The Physical vs. Digital Divide Isn't Always Old vs. Young feat. Robert Siegel

How do you develop products differently in the future? How do you organize your companies differently? What are the skill sets required of the leaders who will be taking organizations forward? 

According to Robert Siegel, digitization is like breathing, every company is going to have to increasingly integrate it in everything they do. 

Robert Siegel is a lecturer at Stanford GSB also a venture capitalist with Piva and Xseed Ventures, and also the author of “The Brains and Brawn Company: How Leading Organizations Blend the Best of Digital and Physical.”

This episode covers physical v digital companies, information flows, Tesla, Warby Parker, and training the next great systems leaders. 

Episode Quotes:

Consumer trust & data usage:

I remember talking to Walt Bettinger, he's the CEO of Schwab. In the 90 minutes I interviewed him the first time, he must've used the word “trust” 180 times in those 90 minutes, and talking about the importance of that. And one example that they give, is that if a Schwab customer logs into their Schwab account and clicks on “life events'' and then clicks on “divorce.” Schwab may know at a moment in time what's happening with that customer and might even know before the spouse does. And one of the things that Schwab asked themselves, or the first thing they ask themselves is through the client's eyes, what would our customers want us to do with this data? 

So it's not just that you have data and that you gather data and collect data, but do you use it intelligently and in a way that your customers are pleased and that they will say, I trust this company, I want to continue to engage with them and continue to work with them.

Great systems leaders:

You have to be able to operate both globally and locally. You have to know how to build platforms that can scale and operate globally, but how your platforms can be customized for local markets.

Training future leaders:

I hope that we at the business schools are doing a better job of training them not just in finance and marketing and digitization and strategy and all the things that you and I teach them, product management. But also to be thinking more broadly about issues around - what are the implications of these new services and products that we create? What does that mean to communities? What does it mean to their countries? What does it mean to international global conflict? And being aware of these kinds of issues.

Show Links:

Guest Profile:

• Faculty Profile at Stanford Graduate School of Business
• Professional Profile at XSeed Capital
• Robert Siegel on Linkedin
• Robert Siegel on Twitter

His Work:

• Robert Siegel on Medium
• The Brains and Brawn Company: How Leading Organizations Blend the Best of Digital and Physical