Jay Fulcher, CEO of Zenefits, discusses how the company disrupted insurance and HR by replacing outdated processes with mobile-first solutions. He calls humility his superpower and emphasizes that strong team culture matters more than individual talent.
Chapters
Right.
Some of the things that we teach about thinking big, might as well solve a big problem that, you know, will have a positive impact on the world. Coming in as an outsider into a new industry, how important is that to look at the industry from a different set of eyes, or do you think the expertise within an industry is something that's more valuable?
Yeah, I think it's a continuum, and I think that in some ways depending on where you are in solving some of the problems, you have to kind of slide farther to one end of the spectrum versus the other. What I mean by that is, at Zenefits, really important at the front end that we kind of came to the insurance set of issues pretty naively. And I think that's a good thing. The insurance industry is not exactly known for being fast-paced, and it's certainly not known for being innovative. One of the really cool things that we were able to bring to that was some fresh thinking about— it makes no sense. We still have insurance companies that want to talk to any of us via fax machines and landlines. Especially here in Silicon Valley, you can't even imagine that people have built business processes around archaic technology. And that's only now starting to change, but it's starting to change mostly because companies like ours have been really pushing the envelope on, you know, EDI and, and, and, and electronic, you know, delivery of data, uh, needs to get into the 21st century because it's possible. It's, it's not hard to do. And so we've invented a bunch of new ways and new business processes that can make the insurance industry just work a lot more smart, And where, frankly, you can manage your entire company on your phone. I mean, there's no reason not to be able to manage everything that you do from a leadership perspective on your phone. I do it with a company that's got almost 600 employees. I'm pretty much able to do that literally just on my phone. That's really the new world of work, and that's where work is going in the future. Having that fresh perspective around what these businesses are capable of, what these industries are capable of, I think is really important. That being said, there are some nuances that you have to go study and you have to go understand. You have to understand sometimes the underlying economic models. You have to understand, you know, so what's the business premise behind why it works the way that it works? Often in different industries, But in the one that I'm in currently, often it's really important to understand that there's some bias and some built-in obstruction to change because it's really working for certain constituents, certain companies, certain market leaders. Frankly, they don't want to see things change real quick. They don't necessarily— they want to see innovation slow down. Because it doesn't really serve their purpose for there to be a really innovative dynamic underway. Understanding that's really critical.
Right.
Because at some point or another, you're going to be running up— if you're lucky and if your company and your idea is worthy, you're going to run up against those guys. We for sure have. We're going to have to figure out how to help them to see that innovation is inevitable. It is inexorable. It is necessary. Oh, by the way, millennials, which over the course of the next 3 years are going to make up 80% of the workforce in the US, they're digital natives. They require interacting with systems and applications and data and information totally differently than the people that are in my generation. It's just a completely different dynamic. These companies who have not wanted to change and have not wanted to be innovative, they better get on board. They're now recognizing that they've got to get on board. The timing of that for my current company at Zenefits is great because we're able to be a catalyst for a lot of that change. I think for any young entrepreneur who's got a great idea, the whole idea is, can you be a catalyst for change? Can you be disruptive to an existing dynamic in the marketplace that is going to cause you to be uniquely in a position to win? If you can find that special thing, you have a great chance to do something special. Great.
To keep it in the spirit of Draper, and then I'll open it up for questions, that seems to be the superpower for Zenefits, being the catalyst of change. What do you think is What is your superpower? All of them have a superpower themselves.
Yeah.
What is yours?
Yeah, a room full of heroes, superheroes. I would say for me, I'm gonna have to explain this probably, but I think my superpower is humility. For me, you know, like when we first started visiting today, I didn't come from the the best school, although I'm on the board of San Jose State University, and I will tell you, we produce more engineers west of the Mississippi River than any other university in the country, and proudly so. More people are hired by Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn out of San Jose State than any other university. I mean, it's a really, for me, the legacy of having come from pretty, modest means and to be in a situation now where I'm trying to help not just that university, but I'm trying to help people to understand that, you know, you don't necessarily have to have gone to Stanford or Cal or MIT or Harvard or wherever. It's awesome if you had that opportunity, don't get me wrong, and I would trade places with any of you because I've had a chance to do that now as an executive back in those universities, and that's a really cool experience. But for me, this notion of humility has caused me to really double down on making sure that I've got a level of empathy for customers and really listening closely, intently to what customers and what the marketplace is telling you about really where things are and where needs and requirements are coming from. Humility, I think, has allowed me to have a bit of a superpower around my ability to connect with people. I think I've been really fortunate to have great teams around me. I've been able to build and develop great teams around me. As a result of being able to go do that, we've accomplished so much more than I would have been able to done had I not, you know, had the, the opportunity to have some, some great folks. Got a couple of my folks here in the room, and it's just, we, we, you know, sometimes it sounds a little awkward or funky when someone talks about it being a family, but there's really kind of this dynamic of, of feeling really both responsible to one another and accountable to one another, which I think is a really big deal. So I think humility would be my superpower as far as not Thinking I've got all the answers, not being afraid to go get help, go ask for advice and counsel. We've got some great people. I've got some great people on my board. You know, when you have access to Ben Horowitz at Andreessen Horowitz, if you haven't read The Hard Thing About Hard Things, it's the best business book easily for somebody at your stage of your career. easily the best, most practical book about the challenges of starting a business and being a young, new CEO. When you have access to people like that, it's a phenomenal thing. You've got to have what I call the right ego-to-intelligence ratio. I got plenty of ego, but I think it's in balance with understanding what— knowing what I don't know and knowing where I can go for help. And then not being too proud to go get help. And so, that dynamic has served me really well.
That's awesome. And his humility is evident with the team culture. I've been speaking to his team for quite a while now. Very helpful. He didn't have to be here today taking the challenge with such a big company.
I'm sure you were— Best part of my day.
Yeah. Living a great life before Zenefits.
Yeah.
And this was a huge challenge, so it is evident. With that, I'll open it up for questions. I'm sure you guys have some.
