YouSaid · the spoken record

Frank Slootman

lines on the record: 68
first: 2023-08-08
most recent: 2023-08-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“that were measured on the progress against their targets. So they could really go after their targets for their vertical industry or their product type or their channel. They could own it. They could declare victory at the end of the month. So you can create focus in a multi-mission organization. You absolutely can. I mean, certainly Google was actually quite legendary for doing a lot of that stuff because they had a lot of successful things that they did. And I think there's many other companies that have done that as well. But you don't do it through a large monolithic functional organization because now everybody is a small cock in a giant wheel and that doesn't create the momentum that you want.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lethargic, you know, we're moving like molasses and that saps the energy out of the people and the organization. So what I go through is, okay, let's just. Just take things out. Let's just do things in sequence rather than in parallel because we just want to be lightning fast on the things that really matter and really make sure that we're appropriately provisioned, right? Because oftentimes everybody gets one hundredth of their resources as opposed to getting 50% of their resources. Things all of a sudden go a lot faster when you have the focus and the resources and the provisioning things really move, right? Whereas if you have to share with 50 other things and nothing moves now. Being very aware of it now, you can create focus in different groups, right? When you get bigger as a company, right? It's really about you will be multi-focused and you will be multi-purpose, but you have now way more resources.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We constantly have conversations around prioritization. We can't do everything. So we have to choose. Not choosing is the worst thing you can do because now you're compromising everything. So the question is, I use all kinds of different ways of trying to figure out what is most critical. And then, by the way, and we revisited that conversation constantly, it has to be sort of reaffirming, but it's like, hey, if you can only do one thing, which one would you pick and why and what would be the consequences of not doing the other things? So we start sort of strapping it down for size and like, can I live with that? Or what would happen if that was the scenario here? The problem is, you know, over time people create, they're a mile wide and an inch deep, right? We create more, more, more, more pretty soon we're swimming in glue.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the interesting thing about Steve was that he had a standard called insanely great, which I remember at the time that was kind of a thing in Silicon Valley. So if it didn't meet that standard, it would get scratched really, really quickly. If it wasn't incredibly exciting and world-changing and all of that, we just couldn't be bothered to even have that on the palette and work on that. So I think that's a great way to be, by the way, to just demand to be inspired and be in awe of the nature of the mission and what we're trying to do. Because that gives energy, that gives life, that creates excitement, that creates focus, it creates urgency. And people come to work with a sense of mission rather than, well, I have to be here for my paycheck. So it's really applying that filter rather than I got too many things going on.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Way, companies like Salesforce and even Google come to mind. But in the end, they're laying people off too by the thousands. So I guess it's not family after all”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, you know, we've talked about this quite a bit in recent years. I don't think a business is a family. Unfortunately, in a family, you can't fire your family, even though you sometimes want to. You have to tolerate them and deal with them. And sometimes in the most egregious way, that is just the nature of families. I mean, all the dysfunction that comes with it. But in business, it's more like being a professional sports franchise, right? You're assembling the best players. And we may be friends, but we don't have to be friends because we're not coming together on the basis of friendship. We're coming together on the basis of mission. In other words, share purpose. We're very demanding of each other. And it's really about our respective contributions to the mission. That's the basis of our relationship. So it is much more akin to professional sports. I think that's the correct analogy. Now, some companies don't want to be that.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're separating and you're in violation of the driving culture is really important because if you don't, other people will fill that void, right? And you get subcultures in a city or a division because strong personalities can do that. So unless you are filling that void, it will get filled by something or somebody else before you know it. You're just a grab bag of stuff and it's just a bunch of thieves running a company. Well, you don't want that. The company needs to stand for something. This is who we are.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who we are, who we want to be. It's choosing. It's just, look, we want you to be this way, not that way. And, you know, for some people, it's like, hey, they learn behaviors in other companies. It's part of who they are. It's their culture. This is not for you, man.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We need to do a reboot, reset, come back tomorrow. I'm sure your parents didn't teach you to behave this way and you can do better. And I've seen people come back literally over the weekend and be a different person because for whatever reason, they were led astray by managers that just were inspiring that kind of behavior. That happens, right? People learn behaviors from what they see around them with a behavior that gets encouraged. And they don't realize that they are just getting a drift from their own upbringing and their own personal principles because that's sort of the environment starts to really, it's a slippery slope that they get on. And all of a sudden they're in a place where they don't even recognize themselves anymore. And that's where a reset can really work, you know, because basically you're regrounding them to normal behaviors and then things can work out really nicely from there on. But most of the time, unfortunately, it's like, look, you know, you're not a fit here.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People need to believe that you're fair and that it's not just personal preference, right? That you're not doing things because, oh, I don't like your haircut or whatever. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with, you know, how do we come together? How do we behave as a group? And if you have people behaving in huge conflict with that, then it's like, yeah, we are going to move on it. Sometimes I've had situations, especially with young people where.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To their manager because they don't trust their manager, you know, they don't trust HR, you know, which is usually your second choice or maybe your first choice to go when you have real behavioral cultural problems. And then it just keeps going on. So I've been surprised before about how much wasn't visible to us, not just to me, but also the people that I had brought in that were close to me. They weren't seeing it either. Eventually, believe me, we will find it and we will get to it. And then we will move at lightning speed because you want to get. Fast. That is your leadership brand. You start tolerating that. There's no end in sight to what you're going to have.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, you know, behavior, it'll smack you in the face usually. But I've also seen things happen underground where I wasn't aware of it and I wasn't seeing it, but it was happening because of what happened on calls that I wasn't on. One time I got tipped off by an employee of my former company that said, look, that office over there is a complete disaster because they knew people there. And, you know, salespeople are, right? Everybody talks, doesn't matter what company you're in. And then, you know, we started, you know, basically peeling away the layers. And all of a sudden, you know, you come across really bad situations, abusive situations, harassment, all these kinds of things. Because sometimes it's just not visible. It's happening. People don't like to talk about it. They're worried that they're ratting on people and they don't want to go.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not just what you're doing, but what you're not doing. So if you're not moving on things that people that everybody is seeing, your leadership brand is already in question because, you know, apparently you're blind and apparently you're hesitating or you're tolerant of behavior that you shouldn't be tolerant of. So yeah, there's pressure because it's not just what you want to do. It's the whole world's watching.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I look very hard at what's working, what's not working. And in other words, some things are not working at all. Some things seem to be working reasonably well. And then there are sort of the stuff that you're sort of humming and hawing on. So obviously you prioritize the, I mean, I've sort of separated with people very, very quickly because I think the functions that they were responsible for were barely breathing. And at that point, I don't hesitate. I move on quickly, immediately. I go after cultural issues. People that are just egregious violators of just things that we all generally find normal and acceptable. We very quickly separate on behavior. Performance is something that we will give more time. Behavior, we won't. And that's because behavior is a choice, not a skill set. You know, when you come in as a new leader, everybody's watching.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can function and operate and understand, and then we can much more incrementally, iteratively progress from there. So that's sort of the, you know, if you're asking for a framework, that would be it. But I will tell you that every place I've been, they're all different. You got to be very careful that you don't get into a rinse and repeat mode where you just think you have a formula or an algorithm and you can just apply it over and over again. That's just really simplistic thinking and it will lead you astray because you kind of try to observe things in a way, you know, like a five-year-old would. They've never seen it before. And how are you reacting to it?”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You just start processing on what you're seeing. But that said, yes, there are things that you zero in on each and every time. And that is, you know, are there right people on the bus? Are there people that need to get off the bus? We're inspecting the functions. Are they working? Are they not working? Do people think they work? What can we see very, very quickly? And then you start prioritizing, okay, some things are obvious that need to be dealt with ASAP, then everything starts to sort itself. So there's usually a number of things that happen incredibly fast, like week one. And then there are things that happen slower, you know, maybe, you know, 30, 60, 90 days. But in 90 days, you know, I tend to be through sort of the initial trice of, okay, let's get ourselves on a solid footing here where we.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I tend to take a little bit of exception to the term playbook like it's a cookie cutter thing and it's not. It's also not a football game where there's very precise rules on how to play the game. It's very situational, very much first principles. I mean, you come into a new situation.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I rarely use the word proud or pride because that signals a profound happiness with the status quo. And I don't have that because I'm always at odds with the status quo. That's sort of the natural malcontent posture that we have. Yeah, we're here, but we could be there. So what gives? How do we get there? So we're always envisioning a future that is different than the one that we're currently experiencing.”
2023-08-08 · The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish · Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT