Kat Cole (COO at Athletic Greens)

Hey everyone, this is Erik Torenberg and you're listening to Execs by On Deck. Execs is a show for founders, operators, and leaders who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. Our guests are tech execs in key roles at top tech companies who share their hard-won, earned secrets on how to scale faster. Kat Cole is the president and COO of Athletic Greens. She also served at the top level of leadership for Focus Brands for 12 years, including as COO and president. In this episode, We discuss leadership. Kat details how and why to optimize an organization for learning, shares how to lead with a heavy heart, and she emphasizes that leaders shouldn't have all the answers. They should have all the questions. So Kat, when you look back at your wonderful set of experiences and you look back at the arc of your career, what are the threads that you've kept on pulling that have determined what you've decided to take on or how you've decided to do it?

One is learning. I mean, learning is currency for me. It is a great motivator. It is a North Star. And so, any next move that optimized learning was really prioritized. Another is just rooting in my values and where I was at that point in time. You know, there are times when I could have made a different move sooner, But whether it was family or location, very different dynamics now, but in the early days, or just enjoying a season of life, and then also continuing to optimize for learning. But rooting in my values has always been a really big filter for those decisions. Another thread is leadership. It is one of my callings. It is where I have far more than 10,000 hours of experience, and in part because I just started so, so young. I've been leading teams, whether they be elected, appointed, or professional, since I was incredibly young. And so whether it's nature or nurture or just where I got started and then what I continued doing, Certainly, that was a thread. Then you can add in more functional things like consumer. I've had many opportunities to go enterprise, straight-up B2B, SaaS, and it just didn't ignite my full set of interests and capabilities and Spidey sense and all the things that can help with more strategic decisions and just deep appreciation and understanding for a particular industry. element of markets. And so, consumer, because I care, because I love brand and being in places in the average person's life, is clearly a thread as well. And then you add in some others, global, multichannel, or potential to be multichannel. I like having a lot of levers to pull, which makes my latest adventure even more interesting because it has fewer and a lot of opportunity to add more. It is less far down that journey. And so, you know, multi-brand, multi-channel, the multi-part of a business has always attracted me, and I am uniquely comfortable with the chaos and some of the challenging decisions that come along with those types of companies.

Yeah, that's fascinating. If you were writing sort of, you know, the business book of what you've learned that's kind of non-obvious, there were chapters, each one was kind of a hot take. I want to kind of lay out some of the topics that we'll go deeper in this podcast. What would some of the chapter titles be, uh, that come to mind? Obviously you mentioned some of the broader topics, but within them, what are some like kind of non-obvious either hot takes or, or approaches that you feel are, are, are a little different or contrarian that we, we can unpack in this episode?

Uh, one is leaders shouldn't have all the answers, they should have most of the questions. So questions over answers. Question success more than failure. Everyone thinks you need to rush to evaluate failure because it creates obvious pressure to explain. But so often, there are teams and companies and really smart humans that are duplicating behaviors because they assume it is driving success instead of questioning success at least as much as failure. That's a hot take for some folks. The other is employees over customers all day long, but rooted in what the customer needs and deserves. I could go on, but those are a few.

No, those are great. And we'll get to some later. And as you think of them, feel free to bring them up. Let's focus on the first one. You know, some people talk about the difference between good and bad transparency and try to, you know, they try to make frameworks on when to be transparent versus when not to be transparent. And, you know, one of the challenges of being transparent is when you don't have the answers. And you were just saying how leaders should— you know, good leaders don't have to have all the answers. So how do you think about that as it relates to transparency? Because if you're a leader, you know, and you're going through some challenging times, you're going to want to project confidence. And, you know, when do you sort of share the burden, so to speak, with your team so they can help you figure it out, so they can, you know, feel like there's an honest relationship, versus when do you protect? them from information that might be too overwhelming? Or what's your philosophy on that?

One, I would want to make sure we're using the same definition of confidence, or people who are listening are using the same definition of confidence. And it is not what might be in many people's minds or experiences or, um, you know, decades ago or years ago training around the— what is often considered the more Masculine archetype of confidence, which is, I know what I'm doing. I know where we're going. And I have leaned much more naturally into a type of humble confidence, which is, I know we can figure it out.

Mm-hmm.

Huge difference! No less sort of confidence in my tone, no less assurance that I am here, To be a part of where we're going, to drive, to lead, to support. But I am not suggesting that I have an impossible level of skills and foresight given the speed of the world. And so, to answer your question, I would want to first root in when we talk about showing confidence that people need to see, it is that version. It is not the other. In fact, Because there are so many incredible, smart, informed people on teams, I've seen leaders convey a level of old-school confidence that, in fact, reduced the confidence that the team had in the leader because they're like, there's no way she knows that, or, there's no way that that's fully the case. And in an effort to assure, there can be a level of What one thinks is confidence, but actually is a level of kind of false promise-making, whether it's overt or subconscious, that does not leave people feeling inspired and, in fact, leave them questioning whether or not it's the full story. It's almost tone-deaf in some cases. And so the decision-making, there's a few things I think about. One, first, I literally created a course on LinkedIn called Leading with a Heavy Heart, like how to lead with a heavy heart. And it was about that version of this question, of this situation, when there's information I have about me and to what degree do I want to share it in a moment and what are the different options I have as a leader to show up. And so I ask questions such as, am I okay physically? And if the answer is no, that's job one. I don't show up for the team. I don't do anything else. Right? I take care of myself. Am I okay emotionally? Often the answer is, if it's a really heavy moment, either in my personal life or the world, often the answer is, not right now, but I will be. And then, can I show up in a way that is net positive? And if so, what is that way? What do I need to modify? Is it off camera for today? Is it someone else stepping up to help me lead? Is it moving a meeting? Is it giving permission to myself and others to not be involved in the way that I or they would otherwise typically be? So those are my decision-making mechanisms. And even then deciding, to your point, again, it's a little bit of a different spin, but what do I say? And I remember when I had my first, or one of my miscarriages, and I have 2 beautiful children now, had several miscarriages in between, and in particular One of them happened when I was traveling intensely for work. And it was like business work and then a keynote speech, and then I had to go to Texas to go due diligence on an acquisition for the company, and it happened right in the middle. And I went through these questions, right? Am I physically okay? And I called my doctor and I knew that I was. Am I emotionally okay? Definitely not, but I will be. Can I show up in a way that is net positive? I don't know. There's a couple of places I need to show up over the next 2 days, and I don't know how this is going to hit me. So I decided the next day I could do the keynote. It gave me a feeling of normalcy and purpose. But then the flight after that back to Texas for the negotiation, I cried the whole flight. And then there was a dinner with my team and the people we were meeting with, Once I landed and I messaged and said, hey, not feeling great. I'm going to opt out of the dinner tonight. You guys got it. Team was like, okay.

Right?

I didn't say why, but I took myself out of the game. Then the next morning, one of my team members, love them, was like, hey, how are you feeling? Do you need us to start without you? And I modified how I would show up. Apply that to something that's not as personal, but to just business information. Right? Are we okay? As a business? How many people does this affect? Is what I know relevant to a small group? Because sometimes you can take a little bit of information that you have that's very important to 10 people and overshare it in a way that creates unbelievable disruption to 10,000 people when it was really for 10 people. At the same time, there are things that leaders hear that are absolutely relevant for 10,000 but they mistakenly think it only needs to be shared to 10 and then leave the job to disseminate to those other folks. And so, real empathy is required in this question of transparency. And what should be shared? The answer is almost always as much as will serve the individuals. But then the version of that and the timing of that and the qualifiers that are needed to create context for whatever the information is, requires a level of communication sophistication and a high degree of empathy and appreciation for whether the audience is complex or not. And as it relates to communication and anything that is information that either is sensitive or that people need to know, time is not your friend. And time that it's with the 10 people instead of the 10,000 is not your friend. And so being really clear on what do people need to know, why, to what end, what does it serve, and then what is the right tone and level of energy around it? Because trying to be positive when something is very serious is incredibly tone deaf. People don't need positivity during times of uncertainty. They need clarity. And clarity and what is possible is more important than rainbows and butterflies, and it's all going to be okay, and a long list of silver linings. It doesn't mean you don't get to that. But what people need to move through a moment, especially if it's of uncertainty, is clarity, steady hand. Where are we going? Here's what's possible. Here's the evidence of that. And then just showing up and being there.

That begs the question on the good transparency, bad transparency. You mentioned people are seeking clarity, but when you yourself are uncertain, you might want some help figuring out the— do you refrain from sharing until you get Clarity until you get certainty?

It depends on what it is. I mean, often I will get, am I talking to 10,000 people or 10? That matters because 10 people will have more context than 10,000. And so, if I'm with 10 or 100, depending on the organization, I love saying, I have this question. I have this question. It says, I'm thinking about it. It's on my mind. And then maybe I take it a step further and say, here's what I know so far. What do you know? Or, what should I know? Or, what else about this question should I be thinking about? And that helps with not only— again, certainty is maybe not the right word, but— more robust information that can create more comfort and clarity on who or what needs to know what and when from this question. And it also creates buy-in and camaraderie in the question. And it's better to be the person asking the question than being the person being forced to answer it.

Yes.

And so, I love the confidence that comes from Saying, I have a question, and then asking the question or sharing even just this phrase, which is, this is on my mind. This is on my mind. In my leadership teams, we have a practice of monthly check-ins, and at every meeting, we start with a check-in. So the monthly check-ins are 6 questions my husband and I ask each other every month. My direct reports and I go through this at some regularity. And you're just reflecting on a previous time period and what the answers are about how you show up in that relationship. Work relationship, customer relationship, my husband, my personal relationship. And let's just use the 30-day window because it's often the window that I'm using. What's been the best part of the last 30 days? What's been the worst part of the last 30 days? What's one thing I can do differently to be a better partner for you? What has worried you or weighed on you the most in the last 30 days? Like that lingers. Doesn't mean we're not having regular conversations all the time. This is what remains. What are you most grateful for over the last 30 days? What are you most proud of? So that's like the one-on-one check-in. You ask me, I answer one question. I ask you that same question back, you answer. It doesn't matter the levels, we're asking each other. And then for meetings, we literally, we take, you know, 2 of those questions, which is, what are you most grateful for? And what is weighing on you? And this idea, it's another way to say, What questions do you have? What's on your mind? And so, on my teams, we have a practice of not just like, oh, when you're not sure, be sure to say you have a question, but an assumption that there is always something that we don't know, an assumption that there is always something that remains from a period of time that's sort of lingering or has weighed on us. And it takes up energy. It's air in a balloon. And you get the best out of everyone when that is— Called out and mentioned and referenced.

That's fascinating. I love those questions. Do you worry that you're prompting people to think of things that are not going well and they maybe focus on them too much? It's almost like a sort of confirmation bias, or no, because there's always something that could be better and you're always trying to improve anyways. I mean, expectations is important.

I'm curious.

How do you think about that?

I mean, I practice something called the hotshot rule, which is— I mean, I came up with it, I don't know, 15, 16 years ago and have been teaching it and using it ever since. And it is literally envisioning someone I admire in my role and asking, what is one thing they would do differently if they were in my seat tomorrow? And then the answer comes quickly because I have my own context and awareness of the world I'm in, but I'm forcing myself to see it through the eyes of someone Who would be day one, and then ask, why can't that be me? And then I take action on that in 24 hours, and then I tell my team. And there is a version of that exercise that if someone's not in a good headspace can feel daunting, intimidating, oh my gosh, add it to the list of things I don't do well. But when you're comfortable in your own skin and you realize, of course, I am literally never doing all things optimally. This is the journey, like The Mandalorian, this is the way. And then you share that with people and it's normalized. And so what I have come to appreciate is not everyone is in the headspace to practice that or any version of the list of ongoing improvement initiatives in a way that feels net positive. It can feel very heavy. And I have to be able to recognize when that is the case with an individual and really help people. Lean into these constant improvement cultures in a way that is really positive and does not feel that I'm never good enough, or the goal line keeps moving, I can't catch up. It's very interesting, right? One person is like, oh my gosh, I keep growing and improving, and another person says, I am exhausted, I am not worthy, I am not good enough, I can't keep up. And there's a lot under that that, in some cases, requires skills that I do not have— therapy, support, like unpacking things. But it shows up in boardrooms and executive levels and teams. And so, for me, I still lean on continuous improvement. I still lean on learn and iterate, but I model it myself and not lead from whichever direction that would be in a way that is— asking it of people to a degree they feel like they can't catch a breath.

No, that's really well put. You've obviously had tremendous business success in your career, and this podcast is for executives and leaders. And I want to talk about, if you can go back to one of the hardest things you had to do, maybe it was Epic Layoff or letting people down or just felt like a failure. And it was something where it was over a kind of a period of time. It didn't happen, you know, all at once. It happened over like a series of, you know, a couple months or something. I'm curious, if you could tell us about a time that happened and, uh, some advice you have for maybe any listener who, you know, if you're going to be a leader, you're going to go through one of these moments, of course. What, what advice you have for, for how to navigate the— whether it's the emotional psychology or other things you might recommend?

You know, I recognize for many people the answer to that question is often someone or some group of people they needed to let go. And it's different than if there are extreme external condition-driven decisions. A pandemic, things of that nature, than if it is what is more typical, which is having to make calls on people. And so, those were never the difficult ones for me because I was always clear that these decisions are in service of this individual. If we are getting to this point, and if we're doing our job, and we've had many conversations and coaching and opportunities and leveling up and all of those things, there is a point where this is not the best place or time for them to be in this place. And it is a failure to let them sit in a role that has a level of capabilities or expectations That they cannot demonstrate in the period of time required. That is a very— there's a lot of people who have a ton of runway and potential, but they can't fully grow into it in the time the company requires. Maybe it grew or it changed and they didn't at the same rate. Of course, not everyone's going to scale forever in every company. And so those decisions, which are going to be far more common of leaders listening What I hope is that, not because it was difficult for me, but because you hear it through that lens, you can frame it— like, people can frame it differently and lean into it with more service and speed and grace than what is often the case. Like, the yuckiest moments for me have been any time— I mean, I've learned that outside of losing life and losing love, nothing is worse than losing trust. The few moments where that has occurred, they have been the bottom, right? They have been the pit and the trenches, either because I mismanaged expectations, I mismanaged my delivery on those expectations, I failed to live up to the full responsibilities of my role and let someone down. And the example I often share, but it is the worst point in my career ever, Is when I took over Cinnabon. And it was slowly, but then it was suddenly. And I took over my first-ever president role. And a long story made very short is that there was an initiative underway when I joined that was new for the company, new channels, new products. We did not have the meetings, the approvals, the systems, the cadence to solve for the different dynamics of this new channel. And yet, I put my name on the initiative, went to franchisees, told them it was X, it was going to be this product in this channel. And not long after, it rolled out and was not only different than what I said, but different in a way that was the worst possible thing it could be. Like, it looked directly competitive with their product. It looked like I had lied, that I had— it was a bait and switch, that I told them what they wanted to hear while we rolled out a commercially selfish product outside of their locations. And I had busted my ass for the first several months of my tenure there, turning the brand around out of the recession, earning favor and support and collaboration with the franchisees, with early signs of small wins that were positively affecting the business. And then boom, this thing happens. It looked like I lied. They lawyered up, threatened to sue. I was in tears every night trying to navigate the situation. And as we like to say in the South, what had happened was that we did not put the systems in place. I, as a new president, did not put the systems in place to catch the things that could be different. I had an overzealous salesperson that agreed to things that he should not have agreed to, but I did not have the systems to catch it. And once it all sort of came to light, It was like I could look back and see the moments where I did see different packaging floating around, but I thought, who am I to question these people that have been here before me? And who am I to question someone who's been in business literally longer than I've been alive? I was 31 when I became president of this role. And I had this— I had the humility to ask the question, who am I? Right? It was deference. It was respect. But it was also a failure to fully fulfill my role because I had the humility to ask the question, who am I? I, but I failed to have the courage or confidence to answer it. And the answer is, I am the effing president, and if I don't ask questions, no one will. I didn't ask questions. That project went on in a way that it should not have, and it absolutely torpedoed my trust, the trust the franchisees had in me. It eventually ended well because I am a high-integrity person. I handled it the right way. We learned a lot as a company. I took complete responsibility for it immediately and made very tough financial decisions. We had to walk away from a lot of money because although we had the legal right to launch the product that we did, we did not do it right. And my key stakeholder, who I needed to work with for many years, was far more important than this 1-year, maybe 2-year, whatever it would turn into, single CPG product.

Yeah.

And I had to go to the private equity firm and tell them we were walking away from millions. I had to burn out of this contract in a way that pissed off the retail partner. But it was the right thing to do. And then it earned my way and earned me the right to then be even more aggressive in alternative channel expansion because I said, all right, we're going to do it the right way. And that doesn't mean you're going to like it, but we're going to do it the right way. And we ended up, we'll just say, multiplying the business many times over.

Right.

And in a way, I feel like it was that mistake early on That paved the path to be able to go farther, faster in a way that still today people are like, how did you do that with a franchise system? Like, oh, it's because I effed it up at the beginning and then we figured it out and we could go farther together as a result with better systems and processes.

Yeah. But both these stories, the Cinnabon and the Argentina stories, are really incredible stories of building back trust. What's the key thing to get right when trust has been ruptured or significantly challenged in terms of how to build that back up?

There is no shortcut. Like, acknowledge, assess, acknowledge, take ownership, fix what's fixable so it doesn't happen again. A lot of times the trust is like, you've got to give me a reason to believe this won't happen again. Is this a moment, or is this like how you move through the world? And Saying, I should have done X. Here's what I'm doing now. Here's what won't happen on my watch again. And then again, doing the work to understand that it's not a switch. And anything that even sniffs of being something similar is going to feel like punching a bruise to people. And they're human, and they have that right. And you might be a bit scrutinized for a while. Fair. But also not wallowing in it, right? Every meeting for 6 months doesn't need to start with an apology. You, like, move on and prove it by doing the next thing differently from the beginning, in addition to making sure whatever you've repaired stays repaired. Humility, curiosity, courage, and confidence. These, like, 4 mindsets of what in fact seem to be the most optimal— like, the most optimal humans. are those that have command over those things and the ability to turn up or down the dial given the moment or the situation. Totally.

That's really great advice. I want to segue to something that relates to a bit more of your tactical expertise, which is among other things on brands, understanding brands. And I know a lot of people come to you and, you know, think about, hey, should we be building, you know, house of brands versus umbrella brand approach? What is the right framework or litmus test to be determining how a company should be thinking about that path?

First would be to explore all the things that fall under why. Like, what your why. So that would be sort of origin and what you're trying to accomplish. What is the time horizon you're navigating? What is the related capital structure? Like, all of these things Inform why you have to or will optimally approach something in a way. And then where you are in the journey. Like, someone who already has 3 separate brands that is debating, do I bring them together or leave them separate, is very different from someone who has just launched a single SKU, who should not be asking, should I have a house of brands or a branded house?

It's like—

You have one product. You need to do that really well for a while and then figure out where you go next. So, it also is incredibly relative to where someone is on the journey and what are you optimizing for. So, there's all the why that then leads to what are you optimizing for short, mid, and long-term, and at what point are there shifting benefits to some of your decisions? Like, what was the smart decision 10 years ago with one brand leads to a very different set of decisions If you have, like at Focus Brands, accumulated 8 brands in 80 countries where it gets really hard to duplicate excellence 8 times over under the same house. Like, yeah, at some point, you just naturally get there that, wow, we should share capabilities. And some of these things sit higher order or further up funnel from the customer, and we can afford more talent and get more expertise. And that's actually an engine. It's not paint. It's an engine. It's not a different tire. And if it's an engine, you can argue that it can sort of sit and help power many things, and then just where do we need to create separation, uniqueness, and distinction? And then if we have multiple brands, how do those get best protected? Otherwise, you're just gonna end up slowly moving toward a version of homogenization that you cannot see. From the inside, but that customers can see from the outside.

Yeah, it's really interesting. You know, we've experienced this a lot at On Deck, or this question. I'm curious to get your take on it. I'll set the scene. On Deck originally started— the term On Deck meant people who are doing their next thing or who want to do their next thing. They're kind of in between albums, as they say, or in between, you know, jobs. And over time, we expanded to not just serve— to serve all founders and tech employees. And we said, hey, the the same fellowship that we offered for the people in transition, we're going to offer it for founders who have found their company, are now scaling their company, for employees who are trying to uplevel in their jobs. And so we said, okay, On Deck used to be for a very specific customer solving a very specific need. Now it has 25 fellowships solving a broad set of customers. On Deck has almost become kind of like an identity less than a specific meaning like it used to have. Does this mean we should have sub-brands? Because we have people at, you know, from entry level to C-level or aspirationally, right? And so how do we think about the house of brand or umbrella given that we're serving different customers? That said, one of the things that makes On Deck really valuable is that it's the intersection of these communities that people want to be a part of. You know, founders want to meet investors, investors want to meet founders, founders want customers, et cetera. It's all these people who are joining for the combined networks. And then of course, as you know better than, like, starting new brands is very difficult and On Deck already has momentum. Anyway, we've kind of chosen to do that, to keep it all under On Deck while having sub-brands. We have these fellowships. We think we're going to go higher and do forums for C-level and then maybe more junior for entry-level and do what we're calling academies, or we'll figure out the right way of phrasing it. But I'm curious, given your expertise, what questions you'd encourage us to ask or how you might advise us?

I mean, one question is just where do you have equity, especially equity that still has momentum and is untapped? And depending on your access to resources, there's going to be more tailwind in existing brand equity. So, that would be like plus one in Ondec being the mothership or the mother brand. And so, it's a branded house, not a house of brands. The other question, however, as it expands, is at some point in all the creativity of all the ideas, of all the things that could sit under On Deck, sometimes you go too far. And sometimes there's something that just because you can do it does not mean you should. And these bumpers in the Growth Bowling Alley are on the left side, just because you can do something does not mean you should.

Right.

But on the other side is, if you don't, the competition will. And you've got to decide how you feel about those 2 considerations and ping, ping, ping between them on your way down to hit a strike. And so, what is most important is to have an honest matrix of why you are making those decisions. So, we used to have a matrix and it was on one axis, money.

Mm-hmm.

And on the scale, anything that's related to that. And on the other axis was brand equity. And of course, you want everything that is top right quadrant. But quite candidly, not everything is. At some point, you can go so far, however you want to think about it, down the customer funnel and up the customer funnel in where they are in the journey, or from left to right, that you dilute, right? That the mother brand becomes diluted and confusing. And that is typically what then leads to an eventual spinoff or sub-brand, because it is not actually serving the net needs of the brand and its growing communities. And so, it's back to the beginning. It's more important to have these questions and these frameworks. And every year, especially if there are a lot of variations under a brand, having some way that is not the people in the brand, but some objective evaluation of how are you perceived, what do we believe is the perception of quality, therefore pricing power, therefore affiliations, and what does that mean when there is this continuum, and is it getting more clear or less clear what you are about. And sometimes that requires the mother brand be further pushed up. in its aspiration and its description of what it does. Of course, because it's housing more. But there is a point where an umbrella can only get so broad, and it takes courage to cut off a limb that you grew off your tree. Sometimes you need to.

Any other examples that come to mind, or where the mother brand has been diluted, or not—

more helpful would be not diluted because of some action, I mean, it's fresh on some folks' minds because of the movie or documentary that's out. But you think about a WeWork, right, that started with coworking spaces and then got all caught up in we-everything. And for this discussion, it's not important whether it was founder or venture-subsidized. It's just the example of when you feel You should be kinda everywhere. And if you have the unfortunate circumstance of having the means to do everything you want, then you start doing everything you want in ways that don't lean into clarity for the brand. And again, if you are so unfortunate as to have the means to do everything you want, You are particularly at risk of taking the brand in places it does not go, it does not need to go. And I could go on and on with funny consumer examples of co-brands and launches. I mean, there's some weird shit out there where I'm like, who approved this? Who was in the room? But there are good people, right? There are good people who are like, for various different whys, whether it's for money, like financial or scale, or for they believe something's great for the brand, or needed, or they're over-chasing competition, or under-aware of what modern competitors are doing. And so, they're not connected to the consumer. They're not connected to the truth. Often, they have access to capital that hides a lot of poor or less strategic decisions. And then you end up with the brand going places that it shouldn't. It happens to the best of us. The point is to have a process to, like, catch it and the courage to sunset it when you need to or end it quickly.

That's a, that's a great place to wrap. Kat, you've given us a masterclass on, on, on leadership and, and brand. Thank you for, for taking the time to come on the podcast. For people who want to learn more and follow more of your work, obviously you're fantastic on Twitter and they can follow you. And anywhere else you might like to point them?

I have an archive of models and frameworks on Substack. So it's called Checking In, Kat Cole on Substack. Um, LinkedIn, I still post a lot there, but yeah, Twitter's another great spot.

Awesome. Yeah, I highly recommend the, the Substack. It was fun reading it to prep. Kat, thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening to today's episode. Execs is produced by On Deck, where top talent goes to start companies, find their next roles, or invest in their careers. If you're looking to start a company, uplevel your career, or navigate a career transition, I encourage you to visit beyonddeck.com. See you next time.