmm. [00:00:00] S0: They don't use the title at all. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. It's not on my signature. [00:00:00] S0: So you define your role as what? [00:00:00] S1: Chief executive. [00:00:00] S0: And how do you think about that in terms? You wake up every day.
· David Senra, Peter Rahal
[00:00:00] S0: And how do you think about that in terms? You wake up every day. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, my kind of forever job description is the management team, making sure they're performing, make sure we get product market fit, and continually get product market fit. Organizational health, so just like, how is the culture? Are people scared? Are people free and creative? Are we living the values? Can people recite the values? So, culture. And then four would be alignment of strategy. Are we organizationally aligned? Not in decisions, but does everyone understand where we're going, why we're going, and is everyone incentivized to go there? Is the group of people moving in the right direction? And then fifth would be cash or fundraising. So those are my forever. And then I have one, what I like to call, this is like founder mode, but what I've always done is I call it my main job is reactionary leadership support. So, reactionary in the sense I literally react to it. So, fires or problems, I get information. It's very reactionary, which is generally viewed as negative, but my job is to react to the problems. So, reactionary leadership support. So, the leadership support, I either have to drop what I'm doing or prioritize and reshuffle and then go in and assess, figure out, fix it, whether that's directly, indirectly, or whatever, provide resources, just shine a flashlight on it, and then get the fuck out of the way. And I expect that on all leaders in the company. I call it reactionary leadership support.
· David Senra, Peter Rahal
[00:00:00] S0: I want to go back to this. I think one of the most fascinating things about you is this divine discontent. You wake up with this fierce competitive drive, but also, I'm not going to call it unhappiness because I don't think that's the right word, but this discontent- [00:00:00] S1: Yeah [00:00:00] S0: ... of where you are and this constant desire to improve things every day. When Travis from Uber came on, he had a warning because... How old are you? [00:00:00] S1: Forty. [00:00:00] S0: Okay, so he's about 10 years older, right? And he's like, "What you have to worry about is that you get so..." He's like, "The act of entrepreneuring is just dealing with problems constantly." And he said something like, "When a warrior fights too long, he might be too zen." So he's kind of like zen on the outside, but he's so used to adversity and it doesn't bother him anymore, right? And he's worried that- [00:00:00] S1: Yeah, he's numb. [00:00:00] S0: Exactly. Numb is a great way to put it. And the point that he's making is you want to wake up being bothered and not being used to adversity. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. [00:00:00] S0: Doesn't prevent you from acting, but you want to essentially react to it. This is your reactionary leadership, what you just said there made me think of this. So, how do you think about what's actually going on inside of you? [00:00:00] S1: Emotionally? [00:00:00] S0: Yeah.
· David Senra, Peter Rahal
[00:00:00] S0: Yeah. [00:00:00] S1: I do have a sensitivity and get angry, but I harness it in the work, which is good. It's not a fair analogy, but I love the fight, so I seek it. But I don't think I'm good at tapping into my emotions on the spot. I think that building the pain tolerance is very good, though, to being able to handle it over long periods of time. Because if you are too sensitive and you react to it and it affects you in your sleep, then you will break. So I do think it's important to be able to have that zen, be able to get punched in the stomach and you're just chill with it. But yeah, you definitely can't lose the emotional response. Things don't bother me like they used to. I'm getting better at it, but I still have that response if things aren't right. But I imagine with Uber, he just got really, really thick-skinned about it to the point where everything was... I don't know. I don't know his experience, but I could see how that happened. [00:00:00] S0: So what keeps you in it is you like to fight. [00:00:00] S1: Yeah. I love conflict. Healthy conflict, but... [00:00:00] S0: Thanks for taking the time. This was awesome, man. [00:00:00] S1: Thank you.
· Peter Rahal, David Senra
[00:00:00] S1: Thank you. [00:00:00] S0: Appreciate it. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please remember to subscribe wherever you're listening and leave a review, and make sure you listen to my other podcast, "Founders." For almost a decade, I've obsessively read over 400 biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs, searching for ideas that you can use in your work. Most of the guests you hear on this show first found me through "Founders."