Martin Mezei is involved in global recruiting. He is based in Barcelona. I was in Sarasota. We met virtually a couple of months ago, overcoming issues of time zones and bandwidth. I thank Martin for the invitation and a lively discussion.
For me, our conversation was a great distraction from the disruption and uncertainty spreading around the world. It was an opportunity to reflect on half a century’s experience in finance. We reflected on business principles I learned early and carried through a long career. We talked about hiring, budgeting for the hiring process, and how best to help people to learn the ropes, how to incentivize employee investment and growth. We talked about how business culture has changed with the rise of remote work and remote conversations. Finally, we talked about The Fed and the Flu: Parsing Pandemic Economic Shocks and how that book project evolved. We hope readers enjoy our banter and glean some insights. Note that Martin has a few ads inserted, and they may be skipped after the first few seconds.
A few excerpts follow:
“My origins were in a grocery store in Vineland, New Jersey, where I learned in the grocery store some business applications from my father and from my grandfather – the store was founded by my great-grandfather – And they were my teachers. I have a few degrees from universities; they came second. The teaching was from my grandfather: Pay your employees even when things are so bad that you don’t pay yourself – number one. Number two: Never cheat or lie to your employees because if you cheat them, you teach them to cheat.” – David Kotok
“You learn from the mistakes and painful lessons. I did. When you have good outcomes, as a human, managing or operating in a business, you think you’re very smart. Maybe you weren’t smart; maybe you were lucky.” – David Kotok
“So the book is two things: One, it’s a history book. But two, it has a bunch of lessons. And we’re human beings, so we forget to learn from the previous lesson, and we repeat it.” – David Kotok
Here’s the 44-minute video, which was released on September 13 by Paired Recruiting. A link to the transcript, which has been lightly edited, follows.
“5 Decades, Zero Fines: The Business Rules That ACTUALLY Work | David Kotok Interview” | Paired Recruiting
