Dave Valentine interviews Dave Moore, a seasoned technology executive with over 25 years of experience in the industry. As the Chief Innovation Officer of Growth Acceleration Partners, Dave plays a pivotal role in the company’s growth and expansion strategy. He is responsible for developing, implementing, and supporting GAP’s expanded services strategy. Dave is also an avid fisherman, family man, and used to work 80-hour weeks making video games, “keeping people on the couch to the point where my home life suffered.” How did Dave Moore become Dave Moore? We are all capable of greatness, and one of the best ways to unlock our full potential is to learn from those who already have. Follow David Moore on social media: Bio: https://empathyfirm.com/dave-moore/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmoore/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsEUV6QPHVQ
Hey there. Hey Dave, how's it going? Pretty good. Dave, how are you? I'm great, brother. Nice to meet you. Are you in Colorado or like Washington or something? I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, man. This is a great place. I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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00:15
I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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00:16
I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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00:17
I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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00:18
I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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00:19
I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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00:20
I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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00:24
I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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I'm up in the Pacific Northwest.
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I'm up in the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, man, this is, here, let me show you my backyard, as it were.
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Is that a river?
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00:34
It is a river, man, yeah.
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Awesome.
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00:37
The salmon spawn right there, so it's pretty fun. Are you a fly fisherman? I do love to fish. I don't, you know what, I've never learned how to fly fish, but man. I love I love fishing
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00:53
So I'm on the I'm on the Texas coast. I'm a big saltwater fisherman. Yeah, oh
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00:58
and by the way
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01:00
I'm near Corpus Christi, Fort Rancis area. Oh, dude. I know it so well. Yeah
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01:05
Really, I live in Rockport. Oh of course yeah, man. Yeah, my my wife and I lived in the Fort Worth area for 13 years. Her dad was actually the admiral for the base on Corpus Christi for a while, so spent a good bit of time down there. Nice. Yeah, man, know the Texas coast pretty well.
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01:30
Well, I got to tell you before we get going here, when I worked at EA, I spent a lot of time in Vancouver. Have you been up Sunshine Coast area up there? Unbelievable.
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01:44
It's stunning, right?
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01:45
Yeah.
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01:46
Yeah.
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I think it's the best place in the world. We made the move up here January 1st of 22 and decided to leave family in Texas and friends and like the whole thing, because it was like, you know, this is too beautiful. It's just, it's not that we don't miss those people, but you know.
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02:11
It's a life changing event when COVID hit. We had, we were in Austin, been in Austin for 20 some years, and we had a weekend place in Rockport. We sold both places when work from anywhere became the new norm.
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02:27
Yep.
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02:28
And bought three acres on the water on Aransas Bay. So my front yard is Aransas Bay. So I'm out fishing like you. I'm out there every morning fishing for work.
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02:37
Okay.
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Living the dream.
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Don't you feel like that changes your whole experience of life? Like, I don't know about you, but for me, I feel like I'm much more calm even in stressful situations. I'm much more relaxed, I enjoy my life more. I mean, are you finding the same?
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02:57
I'll even be deeper than that.
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02:59
It makes me a better programmer.
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03:01
Really?
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03:02
It makes me a better programmer, yeah.
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03:04
Tell me about it.
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03:05
When I'm out there on the boat, in the ocean, if I'm not thinking about the task at hand, I could die. I could die. People die all the time. So I can't be thinking about my problems at work, and that disconnect gives me a full battery on Monday morning to start tackling problems at work. So I swear to God, it makes me a better engineer.
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03:34
Isn't that crazy? I, you know, a lot of the things about this podcast, it's about the things that we do in work to be successful. And clearly Dave, you've been successful. I mean, obviously, but it's also about the things, the inner work that we do, because it's something that entrepreneurs and business owners don't talk about enough is that stuff like, yeah, I get out on my boat on the weekend and I don't think about work. And I just, I know how powerful that is. Was there ever a time like in your business or anything that you were doing the opposite?
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04:14
Were you thinking about it all the time?
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Absolutely.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And I'll tell you the other thing that comes to mind, this might be an older thing, it might be a wiser thing. The older I get, the more I'm into nature. So I can stop and stare at a bird for like five minutes, where 25, 30 year old Dave would be like, oh yeah, what bird, I don't see anything, right? Much more aware, in tune with nature, and I think it's because I'm older, but I'm like, look at that beautiful specimen right there.
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04:47
Right, was there a moment that that flipped for you that were you like? Was there a discernible moment or just happened? Yeah, I Think it was more gradual
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04:57
Rockport, Texas has more species of birds anywhere in North America Why around them a lot and so I'm aware of it now Yeah, the hotels are either fishermen or birders and those two groups don't mix very well, but that's That's even more terrible.
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That's funny.
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Yeah.
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I'm both a fisherman and a birder.
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Yeah, well, it's fun, right?
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We have bald eagles that fly up and down the river every day at different points in time, and it's just, it's stunning. You know, like, you're just never, you're never not having your breath taken away from an animal that's that big and majestic.
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It's just incredible.
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You can't get sick of that. You can't get sick of that. We have ospreys here.
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05:43
Oh yeah.
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Which are a fantastic bird. It's like a total badass of the sky.
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05:48
I love it.
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That's awesome, man.
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05:50
So, tell me about, you know, I've checked out your website and kind of have an idea of what you're up to, but I'd love to just kind of hear the journey of how you got into Growth Acceleration Partners and what it's been like a little bit. Just give us an overview of kind of what you've been up to and what got you to this point and what you're doing.
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06:12
Sure. Well, I'm a lifelong software engineer. Started out at Houston, Texas. I'm from North Carolina, by the way. I'll give you a short version of this. But I've worked in multiple industries. And I think what makes me tick is like after a certain amount of time, I started in the petroleum industry, then I went in software, then I went for a startup, then I went in consulting, and then I went for electronic arts and gaming, then I went to IBM, back to consulting, very different than EA. And then to get to Growth Acceleration Partners, it was the case of, I had known the founder for like 30 years. And I was always maintained contact with her. We would have a dinner like every quarter and just touch base, how things were going and things like that. And then she would ask me occasionally, how's it going? How's it going? I'm like, I'm good. And then one time when I was at IBM, she's like, I think you should come join us. And I was like, okay, let's talk more about that. So at Gap, so I joined, I kind of got the band back together and I knew the leadership team, all of them. And so as the chief innovation officer, I have both a customer facing role where I'm helping companies kind of modernize, using technology for a business advantage, modernizing technology to win. Internally, I'm helping make sure our team has the skills to be able to fulfill these engagements for our customers and make sure that they can act on those. So that's the two ends of the, both sides of the coin there.
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07:50
I love it.
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07:51
So, software engineer, you could do a lot of things. You have done a lot of things, Dave. Why do this? Like what, obviously you had the connections and all that stuff, but you could do anything. There's clearly a reason why you continue to do and work with this company.
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08:09
What's the draw?
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08:13
I get to work with people that I like a lot, and I've liked, that sounds kind of cliche, I've liked people everywhere I've worked. So I still like the people I work with. I've known for a long time. And I get to help people. So as a practitioner, I am still hands on keyboard. I'm a doer. It's just, I don't tell my boss I can't believe I get paid for this, right? I mean, engineers, it's a lifestyle for an engineer. It's not a profession.
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It's a lifestyle.
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08:46
So we have side projects and we have work projects and it's hard to, they intermingle all the time and that keeps our brain going. But when you're doing it in the trenches, like I built games that millions of people play, was awesome, still on the shelves at Target, just buying all that stuff. Then eventually you get to the point where you're like, other people would benefit from what you know. Right. So I'm helping not even gaming companies that are helping them like scale their website, helping them create disaster recovery strategies that work, you know, things like that. Things that I've been building throughout my career, Dave, I'm now in a position where I can help other companies kind of benefit from that.
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09:27
I love it.
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09:29
It seems like there's a real attitude of like gratitude that you get to do this work, and this sense of you're helping people with what you're doing. Is that something that's been true that you wanted to do your entire life? Is that something that's been developed in you? Where does that come from?
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09:46
No, I don't think it's been my entire life. I was all about me earlier in my career. I mean, trying to climb the corporate ladder and just kind of like really focused on my own skills and my own career trajectory. And I think it's the older Dave that kind of is like, hey, I can help other people. I have kids, so I've been a parent, I still am a parent. I've seen them navigate these difficult days in our lives that we have from time to time. I just kind of, I'm just a little wiser now. And I'm able to share that with some people. And don't get me wrong, I have some client engagements that are very challenging. Sure. Sometimes I'm like, I don't know what to do here. I haven't, I'll dig in there with you. I'm not leaving, I'm not jumping off the roller coaster here but I haven't seen this before. I'm not sure what to do. So we have some of those. But at the end of the day, most of these clients just want someone in the trenches with them, just like, help me figure this out.
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And that I'm willing to do.
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I love it, I love it.
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10:59
So, you fish to stay grounded and do your job better and all that stuff. Do you have any other practices that you engage with on a regular basis, Dave, that help you stay centered. Because, you know, I think if I remember right, your title is Chief Innovation Officer, am I right there?
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It is, that's right, yeah.
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11:26
So that, I mean, look, anytime that you're the Chief Innovation Officer, there's a sense of you have to be heady, you have to have new ideas, you have to innovate. That's right. And so there's a whole lot that goes into that, I can only imagine. So tell me a little bit about the practices that you keep for your personal well-being and health, but also your professional ability to continue to produce at a high level.
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11:52
Yep, let's go with the personal one first. Two things. Avid Exerciser. So 6 a.m. every morning, 6 to 8 a.m. I don't care what I got going on. I don't care who's here. It is unwavering. This is my workout time. This is my health. This is my sanity. This is my mind. So that's the first one. And the second one is I'm an avid reader. So I have a constant pile of books and I go through probably, I'd say two a week. I'm very bad at reading fiction. So that's one of the things that I'm working on. And when I do read fiction, I like it. And then I'll read like one the next three months. So I have a lot of technical books and obviously a lot of stuff on AI that's pretty popular now, but big data, things like that. But you brought up the chief innovation officer and innovation, I've had this conversation with customers. Innovation equals failure. And if you look at the most innovative companies, organizations, they not only tolerate failure, they embrace it and celebrate it. And those are the ones that are getting some of these breakthrough blockbuster changes that are really distancing themselves from their competitors. Well, we've all been in environments where like, if you made a mistake, if you fail, that you felt like, oh, I'm on the rocks here, this is not good for me type thing. All the way to the other side where not only is it accepted, but it's actually celebrated. Look at all these things that we learned from this failure. Now I'm not talking about failures like planes going in the sides of the mountain. I'm talking about environments that are dedicated, environments that are dedicated to like a sandbox in a laboratory. Try them out, try them out, fail, fail, fail, fail, fail. And then you have these side benefits where something spawns another thing which spawns another thing. You never thought that was gonna be the thing. And it is the thing that is the innovative approach. And by the way, it doesn't have to be high tech. And I tell customers this as well. It can be a new way of doing something that we haven't thought of before. It can be a non-technical solution to a technical problem. And I have a great example of that if you want to hear one.
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Go for it.
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14:25
Okay, so we were launching a major game at EA, and EA had specified a launch date. It was February 19th, I believe, 2019. And then they ran a Super Bowl ad. Then they ran a Super Bowl ad that said, on 9 AM, February 19th, everybody show up, the gates will be open. So as an engineer in my team, I can tell you that we could not withstand an onslaught of everybody showing up at the same time. That's why your cell phone doesn't work in football stadium. You know, you can think of many, many examples on massive crowd, but the problem was you wanted to get an even ramp. I can ramp, then hardware gets spun up, and then we can keep up with the pace, right? But an onslaught, flood right out of the gate is a very, very difficult technical challenge. Yes. And we were trying in the labs and trying in the labs, and it was not looking good. EA keeps running commercials. We asked if we could run in different regions of the world, open up in Europe, then open up in the Americas, then open up in the Far East. That was a no. So, we're like, okay, so here's the creative solution. We just, without permission, we just opened the gates at 4 a.m. Now, people have been waiting for this game for like five years. And so, they figured out it was open, and then it started on Twitter, and then everybody started jumping in there. A lot of people were still waiting until nine o'clock. But what happened? We got that easy ramp.
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That's right.
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Because it was just an unannounced open.
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16:13
There you go, man.
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I love that.
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We all thought we could have gotten fired. And then what did our big bosses at EAA say?
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Way to go.16:21
Way to go, guys.
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16:22
Yeah, isn't that funny?
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16:23
Like sometimes, you know, it's that necessity that just drives the innovation to occur, I know that's a cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason. And yeah, I love that you guys went and tried the other avenues first. You're like, well, maybe we can work with them, maybe we can do this, and then at some point, it's just like, we're gonna beg for forgiveness later, because this is the only way this is going to work now, is to do it like this. And...
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16:55
That's exactly right. We figured we would fail. We had proven in the lab that we would fail. And while we might not survive a failure, a game launch is very critical. You get one launch, and a lot of people don't come back if it's problematic. While we thought we would... We were in jeopardy if we fail, for sure. We decided to risk it of doing the right thing and getting that ramp without trying to solve it technically, which is virtually impossible, very difficult.
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17:26
Yeah, right.
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17:27
Right, right, right.
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17:30
So, Dave, you have the workout thing that you do for yourself every day. I love that. You read. You're an avid reader. When you read, are you an audio book person? Are you reading it on a Kindle? Are you picking up tangible books? Because there are different ways that people read, right? Some people are like, I speed read through things. I read a book a week. I read the same five books 10 times a year. What's your philosophy towards consuming
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17:59
that kind of quality content? I use multiple forms of that, but my favorite, my preferred is physical books. Really? Because I'm out by the water. I have them on the boat, trying to, with the sunlight, with the Kindle, it's like impossible. I will load stuff up on the Kindle if I'm on a flight to Costa Rica where we have a lot of employees at Gap there, instead of taking a bunch of books with me. But other than the flight, I like, this is gonna sound weird, I like the smell of books, and I like the feel of them. I like turning the pages and I like marking the columns and putting the stickies in there.
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18:44
You know, I don't think it's weird at all, Dave. I'm the same way. You've said a few things like, man, it's just one of those things that happens when you get older. I'm doing the bird watching thing. I'm doing the, hey, how can I slow down and go fishing? And what's it like to turn off the cell phone and just not answer it? Because if someone needs something right now, then we're all in trouble. It's like, you know, yeah.
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19:17
I saw this quote a couple of weeks ago that I liked, and I'm not on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram or any of that, and it said, do more things that make you forget your phone.
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19:29
Yeah.
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19:30
And I was like, absolutely, that's it.
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19:32
Yeah, we, so I've got three small kids under the age of 10. And I continue to have more and more speaking opportunities, Dave, to go talk about my philosophies on marketing and sales and core values. You know, how do you run seven companies and have so many employees and keep some cohesiveness of service and, you know, the way that the culture runs. And so I've had some cool opportunities to go do that. But I also had some friends who were getting married in Denver and there's some speaking engagements that I had and my wife was like, well, you know, I really wanna bring our old dog, he's 12, I don't wanna leave him here, if he passed while we were gone, I'd never forgive myself. So we loaded up the dog, our three kids under the age of 10 and we drove from essentially Portland, Oregon, all the way down to Denver. And it was fun in some regards because I made sure that I was not available for most of the trip to anyone. Yeah. And part of that was great because when you're driving through Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, rural Montana, rural Wyoming, they, I didn't even know that this was a thing anymore, they only have 3G. And so like, you're not going anywhere, man. Like it's, you're there. And if you need to get a phone call through, you can do that. A text will take some time, you know, but you're not getting on the internet, brother. And it was a gift. I mean, I've found myself working through my newest book, just churning through, I wrote 10,000 pages in six days of driving. And I was like, this is the best.
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21:18
That is the best. I like that story and it reminds me of my days of going, when I would go to college, you know, there weren't cell phones then. And so, if I got a flat tire, I had to fix it. There's nobody I could call. I can't call USAA or roadside services. I'm nowhere near a phone. I'm in the mountains of North Carolina, right? Guess what, I can change a tire. I don't think many kids today can change a tire. I think they just get on their phone, they call mom, dad, call somebody, and I got a flat tire. So I learned a lot of life skills because there was nobody I could call.
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21:55
Yeah.
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21:56
Well, it's so funny, Dave, because as we're on this trip, you go into a national park, and what do they do? They hand you a tangible map to navigate. And so we were, my wife and I were happy to do that. And our kiddos were like, can you teach us how to read like a real map? And then we're like, yeah, that's why we homeschool you. Because you're not going to learn this anywhere else. To your point, like we have, I have nieces and nephews that are in their 20s now and they don't know how to get around town without their phone and a GPS. And that is so foreign to me and I'm not that much older than them, but I'm just from a different era of like, man, we did everything, you know, we did everything in analog. And so all the new digital stuff is cool to me, which I'm sure it's cool to you too. Like it's convenient, it helps. It is, yeah. But it's also not the thing that runs my life. And so it's just a different turn than what I think, to your point, a lot of kids now, they're not having to learn that
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23:06
kind of stuff. It's interesting because obviously the boat is equipped with GPS. And I would be like, you know, looking at the GPS screen, navigating the bays, every time I was out there. Well, a good friend of mine is a pro fishing guy. We have a lot of them here. He doesn't even have one on his boat. And so I've been learning from him because he's like exploring the waters and knows every bit of the bays, like the back of his hand. And I've been like heads down looking at my GPS, you know, that my head up just like be aware, look around, yeah, feel for it. And just that, that advice from him has, has now I use the GPS. If I get lost other than that, I'm like trying to be more like that.
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23:54
Yeah. And, and you're talking about the physical book, you know, as humans, we live in a physical reality. This thing that we're doing on the screen right now talking to each other is so new in the course of human history that like we haven't our brains haven't caught up. We haven't figured out all the the the downside. We know some of the downsides. We haven't figured out all the downsides of this thing that we're doing that's brand new in human history. I think that there's something to what you're talking about, of like re-engaging with the physical book and making sure that that's coming with you on the fishing trip, where you're going to be doing something physically, real life, tangible. That uses a different part of our brain than when we're engaging with a computer screen. And your and my livelihoods are all based around this box right in front of us, and yet, we have to find new ways to get out of the world.
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24:55
You nailed it and that made me think, makes me think of one of the reasons, the biggest reason I left the gaming industry. I've kept a lot of kids on the couch and I am the last guy to sit on the couch. So I'm like, what am I doing? Yeah. And I'm out there with fishing rod and watching birds. And then the products I'm producing are keeping kids on the couch, which I don't like. So that had a lot to do with me saying, I'm gonna do something different now. I love my experience there. The people and the gaming programmers, in my opinion, are the best in the world. They're solving some of the hardest problems that are out there. And I have all that in the arsenal, and I love it, but it had been enough. I had built five games, five's enough, and then go do something else.
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25:46
Beautiful.
2
25:46
I think that that's so courageous of you, by the way, Dave, because I know so many people that are working in jobs that they don't believe in the mission anymore, or the product that's being produced, but they're like, it's a good job. I like the people that I work with. Every place that I go to is going to have a downside. I'm curious for the people that are listening, what was the catalyst that you were just like, yes, that's true. I like these people. I enjoy the work. And ultimately I want to do something that's going to bring a betterment to humanity. What was, just take us back if you can to your thought process, how that worked itself out. I'm sure that wasn't an overnight experience, but maybe it was.
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26:37
The catalyst was my wife, as she is in many situations. So she works in the pharmaceutical industry, and then I would be showing some of the things that we were doing that were just completely awesome around anti-cheat and identifying people that are about to quit the game and getting them not to quit the game and really some heavy machine learning and AI type stuff. And then her response was, I'll never forget it. She's like, that is so awesome. Imagine what that brain power could do in a different industry like healthcare or something else. And I was like, wow, that stuck, right? So I'm like, I think she's got a good point here. But I'll tell you something about the gaming industry that a lot of people don't realize. It's hard to get in. I didn't have gaming experience going in. And so my boss had to like, okay, I'll take a guy that doesn't have this, but he has some of the technical skills and we'll work with it. And it worked out great, but it's harder to get out. Just think about it. You've been working on games, and then you apply to a job at Charles Schwab. They're like, what is a gaming guy gonna do at Charles Schwab or Citibank or United Airlines or something like that? We're the best programmers in the world. It's all cloud-based games. Are you doing stuff in the cloud? Sure you are. I've been doing that for 12 years. They're like, oh, you're a gaming guy.
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28:13
We don't need gaming guys.
1
28:15
So my point is it's even harder to get out. And for me, it was my network of people, in this case, people at IBM that said, we're doing a lot of stuff in cloud, we could use your skills, come join IBM team. And then once I was at IBM, then you can go anywhere after that. So I appreciated the outlet that I got with IBM, but many people are stuck in that industry and they can't get out.
2
28:40
Yeah, I feel like that's the case for most people, right? Like they're, they're, they're, they pigeonholed themselves and, or, and a lot of times in their mind right Dave like they're going I well This is where I'm at. This is where I have to reside and there are alternatives to getting out They just may be creative or they may be exactly what you did Which is a two-step process and I can make this move and if I make that move then it gets me To where I ultimately want to be Do you it tells me that you have a perspective on life, that you're looking at it not in days or weeks, but you're looking at it in years and decades. Tell me a little bit about how you cultivated that perspective of looking at life in a much more broad picture than in the day to day.
1
29:33
Well I would say it would go back to my faith and my family and my wife and my kids, and really having a long-term view on everything. You know, and I say that even though I just saw something the other day that said the average tenure for a tech worker at a company is three years.
11
29:54
Wow.
1
29:55
But I've worked over a couple of them over 12 years, so I'm not like a short-term thinker, as you were just pointing out. But I would say, really, it comes down to being well-grounded and not necessarily going for maybe short-term rewards, like more money, and being more thoughtful about the things that I care about that are going to benefit me and my family in the areas that we care about the most. Got to take care of them, yes. We like spending time together. We like having family dinners. We like doing things outside. What type of environment is going to help be supportive of that? And you know, sometimes I would go a little bit wrong direction. I worked 80-hour weeks making video games, keeping people on the couch to the point where my home life suffered.
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30:51
Yeah.
1
30:52
And that's when I would say, not doing that again. That was impactful.
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30:57
Right.
1
30:58
So, for the younger ones that I see doing that, it's hard to watch.
2
31:03
Yeah, I think that there's also an element too, right? Like I had this realization just at the end of last year where I just went, you know, my oldest is nine and a half now, my son's seven, and my youngest daughter's four and a half. And I just went, I'm never gonna get this tied back. Like, it's never gonna happen again. I'm never gonna get to have my kiddos every night go, Dad, would you tuck us in? Would you read us a story? Can you come wrestle? Like, it's just, this time is fleeting. And so it's why I've been in the process of selling a number of the companies that I own is because I'm just like, I can't, I do not want to miss this. I don't wanna miss what's going on right now. And that's led to some different decisions. I could make more money. But at the end of the day, to what end? To what end?
6
32:02
Well, I got some news for you.
1
32:05
When they're 14 and 16, you're gonna be like, I want to miss this. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
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32:13
Yeah.
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32:13
I officiated a wedding years ago for a friend of mine. And I'm the oldest of three boys. And the father of the bride, who I didn't know, I met him and they were from Kentucky. And I said, so, hey, you know, you raised two daughters. They seem fabulous, everything that I've heard. You know, what's your secret, raising girls versus raising boys? He goes, Dave, I'm gonna tell you the secret and I'm serious about this. And I go, okay. He goes, stop drinking beer, start drinking bourbon. That's the real difference.
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I love it.
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Yeah.
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I can relate to that.
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So here you are, you're in, you've kind of landed at this great spot at Gap and you're experiencing a tremendous success with what you're up to and what you're starting to make the transition that's so cool to me, Dave, which is you're really going, okay, now my job is to help other people that are along a similar journey that I was on. Talk to me a little bit about some of the things that you're doing, whether it's formal or informal mentoring of staff or people that just come to you in the profession. I mean, you have such an incredible career, why give back? What is that and how are you doing some of that?
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You know, it's interesting because I see a lot
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of technical leaders that are struggling. And they're struggling for a wide variety of reasons. But one that I see very frequently is kind of following the herd. You know, following the herd, especially in the world of technology, is a highway to hell. And so, I use a fishing metaphor, analogy, when I talk to them, if they are into fishing at all, which many of them are. I say, if I were to take my boat, Let's say I go into the middle of the bay and let's say there's never been a fish around this spot. And I were to anchor and I were to get a line wet. Within 15 minutes, somebody would see me and then we'd have two boats anchored. Once we have two, we have four. 30 minutes later, there's 12 boats in a circle, all anchored around the cat that did not know
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what he was doing.
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34:46
What are you doing? And so when I would ask that question, it might be a certain technology decision, they would say, it's embarrassing. I read a blog post or I saw something and I'm following. And I was like, let's get you leading a little bit. Let's get you where you have some confidence and you're making decisions that are the right thing for your company because there are no two that are the same. One of the beautiful things about consulting is it doesn't get boring. I never see two of the same. But I do see similar behaviors with leaders and following the herd is probably the biggest one. Yeah, I think that there's something too
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where you figure some stuff out, right? And I know that I've experienced this particularly with people in the marketing advertising agency space Where I've had a lot of success for the businesses that I've owned or in that space in general and There are just some things that I see those individuals do in particular that I just go man you're working 60 70 80 hour work Weeks every week you haven't taken a vacation in three years, I have some things that can help you. And it's like out of a real desire just to be like, man, I genuinely love you, I want you to have a beautiful life, if you wanna work 60, 70, 80 hours, and they go, no. And so I'm always like, cool, then let me help you. Like just get some simple things in place that's gonna make your life better. And it's really rewarding to me. I'm sure it is to you too, Dave, where it's just like they come back after four, five, six weeks and they go, oh my gosh, I worked 40 hours this week. I'm not as stressed. I've got some things in place.
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Yeah.
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You changed my life.
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36:41
The other one, Dave, that I see all the time is leaders that tend to lead through mandate, which if you're leading humans, you're going to get pushback. I push back on pretty much anything that's mandated to me. And they wonder why they're getting that response from their teams. And so they're not leading with the big I, which stands for inspiration. what can you do to craft an inspiring message and presentation? And the reason they don't do that is because it's hard. It takes a lot of work. You got to think about it. You got to get some feedback. You got to be authentic about processing that feedback. You got to be authentically you. And a lot of them are uncomfortable doing that. And I tell them my favorite story in my career of the best leadership example I can think of, and it is two words, and this is going to freak you out a little bit probably. I was working at a company called BMC Software, still in existence today, very large. And then I was a product author responsible for the technical coding of a few products that we had. Well, we had competitive pressure from another company by the name of Quest that had a product called Spotlight.
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Okay.
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38:13
And Spotlight was eating our lunch.
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Okay.
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I didn't work on any equivalent Spotlight product or anything like that. So I get called into the office of VP and he says, I got two words for you. Here they are, beat Spotlight. And I was like, well, he's like, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, beat Spotlight. And I'm like, OK. So I got to go back. I got to form my dream team. I had the resources I needed. And I was like, that is leadership. He didn't care how I did it. He didn't talk about the details. He wasn't prescriptive and micromanaging the whole thing. He trusted me, which meant a lot to me, and said, spotlight, that's my favorite leadership story. We need more stories like that.
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39:03
Yeah, that's good.
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39:05
I love that, love that.
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Sweet, well, Dave, I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. Is there anything that you want to leave with us, your contact information, a way to reach out to you, anything that you want to leave with the audience before you go? Sure.
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39:21
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
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39:24
That would be the best place. My email is all on the Gap, We Are Gap website if they want to go that route. I have some short YouTube videos that are like two minutes in length that are about some little edgy technology and leadership topics that kind of a different angle on things. For any of your listeners that want a free 30-minute consultation that may be like modernizing for competitive advantage for your business, I'm happy to do that. And then the last one is I'm starting this newsletter called the C-suite underground, which is lessons from the trenches for all the consultant engagements that I'm going through. It's gonna come out once a quarter and it's gonna be the hot things that the C-suite and executives need to be aware of. And I'd be glad to add them to that list.
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I love it.
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Well, Dave, thanks so much for being on the podcast and super excited for all the things
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that you're up to, brother.
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Thanks, Dave.
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40:25
Enjoy the Pacific Northwest. Enjoy the Pacific Northwest. Looks beautiful.