I think if you're not scared at

all, either you're fooling

yourself, or there might be

something pathologically wrong

with you. If you're going from

complete security to complete

insecurity, all humans will

experience moments of fear of

the unknown. That's very

natural and normal. How you push

through that fear and make it

useful to you, that's the part

that I think we all are training

on and trying to be better at.

That's Amy Chang, board member

of Procter & Gamble and founder

of the AI-powered business

intelligence platform that was

acquired by Cisco in 2018. Amy

is a digital pioneer. She's been

listed as one of Fast Company's

most creative people, Fortune's

most powerful women, and Forbes'

top 50 women in tech. At Cisco,

she led the company's multi-

billion dollar Collaboration

business, and its 5,000 person

team. Amy also worked at Google,

where she grew Google Analytics

to serve over 86 percent of the

entire Web. Currently, she

serves as an advisor to high-

growth tech companies like

HubSpot and Optimizely. In this

episode, we learn about Amy's

entrepreneurial journey and her

difficult decision to leave

Google to start her own company.

She also shares her tips on

mastering fear and using it to

achieve ambitious goals. This is

Daniel Saks, co-CEO of AppDirect,

and it's time to decode fear and

leaning into the unknown.

Welcome to "Decoding Digital," a

podcast for innovators looking

to thrive in the digital economy.

I'm your host, Daniel Saks, and

I'll sit down with other

founders, CEOs, and changemakers

to decode the trends that are

transforming the way we work.

Let's decode. Amy, welcome. I'm

so thrilled to be speaking with

you today.

I'm so thrilled to be here with

you.

Let's start from the beginning.

Tell us about how you got into

technology.

Our whole family is nerdy and

engineers. Apparently, only

produce engineers, so both my

parents, engineers, my sister,

engineer, me, engineer,

so that happened.

Tell me what it was like to grow

up in a family of engineers.

My dad and I had a thing we did

pretty much every night. We

would watch reruns of "Star Trek --

Next Gen" from 9:00 to 10:00

PM. They were on one of our five

channels on TV that you get for

free because we were a Chinese

frugal household that did not

pay for cable, so that was what

was on for free. We would watch

pretty much every night, and

that was our thing that we did

together. It was really fun

because then at Stanford, I got

to take the philosophy of Star

Trek -- Next Gen class where you

talk about how Descartes relates

to certain episodes or Hegel to

other episodes, and it was crazy

fun. That's how we grew up.

Clearly, Star Trek was about the

future. Take us back then when

you were at Stanford. What did

you think the future would be

like?

I have to say one of the things

that I love most is not to know

it. Anything that could be in

your imagination, at any given

time, the future has so far

eclipse anything I could have

imagined. I think of, for

example, automotive, and just

getting around town and the

first time the OS updated on the

Tesla. We got into it and got

onto AD and let it autopilot. It

was mind-blowing. The lane

changing capabilities all of

that. Just in that year, I've

never expected it to come so

quickly. I find I'm continuously

pleasantly surprised by such

things.

Clearly, you've had the

opportunity to sit on many

boards and look at technology at

the largest scale -- Cisco,

Procter & Gamble. You've also

had the opportunity to start

your own startup. That's really

on the cutting edge of

technology and AI. What advice

would you give to someone

starting their career in

technology in order to get going?

I think keeping an open mind and

really allowing for serendipity

to happen to. If you're too

stuck on any one subsector or

any one idea, a lot of times

you'll miss the signals that are

coming towards you that, maybe,

you shouldn't be ignoring. Even

picking a subspecialty for

whatever major, if you're CS, UW

or whatever you are, and being

open to taking class is outside

of that subspecialty and just

being open to ideas and people

and making sure that you're

within our people who open your

mind to other possibilities, I

think those pieces are all

really important.

Having an engineering background

and going to Stanford, you

probably had the opportunity to

do a lot of things post school,

but you chose to go to McKinsey.

Can you tell us why?

That's a funny one. I

didn't know I was going to

choose to go to McKinsey,

actually. I've gotten into this

thing called the Mayfield

Fellows Program in my senior

year, and it lasted from senior

year through co-term year. It

opened up an entire world, where

I figured out I didn't know

anything about the go-to market

side of things. I didn't even

know what a business model was.

I didn't know what a supply

chain was. I didn't know what

any of that was. It just felt

like there was this whole half a

sphere missing, a whole realm of

things that I just had no idea

about. I didn't want to pay to

go to business school and accrue

a lot of debt because I figured

I just didn't want to. I looked

at some of my friends who were

going to McKinsey and Bain and

BCG, and these places where it

felt like they would give you an

MBA level education in a few

years, where they would pay you,

and you would get to travel

everywhere. I had not

been anywhere at that point, and

I really wanted to go see the

world. I decided I would go to

McKinsey and I was

filmed. My poor dad said to me, "

OK, so they don't build anything.

They don't create anything. As

far as I can tell, all they do

is talk. Am I getting that,

right?" I'm like, "Yeah, dad."

. He

was thinking, "OK, so you're

going to give up. In an

engineering position, to go and

just talk and hear other people

talk." "OK." I have to say the

one thing you learn there at a

consulting firm is how to tell a

story -- a cohesive, coherent,

compelling story. That has been

useful for an entire career

lifetime. You also start to

understand the importance of a

network, what could happen if

you knew people and were

connective tissue for other

people in different ways.

McKinsey was a phenomenal

education. After two and a half

years, I decided, "Yeah, I want

to go build something. I want to

go actually create," and that's

when I left to go to eBay.

Tell us about eBay.

That was eBay's heading because

they're growing really, really

rapidly and it's all about

community, both the buyers and

the seller community. It had a

lot of heart. People were very,

very passionate. It was still

growing rapidly when I first got

there, and I was managing the

paid search and affiliates

channels. What I got to see

firsthand was how dependent all

of these ecommerce marketplaces

and players were on Google and

Yahoo on paid search. The more I

delved into it, the more clear

it became that I needed to be on

the supply side versus the

demand side of this equation,

which is when I went and

interviewed at both Google and

Yahoo. At the time, it wasn't

clear that Google would become

what it's become and Yahoo would

become what it's become. Because

it was 2005, they were pretty

neck and neck. Google was number

one, but the share was tight. I

interviewed at both. This is the

thing you'll find is, sometimes,

you need some time to sit by

yourself and absorb and then

decide instead of just letting

everything come at you. Google

was like, "Come. Don't come. We

got 10 more like you."

You make your call in 48 hours.

Yahoo, Jeff Wiener was still

leading search at the time. That

man knows how to roll out the

red carpet. He's very persuasive

and he did a really good job

there and setting up the

position, and I was really

compelled by it. I decided, "OK,

as one last check, I'm going to

go and sit on both campuses by

myself for a couple hours," and

you can't get in the building,

but they can't keep you from

just sitting outside of the

building, which what's going to

stop you. I just went and sat

in front of both. Yahoo just

felt so different than Google.

Google felt alive with energy.

Meaning, people were walking to

and from the different buildings.

They were animated, and they

were engaged in discussion. It

felt almost like a college

campus. You could tell that

people felt strongly about

whatever it was that we're

talking about is full of life,

whereas at Yahoo if not more

corporate. That was what made my

decision for me, and I chose

Google. I have never

regret that obviously since but

it was a wild ride because at

the time Google was still in the

thousands, and we were doubling

every six months. This is the

thing that I always tell people

who are earlier in career. Look

for places with growth. If you

are someone who wants to learn

densely in his accelerated ways

possible, nothing will provide

that for you like growth well,

because when there's growth,

there's just so much room for

taking on more responsibility

and having more impact. The

politics don't start to come in

until growth slows and a company

is in stasis or is shrinking,

because that's when the elbows

come out from people, but when

you're in growth and everybody

needs to take on more

responsibility every single week,

there's plenty of whitespace and

plenty of room to ask for more,

and you will grow as a result

much more rapidly.

What did you see at Google that

led you to start a company?

It wasn't so much what I saw at

Google. It's what I experienced

there leading Google Analytics.

Google Analytics had reached the

point where we were processing a

billion queries per second. It's

a giant backend. We've also got

into the way where we were

serving almost 86 percent of the

entire Web. When Facebook got a

hit, we got a hit. When Twitter

got a hit, we got a hit. When

everybody got a hit, we got a

hit. We started to realize we

needed an enterprise-grade

solution. We were competing with

Coremetrics and Omniture in the

high end at that point, both of

which since were acquired. Long

story short, they had enterprise-

grade solutions where they had

services. They had support. They

had real enterprise salespeople

to sell it. They had the whole

go-to-market motion and stock.

We had none of that. In order

to service customers like Intel

or Schlumberger, or whomever, we

had to put a lot of that

structure in place. I remember I

went to this review with Larry

and Sergey. I was a little bit

arrogant in my assumption on

what we could do with this

business right off the bat.

They were like, "OK. Well, if

you think there's a business to

be had here, and you think it's

so important to multi-channel

attribution -- etc., etc. --

then you go build it. Why don't

you sell the first 10 customers,

enterprise-wise, yourself? Then

come back and show us that

people actually want this." I

was like, "Psh, no problem. With

10 million customers, I'm

positive I can get 10 to sign up

for this six-figure amount

annually. Not a problem." I went

off and I thought this would be

a lot easier than it was. I got

my ass handed to me. I knew

nothing about enterprises

at all. I'm sitting in

this meeting, and there are 19

executives from this giant

Fortune 50 company. They had

announced a huge layoff in reorg

that morning, and I missed it

because I'm also running Google

Analytics while at the same time

trying to sell these 10

customers. I missed it. I

didn't see it coming in the

times. I opened my mouth and I

inserted foot, my knee, my

everything. Everything went in,

and it was so embarrassing. I

don't know if you've ever felt

the blood go from your neck all

the way up to your scalp line.

It's like, "Rise up." I just

wanted the Earth to open up and

swallow me. Then the third time

that happened, I was thinking to

myself, "OK, my calendar is

available and the attendees are

available. How is there not an

intelligent service that can

brief me and alert me on things

I need to know if these are the

meetings I have today?" Every

single salesperson on Earth.

Every single outbound person on

Earth could use this. Why does

it not exist? That was the pain

that started the idea. Then my

CTO and co-founder, who...We've

been good friends at

Google since my second week

there because he helped me out

of a massive technical jam. We

worked closely together for the

entire time. We were cool. We

were discussing this and he was

like, "Well, why don't we go

start this company? What's

stopping us from doing it? We

should do it." I went, "OK, so

you want to do this together?"

he was like, "Yeah, let's do it."

That's how that all started.

Then our CFO and co-founder was

my husband who we met at

McKinsey. He was CFO for that

company Ning

before he was our CFO, and we

were off to the races. It was

super scary because leaving

Google...Google's a nice cocoon.

They treat their

employees very well. Things were

going well career-wise, but then

I had this feeling. Dan, have

you ever...Right before you

close your eyes at night, and

then right when you open your

eyes in the morning, you feel

like there's something missing.

There's something else. I should

be much more grateful for where

I am and what I'm doing right

now. Why am I not feeling that?

I feel like when you have that,

it's your subconscious telling

you that there's a change you

want to make. You might fear

making that change, but it's

there and it ends up the most

important thing, the best thing.

You describe that feeling so

well. That feeling where you

know that there's something out

there. That was the feeling that

I had when me and my co-founder

decided to jump in. It's funny

because the question you say

like, "Just do it. Let's go.

Let's do it. What's stopping us?"

That's often the question when I

speak to entrepreneurs of that

crazy moment. It's like, "Let's

just take the leap. If you have

that conviction and don't look

back, then great things can

happen." Maybe fast forward a

few weeks after you had that

conversation, "Let's take that

leap." You quit Google. That's

incredible job running Google

Analytics. Your husband. You're

both all in.

To be fair, I took a sabbatical.

If you're not scared at all,

either you're fooling yourself

or there might be something

pathologically wrong with you.

If you're going from complete

security to complete insecurity,

all humans will experience

moments of fear of the unknown.

That's very natural and

normal. How you push through

that fear and how you make it

useful to you, that's the part

that we all are training on and

trying to be better at. I'll

tell you, it was the scariest

thing I've ever done -- to leave

Google -- because it was a great

place. As my mom would tell me

every couple of days, "Some

people would give their right

arm to be there and to be doing

this. Google's such a great

company. How could you possibly

leave? Who's going to follow you?

Who's going to give you funding?

How are you going to make this

all work? Are you sure? Is this

irresponsible parenting? There

was all of those

questions and she was giving

voice to my deepest, darkest

fears. "Who's going to follow

you? Who's going to fund this?

Is anyone going to buy this? Is

anyone going to care? Can we

redo this outside of the Google

machinery which is such an

effective distribution engine?

I had all of those questions and

more sitting there, poking me at

2:00 AM when I would wake up,

and be afraid of leaving.

Let's decode this fear.

Fear drives you to succeed. When

I hear you telling me that your

parents think you're crazy, I

feel maybe that's a good sign

that you're doing the right

thing as an entrepreneur,

because my parents did the same

thing. They're like, "How could

you be doing this? Why don't you

get a job somewhere?" That was

the sign that, "Hey, maybe I'm

crazy enough to do something

great." Tell me more about the

fear, not only for you but for

the people you attracted in the

early days of the company.

For you to be able to attract

people, you have to

master that fear because you

need to broadcast some

confidence and faith that this

is going somewhere. I

got lucky and that I had two co-

founders. One, my best friend

and one, my husband. That was

lucky because it was a lot less

lonely that way. I had two

people who were as invested in

the businesses as I was who I

could talk to about anything.

For every founder who's thinking

about starting a company,

whether entrepreneurial or

outside entrepreneurial, you've

got to have your sounding boards.

You almost have to have your

kitchen cabinet where...These

are people you can turn to for

advice, for empathy, for...To be

able to talk to people about the

really difficult decisions that

you will inevitably have to make,

and to not be alone in making

those decisions. It can be

anybody on that kitchen cabinet.

It can be siblings. It can be

best friends. It could be work

mentors. Anybody who you can

trust to keep things in the

vault. It's so important in

managing your own psychology to

have some people who you trust,

who you can talk to. The first

time you have to fire somebody

who's been there for two or

three years with you, who you

like as a person, I hope it does

tear you up. That means you're

human and you continue to

experience the full gamut of

emotions. It's hard if they're

not the right person or fit for

the company anymore. You can do

it in a humane way, but it has

to be done. There's a thousand

of those types of questions and

issues that you'll face. Having

people to go to, to talk to

makes it a lot less lonely.

That's fear mastering it alone.

Maybe some people can do that.

That wasn't my style. I like to

have partners in crime, and it

was so helpful to do that.

Clearly, there's fear at the

beginning, fear of failure. What

other fear did you have to

overcome in the early stages of

the business?

There is fear every day. When

you see a competitor do

something, you're like, "Oh,

geez," or an API shuts down that

you had access to. A data source

shuts down that you had access

to. Is this going to happen more?

You hear about some piece of

legislation that might come to

pass that affects you. There's

all kinds of meteorites that are

coming into your atmosphere on

any given day that could be

scary. Learning, again, how to

make that fear work for you is a

big part of it. Dan, have you

experienced that too, where

something comes in from the left

field that you read in the

morning of some competitors

doing something that is in your

next release or two releases out?

All of a sudden, you're like, "

Oh, crap. How far ahead are they

in this particular arena?" How

you master that and make it work

for you and work for the team,

that's the differentiator.

Definitely. Every day there's

something that comes up from

left field, sometimes when

you're multitasking. It's like

that feeling of being in a

meeting engaged, and then you

get a text saying...

Wait!

The platform's down." This is it.

This is our challenge. What are

the techniques you found to

master that fear?

I actually started meditating

about nine years ago.

It helped me immensely. What I

have found working with the

coaches, almost everyone who's

ENTJ from Myers-Briggs Type

needs to meditate, by the way,

because your team will

appreciate it. We're naturally

bossy, demanding, impatient, and

urgent people. To make

that leadership style work for

the team, meditation is really

helpful. I find I listen better

after I meditate. I'm calmer in

the face of these exogenous

factors coming in. They're more

easily put into perspective.

That has been something that's

been so helpful to me. My

husband can literally tell if I

haven't meditated that day, and

he'll be like, "Hey, do you want

to make some time for meditation?"

What other techniques do you

have to master fear?

I think one of the biggest ones,

one day a month, what I would do

is in -- every other month, this

got violated because of some

customer-related issue -- but

once every other month -- and I

put it in for once a month,

don't forget because things

happen -- I would actually go

away either by myself or with

just one or two select members

in the team that we needed to

bring trust with. I take those

issues. At any given time, I

have a note on my phone that

listened to issues that I felt

like were going to be most

existential or the scariest

things if I thought about them

that I didn't have time to

process in that moment, but it

would be a persistent layer of

fear that would accompany me

through my day, so I'd write

them into this note. Then, once

a month, I'd take them out and

just fully, fully tackle them

and get totally in it, and

immerse in that issue, immerse

in that fear and figure out what

is it I'm afraid of around this

issue. Let me get all the

information I could possibly get.

Then, I'm going to make a

decision. Whatever call I make

right or wrong, we will iterate

from it, and we will zig and zag,

but we're not going to sit here

in paralysis right over this

issue, this fear. We're going to

figure out what we're going to

do about it, what we're going to

go out and do it, or we're going

to figure out it's not worth

solving. There's no point in

being scared of it and shove it

into a box. My co-founder had

this visualization. He was like, "

Yeah, it's almost like you put

it in a box. Then, you shoved it

into a closet, and you close the

door and walk away, and it's

calling." You just

have to decide. Am I going to do

something about it, or am I

going to just say, "You know

what? There's nothing I can do

about this, so I'm not going to

focus on it."?

We talked about fear as an

entrepreneur, but you also have

the opportunity to sit on boards

of some of the largest companies

in the world working with CEOs

that have hundreds of thousands

of employees. From the outside,

you look at these CEOs, and

you're like, "They probably are

fearless, and they've done this,"

but can you give us insights

into the fear that they might

have?

The bigger, crazy fortuitous

thing about being on the Cisco

and Procter & Gamble boards at

the same time was that they

would often have board meetings

one day after the other. On a

Monday, Tuesday, we went to

Procter. Then Tuesday night,

Wednesday, we might have Cisco.

When Venezuelan destabilization

happens, when tariff happens,

when COVID happened, all of

these huge macro forces

happening worldwide. I will get

to see how these two world-class

CEOs handle this issue, and it

was the densest learning you

could possibly imagine. You put

yourself through thinking, "OK,

how would I have handled this as

the Procter CEO or as the Cisco

CEO? What would I have done?"

The most important thing is what

would I've missed, or what would

I have not realized, what would

have just flown right over my

head, and let me learn from that

and let me delve into that.

This thing about both David and

Chuck, they're very human, very

empathetic, very servant

leadership style CEOs. They care

deeply about their people. I

mean, feel for their people.

They care. Every employee we

have actually genuinely matters

to them. They're two people with

high EQ and emotion. It matters.

The human aspect of, it matters.

I think when you're someone who

experiences the full range of

human emotion, of course, you

experience fear. That's normal,

but I've never seen either of

them paralyzed by fear. I've

never even seen them express

fear in a non-functional way. I

mean, they might say, "OK, well,

this is a fear that we should

have as company, but here's what

we're gonna do about it." At

the board level, it's always

accompanied by here's what we're

going to do about it. I think

that it has to be the case of

the board because it's the board,

but watching these two have to

traverse so many macro-economic

issues in the last few years has

been crazy helpful.

Oftentimes, people feel fear in

their daily lives and feel that

that fear means that they can't

be a CEO, or they can't be an

entrepreneur. Do you agree with

that statement?

Absolutely not. I vehemently

disagree with that statement,

and I'm glad you put it that way

and you asked because I think it

is such a common misconception

that if you feel fear, that

perhaps you're not qualified to

be CEO, that perhaps you

shouldn't be an entrepreneur

because entrepreneurs aren't

fearless. I just don't think

that's true. I'm going to bring

Star Trek -- Next Gen back into

this for a second.

Captain Picard is the fictional

leader I most admire out of any

content I've ever viewed or read,

and the reason is not because he

never felt fear. The reason is

because he overcame it for the

sake of his team, the sake of

his crew, and that the well-

being of his team mattered more

to him than his own fear. I

think for every good CEO, and

entrepreneur, you should care

about your team. You shouldn't

feel fear for them. You should

feel the full range of human

emotions. Sadness for when you

have to lay off some folks

because you know they have

families. You know they have

kids. You know they have

dependents. Knowing what you

have to do for the business, you

may fear doing it and you may

feel extreme empathy for the

people who it affects, and you

work through that. I think it

makes you a better leader to

feel those feelings and to be

able to relate to all the team

members that you have. I

actually think that fear can be

a very healthy thing. It can

help speed up urgency. It can

help make certain that you're

prioritizing things properly and

prioritizing resources properly

because figuring out what to say

no to is as important as

whenever you say yes to.

Sometimes, fear can be that

factor that reminds you to

examine it, reminds you to pull

up, and look at how you're using

the company's resources and

figure out if that's the right

way to do it. Fear can help you

be more deliberate. It can help

you know that you need to

prioritize. These are healthy

ways to leverage it. I just

never want anyone to think that

just because they have that fear,

that they shouldn't be a CEO or

an entrepreneur. I absolutely

don't agree with that.

It's interesting because you

have an engineering background.

You ran Google Analytics, but

here, we're talking about

psychology and fear and all the

soft stuff.

Humans are the most complex and

the messiest part of what you

will deal with as a leader, but

they're also the most rewarding

part of what you will deal with

as a leader. If you think back

to all the jobs you've had, do

you remember the exact metrics

in any given quarter? Do you

even remember the projects? No,

really not, but you will

remember the people that you

worked with. You remember the

teams that you were on and that

you were with. That's what

indelibly gets impressed and

imprinted into your memory

because human portion of it is

what matters the most.

Amazing. Thank you so much for

joining us. It's truly

inspirational and really

appreciate the time.

Me too.

On the next episode of Decoding

Digital.

It's amazing to me that,

literally, you could stream

video from the space station,

but if you, Dan, want to send

money to me in London, that's

going to take days to get there.

It's going to cost you a fair

number. It's like, how did we

end up here where I can do all

of these things almost on an

instantaneous basis, but I can't

move my own money from point A

to point B?

CEO of Ripple and former exec at

Yahoo and AOL, Brad Garlinghouse.

Thanks for listening to Decoding

Digital. Make sure you never

miss an episode by subscribing

to the show in your favorite

podcast player. To learn more,

visit decodingdigital.com. Until