Chandra Narayanan: Top 5 Lessons from Leading Analytics at Facebook | E1126

You never want to be a quitter. Set things right, fix things. If you think about why anyone comes to work, four different reasons. One is, they love what they do. Number two, they love the people they work with. Number three, they feel like they can learn from the people that they work with. And four, the company is going up and to the right. If one of these four does not work, they will leave.

(instrumental music) Chandra, I am so excited for this. I heard many good things from Alex Schultz before the show, but thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you so much, Harry. Uh, it's really my honor. I, I love this show. I would say this is my favorite podcast show, and I have listened to so many amazing people saying amazing things. And I, I've learned so much from this show, so it's truly an honor.

Uh, listen, I've, I've learned just as much, so, uh, (laughs) I, I think it's a pretty cool job that I have.

Mm-hmm.

I, I would love to start, though, with some chronology. I heard you got some seminal advice, uh, early on from one of your managers at PayPal, uh, Rohan. So, I'd love to start with this. What was the advice from Rohan at PayPal and how did it change your mindset?

Yeah. So, I was actually, uh, Rohan was my manager, and, uh, I, I think he went on to lead, uh, a bunch of different teams at, at, at PayPal. And, uh, I was, uh, uh, working in, at, at, at PayPal and was primarily on risk management and doing a bunch of different analysis. I actually got caught in a crossfire between two senior leaders, and what ended up happening was it became really, really frustrating for me, and, uh, I couldn't actually do my work. And, uh, basically, what I did at that point was I was, uh, so frustrated that I wanted to quit. And, uh, rather than address the problem, I wanted to quit, and I went and told Rohan, and said, "You know what? I don't want to stay here. I actually want t- to quit." And for which he basically said, "You know what? You never want to be a quitter." And he said, "Set things right, fix things, and then when you're in a better state of mind, come back to me, and I'll see what I can do." So, I stayed on for another six to nine months, and at that point, I got into a much better state of mind, fixed all the issues I had with the senior management, and then fixed the problems there was, and tried to get our, uh... and actually got, uh, the, the PayPal trajectory back on track. And then I went back to Rohan six to nine months later, and then basically told him, "Okay, man, I fixed a bunch of different stuff, and I still feel like PayPal is not the right place for me for several reasons." And, uh, and I told him, "I want to go to a different company." And he actually reached out to Facebook and literally got me a job there.