Kelvin: We’re going to round off our session with Lee Bienstock. He’s the global head of enterprise partnerships for Google devices and services. And listen to this: Google trusts him for strategic initiatives and new product offerings. When Google trusts you for strategy and new product offering, you know this guy’s a modern revenue leader, and he definitely has our attention. Lee Bienstock, let’s go.

Lee: Awesome, Kelvin. Thank you. And thank you for having me, Kelvin. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you, Thought Exchange. It’s really great to be here. And I’ve really enjoyed all the great stories and lessons that have been shared so far, so thank you very much.

I would say, you know, this past year-and-a-half has been pretty challenging and a pretty interesting year. So, you know, Kelvin when you asked, you know what have you been doing, what have your teams been doing to kind of take these challenges? You know, I thought I’d share three lessons and three challenges that we’ve been able to turn into opportunities. And I think you’re going to see us leverage these ideas and these activities from here on out. I mean, this is here to stay, right?

So, the first off is, when it comes to being effective, when it comes to achieving great sales, you know, we’re, number one, always supremely focused on building great products that our users will love. Because at the end of the day, if we do that, sales will come. You know, I in my career have been the most amazing sales person and I’ve also been possibly the worst sales person, and when I look at why you see such a such a dichotomy, such a difference, frankly, a lot of it comes down to the product itself. When the product is incredible and when it tells a story and it gives a magical user experience, I think that makes our lives easier. And naturally those products will sell well.

But at the, you know, this year has been challenging because typically when we have that opportunity to share ideas amongst our teams, we call it casual collisions of ideas, right? That’s why we invest so much in the micro kitchens and the cafes and the gyms; we love when our folks come together, share ideas. We do what’s called dog-fooding the product; we try it out ourselves before we release it to the market, and then we share feedback and bugs and how we can make the products better. That’s been tough this year, right?

And so, you know, we have to really think about how do we come together and build amazing products that we think are going to thrive. And I would say some of the ways that we’ve been able to counteract some of those casual collisions that we were having in our office, how we do that remotely, is, hey, we’ve been having folks do a lot more rotations. So spending time deliberately, 20% of your time, maybe 100% of your time, for a set number of months, with other teams. And so really fostering that exchange of ideas throughout the company.

And in the past perhaps I would do a rotation with another team in New York or someone on my team would do another rotation if they were in Mountain View, with a team in Mountain View. We’ve sort of broken that mold because now you could do a rotation with any team anywhere anytime any place. And so while we don’t have those casual collisions in the morning by the coffee maker, we are having it in those rotations and having the ability to do more with more teams, more geographically dispersed. So I think you’ll see us do a lot more of that. We’re going to look – my teams are going to look to do a lot more of that in the future.

I think the second thing is, and a lot of people touched on this, it’s been tough this year not being there in person with our partners and with our clients. Right? We can’t go to conferences the way we used to, and sort of that in-person interaction – Kelvin, you touched on it in terms of the relationships – that’s so crucial. And I would say that’s been a challenge. But at the same time, whereas we at Google, we’re always accustomed to doing video conferences – we’ve been doing that since day one when I started Google 10 years ago – but we always had conversations with our partners and clients for the most part over old school conference call line. And now we’ve seen just a widespread adoption of video calls, and now, instead of having conference calls and having voice calls only with our partners and clients, I get a chance to see them in video every day, every week, every month. And so that has been a huge win, I think, in terms of this new world where now everybody has video conferencing and we get to see our partners.

We just did a partnership with a great, great company out in EMEA, and maybe in the past I would have gone to visit them once, twice in person, right? Now I see them on video; I get that interaction every week in our stand-in calls, whereas maybe we would have only been doing it over old-school voice conference.

So I think that has been a huge plus, and I think maybe it was alluded to – save on the frequent flyer miles. We’ll see. I mean, I still think there’s going to be travel; I still think we’re going to want to see people in person, but I do think there’s going to be a nice bridge between in person but also the face to face that you’ll see. And we’re investing in some amazing technology that’ll make it feel more and more real, more and more like a 3D experience of being in the room of the same person at the same time, even though you may be, you know, over Zoom. So I think you’re going to see us doubling and tripling down on that.

And then I would say, and I think one of the speakers alluded to it too, number three is we’ve always enjoyed and loved doing product demos when we’re looking to do partnerships when we’re looking to sell other companies in our vision and what we’re trying to do. Very often it would start with us bringing the product in a room and letting our partners and our clients use it, feel it and touch it; we would demonstrate it for them; we would do the whole, you know, kind of experience. And it’s really hard to demo a product and get the experience over video.

And one of the things we started doing was, frankly, is we just shipped the actual products to people’s homes. And essentially, frankly, that has been more magical, is for somebody to experience and demo and try the product in their homes as the way it was intended. Right? They can put their speaker in their daughter’s room; they can put the thermostat in their home; they can try, you know, Google Classroom, Chromebook, you know, with their families. They can try YouTube TV and the new Chromecast on their TVs in their living rooms, the way it was intended to be, and the and the experience goes on and on and on.

So I think you’ll still see us do product demos but, frankly, getting the product and getting the service and getting whatever it is that you are building and creating into the world, and less so on a demo while you’re in a conference room, we’ll still do that, but how do they get those people to experience these great products in their homes, in the way it was intended, in their everyday lives, whether it be, you know, in their cars, in their homes, in their offices, and really bring that experience to life? I think you’ll see us continue, and I certainly know my teams will continue to send those products to people’s homes and to let them really immerse themselves in it, versus just a short demo, you know, in a conference room.

So I think that’s the way we’ve adapted. I think we’re going to take a lot of those great ideas and extend them. I don’t think you’ll see us sunset those ideas, because I think they’ve been working incredibly well, and I think, you know, they’ll serve us well, you know, moving forward.

So that’s just some of the things, you know, we’ve done. I think, number one, you know, really making sure that we can get as many ideas to the table to build great products – so that’s number one. Number two: I think the video conference can help put yourself face to face, not just voice to voice but face to face. And number three, I think, you know, getting those product demos to be more immersive in the natural environment they were the products were intended to be used I think is something we’re absolutely going to do, you know, moving forward.

So thanks again. Really, really enjoyed it. Hope that was helpful, and I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation.

Note: The following text is transcribed from the event audio. It’s largely accurate, but in some cases it may be a bit off due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It’s intended as an aid to understanding the event, but it shouldn’t be treated as an authoritative record.