Odinian Beta

My guest today is Parker Conrad, co-founder and CEO of Rippling. I wanted to speak to Parker because he is building Rippling in a way that we don’t come across often. Rather than focus narrowly on one product, he is building a suite of interrelated products simultaneously to carry out the functions of HR, Finance, and IT for companies. He calls it a compound company and we discuss the idea, as well as some of his other non-traditional theories, in detail. Please enjoy this conversation with Parker Conrad.
 
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
 
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Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 
 
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
 
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Show Notes
[00:02:36] – [First question] – Overview of what a compound startup is 
[00:06:32] – What he’s learned about picking customers effectively 
[00:08:48] – Key chapters when it comes to building a compound startup 
[00:13:48] – What great looks like at the base level infrastructure of employee data
[00:20:15] – His overall philosophy on product development writ large 
[00:25:09] – His role as a capital allocator and distributing resources to his teams
[00:27:19] – The amount of products they offer and whether or not there’s a tradeoff between time, cost, and quality when building software
[00:31:36] – Possibly incorporating an app-like store on top of their existing infrastructure 
[00:34:43] – Speed and the kinds of people that can sustain it for long periods of time
[00:36:30] – What motivates him on a personal level and harnessing motivation in general
[00:42:31] – Whether or not there’s an end to feeling hurt by false public perceptions when building in public
[00:44:12] – The intersection of leadership and communication inside of a business and what he’s learned about great communication 
[00:48:00] – The paradox of how focusing on non-scalable actions perpetuates growth and productivity and his views on productivity-per-person
[00:50:36] – The best example of a moment that required the most grit and perseverance while building his company 
[00:52:28] – How to successfully get former founders to come work for him 
[00:54:47] – What good private equity investors do 
[00:58:31] – The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him