WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:02.279
The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
2
00:00:02.279 --> 00:00:04.160
solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not
3
00:00:04.200 --> 00:00:07.160
those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates.
4
00:00:07.240 --> 00:00:10.839
We make no recommendations or endorsement for radio show programs, services,
5
00:00:10.880 --> 00:00:13.960
or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability,
6
00:00:14.039 --> 00:00:16.920
explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN
7
00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.079
Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or common should
8
00:00:20.079 --> 00:00:22.239
be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing
9
00:00:22.399 --> 00:00:23.679
W four WN Radio.
10
00:00:25.679 --> 00:00:28.600
This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W park.
11
00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:31.160
Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do
12
00:00:31.199 --> 00:00:34.200
you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,
13
00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:35.439
and financial goals?
14
00:00:35.719 --> 00:00:36.039
Well?
15
00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:39.240
Coming up on Dvparks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real
16
00:00:39.320 --> 00:00:43.679
stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers who have stepped into discomfort,
17
00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:47.079
shattered their status quo, and are living the life they want.
18
00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:49.920
You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving
19
00:00:49.960 --> 00:00:53.960
your aspirations and financial goals. Moving your career business forward
20
00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:55.960
does not have to happen at the expense of your
21
00:00:55.960 --> 00:00:59.200
personal or family life or vice versa. Learn more at
22
00:00:59.320 --> 00:01:02.920
www Don't givpork dot com and you can connect with
23
00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:07.239
div ants contact eds givpark dot com. This is beyond
24
00:01:07.280 --> 00:01:10.480
confidence and now here's your host, gv Pork.
25
00:01:11.920 --> 00:01:18.640
Good morning everyone. I know it's week after Thanksgiving and
26
00:01:18.799 --> 00:01:21.480
I don't know about y'all. I'm it's still got food
27
00:01:21.640 --> 00:01:25.760
and just sometimes it's just hard to come back from holidays.
28
00:01:26.079 --> 00:01:30.079
But that said, we are ready to get your week going.
29
00:01:30.359 --> 00:01:33.879
And it's important to pay attention to December because a
30
00:01:33.879 --> 00:01:37.000
lot of people kind of like relax off. But the
31
00:01:37.079 --> 00:01:40.799
key is remember that December, especially if you're looking for a.
32
00:01:40.840 --> 00:01:44.599
Job or if you're doing any transitions, this is the
33
00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:48.200
time when a lot of like networking and all that
34
00:01:48.519 --> 00:01:52.680
happens in so keep your eyes out on that.
35
00:01:52.879 --> 00:01:55.799
And today we are bringing you a wealth of.
36
00:01:57.319 --> 00:02:00.959
Leadership and a lot of different things with our wonderful
37
00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:02.040
guest Russ Walch.
38
00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:08.680
Welcome, Russ, Hi, How are you good? How are you doing?
39
00:02:08.919 --> 00:02:12.120
Welcome on Pard great great here in the San Francisco
40
00:02:12.159 --> 00:02:16.319
Bay area. A beautiful morning, wonderful.
41
00:02:16.599 --> 00:02:18.520
So Russ, tell us as to.
42
00:02:20.120 --> 00:02:24.759
Then you started out, and do you recall a moment
43
00:02:25.240 --> 00:02:30.199
in your childhood or when you were young youth if
44
00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:31.800
somebody left a posted mark on you.
45
00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:39.599
Definitely. I grew up in a pretty happy family situation.
46
00:02:39.879 --> 00:02:42.800
Two older brothers. We played a lot of sports, but
47
00:02:42.879 --> 00:02:45.800
everybody was pretty encouraging. We got along well, and I
48
00:02:45.919 --> 00:02:46.919
was definitely different.
49
00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:48.759
Uh you know, I was.
50
00:02:48.800 --> 00:02:51.520
Building legos when I was three years old and just
51
00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:55.479
kind of a bit of a nerd, but kind of fun,
52
00:02:55.560 --> 00:02:57.599
a little bit of a prankster and things like that.
53
00:02:57.840 --> 00:02:59.520
Uh So we had a lot of fun growing up.
54
00:02:59.759 --> 00:03:03.479
But I think for me, remember in high school somebody said,
55
00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:05.960
have you thought about going into engineering? I had no
56
00:03:06.039 --> 00:03:09.120
idea what that was, and I ended up choosing the
57
00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:12.840
path of electrical slash computer engineering, and that's led me
58
00:03:12.919 --> 00:03:16.560
down the kind of the technology route that brought me
59
00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:19.000
to Silicon Valley about twenty five years ago.
60
00:03:20.759 --> 00:03:24.639
Yeah, like Silicon Valley back then, I think, so those
61
00:03:24.639 --> 00:03:27.479
were the beginnings. So then you ca, let's kind of
62
00:03:27.479 --> 00:03:30.360
compare like you know at that time and now. So
63
00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:34.199
when you were back then, what was it like five
64
00:03:34.240 --> 00:03:34.759
years back?
65
00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:39.240
Oh God, that's a great question. It was a strange boom.
66
00:03:39.520 --> 00:03:41.800
It was a couple of years after the dot com
67
00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:44.960
and the Internet had launched, so there were a lot
68
00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.039
of companies who had gone big time. Yahoo was one
69
00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:52.400
of the leading tech companies of the time. They still survived.
70
00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:54.800
They're still around and you don't seem to hear much
71
00:03:54.800 --> 00:03:57.319
about them anymore. But they're just kind of they're chipping away.
72
00:03:58.680 --> 00:04:03.159
But well, yeah, aol exactly. They used to send everybody
73
00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:05.599
a floppy disk and the mail once a.
74
00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:12.719
Week, oh yeah, and in the United would go oh yeah.
75
00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:15.360
Every time you logged in, it had to reload new
76
00:04:15.639 --> 00:04:17.879
versions and everything. But it was pretty cool that it
77
00:04:17.959 --> 00:04:21.959
all came together the way it did. Uh. I ended
78
00:04:22.040 --> 00:04:26.360
up I was working at IBM, my last thing I
79
00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:29.360
did before I got the chance to come to Silicon Valley,
80
00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:30.800
and IBM was a great company.
81
00:04:30.839 --> 00:04:33.639
I really enjoyed it. But you know, the nature of
82
00:04:33.680 --> 00:04:35.600
the job I had at that time was a travel job.
83
00:04:36.120 --> 00:04:39.000
Every week, jump on an airplane and and and go
84
00:04:39.079 --> 00:04:41.759
work somewhere. And they would usually be like six to
85
00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:44.040
twelve month projects. So I spent a lot of time
86
00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:46.720
where you are in the really Durham area home on
87
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:48.959
a big project for IBM. Loved that area, but still
88
00:04:49.040 --> 00:04:51.319
was hard. I had a young family then. But uh,
89
00:04:51.800 --> 00:04:54.439
one of my co workers IBM said, Hey, there's a
90
00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:56.399
colleague of mine who wants to hire for a job
91
00:04:56.959 --> 00:04:59.800
in Coupertino, California. I was like, where is that.
92
00:05:00.120 --> 00:05:01.959
I have no idea, and she goes, oh.
93
00:05:01.800 --> 00:05:04.000
That's kind of the hardest Silicon Valley, right where Apple's
94
00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:08.680
headquartered and everything. And about six weeks later after that conversation,
95
00:05:09.279 --> 00:05:12.240
I was on an airplane landing there and starting work
96
00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:15.759
in kuber Tina with my family there, and it was
97
00:05:15.879 --> 00:05:19.600
nice and I went from a commute of literally four
98
00:05:19.680 --> 00:05:22.759
or five hundred miles by airplane every week to about
99
00:05:22.800 --> 00:05:26.480
four hundred feet literally. My office was right next to
100
00:05:26.519 --> 00:05:29.079
the building we ended up living in, so I could
101
00:05:29.079 --> 00:05:31.000
literally go get a diet coke out of the fridge
102
00:05:31.360 --> 00:05:34.439
if if we didn't have one at the office. So, uh,
103
00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:37.120
some pretty funny stories, but you know, at that time,
104
00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:40.920
you know, Silicon Valley was booming. It was almost terrifying
105
00:05:40.959 --> 00:05:44.360
in a sense where prices like rent prices of were
106
00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:48.120
going up fifty percent a year and people were, you know,
107
00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:50.800
had who had been paying fifteen hundred dollars a month
108
00:05:50.839 --> 00:05:53.399
to rent, you know, in nineteen ninety eight, were suddenly
109
00:05:53.399 --> 00:05:56.560
paying four thousand, five hundred to rent by the end
110
00:05:56.560 --> 00:05:59.800
of two thousand. But then the whole Dot com thing happened,
111
00:05:59.800 --> 00:06:02.759
and it was just kind of a crazy mess. When
112
00:06:02.800 --> 00:06:07.160
it first started, it was I got caught in a
113
00:06:07.240 --> 00:06:11.000
layoff myself, and I think in the first two weeks
114
00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:14.279
I was kind of looking for something. I was probably
115
00:06:14.279 --> 00:06:16.879
having two to three job interviews a day. I mean,
116
00:06:16.879 --> 00:06:20.519
there were just so many openings. But then when things
117
00:06:20.639 --> 00:06:24.319
really kind of broke a few months later, Cisco was
118
00:06:24.360 --> 00:06:28.199
the one that really broke the backbone of Silicon Valley.
119
00:06:28.639 --> 00:06:33.199
They were the leader, head of Yahoo, just growing, expanding.
120
00:06:33.240 --> 00:06:36.279
They were the Google of that time. And when they
121
00:06:36.279 --> 00:06:40.319
suddenly started realizing they weren't growing anymore, in fact, they
122
00:06:40.319 --> 00:06:43.319
were having to make cuts, that changed the game in
123
00:06:43.399 --> 00:06:45.519
Silicon Valley. By the summer of two thousand and one,
124
00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:48.720
if you could find anybody who'd give you an interview,
125
00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:49.759
it was a shock.
126
00:06:50.040 --> 00:06:53.240
It was just really is big of.
127
00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:58.399
An economic and i'd say employment drought as I've ever
128
00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:01.399
seen certainly went through another one in two thousand and eight,
129
00:07:01.399 --> 00:07:03.879
two thousand and nine out here and right now, honestly,
130
00:07:03.959 --> 00:07:06.519
it's a pretty bad one. That are It's not getting
131
00:07:06.519 --> 00:07:09.800
a lot of news, but tech sector right now is
132
00:07:09.879 --> 00:07:12.720
really struggling. There's so many people, probably one out of
133
00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:14.959
four people I know in tech have been out of
134
00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:15.839
work or are.
135
00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:16.800
Currently out of work here.
136
00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:18.839
So it's it's a strange time honestly.
137
00:07:19.519 --> 00:07:23.959
Yeah. No, absolutely, And I've got a lot of my clients,
138
00:07:24.040 --> 00:07:26.720
you know, coming from tech companies, and I find them
139
00:07:26.959 --> 00:07:31.040
they're either worried about being laid off or you know,
140
00:07:31.079 --> 00:07:33.360
it can be because of the economy where we are
141
00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:37.120
going through and you know it's very cyclical, or because
142
00:07:37.120 --> 00:07:37.560
of AI.
143
00:07:37.680 --> 00:07:39.319
Like recently I heard because the.
144
00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:42.360
AI subdivision of IBM, like the company that you work
145
00:07:42.439 --> 00:07:44.720
for in the news. I think, so a couple of
146
00:07:44.759 --> 00:07:48.199
days back, because their AI division is booming, they're planning
147
00:07:48.199 --> 00:07:52.040
to lay off for thousands of people. Oh wow, So
148
00:07:52.199 --> 00:07:55.959
kind of if you kind of go through these situations,
149
00:07:55.959 --> 00:07:58.639
So like what happens is, you know, there is the
150
00:07:58.680 --> 00:08:01.920
technical environments, as you men, there can be a boom,
151
00:08:02.360 --> 00:08:06.560
so like AI is coming up, right, and then they
152
00:08:06.600 --> 00:08:09.199
need to hire more people like okay, we got to go,
153
00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:12.360
go go, and then once you have reached that plateau,
154
00:08:12.560 --> 00:08:15.639
then you kind of let go. So there's in these
155
00:08:15.720 --> 00:08:20.600
technical environments there's always so much ambiguity. So how did
156
00:08:20.639 --> 00:08:23.519
you scale trust as an executive.
157
00:08:24.160 --> 00:08:28.079
When the dot com meltdown happened. LinkedIn didn't exist. There
158
00:08:28.079 --> 00:08:32.240
really weren't those kinds of social networks, so I really
159
00:08:32.240 --> 00:08:34.879
didn't have a big network out here at all. It
160
00:08:34.919 --> 00:08:38.039
was a tough ride for me, but things opened up
161
00:08:38.039 --> 00:08:41.080
that you know, I believe there's a god and he
162
00:08:41.200 --> 00:08:43.840
made things happen at the right time and doors opened up.
163
00:08:44.120 --> 00:08:46.039
I moved out here with the intention of starting my
164
00:08:46.039 --> 00:08:50.039
own software company at some point. When I was in
165
00:08:50.200 --> 00:08:53.480
it the first part of my career, I was really
166
00:08:53.519 --> 00:08:57.519
good at writing systems to manage server farms and things
167
00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:00.320
like that before we even call them server farm arms
168
00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:01.960
and data centers.
169
00:09:01.639 --> 00:09:02.360
And things like that.
170
00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:06.440
And even at IBM, you know, it's considered one of
171
00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:10.360
their top programmers in that regard. So but I knew
172
00:09:10.399 --> 00:09:14.039
one thing, you know, creating software and selling software two
173
00:09:14.120 --> 00:09:17.120
very different things. And I'd always been so much in
174
00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:19.759
the technical side, it was far removed from, you know,
175
00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:21.360
the business side of it. So when I moved to
176
00:09:21.399 --> 00:09:23.720
Silicon Valley and worked for a startup, that was my
177
00:09:23.879 --> 00:09:27.279
chance to I got as as a sales engineer. So,
178
00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:29.480
I mean, my first day off the plane, I'm literally
179
00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:32.600
in front of companies like eBay, I think Yahoo and
180
00:09:32.879 --> 00:09:33.240
a couple of.
181
00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:33.759
The other ones.
182
00:09:34.320 --> 00:09:37.799
Literally we were out there, you know, talking with them
183
00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:40.320
about different things that we could do on the technology front.
184
00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:42.600
And that was really good for me to get used
185
00:09:42.639 --> 00:09:46.720
to that notion, because I remember saying at some point
186
00:09:46.759 --> 00:09:48.799
I'd love to be able to say I've been inside
187
00:09:48.840 --> 00:09:51.480
the headquarters of one hundred companies, because when I moved here,
188
00:09:51.639 --> 00:09:53.799
I'd only been the headquarters of one company in my
189
00:09:53.799 --> 00:09:55.600
whole life at that point, because I'd always worked a
190
00:09:55.759 --> 00:09:57.480
bit remotely for the companies.
191
00:09:57.039 --> 00:09:59.080
And never had a reason to go to the HQ.
192
00:09:59.559 --> 00:10:02.279
And I think now I counted it up that I've
193
00:10:02.279 --> 00:10:04.759
probably been inside one hundred and fifty, if not two
194
00:10:04.799 --> 00:10:08.279
hundred corporate headquarters in the last twenty five years. And
195
00:10:08.600 --> 00:10:11.720
you know, ended up being heavily involved with Facebook's IPO
196
00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:15.799
about fourteen years ago. So it's been an interesting ride
197
00:10:15.840 --> 00:10:18.080
of all the different things I've had a chance to do.
198
00:10:18.440 --> 00:10:22.200
Worked with a lot of really innovative startup companies who
199
00:10:22.320 --> 00:10:23.080
went public.
200
00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:24.320
I started working with.
201
00:10:24.200 --> 00:10:26.399
A little company called Google when they were about three
202
00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:29.240
hundred employees in two thousand and one two thousand and
203
00:10:29.240 --> 00:10:32.480
two and watching them kind of break out a part
204
00:10:32.480 --> 00:10:36.559
of a building on the Intuit Campus to becoming you know,
205
00:10:36.720 --> 00:10:39.440
the mega conglomerate that they've become. So I've watched a
206
00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:43.080
lot of really interesting companies grow from literally a couple
207
00:10:43.120 --> 00:10:44.559
of other ones I worked with were less than one
208
00:10:44.600 --> 00:10:46.639
hundred people when I started working with them that are
209
00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:49.360
over ten thousand employees now. So it's pretty exciting to
210
00:10:49.399 --> 00:10:52.120
see how that works. And sometimes you can just look
211
00:10:52.120 --> 00:10:55.159
at the leadership and like, this company's gonna make it.
212
00:10:55.200 --> 00:10:58.120
You could just see something about the nature the chemistry
213
00:10:58.120 --> 00:11:00.200
of the way they were working. Z Scale is a
214
00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:03.519
good example. When I worked with them about twelve years ago.
215
00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:05.639
I just saw the leadership and the way they did
216
00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:08.960
things was amazing. And their first like I think their
217
00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:11.080
first one hundred customers all came out of the fortune
218
00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:13.639
five hundred, which is extremely difficult to do.
219
00:11:14.039 --> 00:11:15.759
But once you've done that, you know, it's a.
220
00:11:15.720 --> 00:11:17.840
Whole lot easier to get the smaller guys when you've
221
00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:19.440
already proven you can do the big guys.
222
00:11:19.480 --> 00:11:21.919
And they were just brilliant and they're doing very well now.
223
00:11:22.000 --> 00:11:22.879
So it's been.
224
00:11:22.759 --> 00:11:23.679
Interesting to watch this.
225
00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:28.039
So you have been through a lot, like when you're
226
00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:31.840
talking about the IPO and seeing the growth and sustainability
227
00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.759
of companies like Google and Facebook. So there is a
228
00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:38.519
whole lot of difference. So let's say you know when
229
00:11:38.519 --> 00:11:44.000
a company is going through it's a startup more. Yes,
230
00:11:44.360 --> 00:11:46.480
you learn in dog years because I've been part of
231
00:11:46.519 --> 00:11:48.440
startup companies myself.
232
00:11:48.799 --> 00:11:49.759
Yeah, that's said.
233
00:11:49.799 --> 00:11:55.399
There is more relationship building and they're more intimacy and
234
00:11:55.440 --> 00:11:58.159
more trust. But now that you go to the IPO,
235
00:11:58.200 --> 00:12:01.039
it's all about focus on money. So as people are
236
00:12:01.080 --> 00:12:04.080
working their way through, what would you tell the professionals
237
00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:06.399
and leaders going through that time.
238
00:12:07.240 --> 00:12:11.679
Well, well, I have a friend and colleague who's been
239
00:12:11.720 --> 00:12:15.159
a good advisor over the years of guttingmed Roger Royce.