281. "I was the adult at Facebook", with FB's #57 employee & author Tom LeNoble

0:00You're the 57th person hired at a little known startup. The company is a small startup called The Facebook. You might have heard of it. You're 50 years old. Everyone else is 20. The founder's 19 years old. And somewhere between setting up customer operations and building a team from scratch, a doctor tells you you've got six months to live.

0:23Tom LeNoble:Our guest today, Tom LeNoble, didn't tell his employees about his diagnosis. He didn't slow down. He just kept going through Facebook's early days, through Silicon Valley's boom years, through cancer diagnoses, through laying off over 100 people on his birthday, and eventually through laying himself off. When I left Facebook, I said to Mark, I want to see you in 10 years. And he looked at me and said, why would you even want to see me? You're leaving. I said, I just want to see what happens, see where you ended up. So I left and went on about my business and forgot all about it. And I was sitting at my desk 10 years later and a Facebook message popped up.

1:07Still want to have lunch? I looked at that Facebook message from the fifth richest man in the world at the time and asked myself, do you want to have lunch with the fifth richest man in the world? To which I quickly responded, hell yeah. So Tom has worked at Facebook. He's worked at Walmart.com. He's worked at Palm. And he was involved in a dating site that Match.com bought. He's now a coach, a speaker, a philanthropist. Oh, and Tom has also been given six months to live three times.

1:39Tom LeNoble:His book is called My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns and High Heels. And today, Tom is going to make you completely rethink what resilience actually means. Hello and welcome to Truth, Lives and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. My name is Al, I'm a business owner. And we are here to help you simplify the science of work. Tom Lenoble was employee number 57 at Facebook before it was Facebook.

2:14interviewing with a 19-year-old Mark Zuckerberg in an office above a Chinese restaurant surrounded by graffiti art and people young enough to be his kids. They called him the adult in the room.

2:23Tom LeNoble:But the bit Tom didn't mention to any of those employers, for much of that glittering Silicon Valley career, he was living with a life-changing diagnosis. Today, he's a coach, speaker and author, and his book, My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns and High Heels, has just hit number one. After this short break, we'll hear how Tom ended up at Facebook, what Mark Zuckerberg was actually like at 19, and the story of a reunion that took 10 years to happen. So don't go anywhere. HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers. And here's a perfect example. Lee, your turn. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content.

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3:31Tell me, Tom, who are you? What do you do and what might you be famous for? I like to say I retired being retired to be inspired. I had this amazing corporate career. I led customer service for MCI, a long distance company way back in the day. I was the head of service at walmart.com in the early days. I ran global service operations for Palm, the Palm Pilot trio people that are now part of HP, and got a phone call at my desk from a recruiter one day when I was in town from a little unknown company called Facebook. Facebook was still in colleges. I had no idea what it was, who it was, and I thanked the recruiter and hung up the phone.

4:18A buddy called me and said, I referred you to Facebook, and you just didn't even talk to them. And being that he's a VC in the Valley, I thought, well, maybe I should talk to Facebook. And so it's a great story that you can read in the book. But I interviewed with Mark Zuckerberg when he was 19 and eventually went to work at Facebook. I was in the first 75, maybe 57, but who's counting, and set up all their customer operations and some other things there while I was there. Then I was the chief support officer for a company that's now the backbone of the Geek Squad, worked at a dating site that Match.com bought, which was an interesting period, and I managed that merger for them.

5:01And then boards would send me in as either the VP of HR, the COO to their startups with their perceived problem, which was never the problem. And I would go in there to address whatever the concern was that I uncovered. Then I fell in love, got married and traveled the world and pulled back a bit and realized that I had more to do, more wisdom to share, more inspiration to pass around. So today I'm a coach. I'm a speaker. I'm an author of my life in business suits, hospital gowns, and high heels. I'm the host of the Opening Pathways podcast, and I'm the CEO of the Academy for Coaching Excellence, a 22-year-old coaching academy.

5:46We train coaches around the world. I want to just go back to that. So you got the call from a recruiter about something which at that point, it wouldn't be the Facebook. It'd be Facebook, wouldn't it? I think it was still the Facebook at the time when I interviewed. It wasn't shortly after I started that it shifted to Facebook. But when I was there, it was the Facebook. And I went to an interview that was over, I think, a Chinese restaurant, this little tiny office. You went up the stairs, and I was in a suit. And as I scaled the stairs out to the top, I saw murals of graffiti art of women's breasts everywhere and asked myself, what am I doing here in my suit, no less, turned the corner and saw a very small group of people through a few liquor bottles that were all young enough to be my child.

6:39and there I stood in this suit in this environment I was escorted to a room and Mark came in in his signature t-shirt sandals and shorts at the time and all I could think of is I needed to take something off so I took off my jacket talk me through how did you feel during the interview what what did you did were you even going to take the job well the interview was interesting because we were in this conference room that had a couch and a tv with some sort of video game. I have no idea what it was. And, uh, Mark, as I took off my jacket, kicked off his shoes and sat on the couch and, um, or sandals at the time and, and asked me just to talk to him.

7:19And I thought, what a refreshing way to, to have an interview. And, you know, I got really intrigued with the product. I knew there was something there, but the thing that I was intrigued with most was this generation's willingness to share information. My generation would never do such a thing. But the real shock came my first day of work about three weeks later, maybe a month later, they had moved across the street. And as I was taken up an elevator to the second floor to this space, as I looked across the room, it was one huge room of nothing but desks, three people to a section. I'd left my cushy office with a view of the bay.

8:05And here I was. And all I could see is across the room, there was one office. And I thought as they walked me towards it, oh, thank God, that's going to be my office. Got there and realized, nope, I was right outside the office. That was the controller. I think I was the barrier to keeping people from the controller. And I remember on that first day, leaning to the two people of, I think, eight that were going to a report to me at that time. And I said this, where are the phones? To which they gasped. I thought they were going to pass out. They turned white and said, phones, we don't want anything to do with phones.

8:44We do everything by email. Well, in that moment, I realized two things. One, what have I done? Two, I knew somebody was going to talk on a phone from my experience in service and i had it figured out it was likely going to be me so what were you doing what were you employed to actually do we would at the time um it was fascinating because we had this system that was sort of halfway useful um you know how it is at startup land and so we responded to users and it was an interesting thing that these customers users that would write in were everything from suggestions. But what was fascinating to me as everybody was in colleges still, it was still in colleges, was how much these people loved it and took ownership of the Facebook at the time and the suggestions that came in.

9:42And the group really built the framework and the baseline of what was to come because we had to create procedures and all things and define everything that was going on. So it was really responding to users in the beginning as it was just starting from turning into a real service organization. I can remember some of the policies would be so funny. Eventually we had literally it was called the nip and crack policy because when we started doing photos, there were these huge discussions back and forth about what would be allowed in the photo, and it finally became, if you had a nipple showing or a crack showing, photo came down, which so it became the nip crack policy, which today I'm sure that's not what it's called.

10:32But back then, you know, I was with a group of people all 2021 that had defer law school, business school, medical school from the likes of Harvard, Yale, Stanford, these top, top schools, brilliant 2021 and there I was 50 old enough to be their child their them their father and um fascinating it was without a doubt in fact they called me the adult in the room behind my back even though I knew about it so were you upset about being the adult in the room did you feel excluded no I didn't at all because I've had the good fortune in my career of working with different generations. Today, I do a lot of work with the Zoomers.

11:14And what I love about it is I find that we label these generations, I'm sure mine was, we are called lazy or we're not applying ourselves. The millennials were certainly about tattoos and what they wore and not wearing real shoes. But what I find to be true, first of all, I was working with brilliant people. I can tell you later about a reunion we had and share with you what I learned last year about them. But what I find is these generations are the societal shifts that are coming and we need to embrace them and help them. I just read an article the other day that Zoomers aren't able to talk anymore with people because of COVID and being online all the time and people perplexed about and what was going to mean?

12:05And my answer was simple. Well, start talking to them, you know, carry on a conversation. And I think we have a responsibility to be mentors and listen and learn, be willing to grow from what you're learning from them, because I know my experience, brilliant and what they're doing today. Fascinating. So you mentioned the reunion there. It sounds to me like they were not far that now they're not far off the age you were when you were in there. So what was it like going back and seeing everyone? Well, one thing I love is they're in their early 40s, and I love seeing them post they're in their midlife crisis because most of them are married with kids now.

12:45And I just find it really comical and reflecting about when I thought I was having a midlife crisis. In fact, people I know, I let them know when they turn 40, I want to have a conversation with them because I have a conversation with people about turning 40 and what it means. But they had this reunion. I remember getting the invite and it was the first, I don't know, 150 of us that were there. And I wasn't going to go because I thought to myself, dear God, I'm old enough to be their kid's grandfather, you know, so why would I even go there? Well, I decided to go and it was held at this beautiful restaurant that one of the engineers and somebody who worked on my team who are married now have in Cal here in Northern California, a very nice place.

13:31And, you know, it was wonderful. They, first of all, treated me like I was a little celebrity. It felt so good. But what felt good for me was these, I call them my kids, these kids were now VCs, SVPs. They had excelled in all they were doing, and I loved hearing their stories. My favorite part was the few of them that came up to me and looked at me and said, how did you put up with us? Because they're now managing younger people and experiencing what it's like to manage. When I left that reunion, I was driving home and I was thinking to myself, how would I sum up this evening? And it came, this came to me.

14:12The kids are all right. That must have been so heartwarming to see these people who were just chaotic in a great way. And now they, did you think they're happy? Do you think that they've evolved and your leadership has brought them, made them into good people? I knew they would. It wasn't ever a doubt in my mind. It's, I just never crossed my mind that they wouldn't be successful. And I'd like to think that I had a little, little tiny nudge of something that I shared with them in our time together. You know, there's another reunion I should tell you about. So when I left Facebook, I said to Mark, I want to see you in 10 years.

14:54And he looked at me and said, why would you even want to see me? You're leaving. You know, why would you even want to? I said, I just want to see what happens, see where you ended up. So I left and went on about my business and forgot all about it, and I was sitting at my desk ten years later, and a Facebook message popped up, Still want to have lunch? I looked at that Facebook from the fifth richest man in the world at the time and asked myself, Do you want to have lunch with the fifth richest man in the world? To which I quickly responded, Hell yeah. and I decided to go there and it was a fascinating time because they were so busy and as always out of space and I learned somebody had been kicked out of their parking space to let me park which I didn't like so much and went through this myriad of security and finally was taken up to this floor in this building and there was a glass conference room on one side that was Cheryl's a glass conference room on the other side that was Mark's so I positioned myself on the couch So I got full view of both of them.

16:05And as I sat down and looked up, I had opened a building, my own building there, for just the service team, which was quickly taken over by others. But we had graffiti art everywhere and the offices. And they had taken the sheetrock and cut it out and framed it and hung it so it was memorialized. And there was a piece right in front of me from my building. Well, soon this meeting was over and out came Mark and we said hello to each other. And the next thing I knew, there's this photographer taking pictures of us. And I think to myself, isn't this sweet? They're going to talk about me at the whole hands meeting or feature me in a newsletter.

16:43And in that moment, I realized I had nothing to do with that. I'm talking to the fifth richest man in the world. They want evidence in case I do something to him while I'm in the conference room. And well, I went in this conference room and there's this spread of sushi like you've never seen before. We never touched it. I was supposed to be with Mark for 30 minutes. We were together almost 45 and I went prepared and we we just caught up and shared some things. And as we left, he said, want to do this again in 10 years. And I said, well, if I'm around, we'll talk about why I said that because I didn't know if I'd be alive.

17:18But he said, you'll be here. And so who knows with all the changes of whether I'll get that invite. And I asked myself, would I do it again? Yeah, I would. In fact, I'd have special questions again this time. I mean, there are so many questions there. I mean, I want to know what your special questions are. I want to know when the next 10 years is up. Let's come to that in a second. But there is a more serious reason why you've written this book. And you alluded to it just then saying, not sure I'll be around. This is something you've publicly spoken about, I believe. So I believe you've two or three times you've been given only a short period of time to live.

17:55Well, I just shared that whole career I had and what I'm doing now. And through it all, I've had two life-threatening illnesses. The first one I was told was terminal. I've lived with metastatic cancer the last 14 years. I've been given six months to live three times. What does it do to your mindset when someone says, a doctor says that to you? You know, the first time it was said to me, I remember I had been anonymously tested and I turned out to be positive. And I went to the car and I looked in the rearview mirror and I spoke to this virus that had invaded my body and said, If you want to join the party, hello, you're welcome.

18:46If you think you're going to take me out, you're in for the fight of your life. Then I started the car and went back to work. About three weeks later, I was sitting in the doctor's office again after lab work, and he had already told me that my time was probably limited, and he looked at me with the lab work and said, I don't know if you heard me, but you have less than six months to live. Do you choose to do it at your desk or doing something you enjoy? Well, I eventually went off on disability, one of the hardest things I've ever done, because I was on a fast track at a company I adored at the time.

19:27But I turned it into action, which is a theme about Tom Lenoble, in that while I stepped away and it was very difficult, I joined five other men and we opened the D.C. Buyers Club. Think of the Dallas Buyers Club like Matthew McConaughey. A little less Hollywood, probably the same number of hookers. But in this flat in D.C., in the front room, we invited you in for information and a hug when no one else would because no one cared. There was no one focused on it. Once we got to know you, you were invited in the back room where we had either smuggled, imported, brought in things that we still today likely don't know what it was doing to us.

20:12We were injecting bovine thymus and doing all kinds of strange enemas because there was nothing for us. No one was coming to our rescue. So we came together. The interesting thing about this story is none of the six of us died of that disease. But life went on. I was on disability. I decided that my best chance at living was to either be in San Francisco or New York, and I chose San Francisco. I arrived in San Francisco a very short time, probably six months later, tried to get an appointment with a doctor, was on a waiting list with three of them. When I finally got into one, who has become a dear friend, and I worked with her in her office running clinical trials and as executive director of a foundation focusing on nutrition for children who had HIV.

21:10But as I walked into her office and heard her voice, was taken to an exam room where a picture, a photograph of my apartment was on the wall. That photograph's in my office today. She gave it to me. Her sister was a photographer and there was a photograph of my apartment. What I knew at that moment was I had landed in the right place. Later that day, I landed in the hospital. I was there for about two weeks, once again hearing how tenuous my life was. So you were told you didn't have long to live. You basically told the virus that there's no chance that the virus is winning. Did your life change, like in terms of your approach to work and life and values and stuff, did that change after that period of time?

22:05This is a great question because I never stopped contributing. It just shifted from contributing for a paycheck to contributing through service, which is a huge part of my life today. You know, I was very sick. I went on and had, you know, really back then the treatments were really, really awful. In fact, you can read about a lot of this in the book. At one point, I was many years in and still had not been what we call suppressed. And I had been in many clinical trials. I was running them in the office. In fact, I would joke when you'd fill out a form, you had to check which drugs you take. And I had to check them.

22:48And I went back and would check them all twice because I'd tried them twice. Well, I entered this clinical trial that I was on four drugs and you got to stop to add four. So if you're counting that six and if that combination failed, you got to add one more. It did fail as they usually did. And I added that one extra seven medications, very experimental at the time, horrible side effects, and finally was suppressed for the first time. But what this story leads me to share with you is around 1999, the end of it, I was told with my nine T-cells, you're supposed to have about 700, 600. I had nine and I had named them.

23:35I asked people to watch over them. And I heard this is like the best it gets. and I remember hearing that and thinking you know that just doesn't sound like my style so I decided to go back to work the doctor freaked out the disability company gave me an extra year to fall back on and just to keep things spicy I decided in the middle of the dot-com revolution to go work at a dot-com in the internet era having missed the entire internet explosion. I remember being in Union Square, downtown San Francisco, getting a phone call offering me an executive position at one startup. And as I said yes, I felt like I was levitating off the ground.

24:27Realities hit me as I looked up and there was a men's store when I realized I had absolutely nothing to wear because we still wore suits back then and I walked in and bought three suits. The great part about this story is I took my nine T-cells there, thought, what will I do? Knew I was bright. No one knew. No one knew I was sick. No one knew that I had missed the internet revolution. The great news about this story is my health soared. Within a very few months, I had 200 T-cells. At that point, you were lifted above a marker where opportunistic infections could kill you. And some of the extra jugs I had to take, I could stop taking.

25:14Billion Dollar Moves, hosted by Sarah Chen Spellings, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination of business professionals.

25:20Tom LeNoble:Join venture capitalist and strategist Sarah Chen Spellings as she asks the hard questions and learns through the triumphs, failures, and hard lessons of the creme de la creme, so you too can make billion dollar moves in venture, in business, and in life. Maybe start with episode 124, where you're going to hear how industry giants from Canva to YouTube define leadership. Listen to Billion Dollar Moves wherever you get your podcasts.

25:48You said that you were going to have a reunion 10 years after you met. So if I'm working this out, you're roughly talking about 2018-19. You had your last reunion with Mark. I think it's probably next year. So we'll see what happens. we'll see what happens we'll see if I ended up back in the in the tickler file or whatever we call it as a reminder of have lunch with Tom Lenovo yeah I'd be I'd welcome it I'd love to do it you know I fascinate sometimes Al because this book is out my life in business suits hospital gowns and high heels and during this whole work career I was I was sick and And, you know, let's face it, these companies I worked for, I was an executive, they would have never hired me if they known I was sick.

26:41They certainly wouldn't have hired me if they knew anything about high heels. And I fantasized that some of these people are going to pick up the book and read it and go, what the? This dude was sick. And what is this thing about high heels? You know, and I love to be a fly on the wall when one or two of them read it. It'd be great fun because it'd just be really interesting to see how they react to it. Probably at this point, our listeners will have the same question as those previous executives. Why high heels? I've got in my head, birthday, but talk to me. Well, you know, let me tell you, I wrote this book and why is I'm an extremely private man.

27:24And I just told all my secrets. In fact, my best friends, one 48 years, one 50 called me and said, what secrets can you possibly have? And I said, I have enough secrets that I changed your name in the book to protect the innocent. And so, but I wrote this book because who we are today is the some parts of who you've been throughout your life. In fact, without all those parts, whether they're outrageous, you feel shame for them, you just want to keep them private, or somebody just wouldn't understand, you would not be who you are today without all of those parts. So if you look at the cover of my book, there's three characters.