YouSaid · the spoken record

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins

lines on the record: 41
first: 2022-06-21
most recent: 2022-06-21
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Masters of Scale is a Wakewater Original. Our executive producers are June Cohen, Darren Triff, and Jordan Cloud, our head of content and production is Lori Hoffman. Our producers are Adam Skeuse, Catherine Clark Ray, Marie McCoy Thompson, Alex Morris, Tucker Lugurski, and Holly Bondi. Our editor at large is Bob Saffian. Our music director is Ryan Holliday. Original music and sound design by Eduardo Rivera. Audio editing by Keith J. Nelson, Stephen Davies, Andrew Nalt, and Mike Gallagher. Mixing and mastering by Brian Pugh. Special thanks to Chrichier, Elisa Schreiber, Aria Finger, Zayeda Sapieva, Greg Beato, Adam Heiner, Colin Howorth, Willem Crowles, Tim Cronem, Kelsey Capitano, Samiaputa, Anna Pizano, Saratar, Lear Sermetis, Charlie Minesis, Chine Ezequena, Emily McManus, and Mina Kursawa. Become a member of Masters of Scale to get access to a year's worth of courses and content on the Master's”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“May take some contrarian thinking to reorient your company around human dignity, but if you do, it will help you evolve your product, build out your marketplace, and keep your business innovating for the long haul. It's the right thing to do and the right thing to do for scale.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Promises still based out of Oakland, but has been growing steadily in the areas they serve. They just cleared their series B round of funding, and they're looking to build more levers for scale. They're also benefiting from some external studies that seem to bear out promises claimed.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To integrate with the Louisville Water Department and help Louisvillians keep the water from Obvious win-win for both the government and the dignity of its people.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Shows a deep understanding of promises An app, then conventional wisdom around apps doesn't matter. Though promise doesn't want to be the only entity to understand its people, delivering dignity to users only really works when governments see people through those same compassionate eyes. Has observed signs this”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So smart about this approach is that she is improving the user experience from a quantitative Qualitative standpoint Granting Move that's right in last time Deadline or on a loan from a friend. About how great it feels when your professor or your boss or your friend. To provide her customers Quantitatively, the case. Repayment rates while decreasing the frequency of customer service calls. This data to any local government and say, see, if you grant people an extension, instead of penalizing them, your rate of repayment is not Asking governments to take her word for it, the proof is in the data. Data helps the core product improve.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like Paul English, Phedra's team at promise took careful notes when they got customer calls, and they used these insights to design a more compassionate experience.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is a terrific contrarian and right definition of customer success because no one calls for utility bill payment platform to say, hey, everything's going great. Good job. They call when they have a question, a problem, or a complaint. This very topic came up in my recent conversation with Paul English, the co-founder of Kayak. Paul also believes that if your customers are calling you, your site isn't simple enough. In fact, he so believes it that in the early days of kayak, the customer service number was his personal cell phone.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Phedra's exactly right, giving poor people the same access and optionality as people with money is a matter of basic human dignity, and it's also a lever to scale. So you begin to say, okay, now I've figured out kind of a technology that increases human dignity, that gives more opportunity to these amazingly great and talented people who are otherwise kind of systemically disadvantaged. So now you have to start figuring out scale for this.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Promise challenged the government's assumption that people in debt were untrustworthy, and the proof was in their success rate. A ninety three percent repayment rate was a staggering victory. It showed that Phedra's contrarian thinking was also completely right. Once promised had proven their concept in the city of Oakland, other municipalities started catching on. Soon Promise was working with cities, counties, states, and utility companies across the country.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Promise made a counterintuitive bet and charged ahead. They created a website on their own and put it in front of Oakland residents in debt.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pay attention to this last point Phedra just made. The poorest people need the most flexibility and yet consistently receive the least. This is a dignity gap that promise could help solve, and not just for the residents of Oakland. Pedra was sure that municipal governments would be motivated to solve this too. Not only would it be politically popular and the right thing to do, even from a bottom line standpoint, when residents pay their outstanding debts, governments get funded. When residents go to jail, governments spend more money. As it turns out, organizing your system around dignity is actually more efficient than organizing it around punishment. So the city of Oakland jumped at the opportunity, right?”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Still wanted to address the problem of mass incarceration. Her mission didn't change, but she saw a lever she could help pull even earlier to keep poor people out of the criminal justice system altogether.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm actually not surprised Phedro got this reaction from her investors. Classically, smart VCs are less concerned with a founder's best idea than they are with a founder themselves. If the founder is scrappy, observant can think in contrarian ways, then that's what you're actually investing in. Phedrus investors trusted she'd find a suitable pivot. But what? asked”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“This is an incredible epiphany to have in the room. Phedro wasn't reacting to a breakdown of a platform. Promise had done nothing unethical, but the lens through which she saw her business was the lens of human dignity. That lens essentially allowed her to see into the future, a future of helping corrupt and cruel law enforcement agencies. It was not a future she could accept.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Phedra was rightly horrified. At that moment this sheriff was her client, and so was the local court system he represented”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“News of promise went viral. Everything was looking like Phedra's mission was coming true. Then something happened that changed her entire perspective in an instant.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Adra saw her moment of opportunity. Here was a huge, intractable problem that was finally getting some attention in the zeitgeist. If she could build a platform that could help people out of jail while awaiting trial, she could deliver access to human dignity at scale. So with her co-founder, Diana Frappier, Phedra created promise. Promise was built as a GovTech platform, the goal of which was mass decarceration. For people awaiting trial, promise offer them an alternative to posting bail that would allow them to stay at home until their trial date. Using this platform, defendants could check in with the system, log upcoming court dates, drug tests, and counseling appointments, all hugely important steps to maintaining one's freedom. Phedron her team went through Y Commonitor, and her investors included a range of human centered venture firms like Kapor Capital. And when JZ and his company Rock Nation invested”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sir Richard, the inherent problem with the airlines was the adversarial relationship they'd built with their customers. They had forgotten to put human dignity at the center of the user experience. Rectify that, and you would automatically become competitive. This kind of aligned success with customers is what Phedra wanted for a new business, but she wasn't looking to cater to the jet setting crowd. Driven by a sense of justice, she wanted a way to ensure best outcomes for people who might not even be able to afford an airplane ticket. So how could she build a product that was both essential and non exploitative for the type of customer she had in mind? She found a solution in an unexpected place government.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That joke soon became a very real business and a very real competitor to one of the behemoths of the airline industry, British Airways.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Adra wanted an alternative to a model that constantly pitted company success and customer success against each other. Rather, she wanted alignment between them so that customer success and company success would mean the same thing. You can see examples of this dignity first approach across the entrepreneurial spectrum, though they may not use that specific word. Here Sir Richard Branson talking about the ethos behind building virgin airlines.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Listeners, Bob, here, if you listen to rapid response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Back with Phedra Ellis Lamkins of Promise. If you're enjoying this episode and want to share it with friends, hit the share button on your podcast app right now. And to hear my full conversation with Phedra become a master member at masterscale.com slash membership. There are lots of great stories. We didn't have time to cover in this episode, including the best advice Prince ever gave her, and a moment in which Phaedra turns the tables and asks a couple of questions of me. You won't want to miss it. When we left off, Phedra was doing her tour of duty at the home care startup honor, absorbing everything she could about running a tech firm. Phedra had dreams of leveraging platforms to deliver human dignity to everyone, not just customers with money. Three years later she felt ready to launch a platform of her own.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For a company to scale alignment with your customers is critical. That means understanding what matters to them and delivering it with deep respect. You will want that same standard for your employees. Don't leave their humanity out of the equation as you grow. Instead, make their dignity a measure of your success.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A company that doesn't solve for the dignity of its employees has a poor chance of solving it for customers. And a great way to correct for that is in truly diverse hiring in terms of race, gender, age, and past experience.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Leave aside the substance of the debate itself. Look at the way the conversation about Chern broke down. Phedra had one perspective, seemingly all of her colleagues had another, and because they had all trained in the same programs and had similar work backgrounds, they were in the majority. So they just assumed she was wrong. It's the kind of groupthink that's the product of monoculture. We've talked before about how monoculture can lead to stagnation in a company and how it can cause great diverse talent to walk away. But that happens because of the steady drip of conversations that arose dignity. The experience can feel pretty dehumanizing.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The turn of course is turnover. You can have employee churn or customer churn, and either way, it's a challenge. That's what Phedra was discussing with her CEO.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Phedra was experiencing a culture shift that will be familiar to anyone entering a new industry or even a new company. That shift in itself is nothing to fear. But what Phedro noticed at honor was that when it came to language and core concepts, the cultural divide went deeper.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Counterintuitively, you don't actually have to have a long background in tech to lead a tech company. Leadership skills can be very transferable. But coming to the tech sector after building a career outside of it came with some unique challenges.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Phedra knew she wanted to build some sort of platform for good, focused, specifically on human dignity, but before she could found a tech startup, it seemed wise to learn how one works. She met with Seth Sternberg, honors co founder and CEO, to see if there was a place for her at the company.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mitch and Frieda Kapor are socially responsible investors. They invited Phedra to meet a few of their portfolio companies. One of them was a home healthcare startup called Honor, which matches families with caregivers, and it was a good match for Phedra. Back in the labor movement, Phedra had spent years recruiting home care workers to their union. It was rewarding, but painstaking work that happened one worker at a time.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the end, Phedra succeeded in helping Prince reclaim ownership of his master recordings, a feat over twenty years in the making. It was a victory that emboldened and inspired countless other artists seeking out their artistic independence from Kanye to Taylor Swift. After her success with Prince, Phedra had many professional avenues open, but her heart remained tied to the mission of giving human dignity to the poor and working class. To do this at scale, she decided she would need to leverage the kind of tech that had changed the music industry, which meant she had to become more of a technologist herself. What was the path to get into the tech industry? Like, what do you go, okay? So tech is possible scale. We can possibly change the rules of this game. What was the next step?”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Word exploitation might have meant one thing in legalese, but Phedra zoomed out to look at the big picture. What she saw there was an arrangement that failed to put any value on the artist's dignity, and a system that worked hard to maintain an imbalance of power.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Once again, Phedra found herself and her client at the intersection of technology and human dignity. Phedra saw that scaling tech platforms democratized access to music by consumers, but did the opposite for artists.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you don't remember this moment, it was a seismic one for the music industry. Prince had been in a dispute with his music label Warner Brothers since the early 90s over artistic control of his master recordings. It was the reason Prince temporarily retired his name in favor of a symbol. By the time Phedric got involved in 2014, the battlefield had shifted. Streaming platforms from YouTube to Spotify had changed the nature of the relationship of artists, labels, and revenue.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Detour and with it a chance to change a famously entrenched system, buckle up because it's one of the more interesting side quests we've ever featured on the show.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The fact is, technology companies and really most companies are great engines for efficiency and for building, but you have to make sure you're being efficient at the right thing. If you're leaving out key stakeholders like your workers or your community, it will get harder and harder to write the ship later on. Phedro believed in a world in which technology companies could serve real benefits to the working class and the poor. But it would take some time to bring that vision alive. After over a decade, as a labor leader, she spent five years leading the Green Jobs Organization Green for All. in one of the world's fastest growing sectors. But then she got an unexpected opportunity to take a career”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Phaedra, the disconnect was obvious. These rising tech giants were promising a great democratization of knowledge and access to the world. So how could they stand for such inequality when it came to their own hiring? It was a problem she wanted to understand because she believed in technology's potential for scale impact.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Instead, Phedro became a labor leader in the Bay Area in the late 90s, when Silicon Valley was on the cusp of its first tech boom.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Indignity of the free lunchline stayed with Phedra as a concept as she moved on to high school, college, then into the professional world.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then, Phedra's family experienced a small improvement in income. It had a big impact on our life as an elementary schooler.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Prior to founding promise, Phedra was a union leader, a CEO for green jobs organization, and ran revenue and operations for a home health care platform. She even pulled off the seemingly impossible and helped a music legend gain back the rights to his work. More on that in a bit. Phedra's entrepreneurial superpower is in taking a contrarian lens to existing systems and seeing where human dignity is lacking. Phedra can see which small adjustments to a product can bring huge improvements to the lives and dignity of her customers. She comes by that awareness through her own experience, growing up in a working class family in San Francisco.”
2022-06-21 · Masters of Scale · Improving human dignity is an engine of scale, w/Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT