S3 Ep 2 | Nick Mehta, CEO @ Gainsight
Hey friends, it’s Angie and Jay! 👋 Welcome to Season 3 of Across The Lines. In these emails, we highlight new episodes, share upcoming events, and highlight quotes from our guests.
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Nick Mehta is the CEO of Gainsight, the leading Customer Success company. Prior to Gainsight, Nick was the CEO of LiveOffice, where he led the Inc. 5000 company’s profitable growth and successful sale to Symantec. He is also the co-author of Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue. Nick has been named one of the Top CEOs of 2018 by Comparably, was a finalist for EY’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and holds one of the highest Glassdoor approval ratings for CEOs.
In this episode we spoke with Nick about the following:
The story of why he goes by “Nick” instead of “Nikhil”
Having his visible identity be represented in tech but not feeling like he completely belonged
Why going through similar experiences is an antidote to loneliness
Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3BUgkZZ
Website: https://bit.ly/2Z3M5Bn
Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3FYp0Rw
As usual, we’ve gone through the episode and pulled out the quotes that we found the most meaningful, and shared them below. We hope you enjoy it.
Until next time,
Angie & Jay
How Nick thinks about intersecting parts of his identity
“I no longer think of parts of my identity as being strengths and/or weaknesses. Sometimes people say that their weaknesses are that they work too hard or that they feel lonely. I do not believe in this idea of normalizing what is good and bad. For example, I am somebody who wants to fit in with people and is at times lonely.
I believe in observing when those feelings happen and looking at myself, and distancing myself from them. I can then see, okay, wow, I am feeling lonely right now; how do I feel more connected? Part of it is that I have learned who I am, and I do not want those things to change. It all fits together like a weird puzzle. Like, that’s me, and I like it.
[..] so some combination of loneliness and having immigrant parents who want me to achieve is who I am. And I don't criticize that. I'm not ashamed of it, it doesn't control me either. I can notice when it's happening and decide, is that what I want to do?”
Getting rid of the term “A-Players”
“I am on a passionate campaign to eliminate the term “A-Players”. You hear people say, hey we need to hire A-Players, don’t hire B-Players, don’t hire C-Players. Like it is this idea that somehow people are magically graded on some universal system. I totally disagree in my own experience. I believe in that the vast majority of situations that come up, it’s actually about getting the right person in the right situation where they can be successful.
That includes the manager, the culture, the onboarding, etc. The right role for who they are. I think a lot of companies miss out on management’s responsibility in making people great versus just finding great people, I think that whole concept is totally wrong. A-Player is a term I just don't love; I'd love to get rid of it.”
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Until next time,
Jay and Angie