Are the dogs eating the dog food?

— Chuck Newhall, on product viability

Who better to share insights about the ever-evolving world of venture capital than an insider . . . or two? On April 5, 2023, CHM hosted a virtual fireside chat with Charles “Chuck” W. Newhall III, cofounder of leading venture capital firm NEA, in conversation with Accel cofounder Jim Swartz. 

Chuck Newhall (left) and Jim Swartz (right).

VC History

Founded in the late 1970s, NEA was going up against well-established firms on both coasts in its early days, including Accel. But it had a strong team of cofounders with diverse strengths. Chuck came from a family of investors, Frank Bonsal was an investment banker who knew everyone, and Dick Kramlich was a well-respected tech VC on the West Coast. Chuck viewed venture investing as a calling, and in the mold of JP Morgan in the 1890s, he wanted to set up a partnership that would last 100 years.

NEA cofounders (from left), Chuck Newhall, Dick Kramlich, and Frank Bonsal.

People laughed at that idea, but to Newhall, taking the long view of history is common sense. By studying history, he says, you can avoid mistakes and make better decisions. He’s played a key role in urging venture capitalists to give their materials to CHM to preserve the history of the industry and make it available to all.

Chuck and Jim have been in “co-opetition” for 40 years or so, but they feel that the environment of friendly cooperation and competition they thrived in may be in danger these days.

Bubbles and Busts

Chuck and Jim have weathered five boom and bust cycles in the last forty years. Chuck sees bubbles as signs of fundamental change. From the tulip craze of the 1630s to today’s AI, bubbles signal a shift with critical ramifications. He advises investors to ride the wave early on but to continue to build strong companies that will last when the bubble inevitably collapses.

But venture investors must also have the courage of their convictions. Chuck describes scenarios in which this plays out in his new book Dare to Disturb the Universe. It might take the form of not taking “no” for an answer from a promising founder. Or, in the case of NEA cofounder Dick Kramlich, it might mean investing your own money when your partners want to pull out.

Company Culture

So what has made NEA so successful for so long? Chuck insists that there’s no one way to build a firm. But he believes NEA’s culture has been a key to its success.

Chuck and Jim also believe that one of the core attributes of a long-term venture investor is patience. Don’t cut corners, ethical or otherwise, and build a company step-by-step.

Chuck cautions that venture capital is not the industry to expect to get rich quick. He also urges venture firms to diversify so that when bubbles burst, other investments can save the day. For NEA, the two main industries they invest in—tech and healthcare—are countercyclical. While both Chuck and Jim prefer to bet on the entrepreneur rather than the idea, they are concerned about a troubling tendency among some founders and their boards.

Chuck advises those who want to enter the venture capital industry to be as careful about who they get involved with as who they marry. Your investors, employees, and partners should share your values or their will inevitably be problems, he says. Jim recommends becoming an expert in your particular field of interest.

Chuck and Jim urge aspiring venture investors to seek out smart people and listen and learn from them. The same applies to new entrepreneurs. In Chuck’s colorful phrase, “When you start a company make sure you don’t have cement ears.”

Watch the Full Conversation

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A few years ago, college student Alice* was browsing through products online when Amazon’s “inspired by your browsing history” recommendation system suggested a book called Spinster: Making a Life of One’s Own.

“As if I didn’t already feel bad enough about my dating prospects, the algorithm had to rub it in,” Alice joked. “Not that it’s bad to be single, but I do think the word ‘spinster’ has a sort of negative connotation.”

Alice wasn’t sure what had given Amazon the idea that she was interested in spinsterhood, but it was true that she had never had much luck with dating. To prove one algorithm wrong, she found herself turning to another. “My friends had been telling me to try dating apps for a while. I finally caved.”

Alice is far from alone. A 2019 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 30% of US adults have used a dating app or site, and that percentage nears 50% for people ages 18–29.

“Swiping right” may be a modern phenomenon, but did you know that the first US computer dating service, Operation Match, started in 1965? An IBM 7090 computer matched participants based on their responses to a detailed questionnaire (excerpt above), which included questions about social class, “sexual attitudes,” family income, intelligence, attractiveness and body weight. See the full questionnaire.

Two generations of computer dating services: Shelly and Larry Beaser met through Operation Match in 1966. Their daughter (not pictured) met her significant other through Match.com. Read the 2015 Philadelphia Inquirer article.

Automating Love, What Could Go Wrong?

I created a survey to gather personal feedback about online dating from friends and friends-of-friends. Their thoughts and stories appear throughout this article. I asked survey participants to describe in a few words their experiences with dating apps overall and made the word cloud below to visualize their responses:

It’s clear that many people have found the experience fun—this is good! But terms critical of dating apps vary and, for that reason, don’t appear as prominently. Looking close, you can see words like “frustrating,” “tiring,” and even “futile.”

Particular concerns preoccupied many of the survey respondents, including: harassment and bullying; fake accounts or scams; other users misrepresenting themselves to appear more desirable; and, unwanted messages and attention.

Since these issues stem from bad behavior on the part of users, you might feel tempted to absolve the platforms of responsibility. Maybe it’s reasonable to assume that someone who behaves poorly online would behave just as poorly in a physical space, as one respondent suggests:

Though I agree that neither is inherently better or worse, there are significant differences between these two settings. I’ll discuss some of them below.

Match.com was one of the first and most popular dating sites when it launched in 1995. While the internet has come a long way since then, frustration and bad dates unfortunately seem to be timeless. Today, Match Group is a giant in the online dating space and owns Tinder, Match, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish, among other services.

Filtering Bias

In a bar or any other public place, an algorithm does not filter who we see, or who sees us—rather, we “filter” people through our own preferences and biases. The pool of options is much smaller than on an app, but potentially anyone in the room can see and talk to us.

On an app, filtering begins from the moment we start swiping. We make decisions about who we like or don’t like, but we don’t know how the app will interpret our decisions or who it will recommend based on them. After all, what does it really mean for one user to be “similar” to another? Do they have similar hobbies, jobs, ages, or something else? The following comment indicates that hobbies play a significant role:

This seems fairly harmless and potentially useful. But consider this comment: “If I swipe on one Asian guy, suddenly my feed is full of Asian guys.”

Tinder, for one, says its algorithm does not store information about race or income and is “designed to be open.” But if the app is not filtering by race, how did the above situation occur? The participant below highlights a concerning trend:

The algorithms seem to have been designed with certain assumptions in mind: that the qualities we believe we want in a match are the qualities we actually want; that the people we swipe right on today indicate who we will like tomorrow; that apparent similarities between users reflect significant patterns that will determine whether we will like them. An effect of these assumptions may be a lack of diversity in our potential matches.

To recommend potential matches, Tinder’s algorithm relies on location and prioritizes users who are active at the time. It also takes users’ behavior on the app into account. If I swipe right on several profiles that other users similar to me have swiped right on, the algorithm will recommend more profiles that those other users have liked too.

Tinder points to data showing that the number of interracial marriages in the US has increased since the app was introduced. It’s true that the rate of interracial marriage has consistently increased over the past 50 years, with bumps after Match.com, OkCupid, and Tinder, respectively, became popular.

Source: “The Strength of Absent Ties: Social Integration via Online Dating.”

Of course, the data does not prove that Match, OkCupid, or Tinder caused those increases in interracial marriages. If Tinder has played a part, it may not be because of its algorithm’s “openness” so much as the app’s ability to introduce users to a greater variety of individuals far beyond their social circles.

Consider apps like OkCupid and Hinge that do allow filtering by race. Both companies claim that some minority users find this filter useful for finding other users like themselves, perhaps helping prevent people of color from coming into contact with users who discriminate against them.

But could it also cause certain groups to be marginalized? OkCupid found that Black women and Asian men are least likely to receive messages or responses on the platform. According to a 2014 study, 80% of white dating app users on an undisclosed “major online dating site” exclusively messaged other White users, while only 3% of all messages from White users were sent to Black users.

The opportunity to learn and grow by meeting people who are different from us should be, I think, one of the best benefits of online dating. It is disheartening when the opposite occurs.

Bullying and Harassment

Unfortunately, some users act on their biases in ugly ways. Sometimes the app’s environment generally feels unsafe.

It can take the form of overt racism. As one respondent reported: “I’ve had people be straight up racist towards me (calling me a chink, saying they have yellow fever, etc).” And there can be other kinds of abusive language, such as, “I’ve experienced my fair share of harassment, and dating sites are no different. Being plus-sized, especially speaking with men, people believe that you should be thankful someone even breathed in your direction. And when you don’t jump at the chance… they retaliate with mean words.”

I do wonder if the nature of dating online makes this type of harassment a bit easier. There are no witnesses to these online discussions, and unlike physical places like bars, apps are not subject to laws against discrimination. The harasser can more easily dodge accountability. However, users can perhaps avoid the possibility of physical violence, though not necessarily the threat of violence.

Bumble reveals very little about how its algorithm works, but some suspect it is similar to Tinder’s (despite its special focus on empowerment). We do know that the platform was built with gender equality in mind, as it only allows women to make the first move. A notable feature, “Private Detector,” uses AI to automatically blur nude images received in the app’s chat in case they are unsolicited (1 in 3 women have received a nude image they didn’t ask for, according to a national survey).

What are dating app companies doing to hold harassers accountable on their platforms? Bumble has explicitly banned “unsolicited and derogatory comments… that can be deemed fat-phobic, ableist, racist, colorist, homophobic or transphobic.” Several apps allow you to report users for bad behavior and Tinder, for example, will flag the reported profile for review by moderators. If everything works properly, you will never see the harasser in your feed again.

This won’t necessarily help, though, if you have already exchanged contact information and communicated outside of the app. Some guys I’ve chatted with have been quick to ask for my phone number, often before I feel comfortable sharing it.

The situation becomes even less clear when it comes to in-person meetings. Though the apps often facilitate these meetings, should they be held responsible for what happens during them? It probably isn’t the app’s fault if you don’t hit it off with your date, but what if something much more serious happens?

I received several comments from respondents who were concerned about the risks of connecting with people they didn’t know. Some of these worries stemmed from the possibility of other users misrepresenting themselves online.

The above, unfortunately, may be a best-case scenario for what can happen when users lie. Here are some less desirable outcomes: “One time, this guy said he was 22 but he turned out to be only 18. We were supposed to go to a bar but his fake [ID] got busted by the bouncer and he threw a fit.” And, “When I first started using Bumble I got scammed by two guys that I was supposed to meet but they didn’t call or [FaceTime] or see me because I think they were fake.”

Several respondents expressed concerns about their date turning violent (more than one specifically mentioned a fear of meeting up with a murderer).

To protect themselves, several respondents reported taking measures like meeting in a public place, telling a friend the location of the date, and having a plan for what they would do in an unsafe situation. One respondent suggested that dating apps could help by providing safety guidelines to users. Another said, “There really are very few to no safety guidelines provided on dating apps, which is incredible when you think that this is effectively a service which helps you meet strangers off the Internet! Basic advice… would—if nothing else—be a useful prompt to first time users and even a reminder to those who’ve been on the platform a little longer.”

This solution would likely help, but I wonder if even more could be done. Might dating apps be able to predict abusive behavior by detecting key words in user profiles or chats, or suspicious matching/unmatching habits? Could something be done to prevent abusive users from joining in the first place, like adding additional verification steps? It would be great to see dating apps use their algorithmic power to fight harassment wherever possible.

There is no swiping on Hinge, and rather than simply liking a profile as a whole, the app forces you to like something specific about it, either a photo or a prompt response. Hinge also has a feature called “Most Compatible,” which uses cumulative data and machine learning to recommend compatible matches to the user. The feature works by finding patterns between the people that users have liked or rejected, then comparing them to other users’ patterns. If you think this sounds similar to Tinder’s algorithm, you may be onto something.

Only Connect?

There is far less stigma attached to online dating today than in the internet’s early days, when its users made up a small percentage of the population. Most of my friends in the Gen Z/Millennial age groups use dating apps, and actually meeting someone you want to date (and who wants to date you) in a physical space seems remarkable.

Still, if you have shared your online dating experiences with someone who has not dated online, you may have heard something like, “I’m so sorry you have to go through that!” or “What if your date turns out to be an ax-murderer?” And there are those who don’t believe a relationship formed online can be as meaningful as one formed through conventional means.

For the record, “meet cutes” are not always so cute, as evidenced by this uncomfortable scenario:

Yet there is concern even amongst dating app users that dating apps are not facilitating meaningful connections. One said: “I do feel sometimes that it’s become so gamified that we’re losing sight of the fact there’s a person at the other end of all this. It can make you feel a bit expendable at times—like someone better than you is just one swipe away—and I wonder if that affects how much effort people are prepared to put into their matches given it’s so easy to log back on and keep looking rather than stick it out.”

One factor may be the sheer volume of options on dating apps. There is scientific evidence that our brains are not built to choose between hundreds or thousands of alternatives. We can get overwhelmed or, worse, plagued by a nagging sense that there might be someone just a bit better out there.

As it turns out though, swiping more doesn’t necessarily ensure better matches. The apps do “learn” from your behavior to an extent, but at a certain point, you will run through your “best” options and begin to see less compatible profiles. Essentially, the closer you get to the end of the dating pool, the less tailored your options become, and the guy you turned down 1,000 profiles ago starts looking pretty good compared to the bot trying to sell you Bitcoin. (If you do want that first guy back, you’re in luck! Tinder, Bumble and OkCupid have all recycled profiles that users rejected in the past.)

The Gale-Shapley algorithm was developed in 1962 as a solution to the “stable marriage problem.” The idea is that stable matches (meaning that there is no other possible pairing that both participants would prefer to the one they are in) can be made between equal numbers of two types of participants—in the above case, men and women. Today, Hinge supposedly uses an updated version of this algorithm that can make same-sex pairings and does not have the explicit end goal of marriage. That said, note that in the above example, because the men are “proposing” to the women, the matches will be better for all men than for the women. Making the first move can be empowering!

Is online messaging a less substantive form of communication than in-person interaction? Gaps between responses could make it more sporadic, and it might be easier to ignore a text message than something you hear face-to-face. It would also be easy to message several people at the same time, dividing your attention rather than focusing on one person. Consider this possibility, too:

It’s hard to predict how virtual and in-person conversations might differ, and whether any awkwardness results from nerves or true incompatibility. I personally feel more comfortable connecting with someone I don’t know well yet through writing rather than speech and, for this reason, online communication has been invaluable in helping me form and maintain meaningful relationships. Everyone is different, of course, and the reverse of my situation is true for many people. One said, “The constant need to keep on checking the app for matches is a little tiring. It is difficult for someone who prefers to talk rather than messaging.”

One way to mitigate several of the issues raised in this article—the fear that someone is not who they say they are, the potential danger of meeting in person, the difficulty of connecting through an app alone—may be a video chat. Safer than an in-person meeting but a closer approximation of one than messaging alone, a video conversation can help us safely gauge compatibility and determine if we want to meet in person. As for catfishers, they are unlikely to agree to a video chat, and if they do, they are unlikely to show up (if they do, their con is essentially over).

“But Emily,” you say, “I am so tired of video chats! All I do anymore is video chat!” This is certainly understandable in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. I still recommend it, though, as a safer, more affordable and less time-consuming way to meet a stranger for the first time.

Happily Ever After?

You may be wondering how things are going for Alice, the college student I mentioned at the beginning of this article.

“I’ve been on a few dates,” she says. “It can be frustrating and feel like a lot of trial and error, but I’ve met interesting people. Even when we don’t end up being compatible, at least it helps me figure out what I do want in a relationship.”

I asked her if the issues raised in this article made her think about dating apps differently. She said, “I thought that bad behavior on dating apps was just sort of inevitable, but it’s really interesting to think about how technology could enable it, or prevent it.” Here’s hoping that dating tech will focus increasingly on the latter.

*Name has been changed.

Methodology

In addition to drawing on national surveys, academic studies, and news articles, I created a survey to collect more personal feedback on the topic from friends and friends-of-friends. Their thoughts and stories make up the quotes sprinkled throughout this article. Though the group is by no means a representative sample of the US population, respondents touched on a variety of issues that I think are relevant to many people.

Selected Resources

CHM Collection

Operation Match materials: https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102797880
Operation Match booklet: https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102797881

Research Studies

The Strength of Absent Ties: Social Integration via Online Dating: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.10478.pdf
Debiasing Desire: Addressing Bias & Discrimination on Intimate Platforms: http://www.karen-levy.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Debiasing_Desire_published.pdf
The Virtues and Downsides of Online Dating: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/02/06/the-virtues-and-downsides-of-online-dating/

History

Operation Match: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1965/11/3/operation-match-pif-you-stop-to/
The Creator of the First Online Dating Site Is Still Dating Online: https://www.vice.com/en/article/nz7e87/the-creator-of-the-first-online-dating-site-is-still-dating-online
Recruiting Women to Online Dating Was a Challenge: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/04/how-matchcom-digitized-dating/586603

Check out more CHM resources and learn about upcoming decoding trust and tech events and online materials. Next up on February 18, 2021: Should We Fear AI? 

Want to share your experiences and thoughts about dating apps? Keep an eye out for our upcoming polls on Facebook and Twitter. 

The post Making Your Match appeared first on CHM.

In June 2019, four college students from universities on opposite coasts and studying fields as diverse as global studies and computer science arrived at CHM. They had worked in a museum, a startup, a security and privacy lab, and a rowing club. They knew languages ranging from French to Spanish to Korean to Python. They all shared a passion for entrepreneurship and innovation. 

Left to right: Felipe Silveira, a global studies major at UC Santa Barbara; Nicole Gates, a computer science major at Wellesley College; Allison Ransom, a global liberal studies major at New York University; Sungmin Park, a recent cognitive science graduate from UC Davis.

Here are some highlights of their work this year.

One Word “Takes Over” at Teen Community Event

On their first day, the interns hit the ground running, working to prepare an activity for CHM’s Teen Takeover, an annual after-hours event where teens explore how technology helps define the past, present, and future of society. Exponential would add an entrepreneurial spin by developing activities for teens that distilled lessons from its One Word initiative. The goal: to empower teens to see themselves as future entrepreneurs.

In addition to creating two “mythbusters” posters, interns created three activities to spark teens’ interest in entrepreneurship: a “wordle” or word cloud that updated in real time; a timed business pitch challenge; and a “One Word” word scramble game. The activities were designed to be fun and interactive, garnering roughly 300 instances of engagement, to make entrepreneurial topics accessible to the event’s nearly 500 attendees.  

The experience was a rewarding one for participants and for the interns, whose roles as facilitators required a quick transformation from CHM novices into entrepreneurial experts. Planning and facilitating these activities, all during their first week, fostered confidence and a strong team dynamic that would carry through their projects for the rest of the summer. Most importantly, the event became one of their favorite summer memories.

The intern team facilitates three One -Word–based activities.

Two “mythbusters” posters created by our interns, displayed at Teen Takeover. These posters convey common exclusionary myths about entrepreneurship—“entrepreneurs are loner-geniuses and extroverts” and “entrepreneurs can only fall under certain demographics”—alongside words of advice from individuals whose success has defied those myths.

Sungmin explains the One Word “wordle”: participants enter their One Word of advice to entrepreneurs on an iPad. The computer monitor updates in real time to display the words they entered. Words repeated by multiple participants appeared larger on the screen.

Left: A business pitch challenge in which participants select a fantastical invention and come up with a pitch to convince the “venture capitalists” (our intern team) to invest in the product. Right: A word game in which participants are given scrambled Scrabble tiles and must rearrange them to decipher a word of advice.

After Teen Takeover, our interns focused on researching, becoming experts on company founders and builders in Silicon Valley and beyond. Their findings helped set the stage for a broad array of Exponential offerings, from oral histories to events to exhibits.

Hitting the Books (but not the artifacts!)

Felipe and Sungmin set to work researching future subjects of oral histories to help prepare the interviewer, Exponential Center’s executive director, Marguerite Gong Hancock. But this process would involve much more than writing interview questions.

Felipe chose to prepare background materials on Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur and educator who has changed the way many think about and operate startups. Felipe drew on a variety of sources, from past interviews to Steve’s own blog. He also had the unique opportunity to study artifacts from Steve’s past, including newspaper articles, magazine ads, and business documents. The artifacts added a tangible element to an otherwise digital research project, helping bring Steve Blank’s history to life for Felipe. 

The first page of Felipe’s research guide on Steve Blank, which features 16 subsections. Each covers a significant chapter of Steve’s life, including detailed written accounts and potential interview questions arising from those accounts.

Using these sources, Felipe traced and articulated the arc of Steve’s illustrious career in a 79-page written account. This in turn helped him to develop thought-provoking questions for Steve’s oral history. On the day of the interview, Felipe had the opportunity to meet the individual he had learned so much about. He described the experience as “surreal.”

Meanwhile, Sungmin studied the founders of Intuit: Scott Cook, Tom Proulx, and Eric Dunn. Researching three individuals at the same time was a unique challenge, but it allowed Sungmin to integrate all their perspectives on the founding and building of Intuit.

Sungmin ultimately produced 80 pages worth of research guides and accompanying questions (Nicole assisted in researching Eric Dunn). Though he could not meet the founders before their interviews, he did see them in person at the CHM Live event The Intuit Story, a rare conversation between Scott, Tom and Eric that also drew on Sungmin’s research. Afterward, Sungmin collaborated with Felipe to write a blog article featuring highlights from the panel discussion, now featured on CHM’s new website. Read “Making Change: 36 Years of Innovation at Intuit.” 

Double “Park”ing: Two Ways to Explore Stanford Research Park

Like Felipe and Sungmin, Allison and Nicole were lucky enough to see their research subject in person. But theirs was a little harder to shake hands with. Nicole and Allison spent much of their summer investigating Stanford Research Park (SRP), which has been home to foundational Silicon Valley companies like Hewlett-Packard and Fairchild Semiconductor as well as more recent world-changers like Facebook and Tesla.

On a blazing July day, Allison and Nicole brought their fellow interns on a field trip to several notable addresses on the campus. Though they had read about its ever-evolving nature, they were surprised to find the landscape of companies fundamentally different than it had been even months before, as represented in the 2019 SRP directory.

Together, Allison and Nicole compiled a rolodex of significant figures in SRP’s history; a “core dig” listing the occupant of each SRP address in 1970, 2014, and 2019, respectively; in-depth research into Varian, SRP’s first tenant; a summary on all their findings; and a bibliography of informational sources on the figures and companies of SRP. Allison and Nicole’s work served as early research and development for a project that will depend on their contributions to take shape. 

An excerpt from the Core Dig, showing SRP’s growth and change over time.

Oral Histories: Four Ways

What is research without (content) development? Drawing on their ever-increasing knowledge of entrepreneurship and innovation in Silicon Valley, interns helped develop a variety of new educational materials and media formats using CHM’s oral history collection.

CHM has roughly 1,000 oral history interviews in its collection. With most interviews consisting of one to three hours of video footage and 20-50 pages of typed transcripts, that’s a lot of material! Our interns created four different digital content prototypes that draw key insights from CHM’s oral histories and aim to make them more accessible through shorter, dynamic formats.

1. Kinetic Typography 

Nicole chose to try kinetic typography, an animation technique that mixes motion and text to express ideas using video animation. As content for her kinetic typography video, Nicole took a short excerpt from Ann Winblad’s oral history interview, a story about Ann’s first entrepreneurial endeavor at age 8: selling Barbie clothes to the neighborhood kids for $1 apiece. The result was a video in which text and images play in time with Ann Winblad’s narration. This type of content is accessible to any age group, but may be especially appealing to a younger audience that is accustomed to consuming much of its content through image-rich videos. 

Nicole believes kinetic typography helped to tell Ann’s story in a unique way. But since the process required a several-day time investment, she warns that it could be difficult to repeat on a large scale. 

Cover image from Nicole’s kinetic typography video. Nicole animated every word of an excerpt from Ann Winblad’s oral history, changing the size or positioning of some words and replacing others with images (for example, an image of a house in place of the word “house”) to emphasize key ideas.

Watch Nicole’s kinetic typography video.

2. Video Essay

Rather than replicating oral history transcripts word-for-word, Sungmin hoped to articulate the themes he had identified while researching the Intuit founders. This drew him to the video essay format. With origins in academia, video essays have become popular for both educational and entertainment purposes.

Screenshots from Sungmin’s prototype video essay on the Intuit story. Sungmin’s video essay synthesizes his background research into a condensed visual telling of the Intuit story and the importance of disruption to the survival of a company over time. He drew on images from CHM’s digital archive.

Sungmin hopes that widely accessible content like his video essay can pique viewers’ interests and lead them to check out the full oral history and even related content, such as event footage.

3. Infographic

To complement her counterparts’ video content, Allison worked on a text and image format designed to be consumable almost anytime, anywhere, by anyone: an infographic. Allison’s infographic draws on highlights from YouTube cofounder Steve Chen’s oral history. The information is enhanced by photos, graphics, and a video of YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, which is an example of how infographics can serve as an entry point to other CHM content.

Allison’s infographic on Steve Chen, which presents information in several different formats: short paragraphs on Steve’s early life and the origins of YouTube, a list of Exponential’s signature “five numbers” about Steve, direct quotes from the oral history that point to YouTube’s three guiding themes, and a “Did you know?” piece of trivia.

Allison points out that the template she created for Steve Chen can be used for any other interviewee in our collection, making the project scalable and visually consistent. Allison believes infographics can easily be embedded into the CHM website and are easier to view than videos in the absence of high-speed internet.

4. Glideshow/Photo Journal

Felipe explored a format that could provide an in-depth and visually compelling look at oral history content: a “glideshow,” or photo journal. Viewers “glide” through a slideshow of seamlessly integrated text boxes and photos. Felipe’s photo journal draws on his earlier research of Steve Blank and includes Steve’s early life, his first entrepreneurial endeavors, and his involvement with marketing and the personal computer. This glideshow condenses content from Steve’s 44-page transcript into roughly 6 pages of text, with the added richness of images.

Screenshots from Felipe’s glideshow about Steve Blank, which includes quotes from Steve’s oral history, Felipe’s summaries of key points, and corresponding photos; the section about Steve’s early work at ESL features his ID card from 1980, on which he sports the styles of the time.

These prototypes were presented at an all-staff showcase and opened everyone’s minds at CHM to new content possibilities and ways of thinking.

CHM FANS (Felipe Allison Nicole Sungmin)

Our interns have returned to their lives outside CHM with knowledge about the entrepreneur’s journey and ecosystem, experience in finding and synthesizing pertinent information, and the satisfaction of having made a positive contribution to projects and initiatives at CHM. We believe their part in CHM’s transformation will help shape opportunities for us to inspire and be inspired by young people, to enliven and diversify our portfolio of offerings, and to convene and reach new members of our community.    

I speak for the Exponential team when I say it was a pleasure to have such talented, hardworking and kind individuals as part of our team this summer. But it has been a unique honor for me, a former Exponential intern, to work so closely with this year’s class and to continue to play a part in the program.

If you’re interested in becoming an Exponential Center intern or have questions about the program, contact Exponential Center Education.

The post Exploration and Creation: Highlights from the 2019 Class of Exponential Center Interns appeared first on CHM.

Intuit’s Eric Dunn, Tom Proulx, and Scott Cook speak with venture capitalist Peter Wendell (far left) at CHM on July 29, 2019.

How does a tech company founded in the era of floppy disks and hand-packaged software not only survive but thrive as the market leader for 36 years? On July 29, cofounders Scott Cook and Tom Proulx and early CFO Eric Dunn, now CEO of Quicken, reunited at CHM to share insights into the principles and key decisions that keep Intuit at the leading edge of innovation.

Intuit is a financial software company with a current market cap of over $66 billion, 50 million customers around the globe, and over 8,000 employees who vote it among the top 100 places to work. Its personal and business accounting products Quicken (now a spinoff), QuickBooks, Mint, and TurboTax have become the market standard. Moderated by venture capitalist Peter Wendell of Sierra Ventures, the discussion explored the company’s early days and the challenges faced by the entrepreneurs while scaling up. 

A quintessential Silicon Valley story, Intuit began much like any other startup. A handful of ambitious individuals set up camp in an unfurnished basement in 1983 with the whole world against them. They faced ambiguity, self-doubt, outright rejection, bankruptcy, and angry customers yet ended up as leaders of a revolution in financial software that continues to this day. But even after massive success and growth, Intuit doesn’t aim to be just an established, monolithic corporation. Instead, it reinvents itself constantly, embracing uncertainty and questioning its own dominance. This proactive spirit helped Intuit transition successfully to the internet age, when many other companies, content with their progress, were wiped out. 

Speed Boats vs. Ocean Liners

Cofounder Scott Cook is famous for his ability to understand customer behavior. Before deciding to pursue his idea for a company, he picked up a phone book and asked his Palo Alto neighbors about their bookkeeping issues. He used a stopwatch to meticulously measure people’s speeds when using software and based his judgments on the struggles of his customers. When every venture capitalist he contacted turned him down, Scott remained steadfast in his belief that this user research and data spelled out success for his vision. While investors lacked faith, Scott and Tom, a programmer just out of Stanford, chose to believe in the consumer testing that revealed their product was superior to every other alternative. During a time when “consumer software” was notoriously difficult for consumers to navigate, with an overwhelming number of options, Scott was a pioneer in imagining software so easy and fast that people could not imagine going back to the old way of doing things.

Faith in the product didn’t pay the bills, however. Without investment from venture capital, they had to rely on savings and money from Scott’s parents. When that ran out, they returned the rented furniture, used discarded stationery, and did what they could to survive. Scott later found the checkbook from that year and noted that it had no transactions.

Listening In

Despite the company’s travails, Eric Dunn was taken with the vision and the team and joined as chief financial officer, rolling up his sleeves to code along with Tom. Years later, he also served as CEO. When asked to pick one word of advice to give to aspiring entrepreneurs, Eric chose “Listen.”

Externally, listening to customers is one of the best ways to gather relevant information and data that can send your business in the right direction. Eric explains how this mantra drove Intuit’s product development, as rigorous user testing allowed the company to develop a personal relationship with their clients and gauge product satisfaction.

Internally, Eric believes that listening is important for the people that tend to do most of the talking. While leaders are often natural performers, listening creates a platform of open dialogue throughout the entire company. By acknowledging what your coworkers and employees have to say, anticipating problems becomes easier and goals become clearer. CEO Brad Smith put a notice outside his office advertising his open door policy, modeling Intuit’s culture of listening.

Innovating Culture

Often when a company grows large and successful, it loses its ability to innovate. Strict adherence to established ways can hinder creativity and risk-taking in an organization. Intuit challenges this fate by consciously encouraging rapid experimentation and design-centric thinking that seeks to solve real issues, not just appease executives. Scott and Tom and Eric emphasize company culture as a key factor in its longevity and success.

So, how exactly does a tech company thrive at the top of the market for 36 years? It starts with the leaders. From the beginning, Scott, Tom, and Eric built the scaffolding to support an environment of self-improvement and experimentation. Each member brought different, indispensable strengths to the company. Scott critiqued himself to the point of voluntarily relinquishing his post as CEO for the betterment of the company. Tom, as a programmer and cofounder, was relentless and persistent in meeting his goals. Eric realized the true value of his team after they handled his mistakes with understanding and compassion. Scott’s closing words of advice seemed to resonate strongly with the CHM audience:

Watch the Full Conversation

About the Exponential Center

The Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum captures the legacy—and advances the future—of entrepreneurship and innovation in Silicon Valley and around the world. The center explores the people, companies, and communities that are transforming the human experience through technology innovation, economic value creation, and social impact. Our mission: to inform, influence, and inspire the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders changing the world.

Meet the Authors

2019 Exponential Center university interns Sungmin Park and Felipe Silveira contributed to essential research and programming efforts at CHM during their 10-week summer internship. Sungmin recently graduated from University of California, Davis with a degree in cognitive science and Felipe continues his undergraduate work in global studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The post Making Change: 36 Years of Innovation at Intuit appeared first on CHM.

Before Margaret O’Mara became a professor of history at Stanford and the University of Washington, she worked on economic policy in the Clinton White House, where Tom Kalil led tech initiatives in the early days of the commercial internet. John Markoff, writing for the New York Times, was one of the first journalists to cover tech. During a live event at CHM on July 17, 2019, the three discussed Silicon Valley’s long relationship with the federal government, which could be termed “it’s complicated,” in the context of O’Mara’s new book, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America. 

An Entrepreneurial Galapagos

O’Mara describes post-WWII Silicon Valley as an “entrepreneurial Galapagos,” a region developing in some isolation on the West Coast with very distinctive species of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, law firms, marketing firms, and research universities—Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley. What created the life spark for this ecosystem that has been a hotbed of innovation for generations? Her answer: government funding for the Cold War and the space race. It provided a platform for entrepreneurial startups to compete for lucrative contracts that unwittingly established a vibrant model for future innovation.

The government, Tom Kalil notes, not only incubated research in its various federal agencies and labs, but also served as a stable and deep-pocketed customer for integrated circuits in the early years of the industry when chip technology was new. Though that support was critical, private companies still had to figure out how to transform innovations into effective products and efficient companies and invest their own resources to do so.

SV + DC = Success

The federal government also fostered the success of Silicon Valley through policies favorable to the growth and development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In 1965, the Immigration and Naturalization Act ended racist quotas from the 1920s, opening up the Valley to a global workforce that proved to have an outsize share of future entrepreneurs. Laws that did away with restrictions on investing and capital gains taxes in the 1970s made capital available to startups through new high-risk, high-rewards venture capital firms. 

The relationship between the Valley and Washington, DC, wasn’t one-sided. Local business leaders like HP cofounder David Packard served in Republican administrations and Intel cofounder Robert Noyce headed up the Semiconductor Industry Association, a bipartisan lobby group that touted the economic and national security benefits of the microchip. But, when Silicon Valley executives were unhappy with the attention—or lack of it—coming from Washington, they weren’t shy about courting the other party or being “aggressively bipartisan,” in the words of Tom Kalil. He describes a comment attributed to a George H. W. Bush economic official: “Computer chips, potato chips, what’s the difference?” that incensed Republican chip-makers. Starting with the Atari Democrats and then Bill Clinton, Democratic politicians began to take serious notice of what was going on in the Valley. Although those relationships shifted and changed over time, along with the political parties themselves, DC and Silicon Valley remained intertwined.

Darksides and Blindspots

A tightly networked community with links between companies through mentors, employees, and funders fostered the multigenerational success of ecosystem. But the growth mentality and massive amounts of money involved is now so large and has such powerful effects that it creates a bubble. O’Mara notes “It’s a work hard, play hard place” that’s extremely competitive, with everyone working and socializing together all the time, and it has been historically inhospitable for women. The case of Ann Hardy, who wrote the timesharing code for iconic company Tymshare, for example, illustrates how the idea that Silicon Valley is a meritocracy blinds it to the fact that opportunity is not equal. As a woman in the ’50s, Hardy was not even permitted to major in science in college.

A Bridge to the Galapagos

Government can be a key factor in ensuring that the economic success of Silicon Valley can endure and be a positive force for the nation. Both O’Mara and Kalil emphasized the importance of government investing in education at all levels. From the ’50s–70s and even the  ’80s, when such investments were the norm, kids from modest means grew up to make significant contributions to the economic miracle of Silicon Valley. Kalil urged Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs and workers, no matter what their politics, to stay connected to Washington and understand the Valley’s long history of defense contracting as, literally, a matter of national security. 

China intends to dominate tech and the Valley must respond, says Kalil. Unlike Japan in the ’70s, they are not an ally and there are real differences in national security interests. Keeping Silicon Valley and America healthy means that we must preserve the free movement of people and capital. Kalil warns that the world will look very different if Chinese tech companies gain the ascendance. This may be the next Cold War. Will it spark a boom of new tech in the Valley like that of the first? Or, will it lead to division and acrimony that puts employees at odds with employers?

History might have an answer. As O’Mara says, “History makes you empathize, or at least understand why people are doing what they’re doing. And then if you understand that motivation, and you understand how we got there, then you figure out how to unwind something.” Her biography of a place whose products and power has an outsize impact on modern life, can perhaps help us unwind our own tech blindspots and create a better future.

Watch the Full Conversation

About the Exponential Center

The CHM Exponential Center captures the legacy—and advances the future—of entrepreneurship and innovation in Silicon Valley and around the world. The center explores the people, companies, and communities that are transforming the human experience through technology innovation, economic value creation, and social impact. Our mission: to inform, influence, and inspire the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders changing the world.

The post The Valley and the “Swamp”: Big Government in the History of Silicon Valley appeared first on CHM.

Author Julian Guthrie in conversation with Alpha Girls Laurie Yoler, Sonja Hoel Perkins, and honorary Alpha Girl Abe Kleinfeld.

Thirty years ago, no one thought we’d still be talking about discrimination, gender bias, and sexual harassment in 2019. Unfortunately, we are. Changing cultural norms takes time.

What can women who thrive in the competitive, male-dominated world of Silicon Valley venture capital teach us in the meantime? Plenty. That became clear in recent back-to-back events sponsored by the Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum. The first panel featured “one word” of advice from women leaders while the other centered around the new book Alpha Girls: The Women Upstarts Who Took On Silicon Valley’s Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime.

One Word Makes a Difference

Through “one word” of advice, trailblazing Silicon Valley venture capitalists and entrepreneurs Karen Boezi, Joanna Drake, and Laurie Yoler shared personal stories and hard-won lessons learned. They are all involved with Broadway Angels, an early-stage, private group of investors who all happen to be women.

Laurie Yoler’s one word of career advice: “Inquire.” Learning to ask the right questions, she says, has been critical to her success, exposing her to a wide-variety of topics and diverse people. This inquiring mindset and broad perspective is necessary for someone who invests in startups and serves on many boards. Laurie also advocates inquiring to know when and how to ask strategic questions that can guide business decisions.

“Raise” encapsulates executive and investor Joanna Drake’s belief that every woman entrepreneur must know how to fundraise to succeed. Her own awakening came when she realized how few women were involved in creating products and companies that impact daily life. Male-dominated venture firms rarely fund women founders. So, Drake herself became a VC committed to helping women entrepreneurs.

“Believe,” says executive and investor Karen Boezi, who cofounded the new San Francisco Girls’ School. Attending an all-girls high school herself, Boezi gained the confidence to check references on her first boss to ensure that he was an advocate for women. Throughout her career, she chose male executives and partners who believed in her, providing her with challenges and opportunities to grow and succeed. Everyone, she says, should believe they have a seat at the table. There’s a good business reason to do so: diversity leads to profits.

How do these women handle gender biased behavior? “With humor,” they say, because you need to be invited back in the room. Call out bad behavior, but not harshly, and recognize your own biases to ensure you have empathy for others. Humor, self-awareness, empathy—these “soft” skills are often labeled as female. Playing to these strengths while also “playing the game” turns out to be the key to success in venture capital… or any career.

Watch “Alpha Girls and One Word Stories”

Alpha Girls, Valley Women

Laurie Yoler moderated the second panel, which featured investor Sonja Hoel Perkins, executive Abe Kleinfeld, and author Julian Guthrie. Her new book, Alpha Girls: The Women Upstarts Who Took on Silicon Valley’s Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime, follows the lives and careers of four women venture capitalists, an industry only 6 percent female. Despite their differences, the women employed similar strategies for becoming insiders (including using humor to defuse tension), and their stories have largely not been told. Laurie shares her own untold story of the early days at Tesla, long before anyone had heard of Elon Musk.

“We Win, Not Whine”

Sonja Hoel Perkins has a collection of insightful sayings as well as “tricks” for getting along with male CEOs. One of those CEOs, honorary Alpha Girl Abe Kleinfeld, represented men who, like him, “didn’t really notice that Sonja was a woman,” focusing instead on her talents and appreciating the clear expectations she set for him, a rarity in Abe’s experience. Sonja explains her common-sense formula for advising CEOs and evaluating businesses and the gender differences that emerge when a company must be sold or shut down.

One would think that a humane, ego-free, female-oriented approach to helping employees find jobs and serving customers when a company folds clearly demonstrates how women in business can contribute to a healthier economy and society. So why aren’t there more? Abe Kleinfeld describes how culture change can begin by hiring that first woman.

Not only can a company’s culture change when a woman is hired, but when a woman like Sonja is on the board, the company’s potential might be more effectively evaluated as well. Unlike male VCs, Sonja checks to ask a CEO how s/he feels after a difficult board meeting. It’s not just because she cares. The answer can tell her if the CEO is too dispirited to make necessary changes. Selling a company when it still has value just before it’s headed downhill is just plain smart business.

From Navigating To Trailblazing

Men who let their egos get in the way by conflating their own success with risky startups are demonstrating what Julian Guthrie’s research shows is a male formula for success. Alpha Girls succeed in a very different way, one based on incremental advancement that can be a useful model for other women in male-dominated industries. They’ve played the game strategically and now they’ve acquired enough credibility and success to try to change it from the inside—they’re the Trojan horses in the industry.

The stories of these Alpha Girls introduce new role models for girls and new models for career success. The panelists’ “one words” of advice are powerful and inspiring messages for women and men who strive to create win-win cultures in business and in life. They are: Connection, Forward, and . . . Love.

Watch “Alpha Girls: The Women Upstarts Who Took On Silicon Valley”

About the Exponential Center

The Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum captures the legacy—and advances the future—of entrepreneurship and innovation in Silicon Valley and around the world. The center explores the people, companies, and communities that are transforming the human experience through technology innovation, economic value creation, and social impact. Our mission: to inform, influence, and inspire the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders changing the world.

The post Play Like a Girl: How Women Investors Succeed in Silicon Valley appeared first on CHM.

West Virginia students and instructors explore lessons from Silicon Valley with the Exponential Center @CHM and Intuit sponsors—Executive Chairman Brad Smith, Corporate Responsibility VP & CHM Trustee Eileen Fagan, VP of Education Dave Zasada, and Economic Development Consultant Murphy Poindexter.

“Passion” was the first word of advice from Silicon Valley presented to West Virginia student entrepreneurs and their faculty advisors. Chosen by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak, the word exemplifies what motivated him to transform his hobby—building personal computers—into the world’s most valuable company.

Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak shares his word of advice.

People with passion for an idea live everywhere and every place has unique local conditions that can help (or hinder) entrepreneurs who want to turn passions and ideas into startup companies. Key to success is understanding one’s own strengths and weaknesses, best practices for building a business, and what kind of ecosystem it takes to foster success. Over two days at the Computer History Museum, students and faculty were guided through activities that provided them with insights into what has made Silicon Valley a magnet for innovation for decades and how they could apply insights to their own future careers as entrepreneurs in West Virginia and beyond.

Participants in the Exponential Center’s Silicon Valley workshop activities were winners and advisors from the first state-wide West Virginia Innovation and Business Model Competition and hailed from Glenville State College, Marshall University, West Virginia Wesleyan College, and the University of Charleston. From digestible drinking straws to medical telemetry data collection and from mobile laundry services to a medical debt lottery system, students had already been experiencing the ups, downs, and pivots of developing a business idea. Their trip west was sponsored by Intuit, whose executive chairman, Brad Smith, is a West Virginian and proud graduate of Marshall University. Faculty advisors shared insights about the West Virginia startup ecosystem and plan to incorporate ideas from the workshop in future coursework.

Students hunt for answers in the Silicon Valley Entrepreneurial Ecosystem scavenger hunt.

Entrepreneurial DNA

Context is critical for deep learning. A guided tour of the Museum’s signature Revolution exhibit grounded students in history by exploring key people, innovations, and technology companies that have changed the world. From the humble roots of IBM in a census tabulating machine to the hubris of executives who dismissed the personal computer as a toy, students learned that business is all about making choices. And innovation is driven by people trying to solve problems, just as they are attempting to do with their own startup ideas.

A scavenger hunt through the exhibit allowed teams of students to explore what it is about the Silicon Valley ecosystem that helps entrepreneurs to thrive, including a culture that values information sharing and encourages employees to spinoff new companies, a skilled talent pool, and established companies, universities, research centers and professional services committed to entrepreneurship. Innovations fostered in the open atmosphere of Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) and the Homebrew Computer Club contributed features and functions to personal computers and later handheld devices like Palm and the iPhone. An early Google server rack tells the story of how the internet spawned new ways to make money and the dot.com bust serves as a cautionary reminder that even online business models must be solid for a company to succeed, even one online.

Students analyze business plans for Apple and Intel in the CHM’s Learning Lab.

Advice and Lessons From Experience

With the successes, failures, and reinvention of Silicon Valley companies fresh in their minds, students were eager to hear what one word of advice veteran founders and builders had to share with aspiring entrepreneurs—a word that represented a key attribute, personal mantra, or lesson learned. Exercises were designed to help students explore the stories of the people and companies behind the words of advice, to think about how that advice could be applied in the real-world of startups, and to examine their own strengths (and weaknesses) as they consider how to build teams to turn their dreams into reality.

Thinking critically and strategically about practical advice, students then turned their attention to an analysis and comparison of business plans from the Museum’s archives. The three paragraph 1968 plan for Intel, a fully-fleshed out nearly 100 page 1977 document from Apple (authored by a seasoned advisor, not the young cofounders), and LinkedIn’s 2004 plan in the form of a slidedeck provided plenty of opportunities for identifying what was present and what was missing in each. Video clips of oral histories from the collection added personal perspectives from some of the founders and funders.

Intuit Executive Chairman Brad Smith and Intuit VP & CHM Trustee Eileen Fagan share advice and wisdom.

Going, Coming, and Giving Back

There’s nothing like meeting a role model face-to-face, and Brad Smith, Executive Chairman of Intuit, exemplifies the spirit of entrepreneurship and giving back to his community. He candidly shared personal stories and career advice in an informal chat with Intuit VP and CHM trustee Eileen Fagan, describing his trajectory as “the first twenty years trying to get away from West Virginia and the last twenty years trying to get back.” Asked to distill his years of experience into one word of advice for new entrepreneurs he chose “Impact.” What does he mean by that? Smith says: “Dream big. If you want to have a big business solve a big problem, if you want to have a little business solve a little problem. So that translates for me into the one word I have which is impact.” Smith also commented on the importance of “having a why”—a cause bigger than yourself. For him, that cause is to foster connections between Silicon Valley and the lessons it has to teach and the tough, persistent, and passionate innovators in West Virginia. It was an inspiring and powerful call to action. This workshop was an answer to that call.

About the Exponential Center

The Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum captures the legacy—and advances the future—of entrepreneurship and innovation in Silicon Valley and around the world. The center explores the people, companies, and communities that are transforming the human experience through technology innovation, economic value creation, and social impact. Our mission: to inform, influence, and inspire the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders changing the world. The Exponential Center’s “One Word” project at the Computer History Museum is made possible by the generous support of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation.

The post West Meets West: West Virginia Comes to Silicon Valley appeared first on CHM.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki leads a discussion with Google’s Jonathan Rosenberg, Eric Schmidt, and Alan Eagle about the wisdom of their coach Bill Campbell at CHM on April 26, 2019.

What is the difference between a manager, a coach, and a leader? Can one person be all three? And what would success look like? On April 26, 2019, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki moderated a panel discussion with longtime Google leaders Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle to reveal the leadership strategies of “Coach” Bill Campbell, as captured in their new book, Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell. This event was produced by the Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum (CHM).

The panelists described their memories of Bill, from their first meetings to the times he helped them at significant junctures in their careers. They shared how as an executive coach, Bill mentored people from all walks of life and from iconic companies like Google, Facebook, and Apple. Bill first honed his mentorship skills as a player and coach for the Columbia University football team and later as VP of Marketing at Apple and CEO of GO Corporation and Intuit. While Bill helped create over a trillion dollars in market value throughout his career, the total value of his leadership principles is incalculable. Bill passed away in 2016, but his lessons of teamwork, trust, and kindness live on through those he mentored.

Drawing from both research and personal memories, Eric, Jonathan, Alan, and Susan shared a few key insights from Bill’s playbook.

Be Coachable

When Jonathan arrived at Google to accept his job offer from Eric in January 2002, he was surprised to see Bill Campbell in Eric’s place. Bill only had one question for Jonathan: “Are you coachable?” Jonathan’s flippant answer almost lost him his job offer, reinforcing that even the most successful executives can benefit from both guidance and humility.

Throughout his career, Bill succeeded at coaching what Eric calls the “aberrant genius.” Bill could convince highly intelligent, strong-willed personalities that it was important to align individual goals with those of the team to achieve success. Bill would tolerate a lot in people he coached, Eric says, but he would not coach someone who lied, who lacked integrity, or who pursued the limelight at the team’s expense.

Jonathan shares a time when he learned the limits of Bill’s tolerance the hard way. In August 2008, a Gawker article called “The 10 Most Terrible Tyrants of Tech” featured some of the industry’s most famous aberrant geniuses, including Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Jonathan was proud to be ninth on the list, showing off the article to his staff. Bill was not impressed and put Jonathan in his “woodshed.” “I know Steve Jobs,” Bill told Jonathan, “I work with Steve Jobs. You’re not Steve Jobs. You don’t get to do this.” Even in an aberrant genius, screaming and chair-throwing were behaviors not to be tolerated, let alone worn as badges of honor.

Coach the Team, Player by Player

When they first set out to write Trillion Dollar Coach, Eric, Jonathan, and Alan saw Bill as an executive coach—someone who consults with each executive one-on-one. But as Alan explains, they came to understand that by coaching his executive leaders Bill was really developing high-performing teams.

“In the 15 years that Bill coached me,” Eric says, “it never occurred to me that he was coaching the whole team. He was coaching me. That’s how personal the relationship was.” Indeed, Bill personalized his coaching to such a degree that his mentees did not always see how their sessions fit into Bill’s larger team-building strategy. Yet upon reflection, Eric recalls that whenever he told Bill about someone on his staff who was “a bit off the reservation,” Bill would meet with that person to help realign his/her goals with those of the team. Counterintuitively, the fact that team members felt they were being coached as individuals rather than as a team helped to bring their team together.

The Right Decision, Not the Consensus Decision

One of Bill’s greatest contributions as a coach was the way he guided decision-making. Jonathan shares that Bill railed against the Jim Barksdale approach: “If we have data, let’s hear the data. But if all we have are opinions, let’s use mine.” Bill encouraged mentees to make decisions based on data and to draw on the input of not just the leaders, but of all team members. Bill made an effort to call on more junior employees who, he found, were often the most knowledgeable about data and could use it to disprove the arguments of senior leaders.

Bill believed it was vital to consider input from everyone in the room when a decision was being made, but it did not necessarily matter if everyone in the room agreed on the final decision. To Bill, it was more important to reach the right decision than the consensus decision, and it was the leader’s responsibility, based on the data and perspectives the team presented, to determine what the right decision was. Eric describes the way Bill put these ideas into practice in meetings at Google.

Support Your Players

According to Jonathan, being a great manager means getting the details right: “running a tight one-on-one, running a tight staff meeting, at times dictating decisions.” But being a great coach means supporting and trusting your people. Bill supported his teams in countless ways, some simple and some complex, to tremendous effect.

One essential technique: cheer for your team. Alan describes how Bill’s support helped a junior product manager get through a challenging presentation to the Google board.

As Eric explains, clapping is a simple and effective way to give your team some extra encouragement. Another small action with a big impact is to take just a few minutes to thank your people for their hard work. Eric describes Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat’s first earnings call, which reported great success. It turned out that the actual report work was done by a few junior staffers. Bill called those employees in and spent five minutes thanking them for their work before getting back to business with the senior executives. Just taking this short amount of time to show appreciation for your junior staff members, Eric says, can make a huge impact on them.

But sometimes team members need a little more support to overcome obstacles. For those who found themselves lacking certain resources or advantages, Bill exercised his influence to help them perform their best. Susan describes a time when Bill helped her get invited to an event that she wanted to attend.

As Susan learned, power is transferable. Bill used his power to help level the playing field for his team, serving as a model for how leaders can go the extra mile to give their people the tools they need to succeed.

* * *

As a testament to Bill’s impact, well over a thousand people attended his funeral. Many of them considered Bill to be not only their coach and mentor, but also their best friend. In spreading humility, collaboration, and inclusiveness to so many people, Bill showed us the difference one person can make and the tremendous impact we can all have by carrying on lessons from his playbook.

Watch the Full Conversation

About the Exponential Center

The Exponential Center at the Computer History Museum captures the legacy—and advances the future—of entrepreneurship and innovation in Silicon Valley and around the world. The center explores the people, companies, and communities that are transforming the human experience through technology innovation, economic value creation, and social impact. Our mission: to inform, influence, and inspire the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders changing the world.

The post Players Take the Field: Silicon Valley Leaders Share How Coach Bill Campbell Helped Them Succeed appeared first on CHM.