Beyond coding careers in tech: Igor Perisic

- Igor Perisic is the Chief Data Officer at LinkedIn. The data products created by his team power the personalized experiences for hundreds of millions of LinkedIn members around the world. Not only is he one of the top executives, he's an amazing mentor, who's an awesome listener and helps elevate people's voices so everyone is heard. That is his character. And now, you're Chief Data Officer. I mean that's like a big responsibility. (laughter) - You tell me. - How are you doing at this job? Are you nervous? You always had that sense of responsibility in your work, but now your organization is responsible for that. How does that feel? - There's some things that are much easier than before. Before, as you're growing up, you get the feeling at some point or time you have to do everything. And any time there's a fire, you have to be the one that sort of digs in. And what ends up happening when you do those kinds of things is that actually you're not giving the space for others to develop. Remember Henke always used to tell us- - I love David Henke. - You're as good as your lieutenants. For a long time, when he said this, eh, I don't know what you're talking about. Of course, then later on you really internalize what he truly means. You give them the space to pick that up. And if you dig in all the time, you're not giving them the space to pick it up. And if you give them the space to pick up something that's already polished and finished, they haven't learned and grown through it. So it cannot be polished and finished. They need to step in. And if you give them the space to do things that are, quote unqoute, not burning fires, then they never really learn how to iterate and operate under pressure. I believe I've created a set of individuals within my staff, and within their own team, that actually are better than I am at what they're doing. I'm not the best engineers, engineering data, by far. - Okay, we said it here live. - We said it here live. - (laughs) - I stand by that, as I said before. - No, but it's true, it's true: you can't be great at everything. - I'm not the best AI modeler, or scientist, by far. I'm not the best at thinking about how to do A/B, and all the math and the science behind it. Certainly not. And because you surround yourself with individuals that are capable to do what they're doing. - And smarter than you, in that space. - And smarter than me. So the only thing that you're pointing to them is those blind spots. That they're seeing within their perspectives. You got it, but how 'about this? How 'about that? - And how to go figure it out. - Exactly. And to give them the support to do so. - When you have a foundation in technology your career can take many paths. Your background is statistics. - It is indeed. - And now you're the Chief Data Officer of LinkedIn. - Correct. I mean, that's just like, from Point A to Point B is like a massive change, and a massive evolution. - For me, very early on, I realized that, in order to be good at what I want to do, I don't need to have all the answers. And if I had to pretend that I had all the answers, then it would be actually a detriment. Hence, what I needed to really build, is that belief, and that capacity, and ability in myself to actually learn, and figuring it out. Which then implies, well, keep on learning. Don't stop. - How do you surround yourself with people that have that same mindset to do that, and evolve just the same? - You develop that cocoon, or that space, where you actually let them make their mistakes, and support them when they're making them. And push them into areas where they don't necessarily see. Everybody has blind spots. So you're trying to push them a little bit into those spaces. And the interesting is, it may not necessary just be in the area that you're doing. For example, we are software engineers. You may have a blind spot in humanities. So spend some time. Get your inspiration from a lot of places. It all comes together in the end. Now, when we go to college we say, why do I take that course? It's never going to help me. This is useless. In the end, with a little bit of experience, you realize, actually that's not true, right? All of it is useful. All of it has a little bit of something. - It's like a little piece of foundation to be like, oh, I can build upon that. Or, oh, I remember look at it in that perspective, and doing something different. - So if you take that perspective, building it around you is to making sure that that is there. That's why you build team with diverse backgrounds, diversive perspectives, diverse opinions. So they can all bring that in, to make the whole thing much, much, much better. Innovation occurs more on the outside than inside. Like when you're bringing two things together, compared just like digging in more, and more, and more into your thing. - You might go to school, learn a craft. But you can always evolve to a new craft. And so, everybody's in a different phase of their career. But I want to take you back to when you first started. Little Igor, just out of school. You know, what's some advice that you would give folks? - I think we often ask about, what advice would you give to your 20 year old, or things like that. - Or Little Igor. - Or Little Igor, if you want to become the Big Igor, or whatever. - Oh, you're Big Igor. - Come on! (laughs) - But in the end, I would have said, you know, explore more. Be more curious. Because we tend to worry so much about our careers that I need to shrink it to something, and grow from that. And the problem that when we do this is we're not curious enough about what's around us, and it limits our choices. And in the end, even in the work that we do, we tend to become very rapidly obsolete. So be curious about what is surrounding you all the time. And be open to learn from it. Because inspirations going to hit you from different angles. - And people think that there's this linear path all the time. It's like, I went to school. 'Cause we're so structured, I think, maybe, in the beginning. And then you get out into the real world, and it's like, no. It's this exploration, it's this curiosity. It's this learning mentality. And then you'll figure out where you end up. Thank you, Igor. - Which one, the little or the big one? - (laughs) Big Igor.