Live Chat Now
Available
Give us a call

Send us a text

855.890.3001

855.890.3001

Leadership Skills to Help Grow Iconic Companies

 

By DeVry University

July 18, 2022

30 min read

Conversation between Tom Monahan and Carl Eschenbach

In this Digital Dialogue, Tom Monahan, President and CEO of DeVry University, speaks with Carl Eschenbach, Partner of Sequoia Capital and DeVry alumnus - class of 1987, about the leadership skills he’s learned and how he’s put those skills to use helping to grow iconic companies. Carl dives into his experience in sales and eventual foray into the tech industry, which laid the groundwork of management, sales and motivational skills he used to lead teams throughout his career. He touches on the difference between EQ and IQ and the value of each in leadership and finding a mentor, what helps drive technological change, building high-functioning teams in this new world of work and more.

Tom Monahan: Thanks to everyone for joining us today. I'm Tom Monahan, president, and CEO of DeVry University. During today's Digital Dialogues, I'll be speaking with Carl Eschenbach, a partner at the iconic venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, and a key partner to many of their iconic companies like Zoom, Snowflake, Palo Alto Network, UiPath, et cetera. Carl has a front-row seat and is on the playing field for some of the most exciting dynamics in technology today.

 

Prior to Sequoia, Carl was President and CEO of VMware where he helped grow the company from $31 million in his first full year to $7 billion in revenues and from 200 people to 20,000 people. And most importantly to us, Carl is a DeVry alumnus. So we're delighted to have you back not exactly on campus but kind of sort of. Carl is passionate about leadership and the importance it plays in building iconic companies, and that will be the focus of our conversation today. Maybe, Carl, for the audience, start at the very beginning, which is can you share a little bit about your role at Sequoia? Yeah, I'm curious, you spent 30 years in an operating role and you've come maybe not across the table, but around the table a little bit from the operator side to the investor side. I'd love to hear about how it's different and what you do today and what's similar.

Carl Eschenbach: Yeah, so first of all, Tom, thank you for having me. It's great to be on this podcast and webinar with you and many of the DeVry University students and alumni. It's great to come back and hopefully give a little bit back to the community in school that I'm so proud of. Graduating back in 1987, go way back and coming out of Woodbridge, New Jersey. It was a tremendous experience and one I am very thankful for as I look at my career over the last now 36 years that I actually did end up going DeVry. Although at the time, it was probably a little bit of a controversial decision leaving a four-year school on a wrestling scholarship to go to DeVry, a tech school. It was one of those crucible moments and decisions of my life but as I look back and reflect, I couldn't be more proud of making that decision and the opportunity and the groundwork that DeVry laid for me in my career.

 

So thank you so much, and thank you also, Tom, for all you're doing for the university. I think since you've joined, you've done a tremendous job. You've had to battle some uncertain times and lead DeVry during the unprecedented time we've experienced with COVID, so thank you for your leadership. I think you've made a big difference in bringing a business mindset to a great university. So to answer your first question, so I'll take you a little bit through the journey and how I got to where I'm at today. Coming out at DeVry in 1987, I actually started, Tom, as what was known as a field engineer. And I was traveling around the country and installing big phone systems, at the time they were called PBX systems. And I was deploying them and really got my hands really around the notion of serving customers and having to implement these systems all across Manhattan and universities down in the Washington, D.C. area.

 

And it was a great first job out at DeVry, and from there, I started to get into what's known as pre-sales system or sales engineer where I was the engineer then working, if you will, with a counterpart who's a sales rep or account executive, and we would go out and sell into the market and I would do the designing of systems. And that was about a 10-year journey and I was doing it really leaving the PBX industry into the networking industry, both local area networking, and wide-area networking.

And then finally I made the leap, the leap of faith to move directly into sales, and I started my sales journey as an individual contributor sales rep. And then shortly thereafter, I raised my hand. I was living back in the New Jersey, Pennsylvania area, myself and my wife at the time, and we decided I wanted to try my hand at leadership. I always thought I could be a good leader having grown up as a leader in sports and other things, and I got into leadership really early in my career. I was very blessed to get an opportunity at a networking company called 3Com.

 

And then I just leveraged that and parlayed that into more and more responsibilities. Joined a company in the late '90s, took it public. It was part of a public company at the time. It was called Optimi during the.com days. A super high flyer, stock went way up. Unfortunately, it came way down as it crashed, and had a great run there. And then in 2002, to kind of catch up to what you said about my bio, I joined a small company at the time called Vmware. To be honest, I was transitioning from a large company called DMC. I was only there three weeks and I decided to leave after being there for only three weeks to go back into the startup world and join this small company. And people say, "Did you know VMware was going to grow like it did over the 14 or 15 years that I was there?" And to be honest, no, I don't think anyone knows.

 

You may have an inkling, you may have a perspective that you can grow a company to become that big but to actually experience it was just an amazing journey and taking a company from its infancy to where it is today, today VMware is now a 14, 15 billion-dollar revenue company and I was there for a big portion of that journey and was part of the leadership team to help grow it. We sold the company, we took it public, we sold it again, so there was a lot of different operating things that happened in the company, but it was just a tremendous experience.

 

And then about six and a half years ago, I decided to leave the operating world and had the opportunity to join Sequoia which is a very iconic venture capital firm out here in the Silicon Valley. They have clearly stood to test of time. They found a way to endure through all up and down markets and have always risen to the top because of the tremendous value that I bring to entrepreneurs and founders. I joined here six and a half years ago. And the thesis behind me joining Sequoia was, number one, I wanted to learn something different. I wanted to learn how to be an investor. I wanted to learn how to dissect the business, to dive deep into the financials of the business, to learn about what unit economics are of businesses.

 

I also wanted to find a way to give back to the community and serve them just like so many helped and served me to help me in my operating career. So I found this path back to still maintaining my operational interest but doing in a way where I'm helping other companies and hopefully providing good insights and perspective on what to do and what not to do, what not to do based on many mistakes I made in the operating world. So it's been an interesting transition. I've learned and continue to learn how to be an investor. And I've really enjoyed my time here at Sequoia because I get to work with a diverse set of companies in different categories, in different industries. And the thing about being in a venture world, you're always working with the latest and greatest technologies and trends. So the transition, while it hasn't been easy because I miss that kind of leadership position in running a larger company, I've also found ways to engage with the portfolio companies I do work with now and try to get back and lead in a different way.

Tom Monahan: As you look at your journey and if you could go, I'm going to ask this question for a pretty obvious reason which is we have just under 30,000 students who are making decisions about careers day in, day out. And as they complete their education, thinking about what's next for me and how do I chart a path? What do you wish someone had told you when you were finishing up DeVry that you know now that so you wish or what have you learned that you think would be especially relevant to someone just setting out in the front end of that journey today?

Carl Eschenbach: Yeah. It's a great question because if I'm honest, I stumbled more into technology than I did plan or have a strategic or strategy on how to get into technology. I got into DeVry because my brother-in-law went to DeVry and I saw him get out and do very well very shortly after getting out of DeVry in New Jersey. And I found that very interesting. So I took advice from him and again, left a four-year university where I was going to be wrestling to join DeVry. So that was the first insight someone shared with me. Wow. This technology field is pretty interesting, number one. Number two, the other thing I would say to people is if you're thinking about a career just being in and around technology as a category is always going to be super interesting and very stimulating because the one thing that is constant and that is the change of technology. Technology literally changes the world each and every day.

 

And when I say to be in and around technology, it doesn't necessarily mean, Tom, you have to be a technologist. I think what's really interesting is to say to people, "You don't have to go to school necessarily to be a computer scientist or be an engineer, a software or hardware engineer or a design engineer." But it does mean that if I could give people advice, get into a technology company and you may be in different functions. You may be in sales, you may be in marketing, you may be in engineering, you may be in finance. So my advice is get in and around the technology company because technology is truly changing the world each and every day.

 

The interesting thing though is that technology only enables change. And what I mean by that technology is what changes how we work live and play every day but it doesn't drive change because it still takes people. It still takes humans to actually implement the technology to drive the change. So while technology's super important fun to be around, it still takes a people per component of it to actually implement it and drive the change itself. So the guidance I'd give to anyone listening out there is figure out a way to get in and around the technology company, but it doesn't necessarily mean you have to be a technologist if you will, or a deep engineer.

Carl Eschenbach's Experience and Growth as an Engineer

Tom Monahan: Pivoting off that a little bit, you have a lot of experience as an engineer, actually working directly with technology. You also have a lot of experience in sales, marketing, go-to-market strategy, how you bring innovation to life in the marketplace. Why and that turns out to have been a really important path in the leadership for so many people. You look at a lot of leaders, I would say I'm deeply suspicious of any leader who doesn't try to sell me his or her product even if it's totally irrelevant but being an advocate for your organization is so important. What are the lessons from the sales portion of your career that you think influenced you as a leader that and maybe are therefore important to all leaders who are aspiring to lead great organizations.

Carl Eschenbach: Yeah, Tom. Yeah. It's a really interesting and good question because I personally believe a lot of times people have a tendency maybe to not look as sales as highly as a profession as maybe being an engineer or being someone deep in finance. In fact, they may even poke fun at it at times, but I always remind people that anything, Tom, that you and I right now can look at can touch can feel, right? Was sold by someone. Literally, that lamp behind you, the lampshade, right? The shirt you have on, everything in the world has been sold by someone. So it's one of the greatest professions I think in the world that doesn't get enough credit.

 

And actually, sometimes can have a mockery made of it, which it disappoints me. When the truth of the matter is as humans, we love to engage with people. We're meant to communicate. We're meant to be with each other. And that's what sales is. Sales is a profession that teaches you how to be a person and engage with others because when you're in sales working at a technology company, for example, you're not necessarily selling the brand or the technology offering, you're selling yourself. And it just teaches you more and more about how to engage with people and how to live in the real world. The other thing I find quite interesting with sales is you, unfortunately, fail more than you win.

 

You get told no a lot. And in fact, if you're in a sales cycle or a sales campaign, Tom, right? The most uncomfortable position is when the customer says no, but we often say that's when the selling starts because we got to overcome their objectives or hurdles they're putting in front of you. So I think it teaches you a lot about life. You have to have a lot of intestinal fortitude. You have to have a lot of drive. You have to be able to accept rejection over and over and over again. So I just think sales teaches you so much about not just the profession but life in general. And then lastly is I think when you're in sales and you move into sales leadership, you have to have this ability to do one of two things to your employees. You need to figure out how to motivate them.

 

You need to not figure out how to drive them to get the best out of them personally and professionally. But motivational leadership is a push technique, you're pushing your people. On the other side of that is inspirational leadership. And inspirational leaders use what I describe as a pull technique, they pull their employees into them. They get their employees to rally around their mission, their objectives, what they're trying to achieve in life. And that inspirational leader is one that gets the highest results out of their teams. And then the ultimate level of leadership in sales which leads in transcends into leading a company is knowing how to both motivate your people and push them, but inspire them.

 

And when do you use one of those two techniques can I think be the highly valuable. And then as it relates to the tech industry, if you look across the tech industry, you have a nice combination at this CXO level of people who grew up in engineering or in the product side, you have some people that grew up in finance or do the CFO or operations. And then there's others who grew up through sales and marketing. So I think there's all different flavors of leaders out there in the technology industry and they come up through different avenues, but they always have some really key or core leadership traits that ultimately allow them to be successful. And I personally believe having grown up on the sales and marketing and some engineering, it's just allowed me to figure out how to relate to people better and how to motivate and inspire them to get the best out of them personally.

Tom Monahan: Maybe we'll broaden the leadership question a little bit. I've heard and read that one of the most important things an investor like Sequoia, an investor like yourself, is looking at when evaluating a company is actually the leadership. Often there may be some glimmer of product market fit, there may be, but ultimately, it's what team are we going to back? Not just what products and services. How do you evaluate leaders perspectively in those situations and what are you looking for?

Carl Eschenbach: Yeah, yeah. Tom, and outside of DeVry, I know you've been with a couple of companies and done a few startups and had success along the way. So the question is, what do you look for in those leaders if you're going to support them and partner and invest in the company? I call it, we look at investments in one of two ways. What I describe as inside the building, which is the people, and then outside the building, the market, the size of the market opportunity, whether there's a product-market fit to use your words, or whether they're trying to go out to establish a new category. As it relates to inside the building, it always, it always, Tom, starts and stops with people. And so when we meet a new founder or entrepreneur, or even a repeat one, there's a couple of things we look forward or look at. The first is how self-aware is the founder?

 

And what I mean by that is do they recognize their strengths versus their weakness and do they lean into their strengths and go higher and are they capable of recruiting people around their weaknesses because no one can do everything. So being self-aware is super important. Number two, learning about the entrepreneur or the founder and whether or not they have had to overcome adversity in their either professional life or even in their personal life because in a startup and when you're growing companies while everyone thinks and they see the companies who ultimately become successful, they think it's up to the right while it may be up to the right, I can tell you it's up and down along that journey. So having that resiliency and being able to overcome if you will, the laws in building a business and not get too high when the highs there, being that steady person who can overcome any objective or hurdle that's thrown at them is super important.

 

That's the other thing. The third thing we look for and I specifically look for is whether or not the founder or entrepreneur has domain experience or knowledge of the market that they're trying to sell into. Are they bringing a product to market that they have a lot of experience with already and they're trying to go and maybe bring a new technology to a market category that has been lacking a specific feature or function or product and they're going to try to disrupt it. So that awareness of the market that they're going to go sell into in their experience and whether or not they've lived in that space before is also really important because it's hard to be an entrepreneur and founder and go into a brand new market that may be big, but if they have very little experience in, it's really hard to do. So looking we talk about product-market fit, as you sell to customers.

 

I think about founder market fit and whether or not the founder, right? Is going to be a good fit for the market they're going after I think is another thing that we absolutely look for. And then the last thing and it kind of goes with the first thing I spoke about is are they a magnet to attract other highly talented, high potential people. I'd like to think of them, are they force multipliers? Are they 10X founders that can go and bring and recruit some of the most amazing engineers in those early days to help them build out the product? Are they able to go recruit out of the big companies like the Googles or the Microsofts or the Metas of the world? Do they have that gravitational pull to bring those great, talented people into the company is something else we look for, and have they done it in the past?

Tom Monahan: And I'm going to just remind folks to put questions in the chat. And I promise, so I've got a long list. I could go do this for hours. I'll make sure we get to some actual questions from students and community members. Just my guess is as you sit on a number of boards and have sat on a number of boards ranging from startup to what would be considered a large-cap and having been a successful leader yourself, it sometimes if not often probably falls on you to kind of pull the CEO or the leader aside and give her or him, I won't say call him an area for development. I'll use mystically, some constructive feedback. Where do you find when you're pulling a CEO aside at the end of a board being to say, "Hey, pay attention to this." Or, "What are the themes that tend to come out in those conversations?"

Carl Eschenbach: Yeah. So it's tricky because there are sometimes you want to make recommendations or share thoughts or ideas in the full context of a board in a board meeting. And then there's other times where maybe it's a little bit if you will, more of a tough-love conversation where you really got to talk to them and I prefer to do them more one on one because I think they're more meaningful and more impactful. And also it's important to know it as a board member that your thoughts may not align with everyone else's. So you want to make sure that you are never in a board meeting and believe you have all the answers because no one does, but if you have something you think could be very impactful to the founder or entrepreneur, you pull them aside afterwards. And the way I like to do it is, first, I like to make sure you recognize what they are doing well.

 

Because what I have learned over the last five or six years, and while I've worked for many startups, myself, and being part of building companies, I've never been a founder or entrepreneur. And I've realized, Tom, how hard it really is to do and the ups and downs associated with it. So as I speak to these founders, I want to recognize how difficult it is but also recognize how well they're doing and share with them where they're actually executing well. And then after you do that, then you can talk about areas of improvement. And the one thing I think that's really important as a board member no matter how many years of experience, yeah, I have decades of experience unfortunately at this point in time. I always recognize that at the end of the day, it is the founder and the entrepreneur's company.

 

And it is our responsibility as board members is to give them insight and recommendations on things that they might think about doing. But at the end of the day, it's their decision whether or not they do it. So I always frame it in that way with the founders and I let them know, right? It'll be then the responsibility of the board, right? To measure and inspect how they are executing on the company plan and objective based on the guidance and feedback we've given them, right? So again, it's all about how you deliver the message. It's not always what you say, it's how you deliver it and whether or not then they enact upon your recommendation and guidance. And a lot of times you do that outside of the board meeting and one on ones because I think it personalizes it a bit more. And sometimes these first-time founders and entrepreneurs might clam up a bit in a board meeting anyway, where your one-on-one they'll be a little bit more open.

How DeVry Prepares Students of Change in the Workplace

Tom Monahan: Great. One last question, then we'll jump to some questions that are coming in from the audience. And you'll know immediately why I'm asking this question. DeVry really prides itself on getting our students kind of ready to contribute and thrive in the workplace day one. We all remember the bad old days of the US auto industry when cars would come off the assembly line, they get parked because they had to be sent somewhere else to be fixed before they could be sold. We see ourselves very much as let's get our students really want to get out and contribute the first day after they get their certificate or degree or whatever they're working towards.

 

You probably have as good a set of insights into how the world of work is going to change. I just look at whether it's board seated, Zoom [inaudible 00:25:59] workday involvement in the automation, there's just so many different ways the world could change. And as we think about preparing students for that world, what stands out for you around what's going to take to be successful and what we should think about in terms of helping students get ready for a world that technology is continuing to reshape how we work.

Carl Eschenbach: Yeah, man. The world of how we work and where we work has dramatically changed now in the last 26 months. And it was all brought on by an unfortunate pandemic with COVID but it has also taught us that there is tremendous amount of talent all over the world. There's a tremendous amount of talent that is self-driven and self-motivated that does not necessarily have to be in the office every day to get the highest level of productivity. So the war and fight for talent has expanded outside of the major, if you will, metropolitan cities or tech cities like a bay area where I live and it is now truly global. And the real key for employees or employers is to find people that are super smart, maybe don't have a regard for where they're working from but the key for me here, Tom, and maybe this is me just being a little bit old school is making sure that those employees are highly driven and motivated and they're self-motivated because no one is governing them, no one's watching them.

 

They're all working from home these days. And you have to make sure, right? That you may maintain a performance-based culture as you build these companies. And to do that in a distributed workforce, I think you have to make sure you're leaning on the qualities of the person in their ability to drive and motivate themselves as much as you're relying on the intellectual horsepower they have when you're hiring them. So that's number one. Number two, we will work in a hybrid world from this day forward. If you just think about the world where I grew up for 30 years in sales and marketing, it was all about getting on planes, flying around the world, going and seeing your customers in person shaking his or her hand, going to dinners, selling real-time in person. 26 months ago, every sales force in the world became an inside sales force.

 

We lived on Zoom. We lived on Teams. We lived on Google Meet. We lived on WebEx. We've lived on all these collaboration tools and what people realize, "Wow, we can still have a very successful business and we can sell in this manner." So people now have to adapt to that. I don't think we should over-rotate one way or the other. I believe it's important that Tom, you and I sit down and have a coffee one day or have dinner and look at each other in person, that's real relationship building. But you have to recognize that the world has changed and you got to lean into the world of hybrid work. And I know there's a lot of theories out there and I sit on boards that sway both ways.

 

Number one, they're saying, "We want our employees in the office." I'm all the way to, "You know what? It's flex work. Work wherever you want. Just make sure you get your job done." I personally am probably more in the middle. My old school mentality is I think energy and enthusiasm are contagious. So getting people together, walking the halls, having those conversations, getting the coffee, I think are highly valuable and important to building an enduring culture that will stand the test of time. But I also recognize that people want some freedom and flexibility of where they can work and how they can work. So I think it's going to be a combination going forward, but the world has clearly changed forever.

DeVry Students Ask Questions to Carl Eschenbach

Tom Monahan: Great. Thank you. This a great audience question I'm going to... Andrea asked, she's reacting the fact that you mentioned you stumbled into technology, and from the perspective of someone in the class of '22 or '21 or '20 or recently launching themselves in the work world, she's asking how critically important is that you find the exact right first job, first step, or to what degree do you just kind of go and get going and see what happens? But how important is it to really lock in on a specific path early on in your career?

 

Carl Eschenbach: Well, so I think everyone has in their mind what the perfect job is and what I would say to answer the question is if you find what you describe as your perfect job, take it. That being said, it's very unlikely your first job is the perfect job. And I think what's actually as important as anything is making sure when people are out there looking for that first job, they're not just looking at the company brand or what the company does, but really focus on the people. Going back to that people discussion we had around entrepreneurs and founders, Tom, the people that you work with day in and day out, their attitude and the culture they're creating is super, super critical to those early jobs because they're the ones that are going to make you like or dislike your opportunity, not necessarily company brand or need. So when you're getting that first job, obviously you want to get into the field you want to work in.

 

It might not be the exact company, but if you get into your choice, two, three, or four, and there's great people with a great culture and they give you the opportunity to learn quickly and advance your career, that is also a very good outcome. Because I think people can just wait too long for the perfect job and that may never come in the first time you're landing it. So just get into a good company with great people that give you the opportunity to learn and people always, the question I always get asked, "Did you have a career roadmap? Did you map out your career and talk about one job to the next?" I never have done that in 36 years. Whatever job I was in, I said, I'm going to be the best I personally can be and push myself. And from that success, hopefully, that will launchpad me or determine what my next opportunity is. I've never career mapped in my life. I just worked hard on whatever role I was and have this fundamental belief, Tom, that your attitude in life and how hard you work determines your altitude of success.

Tom Monahan: Right. One more question here from Paula, which is looking for advice for professors as to what they should be emphasizing in preparing students to be successful. And this could go all the way back to your days in class or could be what the companies are involved in need from workers joining today. But what advice would you have for professors as they try to get students ready to really thrive in this world?

Carl Eschenbach: It's funny, Tom, I was thinking about this this morning. I had a professor at DeVry in Woodbridge, New Jersey, and I was in the electronics technical certificate program at the time. And the professor most of the people in that class were going out and doing some form of engineering, more break-fix implementation, deployment installation, that's kind of what I did. And the professor during every test we had, he would play music in the office or in our classroom as loud as he could. And we're like, "What are you doing?" He said, "Listen, if you're out and you have to fix a product." Let's say you're working at the time on, and I'm making it up an x-ray machine. There's going to be a customer over your shoulder asking, "When is it done? How's it going? What's going on?"

 

And he said, "So I want to train you right now to be prepared for someone always making noise and looking over your shoulder." And I'll never forget that. At the time we're like, "Man, this professor's aggressive. He's crazy." But thinking about it was a life lesson that he taught us. So that was just one example I was thinking of this morning reflecting back on my DeVry days. But listen, as a professor, obviously you have to teach whatever the curriculum is that you're responsible for. But I think teaching some of those life lesson skills also are super important and how not only apply the technology or the curriculum to your professional career but what else to look for out there as well. Those people skills. Because my experience would say the following. When people are younger in their careers and they're going out into the workforce, they typically have a tendency to follow people with very high IQs because they're impressed.

 

She, or he's super smart, right? Wow. I want to follow them. I want to be like them. As you become more mature and more tenured, more experienced in your career, you start to have a tendency to want to follow leaders with high EQ. And that happens over time after you realize that the highest IQ people don't always make the best outcome as leaders or employees. And when you blend the two. So if I'm a professor, talk about how you find both someone who's super smart in their domain or area of expertise, but also what are those EQ qualities and traits you want to look for because when you blend the two, that's when you get great leadership and that's when you create followership and that's when you build great companies. So that's something if I were a professor I'd be teaching a little bit of both and reflecting upon their own experiences in life as well and not just nailing and crushing the curriculum they're responsible for.

Tom Monahan: Great, wonderful. I think this is going to have to be our last question. And it's a great way to end, which is Moises asked, "In an ever-changing industry, how do you manage to stay up to date? I mean, there's so much in all the places, just all the domains you invest and play. And obviously, there's tons of content out there, tons of people, but how do you sort of stay," He used the phrase latest and greatest. How do you stay up to date as to what's happening across the tech field you target and invest in?

Carl Eschenbach: Yeah, it is a great question because it's one of the challenges of being in venture, but also one of the great opportunities because you're learning about so many different things and I call you have to have a lot of contact switching. You have to go from one thing to the other. And one thing to the other, every day. Today I'm meeting with two or three different companies in completely different areas and you got to get up to speed. So the first way is read. There's a lot of content out there. Before we meet with the company or I meet with the company, I try to read up as much as I can if I'm not aware, right? Of the product or what they're focusing on so I read. The other is just look for people.

 

I'm fortunate in Sequoia I have some investors and partners that have been here 35 years. I'm not afraid, right? To go to my younger partners for example, crypto. Crypto is not an area of expertise for me, but I'm highly enamored with it and I'm intrigued by it. So I go and ask people, don't be afraid to ask. There are people who are experts in every area and don't be afraid to go ask. That's how I learn. Hopefully, I give back to them in other ways and that hopefully, they can give back to me as well.

 

And then the third is just meeting with people and companies. There's lots of companies. When we find a company in a new market segment, they're probably not the only one. It's not the only person who came up with the idea. So going out and meeting with many different companies in that category gives you a lot more insights as to what's going on in that business. But it's a lot of work to keep up with everything. I mean, we go from a consumer company to an apps company, to a deep infrastructure, to a cloud company, to an autonomous or self-driving vehicle company, to climate tech, to Biopharm. Every day it could be something different and that's the fun of the job, but it's not easy either. It takes a lot of intellectual horsepower to keep up with everything.

Tom Monahan: Yeah. It's funny. I'll give a shout-out to our amazing faculty here which is catching up with a professor last week. And they said, "Yeah the most important thing as a faculty member is teach students to bring questions not answers." Because that's going to help them whatever they're doing that day, five years from now, everything will have changed. They have to get really comfortable saying, "Tell me about this. Tell me about this. How does this?" And that perspective of faculty asking for questions not answers was a really, it syncs up really well with what you just shared. Well, this has been awesome. Thank you. This has been, I could keep going for hours, but I think we promised you, we wouldn't gobble up your entire day but I really appreciate your time. We'll keep the conversation going on LinkedIn and social networks. So think of this as the kickoff to our conversation and we're hugely appreciative of your time. And I took copious notes and learned a ton. So thanks so much.

Carl Eschenbach: Well, Tom, thank you for having me. Thank you for your doing to lead DeVry. And I wish all of the people listening the best of luck in their careers. And if there's anything I can do further from here, please don't hesitate to reach out to me directly.

Tom Monahan: We will take you up on that. All right. Have a great afternoon.

Carl Eschenbach: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Tom Monahan: Bye.

Filter Blog Post Category