Grit #114 CMO GE, Linda Boff: Play ‘Til the Whistle
In Silicon Valley when business is good, it's normal for top talent to hop from company to company to company. But GE's Linda Boff, described by at least one of her peers as the "Beyoncé of CMOs," has stayed at the 130-year-old conglomerate for nearly 20 years, through radical changes to the business structure, and with plans to split into three public companies on the horizon. She attributes her longevity to the fact that four out of five days of any week, she's excited to come in: "I believe in this company," Linda says. "I would have the hardest time if that went away, and it never has."
In this episode, Linda and Joubin discuss helping young people succeed, finding your passion, the 1980 Winter Olympics, Thomas Edison, Twitter advertising, sticktoitiveness, being excited for work, being impatient, trying to please everybody, and calendar time management.
In this episode, we cover:
- How a chance encounter with Video Monitoring Systems founder Robert Cohen changed Linda's life (03:17)
- Where Linda's work ethic came from, and her serial internships (06:21)
- Elon Musk and brand safety on Twitter (12:47)
- Why Linda has worked at GE for almost 20 years, and how it became an "industrial powerhouse" (15:22)
- Choosing to stay and giving a shit (21:40)
- How much should you love your job? (25:57)
- If she were starting over, what would Linda do differently? (32:09)
- Getting the truth & what other people think (34:38)
- Linda's calendar and writing thank-you notes to coworkers (38:55)
Links:
- Connect with Linda
- Connect with Joubin
- Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
- This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm