Staying healthy to keep up with work life | Scott Cutler

Scott, thank you for being here today.

Great to be here.

Good evening. Do you remember that essay that that was part of?

I do. I do.

What essay was that?

It was— I think it was a post I put out on either Medium or LinkedIn. You know, one of the things I try to do as a leader is drive cultural change within an organization, and I wrote that article mostly focused on what we were trying to do at StubHub to drive discussion in our company around how is it that we support a diverse work environment, as it said in the quote, different perspectives, because we're in a business of serving live events to customers around the world. And if we didn't sort of serve our customer needs and at our employee base didn't represent the diversity of our customers, I felt as though we were shortchanging our own opportunity. And so it was important for me to talk about what it means for us at StubHub, why this is an important conversation. So that was, you know, thanks for highlighting the article.

That was good. I didn't even find it in my research, so well done, Samantha. I'm gonna hop back into the diversity thing here in a second and maybe get into the values of StubHub. But at Draper University, as you guys know, part of our oath is pursue fairness, openness, health, and mostly— and fun, mostly fun. And so I wanted to start this off with a big 1, 2, 3, UROC for Scott. Got it? 1, 2, 3.

UROC! Perfect. Wow.

Yeah. So speaking of mostly fun, we'll start it with something fun before I get back to the other point. I know that outside of StubHub and the New York Stock Exchange, you like to stay active and have fun. So how does that affect, I guess, your mind when you're stressed out? Is it— or what do you do for fun, I guess, is the question?

Yeah, I mean, I actually, I'm involved in a lot of things in the outdoors. I wake up every day at 5 o'clock and usually I'm on my bike at 5:30. This morning I went on a 17-mile ride. with a group of people that I go with that push me way beyond my limits. I've decided that being healthy and living a healthy lifestyle actually helps me to be able to do all the different things that I've got to do. I was in Korea and Japan last week. I landed Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning I did a 50-mile bike ride to support the Canary Challenge, which is an organization that supports It's kind of a great organization. But I rode in it because someone challenged me earlier in the week. Their daughter had just been diagnosed with a very curable form of cancer. And we were gonna ride this ride together in support for her. And so, again, it was like one of those things that it was really cool to be involved in something in the community. But it also just keeps me healthy and allows me to work the crazy, insane hours and travel around the world like I do in my job.

Right, hop off a plane into a— Yeah, a bike ride's tough on anybody. Do you find that that kind of active lifestyle helps you or inspires others that you're leading?

Yeah, you know, I think in many respects the things I do outside of work define me more than what I do in work. I mean, I'm in a high-profile position, but how I serve in my community, what are the boards and the charities that I can actually influence in my position. What am I like as a father? What am I like as a husband? What am I like as sort of a member of the community is really important to me. In fact, I think it defines me more than what I do most of the time, day to day in work.

Right. You're in a high-profile position now. But at one point in your life, you did things like work at The Gap.

No, I've had— I was telling one of my kids, asked me, like, what are all the different jobs that I've had? I mean, I, you know, you look at my professional life and I have been a corporate securities lawyer, investment banker, stock exchange, StubHub, eBay. It's kind of crazy.

In that order?

That was the order, professional order. Predates that. I was a paperboy. I worked at The Gap. I mowed lawns. I dug ditches. I did drywall construction. And I worked at a mental hospital to put myself through college.

Did those jobs—

Those were jobs that defined my work ethic.

That's what I was gonna say. It had to have instilled a good work ethic in you. And how has that carried over to now the New York Stock Exchange, StubHub, and eBay?

I'll give you one example. I put myself through college working at a mental hospital. At one point in time, I thought, well, maybe I wanted to go be a doctor and doing this. And I sort of learned sort of the challenges that people were facing from adult psychiatric needs to kids that were struggling with mental health issues. And I did that for like 2 years. It was a great, really great job. It felt as though every day I was going in there helping people in need. Fast forward a couple decades later, I'm on the board of the Mental Health Association of New York City and also administers the National Suicide Prevention Line. Like, one of the most famous songs right now—

Yeah, yeah, that is the number.

—is about the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. I got on the board of the Mental Health Association of New York City meeting somebody When I was in a high-profile position in New York Stock Exchange, talking about a place that I worked in college dealing with mental health issues, and they were like, oh, wow, would you be interested in being involved in our pursuit? You actually have relevant background and experience. Now it's an unbelievable organization, but it came about because of something I did a long time ago.

Have you found that that has happened often, where something you've done in the past has kind of— benefited you in an unknown way in the future?

Everything. I mean, every opportunity, every step has come because of prior things that I've been able to do. I mean, I think being successful at what you're doing right now will open up a door, an opportunity for something in the future. Maybe what you're doing right now in and of itself will be Successful, but I've had, you know, 4 very— 5 now— very, very different careers, all kind of somewhat related. I could draw a line through them all, but no one would have constructed my career path, right, 20 years ago.

And of those 5 careers, have you ever, just on the side, tried to start a business as well? Just out of curiosity.

You know, I've— in most of my prior jobs, I've been in a position to support support entrepreneurship. And so I've never— I mean, probably being a paperboy, my first job was the thing where I ran that business. I mean, it's crazy. But I've been in and around entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship as a professional since the '90s. And whether that was as a lawyer drafting documents for a company that was trying to go out and raise our first money, to an investment banker advising companies how to buy or sell, to the New York Stock Exchange being involved in 700 IPOs and $1 trillion of capital raising.

Yeah.

To coming around to running StubHub, which was started by somebody that I worked with in investment banking like 17 years before as an entrepreneur, as a business school You went to school with the founders of StubHub? I worked alongside the founder of StubHub. He had come and gone way after I joined and ran StubHub. Actually, it was 8 years after he had already left, but I did know him back when we were both in investment banking.

You just never know how it's going to play out.

I guess just sort of the point, there is a thread of entrepreneurship that's been part of Really every job, professional job that I've had.