Angela Tucci, Uplight COO on $1.5B Valuation and B Corps

Michael Koenig: Hello and welcome to Between Two COOs, where phenomenal chief operating officers come to share their knowledge, advice, and at the very end, crazy stories. I'm your host, Michael Koenig, and I'm excited to welcome our guest, Angela Tucci, COO at Uplight, a technology partner for energy providers and the clean energy ecosystem to help them reach their decarbonization goals. Uplight was last valued at $1.5 billion, which is an achievement in and of itself, let alone for a company that's only 3 years old. Before Angela was COO at Uplight, she was Chief Strategy Officer at Symantec, Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Rally Software, and Chief Executive Officer at Aptu. So clearly she's a real underachiever. Angela is also the chairperson of the Board of Trustees at the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology. And for the next time you play exec trivia with your friends, Angela is also in the Collegiate Softball Hall of Fame. And don't ask where I dug that up. Welcome, Angela. Thanks for joining me. I'm so excited to have you on.

Angela Tucci: Oh, it's so good to be here. Thanks for asking me to be in attendance.

Michael Koenig: So, first off, you've been a founder, a CMO, a CSO, a GM, a CRO, a CEO, and now a COO. I mean, what's the deal? Pick a role, right?

Angela Tucci: Pick a role already. Exactly. I'm 105, by the way, everybody. So, you won't get to see the video of me, but it's true. I'm the first octogenarian Plus, you know, or whatever the— that's not the one for 100, but anyway, Centurion or something like that.

Michael Koenig: Centennial? I don't know. I don't know. But all kidding aside, I mean, can you tell us about your path to joining Uplight as COO? How'd you end up here and what drew you to the company and the COO role in particular?

Angela Tucci: Well, my career actually started as a person being a physicist in the medical device industry. So, it's obvious how I got here, isn't it? A couple of right turns, a couple of left turns. But certainly at this stage of my life, after 25 years in the software industry and selling IT software that made things more productive, made them easier, made them leading edge, I wanted to be in a company where that had impact. People younger than I have figured out that that's actually the way that they want to live in general. I'm a slow learner, it seems, and so I finally got to a place where the work that I do needs to matter for my kids, for my community, and really for the world. And so Uplight was a great choice because it is a mission-based organization. It's a B Corp, B Corp certified, cares very much about using business as a force for good. And I was actually introduced to them through a friend. So it was one of those where somebody said, hey, you should get to know the CEO over there. He could use some help. So after a few conversations and a bunch of interviews, there I was becoming their COO.

Michael Koenig: So tell us about the B Corp certification. First off, for our listeners, can you give us a brief tidbit on what that is and also why is it important?

Angela Tucci: Well, B Corp certification says that you are part of a business that is doing good while also being, you know, part of the cogs of capitalism. So you have to be able to demonstrate that you're giving back, you're giving back to the community. And in our case, what we're most focused on is reducing the carbon footprint of people within the ecosystem, businesses, utility providers, and their consumption of coal over, you know, using renewables. So we have multiple ways in which to illustrate that we can be a business that's a force for good. And you go through a very rigorous assessment in order to get there. And we're actually coming up for our 3-year assessment at this point. So We're hoping we get it again because it's not something that's a slam dunk either.

Michael Koenig: Getting back to your roles, having sat in all of those other executive roles, how do you think that has changed your perspective and approach to being a COO?

Angela Tucci: Well, I think in general, it's good to have some specialization. Like you've walked in these different roles and you understand at least to some level what it takes to be the CRO or the CMO. Or even the CEO who has all these sleepless nights. So I think the COO role that I can occupy comes from a great deal of experience in functional specifics, but also having seen the totality of the system as a whole and the concerns as a whole. I might also add that I think I've also learned more about myself. You mentioned earlier that I was a founder of a company. I've actually founded a couple of companies. I'm not a visionary. I like to get stuff done. I like to check things off lists. I like to make forward progress. Am I going to invent something? Eh, maybe a better way of working, but certainly not going to invent the next technology. So I also think it's a nice complementary position from my experience base to what can be really helpful for a CEO, and also to be complementary to the people who ultimately end up reporting to me because I have an empathy for those roles.

Michael Koenig: I, I can appreciate that on, on a number of different levels. So in terms of supporting your CEO Adrian, how have you divided up the areas of responsibility? Who, who does what when?

Angela Tucci: It, it's somewhat simple at, at its most basic level. Adrian is a tremendous rainmaker, and might I add, he's one of the few CEOs I've worked for that's not a narcissist. There's so many narcissists in this world, and I, I had a rule, no more narcissists. And, um, and I just found this really human in Adrian and this impressive human who's been able to, you know, over the years be consistent to his values and really build enduring relationships that in general, you know, have led to these rainmaking moments like you mentioned of the $1.5 billion valuation. You know, kudos to him. Kudos also to Justin Siegel, who's also part of this leadership team. But that said, he came to me and said, "I'm not an operator. I'm not the guy who's going to follow up and get the things done. I need somebody who can execute the plan." And he put the job description as simply as that. "Your job is to execute the plan, Angela." And I said, "Great. That sounds awesome. I'm in." So that's the way the job description was written. And it was also how the navigation and appreciation for what skills we have, how we can really complement one another.

Michael Koenig: And it is such a complementary role. There has to be that, that yin and yang almost. You mentioned having a lot of conversations with him, going through a lot of interviews. How did you assess whether or not this was going to be a working relation, great working relationship outside of just his, his humbleness and lack of narcissism, which was a big one.

Angela Tucci: So, one of the things, you know, you've been in the Boulder community and you know it's not a thriving metropolis the size of New York City or anything like that. So, it's a pretty small community and being able to get references and background on Adrian was pretty straightforward. He'll tell you he did the same thing with me. So, reputation matters in our small pond and his reputation was quite strong. The other thing that I would say is when I left my last job, I wrote down all of the characteristics that I was seeking in my next job before I started interviewing. Because you know how we all have that confirmation bias. Oh, we really like this person, or we really like that company. And your significant other says, I thought you said you'd never do that again. So I wrote it down in advance, and I actually had a few people hold me accountable, including my significant other. To, um, to what I had laid forth. And I did a, you know, I did a spreadsheet, very small spreadsheet, not very sophisticated, but I did a spreadsheet to figure out whether it was a good fit, both him and, and the company.

Michael Koenig: That's great. You learn from your experiences, you figure out what you didn't like at the previous one or, or what you wish there was more of. And then you, you apply that the next time around so we don't repeat the same mistake. I love it. Can you tell us more about Uplight? How does it help consumers reduce carbon emissions and utility companies reach their decarbonization goals?

Angela Tucci: Sure. So it's a pretty neat company that does some things that might seem pretty simple. Largely, it starts from a place of running programs on behalf of the utilities to get you and me to reduce our carbon footprint. So if you get a home energy report in the mail that says your neighbors are better than you are with regards to how they utilize, you know, their bill is less than yours per square foot. There's some company in the background that's doing the analytics to make that comparison realistic. And who's assembling and literally putting the paper in the envelope, which I know all of us are cringing at the paper in an envelope, but many people still receive them that way. And creating that comparison. And you would think, well, isn't it pretty easy to compare your neighbor? Not really, because, the neighbor's house maybe have been built in the '90s and your house has been built within the last few years. So you're actually getting a right comparable set takes some work. So you're applying multiple datasets, etc., etc., to come up with an effective home energy report. Once you come up with that home energy report, maybe you want to go to the utilities marketplace and buy an Nest thermostat in order to be able to get a more effective utilization of your energy from the from the utility and you want to get a rebate for that. Well, Uplight will also, branded by the utility, run the marketplace on behalf of that utility and go so far as to make it seamless for you to get that rebate so that you don't have to go to Best Buy and then put in the code and then get the utility so that it's multi-step. And then the last piece that's pretty cool is that, and most pertinent, is, is where the utilities are particularly nervous, which is trying to lower their peak, peak demand from the, from customers as they come home after work, turn on the air conditioner, and plug in their EV. That's going to create a tremendous spike on the grid, and they're going to have to turn on power plants that they don't want to necessarily turn on because the federal government is saying We really want you to reduce carbon emissions, not increase them. So our role in that is actually orchestrating your energy consumption so that we're pre-cooling your house before you come home. And we have the ability to basically make suggestions and/or if you agree as the consumer, take over when your EV is charging. So we call that demand response and orchestration. So imagine now with the electrification that we're all plugging stuff in, we're getting our solar panels, that there's going to be a tremendous amount of pull on the grid at a time when we don't want any of it to be with anything but renewable energy. And so we're sitting here with the software potential to be able to orchestrate all of that on behalf of consumers and businesses where the utility gets to control the knob on how much and when.

Michael Koenig: That's remarkable. So it's, it's actually taking customers' usage into account and then servicing those customers based on their actual need versus, and rather optimizing for that as well. That's quite, that's quite remarkable to be fair.

Angela Tucci: Yeah, it's, it's really cool. I, you know, and I didn't know that going in, by the way. So I've learned this over time. It doesn't come across if you go to the website. But that orchestration is pretty neat and pretty difficult to do. Our algorithms are actually better than what you can get with your thermostat, for instance. And then the coupling of all the different things in your home, we can actually tell through our own AI, like what's sitting behind your meter. Oh wait, that's the fridge, that's the air conditioner, that's the water heater. And so that's giving us also better, better accuracy than what you can get sort of off the shelf.

Michael Koenig: So I can throw away— have you heard of Sense? It's that little thing that connects to your electric panel and does something similar. So I can throw it away as soon as my, my utility company signs on with you all. What I find interesting is in particular the origin story of Uplight. Right? As I read, it came into being through the acquisition of 6 companies over the course of 7 or 8 months. Now, that's not novel, right? It's a pretty common private equity move of buying a bunch of companies and rolling them up. What I find really interesting to that is that it was done, conceived of, and executed by Adrian, the founder. It's kind of like flipping it on its head. You turn to those inorganic channels once everything else is established and humming along. I wonder, can you tell us a little bit about that?

Angela Tucci: Sure. Well, and I think it harkens back to what I originally said about the rainmaking capabilities of Adrian. Like, he just thinks on a scale that you really need of somebody who wants to change the world and especially affect climate change. Um, so, you know, he's always puzzling on these macro moves and coupling it with a great deal of industry engagements, relationship building, pulling from multiple sources, bringing together disparate dots in ways that nobody would think of, and continuing to be, I think, in these win-win discussions that was making it possible. So he comes across as extremely trustworthy. So to also get 6 companies or 5, he was one of the 6, 5 companies to be willing to transact, to get a private equity firm to be willing to fund that or basically become the primary owner, in order to get all of these different entities and real humans to agree and move forward was really a testament to his, I'll call it sort of leadership, but again, on this macro level and just his own humility and wholesomeness as an individual to be credible.

Michael Koenig: You mentioned private equity. I, I saw that Uplight went the private equity route. You had VC funding at, I think, early on stage and then private equity acquired that. Why continue on with private equity versus venture capital? Is, is because I know that there are VC firms out there that would fund acquisitions.

Angela Tucci: It's a good question that you probably would have to ask Adrian. I can guess at this point. That we had in this community here in Colorado, a really strong private equity firm with expertise in the utility space, people that he had built relationships with. And I'm guessing there was a bit of selling as well as, you know, on both sides of the aisle that said that this could be a play that could go bigger, faster with this kind of backing. And it's been parlayed into an even bigger investment that you might ask me about, but that there's now new people sitting around the table as a result of this first move to private equity, including at the table was one of the strategics that was invested in Simple Energy, one of the companies that came into this mix. So think of it as, as one of the five, Adrian's was the sixth, that had AES, which is a Fortune 500 company here in the US, as an investor in Simple who rolled their equity into this future state and made an investment as well. So really that partnership, the cachet that you could imagine of having such an incredible strategic in this mix who's been a wonderful partner, that those, you know, those ingredients all said we can really go with a step change versus a VC path, which might feel more evolutionary.

Michael Koenig: So when you have all of these different companies together, right after the acquisition comes the integration, and I'm guessing that You all have figured it out. In terms of the cultural differences, all companies are different, right? The cultures within those companies are different. How do you marry those in? And are there differences that are born out of being a company that has such a focus on M&A versus more of that smaller step route?

Angela Tucci: Well, I think the biggest contrast we had in terms of the companies coming in, and to be clear, I came in after the 6 companies were merged together. It was about 6 months later. And there were certainly different cultures and different belief systems. But the most notable was really the spectrum between almost a nonprofit and a for-profit business. So, there were people who were just glad to be trying to affect the clean energy ecosystem and reduce the carbon footprint. And there are other people like, "Well, we got to make money." So, I think that combination actually became pretty powerful to be able to illustrate how you can create longevity with bringing the best of both. That in fact, we need to do good, which then led to our B Corp certification. And by the way, We just got private equity investment and these people are expecting a return. So how can we parlay again this great investment into really the impact that we want to make in the world? But culturally, it was definitely— everybody was walking around the elephant seeing something slightly different. And I will say to this day, at times, you can see some of those roots in the discussions and questions we get through still a very diverse by location and company origin. Set of employees on this, you know, is it an NGO or is it really a, a, a for-profit entity?

Michael Koenig: How about from an operational perspective, what are some of the challenges that you face that are maybe a little bit different than those that you have come across in your previous roles?

Angela Tucci: COVID. Um, yeah, gosh. Yeah. So how do you integrate 6 companies during COVID I joined 6 weeks, was it, before we were in lockdown. Of course, we've all gone through the same conversations at home of, "Oh, it's week 4 and we're still doing this. Oh, it's week 6. Oh, it's 6 months. It's 2 years." First and foremost was really thinking, how do we bring together 6 disparate companies in COVID when we can't travel and use the tools that we're best at, especially Adrian, that relationship building by getting on a plane. I mean, when I was interviewing, I remember him saying, oh, we've got 6 different holiday parties and I'm going to be at all 6 of them because he would go to Vancouver and then Seattle and Boston and Everett and Pune where we had a development shop. So, the man is a face-to-face, human-to-human interactor. And so now here we are behind

Michael Koenig: Not many companies would say that from a culture standpoint, that it that it played into the favor, but most companies are now starting to travel again. Is that something that's on the horizon in terms of getting all of the 6 companies together or kind of taking it day by day?

Angela Tucci: It is starting to be a back to in-person. So we have a Boulder office, Boulder, Colorado office, and it's open so you can go to it. We're encouraging people to come back into the office. We just opened a beautiful Boston office, likewise encouraging people to come back. We are taking a line on being vaccinated to be in the office. We're not requiring it for employment, but we are requiring it for being in the office. And we will start opening the rest of the offices here soon. Now, not every location has a sufficient employee nexus for us to have an office. So there's a couple of places where we won't have any offices. And frankly, we've started hiring much more on a, where do you live doesn't really matter. You're in Ann Arbor. One of my favorite employees is in Ann Arbor, you know, and does a great job from there and is in the office in Boulder when he needs to come in and otherwise is doing a great job remotely. So I think the returning is gonna happen a bit slowly. The other thing is that utilities are safety first. So they make a product, if you'll keep in mind, that can kill people, right? Electricity can kill. And they operate that way in terms of a seriousness and gravity around safety. So they too are starting to open up their, um, their, their willingness to meet with us in person. So, you know, meeting with clients in person, if you're— especially if you're a salesperson, feels much easier. Um, so we're starting to see some of that as well.

Michael Koenig: So let's talk about— your clients, you have at least 80 of the largest utility companies in the country. How many consumers do those 80 serve? And are, are there more than 80 now?

Angela Tucci: 110 million, um, consumers are sitting on the other side of that. So what is that, about a third of the, of the nation? So of that, I would call, you know, a fraction, let's call it like 70 million that are actually active, and then depending on the product line, your mileage will vary. But basically getting as many of those end users or consumers enrolled is important. We also sell to businesses too. So utilities to the business side of it. So I think everything from small businesses, the dry cleaner, on through to the apartment building, multifamily building operators, to people who are running, you know, big companies who have energy needs. So all of those are also in this mix.

Michael Koenig: How do you resource those two? How do you decide which you're going to really pursue with a large staff versus the other?

Angela Tucci: Well, you did say we were a bit acquisitive, so we did buy a company recently that, uh, is focused on what's called C&I, which really means, um, commercial and industrial. So that could be a factory. Or that could just be, again, that dry cleaner. So we have been continuing to diversify our portfolio, if you will, of solutions because the utility is serving the entirety of the population, albeit some big companies will go direct to like the wholesale sellers. So that's also another model out there. But our residential roots are starting to blend into now more of this commercial sector. And that's important to the mission. It's also a way that we move towards the mission more quickly. So when you're asking like, how are we making these decisions? Oftentimes we're looking at value stacking and impact. What's the CO2 reduction that we can make? And then the other things, what's the bill reduction we can make? So how do we help the community again? How do we help you reduce your bill? But also how do we help move more of the clean energy consumption over traditional carbon? -based models.

Michael Koenig: So there are, and correct me if I'm wrong, around 3,000 utility companies within the US, and they all have, or many have, different tech stacks, different systems. A lot are antiquated. How do you sell into that? How do you prioritize? What is that sales cycle like, and how do you scale it?

Angela Tucci: Oh gosh, for those of you listening who remember selling on-premise software, we're not on-prem, but it's a lot like that sales cycle. Of, you know, an RFP, a, you know, bringing it down to a handful of bidders. And it acts a lot like, as you would expect, where we sell into, which is more the regulated side. So when you say the, you know, the thousands, there's a lot of deregulated plus municipalities, very small companies. We really deal with the top-tier largest providers in the regulated space, which means they They have a monopoly in their community. Xcel Energy here in Colorado or in the Midwest is a monopoly and regulated as a result so that they're not taking advantage of their customers by, you know, by accident or whatever. So we're very targeted. As I said, many times the process has to be a bid process. That's what the regulators expect. You have to justify if you sole source. And then the sales cycles themselves are anywhere between 9 and 12 months. So it's, you know, we can kind of see the business that we're going to do this year, at least, or the possibility of business this year, and also have to pay attention to the politics that's out there. Because if the regulators change their mind or a state goes from blue to red, perhaps it changes their interest level and the funding that they'll actually get from the state in order to do a clean energy program. We saw this in Ohio a couple of years ago where basically the clean energy programs disappeared. During COVID we saw the regulators say, hey, some states can't afford to be doing this sort of programmatic work. And so Hawaii, for instance, was another state that changed its stance. You know, and again, this is all with the intent to do right by the consumer. So don't hear judgment in my words so much as just kind of the way the system works.

Michael Koenig: That lends itself to a whole other factor of externalities that can impact your business that you then have to take into account and plan around.

Angela Tucci: Yeah, it's funny you say that. It's the first time I've actually used all 5 forces of Porter's model. For those of you with your MBA, you remember that book that's on your shelf? And in my time in the software industry, this is the first time where that, that regulatory aspect has come into such, you know, a high degree of play.

Michael Koenig: It's unbelievable. So Adrian talked about how there's essentially a countdown clock of roughly 90 months to act on reducing global warming before the Earth reaches the point of no return. So no pressure on the team, right?

Angela Tucci: None whatsoever. But a lot of people in for the challenge, right?

Michael Koenig: And I can see how that would certainly motivate everyone to accomplish extraordinary things in a short period of time. How do you and Adrian as leaders walk the fine line of preventing that motivation from turning into a doomsday clock that just stresses the heck out of everyone in the company?

Angela Tucci: Yeah, it's a— that's a great question because it came up at our annual, what we call is upsite. So it used to be an offsite, now it's an upsite, and then it was on

Michael Koenig: Let's get back to, to your career and the learnings along the way. What did you learn? And I'm sure there were a lot, but is there something in particular that you learned the hard way that you wish you had known back when you took that first leadership role?

Angela Tucci: Oh gosh, yeah. I remember sitting, it was a transition time coming out with my MBA. And of course, I was smarter than everybody else. No, but I was conditioned to somehow think that way. So, excuse my ego from running amok. And I remember a gentleman sitting across the table from me who was a salesman saying, You're not going to be invited to this next meeting until basically you can get your ego in check. I think that was the first time, and to his credit, he tried to be kind about it, that I started to actually understand what EQ was. Up until that point, and now the schools, remember I'm over 100, now schools teach more about how to actually be, you know, a constructive member of a team and how to engage well with one another and how to play, you know, how to play nice, um, and in a, in a good and constructive and creative way. But that wasn't really the, the teachings I had had. I, I was also, and still am, an only child. And so I always say that my parents didn't socialize me well when I was a kid, so it wasn't really good with humans. My dad, I think at one point, said, whatever you do, honey, just don't Don't lead people. And so I thought, okay, so, you know, so this like persona of me is actually existing in my head. Um, so, you know, I think I had multiple messages along the way to remind me that I was human. I wasn't always good at stuff, that people saw me and at least had the, had the willingness to, to take the mirror and say, huh, you know, this, this is kind of how you're showing up to others. And so I've spent a lot of time actually trying to think through and work on how to be more approachable, how to be— I think I'm very humble now because I've had enough failures in my life to know that there's enough to be humble about. But also just how to show up in a way that's commensurate with what people need in the moment. By the way, it's a continuous journey. Like, only the best politicians, I think, actually know how to do that. I'm, you know, I'm a student always.

Michael Koenig: What have you learned? What's the secret there?

Angela Tucci: Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah, I don't know. I do get it wrong sometimes. Absolutely get it wrong sometimes.

Michael Koenig: For the folks out there who are interested in becoming a COO or already are a COO, what advice would you have for them as they start to get into those leadership roles?

Angela Tucci: It's really systems thinking, and you got to ask yourself— and it sounds, it's, it sounds like you're not capable of something if you're not a systems thinker, and I don't mean it that way. There's people who are wonderful at going deep and, and, and being experts, you know, 10 levels down, you know, the, the force multiplier software engineer who can, you know, make such a huge difference, but I think of it as for the COO role, you have to see the system. Because there's all of this interplay that you're trying to optimize for or fix or shape at any given time. If you can't see it and explain it and give some examples as to the what and the why, people aren't going to follow you. You're going to end up devolving into really just doing functional work and have missed the point of your role. So, I had the good fortune to be in a company that sold agile software and agile transformation. So I got to learn how to do change management from something different than sort of traditional waterfall change management practices. That became a tool in the tool belt in terms of how to think about affecting change of a system. I worked very closely with a gentleman who was, could write the book on systems thinking that helped me in how, you know, what constitutes a system. Because you got to be like, well, what does it mean to be a systems thinker? Or what is a system? So, you know, I've pushed myself on that system. But I suspect some of you on this podcast are, you know, that you're curious about what's working and what's not, or what's the gap. You know, maybe for those athletes on the phone, I might say always think about seeing the whole field, but also where the open space is. You know, as a metaphor for how to approach it.

Michael Koenig: Okay. And for everyone else who's not an athlete—

Angela Tucci: I'm just kidding. Sorry. Yeah, I feel like as a woman, sometimes I get to throw around more sports analogies than the men do, maybe which is an unfair advantage. But because I love that sports history that you brought up at one point. But yes, go ahead.

Michael Koenig: No, that's too good. You're also the chairperson of the board of trustees for the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology. Can you tell us a bit about that organization? Why is it near and dear to you?

Angela Tucci: Oh, this one's so powerful for me. So back when I was at Symantec, I remember showing up to a meeting where I was at a fancy title of chief strategy officer. And so I was talking to a group of women and they were all circled around. I was really actually trying to find some time to have lunch. So I asked them a simple question. What's your name and what do you do here at Symantec? You would have thought I had asked these people to strip naked and walk on hot coals. They were so like, I have to speak and I have to speak publicly and I have to be seen. I thought, oh, this is a problem. I've asked you something that's really special about you. Who are you? What do you do? I didn't ask for a lot of details, so I didn't want to put anybody on the spot. But at that moment, I realized I could really help these women with how they were being seen, the advocacy to help them, and give more voice where people felt like they didn't have one. The Anita Borg Institute, which Symantec was partnered with at the time, asked if I would become a board member, and I thought, great, here's a great match. For so long, I have to admit, I walked the planet a bit, not thinking that I was male or female. I am female, obviously, or maybe not so obviously, but I'm declared myself female. And yet I wasn't walking the planet in advocacy for other women. And so this organization gave me the opportunity to be in it, both an ally, an advocate, and help bring voice and equity to women who don't feel it in their daily jobs.

Michael Koenig: So for those of us that aren't currently involved in the Institute, what do you think are some tactics that we can employ within our companies tomorrow that can help that?

Angela Tucci: The simple stuff that many of you probably have already done, but revisiting it because in many ways it never gets old, is around unconscious bias. We take the course, we show up, we say it's so obvious, and then we go back to our old ways and we don't get the escape velocity of actually practicing it. We are in a hiring crunch as companies, right? Where there's such scarcity of talent out there. So what are we likely to do? We're going to hire like because we know like people to us. For not putting a diverse candidate set forward, we will not get diverse people to be in our companies and we'll do a disservice to the to the overall creativity of that company. I can't say enough. I have a woman who works for me who is Black and she says, I feel safe talking to you and other leaders who are at the C-level because I work for a Jewish man, I work with a woman who is a lesbian, and I work with a gentleman who is Asian. And she says, "So I feel safe amongst you." And you think, gosh, as any human, you try to think, well, I'm certainly safe. But if you're a Black woman, you don't feel safe a lot of the time. And so to hear her say that, I would also share, be aware that while you believe you're being utterly safe, that's not the experience of the minority typically.

Michael Koenig: So it's the psychological safety that people are getting from who they're seeing around themselves. And that's often difficult to get to, especially in tech, right? If you look, and I remember this in Boulder, 20 white guys sitting in a room and then suddenly going, oh, we're not very diverse. We should hire some, we should hire some women, but no one wants to work at that. How do you go about creating the psychological safety and the sort of roots for creating diversity within a company that maybe doesn't have it in its core DNA but is trying to get there?

Angela Tucci: Oh gosh, do you have another 45 minutes to talk about that topic? Oh my goodness, that's a huge topic. And one, frankly, our company is struggling with a bit itself. Because there's ingrained in us is a distrust, a distrust of the title, a distrust of people who have something different, a distrust. And so finding, you know, beginning the conversations on what is also, what is our different experiences and privilege. We've brought in an expert on identity who's helped us to understand really intersectionality of identities in a way that is illustrative of the privileges that we each have and ask the questions in a way to illustrate that when you're driving late at night and you're Black in Colorado and you're at a stop sign and a cop pulls up next to you, you don't feel safe. If you're white, well, maybe you feel a little bit like, gosh, I hope I wasn't speeding, but you don't feel unsafe.. And it's those dialogues that start to have the real conversations of what it really feels to walk in somebody's shoes starts to really build bridges. Now, how do you do that? Bring facilitation. Like the 10 guys, white guys, that example you were bringing, like it's very hard for them to do that. It's going to seem daunting to an individual to have that conversation with any of those folks. But facilitation, and I think many younger people right now are being wonderfully socialized to have these conversations. And so, you probably have within your company people who are willing to raise their hand and go first in that sort of dialogue.

Michael Koenig: That's very interesting. And I think one of the things that can maybe be an accelerator of this is now people really embracing not just remote work within the United States, but remote work around the world, which allows you to really build a diverse team. And that diversity can beget diversity.

Angela Tucci: It, it can. And then you've got the challenge of time zones. I've never seen how hard it is for us to work time zones. You know, when I worked at Symantec, I created a global company. You know, it's all the time zones all the time. But that's a big burden it puts on the workforce to be available to a, to a global job. I'm watching it in our current company of how we have a Pune, India team that's very important to us, has a great deal of intellectual capabilities that we cherish. And yet, they're 11.5 to 12.5 hours away. And so, our ability to team is asking one to give up something for the other. And as another plug for a great book to read that has nothing to do about business, but about relationships, the 80/80 marriage, which we could have probably another conversation about, but that it's not a zero-sum game, that you want to use radical generosity and how you approach relationships, including the one with your significant other. But I do watch this sort of zero-sum game of, well, their time, you know what, they're going to be up at 8 o'clock and I'm going to be just going to bed, so I don't want to stay up late this time. Like, yuck. Yuck. I hate seeing that.

Michael Koenig: Yeah, it's, it's, it's difficult for sure. Uh, Time Doctor is 150 people across 42 countries. We wouldn't be able to, to operate and work if it weren't for asynchronous communication. So really understanding what can be done asynchronously and in a written form versus being really intentional about those synchronous moments. And I think that there's got to be, I think, maybe more of an education around how to really employ this well so that you can have that distribution. Here I go on my soapbox.

Angela Tucci: No, I love it. I will. I'm eager to learn more. I know we can do better.

Michael Koenig: It's definitely challenging, though. There's no question about it. Well, look, my— we get to my last and my favorite question. Which is we've all had those moments where you have a new problem and you've thought, never thought I'd see that. Do you have one that you can share with us?

Angela Tucci: Sure. And I thought a lot about this one, and it's very fresh in my mind because it just happened recently. And it has to do— we went down the diversity path together here— has to do with diversity and, and actually a blind spot that I'm still processing myself. So about a year ago, a group of people in the company came to me anonymously. They said they wanted to remain anonymous to explain certain behaviors that a certain leader was exhibiting and how it made them feel. And they were not willing really to go to HR at the time. Our HR department was just sort of forming. And so they didn't feel safe to talk to HR. So they came to me. They shared and I documented all the things that were done and basically wrote a pre-PIP and brought the manager and his manager together and said, "Here's the sorts of things that need to change." We hired him a coach and I actually spent time with him on a biweekly basis to also provide coaching. Then about 6 months later, the person was up for promotion. I had gotten some feedback from the anonymous people. They said that he was getting better. He was given a promotion from the leader that he was working with. I come to find that the leader he was working with wasn't the person we were going to stick with, wasn't the right leader, and hired a new leader who came in. And picked up the rock under which this manager had been working and found that it was a mess. And it was on my watch. It was on my watch. So meaning that this was really around how people felt psychologically safe in the organization and actually didn't think we cared. I thought at the time I was doing all the right steps, I checked all the right boxes, but didn't do enough homework in hindsight to really have done a proper vetting of, really had the situation improved or did I take some shortcuts when I reflect back on it? I guess to summarize it, I think the learning for me is, you mentioned Anita Borg Institute, I'm such a champion for diversity in general and then specifically for gender. And I miss this in my own company. So, yeah, and I feel pretty badly about that. But nonetheless, you know, this is how we learn and get better.

Michael Koenig: Yeah, absolutely. You're at about 600 people now. Yes. Correct me if I'm wrong. Cut yourself some slack here.

Angela Tucci: Thank you.

Michael Koenig: It's a pretty big organization. You can't be on top of everything.

Angela Tucci: Well, thank you.

Michael Koenig: Thanks for sharing. I appreciate it. It's always difficult to find one of those stories that you can share and you're not going to say, uh-oh, I actually can't share that. So I appreciate it. We learn from those. So, Angela, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. Where can people go to keep up with you?

Angela Tucci: LinkedIn, Angela Tucci. Work for Uplight. You can find me on LinkedIn. Old school, I guess, on LinkedIn. And angela.tucci@uplight.com if you want to send me a private note that way.