#348 Ian Myers: From Tintin to Talent—Building Global Teams With Soul
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Who is Ian Myers and what is his journey in entrepreneurship?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist humility for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, I'm chatting with Ian Myers from New York, founder and CEO of Oceans, a modern talent agency connecting high-skilled talent from Sri Lanka with US businesses. On most podcasts, you'll hear him share stories about scaling his company from zero to over $10 million in revenue in under two years, or his insights into venture investment. But today, I'm not interested in those stories. They are surely impressive, but not the full picture. What fascinates me about Ian is that, like me, he is a fan of Tintin.
Tintin's spirit of adventure clearly impacts Ian's own approach to work and life. From the US to Japan, from literature to banking, venture capital to entrepreneurship, and gaming to launching a talent agency, He's been on a true journey. What is his secret to success? It's not about over-calculating. It's about doing what feels right, collecting data points and experiences, adjusting course as needed, and simply forging ahead. Let's dive into the ocean of Ian Myers.
Good morning, Vince, or good evening.
How did Ian Myers' early academic and professional experiences shape his career?
Good morning, Ian. Yes, it's evening time for me. Welcome to our show. You got a lot, a lot of things to share today, but let's start with your history, your background. You're fairly young, so let's start with your academic background. Then we'll move on to your professional experiences.
Yeah, and the reason I think it's important to talk about college is it's something that people are increasingly not interested in doing these days. Also worried about whether or not it's going to help them get a job, not get a job, waste of money, waste of time. For me, I just wanted to spend four years studying something that was interesting to me. So I studied literature, and a big part of my journey has just been Following what was interesting in the moment and not necessarily thinking about my career as a series of points on a line that I had to achieve, which I think a lot of people do, and it actually might have served to hurt people more than it helps them. So I studied literature in school.
I went to grad school for international policy because I loved interacting with people from all over the world. I had lived in Asia for a little while, studied abroad in Japan. And that brought me to work with a Japanese asset manager who was investing in venture funds in the U.S. And that was quite a cross-cultural experience. Speaking Japanese, I was something of a translator, both linguistically and culturally. And that was my first exposure as someone who had a pretty mundane academic background to venture and startups and technology and flashy growth and lots of money and millions of dollars in financing. And it's hard not to... feel the allure of that world. If anyone's been in it, been around it, seen it, it's exciting. So naturally I left banking. I went into venture capital and became an investor at a firm in New York. Spent some time there, very rewarding, met a lot of great people. But of course the thing that happens when you're young and in venture is you always look at the entrepreneurs who are building companies and you say, wow,
What am I doing? I'm just moving money around. These people are building stuff. I want to do that. It looks like so much fun. And then if you do it, you realize it's just a lot of pain and suffering until it's great and rewarding. But from the inside, it seems fun. So I took the leap. I became CEO of a company called Newspix, which I built over a year and a half before it was acquired. Then worked for the acquiring company for a number of years doing new products. And then I launched a second company in the gaming space. It was a total failure, shut down, didn't work out the way I'd hoped. And then I launched Oceans and that brings us up to today.
What role did Buddhism play in Ian Myers' leadership approach?
Great. We'll definitely talk more about Oceans in the second part of our interview. Now back to your personal journey. You mentioned that you actually moved aboard to Japan, to other Asian countries. And I believe you, in the grad school, Stanford in particular, you were into Buddhism, is that right?
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Who is Ian Myers and what is his journey in entrepreneurship?
0:12–2:39
2
How did Ian Myers' early academic and professional experiences shape his career?
2:39–5:41
3
What role did Buddhism play in Ian Myers' leadership approach?
5:41–10:48
4
Why is Tintin a role model for Ian Myers?
10:48–13:13
5
What is the mission behind the Oceans talent agency?
13:13–16:19
6
How does Oceans connect Sri Lankan talent with the US market?
16:19–20:03
7
What are the challenges and opportunities in the future of work according to Ian Myers?
20:03–39:57
Speakers
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