The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Top Three Lessons from Working with Jeff Bezos for 23 Years at Amazon, How the Best Leader Hire, Fire, Prioritise and Make Decisions & How to Be Responsible for 1M Employees and Be a Rockstar Husband and Father with Dave Clark @ Flexport
Mon Jul 17 2023Description
Dave Clark, CEO of Flexport, shares insights on leadership, hiring strategies, customer satisfaction, work-life balance, parenting, personal growth, and future goals. He emphasizes setting audacious goals, hiring simplifiers with grit, and making decisions based on what will get you fired or promoted. Dave discusses the importance of being customer-centric and building a culture that prioritizes customer satisfaction. He also highlights the significance of trust-building, hiring external talent, and making opportunistic acquisitions. Additionally, he shares personal experiences on work-life balance, parenting, and the impact of painful experiences on drive for success. Flexport's aggressive roadmap for product development and its aim to have a significant impact on global trade are also discussed.
Insights
Setting audacious goals and hiring simplifiers with grit leads to better results.
Stretching farther and setting big hairy goals often leads to exceeding or coming close to achieving them. Hiring simplifiers who find ways to make things work instead of focusing on why they won't work can contribute to success.
Customer satisfaction and speed are crucial in the logistics industry.
Customers perceive speed as a key factor in choosing a company. Companies offering faster delivery times attract attention and investment. Delivering packages efficiently and at scale is necessary for cost-effectiveness.
Building trust with customers and employees is essential for success.
Delivering on promises builds trust with customers, while trust-building with employees requires time and mutual accountability. Understanding employees as whole individuals and prioritizing their performance contributes to a positive company culture.
Balancing work and personal life is crucial for success and happiness.
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance and prioritizing what matters most helps achieve maximum impact. Open communication and commitment to improvement are key, especially during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Parenting and personal growth play important roles in leadership.
Being present, teaching children to be good people, and balancing financial success with happiness, empathy, and well-roundedness contribute to personal growth and effective leadership. Painful experiences can shape independence and drive for success.
Treating all people with dignity and respect is a responsibility.
Leadership exercises teach the lesson that actions have lasting consequences. Taking big bets can lead to transformative experiences. Having a talented team that chooses to work with you is a gift that should be respected.
Flexport aims to have a significant impact on global trade and reduce environmental waste.
In the next five years, Flexport has ambitious goals to make a difference in global trade while prioritizing sustainability and reducing environmental waste.
Chapters
- Dave Clark's Background and Leadership Philosophy
- Setting Goals, Hiring, and Decision-Making
- Customer Satisfaction and Company Culture
- Building Trust, Hiring Strategies, and Acquisitions
- Opportunities, Work-Life Balance, and Parenting
- Personal Growth, Leadership, and Global Impact
- Lessons in Leadership and Future Goals
- Sponsorships and Upcoming Episode
Dave Clark's Background and Leadership Philosophy
00:00 - 06:53
- Dave Clark, CEO of Flexport, spent 23 years at Amazon before joining Flexport.
- At Amazon, Dave spearheaded Amazon Robotics and grew the company's logistics divisions.
- Dave believes in giving people opportunities to stretch beyond what they think is possible.
- He advises setting big audacious goals for people to strive towards.
- Dave measures progress and focuses on how far someone has come rather than solely on hitting specific goals.
- He suggests setting stretch goals that may be missed but still result in significant progress.
- Taking bets on people who are willing to take risks often leads to better outcomes.
Setting Goals, Hiring, and Decision-Making
06:26 - 12:42
- Setting big hairy goals and stretching farther can lead to better results than setting more realistic targets.
- People who set stretch goals often exceed or come close to achieving them, while those who set smaller goals tend to fall short.
- The best hires are often the ones who appear boring in the interview process but turn out to be brilliant.
- The three biggest traits of successful hires are being simplifiers, having great grit, and being smart.
- Simplifiers are people who find ways to make things work instead of focusing on why they won't work.
- Grit can be tested by increasing pressure gradually and seeing how well someone handles it.
- When hiring, look for someone who will challenge you and take on future responsibilities rather than just doing what they're told.
- Jeff Bezos is a skilled simplifier and can quickly identify the most important problems that require his attention.
- Decision-making is crucial in leadership, and prioritization based on what will get you fired or promoted is an effective framework.
- Errors of omission, where opportunities were missed due to caution or overthinking, have a bigger impact than mistakes made in action.
- One example of an omission was not prioritizing ultra-fast shipping at Amazon because it didn't seem profitable enough, but it would have sent a strong message about the company's speed and customer focus.
Customer Satisfaction and Company Culture
12:18 - 18:56
- Customers perceive speed as a key factor in choosing a company.
- Companies offering faster delivery times attracted VC money and customers' attention.
- Delivering five or six packages per hour is necessary for good scaled costs in the US.
- Delivery fees and tips can make food delivery expensive.
- The future of the industry will depend on companies with scale and customers willing to pay for convenience.
- Leaving Amazon after 23 years was a big decision, but it was time for a change.
- Amazon taught the importance of being customer-centric even when it's costly.
- Flexport aims to build a culture that prioritizes customer satisfaction.
- Flexport takes an empathetic and collaborative approach compared to Amazon's intensity.
- Flexport has an aggressive roadmap for product development in late 2023 and 2024.
Building Trust, Hiring Strategies, and Acquisitions
18:32 - 24:57
- Flexport has an aggressive roadmap of products for late 2023 and 2024.
- They are making hard promises to customers about these upcoming products.
- Delivering on these promises builds trust with customers.
- When a new employee starts, trust is assumed but also needs to be built over time.
- Bringing in senior leaders requires mutual trust and accountability.
- Sometimes leaders can let people down by not setting them up for success.
- Understanding employees as whole individuals is important for their performance.
- Companies are teams, not families, focused on delivering performance.
- Internal promotion is preferred, but external talent is necessary in fast growth environments.
- External talent helps teach internal talent about the business they're becoming.
- Hiring entry-level employees can be beneficial due to their lack of bad behavior learned elsewhere.
- Acquiring Shopify Logistics was an opportunistic move that aligned with Flexport's plans.
- The acquisition allows Flexport to become Shopify's preferred logistics provider.
Opportunities, Work-Life Balance, and Parenting
24:35 - 30:40
- Acquiring Shopify's preferred logistics provider and provider for ShopPromise is a great opportunity for the company.
- The integration of teams from both companies will be quick to avoid unnecessary delays.
- Building products for customers is the most important focus, rather than being overly sensitive about everything.
- Not everyone may be excited about the journey, and that's okay. People should find a workplace that makes them happy.
- Maintaining balance between work and personal life is crucial for success in both areas.
- Being aware of how time is spent and prioritizing what matters most helps achieve maximum impact.
- COVID-19 created challenges in balancing work and family life, but open communication and commitment to improvement are key.
- Recognizing when one is too focused on work allows for adjustments to maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Personal Growth, Leadership, and Global Impact
30:22 - 36:38
- Being well-rounded is better than being maniacally focused.
- Having kids makes you more patient and humble.
- The hardest part of parenting for the speaker is protecting their child from harm.
- The speaker wishes they had been more present when their first child was born.
- Being present means putting away distractions like phones.
- Teaching children to be good people is more important than financial success.
- The speaker wants their children to be happy, polite, caring, empathetic, and well-rounded humans.
- Flying private doesn't mean spoiling children; they need to learn societal responsibility and respect for others.
Lessons in Leadership and Future Goals
36:08 - 42:22
- Teaching kids to be good people and respect others is important for their future success.
- Treating all people with dignity and respect is a responsibility.
- A leadership exercise in high school taught the lesson that actions have lasting consequences.
- Taking big bets, like choosing where to go to school or moving to new places, can lead to transformative experiences.
- Having a team of talented individuals who choose to work with you is a gift and shows respect.
- Painful experiences, like losing parents at a young age, can shape independence and drive for success.
- In the next five years, Flexport aims to have a significant impact on global trade and reduce environmental waste.
- The podcast episode covered personal, professional, leadership, hiring, and supply chain topics.
Sponsorships and Upcoming Episode
42:04 - 43:14
- Mayfair is a high yield savings account that pays a high yield and is safe.
- Secureframe is an all-in-one platform for automated security and privacy compliance.
- Secureframe helps you get audit ready in weeks, not months.
- Secureframe has over 150 integrations for built-in security training, vendor and risk management, and more.
- Lauren Isford, the head of product growth at Notion, will be featured on an upcoming episode of the podcast.