Ep. 110 Google UK Chief: How To Become An Exceptional Leader (+ What You Need To Know About Work and AI)

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1:41What is up and welcome to Working Hard Hardly Working. Today, I am so incredibly excited to be joined by Debbie Weinstein. She leads the whole of Google in the UK. Debbie has not only been a trailblazer in the digital and tech industries, but she is also someone who has continuously pushed the boundaries of what's possible in the corporate world. With an incredible career that has seen her rise through the ranks at some of the world's most influential companies such as YouTube and Unilever, she has quite literally shaped the businesses most of us interact with on a daily basis. But what I really wanted from this episode is for it to be a manual for exactly how to build your dream career, particularly when talking about a more classic 95 and looking at a kind of corporate background.

2:23We really, really get into the weeds of what it takes to get ahead, the key differences with high performers, the art of being a good manager, and before you even get to that point, finding out what you're even good at and what career would even suit you. We talk a lot about how to navigate the complexities of the corporate world and she gave so much real, very, very practical advice. We do live in a world that very much glamorizes freelancing and demonizes being able to reach your dream career in something where you work for someone else, but I do not think this is the case at all. And Debbie, as someone who left her corporate career and tried entrepreneurship and then went back into corporate after shutting down her business, you'll see why, you'll hear why.

3:05It's honestly such an interesting story and I think really, really important to hear about. Her story is such a testament to that. I also wanted to speak to Debbie about the biggest tech shift of the last decade, artificial intelligence. We are given so many headlines about AI, but I wanted to have a real, very kind of no BS chat about what it means for career building, but also how we should be using it on the everyday to really help us in our careers. And I wanted to get that from someone working at the forefront of the industry. Debbie very rarely does interviews, so I am absolutely honoured that she joined me on a Working Hard Hardly Working today.

3:38And I honestly would go as far as to say that this is one of the best episodes that we have ever, ever done, especially when talking about building your dream career and really reaching that success that you see for yourself. Before we get into this episode, please make sure to click the like button and also do subscribe to the channel if you want to hear more interesting conversations with interesting people talking about things that aren't necessarily always talked about on the internet, like how to build an actual great corporate career, even if you're hearing from left, right and center that the only way to be happy is to leave your job and start a business.

4:18Thank you so much for joining me. My pleasure. Thrilled to be here. I was just saying how excited I am for this episode. I think these types of episodes are the ones I find easiest to plan for because I want to have a full download on everything from your brain. So it makes it quite easy for me to just blitz that down on a document. We're going to learn a lot. Coming your way. I cannot, cannot wait. I want to start at the very beginning. Actually, I've forgotten to ask my main question. Yes. Are you more working hard or hardly working at the moment? Yeah, I've been thinking about that. I've come straight in from holiday.

4:53So last week I was hardly working because I was on vacation on the beach with my family. And I've come straight back into hardcore working hard. But I love working hard. I love my job. I have a great job leading Google in the UK and bringing the AI opportunity across for everyone in this country at this important moment. So I'm excited to be back working hard. That is a really great job. And I also think that I imagine meeting you in like a coffee shop queue, for example, and being, you know, us just having a conversation, maybe like, oh, what do you do? And you're being like, oh, I lead Google in the UK.

5:22And then not being able to speak from that point onwards. I hope you'll be able to speak. That would make a better podcast episode, I'd say, for sure. Fortunately, you had the preview on what my job is before I showed up. Exactly. So I'm not kind of like completely shell shocked. I'd like to start at the very beginning. and it would be great to hear a little bit about your early life, but also kind of what your first career goals were. Well, my early life, I grew up originally outside of Boston, Massachusetts in the US, and I grew up in sort of a suburban home, mom, dad, brother. My brother is a big kind of feature in my life.

6:00He's nine years older than I am. So he has always been nine years older than I am, which meant, you know, throughout my life, I've sort of been watching him and chasing him, if you will. He is incredibly inspiring to me. And I remember one of my earliest memories actually is sitting in the kitchen in our house and watching him out in the garden. We would call it juggling, but I think it's called keepy uppy here, which is with a football, soccer ball, basically juggling and try to keeping the ball off the ground. And he would do it. I mean, it felt like I was probably four, so for hours on end.

6:30And what I saw him doing was constantly working incredibly hard. He worked super hard at football, super hard in the classroom. And that really is what I saw lead to his great success on the football pitch, but also successfully and academically and then going on into his career. So that was sort of one of the big seminal memories I have of sort of seeing him being great, great success. I also remember, though, growing up in this house with my brother and myself, where I never felt that I was treated differently other than being nine years younger. Although I was always sort of pulled along to more adult activities because I was so much younger.

7:01And the expectations I think that my parents had of my brother and the parents had of me, even though it was sort of in the seventies. And I think there were potentially other stereotypes about what little girls would do and what little boys would do. I played soccer. I was out there, you know, playing football. My dad actually was my football coach when I was a little kid. I was in the classroom sort of working hard, trying to bring my best forward. And so I never felt a difference in terms of how we were raised and the expectations that our parents had of each of us, which was key. I'd say the other big thing that happened in my childhood that is really important for the job I do today is my family moved to the UK when I was 11.

7:37So this was sort of in the 1980s. So before your time, I imagine, but it was sort of the top of the pops era, if any of your listeners are more of my age cohort. And it was an amazing time to live in the UK. It was sort of the era of walking down King's Road and you would see people, these incredible Mohawks. And it was just a moment of fashion and culture that was happening in the UK, unlike really was happening anywhere else. But I think the main thing I got from that experience actually is perspective on my home country. And so if anyone gets an opportunity to, I would say, live outside the culture in which they were originally raised, I think it's amazing perspective building, empathy building, and really helps you connect cross-culturally in a way that I think holds you in good stead for all the different kinds of people you encounter in your life.

8:22And so what at that time was success to you? Like when you looked around, you saw this kind of big, shiny success. What did that look like to you? Well, in a micro sense, it was like winning the soccer game. It was being, you know, getting top marks at school. It was sort of being my best and working hard to get there was definitely the expectation. So I would say that was sort of my frame of reference for success. if I think broadly from like, who were the archetypes I saw in the 1980s being successful? You know, I was always looking, I think subconsciously, obviously, for women that were really successful.

9:01And I can remember, have you ever heard of the show Dynasty? Yes. Okay. So Dynasty was a big show when I was growing up. It was like one of the big soaps that was on, I think it was only on the weekly actually. And it was, there was this character, Joan Collins played. Alexis was her name. And she was, I would say, somewhat controversial because she had some pretty nasty ways that she approached her power position. But she was one of the few like seriously female power players that you saw on television. And I remember sort of being sort of curious about her. And I think I was always kind of looking for kind of those female archetypes.

9:37I think later on, as time developed, TV was obviously the source of a lot of these personalities that you would see sort of the YouTube of its day, if you will. And you would see, you know, Murphy Brown later on, or sort of these different women that were in these incredible roles of power. I had a bunch of leadership roles as I was growing up. I was, you know, captain of my sports teams and I was the president of my sorority and I had these different sort of leadership opportunities. But so I think I was always kind of attracted to kind of the role of bringing people together, getting something done as a group of people.

10:08But those are sort of two different ways, I guess I was thinking about success as I was growing up. So when you started to enter the workforce, what type of role were you looking for? Was there some sort of end goal that you had in mind? Or were you just kind of applying out there? Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, I definitely did not have a grand plan when I came out of university. I wanted a job. I wanted a good job that, you know, sort of paid well and seemed interesting. I went into investment banking was my first job. A lot of amazing things about investment banking as a first job. You learn how to work hard.

10:42You learn how to show up in a workplace and sort of present yourself effectively. But one of my big takeaways on reflection of that role, and I actually have a niece and nephew who are in their 20s and early 20s and are thinking about career stuff. And I often tell them, go to a place that's going to invest in you and invest in your development. And I don't think it necessarily has to be a place with a training program, although I think if there is a formal training program, that's ideal. You join with a cohort of people. They have a program and paces they're going to put you through. But it's important wherever you go that there's a plan for what they're going to do with you.

11:15And I think coming straight out of university or straight out of any educational environment into the workforce, it's a big transition. And there's a bunch of things you have to be both in terms of skills, but also just in how you show up in a work environment that you need to learn in not only an organized way, but in a functional way. And so I loved my first experience at Goldman Sachs, actually, is where I worked. And I think they did an amazing job of sort of bringing us all through this kind of regimented training program that then sent people on to many, many, many different paths after the two or three years that they spent there.

11:47So if you were at that stage again, what type of job would you go straight for knowing what you know now and getting to the point where you're leading Google? What would you choose now as a kind of career path that would set you up for not necessarily knowing exactly what you want to do, but you knew would set you up for some sort of success? I think that first role, having a training program is super ideal. If you can find a place that has a structured program, brings you in with a cohort of peers where you're learning together. You also learn the group dynamics of how you operate in a working environment, but actually has a plan for how they're going to develop you.

12:25I actually think it's less about I sometimes have this debate with friends now, consulting, investment banking. There's many different places marketing. I ended up at Unilever later in my career. They have an amazing grad scheme. So a lot of places have these grad schemes. I actually think it's less about the specific program that you're in and more about being in a program that's actually going to help you be successful in those first couple of years of life after school. Yeah, I think that is so incredibly important and something we've heard a lot on this podcast, too. That real focus on I think we spend so much time freaking out in our 20s thinking, I don't know what to do.

13:00I don't know what to do. And especially in the UK, you are essentially you're whittling down subjects from 14. Yeah. Like it is a crazy system, I personally think. So from that point, you're basically telling yourself, I'm good at this. I'm not good at this. I'm a sciencey person. I'm an artsy person, all of this. And that's, you know, there are benefits to that. But you're whittling that down to the point that the majority of people, if they're doing A-levels, are taking three subjects. And that is very, very narrow. And then you can understand why then when they go and take one subject at university, this is the UK system.

13:35I know it's different in the US and different places around the world. But then from that point, going on to your career, there's this kind of feeling that you need to know, I want to be at this type of place. I want to be in this type of sector. I want to be doing this type of thing. And also when none of what we've been doing in the previous years based on entirely academic subjects is actually anything related to that. Like obviously some people take vocational subjects at university. But again, in the UK, it's very focused on, you know, not necessarily always doing that. So I think we spend so much time focusing on this need to know what you want to do.

14:11And I actually do think that can be. And the information that I've kind of got from people on this podcast is almost that you shouldn't be focusing on that at all. Instead, you should be focusing on what you can get out. So what you can learn, how you can learn on other people's money, aka the corporation's money. Absolutely. I mean, one of the things I observe in the various jobs that I've done, and as people have hired me after those jobs, is people, when they look at the fact that I had this experience at Goldman Sachs, I think they, obviously, I learned some things about how to understand a profit and loss statement and things like that.

14:45But actually, they're expecting a level of training and experience because I had that role. And I think it's the additive experiences that you have in these different roles that get you there. The other thing I would say that it's a build on what you just shared is that people often ask me, you know, today I'm obviously having this very interesting job at Google, but Google didn't exist when I graduated from university. So the idea that I could have planned to work at Google, like what was the internet? I remember in 1995, I graduated from university and I received an envelope from my university that had an email address in it.

15:15And I thought to myself, why would I ever need an email address? Like, that's so weird. And of course, nowadays, we now actually, I have a 16 year old and she thinks email, like she never is on email. You know, she only wants to talk to me through text or WhatsApp or Snapchat or, you know, whatever. And so anyway, but email was not really a thing back in 1995, let alone this, you know, incredible company, Google, that's doing these amazing things in the world. So I think over planning your career at right out of school at 20, 22, whatever is, is not a good, not a good piece of advice. Choose that first role based on what you think you can learn, how much they're going to invest in you and helping you be successful in those first couple of years of your career.

15:53I think that's really, really important advice. And I think it clarifies a lot of, you know, maybe it's complicated because it doesn't need to be simple at that stage. You just need to, you don't need to understand it all. You just need to make some decisions, put energy into it and effort into it. And we'll come on to how you do that and set yourself apart and all of those things. But I think that demystifies it a lot. I'd like to speak about the fact that a decade after starting on a corporate track, you decided to give entrepreneurship a go. I did. And when I first met you, I remember being surprised about that.

16:27I remember thinking, okay, but you've had a really successful corporate career. So in my head, that equals really successful corporate career. Could you tell me about the decision to go into entrepreneurship? what was going through your head, but also then a little bit about that experience itself. Yes, absolutely. Yes. I left, as my father said, my perfectly good corporate job to launch a food business, which is a notoriously tough, tough business to be in. And I did it, I think, for a couple of reasons. First of all, I have a long term family connection to the world of food. My mom actually used to teach cooking to children when I grew up in that house that I was describing outside of Boston.

17:03And so food and the culture around food and particularly food and children has always been kind of a big theme of my life. At the time, I was actually working at MTV Networks, part of Viacom, now Paramount. And I had seen the way, in particular with Nickelodeon, we were using entertainment properties to encourage kids to do things like go outside and play. And so I saw this opportunity in, this was about 2006. The way kids were eating in the US, I think it was similar in the UK, was not particularly healthy, wasn't also particularly interesting. And so I thought I could combine all of my interests and launch a line of food products that were actually interesting and interactive for kids.

17:44So our first line was going to be a line of dips for kids. So like hummus or salsas or things you could bring in your lunch bag. So that was sort of the derivation of the business idea. But I think the second thing that was going on, and what I'd really love your listeners to hear is the story, is that I had a story in my head that entrepreneurship was somehow better than a corporate career. and came, you know, from a variety of signals that I got in culture that somehow like working for the man, I don't mean in a gender sense, but like working for corporate life was, you know, not the good path and the good path was to be an entrepreneur.

18:17And so there were definitely those sort of those combined motivations. I saw a business opportunity. I did authentically have an interest in it. And I thought, well, this is the thing I'm supposed to do. And what I found in the story I shared with you is I actually found entrepreneurship really isolating, really lonely, very, very difficult. I mean, entrepreneurship is always, I know, difficult, but I found it really unfun and I didn't enjoy it at all. And I, my husband, I was newly married at the time, would come home at the end of the day, working in his corporate job and sort of say, how was your day?

18:48And literally I would not have left my desk. I mean, yes, I mean, it was, I think I was often still in my pajamas, you know, and it just, it was not for me. And I, I shut the business down actually before I really needed to. I still had funding that I could have kept going, but I just wasn't finding the joy. I wasn't finding satisfaction. And I knew it was going to be a long slog. You know, you hear the stories of entrepreneurs. It takes years to really see the payoff. And I just could not imagine doing it for the five to eight years it was going to take. So I ultimately shut the business down.

19:19I'm so glad that you've been so honest about that. I just think this glamorization of entrepreneurship is unfair to the consumers of this glamorization. I just mean that as with any other job like literally any other job there are going to be people who like it people who don't like it yet it gets clicks it's inspiring and I completely see that and I'm part of that but at the same time I actually cannot think of a job that's more suited to few and very specific types of people I think what's unfair to say is that if you're an entrepreneur you're then going to spend less time working and I think that's probably what's represented.

19:53It's this kind of working for someone else has to be worse because you're not working for yourself when you're always working for someone else, whether it's your customers, your investors, your like, whatever it might be, you are always working for someone else when you're working, unless you have somehow cracked the code to make enough money to live whilst never interacting with anyone else. And then that's probably not that fun anyway. And I just think it's really, really important to hear. And I think that it doesn't change anything for anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur and genuinely wants to, because if you want to be an entrepreneur, no one is going to stop you.

20:29Everyone's going to tell you that it's the hardest thing in the world and you're going to be like, cool, great. I'll see you on the other side. But I love that you did that. I love that you had the kind of confidence to do that, especially when you clearly had been based in kind of very blue chip, you know, best of the best corporate. But I also so love that you were able to say, that's not free. How did it feel making that decision to close that business down and go back into corporate? Yeah, it was, it felt like a failure. I, you know, it felt like I had set out to do a thing. And when I set out to do a thing, I generally succeed in doing the thing that I set out to do.

21:09So it did not feel great. But when I came back into corporate life, it felt like coming home. It felt like the place I was meant to be. And I think it was the first time I really had the conscious realization that sort of living my life by someone else's scorecard or what I perceived to be someone else's scorecard was a ridiculous way to live and not a way that was going to help me achieve my own happiness. And so this idea that somehow there's this archetype of entrepreneurship and that's the better way to make your way in the world, if that's not authentically for you, like that's totally fine.

21:41And actually how much more pleasure and success I was able to get from being in a corporate environment, both from being surrounded by other people, but we'll talk, I think, probably about superpowers and finding your superpowers and that really being, I think, the key for people to spend their time investing and uncovering in themselves. But one of the things I'm really good at is operating in large organizations and bringing people together around a shared idea and purpose and figuring out the plan to organize lots of people to get big things done. And that's really great. And someday my business could have become big enough where I would have been able to manifest that skill set, but it was going to take an awfully long time to get there.

22:21And in the meantime, there were many, many valleys that I was going to have to travel through that were probably not getting the best of me. And so I, you know, it was definitely a hard decision and a hard pivot that I made, you know, in consultation with friends and family, but ultimately I think it was absolutely the right thing for me to do. And when you were physically like applying back into corporate roles. What did that look like? Because I can imagine if I wanted to shut everything down and go into corporate now, I would be like, I have no idea where to start. I don't know what types of roles will take me.

22:50I don't know what types of roles will value the fact that I even did that or think I'm absolutely insane and I must have failed to be coming back. How did you even start, I guess, going about that? Yeah. Well, actually, the story I would tell to an employer about that entrepreneurial venture is that I'm an amazing big company employee, right? Because I've scratched that itch. I've seen what that's like. I'm not leaving you for an entrepreneurial gig, which in tech in particular, you know, is a big fear. I think that that people have that, you know, there's going to be the startup itch that people have.

23:17So I've scratched that itch. So that's good. I think that employers are looking for skills and experiences as much as they're looking for sort of specific jobs that you've had. And I think certainly you, if you would like to apply for a job, Grace, I'm sure we can have a certain route. But, you know, I think it's about really looking at what skills and experiences have you had And anyone who's an entrepreneur, one of the core skills, and we'll talk about AI and how AI interfaces with the human skills that are always going to be required. One of the big skills that people need to have today is sales.

23:47Always have needed to have, which is not necessarily like selling a widget at a certain price. But it's like, how do you tell your story? How do you connect with someone who's across the table from you? I think that all of us are basically always selling in some capacity. And so, you know, whether it's we're all doing marketing in some capacity, we're all there's there's all these things that I think are part of certainly an entrepreneur is able to tell a whole suite of things that they've done from, you know, taking out the trash or rubbish to, you know, designing a strategy and finding financing.

24:18So and then figuring out what are the bits of that that brought you joy that you were particularly good at, that people gave you feedback along the way? Oh, you did that extremely well. And then how do you lean into that experience and skill set to leverage that into jobs? When you look at potential job opportunities online, typically what they will say is minimum requirements and then preferred qualifications. And some of the preferred qualifications will talk about very specific things about particular educational backgrounds or technical things that they've done. But in the skills, it's usually things that are more generic around, you know, connecting with people or being able to do a strategy or setting a vision or managing people.

24:59And people in lots of different roles can actually demonstrate that they've done those things. And I've seen many, many people I know in my life who've gone from, you know, these zigzaggy careers and have actually been able to market themselves based on things they've done in a zag back into a zig. No, I think that's really, really interesting. And I think the focus, it ties in well to the focus on skills that you've recommended at the beginning of your career as well. Because when you're building those, it's never wasted time. And we often get this kind of sunk cost fallacy around anything like you might have thought it in corporate before you went to entrepreneurship, you might have thought it in entrepreneurship before going to corporate, I've spent time on this, therefore, I should continue or it is a waste, which is the reason that sunk cost fallacy, of course, is because, well, you're going to have spent time on that, whether you stop it or you keep going.

25:43So you might as well be doing the thing that you want to do. And I think that what that goes to show is that when you're going into the world of work, when you're building skills, there is no waste anywhere. It doesn't matter if you had the worst job in the world, the job that you were least suited to any of these things, you learned something through that process. And that exact thing might be exactly what your next employer is looking for. Because as you said, you know, that specific one of having scratched an itch around entrepreneurship, ship, I told you before the podcast started that my PA was an entrepreneur before her previous thing was that she had a PA agency.

26:17And when I was hiring her, I was like, why coming back into a specific kind of nine to five type role and all of this? And she was just like, oh, well, that's not what I want to do. I know I'm a really good PA. I don't want to be doing this or whatever it might be. And I think that all of those pivots take so much strength, but they also show skill. And that's never going to be a bad thing when kind of progressing through your career. And I want to talk about then from that point, first of all, what role you went into after the kind of entrepreneurship and whether there was anything that you felt that you learned from entrepreneurship.

26:55and whether you felt like you were having a slower journey, I guess, up the ranks because you'd taken some time, I guess, out of your overall corporate career, even though it absolutely wouldn't have been time out being an entrepreneur. You know, actually, my reaction to what you just shared in terms of this idea that pivots are somehow inefficient and sort of that once you're in a track, you should stay building the groove that's the track. I would actually say the story of my career and my career success over time has been the fact that I have constantly pivoted. And I actually think the reason that I, to the extent that I'm effective today, is because I've had lots of different experiences.

27:33And so I think it's almost the, you know, as a kid, you play with that toy where you actually, you know, rotate the dials and you see all the different kind of visions of the different colors. And I think it's actually that kaleidoscope of experiences that allows me to understand different perspectives. So I, you know, I've done the entrepreneurial thing. I then, but before I was an entrepreneur, I actually was in traditional media and I did a bunch of different things in traditional media, but corporate strategy, and then into eventually a sales role there. And then I did the entrepreneurial thing.

28:06And then actually I worked at a marketer. And so in the marketer that I worked at, I worked at Unilever and my job at Unilever was basically to take what I knew at Viacom and expand it to a wider realm of businesses. And so that was the first role that hired me post-entrepreneurship. I don't think they, again, part of my story there was I'd scratched the itch. It was in the food business. Unilever's in the food business, among many other things, personal care, et cetera. And so I was able to say, demonstrate my passion in food, but also my background in media. I worked in one of the big things marketers do is actually figure out where to tell their story, which is a media.

28:45You know, what are the different channels that my potential consumer is listening to or engaging with? How do I make sure my marketing message ends up there? So I basically took my experience at Viacom where I was basically selling to marketers. I then worked at a marketer trying to figure out how do I use media tools like Viacom, but also Disney and then emerging where Facebook and Google and Twitter and all the sort of digital players. And then I translated that experience being a marketer to come work at Google and basically say, oh, I understand the way both traditional media thinks, but also I understand the way a marketer will evaluate Google against all the different options they have.

29:19And then within Google, even I've sort of built my career as a kaleidoscope, I would say. And so I actually think that as opposed to furrowing your divot deeper and deeper and deeper, it's actually, for some people, that's going to be the right path for sure. But for me, I would say it's been sort of this collection of experiences that enabled me to both stand out, I would say. I worked in each of them long enough to have a depth of experience and perspective. But it's actually the breadth of it all that's come together ultimately to make me who I am today. I want to zoom in on what you just said very quickly.

29:51you said that you were in each of them long enough to build experience. I know like it's kind of like asking how long is a piece of string but people do get worried about jumping around too much so we can prioritize pivots and we can prioritize building this kind of kaleidoscope of a career but we also need to not look like we don't have you know we can't stay anywhere too long. How would you strike that balance and how would you recommend someone listening who thinks yeah I'd love to pivot, but I've only been here six months, for example. Yes, I think six months is too short. This is my personal opinion.

30:27There is no, to your point, length of string. I would say minimum two years in any job. I think it's a year, honestly, to get up to speed on what is the job? What is your unique role in the system in which you're working? And then a year to really contribute back. And I think one of the perspectives I encourage people to take on job pivots is what can you contribute to the place that you're going? Not just what are you going to get out of it? It's two way street, right? And so if you're only doing six months, the company has probably put in or whoever's employing you has put in time and energy into training you and bringing you up to speed at least six months.

30:59And then have you pivot out, I think, is the wrong reciprocity. So personally, I've observed it's at least two years. I think as you get more senior in your career, it gets longer. I think it becomes more like three to five years. Most of my jobs I've done for five years or so being kind of the minimum at the more senior levels. because I think you, again, you're sort of learning into the job, then you're really contributing, and then you're probably taking a year to find the next thing. So all of that probably takes in combination about five years. And how do you know when it's the right time to move on from a role?

31:30I think that differs for different people and it differs based on the circumstance. I think that I've been fortunate to have really good bosses and really interesting roles I've had. I've of course know that that's not always everyone's fortune and sometimes you are in a sort of toxic situation and you should get out of that. But to the extent you're in a good role with a solid organization and a good manager and feel good about the culture. For me, it's really been about when I've gotten itchy. My motivations for roles are really about learning and impact. So I'm always looking to grow, to learn new things, to try new things, to jump into new situations.

32:04And I want to feel like I'm having the maximum impact that I can. And when I feel like there's the learning has run out, or I feel like there's another place I could have more impact. That's really what's driven me to make a move. No, that makes complete sense. And I think that understanding as well what those signs are within yourself is important because different people are going to be different. Different people are going to have like I, for example, love change and probably love change too much. So I know when I need to reel myself back in and say, OK, should we just sit in this for a little second?

32:31Like, should we just sit here for a moment? And at the same time, you also might be someone who finds it harder to hear those cues in yourself and won't realize for a long time that actually, you know, maybe it is time to change. Maybe it is time to go for something else. And I think understanding ourselves and our own tendencies is very important. I'd love to know what the key moments you kind of felt were pivotal in your career in terms of realizing that you were on a path to this type of success, like the type of success that you've seen now in your corporate career. Probably coming to Google, which is about 10 years ago, was sort of a key moment.

33:08And again, the role at Google, which I came into, I believe came from the fact that I had done these kaleidoscope experiences already. So I had worked in traditional media. There was some digital, obviously, MTV.com and things like that. But Paramount was majority a traditional media business. And then I had worked at Unilever, sort of a large multinational marketing organization with some amazing brands. And at the time, Google was looking to help brands essentially understand how they could build their success in the online world. And so I joined Google at a time about, I guess I said, 10 years ago, where, you know, still amazing to think about.

33:47But we had just actually acquired DeepMind here in London, which is one of the reasons it's so amazing to be back here and leading our efforts here in the UK. But it was also early in the stages of Android development and the mobile phone development. It was still very, very early in a lot of digital. And so helping big brands, multinational businesses figure out how actually they could be successful online was one of the big briefs. And so that I came in to kind of do that based on these other experiences. But that I have sort of been part of this incredible journey of what Google has been about.

34:19I mean, it's been amazing the last 10 years. So I came in to do that role in Europe, Middle East and Africa. I then translated that role, spending a lot of time on YouTube, YouTube being sort of this amazing platform where brands could tell stories with sight, sound and motion the same way they had loved to do for decades on television. How do you translate that into the world of YouTube, sort of the modern way that people are consuming video? The YouTube business is run from California in San Bruno. And so a role came up to essentially do a version of that job for the global business. And so I was able to say, hey, I've done this job in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

34:53Let me give it a go globally and actually bring sort of the insights I had from working at a client, again, that kaleidoscope perspective, working in traditional media and working at Google, how do I take it to the headquarters and actually help them understand how do we help every team that's around the world help brands build their businesses with YouTube? And so there it was more of a product development job, a lot of sales strategy, go-to-market strategy, things like that. So I did that role while YouTube was on this incredible curve of figuring out not just how it could be famously for short form video and user generated content really into understanding the role we played in culture, which was around helping creators connect with audiences and then helping advertisers connect with those creators to find the audiences.

35:38So making that flywheel really come to life. And I, so I did that for about seven years, which was an incredible experience working at headquarters, really seeing how we make decisions, how we get things done in a technology organization, which then positioned me again, back to the kaleidoscope to be able to say, when the role opened to lead Google in the UK, I have a deep understanding of Google and our product philosophy and how we build products, as well as our corporate values and kind of what we're all about as a company. How do I bring that back out into the marketplace and help everyone in the UK understand what this company is about and go from focusing on YouTube to focusing on all of Google and really bringing to life?

36:17I hope what I do every day now is bring the potential of Google, in particular AI, given the moment we're in, to everyone in the UK. And so it's all been sort of a building block. But I think the pivotal decision was really coming to Google 10 years ago. Yeah, no, and I think that makes complete sense. And I think that it also demonstrates where some like, company loyalty as well can can really help like there is this, it's it's complex, because there's balancing pivoting, and there's balancing building your career through a number of different kind of types of roles and different sectors and all of this.

36:51But then understanding when you need to be sticky, I think is important too, because had you not been at Google within that moment where they were looking for the next person to lead the UK, then I can imagine you, you know, they would have looked externally, but I can imagine that was a huge help in kind of getting you that as a step up rather than a kind kind of horizontal step from someone externally. So I can imagine that, you know, finding somewhere that you do love to work, and you're really passionate about what the company does, and you just think it's a really great company to using that opportunity to then be a little bit sticky and climb up within that individual organization as well sounds like an important thing to be looking at.

37:30Yeah, I think joining an industry where there's a tailwind is very helpful. So, you know, part of part of the magic of joining Google 10 years ago is that the trajectory it's been on has been extraordinary. And so being able to, my whole career has been at the intersection of tech and media, but to actually be in the technology sector, which has been on this incredible growth trajectory means there were constantly opportunities for me to benefit from, which has been incredible. And I do think every manager, you know, when we think about hiring talent and putting teams together, that balance of hiring from internal and hiring from external, there's always a trade-off of you hire from external, it takes more time to do the onboarding, you hire from internal, they deeply understand the culture, the products, your processes, all those sorts of things.

38:14And so for me, when I'm building a team, thinking about getting that composition right, where I'm getting that balance is really important. So you're absolutely right that when I came into this role, I'm positive they were evaluations of other people for the potential position. The fact that I understood the company was a benefit for me, you know, the fact that I had worked and lived in the UK before also a benefit, but I obviously hadn't done a job quite like this before. And so, you know, that's always a consideration when you're a hiring manager. The market's uncertain, revenues tied and hiring on hold.

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40:09Learn more at capella.edu. I think that when we're looking at other people's careers, it feels like it was easy for other people to understand what they were good at. And I think that what we hear again and again and again is how confusing people find, especially the beginning of their careers in terms of not just choosing what they should be doing, but also really understanding what they're good at. Because I think the advice always is, just find what you're good at and push towards that. And I think that's quite hard to do. And especially hard to do when you might be in one role that does one specific thing and you think you're good at something else, but the, you know, the, the kind of risk of jumping to that and then doing that, you might not actually be good at that thing.

40:52And it feels like a long learning process. how did you identify the things you were good at and I guess your superpowers and also maybe the things that you weren't so good at and didn't enjoy as much yes I think this is absolutely the key and as people are in their 20s and 30s throughout your life actually I think that people understanding what are you uniquely good at is the critical critical unlock for success and I think for a long time I thought the things I was good at everyone was good at and so I would sit there in a room and think, well, everyone's thinking the same thing I'm thinking.

41:27And then over time you realize, oh no, that's actually a unique capability that I have. How did I come to that realization? Partly it was like lived experience. Partly it was through feedback from managers, friends, and family. Partly it was through tools. I'm a lover of a self-awareness driving tool. So StrengthsFinder, it's a great tool. I think it's available online for free. I encourage everyone to go in, fill out a couple of surveys, figure that out. I love tools like the Enneagram. I don't know if you've ever heard of the Enneagram, but I think that's an amazing tool. I really think anything that helps you to reflect, you get these answers back and you read them and you think, does that sound like me?

42:04Does that feel like me? And the Enneagram is the one I think that I had a most profound reaction of like, oh my gosh, like someone has looked into my soul and identified me at my best, me at my not best. That's one of the things that Enneagram does really well is that StrengthsFinder as well. any of your strengths overuse becomes a weakness. And I think that understanding what your strength is, but also how it can be a watch out for you can be a bit of it. So you shared that you sometimes get restless. So you might be a learner when it comes to StrengthsFinder. You like to learn new things. But the problem is if you constantly are trying to learn new things, you're not invested enough in actually getting a deep expertise in any one thing, which so getting that balance right is an example.

42:43But I encourage people to ask for feedback. You're not getting feedback from your manager or your colleagues that you're working with. You know, friends and family also an opportunity for feedback, but sometimes that's a little trickier, but you should be getting feedback from your manager at work. Certainly at Google, that's something we're very committed to. And then I think using those tools and taking time for yourself to actually explore those tools. And then it's about how are you consciously applying those insights into the daily work you're doing. I think there's sometimes an over-reliance on a belief in an official training program being the answer to how you actually develop.

43:19I actually think the best source of development is taking your strengths, then being intentional about where are the places I can apply my strengths in my job so that I can actually get better at the thing that I'm doing. To me, that is the big unlock. And for me personally, it's been about identifying really great at focusing and prioritizing. I can sort of see, like, I can have a lot of conversations that there's a lot of noise and we could do this, we could do this, we could do this. And I sort of am able to see and synthesize a lot of complexity and say, this is the core thing we should be doing.

43:49And then galvanizing people to go after that thing. And again, I used to think that everyone like you would sit in a meeting and all these ideas would get thrown out and that everyone was seeing like, oh, it's obvious we should be doing this one thing. And that's sort of the thing that I've identified that I'm good at. And so I try to put myself in positions where setting focus, setting priorities is one of the core core responsibilities. least. And when you were, if you were starting a new role, how would you, you've talked about the importance of inviting feedback and getting feedback from people and the importance of, I guess, using not just friends and family, but the people you work with and your daily work and all of this to be able to understand what you're good at and understand your strengths, understand what you need to work on.

44:29If you were starting a new role, how would you start that kind of back and forth conversation with your manager? So the number one thing I think a manager, but then also a person and what we would call them individual contributors should both be doing is setting clear expectations. So coming into a new role, every time I come into a new role, I have a plan. Here's what, here are the main chunky objectives that I think I'm going after. And here is my plan for executing against that. I think ideally your manager is co-developing that with you. If that's not happening at a minimum, you should be developing that for yourself.

45:03So oftentimes I have a plan that yes, I'm showing my manager and signing off with my manager, but it's as much for me to actually assess myself to say, you know, I said I was going to accomplish these things in six months, three months, one year, relatively short kind of time span, because you take a big, hairy, audacious goal and you break it into its chunky pieces. And then you ask for evaluation against that. You can also self-evaluate. At Google, we have a practice where you set expectations, you then do a self-assessment against how are you progressing against those expectations you've set.

45:33And then you do a sit down with your manager where you basically do a check-in to say, I think this is how it's going. How do you think it's going? And there's sort of that two-way discussion. I think in that there's the what, which is usually in the plan, which is I plan to accomplish these things by this date. And then there's the how, and I plan to do them in this way. And I think one of the things that's key to success is not just delivering the what brilliantly, but doing it in a way that is consistent with the culture and the values of the organization you're working for. I've been fortunate to work for companies that value curious, kind, collaborative people, I encourage everyone to try to find environments like that because I think they're the place where most people thrive.

46:15But delivering the what in a way that's actually consistent with the values, I think it's also really important. Yeah, no, I think that makes complete sense. And I think that it is important to say that, you know, in an ideal situation, you would be getting all of that from whichever workplace you're in, and it would be very clearly set out. And that's not always the case from big organizations, small organizations, you know, no matter where you are, I do think every individual has to take a proactive role in their own development. And it's not going to be handed to you on a plate. Even if there is a plan, it's still not going to be handed to you on a plate.

46:48And I think that sometimes perhaps what we get from a lot of this, a lot of seeing people on social media doing X, Y, Z, is we get a lot of information on the end result and what people's jobs look like. We don't get a lot of information on, actually, these were the five things I did more than anyone around me that meant that I got to this point. Or these were the things that I really made sure, or this was the feedback I invited, or this was what I did X, Y, Z. I think that it's made it quite hard to know just how much it takes to do really well. and I always always encourage this kind of active participation in your own development because sure you might be able to sit back a little bit while you have a role that's more relaxed and you're not being looked at as much and all of this that's definitely going to be reflected in your kind of development from then onwards you know that might then be two years that you spent in that role that when you go on to your next role you actually you could have learned a lot in that role and it wasn't proactively being handed to you and so you maybe didn't.

47:52And then, you know, perhaps you could be X amount further along. And if that's something you want, then that's something you really need to pay attention to. I totally agree. People need to take ownership of their own development paths. Yeah, no, I think without a doubt. At some point during this journey, I assume relatively early on, you would have been given your own people to manage your own teams to manage. How did you start learning how to manage a team? Yes, I will. Again, in the spirit of sharing, honestly, my career journey, I don't think I was a great manager from the go. It's not something I think that's always, you know, innately embedded into people.

48:29And I can remember early management experiences that were, I think, hard for me and hard for the managee, the person that I was managing. Over time, I got more official development around that. And I think, you know, the top tips I would have for people who are managing others, I think it starts from having these really clear expectations. Your expectations for yourself, but also your expectations for the person that's working for you. I think the responsibility is to give feedback against those expectations. I think one of the traps early managers fall into is this feeling you're meant to be the friend of the person that works for you.

49:01Actually, the best thing that you can do if you are a manager is help develop someone. developing someone does not mean, it does mean encouraging them and giving them great feedback when they've done something really well, but it also means giving them the tough feedback that that's sometimes hard to deliver. And we call that sometimes protective hesitation where people, I don't want to hurt someone's feelings and I don't know how they're going to take this. And they might cry, you know, all of those reactions, that's really about you and your, your worries about yourself. I think actually the best thing that you possibly can do is being clear on your expectations and then give feedback against those expectations in a kind, empathetic way.

49:36I don't mean to be a jerk at all, but I think that helping people see where the gaps are versus your expectations is really important. I think that could not be more true. And I think as I've grown the companies and kind of grown teams that become more traditional workplaces, I think probably that is one of the biggest things I have seen that's ended up backfiring. I think that it's kind of a false narrative that you protect that person in your team below you by being really nice to them all the time. And actually, you should always be kind. You should always be kind. But it is not kind to not pass on feedback because the second there is underperformance within a team, that reflects badly on both of you.

50:21and if you've spent a lot of time and energy picking up where they didn't deliver or not necessarily delivering them criticism because you know they get a little bit prickly about it or any of these things you're not doing either of yourself a favor in fact it's very much the opposite and there have been times where I've realized in hindsight that that was what was happening and I actually just thought it was a really poorly performing team on on both fronts you know managerial and the people who were being managed and I think that you know one of the first things that I did really badly was wanting to be liked by everyone to the point that everyone thought I was the best person ever.

50:56And I want to be liked by everyone in the fact that I want everyone to know that I'm kind and I care and all of these things, but it is not kind to withhold feedback. In fact, it is antithetical to their development. And I think if there was one thing that I wished people learned earlier in their careers, it would be that because, you know, that I've never heard the term protective hesitation, but I think that it really sums it up. You're trying to protect and you often actually end up with the organization thinking, well, that's not a good team. Guess we don't need that or that's not working or whatever it might be.

51:30And I think I can so see why it's so ingrained into people that they need to approach it that way. But it often ends up being actually more unkind because it blocks people's development and in the worst case ends up with a team not being right for the company anymore. Yeah. One of my colleagues has this language, she calls it being clear is kind. And I think that's a great adage. And the other thing I would say is that it's sometimes about, it's feedback about the work and the impact of the work and maybe helping someone realize that this is not the right place for them. So it's not that they're a bad person.

52:06It's that this work deliverable isn't meeting the standards that you're expecting or delivering the impact that we expect. That's where the feedback focus is, not on someone's, you know, generalized personality. And so I think it's important for people to learn how to give that feedback. And what is your take then on something like what someone could call overcommunication? So you come into a role and you're really trying to progress and you're kind of overcommunicating or you feel like you're overcommunicating and you're not getting a great response from your manager based on the fact that you're kind of doing this a lot of the time.

52:38What's your take on that? Well, I think it goes both ways. I think the manager, so one of the things that's been interesting over the last, I would say, five years has been an expectation that managers and leaders at organizations have a broader view on someone's lived experience than just the thing that they've shown up to do in your office. And I do think it's important that leaders and managers understand someone's experience in the world before they show up through your doors. So unfortunately, the world can be a tough place and it can be a particularly tough place for certain communities of people.

53:09And I think that recognizing that not everyone's having an equal experience at your organization and that your job as a leader in particular is to create a condition where everyone across all lines of difference can have equal opportunity to succeed is really, really important. And that means that, you know, recognizing what's going on in the world, you know, if there are things happening, wars happening, riots happening, you know, issues happening in the world, as a leader, it's your responsibility to say, I see it and I get it. And, you know, checking in with your teams to make sure how are they doing?

53:39Are they OK? I think is really important. You know, at the same time, I think the the other thing that we often experience, especially in this moment at Google, I'll speak to is we're trying to bring forward a technology that is transformative for the world. and we need people focused on delivering on the mission. And people come to work every day. We want them to be motivated, in Google's case, by organizing the world's information, making it universally accessible and useful. That is our mission. That is what we show up to do every single day. And I want people focused on delivering on that mission.

54:10Now, if there are things going on in their lives that they need to share with their manager so that they can be fully present, deliver on that mission, I wanna know and I wanna make sure we're supporting them. But it is important that that is not the focus, that the focus is the mission and that that's sort of giving someone context for your lived experience. And what about the other way around? So say you're new to a workplace and you've just started in this role and you want to be really good at it. And you're spending a lot of time kind of constantly updating your manager or constantly saying, you know, I found this tough, but this is good or whatever it might be.

54:44What's your take on that? Because I can understand how someone would say, you know, all communication is good communication and they want to know how you're doing and all of that. And at the same time, I can see how someone would say, well, it's probably going to make your manager doubt you a little bit more. And sometimes you just need to grin and bear it and just push through and then invite feedback afterwards and take some responsibility for that along the way. Yeah. Well, my top tip is to contract with your manager in this new role about how it is that they like to communicate. And I think, again, the onus is on, I would say, the person being managed to understand how their manager likes to communicate.

55:16The manager, of course, should be empathetic and think about how does this person like to communicate as well. But, you know, does this person like regular updates? Does this person prefer having weekly, daily standups? You know, what is the frequency with which they want to get the updates? Do at Google we use paying a lot? I know other companies use Slack or some places probably use WhatsApp or texting. Like what is the mode of communication? What kinds of things do we want to communicate in which style? What constitutes urgency versus an important update? I think all of these things are worth just getting on the table and having an honest conversation back and forth.

55:50I think, you know, it really will depend on the context. Some managers may want regular updates on how a thing is going. If the thing, the project you're working on is super urgent and super important and they're not totally sure about your ability to complete the task, they might want to get regular updates. In other cases, particularly as you get more senior, there's an expectation that you're going to be able to deliver. And so, again, using those expectations to say, this is what I think I'm going to accomplish in the next three months, six months, one year. What should our cadence of communication be?

56:22Potentially having a recommendation. My recommendation would be we have a weekly check-in or I send you an email that sort of summarizes what I've been up to this week. Those have been effective styles for me as I've gotten more senior. And I think relatively more junior, earlier stages of my career, it was a more regular interaction. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And it's all kind of, again, it's not a one size fits all approach, but really around ascertaining what it is for your workplace and your manager specifically. I want to talk quickly about AI. Great. I know Google's obviously doing a lot in the space.

56:54I want to talk pretty specifically around how we should be using AI individually to help us in our own work and in our own careers. So what would you say to someone who isn't using AI at all at the moment in terms of how they should be using it, whether in their day to day or in their job or in their, you know, whatever it might be? Well, the first thing I would say is they probably are using AI, they just don't realize it. So if you think about Google, you know, we have six products that each reach 2 billion people every day, you know, YouTube, search, maps, Gmail, every single one of those products is being powered by AI.

57:31So if you think about maps, which hopefully you use and enjoy, and we all follow the little green dot, you know, to get most efficiently from point A to point B. Nowadays, you can do, I want a fuel efficient route. I want the one that's going to use public transport. It's going to use a boat. You know, you can have all these different options. All of that is fueled by AI, right? And mapping based on previous travel journeys and other people, how long it's taken and all that sort of thing. So AI is present with us, I think, in a lot more places than sometimes people realize. So that's part one.

58:00The second thing I would say is that leaning into AI and getting familiar with how AI can actually help you be more productive and frankly, have a more enjoyable workday is really important for all of us. And, you know, we did a bunch of research that about two thirds of jobs we expect will be enhanced by AI during kind of our life, our lifespan, really between now and 2030, which basically means most of us are going to be working alongside AI. There's also a misconception somehow that we're going to be competing with AI. I actually think we're going to be competing with other people using AI better than you're using AI.

58:33So getting familiar with these tools and making sure that you're bringing them forward in your daily lives, absolutely critical. I am finding myself and I would love to hear how you're using AI in your daily lives, but I'm using it all the time. I'm using it to research a topic quickly before I come in to have a conversation with someone. I'm using it to summarize, you know, a complicated document that I received. I'm using it frankly to draft thank you notes. So, you know, I'll do a whole write-up of a meeting I had, and then literally you can say, write a, you know, follow-up note based on this long, long, long treatise that I've just written.

59:05So, and I wouldn't say that any of the individual pieces are saving me hours, but I would say each of them are saving me several minutes of time, which you add up across the day and that's saving half an hour, an hour of time. And so I think there are applications of AI to pretty much everything that any of us is doing in our work lives. And it's important that we all start to use these tools. I think that's so true. And I think that I, I mean, I definitely count myself an earlier adopter of AI in a number of different reasons. But I would say that the slowest part that it's come into has just been like things in my everyday.

59:38And actually, that's been where it's been most effective when I've just started clicking on it more. I've just started adding that into my day to day. So for example, anything that I would usually find tedious, I ask myself, could AI do this? And I think that's been really helpful. So for example, I have a rule at work, If I am receiving information and it is in some paragraph with links fully written out and like all of this, I'm going to get to that information 10 times slower because all I can see is this block of text. If it can be in a table, that should be in a table. If it can be in bullet points, it should be in bullet points.

1:00:19If there could be a headline and then a breakdown below, if you want to go into that and an action, then it should be in that. It can do all of that for you. So I often say if I receive a piece of work like that and I say, you know, what I used to say is, well, first of all, I'd usually jump on it anyway. And then I'd be like, and next time, can it be like this? But actually, that's quite unproductive because that means that it usually never changes to like that because you still like, you know, you're still going back to that type of thing. And it's it's faster for the person sending it to you.

1:00:47But now what I explicitly say is, cool, can you send that to me in a table or can you send that to me broken down in terms of the actions you need? Can you send that to me in this way? The reason I feel so comfortable saying that, even when it's an urgent approval, for example, is because it will take you two seconds by using AI. Put something into something, make it into a table, highlight the actions, any of these different things. I think that is so incredibly important. I would also say communication obviously really helps with. I also, and as you say, like little things like thank you notes or where you've got the whole thing in your head, but you don't really want to, you know, you have to write it all out.

1:01:24meeting notes, all of these different types of things. I regularly post on our HQ kind of Slack channel, basically saying, hi guys, I used AI for this today. I really, really encourage you do that too, please. Because I also don't want it to waste your time because your time is the company's time. And actually in, you know, if you're spending 20 extra minutes putting something into a table where that information has already been done, please don't. That doesn't tell me that you can do your job any better. Like, please, please don't. But I think that it's a lot of the, you know, there's, there's a lot of fear mongering and there's a lot of kind of, as you say, assuming that we'll be competing with AI rather than competing with people who will be using AI.

1:02:05And I think that what that all comes down to is just, it's like a habit with anything. It's like, how can you get it more into your everyday? Cause there are probably a lot lot of things that you're doing that you don't even realize could be done in two seconds by using AI. And there are tons of creative applications, like whatever you're passionate about, also in your life. Like we shared some great examples over the summer of planning a dinner party using AI. You know, what's the music that I want to have? What's the menu I want to serve? What's the wine I'm going to serve along with it? All of the things you would typically have to spend all this time researching or putting a holiday together.

1:02:41You know, I have a 16 year olds. We want to go somewhere that's warm. My husband likes to bike ride. I like to surf. We'd like it to be three hours from London. You know, it's like, please give me some recommendations. So there's a lot of ways that you can be using these tools to, I think, be productive at work and be productive in your life. And I really see one of my core roles is to bring this opportunity forward for everyone in the UK. I think I spent a lot of time talking to large businesses and small businesses around how they can be more productive with their advertising or their cloud infrastructure.

1:03:13But the other commitment I really have is to make sure that everyone across the country can take advantage of these tools. We published some statistics last year that there's a 400 billion pound opportunity for the UK, which is equivalent to 2.6 % annualized GDP growth, which we desperately need to find our way back into growth. And that's really going to be through unleashing productivity from everyone, which means everyone needs to be really embracing these tools. And if you're a teacher, if you're a nurse, if you're even a union member, we've launched some programs where we're actually trying to get out into workforces and say, how can we get these tools with frontline workers every single day?

1:03:49And what jobs would you say are the most AI proof now? So I'd reframe from AI proof to ready for your role to be enhanced by AI, because I really do think that the vast majority of roles are going to have some interaction with you being enhanced and augmented by the AI that can help you do your job better. And I think about taking the tedious tasks away from the work that you're doing and actually giving you more time to do the things that are uniquely human, whether that's strategic thinking or the selling that we were talking about or being with, if you're a teacher, being in the classroom with your students, if you're a doctor, being in the surgery with your patients.

1:04:25So I think everyone is going to have AI as part of their kind of work life and their lived experience. When I think about what to study at school, There are some people who are going to want to be in the building of the AI tools, which is a very STEM kind of could be everything from neuroscience to computer science to psychology and sort of user experience design and things like that. So there's sort of those kind of roles that people could have. But realistically, I think it's going to be all of us figuring out how if you're a lawyer, a doctor, again, a nurse, a teacher, all of us are going to have an opportunity to use AI in our jobs.

1:04:59Yeah, no, I think that's completely right. And I think that really proactively spending that time working out how that is and where that is in your day to day, but also in kind of the types of the careers you're looking at, I think is probably one of the most valuable things we can do. And I think that, you know, I went to a really interesting talk on Tuesday and they were saying that, you know, how much everyone around the dotcom boom, everyone was saying, you know, but the Internet's going to take all of these jobs and it's going to take all of this and it's going to do all of this differently.

1:05:29And we're not going to have any use for X, Y, Z anymore. And it really is about facilitating and enhancing. and don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be, you know, great protective legislation or whatever we might need to be able to, you know, operate in a new world with AI. But that's the same with literally every advancement ever. And I think that it's easy and it gets clicks to talk about the fear side, whereas actually really thinking like, how can I make my day a bit easier? Like essentially what you should be thinking is how would an assistant make my day easier? And therefore, how can I use AI to, I guess, replicate that role doing X, Y, Z?

1:06:14Yes. I've heard AI sometimes described as having an unlimited number of interns. What would you do if you had an unlimited number of interns? What problems would you point them at? And they don't need to be fed or paid or, you know, they're just there to be helpful to you. So, you know, it is an incredible tool for all of us to take advantage And what is the best piece of advice that you have ever been given? I would say find your strengths, find your unique strengths. That is the critical unlock, I think, for everyone's success, but also happiness. Yeah, no, I think that makes a lot of sense.

1:06:47And I think it ties back well to everything you've said and the incredible success you've seen. You know, I think that we can get a little bit caught up in success looking like three different things or, you know, presenting in certain ways or needing certain skills and actually learning which skills to harness and learning what strengths to strengthen and learning which those strengths are. I think the importance of that really can't be overstated. Agreed. Well, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much for having me.

1:07:28Thank you.

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