Ed Baker - Champion Ironman athlete - Investor, Entrepreneur, and Growth Specialist - Facebook/ Uber
Episode 61: Ed Baker - Champion Ironman athlete - Investor, Entrepreneur, and Growth Specialist - Facebook/ Uber
See below for Deals and Coupon Codes, Show notes, Timestamps, and Links
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Show notes (please see Timestamps below for more detail)
In this episode of The Greg Bennett Show, Greg has a wonderful conversation with one of the brilliant minds of the 21st century. A key figure in developing growth with some of the world's leading tech companies. Ed is also an extraordinary athlete, winning his first Ironman after only 6 months of being in the sport of Triathlon.
Father of four. Harvard Grad, MBA at Stanford Business school, Investor, Entrepreneur, and Growth Specialist. Previously Vice President of Growth at Uber and Head of International Growth at Facebook. He speaks Mandarin and Japanese. And just recently at the youthful age of 39, he found Ironman. And he’s not just good at his new chosen sport, he’s exceptional.
At his first Ironman at 2018 Lake Placid he won overall in 9hr 18, only a few months after he started the sport, and qualified for Kona IM World Championships in the process… a month after that breakthrough at Lake Placid he then went and raced the Copenhagen IM and was first age grouper in 8.27 and finished 10th overall including the professionals.
On top of all of that, he’s a great guy, incredibly down-to-earth, and simply a genuine person.
In this episode, Ed describes his journey into endurance sport and how running in high school enabled him to find confidence and belief in himself in a time when many of us are struggling with insecurities and are finding ourselves. He discusses his time running at Harvard and post University and then his void of physical activity for 10 years as he was consumed by work building his own company's Datesite.com, Friend.ly, and then eventually at Facebook and Uber.
He describes the cultures of Facebook and Uber and his relationship with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Ed shares how he decides to invest and become an advisor in various companies. We discuss growth and how Ed has used both science and art to grow all these companies.
A lot to learn from this one, from one of the great minds in investing and entrepreneurship.
See the timestamps below for more detail.
Timestamps
0.0 - Introduction to show
1.40 - Sponsors
5.50 - Start to show – Introduction
7.00 - General chit-chat - Feeling like "imposter syndrome" - confidence - humility - Greg met Ed's cousin Angela in the playground
10.10 - Rewind the clock - Endurance Sports - 13 moving from California to Florida at a difficult age - Ed found his place with running - he'd found academics but didn't feel like he fit in - a coach at High school reached out to Ed to join the X country team - Addicted to running - Harvard coach was interested in Ed - Running was a big part of Ed's life at Harvard - indoor 3km was 8.07 but got DSQ for not staying in his lane at the finish - The fuel of people doubting you is incredible - Fueled by love and piece - indoor tracks verse outdoor track - Running beyond Harvard - 2.21 marathon best - 1.05 1/2 marathon -
23.00 - Finding Ironman - Starting to road bike - group rides - started swimming in his late 30s - found coach Matt Dixon
27.00 - Mini break - Advertisement
28.00 - Kate Courtney - Coached now by Dr. Dan Plews - Ed took a year off after a serious bike crash - found Dr. Dan Plews and Endure IQ -
31.20 - Kona Ironman did not finish in 2018 due to hip flexor issues - opening up hip issues - hip hook https://www.alethahealth.com/ -
35.00 - The bike accident in 2019 - the chain slipped and locked the bike up and Ed flew off his bike and broke clavicle, ribs, and transverse process - before the crash Ed was in the best shape of his
39.50 - Ed's career - Harvard physics and chemistry - built the first website called at Harvard, Datesight.com launched in 1999 - in one week every student in Harvard had signed up - Ed's interest was in the math behind the growth - K Factor of one is the perfect amount - Understanding how to get one user to share with one other user - Growth art and science - how has human behavior changed - monetize datesight.com
49.20 - Friend.ly - in 2011 Facebook bought friend.ly - Mark Zuckerburg and Ed went for a walk one afternoon and the next morning Mark decided to buy Friend.ly - a part of the deal would be that Ed would work for Facebook as head of International growth - Facebook had product-market-fit - focussed on emerging markets - Facebook is over 3 billion users they own Instagram & Whatsapp -
53.45 - Relationship with Mark Zuckerburg
55.30 - Moving to Uber - First time using Uber - Customers and drivers - "It has product-market fit", "I believed in the product" - "it still felt like a scrappy startup" - Uber had incredible hyper-growth - Travis was the founder and CEO of Uber - Ed went to invest but was offered a job - Ed started with 5 employees - Ed's time became more of a manager - in 4 years Uber was - doubling head a year was about the right amount - Uber was growing every 6 months - The North star metric for Uber was placed on weekly trips - growth rate between Facebook and Uber
1.05.02 - Product or people when investing - "You need both" - "Have products I personally love" - Ed's investments:
Investing and advising - "I like to do both" "I focus on the growth side" - "Growth is about removing friction and barriers for the user"
1.12.10 - Examples of removing friction and barriers - finding drivers
1.14.50 - Team and relationships - Family - Wife Sarah and four kids - Dr. Dan Plews - Ed's brother and parents - Ed has hit the pause button on all bodywork - a new member of the team is Vasa swim erg specialist Vitali in Russia
1.19.00 - Morning routine - Ed trains in the morning early with yoga and stretching then does all his workouts in the morning - afternoon is for meetings
1.22.00 - Coffee - Liones Maine tea - Athletic Greens
1.23.15 - Sleep and recovery - bed early - Chilipad - Shakti mat
1.26.30 - Conclude - swimming - loosening up the shoulders -
Links
Be sure and check out bennettendurance.com
Find Greg on social media:
Twitter Greg Bennett Show
Instagram The Greg Bennett Show
Check out Ed Baker at:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/uber.ed.baker/
Web - https://www.edbaker.com/
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