1053: The Secrets of Silicon Valley’s Top Executives with Podcast Host and Founder Grace Gong

Robert Plank 0:01 Hey, welcome back to the podcast. Grace Gong is here and she hosts a top venture capital podcast called Smart venture podcast. They have sea level VPs of Google meta Amazon, Sephora, Dunkin Donuts, Chipotle, Pepsi, Instagram, Deloitte, Reddit live so much more managing partners of TARP funds, it sounds funny to hear it all in one place, and grace posts about tech, venture capital and entrepreneurship daily. And so she's seen all these secrets, she's seen all these repeat patterns. She's talked to some of these great people in the tech space. And Grace is here to tell us about what she's learned, what we can learn about her podcasts about herself and so much more. So Grace, glad to be speaking with you. Thank

Speaker 1 0:46 you so much for having me. Thank you so much for the super amazing introduction. I've never your people actually read it to me about my own intro. But yeah, you're killing it. Thank you so much.

Robert Plank 0:58 Well, you're very welcome. And that is sort of spooky, right? When you you type something or you write something. And then when you hear it out loud, it kind of hits you in a different way, which is why podcasting is so important, because we can read a book, we can watch the videos, but it helps so much to just have this daily feed. And to get these lessons and to get inside of the heads of these people that have just accomplished amazing things like Instagram, they grew it so quickly. And these brands that we've heard of and know we have 10s of 1000s of employees, and they've raised and created billions of dollars. And so you have this podcast, but what are you all about? What drives you? What's your passion? What's your focus?

Speaker 1 1:40 Totally, I think when I started the podcast, it kind of goes back to why I started my podcast, because I came to the US as an international student, and I have no business connection, I don't have a business network. And when I came to the Silicon Valley, I noticed that a lot of people here they kind of just run into big tech executives on their campus. And I wanted to create that experience for my younger self and people who are not surrounding themselves with like, you know, all these tech giants who you know, who don't live in a place that where they could just encounter a very successful person around their life. And I wanted to create a place where people could learn from these tech leaders and leaders in general, to advance their career. So that's why I started my podcast. And that's what drives me to keep going because I really wanted to provide this education for people around the

Robert Plank 2:30 world. Wonderful. And you're doing a very smart thing, creating this podcast and one of those secrets. But it's also sort of not a secret that we both know is that if you have a podcast, it gets your foot in the door to people that otherwise would not normally speak with you. And they otherwise just wouldn't even even we wouldn't waste their time with a couple of minutes talking to you. But because you have a podcast, there's this element of you're promoting them, but they also can give back and it's like a permanent record a permanent recording that can then live on for years and decades. And it's as you know, it's a great networking tool, and it kind of raises your status raises your profile, because now you're associated with all these people, right with with Lyft, with Reddit, with meta, and so on. And so you've had all these amazing guests do any standout? Or is there a one where you're just like your mind was blown upon the conversation.

Speaker 1 3:26 I'm so many I feel really lucky to chat with amazing tech executives. And this year, I started daily show called venture with grace. It's a LinkedIn live show. So every day I go live with a bunch of people with one person each day, well, one or two people each day. And I feel like really fortunate for the executive to the executives to share their time with me. And one of the things that I learned early on is when I interview the former CEO of Chipotle, he essentially mentioned that like, you know, he chat with 20, Chipola employees, I feel like that's a great amazing, like lessons for me in terms of leadership, you know, you really be the listener to hear where everyone's coming from. He also kind of dress himself as an undercover to not dress himself but like he went like undercover to go through the AAA training program. And which I thought it was like super interesting. And I felt like it was a great way to actually exam how well you're managing the entire system in your company and your business as well as like being there being empathetic to everyone who worked at the company. So I felt like those are some really interesting cool lessons I've learned. That kind of really makes an impression on me.

Robert Plank 4:52 That is amazing. And also fun in a way right because it's I imagine it's easy for someone like that to be very high up in that organization and be so many levels removed from just what bad experience is and what the needs are and what's great about the process and what can be improved. And by just going through it, that's a really cool and fun thing for someone like that to do. And so to do a daily show, how do you find the energy and the commitment because it will be so easy to say, Oh, I'm caught up and schoolwork or with some other tasks, and to take a week off and let tell yourself these these lies that I need a break I need to rest. So how do you make it consistent? And how do you make it consistently good when you're doing a daily show like this?

Speaker 1 5:39 Totally, I just think like, I think about what my audience would have wanted it. I feel like people are having a really busy life. And then I wanted to create a space where my audience will be able to interact with the guests, in some sort, like a golden life is a really great way for the audience to ask some really interesting questions. So yesterday, we had a climate tech investor on our show. And there are a lot of people asking a lot deeper question than what I could have asked. And I felt like I wanted to provide an experience for people who are tuning into my show, to bring them on to the journey and creating a community where people feel safe as well as feel, you know, the show could be useful for them to improving their life and their career. So I always started with, like what my community wants. And that's a big driver for me to you know, keep creating my show and have a place for everyone to ask these questions.

Robert Plank 6:44 Well, great, and you're so right, that it can be a motivating factor to think of Well, who am I helping? And who am I maybe letting down if I don't do the live stream on that day. So that way, it's not just about the buttons and the tasks and what you have to do, but the people that you're helping, and I've also noticed that when I have like different guests of different status than someone I keep thinking like, oh, I find this really huge, amazing, famous guests that's accomplished so much. That will be like my best episode yet. But sometimes it's the the mid levels or the up and comers where the really interesting kind of content happens. And have you noticed something similar, like sometimes these people that are in positions you haven't heard of, or companies you haven't heard of, sometimes that's like your best material.

Speaker 1 7:33 I think I never really feel someone's like so high level or like, I mean, like there's definitely people that are very, very accomplished in their career or very late stage of their career. But I tend to see them Oh as like human and that I feel like they're just facing different audience, right. Like, I think if you're an executive like the contents may be more towards like leadership or something more in the general sense. If you're younger in your career, such as DVR analysts are associated firm, you're probably providing value, as you know that the value is like something more current and the more trending because of like people are more focusing on specific detailed sub sectors that some people may be engaged with. So I feel like the younger people will provide a more niched focused content that may be people fall found relevant as well as like useful because of people could use right away with some of the content they're providing, in terms of like big tech executives, or like exact are like people you mentioned, more like kind of later stage in our career that are providing something more general. And I think, you know, I think it's two different type of content or like towards two different type of audience for sure.

Robert Plank 8:50 That's very interesting, interesting to think about that the younger sort of speakers or guests are more specific and actionable. And then later in life, when they've been in multiple companies, multiple roles, maybe higher up in the food chain, so to speak, then they're giving them more general advice and more like some more of a summary because they've had all these decades of experience. And so in your journey here of growing the show, growing the audience getting these guests has anything really surprised you.

Speaker 1 9:24 I just surprised like how diverse my audience are, I used to think there are one type of people which is maybe people who are like my younger self who are interested in venture who are who has already worked in venture, but it turns out like there's a lot of like, really diverse set of audience maybe they are working in technology and maybe they work in marketing maybe they're actually over 110 Different countries in the world. So like I was not expecting like you know, I thought like my I just never thought like I could reach that many People from that diverse have a background. And I just felt like really thankful for people even tuning in. And that's like something that really surprising for me

Robert Plank 10:13 just that there's so many people, many different locations, many different backgrounds, and many different reasons for tuning in. And also, what's great about your journey is that you're becoming known, you're helping others, and you're also yourself are learning a lot. So is there like a top one or two tips that you accumulated? I mean, I'm sure you've had some amazing insights, talking to some amazing people. But is there like a recurring lesson? Or is there a top lesson from all these episodes you've done?

Speaker 1 10:44 I think there are two lessons. For me, like I think number one is, you should really be leaning into your strengths and maybe hiring your weakness or partner with their weakness. You know, when I was growing up, out, I'm constantly here, I was constantly hearing the sun, there's like a saying says, you should, you know, fix your weakness. And then like, you know, basically fix what you're not good at. But on the other hand, when I was observing these, like very successful people, everyone was really leaning into their strengths, and either hire the right weakness or partner with their weakness, meaning like they will partner or like, find people who are good at what they're not good at, instead of like, just fixing the things that they're not good at. So that's one of the lessons and the other thing is, I feel like a lot of the major successful people are coming from they tap into a party cooler trend. It's either like, right now we could see the trend of AI or like anything that's like big in technology, that's kind of going to change the landscape of like how people work, how people interact, and how people behave. So I feel like a lot of the major success come from people tapping into these big trends.

Robert Plank 12:04 Those are some both some amazing insights. And I think about both these things quite a bit, especially this whole idea of strengthening your strengths big. And I think that at least for me, school, taught me to try to be well rounded, right. And because sometimes in school, you have to take some class that you don't like, and you're not good at chemistry or at history or something, and you have to figure it out. Because if you don't, you'll fail the class or get a bad grade. And it kind of it's an I guess it works temporarily, right? Sometimes you do get into a situation where you have to do something that you're not good at, or you have to learn something, but that can't be your whole business or your whole career forever. And it just it took me so long to realize that okay, well in a school environment, or temporarily, that could be you do sometimes have to strengthen your weaknesses. But if you're rebuilding your own life and your own company, it's so important to strengthen your strength and put your ego aside and just get someone else to handle the problem or filled out role better than you can. And so that's very cool and interesting to think about. And so what is this building towards, like, you have the show we have it a daily show? Is it a kind of thing where you say, Oh, well, I'm, I'm just seeing where it goes? Or do you have an objective in mind, or just what's happening with you in the show moving towards the future.

Speaker 1 13:33 I feel like I'm still in the mindset of like, serving my audience and serving my community. And I definitely want to reach like more people who needs help with things like this, like so basically trying to advance their career as well as like learning new things about technology and investing and entrepreneurship in general. I would love to, you know, help whoever needs the content to see the content and then consume the content as far as like benefiting from it. And I want it to just follow what where the community leads me to, to like, you know, serve their needs in general.

Robert Plank 14:09 Okay, well, wonderful. And so we've been focusing and talking a lot about the podcast, and we heard a little bit about you, right? You come from China. And so what is your story like, like, what's led you here? And what are what is your career like?

Speaker 1 14:25 Yeah, totally. So I, I think like, I always wanted to become an entrepreneur. When I was in high school, I started like a school English newspaper in my in China. So basically, I just asked all my friends to cover the extracurricular activities and then a lot of the people who are trying to study abroad than they wanted to present their extracurricular activities to schools in a foreign country and some of them like would just like purchase our newspaper to like kind of like send it to the school. And I kind of started this small business or like a you say like a student organization or something to help people do so. And then we fast. We're like a fast growing student organization, we grew into one of the biggest student organization, my high school. And I wanted to really start a business future in the future of my career. However, back in time, like a starting a startup, or like starting a company was not necessarily the norm. Even Even now, although a lot of people are starting businesses all over the world, but like the traditional job paths is still like, kind of really is like what most people are picking to like following a particular career path to pursue, you know, a career in a specific sector. And when I came to the Silicon Valley, I noticed a lot of the people here who are starting amazing companies has also had some sort of entrepreneurial project when early on in their career, or early on in their life, or maybe in high school or like stuff, like having a lemonade stand or selling something on eBay. Like I always noticed the pattern that people have these entrepreneurial experiences very early on in their life. And however, like being in Silicon Valley being a runoff, a lot of other entrepreneurs and investors, you got really encouraged by the community, like so basically, a lot of people would was able to pursue what they have done early on in their career to a different level. So they actually treat it like a business actually keep going with our businesses. So I really wanted to kind of create this kind of environment for people who may not be in a place that's, you know, they, basically, they have to be in a norm of pursuing a particular career, or whatever, they're under a lot of pressure, and no one else understands them. I want them to find a belonging and find a community on the internet to help them you know, pursuing their dream life.

Robert Plank 17:05 Wonderful. And I like your mindset. And it seems like a lot of when you examine a situation and you say, Well, what can I do to make a difference? Or what can I do to improve? You think, Well, what are what are most people doing? And what would maybe a small edge case like to do instead? And what stops them? And what kind of emotional story do they tell themselves? And and how are they stressed? And maybe then how can you then jump in and create a community and just help them to get to where they need to go. And so it's wonderful to hear about all these things that you've accomplished and about your mindset. But because it's a podcast, it's fun to talk about stories, and especially stories of failures and struggles, because we can all learn from those sorts of things. And it's, it's bad in the present as you're going through something. But when you look back, and you see how far you've come, you can maybe laugh a little bit at your past misfortunes. And so do you have anything to share along those lines as far as maybe a past failure, or a past stressful moment, or a situation that you can share with us that we can learn from?

Speaker 1 18:11 Absolutely. So actually, when I was younger, I really wanted to go to film school I really like you know, romantic comedy, or like writing comedy in general. And when I was younger, I wanted to pursue like film school for my like grad school, and I applied to a bunch of film school, and I got rejected from them all. And when it came to Silicon Valley, I feel like it was a blessing in disguise, because I feel like I just liked the creative aspect of things. So creative aspect could be in business could be in venture capital could be in like entrepreneurship. It could be like, you could apply creativity into so many different things. That's not script writing. Turns out, I'm like a really terrible script writer. I can. Yeah, I don't I don't think it's a really viable path for me. And in terms of career wise, I think it's a great hobby, but not something that I wanted to pursue my whole life. And I feel like it's a at the time I was like, crying my eyes out. I thought like, it was the end of my career. I would never go anywhere with this. And it was like my dream job however, like, now looking back, I'm so I'm so glad none of the film school took me because I don't particularly want to pursue a career in film. So, yeah, anyway, so that's like, a failure that I had. However, I feel like, you know, if you're stuck in a situation, if you felt like, Oh, this is the other little world or like, everybody reject you. I feel like you know, sometimes, a lot of people say keep going, but I feel like sometimes you can you can also resume, like why you like the things that you wanted to pursue. Sometimes it's maybe because of like a deeper thing that you're thinking about maybe it's like, you know, self validation, maybe it's like, you know, creativity or like some sort of like, things with like a deeper meaning. Behind the particle, our super level, super, like super surface level things that you're pursuing. So that's like my lessons from the failure.

Robert Plank 20:08 I found that to be very helpful that when you come up across some kind of a dead end rejection failure, then you probably have like four or five strategies in front of you, right? There's, of course, there's giving up completely. But you might say, Well, I still want that, that endpoint, I still want that goal. But maybe I can take a different path. Or you might say, Well, why am I pursuing this? And is it just something that maybe it's something I used to want to do? And I've outgrown it? Or is this someone else's idea? Like, it's an opportunity to reflect and reassess and think of like, okay, is this what I really wanted to do? And then things can always change right? Later in life, we can pick up something else. And we don't have to do just one thing. Like, of course, there's like our main focus, but even even Zuckerberg has Facebook, but there's also WhatsApp and Instagram and Oculus like, and many entrepreneurs have, it's not like they're they're evenly spread apart. But you have like, you know, Elon Musk, Tesla is probably the main thing. But there's also like Starlink, and SpaceX and all these kind of other maybe slightly, I'm like, second tier kind of projects. So it's not like we can, we need to just have one singular focus in life. And so yeah, this, this is all great to think about and talk about. And I can tell that you're just someone that go has all these different guests, and asked all these kinds of interesting questions. And so is there a dream guests? Or is there a someone that you want to have on your show that you haven't? Or like some kind of type where you're like, Oh, I'd really love to fill such and such role in a future episode. Yeah,

Speaker 1 21:47 totally. I feel like I, maybe this is really cliche. But since I live in this in Silicon Valley, in the tech world, I would love to have a little mess on the show. I feel like he's definitely definitely a different type of thinker and him and maybe Mr. Beast, and because I feel like I miss it, like observing him from afar as a creator, I just felt like he is also like a really different distinguished like thinker in the Creator space as like, he is measuring things with analytical method, instead of like, just being, you know, when when you think about like, being creative, it's kind of like, oh, creativity, like, you know, sitting there like drinking coffee, or like drawing a picture or something. But like, Mr. B's really professionalized this into like a career for himself. And he had been doing as such in like, such a successful way. And he have just like, really gives me some, like, different perspective to think about, in general,

Robert Plank 22:49 though, people like that give me perspective as well. And you think that they're, they're definitely unique, and they, they stand out and they get attention. And they're not even one hit wonders. These are people that manage to stay in the news and keep our attention probably every few days, for years at a time. And sure, there, there's very mixed feelings about about many of these people, but they're definitely doing something right as far as their forward momentum. And they're always accomplishing things. And there's just You're so right that there's there's so much to take in about what they're seeing what they're thinking, what they're doing, what their thought process is. And we need more of that, right. And we need to tune in because we all have the same 24 hours in a day and we can choose to watch reality TV, or we can be pursuing our dreams and our goals, and then kind of get these experts in our head and think well, what would Elon do in my situation? Or what would Mr. Beast do if he had to solve this problem that's in front of me. So it's kind of like when they say that you should read biographies of people and autobiographies and things like that just to like feel their voice and to know like, what would Winston Churchill do in my situation, and things like that. And so how do we listen to your excellent show? And are you someone that says Start from the beginning start from the most recent? This one particular episode is a good starting point, like what would you say is the plan of attack for some a new listener tuning into your show?

Speaker 1 24:22 Thank you so much for asking. I'm giving me a chance to share about my show. So my show is called Smart venture podcast and I actually really liked the most recent episode with day one He is CEO of Orangetheory, which I go very often and I really liked that episode. If you haven't heard about my podcast, you should probably check out that episode. And my my different episodes are like based on different experts in different industries such as like the SAM of Pepsi, maybe if you're like, if you have a career in marketing, you should listen to that episode. Or just like different guys have like different focuses. So definitely check it out. And I have a daily show called mentor with grace. It's on LinkedIn. It's live on LinkedIn every work day. And sometimes I have two episodes at night or 11. And, but it's 9am Every day, work days. And you can also listen to all the episodes on Spotify or Apple by searching venture with grace. Thank you so much. And

Robert Plank 25:26 thank you for being here. So venture with grace on LinkedIn live, and then smart venture podcast, which is at SVP bro.com. And as we're wrapping up our conversation here, Grace, you and I both know that it's not good to just end the show by saying by right, you need something powerful, we need something that wants to get people to want more. And so I don't know what your approach is, my approach is to ask my guests about a quote or lesson that has really helped them that can send us on our way as far as achieving the success and the greatness that that we're destined to go for. And so what comes to mind when I ask for just any kind of helpful, quote, or lesson that has really helped you.

Speaker 1 26:09 I know it's cliche, but every day I think about just just do it. Like, I feel like it's a really classic Nike quote, but it just motivates me every day, because I think massive action drives by like, drives massive results. So if you really want to be different, you want to like pursue excellence in your career in your life, you have to take massive action. By bad before taking massive action, you should probably take action in general. So I think just do it. It's a quote for me.

Robert Plank 26:41 I agree completely. It's wonderful advice. And and so simple, it does not get much simpler than that. Just do it. And your job as a podcast listener right now is to just do it and go and find venture with grace on LinkedIn live, as well as subscribe to this smart venture podcast on podcasting platforms. That way, this is not just some idea that you might have whether you want to grow a company or exit a company, or leave your nine to five and create your own future, whatever it is, you won't learn it all in one go. You have to have the steady daily feed that's coming into you. And he might be scrolling Facebook and just getting angry about what's happening in the world. Or you can choose to focus your attention on Grace's conversations. We have some of these amazing innovators, unicorn founders, Craigslist, square loom crews, Pepsi, all the ones that we mentioned. So tune into the smart venture podcast with Grace Gong. And Grace. It's been lovely speaking with you.

Speaker 1 27:41 Thank you so much. And if you want to, I feel like everyone should also check out Rob's Robert service. Like do you want to talk about your services your show? And after

Robert Plank 27:51 all, yeah, that, you know, no one has ever asked me on my show about my stuff. My son, thank you very much for that that two way. Reciprocity, my service is called DFI podcast, and I have a team of people that manage podcasts from the show notes, the production, getting it live on social media, the videos, the graphics, so that way podcasters like you and me, Grace can just show up and focus on the content and speaking with our guests, and all those clerical minutia tasks and making sure it's on all the platforms and it's all getting done not a schedule. That's all important. But our focus needs to be on running our business not on being in there and doing all the important work, but the kind of the low level work so deify podcast.com Is my team that manage it creates new podcasts, and also manages existing podcasts. So thank you very much grace for leaving that opening for me as well.

Speaker 1 28:51 Thank you so much for having me on your show. And I really appreciate you and thank you again. Thank

Robert Plank 28:58 you grace Gong smart venture podcast.