Talent Archives - @techvitamin

All posts filed under “Talent”

Uber is doing awesome things all over the world, and tech hub Seattle has been a great test bed for the company's new service offerings. But it hasn't been easy. Brooke Steger, Uber's GM for six states in the Pacific Northwest has in just under four years worked through controversy over business models, regulation, safety, aggressive driver recruiting tactics, bad press for their Founder, and more. She's also helped introduce her region to UberEats, UberPool, UberHop (yeah I know, what's that?!), scholarships for drivers, and more.

May 15, 2016

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@techvitamin 1.6: Brooke Steger, GM of Uber

Brooke Steger, GM of Uber

Is your UberX car going to smell like the last Chicken Tikka delivery it just made for UberEats?

Do I now have to tip? That was a key part of the magic.

Uber is doing awesome things all over the world, and tech hub Seattle has been a great test bed for the company’s new service offerings.

But it hasn’t been easy. Brooke Steger, Uber’s GM for six states in the Pacific Northwest has in just under four years worked through controversy over business models, regulation, safety, aggressive driver recruiting tactics, bad press for their Founder, and more. She’s also helped introduce her region to UberEats, UberPool, UberHop (yeah I know, what’s that?!), scholarships for drivers, and more.

We dive into Uber topics both globally, and some Northwest specific things. Ever wonder where all those black cars were hiding before Uber, or how much a driver can make in an evening? How is Uber partnering with Seattle Metro transit to reduce commute transit times.

How should Uber’s entrance into Seattle been handled differently (if it should have been)?

Brooke’s story is compelling. A UW grad, she took some time to teach Physics and Computer Science to kids in Mexico, she jumped into tech via a Craigslist ad and has never looked back.

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When Lisa Brummel joined Microsoft as a Product Manager in 1989, the company had roughly 4,000 employees. In 2005, when Steve Ballmer asked her to take over HR, and leave her job running a $1 Billion software division — with $400 Million in profit — the company had grown to 50,000 employees. When she retired ten years later, she’d been Chief People Offer through the CEO transitions of BillG to Steve to Satya, massive acquisitions, the leveling out of stock growth, and the tectonic shifts to software as a service and (non-Microsoft) smartphone platforms.

April 24, 2016

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@techvitamin 1.5: Lisa Brummel, ex-Microsoft Chief People Officer and now Co-Owner of the Seattle Storm

Lisa Brummel (Photo credit: Bettina Hansen)

When Lisa Brummel joined Microsoft as a Product Manager in 1989, the company had roughly 4,000 employees. In 2005, when Steve Ballmer asked her to take over HR, and leave her job running a $1 Billion software division — with $400 Million in profit — the company had grown to 50,000 employees. When she retired ten years later, she’d been Chief People Offer through the CEO transitions of BillG to Steve to Satya, massive acquisitions, the leveling out of stock growth, and the tectonic shifts to software as a service and (non-Microsoft) smartphone platforms.

The people issues of a 125,000 person company are many, and most don’t lend themselves to simple solutions. Are the same people who performed well during explosive growth the right ones for maturity?

In this episode, we talk frankly about these difficult shifts, the perception of management being out of touch, and the extent to which transparency in formulating policies at such massive scale is practical. She has kind words for the blog phenom mini-microsoft, the anonymous blogger who was often quite thoughtful about how to improve things.

Why was Microsoft so prescient — yet ultimately unsuccessful — in so many areas (smart set top boxes and streaming video, demand-side management of power, web-based productivity apps, smartphones, tablets, mapping, natural language input, smart cars, web real estate, payments/banking, ebooks, etc.)? I was startled at Lisa’s clarity on this. These misses have many fathers, but she points to a significant central cause.

Lisa Brummel, Ginny Gilder and Dawn Trudeau, Co-Owners of the Seattle Storm (Photo Credit: Bettina Hansen/The Seattle Times)

It’s no wonder she spends her time on sports entertainment now. The Storm are not only a WNBA champion, but they’re a great asset to the greater Seattle community. We talk a bit about the team, how she (and her partners Ginny Gilder and Dawn Trudeau) came to acquire the team from Oklahoma villain Clay Bennett, and the impact of technology on sports. Highly recommended article by Bettina Hansen here.

Probably less well known is that Lisa was a tremendous athlete back in the day. She’s been inducted into the Connecticut Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, was all-Ivy League for four years at Yale, and was the Ivy MVP. She also won national and world fast pitch softball titles as catcher for the Raybestos Brakettes, a legendary — and awesomely named — team from Stratford.

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April 10, 2016

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@techvitamin 1.3: Kristen Hamilton, Founder/CEO of KORU on talent, women in tech, and making the leap

Kristen Hamilton, Founder/CEO of KORU

If you’ve thought at all about what you’re buying your kids in a college education, or how the job market is going to evolve, or why companies like Google are looking far beyond the Ivy League for talent, or why female HR execs don’t magically fix pay gaps, or why companies are beginning to split strategic talent management and HR into separate functions, or, or… this episode is a great listen.

Is it time to “Disrupt the degree”? Is free college attendance a good idea if the system doesn’t change. Do you want to put your federal tax dollars to work on a system that can’t seem to control its costs? Should so many people go to college, or should we be thinking more about training people for jobs that don’t necessarily require a college degree, as explored in this NYT piece.

I’ve known Kristen Hamilton for over ten years, and she’s always been wicked smart, refreshingly pragmatic, and full of insights and turns of phrase that make the time fly. Happily, in this episode I talk very little, because you’ll hear very quickly that what Kristen says is information rich, fascinating, and truly strategic.

I didn’t know what it was called officially, but in talking with Kristen, I discovered the term “Entrepreneur Imposter Syndrome” (thank you Dan Shapiro) … the gut feeling that you don’t know what you’re doing and everybody’s about to find out? Ever experienced that? I certainly have.

We talk a lot about the “KORU 7”: not a TV station, but the success traits they’ve discovered at KORU — the company she founded in Seattle — which is trying to give recent college grads essential job skills. Kristen’s of course not new to the startup game, but KORU has raised more than $13M from top tier VCs like Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures and Seattle heavyweights Maveron and Trilogy. We go into depth on what KORU’s up to, how they’re doing, and I think you’ll find it inspiring.

Note: we had some bandwidth issues, especially late in the recording, so there are some places where the sound isn’t stellar, and where bizarre Skype noises have been cut out. Apologies.

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