Be Bold Podcast - Episode 2: The Importance of Mentorship

0:00 and she said Craig there is

0:05 four words that human beings can't resist

0:11 whether it's a taxi driver whether it's a customer whether it's a supplier

0:17 I said what are those four words she said will you help me

0:23 she said those words virtually universally trigger a response

0:30 in people to help you [Music]

0:38 thank you welcome to the b-ball podcast my name is

0:45 Manoj lilanibas Chief Operating Officer Juniper Networks today

0:51 I have the pleasure of speaking with industry veteran Craig Conway he's been the CEO of three tech companies

0:57 including PeopleSoft and before that served as an executive as some of the

1:02 most successful companies in the industry including Oracle Craig also serves on the board of

1:09 directors of an iconic Silicon Valley company Salesforce

1:14 on today's show we'll be talking about Craig's carrier journey and the role mentors had on it

1:20 we'll also discuss his own approach to mentoring others including how to pick a mentor and build

1:27 trust Craig it's a pleasure to have you on the show today thank you very much Manoj can

1:33 you walk us through your career trajectory starting from your Early College days and how the journey

1:39 unfolded you know for me all of our stories are like that book outliers remember Malcolm Gladwell wrote that

1:46 book outliers I do um it was a great book and he he went out and he interviewed people that

1:51 achieved some degree of success in their career it wasn't just wasn't just business people it was Sports people and

1:57 public service and Military and business people uh to find out what they had in

2:03 common and I think he started the book by saying he expected that he would find you know High Intelligence or drive or

2:10 passion and what and what he found that everybody that had achieved some

2:15 degree of of success had was three things being in the right place

2:21 at the right time with the right skill set and you know some of that is luck being

2:28 in the right place at the right time and I think that's really how I would characterize my whole career I started you know you asked by my college degree

2:35 I went to college at the State University of New York a state college in Rochester New York and

2:43 I chose that college because it was one of the only colleges in the country that

2:50 had a computer science degree and coming out of college in 1976 with a computer

2:58 science degree was um sort of the start of being in the

3:04 right place at the right time I came to Silicon Valley speaking of the right place right after

3:10 college and Silicon Valley with a computer science

3:15 degree was the place to be and manage over the course of my career I again was

3:23 just fortunate to work for some of the you know great Innovative

3:28 companies my first job was Atari Atari was a company that owned coin operated

3:35 video games that they they had an aspiration to bring them to homes and

3:41 started video games in the home they had an aspiration to compete with Apple

3:46 and developed a personal computer and became

3:52 two and a half billion dollar company in three years amazing amazing growth

3:57 my next job was digital research which was a company that preceded Microsoft as the

4:05 leader in operating systems for personal computers and back when personal

4:11 computers were 8-bit Microsoft developed a new one that was 16-bit and be in the rest is history

4:19 um Oracle you know oracle one of the first companies to get into relational databases you know back then databases

4:26 were hierarchical Oracle pioneered relational databases and and that was an

4:32 amazing amazing advantage and and and tenure

4:38 um tgv a company that pioneered TCP protocols which sounds like a very dry

4:45 term but it became the basis of the internet the internet runs on tcpip

4:50 e a second and last job was a company called One Touch systems which was into

4:57 high bandwidth high volume conferencing you know we all take for Advantage what

5:02 we're doing here to together uh prior to OneTouch systems and other high

5:10 bandwidth conferencing companies you could only have a teleconference and you could only have a teleconference with

5:16 about eight or nine people and so that was you know sort of a huge development

5:22 opening it up to literally thousands of people then finally PeopleSoft where I

5:27 was CEO so that's sort of a step-by-step through my career

5:34 Craig I do see a pattern emerging here first of its kind like you know almost

5:39 one of the first graduates of computer science from Rochester the first gaming company trying to bring

5:46 gaming into you know the broader homes the iconic company like Microsoft

5:53 uh pioneering company in you know tcpip the word first of its kind and

6:00 pioneering comes to my mind for each of those you know you have participated in so it's not just the right place at the

6:06 right time it's also the choice you made that's a little bit of a risk taking where I see right there so in those

6:13 earlier days what was your mindset it might be driving your passion for technology because the opportunity met

6:20 the person who was ready for it yeah my passion for it was for technology I

6:27 mean it was this fascination with technology because for for me

6:33 technology was synonymous with change whatever the world was

6:38 a new technology could change the world overnight I mean not literally overnight

6:44 but almost overnight and you see it today

6:49 you know you see it today you think about some of the things you mentioned we talk about in our careers

6:56 you see it today I mean when was the last time you had to pay toll to a toll taker you know in San

7:02 Francisco Bay Area there are no toll takers you oh wait a minute you get the thing in your car no you don't even have

7:09 to get that anymore you just drive through there's Optical recognition of your license plate

7:15 um remember the first time you went to Home Depot and you checked yourself out with the scanner

7:20 Albertsons today national chain of of supermarkets announced they're going to

7:26 be getting rid of their checkout Clerks people are you know when you have a a cart full of groceries you're going to

7:32 check yourself out so to me it's been a lifelong interest in

7:38 technology and because technology represented change change changed the

7:43 world and you know the the financial success that went along

7:48 with it for the companies that I worked for was just sort of a characteristic of the

7:54 success what came with success for them but the the passion for me was seeing

8:01 how quickly technology could change the world indeed Visionary people get associated

8:06 with pioneering companies in one b or the other you spend a good portion of your early career at Oracle which had a winning

8:14 reputation and was growing at you know rocket space take us back to the time frame you know

8:19 how you thrive in that environment how is that environment and what were some of those calculated measured risks you

8:26 took to help grow in your career you know oracle

8:32 um was one of three companies that was pioneering a new type of

8:39 database as I mentioned you know databases back then were hierarchical

8:44 you know they were hierarchical or what sometimes called networked databases

8:51 and uh IBM had come up with a white paper

8:58 about how databases could be relational in nature and

9:04 Oracle and you remember Ingress and informix all three of those companies

9:10 got started and they were all tiny they were startups Oracle was almost a startup when I joined it it was 13

9:16 million dollars 13 million pretty small company and Larry Ellison was CEO and

9:23 you know he was a blue jeans black T-shirt cowboy boot uh guy with passion

9:31 for changing the world in terms of databases and

9:36 um I learned so much there I was there seven and a half years

9:43 um you know manage what I learned at Oracle was success in the technology industry

9:50 is not necessarily having the best product or it's not only having the best

9:55 product what I learned was that you have to have arguably the best product arguably in

10:03 other words it has you you have to be able to fend why it's the best product it may not be the absolute best product

10:10 but why did Oracle win because from the beginning it was the

10:15 most competitive company it was it was the epitome of hyper-competitive

10:23 Larry Ellison hated to lose hated to lose so everything about the

10:30 company was about winning externally in the marketplace against informix and

10:35 Ingress but also internally he he liked picking people that would

10:42 compete against each other internally his attitude was whoever won was we were going to be better off for it so he

10:50 he really brought in my Consciousness you know an awareness for how important

10:57 it was to be the be the most hyper competitive in the industry uh because

11:03 frankly at the time informix had the best uh I'm sorry Ingress at the time had the had the best uh technically the

11:11 best database but Oracle one create learning indeed Craig you could

11:17 have a great product Market fit you could scale your go to market engine really well but if you don't have the

11:23 chops to be competitive you know really beat them on the street you're not going to be a successful company I think you

11:29 definitely portrayed that here yeah you quickly made a name for yourself by

11:34 moving up the ranks and achieving you know high-level positions you know your whole career was seven years in Oracle

11:40 but you just moved up the rank so fast in learning these ropes you certainly needed a mentor or two to help guide you

11:48 or navigate through his corporate structures uh who were your mentors during this life or did they have a role to play at

11:54 all during this time you know I I think we've all had mentors

11:59 whether whether they were called mentors or not I think everybody's first mentors

12:06 were their school teachers you know some teacher along the way and

12:12 you know manage um I think you know this but not everybody knows this about me I have a

12:18 personal interest in education and I've sat on the board of universities

12:23 and I'm very supportive of universities and schools

12:28 um because as I Rose in my career

12:34 what I noticed was regardless of whether it was in the

12:40 world of business or public sector government of any kind

12:46 or a military what I noticed was everybody's

12:53 track was influenced by a teacher now today we call them mentors but it

13:00 starts really in High School grade school and I you know

13:06 along my school years I I had teachers that encouraged me the first one that

13:13 qualified as what we would call a mentor today was the chairman of the computer science department at State University

13:20 of New York the chairman of that department and he was the one that

13:26 established a computer science major for the State University before

13:32 99 of the universities in the country he was a great mentor he took an interest

13:38 he he advised me

13:43 uh on everything from the type of major I should get computer science

13:50 but also math I have a computer science and math degree courtesy of his guidance

13:58 he used to advise me on my appearance what I should dress like

14:04 based on what I was going to um my behavior how to how to communicate in

14:14 a way that is a business like I remember even my senior year he sat me

14:21 down and he said now listen if you're going to be at a in a cocktail party what drink are you going to order and

14:27 I'm thinking what Matt what difference does it matter what difference does it make and he would he would say no you

14:33 should order this kind of drink um he was my first I guess official official mentor and since that time

14:42 and I'm sure it's the same with you manage and everybody listening you know

14:47 we've had these series of mentors and you know sometimes they're

14:53 senior to us there are bosses or they're in Senior Management sometimes they're

14:59 just colleagues that have more experience than we do and and I've and I've had

15:05 you know many many of those and to this day still stay in touch with with a lot

15:10 of them totally makes sense you got me go down a little bit on my memory lane

15:17 too you're 100 right that every almost every teacher you had had a role in your

15:24 career shaping right in arcade shipping and I do remember this phrase from one

15:29 of my teachers when I was to think that cost the least and does the most is to

15:34 smile so please smile it's it's so true you I mean your life

15:41 how many of these things that were stuck in your psyche became part of you

15:48 and they were planted there by somebody that just took an interest in you and they changed your life and I and I'm

15:57 so happy that you know I've been able to work with you and you've been a mentor to me and so many mentors and throughout

16:04 my life too right so it's great without dating ourselves too much you know how

16:10 has the workplace and Technology industry in general evolved since your

16:15 early days in how companies help mentor and grow people's careers you know all of us

16:20 found our mentors through different conversations and whatnot in the early days has things changed you know has

16:26 there been an evolution in the approach yeah I I think that um

16:34 you know certainly technology industry has grown a lot I think I think a lot of Industries have grown some are new

16:40 industries that didn't even exist when we were starting our careers um

16:46 but it but you know I think what hasn't changed is

16:53 sort of the core of what is a mentor you know what is

16:58 how did two people come come together is it a corporate program and and today

17:04 there's more and more companies formalizing Mentor programs they they know the value

17:12 of them they know the value of them to employees but they also know the value to the company and so they are founding

17:19 and establishing Mentor programs um

17:25 but for me I think whether it's a formal program or an informal Mentor I think it all comes

17:33 down to relationship you know a mentor is essentially somebody you have a relationship with that is synonymous to

17:39 me it's they're synonymous you have a relationship with some a professional relationship with somebody that you look

17:47 to for guidance and and they have taken an interest in you and

17:53 and I think that starts with an interaction you know some interaction uh

17:58 usually turning to somebody and asking a question asking their opinion uh asking

18:04 for guidance telling them you're not quite sure and and that person

18:12 is interested in helping you um why are they interested I mean this

18:17 is this this is a whole topic why do people become mentors I think it's because they see something in you they

18:24 they see that you're you're bright or you're very focused or you're very determined or you're very

18:30 eager um or you're very appreciative and I think another quality is sometimes

18:36 mentors seeing people something that reminds them of themselves and and so I

18:44 think whether you connect with your Mentor through a

18:50 corporate program and there are more and more of those or whether it's just one-on-one I think it it has to start

18:58 with the personal relationship um

19:04 that that would be my observation I mean otherwise you know it's just a seminar you know if

19:11 you you know corporations have come up with Mentor programs and they just have people

19:19 sort of talking well that's that's a that's a class you know that's an instructor that's a seminar that's not a

19:26 mentor relationship Mentor relationships are interactive and they're based on a relationship

19:32 I'm so glad you mentioned this because your contrasting a similar sort of you

19:37 know mentoring to a true mentorship and I think you nailed it it's all about that relationship you see a spark in

19:44 that person somebody you want to interact with both of you are going to benefit from it there's a relationship

19:49 that Buds and then eventually expands to something bigger right that's how you see the mentorship evolving you nailed

19:55 it I think I'm so glad you went into that because not everything can be super prescriptive we can help people out with

20:01 some prescriptions but eventually you're on your own to Charter your paths right

20:07 yeah I think uh you know talk about not dating ourselves there's a very old saying you can lead a horse to water but

20:13 you can't make a drink um these venues that companies provide are terrific opportunities but you still

20:21 have to respond to them you still have to take the initiative um I remember at Salesforce many years ago

20:28 I've been on that board a long time uh when Salesforce was first starting a mentorship program they asked me to come

20:36 in to a room and speak with uh I think five or six uh female Executives

20:44 that were coming together to start to be more proactive with gender diversity

20:52 and they asked me some I they asked me some questions that I responded but there was

20:59 no interaction they just kind of wrote down what I said um so I would consider that more

21:06 conveying content than a real Mentor program which I do think is interactive

21:13 and I and I think it goes on for for years maybe maybe the rest of your life

21:18 I want to ask you this I've been wanting to ask you this for the longest time you know when you eventually had the

21:23 opportunity to become the CEO of PeopleSoft at that time a Star Wars in the Erp space

21:29 you know get LED various executive management roles before but this was different you were succeeding Dave

21:37 default in the role a person you know whose shoes were you know to be filled

21:44 and how did you approach this what was your mindset at this point well

21:50 um PeopleSoft when I joined uh

21:56 was a company founded by Dave Duffield Dave Duffield in my mind is one of the Legends in the technology industry he

22:04 has a much lower profile public profile or public Persona than somebody like

22:10 Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Larry Ellison but he had a

22:17 career the same level of magnitude this is a man that that founded four

22:24 for technology companies all four of which were multi-billion dollar

22:29 companies I mean who does that Dave Dave Duffield

22:35 um and Dave Duffield was an amazing leader I I used to jokingly refer to

22:41 Dave as a wolf in Labrador clothing

22:46 um uh like a Labrador Retriever um because his appearance was

22:54 friendly ingratiating lovable huggable

23:01 but he was no less intense inside than Larry Ellison was

23:07 he was no less competitive but he just had a different Persona I I took over

23:12 the company after Dave founded it it was a turn turnaround you know it it had grown grown grown grown grown and then

23:20 it had flattened and then Revenue was starting to go down and it wasn't profitable anymore so I went in as CEO

23:27 and I had two guiding principles that people

23:32 saw one was retain

23:38 the strengths that had made the company successful retain those and for PeopleSoft it was customer support they

23:45 had the highest customer satisfaction ratings of any tech company their customers loved them and I was

23:52 determined not to lose that and the second was Employee culture employees

23:57 loved working there they had a very low turnover attrition rate and so I my I

24:03 was determined to retain that um but the second

24:09 sort of Guiding Light for me was to face reality

24:15 and the reality was why are we declining why are we losing Revenue why are we

24:20 losing money and I had this concept at the time which I think I've mentioned to

24:26 you before the knowledge called creative conflict I said to people from the first

24:31 day I started I am not uh I do not believe in Conflict avoidance or

24:38 reducing conflict I'm all about creative conflict having honest conversations if

24:44 we don't have the best products somebody tell us in a meeting we don't have the best products we can't do anything about

24:50 weaknesses until we have the courage to put them out on a table and if it hurts

24:57 people's feelings or people get upset about it that is not as bad as not

25:02 facing reality so that that was what I I did with people's side it was a great it was a phenomenal company in terms of its

25:09 initial growth it had reached a plateau I came in I had all the benefits that

25:15 Dave Duffield had in at its core instilled uh in

25:20 PeopleSoft and then we took it to the next level and developed the first HTML Erp system again getting back to my

25:27 earlier point that you you mentioned being the first we developed the first

25:33 HTML Erp system and then we took off again

25:39 it's amazing to hear this um first I got a new phrase I can use now

25:44 in the vocabulary wolf in a labrador clothing I never heard that before so

25:50 that's a new one and I couldn't agree with you more on the creative conflict thing I have a personal phrase I use

25:56 call a thing a thing in terms of you know having conversations where sometimes it's difficult to you know put

26:03 the thing out in the middle but you have to and uh I got to ask you this question

26:08 when you talk or think about PeopleSoft there was a difficult situation once

26:13 when Oracle wanted to acquire the company and I'm sure it was a very difficult time with lots of you know

26:18 options to consider and personally did you turn to anyone a mentor or a helping hand during this

26:26 time frame for advice you know I I didn't um

26:31 I didn't because I I mean I would have if I if I

26:37 knew of anybody that had been through what we were going through but what we were going through was pretty

26:43 unprecedented it was the longest hostile Takeover in American Business

26:48 history uh it was it was sort of unprecedented what do I

26:55 mean by that Oracle made a unsolicited offer for

27:01 PeopleSoft that was at a negative premium

27:08 a negative premium when when you're going to acquire a company

27:13 you offer them a premium you offer them more than their stock is trading for

27:19 our stock was trading for 18 Oracle offered in a hostile uh takeover an

27:25 unsolicited offer they offered 15 a share it was a little counter-intuitive

27:32 um that had never been done before they announced in the beginning that they reasonably were offering so little is

27:39 that they intended to buy the products and and shut them down which caused all kinds of doubt about the the viability

27:46 of the products long term so these were all things that had never happened in business uh there have been plenty of

27:52 case studies that Harvard and the Delaware court system that about this case because it was so

27:59 unique at the time and uh so so no I I didn't have

28:04 I didn't have necessarily a mentor I turned to um there were plenty of advisors you know

28:11 you have an army of attorneys you have an army of what are called crisis

28:17 management firms that you work with every day uh you're on TV all the time

28:24 you're in the newspaper all the time but I didn't have a mentor because there was

28:29 no one that had gone through something similar I would have I would have called them

28:35 makes sense another pioneering effort for you first of its guide

28:40 um now I'm going to flip things a bit you know we've been talking about your relationship with mentors during your

28:46 entire career um now as a c CEO then afterwards as a

28:52 member of the board for various companies I'm sure many people have

28:57 approached you for mentorship at this point did you start to Mentor others or

29:02 what was the approach you know based on your own experiences with mentorship

29:09 um I I'm not even sure I would call it mentoring it's just I've been trying to

29:14 help anybody that asked me for help all the way back to my you know early early career when I was a

29:22 first level vice president um

29:27 you know something once said to me I I wish I could remember her name

29:33 I was on my first business trip when I was very young I must have been in my late 20s there's certainly no no older

29:41 than 31 Maybe and I had made my first business trip

29:46 to Europe and I had landed in France and I was

29:52 nervous because at the time I

29:57 heard that the French didn't like Americans and I thought oh my gosh you know how

30:03 you know how am I going to deal with this I don't know what that's like and I met a woman an American woman who

30:12 was in business I she may have worked for IBM I I think and she had lived in France for I think

30:19 seven or eight years and so I immediately asked for advice I said Is it true that

30:26 you know Americans aren't really liked very much here and she said Craig

30:32 there is four words

30:37 that human beings can't resist even

30:43 people in France whether it's a taxi driver whether it's a customer whether

30:48 it's a supplier so what are those four words she said will you help me

30:56 she said those words virtually universally trigger a response

31:03 in people to help you and so for me as a mentor I you know when somebody it's hard to resist when

31:10 somebody comes to you and says will you help me I'm confused right I'm a little unsure

31:15 what I should do and from the time that I started to be approached by people asking for counsel

31:23 asking for whether they're viewing something properly if they're looking at

31:28 it correctly it triggered in me a desire to help and and I you know I've

31:36 been helping ever since and people have been helping me ever since so I think those are the that's

31:43 what people need to to realize and I think I think minosh it

31:49 the lesson in there is these Mentor relationships start

31:54 with the pers the men the mentee not the mentor you know if you want guidance go

32:02 to somebody that you respect that has more experience and asks for help you

32:08 know I think you have to take you know a mentor relationship the initiative is

32:14 taken by the person that wants the council take to take the initiative have a topic I'm confused I'm I'm responding

32:21 to a bid or my client is upset or uh we're developing this product and it's

32:27 behind schedule or whatever it is have a topic approach somebody that you

32:32 think can help and say will you help me and I and that starts a

32:38 what might be a lifelong relationship could I agree with you more a couple of

32:43 quick questions for you what's the most common question you got during these conversations and what is the hardest

32:49 question to answer during mentorship

32:54 um well you know it's hard to talk about the

33:01 hardest question because it's it's going to reveal uh something I'm

33:06 not myself sure about that's why it's a hardest question and [Music]

33:13 um let's give it a common I'm sorry let's go with the common question the most common question you

33:18 got I think um

33:25 I think the most common question is what advice do you what advice

33:32 do you give people starting their career uh

33:39 in general about mentoring about you know uh

33:46 high achievement success work life balance I mean this is a very tough

33:52 world we live in now it's it's a world that's been through um

33:58 past recessions followed by 10 years of growth 10 years of growth now

34:07 followed by a recession uh probably impacted by covid uh change of

34:16 of venue for people where they work a lot of people working from home

34:22 demographic shift demographic I mean

34:29 in for our career manage if you're in the tech industry you worked in Silicon Valley if you were in the financial

34:35 service industry you worked in New York City um if you didn't want a big career you

34:42 worked in little towns it's changed I mean today Austin Texas feels like

34:48 Silicon Valley uh Raleigh

34:54 um Nashville Salt Lake City people have for

35:00 Florida Florida is an enormous influx of people from New York city so you know

35:07 the demographics have changed work-life balance all these things so I think that

35:13 is a common question and it's also a hard question I think

35:18 um what I remind people is something

35:25 Sandy Robertson reminded me of Sandy Robertson's on the

35:30 board of Salesforce he's the lead director he has had an amazing career

35:36 he founded three of the most successful companies in the financial service

35:42 industry Montgomery Securities you'll remember them he founded that Robertson Stevens Investment Bank took most of the

35:50 tech companies of scale public he bounded that and Francisco Partners which is a private Equity Firm and I

35:57 remember talking to Sandy and he he I said Sandy and what a successful career

36:03 you've had what single thing do you attribute it to and he said the old saying the harder I worked the luckier I

36:09 got so I think in the end I think people it starts with this drive and this

36:18 uh determination and hard work you know

36:23 manage the first billionaire talk about work-life balance oh work-life balance

36:30 everybody's concerned about work-life balance everybody wants to have a full life great

36:35 but when I was at Oracle many many years ago I met my first billionaire

36:42 now billionaire there weren't very many billionaires back then so this was he totally on you know unique opportunity

36:49 for me I wasn't going to drive the meeting I was just going along matter of fact a mentor speaking of that friend of

36:55 mine so would you like to come along to a customer meeting meeting with a person the head of this company it's a

37:00 billionaire great so I didn't say I didn't say anything the entire meeting and at the

37:07 end of the meeting the conversation shifted to a revelation

37:13 that the my colleague had he used the word revelation so in a very

37:21 small in a very small voice coming from somebody that was maybe 31 or 32 years

37:26 old me I said could I ask you what your first

37:33 revelation was in business and this fellow turned to me and without

37:39 missing a Beat said you can only do two things well in

37:46 life and if one of them is going to be your family

37:52 and one of them is going to be your career don't expect to be a scratch golfer

37:58 or a 5.0 tennis player or have a myriad of hobbies

38:05 and so for people that say to me I want to have a you know

38:11 tremendous career then I would say you've you know pick one more thing because if you're going to have a

38:17 tremendous career uh you're gonna have to pick one more thing and most people will pick their family now I'm not I'm not saying

38:23 everybody has to make a career their top priority but when if you talk about guidance and the most common questions I

38:29 I get I often get questions about how do I what do I need to do to be super

38:35 successful in business or in a career I relate the story that you can only do

38:41 two things well that's really Sage advice you can do multiple things well right you know pick

38:46 the two things and really be good at those two I totally get that um I've got to ask you this one final

38:53 question you know part of the audience we're trying to reach with this podcast is you know young

38:58 aspiring you know new technologist early in their careers you know you had multiple roles including you know CEO

39:06 positions board positions and various companies and as you wrap up here what advice would you give to young people

39:11 today pursuing a career in Tech uh to be successful in Tech yeah yeah

39:20 um you know I've I don't I don't commonly say this uh so

39:28 and I'm not sure I've said this for many several years

39:33 um there is a tendency in the technology industry

39:39 to stay on a linear path if you start in telesales you then

39:45 become a field sales person and then you go and become a branch manager Branch

39:51 sales manager and then a regional sales manager a national sales manager the cro and you take that path and the same

39:58 thing if you're in finance you know you start in the you know accounts payable area and you know you

40:06 wake you make your way up I think that

40:15 broad experience is one of the most

40:20 valuable things you could bring to your career because if you're going to run a company someday or if you're going to run multiple divisions of a company

40:27 someday the more things that you have done the more unique you are and the

40:33 better prepared you are um I mean I I had this computer science degree I

40:40 became a systems engineer but then I've flipped over to become a sales

40:46 representative and a sales manager and then at Oracle I was in charge of sales Administration and and

40:53 um and infrastructure and legal and um you know the the breadth of your

41:01 experience I think is something that people

41:07 um don't really put as much thought into and I thought of weight

41:15 into there's the C the CFO of nutanix a

41:20 company that I'm on the board of public company very successful the CFO used to be a chro

41:26 and prior to that she was in development I mean what that seems like but that's

41:34 part of her magic she she knows a lot about the breadth of how to run a

41:41 company so I think that I think breath is the the thing that I would say to somebody uh don't be quite so determined

41:48 to stay on the linear path breath can give you a competitive advantage

41:54 great advice to end the show Craig it has been an absolute pressure to host

42:00 you in the be bold podcast thank you thank you for joining us thank you manage