![]() How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a “favorite failure” of yours?Īt the age of 11, I tried out for the 11 & 12-year-old Milburn All-Star baseball team. And while it was hard, this experience allowed me to learn to embrace discomfort and try things that made me uncomfortable. From the moment I entered the UK, I was perpetually in a place of discomfort being asked to do hard things. I looked around shocked, and very concerned, but made the decision to say “Hi” to the next person who walked by. My leader said “Okay, go find someone to talk to” and he quickly disappeared. The ‘Bull Ring’, was a popular shopping center booming with tens of thousands of people walking around. I was picked up from our training center and I was immediately taken to the Birmingham City Center “Bull Ring”. I can still remember my very first day as a full-time volunteer. When I was 19 I left the United States for 2-years to do a service mission in Birmingham England and Cardiff Wales. Was there an experience you had before age 21 that shaped who you are? What was it? And it’s helped me throughout my 10+ years of marriage to always be reminded of how I got to where I am, and what’s most important. I loved the honesty and vulnerability that Ben showed in sharing that story. Most of us here are desperate to win, succeed, or to gain some level of notoriety. But frankly, the idea of family is often understated or shied away from in Silicon Valley. The idea that “No other success can compensate for failure in the home” is something that motivates me, and Ben’s book really resonated with this on a very practical level. This idea of family as a focal point in life has always been important to me. His father was reminding him to refocus on what was most important - his family and their well being. He then said “Ben, do you know what’s expensive? Divorce.” Ben replied, no, and his dad said flowers. One day his father came over to visit, and as they sat and talked, his father said: “Ben, do you know what’s cheap?”. He spent a lot of his time thinking about his job, and himself. His daughter had just been diagnosed with an illness, and he was extraordinarily busy and stressed. In the book, Ben tells a story about when he joined a brand new startup. “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz. ![]() What’s a book that has influenced your career or life, and why? He’s a dad of three of his own, and foster dad too. ![]() Dyn would eventually be acquired by Oracle for $600m. Before that, he spent three years at Dyn building its sales and partnership channels. He joined Facebook through an $85m acquisition of Parse, a YC-backed developer tools platform. Before CloudApp, Scott spent three years at Facebook developing and launching the ‘Workplace’ collaboration tool. Scott Smith is CEO of CloudApp, whose mission is to enable instant business communication through quick shareable videos and images for its 3 million users. He has a lot of good nuggets throughout and I particularly like his advice on spending as much time as possible feeling uncomfortable, how he balances work and family life, and the power that comes from assuming positive intent. The goal is to provide practical advice and insightful lessons you can leverage to further your career. I recently kicked off a series of Career Q&As with successful leaders.
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