Digital 2.0 Episode 11: Sameera Rao, CTO at Greenlight

Sameera has nearly 25 years of experience in the tech industry.

He’s served Bosch, GE, and Sabre as a software engineer and was the man behind the first web 2.0 version of the Yahoo! homepage. During his nine-year tenure with PayPal, he filled several roles, including VP and head of technology, VP of consumer energy, senior director, and global head of consumer engineering.

I wanted to know what two and a half decades have taught Sameera about transforming companies. Here’s what he said.

“When most people hear ‘innovation,’ they think about technology,” he says. “Technology helps, but don’t forget about people.”

Sameera spent nearly a decade with PayPal, and he’s still fond of the company’s people-first ethos.

“Many organizations give lip service to ‘leveling the playing field’ for consumers, yet they prey on insufficiencies in the market in a way that does not benefit customers,” he says. But that’s not the PayPal way.

In the beginning, PayPal steered customers to its low-cost instrument, and while it wasn’t what customers wanted to use, it was the highest-margin project for the company. But that changed.

Why? Because PayPal maintained its commitment to championing customers and building an enduring company over the long haul. So PayPal started allowing users to choose the instrument they want to pay with.

Guess what happened? Initially, PayPal’s stock dropped 9 percent.

Then, two years later, PayPal added 70 million incremental customers when their strategy went global. Next, transactions nearly doubled, and customer service calls dropped.

What does that mean? The strategy worked. Customers were happier, costs went down, people spent more, and engagement increased.

“PayPal took a gamble to preserve its ethics,” says Sameera. “They were willing to take a risk—at their own expense—to give consumers what they deserved, and they were rewarded for it.”

Tech organizations can be at the forefront of the tech movement. Yet Sameera argues that “if their product isn’t ethically produced and does not give everyone the opportunity to participate in the economy, I don’t see much nobility in the innovation.”

I wanted to know what “innovation,” “transformation,” and “modernization” mean to a guy who’s spent 25 years in the tech industry. But Sameera’s answer has little to do with technology.

“I’ve seen—and helped—big organizations transform, and those that succeed generally share the same principles,” he says. “They listen to people, hold their hands along the journey, and elicit change by giving context, not commands.”

When you adopt this set of principles, you increase the odds of securing the cross-organizational buy-in you need to make lasting change. For Sameera, that’s the path to innovation.

USING TECH TO DISPEL COMMON INVESTMENT MYTHS

Sameera grew up in India, and while his father kept the engine of Sameera’s middle-class family running, he never talked about investing.

Sameera believes that most kids share his experience.

“Most of us don’t even think about investing in a 401(k) until we’re in our 30s or 40s,” he says. “We may take an economics course in school, but few of us know how finances really work until much later on.”

And that’s the idea behind Greenlight. “I want to give families what I didn’t have—a simple app that empowers parents to raise financially-literate kids.”

How? By giving them a simple, user-friendly app that controls kids’ spending, manages their chores, automates allowances, and helps them passively invest.

There’s a common belief that you need a stash of money to save or invest, but Sameera’s daily mission is to dispel the myth that investing is for the one percent.

“Our parent-users have access to a family cash card that gives you three percent unlimited cash back on purchases. That money just comes off what you’re already spending and is rechanneled into a new investment vehicle,” he says. “The entire process is automated, so parents invest without thinking about it.”

So rather than berate yourself for not starting your 401(k) years ago, Greenlight gives families the tools they need to invest—without feeling like they’re sacrificing.

I wanted to know what Sameera believes will determine which organizations will be around in the next decade. He argues that it won’t necessarily be those preoccupied with technology.

“I want to be on the bleeding edge of the tech movement, but if that technology doesn’t better serve our customers, it won’t help us,” he says. So while organizations must be technologically nimble, Sameera argues that it’s just as important for organizations to “hold their customers’ hands and lead them with empathy and compassion.”

We’ve all heard failed executives proclaim, “We did everything right, but somehow we still failed.”

Why? “Chances are these companies weren’t listening to customers, evolving, and leadership wasn’t bold and self-aware,” he says.

The last two pieces—being self-aware and bold—are especially important.

The challenge of being self-aware is that we all have blind spots. We don’t know what we don’t know about ourselves. That’s why we must surround ourselves with people we trust, not people who agree with us.

Being bold is also a challenge, especially when you’re successful and want to protect your legacy.

But look at companies like Microsoft, Apple, and even Tesla.

“I admire Microsoft for the same reasons I do Apple,” Sameera says. “Both companies could have rested on the success of their models, cashed in, and coasted. Neither have. Every year, they push boundaries and try something new.”

The same goes for Tesla. “How many times have you thought, ‘Oh, Tesla’s playing with fire; they’re on the brink. It’s over,’” Sameera says. “Yet, they still push forward.”

“These are three very different organizations, but they all have one thing in common: They STILL have the stomach for risk and ride the knife’s edge of risk and reward,” he says.

Any company aiming to be around in a decade can learn a valuable lesson from these Big Three.

Thank you for a fascinating interview, Sameera!