Scott Stephenson (CEO of Verisk Analytics)

The episode you're about to listen to was released back when the Mere Christians podcast was called the Call to Mastery. Now, if you love Mere Christians, you're still going to love these older episodes because the majority of each conversation focuses on how the gospel influences the work of our guests. With that disclaimer out of the way, please enjoy the episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Call to Mastery. I'm Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christian who's pursuing world class mastery of their vocation. We talk about their path to mastery, their daily habits and routines, and how their faith influences their work. Today's guest is an extraordinary leader and CEO. His name is Scott Stevenson. He's the CEO of publicly traded Verisk analytics, an incredible innovator. Forbes magazine has recognized Scott as, get this, one of the 25 most innovative leaders on Earth. That's a crazy, crazy claim to fame. Scott and I recently sat down and we talked about how exactly to cultivate innovative ideas within what Scott sees as the three buckets of innovation, which I think you'll find very helpful. We talked about how Christians can be both ambitious and humane in business. And we talked about the story that convinced Scott to say the name of Jesus whenever possible, even when leading a public company with 10,000 employees. I think you guys are gonna love this conversation with my new friend, Scott Stevenson. Hey, Scott, thanks so much for joining us today.

Jordan, my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

All right, let's start here. Softball question for the CEO of a company who's answered this question a million times. What does Verisk analytics do?

Yeah, so what we do is provide large data founded data analytics solutions to customers in a few different vertical markets. So the largest market that we serve is the insurance world, also the banking world. And we also serve companies in the energy ecosystem, which is everybody from a large integrated oil and gas player to somebody that builds offshore wind projects.

Got it. So Forbes has called you one of the 25 most innovative leaders in the world. I'm very curious how you define the word innovation that's thrown around so much these days.

I really appreciate that question because for some time, we at Verus, I personally, we have really wanted to live innovation and really make it foundational to what we do. And one of the things I did to try to sort of support some of the direction I was trying to bring to the company was I accessed a lot of the literature And I found it relatively lacking, actually, because there's this tendency, or at least there has been a tendency, to describe innovation as this monolithic thing. Yeah. And it really is actually not. And at least in a business context, innovation can take at least three forms. One of them is product enhancement. You have something that you offer to the world today and you make it better. A second would be process improvement, which is you have a set of processes at work. How do you make them better? Usually that takes the form of making them more efficient or operating more quickly. But then the third is what I would call invention. And invention is bringing into the world something that didn't exist previously. And, you know, long story short, for our company, I would argue for many companies, you actually have to be pursuing all three forms. And one of the things about that is the way that you actually think and the way that you organize yourself is somewhat different depending upon which of those three forms of, of innovation you're talking about. So it's a great question. And for all the talk about innovation, I think we can be even more precise about what it is we mean. That's what I mean when I say innovation.

Those definitions of those three buckets are really helpful. Right. So basically, product development, process improvement, and invention. Which of those three gets you most excited?

Personally, all three of them are really meaningful to me. I'm going to let your question marinate for a minute in my mind, but, but let me, let me offer this perspective as a way of kind of warming up to the question.

Yeah.

So the people that study these things tell us that in the year 0 AD there were about 150 million human beings on the planet. And the life expectancy of a human being at that time was probably measured somewhere in the range of 20 to 30 years. And, you know, I don't have to recount all the things that could kill a person back in those days. You know, lack of water, lack of food, lack of shelter, disease, etc. Today there are over 7 and a half billion of us on the planet. In the developed economies, we can reasonably expect to live into our 80s or more on average. And not only that, but actually if you were to also consider quality of life, you know, today you and I are talking to one another at a great distance. We can access much of the world's knowledge through devices that we carry around in our pockets. We can mitigate disease and some of the pain associated with that, generally not worry about the ability to feed ourselves. And of course, there are people who are not enjoying all of all of these things. But I'm characterizing humanity generally. And the point I would make here is I think the primary way that we got from 0 AD 150 million of us in that condition to 20, 20 and 7 and a half billion plus of us, etc. Was a gazillion little, little incremental improvements stacked one on top of the other. Yeah. In other words, you know, somebody had an acre of land and they used to be able to get two bushels of wheat out of it, and then, you know, they figured out how to maybe so better or cultivate better or water better, and they got two bushels up to two and a half, then two and three quarters and then three, four, five. You know, at some point enough people have done that that somebody in the village actually doesn't need to grow wheat. And so they can, they can focus on maybe bending metal or something else, or creating metal, let alone bending it. So I think it's, it's just like that. It's all of these. Now there are leaps, you know, leaps get made too. But I think a lot of it is just this sustained level of incremental improvement stacking itself up and up and up over an extended period of time. And so that would actually correlate more with my kind of my product enhancement and product and process improvement categories. The stuff that generally gets more attention is the sort of, wow, you know, in a great flash something came into the world that didn't previously exist. But I think a lot of the well being of the average human being is related to the first two categories. So, you know, kind of at a, almost a philosophical level, I may be drawn to those two a little bit more. A business needs, I believe, needs all three.

That's really interesting. It is the invention stuff that gets the most intention and frankly creates the most market value in the short term. Right. I'm thinking of Peter Thiel's 0 to 1.

Exactly.

An exponentially valuable organization in today's economy. Right. Is by going from zero to one in invention. But you're right, what moves humanity forward most steadily is the incremental. I mean, it's the incremental gardening of the earth that started, you know, in way back in Genesis 1, 2 and 3. That's really interesting. So I'm curious, is there something, Scott, maybe in your career prior to Varusk, or maybe even going back as far as your childhood that you think like really sparked this love of creating out of nothing, of moving the world forward incrementally, going from 0 to 1 or 1 to 1.1 to 1.2. What was it in your story that really struck a chord with you?

Well, the first thing I just wanted to comment on real quickly, Jordan, was I'm glad you referenced Peter Thiel's book because it's actually a great book.

It's a terrific book. Yeah.

But one of the reasons why I came up with the perspective that I just shared with you is because I found myself thinking that 0 to 1 was not complete, that the 1 to n really. And he acknowledges it in the book, the one to end, but I just find myself kind of weighting it more than he does. Obviously, his, you know, his experience has. Yeah, I mean, what a remarkable career he's had. And he's been involved in these. These huge innovations. So all credit, you know, all of that is great. You know, I would say. I guess I would link it to a couple of things. One is my experience has been more with established entities rather than the startup. I worked in the aerospace industry before I went to business school, which was an established company. Then I went to work with a global management consulting firm named Boston Consulting Group, and then found my way over to the company that I now lead, Varys. But in all cases, they were not startups. You know, work was already ongoing. And so maybe just intuitively I understood the value of the thing which had been grounded, you know, the thing that had been founded and the thing that was. Was grounded. And then at least one of the reasons why I made the transition into what. What I do here, away from the management consulting world, which is a completely honorable, you know, profession. But I just wanted to be engaged with everybody, basically. So, you know, be a general manager, be engaged with, you know, the team and the large team. So I don't know, it's just this perspective that, like, the whole team matters and, you know, thankfulness for the people that preceded us that created some foundation. And so, I don't know, it's just. I guess I'm somewhere located inside of all of that.

I could go on and on picking apart 0 to 1 for another 30 minutes. I, too, love the book. I think it's really great. But I do share your opinion. It's one perspective. It's a perspective of somebody who has spent his career going from zero to one. And that is certainly valuable, but so is the marginal improvement that most people do every single day. So, Scott, you're not innovating on your own. You have a pretty sizable team, right? You're running this publicly traded enterprise. I'm curious what you think the keys are to encouraging and managing innovation while well across a large team of people, a large company.

Yeah, I'll say a couple things here. One is, and this relates to the innovation agenda, but it really more broadly relates to anything that we consider to be the most important thing, you know, the leveraged thing or things. And that is you have to write down your big ideas and then keep going back to them over and over and over again. You know, in my case, I am trying to communicate into a community of 10,000 people. And so the amount of time that I get to be in, you know, directly in front of any one of our people, other than, you know, the smaller, small circle of my direct reports, it has its limitations. It's interesting that we're talking today. I actually did two global town halls where every one of our 10,000 people were invited and many, many came. But I've always felt like I had. I kind of had. I have this secret knowledge which comes from being a believer and from having essentially discovered the Bible at the age of 23, having had no connection to it. And that is, you know, my entire adult life has been being in groups and meetings and gatherings, etcetera, and so frequently what we do is we take out our holy text and everybody's going to the same verse, the same statement, exploring it, what does it mean? And we come back to it time and time again. And I just, I know experientially the power of that, beginning in my own life, you know, just to go back over and over and over again to the big ideas, it really has its effect. So one thing that I think is really, really important is to simply get down what your big ideas are and then keep talking about them. And related to that, perhaps fairly directly, would be you have to ask for innovation. So we've written down in all of our foundational statements that we make, which we put up on our website, we get onto people's, the screensavers on their monitors at work, et cetera, we've written these ideas down and we return to them a lot. But specifically with respect to innovation, my experience has been you actually have to ask for it and you have to keep asking for it, because it has at least two implications. One is money generally has to be spent to support innovation. And so you have to ask for it, and then you have to show that you mean it by being willing to resource it. Or maybe to put it differently, if you use the word innovation a lot, you say that to all of your people, and then every time they bring forward an investment proposal, you say, well, we're not going to do that. After a while, people are going to separate the signal from the noise and they're going to say, well, they don't really mean it. They say they want innovation, but they don't really mean it. And the other part of it is, of course there is a degree of uncertainty associated with pursuing innovations. The bigger they are, the more contingent they are. And people stake their work and their careers to them and they need to know that they can do so with confidence. And one of the ways that you develop confidence is you ask for innovation and then you show up. And when you're in the early stages of something and maybe it's not turning out quite the way you thought it would, or it's not developing quite as fast, the easiest thing in the world is to pull the plug when people see you actually working with them to understand where are we? And then at the end of all of that exploration, you're still in it and, and you're encouraging them to still be in it. That communicates so much. So write down the big ideas, ask for it, and then live it like you really mean it. And even then it's not easy.

Yeah, no, no, innovation never is. One thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is, you know, some of my most creative, most innovative ideas in my career as a tech entrepreneur, now as a, as a writer, have come away from my laptop, right. Have come when I have taken a step away from my physical environment. I'm really curious for you personally, what changes you make to your physical environment to spark creativity and creative breakthroughs.

Before, I was sort of bemoaning a little bit some of the literature around innovation. But one perspective that I found, which I agree with strongly, I was sort of kind of intuitively on it, but it was really actually interesting and helpful to see it written down, is there were a couple of marks of people which tend to be the kind of people who tend to more reliably be a part of sponsoring innovation, I guess I would put it. And one of the things which is true about people who tend to sort of be in that place is they have an associative pattern of thinking. So basically they sort of observe something over here on the left and then they say, well, how might that apply over here on the right, which is a place where I'm trying to get something done right now. And so just that one's brain works that way. A little bit is constructive for innovation. And the corollary is, well, okay, then get in front of a lot of observations, a lot of signals, you know, see a lot of stuff, get a lot of input and then through your associative generalized linear model up in your head, see what, see what you do with it. So associated thinking plus a lot of observations. And so one of the things I find really, really helpful is to just get in front of situations, information, knowledge, people that are not necessarily in my normal pattern and stuff sometimes really does tend to break free. And one of the things that is so helpful in a business context is to go spend time with your customers. So that's a, that's a, that's another, that's another part of, you know, get outside of your own four walls. Well, do it with your customers and establish trust such that they will really, you know, give you good, helpful, direct, transparent feedback. You will definitely learn things, no question about it.

So going back to doing things that are kind of outside of the norm, give some examples in your case, I'm a big believer in order to cultivate analogous thinking, in order to make creative connections from other domains to your domain, you gotta look outside of your space, you gotta look outside of your industry, you gotta go hunt for ideas that on the surface aren't relevant. So first question, what are some examples of that for you? And two, how do you do that on a regular basis? How do you make sure you're continually looking outside your domain?

Yeah, so maybe starting with the second. First, Jordan.

Yeah, sure.

I have found it necessary to actually just reserve time to sort of not do what is urgently in front, but to actually create space in order to be able to engage in this sort of broader signal processing and synthesis. So I find that if I'm not deliberate about it, it probably won't actually happen.

So you create time in your schedule to explore.

Explore, right? Yeah, right. We've actually even routinized that across the whole company. So. And I'll say, by the way, our people seem to love it. We have on a, at least an annual basis and sometimes on a semiannual basis held across the entire company, what we call reimagine day. And about the only instructions you get on reimagine day is you and your team don't come into the office, go have an experience which is different than the one that you normally have. And that's about the only instruction we give. And then, and then the only thing we require on the back end is tell us what happens.

I love that.

And I'll tell you, our people love It, I mean, they love it. And you can see how it opens up space in people's thinking.

Moving away from innovation specifically for a minute to just the broader theme of leadership and business leadership. I'm curious, in your opinion, what world class leaders do that their less masterful counterparts might not do. What's the difference between good and great in the CEO seat in a big.

Company like I am on the journey of trying to be that kind of leader. So I think that is the key.

P.S. believing that, truly believing that. Humbly. Yeah.

But you know, I might add to that, first of all, I think there's just an irreducible requirement for energy. There's just something about energy that pulls other people along and actually, you know, finds the tuning fork in the other and essentially gets there tuning fork vibrating a little bit. And I think that energy, passion and commitment are definitely a part of it. I would go back to what I said before. I think you have to really decide what your big ideas are and then you have to commit to them and you have to be a little bit of a preacher actually. You have to just over and over again go back to them. I see good leaders doing that. I see them modeling the values of the organization. And you do get to the, you know, you do get to these teachable moments where you get to make a decision which actually demonstrates that. No, I mean we really mean what we say here in terms of what it is we value. I do think that a customer centric view is always important, always works. You know, those would be some of the, some of the piece parts, but.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone answer that question with energy. But I do think that's so important. You know, looking back on my career and some of the feedback I've gotten from investors is like my energy as a leader of our organization is so important and I've never really grasped that.

Right.

But it's feedback you get a lot when you are a high energy leader. I think it makes a difference. I think it inspires energy in others and usually the person at the top is setting the tone for that organization. So I like that answer a lot. So speaking of energy and energy management throughout your day, I'm curious what your day looks like from sunup to sundown or at least from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed and how you manage your energy and time throughout the day. What's the TikTok of your day look like? Scott?

So when I wake up, I'm usually thinking about either Jesus or my family. That's just what's on my mind when I wake up. I'm not processing business problems. I don't. Or you know, issues. I just am not. And by the way, I am blessed with good sleep. And I know not everybody is. I just learned or maybe felt permission, etc. To just the end of the day when it's, you know, sort of a time when you could think about going to sleep to just say I'm going to sort of clear out my mind, you know, amen. I'm just kind of going to blank it out a little bit. And whatever was presenting, I mean, I'm still there with the people around me.

Yeah.

The people that I love. But you know, I'm not processing problems when I go to sleep. In fact, I'm specifically not doing that. I have shelved them and I know that I can pick them up in the morning. And well, I'll tell you when I realized I could approach life like that, that was very helpful and very. It's kind of liberating to know that, you know, I could do it that way. But basically, so my day begins generally been well rested, thank you Lord. And you know, I'm kind of in that place where I'm, you know, sort of entering the day. I want essentially immediate connectivity with God. And somewhere in the course of the early morning, before I get into the day proper, I will have spent time with scripture, I will spend time in prayer and I almost always will have exercised as well. And then, you know, basically I'm, I'm into the day. I would say in the course of my day there's a purposeful interest in being with people to try to align and, but also kind of understand how can I support and you know, where I can also to maybe point a way but in a collaborative way. So there's a person and communication intensity to my day which I actually seek with the exception of the, you know, the very apart times when it's. Nothing is scheduled and now I'm fulfilling, I'm trying to fulfill against what I think is one of the leaders responsibilities, which is to really look, you know, five, ten plus years into the future over the horizon and really, really think in a timeframe that maybe most people aren't. Most people in your organization aren't. So a lot of time with people, except when not. And then, you know, I highly value time with my wife Beth and then around all of that. Basically core commitments are to our church and some community good works that we feel very Strongly about. And our extended family, our kids are all grown and out of the house and siblings and the friend who's closer than a brother. And so my day is a lot of relating, I guess I would say, on average, except when I step all the way back and try to receive these additional signals and think maybe some new thoughts.

Yeah, no, that's really good. Are you getting, how many hours of sleep are you getting on average?

I'd say between seven and eight.

Yeah, that's great.

I love it.

I am such a champion for sleep. There was a good article years ago, like, sleep is the new status symbol, which I don't love calling it that. He was basically talking about how Bezos and all these guys and women in top leadership positions are getting eight hours of sleep because they know how valuable it is. So I love that. So, speaking of relationships and communicating with others, our mutual friend David Block, who's a former guest on this podcast, he told me that you respond to every email you receive, which is mind boggling to me given the volume you've got to receive in a 10,000 person organization. I'm curious what your philosophy is behind this and how you think about this.

Yeah, I feel that one of the things that I can do for others is to affirm that they matter. The way that I've constructed my personal mission statement is to help people maximize their sense of personal value and opportunity. That's what I'm trying to bring, however imperfectly. And so I haven't had very many moments of transition in my career, but I did. But I did have one where I was a senior partner at this global consulting firm and I can't use a bcg. That's bcg. And I can remember when I told some of my friends that I was making a transition, like one eyebrow went up. And then they said, well, what are you going to do? Where are you going? And I said, well, I'm working on that. And then the other eyebrow, because it was sort of like, wait a minute, you don't, like you're giving up this thing, this, you know, really kind of nice thing that you have, but you haven't really determined where exactly you're going. And yes, now I was partnered with my best friend in the world and that helps a lot. You know, we had just said, let's, you know, let's, let's come together and work together. So that was definitely both incenting and calming. But, you know, I can remember going from like, I felt like I could get, you know, a meeting with anybody and I had this global firm where, you know, I could call our man or woman in Kuala Lumpur and get the download on Malaysia in 45 minutes. And then now I'm, I'm, I'm in this two person entrepreneurial thing. And so you're trying, you're trying to establish yourself in this, in the new mode. Obviously you want to make progress, you want to make progress quickly. But I can remember how it felt when I would sort of send emails and messages out into the world and I didn't hear back. You know, it was kind of like, wow, did I, you know, like, did I just fall off, you know, the cliff or something? And so that made an impression on me. And just also the way I feel about people, I feel like one of the things I can do is just without even saying the words say, you know, you matter because here you sent something out towards me. Well, I'm coming back to you. Like, I hear you, I see you. That, and I'm also the original clean desk guy. So, like, I don't like a big cluttered, I don't like a big cluttered inbox.

Yeah, I have to be at inbox zero every day.

Yeah, me too. So I'd say it's probably both. It's a little bit of, you know, trying to clear the deck so that I can focus on the really important thing. But I do think it's an opportunity to just say to the other, like, you matter. You reached out to me. That matters to me. I'm reaching back out to you.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And we have a rule at Jordan Rayner Co. That if you send us an email that warrants a response, if you just say, hey, I love that episode, actually you'll probably get a response for that. But we respond to everything. We respond to everything. And I don't personally respond to everything like you. I'm not Superman like Scott Stevenson, but my assistant, at a minimum, responds to every single message and make sure that I see what I need to see. So I love that.

I just have to say, I think David said it a little bit strongly because you and I, and probably everybody that is listening to us probably gets the emails that say, hey, you know, I was just following up on the email I sent you last week, see if we can, if we can get that time, you know, scheduled. And then you look at the email and you look at the first one and it's not somebody that you know and. Yeah, and something is, you know, a sales solicitation.

We don't Respond to all sales emails.

Good point. Solicitation is not the same as an outreach from a human being.

There you go, there you go, there you go. That's a good distinction. So we're kind of, we're kind of migrating this territory naturally. But we love to spend some time on the podcast talking about how the, the gospel impacts the work of our guests. So I'm curious to start here. You're a CEO of this large public company. I'm curious how you think about situations like this podcast, about talking so publicly about your faith when you're in this leadership role in this public company. How do you think about that?

So I'll sort of frame that in a couple of ways so we have the teaching in first, Peter, always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you for the reasons for the hope you have with them. And then the very next statement is do so with gentleness and respect. And so I'm aware of the place where I sit inside of this company and I'm also aware that that's both a platform, but at the same time, it could, you know, for an employee who is, you know, in the, in the grading system six levels away from me or whatever, could present myself in a way that I might imply that their alignment with my own personal beliefs is somehow related to their career opportunity. And I want to be very thoughtful about that. But sort of the other frame for me, if I can just share an experience that I had in the marketplace very quickly, because please do take your time, it'll explain where I've gotten to on all of this. So back when I was at bcg, we were a part of a merger happening, though company A was more the acquirer of company B. But anyway, two companies are coming together. So after it was announced, very shortly into the process, the person who was named to lead the combined entity called a meeting. He wanted to get the senior leads from both teams together. And the assumption was that there would be senior leads from both teams that would be running the combined entity. And because we had been deeply involved in the thinking and the process, he invited us to come to the meeting too. I say us, there were three BCG partners who had been involved in this. So the day comes and we're seated around a horseshoe shaped table and the fellow who's going to lead the combined entity is standing at the open end of the horseshoe. Everybody's, you know, happy to be there. It was morning, I think we had a really nice breakfast in front of us probably. But anyway, you know, he Said, well, let's, you know, let's just begin the process of getting to know each other and maybe what we can do is just go around the table and, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself and what your, you know, current role is, how long you've been in place, etc. And tell us who your hero is. Which is a great question, by the way, if you're interviewing a slate of people, like, you'll remember the answer that everybody gives you to that question.

Wasn't this a question in a Republican presidential debate way back when George W. Bush era? And I, like everybody, remember the questions because he said Jesus. I may be misrepresented, but it's a great question.

Yeah, it is, it is. It really is. And by the way, in my experience, I would say something approaching half of the people that I asked that question of. They will reference one or both of their parents, which is just so heartwarming. But anyway, yeah, so I was third from where the horseshoe started, unfortunately, because I had just enough time to think about it because the name that immediately came to my mind was Jesus. And then I had just enough time to sit there and sort of, you know, have a conversation in my head. Well, you know, like Jesus isn't in the category of, you know, he's in a category all by himself. And that's not what, that's not what he's really asking anyway. And, you know, so by the time it got to me, I'd had enough time to talk myself into saying Winston Churchill, who is somebody that I admire a great deal.

Yeah, love Churchill.

Right. So Winston Churchill and I explained why. And so we keep going around the horseshoe and we eventually get to one of my partners at bcg and he said the Dalai Lama. And when he said the Dalai Lama, knowing him also, I know that to him the Dalai Lama is a divine figure. So that's why I had that experience. And then we broke the meeting and went our ways and I was overcome with such a feeling of grief. It's almost hard to explain, but I really felt like Peter in the courtyard. I felt like I had denied my Savior and Lord. You know, that it's, it's very personal for me. I am very clear on the fact that Jesus sacrificed himself for my well being. And then here I was and you know, wearing a suit in a very, you know, comfortable air conditioned room with a nice meal in front of me. And I had the opportunity to say his name and I didn't. And it was a feeling of grief and it persisted For a long time, in fact, it persisted until I remembered what the whole thing is about because I was focused on myself and my own failure. And then just one day I really went around feeling kind of sick for weeks. But then I suddenly remembered, oh, what I'm supposed to do is actually confess and ask for forgiveness. And when I did, the forgiveness came immediately and you know, the wave of love that follows. So when you have an experience like that and you feel how sort of gut wrenching, you know, sick it feels to not be loyal to your commitments on the one hand, and just the, just the expansive loving embrace inside of forgiveness on the other hand, like you just can't forget that you can't walk by that. So anyway, the result of all of that for me has been anytime his name pops into my head and it occurs to me to say his name, I'm just going to say his name.

Yeah.

You know, and I don't need to, I don't need to give the four spiritual laws and you know, I don't need to, I don't need to do that. But what I can have is a very natural, unaffected affiliation with Him. And you know, in this world today, I mean, I feel like I spent a lot of time listening to other people's passions. Well, you know, I mean, I love Jesus, so I can certainly say that and. Right. Amen. So, you know, and so anyway, so that was, that was something I came to a long time ago. So now even in a business context where you're sort of sharing your resume, I'll just add, and I'm a Jesus follower. I mean, I haven't had people throw water in my face or get up or walk away. They may have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. They may have feelings about it, but it also creates room for other people. I will just say that. I mean, there are not a few people that want to talk about spirituality and their spiritual commitments. That's essentially the way I approach all this.

I love that perspective. I'm curious, other than being prepared to give an answer and being prepared to say the name of Jesus, what do you think would be different about Varusk if you weren't a follower of Christ? What are the non overt things that would be different about the company if you weren't an apprentice to Jesus?

Well, you know, and I don't want to overly feature myself in all of this. I mean, we have 10,000 great women and men that are doing great stuff every day. We have a board of directors. I had my predecessors, A foundation was laid. I really, really don't want to make it about me. I will say that the feedback I get and just sort of observing our company and the world, the kinds of signals that I pick up are we seem to be more focused on the long term, maybe than the average publicly traded company out there. It sort of feel we get that sort of feedback. And also the nature of our culture seems to catch people's attention when they get a chance to encounter it, which I think is characterized as being simultaneously sort of ambitious and very humane. And I mean, the whole of scripture is basically about us being God's image bearers and the enabling that Jesus did of that and then kind of being that way and trying to live that out. So I think that you just. You just sort of start out saying, okay, well, like, is this working for people? Is it working for the people who are our customers? Is it working for the people who work here? So I think it kind of makes it more personal, I guess, is the way that I would put it.

I love that tension between ambition and humanity. You look at a lot of great founders. Elon Musk comes to mind. Wildly ambitious, wildly successful, not known for being superhuman.

Right.

And I think that is the delta for one of the Deltas for Christ followers is we are to love people radically as Christ loved us, and be wildly ambitious for our work because he created us to work. He created us to. As my first book, the subtitle of my first book said to create and innovate and risk. Speaking of which, I am curious to ask you about this. You know, I'm curious if there's anything in scripture specifically or anything relevant to your faith that spurs you on to take risks and to innovate. Innovation is such a big part of Varusk's brand of your story. Is that at least tangentially related to your faith?

Yeah, I mean, definitely. I would say that maybe not any one verse, but starting with the notion that in the Christian worldview, time progresses to a culminating point. And so there is a sense of time as a commodity, and it's a valuable one that it moves ultimately to a point of wholeness and resolution. So moving into that stream of time and moving into the future is a good thing, first of all, and at the end of it is ultimate security. So it's like, go, you know, move your feet and go. Because it's forward, it's out there, you know, we can. And so that's kind of a whole council of scripture, just eternal security. Plus, we're operating inside of a design by Our Creator and, you know, like, participate. It's good. Same way that, you know, he declared it good when he looked at it. It's like, this is good. Yeah. So, you know, participate in it. I would say that's part of it. I would say that part of it for me is also Colossians 3:23 and all that you do. Work at it with your whole heart, as working unto the Lord, not men. For you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. And so there's just kind of this sense of, you know, and we read it in so many other places, too. You know, it's the Lord Jesus that you are serving. So there's just something about like, I could be sitting alone in my office, but my sense is I am observed and therefore I'm accountable.

Yeah. It is amazing to me how much Scripture talks about rewards for our work and how little the church talks about that right now. And to be crystal clear, you know, all of us as sons and daughters of Christ, have equal status as his children, as God's children. Right. That is unchanging. We all have varying rewards for how we work and how we live this life. And I think we need to be talking about that more and more. So I love that perspective. By the way, we talked about Peter Thiel. I'm curious if you've watched Peter Thiel's talks with NT Wright about time and innovation and the new heavens and the new earth and what we created Christians should be building towards. Have you seen these videos?

No, but thank you for the tip.

They're exceptional. I'll make sure we. I send it over to you. We'll drop it into the notes of this episode for everybody listening. Yeah, it's really, really good. Really, really good. So, Scott, three questions we love to wrap up every conversation with. First, I'm curious which books you tend to recommend or gift most frequently to other people.

Yeah, so I. I tend to gift a lot of books, first of all.

Yeah, me too.

Across a very wide range of topics. But I will give you two books, one of which is the one that I probably gifted more than any other book with the. Probably, with the exception of just giving people Bibles. And then the other one is. Is a book that I gifted very, very recently, actually, to quite a few folks. So. So the timeless one for me is called Christianity for Modern Pagans, written by Peter Kreeft, the longtime faculty member at Boston College.

Yeah, sure.

What he does is he takes Pascal's Penses and he. I think he grabs like A hundred of them. And he kind of, you know, expands upon them and in a very lively way, very thoughtful way also. And so I've given this out to both Christians and non Christians because I just think it's that helpful. And also I actually think of it as an evangelistic tool, you know, because the title is kind of interesting. Like, well, what does that mean? And what is a modern pagan anyway? And like, are you telling me I'm a modern pagan? You know, you can get into a lot of. You can get into a lot of discussions, but then the book really carries its own weight. So I've enjoyed giving that one out a lot. And then a book I gave out recently to maybe the top, I don't know, 150 or 200 people in our company is a book called how to be an Anti Racist by a man named Ibram Kendi.

It's on my list.

Yeah. Yeah. So you know, our company, I had an awakening which was partly a function of watching that awful nine minute video of George Floyd's life being squeezed out of his body. And there just comes a point where the injustice just, you see it, you know, I mean, I would have acknowledged. But to watch that, to watch the inhumanity of the man who had his knee pinned to the dying man's neck, it just catal. It just, it changed me, actually. And a lot of conversations with our colleagues of color inside of the company. We sponsored an open mic. We scheduled it for one hour. We said, anybody can say anything they want to. This was in the kind of immediate wake of George Floyd's killing. I thought we would be there for 30 or 45 minutes. We were there for four and a half hours. People had so much they wanted to say.

I love it. Real quick, who would you most like to hear on this podcast talking about how their faith influences their work?

Do you know a guy named Henry Kastner?

I love Henry.

Have you had him on the program?

I haven't yet, but he's been on the list for a long time. I'm a huge Henry fan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, what a wonderful human being.

Oh, hey, he's one of the best. I've interviewed him for books in the past. He's a good friend. We're definitely going to have Henry on, so I love that. That's a terrific answer.

I've got a second one for you. By the way, have you had Andy Mills on your program?

I have not. I don't know Andy.

Yeah, so Andy is currently the. I believe he's the CEO of hedge fund. And you might recall earlier in our conversation, I said I stepped out of BCG with one partner colleague that was. It was Andy Mills. And you know, this is a man, what a brilliant businessman he is and also deeply of faith and leading this very integrated life.

I love it. Scott, one piece of advice to leave this audience with who is seeking to do exceptional work for the glory of God and the good of others.

If it occurs to you, anywhere you happen to be, to say the name of Jesus, just find a way to make it comfortable for yourself to do that.

I love that. Scott, I want to commend you for speaking the name of Jesus so boldly. Thank you for the exceptional redemptive work you do in the world and for taking risks to create new things for the good of others, just like our Father did at the beginning of time. Hey, if you want to learn more about Scott or Verisk, you can find them@verisk.com Scott, thanks again for being here.

What a pleasure. Thanks, Jordan. Great to be with you.

That was such an encouraging and educational conversation. I hope you guys really, really enjoyed that one. Hey, if you're enjoying the podcast, make sure you subscribe to the Call to Mastery so you never miss an episode in the future. And if you're already subscribed, do me a favor, take 30 seconds right now. Go leave a review of the podcast so more people can find this content. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. I'll see you next week.