People Collector

You have the biggest network out of anyone I know, across more sectors than anyone I know, from business, to education, to philanthropy, to governments globally, the list just goes on and on. What strategies do you use to keep strengthening your network? And how does this network helps you in your own leadership journey?

I'm a people collector. Some people collect stamps. Yeah, how do I do that? I don't know. I just, I love making friends. I have an infinite patience for people, almost no patience for things even though I'm an engineer. It's what gives me my inspiration. And the key is how do you do that at scale? How do you innovate that at scale, right? And what are the concepts behind it? I'll tell you one thing, a lot of people think, oh, you can only have like three best friends or five best friends. Well, my mom taught me, your heart has infinite capacity for love and for the number of people. So you got to understand that. But the other thing is how do you keep up with that network, bring that network together? You know, this is where the 300 person advisory board from DocuSign comes in. We did the same thing in the State Department, Ariba, which started out as a 12-person advisory council grew to 20,000 person user conference, and you build one on top of the other. But the other key on these networks is the relationships they get built between other people. So it would be why do you want to go to the DocuSign advisory board? Well, you want to go see these new friends. Or they want to join because they want to meet these people. Because by the mere definition, you're part of the network, you're also a people collector. So it's really magical. And when you're starting new companies, this new venture, it's strategic because that trust is built up and all of a sudden boom, you have your first customers, you have your first partners, you have your first board of directors, I mean, that's key.