Growing Destinations
Your go-to source for insightful discussions on destination development. The Growing Destinations podcast delves into the strategies, challenges, and successes that drive community growth. Each episode features in-depth conversations with local and national experts, uncovering universal themes and innovative practices that can be applied to any city or region.
Growing Destinations
From Silicon Valley to Minnesota: A Journey of Reinvention
Steve Grove is a leader whose career journey has spanned Silicon Valley, state government, and now the publishing world. Steve is the CEO and Publisher of the Star Tribune, Minnesota’s largest news organization. Before that, he served as Commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development, and earlier, he spent more than a decade at Google helping to build its news and civic engagement initiatives.
Steve recently added another chapter to his story with the release of his memoir, How I Found Myself in the Midwest: A Memoir of Reinvention. In it, he shares the personal journey of leaving the fast-paced tech world, returning to his roots in Minnesota with his wife and twins, and rediscovering the power of community and place.
Steve shares why he wrote this book now, what he hopes readers take away, and what the process of writing a memoir taught him about reinvention and about himself.
The Growing Destinations podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Learn more about Minnesota's third largest city, which is home to Mayo Clinic and features wonderful recreational and entertainment opportunities, by visiting experiencerochestermncom.
Speaker 2:Everyone has a life story. Every single person on this planet could write a memoir and write an interesting one, if they took the time to be able to do it. And I guess for me, when you do it, you start to analyze your life a little bit with a third eye, because you're trying to write about yourself like a character, if you will, and that was therapeutic for me and it was also an exercise in self-discovery.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast, where we take a deep dive into destination development and focus on a wide range of topics, from tourism and entertainment to economic development and entrepreneurism and much more. I'm your host, bill Von Bank. Today, we're joined by Steve Grove, a leader whose career journey has spanned Silicon Valley, state government and now the publishing world. Steve is the CEO and publisher of the Star Tribune, minnesota's largest news organization. Before that, he served as commissioner of Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development, and earlier he spent more than a decade at Google, hoping to build its news and civic engagement initiatives.
Speaker 1:Steve recently added another chapter to his story with the release of his memoir how I Found Myself in the Midwest, a memoir of reinvention. In it, he shares a personal journey of leaving the fast-paced tech world, returning to his roots in Minnesota with his wife and twins, and rediscovering the power of community and place. We'll talk about why he wrote the book now, what he hopes readers take away and what the process of writing a memoir taught him about reinvention and about himself. Steve, welcome to the Growing Destinations podcast. Thanks, bill, good to be here. Welcome back, we had you on about a year ago.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:When you were giving an update on the Star Tribune and your new role, and since then, obviously, the Star Tribune has rebranded and so many new activities. We will talk about that, but I first want to talk about this new venture that you've started for yourself. It's writing a book, and the title of your memoir is how I Found Myself in the Midwest. It's both personal and universal. Why did you feel now was the right time to write and release this book?
Speaker 2:I don't think a lot of 47-year-olds write a book with the word memoir in the title, so I had to kind of put that self-conscious thought aside and follow what I felt like was a story worth telling at a unique time. In some ways my story is really common. It's a boomerang story. I left Minnesota and came back Many Minnesotans do but the journey of kind of leaving Google and going into state government right during the crisis of COVID and George Floyd and then going on to the Strib to try to reimagine media in a new age just kind of afforded me some insights that, as I thought about them and shared them with folks outside of Minnesota, felt like it might be a book and so started talking to people outside the state, talked to Simon Schuster, my eventual publisher, and ended up landing on a storyline that we felt might be uniquely resonant right now. And really that core message is the power of going local to make change in a really fraught time. And it's a personal story, but it's also a story about our state.
Speaker 1:Well, you've led in different worlds Silicon Valley to start with state government and now publishing. Did some of those transitions and pivots inspire the urgency of telling your story at this point?
Speaker 2:I think so, and also I think that there are not enough people, unfortunately, who kind of leave the private sector and go into government, and so the kernel of it was that of like, maybe more people should try leaving places like Google and taking a stint inside of government. I ended up finding it being really inspiring, super impactful. I learned a lot. I think a lot of the cliches about government not working turned out to maybe not be as true once you're inside and you see, man, there's a lot of really great, innovative public servants here, and so, yeah, I felt like that was kind of the beginning of this story. But then I think the broader journey of sharing, coming back to a state as a native son with a fresh pair of eyes and Minnesota being kind of a character in the book which it is, was, I hope, a helpful way to share some insights on this state and where it might go at a pretty dynamic time.
Speaker 1:Leaving Google to work for the state. I had to chuckle about some of what you said in the book regarding the advice you got when you first started. Can you share a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Well, of course, the first thing is don't go in there and be the Google guy and be like a cartoon of yourself and come in, and so the advice is well, hey, bring some of the innovation of Google, but don't tell everybody the government has to be run by Google.
Speaker 2:I also got advice from people who were very cognizant of kind of the bureaucracy and the things that would slow you down, and one person in particular told me that you'll run into a lot of weebies, and a weebie is someone who will say we be here before you got here and we be here when you're gone was his sort of nickname for it.
Speaker 2:And that really stuck with me, because that is a true of any job where you're a political appointee and you come in for a bespoke period of time, and it's why a lot of political appointees don't focus on things like culture and how the place runs, because, look, you're just there for a minute and so you want to get some big wins for your boss or yourself and move on. And I didn't really view it that way, and I actually found that when I focused on the culture of deed and how to strengthen it, which I think the place was really ready for it turned out to lead to, I would say, a lot greater impact, especially when crisis hit with the pandemic. So, yes, there are weebies in any organization, but I ended up thinking that maybe wasn't the best advice. The best advice was to go in and try to invest some time and energy in listening to your new colleagues and reshaping a place for the better.
Speaker 1:You mentioned you're 47. So what surprised you most about looking back and documenting your journey right now, at this stage in your life?
Speaker 2:Well, when you write a book like this, you don't know quite what's going to come out until you start putting pen to paper. And some of the more personal components of the book were surprising to me in the way I ended up weaving them into the broader story of my own journey. Here I talk a lot about the fertility journeys my wife and I faced ultimately successful, but a journey like anyone who has them will recognize. I talk about my relationship with my parents and my faith and coming back to a state and finding my place there and even just the concept of making friends in your forties and how you do that when you're coming into a new community after having been gone for 20 years and why that's kind of hard and maybe uniquely hard in Minnesota. So some of those pieces that were more personal, I didn't set out having them scoped out as chapters, but when you're writing kind of a transplants journey, they they end up being quite relevant.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, there's, there's the Minnesota nice, and sometimes I think maybe just remove the N, and sometimes it's ice. I think that's right.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, it's a thing and we all kind of joke about it and it's, it's there but I also think that it is a welcoming place.
Speaker 2:You just have to be a bit more assertive, and that's kind of the lesson that Mary and I learned as we started inviting people over and reaching out and also, kind of, for me, making friends in your forties got to this point where it's like, well, look, worst that can happen is someone doesn't want to hang out with you. Or worst that can happen is you know you reach out and it isn't great, but you know that's not that bad. You just got to keep going, and people all want the same thing. They want a sense of connection. Especially now in our digital world has, I would say, kind of lightened our social skills in ways that we need to reinvest in.
Speaker 1:When you moved back to Minnesota, was it as easy for Mary, your wife, as it was for you?
Speaker 2:I would say it was probably a little harder for her. I mean, she grew up in San Diego, which you know, 75 and sunny every day.
Speaker 2:She is very tough and resourceful and a great community builder, so I think she took very naturally to it. But I don't pull any punches in the book about moments where we felt quite stuck. And there's actually a whole chapter called Stuck where we've kind of been here for a year. The honeymoon had worn off this adventure of moving to a new state which always was for us, you know, designed to be a chapter, we'll see where it goes, kind of thing Kind of fell down and we were like, well gosh, do we really want to be here? We took a trip back out to the valley. We're like, oh, back home it's two degrees, here it's 72 degrees. You know, we've really found a lot of hope through community and through people. She started a venture firm here that's very focused on connecting with companies in our state and for anybody. You come to the state and it's just a great place to live. I mean your podcast lifts this up all the time about Rochester, and it's true of other cities in our state as well.
Speaker 1:It's got a lot going for it and especially when you have kids, you realize, man, there's a lot to love. Reinvention is central to your memoir. What does reinvention mean to you, and how do you hope readers will apply that concept to their own lives?
Speaker 2:I think it's a pretty common American trait and I think for all of us we have little moments of reinvention when you're trying something new. Their scale may be different for different people but I come to see reinvention is more often than not a superpower when you can go to one sector of the economy or one job or one opportunity from another and you aren't a part of that institution or sector from before, you bring a fresh pair of eyes. I mean, for me, leaving Google and going into government, I didn't know the first thing about how to run a 1400 person bureaucracy and there's challenges to that for sure, but I also was able to bring a fresh pair of eyes to it. And same thing with the Strib. I mean it's 157 year old newspaper.
Speaker 2:I did not spend my career in newspapers but Glenn and the board who hired me to come in wanted somebody who didn't have a whole legacy of experience. So I guess reinvention to me it can be scary but the insight I've had in doing it myself and I hope others would resonate with us is that often it's a superpower because you're bringing new sets of skills to an opportunity that is different. And you know the theme of reinvention in my book isn't just personal but it's about our communities and states. I mean, I think that Minnesota's institutions need reinvention. I think our country's institutions need reinvention. I make the case that going local to do that reinvention has the highest chance of success and hopefully those who read the book will find some inspiration in that.
Speaker 1:Another reference to superpower in your book is when you talk about the startup community in Minnesota and that its superpower is that it's not like Silicon Valley. Can you explain that?
Speaker 2:Silicon Valley succeeds in part because of its swagger and I don't mean to say that there are a lot of other factors and variables of course, stanford and the silicate industry and all the early startups and ecosystem that were built there. But today its culture has a lot of swagger to it, and for good reason. They've done a lot of great things in that market and I was impressed by it. But Minnesota's market is a little bit different. It feels a bit more purpose-driven.
Speaker 2:I feel like the startups here in our state, especially in Rochester, are focused on solving real problems, not just on gobbling up people's attention on their phones, and I think that's kind of a hallmark of this economy that we as a state need to lean into. It's part of what defines us. We're out there solving major health crises and food crises and we're using the latest technology to solve problems that really matter to people. It's why this state has such high business survivability. People who start things here stick with them for longer than almost any other state in the country. So you got to lean into that and I think here in Rochester in particular, you got to lean into that. When it comes to medtech, we were far and away the best medtech ecosystem in America and you know that is a hard earned place to be. It's not inevitable, but that defines us in ways that we need to market and brand more often, I think.
Speaker 1:You're a busy leader, executive and family man. How did you carve out the time and space to write a memoir?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I didn't. I wish I'd had a plan before it before.
Speaker 1:I started.
Speaker 2:It sounded like a cool idea. And then you suddenly get the book deal and you're like I have to actually do this thing so. But I enjoyed it. I mean it was such an honor to get to do. I'm an early morning person, so I would write most days from five to six or five to 630. I try to carve out a little bit of longer chunk on a Friday and on the weekends, but I didn't want it to kind of consume family time and vacation time, so I tried to be careful about that. And then I had a good editor. I mean, my editor is a woman named Stephanie Frerich. She's from St Cloud, minnesota, but works at Simon Schuster as a VP over there. So she was instrumental in helping me be efficient and effective. No one writes these things without a good editor and she was very helpful on that front. But I enjoyed the process. I like to write. You end up writing at least twice as much as what ends up in the book. But the journey for me was itself a learning experience, so I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:How would you describe the process, reflective therapeutic, challenging all of those?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was all those. It was kind of therapeutic that you mentioned that word. It kind of sticks out. I mean, everyone has a life story. Every single person on this planet could write a memoir and write an interesting one if they took the time to be able to do it. And I guess for me, when you do it, you start to analyze your life a little bit with a third eye, because you're trying to write about yourself like a character, if you will, and that was therapeutic for me and it was also an exercise in self-discovery. You know, if you're going to write a good book, you got to go deep. If you stay flighty, that's great. Some books are made for that. But this is kind of a deeper book. It's a nuanced book and I wanted to do right by myself and my family. And you know I learned a lot about what I like and don't and what makes me me.
Speaker 1:Were there parts of your story that were difficult to put on paper and, if so, how did you decide what to include or leave out?
Speaker 2:because of that, felt a little stifled by it. My parents weren't happy about that and for most of my adult life wasn't very spiritual or at least didn't go to a church. Part of my journey coming back to Minnesota was rediscovering faith, and that's a very personal thing, and my reconciliation with my parents on that front was really wonderful and ultimately became a story I felt like might inspire others to find a faith path that works for them and reconcile things with their parents if they can. And that journey for me was really great. But to write it took a lot of care and of course I had to involve my parents in that. I wasn't going to write about that relationship without their blessing and for them to be able to read that as I wrote it and react to it was really powerful. It made us stronger and closer together. So it was a really, really special thing to get to do.
Speaker 1:Did you write this book as more of a personal project, or did you also see it as a contribution to the larger conversation about the Midwest and even leadership?
Speaker 2:I think probably both. I mean write a book about your life and it is very much a personal journey, but I didn't want it to be. I didn't think it would be any good if it was myopic. It had to say something bigger about this moment and I do think at this moment we face some pretty unprecedented challenges and, for whatever reason, these last two career stops that I've had, both in state government, at the Strip, have been at their core about taking kind of established institutions, whether it's government or media, and trying to modernize them and make them work for a new era. And I guess I would say in a macro sense, I think we need a lot more of that across the spectrum of our major institutions.
Speaker 2:Trust is falling in all matters of society, whether it's military or religion or government or media or big tech, and that's a uniquely American problem, but it is very solvable if we create some innovation inside of these institutions and rather than what's happening in Washington right now, which I think has an intent that is good, which is to make our institutions run better, but the impact and methodology is just to essentially destroy them, I think an innovative approach and an approach that starts locally, I would argue, has a much better chance of success, and so I hope that the book contributes to those who are looking for some hope, a way to change or grow their community. You don't have to leave your job and join state government or join a newspaper to do it, but there's small ways you can do it too, or ways that are different. But we've got to invest in these institutions if we're going to make them stronger, and so the book makes that case.
Speaker 1:Many people dream about leaving the big coastal hubs to return home, but not everybody takes the leap. What do you hope your story says about life opportunity and community in the Midwest?
Speaker 2:I hope that it gives people a sense of possibility, you're right to say. I mean, I often met a lot of Minnesotans out in the Valley who were like God, it'd be fun to live back there, but I couldn't get a job or I couldn't make as much money or or I don't know I just something's holding me back. We actually did it, and we actually did it and many others have. We're not alone and we found a different kind of a life, as dynamic. It is exciting, if not more, but different, and by my own choice, my journey has been more local. But even if you are on the coast and you're thinking about living here and you don't want to have a job that is rooted in the state or local.
Speaker 2:There are some massive global companies doing incredible things here in Rochester more than any place else. So this is not a parochial state. I think we all know that it's a very global state and I don't think you can say that for every state in Midwest. But it's a unique identifier of Minnesota that this is a state that looks to the world, and so part of what I hope the book does is for anybody looking at it, no-transcript, and Minnesota is a place worth coming. It is a destination and not just a flyover state. My working title for the book was Flyover. No More Publisher didn't like that as much. I still kind of like it, but you know it got some cachet.
Speaker 2:It kind of made that point anyway. So yeah, this isn't flyover country. We all know that. Your podcast says that every day.
Speaker 1:What do you want readers, particularly Minnesotans, to walk away thinking or feeling after finishing your book?
Speaker 2:particularly Minnesotans, to walk away thinking or feeling after finishing your book.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope Minnesotans in particular get a bit of a better sense for our history and I'm no historian, but the book ended up being classified as a cultural anthropology book on Amazon, for example, because it does get at the kind of history of our state and why we are the way we are, I hope, in a really accessible way. So Minnesotans get a better sense for identity, a bit more pride for it. It's not a book that is a rah-rah Midwest rules. You know there are no paradoxes here. It does examine our challenges too. But I think, and I know that at least as I conclude the book, I lift up Minnesota as a place where as better as much as any place in the country has a shot at helping social reinvention happen at a time when we need it. So I hope people leave the book with a sense that reinvention is possible whether it's personal or in your community, and that you don't have to have it all figured out to try something new. And that for me, was a big lesson.
Speaker 1:In your book you write about the sausage making behind legislation, specifically how Launch Minnesota got started. Can you give us just a little insight into that. It was really a great read.
Speaker 2:Oh thanks. Yeah Well, I didn't know how legislative processes worked until I was inside the system and it's inspiring and in some ways, troubling. But a lot of backroom deals happen to make stuff happen and you have to make the case broadly that something matters. And it was inspiring in the sense that what made Launch Minnesota real is the startups and entrepreneurs who would come to the Capitol and talk to the representatives. That really does matter.
Speaker 2:I think people might think it doesn't, but actually showing up and making a case to your legislators makes a huge difference in how they view what needs to be done. Launch Minnesota it was a small program it is currently not funded by the state government, which gives me a lot of concern because I think it's something we need to keep going but was really meant to put our startup ecosystem on the map through dollars directly to startups and incentives for venture capitalists to invest here. And the gristle of how it got done involved a lot of back and forth and some senators and representatives alongside myself trying to navigate our way forward, but ultimately with the same intent, which is to create something that's really special and puts our state on the map, and ultimately it got through and I learned a lot about how to navigate state politics in that process, but was really happy it was successful.
Speaker 1:Has writing this book changed how you think about your next chapter, personally or professionally? What's ahead for you?
Speaker 2:You're a young guy. Well, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed public service. I could see myself going back to it in some way I'm not sure quite how yet, but definitely reflecting on the experience, especially in government, and recognizing what I liked about it was good for me, it was therapeutic after four years that were quite intense. But also I was like, yeah, I could do a version of that in some other role in the future. I'm not sure what that is. I don't have any particular plan. This book isn't some strategy on that front, although I know people might look at it and think that. But yeah, I don't know. I would say right now.
Speaker 2:The strip is a really powerful and important chapter for me. It's. I'm really excited by it. The public service you get to do in journalism is powerful. We've just begun our transformation. So I feel as emboldened now with the strip as I did when I started and I'm excited about it and I've got some great colleagues there. We're really trying to reinvent media for a new age and we've got a shot I think more than any other paper in the country, if you ask me, because we've got a great owner and a great community. That demands good journalism.
Speaker 1:So I'm enjoying it. That is a great lead in to end this podcast. And a year ago we talked about your new role at the Star Tribune and that was I don't think you had announced the rebranding or even the new name when we chatted. So can you fast forward a year from the last time we spoke and you've kind of hinted at it a little bit. But obviously a reinvention for the Star Tribune too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just a year out from this. In fact, it's the State Fair, as we're talking about this podcast, and so we relaunched at the State Fair last year. It's been a heck of a year, I mean. Adding Minnesota to that brand and expanding our reporting coverage across the state is a big deal. We hope we've gotten that right.
Speaker 2:Here in Rochester We've hired Sean Baker alongside Trey Muse and we have Victor Stefanski coming often because of his healthcare coverage beat. So we're trying to really earn that Minnesota in the name. Just recently we relaunched our whole high school sports effort around a brand called Strip Varsity in an effort there to really lean into high school sports and being an exhaustive hub for that coverage. We hope it's a good subscription play because parents want to see their kid's name in the paper, but also adds a new value to the market where it hasn't been there before. So, yeah, we're trying all kinds of new things. Some of them will work, some of them won't, but we want to run the place a bit more like a tech company with the credibility of a journalistic institution.
Speaker 1:So we're on our way, steve Grove, publisher, ceo of the Star Tribune, but today we spoke to you as an author from how I Found Myself in the Midwest. Thank you for being our guest on the Growing Destinations podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, Bill.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the Growing Destinations podcast and don't forget to subscribe. This podcast is brought to you by Experience Rochester. Find out more about Rochester, Minnesota, and its growing arts and culture scene, its international culinary flavors and award-winning craft beer by visiting experiencerochestermncom.
