James, you're the CEO of a young company. FitBit is nine years old. How would you describe your leadership style? The best way to describe it is I try to listen to people and be fair. And listening's important because obviously there's a lot of great ideas from many different people of different perspectives within the company And it's a shame if you don't take advantage of that. And it's not necessarily that it's a democratic process, but having all these inputs just lets you and your team make better decisions for the long term. Fitbit started with just you and your co- founder, and today you've got about 1, 400. Employees. What is a skill that you needed to learn to be an effective leader in a larger company? One of lessons I learned early on and that we did was to hire great people. And so a lot of the early people that we brought into senior management are still part of the executive team today. They've grown with the company, we've all scaled, we've all learned along the way And having that great team has allowed everyone to perform better. You don't have to worry about how this function's doing with the company. You trust that person to do their job, to do it well and I think That's the number one pieces to higher grade talent from day one. How did you figure all this out? You didn't go to business school. You left college at 21, and so you didn't have any experience running other companies. How did you figure all this out? Very painfully. I mean I did start two companies before Fitbit. And one failed, one we ended up Selling to a company in San Francisco. So that was five or six years of or more of learning on the job very painfully. I mean I've had to do lay offs. I've done hiring. Built products, sold products. And so I feel that those previous two startups were actually business school for me, but in the real world. What's the biggest mistake you ever made? One of the biggest challenges facing the company was we had a product recall a few years ago, and I think that really crystallized to the company and to the management That we really need to have a well executed plans or well plans in place in terms of a crisis. And I think that experience was great for the company. It allows us to grow a lot of muscles in the crisis response department. And ultimately, I think we ended up Doing the right things for consumers and getting a message out about the issues behind the recall. But I remember back then it was a pretty nerve wracking time and I wish we had has prepared a little bit better. As you've gone through this journey of building FitBit, what's the best leadership advice that you've gotten along the way? I'm a naturally conservative person, I'm very realistic about things but I've been told that I could be a little more optimistic. And I think there a good balance between Irrational optimism and excessive conservatism, and so I think what I try to do nowadays is strike that right balance. And why is it important, in terms of your leadership of Fitbit? I think people like to know that there's a plan and vision for the company. And, again, one that's not irrational. but guided by very careful planning and thought. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

How a Harvard Dropout Started a Billion-Dollar Tech Business

Fitbit’s James Park explains his journey.
