“In the private company world these companies are typically on 2-2.5 year funding cycles. If you don't get the next check in, the entity may go belly up. The person who feels the most pressure in that situation is the CFO - you're looking at payroll, vendor payments, at office lighting. You've got better visibility into when things reach cash exhaustion. And you expect CEOs to be very optimistic and Heads of Sales to be very optimistic in believing it will come, but when you're not seeing it, you're not holding the sales order and you've got a backlog of payments that can be pretty nerve wracking. But you can also thrive in the fact that in some situations the weight of the company is on your shoulders and for me that's highly motivational. "
– John Quarles
John Quarles has served as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for two different startups, where he has raised over $150M of equity and debt for his companies. John is a graduate of the US Naval Academy, and served as a Navy SEAL as part of SEAL Team 8. After transitioning from the military, he worked as a consultant at Accenture for one year prior to attending Harvard Business School. After HBS, he entered the Finance Industry and began his progression towards CFO.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“Veterans, writ large, miss being in the military because of that sense of community and a greater pruprose. In that sense, politics is a perfect fit for veterans: you work hard with a group of people to solve problems, and make a difference and serve your country; the mission statements are perfectly aligned. The thing that I think gets hard for a lot of veterans getting into the political space is that in order to get elected you have to be able to go out and tell a community of people why you're so great and why they should vote for you. Veterans as a group are a little more reserved about that."
– Kate Kranz
Kate Kranz is the Director of Women's Initiative at Veterans Campaign, a non-partisan, non-profit organization whose mission is to encourage, mentor and prepare veterans, transitioning service members, and other members of the military community for a "Second Service" in civic and political leadership. She started out at the Naval Academy, and served as a Naval Flight Officer for 11 years. She is finishing up a Masters of Law and Diplomacy from Tufts University, and a Master’s of Administrative Leadership from Oklahoma University.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“[Veterans] rush into [their first job]. They worry so much about the changes that they don't pause and really think about what the next step is. Now, not everyone has the luxury of preparing for six months. Sometimes they are medically discharged or there are other extraneous circumstances that make their transition come upon them much quicker. But there are so many times that I see veterans rush into a role without looking at the broad picture first."
– Liz McLean
Liz McLean is the Senior Program Director of Veteran Employment at Military.com, as well as the Owner & President of Liz McLean Veteran Solutions. She started out at the Air Force Academy where she served for five years as a Logistics Readiness Officer. Since 2010 she has worked as a recruiter for civilians and veterans, with multiple companies including positions at Booz Allen Hamilton and Hewlett-Packard where she worked to refine veteran programs. Liz holds a bachelors in behavioral science and a Masters of Science in Industrial Organizational Psychology, where she focused on the people versus the product for program efficiency. Her passions are fueled by ultra-running and up to the ironman distance triathlon
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“When you go into a project, everyone has the understanding that they probably don't know what the right answer is. At Slack we're very successful and we've done a lot of right movement: when there was a decision to go left, we went left; when there was a decision to pick door #3, we happened to pick door #3. A lot of it is by chance and luck and at the same time when we attempt a project, I don't think anyone assumes that they know what the right answer is. Because of that there is a lot of open mindedness of being ok if this doesn't work out. A lot of the time we do things here to try it out and if it doesn't work it doesn't work."
– Tom Pae
Tom Pae is a Sales Enablement Manager at Slack - one of the fastest growing startups in San Francisco, who has raised $540M in funding. He started out at West Point, and served in the Army for over seven years as an Armor & Military Intelligence Officer. When he left the Army he went to Columbia Business School. After that, he joined LinkedIn - first as a Sales Operations Manager and then as a Senior Learning Technology Strategist. He is married to fellow Army veteran, RaeAnne Pae, who I interviewed in Episode 26.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“In the military we like to talk about, 'we accomplish more before 9am than the rest of the world.' If you take that thought into the civilian world, it's going to hurt you. There are really smart people out there and there is so much to be learned as you make the transition. Everyone has chosen to do something different - whether you're in the military or working for Chick-fil-a, or somewhere else. They're adding a lot of value where they are. So just keep in mind that - 'I can add value too in a unique way and I have a unique skill set to bring, but there are also a lot of people around me who are really smart and adding a lot of value too."
– Mandy Psiaki
Mandy Psiaki is a Senior Team Lead at Chick-fil-A Corporate. She started out at West Point, and served in the Army for five years as a Finance Officer. She received her MBA from Colorado State University while still on Active Duty. She started her civilian career at Proctor & Gamble, where she worked for three months as an Associate Manager, Consumer and Market Knowledge. Before she transitioned to Chick-fil-A, where she has worked for nearly five years: starting as a Franchisee Selection Consultant, a Senior Franchisee Selection Consultant, and now her current role as Senior Team Lead, Specialized Training.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“When I left Bain I reached out to a variety of folks… to explore what was out there. I kept in touch with those folks, and made a point to regularly get back in touch with people and see what they’re up to. It was after a meeting like that - we grabbed coffee and didn’t think much of it at the time, but he called me a few weeks later to let me know that Lyft was starting up in Atlanta. It was basically a lightening bolt that made me aware. It appeared and it appeared because I made contacts and maintained them."
– Sam Bond
Sam Bond is a General Manager at Lyft - a company most listeners have probably used for their app which makes it simple for you to find a ride whenever you need one. Although only four years old, Lyft has raised $2B in funding, and has nearly 6k employees listed on LinkedIn. Sam started out at Princeton University and then served as an officer in the Marine Corps for 4 years. After his service, he attended the University of Virginia - Darden Graduate School of Business. He worked in consulting at Bain & Company as a Consultant and then Case Team Leader. He also worked at the Coca-Cola Company - first as a Director Supply Chain Strategy and then as a Group Director of Strategy and Portfolio Management.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“Many Product Managers - most of them, actually - don't have anyone directly working for them. They work with everybody and yet are the owner - and that's a really interesting role. One of the things that I found useful in the military that I translated was: I found - personally - that getting things done, even in the military where it is more hierarchical, that treating people as peers and as experts in their area; that motivating them to get things done without using your direct authority over them was the best way to get things done. And that skill set really translates well to Product Management. "
– Todd Pringle
Todd Pringle General Manager and Vice President of Product at Stitcher - the podcasting app that many of you are use to listen to this podcast, and was acquired by Midroll. Todd started out at UCLA, after which he served in the Navy for 4 years as part of the Supply Corps. After his transition out of the military, Todd attended the Stanford Graduate School of Business. After this he held a variety of Product Management roles - at Netscape and AOL in the early 2000s, and then eBay, AirPlay and then a company called Yoono. Todd also holds two US Patents
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“It's more change than you ever think it will be, because in the corporate world plans change all the time. Everything changes even more so than in the military. Don't expect a table nine to five job where you're just going to sit in the office all day. That's what you imagine when you're in the military - 'Oh, I wish I had more stability and wasn't changing around so much.' But it's just like that if not more in the corporate world."
– Shaoli Breaux
Shaoli Breaux is part of the Junior Officer Leadership Program at GE Oil & Gas in Houston, Texas. She started out at the Naval Academy, and served as a Surface Warfare Officer for for 5.5 years. After she left the Navy, she stayed at home to take care of her young children for two years. Then, she transitioned directly to General Electric.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“Prior to the financial collapse and my first day at Deutsche, I was thinking: I’m in finance, I’m on this ladder and trajectory, I’m going to make Director or Managing Director some day, it’s just a matter of time. But then after the financial collapse everything got mixed up, and it was very difficult to make life decisions when you have that cloud over your head. So, over time I started to really question whether that was the right thing for me. And I did a Google search of “which companies have the best culture” and Google came up. I applied through the online portal (“the black hole”) and was fortunate to get a call back and things worked out."
– Steven Muller
Steven Muller works at Google as a Global Strategic Business Development for Google Play. He started out at the Naval Academy,after which he served in the Navy for four years with the Submarine Force as part of the USS West Virginia. After transitioning out of the Navy he worked for 5 years in the Finance Industry: first at Barclays Capital as their Associate Director - Head of Derivative Client Valuations, North America; then at Deutsche Bank as a Vice President. He then transitioned to Google, where was a Finance Manger for 4 years before his current role. Steven holds an MBA from the Duke Fuqua School of Business and a Master’s Degree of Engineering Management from Old Dominion University
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“They kept saying: "forget about what job you want, what do you want to do?" It dawned on me and that day I ended up applying to culinary school. That's what I want to do! Forget about this corporate route I'm headed to, forget about business school. Unfortunately, the culinary school I was enrolled in when out of business a month before I left the Army. But it was a great sign that I had already made that jump, that the options were so much broader than I was giving myself credit for. In that sense, teh floodgates were already open in terms of telling myself that I could do this type of work full time. That was the distinct moment from it being a hobby to knowing that I could do this."
– Annie Taft
Annie Taft is the Founder & Executive director of The Brazen Gourmand, which is a Lifestyle brand for the culinarily curious. She started out at West Point, where she graduated 17th in her class and served in the Army for over five years as part of the intelligence community. When she left the Army, she participated in the Stanford Ignite Program, after which she started three different companies, of which The Brazen Gourmand is one.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“Me and Derek went in there and pitched to Mike [Maples] for an hour, 9am the next morning we had a term sheet. And we were about to die. We were running out of money - we pitched to Mike on September 10th, and we got a term sheet on September 11th. If you're not used to taking risks, you're going to have a hard time succeeding as an entrepreneur. I'm $240k in debt; my credit sucks; I lived with my co-founder for three years and we were in our mid to late 30s at the time; I've given up going to weddings, I gave up skiing and surfing for six years, given up love, the list goes on and on the sacrifice."
– Anthony Garcia
Anthony Garcia is CEO and co-founder at GuideOn -a military veteran talent acquisition platform. He started out at St. Mary's University, after which he served in the Army for eight years as a Medical Service Corps Officer and Medical Evacuation Pilot. After transitioning out of the Army, he received his MBA at Cornell University. Since then he has worked as a General Manager at SRI International and the CEO and co-founder of Adjacent Applications. He started GuideOn in late 2014, and has raised funding from Mike Maple’s VC firm - Floodgate, one of the most respected investors in Silicon Valley.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
“What I'm saying is that when there is nothing at stake - you're not being paid for it or receiving credit - what are you interested in? If you can figure out what you're genuinely interested in, and you can combine that with what your natural strength is, you have the foundation for planning your future. Until you do that, you're just spinning in the wind. If you ever leave a job without understanding those two things, you're just tossing the dice."
– Frank Van Buren
Frank Van Buren lives in North Carolina and works at Wells Fargo in their High Yield Sales & Trading Group. Frank started out at the Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where he did Army ROTC, after which he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the National Guard/Reserve, and then decided to become a Chief Warrant Officer on active duty in the US Army, where served as a Blackhawk pilot for six years. After his transition from the Army, he earned his MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has worked at Wells Fargo for the last 18 years, first as part of their Investment Banking group and then as part of their Fixed-Income Sales & Trading groups. He also runs the site, AdviceForVets.com.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
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“The autonomy is incredible. I think back to my time in the military and the best times I had was when I was flying around the mountains of Afghanistan, and we had a lot of flexibility in the mission we were running. When I think about being an entrepreneur, it's very similar to that in a lot of ways. I love that I can set my own hours and create my own success. That is really exciting and gets my adrelanine going. The bad part is that you don't have a paycheck. If you make a sale and get cash you can take a small salary from there, but there's a lot of unpredictability there. Going into this I didn't expect that aspect of this to wear on me emotionally as much as it does. But it does, and it's real - you just need to understand that that's part of the deal."
– Chris Shaw
Chris Shaw is the Founder of CORE Leader, the Director of the NY Office of Bunker Labs at the NYU Tandon Engineering School. He graduated from NYU Stern School of Business in May 2016. He started out at Cornell University, where he earned his BA in history, after which he served in the US Army as an Aviation Officer for 8 years flying the Kiowa Warrior armed reconnaissance helicopter. He deployed twice to combat in Afghanistan, most recently as the head of his squadron’s intelligence department in the 82nd Airborne Division.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including:
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“I do feel like we had 6 or 7 bet the company decisions all strung together. It felt like I was in Vegas, going to the roulette wheel and just betting on red - over and over again - and depending on each one of those to be right. Startups a lot of is timing. If we had tried to start [SkyBox Imaging] two years earlier, the technologies wouldn't have existed for us to be able to build and point a spacecraft to take a pretty enough picture. If we had come along two or three years later, someone else would have already done this. It just to be in that sweet spot, to thread the needle, I just realize that we just happened to be the right people, telling the right story at the right time."
– John Fenwick
John Fenwick is Head of Spacecraft Operations at Google. He started out at the Air Force Academy, after which he served for 8 years in the Air Force as a Physicist & Space Acquisitions Officer. He holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from MIT and an MBA from Stanford Business School. After business school, John co-founded SkyBox Imaging and served as their Vice President of Flight Programs. Skybox provides commercial, high-resolution satellite imagery and high-definition video and analytics services. SkyBox raised over $91M in funding prior to being acquired by Google for $500M, as reported by the WSJ. SkyBox is now known as Terra Bella within Google.
In this conversation, we cover a lot of topics, including: