In this episode of The IoT Unicorn Podcast, independent civic engineer and former Chief Xbox Officer at Microsoft, Robbie Bach, discusses teamwork and leadership in the tech space. Download Transcript Here 00:00 Pete Bernard: Welcome to the IoT unicorn podcast. This is Pete Bernard from Microsoft. And this podcast is for anyone interested in the long-term technology trends in the IoT space and the journey from here to there. So let's get started. [music] 00:23 PB: On this episode of the IoT unicorn, I chat with Robbie Bach, former Microsoft executive. He was there for about 22 years, he was the chief Xbox officer and drove that program for a long, long time. We talk about Xbox, Xbox Revisited the new book he wrote, we also talk about some other projects like Zoom and Microsoft Kin or what we call Project Pink, and just in general leadership principles and techniques for leading through ambiguity with a ton of technology, especially in the IoT space. So great Robbie, thanks a lot for taking the time to join us here on the IoT unicorn. First off, kind of disclaimer, the topics typically are IoT-oriented, [chuckle] but we're gonna take a little diversion today, but I think it's still gonna be germane and... So anyway, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to join us. 01:20 Robbie Bach: Happy to do it. 01:22 PB: Good, good. I don't know if there's a phone ringing there or something... 01:24 RB: Yeah, that's mine. [chuckle] We can start over if you like, that's a phone that I have no control over, it's actually the house phone ringing in my office. 01:34 PB: Oh, okay. That's alright. Don't worry about it we'll... It's part of a sincere authentic nature of the conversation, [chuckle] but I think one of the things... And I read your book, Xbox Revisited, which is cool, and I thought for today, one of the things that I thought was really germane was just talking about technology and leadership, or just leadership in general, and it was really fascinating to kinda read through your journey with leadership and the pluses and minuses and what you've learned about it. And I think in the IoT space, we're sort of like awash in technology. Before we started recording, I was explaining how I was futzing with my system and just too many pieces of tech, and a lot of companies, they have a tons of technology, there's no shortage, now we got 5G and LPWA and all these AI. But how do you take that ambiguous technologies swamp and actually provide some kind of leadership and guidance and structure or framework around thinking about things, so you can get things done and you can get organizations, especially big organizations, you can imagine, moving in the right direction. And I thought there was a lot in your book around Xbox Revisited that resonated with probably what a lot of companies are thinking about today, is like how do we navigate through some of the tech? 03:01 RB: The thing I always respond... I talk a lot about innovation, and I talk somewhat about that in Xbox Revisited, but I do a lot of it in the public speaking I do. And I talk about creativity and how do you come up with new ideas, and technology ends up being third on my list of things not first. And the things that come first are ironically, business model, because it turns out a huge portion of innovation actually happens in business models, and the second thing is experience and sort of how people interact with the technology, and then comes technology. And when something is technically lead, maybe it has a good sustainable business model and maybe it has a good experience, but maybe it doesn't, and that's why the first person to market with the technology doesn't always win. And my experience has been that a sustainable business with a great customer experience will beat somebody who has a great technology without a good experience, and so we tend to focus on those first two, first. 04:14 PB: Yeah, so when you... Probably you were going through this with the Xbox, was like, talking about the purpose, principles and priorities. I think I got that right? 04:27 RB: Yeah. 04:28 PB: So you manifested that with Xbox, are there other example you've seen where companies have been able to snap to a framework like that and get them moving in the right direction? 04:37 RB: Well, think about... One of the other companies I work with, is a company called Sonos, and they're really a great company, and they have amazing technology, they've got one of the best IP portfolios in the industry, they've done some very cool tech things, but they do not lead with technology, they absolutely don't. They lead with the experience, if you have somebody who has a Sonos system, they don't talk about the cool networking architecture that it has or how it makes sure to sync audio on a big TV screen and do surround sound easily. They talk about, "Oh God, it was so easy to set up and the music played and it sounded great." That's all ...
