Excellent podcast with Carly Fiorina. I don’t have a direct connection to Carly, but my first startup experience was with SpinCircuit, which partnered with her at HP where she was the newly appointed CEO. SpinCircuit eventually got acquired by Cadence Design Systems.

In my experience as a consultant for large enterprises and startup companies, I frequently see two kinds of workers. A few people run towards the fire and solve problems. Conversely, I see many more folks run away from problems and focus on self-promotion and ladder-climbing.

In this age of social media, self-promotion is way too easy. It’s hard to grind. It’s hard to give back to the community after a long day when there are mouths to feed in the workplace and in a household. Carly Fiorina reflects quite a bit about difficult times in business, especially during the forgettable 2000s. Winning at all costs at the expense of society created problems that grew much bigger.

I like this podcast because Carly Fiorina doesn’t mince words and portends about what is going wrong in today’s world and where it may lead us. The hardest thing in the world is to solve problems as they arise. A fire gets larger when it gets ignored. It’s hard to be the kind of leader who is constantly grinding and firefighting. The last 10 minutes of Carly’s leadership talk here is pure gold.

Nonetheless, 2019 was probably the hardest year of my life. I learned to grind and run towards the fire.