Behind every “disruptive” and “innovative” product or service is a team of expert communicators who fuel the company’s story and break through in a competitive market. Mastery of storytelling is a must-have for survival.
In this episode of Politely Pushy, Eric Chemi is joined by former tech journalist and PR expert, Cliff Edwards. Cliff shares anecdotes from his coveted roles at Bloomberg Businessweek, Netflix, and NVIDIA, where he deepened his knowledge of high-growth companies from the inside out and honed his craft as a seasoned storyteller.
Tune in to hear Cliff discuss his pivot from journalism to global communications to gain a bird’s-eye view of the tech industry. He also highlights how effectively leveraging PR and communications can mean the difference between growth and stagnation.
Click To Read Transcript
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I’m Eric Chemi and this is Politely Pushy. Well, Cliff, welcome to the show. I appreciate your time today. I know we’ve talked before a little bit, but
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it’s it’s fun to get you here in this setting and and just chat about what you’re doing now and how you got there, especially because I didn’t realize you had been at Business Week and I think we might have we might have over overlapped. We just missed each other
00:28
cuz remind me you left in what year? >> 2013 I think it was. >> 2013 I would have been there because I was at Bloomberg I was at Bloomberg from 2010 the beginning of 10 to the end of 14. So So when I was doing I was doing work for business week in those last few
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years. So we would have both been there at the same time. But >> yeah. Which office were you in? >> 731 Lexington. >> Okay. Yeah. Yeah. >> I was I was right right there at the main headquarters. But you must have been out out west the whole time, right?
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>> Yeah, in San Francisco. And I think toward the latter part of that, I wasn’t traveling as much to the east coast. Like I think once Bloomberg took over, they didn’t have us traveling as much. I think I traveled a bit for the Bloomberg television. So I’d fly in and out um to
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do segments for them, but uh yeah. Not nearly as much as Business Week. Business Week had a much better budget for that, which is fun. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I’m curious about that move, you know, that move going from there to Netflix because I saw
01:32
there were a lot of stories about it at the time. It’s kind of a big deal. I saw one from Chris Roush at Talking Biz News, you know, oh, you know, Cliff Edwards who used to cover Netflix now going to be working there. That little subtle dig, right? Like like, oh, he was
01:46
covering him, now he’s working there. Tell me tell me about that move, why you did it because then in a way that was your permanent shift. you sort of stayed in communications ever since then. So, so why then? Why them? And and and and what was the thought process?
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>> Yeah, I think there um when you think about um the world of journalism, uh to me the world had been changing um quite a bit from when I started out as a cub reporter to working as an editor and a writer and covering various industries particularly tech. Um, you know, I think
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my focus um was on business I think fairly early and then tech in particular and I like the idea of um of intersection and changing things where you where something was going to be sort of world changing. Uh, so at the at during my time at Business Week, I basically covered what um I
02:41
affectionately called the gizmos and gadgets beat. And that was all the new stuff that was coming out, these new fangled gadgets and new fangled things, starting with um the Blackberry, which um folks would call the blueberry if it was colored blue instead of just calling it black.
02:56
>> I remember people I remember one guy mentioned calling it a blueberry and he’s like, “Oh yeah, this is the new Blackberry. It’s a blueberry.” I remember him saying that and then nowhere could I find anyone else ever having written that or describing. I’m
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like I’m looking for this blueberry and I this guy said >> no blackberry it just blue colored. >> Yeah, >> that was blackberry trying to be more entertaining. Uh in any case um yeah so I started covering um the world of streaming. Um when um when Bloomberg
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bought Business Week, I was sort of doing a hybrid role doing both the magazine and um Bloomberg and they had switched my beat or added to my beat sort of the whole entertainment side. And for some reason Netflix fell under entertainment um and this weird sort of
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technology thing. And so I started covering them and realized they were doing something that was going to um be world changing. I think in a lot of ways change how we basically view content. Um YouTube was sort of this funny little thing at the time, but Netflix was
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really trying to advance the idea of long form content and being able to do it seamlessly and whatnot. and um uh their uh head of uh communications was moving over to Europe. Netflix at the time had three um countries um North America uh basically North America so Canada,
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Mexico and uh the US and he was moving over to sort of help launch Europe. So, they wanted somebody who was pretty familiar to come in uh and reached out to me and I said no at first because I was like, you know, I’m a journalist. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I
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like being a journalist. Uh but the more I thought about it, the more I thought about how the world of journalism was changing and how um in particular it was becoming sort of more turn of the screw stuff. I like sort of learning things and I felt like I was not learning
04:60
anything anymore. I was just sort of like trying to break news. Um, and you know, and after a certain while you you sort of tire of what’s the next color of the iPhone is going to be or how many camera lenses is going to have or whatever that that type of stuff. And I
05:15
was pretty well steeped in it. I you know, I felt like I was a pretty uh well-known technology journalist uh and was followed by quite a lot of folks. But I really the things I really enjoyed doing were the big cover stories that were looking at you know is this company
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going to succeed in what it’s doing. Uh and the thing that was interesting uh I always said to I go and talk to um PR agencies and said if you really are pitching a Business Week story, there’s only two stories that Business Week wrote at the time. It was like you’re
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the best thing since sliced bread or your toast. Those were the two stories you wrote and it was just the way you wrote them that was the entertaining part about it. Uh and uh Netflix at the time, I don’t know if people even remember this, but they had started out
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as a DVD business, DVD by mail. Uh and they uh uh when I covered them, they split and uh said, “We’re dropping this whole DVD by mail thing. Streaming is the is the future.” And everybody thought, “This company’s going to die.” >> I remember just thinking, “This not
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going to make any sense. I don’t understand like like the DVDs. I get that you can pick one DVD or three DVDs or whatever it was >> and >> and and when you’re done you send it back. It’s like there’s no late fees. Whenever you’re done, you send it back.
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If you want to sit for three months, that’s great. And I remember >> around 2010 seeing like hearing thinking about like, oh, they’re going to start doing the streaming thing. And I thought, >> no, like the internet’s not quick enough for that. That’s not going to work. It’s
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gonna just >> Yeah. It was this this interesting little sort of everybody thought it was a side thing, a side gig. Oh, they’re going to do the streaming thing as a side thing. And then when they decided to split it off, people were like, “How are they going to charge for this?” Uh,
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you know, like we’re paying for the DVD thing. And the thing that I realized was the convenience of online, you know, uh, an Intel Exec once told me, and I thought this was, and I still remember this, it was the simplest sentence when I was talking to him. He said, “The internet won.”
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you know, I was like, what does that mean? And but I got it right away because I had been covering the industry. Like I look back and think about Apple and and and when Apple was rising and they had this software called RIPMix burn, you could burn your CDs
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onto um your your Mac uh and then your music CDs and then put them on some other third-party music player. Uh, and I remember um they came out with the iPod that was took off right away. People were like, “This is the coolest thing.” But they had been fighting with
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the music industry for a long time because the music industry was saying, “Hey, this is pirated stuff.” And they turned around and struck deals with the recording industry and Rip Mix Burn went away and they started charging you for the same thing that you could do
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for free. And people applauded it. Nobody turned around and said Apple’s going to go out of business because they are now making it harder or more expensive for the consumer to do something. And that really stuck with me with Netflix because the simplicity of
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it is that you get this cat this load loads of content and you pay one price for it. And at the time the price was relatively cheap compared to cable in particular, right? and it’s still relatively cheap if you’re just buying Netflix versus seven streaming services.
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So, that’s what stuck with me was that this is a company that’s going to go places because they are first to do this. It’s not it’s a it’s a market in a lot of ways that is defensible and indefensible. A lot of folks can get into it, but it’s super expensive to
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acquire the content. And they perfected the technology behind it first. Uh and that’s what struck me and that’s the reason why I sort of as I say uh went to the dark side you know I initially said no and then I thought about it some more and thought hey I’m really enjoying what
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I do less as a journalist and really am interested in learning more about a particular company as as a journalist I knew 20% of what a company does uh and then when I went to Netflix I knew about 80% you know Netflix >> isn’t that the fascinating thing I feel
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like as journalists we’re always on the outside You learn what they want you to learn or what you might be able to like sneak a little secret gossip or a tip, but but when you get in there, you realize, “Oh, I had no idea what was going on here.”
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>> Yeah. You’re like, “Wow, they’re doing this and they’re doing that.” And it’s and I was shocked because Reed Hastings, the CEO at the time, would all his um directors and above, he would have a monthly one-on-one with you. I don’t know how he did it. A thousand a thousand people.
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>> It’ be like your whole month right there. Yeah. >> The first I think it was the second week I started, I had my one-on-one with him and he it was it’s a long story, but I was wearing like, you know, these really uncomfortable shoes and he’s like, “Hey,
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let’s take a walk.” And we went walking by the creek and I was like, “God, I’m just this shit is killing me and it’s 100 degrees out here.” But he was telling me the whole five-year plan. I mean, a five-year plan for a company, you know, this new employee who’s, you know, I was
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a director, but it still was shocking to me. Where where was director in that status >> there’s director then vice president and senior vice president and then Reed you know so you know it was a fairly it’s fairly flat but even below director a lot of people senior managers and stuff they
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would share at the time a lot of information you’d be you get all of this broad sort of you know quarterly plan and and half year plan and I was shocked that none of this leaked out because I covered Netflix really really >> well. Here you are a former reporter and
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they’re just telling you everything is like we’re gonna be charging this much at this much in five years and we’re gonna be doing this and I’m like what you’re telling me this like oh I wish I had this would be great stuff to be reporting. >> Yeah.
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>> You know and and and the funny thing is that you know I was there for I think uh uh less than two years and they still followed that five year plan. It was it was you know it wasn’t like it changed anything. >> What was that what was that like though
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to be there a short period of time? So when you came did you think I’m going to be here for a long time? Is it just something to do differently? Did you leave because you wanted to? I hear Netflix can get a little aggressive and crazy with how people come and go. What was that story?
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>> The average tenure at Netflix is like two years except for really senior people and even some senior people move fast. like the company at the time was changing a lot and I came aboard because I was really interested in the the hyper growth story you know it seems to be
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like my where my interest is in companies is when they’re sort of at this turning point and about to do something different and the idea for me is to help with the storytelling you know like I at the heart as a journalist you’re a storyteller you know
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and so um I came aboard and they wanted um me because I had broad experience in Apac, you know, having been technology reporter covering consumer electronics and gaming and all that stuff to really sort of lead that effort about telling the Netflix story in places that were
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very, very skeptical of streaming. Uh, and I um helped set up the whole going global thing at CES 2015, I think it was, and then left shortly after that. Uh and part of it was that um the there was um a a movement to change the whole communication structure and have people
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move to different regions and I didn’t want to do that. And I also had a opportunity at a startup uh where I was like hey now that I’m doing this it I haven’t done a startup but I think it’d be interesting to go to a startup and see what that’s like. And so I went to
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two startups after um Netflix uh and it’s a different beast altogether too. I mean it’s like it’s it’s really interesting having I look at my career and I and I find it interesting because I feel like I’ve gone across many different disciplines and many different
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sort of business um eras for for companies where you know the first startup it was like one step forward two steps back we’re losing money we got to lay off a bunch of people and then we’re going to hire a bunch of sales people then we’re going to lose people and and
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so yeah quite interesting >> what I find fascinating is the media makes it seem like, oh, look at all these people that are billionaires, all these startups, they’re all making all this money. But then you go through the reality of how many of these startups
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are out there, and most people don’t make any money, right? >> Yeah. The vast majority of them money, the stock goes to zero, the the people all go bankrupt, the VC lost all their money. But we see like, oh well, geez, here’s Alexander Wang without an E in
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his name, and he’s a billionaire. Then the girl that worked there for like a year, and she’s a billionaire. there’s all these billionaires that I never even heard of, >> right? >> And and it seems like it’s so easy but it’s not, you know.
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>> No, it’s not. And a lot of it is um you know, just in my opinion, it’s an interesting um having been to startups and having been at um two companies now that were that are that were founder lead Reed Hastings at uh Netflix and then Jensen Wong at um at Nvidia. Um it’s
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about the founder and them sort of not getting in their own way I find you know um a lot of times the smartest guys the ones who in my opinion succeed are the ones who realize the things that they can’t do and that they need to hire people to do those
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things you know and what I found at the at least the startups that I’ve been at is that the founders feel like they can do everything. >> Can you tell that difference? Were you able to figure out like or do you see it now like in the sense of oh this founder
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is going to make it this founder’s not it’s almost like now you could be a VC based on your >> insights yeah you can look and say you know like you know like what are your strengths and where do you think you fit like some like especially product led
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company I’ve been at a lot of productled companies the product guy these guys who founded company know the product and that’s where their strength is and so in a lot of ways that’s like a CTO position or or COO position or whatever you know, and so a lot of companies that
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where they get out of the way is if you’re not if if you’re a product person, yeah, try to hire somebody who can run a company, you know, and if you’re the visionary person, then you stay in that role as a visionary and you help guide the the communication and direction of the company.
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>> What would what would you say Jensen is and and Reed is? >> They both are visionaries. They both are really good. like Reed always said like you know he learned to get out of his own way very quickly and he had lots of great anecdotes that he would tell you
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and stuff like that about how he’d be working hard and the CEO of some company came in and said and gave him great advice on stuff and the same with um Jensen. Jensen um I always um thought is really really good at seeing the big picture. He can process information and
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help simplify it. He’s like a journalist on steroids, right? Like, you know, as a technology journalist in particular, your job is almost like to be a translator because nobody really cares about the technology. They care about what the technology does for them. And
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so, he’s really good at coming in and saying, “Hey, product guys, you’re thinking about the wrong thing. I’m think about this or or this is what we’re going to name something or this is how we’re going to describe something.” you know, on our communications team,
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I’d be shocked because we’d be like all sitting there like, “How are we going to describe this, you know, and it’s like lots of people who have lots of experience in communications, and he’d come in and say something super simple and he’d be like, “God, why didn’t I think of that?
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>> Why is this the guy >> who still is smarter than everyone else, and no one here could figure this out? He has to come in and and tell us what we’re doing wrong.” Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. You know, I mean, the trap with that sometimes is everybody waits
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too for that CEO to come in and fix stuff for you. Right. Great. >> And so then they’re sort of overworked. But you know the the the fun part of it is is that they’re really good and they’re most of the time right. >> What I don’t understand is like you said
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they wait for the CEO to come fix them. I think about more of these consumer brands. I know that’s not your area but when I think about oh Brian Nickel here from Taco Bell whatever to Chipotle to Starbucks and it’s like oh he’s going to fix this and this and this. And I’m
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like, you and I can walk into a Starbucks and say, “Well, I’d fix these 10 things, too.” And you got thousands of people working there. Why did you need to hire this one guy >> to fix everything? We all know what the problems are. Why can’t you fix it? Like, that to me is I get stuck on.
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Why does the CEO have to be the one guy to fix obvious things? >> A lot of times companies, especially companies that feel like they’re in trouble or they’re in trouble with investors or whatever, they will look for the reputation person, you know, who came in and turned something
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around, you know, and the ideas, like you said, sometimes aren’t particularly new or interesting, right? You know, they could be the same ideas that the other the other guy had, but they’re set a different way. And you get the benefit of the doubt from the investor community
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because oh well he fixed this company and he fixed that company so sure he’s going to fix this company. What do you think about the role of communications when you especially think about Netflix and Nvidia? Like they’re two of the biggest, you know, companies.
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I think they’re are they both mag seven companies? Are both the part of that fang mag 7? Yeah. >> Not in the trillions. Yeah. >> But they’re but they’re in that they’re in that group for sure. >> For sure. But when you look at the two founders, obviously Reed’s just leaving
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now, but but what is it about their interest in communications and how they want to do it and your role there and and how do they perceive the media and how they want to use the media to get their goals accomplished? Obviously, we know Bill Gates was a big proponent of spending
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money on PR. We know what Steve Jobs did. We don’t hear as much about Hastings and and Jensen in terms of what they want to do there. But what was your inside perspective on their thought process around communications? >> I think it’s it’s a holistic approach
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really and and and the thing that was interesting with both of them is and I think this is true of of of it’s becoming truer of many companies now understanding the importance of storytelling. You know, you see now all of these storytelling content lead roles
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and stuff like that. The world of communications is shrinking in a lot of ways, but you’re seeing lots of postings for that. You know, and the idea essentially is that you have to be able to tell a story in a way that’s a not going to get your company in trouble,
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right? You know, like Netflix was was great. Reed always said, you know, like he had a great saying like, you know, look, we’re not going to kill anybody with our content. So, we don’t really have to worry about that too much. There’s very little crisis that you
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might have with Netflix other than it going down. But they have crises with like, oh, the pricing or whatever Dave Chappelle said or what content are you going to have or not have. I feel like that’s where they would they would run into terms of like is that a it’s a
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it’s it’s a news cycle, but is it a crisis, right? Like you like when you and they have the thing that was interesting about Netflix is numbers are behind everything, right? you know, they can tell like Dave Chappelle’s going to go and a certain number of people are
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going to be like, I’m fed up and cancel, you know, and a certain number of people are going to be like, oh, that sounds really interesting and sign up. So, they have the numbers backing basically everything they do, you know, and and and so it’s less of a crisis, you know,
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the more crisis is if they’re down for like three hours, you’re going to get more people pissed off about that than Dave Chappelle. press like to focus on it because you know I was a member of the press you were a member of the press you like tension you know like if a
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company is just great then there’s no story to tell right >> I need conflict I need drama I need debates I need fights I need all this stuff yeah >> and so you got to have that and press will focus on that immediately so you know like you know you talk about the
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the administration now you talk about how press blows up stuff and and there’s a lot of stuff to blow up in this administration but it’s also true that the tension is always there, you know, and you want to be able to report in the tension because that is the stuff that
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people are interested in. Like, you know, why do you think soap opers are still around, you know, in reality shows is because it’s tension? When you were with the smaller firms at the startups, how does that contrast? Because, you know, we deal with a lot of
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companies that are like, “Oh, you know, we don’t know if PR matters or we don’t need PR. We’re gonna win on our product.” And and you see a lot of these companies, oh no, PR is a waste of money and da da da like, okay, if that’s true, then why are very smart people like
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Zuckerberg and Reed and Jensen and Bill Gates and all these people, why are the richest people in the world spending a lot of money on comms and PR? I mean, people will point, well, Elon Musk’s not doing that. Like, well, he’s he is the PR agent in that case.
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>> PR, he’s the personality. He’s the company. But but there’s a lot of startups we know where they’re just like, “No, no, no. There’s cons and PR is a waste of money and time. I’m just going to focus on product.” >> Yeah. Well, now it’s it’s there’s a whole different story behind that,
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right? Like when I was at startups, the problem you had is that you can’t it’s hard to break through, right? It’s like you’re a startup and you’re one of many covering that does X, right? You know, there’s like five startups doing any particular one thing at a time. And so
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trying to break through is hard. and and so your focus is on like oh we got funding for something or we have this product and you’re really trying to develop uh a developer audience so people are like I’m not really thinking about like the whole the whole strategic
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communication story yet you know I think that’s changing now in a lot of ways particularly because of AI like AI is the reason why you’re seeing all these storytelling roles from startups all the way up the chain to Amazon and Google and all this stuff is because the world
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of AI has changed the way you can um disseminate information on a company. Like the old rules of SEO are out the door, you know, like you can’t just pay for ad clicks, which is a lot what a lot of startups would do, right? It’s like I need to just be at the top of the SEO
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chain. So, they’d hire an SEO expert and say that’s where my money’s going. >> That’s now to think about >> with AI, it’s looking for content. It’s I mean, it’s specifically looking for content. >> It needs a lot of words. It needs a lot of words. Yeah.
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>> Yeah. And so now the whole storytelling and communications aspect is is crucial to surviving, you know, for anybody. >> Did you ever feel like, oh geez, I should have just stayed in media? Have you enjoyed this last kind of decade here on the comm side?
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>> Yeah, I mean some look, every job you’re frustrated with when you’re in the job, right? I don’t think I’ve ever been in any job where I’m like, oh, it’s all happy days, you know? I mean and I think sometimes you know I that you know having been a journalist it’s really fun
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learning a lot of new little things you know like and that’s what really what I really loved as a technology journalist is like I could you know spout off on this that or this software or this you know new gaming platform or anything you know and that was the fun part for me
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you know where it was like I wasn’t in this little funnel um it’s also it’s fun especially when you’re companies that are doing well. You know, I’ve been fortunate enough that a lot the companies I’ve been with the longest amount of time have done well for themselves and so that’s fun
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because you’re winning, you know, but you also >> are you are you good are you getting some of that trickle down? Because I’ve heard a lot of stories of people where like, oh, the company does well, but I mistimed how I dealt with my options and stock and blah blah blah. So, the
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company did well, but I did not do well. >> Yeah. I mean like look, you do fairly well with the the stock options you’re granted, especially at big companies, right? Yeah. >> You know, I mean, you’re, you know, like if you’re there for a certain amount,
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you got to be there at least a year usually for your for >> I’m assuming five years at Nvidia post COVID been okay for you, you know. >> Yeah, you did pretty well. When I started the shares were $90 a share, you know, and or Yeah, it was $90 a share
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pre-split. I think we split at $800 or something, >> you know. So yeah, you do pretty well, you know, with those companies. The tradeoffs is that nowadays you work a lot harder than you did even five years ago. Like, you know, the the the pace has picked up in a lot of ways, you
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know. So your your quality of life sometimes is not as as good as it was way back when. >> How would you rank quality of life? Like because obviously Netflix they grind you, Nvidia, they grind you, startups they grind you. So like what was the easiest job? What was the hardest job in
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terms of like I can breathe here, I can have a life? >> I think this the startups ones were easier in that vein because you didn’t have to worry so much about I mean you were you were trying to figure out content strategy and marketing together. Um, and you didn’t have to worry about,
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oh, I also have to be courting press and and you know, there’s five different roles you take, you know, in communications at at at a lot of big companies, you know, and what’s the competition doing? How do I react to that? You know, at big companies, you
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have to think about all of that. And so it’s a it’s a it’s a full-time job, you know, like you know, my average week at a large company is at least 60 hours if not more, you know, and at a startup, you know, like at the end of the day, you’re in your day is ended, you know,
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and you come back in and you start over again. It’s it it was less stress um at a startup, but then the stress is that you’re getting paid less than you would at a bigger company. You’re getting chairs that that that may go away. It’s not like they’re guaranteed because you
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don’t until a place goes public then they’re useless to you, right? They’re just Yeah. >> Right. There’s no one’s worried that Nvidia shares or Netflix shares are going to zero, >> right? Like that’s not that’s not going to happen. >> Yeah. And you see down days and
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everybody looks at their shares and says, “Oh, it’s great. We’re up.” You know, I look today, I’m like, “Oh, we’re up $3. That’s great. My shares are still there. They’re good.” Yeah. So, you’re happy. >> What What do you see as as next for you? What are you trying to work on now? Like
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you said there it’s like okay it’s cool to go to the other side. Then you want to do a startup. Now you’ve done the the biggest most famous companies in the world. You’ve done a bunch of startups. What what are you what what’s itching in you like I want to learn something new now?
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>> Yeah I’m still interested in AI. I mean like I was thinking like through if I if I connect all the sort of the the um the comm’s jobs I had since leaving as a journalist they were either machine learning or AI focused you know in a lot of ways. So I was thinking about that
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and I’m like I’m really obviously still interested in that because it’s going to be world changing you know it’s already starting to change the world but we’re in early early days of this you know so what I look for is like what is sort of the next thing what are the problems
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that um essentially are going to arise that some company is trying to address in a lot of ways and those are companies that are really really interested in me I’ve started doing some consulting work for a couple companies because um those are sort of the
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fascinating things. It’s like they may win, they may not win, but it’s really interesting like you know Nvidia, you know, when I started at Nvidia and people were like Nvidia and you’re like they they make gaming chips like even though I was starting on the enterprise
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side, you know, no one knew who Nvidia was until >> which is crazy now to think about that. It wasn’t long ago. Yeah. >> Yeah. you know, now people stop me at the gym. You’re at you were at Nvidia. You’re at Nvidia, you know, and I’m like, how do you even know that, you
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know, like I see you in passing at the gym, you know, and so >> that’s so funny, >> Jim. Let’s talk about Nvidia at the gym. That’s funny. >> Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s it’s um you know, it’s funny when companies on their rise, they’re they’re like, you know,
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they’re superstars. I always uh having covered technology for you know more than 20 years you know I always find it interesting like one of the uh a Sony uh exec once told me uh when I was at Netflix he was like enjoy it now you know because remember when Sony was like
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the oh my god you’re working at Sony it’s so cool and they got this and they got that and now Sony is like it’s there but nobody thinks you know this is some great company that you >> no no one if no one’s stopping you at the gym if you’re working >> you work at Sony, right? Yeah.
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>> Yeah. So, it’s even Apple now. Like, you don’t get a lot of people that are like, “Oh, it’s it’s great to be working at Apple.” >> A little bit. It’s a little bit older news at this point. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, everybody’s looking for the next big thing, the next, oh, what,
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you know, what shares are going to be rising? Everybody wants to get rich, right? And so, in a lot of ways, it’s like, what shares are going to be rising the fastest? What tips can you give me? What are they doing? that type of stuff, you know. But the interesting thing for
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me is not necessarily about making gazillions of dollars. You know, in comms you aren’t going to they’re not going to give you giant blocks of stock. You know, in comms, you get >> like it’s still mostly going to be your base basic. It’s mostly going to be your base.
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>> You get base and you get fair amount of of shares. You’re not getting like the vast majority of your compensation in in stock. >> Yeah. And so the interesting thing is A, learning new things and is this company doing things that ain’t going to like
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destroy the world in a lot of ways like you know Nvidia one could argue is an armed supplier so it may be supplying the things that are going to destroy the world you know but it’s um an interesting um company to me because it understood in a lot of ways um um
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particularly with um Jensen I felt like he really modeled Apple a lot of ways. I don’t know if he has ever said that or thinks about that, but he really understood that um hardware and software together as the platform really really is what helps a company grow.
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Uh and the same way you think about Netflix, it was the same way. Netflix really dragged the consumer electronics industry kicking and screaming into the world of streaming. You know, they did not want to do that, you know, and he forced them to. How
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would you compare the two styles of of Jensen and Reed in terms of who did you like working for better, who was easier, who was nicer, who was tougher, who was smarter, like who like what were the the differences? It’s not a lot of people. You’re probably one of the few people in
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the world that that worked for both of these guys. You know, it’s funny. When I went to Netflix, I was shocked by how smart just about everybody was. you know, like I had had technology writers, you know, go in and and we do technology issues and divide up stuff and and one
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of the guys went and this was when um Wi-Fi was first coming out and he went to Starbucks with a with a Dell laptop and I came back and said, “How’d it go?” And he’s like, “I could not get on, you know, to Wi-Fi at Starbucks.” And I said, “Did you you know, you have to pay
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for it?” At the time, Starbucks was charging you for Wi-Fi. >> And he’s like, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” And this is like technology writer you know like you know and you knew a lot of technology writers who didn’t know a thing about technology you know they
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were interested in the business side of the story you know and so I came aboard at Netflix and everybody was super duper smart and Reed was incred he’s incredibly smart and incredibly again vision he thinks through things like who who has a five year plan you know most
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companies are like you know especially when you’re starting something new you know you’re like I’m barely going to figure out the next two years, you know, and five years are, you know, like when you’re like already saying this is going to be the price of this
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>> five years ago there was no ChatGPT anyone who had a five year plan five years ago it’s been blown up like yeah it’s crazy you know so but Reed I felt like if it comparing and contrasting the two I felt like he was just so low key I don’t think I ever heard him raise his
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voice to anybody you know he just felt like you know like what comes to mind is like the hippie dippy guy you know the guy who’s like so laid-back and so cool and you know um and Jensen is much more driven you know Jensen is like you know he’ll be direct with you like I’m going
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to really hammer you on on this now you’ll be in a meeting and everybody’s like you know because you know he’s gonna he goes after somebody and he re and it’s because he he wants you to be prepared when you come into those meetings in a lot of ways a lot of ways
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his learning process is in these meetings and somebody will come in and they’ll be describing me something and he’s like wrong like how do you not know this you know like I was talking to this person and you know and the funny thing about good um executives and not just
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CEOs is how well they triangulate right how they can take this amount of input from somebody else and this here and this here and then put it all together in something that makes sense you know like journalists do it on a much smaller level than the guys who are really
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thinking through the whole big picture thing and so that is the thing that I is that I found it’s really like the really good CEOs do that really well because they are hearing a lot it’s just chatter chatter chatter to them >> you know and how do you focus that into something useful
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>> you know and then come and then turn on like here’s the answer you know it’s like you know eniac one right you know it’s getting lots of input and then suddenly it’s like here’s the answer you know >> this this is great clip I appreciate it it’s like all of a sudden like I blink
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it’s like we’ve been here almost uh you know 40 minutes here. I could spend all day with you know this is great. It’s it’s so nice to check back in with you, see see what you’re working on, think about what what’s coming up next for you and and just going to hear some of those
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stories and um yeah, look forward to talking to you more. >> Yeah, sounds great. >> Thanks Cliff. >> Thanks. Good chatting with you. >> Thank you to my guest and thanks for listening. Subscribe to get the latest episodes each week and we’ll see you next time.