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Interview with Kevin Hazel, Vice President, Strategic Purchasing, Siemens Power Generation

BrownHEN interviewed Kevin Hazel, Brown '77, Vice President, Strategic Purchasing, Siemens Power Generation, Orlando, FL (USA) and Erlangen, Germany

1. Kevin, how did a civil engineer become a leader in the electric power industry?

The path to any leadership position is often indirect, including experiences in multiple business areas.  For me, that path included engineering, technical management, project and program management, quality system design, organizational development, strategic marketing, and supply management.  At the end of the day, I have always felt that if you are trained to think well ("Thank you, Brown University!") and freely apply yourself with energy and passion, opportunity finds you.

2. You know a great deal about electric power generation. Please predict what it will be like in 10 years.

Centrally-based power generation using fossil fuels will remain the primary source of satisfying a continuing growing market globally. In this segment, efficiency of energy conversion will both improve output and address environmental concerns. Fuel gasification (i.e., coal-to-gas) will also rise in response to cleaner emissions demands. Renewables will play an increasing role, as in segments of Europe where commitments are to generate 10% of the total electric power demand in the next few years. Nuclear energy, already on the rise in many regions, will also make a return in the USA.      

3. How can a person be entrepreneurial within a large corporation?

Entrepreneurial opportunities frequently present themselves in the corporate world. One has to be open to seeing and capitalizing on them. In my career, most often the change opportunities came from recognition that a person is multi-dimensional and can create value by increasing the “sum of the parts.”

4. You worked at least one summer making sugar in a factory on the East River. Do you recommend that an engineer gain experience working on the shop floor?

The experience at the Domino Sugar factory was, as they say in the commercials, "priceless." Technically, I learned the importance of the man/machine interface and of training after getting a 440V shock while resetting a circuit breaker. Organizationally, I learned that unions play an important role in the labor/management relationship, but that all roles need membership-driven balance. I saw that first line management, in this case the shop foreman, has a tremendously difficult role and that good performers here can make or break an organization. Practically, I learned the value of hard work. Loading a rail car with 100-pound bags of sugar by hand or scraping an industrial filter after the initial processing of raw sugar inside a four-story boiler are constant reminders of respect for true labor. 

5. Please comment on working for an enterprise that has been purchased by a European company.

In 1998, Siemens AG purchased the power generation segment of Westinghouse. We were blessed with two factors that made the integration of two companies with long legacies (over 110 years each) possible: good leadership and a robust market. The leadership philosophy, backed by action, was that we would not make Westinghouse a German company nor Siemens an American one. The goal was to take the best elements of each company into a globally-managed, regional-acting enterprise. The market boom in the US from 1999 to 2001 then gave us a great platform to implement the philosophy. Fulfilling customer orders distracted us from the inertia preventing change; perhaps this is why some other multinational integrations failed.

6. How is your German?

Thankfully, the official language of Siemens PG is English. Early in the integration, I tried to learn German. This was as unsuccessful as my learning French in high school. At this point, I can manage in a restaurant but little else. 
   
7. As you move into management, do you worry about losing technical expertise?

It is important in this context to decide what career path you desire. Personally, I always looked at career progression as gaining expertise.

8. What are the top five qualities you would ascribe to an entrepreneur?

• Intellectual curiosity
• High energy and passion
• Ability to inspire others
• Determination
• Business-minded sensibility

9. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

Some years ago there was a movie called "Defending Your Life". While a comedy, the premise was that fear prevented us from using the full potential of our minds and prevented us from going to heaven. This makes sense to me. In a personal context, when running track in high school it was wanting to win that drove me rather than fear of failure. I still subscribe to that philosophy today.   

10. As you know, the entrepreneur’s path is filled with trials and errors, and also failures. What’s a valuable insight for entrepreneurs to keep in mind when they’re experiencing setbacks?

You have already given the answer in the question.  Entrepreneurs inherently accept that failure is part of—and not the end of—the process. 

11. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN?

The Asian concept of yin and yang—of balance in all things—has always been attractive to me. Doing is far different from knowing, however. Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits" and his 'roles and goals' exercise in the book is a good tool to organize your behaviors with your intentions. From that exercise, my faith in God has taken a more important position in my life balance. And interestingly, my career accelerated with this improved balance.

12. Who are the three individuals who have influenced your development significantly?

Jesus Christ, my parents and my wife have had the greatest impact on my development as a human being. Professionally, it would be Dean Hazeltine (for giving me an opportunity to grow); my first manager at Westinghouse, Don Akey (for giving a fellow civil engineer a job in mechanical engineering); and Brother Vanard, a teacher in high school (for assuring that intellectual curiosity would be a part of my DNA).    

13. Senior year at Brown you lived among farms in Seekonk. Do you live in a rural area now?

For a person who grew up in Brooklyn, NY, nearly everywhere is a rural area. But seriously, we now live in Oviedo, FL, which is a suburban area northeast of Orlando. My job requires me to spend roughly 140 days per year in Erlangen, Germany, where I maintain an apartment in a rural area—very much like Seekonk. Again, an example of the balance objective.   

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© BrownHEN.org – 2007

Interview with David Durfee, CEO & Chief Scientist, Bay Computer Associates, Inc.

BrownHEN interviewed David Durfee, Brown '80, CEO & Chief Scientist, Bay Computer Associates, Inc., Cranston, RI.

1. David, why did you found your own engineering company rather than work for a large company?

My family has a retail hardware store that we all grew up working in. The environment there and the responsibility given to me allowed me to make significant change. After I graduated in engineering I went to work for a fortune 500 company. As you might guess, sometimes you felt like you were trying to turn a supertanker.

In one sense, I continue to work for large companies as my firm does contract design for large firms. While the Dilbert cartoon sometimes seem all too real in these situations, being a consultant allows us to control the aspects of the job that have been assigned to us without too many big company distractions.

Many of our other clients are startup companies and it is great to be "in on the ground floor" where you can make a significant contribution to the success of a company.

2. We read discouraging things about the future of U.S. industry. Do you believe a place will continue to exist for a company like yours?

People told us we were crazy to start a consulting firm in Rhode Island. When we started, we had to compete with larger firms that were located closer to the 128 tech loop. Now they tell us we are crazy to compete against India and China. It certainly is true that we are competing with overseas vendors.

We believe that customers will always value excellence. As with many vocations, there are large variations in productivity. What good is it to pay 1/3 the US hourly rate if it is taking you four times as long to get the job done? While our engineers may complain occasionally about the "high bar" that we have set, they are proud of our achievements.

3. You are noted for being a very successful teacher at Brown. Teaching must distract from your other work. Why do you do it?

I went to graduate school so I could be a professor. Well, I guess I spent too much time around professors and decided that the job wasn’t for me. The teaching part was always fun. Also, I think it is one way that I can “give back.” I remember sitting in engineering classes wondering, “what the hell is this guy talking about?" I work hard at giving real life engineering examples so that the students can see how important what we’re teaching will be to them.

It’s really great that I get to teach one course a year. I do have to say that I have little free time while I’m teaching but it’s only for one semester.

4. In your business, do you have to spend much time with legal or regulatory matters?

I suppose the answer is yes if the term “legal” applies to submitting and subverting patents. As far as regulatory goes, I think that is one thing that has made us successful. We have designed a number of devices that have been registered with the FDA. Our proven ability to comply with FDA (and European) regulations has been very helpful to our customers.

5. You father was well known in Rhode Island politics. Do you have thoughts of running for office?

I asked my dad a while ago why he got into politics with all the negatives about the job. His answer was very simple. He simply got angry over what he saw and decided to run for office himself. I’m certainly angry enough, I just don’t have the time between school, work, and family right now.

6. Do you worry about conflicts of interest in hiring Brown faculty members and recent graduates?

I worry about conflicts of interest all the time. Honesty and integrity are very important in addition to excellence in engineering. (It's even in the IEEE Code of Ethics!) Any dealings that my company or I have with the University are very public and usually involve me putting in extra hours “on the house.” (I’ve discovered that alumni are suckers for helping the University and I am no exception.)

7. How to you keep up with technological developments?

My wife laughs at me. When we go to the beach, I bring a book on data communications or motor control. Engineering is a craft. Like any craftsman, your vocation needs to be part of who you are and not just a 9 to 5 job for you to be successful

8. What is your vision of the future of Bay Computer Associates, Inc.?

The future vision hasn’t changed much in 17 years. We want to continue to do really interesting engineering designs and work with intelligent, hard working people. It tends to feed on itself. As you hire great people you do better engineering which results in more interesting work. Each year has brought bigger and more exciting engineering work to us.

9. What are the five qualities you would ascribe to a business leader / entrepreneur?

Work ethic, intelligence, experience, honesty, and integrity—there is no ranking. You need all of them.

10. Who are the three individuals who have influenced your development the most?

You’ve posed a very difficult question. So many people have influenced me. If I must list only three:

• My parents for my work ethic and interest in how things work.
• My wife. Without her influence I would have a tendency to treat the whole world (people included) as an engineering problem.
• Barrett Hazeltine for lessons on how to “pay it forward.”

11. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

I guess fear of failure and a fear of losing customers could explain why we work so hard. I prefer to look at it as the desire to achieve excellence.

12. What is it like having a son at Brown?

My son seems to be enjoying Brown. He seldom calls (which I view as a positive thing). I never talked to him about being an engineer but that is what he decided to do. It is great to be able to relate directly to his experiences. In fact, he told me about this really great professor that runs up the aisle to shake the hand of students who give the right answer! (I’m told that Barrett now says, “Am I making sense?” instead of the, “Is everybody ok?” that I used to hear.)

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© BrownHEN.org – 2008

Interview with John S. Chen, Chairman, CEO and President of Sybase

BrownHEN interviewed John S. Chen, Brown '78, Chairman, CEO and President of Sybase, Dublin, CA.

1. John, you are highly respected for the "turn-around" you accomplished at Sybase. Can you summarize your strategy?

We did it in three phases, beginning in 1998 when I became CEO. At that time we managed to "right the ship" by thinking strategically—finding our own niche, reorganizing, and asserting managerial discipline.

Phase 1: 1998 revenue $867,469,000; net income negative $93,128,000.
In Phase I, we defined a new direction, achieved break even and grew cash. We restructured to achieve a correct skill mix and business model. To do this we reorganized into four divisions:

1. Enterprise solutions; focused on integration, moving and managing of data and applications.
2. Mobile & Embedded Computing; focused on products and solutions to extend enterprise systems to remote and wireless devices -- the forerunner to today's Unwired Enterprise strategy.
3. Business Intelligence; focused on products and solutions enabling data consolidation and analysis.
4. Internet applications; focused on solutions for design, construction and deployment of Web-based applications and extending existing client/server applications into a new web environment.

Phase 2: 1999 revenue $874,000,000 net income $63,000,000.
In Phase 2, we stabilized revenue, ensured the highest level of installed customer base satisfaction, increased profitability, and grew cash. We also established individual division accountability, and built selected capabilities through targeted acquisitions and investments.

Phase 3: 2000 revenue $961,000,000; net income $116,000,000.
In Phase 3, we ignited our growth engines derived from strategically focused acquisitions, completed transitions to vertical and solutions focus, and built new strategic partner relationships. We also began expanding geographies, especially in China.

Phase 4: 2007 revenue $1,026,000,000; net income $157,300,000.
We’ve moved on to Phase 4 and established number 1 position in many key markets.

2. Please describe what you see as the similarities between remolding an established company and starting a new one.

You start something with a product that only some people will want. Only a niche market has a chance to grow. In reinventing an established company as Sybase our traditional database was in a mature market so we aimed our small footprint database SQL for the growing laptop market. In other words, we established a beachhead in a niche market by selling the whole product SQL anywhere we found interest.

For an established company or a new company, when your product has a huge demand, you should focus on production. This helps you maximize your market share. At Sybase we gained a 78% market share for our small footprint database. For both types of companies you lead your business into the mainstream by creating an ecosystem. In a low-growth stable market you should go to an adjacent market. This means expanding into a new niche. Ours was to create a vision of the Unwired Enterprise for a mobile world. This will lead us into mBanking and mPayments, and eventually mCommerce

3.  Readers probably do not know of your early childhood. Please describe the obstacles you overcame and how you did it.

I was born in Hong Kong after my parents left Shanghai, like many others, to make a new life there. I grew up in poor circumstances. We lived in a single bedroom. In place of a dinner table, my mother covered some suitcases in cloth. My father had graduated from college in Shanghai but in Hong Kong he worked overtime at odd jobs in factories and shipping warehouses in order to feed his family, and finally to allow us to move to a better neighborhood and schools. Throughout this time I managed to remain optimistic. I worked hard in school and dreamed of attending an Ivy League college in the United States. Those early years in Hong Kong stayed with me and taught me a valuable lesson—that anything can happen either way.

4. Is it true you studied mechanical engineering at Brown? How much does one choice of an undergraduate concentration limit one's career choice?

No. I studied electrical engineering. One’s career can be very different from what he or she studied in college. The most valuable things I have learned at Brown were not from the textbook, although I did study hard and did well. Technology advances so quickly, and people’s lives evolved so fast. What you learn today from the book can be outdated tomorrow.

At Brown, I gained the ability to think for myself and to be creative. Brown energized me to problem solving. These qualities, coupled with discipline— something that I acquired from my earlier education in Hong Kong—have allowed me to handle well the roles that I had later in my life.

In 1979, I started a 13-year career at Unisys/Burroughs and held a variety of engineering and management positions, including vice president and general manager of two of the major divisions. In 1991, I joined Pyramid Technology Corporation as executive vice president. Two years later I was president, COO and board member. In 1995, when Pyramid was sold to Siemens Nixdorf I became vice president and the following year I became president and CEO of the company's Open Enterprise Computing Division. That took me to Munich. In 1997, I joined Sybase as president and COO to help restore growth and profitability.

It is clear from this that what was important about my undergraduate engineering degree is that it gave me an education that helped me transfer my skills to create a personal package that includes my work and my other activities. Today, there is little connection between my undergraduate major and my current job. What is important today, as it was when I started, is discipline, the ability to think, my energy, enthusiasm, my goals and the skills I've acquired along the way in a variety of fields. I wear many hats. But if you ask me who I am, I would tell you, I am a businessman, running Sybase—a leading software company.

You might then ask me why I am involved in other activities, especially politics. The fact is that in America, economic and political discussions are often intertwined. Without a good understanding of politics, I can’t be a good businessman. All my involvement in helping shape U.S. foreign policies in by serving on the President’s Export Council, and on the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee, for example, is to help us build a better business relationship globally.

5. Biology and medicine are attracting many of the best students these days. Do you think opportunities still remain in software?

Predicting is hard, especially about the future because in 10 years or so, many things we now believe permanent will have disappeared. That said, much of modern life depends on predictions and the need to be able to predict. In this prediction area alone there are immense opportunities for software that combines data mining, analysis and machine learning to help people do a better job of anticipating and coping with unusual events. The question is only how wide a range of human activities can be modeled this way. It is possible in the future that we could predict when an expert will be surprised by changes in housing prices in certain markets, in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or in the exchange rate of a currency.

Cloud computing—so called because it involves software that lives in the "clouds" of the Internet—has caused a tidal shift in how people are actually creating software.

The future of software lies in the ways young, trained minds will go on contemplating how they might change their lives. The question is whether teenagers ever stop doing that.

6. What advice do you have for young alumni about how to succeed in a global society and economy?

At Brown I learned above all that my teachers were collaborators with me, not just disciplinarians. This aspect of my education has served me particularly well. As a technology company leader with a global market, I'm frequently invited to speak at forums here and overseas where I always strongly recommend going the collaborative route to leverage all the global resources available to innovate. We need to compete on value, quality, design, and support, while we collaborate on establishing the best global standards for innovation. Successful collaborations that were created outside the traditional business world, such as the development of open-source technologies like Linux, are being held up as models for enterprises as they meet the challenges of a competitive world.

7. Does a person in your position have opportunities to contribute to engineering advancements?  Please describe how—your schedule must be too busy for you to actually be designing software.

I am actively working to ensure a favorable environment for people to innovate on a global basis. My work is to encourage innovation and this helps engineers.

8. What are the top five qualities you would ascribe to an entrepreneur?

1. Trust your own judgment and intuition over "conventional wisdom."
2. Grow by seeking the unfamiliar.
3. Create an environment in which people can express themselves freely.
4. Learn from experience—especially how much you don't know, i.e. be humble.
5. Don't trust first appearances.

9. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

When I was quite young I developed an upbeat attitude, even when life dealt me a blow. I retain that upbeat attitude today.

10. As you know, the entrepreneur’s path is filled with trials and errors, and also failures. What’s a valuable insight for entrepreneurs to keep in mind when they’re experiencing setbacks?

Look for the positive in challenging times. In other words, see the glass as being half-full rather than half-empty.

Also, always have a long-term perspective in your endeavor. In many occasions, an apparent step backwards might benefit you or your business in the long run.

11. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN.

We need to engage. Don’t complain about negative events that happen to you as if they are someone else’s issue. You need to roll up your sleeves and do something about it, and that is the only way things will get better.

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© BrownHEN.org – 2008

Interview with John D. Sinnott, Vice President of Gilbane Building Company

BrownHEN interviewed John D. Sinnot, Brown '80, Vice President - Rhode Island District Manager, Gilbane Building Company, Providence, RI.

1. John, at present you hold a senior position at one of the largest building companies in the world. Earlier in your career you started your own building company. In what ways was the experience you gained as an entrepreneur valuable to you in your present situation?

Running your own business forces you to wear many hats and to have to learn about aspects of the business that you don’t think you know too much about or had had the experience with—for example, the legal aspects, financial, insurance, and business development or sales part of the business. When you run your own business you have to be the ‘profit center.’ In my role here at Gilbane, my responsibility is to run the ‘profit center’ for the company, which is the state of RI.

2. You worked in Haiti at one time. Gilbane Building is known as contributing corporate citizen. Do you believe companies have a responsibility to give back to the community or is such assistance better left to a person's individual choice?

Absolutely! It is part of leadership, I push the staff to be leaders or take a leadership role in the community in which they live or work. I push people to become involved. There are many ways to give back as we all have different gifts. It could be monetary, it could be assistance with a specialty, it could be advocacy, and it could be just pure labor—just a helping hand.

As sports shaped me, as my parents, teachers, mentors, coaches, etc. shaped me, recognizing a need and getting involved in that need—if it is simply as a little league coach or Sunday school teacher, helped shaped me—made me more aware of people around me, their needs and how I may be able to help them. Caution must be used here, because we need to avoid handouts, which create dependency. We must work towards sustainability, which creates independence and self worth.

3. Please describe the advantages and disadvantages to a senior person like you of working with a family owned firm.

Working in a family-run business definitely has its advantages. The company takes on the personality of its leadership; here at Gilbane, number one is integrity. That is extremely important to me. The Gilbane family name is on the product and knowing that, I know that I have to strive for excellence because they do. In a family-run business, I have access to the owners on a first name basis and can bring them in at anytime for a meeting, a sales presentation. It makes a world of difference when you can call a major industry leader and get Paul Choquette, Tom, Bill or Bob Gilbane on the phone—all family members all the leaders of the company, and speak with them about your issue or need.

4. How do you recommend a young engineer/entrepreneur keep up with changing technologies?

There are tons of periodicals, courses offered, groups that get together. Here at Gilbane, they have the Gilbane Young Professionals (GYP); many larger companies recognize that the technologies are changing; they know that the younger engineers / entrepreneurs have a quicker and better understanding of these technologies, so they focus on that. There are groups in cities such as Providence that meet regularly, usually at a bar or restaurant; this is a chance to network and also discuss the latest technologies. If there isn’t a group, then one can start such a group.

5. Many entrepreneurs have to deal with outsourcing and international competition. Is the building industry relatively immune to such pressures?

In some ways yes and in others, no. The day that they can prefab an entire building in China or Korea, someplace where the labor costs are much lower than here, put it in a container and ship it here, then we’re in trouble. That is already starting to happen piecemeal. However, with technology ever changing, our industry is also changing, as far as design, engineering, building components, etc. One thing that we do well is managing the building of buildings.

We address structural soundness and all other safety issues. Being onsite gives our people an entrepreneurial mindset due to the high level of competition, which spurs on creativity and risk taking to improve the delivery method. This entrepreneurial attitude encourages us to make it cheaper, make it faster, and elevate the quality. Our people understand that to excel in this market we need to differentiate ourselves from our competition and the people here are given the freedom to think, to try, and to take risks!

6. What do you enjoy the most about your current work? Do you miss climbing on ladders and banging nails?

Construction is a team business. A good solid team does not happen over night. A team happens over time, it must go through good times and hard times. That is the true test, how does the team react when the going gets a bit rough or shaky? I love, really get excited about working with hard working, dedicated, talented people who push me to new levels. Construction workers are great people, to the outside they may seem intimidating, but you will never find a collection of diverse people who are MORE honest AND hardworking, WHO would give you the shirt off their back, who take pride in working with their hands and minds, and are never afraid to speak their minds. It is a great industry; you see the results right in front of your eyes and that is rewarding.

7. What did you study at Brown and how relevant was your undergraduate education to what you are doing now?

I have a B.S. in Civil Engineering. The Brown degree was more geared for the design route, which I chose not to pursue. If I could change one thing at Brown, it would be to make the engineering courses more hands on. The degree helped me when dealing with designers, at least I know some of the theory and terminology they were speaking; it also taught me the discipline I need for my job. Engineering at Brown is very demanding. If an individual can succeed in that program, it shows that s/he can be focused, can be taught and will grow in whatever s/he does.

8. You were a prominent football player at Brown. Do you feel your athletic experience is useful to you now? Have you encouraged your own children to be involved in sports? (A reason for asking the question is that newspaper articles appear regularly about athletes who behave badly.)

Sports or group activities, band, plays, whatever are extremely important in the workforce, that and public service. As far as team sports, I do encourage my children to participate in sports, as I do encourage music and education. Yes, there is always often some athlete in the news, as there is always often some politician, religious person, professor, judge, teacher, CEO, etc., but the bottom line is that athletes are, for the most part, extremely generous and humble people. Most athletes appreciate the fact that they are given a gift to be able to compete and also know that that gift can be taken away in an instance with a serious injury. Most athletes know that they are lucky and have been given a lot and want to give back as best they can. You just don’t hear about the good athletes do, it doesn’t sell papers or isn’t splashy. I am basing this upon my own experience with football at the high school, college and professional level.

9. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

Fear is constant and it keeps pushing me to the next level. It is extremely motivational, but it keeps giving me a new level to work from as I keep pushing and pushing to prove that I can do something.

10. Do you have a mentor who has helped you in your career path/personal development?

I have had several, but another important aspect is a good role model, someone to strive to emulate. Someone that you stop and say when faced with a tough situation—how would he/she deal with this? What would she/he do in this case? A mentor or a ‘mentoring’ person is good to bounce things off of, to constantly check in and make sure that you’re heading in the right direction.

11. Who are some individuals who have influenced you?

Right of the bat is Dean Hazeltine and the quiet and humble way that he goes around moving mountains. The others include: Paul Choquette, Bill Parcells, Gerry Varnum, Jim Police (high school coaches), my Dad, Dan Deirdoff (pro football player), Joseph Girzone (author of Joshua series), and Mother Theresa. Finally, I would like to stress the importance of having a great mate / partner. I've been fortunate that the most important person in my life has been my wife, Cathleen, who has helped keep me grounded and focused.

12. What is the latest insight (about life, work, play) that you picked up and would like to share with BrownHEN?

You have to be open to constantly learn and ask questions. Never settle for something, strive to do ‘your’ best, not the best that people think you have, because you know yourself best! Be aware of others and treat them with respect. It is hard, but take time out to connect and reconnect. Lead by example, not fear. Keep yourself strong spiritually; you never know when you may need to talk to a greater being to ask for help, so it makes sense to keep the phone line open! 

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© BrownHEN.org – 2009

Interview with Jonathan Boutelle, CTO of SlideShare

BrownHEN interviewed Jonathan Boutelle, Brown '97, CTO of SlideShare, San Francisco, CA.

1. Jonathan, please elaborate on some of the uses envisioned for SlideShare listed on the web site—"Do you want to get the word out about your product or service? Do you want your slides to reach people who could not make it to your talk? Are you a teacher looking to share your lesson plans?" You must be asked often if you see SlideShare as having the influence of You Tube or MySpace—what is your response?

SlideShare is a way for people to get their voices heard, to share their knowledge and perspectives with the world. Sometimes the intent is educational; sometimes it is business. Our goal is to get the documents you want to share out in front of the people that are interested in reading them.

Design-wise, we copied YouTube shamelessly in the beginning. The logic for doing so was pretty simple: it made the site very easy to explain. People knew exactly where to find things on the site, and had a very clear expectation of what features would be available and how they would work. When people come to your site from a Google search, you have maybe 15 seconds to engage them before they click the back button. So you don't want to force them to learn anything: you have to operate within a paradigm they understand. For us, that paradigm was the YouTube paradigm, which you could generically describe as  "a leader-board driven social media sharing site.

We still keep a close eye on YouTube, they have a tremendous research team and any changes to their design are likely to have been well tested and therefore effective. But at this point, a lot of our designs are influenced by our measurements of the behavior of visitors to our site, and by our efforts to come up with ideas that will increase the behaviors that we want to encourage.

2. You are based in San Francisco, California (USA) & New Delhi (India). How did this dual base come about? Problems must have come up at times with a bi-national base. What advice to do have for others in overcoming difficulties caused by having managers on different continents, speaking different languages, based in different cultures?

Our third co-founder, Amit Ranjan, is in Delhi, and has been with us from the beginning. In early 2004, the three co-founders (Rashmi Sinha, Amit Ranjan, and I) got together to form a product company. Our initial product was a minor success; it was an online survey tool called MindCanvas. In early 2006, I got the idea for SlideShare, so we have always been a "micro-multinational".

Collaborating across time zones and cultures is hard work, but it's also very rewarding. I got to go to India a lot and learned a lot about Indian culture. It's important to have real relationships with the people you are working with. Skype video helps a lot with that; I spend about an hour a day having video conversations with our Delhi team.  Actually visiting and working with people is also really important—for the first several years I was spending 2-3 months a year in India. I do believe that for building great products you need people that are truly part of the team: NOT contractors, consultants, or outsourcing companies. Building a product is a very iterative process, and requires a lot of passion and commitment to get right.

3. Slide Share has a very impressive list of investors and members of the Board of Advisors. How did you recruit such distinguished people?

Many of our investors and advisors started out being SlideShare users. We noticed their content and "friended them" on SlideShare, and the relationship grew out of their appreciation for our product. So we didn't need to sell them on the SlideShare vision; they were already using the site and finding it useful.

4. Two of the three founders of Slide Share graduated from Brown. Do you think anything special about the Brown experience encourages entrepreneurship? If so, how can that special quality be preserved and nurtured?

A lot of Brown graduates are very strong technically, but also have broader background. This is important because as an entrepreneur, you aren't just working on developing technology: you also have to figure out what to build, how to market the product and sell it, how to do accounting, how to pitch to and negotiate with potential investors, etc. It’s a very broad set of skills that are required.

I have one idea that I'd like to pitch, though! I do think that entrepreneurial courses similar to the ones the Stanford CS department runs (the Facebook app class,  http://credibilityserver.stanford.edu/captology/facebook/
the iPhone app class http://www.stanfordiphoneclassapps.com/) would go over very well at Brown. The web has created powerful new distribution channels with very low barriers to entry, so it's possible to have semester-long educational experiences that result not just in usable software and occasionally, in viable businesses! And the experience—whether successful or not—of shipping software and trying to get other people to use it teaches a budding entrepreneur a lot of important lessons.

5. The SlideShare website says, "[We] think that small teams with fire in their eyes can do big things." Can you describe first-hand experiences when such was true?  How does an entrepreneur create a team with fire in its eyes?

Sure. I and another engineer built the first version of SlideShare in less than a month! And neither of us had previously coded in Ruby, the language SlideShare was written in. We simply didn't know enough to be intimidated by the problem, and we really wanted to make the idea a reality. It also helps to be building something inspiring: I don't think if we had been working on DRM software or an accounting package we could have built the same enthusiasm in our team.

With software, every person you add creates additional communication overhead, so it's very important to stay lean and mean. In fact, one of the main advantages that startups have over incumbents is that they have less of everything! Less people, less resources, less bureaucracy, and less experience. This is what lets them move faster and stay focused. 

6. Do you think big opportunities remain in the software sphere?  Has all the important work been done?

No way! Is life perfect, yet? Our work and personal lives have plenty of room for improvement. As long as that's the case, there will be opportunity.

7. Can you describe your creative process? How did you come up with the idea for SlideShare?  How did you turn the idea into a revenue-generating product?

The idea for SlideShare came to me when I was organizing a conference. Speakers kept on coming up to me and asking me how to put their PowerPoint decks into the conference wiki. I assumed there would be a site like SlideShare for doing so, and when I couldn't find one I knew that we had to build it. I designed the site (in PowerPoint, of course ;->) over that weekend and we started coding a prototype immediately.

8. Would you speak about fear as a motivation or hindrance toward accomplishment? How has that played a factor in your path, if any?

Fear stops a lot of people from becoming entrepreneurs, but once you make the jump, fear of failure is a crucial motivator. Once you start telling people you're doing a startup, you really don't want to tell them that you failed. So you work like hell to succeed! 

9. Do you have a mentor who has helped you in your career path/personal development?

Andy Van Dam, in the Brown CS department, was an important mentor to me. He got me interested in Computer Science, gave me my first academic internship, and gave me the background I needed to get my first industry job in computer graphics. He's an amazing teacher and an innovator both in technology and in education.

10. Who are some individuals who have influenced you?

I love the writings of Paul Graham, and would encourage anyone considering entrepreneurship to read his essays (they're available online). 
http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

Dave McClure, our investor, and spiritual advisor, has influenced my thinking on startups a great deal (particularly on the importance of metrics).
http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats


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