Inspired Execution

Abhay Parasnis: Computers are going to be able to start seeing the world around us, understanding speech, understanding audiovisual images, to the point where they will develop human cognition-like capabilities.

Narrator: Abhay Parasnis, CTO and CPO at Adobe, has always had a deep passion for technologies and products. He's worked at many large enterprises like IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle. What drew Abhay to Adobe more than 6 years ago was the fact that he's a passionate user of their products. In today's episode — he and Chet Kapoor discuss how to build technologies that allow everyone to express themselves, three lessons learned from moving to the cloud, the impact AI will have on computing in 10 years, and why it's important to adopt a beginner's mind. 

Narrator: Inspired Execution, hosted by DataStax Chairman and CEO, Chet Kapoor, follows the journeys of leaders from the world's largest enterprises and fastest-growing startups.

Chet Kapoor: Abhay, welcome to the podcast.

Abhay Parasnis: Thanks, Chet. Good to be here.

Chet Kapoor: You have worked at many companies like IBM, Microsoft, Oracle. You have 25 patents. And now you're the CTO and Chief Product Officer at Adobe. Tell us about your journey.

Abhay Parasnis: First of all, Chet, glad to reconnect. You and I haven't had a chance to chat for a while, so I'm happy to connect at least in this forum. And thanks for inviting me here. These journey-type questions– and Chet, I think your journey is probably more impressive. So one of these days we need to get you to reverse the roles. But as you very well know, sometimes these journey questions sound to be a little bit more well-scripted through the journey. And in reality, at least in my case, I would say it's a series of unplanned things that worked out well when I didn't expect them. And the decisions I thought were the brilliant decisions and I had taken with a lot of thought, ended up being pretty bad. And so I don't know if I would even say it's a super-well-defined journey. But when I started as an engineer, really my career common thread has been a deep passion for technology and products and building new things. Sometimes it ended up being interesting, sometimes not.

Abhay Parasnis: I started at IBM. In fact, rarely worked at IBM. So this is just the first job itself– I joined IBM but was immediately loaned to work on a project that became Java. And so that was a pretty fortunate lucky break, where I got a chance to work with some amazing people. What became Java Version 1. From there, met some folks who recruited me to go to a startup in the supply chain space back in the nineties, a company called I2. It was a wild ride. In a matter of four years, a company that grew from—and Chet, you being a person who has built things from scratch and taken them to scale, you will appreciate—it's a company that went from a few million in revenue to almost 2 billion in revenue in five years. So really wild ride, learned a lot, both on what to do, but as much on all the mistakes of scaling and how to avoid hopefully those mistakes.

Abhay Parasnis: And then spent a decade at Microsoft, probably the best 10 years of my professional journey in terms of not just the professional work, but the friendships I have made and just amazing world-class people. I got a chance to get to know and work with. And so that was up in Seattle a decade, moved to Bay area around 2012, did a brief stint at Oracle, and a startup in mobile space. I've been at Adobe now for the last six and a half years. But all through, I would say the only thing from a journey that's consistent is wanting to work on exciting new technology and product problems and hopefully create something that hasn't been in existence before.

Chet Kapoor: I love the way you started the conversation, right? The journey is not like a straight line and nice curves and things like that. It's all about zigzagging, right? The word that came to my mind was– we all actually fumble through this, right? Because some of the decisions we made that we thought were going to be really bad, turned out to be really good. And then some of the decisions we are so thoughtful about and we thought would be home runs, were complete strikeouts, right? And we just fumble through them. I love the way you talked about it. Java as you well know is a very important part of my career. And I, too, did more things to supply chain than any other company I think ever. You're right. It was awesome on how it scaled, but it was awesome how it burnt itself out as well. And it did well on both sides, right? Up and down.

Abhay Parasnis: It did. Absolutely. And you're a hundred percent correct. And I do think at that time, it didn't feel like that, but the lessons you learned on both sides of the journey, by the way, on the way up, but actually equally as painful as it was on the way down. And then the hope is that some of the talents that was accumulated at that time in that company—and I would say the same is true for Microsoft—it's just unbelievable. And those people have gone on to do amazing things in different industries and different roles. And so that's the zigzag part of the journey that you mentioned. It is not just the choices you make, but hopefully the relationships you build. And then those people end up in such unbelievably exciting and different industries and roles. And that's actually the more interesting part as I look back, are all the people that you've built relationships with. They are now doing amazing things.

Chet Kapoor: I talked to a bunch of people outside DataStax and inside DataStax. And I say, you know what? You might or might not remember your bank balance, but what you will absolutely remember is who you were doing battle with, because those stories will live with you forever. And you will be able to relish those whenever you want. And so, clearly, that's been an integral part of your journey and your success. Adobe's mission is to change the world into a digital experience. As you design this world, right, from a technology and a product point of view, tell us about what it looks like.

Abhay Parasnis: Adobe is, obviously, an exceptionally unique place. I'm not claiming to be objective here at this point, but I'll just say a couple of things. First, as you were just talking about previously, the relationships you build and the things you work on… at least for me, beyond just the commercial aspects of success, both at a company and individual level, the underlying mission or what you're trying to do. And not every company's like that, not every company has to have that. I certainly find that if you can personally connect, and if you can get a group of people really connected on an underlying mission of what you are trying to do. Obviously, you still want to be highly successful as a business. We are ultimately a for-profit company. We like to be successful on those metrics. But actually what attracted me to Adobe was I was a lifelong user of Lightroom, a little bit Photoshop, but a lot more Lightroom.

Abhay Parasnis: And so for me, actually, the biggest reason to join was, “Hey, I got to go work with people who actually create these tools that I use as a user and have so much fun and passion in using.” And so the two parts of the mission you talked about. For individual users that we serve, we really think about every decade or so, the technologies may change. The company, as you know, started really with print, with PDF and Postscript, then really pioneered a lot of the desktop publishing, followed by all the Photoshop and imaging and video and illustration revolutions. Then with the web transition, it really was at the forefront with Macromedia and Flash, as well as all the transitioning to the web. And now certainly, the last 10 years or so with mobility and cloud and the changes there. Our goal has always been the notion of enabling users to tell their stories and at a mostly deep human personal level. If we can build technologies that allow everyone on the planet to express themselves, that is really the mission.

Abhay Parasnis: And obviously we have served, historically, a lot more of the professional audience– the professional movie editors, photographers, illustrators. What's exciting about where the company is now and where we are trying to go, is what we call internally the mission now as creativity for all, which is really enabling every person. Think about it, Chet. I have a 15-year-old. If you think about our kids, the level of digital technology in their lives and how proficient, but also how integral it is to how they express themselves in every setting, in their schools, in their social lives.

Abhay Parasnis: We want to be the company that really continues to push the state-of-the-art for individuals to express themselves in meaningful ways, no matter what the medium. So that's individual. And then on the other side for enterprises, large companies, we have a similar mission of letting them build best-in-class customer experiences in how they engage with their customers and users. And obviously, you are a big partner for us in terms of a user. Obviously, your technology platform is quite a bit as underlying one of the components. It is an exciting time right now, as these businesses grow and the mission becomes even more relevant.

Chet Kapoor: That is a beautiful way to talk about it. My exposure to Adobe was in the eighties when Charlie and John were doing fonts for NeXt. And they started out by doing it for the Mac. And if I can think about all the Adobe products I've used over the last 30 years, it is all about manifesting myself, right? And whether I'm a professional or whether I'm a casual user. It's also a massive vision, right? You can do this for another hundred years and continue to be at the forefront of technology. There's so much to do, is my point. Right? Would you agree?

Abhay Parasnis: Absolutely. And I know this is not always the case with every business and every product, but we do think it's a good guiding principle. I mean, the way the company started, you mentioned John and Chuck, the two founders. John actually built Illustrator as a product because his wife Marva actually, who is a creative artist, designer, illustrator, wanted to be able to express using digital tools and there was no tool available. And so it's always good if you have a genuine need that you know you want to solve for yourself. And hopefully, that's a need that a lot of people around the planet will benefit from. That's always a good start to have. Is this a product you would love to use every single day? Then that's probably a good idea to build it.

Chet Kapoor: Adobe has gone through a massive transformation over the last few years, and I would say probably done it more successfully than almost any other company in the industry, in the tech industry, right? You've gone from being an on-premise software company to being a cloud company, and everything that goes with it. The subscriptions and things like that. That's hard. That's really hard, not because of what the P&L does, but changing the mindset on how people build product and everything else that goes with it. In your experience, what was the hardest part? And secondly, if you had to go back and do it again, what would you do differently?

Abhay Parasnis: Both are great questions, and at the risk of a little bit of repeating the previous discussion we had around the career journeys for individuals and zigzagging– I'm going to start by saying a lot of times these transformation type questions, and when there is Harvard business case study written and things have worked out well, sometimes these stories get laid back as if they're a lot cleaner and simpler. And you know, Chet, they're far messier and they're far more dead ends. And so first I would just say, I'll share two or three lessons we learned. But in reality, it was a lot of experimentation, a lot of dead ends. And we always say the line between looking brilliant and looking like a complete idiot is very thin in terms of how you execute and how it actually played out. This one happens to be one where the company, fortunately, was able to execute and successfully transform.

Abhay Parasnis: That said, I would say the three, at least top of mind lessons, and maybe this is part of your question around going back, what would we do probably either differently or more aggressively, and this is not in any order. First, you have to recognize that you have multiple constituencies when you're trying to make a transformation like that. And for each constituency, you have to actually fine-tune what that constituency deeply cares about and actually take them on that journey. And by that, I mean, first and foremost is your customers, making sure your customers understand what you're trying to do, that you have ultimately their best interest in mind, even when they may not be asking for all the things.

Abhay Parasnis: You might remember, Chet, not all of our customers early on were thrilled with the transition to subscription. Some were very vocal and some never came along. I mean, there's a small constituency of customers who said that's just not a journey they wanted to go on. But we always said, look, we should always be transparent and forthright with our customers, what we are trying to do, the benefits that they will accrue to those customers. And if we were upfront and transparent and communicated consistently, then they would go along that journey. And actually, they did, majority of the customers did. The second was employees. And I would say this one probably is the one we, at the time, may not have fully appreciated—getting the entire company fully, fully aligned to basically burn the bridges if you will. Or just say, there is a one-way street, we are going to go down this path.

Abhay Parasnis: It's going to be hard. And as a culture, getting everyone to really think about this new direction because as you know, in organizations, some people try one change and some don't and there are always people who will have different viewpoints. And so the cultural transformation within the company was probably the single biggest hurdle and probably the single biggest thing, Shantanu and team. I can't even take credit. I shouldn't because I wasn't there for the full journey. I've been there last six and a half years. Obviously, this started earlier than that, but that cultural transformation for employees was equally crucial. And then the last one is your shareholders.

Abhay Parasnis: As a public company, we had a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders and investors. And telling them clearly when the message was not very pleasant, that we are going to take a hit for four or five years. But then we are going to systematically rebuild the business, which was probably one of the hardest things to do as a public company. But I think those were the three. Frankly, the technology transformation was not the hardest part. I mean, yes, it was a lot of work. Chet, the technologies, that to me was the easiest of the puzzles. The employee and customer journey was probably the hardest part.

Chet Kapoor: That's very well said. It seems like the transparency with customers and with employees was a critical part, right? If you can go back and say, there was one thing that you did consistently across all three constituents you had—customers, employees, and shareholders—you were very transparent. And this is the journey. We're on mile 2 of 14. This is going to be a long haul but stay with us because we'll continue to show you the progress we're making. Is that a good way to look at it?

Abhay Parasnis: Absolutely. And I think you said it really well. And by the way, when we did it, there were a lot of skeptics. There are people who said, for example… we presented three-year financial targets very explicitly to Wall Street. And you know how as public companies, the Street is pretty punishing and fairly short-term-minded. And we gave a three-year playbook that, this is what you should hold us accountable to financially, how we are going to execute this transformation. There were a lot of people who said, “You're crazy to actually commit yourselves three years out when you don't even whether your customers are actually going to be embracing this change, your employees haven't fully really figured out how to do all the product transformation.” But we felt one, transparency was important. And then second, to give all the constituents, employees, customers, and shareholders, a set of metrics that they can hold us accountable to. And then obviously we had to go deliver on it. But at least it took a whole bunch of ambiguity out of how to measure the risks of this transformation.

Chet Kapoor: Let's talk a little bit about disruptive technologies. You've said, “Whenever there are disruptive technologies, we tend to overestimate how quickly they will come to fruition, but we underestimate how profound they will be in the long run.” I say the same thing, but I say it in a different way, which is minds are mature and markets are not right. So, you think you're done and it takes a long time for the market to accept it. What is your all-time favorite disruptive technology? That's question number one. And the second one, what is something that you think we are going through now where we think we are overestimating the impact today, but it'll have a far more profound impact in the future?

Abhay Parasnis: First, I think your version is far more succinct and better. And as much as I would like to take credit, the one you attributed to me is actually really, there's a fellow who was at Stanford Research Institute, Roy Amara. So it's actually called Amara's Law. That's really his postulation that we tend to in tech industry, in particular, overestimate the hype curve in the short run, but underestimate the long run. I'm going to give you two disruptive ones right now that I'm profoundly excited about: one that I'm a little bit closely involved in and then one I'm a student of, but don't really have any depth in right now. 

Abhay Parasnis: We all live this right now, the echo chamber and noise around AI and machine learning, and just the overall impact of that. There's so much noise and there's so much hype curve around what AI is and all the Terminator visions of the future, or more optimistic visions of the future and curing cancer and self-driving cars. And so that's the over-hype part of that curve relative to where the technology potentially is right now. It's improving rapidly. But certainly, I do think there's a lot of hype around it. I actually think, Chet, the notion of the role of computers in human life enabled by AI and then also built around all the other underlying foundational things, like massive cloud fabric around the globe or devices that are increasingly smarter.

Abhay Parasnis: I think AI is going to be the connective tissue that fundamentally changes the role of computers. Computers used to be mostly computing, number-crunching machines that started in business environments. Over the last couple of decades, they have become increasingly indispensable to all of us with smartphones and stuff, as communication machines. I think the thing that's going to be disruptive in my mind in the next decade or two decades or three decades, is a profound shift where computers are going to be able to start seeing the world around us, understanding speech, understanding audiovisual image, to the point where they will develop human cognition-like capabilities. 

Abhay Parasnis: And once that happens, the roles that computers will play industry after industry in our daily life is going to go from just assistive tools that help us be more productive, to far more integral. The one I'm actually intrigued about is what's happening at the intersection of biology and computing. And so that's kind of related to AI, but really more around all the advances with things like CRISPR and the gene-editing technologies we all experience, with the vaccine development over the last 18 months. But that's the other one I'm equally excited about. I'm not at all expert in that, but that's another one that I think is going to be very profound.

Chet Kapoor: I was just thinking, as you were talking about AI, I was thinking exactly what you said, which is HTTP for me would be one of the biggest things. And I don't think anybody would've predicted how much of an impact it has had on our life. The phone, social, the browsers, just on and on and on. All those things would not have been possible without HTTP. Broken links were okay. And I think about AI, right? Even if you squint really hard and you think really hard, we have no idea how much our life will change because of it. So, really well articulated, thank you. On the personal side, you've coauthored two books about Java beans. What is the most difficult part about publishing a book?

Abhay Parasnis: I know there are people who go through gut-wrenching experiences. I've heard from others of writing a book and the pain, and the effort it takes. To be completely honest, I'm not even sure I would claim to have gone through that journey because of the stage of my career when I had a chance to contribute… first of all, I was a co-author along with a few other folks. So I wasn't really writing it myself. And I was probably way early in my career and partnering with some really smart folks who were much more seasoned. That said, I will say one that stuck with me from that experience is the power of actually getting your ideas to reach an immensely large number of audiences.

Abhay Parasnis: The power of platforms and power of scale is actually the thing that I remember sticking with that journey, is the effort and the pain it takes to articulate. And you have gone through that journey even in your business career. But you have to really be able to put yourself in the mindset of a wide range of people who are going to consume those ideas and be able to articulate what is that's going to be most relevant to that wide cross-section of people who are going to read, hopefully, that book. And actually does make you far more hopefully open-minded. One of the things I am very fond of is, there's a word called "shoshin," and you probably... It is a Buddhist word for beginner's mind and maintaining yourself to be open-minded about new ideas, new experiences, and how different people may perceive them. I think that journey for me started with those two books and really thinking about value and power of ideas and the dissemination at scale.

Chet Kapoor: That's a beautiful articulation, right, because you cannot read your audience. So you have to make yourself vulnerable and have a beginner's mind as you go through this. That was awesome. That was a great, great, great response. Who inspires you?

Abhay Parasnis: There are just so many people in our personal and professional lives who touch you day to day in different contexts. And Chet, as I have reflected on my own journey, what I've realized, especially as we have gone through the last 18 months, certainly the highly unusual and distorting journey that the world has experienced, it's not so much just who, but what and how that inspires me. We have all experienced this.

Abhay Parasnis: You look at what the frontline workers over the last 18 months across the globe have done and the medical like the pharma industry and the drug industry. And a whole slew of unnamed people came together to solve a global crisis at such a vigorous pace. To me lately, it's whenever you see this human spirit, either individual or collectively, achieve things that are just impossible to comprehend. When somebody makes a contribution and impacts society at large, it's the impact that they leave is probably the inspiring thing for me.

Chet Kapoor: I'm going to go through some rapid-fire, quick-response questions now with you. So let me start with the first one. You are known to pursue landscape photography. What's the last picture you took?

Abhay Parasnis: Lately, obviously with everything going on, it's mostly pictures of my dog at home. But if I really think about the last landscape, which is my absolute zen to go into… before COVID I was at Mount Rainier National Park in Washington. At sunrise, there is a beautiful spot there called Sunrise Lake. So that's really the last, what I would consider worthy of mentioning as a landscape photography picture.

Chet Kapoor: What are you reading now?

Abhay Parasnis: I do read concurrently lots of books. I'll just mention three quick ones. "Code Breakers" is the one I just finished, which is an unbelievable, great book. Andy Weir's "Hail Mary.” Andy Weir is a science fiction writer, did Martian the movie. Fabulous book. It's just unbelievable, his new book. And then I read Reed's, Netflix "Rules" book, which is equally amazing in a different direction.

Chet Kapoor: I've got two out of the three, so that's great. There's some commonality there. Last question. What word or phrase defines a great leader in your mind?

Abhay Parasnis: I'll give you three words: humble, empathy, and curious.

Chet Kapoor: Abhay, this has been phenomenal. I have thoroughly enjoyed our podcast. I've actually taken a bunch of notes. It's always good. A large portion of this, all of this is actually for our listeners, but as we go through this ourselves, we learn. And we observe, and this has been great. You are incredibly articulate and deeply, deeply thoughtful. Thoroughly enjoyed this discussion. And I hope you feel the same way.

Abhay Parasnis: Yeah, no, Chet, first of all, thanks for all the kind words. Really enjoyed being here. And I actually want to thank you. I know you are doing this as a way to, as you said, give back in your way to the community and aspiring entrepreneurs and so really appreciate all the fascinating interviews you are doing, and thanks for roping me in, giving me this opportunity.

Chet Kapoor: Hey, we'll see you soon. Take care.

Abhay Parasnis: Great. Thanks.

Narrator: Most people's career paths are not a straight line. Remember to focus not only on the decisions you make but also on the relationships you build along the way. When you're going through a major transformation, you have to think about your customers, employees, and shareholders. Having transparency across all constituencies is the key to success. And finally, always have a beginner's mind. Being open to new ideas, new experiences, and how different people may perceive them will help you keep growing.

Narrator: Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of the Inspired Execution podcast. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the show and drop us any questions or feedback at inspiredexecution@datastax.com.