YouTube interview excerpt (Todd Caponi with Kevin “KD” Dorsey) discussing how leaders should manage teams during economic uncertainty. Caponi emphasizes empathy for the "uncertain brain," predictable communication (regular Q&A updates), and creating operational certainty. He also points to market signals of a valuation bubble—notably a surge in "unicorns" around 2021—and uses historical analogies (Y2K, 1920s) to illustrate boom-and-bust patterns and leadership responses.
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Number one thing to realize is have empathy for the uncertain brain. And as a leader, create certainty in every possible way you can. And where there is uncertainty, like, obviously you've got uncertainty in that. You can't predict how hard it's going to get, how deep it'll go, how long it'll go. Embrace those things. Cards face up right with your team, like, hey, here's what we know, here's what we don't know. And during this period, every Thursday at 10, every Tuesday at 2, whatever, pick a time and go, we're going to do a quick half hour Q and A update for you so that you can predict when the update dates are coming. Right. Create certainty wherever you can within your teams right now. Even if things are fantastic for you, you've got to do that because your teams are looking around and they're feeling like, is tomorrow gonna be the day?
The water's heating up around us, but we just, we stay in it, right? Like we're not paying attention to the outside factors. So like, how, I guess, how do you do that? Or how would you encourage leaders to like take that step back or to step back and look at the macro things that are occurring and then go back into the pot to figure out how to fix it?
Well, yeah, I mean, there should be obvious things. Like for example, when we think about unicorn value organizations, like new unicorns every year, these companies receive funding and evaluation. If it's over $1 billion, they're considered a unicorn. Right? And the average from 2017 to 2020 is you've got 140 to 170 new unicorns every year. As a matter of fact, in 2020, that was a record year. It was 167 new unicorns. Right. So that's considered a big year. 2017 to 2020, there were 569 new unicorns. 2021 alone, there were 586. Like, did you hear that? One hundred and sixty seven was the record in 2020. 2021 new record. Hey, it's more than the four years previous combined of 586. Now that should strike in any logical person's heart a image of a bubble.
Like, so, okay, but real quick on that because this is that. It's the opposite though. Where most people look at that is not risk of bubble. They actually see it as a sign of, yes, like, everything's great, look at all the unicorns. Right? So tap on that a little bit more of like, okay, when things are going this way, to look at the opposite, potentially Just unpack that a little bit more because I don't want people to miss that. Because generally we see that and we go look at how great things are, not the risk that this is setting up.
Well, yeah, I mean look at the late 90s, right? Like I was selling for a company called SAP that you probably heard of. In, in 1999, I did 800% of my target. It wasn't because I was great, right? It was like working in a drive through window back then. Because for anybody who's old enough that's listening is there was a concern that once the clocks would hit midnight on January 1st of 2000, all of the systems, the old systems, there was a concern that most of those were designed based on 2 digit year instead of Y2K, Y2K. So 1999 would flip to 1900 in the systems and like planes would fall off the sky and like it would be complete terror, right? Like that was the concern. And as a result, working at SAP companies are like, here, fix everything, here's millions. And like that was the way it was and we thought that that would continue forever. And you know, when your buddies are getting on this barge of millionaires, we just tend to do that, right? And like, so in January, February of 2000, I see all these buddies of mine that are on this barge of millionaires, of all these startups that are garage based startups that are getting massive valuations just based on. Oh, that's a cool idea. And so In March of 2000, I went running for that barge, but it had already left the dock and I went like, I Swam for like 18 months of crap. My perception here is like when we look around and you see all your buddies taking in all this money and all this cash and getting these opportunities, yes, some of the strong will survive, but we can't just believe that we are all going to be strong. Now back in 1920, 1921, it was the exact same story. It was revenue at all costs, right? Just go, go, go. The U.S. we've got an incredible opportunity to really establish ourselves as a world superpower by being the manufacturing center of the world. Like throw everything at it. And then you Fast forward to 1924, 1925 and companies were like, you know what, we should really focus on profitability. We should really focus on, on systems and processes that are going to allow us to scale smart and be a, you know, ongoing concern, right? And we keep doing that. It's just like, wow, spend, spend, spend, wow. Don't spend on anything. Wow. Let's spend smart. And we're going through that exact same cycle.
It's as. It's so interesting. As a species, we are incredibly complex, but also shockingly simple. The same patterns show up generation to generation, millennia to millennia, dynasty to dynasty, superpower to superpower. Like, the patterns are almost identical. Right? And so now let's talk about, you know, we're in this interesting situation right now. Like, are we on the bubble? Is it about to pop? Is the bubble leaking? Because that's also. People always think a bubble pops, bubble leaks for a while, then it pops. How can a leader lead through this? Because I think that's where I want to focus now is like, all right, so, yeah, a lot of shit's going on right now, and we might be going a certain direction. How can leaders lead through this? What are things that you've seen work for yourself, but also patterns. You see, you're a pattern guy. Like, I'm a pattern guy. So that's what makes this fun. What patterns have you seen across similar situations that led to coming out the right way?
Well, here, let me start with a bit of an analogy that I see companies doing today. And, you know, in Japan, if you're on death row in Japan, the way that they do it there is they don't ever.
So I know where this is going.
The most harsh part about it, oddly enough, is uncertainty. Meaning they don't tell those individuals when the day is coming, right? They go to bed every night going, huh, Is tomorrow going to be the day? And as a result, back in 2021, they. There was a class action lawsuit amongst death row inmates who got their lawyers to file suit in claiming that that treatment is inhumane, right? The uncertainty of when I go to bed at night, I don't know whether tomorrow I'm going to be killed. Now, let's take this to the kind of the world we're living in right now. The first thing I want everybody to understand is uncertainty is like a kryptonite for our brain. Like, literally when things. When we're uncertain, we don't sleep, we don't perform well, we're less creative. And at its core, our IQ literally goes down in those situations where there's uncertainty. Now, I want, as a leader, for you to think about your team, your sales team. And they're looking around, they're talking to their buddies and seeing layoffs happen. And you're sitting there not saying anything. Now, you might not be saying anything because you think things are great. And, hey, there's no layoff. Coming here, which is cool, but your reps are going to bed every night with that same type of feeling that the Japanese inmates do where they don't know, like, am I just going to all of a sudden get swatted? And so, number one thing to realize is have empathy for the uncertain brain. And as a leader, create certainty in every possible way you can. And where there is uncertainty, like, obviously you've got uncertainty in that. You can't predict how hard it's going to get, how deep it'll go, how long it'll go, how it'll direct. Embrace those things. Cards face up right with your team, like, hey, here's what we know, here's what we don't know. And during this period, every Thursday at 10, every Tuesday at 2, whatever, pick a time and go, we're going to do a quick half hour Q and A update for you so that you can predict when the updates are coming. Right? Create certainty wherever you can within your teams. Right. Right now, like, even if things are fantastic for you, you've got to do that because your teams are looking around and they're feeling like, is tomorrow going to be the day? So that's. I've got others, but, like, that's number one that. I love to hear your reaction.
It's something I've talked about at a different scale. Just even around, like, compensation and income is like waking up every day and not knowing if you're gonna get to your number, not knowing if you're gonna be able to pay your bills, not knowing if you're gonna keep your job. Same concept. Like that, uncertainty, that's what burns people out.
