Voyager Talks

In this clip from a previous episode, Amazon Web Services CEO Adam Selipsky discusses why people should be passionate about what they do, because otherwise it's impossible to compete against people who are. Adam also shares the importance of analyzing your own strengths and weaknesses in what he calls "vocal self-criticism."

Every Brandeis student knows his name, but few have heard from the President directly. That changes today, as Zev sits down with President Ron Liebowitz.

Ron Liebowitz has served as the President of Brandeis University since 2016. The former president of Middlebury College, Liebowitz is a recognized administrative leader in higher education, whose academic scholarship centers on political geography, Russia, and higher education.

In this episode, President Liebowitz and Zev cover a wide-range of topics, including:

• The easy decision to get a PhD
• Why Russian political geography?
• Wanting to become a sportscaster
• Why leave teaching to join administration?
• What does leadership mean to you?
• Going carbon neutral at Middlebury
• What might Brandeis not know about you?
• How would you spend $100 million to improve Brandeis?
• How students can maximize their time in college
• What new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?
• Advice for a smart, driven college student

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Brian Turner is the first to admit that he’s not the smartest person in the room. He’s rarely been the best at anything, whether as a high school baseball player or student or leader. How did he become a strong player, a good student, and the CEO of a $100+ million consulting company? In everything he’s done, curiosity has been his lifeline.

In this unique conversation we get inside the mind of Brian, the person and leader. He speaks about how curiosity is central to his leadership style, using imagination to change his team’s perspective, and the simple thing he does to stay present. We also dive into the challenges and shifts of his first year as CEO and want he wants to improve moving forward. As always, listen to the end or read below to hear his advice for recent graduates.

Takeaways & Advice:

• (1) Curiosity and learning. It’s clear Brian got to where he is today in part by seeing every person, conversation, job, and experience as a chance to learn. He also advises future leaders to always be asking questions to understand the why and the why behind that.
• (2) The power of imagination. Central to Brian’s style is asking questions to shift the perspective in a conversation. He asks others to imagine “what if” scenarios, picture four years down the line, and put themselves in someone else’s shoes to analyze the situation. Brian ends every meeting by saying “let’s go create magic” and part of that magic seems to come from the imagination.
• (3) Being present. As you can imagine, there’s a lot competing for Brian’s headspace and attention. The only way for him to manage is to just be present, wherever he is and whoever he’s with. Before conversations, he takes a moment to figure out what he wants to learn and remind himself to be fully there. Being present is critically important and like anything, it takes practice.
• Advice: (1) It’s not the job you get that matters, but what you do with it. Learn all you can from the experience. (2) Curiosity is the lifeblood of a future leader. Be excited about understanding the why and the why behind that. (3) Every relationship you make is a lifelong relationship. Treat it as such.

Topics:

• Believing in magic
• Early context and path to consulting
• Which role at Point B pushed you the most?
• What’s been the biggest shift of becoming CEO?
• Vision for Point B
• How should employees bring the vision to reality?
• What does showing up as a great leader look like for Brian?
• Do you self-analyze?
• How does he stay present?
• The power of asking questions
• Where did his curiosity come from?
• Impact of his executive coach
• Using imagination to change the perspective
• What he wants to improve as a leader in 2023
• Importance of listening
• Advice for recent graduates

Steve Grossman, Former MA Treasurer and DNC Chair, and now the CEO of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, discusses running his family business for 25 years, reflections on both failed and successful campaigns, his advice for candidates, building trust as the new DNC Chair, leading the Democratic Party to pick up Congressional seats in the midterms (the first time in a President’s second term since 1822), depositing over $300 million of Treasury funds into community banks, how the ICIC is working to tackle the racial wealth gap, and advice from his grandfather that changed his life at 17.

Listen to the end to gain insight into walking with his wife during the pandemic, as well as his advice to be a great listener and follow your passion.

Top Three Takeaways:

#1 It may seem like tired advice to follow your passion, and it’s easy to brush it off. But I want people to pause for a moment and recognize that we must be hearing it so often for a reason. As Adam Selipsky, the CEO of AWS, told us in episode 7, it’ll be an uphill battle to go into work and compete with people who are passionate when you’re not. Don’t feel pressure to find the “one thing” for you, but try to find things that you’re capable of being passionate about.

#2 Steve told us that to be successful in politics, you’ve got to authentically listen to the people you serve, understand their challenges, and show a genuine interest in improving their lives. Listening is also incredibly important to gaining trust and buy-in as a leader. As DNC Chair, Steve asked team members for their opinion on how the organization can improve, and truly listened to their responses. When he incorporated their feedback into his plan, everyone felt excited to go execute the plan because they had helped build it!

#3 Another thing I notice about Steve is how deeply he cares about improving the community around him. Whether it’s central to your day to day job or something you do outside of work, it can bring you great joy, and it obviously benefits the community, when you’re involved in giving back.

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Guest bio:

As CEO of ICIC, Steve leads a dynamic and growing team of professionals dedicated to achieving economic prosperity in America’s inner cities. Prior to joining ICIC, Steve served as Treasurer of Massachusetts from 2011 until 2015.

Prior to taking office, Steve served for 35 years as President of Grossman Marketing Group, a fourth-generation marketing communications firm started by his grandfather. Steve has been an active leader in many civic, philanthropic and political organizations. These positions include former board chair of Brandeis University, former national chairman of the Democratic National Committee, former president of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), founding board member of MassInc and life trustee of the Museum of Fine Arts.

Steve graduated from Princeton University and Harvard Business School where he was a Baker Scholar. He is married to Dr. Barbara Wallace Grossman, a theater historian and director, who is a professor of Theater at Tufts University. Steve and Barbara have three sons, David, Ben and Josh, and six grandchildren.

Alan Frazier, a pioneer in the healthcare venture industry with $7.1 billion in capital raised, discusses starting his firm in 1991 with a $5 million fund, turning down the role of CFO of Microsoft, going from a CPA to CFO of a fast-growing biotech startup, how his childhood prepared him for life as an investor, the importance of hiring people with the right values, traits of great entrepreneurs, how storytelling allows venture capitalists to help build companies, and reflections on his professional career and community involvement.

Listen to the end to gain insight into spending more time with his foundation and giving back to the community in recent years, as well as his advice to find a group of mentors to support you on your journey.

Top Three Takeaways:

#1 Early in his career, Alan chose culture over money when he turned down an offer to become CFO of the 80-employee Microsoft. Although he had a feeling he might make a lot of money, he didn’t think Microsoft was a good culture fit or that he would enjoy his life if he worked there. This is a great lesson in the importance of finding an organization that fits your values and sticking to that even when facing a tough decision.

#2 In recent years, Alan has realized the importance of going beyond business and has gotten much more involved in giving back to his community through his foundation and nonprofit board roles. The things you do outside of work can bring a lot of joy, fulfillment, inspiration and energy in other parts of your life. In short, it’s good for yourself, good for your career, and of course good for your community to step away from work and be involved in your community.

#3 Alan stressed the importance of finding mentors who truly care for you to help guide you. This show is meant to help introduce the careers and advice of a couple of successful individuals, but it’s only meant as a starting point. Find mentors who have been where you want to go, who know you, care for you, and can share their specific experiences and feedback to support you on your journey.

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Guest bio:

Alan Frazier is the chairman of Frazier Healthcare Partners, a leading provider of growth and venture capital to healthcare companies, which he founded in 1991. With over $7.1 billion total capital raised, Frazier has invested in more than 200 companies, with investment types ranging from company creation and venture capital to publicly traded companies and buyouts of profitable lower-middle market companies. Since 2005, 61 Frazier Life Sciences portfolio companies, many of which were created or seeded by Frazier, have completed IPOs or M&As.

Prior to forming Frazier Healthcare Ventures, Alan was the executive vice president and chief financial officer of Immunex Corporation. Later, he served as the senior financial advisor and chief financial officer of Affymax and worked on the spinout of Affymetrix. Prior to Immunex, Alan was head of the Emerging Business Practice and co-head of the Technology Practice for the Seattle office of Arthur Young Company (now, Ernst & Young). Alan holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Washington. He has served on numerous boards, including Calypso Medical Technologies, Portola Pharmaceuticals, and TridentUSA Health Services. Alan is active in his community, having served on the boards of UW Medicine and Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center. Alan’s continuing drive and passion come from his “love to create” and his “love to build.”

At 33 years old, Ryan Frazier already has an impressive career. After his first company (launched a few years out of college) was acquired by Simply Measured/Sprout Social, he’s back in action with Arrived Homes, which he co-founded and leads as CEO. Speaking with us shortly after announcing a $37 million funding round with participation from Jeff Bezos, Marc Benioff, Spencer Rascoff, Arrived is at an exciting point in the startup journey. Ryan discusses the inspiration behind wanting to open real estate investment to the masses with Arrived, doubling in size this year, going through two acquisitions with his first company DataRank, being labelled the e-commerce kid in his first job out of college, lessons learned from his team of disruptive founder/investors, traits of great entrepreneurs and leaders, and the importance of listening and curiosity in the startup journey.

Listen to the end to gain insight into his effort to prioritize personal health as well as his advice to look for opportunities with personal growth and learning over salary early in your career.

Takeaways/traits that stood out: being highly observant, intentional around lifelong learning, low-ego, and a great listener. For young people starting out, prioritize opportunities for learning and personal growth in early jobs rather than salary. Visit www.ArrivedHomes.com to start investing with just $100 and a few minutes!

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Adam Selipsky, one of today's top CEOs, joins us this week to discuss returning to AWS, empathetic leadership, his effort to be a better listener and lifelong learner, bringing a heightened sense of mission to AWS, and his advice for young people to be highly observant and vocally self critical. Prior to rejoining AWS in May, he served as CEO of Tableau Software for four years in which the market cap of the company more than tripled, before being acquired by Salesforce for $15.7 billion. 

Top Three Takeaways:

#1 The importance of listening is an emerging trend in this series and is something we should all pay attention to. Take a cue from Adam and understand that we don’t learn by hearing ourselves speak, but by keeping our own mouths closed and paying attention to what others have to say. This also goes back to his effort to be a lifelong learner, which one can do by reading, listening, as well as being highly observant especially early in your career, where you can pick up what works and what doesn’t and improve yourself based on what you’ve seen.

#2 Be vocally self-critical. It requires self confidence, but taking an honest look at yourself and what you can do better is how you can begin to take action to improve yourself.

#3 Finally, I want to reiterate Adam’s thoughts on the importance of humility, listening, and empathy in leadership. People carry different backgrounds, assumptions, and world-views and it’s incredibly powerful as a leader to try to understand where people are coming. As for listening, know that there will be plenty of time to voice your own opinion and to instead give room to others. This is something that David Zapolsky in episode 3 mentioned that Jeff Bezos does — even though he’s one of the most brilliant leaders out there, he’s the last to speak because he wants the unvarnished opinion of others. Adam seems to have a similar view, understanding that getting to truth is more important than being right.

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Guest bio:

Adam Selipsky is the CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. Having previously led AWS Marketing, Sales, and Support for 11 years, from 2005–2016, Selipsky helped launch and grow AWS from a startup into a multi-billion dollar business. Prior to rejoining AWS in 2021, Selipsky was most recently President and CEO of Tableau Software. He led Tableau through its acquisition by Salesforce, in what was the third-largest software industry acquisition at the time. Selipsky has also held various leadership roles at RealNetworks, and before that, was a Principal at strategy consulting firm Mercer Management Consulting. He has an AB in government from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Matt McIlwain, one of the northwest’s top venture capitalists, discusses traits of great entrepreneurs and startups, triangulating feedback as part of the learning loop, being there at day one and for the long run, tough decisions along the startup journey, his personal journey of investment, consulting, and operating experience before becoming a venture capitalist, and the importance of curiosity, humility, and listening.

Listen to the end to gain insight into practicing essentialism, as well as his advice to make decisions based on the topics and people that you resonate with.

Top Three Takeaways:

#1 Matt advises young people to make decisions for early jobs based on the topics and people they resonate with rather than the prestige or salary of the position. You have to know yourself and the things you love to get out in the world and find people you can learn from. He did this early in his career, choosing a role where he could learn more about the relationship between the private and public sector over a prestigious job involving real estate. Relating back to what David Zapolsky said, being in these types of roles allows you to do your best work, which leads to people thinking of you for promotions or exciting opportunities.

#2 Matt mentioned curiosity, humility, and listening in multiple contexts. He and his team at GPC approached the idea of a joint venture with curiosity, which ultimately lead them to not pursue the idea. Great founders have curiosity and the humility and active listening that it embodies, to listen to customers, carry strong hypothesizes that are loosely held, and triangulate advice. The notion of a founder-market fit also stems from curiosity around a particular market and problem.

#3 Investible ideas, at the very basic level, identify a problem that isn’t being solved as well as it can be. A company has to have a team that’s passionate about solving that problem and understanding the market changes that could help them solve it at scale, helping give a startup the potential to be meaningful and large.

Link to Matt’s post on the Learning Loop: https://www.madrona.com/the-learning-loop/ & recommended books Essentialism, by Greg McKeown + Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

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Guest bio: Matt McIlwain is a Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group, an early-stage venture capital firm based in Seattle, Washington. He has been a venture capitalist since 2000, and currently invests in a broad range of software and data driven companies with a focus on cloud computing, dataware, intelligent applications and the intersections of innovation. Matt currently serves on several boards including ExtraHop, Qumulo, Smartsheet, Suplari and Terraclear. He has been named several times to both the list of Top 100 Venture Capitalists by CB Insights and The New York Times and the Forbes Midas list.

Before joining Madrona in 2000, Matt was Vice President of Business Process for the Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC). He also was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, concentrating on strategy and marketing in technology-driven sectors and prior to that worked in investment banking at Credit Suisse.

He is a graduate of Dartmouth College, holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Kris Engskov, now a healthcare entrepreneur, discusses serving as the personal aide to President Clinton, the transformative experience of being a Starbucks barista for their executive training, pivoting to the health care industry first as President of Aegis Living and now as the cofounder of a venture-backed startup. He has fantastic insight into listening and asking questions, employee-first culture, servant leadership, and amazing stories from his time in the White House.

Listen to the end to gain insight into his deliberate and intentional learning, as well as his advice to get in the door at the right organization no matter the job title.

Top 3 takeaways:

#1 Listening is a fundamental part of leadership. Great leaders constantly ask questions and listen to feedback, understand that the best ideas come from others, and are able to be vulnerable and admit when they’re wrong. All of this takes humility, as does coming to work with a servant mindset in which leaders believe they work for their employees and not the other way around. Also worth noting is how Kris became a great listener in the first place; he analyzed and criticized himself to reflect on missed opportunities and improve his own skills. This internal dialogue and reflection is a common theme across leaders who live intentionally and is something we can all strive for.

#2 Kris is disciplined and intentional about his learning and thinking. He prioritizes time to follow his curiosity, avoids being led around by social media, and reads books to go deep on a subject and advance his thinking in an intentional way.

#3 People early in their career should focus on the organization, not job title. Getting your foot in the door no matter what level allows you to meet the team and be first in line for future opportunities. If you’re in the right organization, your excitement and energy and creativity plus already being an internal member will allow you to absolutely fly.

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Kris Engskov, now a healthcare entrepreneur, recently served as the President of Aegis Living, a national leader in assisted living and memory care. Prior to joining Aegis, he held many senior roles at Starbucks including president of the company’s flagship U.S. Retail business leading 170,000 employees across 8,300 stores, and president of the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) division where he spent five years building the Starbucks brand across 30+ countries.

Early in his career, he was in public service. From 1993 to 2000, Kris held a number of positions in the Clinton White House, including Assistant Press Secretary and Personal Aide to the President. He received his B.A. in Public Administration from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.

Ashleigh Hinde, Founder and CEO of Waldo Contacts, discusses industry disruption, the extreme highs and lows of the startup journey, seeking opportunities to travel, taking time away from the corporate world, traits of great entrepreneurs, and being told her business would be more successful with a male co-founder.

Listen to the end to hear about Ashleigh’s recent focus on training her mind to better serve her by stopping negative thinking, as well as her advice that you don’t need to do something you dislike just for the sake of a career.

Top 3 takeaways:

#1 Ashleigh took time away from the corporate world and her regular routine to figure out who she is away from work and to follow her interests. Taking a break from autopilot mode can at the very least allow for a reset but may also lead to a total career shift!

#2 Ashleigh’s habits of meditating, visualizing major developments and decisions, not being afraid to ask for help, and training her mind to better serve her all help her grow as a person and as a leader. Pick and choose which habits of successful individuals you might try to emulate, but these seem like good options to consider.

#3 From the very start Ashleigh knew she wanted to travel the world, and sought out opportunities both in the colleges she went to and the jobs she accepted. Decide what you want and go for it and don’t worry about what your peers are doing! Follow your passion and what interests you and know that you can make a career out of anything.

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