Our Biggest Failure Is My Proudest Moment

David Carrion started as a dealer on Margarita Island, Venezuela in 1995. Thirty years later, he's Chief Strategy Officer at Gaming1, having run live poker events for PokerStars, launched a casino from scratch in his hometown, and led a four-state US market entry.

In this episode of the iGaming Leader podcast, David walks us through four transitions every leader has to make: from doing to letting do, from knowing everything to knowing very little, from argument to context, and from the smaller to the bigger picture.

In this episode:

00:00 Guest intro

00:03 Dealing cards at 18 on Margarita Island

00:06 Running Casino Buenos Aires for 21 million people

00:10 Launching Casino Asturias from zero

00:16 The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure

00:21 What PokerStars got right about culture

00:36 The PCA 10th anniversary trying to break 10,000 players

00:44 Launching in four US states as a relatively small Belgian company

00:46 The strongest stretch of leadership I have ever went through

Quotes from David:

"Launching USA was one of our biggest failures, and that's why it's one of my proudest moments."

"There's nothing more dangerous than a man that doesn't know what he doesn't know."

"The higher you are, the harder it is to influence."

"Growth is for sure on the other side of comfort."

"There aren't that many superheroes out there. There's a lot of common-sense and hard work."

Connect with David: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-carrion-82332952/

Follow Leo Judkins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leo-judkins/

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This episode is sponsored by Sumsub, the leading identity verification provider for iGaming operators. Learn more at https://sumsub.link/8gu