CHM Live | Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell

so joining us tonight our Eric Schmidt Jonathan Rosenberg Alan Eagle all inside at Google who coached who were coached by and worked with Bill Campbell over

the years they will be sharing their stories and referring to their book the trillion dollar coach there are many many things that are going to be drawn

out tonight by our wonderful moderator Susan Wojcicki who's the CEO at YouTube and has been at Google for quite some time before I introduce the program

though I want to say a little bit about about about Bill Campbell beyond having read the book I met bill Campbell on his

first day in Silicon Valley I worked at Apple then and he came into my cubicle with John Sculley who had hired him and

[Music] some of you may know or not know but I was I was an athlete in college and Bill was a coach and he wanted to know about

me right away and he asked a few questions and it was pretty clear right then and there to me that we were gonna get along for lots of reasons and over

the course of time I did a lot of work with Bill and it was it was it was just a wonderful experience and I think these gentlemen captured it incredibly well in

the book but I'll also say that there was a moment in time in my business life hland when I was recruited away from Apple by

the founder at Apple Steve Jobs and I left Apple and I quit the team I quit Bill's team and I spent some time with

him thereafter the following spring after Apple had sued us and we went for a long walk it was Easter it was a dinner at his house with

his brother and his family I was very close to his family and his young son Jim at the time and we walked around the block for a long time because he wanted

me to come back to Apple and and I made a decision and that was one of the things that made us friends for life is that when you make a decision and you're confident and you feel right about it

you stick with it but he tried to recruit me back one moment in time later in my life I was at another startup

company and Bill came in as the CEO and

he fired me I still to the day he died was was friends with him appreciated everything that he did for me I saw him

on a regular rhythm as is described in the book and there was just nothing more interesting very colorful as described

but a lifelong friendship with someone who who really really gave his heart and soul to this industry and to people and

you know brought with him the kind of guidance that is extraordinarily well described in this book and backed up by some good science as well so I wanted to

offer that as just a personal comment because you know from from the standpoint of the people that built uh ch you know you you've read the stories and I just wanted to tell you mine

because I've got the stage all right so with that I want to introduce five things about Bill Campbell which is what we like to do when we do these programs so here are

five things about Bill the trillions of dollars and market value that he helped create again well documented in the book

he served on Apple's board for 17 years became the Intuit CEO in 1994 it was all Ivy football and I'm just one of the

countless many that he helped and coached along the way so with that let me ask the the authors and Susan to come to the stage thanks so much

[Applause] next to Susan I want to said next you're upset what is this thank you Jonathan you can sit here Eric

there Alan there they had us practice this beforehand so there wouldn't be any awkward moments on stage okay well for those of you who don't know

Jonathan was my manager for 10 years Eric was the managers manager and Alan we've also worked with for many many years so this is gonna be really fun

tables are gonna be turned I get to ask them lots of questions starting with telling them where to sit you sit here

so let's get started okay so I'd like to know a little bit more about the man behind the book of trillion-dollar coach can you tell us a little bit about who

was Bill Campbell and why did you decide to name the book trillion-dollar coach he generated probably two trillion dollars of value as coach he's the most

successful coach in the history of the world think about Alan Alan describe a little bit about though well he started as a

football coach he was on the only Columbia Ivy League championship team and he was the captain of the team and then he went into football coaching he coached at Boston College and then at Columbia head coach of Columbia in the

late 70s if anybody remembers their college football history the Columbia football team was not very good so maybe he was the greatest coach in history but

perhaps not football coach went into business at age 39 joined came West to join Apple in 1983 and it's something

interesting in empathy for the folks here this is the history museum 1984 yeah we're all looking at each other like we haven't rehearsed this before we

haven't rehearsed Alan we didn't rehearse any of it that's right it's all impromptu so I'm gonna take the cards and throw them and they'll be in a

different order and everything will be completely impromptu so don't worry about any of the can I still talk about the Super Bowl ad go ahead so bill came West to join Apple

and led the launch of the Macintosh and they launched the Macintosh with an ad at the Super Bowl in 1984 and with the ad was the 1984 ad and it was a really cool ad and they shot the ad and Bill

loved it and Steve loved it and the Apple board hated it and so the Apple board said don't run the ad sell that spot and Bill was able

to sell the spot but decided not to and decided to run the ad with a quote was [ __ ] it let's run it you're not supposed

to say that on stage oh sorry curse word this runs live-streamed Al and the ones in the Google offices are just confident let's run it alright in

any case in any case one of the most famous ads ever run on television was done by Bill Campbell as a vice president marketing so the question is how did he go from there to becoming a

coach and at some point he decided to give back so he this he he gave back but the reason we're also all here I mean he did amazing work as an executive as a

leader and marketing and coach but he also had a very unique style of being a coach I think the reason we're all here today and he touched so many people's

lives is because of this really unique style and so I thought it might be just good to hear from you like what was it like what was the essence of his leadership style and why like when we

all think about Bill like and I was very fortunate to be able to spend time with him do you like you know why do people literally tear up and start thinking saying like this was you know one of my best friends like he was so meaningful

to he changed my career for you Susan you worked with him very closely how did he make you feel well from this supposed to be me interview yeah but that's but

I'll answer the question I mean I felt like what was amazing about Bill and you talk about this book is that he actually really cared about you as a person and I have like a lot of examples of where he

went above and beyond what was needed to make sure that I was having like the right doors opened for me that I was like you know they're in the rooms when I needed to be and then I had a good shot and that at

my career and he cared so deeply and went above and beyond and cared about me as a person that like when you know when he when he passed away like we all felt

like we had lost a best friend and that to me what was so unique about Bill was his ability to really touch us as people these guys aren't following their talking points what they were supposed

to do it's about loyalty it's about having your back it's about being an evangelist for courage it's about being generous all the time and doing positive things for people it's about lighting up

the room whether it's you know his swearing or his hugging or his making everything fun and it's about love it's

about building communities and anything else anything I left out okay Jonathan I would help with the content you guys okay wait I'm gonna ask the questions

okay so Jonathan okay so Jonathan tell me when you first met bill oh and tell the truth tell the

truth okay so when I'm telling the truth okay yes it was a long go was a long time ago I was already a big shot and you were not yet a CEO yes that's true

and I was senior VP at excite at home and Google was gonna make me a job offer it was right after Eric Schmidt started and I was coming to collect it and I

kind of thought it was like my preordained right because you guys were a little company and I was already an SVP and I turned the company down a couple of times prior yes big mistake

number one big but Eric you know now we had Eric there and he he was gonna hire me okay this is your third eye third shot and I come I come in to collect my

job offer and Pam sure Eric's assistant has a plan with Eric that they've hatched they're gonna make sure I actually accept the job because Sol are coming are our good friend had just figured out you know price times

click-through rate equal Adwords and money flows in so Eric had Pietro dovish show me the financials and at the time people hadn't seen Google Google's financials and I was like oh wow and I starts

company you're a real company I'm ready to accept this job so I'm sitting in the end of this big room in the initial building and waiting for Eric to come in and waiting to sign but first coming to

negotiate with this guy because I'm a better negotiator than he is and he doesn't show up instead can you be me

sure okay you're all along but this guy comes in Rosenberg ask around about you Jermel

access your smart door says you work hard don't get a [ __ ] I got a question

are you coachable good question depends on the quality of the coach and he like hits me like he gets it in my space and hits me I didn't really okay and he

walks away and he's out in the micro kitchen and I'm sitting there in the chair and I'm like what just happened who wasn't a tribe and then I remember

that eric has this management coach and he's this guy that also coaches Steve Jobs and like oh [ __ ] that was him and my Google offer is in the micro kitchen

so I go running out mr. Campbell's served mr. Kemp so please come back in let's try that again I'm so sorry mr. Campbell sir I'm so sorry he's like Rosenberg back in the

room but in chair and I go back in the room and he comes in he wait he makes me wait like five minutes I'm really uncomfortable I'm panicking he comes

back in and he just starts talking and he's delivering the lecture I'm in Bill Campbell's woodshed getting a lecture on humility versus arrogance and it just

goes on and on and then finally he leans in got another question if I were to be your coach what would you want to get

out of it that was a pretty arrogant guy I didn't know coach well you did but at this moment I only did one thing in my life

and it was a good answer so I said you know I'd watched this program over the weekend about Tom Landry the coach of the Dallas Cowboys and he said a coach

is someone who sees the things you don't want to see and here's the things you don't want to hear to help you become the person you always want it to be how's that Bill and Bill fell right

through me but he's like all right Rosenberg I can coach you and I spent the next well ten years every other week on Bill Campbell's couch can I can I add

a little color to that color you want more color sure there it's the color got more color that wasn't colorful Jonathan of course that turned us down twice and we were really

fortunate to have him start so who were his first three direct reports yes it's our command guard soon as the mayor yes and Susan would

you yeah from that little foursome came an enormous Empire of talent and success

and a lot of that credit actually I have to say goes to Jonathan I have no intention of repeating it and and

Jonathan and Susan and Mersenne Solar figured this out and Susan is on the side do you remember that your first desk with solar attached to it vaguely

so she had a desk it was about this big and she had a chair and there was another person right here on the corner of the desk and he had about 18 inches

and it was solar and he had perfected typing on his computer on his lap because there was no space for his computer and I thought and of course they worked very closely as a team and I

thought this is the ultimate way to run a company no physical space at all and it worked I remember that we shared when does he sound on one side I said on

other site and it was very very very tight and we sat with all the engineers in the room together and anyway it was very but what's interesting is that this

combination to be seriously ii really did pioneer together ads the ad system the way our ad system works a hundred

plus billion dollar event today as well as the APM program the way we do hire in and that little group those little for that little foursome right sitting there

and that one little desk created the leaders of most of the interesting startups in the bay area as well as virtually all of the vice presidents now running products that Google came through that little for one day we

interviewed and hired this sundar guy he did okay well so all of us let's get back to Bill so all of us were coached

by Bill and Bill bill like Bill was a coach okay and what I find really amazing about Bill is he had come from football like he talked about he was actually I remember him saying like I

can't write a line of code but yet he was considered invaluable to Steve Jobs to Larry Page to like all of those people that you just talked about as

being you know some of the early people at Google that grew it and in all of you all of us on the stage so what was it like why was it that somebody could come

here who has no expertise in technology and be a coach to literally like some of the key people in Silicon Valley well I

mean I guess I'll start so he was all about teaching you to be a leader but teaching you to do it by example and you know he would often say your title makes you a manager but it's your people that

make you a leader and he had formulas for all of the things that he did with respect to making you a leader he taught you how to do one-on-ones he taught you how to run your staff meeting you know he teach you one-on-ones were about

performance against the job and relationships with your peers and how you're doing to innovate and your management practices and you got to show all your people that you know and understand that so that they'll elect you captain of the team and once he saw

that you were doing those basics right then he helped you build trust with your people he helped you show that you had their back and he helped you develop deeper relationships with them and he

then helped you figure out how whenever there was a problem you didn't get all the smartest people in the room to run it the problem and say well I know the answer because everybody's got a high IQ and we all know how to solve these

things he would immediately say focus on the team and then focus on the problem and then he engaged with us and you know built these relationships and built a

sense of community and he never made recommendations about strategy or products but one of the things that really we learned through the process of writing the book we interviewed 80 plus

people and we started off thinking of Bill as an executive coach an executive coaching is seen as a one-on-one thing you know I coach errick or a coach Jonathan and what emerged through this was that he was actually a team coach

and that came out of his football background he didn't just coach errick but he coached everyone's on Eric's staff he didn't just coach Jonathan touch people in Jonathan's staff and what he was doing was working behind the

scenes to get the team to come together as a community and that's it that's a key inside that's a key difference than when we started the book we thought of him as an executive coach what emerged

was he was a team coach and in fact in the 15 years that I met with Bill every week it never occurred to me that he was coaching the whole team he was coaching

me that's how personal the relationship was and yet in practice what would happen as I say you know Joe Schmoe over here is a little bit off the reservation

and Bill can you go fix it and Bill would go and he would work with that person because he had built trust to bring them back to the goals of the firm and he was very careful that if he

thought somebody was uncoachable in this Jonathan story is very real then he wouldn't work with you but he if he thought that you were just in what we call an uber ingenious somebody who's just super smart and kind of slightly

off alright was fairly prevalent in Silicon Valley he could sit there and he could get that person to believe that they need the team to be successful and that they need to be in alignment with

the team now that technique he's more subtle than it appeared I'll tell you a story one day he comes in and he says you are the best CEO at making decisions after a debate I've ever

worked with and of course my chest bumps up and my ego gets inflated and I think I'm wonderful and then a week later when I screw up right which is a common occurrence he doesn't say you idiot you

screwed up which is what a manager would say he said you didn't achieve what your goal was referring to the fact that I was supposed to be the best in the world

now notice that the technique he set an expectation in my own mind about myself and when I inevitably failed it

I was then very motivated to fix it that's coaching and it wasn't until we sat down and did the research that's in the book to understand that what I'm

describing and what Jonathan and honest so capably described and Susan experience as a key member of a team is in fact a Silicon Valley invention on

par with all of the other things here at the Museum that the concept of having a coach for the business team is in fact

something invented here and indeed as a David a bit of history of this room we had a whole event for Bill Campbell around Bill Campbell appreciation one

day and we filled the room under the same principles so it really occurred here and I believe very strongly that all of us you all and everybody in the

valley needs to popularize this notion it produced extraordinary value and great human value if the idea doesn't belong in a museum Eric that's the past it belongs in a book where people are

gonna learn these techniques and invent the future we're in a SlideShare which was the modern version yeah we do know so team first so I totally agree so I am

the moderator so I need to remind them of this team first was definitely like a key takeaway that I saw that he really had very little tolerance for people who

were not team players right if he saw you or not focus on the team then he actually believed no matter how talented you were that you were not going to add value to this tea it was better like that everybody had to

be on the same team and I just like wrote down a quote as I was preparing with us she said Bill's guiding principle was that the team is paramount and the most important thing he looked

for an expected was a team first attitude yeah so I mean do you I feel like this came from football or came from his like coaching a sports team so

if you go back to Jonathan's narrative earlier you start with the basics then you figure out everybody's positions then you figure out everybody's strategy and you deal with the aberrant problems

the crazy problems and that was his build and he did it systematically and what we now know based on our research is that everything was calculated right he had a formula for management he had a

way in which that he built these relationships and it was systematic to the point where when we went to his funeral he had 1,000 best friends it's an

extraordinary achievement right and you think about if you could have that kind of impact on the people around you it's a tremendous gift it was real he's kind of the John Wooden wisdom it's amazing

how much you can get done when nobody wants to focus on taking the credit and he had these ways of figuring out if you weren't a team player and it was as you said when you didn't put the team first

but it was also the people that really wanted the limelight the people that wanted the credit the people that were dishonest you know if someone reveals them when someone reveals themselves to you

believe them right he had these rules and he would make quick decisions and if you were an aberrant genius and building the kind of products that somebody like Steve Jobs could build are some of the people who

worked for us could build he would tolerate a lot but he wouldn't tolerate it if you lied he wouldn't tolerate it if you didn't have integrity and he wouldn't tolerate it if he insisted on

taking all the credit and interesting when Bill started with us and with me I said well what do we pay you and he said nothing I said nothing and what about

stock options no I said don't you want something he said no I said I like what's wrong with you I mean you're like what I mean literally what's wrong with

you he goes I've been hugely six with all of my work here in the valley and I want to give back and I want to be back at a huge scale he at the time was

coaching many other companies he was on the Apple board he was heavily involved with all of the issues inside of Apple which we can talk about and over and over again he his commitment was to pay

back it's very hard to argue with the motives of someone who refuses to get on the board and refuses to be compensated and comes in with a heart of gold to try

to make the team better okay so I want to move to another chapter in your book okay you call it the power of love which I think is really interesting when you think about a business book particularly

a business book about tech you wouldn't think that there would be a chapter in it called the power of love you wrote he treated everyone as a person professional personal family emotions

all of the components wrapped into one and if you were one of his people he cared about you fiercely and genuinely so I want to know if each of you can tell me about something personal that he

did for you to show that he cared well that's that word love that's what surprised me the most about the whole process of writing the book is pretty much everybody we talked to talked about love how much they loved Bill how much

Bill loved them and you know the first time one of the first times I met bill Jonathan and I went over to his house in Palo Alto one night to talk to him about our first book how Google works and we

spent about an hour and a half talking about the book and and I walked in when I first got there and they'll said would you like some wine and I noticed that Jonathan had a glass of wine Oh Jonathan doesn't drink but Jonathan looked at

this like Alan you want this wine so I had the glass of wine and I enjoyed it we had a great conversation and then the next morning Jonathan text me hey come over to my office so I come over there

and bill had given Jonathan the bottle of wanting to give to me because he had noticed how much I enjoyed the one and I didn't know very well and it was a very nice bottle of wine and this was a

simple act of generosity and you know there's so many ways you can show love for people and that's one of them be generous with small things or big things well I'll give you two quick store I'll give one quick story and then a story

that isn't in the book well he saved my job which was after the first 11 months before I hit the cliff vesting and I was trying to hire and build a team because he would say you can't do anything without a team so I was out going to

business schools looking for people that be successful product managers like me and Larry rejected all of them you may some of them were very smart you

remember that and our good friend Marissa came up with the idea of hiring a PMS and I was on Bill Campbell's couch when she proposed it and I thought it was ridiculous because she said well

Jonathan Larry doesn't like people like you he likes people like me and then she explained the provision for the APM

program bill said well why don't you try that so number one she saved my job before my first year cliff vesting but another story that isn't in the book that I think really just gives you the

sense of Bill as a man bill asked me maybe 2007-2008 to come give a talk with him in in Monterey he didn't usually give a lot of talks and the talk was like on a Wednesday

morning or something and it was on my calendar for 10 o'clock 11 o'clock the night before I get a call from Debbie Brookfield his assistant bill will be at

your house at 7:00 a.m. be ready so doesn't make any sense the conference is until 10:00 7:00 a.m. bill comes up the stairs knocks on the door yells up barrel Hannah Josh you know thanks for

letting me borrow your dad for the day takes me downstairs we drive not to the conference but to the Monterey aquarium and it's 8 a.m.

and I'm like Bill the aquarium's closed just know there's a special door around the back we go around the back and we go to the door the door opens they're

waiting for bill and there was a shark in the great white shark in the big tank and we went up there and we go stand and look at the shark knee like literally puts his arm around me and we just stand

there for like 10 minutes looking at the shark and then he said now let's go to the conference and we give the talk where we go and give the talk and he tells me how

you know he says to everybody how great I am and you know I my chest pops up and all that sort of thing like he did with Eric and then on the way back we go up 17 and the driver pulls over at the summit of 17 where there's like that

pavement and you can see the Pacific out the corner he says you know I know your family comes over to the beach a lot they're gonna let the shark out in three days whenever you drive over here I want

you to think about the moment we shared looking at the shark it was like I wasn't one of his drinking buddies at

the old pro I wasn't on his trip to the Super Bowls I didn't go to the World Series games but he just decided one day he was going to manufacture this moment

that we would remember forever couple years later he'd say something about it I mean like who does that that was a

good story why didn't I put it in the book it'll be on the paperback Jonathan all right Eric

lots of stories about Bill but for me that I think an important one was that in the course of getting ready for the IPO and this is in the book there was an a complex political agreement that involved me not being chairman and my

feelings were hurt and being a prideful and arrogant person I said no problem I have lots of choices I'm just gonna quit so I call it and this obviously would have been a total disaster so I call a

bill and I tell him this and he listens to me and then Susan I don't think you even knew this story and he listens to me for a while and he says I need to talk to you and he comes and visits me

some number of hours later sensing my upsetness and he convinces me that he'll fix it and by the way he doesn't tell me how he's gonna fix it but by this point

his trust my trust in him is so high that I know he will fix it and so I did literally nothing and by the way six months later I was reach airman eyes

right so so it shows you at a critical point where I would have done something really really stupid he made sure the team

stayed together in a tight spot we were in a tight spot lots of issues among the board and so forth and so on we got through it and of course the rest is history that's a coach he was definitely a coach I have my own story

too you know Susan what was that was not in the book okay Thank You Jonathan for asking me um the good news now is like I don't need you to ask me cuz I'm the

moderator so I guess it was like and now you're the CEO so it's clear are we gonna let her get away with this yes because she's done really well yeah and

I'm the moderate to your tutelage yeah furthermore the two of you been talking to each other like this for 20 years well so let me tell you the story so we had this you know I've been at Google

for 20 years and Google's had various different review and performance review cycles some of which have been better than others mom but anyway so like and

I'm not talking about my personal review just the process of the review so we had never got a bad we had one review process that I don't think you actually know about this what we had one review process that was not very well done and

it was not delivered to me by someone who was like very knowledgeable about my work and I was really upset about it and I like I you know I didn't say I was gonna quit but I was like hey like just

do you not value me does a company not value me it's just like the feedback that I'm really getting and so I sent an email to Bill and to a few other executives that I was really upset by

about this process and the feedback I had been given when I was leaving the next day on vacation so I was just like oh I'm gonna you know I'm gonna like go on vacation and never speak to those

people again and like why come back like that's gonna be it and then bill call you know bill said like I need to speak to you and he you know put his cell phone number and I didn't call him back

and then been like another hour two hours later I really need to speak to you Susan I was like so angry I'm like I'm not calling him back but then at like 11 o'clock at night at home my

phone rang and it was Bill and he was like I need to talk to you about the review and I'm like really mad about the way it was done and I'm gonna fix it and I'm gonna do all these different things he's like you don't worry about it you

you go to you go to Hawaii you hug your babies and like I'm gonna have take everything taken care of when you come back and I was just like okay problem solved I'll go Hawaii I hug the babies and like

but it really like it really took the edge off of it for me I'm but think it solved it for me think about how fundamentally important that is because today in the valley these companies in

these management teams are into enormous stress they have so much less time in front of them than we did collectively look at the rate of stuff that Susan

deals with literally every minute in in running YouTube it's an enormous pressure cooker you need a coach to help you get those people through it but I think the good thing about the book and

the reason why I recommend it is like even for everyone who's just a manager like here are some lessons we've already talked about right like the value of a team the value of trying to get all of the people that you're working to work

together and that that greater team is more important than any individual and then the value of caring about your employees not just as a like what they're doing when they come into the office but what's happening above and

beyond and creating moments that you that show that you really care about the person yeah that's really sorry but that's really one of the things we talked about during the book was wait a

minute are we just writing a book about Bill and no one else could do this then really our belief is that these things that we talk about really anyone can do a manager can do them a manager can be

the coach as well right so I think these are like I think there are lessons here that can really apply to everyone and I know actually I was like lucky because one of like I think one of his last meetings at Google was with us where he

was talking about like how do you systemize the the leadership and how do you actually make it so everyone can take advantage and like when you talk about whose principles like they aren't they aren't complicated like they are

replicable but yet so many people don't do them and so I wanna I want to move to one other of his points which was he always talked about getting the one-on-one right that was like you know

if you had five points about Bill I'd be like you know care about your people you know think about the team you know get the one-on-one right so he had one-on-ones with with both of you

regularly and with Alan to like tell me like a little bit like how did the one-on-ones work and like what does it mean to get the one-on-one rate sure so we did you have different perspectives

on this my one-on-ones would start with Mike coming to Bill's office and he would ask me what I wanted to talk about and generally who'd encouraged me to

keep it to like four or five things so the one-on-one would start and I'd give him my four or five things he'd look at his list that was in his pocket think

about what I said if they matched Jonathan had his priorities straight that day if they didn't he'd tell me what my priorities needed to be and what

did we learn during the book so we're talking about the one-on-one section of the book and Jonathan comes in and says this is how he did one-on-ones and Eric said that's not how he did one-on-ones

you walk into the room and there'd be these five words on a whiteboard so what we figured out was the prioritization exercise that bill went through with

Jonathan Eric didn't need but I did learn very carefully what you do and literally it was a formula he he'd really want to know performance against what we call the

Google you're okay ours your objectives and key results how were you doing specifically against those things most managers just focus on those things the next thing though was how are you

doing with your peers you know are you and Shona getting along or you and Omid getting along are you and Alan Eustace getting along very few people actually focus on that and he'd also always leave

time because he's so strongly believed he would say that that you know the problem with marketing is it forgot that its first name is product so he wanted to make sure that you were doing things

to ensure that you were innovating and then he'd want to know how were your management practices were you practicing what he would call the rule of seven right were you making sure as your

organization grew and evolved you didn't have a hierarchy where any manager had one or two people working for them you know you had spans of control that were six or seven so everything he had a rule

and he wanted to check that you were adhering to that rule and if you weren't he'd let you know I just want to think of it as an equation to be a great leader you have to first be a great manager get the details right like the

one on one and then also be a great coach they go together so the other the

other quote that you talk about in the book is he said I hate consensus and I used to hear him talk about like be a decision-maker it actually doesn't

matter what your decision is but make the decision and you know maybe you can tell me a little bit like how you saw this play out and again like there's another lesson for people as they just

think about management style like making that decision how did how did he advise you on those points so one of the things that he taught was that it was very important to get to the right decision

not the consensus decision and is context up until that point in the industry there was this trend for essentially consensus management getting everyone to agree he thought that was a

terrible idea so the way we evolved and the way we would run staff meetings which he was very proud of and he came to my staff meetings and didn't say a

word but it was obviously watching and then of course would brief me later is the first thing would happen of course is all the people who normally talk a lot would talk a lot okay so you have to

let them talk I did that yes and then eventually when Jonathan was finished talking there were others

and you would the procedure was I would call on them and if someone would start interrupting them I would say let him or her finish

and then at that point we would say to ourselves who has the best idea and who has the best data and sometimes it was somebody in this room and somebody was sometimes it was somebody else where and

they were all sorts of examples of this and then bill would say now that you've got all the date on the room and I got everyone's heard everyone's opinions including the people who never speak

search for the best idea and if you cannot figure out the best idea make a decision based on what you've got then but the goal of the management team is

not to achieve consensus but rather have an exploration of the ideas based on all the data that's in front of you and he was very data-centric to get there and I think that that of all of the things

that he taught us the rigor of that probably had more impact on the way that the Empire was wrong the way the the structure of the cadence of meetings and

so forth than anything else including his one on one rules and his kindness and although you'll remember when Larry was upset with how meetings were going and he disappeared into his office and wrote a manifesto on how meetings need

to be run and it started with data and Bill really bill couldn't stand sort of the you know that that Jim dark barksdale approach of if we have data let's hear the data but if all we have

our opinions let's use mine right he hated that and he really showed us that it was often the case that it was the most junior person in the room who

actually knew the data and there were some occasions where he'd really point to that and he'd say you know you guys were all arguing and it happened to be that there was that one person over there in the corner that you asked at

the very end of the meeting and that person spoke up so and she was the youngest person in the room but she explained that everything that you were thinking was based on the wrong data I'm not sure about other companies work but

in our company often it was the most junior person literally the youngest or or the least experience if you will person who was the person who was the

quand on all the facts and if you would just call on them and let them explain it all of the people bloviating would be

discovered as having made up facts compared to the actual data ok we're so so I want to move on to just another topic because I think and then I'm gonna

I have questions from all of the audience here so I'm gonna get to those in just a minute but we like your questions better Allen yeah we're gonna

get to the moderator she wants ask me a question to see what it's like to write a book

with these guys okay Allen you spent a lot of time you spoke interviewed many people can you tell us like when bill set talked about being a coach what did

he mean and how is that different than being a manager and also what just and also how did he define being a leader and how is that different from being a manager because you said your title

makes you a manager your people make you a leader that's a lot of questions I know that's a lot there but I'm giving you some good runway to tell us about how he thought about being a coach being

a manager and what were the differences so being a manager again means getting the details right running a tight one-on-one running a tight staff meeting at times dictating decisions being a

coach is supporting people trusting people I'll give you an example cheering for people ok so we got a great example from a great story from clay before who's an executive at Google when he was

a junior product manager or maybe a group product manager was presenting one of his new products it was called expeditions to the Google board and he was kind of nervous and he was kind of fumbling his way through it and in the

middle of his presentation he hears this clapping from the back of the room and it was Bill cheering him on so now you think about that what do coaches do sometimes they tell you what to do but

sometimes they'd sure you want so all right let's let's give an example who here thinks susan is doing a great job so so think about that no no no it will give you that again no no let's do the

audience too well we like this audience right who thinks the audience is great okay and then what about the authors of the book well two things we're doing our

job so that's a technique did you notice something happened aside from repetitive and useless clapping right the mood went up the energy went up engagement went up

I don't know about you all but I said to these long boring meetings best thing to do in the middle of a long boring meeting is either have Jonathan tell

some joke or if he's not available clap get people up get people excited and Bill did this instinctively and this is something any of us can do you're in a

you're in a meeting and something the good happens cheer and so how about is there a difference between being a coach

a manager and a leader yes I guess I'll take that I think a manager well I was good at the manager part you know you

control you manage you supervise you evaluate you review you tell people what to do you don't need ten years right

that's a manager okay coach we got to the coach you know the coach support trust respect evangelize for courage have their back and get them to be

better and I'm a [ __ ] I was a good coach suzan-lori you ended rather than we do starve times when you have to think about your the manager and there's times you have to think about your the coach and for

you know myself I make a conscious decision sometimes our coaching and what about the leader that's the two together

the two together good answer okay you see and so next week I'm gonna give an answer and he's gonna say you can do

better all right okay all right so I'm gonna move to the questions here that are okay how should a start-up founder find a

coach like we were all lucky we built somehow showed up in our office that's way it felt to me I know there was John Doerr advised him to come over and there's like a story in the book but how should someone find a coach the first

place we're trying to get this whole movement started and so we want to see coaches of teams my advice would be try to find somebody who's a little bit more experienced than you try to find

somebody who wants to talk to the whole team somebody who exudes trust and empathy and actually listens and I think you'll do pretty well yeah there's a

start-up founder start practicing these principles now to set the culture for your company they could ask you and your sister found me yes that's true that's true

so did Bill have a coach and if so who was it I'm not aware of Bill having a coach I think that he was forged through the

earth the first version of Silicon Valley when he transitioned from football coach to working for Steve Jobs which is a pretty strong annealing

function and I think he learned in that crucible I think I think he I mean I think he learned so much of it in sports

because like when I when I actually heard the athletes speak about him I saw so many parallels in terms of how he coached us and I think the brilliance

was he brought a lot of the sports coaching to business in a way that had never been brought in that way I can put another way think about it you're a football coach or a

basketball coach you're dealing with prima donnas these are people who have very high opinions of themselves and very high expectations and often very young does that sound like Silicon Valley or what I actually think his

coach was his first principles and he would actually ask people to write them down and he would often refer in meetings to the first principles and the cultural values that he would codify in the beginning you know he did this and

into it he had it on the wall it was kind of his at peoplesupport trust respect but he did it with the internal team at Google the first year that he started which you helped with and any time there would be a problem he would

go back and say okay what are we about we're about focusing on the user were about the set of things that we said were the principles that we hold to be self-evident and that was like his his

guiding light and he'd remind us of that when we had a problem ok this is a really interesting question here what did he teach you about life about

marriage about raising your children and about being a good husband thank you did bear we'll ask that question yeah the

answer would be he teach he would teach you to be empathetic and you know I guess I can defy and I think what's so interesting about that which Alan talked about is it's still really hard right

like it's still hard to get it you can sit there with a counselor and they can explain to you what it means but then to actually do it is really hard and I think what's so fascinating about most

of the principles in the book is that they're the same many of them are the same things that you can read in lots of pop psychology manuals and other leadership books but people don't do

them people don't stop and listen people don't engage in active with and they mention those show in the sky Eric Oh what so Eric all of this is all

of these principles are freely available in a slideshow that you can find with your favorite search engine by typing

trillion-dollar coach SlideShare okay so we're gonna do that later right sure we're gonna do Eric makes me in so see that later we'll do that later but I want to hear from Alan and Eric

about what he taught you about life marriage children and being a good husband hi I think that the bill was a family first person and so what I

learned most who was basically start with your personal life start with your own happiness understand that this stuff is a marathon right there's this tendency to think that life is defined

by these two or three-year IPO cycles and then it's sort of like nothing happens and so because that's the wisdom of age in his case but understanding that your this is a marathon and you have to keep your family with you you

have to get your health with you he was sick and most people didn't know this virtually all the time that I work with him and of course I knew the details but he didn't tell anyone else but

nevertheless he kept up this focus on his family and his children's son and daughter and his work and these principles that we've been talking about you know trust and love it wasn't just

for Bill in business it was for Bill in life he built community in business but he built communities all the time he ran an annual Super Bowl trip he you know it was all it was all kind of life for him

he coached football at Sacred Heart and you know we heard from several kids that he would be coaching football every Tuesday and Thursday 4:30 to 5:30 and sometimes he'd get a call and you look

at his phone he put it back and the kids would notice the call was from Steve Jobs but for that hour he was listening to the kids he was with the kids so that mean that's part of it when you're with someone you know part of how you

establish trust is when you're willing to be with them is to be present which today means not on your phone but in fact talking to the person he was a really good listener yeah and and I

that's one of the things that I have learned to appreciate like as I've gotten older it was like the value of just listening and the value of being heard and like connecting with someone that they know that you understand what

they're going through and that you're you're actually gonna do something about it or gonna even just understand it so okay next question

what did bill teach you about failure that's Alan what did bill teach well

maybe that's better question for

Jonathan but I'm just kidding you have the most important thing people bill would look for in people as coachability

and the most important thing in coachability is how do you learn and what's a great way to learn failing so you know family failure is not a bad thing if you learn from it and if you get better as a

result of it but if you're arrogant and you think you know it all and then you're totally just destroyed by failure then you're not going to do so well around here we talked a lot

about grit and how how people respond to stress and failure is a very big indicator of how successful they're gonna be and in these competitive

markets the person you want to back is the person where when the incumbent enters the market with a much better finance product with a big marketing

flash that manager doubles down and works harder as opposed to gives up well you learned about failure when you ended up in Bill's woodshed and we remember my

staff meeting we had Jonathan's pit of despair that people would go into that they could never get out of bills woodshed was different cuz you could actually get out and when he took you there you never forgot it and the the

seminal time I remember going there was when the tyrants of tech article came out in 2008 and there was this article that came out in Gawker that was you know here's to the screaming ones the imperious yellers that you know won't

shut up until they get their way and Steve Jobs was number one and Steve Ballmer the chair thrower was number two and Dave Colburn was number three and Marc Benioff was number four and you go down the list and they're number nine

was Jonathan Rosenberg and I was really proud of myself I think I shared that with our whole staff and I went to my therapy session with Bill

that week and he usually was there right away but instead Debbie Brooke filled his assistant was there and the only thing on the table is the article and I'm like really happy because that's pretty cool we're gonna talk about the

article and I come in there he's like what are is it well I'm number 9 he's like you know Jonathan

I know Steve Jobs I work with Steve Jobs you're not Steve Jobs you don't get to

do this and then he basically throws me out of his office and tells me to think about it for a while and I'm like bill I got my list I got my five things let's compare notes

he said no sessions over he then actually called Shona Brown to say I'm really worried about Jonathan I just took him to the woodshed can you check on it and I come back two weeks later ready to grovel in front of him because

I failed they're not needing to explain myself and I get this office and he just immediately opens the door hugs me and as I start telling him how sorry I am

he's like I administered that lesson I already know you learned that lesson let's talk about the five things on your

list so he knew exactly what he was doing exactly all right this is a good

question in 25 years of working in Silicon Valley none of my engineering managers have had any formal management training or coaching how do we get

Bill's principals to filter down to the rest of us by say by the book in a really crass pandering way and say it an independent bookstore we want the independent bookstores not just the

Amazon sells go on okay I just want to get the script right please buy the book in independent

bookstores so you can CERN I'm concerned that the questioner is in a company or a set of companies that don't have internal management training if your company doesn't have internal management

training why don't you work on using our book as your textbook getting management training inside the company in fact we're doing that at Google we started we pilot tested a training course for

leaders at Google about coaching and these sort of principles and we want to we want to expand it within the company

who is the next bill in the valley Jonathan Rosenberg it's such an

overstatement that I'm hugging em all right let me yeah so we've gone through a number of different bill values right build a team don't get the one-on-one

right make hard decisions for your team so tell me like what our other key like if bill were here like what are what are the two or three other things that you

think would be important to develop ideas simple ways to build teams simple ways to build teams start meetings with trip reports okay so that's let's talk about that what well you were the victim

of this for many years yes so what would happen is we would start the meeting and I'd say kind of where's everybody been for the last week or two and people would inevitably have been in Europe and there was some crisis or in Mexico and

some crisis people would occasionally be on on vacation and he got so popular the people say I didn't go I didn't travel at all but I had this dinner on Saturday night and here's what I heard the

purpose of the trip report aside from visit building business intelligence was to humanize people right that their lives mattered and people would say oh you know I was stuck in United Airlines and they treated me poorly and ever

there oh yeah that happened to me and you know that kind of stuff it started started with a human tone another thing that that he pushed very hard was try to

assign problems to to people instead of one that nobody ever does that why especially the two people don't really like each other working on the same

problem and actually learning how to work together worked and the bizarre thing as CEO was we bye then we started having big empires and lots of things

going on in all this and people would actually give people budget so I'd say to Jonathan and you know meet or whatever sorted out and they would actually exchange a thousand people

organizationally without complaint because they understood that they could work together and they were working for the interests of the team and I had never seen that in any of the companies before where the way you got ahead was

you preserved your we were budget in your revenue because that's how you got promoted you probably don't remember this but there was a built there's a time of Bill came and sat in on our staff meeting and it was intentionally

Monday afternoon because Eric's staff meeting was usually Monday morning and my plan was to take all the action items that I got and Eric staff meeting and parsed them out to the people on my staff and then I could have an enjoyable

rest of the week and when your staff would you know Susan and Marissa and Sal are and sundar you know there were pretty good people to get everything done at one point even after sitting in

my staff meeting bill gave me this lecture about paring things and then I would take the most simple things we're gonna do an off-site and I would say well Susan I think you and Marissa

should figure that out probably takes two people you guys look at me like well that's crazy either of us could figure this thing out but what Bill felt was if you give to

people a task even if it's a task that's relatively easy it creates a success for them and then they come back and then the next time they have something that's much more difficult they have a foundation to build on from the original

task that they did so long so it wasn't that I didn't think you could manage the off-site it was to build a relationship

thank you okay so what so what else so I agree manage the staff meeting he always talked about running no staff meeting and he always started the staff meeting

with the trip reports we haven't talked about how he managed our board bill famously refused to be on our board so what what happened is I would say bill there's a board meeting coming

go brief them and he would call them all and kind of give them a heads up because he knew what was going on and then he would come back and give me their concerns so by the time we showed up in

the in the board meeting there was never a surprise and first rules those of you who are planning to become CEOs never surprised the board not a good thing right especially if it's bad news so it

worked because when the board members showed up they knew roughly what the issues were and they had been heard similarly if I had things that were issues or other board members that

issues he served as this information I'm at the end of the day that was as important for keeping the board together among various competing interests right as the company grew as the way he helped

manage the the management team you need both is that one more you know you asked earlier the difference between a manager and a coach let's say you've got a problem a manager and all of our

tendency is let's go solve the problem what's going on let's analyze it let's come up with solutions the coach's tendency is who's the team working on the problem so you know his approach was

let's first focus on the team and then get the right people working on the problem subtle difference he would also there's an in the love chapter we say love the founders he really had an

appreciation for founders and companies he believed that they were able to do things that other people couldn't one of the CEOs we interviewed said you know one day you won't be CEO and they'll

still be the founders and he really had a strong appreciation that you needed to constantly water and feed the founders and keep them engaged and helped them

stay successful with the people of the company all right so that I'm gonna go back to the audience questions what was

the toughest lesson build taught you I think we heard a little bit about what the it's the it's again it's the sim I'll get a simple one on this one it's

the it's the wooden it's what you learn after you know it all the counts and I think that's what Bill did to me he broke me down so that he could expose my

flaws and make me realize that I was 41 years old and I didn't know it all and there were things I could learn from him mostly about people and coaching I think

in my case there's a conflict between deliberative management getting people's ideas running the process right and getting things done and what he would say is if you really are upset about

something say it so one day I was upset about a whole bunch of things so I really laid in to everybody and I was so mad we just stopped and bill comes up to

me says good job you did one half and you failed the other half right you didn't do the other half if you listened to Jonathan's story about the woodshed bill had both halves he had both the

feedback but also the re acceptance and I had violated that principle it's important to remember you've got to do both with people it's okay to show your anger it should it's okay to show your

upsetness but you have to bring them with you and that starts by listening to them acknowledging them all the things that I have not done in that very moment I think it also goes back to some of the

trust principles right like that you can be weaker and that you can be more exposed if you actually trust the person that you're with one of the things that we talk a lot about is that is that it's

important that executives feel safe at work if they feel that they're gonna be judged inappropriately or for some of they say or poorly handled they're gonna

not take a risk they're not gonna speak out they're not gonna participate so the first rule of coach / manager is to make sure each person was sitting in the seat

or what have you feels comfortable the way they're perceived the way they're dealing with the way people deal with them and what's fascinating there is that you know if you just look at some of the research that we've done at Google with project oxygen and others

all of the research says that's successful teams start with safety respect clarity of goals you have to have a mission that matters you have to have meaningful roles and you go back and listen to the things that we're talking about that was the Bill Campbell

playbook before we did any of that research Allen so what was the toughest lesson bill taught you well I wasn't coached directly by Bill I learned a lot

more through interviewing all of you you know the 80 plus people we interviewed and so it wasn't as much a tough lesson as really just an ax lightening lesson about the value of love in the workplace

again that word came up over and over again and you know the idea of just showing thank you people like that yeah you see and you know just showing like

and it's taking a few minutes to chat with people how is the family what'd you do this weekend it's the simple things that you know bringing Humanity in the workplace I think we have this this wall

that you know there's home and there's work and just breaking down that wall I'll give you another example one of our internal executives told the story at an internal meeting last week about Bill where they had done some amazing

earnings when he when she started with first earnings call did a great job and Bill came into the person who had worked with her and said who did the actual work of course it was neither of

them it was a bunch of relatively junior staffers and he said call them all in so they all show up and he spends five minutes making them feel wonderful and then he gets down to business with the

more senior executives they all talk about it why do I tell you this story it only cost five minutes that's the principal that extra five minutes and my

advice to you all is you have five minutes to go to the junior person who did all the work that person in the corner and say who are you what did you do wasn't that amazing

thank you right yeah huge you just hear a little bit good answer I'm getting some praise from Johnathan yeah okay I'm another audience

question what are the different levels of coaching how does it change when you're coaching a CEO versus a director in the American system the CEO is sort

of all-powerful and a lot of responsibilities on the CEO and the board's sort of the generic rule is the board's only actual action is the hiring and firing of the CEO so it's going to

vary but at the end of the day it's important to remember that every player in the system has their own insecurities their own needs their own wants their own problems their own frustrations

their health problems indeed for me the reason I knew I could trust Bill is that the moment when I first started working with him one of our executives had a disease similar to

what Bill had and it confided into Bill and Bill didn't tell me and I thought if Bill didn't tell the CEO something like that then Bill could be trusted well I think Adam grant did a great job in the

foreword of saying it he said as you go up the hierarchy it gets even more important because as you get to the top the people have bigger egos and more

ambition and they're more arrogant and so they require a better and more well-versed get your handshake [Laughter]

this is this is actually something that I sort of discovered through the writing of the book as someone who's maybe not quite as high up the hierarchy as my co-authors is exactly what Jonathan was saying is that you know even though

these are very successful powerful people and accomplished people the ego and the ambition and all of the insecurities are still there you actually said it much worse you said that you assumed that as you went up the power curve everybody was more more

together more self actualized it's not true more more more together as human beings it's much worse as you move up yeah and one thing that bill was really good at that we just you know we talked a lot about in the book was seeing all the

players on the field so you're sitting in a meeting this came from coaching you know when he was a football coach he could not just watch the ball but he would see all 22 players and what they're doing and when you're an executive coach and you're in the

meeting you're not just watching who's talking you're watching who's reacting yeah and it's maybe with body language just maybe they're not comfortable and then you go around afterwards and say what was going on there and you know so

that skill I think it's important at any levels but any level but it was really more important the more senior more senior in the company he went so I you

know I was in the many meetings where Bill sat in and like the interesting thing for me is that he didn't say a lot in the meetings no very quiet I always was wondering what was he doing there

right but he he I know he spoke with you afterwards like I saw sort of the footprints of changes or recommendations

or like ways he advised you one of the things like I did see him speak up a lot in the meetings like one of the few times and few topics I saw have a speak

up on had to do with diversity that he was a strong advocate of diversity what's interesting is he seems to in histories be one of the first executives

to focus on diversity this is a big project of his 25 years ago in terms of coaching women and minorities into the workforce and he taught that you can get

diversity and you benefit from diversity and inclusion it may take a little bit more time he was a big advocate and very helpful and I would get mad when people

didn't get invited to things I mean we took you you told the story in the book right when you started it at YouTube and there was an event that you weren't invited right he's just curious right so there's a story in the book where there

was an event tonight I I you know was already CEO of YouTube but I couldn't get an invite to this event and like I'm a pretty persistent person and I had already spoken to lots

of people and tried lots of different ways to get to it and anyway I couldn't I couldn't seem to get anyone to move and then I talked to Bill and called

Bill and told him like hey I can't get an invite to this event and and you know Bill like was really good at swearing and so like a whole bunch of swear words

came out he got really mad it was like I'm gonna fix this I'm gonna like you should be there and then and like I just remember that he hung up soon after it

quick and then I got a an invite to that event and like he never called me and said oh I'm guys extent he just like it

just showed up but it was actually for me it was like what I learned from that event was like I realize like wow like Bill has incredible power and he just

used his power to get me to go to this event and it made me realize like how transferable power is the people in positions of power can hand it could hand it out and could open doors he

literally could open a door for me and I I took it and I went and I was so thankful and I always remember him for that so okay we have only a few more

minutes but I do want to know there's a question how did bill help or advise a team when there were questions about privacy and the say or affiliations a bit more critical or basically what was bills

advice and in a crisis like when things were tough like what was his advice on how to handle that what was fascinating there is he really didn't engage on product and strategy issues the extent

to which you knew his opinion on those things was in those rare moments when he saw a product market fit and he got excited about something like okay the app store that's gonna be big or or something that or you know yeah we need to do chrome that seems exciting

generally what he would do when one of those problems came was he would stop get us to focus on the team that we were gonna assign and then sit down with that team and go back and review first

principles I don't recall him engaging specifically on anything like what we should do about a privacy problem or you know if you had a tough problem at YouTube today I don't think he'd come in and tell you what to do he'd come in and

ask you who was working on it and why that was the right group but he would make sure to get the problem out on the table you know you know we always talked about the elephants in the room good so let's get it out on the table let's talk

about the problem let's not ignore it and if we have to rant and rave and get angry at each other let's get that over with so that we can move on to getting

to the best idea yeah he also I think like I mean you guys tell me but I also thought he was really good about like with some of our okay ours of like

identifying early on when they were problems like he wanted to get that problem heard and wanted to get the team on it fast to identify a problem before it got further along and before it was

too late to thicken that was also just the EQ of filling the gaps in between people he'd be looking at people's reactions and he'd see from their reactions when he brought the elephant out in the room and there was this you

know argument and session who the person was who really understood that they were gonna leave the room and not support the decision and then he'd go fix that so do

you guys miss bill every day every day I ask myself what bill would do it was a tremendous honor to write

this book we felt like we were entrusted with a really important legacy and you know it's just an honor to be able to talk to so many people and convey is you know codify his principles

ya know I definitely miss him - okay well I'm gonna give you guys a minute to talk about your your book now you can do the shameless plug that you've been trying to do so tell people about your

book and the slideshows and other places where you want them to learn more because we're about to end or we're at the end here and so like I I wonder if

it would have been more successful if Jonathan had worked for you I think so it was Susan's tearing up now I got it here oh my I didn't I did make one

mistake which is I should have had Susan on top and Jonathan doing well John I learned so much from Jonathan and I learned so much from Erik and and I worked along Alan and I worked for many

times and I'm so thankful I could spend time with Bill and you know he really did change our lives in so many ways I think I think I wouldn't have had the job that I have today if it hadn't been

for Jeff for Bill so we started the book as a testament to our mentor and coach we ended up by virtue of research discovering this great body of knowledge

which is now written down but more importantly we discovered a need which is there is a new product that comes out of Silicon Valley which is this concept this set of rules but Jonathan so ably

recite recited in his five points and his four points and so forth and so on he learned well from Bill and all of you can replicate this there the secrets are not that hard but you have to do them

all so I think the final word should be that people can get all of this for free with the slider a trillion dollar code he said SlideShare or they can be

tearing up like all of us by actually going to an independent book store and buying the book and read thank you thank you so much Alan Eagle Eric Schmidt Jonathan Rosenberg and Bill

who's here with us in presents if we can all just come away for love Susan thank you thank you [Applause]