Wharton Tech Toks

“We saw a lot of our event creators, who were just doing real-life events, start to do more online events. So we very quickly pivoted to give them all the tools to do online events. Now we are seeing hybrid events, event creators who might be sitting in New York and used to just do a small, local event with 20-25 attendees every week, are now suddenly doing that in a hybrid format, where they still get 20-25 attendees in New York but they have 10-15 folks from London or 5-10 from Mexico City attending those events. I think that’s been good, our creators suddenly have realized they have a global footprint and they can choose to operate and the most successful ones do that pretty effectively” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to Vivek Sagi, Chief Technology Officer at Eventbrite. Listen in to learn more about Eventbrite’s innovative approach to event creation, how they are using machine learning to improve the creator and user experience, what headwinds and tailwinds the company is facing, and the launch of Eventbrite’s ad business. Vivek also sheds light on his career journey starting from enterprise software, RetailMeNot, to becoming an entrepreneur, to Amazon, and to his current role as CTO of Eventbrite. 

“9 out of 10 people that use our platform tell us that they come to get inspired. The majority of our users want to shop. So you have this wonderful intersection of inspiration and commerce on the platform. The magic of go-to-market strategy happens at the intersection of our advertising partners adding value to our users, who, in turn, help us fulfill our mission of bringing everyone the inspiration to go create the life they love.”  Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to Bill Watkins, Chief Revenue Officer at Pinterest. Listen in to learn more about Pinterest’s full-funnel advertising solution backed by computer vision technologies and commitment to driving value for advertisers and users in automated ways. Bill also sheds light on his career journey starting from Yahoo to joining Pinterest as one of the first 200 employees and helping Pinterest IPO.

“It is a political cudgel that people try to say there is a seesaw between investor protection and capital formation and market efficiency... The US has 4.4% of the world's population, and over 60% of the world's capital was raised in the US. It's because we've pursued all of those objectives. ”  Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Jordan Baker as they talk to Jay Clayton, former Chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission from 2017 to 2020. Mr. Clayton is also a Senior Policy Advisor at Sullivan Cromwell LLP, Non-Executive Chair of Apollo Global Management, on the board of American Express, and Adjunct Professor of Law at the Wharton and Carey schools. Mr. Clayton describes how crypto technology can revolutionize the financial industry, especially in terms of efficiency. When it comes to the global future of crypto, Mr. Clayton likens it to the evolution of phones in that interoperability once seemed a far-off dream but now is ubiquitous. He also emphasizes that to gain regulatory acceptance, crypto must do the current regulatory job at least as well and that investor protection is not a tradeoff with efficiency and growth. 

“If you think about how we go through our day…It’s not natural for someone to stop and switch over to email, or try to find the 1-800 number. We want to use messaging, that’s just the way we communicate.” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Cynthia Zhou on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to Matt Idema, who was most recently VP of Business Messaging Group at Meta and was previously the Chief Operating Officer at WhatsApp. Matt is also a proud alumni and holds an MBA from the Wharton School.  In this episode, Matt covers how leaders at Meta find business models, why he believes messaging is the future for business and his career development philosophy. Tune into this episode if you’re interested in learning more about commerce enablement, how to find product-market-fit and how to have a twenty-year-and-counting successful career in technology. 

“When I was ten or twelve, I thought wouldn't it be great if I found myself participating in the birth of a technology at that right time when that technology is being born. Drone technology for me is this. It is extremely challenging but fascinating to participate in the birth of a new industry.” While the delivery by drone of pizza to your high-rise window may still be far off, listen in while Andreas talks about the challenges that drone delivery is solving today. The episode covers how Matternet has been able to find its niche delivering time-critical medical products and how Matternet is thinking about expanding in the future.  Andreas also shares advice for entrepreneurs especially in learning how to build and scale a hardware startup.

“Someone who leads large teams needs to spend a material amount of time and energy to understand what the world of AI, machine learning and natural language processing mean because it’s a muscle you need to have…  If you are a student, you need to think about not only how AI helps you but how you influence where AI is going.” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to Sam Allen, EVP and Global Chief Operating Officer for Tableau at Salesforce. Sam is in his 8th year at Salesforce, with previous roles as EVP, COO for Salesforce.org, SVP, COO of Global Marketing and VP, Corporate Development and Head of M&A Integration. Listen in to learn more about Tableau’s mission, how Tableau is integrating AI, Sam’s views on responsible AI and his leadership advice for young professionals and entrepreneurs in tech. 

“We want clients to use our service in whatever way that’s best for you, your needs, your unique exposure to styling. In the longer term, we want to build a better way to shop that will change the retail paradigm and to become the blueprint for the industry to follow. ” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Cynthia Zhou on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to Janiece Okpobiri, Director of Product and Growth at Stitch Fix. At Stitch Fix, Janiece focuses on client onboarding and loyalty. Prior to Stitch Fix, Janiece was a senior PM on the Customer and Loyalty team at Abercrombie & Fitch and also held roles at Hilton. Listen in to learn more about Janiece’s product management philosophy, her perspective on how to build customer loyalty in retail, and her insights on how to build a successful career in product management.

“The worst thing you can do in your start-up journey is being paranoid that someone is going to steal your idea. Most startups will fail because of their own doing and not because someone stole their idea. For a startup it’s important to be out there, talk to people and learn what the applications are, and listen - if someone is using the product then probably they are going to be using it in a way you might not have anticipated or for reasons you might not have anticipated.” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to Roel Peeters, a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of startup experience, who’s currently the co-founder and CEO of Roost. Roel is also a co-inventor of low-power Wi-Fi Personal Area Networks (PAN) technology and successfully created a worldwide standard known as “Wi-Fi Direct”. Listen in to learn more about Roel’s entrepreneurial journey, nuances of innovating for tech hardware versus software, and the VC landscape for tech hardware. Roel also shares practical tips on how to decide whether to become an entrepreneur, identify product-market fit, hire the first few employees, refine GTM strategy, and build and sell a successful tech start-up.

“We know that AI is going to be a key differentiator in products and services, you are seeing this already in everyday life whether it is autocomplete of a search or it is within Gmail where over time it learns the words that you use and auto completes your sentences. So AI is already all around us in our everyday lives. Our principle is we want to make sure that all of our customers and users have the best technology that we can possibly provide but also there is a level of trust and assurance and they feel very safe using products and services where AI is playing a larger part” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to Will Grannis, VP and CTO of Google Cloud. Prior to this, he was the founding CEO of Google Public Sector Cloud, and the founder and managing director of the Office of the CTO at Google. Listen in to learn more about his career, Google Cloud, Google Public Sector, and the future of AI

“During the highs of the 2020-2021 era, a lot of companies were encouraged to grow at any cost. We’ve always been much more oriented around trying to grow but making sure you are thinking about your profitability and building a sustainable business.” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to AJ Jangalapalli, Principal on the Discover team at Thoma Bravo. Listen in to learn more about Thoma Bravo’s investments in Mailgun and Greenphire, the recent tech market pullback, enterprise software industry and value creation initiatives.