Discover the intertwined worlds of professional sports and corporate strategy as we sit down with business and tech titan George Mulhern, the former CEO of Cradlepoint. George shares his unique perspective on how the competitive drive and quick decision-making honed on the tennis courts served as the perfect training ground for his meteoric rise in the business world. From his early aspirations of professional tennis to leading Cradlepoint to a billion-dollar acquisition by Ericsson, George's journey is a masterclass in leveraging life lessons from sports for corporate excellence and relentless improvement.

Throughout our conversation, we delve into the core principles that have underpinned George's success both on and off the court. The episode is rich with insights into the importance of staying humble, hungry, and emotionally resilient—qualities that define both a great athlete and a great business leader. Moreover, George reflects on the pivotal transitions in his career, from the world of sales at massive entities like General Electric and Hewlett Packard to the innovative environment at Cradlepoint, and how these experiences shaped his approach to leading teams and fostering a culture of trust and authenticity.

Wrapping up this enlightening discussion, we explore the nuances of leadership and personal growth that go beyond the boardroom. George opens up about his personal development journey, the value of being a perpetual learner and balancing ambition with a fulfilling personal life. Engage with us in an episode that celebrates the power of passion and the beauty of a well-played game—be it with a racket or a strategic business move.

Connect with George via LinkedIn

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George: 0:00

There were a number of things that I learned through tennis that I think I've practiced them better in business than I did in tennis. Otherwise I would have been a professional tennis player, probably for a career. But the things that really stuck with me I'll go back very, very early on, when I was playing in college, I was having a hard time. I sat down with the coach. I said, geez, I'm losing matches, I should be winning. What am I doing? And my coach in college was a guy named Butch Krikorian and he was I think of him now as kind of Yoda. He just looked at me and said you have to decide. I said what do you mean? I have to decide, you have to decide you're going to win, and then you have to commit to what it's going to take to do that.

George: 0:40

That, I think, think, along with some of those other things, is what's your goal, what do you want to achieve, and then what's it going to take to do that? It just doesn't happen by accident. You have to put the work in. The easy thing to learn when you're playing tennis is not to give up when you're behind. The harder thing in my book was not to let up when you're ahead or not to start thinking about I'm going to win this match and then all of a sudden your whole game falls apart or you start playing it too safe because you just want to get to the end of that and you have to be willing to take some risk.

George: 1:11

And it's the same in business you can be a leader in your market and as soon as you let your guard down or get complacent, someone's going to zoom right past you, and that, I think, has been really important. It's one of the values we've put in place at Cradlepoint was stay humble and hungry or you will be. And the humble part is you've got to be learning all the time, but the hungry part is you have to put those learnings into action and you can't let down and you have to be getting better every day. And that definitely came out of tennis for me, because everybody else is getting better every day.

Klara: 1:46

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Grand Slam Journey podcast, where we discuss various things related to the Grand Slam journey of our lives Sports, life after sports, lessons we have learned from our athletic endeavors and how we apply them in the next chapter of our lives, growing our skills and leadership in whatever we decide to put our minds into. For my guests today, areas of business and technology, my today's conversation is with George Mulhern. We discuss his Grand Slam journey from being a competitive tennis player to a tremendous career in corporate America, from General Electric and then working in several leadership and executive positions at Hewlett Packard, being a part of a VC for over three years and most recently, being the CEO of Cradlepoint. Over the last 10 years, under George's leadership, they have raised $160 million in venture capital, grew from 70 employees to over 1,000, and in November of 2020, they were acquired by Ericsson for $1.1 billion. It has been such a pleasure talking to George about his experiences.

Klara: 3:06

This episode is packed with insights and I hope you all will enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed producing it. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone you believe may enjoy it as well. Consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. This conversation is also available in video on the Grand Slam Journey YouTube channel. This is your host, klara Yegoshova. Thank you for tuning in, and now I bring you George Mulhern. George, thank you for accepting my invitation to be a guest on the Grand Slam Journey podcast. So great to have you. How are you?

George: 3:47

I'm doing great, clara, and thanks for the invite.

Klara: 3:49

Of course, I've been looking forward to this for so long. I'm so glad that our mutual connection, peter, actually tagged me on one of your posts where you talk about your tennis experience, and so I'm really thrilled to dive into your Grand Slam journey of life, from tennis to business and technology leadership, all the way to the pinnacle of corporations. Your LinkedIn most recently states retired CEO of Cradlepoint and head of Ericsson Enterprise Wireless Solutions. So I'm curious to dive into all that it entails and what's ahead for you, because, based on some of our past conversations, you've obviously had a beautiful career and I'm curious to learn more. But from my view, if I can have an opinion, you have much more left in the tank and the wisdom that you have acquired that can be beneficial for many industries and corporations. So I'm curious where this journey takes us. But before we dive into all these topics, I want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself. Anything you want listeners to know about you and you want to add.

George: 4:59

I've had, I would say, a pretty long career in technology certainly, but maybe start with I'm married. I've got four kids, two of long career in technology certainly, but maybe start with I'm married. I've got four kids, two of them still in college, so I'm working to get them out into the real world. And those are two boys still in college and then two daughters that are out and about. My younger daughter had a D1 tennis scholarship herself and played at Colorado State, and now my youngest son is playing tennis for Whitworth. So there's a little tennis still in the blood. But I could walk you through a little bit of my career progression, but it's not terribly exciting.

George: 5:34

I thought I'd play tennis for a living for a little while until I tried to play tennis for a living and found out that was going to be a lot harder than I thought. And then I taught at a kind of a swanky tennis club in Los Altos Hills, northern California, for about a year and got exceptionally bored doing that. It was just not for me, and so I jumped into a sales role with General Electric and then later hired on with Hewlett Packard, and I spent 20 years at HP, which was a great experience and a great part of my career Three years in venture capital and Cradlepoint was one of our investments Hit some hard times and I went over and took over the CEO role at Cradlepoint and then, in 2020, we were acquired by Ericsson and I became an Ericsson employee and then, like you said, just recently retired. I'm still an advisor kind of a role with Erickson for a little while longer, but that's kind of the path. It was actually a lot more windy than that in reality, but that's the short story.

Klara: 6:38

Thank you for highlighting it and I certainly had many of those points on my list and look forward diving into each of your progressions and changes as you grew your career. But I do want to start all the way back. I have international guests and one of the things I'm always curious about what their upbringing look like and what led them to the first fashion. So it seems like tennis was one of the things you clinged on early on and you enjoyed, and seems like you've actually been successful inspiring your next generation to play tennis as well. So I'm curious if you could share a little bit more about that, how you uncovered that tennis is the sport for you and what attracted you to it.

George: 7:21

It's kind of funny because I started relatively late for a tennis player. I really started playing tennis in high school, but I just fell in love with the sport. I went into high school thinking I was going to play football I've always been a bit of an athlete but realized when I was 5'3 tall and 103 pounds I was probably not the ideal candidate for football and I switched over at that point just for fun, to play tennis. But I fell in love with the game and then I just couldn't play enough. It was something where I constantly saw myself improving and that got me more motivated to do it and then eventually in high school set a goal that I wanted to get a scholarship to play tennis in college college and started working towards that. I also, because I was playing so much, I left high school at 6'4", so in one year I grew 12 inches, which put a little bit of strain on the joints that I've been dealing with ever since in a lot of ways.

Klara: 8:20

Yeah, I remember actually a lot, even from my experience reflecting on the childhood.

Klara: 8:24

Yeah, I remember actually a lot, even from my experience reflecting on the childhood. Obviously, being a girl, you can play with boys up until maybe the 13, 14 years old and, depending when they hit the growth spurt and then the boys we had in our club within one year they typically grow 15, 20 centimeters and gain their manhood and just at that point it's a completely different game. So I still remember those days and how hard it is to balance coordination and how much you actually practice and put in the work, because joints during that growth time and protecting joints is very difficult. But going back all the way to beginning, I find it sometimes really hard for people to describe why they enjoy the sport they do, because it's a feeling and passion that sometimes it's hard to put in words and you mentioned this progression and improvement that I think many athletes in general are driven to if you decide to do that sport seriously. Was there anything else that you can pinpoint that you really enjoyed about the sport and attracted you to it?

George: 9:30

I think back to that time. That was kind of in the mid-70s and tennis was really popular then. So I was watching folks like Rod Laver and people like that on television and that certainly helped kind of pique my interest. But it really was. It was a sport that you didn't need to get 11 people on each side to play like you do with football and my brother played as well, so we would and seeing kind of achievement of those various steps. The more you do that, the more motivated you get and the more you want to take that next step. And I'm sure you found this, clara. There's always something to work on in tennis and in most things right. So it was never boring, and that is maybe one of my downfalls I get bored kind of easy if I get into too much of a routine. So there was always something to be learning and something to be trying to master in that sport Mostly my own mind thing on its own.

Klara: 10:41

That's completely separate from, obviously, all the physical skills. I agree, but as I reflect on the game, I have the same, because it's so important to have this variety and you need to practice anything from endurance because you're on the court running constantly for one and a half to maybe three hours, depending how long the match is, but you need speed, because you need to get to the points really quickly and agility, and you need strength, but you need a fast arm. So there's always whether it's obviously technical components of tennis that there's always room for improvement, as you mentioned, whether it's where your toe is pointing, to how you're hitting the ball, where you're hitting it, to obviously, all the physical aspects and components of it. So, yes, the variety. It seems like with tennis you're never bored and there's just so many different things you can practice.

George: 11:35

That's such a good point too on the, because I think a lot of people think if they're going to work on their tennis game, they need to improve their tennis strokes. But it's footwork, it's all kinds of different things, and that's true Even I was just having this conversation with somebody at work the other day that it's not just about the technology. There's all kinds of ways to innovate, to improve, to do things better for the customer outside of just a better product, and so thinking more holistically about how to make those improvements I think is really important.

Klara: 12:07

Yeah, and that again compares the tennis aspect and what you mentioned. You're easily bored, which I actually have, that too. For that reason I gravitate to complex deals or complex sales. If somebody gives me too easy of a path forward, I typically choose the harder one, just for the sake of gathering skills, which maybe sometimes it's not the most strategic but it's more enjoyable for me. And so, just going back to your upbringing and tying on that, it obviously seems like you had physical skills and ability to learn things quite quickly, because starting in high school and then being able to get D1 college scholarship, especially for men, that's really difficult because most of the scholarships in schools are dedicated to kind of the big sports such as what you mentioned, the football right. We women get more scholarships in tennis just because we don't have the big sports like football or hockey, perhaps that men typically play, but tennis for men is just much harder. So how do you look at the progression that you have had from that and what helped you improve to then be able to play college level?

George: 13:18

I had an instructor before going to college, taking tennis lessons, you know, when I was in high school, and he said a few things that made a lot of sense to me, and one was you know, the great players practice as hard as they play their matches, and that was really certainly important. The other thing he kind of taught me was you need to play every point like it's match point. So some of those things that I really took to heart. I was lucky that I had my brother, who's about 18 months younger than me, who was playing right at the same time is also a very good athlete. He wound up playing in college as well, and so I always had a hitting partner, which was really important too.

Klara: 14:00

And I like especially the two that you mentioned.

Klara: 14:03

Those were also things that my coaches used to drill at me the effort that you put into every single point, because you never know which one could be the one that makes or breaks the game, because of just even the mental toughness that you need to have.

Klara: 14:16

So that effort that you almost train the mindset it's not even, I guess, playing like that, but having that mindset and training the mind that every single point counts. And that translates to what you even mentioned earlier, like business technology, anything else afterwards, the effort that you used to putting into things and the importance of practice and perfecting your skills. To me that also translates. For example, if I'm giving presentations to somebody like you who would be a CEO, about new, innovative ideas, what's the amount of work I put in on getting to know them, refining the story, what may be relevant to them? So I go through a great deal of practice to actually refine and be on point to ensure that the message resonates. So that's just one example. But I'm curious how has maybe specific those two skills or anything else you want to add that really resonated with you from those years then translated to your later success?

George: 15:16

I mean there were a number of things I learned through tennis that I think I've practiced them better in business than I did in tennis. Otherwise I would have been a professional tennis player, probably for a career. But you know the things that really stuck with me. Well, I'll go back very, very early on, when I was playing in college. I was having a hard time. I sat down with the coach. I said, geez, you know, I'm having a hard one, I'm losing matches. I should be winning. What am I doing? And my coach in college was a guy named Butch Krikorian and he was I think of him now as kind of Yoda, but he just looked at me. He said you have to decide. And I said what do you mean? I have to decide, you have to decide you're going to win, and then you have to commit to what it's going to take to do that. That I think, along with some of those other things, is what's your goal? What do you want to achieve, and then what's it going to take to do that? It just doesn't happen by accident. You have to put the work in.

George: 16:15

There's a whole bunch of things I learned from tennis that I've carried over, and you know this, claire the easy thing to learn when you're playing tennis is not to give up when you're behind.

George: 16:35

The harder thing in my book was not to let up when you're ahead or not to start thinking about I'm going to win this match and then all of a sudden your whole game falls apart or you start playing it too safe because you just want to get to the end of that and you have to be willing to take some risk.

George: 16:46

And it's the same in business that you can be a leader in your market and as soon as you kind of let your guard down or get complacent, someone's going to zoom right past you and that, I think, has been really important. To think for me and it's one of the values we put in place at Greater Point was stay humble and hungry where you will be. And the humble part is you've got to be learning all the time, you've got to be trying to understand what your customers want and all that. But the hungry part is you have to put those learnings into action and you can't let down and you have to be getting better every day. Action, and you can't let down, and you have to be getting better every day. And that definitely came out of tennis for me, because everybody else is getting better every day.

Klara: 17:31

Yes, I love that and love what you mentioned. Actually, if I can reminisce on a specific experience I've had, that was so painful for me, my freshman year I actually qualified for nationals and I was playing second round against a girl who ended up going to the finals of the nationals. She lost, I think in the third set in the finals and I remember the match still like it was yesterday. I was set up for love, I was serving and 30 left and I had this slight thought I was like, oh my god, if I win this next two points, it's gonna be five left and I can really win the match. I'm very close and so at that moment, being a tennis player, you're laughing. So I know you can probably imagine what happened next. I got super tight, started playing defensive and doubting myself and lost in the third set. It was one of the hardest matches I have ever lost. I pity my coach for being there, because after that I had to go back to the track stadium and I probably sprinted three or four laps to get the negative energy out of me and I wasn't able to talk to anybody for probably a week.

Klara: 18:48

I always say if I knew how to take losses better. I could have been a better athlete. That's one of the things. But on that note, george, are there any moments it seems that you highlighted a few from your tennis career where you took in some of those lessons and then you mentioned you're actually applying them in your business and technology world almost better and I love the humble and hungry. I think especially the hungry one seems to be one from my observations that CEOs or leaders who have been athletes understand a bit better from that mindset perspective. But anything else as you reflect you want to share.

George: 19:27

It's funny because I had an experience just like the one you just described, which I still sometimes think back on and go, oh my God, how did I blow that match? But anyway, the other is one of the things you have to learn in tennis right is to try to control your emotions, stay calm and not let yourself get too far ahead, too far behind, too worried, whatever, and you don't want your opponent to see that you're losing it mentally either. And that is something that I've tried to carry forward in business as well is just providing some calm. You know, if you're hitting a crisis in business and you're the leader of that organization and you're running around like your hair is on fire, everybody in that organization is going to be running around like their hair is on fire and it's really your job to try to kind of absorb that fear and anxiety that's coming from the organization.

George: 20:28

But share some confidence and confidence that and we've always, we always say this right, it's just business. For one thing, if we screw up, if we make a mistake, we'll take a couple step back and and take another run at it. There there's always an opportunity to you know, maybe not always, but usually an opportunity to you know, maybe not always, but usually an opportunity to right a wrong and take another run at it. And so that ability to show some confidence and calmness in a crisis, even though there are many times when my stomach was churning like crazy or I was staring at the ceiling all night. But that doesn't do any good for the organization, just like it gave your competitor an advantage when you're playing tennis.

Klara: 21:12

Yeah, I love that example and actually we talked about a little bit in my episode with Jeanette, who I believe, practices this skill very well as well. You may know she's the head of Ericsson Canada. Are there specific things or tips, george, that help you with staying grounded in those situations or work for maybe just you personally? You mentioned you stayed up staring at the wall, which also doesn't help, but are there things, as you grew from your career, that help you have this grounded leadership and be able to, as you mentioned, absorb the stress but not push it on others and really be the kind of level-headed leader that you needed to be in those situations?

George: 21:59

Probably the most important thing in my mind is to build a great team that you're working with. Important thing in my mind is to build a great team that you're working with, and you know over the years you find and I have a lot of years under my belt, that just what I said that there are very few mistakes that are unrecoverable. And you kind of combine that with you have to be willing to take some risk at times if you're really going to advance the ball, and those two things help me at least to stay balanced. And then having a team that you really trust, that you respect, and hopefully they trust and respect you as well. A lot of times a crisis brings a team together stronger. You exit it stronger if you're not running around like your hair is on fire and you see there is a path. So those are some of the key things I think.

Klara: 22:54

I love it, and that for me, connects to some of the times that you have had at Cradle Point, and I'll save them for a little bit later. But going maybe back to your tennis career, it seems like you have had a somewhat successful college tennis career. You tried playing the tour actually for a while to become professional, then became coach which you found boring, as you mentioned and transitioned to business and technology so anything else from that time period you want to highlight that really stood out and how did you decide you know this coaching thing isn't for me. I'm going to quit and I need to find a new career, because that's always a tough time for anyone Saying no to the sport that you've dedicated so many hours and years of practice, including the support system that obviously your family and coaches created around you, but putting your energy to new things and opening new doors what has that been like?

George: 23:52

I really. I played only a half a dozen tournaments on the at that time. It was the American Express was the sponsor of the tour, and it was kind of like the Challenger tour today. But I didn't have a sponsor. I didn't have much money. I was sleeping on someone's couch or asking for housing wherever I went and staying with some stranger, and I think I mentioned it before, I'm a bit of an introvert, so there was a lot of alone time as well. I wasn't winning and I just didn't. I did not see a long-term path for myself. I didn't have enough passion at that point to say, well, I'm going to just keep doing this for a few years to make it.

George: 24:35

The reason I got bored at the country club teaching was I wasn't really coaching aspiring players. I was teaching tennis to people that came in once a week for a half hour lesson and then didn't practice at all. So I'd see them the next week and they were doing exactly the same thing. They just wanted to take tennis lessons and that got kind of tiring. So the easy jump for me was to you make a lot of connections doing that. And so I had somebody that said, well, hey, general Electric's looking for some young salespeople and it was a consumer products side of it batteries, lighting, stuff like that and so I went and gave that a try and I spent a few years there and that was really valuable for me in my career. But it's also it's not something I wanted to do long term. Growing up in the Bay Area, I just saw this technology explosion going on and I really wanted to get into tech, and so I eventually got into Hewlett-Packard from there.

Klara: 25:38

Where you have had an impressive career alone for over 20 years in various different positions. So when you reflect that, and even your beginning through business, it's actually funny enough. I see a lot of similarities from my career. I have no clue what I want to do beyond tennis. It was through Tennis Connection that I landed my first role in telecom retail and then the whole journey evolved that I couldn't even imagine where my career would go, but what are some of the key deciding moments? As you look back then and your beautiful progressions that reassured you, this is really interesting. I could be good at it and continue to build your progression through those steps and journey.

George: 26:22

A bit of my career was hey, a door opened, I'm going to go through it and see what happens. That's certainly how I wound up in sales. There was no grand plan there, but it taught me a lot about myself. And that's again where I think a lot of people don't realize how hard sales is as a job. It takes a lot If you're going to be a great salesperson. How hard sales is as a job. It takes a lot If you're going to be a great salesperson. It takes disciplines, it takes perseverance, it takes being able to hear no all the time, and so I have a real appreciation for the sales function as a result of that.

George: 26:56

But General Electric at the time was very tops down hierarchical kind of company and when I went to Hewlett Packard, my first job there was my boss wanted me to open a distribution channel for this line of products and I remember going in I sat down and said well, how do you want me to do that? And then he said I don't know. That's why I hired you. You go figure it out. And that was such a liberating kind of moment for me that, okay, they put the trust in me and that was something I think Hewlett Packard was, from a culture standpoint, a lot of trust and respect in the individuals in the organization, and that was really motivating for me and that also kind of formed a lot of how I think about leadership from my experience there in those early days at Hewlett Packard as well.

George: 27:45

People with initiative don't want to be told what to do. Right, they want to be told gosh, we need to make this happen. Can you help figure out how to do that? And if you just keep telling people what to do all the time, eventually they just say I'll wait until he tells me what to do.

Klara: 28:01

I agree. I think even in sales, actually nobody likes to be told what to do. So when I think about customers and the best way to approach it, I always think about what are the best questions. I could ask them to think about things from a different perspective, because if you just come in, well, this technology can help you solve this and this. They probably have 50 other people that are coming through that door saying the same thing or different thing and trying to create their value proposition. So how do you help them come up to the right conclusion that's right for them to solve the challenges and problems that they have? And I do love you mentioning kind of the motivation, because one of the things even working at Apple that obviously Steve Jobs and the leadership there has been hire great people who have passion for what they do and let them figure out how things should be done instead of telling somebody how to do things. I think they're one of the companies that are kind of known for this type of mindset.

George: 28:57

At least for me, it's a much more enjoyable environment when you're given the freedom to figure out how to do some things, as opposed to you know, here's a set of instructions, go do it. That gets boring too.

Klara: 29:11

Yes, are there specific leaders, george, that you want to call out? It seems like you've mentioned you were positively influenced by the culture and some of the leaders to be able to have your own initiative, think through problems and create something from scratch. So to me, what really stands out? That creativity and adaptability and you mentioned discipline, obviously putting in the work and effort to build the channel. That takes a lot of time and thinking, but anyone specifically that you think of really influenced your next steps and career and how you build your teams.

George: 29:50

There's probably a lot of them, a lot of leaders. If I start mentioning names I know I'll forget some really important ones, but a lot of it. For me, my kind of approach to leadership was formed being a part of in those early days at Hewlett Packard, because it was things like focus on the customer, trust and respect for the individual make a contribution, but also the business has to do well. One of the most important things to create a great culture is you're winning. I mean that makes it a lot easier. So there was a real focus on the business.

George: 30:28

You know one of the leaders that I really looked up to when I was at HP. His name was Rick Beluso. He was very high level there, then wound up CEO of Silicon Graphics, president of Microsoft, done a lot in his career. But he wound up joining our board at Cradlepoint and really to this day kind of remains a mentor for me, and his approach to leadership I think was formed through those Hewlett Packard values as well. He actually wrote a book I think it was called Soft-Hearted and Hard-Headed or something like that.

George: 31:01

I talk about this with most of our leaders, that you have to make decisions based on what's best for the business first, what's best for your team second and what's best for you last, and if you keep it in that order, things tend to go well, and if the business fails, everybody's in trouble. If your team starts seeing you optimize yourself over the team and the business, then you're in deep trouble. So you know some of those simple things that really, I think, make a difference, that I learned along the way from a lot of these folks.

Klara: 31:31

I love those three things in the order of importance. I think sometimes, especially in these days, there's a tendency where people may perhaps think to reprioritize or deprioritize the business. But I think enterprises and corporations, unless you're a non-profit and I think I would argue, actually even in non-profits there's importance to have some sort of revenue because you need to continue to keep going. The venture that needs to be the North Star star and so being clear about it and positioning it look, better our business does, the better we all will be, because it creates more opportunities for the whole organization to thrive, and being clear about it. I think it's really important and I actually think we should, as organizations, be speaking up about it perhaps more.

Klara: 32:22

And from what I've seen, even actually the mass layoffs, people have been bashing the organizations, but really they were a result of irresponsible, perhaps in many ways, behavior that they perhaps hire many people that were needed in some instances in the organizations and for that reason the business wasn't thriving to the degree that it could have. So the operational efficiency and the theme that we have in the recent years, I think it's being driven probably quite a bit by the lack of responsibility on understanding and putting the business-minded values first. What are your thoughts on that, george?

George: 33:14

For a nonprofit. Your ability to help people is going to be dependent on. What are your thoughts on that? George involved and all that, but the enterprise itself has to survive if you're going to serve your customer, whether it's philanthropic or revenue-based. But sometimes that is hard for people to understand.

Klara: 33:35

And so, reflecting on your career, maybe before we jump to Cradlepoint, which I want to just focus on completely separately you have had a fantastic journey at HP, build up all the way to being the senior vice president of global business unit and after that you actually decided, after 20 plus years, to move to general partner at a VC company.

Klara: 33:59

So maybe two ways to phrase my question. Number one what are some of the key skills you have guttered throughout that journey that you see prepared you for the next jump of CEO? And, in relation to that, are there specific roles or responsibilities throughout those years that you really had to hone or came to? Either actually you realize this is natural for me, I'm really good at it or perhaps skills that this is not as natural for me and I need to lean in and practice my skills. Perhaps same thing, like on the court there's a stroke that kind of drags us down and you don't want to kind of take down your whole leadership style and you need to maybe polish or work a little bit harder on to really internalize.

George: 34:47

That's also a pretty broad question.

Klara: 34:51

Take it whichever way you want.

George: 34:53

Okay, I essentially left HP because I think you find this sometimes in very large, successful companies that you start to get to a point where a lot of the opportunities are in the white spaces between these big business units and each business unit is measured on a set of things that is maybe different than that other business unit and so it gets very difficult to go after some of that and I just started to feel like it was taking such an enormous amount of energy to move the company a millimeter. I wasn't getting that satisfaction from it necessarily anymore and I didn't decide to just jump right into the venture. I just left HP and said, okay, I'm retiring from HP and then did really nothing for well, not nothing, but I spent about 12 months or so doing some other things, did some angel investing and then got connected to this venture firm. And when you talk about maybe how did that help prepare me for going into the CEO role? Because the venture firm we were focused on seed and series A very early stage companies and I'd say one of the biggest differences moving from HP into a cradle point or what I saw in these startups, is, you know, in a large company you typically manage your global business unit through the income statement right.

George: 36:26

What's our revenue? What's our income? What's our OPEX? In a small company, you run the business based on the balance sheet. Did we collect enough money to pay people this month? Can we extend our time before we have to pay the other one? How are we going to get the working capital we need? It's all about cash and some of those things. So it's a little bit different approach that you need to take and certainly see that with those early stage startups, You've got to be really frugal in the early days, because most of the times when they fail, it's they run out of cash. They run out of money. Either they couldn't make it until the market took off, or maybe they didn't have enough time to do a pivot they needed, or whatever. So that was certainly a key learning for me going into that role. That definitely helped. It also helped I had a great CFO I worked with at Cradle Point named Val Heusenfeld, who is brilliant, and she kind of helped coach and train me on the balance sheet also.

Klara: 37:32

So it seems like, at least from those days in the venture capital really further intensified your business-minded focus, because it seems like you've kind of built that, but that understanding of people say cash is king, special in business, and what also sounded to me like the timing I'd always say timing in tennis. Business in life is everything. So, especially if you're a small company, how do you time the opportunity with the market? Because you might be developing something that the market is not prime and ready for. So how do you either keep it alive for the technology to mature or introduce it right at the right time to grow it? Anything else you want to add, george?

George: 38:13

I mean, that's a key thing. I can't tell you how many times we've said we've got to live to fight another day. Even at Cradlepoint right, there are some very dark, dark days along the way, so that's certainly important. The other thing, though, it really pointed out was just how important a level of agility is in terms of being able to spot one we're on the wrong path or two we're on the right path and we need to double down, or something's changing and we need to be able to react to it. And uh, you know, in a big company you have much more resource at your disposal things like that. That's not quite as important. It probably should be. I think you have a lot of feelings about why it's hard for big companies to change sometimes, but that agility is really critical when you're in a smaller company or when you're in a market that's changing quickly.

Klara: 39:12

Love that. So maybe on that note, kind of reflecting on your cradle point years when you were appointed the role of the CEO, I'm curious how that happened and through how that you actually touched on earlier on the crisis and now that you had gone through Cradle Point and despite of that you've been able to create a fantastic business and grow from, I believe, at the beginning, 70 employees or so to over a thousand and have raised several times additional capital that allowed you to grow through how that credit point venture and kind of your journey. So how do you reflect on that? And even if you take us back, how did that jump to the CEO happen and any sort of the crisis that you want to highlight you mentioned that strengthened you to really be closer with the team at that point.

George: 39:59

First of all, it's really hard to be prepared, I think, to become a CEO. I was running very large global business units and things like that. It was different. You know, on day one on the job I had asked the board if you have to do a layoff, do it before I get there. They didn't, so I had to announce a layoff on the first day. Nobody really knew me. It kind of put me in a hole to start building trust out of. That wasn't the way I wanted to start.

George: 40:27

You know, the company was basically out of money and we had to raise and the agreement I had with the investors was can you give us enough to get through 12 months to prove the thesis of this, of this? And you know, one of the reasons I went there was there was a thesis in my mind too that when you look around, there were these two kind of hard facts that I I really believe. Still one anything that can be wireless will be wireless, and trail point was doing wireless networking using cellular networks. And I may think about it your mobile phone, your laptop, you're on Wi-Fi, your mouse is wireless, your AirPods are wireless. It's just simpler, it's easier. Lots of reasons. And the other piece was everything is going to be connected. And so you know, between those two things, I think there was enough of a true, true market opportunity. I think there was enough of a true, true market opportunity that it made sense to go do it. You know, when I first got there, I would send a nice handwritten note to the sales folks congratulations on making your quota and we'd mail the check in the mail to them. They thought it was a great touch, but it was because we needed to float, we had to collect receivables so we'd have money in the bank to pay them. But we got through that relatively quickly because there was a strong engineering team. We didn't have much of a go-to-market and kind of built that up.

George: 41:59

And then I think some of this is a recency thing, claire, because I was just talking to someone yesterday about this who's looking at their later in their career and looking at, gee, what do I want to do? One of the best things I think we did was we had a good mix of obviously young, hungry, entrepreneurial type people. But we also brought in a few folks that were very experienced. They were no longer trying to build a resume, they just wanted to share that experience and build a business, help build a business, and that combination was very powerful from a team standpoint. That really helped contribute to the success as well. We had no politics. No, I want to get ahead, and to do that, I got to step on your shoulders, thinking on top of you or any of that. None, none of that was happening.

George: 42:47

And when I think about probably the two key values that have stuck the most at cradle point, one was stay humble and hungry or you will be. And then the other was don't point a finger, lend a hand. And that came about. I was talking to a firmware engineer. We had a cloud platform and firmware and he just looked and he said well, I can't, I can't do anything because I'm waiting for the cloud guys, and I'm already done with my piece and I thought, well, get your butt over there and help them right. And that, I think, has turned into something that helped me.

George: 43:24

Frankly, cradlepoint a special place. You know what? If anybody needed help, somebody will help you. Reach out, you got a question, reach out, you need help on something. We've got each other's back. That sense of teamwork made a huge difference in the success of the company. I think that's my perspective. Others may disagree with that. I was telling my wife I was going to do this podcast with you, claire, and I said I don't know if I really have much to share here. And she said look, everybody knows how to make guacamole. This is your formula for guacamole. Yeah, it worked for you. If somebody gets something out of it, great. If not, no big deal. And I think that's probably true. There were some things that worked for me that may not work for other people. I mean, every leader is different and you got to find your path right.

Klara: 44:15

Yes, but I love your vision and, as I'm hearing your story, there continues to be this strain of obviously the humble and hungry.

Klara: 44:26

I have still some connections at cradle points. I've reached out to a few friends and they conquered how beautiful that motto is and really resonated throughout your leadership across the board and the ability to actually get some of these principles I guess maybe the best way to call them. Also, don't point a finger and lend a hand, make a total sentence Beautiful, but how do you get it down throughout that whole organization? Because I've seen many leaders that have some principles and they say things. So there's actually one thing that well, are you really practicing that? Because people see if leader has principles and they don't demonstrate it themselves, it's really hard for them to follow something that the leader himself is not internalizing and people don't see in action. So I'm sure you actually really resonating with them deeply and practicing them and people obviously, from my testimonies, seeing that and really seeing it in you helped them to adopt that mindset. But any other tips that helped you, let the whole organization and team know. This is how we should be working and this is the mindset we should practice.

George: 45:40

Yeah, you said the most important one, which is, if I'm saying it and I'm not doing it, then nobody else is going to believe it. And you know, the foundation for all leadership is trust, and that's built through through authenticity and and respect. If it's not one of your values, you shouldn't even bring it up. I mean, like you, I've been in organizations where somebody gave me a PowerPoint slide and said here's our shared values. Stick it on your pegboard. What do these mean? You know, just put it on your pegboard. You know, when the leader comes through, I want to see values on everybody's pegboard. But that was not in fact.

George: 46:18

I resisted doing that for quite a while, resisted doing that for quite a while. My belief was someone should be able to walk in the company and feel the values of the company. You shouldn't have to post them on a wall necessarily. They should feel that teamwork, they should feel that desire to serve the customer. They should feel those things. And part of the humble and hungry is low ego leadership. And there's a quote I use sometimes to help me stay centered on that and it came from my wife, karen, and it goes like this you know it's not always about you, so that kind of grounding is important.

George: 46:58

But one of the things we did do that I thought was valuable was when you take those values. We had some team sessions where we'd say, okay, so what's above the line behavior and what's below the line behavior, right, so okay, don't point a finger, lend a hand, what shows that you're living that value and what behaviors say you're not? And that was really valuable for teams to kind of talk through some of that. And then the other thing is don't point a finger at the hand. Sounds kind of pithy but it's also kind of memorable and we just talked about it a lot and talked about on the onboarding. I used to onboard sessions with all new employees. I talked a lot about look, if you need help, reach out, somebody will help you if you try to make sure people understood when they came into the company and everybody did that again and it wasn't just me, it was the leadership team all believed in that and if they're modeling it, then people also model it.

George: 48:02

That's my uh, probably too limited a view on this, but I think the biggest reasons leaders fail, the two things it's ego and insecurity, and those two things I think have cratered more leaders than anything else I've seen in my career. If you can't let other people get the credit for the great work they're doing, if you need to be the most important person in the room or on the stage all the time some of those things they just don't. Build a culture of respect where everybody feels like you know that thing we talked about, craig. It takes every employee and their contribution for us to get where we want to go. Not one job is more important than another. When you're providing a service to a customer, every link in that chain is critical, and so every employee's contribution matters.

Klara: 48:57

I love that and love hearing everything you shared. Obviously, the ego and insecurity 100% resonate with those and people can sense it, I think, quite quickly. If you're even working for someone or even adjacent teams, you recognize those two from people and that, I think, quickly makes people to withdraw or kind of hold your boundaries and then creates a big level of politics which you pretty much share. That it was one of the things at Cradle Point, which is no politics, which I would love to work in. A company where there's no politics. That sounds fantastic and, having the privilege to meet you and speaking to your employees, I wish I had the opportunity to work for you.

Klara: 49:40

George, you truly seem like a very authentic and grounded leader and obviously business-oriented. So on that note, just going back to Cradle Point, it seems like you put a lot of attention on building the right culture and hiring the right team and that's a lot where you grounded yourself in to really scale and build the business. But on the business side you did mention Cradle Point is at the beginning was very close to running out of business. You were 12 months away. We're given a 12 months to prove your two hypothesis, which are more true now, probably, than even before, and maybe now people think, oh yeah, that makes sense, but in 2011, it perhaps wasn't as well known that those two things would be true or will be proven as reality. So, looking at that, what are some of the key points that helped you turn the business around, to grow it to the growth and profitability you have been able to achieve?

George: 50:44

I'm going to start to sound redundant here, clara, but one of the things I learned early in my career is the most important competitive advantage you can have is a team that is motivated and wants to work together to win. I'm not an engineer by nature, and that was my approach to building this company. It was create a culture where people can do their absolute best work, where they feel like they're valued and recognized for their contribution, where they trust their leadership, where their leadership trusts them and they enjoy the people they work with. Then, yeah, you have a pretty good culture. That was definitely important, one of the things I will call out too.

George: 51:26

So there were three founders when I went to the company and only one of them stayed. His name is Ryan Adamson, and one of them was probably a cause of many of my sleepless nights who left, but Ryan stayed. And Ryan came to me at one point and said, look, I just want to help build this company, I believe in it, I want to do great things, and he was like the spiritual leader for the sales organization. He jumped into that role, and so that was really helpful. And then you know, one of the hardest things when you go into a new organization is finding the truth, especially in an organization that's suffering in a crisis mode, because everybody will tell you here's what's wrong and here's the person responsible for what's wrong, and if you just listen to me, it'll be okay, it's all well-intentioned, but that is in my experience. I think what helped was starting with the customer. First experience.

George: 52:29

I think what helped was starting with the customer first, so get outside the four walls, start talking to customers and partners, to use that to help gauge the feedback you're getting. And then I think one of the key things that helped us as well is we created a leadership team where half of the team was existing in the business and half the team came in from outside, and I brought in the CFO, val Heusenfeld. I've mentioned Just a brilliant, wonderful leader. But we still had folks like Don Bumgarner and Ken Hozek, who knew the business inside and out, or Steve Wood was running R&D at the time. So it was a good combination of experience because we were going to try to scale and that's a challenge for small startups too. When you start to scale, a lot of things have to change. So we had a good mix of that kind of experience that helped us, and we had good investors.

Klara: 53:24

Frankly, I love what you're mentioning also the mix of internal versus external people, because it seems like you have a good understanding from the internal group of what's happening, but kind of external group that brings out questions that I sometimes think like there could be some of the simplest questions, but because there's a specific way of operating, we don't ask them anymore, or you look at it from this outside-in perspective. So it seemed like it would allow for this good dialogue and revisiting why things are done the way they are done in probably a collaborative way from like, let me understand how things are done now or why we do them this way, and is there perhaps a better way to then grow or achieve the next step that we need to achieve? Is that accurate? Anything else you want to add, george, that drove you to that decision?

George: 54:17

You know, I looked at my job. They're kind of in three big buckets opportunity, risk and talent. And so where are the opportunities and how many of them can we take on right now? And that kind of fed into the risk part of it, which was in the very early days, we were looking at a time horizon of the quarter. Right, are we going to get enough cash in the door to keep going for the quarter? We've got to invest in those areas that are going to deliver that.

George: 54:51

As we start to get more success, you can expand and say what are we going to do a year from now? And now they're talking about what are we going to do two years from now or whatever. But that risk profile keeping the company funded, how much are you investing in the future versus keeping the lights on today? That's a constantly changing kind of a thing. And then, on a talent talent side, it's finding great talent, trying to motivate them and, as you get bigger and bigger, trying to align that talent. And that's certainly one thing. As you start to scale and you start to get more people and more leaders, alignment starts to play, frankly, even a bigger role than strategy when you get into bigger and bigger organizations. If everybody's working, rowing in the same direction, some really good things can happen.

Klara: 55:36

I love that. So we covered some of the challenges and the things that help you turn things around. But I'm curious, as you reflect on your cradle point journey, I'm sure there were some fantastic wins that you are proud of. So I want to give you an opportunity to call out some of the things that maybe stand out to you and even kind of draw in. You earlier mentioned that it is important to learn how to win. We talked about in tennis, and so when you're winning not playing defensive but continue to take risks and progress are there any specific things that, again on the winning side, you learn to practice through the business, keeping that winning strategy to grow the business you want to highlight?

George: 56:20

the biggest one that comes to mind was and this was, I think, in 2018. So our business model was we would sell a router or an endpoint and you'd buy a subscription to a cloud platform and then you'd get support services and, as a startup, you're looking to either go public or be acquired, and the valuations were really focused on how much recurring revenue you have, how much recurring revenue you have. And so we decided, with a lot of great work with my CFO, but really the overall team let's put this whole thing together in a subscription. So the hardware, the cloud, the support, all of it in one subscription package that you buy in one, three or five year terms, and that had not been done. It took a tremendous amount of work with our channel, because our channel said, well, wait a minute, we sell hardware through this system and we sell software through this system, so we can't put them together. We had customers that said, no, I don't want a subscription, I want it the old way, and we lost some customers. But we, essentially, within a 12 month period, and the whole organization lined up around this and just did a fabulous job with channel customers. All the systems we had to do In 12 months we went from, I think, 12% recurring revenue to 80% recurring revenue and it was, I think, a great testament to how the organization locked onto this opportunity.

George: 57:55

And it was risky, there was no question. It was a pretty substantial risk because others weren't doing it. We spent a lot of time getting the accounting folks, the auditors, to say yes, you can do that and combine it all, and here's the parameters you have to live within. But it turned out fantastic and I think that that was key to the outcome we got. In being acquired by Ericsson, we really we elevated the company and I would get calls from our competitors saying how'd you do that? And stuff like that. So that is one of the more memorable changes I think that really was an inflection point for the company.

Klara: 58:34

I love that highlight and actually it made me even more understand why Ericsson acquired Cradlepoint. This is no secret. They've been trying to figure out how to transform to this model more and more, given the world has become more and more software right. So how do you translate from just selling radios to now becoming more of an ongoing license that sort of encompasses the whole hardware, software, services etc. Which is a very complex math and I can only imagine the amount of work and scrutiny that probably went into that model and the level of risk that you that probably went into that model and the level of risk that you had taken and probably quite a bit of measurement whether you guys calculated everything correctly or it needs to be readjusted back and forth or in a different way to ensure you're driving to that amount of profitability. But from 12% to 80%, yeah, that's a fantastic jump.

George: 59:29

It was good. At the same time, we were trying to move more of our functionality out of the hardware and into the cloud. That's another thing that was attractive for Ericsson was our R&D teams had developed a really very successful, powerful kind of agile development model for delivering functionality much more quickly.

Klara: 59:48

Speaking about Ericsson, since we already mentioned it, you were acquired by Ericsson in October 2023. I still remember when the news came out and, while I understood why Ericsson would make the purchase in many ways since we've actually chatted earlier I was part of a bit of the Ericsson enterprise play that they tried to do with 4G, and Ericsson has been forever trying to be an enterprise company and they've had several different attempts. I have to give them kudos that they're going around this level differently now with the acquisition versus trying to build up their own enterprise team, although I know they're still probably submerging between some of the wireless groups they have had and Cradlepoint. But how was that moment for you, george? Obviously, by then, you have built a fantastic business and had beautiful wins throughout. How do you reflect on the time and that announcement?

George: 1:00:42

I think it was a terrific outcome for Cradlepoint for a couple of reasons. One, we did get a very nice valuation. We had every employee in Cradle Point had stock options, so we had everybody benefited in some way from that acquisition. And, most importantly, because we were also on an IPO track. We were starting to talk about that. Erickson wanted to keep every employee in the company and actually has doubled the size of the company since we've been acquired. So, like you said, they're investing to get into the enterprise. So for me it was a win for the employees.

George: 1:01:21

We built the Cradlepoint business with that telco network being a black box to us and we just got bought by the people that build that black box. So the opportunity potentially to create more value for our customers with more insight into how those systems work, and all of that was attractive as well. And then I have to give a lot of credit to Broyer, the CEO of Ericsson, and in fact there's probably people in Erickson that still don't know what Cradlepoint does. It's 100,000 people in the organization, right, but, maria, he's really been willing to make the investments, kind of stick his neck out and try to turn that aircraft carrier. And there are some very big differences between the enterprise and the telco side of things and he's been open to that and leveraging like, hey, we need to do more agile, so let's get our teams together and figure some of those things out. So it's not easy, though that's a heavy lift, but overall I think he's doing a pretty good job.

Klara: 1:02:29

Well, that's great to hear obviously free advice for erickson from me, who they, you know, don't have to respect at all and can totally disregard. But hopefully they're not going to pull in that site under their existing business because they have done that historically several times and that's where things typically die. So as far as they continue to hopefully run this really independently and use it as the enterprise arm that I see a new potential for them succeeding with it. But as soon as you start pulling into kind of the mass network rollout, at least from even trajectory of the past things they have done, that usually doesn't work. And it doesn't work actually for Ericsson or any other telco for that matter. One of the fun examples you can even point AT&T. They're like the master of acquiring businesses at the highest evaluations and then selling them at the probably lowest possible because they can't figure it out how to merge the business and technology into what they do.

George: 1:03:27

I think Burry is well aware of that, frankly, and he's created an enterprise segment. Obviously, we're going to have some of the core systems will be the same HR systems and stuff like that but how we go to market completely different, right, and that was one of the reasons they were attracted to CreativePoint too. We have a very robust go-to-market model team channel program. All of that that you absolutely have to have in the enterprise space.

Klara: 1:03:55

On that note, george, you have seen a whole wide scope of business and technology and I'm actually curious from your view, how you see this space evolving, kind of now or the near-term future. Obviously, the two hypotheses you mentioned back in 2011, where you started Cradlepoint, are probably more true than ever Everything that can be connected will be connected, and then the wireless connectivity will be sort of the key driver for enterprise and transformation. Anything else you want to add to those as far as like convictions that you see based on now, your journey of more than a decade in this space, and maybe anything you want to forecast?

George: 1:04:39

Usually my forecasts are wrong, but try to get close. When I think about our business, the wireless wide area networking, the cellular business, I think there's a huge opportunity really and I know you know this, claire. But for things like private cellular networking, right where you go and you start to think about what could happen in a factory, when you can reconfigure a factory line in a couple of hours, as opposed to repulling cables everywhere and do it in two weeks, when you have the kind of visualization systems that are starting to become available, that can take advantage of 5G, that horsepower, when you have AI, when you have robotics, I think there's just going to be massive transformation in some of those industries and I think that creates a lot of opportunity. I believe Ericsson has all the technology needed to be a leader in private networking and they've kind of moved that business more towards the Cradlepoint team and created this enterprise wireless solutions business unit so that we can get the best of the go-to-market, best of the technology andto-market best of the technology and some of those things. So I think that's going to be a big, big opportunity for that business.

George: 1:05:58

Everything is AI nowadays, so if you don't have AI somewhere in your pitch, you're probably not going to get listened to. We've been working on things like AI ops, where you can predict network failures before they happen. You can repair them before needed. Things like that are going to take a lot of the workload off of folks. You know, I think there's lots of opportunity in those areas. I'm kind of I'm half excited and half terrified of AI, so I think near term is going to create some incredible productivity opportunities Long term. I just don't want to report to a robot.

Klara: 1:06:45

I think we all share that mindset and probably depends on which day I wake up and what side of the bed I'm more optimistic or more terrified, but actually I do have that as one question, so tell me more about it. What do you see as some of the most potential or things that you're worried about? Hopefully you sleep well, but what would you say if there was something that keeps you up at night? What would that be, george?

George: 1:07:05

Specifically related to AI. It's specifically related to AI. It's will the new jobs that are going to be created because of AI outstrip the jobs that are going to be?

George: 1:07:18

eliminated because of AI and how's that timing going to work? You know, when you think about a factory floor, for example, preventing industrial accidents, you don't have to worry quite so much if it's a robot doing it than a person. So I think there's going to be a lot of disruption in the industry and the industries. I look at what we're doing right now with AI. It's creating a better customer experience. There are lots of great things that are coming out of it. So I tend to be 60% optimistic. I'm not 50-50, but I don't know.

George: 1:07:51

The CIO of a company I work with said the other day he said what's the world going to be like when you can just have a conversation with your data? Where could you take that and what could you learn? And I mean there is tremendous opportunity there. That doesn't keep me up at night, but it is something I wonder about and trying to learn about too. I'm trying to educate myself more and more around AI, but also trying to step out of the wireless business a little bit too, and I'm learning more about the healthcare industry and working with some companies there and things like that. So things to keep me from getting bored, I guess.

Klara: 1:08:29

We've talked about that and you being easily bored, so I'm sure there's no shortage of things you continue to dive into and explore. On that note, is there anything you've kind of mentioned? Healthcare and obviously the AI, which we all are learning about, I think, and we'll continue to learn for years and decades. Let's see what comes. But anything specifically that you want to say is spiking your enthusiasm, now that you're listening to, as you're from at least my view facing to what the next chapter for George would look like, because, if I again can't have my opinion, it seems like your expertise and value would benefit many companies. So it's a matter of do you want to do other things after, or what the next things are for you, which I don't know if you had given enough thought or had time to think about yet.

George: 1:09:16

I'm still kind of sorting through some of that. I'm not really looking to do another full-time CEO role right now. In a few months, karen, my wife, might want me to start looking for a full-time role somewhere. We'll see how that goes. But I'm working with several startups in the area. I'm on a couple of other boards in the healthcare space trying to learn more.

George: 1:09:36

There is one thing so I took up martial arts later in life as well. And one thing that I remember my first day in the class I'm standing there with my white belt on and there's this 12 year old kid and he's got a brown belt and they said well, let's practice some kind of sparring stuff. You know, he's like four feet tall, I'm six foot four, and he looks at me and he goes like this like you know, right out of the matrix or something. Okay, this, this is going to keep me humble. But from that day forward I also thought you know, you should always be a white belt in something. You should always be a little uncomfortable learning something. So I'm kind of sorting through those options. Right now. People are reaching out. I'm trying not to jump onto too much too soon. Let things settle a little bit and then I'll decide I'll never do nothing. I kind of cringe when people say, oh, you're retired. I don't see myself as retired, I'm just not doing what I was doing before.

Klara: 1:10:34

And I commend you on that. There's actually many studies that also say the more you stay engaged with things that you're passionate about, the better we age. And there are studies comparing I believe, actually comparing the US US older demographic, because I think in the US people tend to work even a long retirement, sometimes have like part time jobs, versus in Europe because the way social systems are structured and they have a tendency to just retire and don't do as much work after they reach their retirement age. And they actually say that that some sort of engagement, in whatever shape people have, is kind of the right path which I envision for myself too. I can't imagine to actually not have things to be curious and passionate about.

George: 1:11:19

It doesn't look like it's going to be a problem for you, Clara.

Klara: 1:11:23

Yeah, I have a problem of keeping my enthusiasm in check. That's actually true. Of keeping my enthusiasm in check. That's actually true. It's one of my problems is adding too many things on my calendar, which is something I continue to practice as I grow older. What are really the things where I can maybe contribute and drive a difference, while learning from excellent leaders like you, george, and having these fantastic conversations?

Klara: 1:11:47

So maybe, on that note, I just wanted to maybe read a short quote I've gotten from some of your employees that encompasses maybe our conversation. They all shared the motto humble yet hungry is so true and accurate to you. People have had you meet with their CIO customers and the first thing that the customer used to describe you was as humble. So there's this beautiful value that comes out even from our conversations. I concur with that. Perhaps this conversation alone is a testament of that.

Klara: 1:12:18

You're a great leader who matches the humble, strong, caring leadership qualities and those you actually mentioned one of the founders of Cradle Point, ryan Adamson, which seems like you had a great partnership and you always give credit to those that work for you, and you are one of the leaders that everyone just wanted to perform well and you have led, obviously Cradle Point to impressive growth. So those are words from your own team that I just picked out and wanted to share here with you. And again, I'll conquer. I maybe still will have one day opportunity to work under your leadership. Let's see what you decide to do. Everything I've heard. I'm sure that I would benefit a ton of learning from someone like you, any things you want to share when it comes to the leadership principles, because that's something that really seemed to stand out through this conversation. You shared a number of things, so I don't want to make you repeat things, but if somebody wanted to take away one, two, three points to hone in their own leadership skill, what would those be?

George: 1:13:24

Well, keeping in mind that this is just my recipe for guacamole. It's not everybody's. People sometimes ask me what's the right leadership style and my answer is always it's your style, because if you're not authentically who you are, people are going to see through that immediately. So I'm an introvert. I have a certain style. Others are extroverts. They have a certain style. Be yourself, be your true, authentic self, warts and all too. Because I think you know, one of the great ways to build trust is, you know, if you screw up a little and you admit it, that helps the rest of the organization. So I think that's really key, I think, for folks to be aware and be conscious as you. This is maybe more true of men than women, but some men will just go. What's the next promotion? How do I get there? Just trying to climb that ladder as fast as possible.

George: 1:14:20

Every step up on that rung there's a new balance that has to happen in terms of work-life balance. You know, as a CEO, my work-life balance was different. Know, as a CEO, my work-life balance was different than it was as an individual contributor, because people are going to be waiting for a decision and they can't do their job. If I'm well, I'm going to take the afternoon off and I'll talk to you next week. So you know, be conscious about what you really want in your role and how much, because I think some people work just to live and other people live just to work, and both are fine, but be be very conscious of that.

George: 1:14:59

And then the final kind of recipe around culture, which I did. I learned very early. I told you about the. The importance of a high functioning team is if you have a direction people believe in, if they trust their leadership and you give them reasons to trust you every day and that flows both ways and if they believe they're making a contribution and they're recognized for it and they like the people they work with, you're going to have a good place to go to work, or, nowadays, a good place to go to remote work or maybe.

George: 1:15:32

But one other thing I will say I went to a leadership class, kind of a seminar, at West Point once and it really hit home for me is again, when the stuff hits the fan, in addition to not running around like your hair's on fire, the number one leadership quality that becomes most important is competence. So you have to be engaged in your business, you have to understand your customers, you have to understand your people, you have to understand your technology. That's why you know, when you hear about a battle somewhere and stuff's going sideways, they all follow the sergeant and the captain's left going. Hey, how come nobody's following me? I just went to West Point. You have to know your business and you have to practice and study.

Klara: 1:16:19

I love that, actually, something my partner and I talk about heavily nowadays, and sometimes it seems like there's leaders who don't fully understand, and maybe rightfully so. Some of the businesses become so complex and convoluted they can be really hard to find out what is truth. Like you actually mentioned that when you started Cradlepoint, you really focus on what is true, and maybe some of the data and AI technology could allow us perhaps now have more transparency and be more agile, instead of maybe creating PowerPoints and slides, because that's something, as I reflect on, some of my jobs is like. By the time it goes from like the level four or five underneath to the top, like the message changes completely. So how do the leaders actually know what's really true if you have so many things?

Klara: 1:17:04

It's like the silent post, right. It seems to be equally true in businesses, so perhaps the technology transformation could help us with that, but I think, equally, it is a skill that leaders need to be wanting and willing to dive deep and really practice that and get grounded to what's happening on the ground, and it seems like great leaders like you do that, george, thank you. So maybe to close off, anything you would want to inspire people to be doing more of or less of in 2024, perhaps physically leadership, but you can pick any other areas. I think, given what's happening in the world, we're in need of great leadership, now more than ever.

George: 1:17:44

I don't know if I have anything inspiring I do wonder about, because I've been such a culture kind of leader how do we create wonderful cultures when people are rarely together and how are we going to do that? How do we create that human connection of working together, that esprit de corps that I've got your back, you've got mine, when everybody's sitting behind a screen? That, I think, is a big challenge for this next generation of leaders, because I don't see it going back to every day in the office by any means. And there's been benefits, right, like we've got some terrific talent that wasn't near one of our hubs, but I also I know we've lost a little bit of something and maybe that's only important for my recipe of guacamole and others will find a better way to do that.

Klara: 1:18:40

And I would disagree with you that you're not inspiring, because that question actually is very inspiring for me and I could see that could be your whole new venture, george. So if you ever feel like brainstorming your ideas and how to maybe create a business around that, I'm sure there's many businesses across the world who will need that type of wisdom and maybe the hybrid environment is sort of working. But I think we all are still trying to navigate what the new reality is and how to stay connected in an environment that is in many ways separate or, yeah, not together in the same office all the time. So thank you so much for the conversation. It's been such a pleasure. Anything else you'd want to add and what's the best way for people to reach you or follow you? With your permission, if you're okay, I'll add the LinkedIn profile. I know you have to the episode notes so they can easily click and find you, but any other best way to stay in touch?

George: 1:19:35

LinkedIn is my only social network, so it's probably the best way to find me and I'm on it all the time. I'm happy to try to lend a hand where I can Feel free to reach out, and I will say it was a pleasure talking to you, claire. I chat and I will say it was a pleasure talking to you, claire. I like your story a lot and it's impressive what you're doing, both career wise and with your podcast, and I don't know where you're finding all the energy, but that's good.

Klara: 1:19:57

Thank you. I guess that's why we cling on to tennis, because it is typically for high energy people. So you always find a way to spread it between the things we're passionate about. So thank you again for joining. If you have a trip to Austin, please let me know. Maybe we can go play tennis and then you can beat me in your martial arts, because I know completely nothing. So it'll be fun for me to be humble and have actually no belt at all, but I'm sure I'll learn some tricks from you on that front too, george.

George: 1:20:26

Well, I'm sure you'll beat me on the tennis side If you enjoyed this episode.

Klara: 1:20:31

I want to ask you to please do two things that would help me greatly. One, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, spotify or any other podcasting platform that you use to listen to this episode. Two, please share this podcast with a friend who you believe might enjoy it as well. It is a great way to remind someone you care about them by sharing a conversation they might be interested in. Thank you for listening.

Grand Slam Journey

77. George Mulhern︱Game, Set, Lead: Winning Strategies for Tennis, Tech, and Business Leadership

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