0:12

Everybody, welcome back to another episode.

0:14

I am delighted to bring

0:16

to you all today. Sir, Sri

0:19

Salur. He is the CEO of

0:21

Kenmore and Brands. And I know, you know, Kenmore.

0:23

We're going to talk about what that means. I know, you know, the brand.

0:26

He's a former executive at Hewlett Packard,

0:28

now known as HP, Comcast.

0:31

And he's also run and built

0:34

some products that it is highly

0:36

likely you've used and having your home today.

0:38

Sri, I'm so glad we make this happen. Welcome.

0:41

Glad to have you here. Thank you for having

0:43

me, Jason.

0:44

Yes. What did I miss in the introduction that you think

0:46

people should know about you?

0:49

You pretty much got my whole career, you

0:51

know, maybe my childhood, man.

0:54

What's your inner child? We're going to, we're going to get right into

0:56

therapy. So tell us about your most,

0:59

no, it's, it's actually a phenomenal

1:01

question. Because as

1:04

an inner child, it was all about

1:06

building, building products.

1:08

And since a

1:10

very young age,

1:13

I've been building products

1:16

and early on, it was with my mother

1:19

that I used to build. Radio

1:21

sets, vacuum tube

1:24

based radio sets. So

1:27

since my,

1:29

you know, I would say six, seven,

1:32

eight year old boy have always

1:34

been building products and selling

1:37

those products.

1:39

I like it. So you're not just the builder. You're also

1:41

the business person too, which is a very

1:43

good combo. Cause some people are like, I love to build,

1:45

but they don't know how to sell. You know how to sell and build, which

1:47

is. Which is likely why you've,

1:49

why you do what you do now, that's awesome. Do

1:52

you remember, do you remember the very first thing you built?

1:55

Yeah, it, it was a vacuum

1:57

tubes based radio, AM

2:00

radio. And there was this big

2:03

antenna that you had to

2:05

unfold across your living room.

2:08

And, uh, that, that was one

2:10

of the very first products, uh,

2:12

that I built, uh, with my mom. Yeah.

2:15

And you were, you're mentioning before we kicked off, your mom

2:17

was, uh, obviously an engineer as well. She worked on

2:19

satellite technology, which is really cool.

2:22

Yeah. And you know, solar panels,

2:25

solar cells, um,

2:28

and basically that went into satellites,

2:30

uh, that are still orbiting, uh,

2:33

our, our, our, our world. Yeah.

2:36

That's what my mom did.

2:38

So let's talk about you

2:41

as a child. You were a builder, you got some education,

2:44

you got into the workforce. Let's take a little, let's

2:46

take a little tour through your, a little bit

2:48

of your career path to what led us to here today. What

2:51

did you, where did you start? I'm always interested

2:53

in people that have gotten high level positions. What's like

2:55

the first couple of things you did when you got

2:58

full time into the workforce? Simple. I worked on products like

3:00

AltaVista. Uh,

3:04

yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh,

3:07

Al AltaVista, the world knows

3:09

AltaVista as a search engine. Yeah. I

3:11

worked on the SE security side of AltaVista,

3:13

which was firewall, uh,

3:15

antivirus, you know, intrusion

3:18

detection. And that was a part

3:20

of. Deck or digital

3:23

equipment corporation. Yep. Sure.

3:25

And deck was

3:27

bought over by compact.

3:30

Um, and compact

3:33

was bought by HP. And

3:36

so I woke up one fine

3:38

morning and I had spent 20 years

3:41

in multiple companies without actually

3:43

leaving a company.

3:46

So the beauty of

3:48

that 20 year tenure.

3:52

Is I lived and

3:54

worked in multiple countries.

3:57

So in that 20 year

3:59

tenure, I

4:02

worked in India, I

4:04

worked in Singapore,

4:07

I worked. Close to around

4:09

seven years in the UK,

4:12

specifically in London, I

4:14

did a stint in Sweden, I did a stint in

4:20

France, and then, of

4:22

course, both course

4:25

in the United States. So

4:28

that amazing journey, and

4:30

this is not just in one role, it

4:33

was a plethora of roles from

4:36

product development, from

4:38

car to corporate ventures,

4:41

where you build startups

4:44

and also do minority equity investments,

4:47

running operations. And

4:50

that was

4:52

my really big internship.

4:55

You know, I look at this as like a 20 year

4:57

internship. In different

4:59

roles. In different geographies,

5:04

uh, but at the end of the day,

5:06

in some shape, way or form, I

5:08

was keenly tuned

5:11

to building products and businesses.

5:15

Yeah. Do you,

5:17

thank you for that. Do

5:19

you remember your first people

5:21

manager role?

5:24

Vividly.

5:27

We got a smile on your face for those listening. He's got

5:29

a smile. I always like to ask people

5:31

that have had a good career because like, usually like usually

5:35

and I'm, I'm gonna, I'm going to give the punchline.

5:37

Usually people go, I had, I had no

5:39

effing idea what I was

5:42

doing. How did it go

5:44

for you? And when like your first, maybe your first

5:46

couple of roles where they said, Hey Sri, we're going to give you,

5:48

you're going to have some staff and as people work for you,

5:50

how did it go? Like, what was it like for you as you started

5:53

managing people and leading?

5:56

It went extremely

5:58

well. It went extremely well for

6:00

multiple reasons, and I'm

6:02

going to take this back to my childhood. I grew up in a joint

6:05

family, so working

6:08

and adapting to the environment

6:11

and putting yourself in someone

6:13

else's shoes was absolutely needed.

6:16

Growing up in a joint family, otherwise,

6:19

you know, you could get beaten by

6:21

your bigger cousins or your uncles.

6:24

So, you know, where the swampy

6:27

deltas are, Jason, and you want to make

6:29

sure that doesn't become your Vietnam. So

6:31

the point is like really

6:34

understanding the people dynamics

6:37

and making sure that there is

6:39

enough empathy in the system

6:42

was, was something that came naturally

6:44

to me. Yeah, the second, the

6:46

second thing is having

6:48

a blue collared work ethic very

6:52

early on I learned and

6:54

again taught by

6:56

my mom is always

7:01

be the first at work,

7:03

especially in the early days of your career and

7:05

be the last one to get out. There is nothing wrong.

7:07

You're going to learn. There is optics.

7:10

So you are modeling

7:12

the right behavior in the sense

7:14

that this is. This

7:17

is a company that's feeding me and

7:19

just having that kind of gratitude

7:23

and loyalty was very important,

7:25

not just to the company, but

7:27

also to the team, because that

7:30

is the team that is making me successful.

7:33

So that was something that was

7:35

really, really important to me.

7:37

And that worked extraordinarily

7:41

well in my favor. So that's,

7:43

that's, that's the second piece. The

7:45

third piece. Is inspiring

7:51

was, was like really important

7:54

when people walk into offices, there

7:56

was a lot that they might have gone through at

7:58

home through the traffic at home.

8:01

If you can say something

8:04

that's going to put a smile on their face, it

8:07

doesn't have to be ruinous empathy, right?

8:09

Yes, but saying

8:11

something that's going to make their life a little

8:14

bit better and inspiring

8:16

them to do better is really important.

8:18

But as you're doing that. You also

8:20

want to make sure that there is radical candor,

8:23

like, you know, for example, there

8:25

is something that is not really going well.

8:28

The most respectful thing to do

8:30

is to tell the person that it's not going

8:32

well, because everybody, everyone

8:35

is capable of change. So just

8:38

adding those pieces, you

8:41

know, that. Naturally was

8:43

imbued into me, uh,

8:45

made me enjoy my position.

8:48

My first position as a people manager, and

8:51

I have never looked back. Um,

8:54

I always feel like in

8:56

every relationship, every

8:58

conversation, you

9:00

should never take more than

9:02

you can give. And if you can imbue

9:05

that you'll be a phenomenal,

9:07

phenomenal. People

9:09

manager, number one, and two,

9:12

you will actually build a following

9:16

of people who are going to root

9:18

for you to be successful. Yeah.

9:22

Yeah. Some great lessons in there, Sri. I

9:25

like the, I like all of it. One

9:27

of the things is that the idea of the following

9:30

and you worked in, you worked

9:32

in some really competitive

9:35

corporate structures. Like

9:37

DEC to compact HP is

9:40

what, like those are, it's just very

9:42

competitive when you go through, I went through some mergers and

9:44

acquisitions as well. There can be

9:46

a lot of the behind

9:48

the back stuff and the politics and all that.

9:50

And the idea of building a following and I

9:52

call it like your personal brand and

9:55

notice that sort of leader. It's just, it's

9:57

a really good reminder for, for

9:59

me and I think for everybody listening that

10:01

matters because that's one of the

10:03

things that I think it's forgotten sometime is it's not

10:06

just about the how to or motivating

10:08

your team to for the maximum output, but also

10:10

will they go into battle with you? Will

10:13

they say if he leaves, I'm

10:15

going with him, like that sort of thing. I'm going

10:17

to ask you a question. That's a

10:19

fall along to this. As

10:21

a long time people, leader

10:24

and manager, how do you

10:26

address it when, you know, there are people on your team

10:29

that don't have that same drive

10:31

or spark, like they, the interview process

10:33

goes well as they come in and then

10:36

they just die. Cause you like, I've known you

10:38

for 22 minutes and you're obviously a very passionate individual

10:41

because they're myself pretty passionate individual too. So

10:44

when you see somebody, you're like, it doesn't feel like you're

10:46

into it. How do you address that as a leader, knowing

10:50

that you need those people to perform in order to. Hit

10:52

your business goals and do what you're, what you're getting, what

10:54

you're paying them to do. Look,

10:58

there are two frameworks that I use,

11:01

very simple frameworks. The

11:04

first framework that I use is

11:06

I, I evaluate the

11:11

person on my team for

11:14

the three C's. The

11:17

first C is competency.

11:20

Is that person really, really smart?

11:22

Because in terms of... Do

11:24

they know the job? You know,

11:27

do they know their craft? Well, it's, it's

11:29

really important, right? You know, especially

11:32

if you're in engineering, if you're in finance, you need

11:34

to know that craft. The

11:36

second C is

11:40

in addition to competence is

11:43

I would say consistency. Yeah.

11:46

Consistency is like just showing up day

11:48

after day. I'll tell you making progress.

11:51

Week after week, because these small

11:53

steps of progress adds

11:56

up very quickly. You know, the, the compounding

11:58

power, if you will, right. Consistency

12:01

is so important. I

12:04

will take a person who is consistent

12:07

versus a person who is a genius and

12:09

not consistent any day of the week,

12:11

right? That's, that's

12:14

very important. But like, if I could interject

12:16

you, that's a, that's an athletics

12:18

thing too. And any sport

12:20

you look at, uh,

12:22

any team sport, at least. The,

12:25

the star player on the team is

12:27

most coaches would tell you they'd rather have consistent

12:30

players that aren't the best player than

12:32

the best player who's a diva. And you can, you can see

12:34

this in certain sports right now. That's so

12:36

critical. I, I really like,

12:39

that's so critical to have that. And then,

12:41

and then when you get the, uh, the superstar, who's also

12:43

consistent, you're like, how much

12:45

do we need to pay you to keep you forever and ever and

12:47

ever? What do you need? What do you need? What do you need?

12:51

You know, now that you brought up the

12:53

sports piece, there is a third

12:55

C. Which is connection

12:57

because winning is a team sport, Jason.

13:00

Yes. It's a connection. So the

13:02

first framework that I use

13:05

is to see if a person

13:07

has competence, consistency,

13:11

and connection. That's

13:13

the first framework that I see. And

13:15

then the second framework

13:19

is, you know, what I call as a gap

13:22

kind of framework, which

13:24

is. Does that person have

13:27

a growth mindset, you know, does that person

13:30

genuinely wants to learn, you know, like,

13:32

it doesn't have to be work related. It

13:35

could be in any walk of life, you know, is

13:38

that person growth oriented?

13:41

The second one is, is that person authentic?

13:43

Authenticity matters quite a bit, you

13:45

know, and the third thing is, is that person

13:48

passionate, right? If

13:50

I see that as a GAP, if

13:52

I see that they are faring

13:55

well, And those six

13:58

aspects of two frameworks,

14:01

it's, it's a very simple thing. All

14:03

I have to do is inspire, enable,

14:07

encourage, and challenge. And

14:12

I just have to weigh in, you

14:15

know, some people respond

14:17

very well to challenges. Some

14:19

people respond very well to

14:21

inspiring versus challenging.

14:24

So you just have to figure out in which quadrant

14:27

they are, because at the end of the day.

14:30

It's such a short life you

14:33

as a leader, if you're genuinely

14:36

not focusing on

14:38

developing people, you're

14:41

not a leader, you're

14:43

absolutely not a leader. So you have

14:45

to give that

14:48

person the benefit of doubt, give

14:51

all the chances. And

14:54

there are even times when

14:56

I tell people, I

14:58

want you to use this platform

15:01

on our team. To

15:04

go get your next big role.

15:07

Yeah. And, and

15:09

the, the, the choice of sentences here

15:13

of words here, Jason is. I

15:16

try to put myself as one among

15:18

equals, not like, Hey, you're on

15:21

my team. I always say you, we

15:23

work together. You don't work

15:25

for me. We work together

15:27

because. You know what? I

15:30

learn from members of my

15:32

team as much as they learn

15:34

from me. And that is

15:36

a learning mindset that a

15:38

leader should always have. So just

15:40

to summarize, I have two frameworks

15:44

and then I figure out

15:46

if it is. Inspire

15:49

versus challenge. And finally, radical

15:52

candor. You don't need to be aggressive.

15:55

You don't need to be manipulative. You

15:57

don't need to have ruinous empathy, say

16:01

things as they are and say

16:03

in a nice way,

16:09

beautiful. I would, I would guess

16:11

if I was going to interview some of the people that work

16:14

for, you know, have worked for you, they would say they were

16:16

very fortunate to have you as a somebody

16:18

in their sphere of influence in the business

16:21

context. Sri, I want to ask

16:23

you, I want to pivot a little bit. You're

16:25

a, you're a, you've done a lot of

16:27

things. One of the things you've done is

16:29

you have a lot of expertise in a variety of spaces

16:31

around product. So I'm going to, I

16:34

want to, we're going to play a little, uh, it's not

16:36

going to be 20 questions, but I have a couple of questions for you about

16:38

some, about your career and some of the things that you've

16:40

launched or built or enhanced and

16:43

a lot of these brands people will know. So I'm really curious.

16:47

What's the, what's the most challenging

16:50

product? You've ever worked

16:52

on or had or launched, what

16:54

was the most challenging

16:55

product? Oh,

16:57

it was a consumer robot called

17:00

a shark IQ robot.

17:02

Like the shark brand, right? Like shark Ninja.

17:05

Yeah. Uh, so I

17:07

built one of the first advanced

17:10

navigation robots, um,

17:13

and, uh, shark.

17:17

From a company perspective is

17:19

a phenomenally consumer

17:21

focused company. It's, it's unbelievable.

17:24

We have a lot of shark products in our house, like the mops

17:27

and yeah, we have, we had the robot, uh,

17:29

yeah, we have a whole bunch of shark stuff.

17:31

And, and let me assure you, like

17:33

shark and ninja products. The

17:36

quality is way

17:38

up there. You know, it never breaks. I, I

17:40

can openly say, um, um,

17:43

so in that environment, building

17:46

a high tech product, especially

17:50

when there are companies like iRobot

17:54

that dominated that space.

17:58

And a company

18:00

that built mechanical

18:02

products, but this is a high tech product, a robot,

18:04

that robot had 47 million

18:06

lines of code.

18:08

And what did this robot do? What was the

18:11

function of it?

18:12

It basically cleaned your home, but

18:14

it went back to the base. It auto emptied,

18:16

but it drew the map of the

18:19

house. And

18:21

think about it. If you ask how many

18:23

software engineers. We're there

18:25

in shark at that point in time, I can literally

18:27

count on my hand and say maybe four,

18:29

five, six, you know, 47

18:33

million lines of code. So how the heck are you going to

18:35

build a product? And wait a minute, it's

18:38

December and I need

18:40

to launch this product in

18:43

the market. Retail set dates

18:46

are August, right?

18:50

And I'm

18:52

very proud of what we did as a team

18:55

and we delivered a product.

18:58

And, and, and the beauty of that is also

19:00

really interesting. We built

19:03

it in, in such a way

19:05

that, you know, we did not break

19:08

any intellectual property of any company.

19:11

We built a phenomenally competitive

19:13

product in the marketplace. It was

19:15

more suction at half the price. Of

19:18

the leading advanced

19:20

nap product. Think about it. More

19:22

suction at half the price.

19:25

Yeah. I

19:28

was going to say we've been, we've been owners

19:30

of a variety of robot

19:32

vacuums. We've had an iRobot. We've had a couple

19:34

of sharks. That's also an example

19:37

of a product that actually has to work

19:39

pretty perfectly, or you're never going to buy one again.

19:42

Like if it, like, if it doesn't, if the sensors don't

19:44

work, if it goes down the stairs, if it tangles

19:46

itself in wires, like it actually has to work

19:48

well. You know, like a mop is a mop,

19:51

but like that robot, like if you get a robot, you're like,

19:53

well, it, it kind of senses the dog

19:55

when it's sitting there, but also hits the dog. And then our

19:57

kid gets here, like, you're not going to buy another one. I

20:00

don't think most people would. So that it's really, it's one

20:02

of those things you really have to get right. And

20:07

the corner cases associated.

20:10

It's not just with cleaning, right? Because you

20:13

know, you, you, you have things

20:15

like, uh, edge cleaning,

20:17

you have cleaning on tile and grout,

20:20

and you know, there is stuck on dust

20:22

and, and there

20:24

are like, like 50

20:26

parameters associated with cleaning, but

20:29

wait a minute. There are another

20:31

50 parameters. Associated

20:33

with navigation. All right.

20:36

There are another 50 parameters

20:39

on lobster trapping in the sense

20:41

that your kids Lego toys,

20:43

you have wires and houses

20:46

a minefield. Oh, yeah.

20:49

Right. And you have

20:51

to be able to navigate all that. There

20:53

are 50 parameters on the

20:55

app connectivity.

20:58

And it's such a complex

21:00

thing. To build

21:03

and deliver in

21:06

such a short period of time and then

21:08

having a value proposition, which

21:10

is like more suction at half the price

21:15

and the beauty of building

21:17

something like that, right? You know, in hindsight,

21:20

I feel so good, um,

21:22

off of many of the products

21:25

that I've built. I'll tell you, there's one hallmark

21:28

here, Jason, and it's just all

21:30

products that have built are

21:32

affordable innovation made

21:35

for the masses. It's not a

21:37

diva kind of product that only

21:40

the top 5% or

21:42

10% of the world can buy. You know, you

21:44

need to make a product which genuinely

21:47

has an impact to the

21:49

mainstream. And

21:51

that product had impact to the mainstream. It

21:53

had such a massive impact that

21:56

it took our competitive stock price down

21:58

by 50%. Yeah,

21:59

I remember. Yeah.

22:01

And that

22:04

gave me extraordinary levels of satisfaction

22:07

that we. On

22:09

multiple levels. One, a

22:11

company that did not have

22:14

the tech d n a, we

22:17

were able to imbue. Yeah,

22:19

the tech d n a in a company.

22:21

Yeah. The Shark. Shark, uh, shark

22:23

Ninja is the name of the company, right? Is that the official

22:26

name? Shark Ninja is not a, not

22:28

a robotics company by any stretch of the imagination

22:30

and iRobot. If we're just going to say the

22:32

name of it with the leader, they are, they

22:34

started as a robotics company, if I'm not mistaken,

22:37

and then decided, Hey, here's a thing that we

22:39

can sell to the consumers at a

22:41

sub thousand, barely sub thousand dollar price when it came

22:43

out. Yeah. It's that's fascinating.

22:46

Yeah. And look, the

22:49

thing that I admire.

22:52

Is the insane focus

22:54

on the consumer. I worked for

22:57

a lot of companies, you know, I see that in

22:59

like in an Amazon outside in,

23:01

and I speak to a lot of people in Amazon,

23:04

uh, the insane focus,

23:07

the long term view of

23:09

building products so that your consumers love

23:11

you after five years, six years, 10

23:13

years, uh, two decades, that

23:15

mindset. Is deeply

23:18

ingrained in, in,

23:20

in Shark Ninja as a company, which

23:23

I absolutely positively admire, but

23:28

adding that tech component, which

23:32

kind of was not in the DNA. And

23:34

now, now you look at the company, they're coming up with a lot

23:36

of tech products. I feel very fortunate

23:38

to be, you know, have been in that

23:41

inflection point and have worked

23:43

with some of the brightest minds, both

23:46

on consumer insights. Uh,

23:48

on one side and tech on the other

23:51

and able to do that and

23:53

bring a product to market, um,

23:56

with such a huge impact. Um,

23:59

uh, you know, I, it, it, it makes me smile.

24:01

Yeah,

24:02

that's awesome. Let's, um, I'd

24:05

like to hear what you're up to

24:07

now, and I'd love to hear. What's led you

24:09

from that part of your career to sitting here today,

24:11

it's the middle of June, 2023. You're

24:13

currently the CEO of Kenmore and Brands.

24:17

Most people listening will go, Kenmore, I

24:19

know that name. What led

24:21

you to the seat you're in today?

24:23

Like, what was, what was your path there? And let's talk about what

24:25

you're, what you and your team are doing.

24:28

Great. Uh, in

24:30

terms of what led me here, uh,

24:32

serendipity, uh, Usually

24:35

is, isn't it? Yeah, it's, it's,

24:37

it's usually is. Uh, it's

24:39

not like I woke up and said, I

24:42

want to be a CEO

24:44

of an appliance company. If you had asked me,

24:47

uh, let's say 10

24:49

years ago, if I wanted to be an

24:51

appliance company, I would be like, why?

24:54

I know I'm so happy to be in a, in

24:56

a high tech company focusing on

24:58

building wearables

25:01

and. Like cloud print

25:03

and, and, uh, and, and platforms

25:06

that are so tech focused, I would

25:09

have never ever,

25:11

um, you know, guess that

25:13

I CEO of an appliance company.

25:16

So, uh, so

25:18

I. In my previous role,

25:21

I was a chief product officer of an industrial robotics

25:23

company, Berkshire Gray. Again,

25:26

a company with, uh, a

25:28

D n A of innovation. Uh,

25:30

very fortunate to have been in that

25:32

role and, and both the roles,

25:34

both in Shark Ninja and Berkshire Gray, a

25:38

that I was in during my tenure. Uh,

25:40

both the companies went public. So that's,

25:43

that's, uh, uh,

25:46

you know, a role where, you

25:48

know, during my tenure, that transition happened.

25:51

And just like this, a

25:53

recruiter called, had a conversation.

25:56

They said, it's a CEO of a company. Um,

25:59

and I had my first round of

26:01

interviews, the second round. And

26:03

it just got more and more

26:05

interesting. And, uh,

26:08

I took over as a CEO of Kenmore,

26:11

uh, last year. Uh,

26:14

you know, I'm, I'm, I'm like a

26:16

little over, uh, I

26:19

would say, uh, 14

26:21

months, you know, uh, timeframe

26:24

here with, with Kenmore. And

26:27

what I'm trying to do here is,

26:30

From a brand perspective, Kenmore

26:33

as a brand, uh, was

26:35

developed in 1913,

26:40

over a very old, like, like old

26:42

and traditional brand in a really positive

26:45

way. It's like a highly recognized American

26:47

brand,

26:47

right? 93%,

26:50

you know, in, in, in terms of brand recognition,

26:53

it's, it's about, if you

26:55

go to YouGov. America, go

26:57

take a look, you know, Ken Moore is

27:00

about Bosch and Maytag

27:02

and, you know, a spectacular array of brands,

27:05

you know, way, way, way up there in,

27:07

in, in terms of brand recognition and brand

27:09

love. And you know, the secret

27:11

to that every decade,

27:14

the brand has reinvented itself. Yeah,

27:18

like has done something different, something

27:21

new, something cool and

27:24

the very thought of

27:28

Being a part of that Phoenix moment

27:31

and Kenmore products were only available

27:34

at Sears stores For

27:36

a very long time and as a number of

27:38

Sears stores were closing, you know, the

27:40

Kenmore retail revenue kept falling but

27:43

then In

27:46

the last year or so, as we

27:48

have started to externalize the

27:50

Kenmore brand, you know, you could walk into a Target

27:52

right now and, and you could go buy

27:55

Kenmore branded products in Target.

27:57

I didn't know that. Oh, interesting. That's

27:59

cool.

28:00

Yeah, like, you know, go, go check out

28:02

our microwaves and our compact

28:04

refrigerators or go look

28:06

at vacuum cleaners. Um,

28:09

in, in, you know, in, in places like BJ's

28:12

for example. So long

28:14

story short, we took

28:17

this amazing brand and

28:20

we said, we're going to set it

28:22

free on one

28:24

side with other distribution

28:26

channels where. Americans

28:29

across demographics have

28:33

a love for Kenmore products.

28:35

And I'll tell you the

28:37

baby boomers and Gen Xers, of course,

28:39

they walked into CR stores and they knew

28:41

about Kenmore. Yeah. Jason,

28:45

Gen Z's love Kenmore, which,

28:48

you know, when I took over, I was scratching

28:50

my head and I was like, how the heck, I

28:53

have a 16 year old boy. Yeah.

28:55

And, and Kenmore only

28:58

to realize that it reminds them of their

29:00

grandmother's cooking. I

29:02

was gonna

29:02

say, I, I was, I was just thinking

29:04

to myself, I was thinking, what did my. Grandparents

29:07

have and I'm pretty sure one of my grandparents had a Kenmore

29:10

range and that it's

29:13

wonderful like it's a wonderful thought

29:15

It's a very nice thought. It

29:17

wasn't the number one brand at one It was that was like

29:19

GE and Kenmore were the number with

29:21

a one and two Appliance brands

29:24

in the 50s and 60s if I'm not mistaken.

29:26

Yeah, like now Being

29:30

at the helm of

29:33

a company that has brands

29:36

like Kenmore and DieHard is,

29:39

is, is a part of being

29:41

a part of history. It is.

29:44

And being a part of

29:47

the Phoenix moment, the renaissance

29:49

of the next generation

29:51

of Kenmore. And, and we very

29:54

early on figured

29:57

out and said, Kenmore

29:59

equals live more. In

30:01

the sense that we want

30:03

to enable affordable innovations

30:06

to all Americans focusing

30:08

on clean air. Clean

30:10

water, energy conservation,

30:12

and water conservation. And

30:15

one more thing that I want to highlight, Jason.

30:17

Yeah. The live more part of

30:19

Kenmore, everybody

30:22

wants to live longer

30:25

and better

30:27

quality of life. And

30:30

ultimately, what

30:32

I want to be able to do is set

30:35

this company on a trajectory where

30:38

we can enable People

30:42

to lead better quality

30:44

and longer lives that

30:46

today is, you know, if, if you're a billionaire,

30:49

uh, you know, or, or a very rich person,

30:51

you know, you, you could basically afford that.

30:54

But if I can make

30:57

that accessible to

30:59

a common man by developing products

31:01

and solutions for

31:04

a family to live healthier.

31:08

Cleaner lives. That's, that's what I

31:10

want to focus on. And, and look,

31:12

we just got air purifier products

31:14

out. Uh, you will see more

31:16

and more high tech products coming

31:19

into the market, uh, wherein

31:21

you can make healthier choices

31:23

as you shop, healthier choices

31:26

as you cook, as you store.

31:29

And I, I, I also want to

31:31

make sure we are easy on the environment.

31:34

With clean air, I'm sorry,

31:36

with energy conservation and water

31:38

conservation. So you'll

31:40

see more and more products from

31:43

Kenmore focused on

31:46

those categories and just

31:48

being a part of that rejuvenation.

31:51

Uh, is what excited me for

31:53

both Kenmore and Diehard. You know, later this year,

31:55

you'll see from a diehard brand

31:57

perspective, uh, EV chargers,

32:00

you know, there's a rise of, uh, electric

32:02

vehicles in the market. Yeah. So,

32:05

you know, you'll, you'll see ev chargers,

32:07

you'll see a bunch of power tools. I

32:10

think diehard is Garage

32:12

Can Motor as a home. Yeah. So that's how

32:14

you wanna see the positioning of the two products.

32:17

Oh man. That's super cool. Cher, uh,

32:19

we just got an ev. And

32:21

so I'm like, I'm like, I didn't know, not

32:23

know Die Hard is coming out with a charger, like level

32:25

two, a level two charger, like on a two 40 volt.

32:28

Yes, sir. Amazing. Yeah. That talk

32:30

about, um, that space

32:32

is interesting. We just got our first TV. Amazing.

32:35

And I'm like, which

32:38

charger should I get? That is a crowded

32:40

market. Oh my gosh. There's a lot of options

32:42

for each level for level two EV home

32:44

chargers. So it's, it's cool because Die

32:47

Hard is a, obviously a brand

32:49

that's trusted. Like, oh, I know

32:51

that brand. That makes sense. Cause a lot of those,

32:53

a lot of those products in that space that I've never,

32:56

the companies are not famous at all.

32:58

There's a lot of neat, it seems to be a lot of niche stuff in

33:00

there.

33:02

Jason, I'll also tell you one other thing. When

33:04

was your home built?

33:07

Our home was built in 2011.

33:10

2011. You're lucky. Let

33:12

me give you an example of a

33:15

couple of our customers whose

33:18

homes were built, one

33:20

in the 70s, one before the 90s. They

33:24

were excited like you and went and

33:26

got an electric vehicle. They came home,

33:30

they picked up an EV charger from Amazon

33:33

and called the electrician. What

33:36

happened after this

33:38

is something that we are seeing day in

33:40

and day out. In those

33:42

scenarios, the electrician will come home. They'll

33:45

look at the electrical panel. They'll say,

33:47

Oh my God, you only have a hundred amp circuit and

33:51

can't put another max down. Yeah.

33:53

Yeah. So I can't put an EV charger

33:55

in here. So do me a favor. Call

33:58

your utility company. You're

34:01

in California. You call PG&

34:03

E. They come in. They look

34:05

at your home. And they say, Oh,

34:08

no problem. We'll put a higher

34:10

amperage pipe. But

34:12

we have to dig up your front yard. It's going

34:14

to be 20, 000 on a 6 month project.

34:17

Right. To

34:22

support your EV. And in those scenarios, you know what we do?

34:24

We say, don't worry about it.

34:26

We can help you. What we

34:29

do is, we have worked, you

34:31

know, we have relationships in the market

34:34

with companies like Span. We

34:36

put a digital electrical panel

34:39

wherein When you're

34:41

using your water heater, electric water

34:43

heater, and let's say your EV charger is on,

34:46

we throttle the electricity between the

34:48

two so that the upstream amperage is

34:50

never, never exceeds

34:53

the limits in the scenario was had.

34:57

You didn't have to like wait six months and

34:59

pay 20, 000. Well,

35:01

because that, like my

35:03

understanding is panels

35:07

in the past are. It's planned

35:09

that you can have up to this and at any time you can hit that

35:11

capacity And what you're saying with a lot

35:13

of the smart technology what you do is spam is with

35:15

span and I've heard of span You can it

35:18

will figure out it Load.

35:20

Hey, like it's yeah load

35:22

balance. We're gonna charge the car

35:24

at night We know the microwave microwave

35:27

is not gonna be on we're gonna time it And,

35:29

and let the electrical system do that

35:31

as opposed to me having to think about it myself, which is

35:33

brilliant because I'm not going to know, like

35:36

how many people know about amperage in their house? Not many.

35:39

Not at any sort of level of sophistication.

35:42

And here

35:44

is the kicker. It's

35:47

very, very hard to find electricians.

35:50

You got to pull permits. And in

35:52

many cases, especially

35:55

with the Inflation Reduction

35:57

Act that has been passed, Inflation

36:00

Reduction Act has been passed, you know,

36:02

which is a bipartisan bill that was passed last

36:04

year. If you're in a low

36:06

and moderate income household,

36:10

you could get rebates potentially

36:12

up to 14, So

36:16

that means the installation of the panel,

36:19

maybe an heat pump based water heater

36:22

and the EV charger could

36:26

all be covered mostly

36:28

by the Inflation Reduction Act. Yep.

36:31

And. Maybe with some subsidies.

36:34

So the point that I'm trying to highlight is the

36:36

government is actually shoveling money

36:39

into people's

36:42

pockets to

36:44

buy appliances. That's

36:46

going to focus on whole home electrification

36:50

because that helps with

36:52

the energy security of the. It's

36:55

a, it's a bipartisan agenda.

36:58

Yeah, absolutely. And

37:00

Kenmore basically has

37:02

all the relationships from

37:06

the electric appliances, the energy

37:08

appliances, like EV charger, and

37:11

the relationships. To

37:13

like, install, project

37:16

manage, pull permits,

37:20

and literally do

37:22

an end to end kind

37:25

of architecture, planning, design, implementation,

37:28

management of your

37:30

whole home electrification, and I think

37:32

that is a very, very unique position, and of

37:34

course. Kenmore is a brand that is well

37:36

known in, in all

37:39

parts of the us Yeah. So

37:41

it softens the

37:43

technology aspects. Like

37:45

you said, you know, some unknown EV charger. If

37:47

you had seen a diehard EV charger or a Kenmore EV

37:50

charger, you know, hey, you know what, I

37:52

know that brand. Yeah. I can trust that.

37:53

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

37:56

Cher, I wanna wrap up

37:58

for today and get some

38:02

lessons for the audience. Anything that you may

38:04

have, like maybe let's, let's keep it to three

38:07

that come to mind. Lessons you learned

38:09

from your business career as a

38:11

leader, as a product person,

38:14

as, uh, all the different roles you

38:16

play. What are, what are some things that you've learned? And

38:18

I, I always like to frame this as if

38:20

I had you on here when you first

38:23

started your career, what do you wish you would have known that you know now?

38:26

And maybe we can save some people some grief or

38:28

maybe not. They'll probably hear and go good advice

38:30

and they'll do it anyway. Cause that's what, that's what humans do,

38:32

right? That's what we do. Yeah.

38:35

What do you have for us?

38:37

Uh, it's all intuitively obvious

38:39

ones. The

38:41

number one thing is,

38:45

um, leadership has

38:47

to be earned. It's never best toward

38:50

in every day you

38:52

go and prove yourself

38:55

as a leader. It

38:57

has to be earned every

38:59

day, every moment. That's,

39:01

that's number one. You know, it's never best to

39:04

always tell yourself that winning

39:07

is a team sport. Winning

39:09

is a team sport. It's never about

39:12

you. It's about the team. And

39:15

the third thing. I'll

39:18

always say this in everything

39:20

that you do, every conversation,

39:23

every relationship, never

39:26

take more than you can give, never

39:29

ever take more than you can give.

39:33

Beautiful. Thank you so much. My friend

39:35

is a delight to have you on. We'll

39:37

have you back on. I am personally

39:39

looking forward to walking around target

39:42

and BJs and all the other places

39:44

and go, I know that guy. I

39:47

know that guy. That's super cool. I'm looking forward to seeing

39:49

the, what you all have tech enabled

39:51

in the future. The electrification, obviously

39:53

we're EV shoppers. We believe in that too. We have

39:55

two young children and that is important

39:58

to us. And just thank you for all the good work you're doing over there

40:00

to build

40:02

and grow the brand and all the cool stuff. Like I said,

40:04

we, I was telling, I was telling Sri before we

40:06

started that. We're a shark household.

40:08

I, we have probably three or four shark products. My

40:10

wife loves her Ninja. So we've, you know, we've been,

40:12

we're on the receiving end in the best way possible

40:14

of a lot of the things you've probably worked on at some

40:16

point have had a hand in. So thank you so much.

40:20

Thank you for having me, Jason. Have a wonderful

40:22

day. Thanks so much.

40:25

Thanks for listening to another episode of Talking

40:27

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40:30

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