Gary Swart
What I Knew Before
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While I had never heard of Gary, I did some research prior to the visit and learned about his impressive resume
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He is very prominent on LinkedIn, often writing articles on entrepreneurship
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Expectations and Introduction
Based on his impressive track record and the success he has experienced, I expected Gary to be extremely intelligent and well-spoken with great interpersonal skills.
Gary is a Venture Partner at Polaris Partners, and he was formerly the CEO of oDesk. He began his career at IBM in sales, and is a prominent writer, often publishing articles on LinkedIn. Gary also founded Intellibank, a Dropbox-like product much earlier on.
Visit Summary
The visit began with Gary giving a detailed description of his aforementioned career. While the above description outlines successes he has had, he has also had his fair share of failures. To hit on one, Gary formerly passed down opportunities to work with Reed Hastings and join the Netflix team from the ground up, a mistake worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Gary gave very insightful advice for college students regarding what to look for when pursuing our first jobs. He gave us four aspects that are especially important: impact, growth and development, financial reward, and balance. For impact, what impact are you making on the company, and what impact are they having on you and the world? As far as growth and development go, it is important to be in a position that challenges and stretches you to help you develop as a professional. Having a good work-life balance is also very important, and it is important to think about the impact that a certain job will have at different points in life.
When Gary evaluates a company, he focuses on metrics and data, specifically making sure that the data lines up with the target goals, culture, and employees. He also evaluates the market that they are trying to break into; he needs to make sure that they are not reaching for unrealistic goals or else he will pass on opportunities. He has a saying that “even the best team with the best product will fail if its market does not exist,” which stresses the importance in understanding a market before entering. Gary also is very interested in the characters of the founders. As we learned from Greylock, often investors will invest because they believe in the person to succeed more than the business itself. Finally, he makes sure that the people in charge of the company are aiming high, and if they are not, he will pass.
Key Takeaways
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It is always important to view any and every experience as a learning experience. Gary credits his entrepreneurial mindset from college, with him telling us the story of his friends taking cardboard cutouts of celebrities to malls and stadiums and making money off of having people take pictures with the cutouts. This story reflected that every experience can be a learning experience, and that to be successful you must fail forward.
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There are different times in your life for different opportunities. Gary gave us great first-hand insight on what being a part of a fresh startup is really like, and he described something that is incredibly hectic, demanding, and time consuming. When you are young, this can be great for career development when there is not a whole lot of other things going on in life. When you have a family and kids, being immersed in this type of atmosphere can throw any work-life balance out the window, meaning it may not be a good time to engage in such an endeavor.
- Health and wellness is ​important for leading a balanced life. In "Secrets of Silicon Valley," Piscione says, "The Googles and Facebooks of Silicon Valley have responded to the mounting evidence that links health and wellness to productivity, creativity, on-the-job performance, and overall happiness."
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It is extremely important to develop a personal brand. To do this, you must immerse yourself in experiences that challenge you in ways that develop a unique character, and then you must be able to talk about how these really define you and your personal brand.
Post Visit Actions/ Thoughts
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After the visit, I connected with Gary on LinkedIn and read an article that he had written. It was very interesting seeing the same themes that I watched him tell us appear in this article for thousands of people to see instead of our small group of 30.
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Gary is a tremendous entrepreneur and a very impressive person. While he has made some costly mistakes in his life, he has not let them define him, and he has failed quickly to find new opportunities.