The Power of Roles and Impactful Career Moves with Sarah Friar

In this episode of the 'Pfeffer on Power' podcast, host Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, is joined by Sarah Friar, CFO of OpenAI and former CEO of Nextdoor.

Sarah shares her impressive career journey from engineering in Northern Ireland, to McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and various leadership roles, notably CEO of Nextdoor and CFO at OpenAI.

Sarah offers insights into switching roles within the C-Suite, the challenges women face in tech, and the importance of networking, curiosity, and owning one's power. She discusses her transition back to a CFO role, her views on organizational culture, and practical advice for building effective teams. 

Pfeffer on Power is produced by University FM.

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Episode Quotes:

The power of curiosity and connections in tech

06:19: So I went to this conference. It was two days back to back, and I came back to work, and the VP said, “Where have you been?” Like, we were a bit worried about you. And I was like, “Oh, I was at this conference.” And I walked around this conference, and it was super nerdy. Like, you know, it's the nerds of the nerds. But I was there with my Goldman Sachs business card, and I would just stop at every booth and talk about what someone's technology was and who they were. And that has paid dividends so long in my career. Number one, it got me into the one space that wasn't cracking when the bubble really burst bad. It got me a pathway over into equity research, which actually became the much longer part of my Goldman career. These people that I met at that stage, many of them were young engineers, have become very senior in the technology industry over time. And it was just such a good learning moment for me. Not just that network is important, but curiosity is important. The people who don't look like you or seem like you can actually become incredibly important, interesting, and useful in your career path.

How is Sarah aligning impact with opportunity?

14:32: First and foremost, I think it's really about aligning where you can have the most impact, right? The whole, if you're going to change the world, start by giving something big a push. To me, that meant OAI or OpenAI right now at this moment in time. I think it is in the crucible of how much AI is going to change the world. And in particular, the mission statement of OpenAI around building technology that will benefit all of humanity was incredibly important to me. Like, we're not just advancing AI, we're actually shaping the future of how society will interact with intelligence itself. And so there's not many places in the world, it might be an N of 1 where I think you can go do that. So, you have to sometimes just recognize that. The role doesn't matter, the title doesn't matter, because the role itself puts you right in that moment. 

Sarah's perspective on aligning personal impact with broader change

03:23: I always want to put myself where I feel like I can have maximum impact, but importantly, the thing I'm impacting will have maximum impact. There's a quote that's always stuck with me: "If you want to cause change in the world, give something big a push." And so I often try to put myself in that place.