#137 CEO Oura, Tom Hale: Business & Backgammon

When he was growing up, Tom Hale’s family had pretty ordinary dinner-table conversations: What happened today, how was school, etc. But every day after dinner, Tom and his father would play backgammon, an experience that indirectly taught him a lot about business. Now the CEO of wearable health company Oura, he recalls that the game helped him understand risk-taking, strategy, pattern recognition, and more. Tom’s father also insisted they play for money: “If I could win 20 bucks, I could go down to the store and get something. But when I lost, I felt the sting of it. That’s the best teacher, because you’re learning the preciousness of the decisions you make.”

In this episode, Tom and Joubin discuss Tom’s radio voice, games of chance and skill, vacation rentals pre- and post-Airbnb, “irritant” service fees, health tracking, the psychology of rebranding, the consumerization of healthcare, personalized medicine, the myth of the founder-hero, rowing machines, and the meaning of work.

In this episode, we cover:

Returning to the office (00:50)
John Doerr and Macromedia (05:15)
Post-dinner backgammon (08:01)
Tom’s past jobs and HomeAway (11:31)
Competing against private startups (16:09)
How Airbnb captured demand (18:55)
Being acquired by Expedia (24:26)
What Oura’s smart rings do (26:13)
Rebranding SurveyMonkey to Momentive (29:55)
Leaving Momentive for Oura (31:54)
Making the case for himself (34:59)
The future of public health, data, and wearables (37:10)
“Sleep is strategic” (42:32)
Why Oura is an AI company (44:48)
The health impact of a taxing job (47:16)
Being a non-founder CEO (49:39)
Working with people (53:38)
What would be in a “working with Tom” doc? (54:52)
Managing the psychology of a 10-year-old startup (56:48)
Being there for family & colleagues (59:18)
Who Oura is hiring, and what “grit” means to Tom (01:02:54)

Links:

Connect with Tom
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm