How important is talent management in new ventures?
>> Talent is critical.
If you have the wrong talent, it's almost impossible to succeed.
The right talent will enable your business to thrive because you'll have the right
people in place to drive strategy, to drive execution.
And really make all the difference in the world in your
ability to think through innovative problems in a startup company.
>> And are there typical mistakes that companies make or
any advice you might give?
>> Well, ironically the advice I would give a founder
is related to talent actually.
Because I think in some cases when you're starting a company, you hire for
the time and place that you're at and they start off.
And you have to think about the next six months, the next year, what your needs
are going to be and make sure you're staffing with the right quality and
execution skills for a longer term.
Not just the immediate issue at hand.
>> You've spent a lot of time developing talent over the years, but
let me ask you about how you developed your own talent.
Was there any particular person who you feel was your best mentor or advisor,
and what made them so?
>> I had two amazing mentors.
First, my father.
My parents owned retail stores in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
And I grew up behind the counter of a retail pharmacy and
making deliveries with my family throughout my entire childhood.
I learned so much about how you run a business, how you take care of customers.
That was in grind and who I was as a child.
It's hard to escape the entrepreneurial environment when you grow up with
grandparents and parents and siblings who are all entrepreneurs.
The second person I would attribute a lot of the learnings while I was in my 20s,
is a woman from Goldman Sachs named Suzanne Nora Johnson.
Suzanne was a consummate professional.
Everything she did was to the utmost quality, and
she really thought about what was going to be best for every client.
And I really learned about professionalism and integrity from Suzanne.
>> There are so many qualities of professionals that people can say.
What about qualities of entrepreneurs,
do you believe that there are certain qualities that entrepreneurs need to have?
>> I do, entrepreneurs are special people, founders are special people.
There is a tenacity and inability to execute on a vision that is so rare.
And to be able to put forth an idea and turn it into a product of business,
a huge enterprise, I think, is a very special skill that not everybody has.
It incorporates risk tolerance, it incorporates creativity,
it incorporates hiring and thinking about the evolution of an idea.
That I think it's a really rare and special skill that should be celebrated.