December 2, 2025 • 40 mins
Leadership at the highest level isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about navigating risk, building trust, and knowing when it’s time to pivot toward something even bolder.
In this powerful episode of Beyond Confidence, host Divya Parekh sits down with Russ Walsh, a Silicon Valley executive and cybersecurity leader who has advised top global firms from Google to GE—and is now channeling decades of experience into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects of our time.
Beyond Confidence is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Beyond Confidence TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Beyond Confidence Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/beyond-confidence--1885197/support.
In this powerful episode of Beyond Confidence, host Divya Parekh sits down with Russ Walsh, a Silicon Valley executive and cybersecurity leader who has advised top global firms from Google to GE—and is now channeling decades of experience into one of the most ambitious infrastructure projects of our time.
Beyond Confidence is broadcast live Tuesdays at 10AM ET on W4WN Radio - Women 4 Women Network (www.w4wn.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Beyond Confidence TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Beyond Confidence Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/beyond-confidence--1885197/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:22):
W four WN Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W park.
Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do
you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,
and financial goals?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Coming up on Dvparks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real
stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers who have stepped into discomfort,
shattered their status quo, and are living the life they want.
You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving
your aspirations and financial goals. Moving your career business forward
does not have to happen at the expense of your
personal or family life or vice versa. Learn more at
(00:59):
www Don't givpork dot com and you can connect with
div ants contact eds givpark dot com. This is beyond
confidence and now here's your host, gv Pork.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Good morning everyone. I know it's week after Thanksgiving and
I don't know about y'all. I'm it's still got food
and just sometimes it's just hard to come back from holidays.
But that said, we are ready to get your week going.
And it's important to pay attention to December because a
(01:33):
lot of people kind of like relax off. But the
key is remember that December, especially if you're looking for a.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Job or if you're doing any transitions, this is the
time when a lot of like networking and all that
happens in so keep your eyes out on that.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
And today we are bringing you a wealth of.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Leadership and a lot of different things with our wonderful
guest Russ Walch.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
Welcome, Russ, Hi, How are you good? How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Welcome on Pard great great here in the San Francisco
Bay area. A beautiful morning, wonderful.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
So Russ, tell us as to.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Then you started out, and do you recall a moment
in your childhood or when you were young youth if
somebody left a posted mark on you.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Definitely. I grew up in a pretty happy family situation.
Two older brothers. We played a lot of sports, but
everybody was pretty encouraging. We got along well, and I
was definitely different.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
Uh you know, I was.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Building legos when I was three years old and just
kind of a bit of a nerd, but kind of fun,
a little bit of a prankster and things like that.
Uh So we had a lot of fun growing up.
But I think for me, remember in high school somebody said,
have you thought about going into engineering? I had no
idea what that was, and I ended up choosing the
(03:09):
path of electrical slash computer engineering, and that's led me
down the kind of the technology route that brought me
to Silicon Valley about twenty five years ago.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yeah, like Silicon Valley back then, I think, so those
were the beginnings. So then you ca, let's kind of
compare like you know at that time and now. So
when you were back then, what was it like five
years back?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Oh God, that's a great question. It was a strange boom.
It was a couple of years after the dot com
and the Internet had launched, so there were a lot
of companies who had gone big time. Yahoo was one
of the leading tech companies of the time. They still survived.
They're still around and you don't seem to hear much
about them anymore. But they're just kind of they're chipping away.
(03:58):
But well, yeah, aol exactly. They used to send everybody
a floppy disk and the mail once a.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Week, oh yeah, and in the United would go oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Every time you logged in, it had to reload new
versions and everything. But it was pretty cool that it
all came together the way it did. Uh. I ended
up I was working at IBM, my last thing I
did before I got the chance to come to Silicon Valley,
and IBM was a great company.
Speaker 7 (04:30):
I really enjoyed it. But you know, the nature of
the job I had at that time was a travel job.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Every week, jump on an airplane and and and go
work somewhere. And they would usually be like six to
twelve month projects. So I spent a lot of time
where you are in the really Durham area home on
a big project for IBM. Loved that area, but still
was hard. I had a young family then. But uh,
one of my co workers IBM said, Hey, there's a
colleague of mine who wants to hire for a job
(04:56):
in Coupertino, California. I was like, where is that.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
I have no idea, and she goes, oh.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
That's kind of the hardest Silicon Valley, right where Apple's
headquartered and everything. And about six weeks later after that conversation,
I was on an airplane landing there and starting work
in kuber Tina with my family there, and it was
nice and I went from a commute of literally four
or five hundred miles by airplane every week to about
(05:22):
four hundred feet literally. My office was right next to
the building we ended up living in, so I could
literally go get a diet coke out of the fridge
if if we didn't have one at the office. So, uh,
some pretty funny stories, but you know, at that time,
you know, Silicon Valley was booming. It was almost terrifying
in a sense where prices like rent prices of were
(05:44):
going up fifty percent a year and people were, you know,
had who had been paying fifteen hundred dollars a month
to rent, you know, in nineteen ninety eight, were suddenly
paying four thousand, five hundred to rent by the end
of two thousand. But then the whole Dot com thing happened,
and it was just kind of a crazy mess. When
it first started, it was I got caught in a
(06:07):
layoff myself, and I think in the first two weeks
I was kind of looking for something. I was probably
having two to three job interviews a day. I mean,
there were just so many openings. But then when things
really kind of broke a few months later, Cisco was
the one that really broke the backbone of Silicon Valley.
(06:28):
They were the leader, head of Yahoo, just growing, expanding.
They were the Google of that time. And when they
suddenly started realizing they weren't growing anymore, in fact, they
were having to make cuts, that changed the game in
Silicon Valley. By the summer of two thousand and one,
if you could find anybody who'd give you an interview,
(06:49):
it was a shock.
Speaker 7 (06:50):
It was just really is big of.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
An economic and i'd say employment drought as I've ever
seen certainly went through another one in two thousand and eight,
two thousand and nine out here and right now, honestly,
it's a pretty bad one. That are It's not getting
a lot of news, but tech sector right now is
really struggling. There's so many people, probably one out of
four people I know in tech have been out of
(07:14):
work or are.
Speaker 7 (07:15):
Currently out of work here.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So it's it's a strange time honestly.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Yeah. No, absolutely, And I've got a lot of my clients,
you know, coming from tech companies, and I find them
they're either worried about being laid off or you know,
it can be because of the economy where we are
going through and you know it's very cyclical, or because
of AI.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
Like recently I heard because the.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
AI subdivision of IBM, like the company that you work
for in the news. I think, so a couple of
days back, because their AI division is booming, they're planning
to lay off for thousands of people. Oh wow, So
kind of if you kind of go through these situations,
So like what happens is, you know, there is the
technical environments, as you men, there can be a boom,
(08:02):
so like AI is coming up, right, and then they
need to hire more people like okay, we got to go,
go go, and then once you have reached that plateau,
then you kind of let go. So there's in these
technical environments there's always so much ambiguity. So how did
you scale trust as an executive.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
When the dot com meltdown happened. LinkedIn didn't exist. There
really weren't those kinds of social networks, so I really
didn't have a big network out here at all. It
was a tough ride for me, but things opened up
that you know, I believe there's a god and he
made things happen at the right time and doors opened up.
I moved out here with the intention of starting my
(08:46):
own software company at some point. When I was in
it the first part of my career, I was really
good at writing systems to manage server farms and things
like that before we even call them server farm arms
and data centers.
Speaker 7 (09:01):
And things like that.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
And even at IBM, you know, it's considered one of
their top programmers in that regard. So but I knew
one thing, you know, creating software and selling software two
very different things. And I'd always been so much in
the technical side, it was far removed from, you know,
the business side of it. So when I moved to
Silicon Valley and worked for a startup, that was my
(09:23):
chance to I got as as a sales engineer. So,
I mean, my first day off the plane, I'm literally
in front of companies like eBay, I think Yahoo and
a couple of.
Speaker 7 (09:33):
The other ones.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Literally we were out there, you know, talking with them
about different things that we could do on the technology front.
And that was really good for me to get used
to that notion, because I remember saying at some point
I'd love to be able to say I've been inside
the headquarters of one hundred companies, because when I moved here,
I'd only been the headquarters of one company in my
whole life at that point, because I'd always worked a
(09:55):
bit remotely for the companies.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
And never had a reason to go to the HQ.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And I think now I counted it up that I've
probably been inside one hundred and fifty, if not two
hundred corporate headquarters in the last twenty five years. And
you know, ended up being heavily involved with Facebook's IPO
about fourteen years ago. So it's been an interesting ride
of all the different things I've had a chance to do.
Worked with a lot of really innovative startup companies who
(10:22):
went public.
Speaker 7 (10:23):
I started working with.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
A little company called Google when they were about three
hundred employees in two thousand and one two thousand and
two and watching them kind of break out a part
of a building on the Intuit Campus to becoming you know,
the mega conglomerate that they've become. So I've watched a
lot of really interesting companies grow from literally a couple
of other ones I worked with were less than one
(10:44):
hundred people when I started working with them that are
over ten thousand employees now. So it's pretty exciting to
see how that works. And sometimes you can just look
at the leadership and like, this company's gonna make it.
You could just see something about the nature the chemistry
of the way they were working. Z Scale is a
good example. When I worked with them about twelve years ago.
I just saw the leadership and the way they did
(11:05):
things was amazing. And their first like I think their
first one hundred customers all came out of the fortune
five hundred, which is extremely difficult to do.
Speaker 7 (11:14):
But once you've done that, you know, it's a.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Whole lot easier to get the smaller guys when you've
already proven you can do the big guys.
Speaker 7 (11:19):
And they were just brilliant and they're doing very well now.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
So it's been.
Speaker 7 (11:22):
Interesting to watch this.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
So you have been through a lot, like when you're
talking about the IPO and seeing the growth and sustainability
of companies like Google and Facebook. So there is a
whole lot of difference. So let's say you know when
a company is going through it's a startup more. Yes,
you learn in dog years because I've been part of
(11:46):
startup companies myself.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
Yeah, that's said.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
There is more relationship building and they're more intimacy and
more trust. But now that you go to the IPO,
it's all about focus on money. So as people are
working their way through, what would you tell the professionals
and leaders going through that time.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Well, well, I have a friend and colleague who's been
a good advisor over the years of guttingmed Roger Royce.
He's an attorney. He wrote a book kind of Dead
on Arrival, I think is what it was called. Because
so many startups make serious mistakes in the first year
or two. Sometimes they give away too much equity, they
(12:27):
make promises they shouldn't have, They bring people in when
they you know, way before they need to, and it
really sets things up for failure. The ones who seem
to do it right are the ones who the leaders
know one has time to add the right people and
how to how to manage things. They know how to
go get customers early in the game and get buy in,
you know, because you can build something in a vacuum,
(12:49):
but if you don't have a customer who really wants
what you're building, it doesn't matter. And I think that's
kind of the story of the scalers. Jay chaudry knew
how to talk to the customers who had to need
a major need and he said, hey, if we build this,
will this you know, be something you deploy it? You know,
major like I said, Fortune one hundred companies and they're like, yeah,
(13:10):
this is what we need. And when he gave them
the alpha and beta versions, like hey, this works, this
is solving a huge problem for us, and boom, there
you go. So there's a lot of things about making
sure you've got a product, a market, and then you've
also got the right people around you and a business roadmap.
I mean, I've helped several companies raise money over the
(13:33):
years taking that plan of what's your five year model,
you know, and you've got to think about all those
things from who are we going to hire, when are
we going to hire them, how much is that going
to cost? And are we going to have an office
and all those things because you have to roll it in.
And one thing they at least used to teach in
Silicon Valley was if you need to borrow money, you say,
I mean, it's not really borrowing, but the investors typically
(13:55):
start with a series a round or an angel round,
and that when you show your cash flow model, you
never go below fifty percent because they know you're going
to spend more than you have and your income coming
from a customer's accounts payable always is later than you think.
So there's a lot of things like that that you consider.
But it's interesting to watch how companies really take that.
(14:18):
And so many have done well, so many haven't. I
think they still say, what four out of five.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Don't make it right?
Speaker 6 (14:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Yeah, and that is the case, and you provided some
very key markers for success over here.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
So keeping that in mind.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
So you've seen that side, and then you've also seen
where you led the consulting form as the CEO. So
tell us more about your journey to the rise of
CEO and what was the journey like.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's been interesting. So I've been this is my third time,
if you will, kind of running my own ship. The
first time was a software company and we had a
lot of success. We got customers on board, we create
a product for at that time, backing up desktop and
laptop computers, and we've had people reasonably like can you
bring that back?
Speaker 7 (15:06):
We still have a gap here.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
We you know, sometimes people accidentally delete their box or
Google drive shares and there's not a great safety net
to recover. But the first time that was it, and
it was a kind of traditional Silicon Valley model of
we're going to build a software product and scale it.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
And that was before software is a service. So back then,
when you.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Delivered software, you literally is own a CD ROM. People
would install it and everything else. And then Salesforce changed
the game and started net Suite back in about two
thousand and six, two thousand and eight, to where you
just you know their application, You log in on the
website and you're up in runnings. You know, you can
go from like a conversation like we're having now to
ten minutes later. You know, you're running Salesforce, right, It
(15:46):
wasn't that you had to buy all that equipment and
plan for six to twelve months to implement a software product.
So I was part of that and then I worked
and it got the chance to work at ey Urst
and Young, one of the big four account firms during
Sarbean's Oxley. When that kind of broke in the aftermath
of the inrun meltdown, which you probably remember that, which
(16:08):
was a big part of the whole dot com meltdown.
Some of the dot com meltdown was due to some
fraud that was going on. People were manipulating their numbers
and how much they were earning, and all of a
sudden their stock prices are going through the roof. But
it wasn't based on reality, and some cases based on
some really false data. But nonetheless, having seen that, it
created a whole new economy, if you will, in Silicon
(16:29):
value of all these major tech companies had to go
through these audits that they never did before. And now
it's been going on for over twenty years, but that
really brought Silicon Valley back to life to a certain degree.
Anybody in tech who was kind of underemployed or unemployed
had the chance to kind of step in and do
some degree of audit. I jumped in on that myself
(16:51):
and it's been an interesting ride to do risking, compliance
and things like that. So at e Y when I
came on board. About six months, they're like, okay, we
need you in charge the whole Silicon Valley region for
our small to medium clients. So it was like seventy
plus clients. So I'm you know, at that time.
Speaker 7 (17:08):
Apple and Google.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Apple was still trying to come back, you know, they
were still not the mega giant they are. They hadn't
invented the iPhone just yet that was about to break through.
So having a chance to work with those types of
companies was really a great opportunity.
Speaker 7 (17:22):
And then I ended up going to work with one
of my clients, a.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Company called Opswear that was run by Mark and Dresen
and Ben Horowitz, and about a year after I got there,
they got bought by HP, and Mark and Ben went
on to start there andres and Horowitz one of the
probably the leading v season in the world now and
have had tremendous success funding new ideas, new initiatives. But
(17:48):
I maintained the relationship with Ben and especially and quite
a lot of the other leaders there over the years,
and it turned out I went back to a small
consulting company after the HP acquisition, and it's kind of
like a small version of EY and it was nice
I was there for about five years. Again, that's where
we got the chance to do the Facebook IPO. We
were working with Twitter, we were working with a lot
(18:10):
of leading tech companies, but I broke out and did
my own thing for about five years, my own consulting practice.
So the first time as a CEO was a software company,
the second time was a consulting company, which are very
different business models. And then I ended up working at
GE and building out a new business unit that they
were taken on from about twenty sixteen to twenty twenty two.
Speaker 7 (18:33):
And that's what led me to kind.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Of where I am today of this new initiative which
is in climate, such a different genre for me, but
really fun and really exciting. So that's kind of where
I'm at today, and it's very interesting where we are
and can't wait to talk more about that.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Yeah, no, absolutely, So when you mentioned about that, you
know you did the consulting company.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
You have being part of.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
An employed professional as well as a foundering your own company.
So what would you say are the different lessons you've
learned from both the journeys.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah, definitely interesting. The first time I've made some of
those mistakes of giving away ownership of the company a
little too early in the game. And one thing I
learned with my consultancy that which was about ten years
later when I started that I didn't I never gave
away a dime. It's like, I'll just pay people for
(19:32):
their time and we'll take it at that approach because
then I, you know, I get full control if I
want to go left or right, I don't have to
answer to a team of people. Especially if you find
yourself to where you'll have less than fifty percent ownership,
then it's just politics and it's it's very challenging to
navigate those waters. So that's been one thing that you know,
(19:55):
I had learned the same way. Right now, I still
own one hundred percent of the company. Will I give
away some It depends. Right now, we're this is a
very strange company. This is more of a movement than
it is, you know, a product or service this time,
because we're trying to get the world to become aware of,
you know, a.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
Real big problem they're not that aware of.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Everybody hears the word or the phrase climate change. You know,
whether you like it or not, it just comes up.
It's been coming up for decades now. Greenhouse gases. We've
been hearing about that for a while, But when it
comes to sea level rise, I've got friends who live
at the coast too, aren't that aware of it, And
especially people who don't live near the coastal areas, they
(20:37):
don't realize what's happening. But you know, the sea has
gone up nine inches in the last one hundred and
twenty five years, and this is a century in twenty
five years. It's going up twice as fast as it
did last year and continue to accelerate. And why nine
inches might not sound like a lot in some places
where the sea is pushing in, It's kind of like,
I use the term of the concept, if you build
(20:59):
the same castle on a be each right, and no
matter how well you pack that, as soon as that
first wave hits it, that thing's going to collapse. Right.
A lot of the land around the world is not rock,
it's softer soil. So when as the sea rises nine inches,
the land itself can sink. And that's what's happening in
Bangladesh and Indonesia and even in some parts of the
(21:20):
Bay Area. Florida is having big problems with that. New
York a lot of areas that are along the coast
and are dealing with that. But the sea could go
up in the worst case more than two hundred feet.
It's done it before. I mean, I'm from South Carolina
and in fact, Raley, you're not too far away from
that sand line where the beach used to come in.
(21:41):
We don't know if that was four thousand years ago
or four million years ago, but nonetheless it's happened, and
we can't let that happen. You know, that was different
at that point in time where civilization is. You know, like, okay,
the sea's going up an inch a year, they can
easily move away, right, they had time to pack up
their tents or whatever. But we've built so much infrastructure
(22:01):
along coastal regions that that would just be devastating.
Speaker 7 (22:05):
And that, sadly is if.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
You read the top books out there, everything's about retreat.
That we're going to have to go to higher ground.
And that's a terrible option, I think when you think
so many countries don't even have land over two hundred feet,
so they're saying, okay, you'll just fall into non existence.
The Maldives they're already saying they'll be gone in thirty years.
I mean, these are realistic things you can look up.
These are coming from National Geographic, PBS, BBC, you know,
(22:31):
major trustworthy news outlets that are reporting this. So it's
probably the biggest problem the planet is faced. And the
sad thing is most people are proposing solutions that are
just traditional that won't work to beyond a couple more
feet of sea level rise, and we're proposing what if
(22:52):
we can just redirect the ocean, and we're getting.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Some more proposal rs. You mentioned that this is a movement,
so tell us about that.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
Yeah, I mean, we've got to get the mindset shift.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
We love the way that you know, climate change awareness
has has been done very well, maybe to an extent
to too much, and some of the doomsday picture that's
been painted that if this temperature rises three more degrees,
we're all going to burn up. You know, some people
have that perception and that's not the case, that's not reality.
(23:26):
I mean, I'm here in some parts of the world
right now because the temperatures have gone up and climbs
are moderated, they have two growing seasons now in some
areas of the world. So it's been kind of a
blessing for in some ways, but at the same time,
you know, the climate issue of as temperatures rise and
the melting ice is the problem.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Is for anybody who's a naysayer, the whole issue of
the discussions that major leaders of trees are having about
warfare in the Arctic. You couldn't have that conversation forty
years ago. But now that the ice is melting in
the seasonal periods and it's opening that area up to
(24:11):
where ships can traverse across there, including military ships, it's
a whole different game. So things have happened. Fortunately right now,
it's happening at a very slow level, because again we've
only gone up a few inches and we're a long
way from going up two hundred feet and we're not
seeing that that's going to happen this century. But they
are saying it could go up three feet more before
(24:32):
the end of the century, which is really alarming, and
we have to do something about it. And that's kind
of what I'm about, because we've got to get that
mindset of we got to start thinking about water. Where
do we put the water, because the water's going to melt.
We can't stop that. You know, the process is already
in place, but it's like, what if we can do
something really useful with the water and have a great
(24:56):
outcome from this. I mean, you just look at about
a third of the world's land is on usable because
there's no water. The Sahara is huge, right, it's about
the size of China mainland. And you look at the
Australia similarly, eighty percent of it's fairly uninhabited because they
have no water. So it's like, okay, what if we
can take the water from the rising seas, redirected inland
(25:17):
and change the game to where forty years from now
you look at Western Australia from the air and it
looks like the Amazon, right, a lot of water, a
lot of hills covered with forest and agriculture, and you know,
really to change the game on this and then create
viable economic economies where people can live and thrive. It's
(25:39):
really getting exciting.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
And how how would that happen? What would that You've
given me the vision? Yeah, what would the vision look like?
And of course you know, having Amazon and forest and
agriculture and booming economy, everybody's.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
Looking for that, there's no question about it. But what
would be the pathway to it.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I think this is where you've got to really get
the leaders who are driving climate issues and other international issues.
This has got to get in front of them to
where they go, Okay, somebody's got a solution to this.
It's going to be costly, but gosh, I just got
off the conference two weeks ago of virtual conference with
(26:19):
leaders from Singapore, the Netherlands who are dealing with sea
level rise and the tens of billions of dollars they're
planning to spend building seawalls and levees and moving ports
and all this all to deal with sea level rise
is crazy. If you add it all up, I mean
it's four hundred thousand miles of global coastline. I mean
it's in the tens of not hundreds of trillions that
(26:40):
there were forecasting to spend to fight sea level rise
over the coming decades. It's crazy. And a lot of
times people don't even know that their local tax dollars
are going to some of these things. That they keep
it fairly quiet. But go look at the website of
any coastal city and how in America, and they have
a section of what they're doing about sea level and
how much money they're spending kind of quietly as well.
(27:03):
But the bottom line here is what if And this
is what's interesting. I just was reading last week about
an article that what they're doing to try to bring
back forestation in different parts of the world, the Amazon
Africa and their funds now to kind of incentivize people
not to clear cut. If you will leave that land alone,
here's some money to kind of compensate that. It's like
(27:24):
we kind of create these as I'd call them world parks,
not national parks, and it's an essence like we're going
to protect that area. And so there are people doing that.
So the notion that what if we could take a
portion of the funds that Singapore and all these places
are budgeting to spend and say, let's use that money
to build these inland seas and redirect the sea inland,
(27:45):
and then it's not so much necessarily that we're going
to solve that problem totally with that method, it's maybe
the largest portion of it.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
But also to capture water where it's falling.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
We've got property in the Philippines, and the Philippines has
just been hit so hard this year with their seasonal rains.
Typhoon after typhoon and ninety nine percent of that water
went into the ocean, right, it just ran away. We
could have captured some of that and some of those
mountainous areas that are fairly uninhabited, and it's going to
be a game of where do we capture the water.
(28:18):
That's what we're looking at, and certainly is better to
capture it fresh water if we can. So what if
somebody can say, Okay, we're going to build some reservoirs
in our mountains and it's going to be worth one
inch of sea level rise, right, and if we can say,
you know what, that's worth one hundred billion dollars. And
so even if you're in central Africa, far away from
(28:38):
the coast, and you have the rainfall and you say, hey,
we're going to build these reservoirs and the World Fund
would would give us billions of dollars for doing that,
then economically that's great.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
Then you created this water space.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You can create agricultural systems that are much more maintainable
fresh water sources. So there's a lot of benefits that
could come from that. But in the end, if we
find ourselves forty years from now, you know, we took
the sea down afoot. You know, Miami Beach at high
tide still has fifty yards of beach to walk on
before you hit the water line. Those kind of things
(29:15):
are a possibility of what we're looking at, that we
can really flip this on its head and find ourselves
getting ahead of the sea level rise a little bit
to where you know, at the end of the century,
perhaps you know we've taken the sea down two or
three feet, and again we've created more land around the
world than we had instead of losing it.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Yeah, those definitely make sense. And I know this is
a small thing that a lot of my neighbors are doing.
And here's the thing I always say that, you know,
every little bit counts. A lot of people are collecting
the rainwater and in the barrels and all that. Definitely
(29:59):
given that and kind of coming back to the professionals,
right that you have the vision and you went from
owning three different companies and.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
Starting a movement, what would.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
You tell a lot of like gen zs and millennials
who want to have meaning in their lives and sometimes
they're not happy, whether it is because of a toxic
boss or because they're laid off, or it could be
all their efforts are going into a company, and if
they're looking to start their own company, what would be
your message to them.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
That's a great lead in. And you know, one thing
I'm really been excited about. I've got three daughters of
my own, so for them, the future I've got a
grandson now, the future they have is really important to me,
and it's extremely exciting. Is I've had some of these
conversations the past year. Climate has just been this really
(30:55):
doomsday dark cloud. To most people, this is terrifying. They
look at it and say, gosh, this is just gonna,
you know, make such a mess of the planet. And
when you flip the narrative and say, what if this
the climate change is one of the best gifts the
Earth's given us since the electricity and steel, right, the
(31:15):
possibilities of what we could do to transform parts of
the world, and it gets people really excited, really hopeful
that wow, we could have a good outcome, we could
have something really special. And I know people who are
in construction are excited because if you're in major construction
compans where you're building bridges and you know, in Dubai
(31:36):
and you're building tunnels in Sydney, Australia every four or
five to seven years. You know, you're bouncing around to
some other part of the world. You got to take
your family if you can even do that, and go
to these places.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
But the notion that you could move to the.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Sahara or parts of Australia and for seven generations you
could build this thing right these inland seas, and your
family can just thrive and put down roots and and
and grow in a new way without feeling like completely transient. Right,
and then these people get apart be a part of
planning these brand new areas, right, areas that when they
(32:14):
you know, essentially part of what we're talking about. When
we dig these lakes, it's like where do we put
the dirt? Well, the dirt, you know, we build hills
around it, man made hills, and at some point, you know,
we may fill the lakes in higher to at some
point if we need to. But these, I mean, people
dream of living in the south of France, right we
have the mountains and the sea right there. We spent
(32:35):
our holidays last Christmas in the South of Spain and
that also has beautiful mountains coming right down to the coast.
We could even see Gibraltar from where we were and stuff,
and so imagine landscapes where people lived where once I
perhaps you can see the ocean on the other side,
you see this beautiful new lake that's that's huge and
(32:56):
just breathtaking. The possibilities are really exciting of what we
could create as we go through this. And what's also
interesting is again greening these places up to a point
where you know, water systems and then forest and along
the coast of where we might build these lakes and
the canals coming in, we build mangroves and coral reefs
(33:19):
and things that.
Speaker 7 (33:19):
Are very good for pulling the.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. So there's a lot
of things that we can get is really good byproducts
of the whole process and doing this.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Yeah, no, absolutely, I think. So that's such a beautiful
vision to hold on to. And I'm sure that you
know as you're building the movement, because we need those
as you said, those you know, these are there, these
barren lends in Australia, Sahara, and if we can get
them back, it would be so good for the humanity.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
Right, So what's next for you?
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Well, again, we've got a long way to go, and
I really do appreciate you allowing us to be a
part of this podcast, you know, week it seems now
we're getting a chance to talk with more media outlets
like this, including some of the major news outlets of
the ABC, CBS and so forth, have approach me in
the last few weeks to talk about this as well,
(34:15):
to get this further out there. But again, we've got
a long way to go. Nonetheless, we're making some real
great inroads bit by bit. Yesterday I spoke with the
CEO of one of the largest geo construction companies in
the world. They're based here in Silicon Valley, and the
CEO and I were talking about the possibility of Right now,
probably the largest earth moving equipment in the world is
(34:39):
about the size of a house, you know, a good
sized house, but that's pretty big, right But when we
were talking yesterday about what if we could build earth
moving equipment the size of a cruise ship, like one
hundred thousand times bigger than we've ever done before, And
he said he was part of designing something like that
forty years ago when he worked at Chevron. He said,
the one thing here he'll never forget is this piece
(35:01):
of equipment that they wanted to build was so big
that the tires, the tread on the tires, you know,
it's normally like a quarter inch on a regular standard
car tire.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
He said, it was four feet just the tread. A
child could walk underneath it.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
Right.
Speaker 7 (35:16):
So the wheel on this.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Machine they wanted to build was something like forty or
fifty feet tall itself just a wheel. So this thing
was humongous, he said. About the time they were ready
to get going, the oil and gas industry took a
whole different shift and that never happened.
Speaker 7 (35:32):
But he said it was really fun designing it.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
But he was like, you know, there's definitely physics, physical
issues that are challenging to what you can build. It'll
float on water versus what will move on land. But
nonetheless he's like, you know, these are great ideas that
could change the game, because if we build these inland seas,
we're going to need to build holes and dig holes
in the ground the side of the Grand Canyon, maybe
(35:55):
ten of those in the next one hundred and fifty years,
and you know, be tough to do with standard equipment.
Speaker 7 (36:01):
But if we had.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Bulldozers the size of cruise ships. We might be able
to did the Grand Canyon in five years, and and
and and so forth.
Speaker 7 (36:10):
So the possibilities are really exciting.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Mm.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
Absolutely, Well, we issue well res you know as you
keep on taking this journey and hopefully there's a whole
lot more to come for the humanity and you know,
open up new vistas and vision and economy. So any
(36:34):
last words for our listeners.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
I mean, this is like I said, at this point,
it's a movement. We're trying to get world leaders ultimately
behind this. So over the next few weeks, uh, I
mean this week later on, we're talking with people from
NASA who are heading up global sea level rise issues
and we're excited to bring this idea in front of them.
And again the people who will be joining are from academia, uh,
(37:00):
some executives from some of the major construction companies, insurance companies.
We're bringing all this together and the hope so getting
to a point where okay, this is ready to go.
We're going to do something here. And we're starting to
have conversations about where would we build this, you know,
how fast do we need to build it, where are
we going to fund it? Those conversations I certainly hope
(37:20):
we're going to take off in twenty twenty six, and
some of them may take off before we get to
the end of the year. So it's pretty interesting what
the possibilities are. And for people who are just watching
on the sidelines who want to chip in, you know,
they can email me it Russ at russwalur info at
Russwalsh dot com or Russ at Russwalsh dot com and
we'll do what we can to follow up with you
(37:41):
and let you know more about what's happening and continue
to watch and track the scene at is kind of
our hashtag and you can see as this continues to develop.
But Deva, thank you so much for having us be
a part of this, for sharing the message, and I
hope it does end up being some than ten years
from now we look back and like, wow, that show
(38:03):
really helped fuel the movement in the right direction.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Absolutely, So you didn't mention your email else they can
connect you.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
What about your website and.
Speaker 7 (38:13):
We're building the website.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
The website's coming up soon. This has been happening so fast,
you know that I've got a book coming out in
January that really walks through the whole thing. I'm hoping
the book will be, you know, like Harry Potter a
series where a few years from now, we're writing the
next book and it's about Okay, now it's starting to happen. Right,
where are we building this, what's happening, how are we
(38:36):
funding it right? I'd love to find myself twenty years
from now writing the fourth or fifth book and at
that point like, Okay, this is real, this is happening.
It's going to go on, hopefully a part of critical
world infrastructure for the next hundreds of years. But I'd
love for my grandson perhaps to step in and take
over the project someday and be driving it fifty years
(38:57):
from now and really seeing what happens. That's kind of
my hope and vision where it goes.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Absolutely, thank you for joining us and we wish you
all the best in creating this wonderful vision for our
next generation and listeners support Rush whicher way you can,
and thank you for being part of her show because
(39:24):
without you, the show would not be possible. Reach out
to us, let us know how we can serve you
and support you to live the best life you deserve
to live. And thank you on for your technical support
and be well. Take care untill next time.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence with your host,
d v Park, we hope you have learned more about
how to start living the life you want. Each week
on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people who've
experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships.
During Beyond Confidence, Vpark shares what happened to her when
she stepped out of her comfort zone own to work
(40:00):
directly with people across the globe. She not only coaches
people how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships
to mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the
life they want. If you are ready to live the
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dwat contact at vpark dot com. We look forward to
(40:24):
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(00:22):
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Speaker 2 (00:25):
This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W park.
Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do
you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,
and financial goals?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Coming up on Dvparks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real
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You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving
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(00:59):
www Don't givpork dot com and you can connect with
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Speaker 4 (01:11):
Good morning everyone. I know it's week after Thanksgiving and
I don't know about y'all. I'm it's still got food
and just sometimes it's just hard to come back from holidays.
But that said, we are ready to get your week going.
And it's important to pay attention to December because a
(01:33):
lot of people kind of like relax off. But the
key is remember that December, especially if you're looking for a.
Speaker 5 (01:40):
Job or if you're doing any transitions, this is the
time when a lot of like networking and all that
happens in so keep your eyes out on that.
Speaker 6 (01:52):
And today we are bringing you a wealth of.
Speaker 4 (01:57):
Leadership and a lot of different things with our wonderful
guest Russ Walch.
Speaker 6 (02:03):
Welcome, Russ, Hi, How are you good? How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Welcome on Pard great great here in the San Francisco
Bay area. A beautiful morning, wonderful.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
So Russ, tell us as to.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
Then you started out, and do you recall a moment
in your childhood or when you were young youth if
somebody left a posted mark on you.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
Definitely. I grew up in a pretty happy family situation.
Two older brothers. We played a lot of sports, but
everybody was pretty encouraging. We got along well, and I
was definitely different.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
Uh you know, I was.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Building legos when I was three years old and just
kind of a bit of a nerd, but kind of fun,
a little bit of a prankster and things like that.
Uh So we had a lot of fun growing up.
But I think for me, remember in high school somebody said,
have you thought about going into engineering? I had no
idea what that was, and I ended up choosing the
(03:09):
path of electrical slash computer engineering, and that's led me
down the kind of the technology route that brought me
to Silicon Valley about twenty five years ago.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yeah, like Silicon Valley back then, I think, so those
were the beginnings. So then you ca, let's kind of
compare like you know at that time and now. So
when you were back then, what was it like five
years back?
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Oh God, that's a great question. It was a strange boom.
It was a couple of years after the dot com
and the Internet had launched, so there were a lot
of companies who had gone big time. Yahoo was one
of the leading tech companies of the time. They still survived.
They're still around and you don't seem to hear much
about them anymore. But they're just kind of they're chipping away.
(03:58):
But well, yeah, aol exactly. They used to send everybody
a floppy disk and the mail once a.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Week, oh yeah, and in the United would go oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Every time you logged in, it had to reload new
versions and everything. But it was pretty cool that it
all came together the way it did. Uh. I ended
up I was working at IBM, my last thing I
did before I got the chance to come to Silicon Valley,
and IBM was a great company.
Speaker 7 (04:30):
I really enjoyed it. But you know, the nature of
the job I had at that time was a travel job.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Every week, jump on an airplane and and and go
work somewhere. And they would usually be like six to
twelve month projects. So I spent a lot of time
where you are in the really Durham area home on
a big project for IBM. Loved that area, but still
was hard. I had a young family then. But uh,
one of my co workers IBM said, Hey, there's a
colleague of mine who wants to hire for a job
(04:56):
in Coupertino, California. I was like, where is that.
Speaker 7 (05:00):
I have no idea, and she goes, oh.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
That's kind of the hardest Silicon Valley, right where Apple's
headquartered and everything. And about six weeks later after that conversation,
I was on an airplane landing there and starting work
in kuber Tina with my family there, and it was
nice and I went from a commute of literally four
or five hundred miles by airplane every week to about
(05:22):
four hundred feet literally. My office was right next to
the building we ended up living in, so I could
literally go get a diet coke out of the fridge
if if we didn't have one at the office. So, uh,
some pretty funny stories, but you know, at that time,
you know, Silicon Valley was booming. It was almost terrifying
in a sense where prices like rent prices of were
(05:44):
going up fifty percent a year and people were, you know,
had who had been paying fifteen hundred dollars a month
to rent, you know, in nineteen ninety eight, were suddenly
paying four thousand, five hundred to rent by the end
of two thousand. But then the whole Dot com thing happened,
and it was just kind of a crazy mess. When
it first started, it was I got caught in a
(06:07):
layoff myself, and I think in the first two weeks
I was kind of looking for something. I was probably
having two to three job interviews a day. I mean,
there were just so many openings. But then when things
really kind of broke a few months later, Cisco was
the one that really broke the backbone of Silicon Valley.
(06:28):
They were the leader, head of Yahoo, just growing, expanding.
They were the Google of that time. And when they
suddenly started realizing they weren't growing anymore, in fact, they
were having to make cuts, that changed the game in
Silicon Valley. By the summer of two thousand and one,
if you could find anybody who'd give you an interview,
(06:49):
it was a shock.
Speaker 7 (06:50):
It was just really is big of.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
An economic and i'd say employment drought as I've ever
seen certainly went through another one in two thousand and eight,
two thousand and nine out here and right now, honestly,
it's a pretty bad one. That are It's not getting
a lot of news, but tech sector right now is
really struggling. There's so many people, probably one out of
four people I know in tech have been out of
(07:14):
work or are.
Speaker 7 (07:15):
Currently out of work here.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
So it's it's a strange time honestly.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
Yeah. No, absolutely, And I've got a lot of my clients,
you know, coming from tech companies, and I find them
they're either worried about being laid off or you know,
it can be because of the economy where we are
going through and you know it's very cyclical, or because
of AI.
Speaker 6 (07:37):
Like recently I heard because the.
Speaker 4 (07:39):
AI subdivision of IBM, like the company that you work
for in the news. I think, so a couple of
days back, because their AI division is booming, they're planning
to lay off for thousands of people. Oh wow, So
kind of if you kind of go through these situations,
So like what happens is, you know, there is the
technical environments, as you men, there can be a boom,
(08:02):
so like AI is coming up, right, and then they
need to hire more people like okay, we got to go,
go go, and then once you have reached that plateau,
then you kind of let go. So there's in these
technical environments there's always so much ambiguity. So how did
you scale trust as an executive.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
When the dot com meltdown happened. LinkedIn didn't exist. There
really weren't those kinds of social networks, so I really
didn't have a big network out here at all. It
was a tough ride for me, but things opened up
that you know, I believe there's a god and he
made things happen at the right time and doors opened up.
I moved out here with the intention of starting my
(08:46):
own software company at some point. When I was in
it the first part of my career, I was really
good at writing systems to manage server farms and things
like that before we even call them server farm arms
and data centers.
Speaker 7 (09:01):
And things like that.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
And even at IBM, you know, it's considered one of
their top programmers in that regard. So but I knew
one thing, you know, creating software and selling software two
very different things. And I'd always been so much in
the technical side, it was far removed from, you know,
the business side of it. So when I moved to
Silicon Valley and worked for a startup, that was my
(09:23):
chance to I got as as a sales engineer. So,
I mean, my first day off the plane, I'm literally
in front of companies like eBay, I think Yahoo and
a couple of.
Speaker 7 (09:33):
The other ones.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Literally we were out there, you know, talking with them
about different things that we could do on the technology front.
And that was really good for me to get used
to that notion, because I remember saying at some point
I'd love to be able to say I've been inside
the headquarters of one hundred companies, because when I moved here,
I'd only been the headquarters of one company in my
whole life at that point, because I'd always worked a
(09:55):
bit remotely for the companies.
Speaker 7 (09:57):
And never had a reason to go to the HQ.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And I think now I counted it up that I've
probably been inside one hundred and fifty, if not two
hundred corporate headquarters in the last twenty five years. And
you know, ended up being heavily involved with Facebook's IPO
about fourteen years ago. So it's been an interesting ride
of all the different things I've had a chance to do.
Worked with a lot of really innovative startup companies who
(10:22):
went public.
Speaker 7 (10:23):
I started working with.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
A little company called Google when they were about three
hundred employees in two thousand and one two thousand and
two and watching them kind of break out a part
of a building on the Intuit Campus to becoming you know,
the mega conglomerate that they've become. So I've watched a
lot of really interesting companies grow from literally a couple
of other ones I worked with were less than one
(10:44):
hundred people when I started working with them that are
over ten thousand employees now. So it's pretty exciting to
see how that works. And sometimes you can just look
at the leadership and like, this company's gonna make it.
You could just see something about the nature the chemistry
of the way they were working. Z Scale is a
good example. When I worked with them about twelve years ago.
I just saw the leadership and the way they did
(11:05):
things was amazing. And their first like I think their
first one hundred customers all came out of the fortune
five hundred, which is extremely difficult to do.
Speaker 7 (11:14):
But once you've done that, you know, it's a.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Whole lot easier to get the smaller guys when you've
already proven you can do the big guys.
Speaker 7 (11:19):
And they were just brilliant and they're doing very well now.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
So it's been.
Speaker 7 (11:22):
Interesting to watch this.
Speaker 4 (11:24):
So you have been through a lot, like when you're
talking about the IPO and seeing the growth and sustainability
of companies like Google and Facebook. So there is a
whole lot of difference. So let's say you know when
a company is going through it's a startup more. Yes,
you learn in dog years because I've been part of
(11:46):
startup companies myself.
Speaker 6 (11:48):
Yeah, that's said.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
There is more relationship building and they're more intimacy and
more trust. But now that you go to the IPO,
it's all about focus on money. So as people are
working their way through, what would you tell the professionals
and leaders going through that time.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Well, well, I have a friend and colleague who's been
a good advisor over the years of guttingmed Roger Royce.
He's an attorney. He wrote a book kind of Dead
on Arrival, I think is what it was called. Because
so many startups make serious mistakes in the first year
or two. Sometimes they give away too much equity, they
(12:27):
make promises they shouldn't have, They bring people in when
they you know, way before they need to, and it
really sets things up for failure. The ones who seem
to do it right are the ones who the leaders
know one has time to add the right people and
how to how to manage things. They know how to
go get customers early in the game and get buy in,
you know, because you can build something in a vacuum,
(12:49):
but if you don't have a customer who really wants
what you're building, it doesn't matter. And I think that's
kind of the story of the scalers. Jay chaudry knew
how to talk to the customers who had to need
a major need and he said, hey, if we build this,
will this you know, be something you deploy it? You know,
major like I said, Fortune one hundred companies and they're like, yeah,
(13:10):
this is what we need. And when he gave them
the alpha and beta versions, like hey, this works, this
is solving a huge problem for us, and boom, there
you go. So there's a lot of things about making
sure you've got a product, a market, and then you've
also got the right people around you and a business roadmap.
I mean, I've helped several companies raise money over the
(13:33):
years taking that plan of what's your five year model,
you know, and you've got to think about all those
things from who are we going to hire, when are
we going to hire them, how much is that going
to cost? And are we going to have an office
and all those things because you have to roll it in.
And one thing they at least used to teach in
Silicon Valley was if you need to borrow money, you say,
I mean, it's not really borrowing, but the investors typically
(13:55):
start with a series a round or an angel round,
and that when you show your cash flow model, you
never go below fifty percent because they know you're going
to spend more than you have and your income coming
from a customer's accounts payable always is later than you think.
So there's a lot of things like that that you consider.
But it's interesting to watch how companies really take that.
(14:18):
And so many have done well, so many haven't. I
think they still say, what four out of five.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
Don't make it right?
Speaker 6 (14:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:25):
Yeah, and that is the case, and you provided some
very key markers for success over here.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
So keeping that in mind.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
So you've seen that side, and then you've also seen
where you led the consulting form as the CEO. So
tell us more about your journey to the rise of
CEO and what was the journey like.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
It's been interesting. So I've been this is my third time,
if you will, kind of running my own ship. The
first time was a software company and we had a
lot of success. We got customers on board, we create
a product for at that time, backing up desktop and
laptop computers, and we've had people reasonably like can you
bring that back?
Speaker 7 (15:06):
We still have a gap here.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
We you know, sometimes people accidentally delete their box or
Google drive shares and there's not a great safety net
to recover. But the first time that was it, and
it was a kind of traditional Silicon Valley model of
we're going to build a software product and scale it.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
And that was before software is a service. So back then,
when you.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Delivered software, you literally is own a CD ROM. People
would install it and everything else. And then Salesforce changed
the game and started net Suite back in about two
thousand and six, two thousand and eight, to where you
just you know their application, You log in on the
website and you're up in runnings. You know, you can
go from like a conversation like we're having now to
ten minutes later. You know, you're running Salesforce, right, It
(15:46):
wasn't that you had to buy all that equipment and
plan for six to twelve months to implement a software product.
So I was part of that and then I worked
and it got the chance to work at ey Urst
and Young, one of the big four account firms during
Sarbean's Oxley. When that kind of broke in the aftermath
of the inrun meltdown, which you probably remember that, which
(16:08):
was a big part of the whole dot com meltdown.
Some of the dot com meltdown was due to some
fraud that was going on. People were manipulating their numbers
and how much they were earning, and all of a
sudden their stock prices are going through the roof. But
it wasn't based on reality, and some cases based on
some really false data. But nonetheless, having seen that, it
created a whole new economy, if you will, in Silicon
(16:29):
value of all these major tech companies had to go
through these audits that they never did before. And now
it's been going on for over twenty years, but that
really brought Silicon Valley back to life to a certain degree.
Anybody in tech who was kind of underemployed or unemployed
had the chance to kind of step in and do
some degree of audit. I jumped in on that myself
(16:51):
and it's been an interesting ride to do risking, compliance
and things like that. So at e Y when I
came on board. About six months, they're like, okay, we
need you in charge the whole Silicon Valley region for
our small to medium clients. So it was like seventy
plus clients. So I'm you know, at that time.
Speaker 7 (17:08):
Apple and Google.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Apple was still trying to come back, you know, they
were still not the mega giant they are. They hadn't
invented the iPhone just yet that was about to break through.
So having a chance to work with those types of
companies was really a great opportunity.
Speaker 7 (17:22):
And then I ended up going to work with one
of my clients, a.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Company called Opswear that was run by Mark and Dresen
and Ben Horowitz, and about a year after I got there,
they got bought by HP, and Mark and Ben went
on to start there andres and Horowitz one of the
probably the leading v season in the world now and
have had tremendous success funding new ideas, new initiatives. But
(17:48):
I maintained the relationship with Ben and especially and quite
a lot of the other leaders there over the years,
and it turned out I went back to a small
consulting company after the HP acquisition, and it's kind of
like a small version of EY and it was nice
I was there for about five years. Again, that's where
we got the chance to do the Facebook IPO. We
were working with Twitter, we were working with a lot
(18:10):
of leading tech companies, but I broke out and did
my own thing for about five years, my own consulting practice.
So the first time as a CEO was a software company,
the second time was a consulting company, which are very
different business models. And then I ended up working at
GE and building out a new business unit that they
were taken on from about twenty sixteen to twenty twenty two.
Speaker 7 (18:33):
And that's what led me to kind.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Of where I am today of this new initiative which
is in climate, such a different genre for me, but
really fun and really exciting. So that's kind of where
I'm at today, and it's very interesting where we are
and can't wait to talk more about that.
Speaker 4 (18:51):
Yeah, no, absolutely, So when you mentioned about that, you
know you did the consulting company.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
You have being part of.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
An employed professional as well as a foundering your own company.
So what would you say are the different lessons you've
learned from both the journeys.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yeah, definitely interesting. The first time I've made some of
those mistakes of giving away ownership of the company a
little too early in the game. And one thing I
learned with my consultancy that which was about ten years
later when I started that I didn't I never gave
away a dime. It's like, I'll just pay people for
(19:32):
their time and we'll take it at that approach because
then I, you know, I get full control if I
want to go left or right, I don't have to
answer to a team of people. Especially if you find
yourself to where you'll have less than fifty percent ownership,
then it's just politics and it's it's very challenging to
navigate those waters. So that's been one thing that you know,
(19:55):
I had learned the same way. Right now, I still
own one hundred percent of the company. Will I give
away some It depends. Right now, we're this is a
very strange company. This is more of a movement than
it is, you know, a product or service this time,
because we're trying to get the world to become aware of,
you know, a.
Speaker 7 (20:15):
Real big problem they're not that aware of.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Everybody hears the word or the phrase climate change. You know,
whether you like it or not, it just comes up.
It's been coming up for decades now. Greenhouse gases. We've
been hearing about that for a while, But when it
comes to sea level rise, I've got friends who live
at the coast too, aren't that aware of it, And
especially people who don't live near the coastal areas, they
(20:37):
don't realize what's happening. But you know, the sea has
gone up nine inches in the last one hundred and
twenty five years, and this is a century in twenty
five years. It's going up twice as fast as it
did last year and continue to accelerate. And why nine
inches might not sound like a lot in some places
where the sea is pushing in, It's kind of like,
I use the term of the concept, if you build
(20:59):
the same castle on a be each right, and no
matter how well you pack that, as soon as that
first wave hits it, that thing's going to collapse. Right.
A lot of the land around the world is not rock,
it's softer soil. So when as the sea rises nine inches,
the land itself can sink. And that's what's happening in
Bangladesh and Indonesia and even in some parts of the
(21:20):
Bay Area. Florida is having big problems with that. New
York a lot of areas that are along the coast
and are dealing with that. But the sea could go
up in the worst case more than two hundred feet.
It's done it before. I mean, I'm from South Carolina
and in fact, Raley, you're not too far away from
that sand line where the beach used to come in.
(21:41):
We don't know if that was four thousand years ago
or four million years ago, but nonetheless it's happened, and
we can't let that happen. You know, that was different
at that point in time where civilization is. You know, like, okay,
the sea's going up an inch a year, they can
easily move away, right, they had time to pack up
their tents or whatever. But we've built so much infrastructure
(22:01):
along coastal regions that that would just be devastating.
Speaker 7 (22:05):
And that, sadly is if.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
You read the top books out there, everything's about retreat.
That we're going to have to go to higher ground.
And that's a terrible option, I think when you think
so many countries don't even have land over two hundred feet,
so they're saying, okay, you'll just fall into non existence.
The Maldives they're already saying they'll be gone in thirty years.
I mean, these are realistic things you can look up.
These are coming from National Geographic, PBS, BBC, you know,
(22:31):
major trustworthy news outlets that are reporting this. So it's
probably the biggest problem the planet is faced. And the
sad thing is most people are proposing solutions that are
just traditional that won't work to beyond a couple more
feet of sea level rise, and we're proposing what if
(22:52):
we can just redirect the ocean, and we're getting.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Some more proposal rs. You mentioned that this is a movement,
so tell us about that.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
Yeah, I mean, we've got to get the mindset shift.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
We love the way that you know, climate change awareness
has has been done very well, maybe to an extent
to too much, and some of the doomsday picture that's
been painted that if this temperature rises three more degrees,
we're all going to burn up. You know, some people
have that perception and that's not the case, that's not reality.
(23:26):
I mean, I'm here in some parts of the world
right now because the temperatures have gone up and climbs
are moderated, they have two growing seasons now in some
areas of the world. So it's been kind of a
blessing for in some ways, but at the same time,
you know, the climate issue of as temperatures rise and
the melting ice is the problem.
Speaker 7 (23:49):
I mean.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
Is for anybody who's a naysayer, the whole issue of
the discussions that major leaders of trees are having about
warfare in the Arctic. You couldn't have that conversation forty
years ago. But now that the ice is melting in
the seasonal periods and it's opening that area up to
(24:11):
where ships can traverse across there, including military ships, it's
a whole different game. So things have happened. Fortunately right now,
it's happening at a very slow level, because again we've
only gone up a few inches and we're a long
way from going up two hundred feet and we're not
seeing that that's going to happen this century. But they
are saying it could go up three feet more before
(24:32):
the end of the century, which is really alarming, and
we have to do something about it. And that's kind
of what I'm about, because we've got to get that
mindset of we got to start thinking about water. Where
do we put the water, because the water's going to melt.
We can't stop that. You know, the process is already
in place, but it's like, what if we can do
something really useful with the water and have a great
(24:56):
outcome from this. I mean, you just look at about
a third of the world's land is on usable because
there's no water. The Sahara is huge, right, it's about
the size of China mainland. And you look at the
Australia similarly, eighty percent of it's fairly uninhabited because they
have no water. So it's like, okay, what if we
can take the water from the rising seas, redirected inland
(25:17):
and change the game to where forty years from now
you look at Western Australia from the air and it
looks like the Amazon, right, a lot of water, a
lot of hills covered with forest and agriculture, and you know,
really to change the game on this and then create
viable economic economies where people can live and thrive. It's
(25:39):
really getting exciting.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
And how how would that happen? What would that You've
given me the vision? Yeah, what would the vision look like?
And of course you know, having Amazon and forest and
agriculture and booming economy, everybody's.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
Looking for that, there's no question about it. But what
would be the pathway to it.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
I think this is where you've got to really get
the leaders who are driving climate issues and other international issues.
This has got to get in front of them to
where they go, Okay, somebody's got a solution to this.
It's going to be costly, but gosh, I just got
off the conference two weeks ago of virtual conference with
(26:19):
leaders from Singapore, the Netherlands who are dealing with sea
level rise and the tens of billions of dollars they're
planning to spend building seawalls and levees and moving ports
and all this all to deal with sea level rise
is crazy. If you add it all up, I mean
it's four hundred thousand miles of global coastline. I mean
it's in the tens of not hundreds of trillions that
(26:40):
there were forecasting to spend to fight sea level rise
over the coming decades. It's crazy. And a lot of
times people don't even know that their local tax dollars
are going to some of these things. That they keep
it fairly quiet. But go look at the website of
any coastal city and how in America, and they have
a section of what they're doing about sea level and
how much money they're spending kind of quietly as well.
(27:03):
But the bottom line here is what if And this
is what's interesting. I just was reading last week about
an article that what they're doing to try to bring
back forestation in different parts of the world, the Amazon
Africa and their funds now to kind of incentivize people
not to clear cut. If you will leave that land alone,
here's some money to kind of compensate that. It's like
(27:24):
we kind of create these as I'd call them world parks,
not national parks, and it's an essence like we're going
to protect that area. And so there are people doing that.
So the notion that what if we could take a
portion of the funds that Singapore and all these places
are budgeting to spend and say, let's use that money
to build these inland seas and redirect the sea inland,
(27:45):
and then it's not so much necessarily that we're going
to solve that problem totally with that method, it's maybe
the largest portion of it.
Speaker 7 (27:53):
But also to capture water where it's falling.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
We've got property in the Philippines, and the Philippines has
just been hit so hard this year with their seasonal rains.
Typhoon after typhoon and ninety nine percent of that water
went into the ocean, right, it just ran away. We
could have captured some of that and some of those
mountainous areas that are fairly uninhabited, and it's going to
be a game of where do we capture the water.
(28:18):
That's what we're looking at, and certainly is better to
capture it fresh water if we can. So what if
somebody can say, Okay, we're going to build some reservoirs
in our mountains and it's going to be worth one
inch of sea level rise, right, and if we can say,
you know what, that's worth one hundred billion dollars. And
so even if you're in central Africa, far away from
(28:38):
the coast, and you have the rainfall and you say, hey,
we're going to build these reservoirs and the World Fund
would would give us billions of dollars for doing that,
then economically that's great.
Speaker 7 (28:51):
Then you created this water space.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
You can create agricultural systems that are much more maintainable
fresh water sources. So there's a lot of benefits that
could come from that. But in the end, if we
find ourselves forty years from now, you know, we took
the sea down afoot. You know, Miami Beach at high
tide still has fifty yards of beach to walk on
before you hit the water line. Those kind of things
(29:15):
are a possibility of what we're looking at, that we
can really flip this on its head and find ourselves
getting ahead of the sea level rise a little bit
to where you know, at the end of the century,
perhaps you know we've taken the sea down two or
three feet, and again we've created more land around the
world than we had instead of losing it.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
Yeah, those definitely make sense. And I know this is
a small thing that a lot of my neighbors are doing.
And here's the thing I always say that, you know,
every little bit counts. A lot of people are collecting
the rainwater and in the barrels and all that. Definitely
(29:59):
given that and kind of coming back to the professionals,
right that you have the vision and you went from
owning three different companies and.
Speaker 6 (30:12):
Starting a movement, what would.
Speaker 4 (30:14):
You tell a lot of like gen zs and millennials
who want to have meaning in their lives and sometimes
they're not happy, whether it is because of a toxic
boss or because they're laid off, or it could be
all their efforts are going into a company, and if
they're looking to start their own company, what would be
your message to them.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
That's a great lead in. And you know, one thing
I'm really been excited about. I've got three daughters of
my own, so for them, the future I've got a
grandson now, the future they have is really important to me,
and it's extremely exciting. Is I've had some of these
conversations the past year. Climate has just been this really
(30:55):
doomsday dark cloud. To most people, this is terrifying. They
look at it and say, gosh, this is just gonna,
you know, make such a mess of the planet. And
when you flip the narrative and say, what if this
the climate change is one of the best gifts the
Earth's given us since the electricity and steel, right, the
(31:15):
possibilities of what we could do to transform parts of
the world, and it gets people really excited, really hopeful
that wow, we could have a good outcome, we could
have something really special. And I know people who are
in construction are excited because if you're in major construction
compans where you're building bridges and you know, in Dubai
(31:36):
and you're building tunnels in Sydney, Australia every four or
five to seven years. You know, you're bouncing around to
some other part of the world. You got to take
your family if you can even do that, and go
to these places.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
But the notion that you could move to the.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Sahara or parts of Australia and for seven generations you
could build this thing right these inland seas, and your
family can just thrive and put down roots and and
and grow in a new way without feeling like completely transient. Right,
and then these people get apart be a part of
planning these brand new areas, right, areas that when they
(32:14):
you know, essentially part of what we're talking about. When
we dig these lakes, it's like where do we put
the dirt? Well, the dirt, you know, we build hills
around it, man made hills, and at some point, you know,
we may fill the lakes in higher to at some
point if we need to. But these, I mean, people
dream of living in the south of France, right we
have the mountains and the sea right there. We spent
(32:35):
our holidays last Christmas in the South of Spain and
that also has beautiful mountains coming right down to the coast.
We could even see Gibraltar from where we were and stuff,
and so imagine landscapes where people lived where once I
perhaps you can see the ocean on the other side,
you see this beautiful new lake that's that's huge and
(32:56):
just breathtaking. The possibilities are really exciting of what we
could create as we go through this. And what's also
interesting is again greening these places up to a point
where you know, water systems and then forest and along
the coast of where we might build these lakes and
the canals coming in, we build mangroves and coral reefs
(33:19):
and things that.
Speaker 7 (33:19):
Are very good for pulling the.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
Greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. So there's a lot
of things that we can get is really good byproducts
of the whole process and doing this.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Yeah, no, absolutely, I think. So that's such a beautiful
vision to hold on to. And I'm sure that you
know as you're building the movement, because we need those
as you said, those you know, these are there, these
barren lends in Australia, Sahara, and if we can get
them back, it would be so good for the humanity.
Speaker 6 (33:50):
Right, So what's next for you?
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Well, again, we've got a long way to go, and
I really do appreciate you allowing us to be a
part of this podcast, you know, week it seems now
we're getting a chance to talk with more media outlets
like this, including some of the major news outlets of
the ABC, CBS and so forth, have approach me in
the last few weeks to talk about this as well,
(34:15):
to get this further out there. But again, we've got
a long way to go. Nonetheless, we're making some real
great inroads bit by bit. Yesterday I spoke with the
CEO of one of the largest geo construction companies in
the world. They're based here in Silicon Valley, and the
CEO and I were talking about the possibility of Right now,
probably the largest earth moving equipment in the world is
(34:39):
about the size of a house, you know, a good
sized house, but that's pretty big, right But when we
were talking yesterday about what if we could build earth
moving equipment the size of a cruise ship, like one
hundred thousand times bigger than we've ever done before, And
he said he was part of designing something like that
forty years ago when he worked at Chevron. He said,
the one thing here he'll never forget is this piece
(35:01):
of equipment that they wanted to build was so big
that the tires, the tread on the tires, you know,
it's normally like a quarter inch on a regular standard
car tire.
Speaker 7 (35:11):
He said, it was four feet just the tread. A
child could walk underneath it.
Speaker 6 (35:15):
Right.
Speaker 7 (35:16):
So the wheel on this.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
Machine they wanted to build was something like forty or
fifty feet tall itself just a wheel. So this thing
was humongous, he said. About the time they were ready
to get going, the oil and gas industry took a
whole different shift and that never happened.
Speaker 7 (35:32):
But he said it was really fun designing it.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
But he was like, you know, there's definitely physics, physical
issues that are challenging to what you can build. It'll
float on water versus what will move on land. But
nonetheless he's like, you know, these are great ideas that
could change the game, because if we build these inland seas,
we're going to need to build holes and dig holes
in the ground the side of the Grand Canyon, maybe
(35:55):
ten of those in the next one hundred and fifty years,
and you know, be tough to do with standard equipment.
Speaker 7 (36:01):
But if we had.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Bulldozers the size of cruise ships. We might be able
to did the Grand Canyon in five years, and and
and and so forth.
Speaker 7 (36:10):
So the possibilities are really exciting.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Mm.
Speaker 4 (36:13):
Absolutely, Well, we issue well res you know as you
keep on taking this journey and hopefully there's a whole
lot more to come for the humanity and you know,
open up new vistas and vision and economy. So any
(36:34):
last words for our listeners.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
I mean, this is like I said, at this point,
it's a movement. We're trying to get world leaders ultimately
behind this. So over the next few weeks, uh, I
mean this week later on, we're talking with people from
NASA who are heading up global sea level rise issues
and we're excited to bring this idea in front of them.
And again the people who will be joining are from academia, uh,
(37:00):
some executives from some of the major construction companies, insurance companies.
We're bringing all this together and the hope so getting
to a point where okay, this is ready to go.
We're going to do something here. And we're starting to
have conversations about where would we build this, you know,
how fast do we need to build it, where are
we going to fund it? Those conversations I certainly hope
(37:20):
we're going to take off in twenty twenty six, and
some of them may take off before we get to
the end of the year. So it's pretty interesting what
the possibilities are. And for people who are just watching
on the sidelines who want to chip in, you know,
they can email me it Russ at russwalur info at
Russwalsh dot com or Russ at Russwalsh dot com and
we'll do what we can to follow up with you
(37:41):
and let you know more about what's happening and continue
to watch and track the scene at is kind of
our hashtag and you can see as this continues to develop.
But Deva, thank you so much for having us be
a part of this, for sharing the message, and I
hope it does end up being some than ten years
from now we look back and like, wow, that show
(38:03):
really helped fuel the movement in the right direction.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
Absolutely, So you didn't mention your email else they can
connect you.
Speaker 6 (38:12):
What about your website and.
Speaker 7 (38:13):
We're building the website.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
The website's coming up soon. This has been happening so fast,
you know that I've got a book coming out in
January that really walks through the whole thing. I'm hoping
the book will be, you know, like Harry Potter a
series where a few years from now, we're writing the
next book and it's about Okay, now it's starting to happen. Right,
where are we building this, what's happening, how are we
(38:36):
funding it right? I'd love to find myself twenty years
from now writing the fourth or fifth book and at
that point like, Okay, this is real, this is happening.
It's going to go on, hopefully a part of critical
world infrastructure for the next hundreds of years. But I'd
love for my grandson perhaps to step in and take
over the project someday and be driving it fifty years
(38:57):
from now and really seeing what happens. That's kind of
my hope and vision where it goes.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
Absolutely, thank you for joining us and we wish you
all the best in creating this wonderful vision for our
next generation and listeners support Rush whicher way you can,
and thank you for being part of her show because
(39:24):
without you, the show would not be possible. Reach out
to us, let us know how we can serve you
and support you to live the best life you deserve
to live. And thank you on for your technical support
and be well. Take care untill next time.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence with your host,
d v Park, we hope you have learned more about
how to start living the life you want. Each week
on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people who've
experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships.
During Beyond Confidence, Vpark shares what happened to her when
she stepped out of her comfort zone own to work
(40:00):
directly with people across the globe. She not only coaches
people how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships
to mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the
life they want. If you are ready to live the
life you want and leverage your strengths, learn more at
www dot dwpark dot com and you can connect with
dwat contact at vpark dot com. We look forward to
(40:24):
you're joining us next week.
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