Hi, everyone. Ian here. Now, if you're a regular listener to this show, I think you'll know just how much I love doing this job. It is a genuine privilege to meet some of the best founders and CEOs of some incredible companies across the country. And today in the show, I've got Sylvia Martin Savage. She is a fairly new CEO of deputy. Now, deputy, the story goes back quite a long time. It's over ten years old. The original CEO and founder, Ashiq Ahmed. He's actually been on the
show twice, once in 2021, once in 2019. And I just loved the story. And I knew that the company was going well, tracking well. And I'd also spotted that they'd installed a new CEO and Sylvia back in February this year. And then they reached out to me and said, Hey, Sylvia is keen to be on the show, which I thought was going to be a real treat and it
was really, really enjoyed it. It's the first time we've had a company on for the third time, although we've never had a founder on more than or a guest on more than twice. And I really, really, really enjoyed chatting to Sylvia. She's passionate. I mean, I can see why the board and ask who's still on the board chose her because she exhibits a lot of the same traits that she did. And that really seems to pervade the culture of deputy passionate, energetic, charismatic, really strong, piercing
vision about the future of workforce management. So anyway, enough for me. Let's jump over and hear from Sylvia. Okay, Welcome, everyone. I'm sitting here in the middle of Sydney in the offices of Deputy with the new CEO, and I'm going to get her name right, Sylvia Martin Civic. How do I do?
Well done. Very, very good.
Thank you. This is a new role for you. You joined on Valentine's Day this year, so congrats. You've been what's that like for 4 or 5 months? Your profile on LinkedIn says you're the CEO of deputy, but you're also the builder of purpose driven companies, which are loved. And I'm sure we'll come back to that. This is a first in the deputy's third time on the show. So we've had a Scheck who was the original founder CEO, and we've had him on twice and now we've got you.
So I'm pretty excited because, as I said before, I think a journey was fascinating from taking taking it from nothing to something and something was pretty good. And you're here to take it from something to something big and global. I mean, that's kind of the punch line. Is that fair enough?
That is absolutely.
Right. Now, I thought I would actually read from your LinkedIn post announcing your appointment because I thought it was really good. I loved it and I'll read it out. So with offices in Sydney, London and San Francisco, Deputy is a global leader in smart scheduling and workforce management for shift workers and businesses. Deputies leading software solutions streamlines, streamlines, communication, scheduling tasks and time sheets for more than 1.3 million
shift workers in over 100 countries. Deputy software also empowers 330,000 businesses with the tools and insights they need to simplify workforce compliance and communication and to create a more flexible and transparent workplace for their employees. Now, I'll come back to those numbers because I suspect in four months they've gone up a little bit. But that's it's pretty
amazing and a good overview. Now the next paragraph I won't read, but I do really want to unpack because it's really about your backstory and the, I guess the origin of where you came from. So the only summary I'll maybe give before I throw it to you. You're from Croatia, you live in the US, so can you talk us through how you ended up in this in this role?
You bet. And thank you so much for having me. And I know that you've hosted a Chic a couple of times already, so thank you for giving Deputy an opportunity to to speak and tell our story. It's been four months a deputy, and this was a really important point in deputy's trajectory. Ashiq, of course, led this company incredibly successfully for many, many years. He is our founder and in February, he passed on the torch. He is
still on our board. But, you know, one thing that we realized as we started to get to know each other is that in a lot of ways, our founder, Ashiq, and I were kindred spirits. Yeah, I'm an immigrant myself. I moved to America from Croatia after the Balkan Wars ended and in 1997 by myself and and, you know, I really I really built a life there thanks to my family supporting me. I grew up in the community
of hourly workers in the 80s and 90s. You know, I grew up in the communist society where there were not a lot of opportunities. And despite, you know, the massive potential of people that raised me, they didn't get a lot of opportunities. And so I was incredibly fortunate to get to get a scholarship to come to America and build a life. But one common thread that you alluded to earlier, I wrote that I'm a builder of
purpose driven companies, that is. The common thread. I have always looked for finding ways to work and build companies that don't just create enormous economic value, but companies that also create societal good. And so early on in the early 2000, I worked in the investment community. I had a startup that invested in what today is known as socially responsible investing.
But at back in Chicago, right?
That's in Chicago. That's right. So I spent almost ten years investing in women and minority owned companies. And and then after that, spent time at Groupon digitizing small businesses and pre deputies, spent four years building financial services for underserved communities. And so it's just, you know, deputy sort of path. I feel like, you know, my whole career has led me to this point. And it's such an enormous honor to be building this next chapter of deputy.
Just unpacking that because you have gone from 0 to 1 because you did launch your own business. Tell us about that.
Yeah, I so this was early 2000.
It was you been young and just new to the country.
I yes. So I moved when I was I moved to America when I was 17. I finished high school and finished college and worked on Chicago Stock Exchange for a couple of years. And notice this really enormous opportunity, which was I was investing money for, you know, city and state governments, for firemen, pension plans for policemen and and teachers. And what I noticed I was at a time I was an economist and I noticed that a lot of those investments were all flowing to New York,
to Wall Street. And so I built this report. It was an econometric report that said, what if the investments of firemen and teachers and policemen actually were invested in their communities? How could that impact their communities? And so at the time, I met this state senator who was not very well known, that helped me with this effort. And this state senator was Barack Obama. Wow.
He was very in Chicago.
Of course he was. And this was early on. Again, he was working in city government.
Because he was a lawyer. Wasn't that.
Right? And at the time was a state senator for Illinois in Illinois Senate. And he was interested in investing in women and minority owned companies. And so I sat on the committee for the state of Illinois to sort of use investment pension investments and invest those dollars to help local communities. Right. Because they're for investing retirement funds of firemen and policemen. Shouldn't you know, those investments reflect the communities who are giving them the money. And so
it was a really wonderful effort. And yeah, and I spent doing that over over eight years, first as an entrepreneur and then in hedge fund industry. So investing in women and minority owned companies. And when I left, we invested over a billion and a half. Wow. In women and minority owned companies at much better returns than what at the time was, you know, offered by Wall Street, because this was the you know, this was 2008 when
the Great Recession hit. Yeah. And it was it was really sort of again, it was a wonderful opportunity to diversify investments, not just do societal good, but actually create economic value because it was a way to diversify investments away from some of the largest companies that were really struggling at the time. Yeah, and some of them failed, like Lehman Brothers. Yeah.
I wouldn't mind jumping back to that kindred spirit with a Schick perspective because, you know, I think that's, you know, you could have done many jobs as my impression. And you chose Deputy. I mean, they also had to choose you, I'm sure. But you definitely did choose them. So can you unpack that a little bit more? Why was this place in the culture so special that you decided this is where you're going to spend the next chunk of your career?
You bet. You know what was really important to me? As I was seeking the next opportunity. I spent the last four years at a firm, a firm. When I joined it, they were about the size of deputy, about $100 Million in revenue. And over the course of three years we had gone public and grew into a multibillion dollar brand. And so what was really for those who don't.
Know, we should maybe quickly what is a firm by an no firm.
Is a fintech company that was started by PayPal co-founder Max Levchin. And it basically we were competing with Afterpay. Yes. So it was an opportunity when you want to when you want to purchase something to split the payments. But a firm was a little bit different than Afterpay. Afterpay was just doing Split in four. A firm was actually offering products where you could pay over time, whether that's
a year or two years or more. And and at the time when I left a firm, I really looked for a company where I can continue down this thread of of bringing technology into areas that have been underserved. And what became very obvious, having spent so many years in technology and having spent many years in Silicon Valley, is that. We have invested a lot billions of dollars in the future of work. But most of that money was flowing into the future of work for knowledge workers.
Whether that is, again, slack, zoom, asana. So many tools have been built for knowledge workers. When you ask what do hourly workers sort of what tools they have to use to be more engaged and more productive. There hasn't been a multibillion dollar brand that's been built. And so it just became obvious to me that while hourly workers are 80% of world's workforce, the technology just has not
been built to help those workers. And so I feel the deputy is really incredibly well positioned to become a global platform for hourly workers. And we do that at scale today. Already we serve over 330,000 workplaces and actually we just cracked 1.5 million hourly workers that we serve and they use deputy every single day where we are a daily work app for, for now over a million and a half users globally.
Yeah, that's.
Amazing. And the purpose driven part, I mean, do you want to explain that a little bit more? Because that's obviously, you know, right in your LinkedIn profile. So how does Yeah. Talk about Deputy and its purpose? Sure.
You know, the way that I the way that I view Deputy is we are a platform that serves both businesses and their employees. And we see that, again, hourly workers in a lot of ways. There are workers that work retail jobs. They work service jobs. They're elderly care workers. Right. And during Covid, these were the they were the frontline workers that helped world move when the rest of us were sort of sitting at our homes. And they were the ones that made sure that the world kept turning.
But pre-COVID, those workers were the invisible workers. And, you know, again, this is why technology hasn't penetrated that space. And, you know, and I'm excited for deputy to be that connective tissue between employers and employees that happened to be the most vulnerable workers and help build tools for them. Yeah. To be more productive and be more be more engaged at work. And here's what's interesting right now. Look at any economy on the planet. If you look at in Australia, in US,
in Europe, we have incredibly tight labour markets. Unemployment rates are at record lows. Right in Australia is 3.4%. In US it's 3.5% For all intents and purposes, that is full employment. And so when I talk to businesses, whether those are businesses here, compass in Australia or whether or whether that is Dutch Bros in America or HQ, one elderly care company out of UK, every single one of those businesses are saying we need more tools to engage
our employees and to retain them. That is the number one job to be done and we believe the deputy sits. We are a wedge between employers and employees and we can become that connective tissue to help employers keep their workers productive and engaged. Yeah.
I want to get to the what you're going to do with Deputy. You know, that's sort of 1 to 100 0 to 1 point, but I wouldn't mind just digging a little bit more into your, your background because I found it interesting. You jump from what looked like the start of a what would have been an amazing finance career. And you joined what must have been a tiny startup at the time, Groupon. Yeah, 2011, I think it was. And I can't remember Groupon's history, but that
was really early in the in that development. So why did you leave a finance career to join a funny looking startup?
Yeah, great question. You know, I had spent a decade in finance and didn't did really work that that gave me great, great purpose investing in women and minority owned companies. But I also asked myself, you know, as I as I spent a decade in investment management, I asked myself, what do I want to focus the next decade on? And so I went and got my MBA. I was getting my MBA in econometrics and statistics from, you know, one of the preeminent economics programs at University of Chicago
Booth School of Business. And I met a wonderful professor, Eric Love Kowski, who also was the co founder of Groupon. Okay. And and so he knew about my love of. Data. I'm a data person at heart. And he said, Well, Sylvia, Groupon is a data company. We collect data on economic activity of the smallest businesses, which happen of SMEs, which happen to build the fabric of economic activity in America. And so he convinced me to join Groupon very early on.
And my job, I remember I first day on the job, I walked into the company and we had just literally had 100 salespeople start. And my boss told me, listen, we have 100 salespeople that don't know who to call. Can you like whip up some data like and build a demand model on which businesses we should call? And that was my first job. And so I went and built a demand forecasting model for what kind of businesses do customers want to go and flock to. And it
was a fascinating problem to solve. Very original right? Because up until that point, small businesses were not digitized. It was impossible to figure out at a societal level what is the demand for massages or for Thai restaurants or for escape rooms. Right. And and also another fascinating problem. After I figured out the demand forecasting and what the demand for those services, local services is, was a, how do you now charge for them? What should the price be? Right.
If I asked you how much should it cost when you jump out of the airplane with a parachute, would you. No, No, you wouldn't. Right?
I guess, but exactly.
Yeah. And so it was another very fascinating problem to solve. And so I led the data teams at Groupon pricing demand forecasting for a couple of years and build that solid data architecture of how to value the services that we were providing.
Yeah, I mean, I want to touch on it later. Just this question of AI and how that's playing a role now, but maybe just throw it in now because that demand forecasting piece, I mean that's using big compute and the latest models to generate probably results should have died for 12 years ago at Groupon.
That is absolutely right. We had this effort when I joined Groupon. It had 5000 businesses and we had this what was supposed to be a year effort on March towards bringing on 100,000 businesses. We went from 5000 to 100,000 small businesses in America in a period of eight months. Wow. And it was both a function of knowing which businesses to tackle, knowing at what price as it was opening our self service engine. And so one of the first projects also was building a self-serve SMB engine where we
opened up our platform to small businesses. And yeah, it was, it was I learned so much about, you know, what tremendous economic value small businesses can create for for economies.
I mean, my brain's going to the technical challenges in 2011 of scaling at that base because there was no cloud computing back then.
And also, remember, iPhone was invented in 2008.
Yeah. So it was pretty crappy in 2011. Yeah, we had one.
You know what? At one point Groupon was after Amazon, the largest mobile company, mobile app on the planet. We have 100 million customers at that point. So it was.
I take it back, I didn't realize that the adoption had been that quick.
Oh, that took a few years. Yeah, that wasn't in 2011. That took many, many years more.
Yeah.
I mean, finishing off in the Groupon, I mean, you were there for almost eight years and, you know, it culminated in you being the CEO or so you obviously were supported from an early point that you had potential and enlisted in that team. So, I mean, do you want to just maybe just give us a summary of that Groupon career story?
Sure.
You know, I always when I look at those Groupon years, there were formative years I learned at Groupon what it means to be a really savvy competitor. Right? Everybody on the planet was wanted to compete. You know, when when when Groupon sort of invented this model. I also learned how to scale as well as, you know, mistakes that were made there. Learned a lot on some of those mistakes. And I ultimately asked myself the way that I approach my career at Groupon was where are the problems that
I can help solve? And so early on, the problems were on the data side. Then, you know, when I solved some of those problems, I really wanted to be close to the customer and that meant. Being much, much closer to our sales team. And so I led a large sales team. I was a CMO as well of our international markets, understanding, you know, our customers and what they were looking for. And then ultimately our CEO tapped
me to go and run international markets. I and I worked with teams from Sydney to Japan, you know, to Tokyo to London. And so I think there were really wonderful learnings there on scaling, Yeah, globally, but maintaining culture, maintaining, you know, a responsible way of scaling. And what do
you mean by that? You know, just ensuring that as you scale, you know, we've seen this in in Silicon Valley, you know, that there has been a lot of companies that have overextended themselves when cash was cheap and a lot of, you know, and anybody can grow a company when you know, when you're when you're spending a dollar to get $0.90, right? That's right. Yeah. I mean, anybody
can do that. Right. And and I think this is one of the reasons why I was so attracted to deputy and frankly to the Australian way of bootstrapping businesses. I have great respect for that. You know, a shift.
Before from other US executives. It's like you guys are really capital efficient. You you grew this, you know, like, you know, I'm a VC as well. And when we look at a company, if there is the same or better than their money invested and I don't know whether it's the same metric, but I mean that's a good performance. But we've had other ones that are, you know, fully bootstrapped before they raise venture fund to 2 million bucks or more. I mean, that's pretty unusual in the.
US that.
That, you know, that is pretty unusual. And especially over the last five years, as you know, there was tremendous amount of capital flowing. There was a little bit of an exuberance in some of the markets, in tech markets in Silicon Valley. And so, you know, I just have great respect for companies that are built responsibly. And I
think that purity really, you know, achieved that. And I think broader community within Australia, you know, is really, you know, should be respected for bootstrapping for sure.
So you left Groupon in roughly 2019 and joined a firm as their co-CEO Chief customer Officer. So you were sales or commercial?
Yeah, I was actually Chief Commercial Officer That's right.
I can't even read my own handwriting here, so that's what I meant to say. So I'm going to use this like again, this is on your LinkedIn profile, but you grew the revenue there from about 100 million to 1 point 3,000,000,000 in 3 years. Pretty amazing. Bringing you back to Deputy. I mean, is that the plan now? I mean, I know you're private, so you're not going to disclose your revenue numbers, but call it 100 mil.
Like what's like what is the current plan? Like? How are you articulating this to your staff and investors and others that you've joined? Like what's what's your objective? Yeah.
I think this next phase of growth is really critical for deputy. You know, I say this to our deputies that we are now in that very delicate and important stage, which is we're a teenage company. We're turning 15 this year. So we're a teenager that needs to grow and scale into adulthood. And what this means is that we need to elevate the company from being a tool that people use into a trusted brand, a global platform, and a leading voice on the future of work.
Okay. But I mean.
Again, I don't want to squeeze you in numbers specifically, but is this a I remember a shake. I went back and looked at my notes from it. But he did talk about the ambitions for a number of workers that you that are using your platform, a number of customers that are using it. Are you talking about that?
Absolutely we are. You know, again, when you look at the scale and the potential of deputy, there is 2.7 billion hourly workers in the world and today deputy serves 1.5 million hourly workers. Here is what I find incredibly, incredibly compelling. Our workers love deputy product. They trust our brand. We know that we build trust between workers and employers. And I know that as we start scaling our business, not just here in Australia, but also in Europe and
in US. I know that our potential and opportunity is massive and I cannot wait for a day when, you know, deputy platform is used by tens of millions of users globally and that those are the plans that we're building right now. Great.
And geographies. And I know you're servicing lots of different markets, but offices right now you've got us London and here. Is that right?
That is right. You know, I'm going to say when I know the deputy is a really well respected and known brand here. You know, in Sydney, when I have my Sparc logo t shirt and I walk around, hourly workers stopped me in the street and they're like, Oh, you're from Deputy. And, you know, there's so much goodwill for our product here, but I'd love to create that in New York and in LA and in San Francisco
and in London. But I want to make it clear we see growth opportunity in Australia just as much as we see it in Europe and as we see it in us. We want to continue to grow. You know, as a tri continental company. There's so much opportunity here and we actually just recently made an announcement. We brought in two big leaders. One is our first chief customer, officer, Katrina Holt. She will be she is based in us, but is a global role. This is an important role
for us as we as we're scaling our business. And then the second role we announced is the head of EMEA, John Wilson. My prior colleague from Groupon, he led Groupon, Northern Europe and most recently was the CEO of a recruiting company, Step Stone out of UK. And so he brings wonderful tech background as well as recruiting and people
technology background. And then Katrina scaled many fintech companies including she was at a firm and she led merchant operations merchant support as well as customer support at a firm and helped us scale with technology from 5000 merchants to over 200,000 merchants in three years. So I'm excited to bring that amazing global talent.
Diversity. Maybe we haven't touched in there, but just when you're talking about Katrina and I'm thinking of you, I mean, women in the tech environment are not as prevalent as I think most people would like to see. And I know it's an issue that's close to your heart. So do you want to touch on diversity and how deputy views it?
You bet. I mean, first of all, you know, I'm just going to say that the community that we serve, the hourly workers, majority of them are underrepresented groups. They're minorities and women. And so I want to make sure that our team and deputy reflects the customers that we serve. And I'm incredibly proud that 70% of our leadership are minorities and women. And, you know, I have great commitment to continue to continue to build a very diverse team
because our customers require that right. How can we build for our customers if our internal team don't represent them? Yeah. So I'm super, super excited to continue to build a very diverse team. Yeah.
I should maybe touch on funding and I'll maybe start it with the funding climate. I mean, it's tough out there. I mean, later stage companies in particular are just not raising and. Right now. I mean, who knows when that's going to open? Like the IPO window is firmly shut. So I can't even ask you that question as to whether you're going to think about that, because it probably won't happen yet. So, I mean, how much can you share on this? Because Deputy has taken several rounds of finance.
My suspicion is you'd be getting close to break even. So you may not need it anymore. But again, even large companies that are breaking even, I'm thinking just, you know, thousand meters from here at Canva, they still have to do liquidity rounds to get, you know, cash into their early investors and staffs out the resort bucket. I mean, it's great getting your salary, but you can't buy a car or, you know, pay down your mortgage with, you know, share options that you can't sell. So how are you
thinking about liquidity in the current market? And you need to.
You bet. I think that. You know, we see the macro environment is really, really tough. And as we discussed earlier, when capital was cheap, a lot of folks, you know, raised it 20, 30, 40 X valuations. Yeah. You know, with with with a few million dollars in revenue. And and so, you know, a lot of folks are trying to find their way forward. And I'm excited to say that deputy is not in that place. We are you know, about 200,000 tech employees have lost their jobs in America
over the last few months. It's been really, really difficult for Silicon Valley in particular and.
Didn't realize it.
Was that many.
So, yes, you know, a lot of large companies that have that are sort of embracing now responsible growth. Yeah. And you know, and I and I'm I am excited the deputy is in a position of strength where financially sustainable and deputy has been raised in the last five years because we didn't need to. Yeah. And so you know I'm I'm I feel that we are in a position of strength and we are building, you know, global expansion plans because our mission deserves it and because our
product deserves it. And, you know, we're not just competing here regionally. We're competing on a global level in in Australia, in US and in UK. And again, while to continue to grow our business, we don't necessarily need funding. We do ask ourselves how do we accelerate some of our growth paths, especially as there will be a lot of interesting companies out there that perhaps, you know, don't have
that runway to continue as independent companies, you know? So there may be interesting opportunities to find interesting teams and companies to acquire. And and also, we want to continue to build out our product suite. Again, you know, I discussed our product and our business vision as one that is a platform for both employees and employers and employers. And we want to continue to solve problems for both sides of that network. So we are thinking about acceleration
of our product roadmap. And yeah.
And that.
May involve external.
It may involve external funding, you know, but, but we, we are keeping our options open because.
You went through an IPO with Groupon that happened during your time there.
Is that right?
Groupon IPO happened. That's right. Just as I was joining and a firm IPO happened about 18 months post me joining.
Um look I'm not going to ask are you going to IPO because that's not reasonable to to ask that. But there are you know in the old days it used to be IPO or full sale to get any kind of liquidity back into the business. But now there is this secondary market arising. So even in Australia you've got second quarter as a, you know, better known secondary fund, you know, and they're sort of buying into later stage companies with the view that they're going to IPO later.
But that liquidity comes back to the early employees and the early shareholders. So again, are you getting any pressure from early employees or early shareholders that are like, you guys have done well, but you know, I really need to return some cash to my LPs or buy a nice car.
Here is here is what I'm going to say. You know, as I was joining Deputy, I had a conversation with our whole board. And what I heard from them, from every single one of them, is that they believe the
deputy can become a generational software company. And I joined as the CEO because I believe that to I believe that if we serve both sides of our network, employers and employees, and if we continue to build products that are going to help them sort of be more productive and have a more thriving workplace, I know that we can become a lasting company. That is what I'm obsessing about. And frankly, you know, I shared our vision and our strategy with our employees and their heads down working on
building our business. And again, we sit in, you know, in a in a position of strength. I am not obsessing right now about financing because we don't need to. I am obsessing about how do we build the right business strategy and how do we build the right product roadmap so that we can serve more employees, more businesses and and more hourly workers.
I do remember the last interview with a sheikh I asked him about because deputies are definitely a desirable place to. Work. I mean, I think your Glassdoor reviews are high and I think you're on the list of great places to work. I mean, that's obviously I mean, that is it. Let me ask it as a question. Is that still continued and is you retention better than average? I mean, tell us about that.
Absolutely. I am. You know, deputies and our culture that Ashiq has built is really one of the main reasons why I joined. You know, I when I had dinner with our leadership team before I took the job, it was, you know, she it was really important to both of us that I got a chance to get to know the people that will be my co partners in crime. And so I had a dinner with our whole and I asked them a question. It was a it was a big test. And I asked them a question. If
deputy was a person, what would she be like? And, you know, beautiful adjectives were said. You know, our leadership team said she is competent. She is quietly confident, she is ambitious, she is kind. And I think those are the words that describe our deputies. And, you know, there's so many people, countless people that have been here, you know, every every all hands. We celebrate our anniversaries and every single time there is folks that have been here for
five years, for seven years, for ten years. Last week, we had someone that's been here for 15 years that we celebrated their deputy bursaries. And I'm incredibly proud of our deputies. And, you know, I think the reason why we see such a strong retention is that we're not just building a company that can create great economic value. Meaning the financial benefit. We're here to create societal good. Two, to help bring technology into this invisible workforce that's been ignored,
that's been underserved by technology companies. And so I think, you know, we're all here to do well, but we're all here also to do good.
Yeah.
That's great. I love that story. Are you hiring now?
Absolutely. Please take a look@deputy.com. We have a variety of roles in engineering. In fact, we're looking for our head of engineering right now. Okay. We'd love to bring an amazing engineering leader from underserved community or a woman. And we're looking for roles across our geos in London and San Francisco and here in Sydney. Yeah.
And how big is the staff now?
We are one important bit. We are remote first, which means that we're hiring. We want to hire top talent anywhere. And so while we have our while we have our offices in those geos that I mentioned, we are remote first. So we are hiring, you know, folks everywhere. We want to access the best people wherever they're at. The company right now is reaching that 400 employee count.
Yeah. Wow.
That's great. I wanted to come back to I. So maybe make this a last topic and then we'll jump to the quickfire round. So eyes being front of mind really since last November when ChatGPT came out. But the reality is has been around for much longer than that. That's the first reality. And the second reality is it's not all about generative AI. So can you touch on AI and the current who has owned it and how Deputy is thinking about using it?
That's right. You're absolutely right. The the generative AI is the hype right now, you know, but I has been around and machine learning has been around for much, much longer. In fact, I spent a lot of time at a firm at the fintech that I was at using machine learning to determining credit worthiness of unbanked population. You know, and we we had machine learning models that that were
really risk risk models for credit worthiness. And and so what we're seeing right now, all the hype is as we type in a funny question, seeing how Chad or Bart talks to us. Yeah. And so yes, that's you know, that is interesting. But what I'm more interested in is how can this technology sort of perhaps take some of the biases that exist within hiring, within, you know, within workforce management, and how can it create better ways to
serve our customers? And so over the last few months, we've been spending a lot of time at deputy talking about this. And we have a couple of hypotheses. The first one is that, you know, just like with any technology when it's introduced, there will be some disruption of of work. There will be some disruptions. We believe that this S-curve, this innovation will actually impact knowledge workers much
more than service and hourly workers. And so our hypothesis is that actually more of those knowledge workers will be taking part time jobs and get jobs.
And while interesting, I've not heard that. Yeah, I mean, make sense. I've not heard it expressed like that before.
And so we actually believe that the community that we serve, which are hourly workers, we think that that community is going to continue to grow. The second hypothesis that we have is that the most early impact, you know, early and impactful application is going to be in customer support, sort of providing better ways that customers can deploy, you know, technology.
And so we are looking at how can we use AI for customers to get any answers about their workers, answers about their labor costs, you know, answers about their sales and optimizing, you know, sort of those ratios, costs and sales and also answers around, you know, I mentioned in the beginning, I'm a data person and I cannot wait when deputy can be deputy data can drive better behavior. Uh,
between workers and businesses. And so imagine if you were a coffee shop and you didn't have good retention and deputy platform could help you with tools and ideas on how to retain your workers better because we're going to have data from coffee shops all over the world and we can tell you what tools they're using to engage their workers and keep them more productive. And so I just think that that I can, you know, can build
tools and data to build more thriving workplaces globally. And that's what excites us.
And are you working in that internally now?
We're working on all sorts of things internally that, you know, I am not going to disclose that. It's exciting time in deputy for sure. For innovation. Yeah.
All right.
Thank you. That was epic. Really enjoyed the conversation. Should we jump to the quickfire round?
Let's do it.
And it did give you advanced warning at least ten minutes.
On this one. Ten minutes. Advance warning.
So we're always looking for I mean, we're try and do the same questions for every guest. And then it's interesting to see what they say. So do you have a recommended book?
You bet. I am an obsessive reader of autobiographies and memoirs. Any of those are always my fave and I love reading leadership books. So I'm going to recommend actually a leadership book that I read recently. It's called Leading Lightly by Jody Michael. This is someone that I've known for many years. It is a beautiful, beautiful, practical tool on how to grow resilience during the tough times. So I would encourage CEOs, you know, C-level and managers to look it up, leading lightly.
Interesting.
Is it I mean, everyone has tough times. I mean, sometimes all the time. I mean, it's like whether it's in work or your home life or, you know, your health or whatever. And it's is that does that cascade across all, you know, all the different aspects of people's lives?
It absolutely does. And, you know, and and we know that in some economies it's it's it's really difficult right now with inflation with right and and I think resilience building resilience muscle is unbelievably important. And you know, for me it started early. I mentioned I grew up in in Croatia during the war, not unlike what's happening in Ukraine today. And, you know, growing up in those conditions, it really gave me valuable lessons how precious time is. Yeah.
And as I lead deputy forward, I feel great urgency to solve for the problems of businesses and hourly workers, and I feel great urgency to bring this technology globally.
I love that. It's great. Well, you've got plenty of time. You're still very young.
That's arguable. Yeah.
Well, it's all relative. I mean, I'm getting old now.
Fourth decade.
Is actually.
My favorite decade to date.
Yeah, I think the combination of ability and knowledge kind of peaks. I think in your 40s and then in your 50s, like meats over the other side. This gets worse. No, hopefully it's not right. Well said. Hopefully I'm getting better. Well, I don't know. Podcast.
Oh, I'm obsessed with Kara Swisher. Oh yeah. Pivot podcast, my fave. I never miss it every Friday. She's just she's magic.
She has you in the show.
Was that as she had.
You on the show?
Yeah. Let's let's pitch her. Let's picture here. Maybe we sent her this forecast.
Yeah, maybe she's a listener. Who knows?
No, that's a good one. I love that one as well. Next one was news source. What did you read?
You know what? I ingest news literally. As someone who grew up in communism where there was only one news agency and that was the Communist Party, you know, and, you know, I operate globally. Every single business I've worked at over the last couple of decades has been a global business. And so I read everything from Wall Street Journal to Economist to Fortune to CNN to BuzzFeed, you know, to The Australian. I love to read all of it. And also I love research. I love research. Of course,
the future of work is being defined right now. There's not enough research on, you know, the future of work for hourly workers. And we're excited to partner with Harvard. Harvard is doing a shift work project that Deputy is partnering with to sort of double click into what is the future of work for the 80% of workforce that happened to be hourly workers.
That's great.
Uh, do you have a favorite app on your phone?
You bet. Spotify music gets me through the day. Anything from gangsta rap to Beyonce to, you know, instrumental guitar, Spanish guitar. I love it.
All.
And how do you listen to it? Do you pick a song you like and then go to play radio, or do you have your preferred playlist?
This Will Yeah, this will be an insight into my brain when I find something I really love. I just obsessively listened to that one song. Okay, so, so yeah. And then actually Spotify has an amazing I don't know if you, if you noticed for those of you who listen to Spotify, they now have a DJ that gives you recommendations based on what you've listened to. And so I love, you know, and both the DJ gives you things that you've listened to over the last five years,
but also new recommendations. It's a really great recommendation engine too, so I discover new things through it.
Yeah, that's great. Uh, who is your favorite CEO or founder?
Oh, my goodness. I'm going to have to go. You know, personally, one of my faves is, is our board member, Allison Deans. I want to be Allison when I grow up. She's such an amazing thinker, leader, operator and a wonderful, wonderful champion of deputy. And I'm so thankful that that she's on our board. But, you know, I would actually like to say when.
You know, you know, that the sheikh ever tell you this story, I just remembered it triggered the reason that she's on the board is because, A, she heard my interview with her on this podcast and then said, we really need to get her.
Okay, this is 360 right now.
I did not know that.
I've forgotten that, actually, but that I'm pretty sure that's right, isn't it? Yeah.
That's a great yeah, great.
I'm a huge fan of Allison's as well. I mean, she's amazing. She's just done so much. Oh, and she gives and she's smart and she's just got great stories. I mean, if you haven't heard that podcast and go back and listen to it, it's just amazing.
You bet. And I do want to say one other thing. If you asked me favorite execs, I would say those are the C, C, o O's. Those are the number twos that are women that haven't stepped up and taken the number one job. And I hope that many of those number twos that are listening right now that, by the way, know how to operate a business, know how to scale teams, know how to grow the right culture. I hope that more and more of the number twos that are women take the number one job, especially in tech.
You know, the fact that less than 10% of CEOs and tech are women. I hope we grow that.
Yeah, yeah. Here. Here. Productivity tool. How do you stay efficient? Especially having heard your reading list.
Okay, my.
Team is going to tell you I'm an avid texter. I love texting. I text 1000 miles an hour. So my. Productivity tool or messaging tools. Okay. WhatsApp is probably my fave, right? You know, I believe that, you know, if it can be done now, why wait till tomorrow?
Do you think there's a.
Is there an emerging messaging tool? I mean, again, with my hat on, we're looking at a messaging evolution, I suppose you might call it. Do you think that's needed?
I think it absolutely is needed. And I actually believe there's been a lot of wonderful businesses that we know of in Asia that have built multibillion dollar brands, starting from messaging. I think messaging is an interesting wedge into e-commerce and to delivery and to many other things. And in the Western world, we haven't quite yet nailed that. And so I know that Facebook has tried to do that. You know, some other folks are talking about it.
As soon as the new one comes out, Facebook will just copy it.
So yeah, exactly. I can see that you can, Yes. Yep. Agreed.
But yeah, you know, I also asked that question, you know, how can we enable better communication? And I hear consistently from our businesses there like we just love deputy and Newsfeed feature where they can communicate with their hourly workers on the go communicate about what's happening in the company, what are the new processes and procedures. And so we're excited about the engagement we see within our tools.
Yeah. All right. Well, can I switch the mics off? I'll I'll tell you the idea because this was it. Yeah. TV show. Do you have time to watch telly? If so, what do you watch?
I do.
So I've had some time. I've been here for three weeks in Sydney. My family is over there in us and I actually bumped into this incredible documentary that I'm obsessed with, and it's based on a book by Studs Terkel. The book is called Working. I read the book at University of Chicago. It is a beautiful book written about the stories of ordinary people mailman, a worker at an
elderly care facility. And Barack Obama has a Netflix documentary that is based on this book called Working, and it's a documentary showing day to day lives of retail workers, hotel cleaners, you know, elderly care workers. And it is it is a beautiful, beautiful story. And, you know, it touches our community. These are the people that we serve with our technology. And I am obsessed with it. And please watch it.
I'm sorry. What's that called again? Just it's.
Called working.
Right? Netflix, Netflix.
Documentary that Barack Obama actually is.
Leading. Oh, great.
I'll look that one up. All right. Last question. If you were asked to do a Ted Talk on a specific topic, what would you talk about? And maybe you've done one. I don't know.
I have not done one. I would actually talk about resilience. I would talk about grit.
Yeah, that's great.
That's it.
It's such an important virtue or asset in people. All right. I don't really have anything else to add on that, so I think that's amazing. Thank you. I really enjoyed meeting you. Sylvia was the first time we met, so thanks for being in the show. But you get so much energy. You're very charming. You've got great vision for the business. And I think, you know, deputies are in pretty safe hands. You know, I thought it was good, but you seem to be next level. No offense, Ashiq.
I'm sure he's listening. No, look, it's amazing. I love this story, which is why we've had you on three times. So thank you. Yeah. Sylvia, Thank you. And thanks, everyone, for listening.
Thank you, Ian.