This week I'm excited to share my conversation with my friend, mentor, and former boss, SJ Camarata, in this episode dubbed “Map to Happiness”. S.J. is an entrepreneur and business leader who has been involved in a number of innovative and groundbreaking companies throughout his career- including being on the leadership team at Esri for over 30 years. Esri is one of the largest privately held software companies in the world, and SJ’s tenure at the iconic firm spanned from heading up Esri’s early go to market teams in the 80’s & 90’s to helping the firm ride the online and mobile wave more recently through strategic M&A and corporate innovation programs. This episode unpacks some of rich context of how Esri started from humble beginnings and has scaled into the enterprise mapping giant with over 400,000 customers in over 150 countries. Beyond Esri, SJ has had a diverse career including co-founding and serving as an executive of several companies in the software, technology, and medical/health care sectors. He has served on the board or advisory board of over 20 companies in the U.S. and Europe for private, publicly traded, and not for profits. SJ currently serves as an advisor to Private Equity and Investment Banking companies. This is a fun episode that has a lot to offer anyone interested in building iconic brands, sustainability, GIS & Mapping, and most importantly how to live a truly happy and meaningful life. Please go to KurtyD.com if you want to subscribe to my newsletter and see the special content I’ve created.
What we covered:
Tweetable Quotes:
“Human nature (dictates that) you’d want to be in your tribe.”
“The requirements and the needs and the way that you dealt with startups vs. larger organizations are much different.”
“One thing people need to understand is everybody has an ego, and everybody is replaceable.”
“Products need to be products. That’s how you run a product company, and it’s different from services. We found the balance at 80% products and 20% services.”
“At Esri, we felt everybody should be compensated equitably across the organization.”
“Sure, I’ve made mistakes, but that is where the learning comes from”.
Links Mentioned: