Safi Bahcall

And a third one is framework. If you don't have a framework, eventually you're just throwing, again, just throwing spaghetti on the wall, people doing a bunch of ideas. And then now what? All right, I did an idea. I got that you want to experiment. It worked. And now what? I don't know. So if you don't have a framework for advancing projects and ideas along a pipeline,

And a third one is framework. If you don't have a framework, eventually you're just throwing, again, just throwing spaghetti on the wall, people doing a bunch of ideas. And then now what? All right, I did an idea. I got that you want to experiment. It worked. And now what? I don't know. So if you don't have a framework for advancing projects and ideas along a pipeline,

with a system of here's where it goes from a one-day $100 experiment to a five-week $5,000 experiment to a 50,000 five-month experiment. And here's a little group that's gonna be making the decisions. Unless you create that system, it's just gonna be gunk. So once you can work on these three things, that ends up making a big difference.

with a system of here's where it goes from a one-day $100 experiment to a five-week $5,000 experiment to a 50,000 five-month experiment. And here's a little group that's gonna be making the decisions. Unless you create that system, it's just gonna be gunk. So once you can work on these three things, that ends up making a big difference.

In every group that I've spent time with, you see what I like to think of as the beautiful baby problem. So you have inside the organization what you can think of as the artists or the creatives who are coming up with their new idea.

In every group that I've spent time with, you see what I like to think of as the beautiful baby problem. So you have inside the organization what you can think of as the artists or the creatives who are coming up with their new idea.

And it doesn't matter if it's like, oh, here's a chemist with a new molecule or a biologist with a new pathway in the cell or an engineer with a new algorithm or coffee machine designer with a new design. They love their new idea.

And it doesn't matter if it's like, oh, here's a chemist with a new molecule or a biologist with a new pathway in the cell or an engineer with a new algorithm or coffee machine designer with a new design. They love their new idea.

And then you have the soldiers who are responsible for scaling things up and reducing risks and mitigating flaws and on time, on budget, on spec, consistently with quality to our customers. And those two groups usually don't understand each other and don't like each other. The group often that's making the money, let's say the soldiers who are delivering to customers and collecting checks, right?

And then you have the soldiers who are responsible for scaling things up and reducing risks and mitigating flaws and on time, on budget, on spec, consistently with quality to our customers. And those two groups usually don't understand each other and don't like each other. The group often that's making the money, let's say the soldiers who are delivering to customers and collecting checks, right?

don't necessarily like the group that's spending the money, which is the people who's running experiments and spending that money without seeing anything and vice versa. And I think of it as a beautiful baby problem because the one group, the creative, see their new ideas full of potential, like a beautiful baby. And the soldiers just see a shriveled up raisin covered in vomit and poop.

don't necessarily like the group that's spending the money, which is the people who's running experiments and spending that money without seeing anything and vice versa. And I think of it as a beautiful baby problem because the one group, the creative, see their new ideas full of potential, like a beautiful baby. And the soldiers just see a shriveled up raisin covered in vomit and poop.

And that's the problem. You have a beautiful baby and sort of vomit and poop. And the thing is, they're both right. The early stage ideas do have a lot of potential, but they also have a ton of flaws. And what leaders miss is like, oh, let's all just come together and hold hands and sing Kumbaya. No, you actually want that tension.

And that's the problem. You have a beautiful baby and sort of vomit and poop. And the thing is, they're both right. The early stage ideas do have a lot of potential, but they also have a ton of flaws. And what leaders miss is like, oh, let's all just come together and hold hands and sing Kumbaya. No, you actually want that tension.

You want to lean in that tension because you want the creatives super excited and focused on the potential of their idea. And you want the soldiers looking for the flaws so that they can mitigate them and de-risk them as they scale it up to millions or tens of millions of products or services to customers.

You want to lean in that tension because you want the creatives super excited and focused on the potential of their idea. And you want the soldiers looking for the flaws so that they can mitigate them and de-risk them as they scale it up to millions or tens of millions of products or services to customers.

So the artist and the soldiers, the message for leaders is you need to love both groups equally because very often a leader is biased towards one or the other. And if you're biased towards one or the other, you will sink the ship. You need to have balance, just like you love all your children equally. You need those groups to work together.

So the artist and the soldiers, the message for leaders is you need to love both groups equally because very often a leader is biased towards one or the other. And if you're biased towards one or the other, you will sink the ship. You need to have balance, just like you love all your children equally. You need those groups to work together.

Steve Jobs saw his greatest creation not at any single product, but the system that he built. And I think Jobs was a more flamboyant character and personality, so people connected to that. And Tim Cook is a less flamboyant, less hungry for publicity character. But if you look at what Apple has done, they've created some pretty amazing products that

Steve Jobs saw his greatest creation not at any single product, but the system that he built. And I think Jobs was a more flamboyant character and personality, so people connected to that. And Tim Cook is a less flamboyant, less hungry for publicity character. But if you look at what Apple has done, they've created some pretty amazing products that