00:48:27 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:48:27] S0: Is that our same situation? We can hit this much revenue with half the... It's like a... Almost like a demonstration of like an actual skill set of an entrepreneur. It's like I can do twice as more with half of [00:48:37] S1: what you Exactly. Right? Because it's a distraction. Right? You're you're managing seed players that are just wasting your time or you're focused on things that don't matter at all. Right? And so it's great when you have less people, it forces you to be very focused. [00:48:50] S0: Is this like something that's like talked about inside the company or does it just happens naturally? This who we are? Because this goes back to your insane performance culture. [00:48:58] S1: Yeah. I would say Amazon was maybe one of these companies where they really focused on being frugal. But for us, and also because the company is founder led, we spend the money like it's ours. We're also very data driven, very analytical. We look at everything that we do. When you look at it from a spreadsheet perspective, it's just very obvious the things that make sense to double down on and other things that don't. [00:49:20] S0: So is there not like lots of... You mentioned earlier, like, we can do we can do every single job in the company. We can do a campaign. We can make the... They're creative. Like, there's not many layers of management inside of it then?
00:49:20 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:49:20] S0: So is there not like lots of... You mentioned earlier, like, we can do we can do every single job in the company. We can do a campaign. We can make the... They're creative. Like, there's not many layers of management inside of it then? [00:49:30] S1: No. Not really. I mean, obviously, the algorithms are like... We we obviously can't do that. And luckily, we have, like, an incredible team that has... That's able to, like, build those systems that Adam and I and others can't. For us, this goes to the controls of our company. There's not much red tape. Our belief is we're hiring smart people. They understand the value of a dollar and we let them go out there and do what we feel is best with the company. It's not like there's these layers of approval to go get things done. [00:49:58] S0: But is there anything else that that you think is rare or unique in the approach, the way you guys run your company that you don't see outside the company and other businesses?
00:49:58 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:49:58] S0: But is there anything else that that you think is rare or unique in the approach, the way you guys run your company that you don't see outside the company and other businesses? [00:50:08] S1: We try to give people as much ownership and as much work as possible versus like, a lot of companies, oh, you're overworked. Like, we're gonna go hire a bunch more people. Our approach from it is like, okay, what can we build to automate your work at certain parts of your work to make it a lot more efficient? What things are not important that you're wasting time on that we just shouldn't be doing at all? There's no, like, peer managers in AppLovin. Like, everyone is a doer. Like, even our CTO is pushing code himself. Right? And he manages, like, a 100% engineering work. Really just, being relentless on, like, prioritizing what we work on and then also being very hands on are really the two like difference makers. There is no special magic, David. It's like fucking work on the things that matter and do it over a long period of time, success will come.
00:50:08 · Rafael Vivas, David Senra
[00:50:08] S1: We try to give people as much ownership and as much work as possible versus like, a lot of companies, oh, you're overworked. Like, we're gonna go hire a bunch more people. Our approach from it is like, okay, what can we build to automate your work at certain parts of your work to make it a lot more efficient? What things are not important that you're wasting time on that we just shouldn't be doing at all? There's no, like, peer managers in AppLovin. Like, everyone is a doer. Like, even our CTO is pushing code himself. Right? And he manages, like, a 100% engineering work. Really just, being relentless on, like, prioritizing what we work on and then also being very hands on are really the two like difference makers. There is no special magic, David. It's like fucking work on the things that matter and do it over a long period of time, success will come. [00:50:53] S0: You and I were talking about the Luca Ferrari episode that I just did. A lot of what you just said is very similar to like Luca. He has this idea. He's like, hey, I don't really give a shit about pedigree. I wanna hire young people. He loves people that has no experience. And he goes, and then you find somebody who's young, talented, and hungry, and you saturate their capacity, which is exactly what you just said. It's like, we're all working. Like, I'm gonna give you more than you can handle. Why do you think you and Adam and Luca arrived at the same conclusion? And why is that so important?
00:50:53 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:50:53] S0: You and I were talking about the Luca Ferrari episode that I just did. A lot of what you just said is very similar to like Luca. He has this idea. He's like, hey, I don't really give a shit about pedigree. I wanna hire young people. He loves people that has no experience. And he goes, and then you find somebody who's young, talented, and hungry, and you saturate their capacity, which is exactly what you just said. It's like, we're all working. Like, I'm gonna give you more than you can handle. Why do you think you and Adam and Luca arrived at the same conclusion? And why is that so important? [00:51:19] S1: I think it's because we weren't able... We didn't have the cash to go and hire out these massive teams. At And the time, we didn't have kind of the pedigree or kind of background to be able to hire the best talent out there. Right? So we had to go get the people we could, and we had to torture them into greatness, kind of like Jensen Huang talks about. [00:51:36] S0: I love that idea. It's like I don't like giving... In in this biography called the NVIDIA way, Tae Kim has the line. He's like, don't like giving up on people. I'd rather torture them into greatness. And you get to the end of your book, and he's talking about... He wakes up every day. He looks in the mirror. He's like, why do I suck so much? And this is even after I think he has the most valuable company in the world. It's like, oh, he tortured himself into greatness too.
00:51:36 · David Senra, Rafael Vivas
[00:51:36] S0: I love that idea. It's like I don't like giving... In in this biography called the NVIDIA way, Tae Kim has the line. He's like, don't like giving up on people. I'd rather torture them into greatness. And you get to the end of your book, and he's talking about... He wakes up every day. He looks in the mirror. He's like, why do I suck so much? And this is even after I think he has the most valuable company in the world. It's like, oh, he tortured himself into greatness too. [00:51:53] S1: Yeah. And and I would say Adam did that to me. Right? So, like... And I would say to this day, it's like it's always conflict. It's always concentration. Like, he's always pushing. And that just, like, it starts at the top and, like, it boils its way down throughout the organization. [00:52:08] S0: So you you described him before as, like, an incredible taskmaster. [00:52:11] S1: Yes. [00:52:12] S0: Like for somebody on the outside, explain what that feels like.