From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
If you look at the balance sheets of Fortune 500 companies 50 years ago and today, you can see that 50 years ago, 80% of the value was physical stuff. Today, more than 85% of the value consists of intangibles. Companies must become so much more now that their value comes from their ability to inspire, drive and organise human beings.
Success is different for everyone, but for me success has always been about finding meaning and personal fulfillment. If I can wake up every day, feel engaged in my work and know that I tried my best to help others feel the same as me, then I feel successful.
Some of the most valuable lessons are not from seeing how they've dealt with success, but how they've dealt with failure and come back stronger and more determined to succeed.
I don't think about myself as a woman in these contexts, I think about myself as a human. I feel like role model for all young people who wants to do science – not only girls.
I've been fortunate not to be formally trained in any of these disciplines. I don't know how to play music, nor do I know how to code, but I have a strong sense of what the market wants. Around that, I build a team of people who are skilled at execution.
Success really is a team sport. There are very few successful people who competed the journey solo, and figured out how to do everything themselves.
Throughout my career, my vision for the company has not changed – creating an institution. I find this the most challenging task, not just getting in the sales and growing year on year but creating an institution that is considered part of the family by those within it.
It was visionaries with a quest for achievement who made Apollo happen, and it seems to me that now? Our sense and spirit of adventure boils down to what we can afford, and not what we can learn or achieve by doing something.
It is vital that you never, ever, ever stop pursuing excellence. And that is elusive. It's very elusive. It calls for a lot of honesty. A lot.
Many founders delay implementing governance structures and view governance as a burden rather than an opportunity. Our key message here is that governance is not just important; it's crucial.
We were both passionate that we wanted to really make a difference; soup kitchens are good, but they don't prevent homelessness. You can go to volunteer at a soup kitchen every day of the year, and you'll still have homeless people. We wanted to tackle root causes and tackle them globally.
We had amazing values at WeWork, they were distinct, they were cool and I'd never heard of them before, but there was no connection between those values and what all the employees saw on an everyday basis.