Grit

Language is without doubt the single most valuable tool we use, and in its use, it ironically builds barriers. Fortunately in recent years with the rise of companies like Duolingo, those barriers are becoming more opaque. In this episode, Bob Meese, Chief Business Officer at Duolingo, joins the show to discuss all the innovative ways that Duolingo is making language learning a more feasible aspect of our lives.

Bob started at Google with a solid 8-year stretch that served as a proving ground for his own professional philosophy. An integral component of that philosophy is to be employee-centric in his vision and execution. In his move to Duolingo, Bob carried that thinking forward. Firmly established at Duolingo, Bob shares with us the impact that the company has on their customers, and even with his own family— namely in making language learning just plain fun. Bob also explores the importance of language, and how Duolingo is striking a firm balance between creating revenue and profit while providing such an altruistic product.

In this episode, we cover:

• A quick look at Bob’s time at Google - and how his philosophy on professional inertia played into his decision to move on to Duolingo. (02:47)
• Why Bob encourages his star employees to shine, even if it results in their decision to seek opportunities beyond their role and the company. (07:28)
• A risk worth taking: The journey that led Bob and his family back to Pittsburgh to begin his career at Duolingo. (10:57)
• An overview of Duolingo including current stats, its evolution, and what is on the horizon. (16:20)
• A discussion about the monetization of Duolingo, what the company looked like when Bob joined as CRO, and how Duolingo established its identity. (22:51)
• Bob reflects on his experience with changing company culture - and shares why he would do it all over again as he looks back on his years at Duolingo. (35:14)
• Duolingo’s revenue growth, the timing of the IPO, and why operating as a private company still works after recently going public. (41:05)
• Joubin and Bob discuss the impact of language and how it is a core part of human identity - and why Duolingo strives to make learning languages more accessible. (47:28)

Links:

• Connect with Bob
  • Twitter
  • Duolingo
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

To say that Brian Frank, Chief Operating Officer of Cameo, comes from a non-traditional background into the career field of sales might be an understatement. Brain’s career began in law and he spent nearly a full career there before transitioning to sales in 2008, where he has been exceedingly active.

Brian’s multifaceted background has given him a wide range of skillsets and a deep wisdom that has become invaluable to the organizations where Brian has worked. His focus on constantly learning through experience, as well as an emphasis on transparency has led him to the hard won successes that allow him to gain these perspectives.

In this episode, Brain and Joubin talk about Brian’s shift from law, his tenure at LinkedIn, and how experiential learning led to the inspiring story behind Brian’s decision to take up the guitar. Brian also goes into the details on Cameo and their meteoric rise, his influence there, and more.

In this episode, we cover:

• Brian talks about his shift from law, to finance, and finally to sales. (1:09)
• Brian’s colorful employment history (which began at age 13) prior to graduating from UC San Diego. (6:41)
• How Brian approaches outbound opportunities - and how a quick LinkedIn message led to a business partnership. (10:37)
• What Brian’s LinkedIn colleagues have to say about him - and his inspiring anecdote about how he met his guitar instructor, Marty Schwartz. (13:34)
• The story behind Brian’s ban from LinkedIn - and why his experiential learning style works for him. (17:15)
• All things sales ops: From defining the role to hiring and developing talent. (21:53)
• ‘What do you value most?’: Joubin and Brian rank and discuss career, money, company and manager. (32:17)
• The lowest points of Brian’s LinkedIn ride - and what led him to be more transparent and open with his team. (36:37)
• What is Cameo? Breaking down Cameo and its fascinating growth. (45:34)
• How Brian assessed Cameo to determine if he was a fit - and his mindset when joining the company. (51:06)
• Why most businesses are demand constrained - and more on Cameo’s B2B expansion. (54:16)

Links:

• Connect with Brian
  • LinkedIn
  • Cameo
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Guest: Mark Cuban, co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs and costar, Shark Tank

“I just love to compete,” says Mark Cuban. “And the day I stop is the day I’m dead.” Previously the co-founder of MicroSolutions and Broadcast.com, Cuban is probably best known to the public today for competing with the likes of Daymond John and Barbara Corcoran on the reality TV show Shark Tank. But his real focus — and his real enemy — these days is the pharmaceutical industry. His latest company, Cost Plus Drugs, aims to be far more transparent than established PBMs, or Pharmacy Benefit Managers, and Mark clearly relishes eating their margin. “Everybody talks about disrupting healthcare,” he says. “This is the easiest motherf**king industry I've ever tried to disrupt because it is so opaque, and everybody is so captured by the scale of these big companies.”

In this episode, Mark and Joubin discuss Luka Dončić, Synthesia, the Sony hack, the American Dream, TikTok propaganda, MicroSolutions, throwing away watches, keeping kids grounded, Black Mirror, keeping up, Ali Ghodsi, the NBA, MGM, gambling in Dallas, the Adelson family, CES, transparency, and Alex Oshmyansky.

Chapters:

• (00:55) - Game day and superstitions
• (03:08) - Email responsiveness
• (05:48) - Shark Tank
• (09:21) - Retiring young
• (10:57) - American Airlines’ lifetime pass
• (12:55) - Sports and blue-collar work
• (16:02) - Compete or die
• (17:43) - Why Mark hates meetings
• (19:57) - Immortality through AI
• (23:05) - The new AI wave
• (25:07) - Startup founders and low-hanging fruit
• (29:24) - Selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo
• (31:35) - The Dallas Mavericks
• (34:52) - Selling his majority stake
• (37:08) - The missing link in pharma
• (41:27) - Disrupting a huge industry
• (43:57) - The problem with debt
• (44:59) - What “grit” means to Mark

Links:

• Connect with Mark
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

There is a litany of analogies for marketing. An art, a technique, a skill. Yet few strive to combine a multitude of approaches. For Meagen Eisenberg, Chief Marketing Officer at TripActions, she synthesizes a combination of art, science, and the essential ingredient–joy–to form a unique marketing strategy. 

Meagen is a no BS go-getter who demonstrates an encompassing approach to how she conducts business. She hones in on her own efficiency and ability to think quickly and adapt, and expresses how cultivating that skill has made her a fast decision-maker. To reinforce that speed is a desire to always learn, which is the underlying motivation for her own professional progress. Meagen offers her perspectives on organizational structure, the highly valuable takeaways from mistakes and failures, and how her work at TripActions has adapted, through her own love and joy of the flux of marketing, to the changes of COVID-19. Meagen’s straightforward approach carries a lot of weight and is a force we all can consider. 

In this episode, we cover: 

• Why TripActions’ CRO, Carlos Delatorre, calls Meagen a superhuman - and why she believes in treating her sales team as a customer. (03:56)
• ‘The key for executives is to keep learning’: Meagen discusses her favorite mediums for learning, her love of books, and the various ways she stays on the pulse. (11:58)
• A discussion about preparing for and executing board meetings - and a look at PG Tuesday. (19:31)
• Meagen’s perspective on company alignment from the top down and how it sets the stage for success. (25:44)
• The silver lining in failure and Meagen’s attitude towards not giving up - and what it means to “live in awkward.” (34:55)
• The art and science of marketing - and the impact of COVID-19 on TripActions and how that differed from its competitors. (44:46)
• Meagen reflects on the worst day in her career during the pandemic. (55:14)
• A walkthrough of Meagen’s hiring process during her first six weeks at TripActions, her take on hiring people who solve problems, and why she loves marketing. (01:01:52)

Links:

• Connect with Meagen
  • LinkedIn
  • TripActions
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected] 
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Links Referenced:

• Dan Druker
• Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets
• MOVE: The 4-question Go-to-Market Framework
• The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
• The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
• Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
• Andre Agassi: Open: An Autobiography
• Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

Guest: Taylor Francis, co-founder of Watershed

One day when he was 13, Taylor Francis walked out of the movie theater, and he was pissed off. He had just seen Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth and internalized a “generational call to arms, that my parents had screwed our generation” by causing the climate crisis, he says. 14 years later, he was working at Stripe and felt another call to arms: The 2020s would be a crucial decade for slashing carbon emissions and combating global warming. So, he and his co-founders Avi Itskovich and Christian Anderson all left Stripe to start Watershed, which helps companies measure and reduce their emissions.

In this episode, Taylor and Joubin discuss Patrick Collison, Dan Miller-Smith, hiring challenges, Jonathan Neman, “golden age syndrome,” John Doerr and Mike Moritz, the Climate Reality Project, steady partnerships, DRI cultures, shared context, social distancing, information sprawl, and the founders’ “woe is me” narrative.

Chapters:

• (01:02) - Magnetic missions
• (06:40) - How enterprise sustainability works
• (08:40) - Watershed’s first client, Sweetgreen
• (11:04) - Reflecting on the early days
• (16:36) - Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth
• (18:53) - Mobilizing teenagers
• (22:16) - The origins of Watershed
• (27:04) - Leaving Stripe and raising money
• (31:41) - Interchangeable co-founders
• (33:06) - The ground truth
• (35:25) - The Dunbar Number
• (38:22) - Watershed’s operating principles
• (41:56) - Intensity, priorities, and sacrifice
• (47:37) - Moving faster
• (50:26) - Sustainability is a part of business
• (52:21) - The topology of emissions
• (58:08) - Who Watershed is hiring

Links:

• Connect with Taylor
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
• Connect with Joubin
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email: [email protected]
• Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
• This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm