Stanford eCorner

Throughout his career, Manish Chandra, founder and CEO at Poshmark, learned to evolve, grow, and adapt to the economical and career changes he faced. His vision for a mobile shopping platform was ahead of its time. Chandra shares his thoughts on how to persevere in the face of doubt, how to partner with founders that share a common goal, and why focusing on engagement and community is critical for...

Maureen Fan, co-founder and CEO at Baobab Studios, shares how she blended her creativity and technical savvy in founding her virtual reality animation company. Undeterred by naysayers and an unforged path ahead, she encourages those with big imaginations to buck traditional career paths and to be persistent in asking for what you want.

In the final episode of season two, Stanford Professor Bob Sutton and producer Rachel Julkowski look for signs of hope in and lessons gleaned from our friction-filled world. We can’t fix every messy, frustrating organization overnight, but we can increase predictability for employees and start making it safer for everyone to share information that challenges us to see beyond our roles and experien...

Too much friction drives you crazy, but too little leaves you adrift. In this episode, Stanford Professor Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao, professor in the Stanford Graduate School of Business and coauthor of Scaling Up Excellence, discuss their quest for the “just right” amount of friction. Sure, you can make structural changes, but you’ll never optimize friction if you don’t understand and deal with wh...

The temperature is higher and things move faster, but restaurant kitchens aren’t so different from any other workplace—you’ve got egos, stress, and the constant pressure to deliver. In this episode, Craig and Annie Stoll, husband and wife owners of the renowned San Francisco-based Delfina Restaurant Group, talk with Stanford Professor Bob Sutton about the organized chaos that rules restaurant kitc...

The modern workplace is killing people and no one cares. That’s the sobering conclusion of Jeffrey Pfeffer’s new book Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance—and What We Can Do About It. In this episode, Stanford Professor Bob Sutton and Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, discuss the toxic w...

Rules get an unfairly bad rap. In this episode, Stanford Engineering Professor Kathleen Eisenhardt, author of Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World, and Stanford Professor Bob Sutton discuss the virtues of structure and guidelines. As long as your rules are clear and customized to your organization, Eisenhardt says, they won’t get in your way. In fact, the right set of rules—everything fr...

You don’t need as many ideas as you think you do. In this episode, Stanford Professor Bob Sutton and Henning Piezunka, assistant professor at the European Institute of Business Administration (INSEAD), debunk brainstorming myths and talk about the importance of saving time and energy. Piezunka explains that rejecting ideas is a delicate art that can actually deepen relationships—and that saying “n...

Can you dampen friction in the bureaucracy-laden, ego-filled halls of the United States government? Yes-- you can, says Jennifer Anastasoff. As head of people for the United States Digital Service (USDS), a non-partisan tech group in the federal government created to better deliver government services and improve the lives of people in America, Anastasoff looked for people who cared about the USDS...

Many companies likes to think they’re practicing design thinking, but most of them are wrong. Sam Yen, Former Chief Design Officer of SAP and now Managing Director at JP Morgan Chase & Company, speaks with Stanford Professor Bob Sutton about how the design thinking movement gets lost in translation. He shares how SAP got harnessed the energy of customers to combat employee inertia and foot-draggin...

If your stunt coordinator falls asleep in an important meeting, you can expect trouble later, says Hollywood executive producer Sheri Singer. In this episode, Singer and Stanford Professor Bob Sutton talk about the value of worry in the workplace. Singer, executive producer of 37 made-for-TV movies including “Halloweentown,” says that in the fast-paced, budget-crunched world of moviemaking, she’s...

To create a culture of innovation inside a large organization, leaders need to help their organizations become bimodal, says Michael Arena, chief talent officer at General Motors and author of Adaptive Space: How GM and other Companies are Disrupting Themselves and Transforming into Agile Organizations. In this episode, Arena and Stanford Professor Bob Sutton talk about ways large organizations ca...

When companies get big, they stop innovating. In this episode, Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, talks with Stanford Professor Bob Sutton about ways to fight back against the sluggishness of scale. If you really want employees to come up with new ideas, Ries says, workplace posters and glib slogans won’t cut it. You’ve got to measure innovation and reward it, failures and all.

Throughout life, Steve Vassallo has advanced his career through design thinking, from the slick flyer he created on his parents' computer to get him more work as a boy, to his five years at IDEO, and now as a startup investor at Foundation Capital. Vassallo explains how strategies like user observation and asking the right questions will get you to the heart of any problem that needs solving.

The best leaders cultivate empathy, patience and an awareness of their own vulnerabilities, says Nancy F. Koehn, a historian at the Harvard Business School. She’s the author of Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times, about the zigzagging paths of five historical figures, from Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to environmentalist Rachel Carson. In this episode,...

Serial entrepreneur Lisa Alderson, co-founder and CEO of Genome Medical, shares her vision for the future of medicine, along with real-world advice for those seeking to start their own company: Discover and follow your passion to ensure you stay driven through the highs and lows. Above all, venture into unfamiliar territory in order to build the confidence to embrace change.

Stanford Engineering Professor Bob Sutton is back at it to find the causes and cures for dysfunctional organizational friction. Part organizational design, part therapy, season two of the FRICTION podcast dives into stories of trailblazers who knew when to slow down and think -- and when to speed up and break through the walls of bureaucracy. Buckle up for episodes featuring leadership coach and H...

Gabriel Parisi-Amon, co-founder, CTO and COO of environmentally conscious shower startup, Nebia, bravely challenges the myth of “the perfect startup founder.” Parisi-Amon takes us on a journey through the seven stages of burnout he experienced in the early years of his startup, sharing how he’s emerged a more conscious and balanced leader. He offers tips and exercises for identifying the symptoms...

Joshua Hoffman, co-founder and CEO of industrial-chemicals maker Zymergen, details how his intellectual dabbling in college and the courage to work on his weaknesses prepared him to be a broadminded business leader. He urges aspiring entrepreneurs to become good storytellers and build strong teams of divergent thinkers, even if they drive you nuts. Hoffman explains why it's all worth the pain.

Stanford business Professor Chip Heath discusses how certain moments we all experience — the first day at a new job, finishing a difficult project — don’t feel as special as they should, and how we can make them much more memorable with a few simple touches. In conversation with Stanford Professor of the Practice Tina Seelig, Heath shares insights from his new book, “The Power of Moments: Why Cert...

As tech companies come under fire for mishandling our data, with one blog post, a young software engineer forced these firms to share some of the most damning information they keep: the demographics of their workforce. Tracy Chou turned concepts familiar to her profession — like open sourcing, metrics reporting and benchmarking — to push for more diversity and inclusion throughout her industry. Sh...

Julayne Virgil, CEO of Girls Inc. of Alameda County, describes how her organization provides youth with the confidence to overcome systemic gender bias, and hopefully, realize their full potential. Girls in the program are given the types of experiences that help them break through their fears and build strength for the challenges ahead. Virgil also talks about how innovation means improving what...

Tech entrepreneur David Baszucki explains how Roblox is essentially the YouTube for online games, a platform that derives immense value entirely from the millions of content creators and players who come together to build and be immersed in virtual worlds for fun. He discusses how the company dictates strategy and product roadmap, while depending on its users for growth.

Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne tells students that life is long and lived in chapters. Some of his include being a pioneering neuroscientist, head of research at Genentech, a co-founder of two startups, and president of two leading research universities. He shares what he's learned about how to lead organizations that turn discovery into real-world impact.

How do you know when it’s time to start a company? Or when to begin fundraising, and how much? And, as you grow, how do you recruit the best executives and build a culture centered on employees? Venture capitalist Josh McFarland of the firm Greylock Partners answers these questions and more through his experiences as founder and CEO of tech startup TellApart, which Twitter acquired for nearly half...