Why some leaders are incorruptible, many get corrupted by power/money (with Rob Lalka)
About this episode
Kim Scott interviews Rob Lalka about the impact of power and money on leadership in tech companies.
While the podcast team is taking a Radical Sabbatical, Kim is interviewing authors of the books that have had a big impact on her in the past two years. In this episode, Kim speaks with Rob Lalka, the author of The Venture Alchemists - How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power. In this episode of Radical Sabbatical, Kim sits down with Rob Lalka, author of Venture Alchemist, to study what the founders of Facebook, Google, and the “PayPal Mafia” were saying and writing before anyone was paying attention to them. They explore what separates the leaders who stayed grounded from the ones who didn't. They ask a hard question: does it matter if a leader got corrupted by too much money and power or if they started out bad to the bone? Every leader (indeed, every one of us) has good and bad inside. The one that wins is usually the one that gets fed. The question is whether the venture capital model feeds the good — or does it feed the bad, setting founders up to be corrupted by their own success? Kim and Rob explore the contrasting origins of major tech companies like Facebook and Google. They discuss the implications of Mark Zuckerberg's early actions (for…
People in this episode
Host: Kim Scott
Guest: Rob Lalka
Topics covered
- leadership
- corruption
- venture capital
- tech companies
- founders
- power dynamics
Keywords
- leadership
- corruption
- venture capital
- tech founders
- power
- money
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Facebook, Google, PayPal Mafia
Books & works: The Venture Alchemists - How Big Tech Turned Profits Into Power, Venture Alchemist
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