How to be more innovative | Sam Schillace (Microsoft deputy CTO, creator of Google Docs)

... we tend to undervalue the things we're good at. We tend to think work has to be unpleasant. And so if something is easy and fun, we don't tend to think it's valuable. So I think lots of people, like, gravitate in this direction of, like, let's go do unpleasant things and grind our way through the career 'cause, like, that's the way to make it, but the reality is, like, you should go do the thing that you feel guilty to get paid for, if there's a thing like that. And do the hell out of it, right? Like, do it- do it as hard as you can. If you get- if you get pleasure from doing something that people want to pay you for, do it the best you can do it, as hard as you can do it. And if that's messing around and playing around with cool ideas, like, do the hell out of that. Like, the work doesn't necessarily have to be hard.

(instrumental music) Today my guest is Sam Schillace. Sam has an incredible resume that is very hard to summarize succinctly. I'll give it a shot. Currently, he is corporate vice president and deputy chief technology officer at Microsoft, where he leads efforts in the consumer product space, infrastructure, and AI. Sam is most known for basically inventing Google Docs with his company Writely, which was acquired by Google, and became the foundation for what is now Google Workplace, which currently has over one billion active users a month. After joining Google, Sam ended up responsible for many of Google's consumer applications, including parts of Gmail, Maps, Automotive, Groups, Reader and more. He's also founded six startups, was senior vice president of engineering at Box through their IPO. He's also worked at Intuit, Macromedia. He was even a VC at Google Ventures for a time. As you'd suspect, we had a fairly wide-ranging conversation, but the core focus was around innovation. How to think big, how to come up with original ideas, why optimism is so important and powerful, and also a ton of career advice. Sam is hilarious and not what I imagined a corporate vice president at Microsoft would be like, which gives me even more respect for Microsoft. A big thank you to Brett Burson for making this introduction. With that, I bring you Sam Schillace, after a short word from our sponsors. This time of year is prime for career reflection and setting goals for professional growth. I always like to spend this time reflecting on what I accomplished the previous year, what I hope to accomplish the next year, and whether this is the year I look for a new opportunity. That's where today's sponsor, Teal, comes in. Teal provides you with the tools to run an amazing job search, with an AI-powered resume builder, job tracker, cover letter generator, and Chrome extension that integrates with over 40 job boards. Teal is the all-in-one platform you need to run a more streamlined and efficient job search, and stand out in this competitive market. There's a reason nearly one million people have trusted Teal to run their job search. If you're thinking of making a change in the new year, leverage Teal to grow your career on your own terms. Get started for free at tealhq.com/lenny. That's tealhq.com/lenny. This episode is brought to you by Vanta, helping you streamline your security compliance to accelerate your growth. Thousands of fast-growing companies like Gusto, Calm, Quora, and Modern Treasury trust Vanta to help build, scale, manage, and demonstrate their security and compliance programs, and get ready for audits in weeks, not months. By offering the most in-demand security and privacy frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and many more, Vanta helps companies obtain the reports they need to accelerate growth, build efficient compliance processes, mitigate risks to their businesses, and build trust with external stakeholders. Over 5,000 fast-growing companies use Vanta to automate up to 90% of the work involved with SOC 2 and these other frameworks. For a limited time, Lenny's Podcast listeners get $1,000 off Vanta. Go to vanta.com/lenny. That's V-A-N-T-A dot com slash Lenny to learn more and to claim your discounts. Get started today. Sam, thank you so much for being here, and welcome to the podcast.