Businessweek Talks- Box CEO Aaron Levie

great to have you here on Bloomberg Radio. How are you doing. How is your team doing through the virus? Good? Yeah, yeah, thanks for having me and UM and great to be here. Um uh. So we've you know, we've been very very focused as a company UM with our two thousand employees on obviously first the health and safety of all of our employees, but but but secondarily making sure that we

really helped support our customers during this time. So our our platform is used by about a hundred thousand businesses globally, including the fourth I have hundred UM really to help them be able to securely access and share their data from anywhere, and so any company that is UM uh you know right now, and a work from home or remote work environment obviously needs secure access to their data and their information. Um, and our platform is is there

to help them with that. So um, so we're right now we're just focused on our customers making sure that they can get the most out of our technology right now while they're in this new way of of working from a work from home environment. Right. And so Aaron, what are you learning? I mean with all those customers and all those different businesses, and there's been I think it's fair to say we certainly have experienced it first and second hand a lot of scrambling out there like

what have you learned it? As you've talked to you know, sort of folks on on the front lines. Is that we're of trying to stand up their companies in a different way. Yeah, I mean this is this is certainly probably one of the most radical shifts in technology and

business operations in history. Um. The you know, the first obviously the technology front, So being able to run your company almost completely in the cloud, where you have to have modern technologies, whether that Zoom or WebEx or Microsoft Teams or Slack from a video conferencing and a chat standpoint or being able to get access to your data from applications and platforms like Box. So some companies were

already way ahead of the curve. They've been invested in these in these technologies for three or five or ten years UM, and other companies that I obviously had to scramble much more rapidly UM and in some cases in a much more disruptive way to be able to respond to this. So the first is the big technology transformation

I think most companies are experiencing UM. And then as soon as companies started to settle into this remote work and work from home environment UM, really the next shift has been actually how we work and UM and this is probably gonna be the most profound part of the transformation, which is how we're collaborating, what hours we're doing work, how we moved our our our businesses and projects forward. So we are seeing some pretty significant changes in the

underlying ways that people are working. So we're we're seeing that that the days are actually longer in terms of work is getting done more in off hours from our customers. We're seeing that people are using more technology to be able to do their jobs. So obviously we've shifted too

you know, much more virtual ways of working. And we're seeing an increase in collaboration amongst industries, so um, in businesses like media or life sciences or healthcare or education, massive increases in the amount of collaboration and data sharing that's happening in those markets. So UM, So the you know, the certainly there's gonna be a lot of businesses and

business models that are under pressure right now. But for those that aren't, or for those that are are responding to this event, um, we're seeing um still significant levels of a lot of these industries. So you know, it's interesting. I'm listening to what you're talking about, and Jason and I have been asking a lot of CEOs of various companies from different industries about what's what's kind of the longer term impact of the virus? So does how does

it change our world? So when we emerge, know from this immediate crisis, what's the most important, in your view, underappreciated way that the world will be different and at least from your expertise, Yeah, yeah, no, great, great question. I mean, I think I think there's so many things that we've um just taken for granted in terms of how we do our work. UM that you know, we go into the office, we go into a meeting, We you know, take a couple of hours, we get teams together,

we maybe take a while to make a decision. We don't necessarily bring in all the voices from around our company to make that decision. It happens to be whoever, whoever could attend the meeting, you know, you know physically in a lot of cases, UM. Or we we go and we spend three days on a on a international trip to do one or two meetings in a different country. UM. I think what we're going to start to see is is, you know, how productive we can do with technology and

how much more connected we can actually be with technology. UM. In the past couple of weeks, I've I've spent probably five times the amount of time I have historically with international colleagues, UM, and even in international customers. And that's because it's just so much easier where the expectation is that we're going be much more communicative and we're gonna

be able to collaborate much more efficiently now. So I think you're actually going to see in a very odd way because of social distancing and increase in the level of connection that that teams have, in the connection you have with your customers, in the amount of collaboration that you're doing on a global basis. Um, And there'll be a lot of positives UM to that. I think you're

gonna see all new businesses emerge. You're gonna see all new types of players be able to get customers that previously wouldn't have been able to serve on a global basis. And of course, at the same time, we're going to see real, real and severe impact obviously the local economy, um,

you know, being right at the center of that. But um, but I think there's gonna be new and novel innovative approach is going to operate, and how work styles are going to evolve, and how companies are gonna be able to scale um, certainly because of the cloud and because of these these new ways of working, Right, Aaron, we just had a headline cross the Bloomberg about a company you've heard of just down the street from you, Google uh CEO Superpatrise, saying that they are going to slow

hiring for the rest the year. What do you see in terms of your own business, especially given sort of how busy it sounds like you are. How is it changing the way you're thinking about expansion, hiring, all of those things. Yeah, I mean I think, you know, first of all, we want to be extremely imprudent just given the economic environment that we're in, So we want to be very thoughtful from a a cash flow standpoint and

a cash position standpoint. You know, we're fortunate that coming into this year UM, you know, we've turned the corner and becoming profitable. UM. We're obviously going to focus on maintaining that and delivering on our bottom line results UM. But that being said, we are seeing growth in UM in certain sectors and in certain part industries that we serve UM, and so we want to be thoughtful about continue to expand to be able to serve our customers.

So I think there'll be certain areas that we we grow in and other areas that we want to be prudent and continue to drive efficiency around so UM. So I think we'll see how the next couple of months and quarters playoffs. But right now we're focused on growing through this event, serving customers as successfully as possible, and that will lead to certainly more UM. You know, hiring in some areas UM and obviously, you know, continue to be very focused on our our profitability overalls the company.

But let's continue our conversation with Aaron Levy, CEO of Box, still with us on the phone from Redwood City, California, And Aaron, you made some interesting comments before the break about you know, being able to engage with some of your international partners and customers. And I do wonder how this has changed, maybe in different ways or in other ways, I should say, sort of how you lead, how you manage. Obviously it's a remote world we're living in, but but

I wonder what you've learned from from a leadership strategy perspective. Yeah, I think you're going to see companies and leaders you know, continue to have to evolve pretty pretty significantly. Right now, i'd say, um, on the whole, I've actually seen um in dramatic improvements across our organization in terms of how we um, how we align, and and and how we

you know, stay engaged across the company. For instance, just our ability to have conversations with dozens of people or hundreds of people at a time where anybody has a voice in that conversation has improved um by an order of magnitude and UM, and so you get a lot more two way dialogue, you get a lot more engagement across the business. Everybody UM is in the exact same

you know situation UM uh. And as opposed to you know, normal meanings of a few people in the office and kind of owning the conversation and everybody else remote UM who's sort of you know, secondary in the in the conversation. This is you know, truly UM allows the company to engage altogether. So so I think you're gonna see actually more collaboration. You're going to see more communication in this

type of environment from companies UM. And I think some of that will will necessarily carry through UM once we you know, move beyond a shelter in place environment. And I think there's gonna be a lot of aspects to business, both in our work styles and then eventually our business models that continue to evolve because of this, you know, profound event So UM. So we do think that's going

to shift things a bit. Having a little fun here if I may, um, Aaron is, I'm curious what's tough for you know, leading in a time of a crisis like the virus or leading when you've got pressure from an activist investor, which you guys have had to deal with and I know you figured some of it out,

but just you know, leadership and crisis it's not easy. Well, you know, we've we've I don't know that we've ever had a situation in box in our fifteen years where where things have have been you know, you know, stable and easy for for more than a couple quarters in a row. But but you know, overall, I think, I think you want to stay committed to the long term mission of the company. You want to stay committed to

the culture. You want to stay you know, committed to making sure that that we we're you know, treating our employees as necessarily and uh and UM appropriately as possible and building an organization that people have probed to work at. So whether it's a you know, a stock market issue or you know, a health event and crisis like this or um you know, all of the competitive battles we've

had over the years. UM, you know, we've benefited by just thinking around, you know, about the long run of a business and making sure we're building um you know,

hopefully a rock solid organization in the process. But but I think and in this event is certainly no no exception to that in terms of needing to make sure that you're you're able to guide the organization, um, you know, to to what we're ultimately trying to achieve and what we're ultimately trying to build, and there's going to be blips on the way to doing that well, you know, and it's interesting like talk to us about these blips because you know, sometimes we've had you know, we've had

investors come on and say, crises is when we often see, unfortunately, you know, the incredible innovation come out of it because you have to write. And we're seeing that in the medical community, we're seeing it in education because we don't

have a choice here. So I'm just curious those blips, you know, or those mistakes, like what mistakes have you kind of learned as a leader, whether it was you know, because you know, Starboard the activist was about your heels, or whether it's right now this environment, you know, what have been the mistakes you've made and that you've learned from. Yeah, I think I think you know, any type of either mistake we've made or or you know, something we've had

to respond to as a business. Um ultimately uh. Ultimately, the way to get through those events are are you know, seeing really true to your principles as an organization and as a as a business of of what what you're trying to drive um uh and uh, and then being decisive and being able to you know, call a decision um.

In some cases that means pivoting the business. So just in the past two or three weeks, as an example, we've actually had to literally pivot both our product strategy and our go to market strategy so we could better serve our customers during this environment. And there's there's so many you know, amazing companies around the world that are doing the exact same thing where they've had to say, you know what, maybe we were doing one thing, but that was a bit pre you know, social distancing world.

We have to change our entire business model. We have to change the entire way that we serve customers. Do you have some amazing um, you know innovation happening around the world where companies maybe had a physical presence and they've gone completely virtual to deliver that same experience and had to make their their business model go digital really

in a matter of weeks. And so so I think the companies that are are able to get through these types of events are those that are certainly resilient in terms of the foundational principles and and and and culture that they're that they've built, but then able to make these decisions quickly and able to recognize that the reality is different and they have to respond to that reality um as quickly and decisively as possible. And so you know that that's at least our our goal in this event.

And I think there's there's amazing companies all around the world that are that are doing and trying to do the same thing. Well, and and we've only got about a minute left, But it also feels like Silicon Valley is having a little bit of a moment after a couple of years of people being like, I'm not so sure about this social media and tech lash and all of this, but it does feel like some of the good stuff is is uh maybe coming to the four there. Are you seeing a different sort of vibe there in

the valley? Yeah, I mean I think you you uh, I mean, it's it's no coincidence that in a world of us being you know, physically separated, then everything has to go digital. And so the digital platforms, whether it's Google or Facebook or um or or Yelp or other you know platforms, they have to respond very quickly and be able to serve their customers in new ways and so UM. So I think you're seeing a lot of that ingenuity right now. And then it's it's completely changing society.

I mean, I've I've communicated with more family members just in the past few weeks because of technology like Zoom and FaceTime and um and and you know, these these modern digital platforms are at the center of um of how we're communicating, how we're working, how we're transacting, how

we're doing commerce globally. So that's gonna be with us no matter what what happens next, um, I think for the foreseeable future, because we've seen the impact of this has in our lives, um and so you know, hopefully that's one silver lining through this, through this whole precent is that we're gonna be able to use technology for good um and UM and then you know, hopefully get back to get that to work and be able to respond as an economy more broadly. All right, really good stuff.

Thank you so much for spending some time with this. Aaron Levy is the CEO of Box, joining us on the phone from Redwood City, California. Such a thoughtful guy, and uh, listen as he laid out and as you rightly questioned him about he's been through the Ringer, no question, and I like what you know. He had to say that sometimes you've got to pivot and you've got to just that that's what you've got to do. Um, And we've seen it. I feel like we've talked about that

with Mary Barr. Gam Like they realized, Okay, what's the future. And it's gonna hurt, it's gonna be painful, um, but you've got to be decisive. That was one thing that he said that I thought was really stuck with me. So good, Uh, A really good conversation with Aaron Levy