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Explore your curiosity - Interesting people with fascinating stories.
Life consists of three things:
-The stories we tell others
-The stories others tell us
-The stories we tell ourselves.
Now welcome aboard to the show. Thank you so much for joining us here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:So let's let's start with a difficult question. Why do businesses succeed or fail?
Speaker 2:Well, we used to think that businesses succeeded or failed because of how well they were doing in their industry. Right? We always think about the classic competitors, Coke versus Pepsi or Apple versus Samsung. Samsung. And business used to be really about, okay.
Speaker 2:Well, let's elbow that person out of the way or that company out of the way. And today's world is so much more complicated than that. And so we need to stop thinking about what winning looks like and what your industry looks like, because both of those things are really unclear these days. And instead, we need to think about how do we navigate this really complex world.
Speaker 1:In what ways is the world more complicated than it was, let's say, fifty or a hundred years ago?
Speaker 2:A hundred years ago, there were fewer people with access. There were fewer products on the market. There was less information out there. Things moved at a much slower pace. If you look at today's world, there are so many things happening at the same time, and that's why the world is so much more complex.
Speaker 2:It's so much more interconnected and it's so much more interesting, but it's definitely harder to be a business now than it was a hundred years ago.
Speaker 1:And just to to make this really concrete, you know, you said it was high much more highly competitive before. What did that look like? What's an example of how that manifested in the business environment? Because we kind of know that Coke and Pepsi have been around for a long time. We don't think about them as competing, you know, some people like Coke, some people like Pepsi.
Speaker 1:What does this actually look like in the business environment, and how is it changing?
Speaker 2:So the first thing you learn in the MBA program is called Michael Porter's five forces, and it's basically talking about how businesses win within their industry. So it's all about the threat of competition, the threat of new entrants, the threat of suppliers, the threat of buyers. Right? And it's all about all of these dynamics of, well, what happens if something changes? Right?
Speaker 2:And how do I elbow my way out of this very competitive tight race? And the reality is industries are more dynamic. Right? So you think about the classic example that we learned in business school about how Blockbuster was this video rental service that people used to use before Netflix. And then Netflix came out, and it was a new entrant.
Speaker 2:Right? It was the threat of something replacing. It was a new entrant that replaced the old model. But today, industries are really porous. Right?
Speaker 2:You look at Amazon and nobody thinks, oh, well, Amazon replaced Barnes and Noble, the bookstore chain, twenty years ago. Right? It's doing so much more than that. And I think successful companies today are in multiple industries, and they're trying to compete in a number of different ways. And so these old school frameworks that many people are learning in business school are in many ways just not relevant for today's day and age in this world, which is much more complex, and I would say much less competitive.
Speaker 1:So so let me play the devil's advocate here for a moment and see, see if this kind of passes the litmus test. I would argue that because the world is more interconnected, then everybody's competing against everybody. So you would, you know, you would intuitively think that there's gonna be much more competition. Why are you arguing that there is in some way less competition?
Speaker 2:I think it's less about the competition. It's not that there's not competition, but so many people are collaborating with their competition in different ways. So many people are creating coalitions. Many people are looking at different structures. They're saying it's not the be all end all to be the most profitable business.
Speaker 2:I wanna do other things at the same time. Right? So the the total dynamic of the market I think has shifted. And what do businesses wanna be? What do they wanna do?
Speaker 2:How do they wanna engage with their customers and their competitors even? So I think a lot has shifted and we're not necessarily taking that into account anymore.
Speaker 1:I mean, point in case, you know, what was it about fifteen years ago, the B Corp was invented. We didn't have that before. So now corporations have other agendas. Non profits we've had forever, obviously. If we, you know, if for a certain business, you know, take anyone that you've been exposed to or worked with, what's the paradigm shift?
Speaker 1:What's the place where they're kind of stuck and thinking like, okay, this is my environment, but it's really not so. And how do you kind of move from there to somewhere else?
Speaker 2:So I talk about the new five forces that businesses are really facing today, and those are technology, geopolitics, society, environment, economy. Right? And those are really the big things that can knock a business off its feet overnight. And so Do you have some horror
Speaker 1:stories to to to kind of share
Speaker 2:with horror stories. Right? And and so many of these stories, it was their strength that became their weakness. Right? And vice versa.
Speaker 2:Their weakness could become a strength. If you look at, you know, there was Bud Light used to be the most popular beer brand in The United States, and then they partnered in a small campaign. Right? I think I don't even know that the managing director of campaigns even signed off on this campaign because it was like a small Instagram campaign that they partnered with a trans influencer, and there was a huge backlash. And the brand never recovered.
Speaker 2:The brand, about a year later, it went from 10% market share to 6% market share. And the reason this happened wasn't because they took a side. It was because they flip flopped. So they partnered with a trans influencer, then there was a backlash, and then they said, oh, well, we didn't really mean to offend anybody. That wasn't the goal.
Speaker 2:We really were about bringing people together, and, of course, they just alienated everybody. And so I think the getting caught in a culture war is the nightmare that every business dreads today. Right? And and there are so many other examples of this. So these are the forces that really matter.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, Bud Light wasn't competing with corona. Right? I think it was just much more worried about a bigger dynamic at play.
Speaker 1:What would have I mean, what did Bud Light need to ask themselves and when to kind of avoid this catastrophe?
Speaker 2:So I think we can't always avoid getting caught in the political crossfire, but we can be authentic. And they weren't authentic in their initial outreach to this trans influencer because they didn't stand behind the campaign afterwards. And then on the opposite side, you know, they they just angered every possible consumer. So definitely, if you're going to pick a social issue or a side of any sort of controversial challenge that people are facing these days, you're not gonna be able to make everybody happy. So I think it really is about how do you engage authentically, and then also which conversations don't you wanna be a part of.
Speaker 2:Just don't be a part of them completely. But it's unrealistic to expect a brand to be able to just stay back from everything because consumers are also expecting brands to take a stand on certain issues these days. So it's it's really tricky. But if you look at a brand like e. L.
Speaker 2:F, Eyes Lips Face, the makeup brand, they're leaning into diversity. They're leaning into, you know, taking a stand on social issues in a way that's really resonating with their audience, and they're doing exceptionally well. So I think it's just a matter of figuring out how do we actually do this well.
Speaker 1:And we we see brands like Aerie. I don't know if you're familiar with the the women's clothing. We see that have been incredibly successful. And then, you know, if to take Tesla and Elon Musk as a brand, it seems that he made a similar mistake here where, you know, on the one hand, you know, most of his kind of followers of Tesla were on one side of the political, you know, wall, and then he aligned himself politically with the other side creating this conflict. How do we, I mean, Elon Musk is a smart person, like how are we making these mistakes and then what's the kind of, is there a framework that we can think around how to prevent these mistakes and how to be successful if we do wanna put ourselves aligned for a certain issue?
Speaker 2:So I think it's it let's zoom out a little bit. Right? I think part of the challenge is that corporations are so siloed. So if you think about the big companies today, yes, Elon Musk runs Tesla and x and a million other things, and he can do what he wants because the market trusts him to be a genius. I don't think that most businesses run like that, unfortunately, or fortunately, I should say.
Speaker 2:You have a c suite, and the c suite doesn't always talk to each other. Right? So if you think about these new five forces, the chief technology officer isn't necessarily talking to the chief sustainability officer, and they're definitely not talking to the marketing officer about how all of these things intersect. Right? And now companies are coming up with chief diplomacy officers.
Speaker 2:I heard the chief diplomacy officer of Metis speak a few weeks ago. Right? And so everybody's understanding that these forces exist, but they're not necessarily talking to each other about what it means for their business. And I think smart businesses recognize that, okay. Well, there's a potential culture war over here, and there's some geopolitical challenges over there, and, oh, AI is over there, and we have the climate conference next week in Brazil, and, of course, the economy.
Speaker 2:And so I don't think c suites are really taking in the big picture and making sense of where they wanna take a stand. I think sometimes they will take an approach of, well, this looks good from my standpoint, from the marketing or sustainability or communication standpoint. And then the chief AI officer is thinking this is gonna make us more productive. Right? But I think smart businesses really connect the dots across all these different pieces.
Speaker 1:So when we think about this framework, which is really informed by the fact that we're more international, we're more connected, we're communicating more than ever before with social media, it's a new way to kind of do almost a strategic analysis and keep me honest here, but is there more than a framework here? Is there a need to change the business processes where the C suite and maybe even below the C suite are actually working on a day to day basis?
Speaker 2:I think it's more than process. I think it's mindset shifts. And I always talk about a couple which are, you know, how do you become more resilient? How do you become more creative? And how do you kind of learn to sail?
Speaker 2:Those are the three things. Right? Because I think if you're if you're constantly hiding under your covers and waiting for the storm to pass, it's not gonna pass. Right? I think businesses thrive on stability, and the reality is we're just in a really unstable time, and it's not gonna change anytime soon.
Speaker 2:So thinking through what that looks like, it's it's the new normal. Right? And so I think businesses just really need to understand that this is the new normal. And so what can they do in this new normal? They can look at how they can become more resilient.
Speaker 2:They can have a design mindset where they actually look at these as creative constraints. Right? And think through, okay. Well, if the new five forces can take down my business, how can they redefine my business? Right?
Speaker 2:And I think there are so many interesting questions people could ask themselves. But the really big shift is just learning to sail through this storm because markets thrive on being predictable and the world is no longer predictable.
Speaker 1:So what would a what would a process like that look like? Does it need to be led by somebody in the C suite? Is this collaborative work or is this just each of the elements are still in their silos, but kind of thinking of a broader context?
Speaker 2:I think we all have to zoom And, of course, the c suite needs to zoom out, but I also think MBA graduates need to ask the right questions of what does this mean? Why are we learning these frameworks from thirty years ago when they don't necessarily apply? Some of them still apply, of course, and and all of them have really great aspects that we need to learn. But I think to kind of go straight from business school into a top tier consultancy and say, this is the way of doing business, but you're not actually taking into account all of these other factors. I think those are some things that we need to question and really think about.
Speaker 1:So leaning into universities, technology has is changing the world in many ways, specifically AI. It seems like universities are a little bit behind on how to look at the world from a framework perspective, but also about what the future of the world will look like and how they need to prepare graduates, whether it's computer science graduates, MBAs, or or maybe others as well. What do you think the next step is gonna be for universities? Do they need to to rethink their strategies?
Speaker 2:Universities need have needed to rethink their strategies for a while, but I think I'm much more optimistic than I was ten years ago, and here is why. When everybody was talking about these short courses taking over or, you know, online courses, certificates becoming the new normal, we never saw that take off. Of course, people do certificate programs all the time, but there's still something about having that face to face three to four year experience depending on where you are in the world of getting to know people, learning in a classroom, learning from each other. I don't think that's going away anytime soon because that experience, as you know, is very special and very unique. It's something that I don't think we can really replace easily with technology.
Speaker 2:And so I think as universities embrace AI and we're really thinking hard about what does this mean for our students, how do we teach our students with AI and about AI, and how does that impact their output, what do we find acceptable and not acceptable in terms of what they're turning in. You know, I think we're grappling with a lot of those more technical questions. But the bigger picture about university business models, I'm actually much more bullish than I was ten years ago because I think people still really want that traditional experience. There's something really special about learning with other people.
Speaker 1:No. I I think that's very fair. My concern I think is will our kind of big universities and our traditional educational systems, will they catch up with the syllabus of the future? Because my concern is that, and maybe this is short term and it disappeared, but we're seeing computer science graduates that can't find a job because you know, jobs might not exist. So will they catch up fast enough is my question.
Speaker 1:But I agree with you. The model of in person, having somebody you can mentor, you can ask questions, just going completely virtual, that didn't work for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, I think there are industries that will have to go away because AI is, as you mentioned earlier, taking the place of some of these more technical skills. And so I think, actually, universities need to lean into what they do best, which is teach nontechnical skills, teach soft skills, teach critical thinking skills, teach group work, teach empathy. And sometimes universities teach students about that the world is not always how they perceived it initially. Right?
Speaker 2:And so I think there's actually a lot of good in that traditional university model of go somewhere, you meet people who are different from you, you learn things in a way that may be out of your comfort zone. I think these are the skills we'll need in an AI world. It's not necessarily going to be about how do we code in which language because we're seeing, you know, I'm putting together an app through AI, and it's amazing. And there's so many you know, I started my first business twenty something years ago, and it was so hard. And there was no Fiverr.
Speaker 2:There was no Wix. There was no way to get a web, and there were no coworking spaces. You know? It was like me in the corner trying to do something on my own. And and when I founded my second business ten years ago, it you know, there were so many advances.
Speaker 2:And now as I'm doing a lot of my work on my own these days, I'm so grateful that there are AI video editors out there and website builders out there that, you know, it's just it makes things so much easier and so much smoother. And so how great is that? Back to your point on education, you know, we're if we're gonna keep focusing on technical skills, we're constantly gonna be playing catch up. I think it's really about those bigger thinking skills, which universities have always excelled at.
Speaker 1:So you're you're presenting a really interesting contrast between the big organizations, and keep me honest here because I'm, you know, putting a few words into your mouth. The big organizations need to kind of wake up to a certain degree and understand that the world is shifting. But then on the other hand, the mom and pops, the entrepreneurs, the startups, they've been empowered with an incredible amount of tools to move faster, do more with less. And they, by their nature of being smaller, they can move faster and they can be much more agile. Do you predict there's going to be a shift, you know, from large businesses to small businesses?
Speaker 1:Do you see a kind of a flourishing of the mom and pops like we saw in the in the forties and the fifties?
Speaker 2:I think it's going be a different kind of mom and pop, Right? And let's think about how many people are selling on Amazon these days or using Google search. Right? So I think, we're kind of tied to a system where you look at the biggest stocks, and they're empowering this economy one way or another. Right?
Speaker 2:So I think to say that there's going to be a flourishing that kind of counterbalances that might be unfair, but I think there will be a flourishing because we're entering a new era where you don't need the coding skills to create an app. So you can create an app. You don't need the technical skills to hire a lawyer, or you you probably won't in the next five years. Right? So you can create contracts more easily.
Speaker 2:This unlocks a lot of value. And so I'm excited to see what we do with all of this extra time and creativity and untetheredness that we have all of a sudden. I think it's gonna be hugely exciting because people have great ideas. They may not just not have the technical skills to implement on them, that but doesn't mean that they don't have good ideas. And I think there's gonna be a big shift in terms of some interesting businesses that are gonna come out of the woodwork because we didn't need to teach somebody to code for fifteen years to create this really awesome app.
Speaker 2:I'm excited for those kinds of innovations to come through.
Speaker 1:I mean, this has happened across the board. We're talking, we're focusing hyper a little bit about coding, but my daughter, she's 11. She is publishing her first book by the end of this year. And she drew the illustrations herself but they're not high enough quality so she has a Fiverr equivalent where she's doing the illustrations and this lady is in India and she's chatting with her over the platform and she's gonna basically manage you know talent from a different side of the world while she's 11. I mean to me the opportunities here are limitless.
Speaker 1:You know, you couldn't do something before, now you can either find somebody or you can do it yourself with AI. It really opens up a lot. As we're talking about children, my children are a little older than yours, so May, I don't know if you're thinking about this yet, but what do we advise our children to study? I mean, the future is in such flux. Don't know what jobs are gonna exist.
Speaker 1:We don't know what the new jobs are gonna be. How do we even guide our children to their next step in their
Speaker 2:So it's interesting. I went to a liberal arts school, and there was no business major. There was no useful major. So my immigrant parents obviously had no idea what to do with this. They're like, what do you mean you're studying English?
Speaker 2:Can you at least study something a little bit more technical like psychology to counteract this joblessness that you're going to encounter in your life. And, of course, it was a lovely school and, you know, everybody graduated and went into investment banking with their English degrees because they could. You know, it was an interesting microcosm of the world to see actually, if you have the ability to think differently and think clearly, and you also have the network and the ability to get these jobs, I think those people will do fine. The question is more broad. Like, how do we provide access for more people to have these kinds of opportunities?
Speaker 2:Because they
Speaker 1:Wait, wait, hold on. You're doing a really important, but very big shift. So I want to kind of capitalize on what you just said. Keep me honest here. What you're saying is look, true Ari, we don't know what the future needs to be, what's the future's going look like.
Speaker 1:So you need to be agile. You need to be learning. You need to be the best version of yourself to succeed inside of this ambiguity. And it's true with the new technologies, it's actually becoming more and more easier to learn new stuff. What is access about?
Speaker 1:I mean, we have the internet, ChatGPT and friends are giving access in, you know, more than ever before. Are we still concerned about access nowadays?
Speaker 2:I think we're concerned about access in a couple of different ways. So I think if you have a fancy degree, and I know you have one as well, right, it's kind of it's a signal, and so it's less about what you learned and more about that stamp of approval. Of course, you learned a lot and it's super important and you met interesting people along the way, which also helped your learning. But I think there's a stamp of approval for people with certain degrees. And what I'm really curious and and those people are gonna be fine.
Speaker 2:Right? They'll figure it out. And and, you know, they were able to get there for a number of different reasons, many of which are because they're smart and they were able to figure out how to get in. Right? So I think those people will figure it out.
Speaker 2:I'm more interested in there are many people who go to school that have more technical degrees, and I'm really worried about those people because I think they don't have that same stamp of approval from a top school. And so how will they navigate? You know, is it right to navigate them towards a mid tier law degree or a copywriting certificate? There's a blip in the learning plus education plus workforce system that's making it a little harder for them right now. So I guess my question is, what's gonna be the next stamp of approval?
Speaker 2:And so if it's not just education, where else can it come from? If we're taking away some of these barriers for technical skills, how to bring new people into the mix?
Speaker 1:Do we need to find new ways to showcase our reputation? Is like, the people who are coming out of the degree or starting a degree pretty soon right now, what's your advice to them?
Speaker 2:Things have changed dramatically since I've started the work for us at least. I think those are the more human things that we absolutely need need to lean into. Right? It's the group work. It's the connecting with somebody that you disagree with.
Speaker 2:It's having productive conversations. It's moving ideas forward. It's not necessarily picking the first thing on a group project that everybody agrees about because we all know that's the worst idea. Right?
Speaker 1:So I I deeply appreciate that. Noah, I have one final question. It's the only question that is kind of scripted, but it's a difficult question because it's very personal. If you had to go back to the most difficult time of your life, whether it was, you know, two years ago or ten years ago, what advice would you give yourself?
Speaker 2:I think every time I felt really lost and unsure of where I was gonna go next or even, you know, who am I and where am I gonna land. Right? I think we all have these existential moments. I think it really is just about, like, who are the people that are gonna hold me in this space? You know, how do I go to my close family?
Speaker 2:How do I go to my friends? And how do I kind of just retreat in this bubble of love? And so I I think that's something that's I've always carried with me is like, okay. Well, when I do fail, because everybody fails that, you know, maybe me more than most, I don't know. But I think it's, like, where can I go that's a safe space to rebuild?
Speaker 2:And I think we all need to know who those people are in our lives and make sure that we are constantly just around with them for the good and the bad. But I think just really making sure you know who's there and asking for help when you need it.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. I mean, this this concept of building a support network for yourself and nourishing it is, I think is so wonderful and everybody should be thinking about this. Naw, thank you so much for joining the show today. I tremendously appreciate you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Ali.