039: Dick Costolo | Twitter CEO says Business is like a Forest Fire

The Hard Way w/ Joe De Sena

Spartan Races

Fitness, Alternative Health, Health & Fitness, 792700

4.7 • 870 Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2015

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, is an extreme example of the high school reunion paradox. We all have seen it. Homecoming kings and queens who have sunk into mediocrity while awkward "nobodies" have somehow made it big. Costello, the one who was always picked last for the team, is now CEO of Twitter. He describes how he used his perpetual outsider status to scrap his way to the top. His strategy is surprisingly simple; it's only the execution that's difficult.

1. With enough perseverance even the most unlikely to succeed may find themselves on top.
2. Simply being willing to put yourself in uncomfortable situations is the best way to build resilience.
3. Success in business is like forestry management: you may be surrounded by wildfires, but the key is to identify and extinguish the most urgent ones first.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Spartan Up Podcast. We're going to interview somebody every week from all over the world and see what they did in their life to become successful, no matter how they define it.
0:10.0	Sweet! Um, welcome back. Sweet.
0:13.0	Um, welcome back to tweeting Twitterville of Pittsfield, Vermont.
0:19.0	And Marion doesn't like that opening.
0:21.0	You want to start again, Mary?
0:23.3	Today we're in Twitsfield, and I have Colonel Nye,
0:26.4	Jo DeSena, myself, Suffra, and Johnny Waite
0:28.7	here with Miss Marion, of course.
0:30.8	And today we are interviewing the CEO of Twitter who was almost killed
0:36.5	on the race course right so that's interesting.
0:38.9	The first interview I've seen where I thought the guy might not make it to the end.
0:42.1	Right. We are here
0:43.8	behind the scenes for Spartan up the podcast with Dick Costello, CEO of
0:48.3	Twitter, from Detroit originally. Born and raised in Detroit. Did you come from like a real wealthy
0:55.9	background or not? He's sick by the way, so if you hear him cough me, the guy's a trooper,
1:01.5	he just ran the Spartan Corps sick. You weren't wealthy?
1:04.0	No I was not we were not wealthy. No but I mean we weren't super poor my dad was in the
1:09.6	my dad was in the automobile industry and you know we were middle-class Detroit
1:14.3	automobile industry family so neither wealthy nor poor I mean we always had everything
1:19.1	you know I thought we had everything we wanted right we went to St. Petersburg
1:23.8	and drove to St. Petersburg for two days to visit our grandparents once a year and
1:27.0	had everything I needed at the. And what do you think that being from Detroit where it's probably a little rough
	...

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