He Scaled BlackBerry to $20B. Then He Rebuilt Sonos the Inside Out.

Transcript

[00:00:01] Patrick:  In this AI-dominated world, it’s easy to kinda fall into the trap of all efficiency, all automation, when the real winners will be those companies that figure out who the right people are that bring creativity and taste into the equation, right, to help solve new problems and build new businesses and address these things. And, of course, they will wield AI in doing so, but the real differentiator will be what it’s always been, which is the people that are inside the company, figuring out, you know, how to solve the hard problems.

[00:00:34] Intro:  Welcome to Signal to Noise by Riviera Partners, the podcast where leading executives share how they cut through the noise and act on what matters most. We go beyond the headlines to explore the pivotal decisions, opportunities, and inflection points that define their careers and shape the future of the companies they led. It’s time to cut through the noise and get to the signal.

[00:00:58] Josh:  Welcome to Signal to Noise. I’m Josh Narva, partner and Head of Talent Advisory at Riviera Partners. My career has been spent helping high-growth companies unlock their potential through exceptional leadership and talent at all levels, from being one of the first hires at two Sequoia incubations to leading global talent at Sonos through its scale-up and eventual IPO, and later advising leaders at Google on executive and organizational talent strategy in the office of the CEO. Today, I’m joined by Patrick Spence, someone I’ve had the privilege of working closely with through one of the most transformative periods in Sonos history. I worked with John MacFarlane, cofounder and CEO, to hire Patrick first as the Chief Commercial Officer. Patrick later served as CEO of Sonos from 2017 to 2025, guiding the company through international expansion, product innovation, and an eventual IPO. Prior to Sonos, he spent fourteen years at Blackberry, where he helped scale one of the most iconic consumer brands of our time. Patrick now also serves on the board of Snap and the Canadian Shield Institute, continuing his work shaping bold and innovative companies. Patrick, the one part I left out about your bio is that we’re friends, and that’s maybe the most important part of why you’re here and why this is such a pleasure for both of us. In addition to all of your professional accomplishments, the fact that we’re friends is the very best part of any business relationship, which, when you meet someone with shared values who leads you the way you wanna be led, creates a friendship. And the very best recruiting starts with real relationships and eventual friendships, ideally. So to call you a friend is the ultimate sign of a positive business relationship, but also of the recruiting ethos at Sonos that brought us together. Patrick, I am thrilled to have you here, and let’s dive in. Given the name of the podcast, what’s the biggest signal you’re paying attention to right now, and what noise are you tuning out?

[00:02:59] Patrick:  So first of all, it’s amazing to be here and together with my friend Josh, so I’m looking forward to this. The biggest signal today is around artificial intelligence. No surprise, but I think the important thing is that there are really extremes on either side of the pendulum, if you will. There’s an extreme which says this is going to solve every problem and do every job in the world, and there’s another extreme which says artificial intelligence is, you know, going to destroy us and a very pessimistic view. And so what I’m paying the most attention to is what are the real business problems and kind of economic and world problems that it can actually help solve, and trying to quiet that noise that comes from either extreme that is really a thing that in an attention economy gets a lot of the clicks and the headlines, but isn’t as useful for those of us trying to, you know, build something new and really improve the world kinda one step at a time.

[00:03:55] Josh:  Let’s rewind from all of that to the very beginning. How did you land at RIM right out of college?

[00:04:02] Patrick:  Yeah. It was pretty unexpected, quite frankly. I’d done an internship at IBM, and I had a return offer. And I figured I would work at IBM for a few years, build a set of skills, and then join a startup or start my own company. So I kinda had in my mind I could do that for five years. But I was an undergraduate student at the business school in Canada I was, and I saw this startup in Canada, actually looking for an MBA student. And so, being as ambitious as I am and bold, I applied for the role in product marketing, and I got to meet Jim and Mike, the two co-CEOs of RIM, which later became BlackBerry, and the leadership team. And you could tell that something exciting was going on there. And so I had this very similar feeling later on when I joined Sonos, but I had this feeling of something really unique, a unique group of people on a unique mission. And so it felt like something special was going to happen. And, you know, it was an incredible run, fourteen years there, an opportunity to do so many different things across, you know, sales, marketing, information technology, all these different groups. And so it was an incredible run. I didn’t know it was gonna be so special that we’d eventually build to be a $20,000,000,000 company. But, you know, across fourteen years, being able to achieve that was absolutely incredible.

[00:05:18] Josh:  Yeah. And you know that I’m not gonna shy away from the hard questions here. So you mentioned the long run. What happened at the end, and where do you think BlackBerry ultimately went wrong?

[00:05:28] Patrick:  Yeah. I think there were really three things. So I think we had lost our true drive around innovation and continuing to build on our strengths in enterprise, in keyboards, and some of the technologies that we had led on and really become the leader in smartphones around. The second was that we went through a period of hiring a ton of people very quickly, and I think we fell into that typical trap of trying to hire too many people too quickly and lowering the bar on our talent, actually. And we didn’t have a great process. We didn’t have a great talent organization inside the company. And so I think we really lowered the bar and kinda dropped the ball in terms of adding way too many people too quickly, not really being thoughtful about that. And then finally, we had a moment to pivot where BlackBerry Messenger was actually a product that had 80 million daily active users back at a point where WhatsApp had 5 million. And, you know, there was a part of the company that had a proposal and a view to make it work across all products and become, you know, the kind of standard messaging app across iOS, Android, Blackberry, PC, you name it. But there was a group inside the company that didn’t wanna cannibalize the hardware sales and so wanted to use it to just try and sell more hardware. And so I think it’s a classic innovator’s dilemma challenge where, you know, we should have bet on the messaging platform and being the open messaging platform, but it was very hard to give up at that point $16,000,000,000 a year in hardware revenue, to really think about the future. And so those are kind of the things that I think in the end ultimately caused BlackBerry to, you know, really lose its crown as the smartphone leader.

[00:07:04] Josh:  Yeah. A lot of themes there that we’ll come back to, hiring too fast, lowering the bar, but in some respect, BlackBerry’s loss was the gain of Sonos. So let’s go back to 2012. We met. Why don’t you share a bit about how that process was, what you knew about Sonos, and how that transition eventually unfolded?

[00:07:23] Patrick:  Well, I was already a huge Sonos fan. That was the only reason I took, you know, really the call and was willing to talk to John and you and, you know, and entertain it. I’d sold, I wanna say, 30 different Sonos systems by that point. And so it was interesting because I really, you know, felt a connection with John in building a company the right way the second time, because I kinda looked at this as an opportunity to take everything I’d learned, RIM, BlackBerry, and, you know, and use that to grow and help another company grow. And then I think it was kind of the personal and deep approach that you and John, and Amanda all took in, you know, connecting with me, and the experience of being kinda brought into the company. It was amazing because it wasn’t a sales pitch as much as it was, you know, a relationship-building to figure out if there would be a good fit. And so I really appreciated that, and I appreciated the candor throughout the process as well. And so quickly, you know, it became apparent to me that there was something special happening at Sonos. And so, it was a company that I thought would be very interesting to join. I think there were at that point, there were 200 people and about 200 million in revenue. And so it felt like me, another great opportunity to build and scale an awesome consumer tech company.

[00:08:44] Josh:  Yeah. I mean, that’s obviously great to hear, but you’ve also answered the question I was about to ask, so I don’t wanna lead the guest too much. But you can tell me, you know, was that really the thing that made the company so special? I mean, it was an epic run. There are not many hardware companies that have gone through that kind of scale-up from 300 and change to 1,800. You know, you took the company public. So, beyond your experience, how did you experience that level of recruiting and connection across the company? Can you speak to what made the company successful and able to grow at the rate that it did?

[00:09:18] Patrick:  It was a unique collection of talent across a variety of disciplines, unlike anything else that I’ve seen. And so even at 200 people, we had such a unique combination of engineering, you know, hardware and software engineering. You know, really, some of those brought together Wi Fi, digital music, and computing, like, altogether. And so you needed a set of all these different kinds of skills and industrial designers, UX experts, right, and then go-to-market experts as well, and so, the supply chain, all of it, inside a 200-person company. That was pretty incredible to bring together. Most companies would have thousands that are trying to pull off something like that. And I think it’s a testament to the quality of people that we were able to attract at Sonos, which starts with clarity around what the mission is, right, and the mission being clear about wanting to fill every home with music was big in terms of getting people attracted, but it was more than that. It was this feeling that you got when you started to talk to, you know, people at the company about what it was like to work there and the way that, you know, really, you and the team at Sonos on the talent side had kind of looked at the process of recruiting as a product in and of itself. And, you know, they often say the way, you know, you do anything is the way you do everything. And so the same level of, you know, kind of care and quality that we put into building the product experience was something I feel like really our talent group set itself apart from in terms of doing it in that same kind of way. And so bringing, you know, a unique approach to talent that was very similar to the unique approach we brought around experience to the product as well. So, you know, one of a kind product, and I think one of a kind from a talent approach as well.

[00:11:07] Josh:  And let’s talk about the talent approach. We, I think, realized early in your tenure with support from you and John and others that it was the differentiator. We tried to name it at a certain point and called it the trusted advisor model, right, where recruiters were just that, trying to be trusted advisers not only to hiring managers, but to candidates. Talk a little bit about that model and how you saw it throughout the company, you know, change the way people thought about not only working at Sonos, but how they wanted to bring people into the company and how they wanted to build their own teams using that same ethos.

[00:11:44] Patrick:  I think an important part of this was the fact that it was John and I going through building and scaling a tech company a second time, right, so what do you learn from that first time? And I think for both John and me, and the typical kind of tech company, it was often, I need to hire this person, and so you give a recruiter this assignment to go find that person. And you might be involved again when there are a couple of candidates to take a look at and all of these things. And so that was what the typical was in tech and, quite frankly, for everything I see, still is. And it was such a different model in the sense that, you know, if we were looking for somebody, you and I would sit down and say, okay, where’s the team right now? What leaders do we have on this particular team? And then what’s really the profile that we need in order to augment this? And a real conversation around, what does the team look like today? What does it look like if we bring a person in? What are the trade-offs that we would make in terms of the individual that is coming in? And then what other companies do we wanna go look for this individual? Have we thought about internal mobility and hires as well in going through it? And so I just found it a much more thoughtful approach to how you’re thinking about the talent that you have on the team, kinda what you’re needing next, and then where it goes over time so that you’re not just relying on a single manager to necessarily make a decision on, hey, I need to hire this person tomorrow because I’m in a hole or fix this particular issue. And so oftentimes, I think the conversation with the trusted advisor is much more like helping the leader be clear about what they need and why, and also sometimes challenging them on, Is this really the right time to be hiring? And are they trying to hire sometimes to avoid a tougher issue, like maybe somebody, performance-wise, they need to address or other issues that may be underlying? And so it almost, in a way, forces a conversation that you might have sometimes with your own manager, but it’s a little bit safer to have it with a trusted advisor that can challenge, and you know they’re there working with you, supporting you, but they’re also gonna ask you some tough questions. And then you’re together gonna develop a strategy for how you go out and find the talent that you need to be successful.

[00:13:58] Josh:  I’m glad you talked about the role that you played in it because the model became successful as a result of it being a two-way street, right? It was, so you, John, and other leaders that you had hired and brought in demanded the same from us, right? Tell me the truth. Do not sugarcoat it, right? If something is wrong, you know, tell me that it’s wrong and tell me why. We don’t have time to waste. Let’s be as direct and respectful to each other as possible. I mean, it was obviously a great experience, and it produced, I think, arguably, years of impeccable results. But it isn’t that way at every company. And oftentimes, people, for whatever reason, have defaulted in a bit more of a transactional process for recruiting. So what advice do you have for CEOs where that’s the situation that they find themselves in?

[00:14:49] Patrick:  Yeah. And oftentimes, when it’s the first time through, right? So again, you know, I think having lived this before and you having an experience, having lived through another, you know, tech startup and worked with a few, you kind of see this, is I really think it is trying to find someone that you can have that conversation around talent in a better way and you know is going to be supportive but challenging and challenging you to do that. And then as a leader, being committed to putting the time in, because I think it’s very different from, oftentimes, you know, it was kind of looked at as I need to fill this particular seat right now, and so let me go quickly hire somebody, or along that line, whereas, you have to shift the mindset to, no, I’m building a team over time. It’s the most important thing because it is the thing that ultimately builds the thing you’re building as a company, and so in order to do that, am I putting the right amount of time into what the team looks like today, an honest assessment of where the gaps are and where the strengths are, and then understanding where you go from here. And, you know, sometimes, Josh, we had conversations, and I was thinking we might do a particular role. And then, really, it turned into, no, this is very different. We’re gonna need two different roles. Maybe we’ll organize the team differently. And so it helps with the overall culture and health of the organization, and it moves it from this idea of I just need to get somebody in this seat. And I think oftentimes, particularly in fast-paced companies, there’s just this notion and this fallback to I need to get somebody in this seat. But I can tell you from the Blackberry experience, you know, I just think that’s a mistake.

[00:16:24] Josh:  And let’s talk about one particular element of that entire success story and talent, which is, I think, looking back, what I got from you and John and what my team benefited from and then as a result leaned into was a really particular type of candidate experience. I think it’s hard sometimes as a leader, you can disagree or not, to invest the time and resources into something like that. It’s easier just to have coordinators, and that’s helpful. But we had a team of people that we renamed talent experience, and they really developed relationships. They understood that, for example, an executive or someone at any level oftentimes was not moving herself or himself, but a spouse, partner, child, or pet. And so you end up building much deeper, transparent relationships when you accept all the things that are going on in someone’s life, and we really care about it. It became part of the employer brand. So have you seen that elsewhere? What do you think was so unique about it? Why don’t other people do that? And what really do you recall from those times that made it such an important part of our success?

[00:17:34] Patrick:  I think it really stemmed from one of our values as a company, which was that the experience comes first, right? And so the way that we built the product very much translated then into the way that you and the team, you know, took on talent, the way John and I looked at it. But, Josh, I think a big part of it is, at so many companies, it’s transactional, and then it’s also about selling people, right, on, you need to join, and here’s why. And it’s viewed, you know, as sales as opposed to let’s get to know each other and see if there’s a fit here. Right? And that that was the thing that was amazing to me in the conversations with you and Amanda and John is this is not about, like, selling somebody on it, but rather, we wanna give you a real view of what’s it like inside the company, not sugarcoat it, and give you as much exposure as possible to the people you would work with, which I think is also unique, what we’re all about, like, actually spend time together, right, quality time together, hours and hours. We were often, you know, people would question how much time we would spend, right, with candidates, but it turned out to be worth the investment, right, because we know that there are so many misfires in hiring, right, and in talent development and all of these things. And so by spending a lot more time upfront and being thoughtful about this, you know, you’re gonna be able to find better fits for the long term. And, of course, like, we made mistakes, but I think we made a lot fewer mistakes than most companies, given our approach. And so it really was that holistic relationship building, you know, and involvement from a variety of people on the team as well that just made it so much better an experience for everybody involved, whether you’re the hiring person on the team that the new hire’s going to lead or part of the talent team.

[00:19:11] Josh:  How do you think about identifying the talent that you need in any context, not just Sonos? And what do you think of when you try to determine good from great?

[00:19:24] Patrick:  I think I’ve learned over time that we all get fooled. Right? We have to be very careful because a lot of our initial impressions, we think we all can, you know, determine who somebody is in even an hour interview, right, or something like that. And so I’ve begun to rely a lot more, and I think over time, one of the other things I would highlight, Josh, is the importance of references at Sonos was higher than I’d seen everywhere. And, usually, you know, yourself and myself, we divide and conquer on that. But the leader would be heavily involved in talking to both listed references and then other references we would find to understand truly who this person is and how we would help make them successful if they were the right candidate. And so for me now, so much of it has been understanding somebody at a deeper level, so spending a fair bit of time with them, understanding what motivates them, what do they wanna get out of it, and really developing that kind of relationship, like you said, a really candid relationship over a period of time, but as well talking to as many people as possible that have worked with that individual to understand what they’re really about, and is this going to be a good fit? And so I think I still think that we, in tech in general, underestimate the importance of references that maybe aren’t provided, but understanding, you know, that you seek out and find that ultimately tell you the strengths and weaknesses of particular individuals. Because, again, the interview process and the experience, no matter how many hours you put in, are still going to potentially you could fool yourself, right? And so I would say that’s the important thing to me. And then I think I’ve found that just the humility and curiosity is the thing that really sets the, you know, the leaders apart that are great versus those that are good. There are some people who are fantastic experts in their area and in their discipline, but, you know, they don’t really have an interest necessarily in learning the next thing or how AI impacts their area. And so they’re good, but the great ones are figuring out, hey, what’s my job gonna look like in five years? What’s the next step for this? Where’s this all going? And they’re humble enough to know that they don’t know, but they’re going to work towards figuring it out. Right? And they’re curious about what those answers are. And so, I think that’s a really, really important dynamic.

[00:21:32] Josh:  Agree. Let’s pivot for a minute from talent to, like, team building specifically. Of the many things that you accomplished, I think the most noteworthy is, like, leading the real scale-up. You know, we were a 3 to 400-person company, mostly in the U.S, when you joined; we were later a 1,800-person, truly global public company. When you think about that level of scale up, while, to your point earlier, not lowering the bar and continuing to have people be bought in to joining the company and then also join a team that has to be, you know, a well-oiled machine and help each other. What is one, give me one belief or strategy around team building that you took away from that experience?

[00:22:17] Patrick:  The most important thing was right after taking over as CEO was just the clarity of the organization and roles and responsibilities. It sounds somewhat cliché, but as you know, we had a few roles that weren’t clear. The organization wasn’t firing on all cylinders in terms of new product introduction. And so by simplifying and clarifying the roles and responsibilities and getting the right talent in the right places, we were able to accelerate our new product introduction engine, which was the critical part in all of this. We’d introduced one new product in the last, I think, three years at that point, and we were able to shift to at least two new products every year. And we did that over the past eight years. And so in some years, we’re shipping three or four. And so we really were able to accelerate, you know, our new product introductions by getting people organized the right way and being able to make sure that then it was clear who was responsible for what and how we were gonna be successful in making that happen without dropping the quality bar. And so that was a really, really challenging thing, but it happened, interestingly enough, through simplifying and clarifying the organization. And I still see, as a lot of companies scale, they get way too complicated, and there are too many people in too many meetings trying to do too many things. And so I would encourage anybody that’s in that position to be thinking, how do we make sure that it’s very clear and very straightforward in who’s gonna make the decisions, fewer committees and some of these things, and instead, just be really clear and approach it in a simple way, and I think that’s gonna be the thing that helps. And, Josh, the other thing I would say on team building that I’ve found that I think was unique to Sonos and part of the talent process was really this notion of having, you know, potential new leaders meet with the people that actual would be their direct reports as part of the kind of the the candidate experience, you know, either as an interview or just kind of informally going through it, I think created a buy-in, you know, from the team and an understanding from the team that would be reporting to them of, kind of, what this person was all about. And sometimes it would show them the gap that they had if they thought they should be in that position as well, which is interesting, and start to develop a relationship. And so I think that was very unique compared to anything else I’ve seen across tech, quite honestly, in terms of having, you know, having potential candidates meet with people that would be reporting to them.

[00:24:31] Josh:  It can be hard in a highly qualitative process to measure unmeasurable things about a relationship like that. We tried very hard at the end to do hiring manager surveys as well as candidate surveys, and that is one of the things that came up as a unique benefit, right, having those conversations. The other thing that came up to your point earlier was when someone was asked a question as a candidate, and the interviewer didn’t agree, there was a pretty healthy, very direct, but also compassionate exchange, right? We talked about transparency, directness. We talked about radical candor, then we called it radical caring. But at the end of the day, there were just real, honest conversations where people were telling you exactly what they thought to determine fit, but in a very authentic and very respectful way.

[00:25:22] Patrick:  That’s right. And it goes back again to developing those kinds of relationships, right, with people and the depth where that is everything at the end of the day. If you’re going to be able to work through difficult issues and difficult changes, which we all have to in today’s business environment, you know, having that kind of relationship from the start and developing those trusted relationships is everything. But enough about me. So I hear you’re starting something new at Riviera. So you’re starting a new talent advisory group at Riviera. So tell me about what that is.

[00:25:53] Josh:  Well, maybe you can help me determine how best to talk about that in the company context. I think at the fund level in the venture community and even the private equity community, it could be as simple as talent partner as a service or fractional talent partner where if there’s a fund that doesn’t have that function or needs more of it, then we have the skills and the desire to come in and help in the same way that a talent partner would today. I think at the company level, we wanna solve problems that include but are not limited to search. We wanna solve problems, as you said, that hover around things that seem like succession planning, org design, internal talent versus external talent, when do you choose a search firm, how do you engage with that search firm, all the things that exist before, during, and after a search. There’s a deeply qualitative need for really tactical help and advice. And, you know, all the things that we went through together at Sonos are things that I think other companies and executive teams will benefit from without a huge slide deck, without a big fancy presentation, but just we’ve seen these problems, and whether it’s an executive coaching dynamic or coming in to actually build up a talent strategy and a vision akin to what we had at Sonos, I think those are the problems that we’re hearing about and that we think we can solve.

[00:27:12] Patrick:  I think it’s a great way for founders to be able to test it as well and see the difference to some degree. And so from my perspective, I think the nice thing is, you know, it’s one thing for people to hear about the experience and what we built out at Sonos. Right? Because it took a lot of time and energy and was super successful. But I also think for a lot of people that are moving a 100 miles an hour and haven’t built a company before and done these things, this seems like another thing, right, on top of the list of all those things. And the nice thing is they can call upon you and the team and actually start to kinda dip their toe in the water on this and understand what it means and how it can help them better think through what they need from a talent perspective overall, really, you know, in a more holistic way, like you said, and think about, okay, you know, not only it’s not about hiring this one person, it’s about where is the team today and what are we gonna need in the future, and is this a particular role? Is it the fact that I need to reorganize the team? Need to think about two different roles, like how I go through it? And so, you know, being able to have somebody that’s been through it like you have and kinda seen it all, I think, is an amazing service. Again, it’s something that people can do without having to hire a whole bunch of people, right, and work through that.

[00:28:26] Josh:  And here’s a hot take or an unpopular take, depending on your perspective, but I was having this conversation with two other CEOs who are existing Riviera clients last week. To some extent, the irony of all the AI traction is that in a world where everyone wants to move faster and have things automated, these conversations have never been more manual. They’ve never been more personal. And there are lots of things that can be made more efficient in the recruiting process, but the real fit, the real hard conversations that lead to a search or not, that lead to an org change, that lead to things that trajectories depend on to go in one direction or another, those are still person-to-person conversations based on experience. And I think that we’ve gotten to the point now where we’ve lost sight of that a little bit, and it’s important to go back to the roots of just being direct, being caring, being thoughtful, and having really hard conversations that alter the course of a company.

[00:29:24] Patrick:  Well, I think the reality is in this AI-dominated world, it’s easy to kinda fall into the trap of all efficiency, all automation when the real winners will be those companies that figure out who the right people are that bring creativity and taste into the equation, right, to help solve new problems and build new businesses and address these things. And, of course, they will, you know, wield AI in doing so, but the real differentiator will be what it’s always been, which is the people that are inside the company, figuring out, you know, how to solve the hard problems, and you kind of, what to go work on next. 

[00:30:01] Josh:  I agree. Patrick, one story that I wanna relive with you, I think it was actually the process of determining the right search partner to ultimately hire you, a conversation I had with John. He had asked me to do a bunch of research to figure out the right external search partner for a chief commercial officer with global experience. Obviously, it was a great result. But the process was complicated because the person I’d identified as the right search partner was not available. So I came to John with several different options, and he frowned at me to say the least, and said, “You know, Josh, you don’t get it.” I was like, Wow, it’s CEOs talking to me like this. He’s like, the point is not to get a search partner that produces the fastest possible outcome, it’s the best possible outcome. And so if you’re telling me that so and so at this firm is the best partner and he or she is not available for six months, then I’m telling you as the CEO, we’re gonna wait six months. And it was profound. I had never had anyone talk to me like that, and I had never had anyone in a position of leadership tell me that speed wasn’t important. So, ultimately, you became the result of that, but I’m wondering if you can reflect on the strategy behind it and knowing what you know about John and what you learned and how it ultimately affected your own leadership, the impact on Sonos.

[00:31:17] Patrick:  Yeah. And I think it stems from, you know, again, overall thinking about the values around the experience and and everything that we were trying to do at Sonos of not compromising on any of these things and making sure that, you know, we’re not just rushing in a world that’s rushing all the time and just trying to check the box to some degree that we’re not doing that. And I think, you know, from my experience at Blackberry and then as well with a number of other tech companies, a lot of the measurement has been how quickly the seat gets filled. And I can tell you, you know, with scars that that is not the right metric to look at because ultimately, you know, you can do so much damage by having somebody in that role, the wrong person, as opposed to taking the time to do it the right way. And I think that was the thing that we really rallied around at Sonos was trying to do everything the right way. And one of those things in talent is making sure that you’re spending the time to have the right talent partner internally, have the right external search firm if we needed to, have the right interviewing team, right? Remember the amount of time we spent making sure we have the right people from a variety of disciplines, sometimes in the room or in the interview panel, and then making sure that the interview panel is equipped with the right questions to ask candidates, as well, right? So this wasn’t just willy nilly. Every step of the way, very planned, very thoughtful to create a great experience for the candidate and also to make sure that we were getting the right candidates at the end of the day that we wanted inside the organization. And so, you know, it’s about doing each step of the way properly if you want a great result.

[00:32:49] Josh:  And back to the composition of the interview panel, another thing that I just realized that was profoundly impactful, you and John, and I often had these conversations about order. And the idea was that you have to sell before you buy, right? You have to explain what we’re doing and why it’s compelling. And so the first interviewer was often someone that just laid out the mission, the vision, the strategy, the role. And people would often say, “Do you have any questions for me?” Like, we do, but we also want you to understand what we think we’re doing here and why it’s important.

[00:33:20] Patrick:  Well, John spent, you know, the first two hours we had together just explaining, kinda what was happening at Sonos and his perspective and me asking questions of him, you know, really about the company and understanding the company. And I wouldn’t say so much selling, but just, again, being transparent about what Sonos was all about. And I think, again, that gets you to, is this person interested? Do they genuinely care about what’s being built? Before you get into, do they even have the skills that are there? But it’s part of a process of really making sure that you’re finding the right kind of person, the right kind of fit for the organization, as opposed to sometimes what recruiting can become, which is selling somebody on joining the company. Right? And I think in that case, you know, the grass is always greener, and so it’s kinda easy sometimes to, you know, say all the right and shiny and exciting things about this new opportunity and ignore some of, like, the realities of the situation. And so, you know, I just think that making sure that you’re being thoughtful about the way that the company, the mission, the details, the challenges, but the opportunities as well, all of it, and kinda being candid about that is so important in finding the right people for the right roles at the right time.

[00:34:31] Josh:  Okay. A couple of quick, rapid-fire questions for you. What’s the most impactful lesson you learned as CEO that you wish other leaders knew?

[00:34:40] Patrick:  You know, there are, I think, in any role, I’ve learned over the years that there are probably one to three, you know, things that are gonna really have a huge impact in a particular week, month, year. And being very focused on what those things are and understanding what those things are is really the art of leadership and being effective. And so, you know, in a very noisy world, I think the key is understanding what, you know, what can I uniquely do, and how am I gonna move the needle on these things, and how are they gonna have an impact on the organization? And so I would say try, in everybody’s role, try and really narrow it down to what are those things that are gonna have a massive impact on the organization, on your team? Whatever your kind of area of remit is, how do you have the biggest impact? And it’s going to be just a few things.

[00:35:27] Josh:  This will be hard for you, but one hire that you’ll never forget and why?

[00:35:31] Patrick:  I’ll actually say it was the first one, the first team member I hired for RIM in Asia Pacific, because I was building a new team. I was quite young at that particular point in time. And so his name’s Angelo. He works now in Toronto. He’s had an amazing career, been super successful, but I think finding him and actually, you know, being able to convince somebody to go on this crazy journey to set up this new tech in Asia Pacific, where we had no foothold, yeah, it was incredible that somebody would be willing to join kind of for that mission as well. So I think I surprised myself in being able to attract someone to do that.

[00:36:09] Josh:  One interview question that you think reveals the most about somebody.

[00:36:15] Patrick:  So I do think, and a lot of people, you know, use this, but I do use “tell me your story” just to see what people, what their narrative is about themselves, and how much they wanna reveal or don’t and go through it. But the one that’s probably more unique that I use that surprises a lot of people is, “Why did you choose to go to the university that you did?” And usually, then people are caught off guard a little bit. And so it’s good just to see how they react to that and how thoughtful they were about it. And then, you know, how candid are they gonna be with why, in some cases and some of those. And usually, it’s a pretty interesting conversation. So I still like that one.

[00:36:49] Josh:  Okay. One leader, past or present, that you’d love to spend a full day learning from.

[00:36:55] Patrick:  I would say John Wooden, read a lot about him, the UCLA basketball coach, but I think he did an amazing job of bringing a variety of people together to be successful as basketball players, and also all of the players did really interesting things in life and were interesting personalities, right? As you think about people like Bill Walton or Kareem Abdul Jabbar, a lot of different players there. And so he seemed to be an interesting leader of men, so I would have loved the opportunity to spend a day with him.

[00:37:23] Josh:  Now I’m gonna put my own personal stamp on the podcast for those who come through Santa Barbara, where you and I lived and worked for many years. What’s the best sandwich in town?

[00:37:32] Patrick:  Definitely the Cuban at Three Pickles on Cannon Perdido.

[00:37:35] Josh:  You’re not gonna say Ding’s Crispy Chicken Sandwich on Coast Royal Drive?

[00:37:39] Patrick:  Pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty close second, but I mean, you gotta go with one of the originals.

[00:37:44] Josh:  Okay. Patrick, thanks very much for being with us today.

[00:37:47] Patrick:  Thanks, Josh. It was a pleasure.

[00:37:49] Josh:  Okay. That wraps up today’s episode with Patrick Spence, former CEO of Sonos and current board member at Snap. We explored how strategic talent decisions helped Sonos scale to a public company, the importance of an exceptional candidate experience, and the impact of embedding a talent advisory layer at the core of any business strategy. Patrick, thank you so much for sharing your leadership insights and for showing firsthand how the right talent foundation drives breakthrough performance. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure to subscribe, share, and leave a review. Stay tuned for more episodes of Signal to Noise, where we continue to explore the intersection of leadership, technology, and innovation. Thank you.

[00:38:34] Outro:  Signal to Noise is brought to you by Riviera Partners, leaders in executive search and the premier choice for tech talent. To learn more about how Riviera helps people and companies reach their full potential, visit rivierapartners.com. And don’t forget to search for Signal to Noise by Riviera Partners on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.