No Time for Cynicism

Have you yourself had an influential mentor or mentors, and what did they instill in you?

I've been very lucky and I didn't even realize it was happening. My very first job, my boss was Thomas Kurian. He was the senior product manager. I was the product manager. He had me right out of college. Thomas has since then, he ended up becoming head of engineering at Oracle. He's become wildly successful. I remember there were moments when, probably in the first year, sometimes you work at a big company, it's easy to get cynical. You're kinda like, does it even matter? I'm kind of a cog in a big thing.

And Thomas said something, he probably doesn't even remember it, but he's like look Sal, the way I think about it is, make every day and every hour...make it matter. You can mire yourself in cynicism, and think about it, but what can you do this hour that's going to move the dial in even a little way? That's actually a very powerful day. It's just put one foot in front of the other. I think Dan Wohl, another one of my bosses, this idea of like, make sure you make space for yourself, make sure you make space, and he lived it himself, you know he he made good money, but then when he turned roughly 40, he decided that he wanted to spend time with his family.