Hashim Syed, Product Lead @ Google

Welcome back to another episode of The Graduate Guide. Today Today I'm joined by my co-host Tossem, and, uh, we've joined by a very special guest today. Uh, his name's Hashem. He, he works at Google, and yeah, he's the first ever returning guest on The Graduate Guide. Welcome!

Honored to be back. Honored to be back. When was our, when was our first episode? It was 2022 or 2023?

Yes, the first one. Yeah, it would have been, I think, February 2023. Yeah, so Yes, yeah, a lot, a lot has changed since then. We now have, um, video and a background and people in the crowd. So yeah, it's, um, yeah, it's great to have you back. I'm sure a lot has changed in your life as well. But yeah, so just start off for the people listening and anyone that don't know you, um, how did your career start? And talk us through your journey from the beginning to now.

Yeah, sure. So I, I was born in London, I grew up here. I also lived in the Netherlands for nearly 15 years of my life. I've got strong cultural roots to Pakistan Kazakhstan. And I don't know, I think ever since a young age, I've always felt this belief that each of us has an inherent responsibility to deliver positive change to the world, to the people, to the businesses we interact with. I started to realize early on that I wanted to do that through technology. I didn't study a technical degree, I did politics, philosophy, economics at university. But there I also then saw that I really enjoy solving problems and finding problems. And a particular one that used to fascinate me was, I thought it was just so difficult for students to get employability opportunities. So I started a consulting organisation that still exists today, designed to help students work with local charities, startups, SMEs. All these projects were paid for, they were funded by the big corporates or clients themselves. And then it became like an accelerator into corporate employment for the students. I think from there I said, I really enjoyed this, I want to do more of this building, the selling. Piece of work, and it's a strength that I really started to enjoy and develop. And so I initially wanted to go into banking. I did 10 weeks at JPMorgan doing fixed income sales. I realized I love selling, but bonds, just not for me. Like, it really wasn't for me. I also had a big ego problem where I kind of like rejected my offer to return out of like pride because they didn't let me do asset management and things. Not the best, um, not the best moment, but I think it like the next few months really humbled me because I went from having that offer to basically then like being rejected probably 45+ times to eventually get an offer to go to Facebook, or Meta now, where Meta again with the same belief of how can I drive change with technology, I launched our first ever UK venture capital startup program to accelerate the growth of early-stage companies through advertising, product management, ecosystem development, And that was just so much fun. I didn't know anything about VCs or startups before that, but you just learn as you go. And then into Microsoft doing digital transformations for financial services companies, and now at Google working across our clients, our sales teams, engineers, PMs on how do we bring the best of AI to the world.

Yeah, and you mentioned earlier on that you want to work in tech, you realized that quite early on. When you first like made that realization that was for you. How has your idea of having a career in tech changed from, yeah, that beginning to where you're at now? Obviously having learned so much about the space.

I think you, I think you have to identify like what's your purpose, and that was for me that I wanted to deliver positive change using technology. And then I always said I want to work somewhere be part of a mission where I can have an impact to millions and billions. And there's a few startup things I've tried which we can touch on as well, but the big tech landscape for me just gave me that really cool environment of you still get to operate like an entrepreneur with incredible resources, but it's then knowing how to use those resources because sometimes they're not always available to you for different reasons. It's like stakeholder alignment, it's getting people's buy-in, it's understanding what's up on mind, what's happening in the industry. And I think you have to also— one thing I've, I really struggle with is just going with the flow. Like, I'm always thinking, what do I want to be doing in 10 years' time? Where do I want to be in 15 years' time? So the importance of just going with the flow and trusting the people you're around and working with them and saying, how can I build a purposeful career here in, in this space?

Yeah, and the whole time that you've been in these, these big tech corporate companies, You've also been, you know, tapping into startups, you know, whether it's trying something yourself, you know, start off as a co-founder or mentoring people within it. How do you think the learnings from maybe the hustle within startups and, you know, the sort of streamlined nature of it has helped you with your job at Google, for example?

So I live by a mantra of hunger, energy, hustle. It's something that was inspired onto me by a really strong mentor of mine. How does the entrepreneurial side link into the corporate world? So back in 2020, with some mentors of mine and some, some really good friends, we launched a fitness app because we identified that the problem was people don't like motivation, they like habits. So how do you help people build healthy habits? You do it through gamified technology or building an experience that helps people like come into an app, connect with their friends, collaborate on a leaderboard through composition. You're basically gamifying exercise. And then we took that B2C app and then we switched it to B2B to say, okay, this is a big problem in corporates. Everyone is always sitting down all the time, living sedentary lifestyles. But the pressure that people feel is if my boss isn't working out, I can't work out. I have to also sit here. So then we said, okay, how do we help that problem space solve for that? And then we ended up working with like KPMG, Deliveroo, building these corporate wellbeing solutions. Working very closely with influencers and professional trainers to give this wellbeing solution to corporates to help them move. After, you know, 2 to 3 years, this startup was profitably acquired. I think the biggest thing that I learned from entrepreneurial ambitions and ideas is, I think, one, focus on the problem, not on the idea. Very so often, even in corporate, It's people come up with ideas, but do we really actually understand the problem? Have we validated the problem? Have we got enough touch points, use cases of where this problem actually exists and it's worth solving with technology and people's time? Second thing I learned there is you really have to hustle because people are very busy. There's 100 different things going on, specifically in the space of AI and GenAI. There's new products, new launches happening almost daily that, you know, it's very hard to stay up to date. So the question you have to ask is, why should anyone care about what you are doing? And then how do you bring that to life? Not through content, but through storytelling. And I think the third one that I also learned, in particular through the entrepreneurship side, is resilience. I have, I have this motto that I tell myself of eat rejection for breakfast, that so often people will tell you no. Either it's whether you're fundraising as an entrepreneur, you're trying to drive a partnership as entrepreneur, or you're a big corporate trying to either get a meeting, sell a product, work with new people, get signed up for something, you will hear no, no, no, no, no every time. How do you digest that feedback, understand that feedback, and then channel it to ultimately get that yes, get that win? And I think the skills are fully transferable. It's a mindset perspective.

I want to go back to going with the flow, and the reason I mentioned that is working in the VC and startup world is quite rare, especially early in your career. How did you manage to make that move? Was it slightly intentional or did you make opportunities as you were going along? I think it's really important, especially with access to career opportunities. Sometimes people aren't able to access these kind of spaces. So how did you manage to do it?

Yeah, I think at Meta in particular, from that angle, what I saw was that I was just curious, right? Like, whenever people join a big company, you're given a set of, like, targets or, you know, things to do, basically. I think, one, you should always ask questions of why am I doing this and what is it for? What's the big— what's the vision for success? What's the metrics? What problem is this solving? And for me at Meta, I saw quickly that we had a new opportunity that we weren't going after in early-stage companies, and that was particularly VC-backed startups that all have to go-to-market through ads, and in particular through tech solutions using Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, you know, etc. How do I learn, get immersed in that space? I think you have to be really curious. Like, the wealth of information now in the world is insane. That, just learn. So I used to spend my evenings just reading like VC papers, ecosystem trends, market reports. Then I would find time in my day to connect with like the corporate M&A team At Meta, I'd find time to speak to entrepreneurs who were previous, like, full-time founders now working at Facebook to get an understanding of, like, you know, what were you doing, what's it like, what's the problem space. I think the third most important thing is just to do it. So when I launched this program at Meta, I had zero funding, zero backing. I was told it's a waste of time, right? But you just have to take it to market. So I said, I have an idea that I can help early-stage founders grow their companies faster. Let me go find 5 founders on LinkedIn, offer you my free advice basically to start to help you grow your business, you know, help you understand how to use Facebook ads, Instagram, WhatsApp Messenger, etc. And from there, you know, you start to kind of like build a business or a program. And I think momentum and execution just helps you do that. And if you continue to learn and pivot from different learnings and challenges you come, you can eventually form it into something bigger. And by the end of it, it was a fully fledged team. It had its own resource behind it, and it was delivering significantly new incremental revenue to the business. And, you know, I scaled this from this little hacky Hashi side project late at night to a program all across EMEA that was then being looked at in the US, looked at in Singapore. So I think that last point of just doing it and taking action is very important.

And, you know, to launch such a program, you have to position yourself as somewhat a leader. How did you position yourself to allow the staff members to even trust you to get involved in such a big initiative? Because like you said, they thought it was quite like a side project, not useful, it's not going to bring revenue to company. How did you position yourself to let them believe that you could lead this project and it'd be actually beneficial?

Yeah, it's interesting, uh, how to win the trust of the people around you. So One, I think you have to be clear on why you're doing it. For me, you know, using technology to deliver change to early-stage founders was something I was always passionate about. Second, execution of like delivering results. So when I used to meet the clients, when I used to meet the investors and give them the value proposition of why this and how can we help you, they might take your phone call because you're working at Meta, But what happens after that is it's about what can you deliver, right? Like being very clear on what this is. This is a 6-month high-value program where you'll get account management, creative support, you'll do product workshops with us, we'll host investor ecosystem days, right? And being also quick to get to that because people, people lose attention very quickly. And then the second part of that is in delivering results. Like founders are stressed, most people are super stressed all the time, and what they really care about is growing their business. So it's how can I then help you basically get conversions? It might be a fintech trying to get downloads, it might be a B2B workspace solution trying to find new enterprise customers. So how can I take you as quickly as possible from launch to then results? And I think the third key one there is, I think it's being really honest, like admitting mistakes or failures. I was working on one client in particular, I mean, they're doing really well now, but you know, our relationship didn't start off in the best way. We didn't really understand each other's goals or visions, and we ended up kind of working together, but it just disintegrated because we were never clear on why, what's each other's use case, what's our R&Rs. So all of that like technical stuff is super important as well.

Since meeting you, I've loved surrounding myself around you, and even like just messaging you, and yeah, just being a fly on the wall of everything you've been doing, because it makes me feel that bit more motivated, or in an opposite way, you know, make me feel like I'm not doing enough. And And obviously I know this like super relentless, ambitious person that you are, but you also— you're somebody who likes to have fun, you like to, you know, switch off. And there might be some people listening right now that are like, wow, this guy's just so much more on it than me, like how do I even, you know, start being productive, let alone worry about, you know, how you become a leader? And is that something that you've always just had like naturally? And if so, where where did that come from? Or is it something that you've really just had to like, yeah, almost like, you know, really work on to make yourself, um, just like you said, eat, almost eat it for breakfast, right?

Like, yeah, it's, um, I, I think you, I think for me, I think you need radical self-honesty with yourself to know what are you good at and also what you're not what you're good at, right? And then I think if you play to your weakness, you can strengthen your weaknesses. But if you play to your strengths, you can multiply those strengths. And for me, you know, that the sales, partnerships, growth really stems from this, I think, internal thing that I feel, you know, I've had privilege, I've had opportunities, but I've also created my own opportunities. And it just comes from this relentless desire that I feel that I have something to prove to the world, to someone, to something, to have an impact, right? An impact is not necessarily defined by financial means. It's not— it can be defined by legacy. But I have this thing in my head right now that when I wake up every day, I want to do something big. And I might not do something big that day, but the atomic unit of a day, in a week, in a month, in a year, in 5 years compounds to multiplying your strengths and having some big impact. I never wanted to, I never thought in my life I'd work at Facebook. I was sitting in University of York's library at like 2 AM with my hand in my face, because I was like, I've turned down this job. I'm a TEDx speaker, I'm captain of this, head boy, blah, blah, blah. I can't get anywhere. But in my head, I was like, I will get it. And I will sit here and I will apply and I'll learn from my failures and I will literally eat this rejection for breakfast and I will get to where I need to go. And that was my radical self-honesty that said, you can't beat me in this game. But then also knowing that where do you take time out for yourself? And for me, that's through like exercise, that's family, that's friends. Because you do need to switch off. You do need to like not deload, but get other feedback and other perspective and people to tell you I think you're off the rails, or no, keep doing this because you're actually learning.

Yeah, I think as much as you can have that self-motivation, you do need that validation, whether it's like a load of hard work paying off or landing that job or whatever it is. And I guess once you've got that first bit that you can latch on to and like know you can progress in something and get better, I think that's very like applicable to almost every sends you like everything in your life, right? And, um, yeah, I think the thing that even say you do make that progression and you do achieve something, the hard thing then is like sort of adjusting what success looks like, like in that day, in that week, that month, that year. And, you know, almost like, yeah, pressing that reset button. Um, do you have any advice on that, on what success looks like?

I had to press reset.

How to press reset, I think I'm more interested in how to, how to like readjust that you're actually doing well when you've achieved so much in the past and maybe it's not happening the same like rate that week as it was the week before.

I, I think one is self-awareness, emotional intelligence, right? Self-awareness to know how you're feeling, what you're feeling, and then second, self-management to be able to manage your emotions, and then the emotional social awareness of knowing how to do that with people around you. And that first point of that consciousness of knowing how and when to press reset or stop is super important. And just to put that in perspective, like, you know me, I love to work out, I love to exercise. I have this like relentless mindset that just seems to keep going all the time. I hit a point last year, I think in the early summer, where I was like sleeping 5 hours a day. I was always in meetings 24/7 and it's just overload of information. I felt super stressed all the time, wasn't really happy. I was still training, I was competing, doing like CrossFit events and so on. And eventually I did one competition in High Rocks, went to the gym the next day, did a PB in a clean and jerk. And the next morning I woke up with my shoulder completely broken. Like in the sense of I had like a grade 2, 3 AC tear in my shoulder. And the next few months after that was just miserable because I couldn't do this. I couldn't move it around. I was robbed of a part of my life that helped me reset and helped me take stock of what's going on in the gym and through wellness and well-being. And eventually it just led me to a point of being miserable. But you start to realize, oh, I wish I had done— I was a bit more relaxed or had taken more time out to think and like just rest and recover. Not just physically, but also mentally, because it was mental burnout as opposed to just pure physical burnout. So I, and it's been a long road back of like physiotherapy and like now daily consistency of looking at the shoulder and doing the right things to make sure I don't end up in that position. And so I think the first thing is knowing when to stop and how to slow down. But, and secondly, what are the channels that you have right now around you that can help you do that— friends, family, networks. Doing a different kind of activity is super important. And third, I think it's also really important to be grateful for what you have and everything around you. And one thing that I'm learning a lot now, I think, from the first time we spoke, is life trumps everything. Like, quality of life and your fulfillment and your happiness beats everything else, and that's the first thing you should aspire to get.

At the university I was at, UCL, I don't know if it's just me or the people I was surrounded by, but the pinnacle of what you could do straight out of university was like, you know, your BCGs, your, you know, your top consulting firms, maybe your top IB firms. And it was almost as if like, you know, the Googles and the Metas and Microsofts were seen as like too unrealistic to get out of university. People didn't even of a try. And like, there wasn't like that same, like, maybe like spring week structure, or like, if you do this, you do this, you have a good chance getting that. What's your advice to people, like, if they did want to reach those kind of heights and work for these, like, the biggest, you know, most progressive companies in the world? How do you actually go about even starting to do that?

So I'll also add, I didn't get a single spring week. I think I was rejected from every vac scheme, winter scheme, every spring week. I think in the end, my second, second year summer internship, I had like 2, 3 summer internship offers, right? And I was like on every application. So I think, look, a big part of it is also luck, right? I think you find your way. But I think on how to aspire to— I think where the world is going in terms of AI and GenAI, like there's a report from McKinsey that says 75% of the trillion-dollar value that will be created through generative AI will be in sales operations, marketing, customer operations, and software engineering, right? Now I decompose these 4 categories into another space, and I'm like, okay, where can you build and where can you sell? And I think those 2 skill sets are going to be uniquely important going forward, underpinned by like a growth resilience mindset. So I'd say for anybody that's interested in breaking into the space, don't compartmentalize yourself into building or selling. But think of where do my skills and what is it that I enjoy apply to building or selling? And that is both technically and also commercially. And from there you can start to figure out what are the career paths, whether it's in corporate enterprise, startup, scale-up, nonprofits, apply to me. So quite often, you know, like to get into tech, there's normally two tracks. There's sales where you manage a portfolio of customers to help them grow. or you have the PM software engineering side, right? They're both playing into the sales and the building element of this. So that, I think, for a lot of graduates, just think of where the world is going and do my strengths and my skills apply to that building or kind of selling side technically and commercially? And then you can evaluate from there.

So there's probably people listening right now who want— who are really inspired by what you do and want to learn, like, how did you actually get to that level? So the question I want to ask you is How did you get to the point where you could actually manage all your workload? And I presume you didn't start where you are right now, but it was accumulation of building up the skills and habits. So a lot of people listen to this podcast might be university students. How did you cultivate that habit of being able to manage projects up to such a large scale?

Yeah, look, I'm still learning, right? I got some really tough feedback recently that I was undercommunicating on a massive project that we currently have going on. With, you know, like 35+ different stakeholders, and there's lots of, you know, Chinese whispers, there's lots of, you know, different nuances in the project and things. So I'm still learning myself in that. I think one is being really open to feedback. You know, you have the instant reaction to say, I disagree with you, this is like, this doesn't work for me, like whatever. That's the wrong, I think, mindset and attitude to have. I think you need to listen to the feedback and then digest it and actually reflect on and say, maybe there is something here. And the reality was I probably could have sent, you know, a few more emails, a few more documents, which doesn't, which doesn't sound like much, but has a huge like effect afterwards. The second thing I would add is using mentors. So for me in particular, I got so much learning from a mentor that I worked with that helped launch this fitness app. At that time he was a Big Four partner. You know, he just basically took a chance on me. And I learned so much from him, like from our very first meeting where I walked into his office, I think, you know, 18 years old or something, into London. I walked in, he's like, "Redo your tie, it looks horrendous," right? That's the first thing he said to me in his office. So then he just like coached me on like presentation skills, you know, like planting your feet, standing straight, breathing work, or, you know, how to engage different stakeholders and different networks. But the biggest thing that underpins the first two of how can you accelerate and manage so much at scale is curiosity. Like, you have to be curious about the other person, about the project, about the world, about people. But I approached this mentor of mine because at the time I was really curious about asset and wealth management. You know, I did basically what Peter Wood is exceptionally good at, right, of finding ways to interact with people in a curious, inquisitive way through either what they've done, what they know, or where the world is going. And use that to broker a relationship. Or similarly, with the tough feedback that I got, I spent a lot of time with this person to the point where I'm curious about them as a human beyond them as a corporate person. So I'm trying to get them to want to take a vested interest in me to help me grow. And I think that's really important. And I think the final thing I'd add is, is you have to then give back, right? Like, one thing I love about working with Peter Wood and why we have so many, like, conversations is I I learn, so can I pass on? But then how can I learn back as well? It's like a circle of learning and then sharing in that sense.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Another question, I want to go back to AI specifically. So there's a lot of listeners, they're probably hearing it, they think it's a buzzword. What are some common misconceptions about AI and the word opportunities for people within AI? And I want to specifically break it down to technical people, so people who might study computer science, but there might be other people who might study, for example, like you did PPE, right? You might not think AI is a route that you can get into? Are there any opportunities available? Well, there are opportunities, but like, how would you actually navigate that connection, that bridge?

Yeah, artificial intelligence, you know, is having a profound impact on the world today. I think going forward, in terms of predictive, analytical, and generative, it's really going to change the way we as humans interact with the world, but then also how businesses, which are also made up of humans, ultimately interact with other businesses and consumers. I think one, you to see where can I go in the AI space, find what interests you. So for me, right, like same thing as like, you know, 5, 6 years ago of wanting to help founders and entrepreneurs and businesses of all shapes and sizes grow. Now what I do now is I basically look at what Google solutions do we have to help businesses grow? How do we one design those products? How do we then commercialize those products? How do we then bring those products to consumers and customers and then make the whole feedback loop back? And what does that look like in, in the world and different events, but also through different partners? Then for, I think, primarily more technical, technically oriented people that enjoy coding, building, the understanding of large language models, I think it's super important to go deep in that space and see what are the sectors or what are the specific use cases of maybe LLMs that you really like or you're fascinated by. And then for the commercial people is think, what are the use cases, right? All day long as a commercial person, I'm thinking, what are the use cases? How do I apply this technology? How do I apply this research? You know, what are the industry trends? What's changing in the world that I can take some research or I can take some, take a piece of product and then apply it? And that's where the building and the selling then basically kind of come together and work together on that front. The biggest space for me that I find most interesting is generative AI, where you're giving the machine a series of inputs, but it's self-learning to then produce different outputs. You know, chatbots, creative tools. I think that they're amazing. It's fascinating. There's also an ethical responsibility amongst a lot of leaders today to ensure that the technology that is built is done so in a responsible, safe, and governance way. And how I actually liken this to myself is, you know, we had cars on the road before we had traffic lights. Traffic lights were a form of regulation. It's likely that the pace of innovation will always exceed the pace of regulation. But what you need is one, strong communication between innovators and regulators. Second is then the work of the innovators to be responsive to how the regulation is changing and what are the needs of society to you know, limit or manage is a better word how that technology is then applied and then consistent improving, right? We went from stop signs to traffic lights to maybe in the future we're seeing this with IoT devices where as cars are approaching a junction you now have sensors in roads that are looking at the speed, that are looking at, okay, are the other pedestrians also walking and what does the signal need to change to? So I think it's just be curious about how the world is changing.

Yeah, and, uh, one thing that I'm particularly curious about with your career as well is— I ask all my guests questions, I think I've asked this to you already as well— is that you would have had a certain idea going into your first job what a successful career would go on to look like, and, you know, fast forward however many years and Yeah, you've achieved so much and, you know, you're getting closer to realizing maybe what is the most fulfilling and what's not. But yeah, what would you say a successful career looks like now? Yeah, even a year on from our last conversation.

Oh, I don't know, what does a successful career look like? So I flip it and I say, what does a fulfilled life look like? I think that's really important. Like time with friends, time with family, time for myself is, is so important. I find myself at the point where I'm always like on the go, so it's becoming harder for me to block out like time for myself, right? And I think for me, a successful career is where I know I'm having a transformative impact on like key business results. I'm working on technology that can have a profound positive impact on the world. That's really important for me. And third, the life part is super important. It cannot be understated, is I'm present and I'm there for friends and family. And it goes back to my first point, right? Where that impact I want to leave has a transformative impact on myself, my family, but also, you know, you can leave a positive legacy of some kind, whether it's that one, whether it's one person saying, I really enjoyed listening to you, I really enjoyed meeting you, or whether it ends up being tens of thousands, it makes no difference because it's just that point, you know, where you've had a profound impact on somebody somewhere that has enjoyed meeting you, connecting with you, and you can do something about it. So I think I look at it— a successful career needs to also be a successful life, and I think that's really important.

Yeah, I love it. And, uh, my final question to you before I open up to the audience as well is You know why I love asking that question and why I was so interested in hearing your answer is that I ask at the end and that there's a lot of context that's gone into, you know, everything you've heard before, like, you know, all these like actual tips and tricks, the career, whatever, but then actually just learning, you know, what actually is your idea of success? Like, take, strip everything back, like, what is it? And I think similarly it's like there are loads of sort of sayings that you hear, you know, you're like, oh, 'Yeah, whatever, like, okay, I don't believe that,' like, and you're like, 'That's cringe.' And then when you start, like, actually living a little bit more, some of these phrases actually become like— you actually, you, you start saying them, you're like, 'Oh God, like, what's happened to me?' But, like, I guess that's, like, the context of, of what you've learned actually makes them hit a little bit different. Is there one sort of phrase that sticks out in your head that, like, they're like— you have that sort of situation with?

One sort of phrase. So a lot of people say that I have a lot of phrases that I come out with. But I think one thing that always stays really close to me is the idea of never giving up, right? It feeds into resilience. It's knowing your why, why you're doing something, channeling that emotional intelligence. It's being curious about the world around you. And then that resilience factor of you're going to get 100 nos all the time. Like, but be fearless, be relentless, you know, try new things, meet new people. And if you get no, it makes no difference. You just have to adapt, pivot, and just never really, never give up. Eat that rejection for breakfast, go forth in the day and finish dinner as a winner, right? So I think like we need to be super resilient in the world, both personally and professionally. Because it's tough, but there's also a lot of opportunity out there, and it starts with not giving up.

Does anyone have any questions for Hash in the audience?

So you mentioned earlier that, of course, I think you said that you were about 18 when you were working on the fitness app. I imagine you were probably surrounded by advisors and other people in the team which were potentially a lot older than you at the time, did you kind of have an issue with imposter syndrome and how did you deal with that at the time? Yeah, I mean, I think imposter syndrome doesn't leave you, like really even now I spend my day with some of the smartest minds, whether it's by academic pedigree, work experience through corporates, entrepreneurship, enterprise, you name it. I think, I think for me, I think one thing I say to a lot of like people when you feel imposter syndrome is just own it. It is fine. Most people in the room also feel it. And I think it's really important then to spend time with people that you're with, like to get emotionally invested, because then you start to actually understand and uncover what is their imposter syndrome, right? And if you can both be in a comfortable position where you can share each other's imposter syndrome, that's where you start to grow. I tell Peter all the time, like, I seem to do public speaking events left, right, and center, but I still always feel a sense of imposter syndrome to make sure that what I'm saying actually adds value. And like, what right do I have to say it? So the imposter syndrome doesn't really leave you, but that's where if you emotionally invest yourself into people around you, clarify each other's whys, and just actually talk, that's where I think you can start to uncover it. And then just have a really curious, like, learning mindset. Like, I had no right to build a fitness app other than a personal story of I went, I felt really overweight, and not just by a metric but by a feeling, to then wanting to do something about that. And you just become a relentless learner in your subject and in your field to say, how can I add value to this space?

Hi, just to give you a Context. So I'm a second year cybersecurity and digital forensics student at Middlesex and currently dealing with my application season right now. And as you said before, eating rejection for breakfast because my email be spamming, you know what I mean? So one question would be, how would you be able to keep determination during the season? And, you know, as you've mentioned as well, building up your personal brand in order to get opportunities within the industry?

Yeah, I think so. One, like, focus of where you want to work and why, or what do you want to do and why, like, within the cybersecurity space specifically for you. The second is what are you doing different? And again, like, look at the time frame, right? Like, you don't have— people don't have to be so hard on themselves and say, what am I doing different today versus yesterday, right? You can— it's your own time horizon. You can broaden it to week, month, year, et cetera. Like, what are you doing different to spark the learning, the curiosity, and moving one step closer to wanting to work in cybersecurity maybe this month versus last month? And I think radical self-honesty of, is what I'm doing actually different? Something I ask all the time. You know, we are always bringing out new products, new solutions, but the question all of our customers and all of my internal stakeholders ask is, how is this different? And you have to be really like honest with yourself to be clear of, like, what is different? And I think third, then, the knowing the, the test and fail approach, right, of you'll do a lot of things which won't work. Uh, I had, I've had lots of startup ideas which have totally flunked. I had one that has some success. So that test and experimentation and learning approach is super important into just developing that mindset for moving closer to the goal where you want to get to.

Thank you very much.

So, I mean, Peter asked you this question about a lot of people moving into consulting and finance, but then people are not moving into big tech. You said sales and core PM roles as a way to go for those, those kind of places. But I see that there's a For in, in terms of scale-up, there's not a very defined path for those things where you can use CRM analytics to grow your product. But then companies like Dropbox have like a product growth role. Do you see those kind of roles where, you know, there's an intersection of both sales and core PM roles happening? Do you see them growing in the future?

Yeah, 100%, right? Like I think even with the advent of AI or machine learning, or which was, you know, like Google has been talking about machine learning and AI, you know, like pre-2016, right? Like Sundar Pichai stood on stage at our annual developer conference in 2016 and said, we're now entering in the AI age. It was just called automation back then. I think going forward in the generative AI era, and if Sam Altman predicts we'll get into the AGI era, there'll be a confluence of skill sets there'll still be distinct, like, kind of building, selling roles, but there'll be a confluence of skill sets. And I think in particular, I think the most important thing for new people entering the industry— again, startup, corporate enterprise, it doesn't make a difference— is knowing when to be a generalist, but also then knowing when to be a specialist. And the generalist side is what are the skill sets that you have or you want to learn that that you can apply. It might be product, might be growth, might be marketing, it might be sales, it might be eng, PM, etc. And then being really radical self-honest and crystal clear, like, what's the specialism that you have, either through some form of research, deep study, previous history, or something you're going deep in now that you want to apply? And I think in the future, I can't predict the entire, like, future of, future of work, but I do see some confluence of skills, but there'll still be distinct builders and, you know, you can call them commercializers, if not sellers or partners in that space as well. Okay, thank you.

Hi, it was really refreshing to hear you today, and something that you said really resonated with me, like always have a curious mind. But the peril I see there sometimes and experience it is like there's so much that you would consume because you're curious that it can be overwhelming. And you know, you can't really push the reset button too quickly. So how do you— my question is, how do you internalize, you know, the information and content you consume because you're being curious? And how do you sort of, you know, filter that information to say, yes, this, this I would like to, you know, change my perspective, but this, let's hang on to it. So is that something?

Yeah, it's hard. I was saying this to him last night, I always feel really tired because I always feel like I'm always switched on. I'm always having, getting new information either at work or just other things going on that you just end up with like brain fatigue, right? You're just like constantly exhausted and just living on the edge. I don't think it's a healthy way to live life. Something I'm working on, but I would say that it's really important to ask yourself, why are you looking for this information? And setting clear boundaries with when you do that. So, for example, I find that, I don't know, I'm a more creative thinker in like the first half of the day. So I'll try to do, I'll try and do more creative things in the first half of the day as opposed to second half the day. I also discovered that I have like a lull period sometimes, you know, in the late afternoon, just either that could be microbiome, it could be food, it could be activity of the day, and just being really in touch with your own, like, human anatomy for that. And I think third is, third is using people around you. So quite the danger of, like, the hustle mentality, which I fully acknowledge and accept, is you want to do everything. The reality is you can't do everything. And I can't do everything. So it's who is around me that can help me, and how do I get them to want to help me move forward in my goal. So it could be you want to learn something about a new product space, a new area, a new piece of work. Who around you can help you do that? And getting them invested in your journey to also lift you up as you are also climbing. Um, I think that's really important. Otherwise, we will all just burnout, you know, and then you end up with like broken shoulders and things. So yeah, thank you.

Guess who's back? This is for like everyone. So I'm thinking of like creating my own TikTok channel because I, again, with my context, I've grew up in Edmonton and Tottenham and not everyone is on the same pathway as I am, and I just want to give back, uh, to my community as well. So how would you be able to do, let's say, content management, time management, uh, what, let's say, specifically in cyber, but let's say in tech in general? I don't know if that makes sense, but hopefully—

yeah, it does. I think so. It's not about content, it's about storytelling, and it's about bringing people on the journey with you. There's a new piece of research, it's like externally available, published by a couple of leading thinkers that people, consumers are starting to care less about brands, but they care more about individuals that work in the brands or lead the brands, right? Like especially specifically for newer stage brands, newer stage companies. And I think if you take that same thinking to what you want to do, it's about storytelling because you have to be authentic about what is that you're bringing? Are you inspiring awareness? What is it that you're sharing that's new? What is it that you're sharing that is inherently unique to you that you can then relate to the people that are going through something similar, or you're trying to transfer something to that? And then frequency, the law of frequency, that posting more does yield results is true. But I would always say, like, again, how can you continue to differentiate, upskill, upvote? I mean, Peter Wood, like, you know, would always like message me about different headlines and captions. And I love that, right? It's constantly thinking about how do I continually refresh and change my narrative, my storytelling. And it's never about content, it's about I want to take things in the minds of experts and bring them to people. And he's always looking at new ways to do that. And I think if you apply that again to yourself, it's what is it that you're learning or that you're getting? How do you apply that through your storytelling, through channels like channels and mediums like TikTok, and how do you then keep differentiating, upleveling that? I think the final thing there is to be in touch with the community. Like, the best creators or storytellers really are in touch with their community. And it's not necessarily just responding to comments, but it's like learning from those comments, right? There's so many cool tools now, AI tools that do like sentiment analysis, that go deeper into people's reasons for commenting, people's reasons for reacting. How do you take that and then reinvigorate that back through your storytelling to inspire the next generation.

Perfect, thank you.

Thanks so much for coming on.

Thank you guys, really appreciate it.

Thank you.