NZ Business Podcast - Paul Spain
00:24:15 · Jamie Beaton
[00:24:15] S0: Everyone in life needs a mentor who believes in them more than they believe in themselves. And I remember these conversations with Julian where, you know, I was thinking about how I could grow Crimson in maybe New Zealand and Australia, And he was so confident that I could build it all around the world, build it in China, build it everywhere. He introduced me to investors that had seen great success in China as inspiration to me to dream bigger. And, you know, he had this resolute confidence that, you know, we'd be able to make it work. And I think during our, you know, darkest, most spicy times where we were, you know, failing in India or we had high cash burn, you know, we had trying experiments that weren't working, you know, he was just calm, confident, and and kept backing us. And I think, you know, that really showed what the power of mentorship does. Because ultimately, whenever you build any kind of venture, almost everyone is initially a a doubter. Maybe they're neutral, but they're usually a doubter. And they might not say it to your face, but they usually are. And then over time, you know, more and more folks kinda pile into the journey. And I think having someone who just stands by you from the beginning and believes is is incredibly powerful. So I think about that all the time when it comes to our students who have these bold goals. I think about one of our students, Brendan, who went from Canberra, came through Crimson, got into Harvard. He recently sold his company to Amazon. We wanna be that kind of mentor for our students, just like he was to me and our team.
00:25:27 · Paul Spain
[00:25:27] S1: Yep. I guess to John Key is someone who's who's been important in your journey as well. You know, tell us a little bit about that.
00:25:34 · Jamie Beaton
[00:25:34] S0: I mean, John is, of course, a legendary Kiwi, And his journey of really thriving in New Zealand and then going to work in The US and The UK, having great success in Wall Street, and then impacting New Zealand, and in particular, his way was politics, incredibly inspiring journey. And I think early on going through high school, John's story was one of, you know, this ambition and willingness to also impact the community too. And I think as a Kiwi, you know, we we, of course, have a lot of folks, this tall poppy culture where aiming high is not always really encouraged. I think actually that culture has been changing. And even in the last ten years, I think it's dramatically changed in many parts of New Zealand. But I think I looked at John earlier as an example of this tall poppy who was proud of his achievements in the world stage, but also down to earth and chill as a Kiwi. And it certainly made me believe that maybe it was possible for me to go to The US too. I think now in a Crimson context, his experience working in some of the biggest boards in the world at companies like Palantir Technologies has leveled up our corporate governance, has helped us usher in new parts of Crimson, like our charter schooling and online schooling. He's helped me make some of Crimson's most transformative hires. You know, famously, John was able to build a really fantastic core group of folks around him. I give them a lot of autonomy responsibility with really high performance standards, but also give them the space to be able to, you know, lead folks like Stephen Joyce and others. So I think seeing this leadership style of, you know, focused goal orientation, but also bidding on people and making them feel like they have the remit and the trust to go, certainly, we've tried to take that lesson at Crimson. So definitely, he's been really a very holistic influence to myself, but also to Crimson as well now on on our board.
00:27:07 · Paul Spain, Jamie Beaton
[00:27:07] S1: I guess the other one you mentioned, Sundeep Jain? [00:27:10] S0: Yeah. So this is this is a funny example, but I I first actually met Sundeep through Crimson, I guess, you know, helping some folks in his family with their admissions process. So he built this really special relationship as his kids got into Stanford. And also at the time, you know, he was growing Uber through this crazy phase of growth. I've always been very inspired by Uber, and I took early inspiration from their city launcher model and how Crimson expanded from New Zealand and Australia to 20 plus markets with our growth operations team. So when I realized he was actually working at Uber in the senior role, know, I began asking for all kinds of advice. That relationship built and built and built. Now he's on our board. And, certainly, Sundeep is really at the forefront of innovation moving from Uber after he took it from about a, I think, 60 to nearly 300,000,000,000 market cap company. He then joined this company, Mercor, with a bunch of 22 year olds, and that company now provides a lot of the data labeling and data training services for labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. And so, you know, Sundeep strikes me as maybe that or one of the smartest minds that I've [00:28:07] S1: come across in Silicon Valley. And certainly, as we continue to lead Crimson through this AI era, very, very important. So what would you say would be the biggest lesson that you've learned from Sundeep?
00:28:21 · Jamie Beaton
[00:28:21] S0: I think what Sundeep teaches is that even if you are in totally different industries, whether it be, you know, an AI lab or whether it be Crimson or whether it be a law firm, a lot of the time, teams that can't quantify success and just vaguely aim for goals and, you know, it's kind of ambiguous, always underperform teams that have a clear North Star metric that you drive towards. And in his career, almost every team that doesn't have that clear North Star metric basically struggles and underperforms. And almost every team that really cranks at an elite level, whether it be Google search or ride sharing excellence at Uber or now data labeling, has those really effective North Star metrics. And I think as an entrepreneur, it's easy to have a sense that, oh, we vaguely know what the goals are or we kind of know. But going beyond just like, you know, revenue or something to clear operational metrics that the whole team is aligned behind and truly is aligned from your, you know, base new new recruit all the way to your exec is is really critical. So I think that is a very simple concept, but actually one that few companies truly execute on. And I I think that will be, you know, one great example. The second piece that I would say I've really learned from Sundeep would just be around what in the new a... The new AI era will be driven by human teachers versus AI, and where that settles out. And those discussions, debates with them have really helped form my view for kinda what I'm betting on at Crimson.
00:29:34 · Paul Spain, Jamie Beaton
[00:29:34] S1: And let's talk about you. What what what really drives you? What drives every day? Because you seem to be seem to be working, studying, you know, you don't seem to slow down at all. And, you know, I think we were chatting before we we kicked off, and you were saying, yep, no, things haven't slowed down since we last talked. I thought you'd [00:29:54] S0: going speed up a little bit, to be honest. [00:29:55] S1: You'd be going at an insane pace. So, you know, what is it that drives you, and what does that does that look like for you kind of, you know, day to day? How do you how do you get some some balance in there?