Guest: Josh Silverman, CEO of Etsy
When Josh Silverman joined the board of Etsy, he had one condition: “Don’t ask me to the be the CEO.” And technically, they didn’t ask. One day, he got a phone call informing him the board had elected him as the new CEO, just days before an earnings miss. He knew the odds were against him — layoffs would be necessary, and “I was going to have to be the villain” — but decided to say yes out of a sense of duty to Etsy’s users and workers. “If I can be helpful, I have a responsibility to do it,” Josh says.
Chapters:
- (00:55) - Energy management
- (02:42) - Meetings
- (09:56) - Etsy’s strategy
- (13:36) - Learning to delegate
- (17:10) - Setting an example
- (24:17) - Evite’s rise and fall
- (27:46) - Self vs. company
- (30:22) - Legacy
- (34:21) - Control and agency
- (37:44) - Joining Etsy’s board
- (40:40) - Becoming CEO
- (46:16) - Culture shock
- (48:09) - “We need you, trust us”
- (51:25) - eBay and Skype
- (57:15) - Pushed out
- (01:00:40) - Accountability and family
- (01:03:53) - Time horizons
- (01:05:55) - Gen AI-supported art
- (01:08:29) - Who Etsy is hiring and what “grit” means to Josh
Mentioned in this episode: Ken Chenault and American Express, Nick Daniel, Rachana Kumar, Ticketmaster and IAC, Etsy Studios, Silverlake, Shopping.com, Google, Microsoft, and Austin City Limits.
Links:
Connect with Josh
Connect with Joubin
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
