All language subtitles for 003 Highlights Interview Reddit & Google Executive_en

If I now quit my job and go into sales, what is the likelihood I will not be working until I'm 65 zero?

I'll find a path, I'll find a career.

It's not going to have any effect on the whole GameStop history.

It's cool you're saying that because of my background community about an interest or a passion that

they have and Wall Street gets is one of those communities.

I guess that means it's working.

What is it practically that you do that makes you so good?

Yeah, there's a lot of small steps that are added up, but you got to take the steps.

If we are number one in our industry, we can make a bucket load of money.

I love it, honestly.

They really thought I was crazy literally today.

Talking about positive mindset mean even if you are to start performing team, that doesn't mean we're

just going to rest and relax.

Yes.

What have you heard that Elon Musk stories or a hundred and fifty hours a week where you're comfortable?

You'd almost be worried.

Where you're not comfortable, you're probably learning a bucket load.

Hi there.

And welcome to Impact Talks.

Today, we have an amazing guest, Harald Klein.

He's executive vice president, global advertising at Reddit.

And it's great being here at Impact Talks today.

I'll do a quick intro.

So, as you said, I'm Harold Claye.

I'm the executive vice president for global advertising at Reddit.

I am Dutch, so it's an extra honor to be on this podcast.

However, I have for the last eight years now lived in the Bay Area.

I want to know from your perspective, you know, why go to the Bay Area.

I read it.

You just came, I think, from Pinterest.

Why not just go back to the Netherlands?

One is just what do you personally enjoy doing?

And therefore, like, are you lucky enough to find roles in your life that can help you with your own

personal passion?

And I think if you're passionate about something and you can help the company by using your passion,

it's a win win for both sides.

Right?

I think it's very important in life if you can find things to run towards and not run away from.

So I wasn't running away from anything.

I just ran toward Reddit when when when when I realized I had an opportunity to work for Reddit.

Whatever thing that comes on my path that is scary or makes me uncomfortable, I should just try to

do it.

So it started like, you know, I wanted to, as you said, like I was living in Rotterdam.

I studied at the Erasmus University there, started working for Philips Electronics, was lucky to work

for Philips Electronics in Singapore.

Some like yeah.

I'm not really sure if this engineering environment is my kind of environment.

So I just took the plunge and started becoming a sales rep.

Right.

And started selling.

I realized that my friends were right.

And often, you know, your friends might know you better than you do.

I once had Latin at school, and I think the saying was like, you know, self-knowledge is the most

difficult knowledge.

So help build out Google for a while in Asia Pacific.

Guess I did well.

So they said like, hey, how do you want to come over to to Mountain View?

Right.

And help us with some of the work there.

So I appreciate it.

That came over to the Bay Area and then stayed here for eight years.

So one of the learnings that just add to there, I think is key is like more and more to start focusing

on how is what you're doing helping the larger company good.

And making the trade off short term?

Long term.

I think what I've seen in myself and what you see many salespeople beginning salespeople are pretty

egoistic.

It's about their own target.

They want to crush their target.

They want to make a lot of money.

Amazing.

That's good to do.

Nothing wrong with that.

But eventually also, like, OK, but like, you know, how does this influence our consumers?

Is this a good impact for consumers?

Are not a good impact for consumers in the long run, our consumers are equally important, if not more

important than our advertisers, because without consumers, you don't have advertisers.

Right.

So I think that's the key learning is the holistic view.

Even though you might be responsible for one part of the business, you are an integral part of making

the whole company a success, not only your part.

What is it practically that you do that makes you so good at?

Yeah, I've always wanted to try to see how far things can go.

And also what I want to do highlight is I can I think it's very important if I can summarize your question

the other way around, like if you can figure out, like, what are your strengths areas and actually

develop and build your strengths areas, I'm not a believer of, you should you should try to make your

weaknesses a strength and try to fix those.

I'm more believer I would say that everyone like mitigate your risks, but people have played back to

me like why I have been successful in really scaling out things is like one, I bring unlimited energy

and I think positive energy.

And therefore allowing people to believe that more can be done is very important in the environment,

as you describe where you want to scale out things.

So that's one, too.

I think I have had a good knack at very quickly picking the three key strategic pillars that were required

for the business and then just really rallying the team around that strategy and putting clear data

measurement and other things around that, that it was very focused.

Did I always pick the.

The best three know there are 20 things you can do to keep for from.

Don't pick the wrong thing, right.

That takes the business down.

But the other thing, if you can pick three things and ideally do that together with your management

team or with your team, so they believe in it that I don't really care which out of the top 10 they

are.

If the team believes in them and they are passionate about them, they're probably going to make them

happen.

Right.

So just don't don't don't be overcomplicate.

What exactly are the perfect things to do?

Pick three things that are good to do and then nail them in the execution.

And on the third part, I don't know, like I think people have said that, you know, besides the energy

that I can that I said already said, but I can motivate them.

I think I'm a motivator.

You're in a very unique position because you are selling Google ads.

So for newbies, can you explain what the best strategy is for Google ads, what the budgets are, if

they're starting out?

Yeah, look, how much budget does the client have available?

How strategic and important do they understand that Google can or cannot play a role in that?

And therefore, what is a fair percentage of the budget that we can help them to hit their business

goals with?

Right.

So I think what the key thing about Google is and I'll I'll do my Google is still here.

Google is probably still the biggest digital messaging platform in the world.

So how I would always describe is any kind of message that you have as a company.

Right.

And you want to get into in front of an audience.

Google is the platform for that.

You have TV, but TV has its drawbacks and then you have Google.

And the big advantage of Google is that we can decide based on the company's strategy when we show your

message.

So based on keyword search, for example, and keyword search gives a very big indication is there are

some companies that should be exploring different.

But I think this is a bit more a debate to have between every country before making a blanket statement.

But like, I think, you know, sorry, man, like you're an entrepreneur.

Not not everything succeeds, right?

I mean, like so when you try something, maybe if it's not working on Google, that's also a quick

check.

OK, is there something wrong with my positioning?

Is there anything wrong with my price point.

Right to like what is your purchase cycle of your new product?

Is it indeed a spur of the moment?

Right.

Google Glass click works really well.

Is it very much educational?

Is it very much like a new kind of concept?

Well, I mean, like then you got to expect a 60 to 90 or 120 day conversion window.

Right.

Was the one thousand dollars enough to do that?

Right.

To to take people through the mindset change of one hundred and twenty days?

I don't I don't know.

Those are things I would actually more discuss with a client before making a solution.

You know what?

And it could be you know, Google just doesn't work for your business.

But I think there's some other things to discuss first before making that conclusion.

What are other things that that usually tend to go wrong with the company?

It might be very pragmatic, but what I've often also seen with startups is they are not really clear

what problem they're trying to solve with what they're doing or they are not really sure who their audience

is yet.

Like who is the right audience?

Right.

Who do you really think like is going to be the people key for the success of your company that have

to buy your product or service?

Right.

Have you spoken to them?

Right.

That's what we often do with Reddit, with with with our ads and with comments.

People can actually react to this stuff.

Right.

So we work with clients like, hey, let's go ask creditors what they think about your product or what

naming convention you should give your product, right?

I mean, because you can develop it yourself, but maybe just ask the market rights.

You were with Google almost a decade.

I think it was like eight years or something.

What made you eventually leave Google?

Because obviously Google is one of the big ones.

Why would you go away?

OK, so the short answer, size of the company, maybe my case, like, you know, and we're talk about

impact here.

What's the impact that we're all still having?

Right.

This company's massively successful.

It's great being here.

But man, like what happens if sixty people don't show up for a year, right?

Well, that make a change?

Probably not.

There's one hundred thousand talented people.

Right.

People understand our product.

We're doing great.

Like, say, after.

I just had wondering like that.

Do I really want to work for such a big company.

How much of my unique building skill set do I still do I still add value to Google here.

Read it, called you, Google called you.

And these are both like wish-list companies.

How do you set yourself up that they call you?

Often these kind of things happen because of headhunters.

Headhunters have been for me, kind of like a key matchmaker between my career and companies.

Right.

My wife was a headhunter in the APAC region, so I would hang out with a lot of headhunters in and,

you know, on Friday evening for a catch up or over the weekend.

Right.

For social time.

So I was just I can always say like.

Like, you know, Google is an interesting company, any one of you working with Google like and then

I would give them my background.

It's not all luck.

You got him.

You got to make sure that you're sharing to people what you're looking for, why you think you're a

match for that, and then see if the opportunity comes.

Let's say your wife isn't a headhunter.

What would be a great way is literally just approaching them, emailing them.

Would that be it?

I think so.

Look, because my my wife was not a headhunter to us, for example, and still I got on their radar.

So one look, I mean, you got to perform, right?

You got to build up a track record of performance.

I could go even as far right.

Just from a mindset, you're almost doing a disservice by not contacting them.

They want to hear about who you are.

That's their job.

They want to know what you're doing.

But I think it might be difficult.

I don't want to speak on behalf of haters, but it might be difficult.

Yeah, I'm looking for a new role.

Oh, great.

What do you and what could be Google or Oracle or Salesforce.com?

Like, what do you have.

Right.

I mean, that that doesn't help them.

But if you can say, like, look what I really enjoy doing and so far people have been telling me what

I'm good at is scaling up businesses, because you've got to explain to them a bit like to make their

life easy, like what it is where they could fit you in and what it is that you're looking for and convince

them that you are the person to potentially be able to do this.

Right.

Have you ever thought about becoming an entrepreneur?

Many times.

Do you know something that is a market need with a lot of potential and you kind of see that first and

therefore want to build a company around it?

Unfortunately, I've never taken the time or come up with that idea yet.

And then two is you're ready to roll the dice and just go with whatever it is.

Wherever your company sees an opportunity, you fuel the fire and go quicker on it.

And luckily, I haven't yet had to take the Intrapreneurship route to do that.

I haven't felt constrained in my current roles that I feel like I need to become an entrepreneur.

I need to do I need more autonomy or that stuff.

How is the average like working hours in the Bay Area, like the day starts earlier in the Bay Area,

like eight a.m. is a very logical time to start.

And, you know, in Asia, eight a.m. was not a starting time.

Right.

Like offices might even be closed still right at eight a.m., like people would start at nine thirty

ten, but they would go on very late into the evening hours.

So some of the larger companies like Facebook and Google, they have really become very employee minded.

I would not say that you're working like crazy.

Twelve hour days across the board there, but start ups, right.

I mean, startups like you're, you know, you're an entrepreneur like you said it yourself.

It is sometimes you wonder, like, what do you get yourself into with all the responsibilities?

Are you like especially small startups?

People work darn hard here in the Bay Area.

Yeah.

Do you do you feel like Silicon Valley, San Francisco?

Do you feel like it's still the epicenter for all of the startups?

I would still say yes.

I do think that most that there's a lot of venture capitalists offices based here in Silicon Valley,

in the Bay Area.

But having said that, I know that, for example, like in Amsterdam, in Rotterdam, there's a lot

of startup mentality come through the last five, six, seven years for Europe.

But for now, I still think, like the magic of funding is still very strong in the Bay Area.

Looking back with all the knowledge that you have, what were the biggest learning lessons?

I would say the number one thing to watch out for is falling into a routine.

Falling into a routine is is a potential danger because you are not learning as much as you can learn

and therefore you might be missing out on things every day.

You have an opportunity to do something slightly different in your role.

Purposely try an AB test and see if it works.

And who knows, your team might be great.

But a couple of other things you do out of your team might actually leapfrog you forward again.

So that's my one advice.

When you're comfortable, you'd almost be worried.

Where you're not comfortable, you're probably learning a bucket load, which is probably going to be

more interesting in the long run.

So watch out when you're too comfortable.

Your role or too comfortable if you do, that might not be a good thing.