#112 Former President at Tesla / CEO of DVx Ventures, Jon McNeill: First-Principles
Grit14 Marras 2022

#112 Former President at Tesla / CEO of DVx Ventures, Jon McNeill: First-Principles

When DVx Ventures co-founder Jon McNeill joined Tesla in 2015, he told his new boss Elon Musk: “You won’t see me at least a day a week.” That’s because Jon believes the job of any leader is to make time to talk to front-line workers who know things executives don’t. While he was at Tesla he spent 20% of his time in service centers, support centers, or in retail stores, asking the people who worked there the same question: “If you had had my job for a day, what are the two things you would do to make this place better?”

In this episode, Jon and Joubin discuss serial entrepreneurship, growing up without money, road trips, horizontal and vertical mentors, “our generation’s Da Vinci,” first-principles thinking, sleeping in the factory, solving problems together, accelerometers, sharing bad news, the similarities between Lululemon and Tesla, “perfect product,” cash-incinerating businesses, transitioning legacy companies, and the Sutter Hill method.

In this episode, we cover:

  • Why Elon Musk bought Twitter and how he’s running it, two weeks in (03:46)
  • How Jon’s father nudged him into an entrepreneurial mindset (06:12)
  • Building an intentional, present relationship with your family (10:15)
  • What Jon learned from Intuit co-founder Scott Cook (15:55)
  • How he got to Tesla, and learned how to work with Elon (18:55)
  • The east Asia trip that birthed Neuralink and The Boring Company (24:56)
  • Ramping up demand for the Tesla Model S and the “manufacturing hell” of the Model X (29:54)
  • Solving problems under pressure and Jon’s hack for staying sane (35:57)
  • Recruiting world-class talent (41:05)
  • What Jon asked Elon before joining Tesla (45:37)
  • “Make them talk about you at dinner” (50:47)
  • Simplifying things is an unfair advantage (54:27)
  • What frontline workers know, and Jon’s 20% rule (57:08)
  • Lyft’s “arms race” with Uber and what DVx’s companies do differently (1:00:36)
  • How Jon got to be on the board of GM (1:08:00)

Links:

Jaksot(279)

Family, Focus, and 350M Users: Inside Zoom with Eric Yuan

Family, Focus, and 350M Users: Inside Zoom with Eric Yuan

Eric Yuan turned a simple belief into Zoom, the platform that kept the world moving through a once-in-a-century shutdown and redefined modern work. On this episode of Grit, the Zoom CEO shares why vel...

9 Kesä 20251h 14min

Bret Taylor’s Journey Leading Salesforce, Sierra & OpenAI

Bret Taylor’s Journey Leading Salesforce, Sierra & OpenAI

Over the past two decades, Bret Taylor has quietly helped shape the arc of Silicon Valley.From co-creating Google Maps to steering Facebook, Salesforce, and OpenAI, he’s been behind some of the most c...

2 Kesä 20251h 29min

Inside Aurora’s Push to Make Autonomous Trucking Real | Chris Urmson

Inside Aurora’s Push to Make Autonomous Trucking Real | Chris Urmson

Chris Urmson has spent the last 20 years pushing the limits of autonomous driving—first at Carnegie Mellon’s DARPA Grand Challenge team, then as co-founder of Google’s self-driving car project, now Wa...

26 Touko 20251h 30min

From Scaling Cisco to Seeding AI: John T. Chambers on Speed, Strategy, and Reinvention

From Scaling Cisco to Seeding AI: John T. Chambers on Speed, Strategy, and Reinvention

John Chambers led Cisco through the rise of the internet—transforming it into the world’s most valuable company at its peak.On this week’s Grit, the former Cisco CEO unpacks how he scaled the business...

19 Touko 20251h 27min

How Matt Murphy Made Marvell Essential to AI and Cloud

How Matt Murphy Made Marvell Essential to AI and Cloud

Matt Murphy transformed Marvell from a broad-based chip supplier into a $100B data infrastructure leader—powering the rise of AI, cloud, 5G, and custom silicon.On this week’s Grit, the Marvell CEO sha...

12 Touko 20251h 25min

HubSpot CEO on the Future of SaaS, AI, & Leading Through Change

HubSpot CEO on the Future of SaaS, AI, & Leading Through Change

From a 350-square-foot home in South India to leading HubSpot, a $30B CRM powerhouse, Yamini Rangan’s journey is nothing short of remarkable. In this episode, Yamini shares how she’s guiding HubSpot t...

5 Touko 20251h 17min

From White House to Wall Street: David Rubenstein

From White House to Wall Street: David Rubenstein

David Rubenstein helped pioneer modern private equity—building The Carlyle Group into a $400B global investment firm from a modest D.C. office and a relentless fundraising streak. But beyond PE, his l...

28 Huhti 20251h 11min

No Reset Button: Reinventing Amplitude in a Post-AI World (Spenser Skates)

No Reset Button: Reinventing Amplitude in a Post-AI World (Spenser Skates)

Amplitude helped define the modern analytics stack, powering digital products with deep behavioral insights. But in a world shifting toward agentic interfaces and vertically integrated AI, even a cate...

21 Huhti 20251h 17min

Suosittua kategoriassa Liike-elämä ja talous

sijotuskasti
psykopodiaa-podcast
rss-rahapodi
mimmit-sijoittaa
rss-lahtijat
rahapuhetta
rss-draivi
rss-neuvottelija-sami-miettinen
rss-rahamania
rss-porssipuhetta
rss-bisnesta-bebeja
rss-paasipodi
rss-porssipodi
syo-nuku-saasta
pomojen-suusta
sijoituspodi
juristipodi
rss-paatos-podcast-suomen-kovimmat-paatoksentekijat-2
rss-seuraava-potilas
rss-40-ajatusta-aanesta