SV Icons: Aneel Bhusri, Workday
Self-disruption at scale
Annel Bhusri is the CEO and co-founder of Workday, $42b public cloud-based HR platform with impressive $5b revenue. Throughout our dinner with him, we heard his insights on innovation, culture, and entrepreneurship.
Innovation:
Every two years, I bring my core team to retreat, where we list all the latest innovations happening in the space - we sit down and discuss how we could get disrupted. This is our way of identifying new innovations. That`s how we decided to go all-in cloud.
The best innovation is the one coming from the bottom, internally.
The best defense is the greatest offense; pay attention to your competitors. People say we are the largest cloud company; I still think of us as attackers.
Culture:
One of our biggest secrets is our culture: We were one of the first companies to highlight the relevance of happy employees. Happy employees will make happy customers. We have customer satisfaction of around 95% vs 65%-67% average in our industry. Now, it is a common cultural approach for companies such as Google and Microsoft. A few companies have happy customers but unhappy employees.
You don't need a big budget to create good culture; we do hikes, go to bars, organize events... I go for lunch with employees; it goes a long way.
Shoot for the moon:
Like Winston Churchill said: "I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else". The world is run by optimists, not pessimists, especially in the business world, where you should believe that everything is possible. We did many things along the way that we would not have done if we were rational.
There is more than one approach to innovation. For example, Steve Jobs created different pods of innovation separated from each other. He was more of a management genius rather than a product genius.
Learnings/Advice for entrepreneurs:
The market can change in seconds: we have shifted from "growth at all costs" to "focus on profit," and that's why you always have to build a company for the long term. The last 5-6 years have not been a reality, and the future is much bleaker.
"Do not wait to fire people who are not a cultural fit"
The employees who can lead or work in one stage of a company (i.e., startup stage) do not necessarily fit in a later stage (i.e., mature corporation). You cannot put talented people on the wrong stage.
More experienced employees do not mean older ones; I was the youngest at the beginning, and now I am the oldest now.
Solve a problem that matters, and one that is really hard to solve; the harder it is, the less competition you will find on the way.
If you want to build a company, you start with the right employees
Every company should have a strategy for the next covid because there will be a next covid.
Investor vs. founder
Everyone has to figure out what's good for them. I wanted to try if I could be as good as a founder as I was an investor at Greylock; all of my friends who were investors thought it was a bad idea. But I am an optimist and founders try to maximize upside while investors try to minimize the downside
Hire the best people; one advantage of having been a founder is that I know who the best people are after having worked with many startups.
At Workday, I try to play the VC role: Where are we wrong here?
Others
What does everyone seem to agree on that you disagree with? People should be back to the office. I know that many people ask, how are you going to learn how to become your boss's boss if you are working remotely or how are you going to build trust and connections? I am amazed at what we achieved working remotely, and I give credit to Zoom and the team. I think the everyday work can be done on Zoom, but there are moments that matter that you need to be in person.
Book recommendation: What Color is My Parachute?
Views on the blockchain? Amazing technology looking for problems to solve.
Organizer: Georgi Koreli
Host: Chinghiz Dzhumanazarov
Editor: Jacky Lin
Contributors: Alba Rubio Rodriguez, Tof Jay, XJ Zhang