uh, So I'd say that first of all, I never had a clear plan for my career. I never said, like, you know, this is exactly the job I wanna have. This is what I wanna have it by and how I'm gonna get there. Um, I always just did what jobs that I thought were interesting. And we're a good fit for my skills. And over time, because I had a mix of both technical skills and communication and people skills. I wound up doing a variety of different roles. They did, um, product management. I did consulting. I did engineering. I actually wound up overseeing some sales organizations also, and then, having that breadth of experience, I wound up on the CEO role and then from there got involved in Cem investing. I think the really if I look back on my career, there were many times where there were challenging projects on it wasn't clear if we're going to get things done successfully. Andi, I think the thing that led Thio what I consider to be a generally successful career upward career trajectory was more often than not finding some way to make those projects work. Whether It was a difficult customer projects and consulting or coming up with a product definition that could meet customer needs. But the the engineering team could build in a reasonable amount of time. Is a product manager or running engineering teams, uh, both making sure that customers were successful with the product and that we ship what we needed to ship on time. It's just over and over again. There were challenges on. I think that I was fortunate that with the teams that was working with, we managed to meet those challenges most of the time is what I think really led to the success that I had. It sounds kind of boring, but keep doing things successfully, and people keep giving you more responsibility and harder things to do, and you keep doing them and leads to good things.

And so so right now I worked with an investment firm, battery Ventures, and, uh, we're both looking at new investments that they're making, as well as advising some companies in the portfolio and serving on some boards of some companies in that portfolio. So this is one of the rules that I have. It's uh huh eso. What the board of directors does is really overseas. The company, it approves the plan, and it hires and fires this yo, and it approves that executive compensation. So the board doesn't really a any kind of tactical decisions about how the company should handle any specific problem. But it reviews the biggest decisions that the CEO makes and if it oh, and ultimately decides if that's the person who should be running the company or not, is the main thing, and then also so those were sort of the formal responsibilities. But hopefully a good board also adds value in the discussions that it has the CEO of the management team, and so you want toe ask good questions. You want to challenge them to think about things that you think are important, that maybe they haven't been thinking about and uh, increase the chance that they're going to make good decisions for the company. S o. You know, one board role winds up being a few hours, and we, uh huh of work. Although sometimes it's more the where some weeks where there's ah board meeting and some preparation before that might work more. On some weeks, you might not do anything or just have a quick call.

who is get the most from all the people that I'm working with. Um e se uhh Heard tasks can only be solved by groups of talented people working hard on working together on uhh A leader needs thio Thio do a few things they need to see set a general direction for where people are supposed to go that people are working collaboratively and in the same direction is supposed thio working. Uh, sometimes it cross purposes and also really motivate people, uh, make them believe that what they're doing is important, Andi, that it's possible to be successful, but given that they'll be successful. So you want, uh, people to really be passionate about what they're doing. And I think that sometimes the leader can help to create that by, um, creating some context around why it matters. Why, uh not why? Why this company being successful is gonna benefit the world? Not just Hey, you know, we want to get to our next funding round or have a successful outcome and make our shares worth something or earn our bonuses. But what what is the value that the company is creating and why does that matter? Is that something special that people can be excited about the product and how it helps people, um, on. And because I've always found that people who are, uh, passionate about the product on how it really helps people are just gonna work both harder and smarter. And it's anxious. I think I spend a lot of time both trying to, uh, set the company or the team on the direction the that really has value that people can get behind and then helping people thio see that value because it's not just like people are smart, you can't give them a sales pitch. That's something that isn't useful, is useful. You have to make sure that what they're doing really is useful. Andi Then remind them of why it's useful on why it's a special opportunity that that's worth really, uh, doing. There are most Thio pursue. I think the, uh, I also believe that it's important to adapt to whatever situation you're different. People are gonna have different motivations, different approaches, different ways to communicate with them, and, um uh, the same approach that works for one employee isn't gonna work for another. So I think a lot of management and leadership is listening, getting to know the employees, getting to know what Matt to them and what motivates them and finding elements of that within the current situation. And again, it's not something that you can just make up. People have things that they care about in your job is a leader and manager, and motivating people is finding the intersection genuine intersection between what they care about and what they're doing, helping them to see how meaningful what they're doing is I think it's uh huh important, I think. Uhh! My management style has evolved. E think earlier in my career, I attended to be more of a problem solver on, you know, people came to me. I pride myself on being able to help them figure out whatever it is that they were stuck on, and that's that's valuable. And I think I still do some of that. But I think now a larger proportion of what I do is to, uh to help motivate them to solve the problems themselves. Uh, I think that's something that evolved as I've had to tackle a wide variety of problems, some of which I don't know how to solve myself and so all I can do is help bring out the best in the people on the team who can solve the problems right. That said, I think one can go too far that way. I remember one time when I transitioned jobs and they brought in a replacement didn't work out. One of I asked one of the people in 19 what was not working about that individual in that role, he said. When I came to you and I had a problem, you didn't always have the answer. But we would have a conversation that would help bring me closer to the answer, whereas with this person, I would tell them about the problem I was having and he would just want to know how I was going to solve it without really contributing anything. So I think it's important to contribute to that dialogue, help people advance towards solving the problem. But I think as one scope of responsibility becomes wider and hopefully you have people working for you who have lots of skills and talents that you don't have. You don't have mawr impact by helping to bring out the best in them, right? Take care of it. I don't thinka lot of understanding about markets, then strategies, uh, from book. So if I think, uh, crossing the chasm waas and I think continues to be a really important insight into new markets, I also think the innovator's dilemma has some good insights. And there are others of those air two books that I would consider particularly influential, but probably more influential on my strategic and market thinking and approach. Then, on my management style, this is all right? Yes. Okay, just