#345: Doug McMillon — CEO of Walmart
The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim Ferriss: Bestselling Author, Human Guinea Pig
4.6 • 17.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 November 2018
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Doug McMillon (IG: @dougmcmillon) is president and chief executive officer of Walmart, a company that, if it were a country, would be the 25th largest economy in the world. Walmart serves 265 million customers weekly in 27 countries across more than 11,000 stores and online, and the company employs roughly 2.2 million associates worldwide, which would equate to the second largest army in the world (behind China) if it were tasked with defending that 25th largest economy.
75 percent of Walmart's store management team began as hourly associates, and Doug is no exception. He started out in 1984 as a summer associate in the Walmart distribution center, and in 1990 while pursuing his MBA, he rejoined the company as an assistant manager in Tulsa before moving to merchandising as a buyer trainee. He worked his way up, and from 2005 to 2009 he served as president and CEO of Sam's Club (owned and operated by Walmart) with sales of more than $46 billion annually during his tenure.
From February of 2009 to 2014, Doug served as president and CEO of Walmart International, a fast-growing segment of Walmart's overall operations. He has served on the board of directors for Walmart since 2013 and is currently the chair of the executive and global compensation committees. In addition, he serves on the board of directors of the Consumer Goods Forum, the US-China Business Council and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. He also serves on the executive committee of the Business Roundtable and the advisory board of the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management in Beijing, China.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | optimal minimal. |
| 0:02.0 | At this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. |
| 0:06.1 | Can I also do a personal question? |
| 0:08.1 | Now I just see an appropriate time. |
| 0:10.6 | What if I could be out there? |
| 0:12.1 | I must have a netty-borganism living this show on metal-hinted sculler. |
| 0:16.1 | Me, Tim, Paris show. |
| 0:24.1 | This episode of the Tim Ferriss shows brought to you by Linkt in. |
| 0:27.4 | The right hire can make a huge impact on your business. |
| 0:30.9 | The wrong hire can create your business. |
| 0:32.9 | I have seen an example after example from thousands of my readers at a minimum |
| 0:40.4 | where they have told me stories of how finding the right person at the right time. |
| 0:45.9 | In some cases, not even asking what should I do, but asking who should I find |
| 0:51.3 | because that person can help me determine what exactly to do more intelligently. |
| 0:55.4 | I've had a chance to hire two such people in the last year |
| 0:59.9 | and that has just made my business take a quantum leap forward |
| 1:03.4 | and my complexity in my personal and business life get cut dramatically. |
| 1:09.4 | In this type of simplification cannot be overvalued. |
| 1:12.9 | We think a lot about hiring and I think a lot about hiring and it is a skill that I've had to learn. |
| 1:18.9 | It is important to find the right person, but where do you find that person? |
| 1:23.0 | You can post a job on a job board and hope that that right person finds your job |
| 1:28.0 | that they are on the internet happening to scan something here and there and then find you. |
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