Dan Springer
CEO of DocuSign
“You need to have a point of view, you need to have an agenda, and you need to bring it. I might not agree to everything you say…but don't come to me asking what you should do. Come telling me what you should do, and then be open to feedback. If you can get people around you doing that, it becomes easier…because there's all these really smart, bright people that are pitching ideas all the time. You can create a culture of that too.”
Summary
In this episode of Leadership Matters, Alan and his good friend Dan Springer discuss what makes someone a successful leader, including assuming good intent, and acting with empathy and respect.
They discuss how Dan attended Occidental College, where he learned how to achieve and stand out. As Dan worked in different companies, he realized the importance of company culture and working as a team with colleagues. When he was forced to lay off employees, he made sure everyone had a new job lined up. As Dan puts it, “I need to be a good guy.”
For a while, Dan, who is a single dad, chose to stay home full time with his kids. Eventually, his kids forced him back to work, and he took on the role of President and CEO of DocuSign in 2017.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award – Click here to learn more.
Rhodes Scholarship – Click here to learn more.
Roger Boesche – Click here to learn more.
Guest Bio
As the CEO of DocuSign, Dan leads employees to empower organizations of every size and industry to achieve their digital transformations by helping them make every agreement 100% digital.
Dan has almost 30 years of executive leadership and experience driving innovation and hyper-growth across the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) industry. Prior to DocuSign, Dan served as Chairman and CEO of Responsys (MKTG), where he led the sale of the company to Oracle in 2013 for $1.6 billion. Previously, he was Managing Director of Modem Media and also served as CEO at Telleo, CMO at NextCard, and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company. Dan holds an MBA from Harvard University and an AB in Mathematics and Economics from Occidental College.
Follow Dan on Twitter: @DanDSpringer.
Clips from This Episode
Episode Transcription
Alan Fleischmann
You're listening to Leadership Matters on Sirius XM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. I'm here with Dan Springer, the CEO of DocuSign. Though he would be too humble to tell you so, my guest today is one of Silicon Valley's most revered leaders. You know, DocuSign is a software company that has sped up digital adoption globally, and his flagship product has been critical, and maybe the most critical part of keeping corporate world our corporate world moving at the speed of business during the coronavirus pandemic. Over the course of a stellar career, Dan has successfully led companies through going public as CEO of responses for much of the aughts, his visionary leadership to help transform the digital marketing space leading into the company's successful IPO and eventual purchase of by Oracle in 2013, for $1.6 billion. Then in 2017, Dan was recruited to take the helm of DocuSign. We did a company through an IPO a year later, and raising its valuation to almost $6 billion. Dan is not just known as a man of vision, but also a man of the heart. During the years between leaving responses and DocuSign, he took time away from work to focus on raising his two children as a single dad, which he called the best decision of his life. Every year since he joined DocuSign, the company has been in the top 25 of Glassdoors Best Places to Work. He is also an accomplished philanthropist, regularly speaking on the need for tech executives to do more to help their communities. And just last year, he received the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award, alongside Dr. Anthony Fauci, not many executives who claim to walk the walk and talk the talk, like, like Dan has, this is exciting to have you on the show today. And I think I mentioned to you Leadership Matters has CEOs and up and coming leaders. We have literally an amazing following of folks who really love to listen and learn. I know you're very humble, but you're also outgoing. So I'm hoping today, we're going to tell the Dan Springer story. But we're also going to hear insights from you. Because we get it you have so much to give. So welcome.
Daniel Springer
Thank you very much for having me. And I'm going to take that introduction and send it to my mother. Because I don't think anyone's ever been so kind in an introduction. Thank you for having me.
Alan Fleischmann
I'm so glad to be with you. You're terrific and and to be together with on Zoom, even your energy comes through on that. Speaking of your mom, you were raised in Seattle.
Daniel Springer
Well I was born in Brooklyn, New York, but I moved to Seattle at an early age actually really at nine. So I lived in Seattle from nine on but the early years were Brooklyn very early years.
Alan Fleischmann
That's a very telly, that's fabulous. And you were raised by a single mom. And the son-
Daniel Springer
I was.
Alan Fleischmann
And I read they used to balance your mom's checkbook as a kid. And you were there as like kind of a party with her tell us a little bit of the early years and in Brooklyn to Seattle. And obviously your mom says that she's a big part of your life even today.
Daniel Springer
But she is actually, funny, you know, the conclusion. I'll lead with the conclusion. Two weeks ago, I moved my mom from Seattle here to San Francisco. She lives in the same building here, downtown San Francisco that I do. So we're reunited, which is fantastic. So I got my kids live in, in one floor on another floor. My mom's down on another floor. We kind of taken over the whole building. But it's, so it's fantastic. Yeah, we're very close family. And it's great to have her. Yeah, it is. It is it really is. Uh, some people call it the devil's triangle between the- Yeah, I mean, I had a, I actually had a really good upbringing, I was really fortunate because I had a fantastic, you know, mom, who could have played more of the broader parenting responsibilities, you know, as a single mom. But she had a fantastic career. She eventually started her own company. She was featured in the Seattle Business Times when I was in high school. And I still carried the, I carried the picture from her in the Seattle Business Times to the day I got married. And my mom was a sort of inspiration to me as like, being able to do it all right, you know, run a successful career, as well as be a mom.
Alan Fleischmann
What career did she have, what kind of work did she do?
Daniel Springer
It was office furniture, so a company called Davos and they basically went to companies and helped them figure out what kind of, you know, this kind of furniture or that, you know, kind of other furniture? What to put in their office, Nole was the line she mostly used. And but yeah, so that was that was what I grew up watching her sort of build that business. So it wasn't a big business, a small business. But it was good to see as a role model. Someone balanced the whole the whole shabaab.
Alan Fleischmann
Any brothers or sisters?
Daniel Springer
I have an older brother, but my older brother ended up living with my father in New York. So we didn't really we didn't live together past when I was 10. Other work, while he was in LA and then we're actually much closer today. We, in fact, we both have a son that attended the same year at USC. So we're there all the time.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very nice. And you attended the famous Lakeside high school.
Daniel Springer
I did.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. Which was Bill Gates, his alma mater as well, right?
Daniel Springer
Yeah. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Craig McCaw. As my kids say, Dad, you didn't do too well compared to the other people that went there.
Alan Fleischmann
I think you did just fine. You know, was that a great school to grow up with, grew up in? Was that a great school to go to?
Daniel Springer
Yeah, it's a special place. I probably didn't appreciate it. Yeah, you go to middle school in high school, you go to the one you go to you, the one you go to, right. I always knew it was special. I mean, I was. I had a very, you know, comfortable upbringing, but I was a scholarship student at Lakeside. There weren't a lot of scholarship students. Now the schools dramatically increase its diversity and has a significant portion, you know, of students that do come from different economic backgrounds. But it was a private school back then they tended to mostly be for the the wealthier families in the community. So yeah, that I kind of could tell I had a special place compared to the public school in Seattle that I had transferred out of, and that was all my mom's driving to get me and I do well on standardized tests. They're not really useful in life, other than getting into school. Yeah. So. So I took advantage of that.
Alan Fleischmann
Did you feel like an odd person there? Like you were not one of the majority being more, you know, well to do I guess, financially?
Daniel Springer
Most of the time, it didn't, you know, hit me. But there were definitely moments when things happen. And kids turned 16 and got an Audi for their birthday. And I was like, Whoa, that's how that happened. And people went to Hawaii on vacations. We didn't do you know, some of those things that people did. And I think I probably I've talked about I didn't really, wasn't aware at the time, but I look back and I go, I think I probably got a little chip on my shoulder of, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna do as well as you people. You know, I had a little bit of that outsider that said, I'm gonna prove myself. Yeah, I'm gonna prove myself maybe, you know, maybe not an extreme version of that. But yeah, but I definitely knew not a Scott Fitzgerald level of that, but I just enough gas in the tank, just enough gas to say like, I gotta make sure I deliver and show people that I can I can succeed.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very cool. And then you and then you went off to, I guess to LA. So you stayed in California, went to Occidental College. You know, and you became focused on business then, or was it math, economics? Was that the deal? You kind of-
Daniel Springer
Yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
-numbers. That's a standardized testing guy. And you probably-
Daniel Springer
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Actually, I think for me, it is really great place, I went to this very small school. And when I visited schools, and just I thought I'd go to a big place. And I thought I was gonna go to Stanford, or University of Washington, or I just sort of thought of, you know, universities. But then when I visited schools, I was like, wow, I really liked, it's the only small school I applied to. And if I do it late, when I visited with another friend, I hadn't even applied. I just wanted a road trip with a couple buddies. And I thought, Oh, my gosh, a small school. It's amazing. And I loved it, it was definitely the right place for me. I think I sort of blossomed more, at Lakeside I was probably, you know, standardly average in a lot of dimensions. I was pretty good at sports, I had some things I did. Okay, I was a good math student. But um, you know, a lot of kids had a lot of academic orientation at that, you know, kind of school, parents had all gone to fancy colleges and sort of push them in that way. I got to Occidental, and I could really sort of shine, you know, I was able to play soccer and lacrosse play two sports Captain them and I was able to run the investment club, and I've, called the blight fund, and I led that I ended up doing well enough that I was a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship, I really kind of figured out how to achieve and, and sort of sort of stand out a little bit more, which is probably was just right for me. At a big university, I probably wouldn't have been, you know, had those opportunities.
Alan Fleischmann
And became more confident, I guess to which is to see your confidence. And do you start to think big and dream about what you wanted to do while you're there?
Daniel Springer
Yeah, I think I think I always had told you had that little competitive drive that I knew I would try to do something big. I didn't really know what it was I actually went to college thinking I wanted to be a political science major, and go to law school. And if and I had great, in fact, the first Professor on this, remember, Obama went to Oxy for those who-
Alan Fleischmann
I was going to say that, Barack Obama went there.
Daniel Springer
His favorite professor put last week and Roger Boesche, who unfortunately passed away a couple years ago, which is, you know, sort of like really got him focused on the law as a concept, political science and the law. He always talks about that. He invited him to the White House, etc. He was my first Poli Sci person, and I loved it. But at the end, I realized I just I wanted something in the in the world of economics and business I, I wanted to make money, quite frankly, I just, I felt I needed something more, you know, capitalist, not that you couldn't, of course, have a capitalist career as a legal background, but and then I switched to economics. I've always been good at math. I added that along the way as a major, and I was a person that wanted to do business. I thought I'd work in finance. But I had a really great summer associate job my last year getting to do forecasting, that was my kind of technical expertise was forecasting like new product development and, and economic forecasting models. And I worked with the phone company, Pacific Telesis, that time right after at&t broke up. And they gave me just an incredible offer to come to San Francisco, and all the banks where you got to go to New York, and not that anything was wrong with New York, but I loved the idea of being on the west coast and coming to San Francisco, where I'd worked that last summer. So I came here and, and stayed there before business school for a couple years.
Alan Fleischmann
And then and then, knowing you'd go to business school? There was little bit of a gap there, I'm gonna do this for a couple years.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, I was pretty sure I would go. If you go to a liberal arts college, like Occidental, it's an amazing Educational Opportunity, but it doesn't necessarily prepare you as well, in the short term for a business career. There's no finance courses, there's not the things you would think about is, you know, management type courses. So I was excited to go to to get an MBA.
Alan Fleischmann
You went to Harvard?
Daniel Springer
I did. Yeah. And it was fantastic. Yeah. It was good. It was good, good experience. But that was a different kind of competitive environment.
Alan Fleischmann
I bet.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, yeah. So I was just telling you about this other day, I think there's still the story. There's this reputation of sort of, again, I went there, I graduated in 1991. That was long enough ago. But I think 20 years before me, they had this sort of super competitive mindset. And the ethos of the place was, it's a survival of the fittest, and we're gonna flunk a lot of people out. And I think the time I got there, it was pretty cushy compared to the way people described it before. You look at it today. I mean, it's like a country club compared to my day, of course. But I think that I think it's less that way, then it's more the outside perspective. I developed a lot of great friendships there, I found people to be highly collaborative. And I don't think I really thought of myself as competing with my classmates. So I think that's overblown, a little bit.
Alan Fleischmann
It wasn't such a killer environment, although I'm sure there was a lot of competition I imagine but it was still-
Daniel Springer
Just jobs, I think there was a little bit of a thing when it got to recruiting. But I actually summer associate role, I got I was super fortunate, I mean, unbelievable lucky to get a job at McKinsey in San Francisco, because there aren't that many jobs and a lot of people want to come to California. And then I had a great experience. And I just accepted the job at the end of the summer. So I never even interviewed after my summers, I didn't have that experience of other people competing, I want to get this Goldman Sachs job or I want to get this, I get the job, I had what I wanted. So I didn't really feel that competitive.
Alan Fleischmann
You had McKinsey in San Francisco which is pretty amazing because you got to go home.
Daniel Springer
That was that was a tough one to be.
Alan Fleischmann
And the cool thing with McKinsey is that you go through a horrific, you know, interview process when you normally go through but you actually, you know, had already been known by them. So probably it's a little bit of a fast track process, which is pretty amazing. Yeah, there was no pro-, actually, the fast track is called none. Bill Meehan, who was the head of the office at that time, and I just, it's so lucky, he was the other director that managed my summer role. And he took me to a bar in Palo Alto and basically the end of the summer said, Do you want to join? And I said, I'm in and he said you're in and that was it. So having a beer with with with the Dutch goose with Bill Meehan and was my interview process for the full time job. It was abnormally rigged I got through a relatively rigorous summer process. How long were you at McKinsey?
Daniel Springer
About six years. Yeah, so good. Not not as long as some, if I had a great experience in the early days, I think it became clear, I didn't want to be a management consultant, I love the firm, if there'd been a great career, doing something else at the firm might have been of interest. To me, that was fantastic values place. Super smart, we used to work with people who are so bright, it's hard to not be excited about that environment. And strangely enough, I didn't have a lot of travel compared to what most consultants have, which is good it can wear on a lot of people. But what did wear on me was the feeling of you finished your strategy engagement. And the customer says to you, the client says, Don't let the door you know, hit you in the butt on the way out. And this is when the fun starts to me. I really wanted to be a consultant, I kind of want to get in and build the business. And actually, I was gonna leave at four years, but there was an opportunity to open a Seattle office, which is obvious, you know, where I'd grown up. So I moved home and spent two more years trying to build an office, they actually turned out to be very, not because of me, but it became incredibly successful office in the Pacific Northwest, eventually. And so it was fun to do something but it was entrepreneurial is a stretch when people say I did an entrepreneur thing I opened a McKinsey office. It's like Yeah, really entrepreneurial. But there's elements of starting something new and I love that and then I ended up coming back to Silicon Valley. Right after my first son was born, moving back, and going to NexsCard, and that I really became, I fell in love with Silicon Valley and have never left.
Alan Fleischmann
How did that happen? I should just transition when you're ready to leave. It sounds like you stayed a little longer in Seattle. How did that job come to be?
Daniel Springer
You know, it's the best place in the world. I tell people, the best place in the world to leave is McKinsey and Company. And one is because people are like, it's whatever timeframe you want to do it, people are great. And then people reach out to their network and a job. The job I didn't take was is a better story than even NexsCard. But a guy named Mike Nevins called me one day and said, Hey, I heard you're gonna leave. And I was just talking to Michael Dell the other day. Do you know Michael Dell? I'm like, yeah, you know, I don't actually know him personally. But I heard of him, right. And he goes, Well, I told him, I think it'd be great for this job. He's hiring, would you like to go to Austin and meet him? And they're like, sure, and just said, Mike Nevins I'd never worked with and I knew him. But we never actually work, you know, on a study. And that's how the firm works. They just open up the network and say, How can we be helpful, and ended up having a fluid, awesome, spent two days met the entire Dell management team, I just didn't want to move to Texas, unfortunately, at that time, just starting a family. And that's why I went to NexsCard. Otherwise, next lecture, that'd be phenomenal for me. But Dell would have been a pretty good place to go in 1997.
Alan Fleischmann
Although you've done very well. So I'm not I'm not too worried. I think that the your desk of CEO wouldn't have been realized if you went there, maybe. So that was pretty good. So you weren't originally the CEO, though. You were the CMO.
Daniel Springer
A CMO at NexsCard. In fact, it was fantastic. We were I was there.
Alan Fleischmann
Just before the.com bubble.
Daniel Springer
Yeah .com. Yeah, yeah, the whole thing though the rise the run, it was fantastic. We went public in 99, on my birthday, to make it easy to remember in May, and then we had some real definitely reaction to 2000. It caused us to slow, but the company was a solid company, we were doing banking credit cards online, we built a fantastic customer acquisition model. So it would have been fine. I left NexsCard because I actually was passed over to be the CEO. So Jeremy Lent, the founder for some very sad reasons needed to step down, his wife become very, Molly became very ill. And there were two folks, me and the CFO. And the choice that the board made a very reasonable choice was to pick a person who had been in banking, because we were a bank at that point more than really internet company, to be the CEO. And I didn't, it was great company. I loved it. I did a nice long transition. But I just I really decided at that point, I really wanted to try to run a business. And so about six or eight months after that, after we did all the transitions down people to split up my job, I was managing the majority of the business at that point. So I have to find a couple of different people. And we did a nice job. And then I left. And then I joined a company called Teleo as CEO, and promptly ran it into the ground. We sold it for about 50 bucks to R.R. Donnelly who had been an investor. And it was it was actually one of my favorite business experiences I've ever had, it was the best, the best people I've ever worked with. And it was wonderful. And it was a company way before its time, it was what you'd call local search. And so we've tried to do both sides of it, sign up everybody, and then get all the merchants signed up to sell in a local environment and big ambitious idea. And probably 2001 was a great time to be driving a really big ambitious idea. But yeah, some of my best memories of management lessons I learned, there were-
Alan Fleischmann
Overcoming adversity and dealing with it. I mean it was like being on a roller coaster. Right, I imagine a little bit too.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, you know, I think the thing I really learned sounds ironic, but I really learned about people and how important people are and how quality people make the difference in your life. More than the smartest people are even more than the hardest working people than quality people do tend to work pretty hard. And I just had just two magical moments with the folks there over a relatively short period of time. And the other pieces when I told the investors not to put more money into it, even though obviously all my equity would with more or less evaporate. Because I didn't think the risk reward made sense. It cemented some investor relationships with me and this guys trustworthy and he's not going to do what's best for himself if it's not best for us. I didn't I didn't do it for that reason, but after the fact I came to realize that's what what happened out of it. And that also taught me a lot of lessons about you treat people fairly and right it will be good for you in the long run even if it's not good for you in the short run. And you see all-
Alan Fleischmann
Was there was a gap between your when you sold the company and then what do I do next? Or was it your Julian right away to something else?
Daniel Springer
Oh, after Teleo? Yes we sold Teleo and then I actually spent a lot of time Mike Moritz had pushed me to do something with PayPal, which I had actually is funny, way pre him this when they're still private. And I almost went to be president at Paython. I spent a bunch of time with that and Peter Thiel and I we just couldn't get a couple things right. And it was important to get them right. And we didn't, we didn't get there in the end was obviously an incredible experience, it would have been a great ride too. And then I did, I'm name dropping like crazy. It's sort of embarrassing. But I spent some time with Larry and Sergey, because Mike, it pushed me to talk to the guys at Google. They eventually hired Eric Schmidt, who was a much better person than I would have been to run their business. Although I think I could have made some money there. I have a feeling it would have been a profitable gig. But so I had a couple different conversations that were some less interesting than PayPal, and Google. And then about six months later, I went to a company called Modem Media, which I'd rather spend less time talking about much you want to talk about failure, because it was the only job I think I've ever had that I pretty much failed at. I didn't really like it. I wasn't great at it, I wasn't terrible. I wasn't great at it. And in the end, sort of, after a couple years left with a Wow, that was pretty mediocre.
Alan Fleischmann
It sounds like the Teleo experience was you love the people the culture, even though you were dealing with a wild ride. And then with this one, maybe not the culture.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, I think, you know, as an agency, the end of the day Modem Media was an interactive agency, a professional services firm, and obviously, I loved McKinsey. So it wasn't that I had a problem with professional services. But it just like, it wasn't what I was about that hold the pitching idea and to campaigns, I really wanted to try to build something I couldn't figure out how I could build something that was fundamentally, in that agency model is great for some people, it just wasn't for me. And I didn't know that about myself. I obviously didn't know what I wouldn't take in a gig. We're taking the Yahoo one. But I but I ended up you know, I definitely learned something from it. But to spend two years, basically just to learn a message that you shouldn't, you know, do stuff that's not really exciting to you, probably is a little longer, you know, less than I probably should be able to figure that one out sooner. And then I went to Responses after that. And it was a 10 year, you know, fairy tale.
Alan Fleischmann
But when did you take the time off to be with the kids? After Responses? Oh, it was after Responses. Okay.
Daniel Springer
Yeah. 2000. So '13 is when we sold Responses. And then I took, I ended up being over three years, I wasn't sure it was going to be that long. But boys, one was in high schools and middle school and then second boys going into high school, and thought it was my last chance to really, you know, really some focus, focus time with them. And I didn't do nothing. I did join a few boards. I worked with a private equity firm, great firm, called Advent International as-
Alan Fleischmann
David Westover, who I'm very close to, speaks so highly of you.
Daniel Springer
I love David. Yeah, we just exchanged emails the other day. And I mean, David is a big part of what I think makes Advent special, and talk about being a values based leader, you know, he's awesome. And so I did stuff. But basically, I only work between nine and five, when the kids were at school, or nine, and three, if there was a lacrosse practice that I could go sneak in and watch. And that was, I mean once in a while, sneak in and throw around a little bit help warm up the goalie or something if they'd let me. But I had, it was the best experience, really, my professional life, was taking the time to be with the boys. And then they went to college, and then I got a job again, and went to DocuSign.
Alan Fleischmann
But How cool was it, though, that you had had this great run, either with Responses where, you know, obviously extraordinarily successful, because you sold it to Oracle, and then you had a choice, you know, the luxury of saying perfect timing, in many ways, I guess. And you know, knowing how important family is and said, I want to do this, that's a pretty amazing thing, not an easy choice. You've had some difficult choices to make, you know that we're not so easy, you make it sound easy. But I imagine looking back, you're just grateful for what they all became those choices became, but I imagine they weren't easy at the time.
Daniel Springer
That was an easy choice. That was so obvious, you know, the little voices, oh, but come down from wherever those lights, voices come from. That was so easy, because as you said, it was just the magical last chance. And, you know, I recently become a single father, and just the thought of it was overwhelming trying to be the CEO of a public company. And and have raise two boys full time. So so that was a that was super easy decision. But some of the other ones were harder along the way. I actually think it's, um, it is kind of funny in Silicon Valley. It's such a magical place. I mean, there's so much serendipity. And sometimes people say, Well, you were so smart to figure that out. And I don't know, we walking through just some of those career things I talked to you about, I don't know that I was better than 500. I just think the answer is when everyone's throwing, I'm going to torture this baseball analogy, but whenever we're throwing these big fat pitches at you every day, you know, you swing at a few of them, you're gonna hit them, right. I mean, they're it's hard to miss around here, I think. And a lot of times people, I think it tell the story, post facto, and everyone's a genius, or at least their genius when they tell the stories. And, you know, I don't think I'm a bad decision maker now, but I think I just had an abundance of incredibly attractive opportunities. And most of the people I went to school with our friends will probably tell you the same thing. They look at me and they go, how did you getting these great opportunities and right place right time? You really, it's one of the reasons I feel so strongly about requirement for people in tech to give back is because it's not like we did it ourselves, you know, it's the ecosystem has created these opportunities. So we should be thankful. And we should be trying to help people who haven't had that just you know, plethora of amazing opportunities.
Alan Fleischmann
When people think of you, they will talk about you, they talk about your confidence with no arrogance. And I gotta imagine, your ability to have no arrogance and have this humility has to do with gratitude. I mean, you, you exude confidence. But you also exude this incredible feeling of gratitude when you talk. Certainly, you know, that appreciation, does that come from your mom? Is that something you build this that this very bright outlook of, you know, I'm grateful for what I've got, even though you've obviously you were a single dad, you were a saint, you know, you were you didn't grow up with your brother. Your mom was a single mom. So it's not like you didn't have adversity at many times in your life to overcome. And I'm sure you're gonna tell me but Alan, think of all the people who have become even more and worst things than I ever did. You know, but there are people that you know, there are people you know, that they can't get away from it. They you know, in your case, you you got faced here. That gratitude. Where's that gratitude come from?
Daniel Springer
Well, I think yeah, there is that whole, half full, half empty. You know, and some people can't believe there's any water in the glass in the first place, right, you know, is that you get the whole range. And I think I am closer to, you know, the half full for sure. And, but I do think I have just had an unbelievable, you know, set of good fortune. So I do look at things and even if when things I've failed that I talk about Modem Media, like I made a bad decision. And I didn't took me a long time to figure it out. I actually need help from other people to point out to me, that, hey, you're working less than you've ever worked, and you're at least happy with your work. Like, that doesn't seem like a very good combo, right? as a colleague told me. But then once I see that, instead of realizing that I'm, you know, relegated to failure for the rest of my life, turn around and someone gives you amazing opportunity. Yeah. In the situation with Modem Media was when you say people say the next day, literally, the next day, after sort of not even having left kit, but saying I was going to leave Modem media. Someone that heard that told someone else who told someone else as a venture capitalist who called me and said, I heard a rumor you were leaving. We're looking for a CEO for Responses, and I'd love to talk to you about it. I I'm not I'm not done yet. So I didn't do anything to make that happen. It just happened in the ecosystem. And so I do look at it and say, yeah, I think I'm pretty lucky. I think these things have just, you know, great opportunities continue to, to, you know, come up, but in terms of where it comes from. One is you just keep having good things happen to you, you tend to think more good things are gonna happen to you. And I think the second thing is, I do think I did get a value from my mom, which is believe in yourself. So have the confidence to believe in yourself. And she as a parent didn't give me a lot of rules. And she just said, I know you'll make good decisions to make mistakes. Yes, I made some mistakes. I've kind of a kind of a goody two shoes kid, but but she said, You know, like, just go forth, and trust in your decisions. And that gave me a confidence, I think to say that things will work out, I will make a decision. I don't need to second guess myself so much. Because when I make mistakes, they don't they don't really limit me, you know too much. But that I do think you have to step back and say, you know, we talked about this a lot. Now we're understanding you know, how much privilege, you know, there is and how much privilege begets privilege. And even though I didn't grow up in a, you know, wealthy family and I didn't have some benefits other people had you pointed out, you know, I went to Lakeside High School. So how many people coming out of high school around the world can say they had that kind of an education and setting them up for success in college and beyond? Yeah, not very many. So, the big ones, the things that really give you those lifts, and I think I've had a lot of the big ones.
Alan Fleischmann
Well, I think also there's such a thing as great karma and doing for others. As you as you as you succeed. You've not forgotten as you said earlier about the community around you and the communities around you. And I think that keeps you humble to where this you know, you're defined by reputation for being a positive person, but not, you know, pragmatically positive, you take, you make pragmatic decisions, but positive being a big part of it. And that comes with the sense of gratitude and humility. It's impressive, which I-
Daniel Springer
Assume good intent. And I think the expression I use a lot is because I feel like I expect people to have good intent. And I think when you expect people to have good intent, they tend to have better intent. So that that's a big part of that for me. And sometimes you get fooled. And sometimes you get surprised. But it's still better in the long run to just have that positive, optimistic view. Knowing that, you know, sometimes you'll be disappointed, but you'll actually create more positivity. But But I wouldn't tell you one thing that I wouldn't want to mislead you, the 23 year old, or 25 year old Dan Springer, did not have the same reputation he has today and didn't deserve the positive aspects of the reputation he has today. Because I was like a lot of other 23 and 25 or 20, I'm not sure when it got better. Well, definitely when I had kids. So when you first kids born, that's not 'till I was 33. You know, when you can finally love someone more than you love yourself that that is, you know, a big change. But I am I was I was pretty egocentric. I told you I was competitive, I wanted to win. When I was a young manager, I don't think I was particularly in tune with the people I was managing, I was trying to get them to do stuff to help me be successful in my career, I don't think I was way off the charts, the other direction. But I had a lot of learning to do. And I had a lot of growing to do, to try to figure out how to, you know, care more about others, and be less egocentric. I was born with some sort of Halo over my head.
Alan Fleischmann
How do you develop the empathy? I mean, when you're talking about is how do you, how do you as a manager leader, you know, how do you develop that empathy? In your opinion, you know, that, you know, because it's probably one of the most defining aspects of a, not only a great leader, but a good leader. And there are a lot of people that succeed with leadership titles, but they're not necessarily great leaders or good leaders. In your case, I would say empathy is a big part of what people think of when they think of you today, maybe not when you were you're 20. So I'm curious how you develop that.
Daniel Springer
I mean, I've mostly made mistakes, right? You make mistakes, and you have, you know, trusted colleagues that slap you upside the head and either tell you point out that you are the reason for that mistake. Or maybe you don't have to have an actual failure, and someone just tells you, you're not effective. I mean, he back truly is a gift. And people that can tell you that that's not effective, that didn't motivate me and not be concerned that you're looking for yes people all the time. You know, there was a guy named Paul Janssen I worked with McKinsey. And when I was leaving the firm, he took me to lunch, and we're chatting, and he were talking about what I was going to do. And he said, you know, Dan, and this guy, no one has a boss at McKinsey really. But over the last year and a half, he'd sort of been like my boss in terms he'd been leading this the work that I've been managing, you know, for clients. And Paul said, I don't want to tell you that you can't have a boss. I just think you'd be happier if you didn't have a boss.
Alan Fleischmann
If you didn't have a boss. In other words-
Daniel Springer
It's my boss saying that right?
Alan Fleischmann
You may be meant to be the CEO.
Daniel Springer
Yeah. And, and, and Paul, you know, and again, but not everyone would do that. Right. Paul Janssen didn't have to say that he didn't have to come and say, hey, you're going off into the world, I can help you with some feedback. And then we talked about it. And he said, like, here's, here's some stuff that you could do better around, you know, that sort of managing to work with your colleagues. And, you know, in a polite way, he basically said, in some ways, I was taking credit, you know, maybe more focused on getting credit for some things than just you. And I never as a, as a soccer players, I never would, that was not who I was. But in business I was sort of I was just all about the team. Now I was becoming a little more like, how do I move up, because when you're on a team, you know, you're captain of a team, all you care about success as a team. If you're trying to move your way up into something, you know, maybe you're actually trying to climb the ladder, and you're not thinking too much about making other people's stuff. So I did not expect that feedback. But it was hugely impactful on me realizing that, you know, sometimes you think you're tricky. Yeah, you're transparent. So you might as well just be transparent and own up to you know, what you want to be. And then you probably want to be someone you like, because you got, you know, the home with yourself every day. And those kind of mid career things I think shape you, that kind of feedback shaped me a lot. I'll give you one last example. I told you Teleo some of the best people I've ever worked with, I had to do a layoff. I've been CEO like two months, and we realized they're just, the economics were out of whack. We have to do a layoff and it took us about two months to figure out how to do it. And then I did a layoff and and that night, about six guys or five guys came into the office. My office late at night is about eight o'clock at night, knock on the door and I looked up and I thought oh my god, they're gonna come beat me up or something. But it's a group of people that, the bulk of the team had been laid off. And they came in to tell me how upset they were. Because they knew how difficult it was for me to have gone through their layoff. And they could tell how hard it was they just wanted to let me know that they were thinking about me, which proceeded to do two things. One make me feel even worse, of course, because I just not only do I lay off people, I laid off the best frickin people in the world, right? I was like, ah, how can I do that, but to it made me realize, you know, it really matters in life. It's not getting that promotion, it's not getting that extra dollar. It's interacting with people that you just feel, you know, wonderful about, and you do great things for. And so I made sure each of them and every single person there that got laid off, we got jobs for everybody. And, and I just took a lesson from that, which is saying, like, I want to be the good guy, I don't want to be a bad guy. I need to be a good guy.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, there's the words that are coming to my head are respect. You know, certainly with empathy, respect, when I think about, you know, I negotiate for clients all the time and the work that I do, and it's always around what you described, and you'd use it so beautifully. You go in with good intent. You believe that people that are at the table have good intent. And you listen, you listen a lot. And I've heard you talk about this, you know, the talk about the value of the power of listening, and I don't know whether that was probably the 20 something year old version of Dan, but certainly it is what you're known for today, is you really do listen for what people say to you. And I'm just curious, how much of that is a trained skill in your part as well?
Daniel Springer
Yeah, I definitely, it was not a natural skill. If anything, I probably naturally err on either reloading and left note expression reloading is, when we're having a conversation and you're talking, instead of listening, just what's the next thing I'm gonna say? What's the next thing I'm gonna say? At least to talk about that a lot in business school, or you have conversations with people, but you're actually not listening to me, you're next door, I probably have a little more reloading than listening in my DNA, maybe. But, but I think that, you know, over time, you realize that again, what's the goal, and if you can have clarity on the goal of what you're trying to achieve, and for the organization, and you can put the organization's goals first, you generally find that you should be you know, get two ears, one mouth, at best, you should use them in that proportion, probably, it's more like four to one, and listen to other people, because that's where you're going to get the insights. And one of the things I talk about a lot, particularly the young folks, you know, and the people have specialist knowledge, it adopters, I say all the time, we hire really smart people, to tell us what to do. We hire really smart people. So we tell you what to do. So you need to have a point of view, you need to have an agenda, and you need to bring it to me. And then I might not agree to everything you say and do. But don't come to me asking what you should do come telling what you should do. And then you know, be open to feedback. And you get people around you doing that, it becomes easier to take that style. And I am going to listen, because there's all these really smart, bright people that are coming with pitching ideas all the time. You can create a culture too.
Alan Fleischmann
And you can have culture where their points of view matter, their valued, they know, you're asking their questions to them, how do you think we should handle this? You know, this is powerful. You know, DocuSign is such a big part of who you are, obviously, because you're the CEO. And it's so well known, you've had such a great journey. And obviously, you become indispensable to all of us in the last year, you were already growing so dramatically before the pandemic. But you certainly sword says, how did it, how did DocuSign-
Daniel Springer
DocuSign is it's sort of a funny story for me joining DocuSign which is that when they first started a CEO search, I was in the middle of my staying home with the boys and the search firm contacted me, I knew a couple board members. I said yeah, I'm not interested right now. I'm really focusing on my children, and they came back. So what if we gave you a giant truck full of stock options? I said, I just told you I'm staying home with my children if I now said well, for how big of the truck? What would you think of me? Right? Would you want, would you want me to work at your company, if that was the difference. And so I passed and they ended up for a long, sad soda story, never filling the position. And about 20 months later, literally, 20 months later, I get a call from different head hunters saying, hey, there's this great company in the board knows you and they want to chat and I said, I'm not quite ready. I'm just about ready. And he told me the company and I said, Well what happened to the last person they hired? You say well, they never did. So it was kind of odd place the company was sort of lost its way just a little bit, fantastic company, fantastic product, but lost its way. And so I checked in with the management team and met him and I just very quickly accepted the job. I knew it was a fantastic fit. For me it was a, I'm not a technologist, right. I'm an analytical person, but I'm not a software engineer. So for me to lead a company it should have a strong technical foundation and a great you know, product, which DocuSign already had well before I got there, but there was a lot of business problems in terms of how it was going to grow and grow profitably. And those are things that I could be helpful to solving. And so the whole process, I got a call literally the day after Thanksgiving, and I DocuSigned my offer on Christmas Eve. So it was a very short recruitment process. And the only real hurdle on my side was asking my younger son, Robert, who was was just, you know, finishing high school, I said, Hey, I'm not gonna be able to do all the things I did with college tours with you and I did with your older brother, who was then at Wharton, and, and Robert, who's a little more independent looked to me and said, Dad, you kind of been crowding me a bit lately, I need you to go get a job. That was it, that was all I needed was that was the that was the, I actually think while Robert probably, maybe I was crowding him a little bit. But I think he knew, I think he knew I was excited. I wouldn't have brought the idea to him if I wasn't excited. And I think he wanted the old man to have his fun too. So so he figured out a way to make me feel good about it.
Alan Fleischmann
Where did he go to college by the way?
Daniel Springer
He's at USC.
Alan Fleischmann
Oh USC, oh that's right he's with his cousin. That's right. You mentioned.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he's, yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
That's pretty cool. So DocuSign, you joined up? And, you know, I'm just curious to when you signed those documents on DocuSign it wasn't that much part of your norm probably. Now I do. Everything's on DocuSign. I sign everything that way. Did you? Did you? Did you ever say to yourself is it legal? Is it legit?
Daniel Springer
Again, I've done some things with board things. Right? I used to have done some real estate transactions, I had actually been fairly familiar, knew them. And I did know a couple of investors. So I was we actually shared responses and docs and shared an investor. And so I've actually known the founder, Tom Gonser a bit because he's become to have like, you know, CEO events of Sigma. Now Jackson Square Partners, then called Sigma. And so I had known the company a little bit. But so I was pretty comfortable that it was a great product. And but I'll tell you, it only takes being a DocuSign employee about a week to know you made the right choice. Because everywhere you go, and you tell people I just got a new job at DocuSign. They all say the same thing. I love DocuSign. I bought my house and they tell you we actually call them Docu Love Stories. And when people tell you these stories about how they bought their house or got a job, and we joke sometimes people tell you-
Alan Fleischmann
They're all milestone moments. They're really significant moments.
Daniel Springer
They are significant moments. No, it's absolutely right. And sometimes we joke that people are telling you the story more because they want to tell you how they bought their third home when they were on safari in the Serengeti. And DocuSign made that possible. And you're like, Okay, great, great. I gotta go. But, but it is it's a fabulous part of working and makes you proud to work at a company when customers and not just even customers, but even users. Right now even people who people who sign a DocuSign they might not be our customers pay us or they're paying someone else paid us paid to send the document. And there is a yes, we have about 900,000 customers a little less than a million customers, but a billion people have been users, are assigned it. So we got a pretty good reach out there. A lot of people have DocuSign.
Alan Fleischmann
And globally.
Daniel Springer
Globally. Yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah. I mean, that's what's so amazing. Everything is global. And the other thing too, it's only that it people's monumental parts of your life, milestones in your life are with DocuSign. It is it is so user friendly. And it's kind of like the Kleenex to tissue kind of thing, I think, like, Yeah, kind of it just that's what you know, there's nothing else. I don't know anything else. I only know DocuSign.
Daniel Springer
It's become a verb. That's what Forrester said, DocuSign has become a verb.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, that's right. So so as soon as you got there, and it sounds like the culture of the leadership team, you connected with as well. You've done a lot of transforming. You took your data, you took the company public, you did a lot with a company. So it wasn't, you've had many iterations over the years. But was there a culture that fit with you? Or was it you ultimately, co-curated even a bigger culture?
Daniel Springer
Yeah, a little bit of both. I mean, part of what made me excited about joining was one the product market fit, no question. But I showed up and it felt like home, I felt they did a culture built a culture similar to what I build it responses, you know, over 10 years, where a lot of sort of respect and trust in the culture, I think there was a lot of success as a culture of success, accurate responses to a lot of years to become successful. laksa had a lot of success. And that that docu love thing we told you people felt that and Well, before I got there, the company had some touring to do we are losing a lot of money. And that was okay, because you know, the market was the market there. And as long as you're growing, it was okay to do that. But we needed more of a path to if we're going to be public to be profitable. There was an expectation the company would go public that had been set like a few years ago. So there was some real work and expectation to give to you guys. And just a little bit of time. We went public about 13 1414 months after I joined. So it was still relatively quickly that it did the IPO process takes you know, some months to kind of pick bankers and go through that whole thing. Get ready. So we went pretty quickly to go public. There was a lot of pressure Do it. But I would say like the culture piece of it, we really I think we had the right foundation. But we hadn't figured out a way to sort of almost brand it. And that sounds a little bit cynical, I don't mean in a cynical way, but we just like we didn't know what it meant to be the DocuSign culture. And so we spent a lot of time talking about that we had a thing called dockside impact, which was how we go back to the community. And people love doing the dark side impact events, and we volunteer everywhere we could one day a year, we all offices do it at the same day. So because they were all out in our communities. And when we went public, we decided, instead of having one giant party, like companies do, we said, let's do it DocuSign style, let's all go into our communities and volunteer that day. So a few of us were, you know, Wall Street, everyone else was out, giving it back to the community. I'm sure there was some celebrations that evening, I'm not saying there wasn't a glass of champagne, you know, drunk in a few different locales. But that was sort of the culture to say, we're really fortunate, and we should get back. But that it wasn't like, it was sort of random sets of things to make that into a program that you mentioned, the glass door piece. And like, you know, some of that is just natural, it's a great place to work. And some of it is shaping that for people and saying, we came up with this, john Burke heads up human resources, and she said, you know, we have to come up with, with what it means to be here, and what the commitment we have the people and the commitment we said was that every person deserves a great manager, and every manager deserves the tools to become great. So now, that sounds cool, but what are the programs we're going to build for manager training. And so we kind of get, we put the stuff behind it that fit our values. And now we say we say this with integrity, that we want people to do the work of their life adopters. And if you're a manager here, I tell you, you have to have the goal, that every single person on your team is going to do the work of their life here, you will not always be 100% successful. But if you come to work, and you don't have the goal that each of your reports is going to do the work of their life, how do you look at yourself in the mirror, then your job as a manager is to do that. And so we try to raise that level and say, that's what we expect of ourselves. And that's what we expect of you. And I think it's made a real difference in sort of creating that environment where people say, I want to work here, and I'm willing to give up the Google job or, you know, give up the Amazon and Microsoft also will able to win the war for talent, because we're creating that environment.
Alan Fleischmann
I mean, I imagine, you know, and looks like we're I've worked with CEOs of a CEO, and I get to interview folks like you a lot. You know, the biggest challenge often is the hiring part you're talking about, it's the mentary party, you know, you have a great mission, great vision, you know, you know, all the duction or the right investments, you might do an IPO. But if you don't have the talent, the you don't have the culture and you know, the culture, then you don't have that, you know, the capability, how do you? How do you identify the talent, I know, it's a big part. And I want to say, you know, I, we should just underscore the fact, by the way, the DocuSign has become indispensable, as I mentioned, in my interview, to every one of us, I don't know how we could have done what we've done in the last year of this pandemic. Without DocuSign, you are indispensable to every bit of everyone's personal and professional life. But when I think of you, I also think about how you help mold leaders, you're helping leaders become find their voices. And I gotta imagine, the last year also had to be a real test of that as well. You know, you know, because you're not together. Physically, you're so you had to really depend on one another, to the best of each other. But at a distance. Yeah, a little bit about your secret sauce on that, because you are known for that culture, and you're known for helping leaders find their way.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, I think we did a lot of things, and I think is a lot of little things, as opposed to a few big ones. But I'll give you a couple thoughts on I mean, one thing was, we leverage technology like this and ways and we never would have thought, I think too was we realized that we had to put our people first and we had to focus on taking care of the team so they can take care of the customers. And I'll tell you, particularly the first three or four months post, the start of the pandemic, the demand shot up, we talked about how people have to accelerate their digital transformation. If you're a salesperson that used to hand deliver, you know, with a pen for someone to sign a contract, or used to FedEx it to someone's office for people to route around and sign it. What do you do now they're not in the office, you couldn't go visit. And if you wanted to consent if you wanted. So those people were calling us desperately saying you guys got to help us get going. So we put this huge, huge demands on our employees right at the time. But we also told them, You can't use many of those old techniques he used to do for work because you're going to be in a remote setting. And you know, on top of that, we had a huge infrastructure needs that our volume grew so fast. We did a year's worth of infrastructure projects in six weeks. So that team that was planned out methodically, here's what we're going to do, we just have to pull them all forward in order to hit that demand. Massive and and they couldn't be doing it, you know, side by side. You had to do it in remote environment. So we realized pretty quickly, we were going to have a disaster. We didn't figure out how to invest In our people, we did lots of little things like we and we gave some people money, we said, like, Hey, you need to build out a home office, it sounds like you know, go buy a chair. And you know, do that. We gave people some money, we have young parents who now are in a situation where they paid for daycare, they weren't getting their money back, they kept saying, We're open, you're just not allowed to bring your kids here, we're not giving you your money back. And now they're trying to do their jobs at a higher level we just talked about, and they got a two year old and a four year old running around there. I mean, like, I didn't have any of those challenges, right. But I could understand what those would be like. And so we said, Hey, we just have some of those financial things, we also had to change our work patterns and told people, you have to be more flexible with how you work with your colleagues. And so we did a lot of different things like that. And you know, in some of the things actually made us better. One of my favorite examples is we have a program called discovering DocuSign. And we fly all of the people when they join the company, wherever they are in the world, to Seattle, which where the company was founded. And we teach them about DocuSign, and our values and our processes, and it's great. I once in a while I'm in Seattle, when that's happening, I get to visit those new employees, and it's been great. But most of the time, I just my schedules don't align, I don't make it. Now, I tend every single one. So every one of our new employees, and I meet them like this, and I spend a half an hour chatting with them. And then I answer all their questions. And I leave them all with the you ever have a question? You can't get an answer from your manager, Dan dot Springer DocuSign comm send me an email. And and people say, Oh, we have 6000 employees, you can't, you know, talk to all them. And I go, yeah, I can. And the reason I can is because if I think of our business as a pyramid, and I'm at the top, I'm pretty smart guy. And I work pretty hard. But I can only get so much done by turning around the other way and put myself at the bottom of the pyramid and say I'm gonna make 6000 people a little bit more effective. Whenever they have a problem. I can actually have a huge impact on this company.
Alan Fleischmann
That's your McKinsey way of thinking and the weird way to because you're, you all of a sudden they're taking the best of leadership, I would argue and you're combining with a sense of service. And this is a great service, sir.
Daniel Springer
I call it the servant leadership model. And I think it's actually, I didn't coin that expression, but I use the term servant leadership model. And I think that is a big part of what also helps work in a setting when you have this dramatic change, and everyone's remote, and everything. Well, how do we make sense of all this? And a lot of people think, you know, command and control, start telling them what to do, you need some of that. But a lot of it is telling people we trust you. And we can't keep track of everybody. We can't I mean, just as we have only so much, you know, ability to monitor what people are doing. So we have a trust based culture, we say, we know that if we give you the metrics, and the goals and the values, and tell you just unleash you in the world, you're gonna do great stuff.
Alan Fleischmann
Now are you gonna continue with the onboarding, so that it's on, you know, like this?
Daniel Springer
Yeah. So super interesting question. There's one other factor we didn't talk about which we talked about our environmental impact, right, we talked about, you know, DocuSign, we talk about Jane Goodall previously, in our conversations, not on this call, but and, you know, we've been really focused on our footprint. And one of the things that's been really troubling for me about discovering DocuSign, is it we're flying people all over the world to Seattle for a couple days. And we need to do that. But we want the connection. And now I think we've discovered a way that I think we could do this going forward without having to burn so much, you know-
Alan Fleischmann
And you're creating an intimacy because you're actually you're there, which says that this is a big deal. You're hearing and getting to know people.
Daniel Springer
So when, I don't I don't know the answer, when Google hybrid, maybe not there at this point in time, as I'm thinking about our commitment to be carbon neutral. And to try to make offsets as small of that as we can, we're gonna have to buy some offsets, right, but we'll get that as small as possible. And then the last piece, this is the Treasury stuff upside down again, same thing we do when we have things like a sales kickoff, we say we're gonna fly everyone to California. So me and some leaders can get up on a stage and pontificate and, and we've got some of our leaders that pretty good, some of our people pretty well, but they pontificate good, you know, it's like, but when you think about the other way, and you go, what if we did it differently? What if me and a couple of those leaders got our butts on a plane. And so instead of flying, you know, 1000s of people here, we flew five or six people to a couple places, it's a little harder on, you know, it's a little more work. But that's a lot less, you know, fuel. And it's a lot less downtime of people on airplanes, you know, not being as productive as a lot less jetlag for on a per employee basis, right, six of us go into town hard, it's tough for the six of us or whatever, to eight whenever we're in the den. But in aggregate, if you go back to that inverted pyramid, it's a lot better way to make the company successful. So we're looking for ways to do that. And I think the going through this pandemic, you know, not a lot of silver linings, but I think one of them is we're going to get smarter about how some of the ways we try to build that culture and support it.
Alan Fleischmann
You know, I mentioned earlier that you're the recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Award. You know, one of the things that I loved is that I'm one of the original board members of the Jane Goodall Legacy Foundation Board and the day Goodall Institute. And I did with Jane for years, I, you are one of the few CEOs who got her mission, both values and value driven. And you said, look, and it was when you describe your quest to be carbon neutral, or as close to it as possible. It was such a, I got head nodding moment for me when I heard it. But it wasn't an immediate thing that I would have thought of until I heard it. And for her, you know, is there there's this value proposition in life and the value proposition in life. And I remember having a great talk with Jane, how you're one of those CEOs who gets the value proposition, you know that, you know, the walk the walk and talk the talk part. It's pretty amazing.
Daniel Springer
Jane's a treasure, and you know, this, you know, more than most. I mean, she's really a global treasure. I have been so impacted by Django, and we talked earlier about how do you become who you want to be. And I tell you, a lot of it is other people, sometimes shaming you, by the way, as Jane does quite well with me. And we just taught her the other day, she shamed me. She sort of said, How come there's not a roots and shoots program at Dhaka? How can corporations don't do that? I said, corporations should do that. Just so I guess you're sponsoring a DocuSign one. I was on camera at the time. I am now. And we're just launching It's fantastic. On Earth Day, we're rolling out in two weeks, and we're rolling out the first program. It's great. But But Jane is one of those few people like you said that she's so powerful because of her values. And it's it's what attracts you to her. But it's also what pushes you tears and you look at yourself and you compare it when you don't do don't compare yourself to Jane, you know this because you're just gonna feel depressed. But when you just want to even compare yourself with being in the sphere, you know, of Jane, you do better you do better.
Alan Fleischmann
I have a photograph of her.
Daniel Springer
I saw it right there. I saw the picture earlier. D
Alan Fleischmann
Dr. King and-
Daniel Springer
Yeah, right next to King yeah. Two leaders. I saw that picture of her. Yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, inspired by that, because she is, the other thing too, and I know we only have a few minutes left, I'd love to to talk about is that like Jane, you know, with all the difficulties we have in the world. And there's so many challenges, and you're taking them on, she's taking them on, she also has the ability to laugh and have joy. And you I mean, you can't see this on a radio show. But you smile, and it comes through. And you know, and and that is not to suggest that you don't say, with great purpose and seriousness, I feel the pains of the world. And I'm going to do something about it, the way you describe how we in the tech community have got to do more for the community. When I think of you I think if we got to make capitalism work, you know, you've been a part of the deployment of capital you've been part of, you know, you know, how do we actually, you know, distribute wealth in many ways. I don't mean to say it, but how do you create access as a big part of who you are? And you do it with a sense of, of not burden, but a sense of, of purpose that I do think Jane is similar that way? Just tell us a little challenges at the end of this year a little bit about that? Because I know it's a big part of who you are.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, it really is. I would tell you, I actually look at it as a privilege. And I know that's a hackneyed expression, but I feel like the world has disproportionately heat, economic assets, you know, on my doorstep, disproportionate to you know, that my value add, so I look at it, I go, Well, I got way back more than I deserve. Not that I don't think I worked hard. Not that although I'm plenty positive about Dan Springer, don't worry, right. My ego but, but I just look at it in the enormity of it's, it's, it's ridiculous. That's what Tech has done, right? And so I actually look at it is, it's like spending other people's money, you know, and I have not be a great consumer, like, I don't have boats on a plane and all these things all use carbon to so now I can't get Jane would shame me, you know, this belief, but so I don't really like a lot of stuff like that. And so I don't want my kids to get too spoiled. So the answer is I get to go on a shopping spree. I get the rest of my life to be on a shopping spree to try to help folks. And whether we're building a new Boys and Girls Club here. And you talked about the joy of it. When you get to build a new Boys and Girls Club. You could say Well, here's a check and tell someone to go build it and then you know, ask for a picture later. Or you could say, Can we make it even better? We get? I won't give you too many details. So not probably, can we get one of the Golden State Warriors to get involved too. And maybe instead of being the Dan Springer Gym and Playhouse, what if it's an NBA star, you know, playoffs? And I joked when I told my kids about that they like less interesting choice. I said, Hey, you go to these neighbors in San Francisco. How many little boys and girls are bouncing their ball down the street saying, I want to go to the Dan Springer gym. I don't want to be in the dance. Not that many right? But you can imagine some other names that they'd be a little more excited. So then it's more joy, it's more exciting, you know, you just feel better about that kind of a program. And I actually find some of the greatest joy is when you see people that you're helping. And sometimes you get into this mundane is a perfect example of this. But there's an organization called Mary's place in Seattle that and I'm going city by city we talked about before, I'm giving away all my, you know, new grants of equity that I get from DocuSign. And taking those dollars and giving them to organizations in the communities where we have employees in San Francisco first Seattle, the next one, the Mary's place, I'm going to go Dublin, because our next in Ireland, our next biggest employee base next, and find an organization there, but they're building homeless facilities, and we're getting to build a new one, we're going to sponsor one, they're going to build a new shelter in Seattle. And, you know, you go to the people like Marty, who's the executive director of Mary's place, and you see the work she's doing, and you find out that you're just going to help it a little bit. And you just, you just feel the joy, you know, you can't possibly not feel that excitement. And that joy. When you find these fantastic people that are you know, they're doing God's work.
Alan Fleischmann
Then you realize that you're building, you're helping them, you're helping they do best, which is why you're describing how you lead with a DocuSign, let them lead, and build a community that we all realize we need to have.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, because they're better at that than you are at the end. But this is what's so powerful, you actually get to feel like you're having impact on something that you don't have the skills, you don't have probably the patience, you might not even have the goodness, you know, you might like to think you do but you just probably don't, you know, and so you say, but I can feel it's like cheating a little bit, you know, I get I gotta cheat the game. And I get to, you know, pretend for a minute, I'm as good as those people. And so that's where I get the joy. And the other piece from James, I think it's so powerful is to hope, you know, and, and she has this indomitable hope that I don't have, but I'm but I'm practicing and trying to get there. When I look at income inequality, sometimes I say, We're doomed, the returns to capital are going to be higher than the returns to labor forever. And it's like, it's just gone off the thing. It's exponential, and it's it's going to take a revolution, you know, to bring it back, we need pitchforks to bring it back. And then I say, No, we're going to be smarter. We're going to put our hearts in better places, and we're going to figure out solutions to avoid, you know, going off the rails. I don't have all the answers. I wish I could tell you I had it all figured out. But I have hope that good people will rise to the occasion. And good lucky people who know in their hearts that they've been luckier than all get out, are going to be the ones that need to step up and provide those first steps to show everyone else the way. And that's why I'm hopeful that we'll get there.
Alan Fleischmann
Well you do leave us with a great deal of hope. And I will say you lead by example. And you you don't preach, you do inspire, Dan. I know that I'm saying this to you and makes you cringe but you know, but you do inspire because you're not you know, you you feel like you have an abundance of success. And that doesn't make you slow down. It's making you even go quicker. And you have an abundance of good, great leadership skills to share, and joy. But you're doing all the above. So those of us who admire you want to be on this journey with you.
Daniel Springer
Yeah, yeah.
Alan Fleischmann
I believe it's a movement you're building. It is you are reinventing capitalism or repurposing it. And you're making it so that we can live in a society where we all feel like we're part of the democracy that needs work. You're also doing something else, you're showing how private sector, the private sector in the tech community can and needs to lead. And you know, we can wait for our friends of the civil society and public sector to do what they need to do. And they do. And often they do, but you're not waiting for them. You're saying let's come together and let's move and let's make it work. So I am grateful. So this has been an hour. I wish it could have been two. I'm going to beg you to come back on and we're going to talk about other things like how you actually make these things come true. But thank you. Thank you for joining us. This has been a wonderful, wonderful time.
