Speaker 1: Let's wrap up the show. The last half hour of
Speaker 1: this show, we're gonna spend it with Rob Chestnut. He
Speaker 1: is the former chief ethics officer of Airbnb's got a
Speaker 1: new book. It's called Intentional Integrity, How Smart Companies can
Speaker 1: lead in Ethical Revolution. He joins us on the phone
Speaker 1: from lovely Santa Cruz, California. Rob, how are you. I'm
Speaker 1: doing great. The weather is beautiful here today, Oh man.
Speaker 1: I was there in Santa Cruz with my family over
Speaker 1: the Christmas and New Year's holiday. I didn't want to leave.
Speaker 1: It is just it's so gorgeous there. What's life like
Speaker 1: in Northern California? Because we hear these California headlines about
Speaker 1: the virus, but I know enough to be dangerous that
Speaker 1: the Northern California scene in the Southern California scene, they're
Speaker 1: pretty different, right, They are different. I hear from friends
Speaker 1: down in Southern California that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: not wearing masks down in that area of the country.
Speaker 1: Whenever I get out, and I don't get out a
Speaker 1: whole lot, I see a lot of masks up here
Speaker 1: in Northern California. I think people are people are being careful.
Speaker 1: The streets are pretty deserted compared to usual, and everywhere
Speaker 1: I go in the grocery stores lots of masks of
Speaker 1: trying to do the best we can. Well that's not
Speaker 1: very Uh, that's not integrity being displayed thereby by folks
Speaker 1: in southern California, those who are wearing masks. Let's I
Speaker 1: agree with you. I think it's a real show of courtesy,
Speaker 1: tort your fellow man. Yeah, don't to wear the masks
Speaker 1: and respect. So we need to get people on it.
Speaker 1: I don't understand how wearing a mask has become so
Speaker 1: political when when you are talking about integrity and doing
Speaker 1: good and not doing evil, how do you keep it
Speaker 1: so that you focus on just doing the right thing
Speaker 1: as opposed to getting caught up in whether it's politically
Speaker 1: correct or not. Well, you need an open mind. I
Speaker 1: think everyone needs a like a north star in life,
Speaker 1: a purpose and sort of a commitment to live with
Speaker 1: integrity as they can best perceive it. But people also,
Speaker 1: I think needs to have some self awareness and listen
Speaker 1: to people around them, uh, and be willing to adjust
Speaker 1: their views as they learn more information. Uh. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like we do a lot of partisan thinking in
Speaker 1: this country where people kind of get stuck on one
Speaker 1: side and just feel like they're dogged and committing to
Speaker 1: stick by it no matter what. And that's not going
Speaker 1: to get us a good place. So tell us about
Speaker 1: the the sort of the foundation of this book, because
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by your background. You are a federal prosecutor.
Speaker 1: You went to work for eBay, I believe in ultimately
Speaker 1: at Airbnb? What led you? What? What was sort of
Speaker 1: the genesis at the spark? Well, I've been I've been
Speaker 1: dealing with rules. I think my whole life as a
Speaker 1: photo prosecutor, I prosecuted espionage cases, uh, which I think
Speaker 1: it shows about as much lack of integrity as you
Speaker 1: can you can ever find in a work at games Right,
Speaker 1: you were involved in that lage. He was one of
Speaker 1: the cases that I prosecuted When I was in Northern
Speaker 1: Virginia and at an eBay, I started their trust and
Speaker 1: safety department. All the rules around what you can sell
Speaker 1: on eBay? Can you sell guns and alcohol and tobacco
Speaker 1: products and drugs in the light. So I've been dealing
Speaker 1: with rules of my whole lifetime. But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just the last three or four years, I've really gotten
Speaker 1: a sense that the world is changing. Uh, people are
Speaker 1: far faster now to call out bad conduct by leaders
Speaker 1: and my companies. I refer to it, you know, as
Speaker 1: an integrity revolution in the book. Uh. People are really
Speaker 1: desiring when they go to work to have a positive
Speaker 1: impact in the world. And if they perceived the values
Speaker 1: of their company to not be aligned with their own
Speaker 1: values in the past, they were quiet. Now they're communicating
Speaker 1: with each other on blind and Slack, and they're blogging
Speaker 1: about it, they're tweeting about it. They're even organizing lookouts.
Speaker 1: And I think it's not just employees, it's customers. We
Speaker 1: are in an age of conscious consumerism where you know, consumers,
Speaker 1: if they don't like the way that a particular company operates,
Speaker 1: they're gonna take their money and they're gonna move it
Speaker 1: somewhere else faster than before. So the genesis for the book,
Speaker 1: I think is it was really recognizing the see change
Speaker 1: and this heightened expectation that the world's putting on leaders
Speaker 1: and on companies, and there's an effort to try to
Speaker 1: help companies adjust in this new world so that they
Speaker 1: can really take advantage of it and led it as
Speaker 1: opposed to fighting the Todd and ultimately really hurting their brands.
Speaker 1: You know, Rob, let's talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: tech world if we can. You've been a part of it,
Speaker 1: uh in many ways. And as Scarlett pointed out, and
Speaker 1: as we talked about earlier, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: day where we had some very well known tech executives
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. It does virtually that is uh some
Speaker 1: cases not being able to ironically figure out the technology
Speaker 1: to testify. But we'll set that aside for a second. Um,
Speaker 1: how big of the deal is it or how big
Speaker 1: a deal should we make of it? That we have
Speaker 1: some big existential questions around the role of technology in
Speaker 1: our lives and the behavior of big tech. Well, I
Speaker 1: remember back when tech was the darling, don't you know,
Speaker 1: of course that companies they were going to save the world,
Speaker 1: right and and the boy things have changed, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of that, I think has been their
Speaker 1: own doing in in a number of the large tech companies.
Speaker 1: I think it's a singular focus on making money, which
Speaker 1: is of course critical, But you've got to be thinking
Speaker 1: about other stakeholders. You've got to be thinking about your employees,
Speaker 1: you've got to be thinking about the communities, where you
Speaker 1: do business, and I think and that's on that scorecard,
Speaker 1: and aby these big companies haven't done as well, and
Speaker 1: that has caused the world to take a hard look
Speaker 1: at them. The microscope is out and I I think
Speaker 1: we need to see them get ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1: I think Microsoft, for example, is doing a pretty good
Speaker 1: job of this, actually recognizing that the world needs more
Speaker 1: from big tech. They need big tech to step up
Speaker 1: and solve the big problems instead of solely focusing on
Speaker 1: that quarterly that quarterly reports number. Think about you know,
Speaker 1: I have to look at Facebook, so they've got to
Speaker 1: deal with misinformation and hate on their platform. I think
Speaker 1: they've got to own up to it, and their failure
Speaker 1: to do it, and I think they've been kind of
Speaker 1: stubborn about this is really hurting bright. How much of
Speaker 1: that do you think is tied to the fact that
Speaker 1: a lot of these big tech companies are still fairly
Speaker 1: young companies run by their founders. You bring up Microsoft,
Speaker 1: and that's, you know, at this point, an old company. Uh.
Speaker 1: The guy who runs at Saty Nodela is not Bill Gates. Um,
Speaker 1: he's a hired hand. Essentially, he's a professional manager, whereas
Speaker 1: Facebook is run by Mark Zuckerberg. Amazon is run by
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos. They are still in the mindset of building
Speaker 1: their company, building market share, UH, growing as fast as
Speaker 1: they can, as opposed to understanding that they are behemoths now.
Speaker 1: I think some of it may be the lack of experience,
Speaker 1: and someone like such an develop perhaps has been around
Speaker 1: a little longer sort of understands this idea of building
Speaker 1: a loved brand for an infinite timerise And but you
Speaker 1: to look at Brian Chusky and Airbnb. I think the
Speaker 1: Airbnb has done pretty well overall in recognizing that there's
Speaker 1: something bigger than just getting big, that the way that
Speaker 1: you do it and the values that you demonstrate while
Speaker 1: you're going big, UH make a huge difference. A lot
Speaker 1: of it is who you listen to. I think that
Speaker 1: some of the younger tech executives, it isn't the fact
Speaker 1: that they're young and inexperienced as much as are they
Speaker 1: really demonstrating an open mind, a curious learning mindset to
Speaker 1: listen to people who are outside of their type inner
Speaker 1: circle and learn from them. I do think Facebook could
Speaker 1: do a better job in this regard, and Jason, that's
Speaker 1: why diversity and inclusion is so important to make sure
Speaker 1: that you don't have the same kinds of people in
Speaker 1: your company that you talk to all day long. Totally,
Speaker 1: I was that's exactly where I was going to go next,
Speaker 1: and Rob, I do wonder along those exact lines. It
Speaker 1: feels like these dual crises, the pandemic and the virtual
Speaker 1: world we're living in, you know, zoom to zoom or
Speaker 1: however you're communicating with people, as well as a long
Speaker 1: overdue reckoning. When it comes to racial inequality, it feels
Speaker 1: like it's laid bare a lot at all sorts of companies,
Speaker 1: big and small. How do we take advantage of that
Speaker 1: and and maybe reset ourselves? Well, I think we need
Speaker 1: to start with an understanding that we all come to
Speaker 1: the world with our own specific set of goggles and
Speaker 1: lens as we see the world through our own lives
Speaker 1: and our own experiences. But what we sometimes fail to
Speaker 1: understand is that there are a whole broad set of
Speaker 1: experiences out there that diversity can really help us learn from.
Speaker 1: I'll take Airbnb. You know, when the Airbnb face of
Speaker 1: discrimination crisis several years ago on its platform. I think
Speaker 1: part of those calls by the fact that there wasn't
Speaker 1: enough diversity in the leadership of the company back then.
Speaker 1: There are people who would actually experienced discrimination who could
Speaker 1: have helped, I think, be a little more proactive and
Speaker 1: getting and getting on top of these sorts of issues.
Speaker 1: Diversity brings the power of human experience beyond what any
Speaker 1: one individual can do. I love walking into a room
Speaker 1: and seeing people that look different than I do, because
Speaker 1: it means that we're going to get some different perspectives
Speaker 1: that I couldn't begin to understand. But those are critical,
Speaker 1: I think in dealing with dealing with crisis and dealing
Speaker 1: with the racial injustice, you've got to have that understanding
Speaker 1: inside your company at the leadership level. Rob you talked
Speaker 1: about stakeholders earlier on, and that brought me to the
Speaker 1: business roundtables, UH definition of a corporation or purpose of
Speaker 1: a corporation. Last summer they came out they revised their
Speaker 1: mission statement, essentially saying that it's not just for the shareholders.
Speaker 1: Right there, they're not just committing to shareholders, are committing
Speaker 1: to their employees, to customers, two suppliers, to the communities
Speaker 1: as well. How did you interpret that because it was
Speaker 1: sufficiently vague that anyone can walk away with the interpretation
Speaker 1: that they want. Well, I think it was a powerful move. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: we're talking about abandoning now decades of thinking about the
Speaker 1: purpose of a company and why it exists. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I think the fact that the Business round Table did
Speaker 1: this was a big step. But you're right, there's still
Speaker 1: a lot. There's still a lot to interpret. I think
Speaker 1: it's a recognition though, that the world is tired, but
Speaker 1: companies just running in their narrow lane and only thinking
Speaker 1: about how fast they can get big and how much
Speaker 1: money they can make. The world needs companies to step
Speaker 1: up and think about their communities where they operate, think
Speaker 1: about their customers, and think about their employees. And the
Speaker 1: world's actually pushing companies really hard in this in this respect.
Speaker 1: So in some ways, I think that what the Business
Speaker 1: round Table did is a reflection of where we are
Speaker 1: now as a society and what company what we expect
Speaker 1: from companies. I think companies that uh or it as
Speaker 1: fluff and continue their old way of doing things are
Speaker 1: going to struggle. Companies I think that take it seriously,
Speaker 1: really identify their stakeholders and think about how they can
Speaker 1: make their ship their stakeholders successful. I think they are
Speaker 1: going to be the ones that leap ahead in the
Speaker 1: next five years. Alright, Rob Chestnut, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Really good to spend some time with you. He's the
Speaker 1: author of the new book it's called Intentional Integrity, How
Speaker 1: Smart Companies can lead an Ethical Revolution, based on his
Speaker 1: experiences and observations working as the top lawyer at Airbnb
Speaker 1: as well as at eBay, background as a federal prosecutor
Speaker 1: as well. Check that out. A good and timely quarantine
Speaker 1: read