20VC: Evernote CEO on Why You Play For The Front of Your Jersey Not The Back, Why Success Is A Team Sport & Why Leadership Should Accept The Negative Consequences In All Situations

Chris O'Neill is the CEO @ Evernote, the productivity powerhouse allowing millions of users around the world to remember everything. They have raised over $160m in VC funding from some of the best in the business including the likes of Sequoia Capital. As for Chris, prior to Evernote, he spent over 10 years at Google including roles as Managing Director of Google Canada and global business operations at Google X. Whilst at Google Chris saw the hyper growth of the company from startup t a global behemoth. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Chris made his way into startups and came to be CEO @ Evernote? 2.) Chris has previously said 'the team you build is the culture you build'. How does Chris look to build high-performance teams that can scale differing stages of company growth? Are individuals destined to fit one stage of company growth? 3.) How does Chris look to balance the immediacy of short terms actions and events with the grander vision and longer term in mind? What are the challenges? What strategies can be done to ensure both short and long term goals are addressed? 4.) How does Chris approach product line expansion? When is the right time and reason to expand the product line? How can this be communicated and executed across the broader team? 5.) Chris has previously said he 'learned more from sport than he did from school'. What were Chris major takeaways from sport? How can they be applied to business and his role @ Evernote today? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Chris’ Fave Book: A Prayer For Owen Meaney, Zone to Win Chris’ Fave Blog: Benedict Evans As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Chris on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Zoom is the No 1 Video and WebConferencing Service, providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to engage in an array of activities including online meetings, video webinars, collaboration-enabled conference rooms and business instant messaging. Plus, it is the easiest solution to use, buy and scale with the most straightforward pricing. Do not take our word for it, Zoom’s their partnership with Sequoia in their latest 100m funding round says it all. Zoom is a must for your business. ViewedIt is a free video-recording tool that makes it easy for organizations to embrace the power of video for personalized communications. ViewedIt enables sales professionals, executive leaders and customer support teams to easily record personalized videos and add them to their email conversations. Plus, with built-in tracking powered by the Vidyard platform, video creators will know who is watching what, and which video messages resonate with viewers. They’ll receive immediate playback notifications that will eliminate the wondering of whether the recipient received or watched their content. Find out more and download ViewedIt for free at vidyard.com/viewedit.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Harry Stebbings?

  Welcome back to the 20 minute VC in this very special episode of Founders Friday with me, your host, Harry Stebbings, found on the old Snapchat at H Stebbings with two Bs. It would be fantastic to see you there. But to the show today, and I'm thrilled to welcome Chris O'Neill to the hot seat. Now, Chris is the CEO at Evernote, the productivity powerhouse, allowing millions of users around the world to remember everything. And they've raised over $160 million in VC funding from some of the very best in the business, including the likes of Sequoia Capital. As for Chris, prior to Evernote, he spent over 10 years at Google, including roles as Managing Director of Google Canada and Global Business Operations at Google X. Whilst at Google, Chris saw the hypergrowth of the company from startup to a global behemoth. I do also want to say a massive thank you to the wonderful Jason Lenken for the kind intro to Chris today, without which this episode would not have been possible.

• 0:45Harry Stebbings?

  But before we head into the episode today, a lot of people ask me, "Harry, you do so many calls and interviews, but what do you use?" My response? Zoom, the number one video and web conferencing service, providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to an array of activities, including online meetings, video webinars, collaboration-enabled conference rooms, and business IM, just to name a few. And it's the easiest solution to use, buy, and scale, and for sure the most straightforward pricing. But hey, don't take my word for it. Their partnership with Sequoia in their latest $100 million funding round says it all. Zoom really is a must-checkout for your business. I cannot emphasise that enough. And you can find them at zoom.us. Speaking of video, though, to power your company there with Zoom, you must

• 1:26Harry Stebbings?

  check out Viewdit. Viewdit is a free video recording tool that makes it easy for organisations to embrace the power of video for personalised communications. Viewdit enables sales professionals, executive leaders, and customer support teams to easily record personalised videos and add them to their email conversations. Plus, with built-in tracking powered by the video platform, video creators will know who is watching what and which video messages resonate with which users. They'll receive immediate playback notifications that will eliminate the wondering of whether the recipient received or watched their content. And you can find out more and download Viewdit for free at video.com/ viewedit. But enough from me, so without further ado, I'm thrilled to welcome Chris O'Neill, CEO at Evernote.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  You have now arrived at your destination.

• 2:17Harry Stebbings?

  Chris, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. Huge thanks to Jason at Sasta, but thank you so much for joining me today, Chris.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  It's a pleasure, Harry. Thrilled to be here with you.

• 2:25Harry Stebbings?

  I'd love to get started today by discussing a little bit about you and how you made your initial forays into the world of technology.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  Sure. So, so grew up in Canada, a very small town in Canada, and found my way to the valley way back in 1998 for what was supposed to be just a few months before going to graduate school. And really fell in love with the Bay Area first and foremost, and then dabbled into technology first as a consultant, and then soon thereafter, working at what was a relatively small company, but fast growing company called Google. And that was my foray into technology. And once you, it's like the matrix, right? Once you enter into the rabbit hole, you never go out.

• 3:06Harry Stebbings?

  It's not possible to escape, but I do want to touch on the 10 years that you spent at Google and ask you, what were the big takeaways from seeing the internal machinations and the real kind of hyper growth years of Google? And then secondly, how have you applied them to your role today with Evernote?

• 3:22Speaker 02

  Sure. So it was such an amazing run. I was so blessed and privileged to be at Google at such an amazing time. And it's just, it is really one of the defining companies of our lifetime. So it was such a pleasure and a privilege. And, you know, it's interesting, I, throughout my time, 10 years, as you said, at Google would, in Evernote, actually keep a list of the things that I would take with me wherever I were to venture, and things I wouldn't take with me. But the list on the former was much, much longer than the latter. But really, the first was really about having a mission that matters. Google clearly has a mission that matters, and we've brought that here. Team and culture, you know, so the notion that the team you build is really the company you build, and the culture, the

• 4:06Speaker 02

  countless things that you do that contribute to culture, really building your tribe. And that really starts with hiring and being really diligent about that. And last couple of things are really rooted around transparency. So really, you know, when Eric Schmidt would share with the entire company, the That really left a mark on me, you know, really the the notion that if you hire great people and the last thing I'll say is is really set really audacious goals and Google famously uses something called OKRs or objectives and key results and so hiring great people, setting audacious goals and then really being open with them about what is important and why, that's the formula for for much of Google's success, although there are other many things and and that's certainly what I have tried to do to bring

• 4:50Speaker 02

  to evernote is is some of the some of these things which I believe are the secret ingredients for for Google's success.

• 4:56Harry Stebbings?

  Before we dive into potentially what you wouldn't have brought across, I am intrigued to ask, you said about audacious goal setting there, how do you implement audacious goal setting without disincentivizing people when they don't achieve their goals and causing a certain sense of dissatisfaction when they don't achieve them, is there a difficult balance?

• 5:14Speaker 02

  It sure is, so I think it started with just actually just setting a goal, period. So really, it's it's like changing a behavior, a habit, often people try to just like do something right away, whether that's getting in shape or learning a new a new language or what have you, it's always a very, it's a journey and it's a process that's usually filled with setbacks and so forth, but so I'd say it's a it's a process. I also think that the the most important thing is to actually root goals in what I call North Star, really that is the number one, you know, thing that people fail to do. If you do not articulate something greater than the individual or instill a sense of purpose and contextualize a goal, it's really, really hard for that goal to ultimately succeed

• 5:58Speaker 02

  because it it is just lives in the abstract and it doesn't have that context. So I think that that's actually really, really important. That's true in life, that's true in business, and it's something I try to do both in my personal life and and here at work. But but to your point, it does start with just setting the goal and then gradually increasing the degree of difficulty or the audaciousness, right? And then actually being okay to allow failure and that takes time and that takes practice too, and it really takes discipline and support from the leadership team to to let people. People know that it's okay to fail. And really, when failure happens, don't punish the person, right? Make them know it's okay.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  There's a great chapter in Kim Scott's book on Radical Candor, and she talks about, you know, Whoops the Monkey, right? And this is an award that she found, and actually at her time at Google, that was awarded in all-hands meetings for the person that actually screwed up and made it not just okay, but you celebrate the failure and literally view it as a price of admission to doing great things. So I really think that's important. Anchor it in the North Star so people have context. Start with something a little easier and then ramp up the audaciousness and then give people the freedom and the space to fail so that that learning can happen and a growth mindset can truly take over in a company.

• 7:24Harry Stebbings?

  You said there about the North Star. I'm intrigued. Often I hear from founders, you know, I really want to have a North Star on a great grander mission, but I've got fundraising ahead. I've got board meetings and I've got hires. How do you look to remain ruthlessly prioritized on what really matters in the midst of these differing elements that are so challenging whilst maintaining that grander vision? Is there a balancing difficulty?

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Well, certainly, actually, the exercise of creating a North Star, actually, Jeff Weiner at LinkedIn, I think, is probably the best at doing this, right? Really being clear about a vision and a mission and strategy and culture and values, like really being intentional and clear about those things and really spelling them out and investing as a team in that journey. Because once you do that, it becomes much, much easier to do precisely what you said. You do get distractions. It's part of life, increasingly so. But if you have invested upfront, it becomes clear, right? You absolutely have something that can guide you through good times and especially bad times. So I think that that's part of it.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  But the larger challenge for any company, and I'd say humans as well, is to balance short term and long term. I often talk to teams about that as being the most important and hardest thing that we do. So of course, that's hard to do. In any setting.

• 8:43Harry Stebbings?

  How do your conversations with your team go on the balancing between short and long term?

• 8:47Speaker 02

  There's a book by Geoffrey Moore called Zone to Win and Geoffrey Moore, of course, is famous for his work around crossing the chasm inside the tornado and some really seminal work throughout the years and I highly recommend his work. The Zone to Win really is a short read, I recommend it too, and it really talks about lots of different zones that your company operates in and the two that guide us are what he calls the performance zone and then the transformation zone. The performance zone is basically executing your existing business and really having all the metrics that are required to guide the short term day to day and being really rigorous about that. That's really the performance zone and then transformation zone is really when you really

• 9:27Speaker 02

  need to make a big and a bold bet that will guide the future and very few companies make that transformational bet in time. Most people kind of cling to the existing business too long and don't have the ability to make that bet. So we actually have a framework for it. We set goals against each and then so we have a vocabulary and then we remind each other. Literally, we just had our quarterly offsite this week and at the end, we go around and we basically ask each other, are we being disciplined across the shorter or medium term bets as well as funding some of the longer term or transformational bet that we've agreed to as a company?

• 10:09Speaker 02

  So I'd say that's how we try to do it, but it's insanely hard.

• 10:13Harry Stebbings?

  I could not be more pleased to hear you say about the ability to make those bets because in my stalking of you, as I have done for the last 24 hours to make you feel very reassured, I read before that you said you've got to skate to where the puck is going. So I really want to know, how do you think about this when it's applied to expansion of product lines? When is the right time to expand products, roll out more features, update pricing? How do you think about that as a kind of meta perspective?

• 10:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, first I should, as a good Canadian, I grew up playing hockey and worshiping Wayne Gretzky, so that quote isn't just a random one in the arsenal, it means. But yeah, I I think it is important as a leader to be out in front and frankly, as a as a leadership team is to really understand not just, you know, today, but have that orientation and really be intentional and explicit about it. You know, what are the trends that are shaping the world? Like the way in which work happens is fundamentally being changed and we spend a lot of time on that. So I think that that's very much a part of this is is really carve out time and space so that you are thinking about those things. And that that usually is outside of the office, it's reading a bunch of different sources and then really just talking to people.

• 11:26Speaker 02

  You know, especially is especially fun part and and part of the many reasons why the valley is so amazing is that there are so many people thinking about these things. Almost too much sometimes, but certainly enough to help shape that future. So that's one part of it. It's articulating that vision for the company that's more than just what we're going to do this week or this quarter or even this year. So it's really anchoring that in really the other concept I like is the job that we're hired to do. So Clay Christensen's, of course, done a whole bunch of work around this is asking a deceptively simple question like what job is Evernote hired to do in the world?

• 12:02Speaker 02

  So really having those conversations and then framing those up, but then being really when it comes down to running the existing business, like really ruthlessly prioritizing, you know, those things. And really being honest with ourselves. So we have a monthly product health meeting and we we talk about how products are doing in a very rigorous way. But we also talk about things that maybe we should consider to stop doing. We also talk about the balance between, you know, metaphorically, I use use an iceberg, right? And a lot of the stuff that is below the below the water is invisible to our users versus the the part that's above the water. So we're very intentional about that. How much time do we spend working off tech debt and design debt, organizational debt versus investing in in net new new features and net new visible things?

• 12:45Speaker 02

  So I I'd say setting up the the time and the space, being disciplined and rigorous about what horizon or what time, what zone you're talking about. And then really not being shy about making the tough call and tuning out the noise. It's really, really. Hard because you you have more than enough people giving you advice, good and bad, big and small, lots of different vanity metrics that are metaphorically like empty calories. And you have to really understand the job you're hired and the metrics that really matter and the time horizon that you're talking about. And and really, if you do that, I think you put yourself in as good a position to deliver on the short while building the future. And again, that's it's it's really, really hard to do, but absolutely essential.

• 13:30Harry Stebbings?

  You mentioned Clay Christensen there. I'm really intrigued in in in particularly, you said about kind of Evernote's place in the world. I'm really intrigued with regards to Evernote in particular. What's the biggest challenge for a company like Evernote and you leading it as a CEO in making the transition from, and I hope I'm not being offensive, from kind of a strong adolescent to mature adulthood and sustainable long term company?

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're not you're not being offensive at all. I mean, all all companies, you you go through different phases of of of growth. I mean, the startup phase to the adolescent to the, you know, the more mature phase. And and it's it's not easy and it's not easy. And these are good problems to have, right? This is a company that literally exists in every country in the world, including regions like the Vatican. I mean, it's so it's really hard to get your hands around the scope and the breadth of what we do. Ultimately, coming back to one of the themes we've talked about is really about the team. So how do you scale a team? Team you build is is the company you build. So attracting the the players and the the talent that really will thrive at the scaling phase.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  And often those people are different, not always, but often those people are just different. Their mindset is different versus the folks who really thrive at the finding product market fit phase that oftentimes, you know, you're really just grinding through, like throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks and that really, you know, taking the things that work and really refining those. It's a very different challenge than really thinking about how do you scale globally? How do you think about automating? We have 220 million users and we have a very like shoestring budgets. You know, we can't outspend the big players. We have to be smart and you have to really think about automation and using. Tools and processes to basically personalize the service. These are the sorts of things that are different. So the challenge really is fielding that team and evolving the team

• 15:22Speaker 02

  while staying true to the North Star and really the whole problem that we're aiming to solve in the first place. So I would say that's the single biggest challenge.

• 15:30Harry Stebbings?

  You've seen it with your time at Google in the hypergrowth phase and you're seeing it now in the scaling of Evernote. Are there characteristics that define those that can scale with the company? And or fit more appropriately, actually, fit the scaling phase? And those that don't, what are the characteristics that those that fit firmly in the scaling phase?

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'd say it is a healthy degree of self-awareness and like a growth mindset. I've talked about it a little bit, folks that really can think both in the short and the long term. So it really isn't just how are we going to punch through this wall today, tomorrow? But really think about one or two moves out so that you're setting things up. Whether it's a hiring process, whether it's our architecture, whether it's a product roadmap, whether it's how you actually communicate with people. I mean, everything about like people need to balance both the short and the longer term. This notion that a growth mindset, which I believe actually probably cuts across all phases. But really this notion that you as a human being, your mind is like a muscle

• 16:34Speaker 02

  and it gets better with more use, especially when you push yourself out of your comfort zone. And then I also think it is the concept of the first team. So the leadership team here really has this notion that our first affinity is to one another on the team. And that we're in this together, that really we will win or lose together. And we trust each other to own our functional domain and rely upon that. But doing so from a first team principle, that's really essential. And I guess the last thing I'd say on hiring is being really intentional about the one or two, sometimes three areas that are required for any role to really be world class.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  And hiring for the presence of those two or three things as opposed to the absence of weakness. Early in a startup's history, You're really prioritizing for resourcefulness and just in many ways, the absence of weakness and the presence of grit and that changes and evolves as you scale the company.

• 17:31Harry Stebbings?

  I'm intrigued, speaking of kind of grit there and building the team, you've said before that you potentially learnt more from sports than you did school, something I definitely did, I learnt very little at school. What are the big takeaways for you then from the sports element and how can they be applied to business, do you think?

• 17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. So, I like to say that success is a team sport and I don't care what aspect of life that applies to you, it could be raising a family, it could be operating a kitchen or the arts or sports. I mean, watching the Golden State Warriors right now is a pretty good example that success is a team sport, but it really, really is something essential in business. So, I learnt, you know, I had a coach early on in my hockey career, he said, "You play for the front of the jersey, not the back, O'Neil." And it was in the context of like, I had a great game, you know, I think I'd scored three goals and had a couple of assists and that's like in hockey, that's a pretty big deal. And I remember going back after the game and I was proud, but we, but one important detail,

• 18:36Speaker 02

  we lost. So, my coach pulled me aside and said, "Hey, you know, that's, that's, that's great, but you know, you gotta play for the front of the jersey, not the back." And I'll never forget that. So, that's something that has stuck with me. And then also like back to like the team that you do build, really the company that ultimately you're building and like that has stuck with me and that everyone needs a role. You need to know your role and you need to be okay with that role and that, again, you win or lose as a team, does not matter. You could have the greatest engineering team and a terrible marketing team, like you could build great products, but if you don't get in the hands of anybody, no one knows about them, how is that success, right? So, everyone needs to pull their weight and recently had a chance to spend some time

• 19:20Speaker 02

  with Sebastian Junger and his great book Tribe really talks about what causes success, a successful tribe, if you will, and it's not too different from what I learned in sport. Yeah, the first Is the notion that, you know, there's this, he calls it lateral accountability or peer-to-peer accountability. He uses a metaphor of the military, like in the military, if we're out in the battlefield and I forgot to clean my gun and we get engaged in a firefight and my gun doesn't work, I guess who's going to tell me about that? The person right beside me. So he talks about that, but he also talks about, you know, this concept of officers eating last. Like that leadership should should accept the negative consequences in all situations.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  And then lastly is this notion in the military that, you know, honor is equal access. So everybody has access to to honor, so that you need to walk the talk. Whether you're the coach or whether you're the goal scorer, whether you're a defender, everyone needs to commit and walk the talk. So I learned these things early on and often through sport and I can't think of a better training ground for business. It's become truer over time.

• 20:26Harry Stebbings?

  Absolutely. And I have to say, I do love that play for the front, not the back. But I do want to dive into a quickfire round now and it's my favorite of any interview. So I say a short statement and then you give me your thoughts in 60 seconds. How does that sound?

• 20:38Speaker 02

  Sounds good.

• 20:39Harry Stebbings?

  Favorite book and why? You've mentioned some books in there today. What's your favorite and why?

• 20:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, but my favorite book of all time is Prayer for O and Meany by John Irving. I just love the characters, laugh out loud. I love New England. My favorite latest book is Shoe Dog about the rise of Nike. And really the why there is is picking up on a lot of the themes, like it's just how how impossibly hard it is to create something of such value like Nike and the true perseverance, the grit of Phil Knight and his team. And as an athlete, I just, I just really connected again to to a lot of the lessons that that he learned along the way.

• 21:13Harry Stebbings?

  How do you instill radical candor? You mentioned Kim Scott in the interview. How do you instill radical candor at Evernote?

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I work with Kim as she's my coach, so she's a great mentor and guide on this one. But it starts with giving a damn. She calls it giving a damn. And that really picks up some of the things we've talked about, like you have to basically walk the talk as a leader and show that you give it down. From there, you basically invite criticism and you invite feedback and you model it yourself. So I try my best to do. Do that to make it safe and model that feedback is a gift. You know, being direct is not only something that's nice to have in a company, but it's absolutely essential if you're going to continuously improve and really fuel each other's growth.

• 21:57Harry Stebbings?

  What's your favorite blog or newsletter? What are the must reads for you when they come in?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  I love Benedict Evans' work at Andreessen Horowitz. I say that, I swear it's not because he's a Power Evernote user. I just think he's so spot on, he's so insightful and it's curated very, very nicely and it comes in usually every Sunday night.

• 22:18Harry Stebbings?

  It's always my must read, I have to admit to you. But what do you believe that most around you disbelieve?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  Hmm, most around me believe that I disbelieve.

• 22:28Harry Stebbings?

  I can say an example of mine would be in investing. The total addressable market doesn't matter at all when you invest because often it's so transient and doesn't exist in many cases like Snapchat that actually it's about the product and the people at the time would be mine. Time doesn't matter.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, actually, so I actually would even go further on that one. Like, so I do some angel investing, almost exclusively in Canada when I think about it. And my test is a little more straightforward than that. It's the people and I almost don't care what the market looks like. And I almost don't care what product they have initially. So I really just prioritize on that. And that's been the common thread throughout any of my investments that I've made.

• 23:14Harry Stebbings?

  And then I want to finish on the next five years for you and the roadmap ahead for Evernote in making the transition from adolescent to gorgeous adult.

• 23:22Speaker 02

  Gorgeous adult, I like that.

• 23:24Harry Stebbings?

  You should take that as your slogan.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Okay, royalty's forthcoming. Now, we have so much work to do to unlock the full potential of Evernote and we've made some amazing progress and I'm really, really proud of the team. But it really is about that. And in a nutshell, we've done great things throughout our relatively short history to unlock and become a superpower for individuals. And we look forward to doing the same thing for teams and really helping them be much, much, much more successful. and productive and organized in the art today and so that's that's going to command my you know hundred and twenty percent of my waking hours I'm sure when I'm not with my family so that's really what's going to be in store and I I hope towards the end of that five year thing to to dial up my giving back in the form of you know nonprofits and boards and and certainly a little bit more angel investing

• 24:11Harry Stebbings?

  well I will continue to take all my notes and references on evernote in the future I absolutely love it and it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show today

• 24:18Speaker 02

  well thank you very much Harry it's it's been a pleasure

• 24:22Harry Stebbings?

  and I really want to emphasize again how fantastic it was to have Chris on the show and I can't thank him enough for giving up the time to join us today also I want to say a big thank you to Jason Lemkin for making the intro to Chris without which this episode would not have been possible and if you'd like to see more from me then you can find me on snapchat at H Stebbings all ads get a personal message from me it would be fantastic to see you there but before we leave you today a lot of people ask me Harry you do so many calls and interviews but what do you use my response zoom the number one video and web conferencing service providing one consistent enterprise experience that allows you to an array of activities including online meetings video webinars collaboration enabled conference rooms and business IM just to name a few and it's the easiest solution to use buy and scale and for sure the most straightforward pricing but hey

• 25:07Harry Stebbings?

  don't take my word for it their partnership with Sequoia in their latest hundred million funding around says it all zoom really is a must check out for your business I cannot emphasize that enough and you can find them at zoom.us speaking of video though to power your company there with zoom you must check out viewed it viewed it is a free video recording tool that makes it easy for organizations to embrace the power of video for personalized communications viewed it enables sales professionals executive leaders and customer support teams to easily record personalized videos and add them to their email conversations plus with built in tracking powered by the video platform video creators will know who is watching what and which video messages resonate with which users they'll receive immediate playback notifications that will eliminate the wondering of whether the recipient received or watched their content

• 25:52Harry Stebbings?

  and you can find out more and download viewed it for free at video.com forward slash viewed it as always I cannot thank you enough for your support and I cannot wait to bring you next week's episodes