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From Business School Professor to Venture Capital CFO: Steve Glover's Leadership Journey · The Inspired Stories Podcast

0:04
Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast,
0:08
where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
0:11
their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
0:14
adversity. My name is Anthony Codispodi,
0:17
and today's guest is Steve Glover, chief financial officer
0:21
and administrative partner at Pelion Venture Partners.
0:25
Now Pelion has been in business for over 30 years and is
0:28
deploying their 8th venture fund.
0:31
They invest in early stage technology companies, sometimes
0:35
before the company has revenue, but more commonly Pelion invests
0:39
when the company has 2 to 5 million in revenue.
0:42
Pelion typically has a seat on the board of directors and it's
0:45
mission is to work with talented entrepreneurs to help them scale
0:49
their business by providing customer connections, talent
0:52
recruitment, business and market insights, and being a sounding
0:56
board for the entrepreneur. Because let's face it, being
1:00
ACEO of a startup company is very hard and can often be
1:03
lonely. The Steve brings a wealth of
1:06
knowledge from his decades as a Business School professor and
1:09
associate Dean at the BYU Marriott School of Business, and
1:14
he's earned recognition as an Outstanding Auditing Educator.
1:18
He has served on the US Auditing Standards Board and as president
1:22
of the Auditing section of the American Accounting Association.
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He's a certified public accountant and received the
1:29
Deloitte Wildman Medal Award for his impactful publications.
1:34
He also contributed to various widely respected auditing,
1:38
teaching, research and practice resources.
1:41
Through his extensive experience and leadership, Steve enjoys
1:45
mentoring talented, ambitious professionals striving for
1:48
success. Now before we get into all that
1:51
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AD back benefits.com. All right, back to our guest
2:25
today, Administrative partner and CFO of Pelion, Steve Glover.
2:29
I appreciate you making the time to Share your story today.
2:32
Thanks, Anthony. It's great to be with you.
2:34
Great to meet you. And I will tell you, this is my
2:36
first podcast. I've done other presentations,
2:40
I've done broadcast, but thanks for having me.
2:43
We'll see how this goes. I'm confident in your abilities
2:46
here. I'm looking forward to it.
2:48
So we ran through a list of your background, your accolades, your
2:54
experience. What first attracted you to the
2:58
world of accounting and finance? I didn't have a lot of
3:02
background, I didn't have family members.
3:04
My dad was a high school teacher and in in hindsight, it was
3:08
pretty naive. I wanted a professional degree
3:11
and I actually wanted this little university time as I
3:14
could get, and that led me to accounting ACPA.
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Ironically, as you mentioned, I then got a PhD and spent years
3:23
as a professor, so my master plan probably didn't work out
3:27
all that well in terms of minimizing university.
3:30
I love that. So the plan was, let's look at
3:33
the course requirements. What's the professional major I
3:36
can get out of here with? With the least amount, of
3:38
course. An attorney would have taken at
3:40
least out of the year. I'm like Nope, I'm going to go
3:43
with the accounting program. And boy did you get lucky.
3:46
It just clicked it fit. Huh.
3:48
Yeah, You're you're right. It it fit and it's been a great
3:51
career. So you were an auditor for KPMG
3:57
and Director of the US National Office of PwC.
4:03
What was the most interesting project that you worked on at
4:07
PwC and what did you learn there that you still utilized today?
4:12
Yeah. So I was an auditor 3 years way
4:15
back when. Then I go into this doctoral
4:18
program, which is 4 years. I was at university for six
4:21
years, long enough to get what's called tenure continuing status.
4:26
And then I said great thing about a university career.
4:29
I said I want to put that on hold and go back to practice.
4:34
So I was on leave from university, moved to New York
4:36
City area in the national office of Price Waterhouse Coopers and
4:42
PwC at the time. They're like, what are we going
4:44
to do this professor? So the natural place was to put
4:47
me into some training. So I started to develop
4:50
training, which that was fine. That was great.
4:52
The training had to be reviewed by their practice partners, the
4:55
methodology partners, the risk management partners.
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So I get a call. It's like, is this the
5:00
professor? I said, yeah, it's like, where'd
5:02
you come up with this material? And I, I've done research in
5:05
this area and they said, actually your training is better
5:08
than our methodology and our policy.
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So we're going to bring you over and have you work on our
5:13
policies. So it was fun.
5:16
We started working on what I'd call fundamentals, building
5:19
blocks of what auditors do, the judgments they have to make.
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And the question we had is, will the practice have an appetite
5:26
for this, you know, new methodology, which is really
5:29
back to the back to basics. And I was there a very historic
5:34
time a year before the massive frauds of Enron and Worldcom to
5:39
a year after. So what happened was these
5:41
projects that were kind of on the back burner got pushed right
5:44
up front. The result of those frauds was
5:49
oversight, regulatory oversight, the public company accounting
5:52
oversight board. So boom, we're we're deploying
5:56
new policies, new methodologies, all.
5:58
The stuff that you had been working.
5:59
On yeah, behind all over the world.
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You know, I'd, I'd go to Spain and somebody'd say, how was
6:03
Spain like? I don't know.
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I got to the airport, I got in a cab, I went to a hotel.
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I trained for two days. I got back in a cab and flew
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home. And so that, that was
6:13
fascinating. And I, I then consulted with PwC
6:17
and some other firms for about the next 20 years as a subject
6:21
matter expert. Wow.
6:24
And so just sort of by happenstance, they're like,
6:28
Professor, let's put him in the training.
6:30
The training materials you were coming up with were so advanced.
6:33
They're like, we got a better spot for you.
6:35
And then just the timing of what was going on in the world with
6:38
the Enrons and things blowing up.
6:40
That's right, the. Auditing work that you had been
6:43
sort of building the scaffolding for now became really important.
6:46
Yeah, yeah, right place, right time.
6:50
And it was super rewarding. I, I came back to the
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university, I was kind of working 2 full time jobs.
6:57
I'm still trying to roll out this methodology for PwC, trying
7:00
to get back. And it was interesting.
7:02
I was teaching a master's class and I was so excited to teach
7:05
them all the things that I've been doing.
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And a few weeks in, I realized, oh, I'm speaking at a pace and a
7:13
level that a graduate student has no idea.
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I had to just slow it back down, cut back materials because I'd
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been in the national office, you know, at the leading edge.
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And I, I was so excited to deliver all of that and pack it
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into a class. And but the, the big advantage
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of being that involved in practice is, you know, our
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students have a pretty strong BS filter.
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And I remember the first time they started fact checking me
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with their phones, I'd say something and hey, the guy's
7:45
right. But by being that involved in
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the practice, they settled down and they started having faith in
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the process. And I, I guess if you consult
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with these large firms, I guess he can teach us something.
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So that that made the classroom just a lot of fun.
8:01
That's so interesting. It's I'm several years removed
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from having been in a college classroom.
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You know, the Internet wasn't really a thing.
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Certainly, you know, mobile phones, smartphones weren't a
8:12
thing. Never occurred to me that people
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are fact checking their professors during the lecture.
8:16
Yeah, yeah, no, it's, it's funny because you know, I would say I
8:20
think it's either this or that. And then like a minute, 2 later,
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it was the first one. So then you kind of get used to
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saying could somebody look this up?
8:31
And then that's right. That was the company.
8:32
Here's the story. Or something like.
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That that's fun. OK, so how did the opportunity
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to join Pelion come about? Yeah, that was not part of a
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master plan. So I'm having this great career.
8:45
What I liked was the variety. I loved teaching, but just like
8:49
the students, I would count down the days to the end of the
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semester, and I loved the hard break.
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I realized if all I did was teach, I'd burnout.
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I loved the writing and the research, particularly the
9:00
creativity of a new idea gathering data.
9:03
But I also realized if I just did that, I'd burn up.
9:06
I love consulting, but we had a young family, and I couldn't
9:09
convince myself doing that at that level would be the right
9:14
fit. But that combination was just
9:16
great. And then, as one does, you get
9:19
invited or voluntold to get into administration.
9:24
So I first became a department chair, then an associate Dean,
9:29
and after that 7-8 year run, it's common to take a
9:33
sabbatical. OK, you've just had a long run
9:35
administration take a little leave.
9:37
So this is now 20 years from the last leave when I went to PwC
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and the new Dean had said, you know, you could go back and just
9:46
be a regular faculty, You'd be great at that.
9:48
But we'd love to use your talents to run our help run our
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Rollins Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology.
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So I said, OK, I'll go out to incubators and competitions in
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the start up space. And I'd met donors and the BYU
10:05
Network and I was actually on a trip with the managing partners
10:08
of Pelion and they were curious. They say, hey, what are you
10:10
going to do during your sabbatical?
10:12
I don't know. I'm going to go out to
10:13
incubators and this and that. And they're like, you know what
10:15
we do, right? And I knew a little bit of what
10:18
they did. They're like, we're seeing
10:20
pitches all the time. Just come hang out with us.
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So I started to hang out and I realized it was a little odd,
10:26
you know, like who's this weird professor that comes up once in
10:29
a while? So I said to him, I'm already
10:32
getting paid by the university. Let me just come and be part of
10:34
the team. Just give me projects, put me to
10:36
work, take me to board meetings. So the, the just for fun.
10:40
Yeah, just for fun. And one of the partners, he's a
10:45
hoot. He would be coming to a board
10:46
meeting and he'd introduce me and he'd say, this is Steve.
10:49
He's our fall intern. So I was just around and working
10:55
on projects. And in hindsight, there were
10:57
clues and hints. I didn't see any of them.
10:59
At one point the managing partner, Blake said, hey, could
11:02
we hire you one day a week? And I said Nope.
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And he kind of looked at me and he said I'm, if I'm at the
11:07
university, I cannot have another employer.
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Now, if there are consulting projects that's paid
11:12
professional development, that's a win win.
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I can do that. So he goes, OK, by the way, he
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announces we're going to hire Steve one day a week.
11:19
It's like, no anyway, right? Got to use the right
11:23
terminology. Here exactly, very much in the
11:25
terminology as a professor. So a few months later he comes
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in and COVID had hit. I'm still hanging out because
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they're open, everything else is shut.
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And I'm thinking, wow, how am I going to go get exposure to the
11:38
rest of this ecosystem? And he says, just just leave
11:43
BYU, come be our CFOCOO, whatever title you want.
11:47
And honestly, it was a shock. I, I literally said, why would
11:51
you do that? And he said, what do you mean?
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I said, I have never done that and I haven't, this is not my
11:56
industry of expertise. And he said, oh, you're going to
11:59
figure, figure our industry out. We just want the whole package,
12:03
which I interpreted to be I had more Gray hair than anybody
12:06
else. They just wanted a Gray haired
12:08
at the they. Just want an old guy.
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And so the university was awesome.
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I went to them and said I kind of want to explore this.
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So I went from a paid leave to a personal leave.
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And I told Pelion, you really ought to try me before you buy
12:24
me because you don't go to universities to find operators.
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And I kind of want to try you before I buy you because I got a
12:31
great gig at BYU. So I did that for about 10
12:35
months. Questioning your ability to do
12:36
this at. This point.
12:38
Even even with the background at like Price Waterhouse, Coopers
12:42
and and all the other things. That you've done there.
12:43
There were times, the PwC, where I got exposed to something so
12:47
technical that I realized I could do it, but it would be
12:51
like eating food I don't like to eat.
12:53
So I ran into places where, yeah, that's probably not a
12:57
natural fit for me. No, at PwC it was this area
13:04
called derivatives. And I'd understand a piece.
13:06
Then I get in a room with 12 partners and I realized all 12
13:10
of them had a different expertise and they were all
13:13
deep. And the first one made my brain
13:15
hurt, let alone try to figure out all these others.
13:19
So no, I didn't know the industry, I didn't know the the
13:21
company, the team. So I figured what a low risk way
13:25
to try this risky endeavor. And you know, it's interesting,
13:29
Anthony, had I tried something like this maybe 15 years
13:31
earlier, I think I would have been a nervous break because I
13:34
would have wanted to know everything On day one when I
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rolled in, I'm like, I don't know everything and I'm OK
13:41
saying I don't know, but I'll figure it out.
13:43
And fortunately, that's. Something you got more
13:45
comfortable with saying with age.
13:48
Yeah, you know, the the experience has allowed me to say
13:51
either I'll be able to figure it out, I'll be good at it, or I
13:53
won't. I'll go back and do the
13:55
universe. You had a fall back.
13:56
You had a fall back. Yeah, so, but, but you're right,
14:01
the collection of experience allowed me to add value right
14:04
away while I was trying to figure out the technicalities
14:08
and my finance team was really great.
14:12
So yeah, it's in hindsight, I, I sort of see how the pieces of
14:16
the puzzle came together, but it wasn't in my case a deliberate
14:20
strategy. I didn't know much about the
14:22
asset class or. At what point did it kind of
14:26
click for you and you're like, Oh yeah.
14:28
Yeah. OK, so this happens when you sit
14:30
in a meeting and you're trying to figure out what in the world
14:33
they're talking about. So I'm looking up the
14:35
terminology live, which means I'm behind the conversation.
14:41
Then there comes a time where you actually start tracking the
14:44
conversations and then you know when something happens, when all
14:47
of a sudden you're ready to contribute and you say, why are
14:51
you thinking about it that way, 'cause I'd think about it this
14:53
way. Then they turn over and they're
14:54
like, where'd that come from? Then you start having fun 'cause
14:58
you can bring a different perspective to these otherwise
15:01
super smart people and a challenge in a in an appropriate
15:06
way, sort of the status quo or the way they're thinking about
15:10
it. OK, all right.
15:11
Now let's get into what Pelion actually does.
15:14
Yeah, let's hear it from your words.
15:16
Yeah, Pelion is for those who don't know the asset class,
15:20
venture capital will go out and find investors.
15:24
They could be pension funds, institutional investors, family
15:27
offices, high net worth individuals will raise money.
15:31
We don't take the money in, they make a commitment.
15:34
So our current fund is $500 million.
15:37
It's a large early stage venture fund.
15:39
It's our 8th fund. So if you're an investor,
15:43
Anthony, you'd say, OK, I'm in for 100,000.
15:46
We won't call 100,000. We'll go find a great company
15:50
and then we'll call a piece of that 10% of that.
15:54
So over the first five years of a fund, we'll make initial
15:57
investments, then we'll sit on the board.
16:00
And our goal is to help that entrepreneur to be successful.
16:05
Quick question, Steve, sorry, sorry to interrupt.
16:08
How often is it that people commit the money and then when
16:12
you go to say, hey, we're ready to invest that commitment,
16:15
they're like, sorry, no, can't do.
16:17
Yeah, it for us, it's very rare that what will happen is
16:21
sometimes someone will commit, they'll have a life change.
16:24
Usually it's individuals or maybe they have another business
16:28
that they want to run. And So what they'll come to us
16:30
and say, I could do it, but it'd be a stretch.
16:34
And then they'll say you think someone else would like to buy
16:37
the my commitment. And by that point we've already
16:41
invested. So it's not a blind pool.
16:43
So then you go to somebody and say you're these great companies
16:46
we've already invested in, would you like to buy the rest of that
16:49
commitment? Or if it's small enough, the
16:51
partners will just buy the commitment out and we'll take a
16:54
bigger personal stake. OK.
16:56
Yeah. So we we're looking for great
17:02
companies, really great entrepreneurs, great founders,
17:06
particularly when we're investing pre revenue.
17:08
It's got to be this is a person we'd take a phone call from at
17:12
8:00 at night when things aren't going well on a Saturday, right?
17:17
We'll take a board seat. And then with the expertise of
17:20
seeing the start up happen over and over and over, we try to
17:22
just help them avoid, you know, the traps, their hurdles, help
17:28
them get customers, help them think about talent acquisition
17:32
and when to scale, when to sort of pour on the fuel to, to
17:37
really grow fast. And then our business is there's
17:40
an exit, it's acquired by another company, they go public,
17:45
those proceeds come back and we distribute to our investors.
17:49
And if you're an investor at a Pelion Fund, our goal is after
17:53
all expenses I've been paid out, you put in a dollar, you get 3
17:57
back. So are you guys taking over like
18:02
any centralized like admin function, legal payroll, HR like
18:08
like sort of centralizing that for all of your port Cos?
18:11
Or we, we don't. But yeah, there's some models
18:13
where they kind of bring in early and they say we're going
18:15
to Add all that. We take an equity position 8 to
18:19
15%. So we don't take a majority
18:22
position. We're not running the company.
18:23
We don't want to operate, but we'll be as involved as that
18:28
founder wants us to be and we can bring in, for example, I was
18:32
just meeting with our HR professionals and I said I think
18:37
our firm Pelion doesn't need a lot of the services right now
18:40
you're offering, but our start-ups do.
18:43
So we can send them say a beginner employee handbook, just
18:48
things that they want to have for hygiene of a business.
18:52
And then we'll say and you can get some sort of free time from
18:57
our HR consultants. We'll give them some initial
18:59
guidance on cash management. But we're not operating and
19:04
we're not providing those services, although we'll
19:06
facilitate and network into them.
19:09
And so when you're talking about helping with marketing, kind of
19:12
helping find customers, it's more like introductions to
19:15
people within your network kind of a thing.
19:17
Exactly. And with some of our younger
19:20
partners, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll do something like
19:24
we'll try to win the Internet for the day.
19:26
So we'll blow up Twitter and LinkedIn when when one of our
19:29
companies has a product launch. And so we use our network to try
19:34
to get that awareness out. What was a recent launch that
19:39
you? Guys are excited about, yeah, we
19:41
we've done one for a company called Redo as they had a
19:43
product launch when we announced Fund 8.
19:47
Weird, even though it's not a, we're not a public company,
19:50
NASDAQ wanted to recognize it. Why?
19:53
Because they want access to our portfolio companies.
19:56
So we went out with some of our CE OS, rang the bell, got on
20:00
the, you know, sort of the, the, the big screens and so forth.
20:05
And then we try to win the Internet for the day.
20:07
So for ourselves or for our portfolio companies?
20:12
And so that's just blasting all the socials getting, you know,
20:15
pulling as many levers and as strings as you can with
20:18
connections that you have and. And by the way, this is not my
20:21
expertise. They'll often give me the copy,
20:23
I'll customize it. And frankly, if you're to go
20:26
look me up, the only thing I post is when it's time for one
20:29
of these, and I'm shocked, I'll get this report back.
20:32
This for me is amazing 'cause I don't know anybody follows or
20:36
sees anything that I do. So I'll get like 6700, you know,
20:42
views or posts, which to me, if I had two, I'd be pretty happy.
20:46
So it's not me, it's them creating this buzz on a date and
20:50
then they'll they'll get hundreds of thousands.
20:52
So. You know, you mentioned, you
20:55
know, one of the things you're kind of looking for is, is this
20:57
the kind of person would want to take a a phone call from at 8:00
21:01
on a Saturday night? And so maybe you can walk us
21:04
through a specific example and you can omit names if that's
21:07
important, of a time where, yeah, one of your start-ups, one
21:10
of your founders, they hit a wall, like they hit a crisis on
21:13
something and you or your team were able to kind of step in and
21:17
kind of help. Right, that ship.
21:19
Yeah, as you might imagine, creating something from nothing,
21:25
it happens all the time. So what's common is maybe 2
21:29
founders stop getting along. That's tricky because you have
21:33
to figure out what that exit is in an early stage company, what
21:36
that value is. Sometimes a friend of theirs is
21:40
really great as the chief technology officer until you get
21:45
enough scale and enough growth that they can be a part of the
21:48
team, but they're really not the leader.
21:53
During COVID, we had companies that we thought that was going
21:55
to be the death blow, and we saw other investors run.
22:00
We jumped in and said, all right, what do we got?
22:02
How do we do this? How can we help you through?
22:05
When those companies figure out how to get through, they're
22:08
stronger, they're better. And what we develop is this Uber
22:13
loyalty on both sides, right? And they're the kind that
22:17
they'll they'll recommend us to other founders.
22:20
And if they exit that company, they'll come back around the
22:24
next time and we'll be partners again in terms of a company.
22:27
And he said there was one example where other investors
22:31
were running away and you guys were like, no, we're in What?
22:36
What was it that you saw that when everybody else was zigging,
22:39
you were zagging? Yeah, I I'd say that's a, that's
22:42
a philosophy of a Pelion. I think over time it's something
22:48
they've developed. It's just the right thing to do.
22:51
If we believed in the business and the founder enough to invest
22:54
money, we know they're not all going to be home runs.
22:58
We know it. So if we know that, we can still
23:02
honor and respect the founders. So sometimes that looks like a
23:07
pretty disappointing exit. You know, from a investment
23:12
standpoint, maybe that's 30 or $0.50 on the dollar.
23:15
It's still an exit for the founder.
23:18
They've learned a ton. There are some shops that say
23:22
once we're not going to put more money in and it's not working,
23:25
we're not going to invest time, we need to move on, right?
23:29
I think we found that it's the right thing to do.
23:32
It's the right way to treat people.
23:34
And again, those founders, they've got some St. smarts that
23:38
they didn't have before they started that company and they
23:41
have a drive and a hunger to be successful.
23:44
They'll come back around. So it's the right thing to do
23:47
and it actually ends up being good for for business.
23:52
So tell us how you're different. I mean, what you're describing
23:58
sounds really great. There are other funds that do
24:00
similar things. What sets you guys apart at
24:03
Pelion? Yeah, I've, what's interesting
24:06
is I, I can be an outside view. I've been only at Paleo now for
24:10
for five years. And like, like with other
24:15
businesses, what these guys had been doing was just grinding,
24:20
just working, being smart, making smart investments.
24:24
And at at the point that I joined, I'd say their flywheel
24:29
was turning better than they thought.
24:31
They were still in absolute heads down grind mode.
24:34
And what we've realized is we have a pretty great brand.
24:38
It's one of the best brands nobody's heard of.
24:40
And so part of what we've been doing is saying what does
24:45
distinguish us, right? So founder first, I think we
24:48
describe ourselves as hard working, smart people that
24:52
really enjoy working with each other.
24:55
And we take a collective view. Some firms, if, if you source a
24:59
deal, that's your deal. And we still have some
25:02
attribution about who was the one that found it and sourced
25:05
it. But we, we win collectively, we
25:07
lose collectively. And the founders sort of see
25:11
this is a great vibe. This is a good group of people.
25:13
High character, high integrity, hard.
25:15
Work partnership. You're not.
25:16
Fighting against each other You're not.
25:18
Fighting against each other and and that comes from the top very
25:22
generous managing partners. So something that's unique is
25:27
the upside for the venture side of the business is if things go
25:34
really well, we in turn all of the investor money then we share
25:37
in the upside. That's called carried interest.
25:41
At a lot of firms that carry interest goes to the top
25:44
partners. At our firm, everybody in the
25:48
firm has access to carried interest either by name or in an
25:52
employee pool. And that creates this.
25:55
We're all in this. When there's an exit, everybody
25:58
participates. And that's, that's an abundance,
26:02
A generosity mindset from our our founding and our managing.
26:06
Partners. So the next question I want to
26:09
ask Steve, I'm going to challenge you to break this down
26:14
in a way that layperson can understand because in your role
26:18
as CFO you handle fund valuations, investment
26:22
allocations. Can you describe in a way that
26:26
we can understand some unique methods or frameworks that
26:29
you've introduced to ensure fair and forward-looking valuations,
26:35
especially for early stage companies?
26:38
Yeah, it's a great question. And you, and you can imagine
26:40
there's some art, there's a little bit of science, there's
26:42
some judgement, there's some industry benchmarks.
26:47
When we're investing in early stage, there's not a lot of
26:50
track record. There's not financials, we can't
26:52
do projections. So the early valuations are
26:56
really what investors are willing to pay.
26:59
So you'll price around, right. So if we invest in 10% of a
27:03
company, we and we, whatever dollars we put in, you can
27:06
multiply that essentially by 10 to know what the value you're
27:10
placing on the enterprise. What we look for is to help that
27:14
company be successful. This was a surprise to me.
27:18
Often the next round will be we'll participate, but will be
27:23
led by an outside sophisticated an investor.
27:28
Why do we like that? Because they're coming and
27:30
taking an independent look. They're going to price their
27:34
round and then we'll mark up our evaluation to what that priced
27:39
round is. So the, the sort of the, the
27:42
easy model is if there's a priced round, we're going to
27:45
mark essentially to that round now in between priced rounds you
27:50
look so. What do you do if you don't?
27:51
Have that. What you look to see is are
27:53
there meeting beating expectations?
27:55
Are they growing revenue? So if they were worth this and
27:59
they're producing 3 million in revenue, if they're jumping to
28:02
30 million in revenue, their valuation is growing.
28:05
So then their multiples and models will look at the hardest
28:10
are when things are just kind of flat and they're struggling.
28:13
At what point do you start saying it's not even worth what
28:16
the priced round was? And, and there are models when
28:21
we get a really complex valuation because we're audited
28:25
by auditors, right? So we have to stand behind ours
28:28
and have rigor. So we'll hire a third party
28:32
valuation. So we'll do it.
28:34
We'll provide them the information, they'll come in and
28:37
they'll look at other comps flows, projections and and then
28:45
we'll come up with, by the way, this is an area that I
28:48
researched before and what I would tell you as a professor,
28:52
we can come up with a point estimate, but the plus or minus
28:56
the uncertainty bound around that's significant.
29:00
So we kind of all nod and wink and say here's a point estimate.
29:04
Then if we ask could it be higher or lower, we say Yep so.
29:09
So when you talk about these different models, is there like
29:12
a like a standard list of like 10 different models where you're
29:16
like, oh, this one sort of fits, let's pull this one out and
29:19
we're going to tweak it a little bit.
29:20
Yeah, Yeah, that's right. So there's a handful of models
29:23
and actually the accounting standards lay those out.
29:26
So a price round, there's an option pricing models, you enter
29:30
in things into a into a mathematical formula.
29:35
There's discounted cash flows, which is better for later stage.
29:41
There are market comps as they start getting to the size and
29:45
shape that you could compare them to public companies.
29:48
And so you'd say you could look at a list of 20 public companies
29:54
and a simple example would be if they're trading at five times
30:00
revenue next 12 months or past 12 months revenue.
30:04
That's a ballpark for an early stage and then you might back
30:08
off depending on what you know. So you you basically.
30:11
Would you would you price an early stage at a similar
30:14
multiple as what you see trading publicly?
30:17
Yeah, it's a good question. What's interesting is in
30:18
different market conditions, sometimes the, you know, the
30:21
private dollars are getting even higher multiples or lower
30:25
multiples. So then you go through that
30:26
thought process to say what is the realistic comparison?
30:30
We don't take the top of the public company.
30:33
We don't take the bottom. You'll see us say, should they
30:35
be at the median and should they be at the, you know, first
30:39
quartile? So the answer is we don't just
30:42
do that, but it's informative as we go.
30:45
And sometimes we'll do that, take a discount.
30:49
How much does a motion factor into these?
30:51
Valuations. Super good question.
30:53
So imagine you're the partner sitting on the board.
30:55
You're the one that made the investment.
30:58
You're very emotionally tied in. You want them to be successful.
31:02
You're sure the projections are going to come.
31:05
So as a finance team, we'll come to you.
31:07
We're going to get all of that. And then we try to be as
31:10
objective as we can. We want to hear all the emotion.
31:14
We want to know why you're passionate about it.
31:16
And then we say, are there signs data can, does the model support
31:21
that? And then we'll have, you know, a
31:23
crucial conversation where you say, I think it's worth this and
31:27
we say we think it's worth that. And then what what we've learned
31:32
is what it's worth on paper is interesting.
31:36
What it's worth when it exits, that's what matters.
31:40
So we'd say to you, what's your hurry?
31:42
Go build a great company with that founder, right?
31:45
Help them when you get an exit. We're all going to agree what
31:50
the value is and we hope it's higher than what we're
31:53
anticipating. But we'd like to be sort of slow
31:58
to write up so that we're not telling our current investors
32:02
it's worth this when the exit's going to be here.
32:06
Is there ever FOMO that kicks in?
32:08
You're getting competitive with other funds for an opportunity
32:11
and you're like, oh, we, we're going to do this now.
32:14
We're going to do this to kind of meet where they're at.
32:17
The answer is yes. Some of that happens because the
32:23
investing partners won't understand what we're trying to
32:27
do from finance and accounting reporting.
32:31
And we know by the way the we have an auditors come in,
32:34
they're going to look at all these, they're going to kick the
32:36
tires and they see lots of funds.
32:39
But you're right, there is pressure to have what a higher
32:43
sort of market value on your balance sheet, what the value is
32:47
hypothetically. And I think our finance team
32:51
sort of built up the reputation that will be fair.
32:54
We're not trying to be naysayers.
32:58
But it it it's painful to do a write up and then all of a
33:03
sudden realized it's just not happening and then have to take
33:06
a write down. South Steve, in your position
33:11
you've you've been in the academic space, you've been on
33:14
the corporate side of finance, you you understand kind of these
33:18
two different worlds. You mentioned that you know,
33:20
often people aren't shopping from higher education for
33:25
operators. But I'm curious, from your
33:28
perspective, what do you believe start-ups often misunderstand
33:32
about financial management and how can you help them course
33:36
correct? Yeah, they'll often under invest
33:41
in sort of financial processes, talent, back office.
33:47
It makes perfect sense if you're two people starting a business
33:52
and you don't have product market fit, you don't have
33:54
revenue the least the last thing you want to worry about is
33:56
paying somebody to track nothing.
33:58
So it makes sense you don't invest early on.
34:02
What happens is when, when a great company is really great,
34:04
it takes off and they tend to think about the policies,
34:10
processes, reporting finance as an afterthought.
34:14
The the downside is you can run out of cash.
34:18
You're doing so well, but the scaling process is really
34:21
capital intensive. So you need somebody to model
34:24
out when do we need to raise funds right?
34:27
If you run out of cash and you haven't started a fundraise
34:29
process, you risk disappointing customers and having to lay
34:34
people off right in the middle of scaling up.
34:38
The other thing I don't know about you, I have lots of
34:39
friends who have started businesses and most of them have
34:44
had embezzlement or theft because they just trust and they
34:48
don't think about it and it's too easy for someone a a sole
34:51
person. So we really worked through that
34:54
early on. We'll give them some guidance
34:56
and then our board member will watch and say you're the size
35:01
and shape and a pace where you need help, either a fractional
35:05
controller, CFO and then we'll use our network.
35:10
Often these people have had great experience.
35:13
They might have an exit, they'll take six months or 12 months off
35:16
and then we'll phone them and say we have your next adventure
35:19
ready. Come back and you know, lead
35:22
your lean in on this next start up.
35:25
That's fun. So you won something called the
35:28
Deloitte Wildman Medal. What is this and why was it
35:34
awarded to you, Steve? Yeah, thanks for pronouncing it
35:38
that way. That's the right way.
35:39
It's a guy's name, and he was a leader with Deloitte.
35:44
People at my firm like to say I won the Wildman Award.
35:49
Oh, it sounds like there's another story to be had.
35:51
Here, So what it is it's an award for the the biggest impact
35:56
on the profession of accountancy.
36:00
So I'm going to give you a little bit of background in my
36:04
doctoral program, the area of expertise, one of my minors was
36:08
cognitive psychology. So that's judgement decision
36:12
making. It's we're really sophisticated
36:14
thinkers. We can drive cars, fly planes,
36:17
but we use shortcuts that usually help us.
36:21
And when we understand the shortcut, we can find out where
36:24
we're going to be biased or fall into a trap or bias.
36:26
So that was part of research. And I and another colleague at
36:30
BYU had done some work. We've done a little bit of
36:34
teaching in this. And we were invited by and we'd
36:37
published by one of the large firms, KPMG, to see if we could
36:41
help them with a professional judgement framework.
36:46
And we were probably a little too confident.
36:49
And we said they had other professors in the mix.
36:52
And we said you can look wherever you want.
36:53
But we've been teaching this to executive MBAs.
36:55
We've got the research, the skill set, if you want us, you
36:59
know, going to pay for us or whatever.
37:01
Anyway, we ended up going in and helping them develop as a
37:04
massive project. So professional framework on
37:08
judgement decision and then trainings.
37:12
And then we trained all their managers, senior managers and
37:16
partners on this framework. And then interestingly, we said
37:21
that's awesome content, that's really great.
37:24
It's better than anything we've had in our classrooms.
37:27
We felt a little bad that we just did this project and it
37:30
puts to shame what we're teaching our very own students.
37:34
So we went back to KPMZ and said, how can we solve this?
37:38
Because this is important, useful information for the
37:42
classroom and you'll get better hires if we're training this at
37:45
the university. So to their credit, they said
37:49
let's do it. The next project is to create
37:52
classroom materials to be available for free and to
37:56
publish a monograph that walks people through it and points
38:00
them. To and did they pay you for that
38:01
work as well? It's a beautiful thing about
38:05
paid, we call it professional development, but yeah, we were
38:08
paid for that work. Wow.
38:09
But they're they're recognized as the key contributor and the
38:14
author. So they're at the benefit of
38:15
saying here we are, we're going to add this.
38:18
It's. A good PR for.
38:19
Them it's a good PR in the classroom.
38:21
Everybody sees it's KPMG that's delivering this material.
38:25
Other firms subsequently have jumped into the space, but that
38:29
monograph, that training material, the research sort of
38:32
that body of work is what was awarded this most significant
38:36
impact. And it's funny, over the years,
38:39
you know, I'll be somewhere and someone will look across the
38:42
table and they'll look at me. And I'm like, they're like,
38:45
you're the guy that I had training from like 10 years ago
38:48
and you did this or that. Like, yeah, that wasn't me.
38:52
So what was cool there is KPMG, they hired you to do this work
38:56
and then you guys recognize that, hey, we need to get this
38:59
into the classroom. And not only were they open to
39:04
using that foundation that they had paid you to create for them,
39:09
they said we're going to pay you extra to now put this in the
39:12
format that can be used in in a classroom environment.
39:16
Yeah, no, it's honestly, it was amazing, though.
39:19
The whole thing was a highlight, right?
39:22
A couple of a couple of faculty out of Utah flying to New York
39:27
on a regular basis, entering the studio.
39:30
I'll tell you the the first time we were going to go live with
39:33
partners, there was a lot of anxiety on their side.
39:36
Like what? This is not Harvard.
39:39
This is not Stan what, what who, where's BYU?
39:42
And so we had these lead partners, a lot, a lot of
39:45
skepticism sitting there. We deliver the first training.
39:48
There can't be smart guys in Utah, too.
39:50
Right. We deliver the first training
39:52
and we taught so much together in executive MBA programs.
39:56
We had a lot of fun and they came up after it and said you
39:59
guys will be all right. And then from there, off we
40:02
went. We trained everybody.
40:04
That's fine. So in addition to CFO at Pelion,
40:08
you were recently named an administrative partner.
40:12
What does that mean and how has it changed your work there?
40:16
Yeah, yeah. That's an honor.
40:18
Obviously, again, you don't go to universities to pick off
40:21
operators. So you know, if you're going to
40:24
hire an accounting professor, somebody who's been on the
40:27
standard setting board, you think, let's put him into
40:30
technical accounting, which which is where I started with
40:33
Pelion and that that made sense. I started to see opportunities
40:37
where I'm just interested in business.
40:40
I'm interested in helping develop people.
40:42
I want Pelion to be successful. I want it to be a better place
40:46
after I leave. So I just started helping
40:50
operate and run the business and pretty soon they're like, why
40:53
don't we have Steve over that? And why don't we have that
40:55
person report to Steve? And what it did is it freed up
40:59
our expert investing partners to go do what they do best, right?
41:05
They need to invest. They sit on boards, they're
41:07
helping really difficult challenges, they're fundraising.
41:12
So it freed them up to do more of what they do.
41:15
So I'd say it's a COO Roy probably spend more time now on
41:20
sort of the operations of Pelion than the finances.
41:25
And that's a credit to my great, you know, finance team.
41:28
They're they're awesome. Steve, what's a serious
41:32
challenge that you've had to face and overcome, whether it's
41:36
personal or professional, How'd you get through it and what did
41:40
you learn? Yeah, it's funny, I don't.
41:43
We all have this where we'll hit what I call a school of Hard
41:45
Knocks situation. Sometimes we can watch other
41:49
people go through hard things or like, I'm going to learn from
41:51
that, and that's a great way to learn.
41:53
Other times we find ourselves at a school of Hard Knocks.
41:55
We're like, how do they get here?
41:57
What I've learned to say is all right, instead of, you know why
42:03
me? It's like, how do I learn from
42:05
this? But why is this happening for me
42:07
instead of to me? So I'll just share an example
42:11
that comes to mind. Some years ago, I was in an
42:15
organization where I was in a leadership position.
42:17
I wasn't the leader, but I was on a small leadership team.
42:22
And honestly, I thought he was doing really well.
42:23
I was probably a a handful, right?
42:26
Kind of an idealist. Let's do this.
42:28
We got to do that. Anyway, one day I was just sort
42:31
of dismissed, like, yeah, we don't need your help anymore.
42:34
And it, it seemed disrespectful, ungrateful.
42:38
It came out of the blue. And you know, the natural thing
42:41
is to heck with this. And so I had choices, right?
42:44
Leave. I chose to stay.
42:46
Stay. Do I undermine the leader and
42:49
badmouth him? Or do I just suck it up and say
42:52
I'll never do that to someone? But it happened to me and I
42:56
think I can add value. So I don't know why exactly, but
43:01
I chose to just stay, be all and add value.
43:04
Here's The funny thing. I started having people come to
43:06
me asking for advice and saying where the organization needed to
43:10
go. I'd laugh and I'd say you're
43:13
talking to the wrong guy. I'm not in a leadership role.
43:16
And they'd say, yeah, you know, we know, we know you don't have
43:19
a formal role, but people look up to you and they follow you.
43:22
And so I didn't try to overstep my bounds.
43:25
But interestingly, it wasn't long before I was my boss's
43:29
boss. And I I just realized people are
43:34
people. And sometimes, and again, I'm
43:37
sure here's a narrative, was who is this guy?
43:39
He thinks, you know, I'm sure I I had things that that.
43:45
This person felt threatened by you.
43:47
Something So for me the lesson was you know what?
43:53
Just do good work, be a high quality person, add value and
43:58
opportunities come. That's interesting.
44:02
And as you started out that story, I forget the exact
44:06
phrasing you use, but it was more why did this happen for me
44:11
rather than to me? And just changing that, that one
44:16
word changes the complete focus on the situation.
44:20
When you're saying why did this happen to me, it's like it's a
44:23
punishment. It's like this is being you're
44:27
the victim, right when it happened for you.
44:31
You're finding a gift in a difficult situation.
44:34
Yeah, yeah. I, like I said, I wish I was
44:37
smart enough to avoid what I call the school of Hard Knocks.
44:42
I find myself in the school of Hard Knocks.
44:45
And then I, I, over time I've gotten better at saying, all
44:47
right, And if I can learn why this is happening for me, maybe
44:52
I can work through this a little bit faster and, and I'll be a, a
44:56
better person on the other side. The other thing you said that I,
44:59
I really liked was because this is something I try to teach my
45:03
kids, is that, you know, in life we're going to have a lot of
45:06
great teachers. And many of those teachers are
45:10
going to instruct us on what to do, how to do things correctly.
45:15
And then some of those teachers end up being unintentional
45:18
teachers. And they're examples of
45:20
behaviors that we don't want to repeat.
45:22
And that's the message that I heard you convey.
45:25
OK, I could say the heck with this.
45:27
I could badmouth him. I could undermine him.
45:29
I'm going to stay here, I'm going to continue to do good
45:31
work and I'm going to live. Let that be a living example of
45:35
something that I don't want to do to somebody else.
45:38
Yeah, that, that was a painful experience.
45:40
I, I, we've all had others. And, you know, you can go down
45:43
the path of say this person's a jerk and they should do this or
45:46
do that. But I, I do think a lesson is if
45:49
it, if you didn't experience it well, when you get a chance to
45:52
lead, figure out how to do it better and differently.
45:57
Where did that mindset come from?
45:59
You Born This Way, you learn it earlier in your career.
46:03
Just something that felt like the golden rule to do in the
46:06
moment. Yeah, I, I, I don't know, I, I
46:09
would say a little bit of all of those things.
46:11
I, I've had great mentors who have, you know, for my parents,
46:16
like, you know what tough things happen, life's not fair, you
46:22
know, step up and figure it out and you'll, you'll be better off
46:27
and, and treat others the way you want to be treated.
46:30
So I'd say, yeah, a mix of that collective good, good mentors,
46:36
some core beliefs. And, and the other thing, I
46:40
think Anthony, is once you see that working, you realize, oh, I
46:44
could have gotten the other path.
46:45
It would have felt good in the short term, but it would have
46:48
been a disaster, right? Had I gone down the other path,
46:51
what a disaster would have Hanford opportunity and had to
46:55
become bitter and who knows what, right.
46:59
So I I think good fortune to pound through some of those and
47:04
say, OK, that's that's who that's who I want to be.
47:08
I want to be the person who lifts where I stand, looks to
47:12
others with respect, and if they treat me differently, what?
47:16
How do I just not? How do I not pay the bad
47:19
behavior forward? Yeah.
47:22
What just occurred to me is there's a line I took the road
47:26
less travelled and that has made all the difference.
47:29
And with you, I took the High Road and that made all of the
47:33
difference. Yeah.
47:34
Yeah, I went. By the way.
47:35
It's not to say I don't make mistakes or I don't have, you
47:41
know, regret, but yeah, that's it.
47:44
What what's nice about it is I can tell us on my own stupid
47:48
human moments to my team now and say, here's what I did here,
47:52
that that didn't work and here's how I would do it now.
47:56
And if I see them in a tough spot, I'll sort of smile and say
48:00
here you are. You're in the school of Hard
48:02
Knocks. If you do this right, you'll be
48:05
in a better position on the other side.
48:09
But their inclination is to fight or to point.
48:12
I'm like, do not point, do not fight.
48:15
You contributed to this drama. Own your piece of it and then be
48:20
authentic and genuine and then knock it off and do better.
48:25
Can you think of a moment where you made a mistake?
48:30
Right? Looking back in your past, you
48:31
made a mistake, felt terrible about it.
48:34
It felt, I don't know, crushing, like, can't recover from this.
48:39
And then with a little bit of distance, you look back and
48:42
you're like, man, I've got a lot of gratitude for that.
48:44
What felt like a mistake at the time set me in a different
48:48
direction, opened a different door, gave me a different
48:50
perspective. Yeah, I was, I'd say sort of
48:56
hard charging idealistic. So this junior professor and
49:00
there was some issue in the Business School, I think it was
49:03
around IT and the way they were managing our systems and
49:07
computers and all this kind of stuff.
49:10
And I had a complaint and somehow I got audience with sort
49:13
of a senior counsel as a junior faculty.
49:15
And I came in pretty strong, very strong.
49:20
And one of the senior faculty basically said, I don't know who
49:23
you are, who who you think you are, but nobody should talk to
49:27
our administrators that way. Now, I had a very good
49:31
relationship with the lead administrator in the room.
49:34
He'd hired me. So after the meeting, I said to
49:38
him, I apologize, I, I went too hard.
49:42
And he kind of smiled. And he said, yes, you did.
49:46
And he said your goal was right, or at least what you were trying
49:49
to get us to do. You just did it in the wrong
49:52
way. And it wasn't a long term and it
49:54
wasn't a long lecture. He knew I'd already recognized
49:57
that. I got sort of hammered by that
50:00
other faculty. What I learned is I thought that
50:06
the goal in business and life was the best idea wins and you
50:11
just fight like heck to get your idea there.
50:14
What I've learned through some school of Hard Knocks mistakes
50:19
is I want to contribute to get to the best idea.
50:24
I don't always know the best idea.
50:27
A big insight for me is if you and I disagree and you've got an
50:30
idea and you're super excited about your idea, and maybe I
50:36
think mine's slightly better, I'm better off joining you
50:40
because you're all in. You want to lead it.
50:42
Maybe we have consensus. So instead of saying I think
50:46
mine's mine's 2% better, that's we should do that.
50:49
That's the silly course, right? Let's figure out as a team what
50:52
we all want to get behind. So I was told once you're an
50:56
idealist and I'm my response was you're, you're darn right I am.
51:01
The more I understand looking back, it's like just because you
51:05
think that's the right way, the collateral damage on
51:08
relationships and others is not worth it.
51:12
So I've had to learn to, to, to trust, honor others.
51:16
And by the way, you know this, you sit in the room, I'll think
51:20
I've got a really good idea, pay it.
51:21
And then someone will say, what about this?
51:24
And then I'll think, wow, that's that's much better.
51:28
I'm glad we had this conversation.
51:30
You're. Building on each other's ideas,
51:33
Steve, what's your superpower? Yeah, that's a good question.
51:38
I'd like to think I have a maybe good at a lot of things.
51:41
I don't know if I'm great, but I think one of the things that
51:45
I've found over and over again and it kind of combines
51:48
teaching, critical thinking and consulting.
51:51
What I do now is I can hear expertise, and I don't have to
51:56
have that level of expertise to be able to capture it and
51:59
translate it and interpret it and create an actionable model
52:03
of framework. The beauty of that is if you can
52:07
create an A framework, then the experts can use that language
52:11
and framework as they're mentoring their junior people
52:15
and the junior people can use that framework to ask questions
52:20
in that language. So we did that with the KPMG
52:23
example we talked about and then at at Pelley and I found
52:28
opportunities where I saw people talking but not connecting.
52:34
And I turn a probe to say, are you saying this?
52:36
Are you saying that? And then I'd say, I think we can
52:38
model some of this. So how would we construct a fund
52:43
so that we can have choices about should we put more dollars
52:47
into C? Should we put more dollars into
52:49
a more dollars into late stage and then the junior people say,
52:53
OK, here's our model, we're going to put X percentage here
52:57
expert. So then when something comes, we
53:00
say where does this fit? We can overrule the model, we
53:03
can make exceptions, we will, but but we have a process to
53:09
communicate together. And if we turn down a deal
53:11
because we don't have more space in the late stage, then we
53:15
understand that's where we are. We've deployed all of our late
53:18
stage dollars. Great company.
53:21
You know, maybe we put some in just to say it's what we call a
53:24
logo by. So I'd say translator
53:30
interpreting really technical things, where I can talk to the
53:33
really technical experts and to the junior people and help them.
53:37
You're like a translator. Yes.
53:39
Translator. Yeah.
53:41
For accounting and finance nerds.
53:43
Yeah, that's cool. How about a recommendation in
53:48
terms of like a, A book, a podcast, a course, something
53:53
that maybe folks who are aspiring to get into similar
53:59
more junior roles and kind of work their way up that have been
54:01
helpful to you? Yeah.
54:04
OK. Well, I want to put in a a plug
54:06
for a couple of our partners have a great podcast.
54:10
It's called Investor operator or IO Tyler Hoag, Sterling Snow,
54:15
and they bring in people who have operated and invested.
54:19
They're great. I'm going to put in a couple of
54:21
other plugs. So this area of judgement,
54:24
decision making, there's some now Nobel Prize winning authors
54:29
of material. So a famous pair of scholars,
54:35
Tversky Kahneman and Tversky Danny Kahneman's written a book
54:38
called Thinking Fast and Slow, and it's sort of helping us see
54:44
how we sometimes need to step back sometimes if it's a low
54:48
risk, low important decision, go ahead and use your shortcuts.
54:53
There's lots of good stuff on judgement decision making, but
54:56
but they're sort of really some of the, the foundational
55:00
thinking in that area. Then we'll give you one more.
55:04
You, you kind of tell I'm, I, I, I like to think about being
55:08
deliberate in a career, even though my path has been
55:11
deliberate. But it's just who do I want to
55:13
be and what do I want my career to be about and like.
55:19
So there's a former Harvard professor, Clayton Christensen.
55:23
He's famous for things called the Innovator's dilemma and
55:26
others, but he's written a book, How to Measure Your Life with
55:29
some co-authors. So it's a way for people to sort
55:32
of step back and think about what it is they're trying to
55:36
accomplish. Sorry about that.
55:41
There you go. Oh, good.
55:44
It's a good answer. Lots of options there.
55:46
Yeah. And I've seen some of the stuff
55:48
by Danny Kahneman. I know he's very well respected.
55:51
I I believe he's passed recently, but he's.
55:54
Yeah, that's the name I'm familiar with.
55:56
And he, he's got a lot of great content to put out there.
56:01
Just one more question for you today, Steve.
56:04
But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things for everyone
56:07
listening today. I'm going to invite you to hit
56:08
the follow button on your favorite podcast app.
56:11
We have had a great conversation here today with Steve Glover
56:14
from Pelion, and I want you to get more wonderful content like
56:18
this in your feed. Steve.
56:20
I also want to let people know the best way either to get in
56:22
touch with you directly or to continue to follow your story.
56:26
What would that be? Yeah, probably LinkedIn.
56:28
You can find me on LinkedIn and the Pelion website.
56:33
You can find me SO, Pelion Venture Partners or LinkedIn.
56:38
We'll include links to those in the show notes for everybody as
56:42
well as we'll try to find links to the, the podcast that you
56:44
mentioned so we can give your, your colleagues a plug.
56:48
So last question for you. Had a nice conversation here.
56:53
Would love to reconnect with you in a year as you're celebrating
56:57
something. If you're celebrating something
56:59
a year from now, what would you like that to be, Steve?
57:02
OK, on a personal side, we're going to celebrate our 40th Tina
57:07
and I anniversary and kids grandkids.
57:13
So I I'd say my easily the best decision ever made is to
57:17
convince Tina to take a chance on me professionally.
57:23
Anthony, I want to leave Pelion. I'm not leaving in a year, but I
57:26
want it to be better than where I found it.
57:30
I think my most important legacy is to create the leaders that
57:33
will follow me. So I want my team to have
57:37
opportunities. I want them to be able to be
57:39
challenged, to develop, to grow. And it's been rewarding.
57:43
The things that I started doing technically when I first came
57:47
in, I'm not doing a lot of that. Why?
57:49
Because my team's doing it and I don't withhold information.
57:52
I don't hold tap back tasks. I don't restrict them from
57:56
taking leadership or opportunities because I, I know
58:01
that's what I want for them. And my view is if they're doing
58:06
that, it gives me time to go help in other areas.
58:08
And if I replace myself with great young people, that's
58:12
awesome. But.
58:16
Steve Glover from Pelion, I want to be the first to thank you for
58:18
sharing both your time and your story with us today.
58:21
I really appreciate. It it's been a pleasure.
58:23
Thank you. Folks, that's a wrap on another
58:25
episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
58:27
Thanks for learning with us today.