Stanford MBA: From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Class of ‘95 Meets Class of ‘25

🎬 Podcast Ep. 2 | Stanford MBA – From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Jeff Barnett ’95 meets Zach Dyce '25

• Katharine McLennan • Season 1 • Episode 2

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This is Episode 2. Today, I’m joined by Jeff Barnett from the Class of 1995, a seasoned hedge fund executive, classical singer extraordinaire and multiple award recipient for his service to Stanford over the years, and Zach Dyce from the Class of 2025, an entrepreneur who intends to transform the way the American health system through Medicare can deliver addiction care through the application of AI. 

Today, I’m joined by Jeff Barnett from the Class of 1995, a seasoned hedge fund executive, classical singer extraordinaire and multiple award recipient for his service to Stanford over the years, and Zach Dyce from the Class of 2025, an entrepreneur who intends to transform the way the American health system through Medicare can deliver addiction care through the application of AI. 

In this conversation, we reflect on the evolution of business education, the role of AI, and the importance of diversity. Through personal stories, we explore generational views on leadership, social impact, and the challenges of today's world, emphasising the enduring value of collaboration, networking, and friendship in addressing global issues.

Join the Podcast Series
Stanford MBA: From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Class of ‘95 Meets Class of ‘25

Each of these episodes will feature a different pair of Stanford MBA people -- one from the class of 1995, and one from the class of 2025.

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https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSaVisoF0D_GKxVmHmakNxdpAJCb5_VTP

More info: https://www.katharinemclennan.com/

Contact: kath@katharinemclennan.com


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Note: this transcript is generated by AI, so it won’t always be perfect, especially when it comes to: 

·        Incorrect breaks in a sentence (AI hears the pause and assumes a new sentence)

·        Exact word recognition – you may see that there are words that don’t make sense from time to time

Introduction to the Podcast and Participants

Katharine McLennan  (00:06)
 Welcome to the MBA 30-year alumni bridge, a podcast series where each episode brings together a different set of two people. One person from the Stanford MBA class of 1995 and one from the class of 2025. 

I'm Katharine Keough-McLennan, your host for these inspiring and often humorous conversations. I am also from the Stanford MBA class of 1995. 

This series celebrates a unique year the class of 2025's graduation, the class of 1995's 30th reunion, and the 100th anniversary of Stanford Graduate School of Business. It's also an opportunity to connect two generations shaped by transformative eras. 

Our class of 1995, now in our 60s, give or take, were born just as the generation called Baby Boomers became the generation called X. We graduated from Stanford
 just as the internet arrived, marking the shift from the industrial age to the information age.  

The class of 2025, now in their 30s, give or take, were born just as the generation called Y, or millennials, became the generation Z called digital natives. They are graduating from Stanford into a world where their information age is definitely giving way
 to an era of artificial intelligence. 

Will this new era become the integration age where AI sparks human creativity or the isolation age marked by disconnection and a rising sense of purposelessness? Join us as we explore these questions, share insights, and bridge the generations.

This is episode 2. Today I'm joined by Jeff Barnett from the class of 1995, a seasoned hedge fund executive, classical singer extraordinaire and multiple award recipient for his service to Stanford over the years, and Zach Dyce from the class of 2025, an entrepreneur who intends to transform the way the American health system through Medicare can deliver addiction care through the application of AI.

In this episode, we explore how the Stanford MBA experience has evolved over 30 years. Together, we also dive into the leadership, the power of soft skills, and how generational perspectives shape innovation and purpose.

Start of our DIalogue

Katharine McLennan  (02:42)
 Jeff, do you want to start us off?

Jeff Barnett (02:45) 
so where am I today? Well, I'm in Redwood City, California at my office. And today is an auspicious day in American democracy because it's the election today nationally. So we have a race that...

Apparently some people around the world care about it a little bit. it's kind of crazy and I have to say that my wife and I are on pins and needles awaiting the outcome. But otherwise, just chugging away at my day job.

Katharine McLennan  (03:13)
 All right, but you're in Redwood City and you haven't left Palo Alto.

Jeff Barnett (03:18)
Yeah, I still live in Palo Alto. I'm a mile from campus and we're on campus, you know, all the time for various things. Concerts or just biking or running. My daughter does big loops around, goes up and does all through campus and yeah, all kinds of stuff.

Katharine McLennan  (03:31)
 Yeah, well, just a quick one, Jeff, then. How many kids do you have?

Jeff Barnett (03:35)
Two kids, one in college, one finishing up high school. Yeah, and Mike Ewen's youngest is my daughter's classmate in school. It's kind of funny,

Katharine McLennan  (03:44)
 What are their two names, Jeff?

Jeff Barnett (03:46)
My son is JT and short for James Thomas, his grandfather's, and my daughter is Claire.

Katharine McLennan  (03:52)
 Great. And what are you up to, Zach? What's going on at Stanford?

Zach Dyce (03:56)
Yeah, so I'm actually in the library here at the GSB. It's a beautiful sunny and 70 degree day in Palo Alto. I'm spending it, yeah, shocking. Who would have thought? Who would have thought? This Florida man loves it. But it's a beautiful day. mean, not much going on on campus, at least around here. A lot of people out walking around day off of school for the election. I think that there are some events going on.

Jeff Barnett (04:04)
Shocking.

Katharine McLennan  (04:11)
 Florida?

Zach Dyce (04:26)
the union and Tressider her but other than that I mean not much to report. I've been in the library most of the day working on my startup but I actually this morning it started going to a dear friend of mine who I knew from before the GSB but is now a classmate that she accepted a job at Dow Chemical and so there was a little surprise party for her to celebrate apple cider apples because she's moving to New York so it was a very very warm day to start whatis a long and stressful day for many reasons.

Katharine McLennan  (04:59)
 Yeah, long and stressful day for election day. And, Zach, it's funny. One of the memories that pops up, the purpose of this is really to kind of exchange a 30 year difference. And I'm looking at you and I'm thinking about, I'm about the same age, right? So, you know, I probably could be on the campus in your class and celebrating the Dow Chemical. And interestingly enough, I was remembering Jeff, one of the most stressful events of the second year.

Zach Dyce (05:19)
Come through.

Katharine McLennan  (05:27)
 Business school was watching everybody get job offers and I don't know. Do you remember that?

Jeff Barnett (05:32)
do. I remember, yeah, because I didn't get an offer from my summer firm. They made me an offer for a terrible job that they knew I didn't want, so it didn't really count. Yeah, those were stressful days.

Katharine McLennan  (05:45)
 Yeah. Zach, what's, one of the things I noticed about some of the students I've met, prior to your years is that there's a lot of focus on building the companies or doing your venture capital. Almost every student is kind of got their own thing going. So what are you building? What's the, what's your thing?

 

Zach’s Journey and startup Ventures

Zach Dyce (06:05)
Yeah, so I am getting in on a different part of the AI hype craze. am so I guess let me give you a bit of background on me before Stanford. So I grew up in Orlando. I mentioned I was a Florida man, grew up born and raised and both my parents are addicts actually. So that's going to come back into what I'm doing now. So grew up in a low income household with two addict parents and just that comes with some natural craziness that now I'm very thankful for even at the time.

Zach Dyce (06:35)
mean, it just makes life more interesting. But I went to Florida State, decided I wanted something bigger and better. Florida State hasn't always been the Stanford of the South. So I went and created my own path. I cold emailed my way into investment banking, worked in tech banking. And 2017, 2018, I got laid off, which really means fired during the biggest bull market, &A market of all time, that I was just very dispassionate about banking  that I didn't I realize I was more of a type a than I initially thought that I wasn't gonna sit there and do something just because some guy told me to at 3 a.m. which looking back 50 % I was right 50 % I was an asshole I was fighting a good fight they're still still doing it

Katharine McLennan  (07:21)
 Still, still, they're still doing that to invest. I can't believe it. They haven't gotten enlightened.

Jeff Barnett (07:22)
Hahaha!

Zach Dyce (07:31)
No, and I missed that memo that you were supposed to sit there and take it. And I have zero regrets on that. I stood up there and stood up for myself and was like, I'm not going to do this just because. But I failed forward, ended up at BCG, liked that a lot better, consulting. It was more in my wheelhouse, organic growth, strategy, operations, structured thinking, got tired of that. So I moved to Kenya. I was in Nairobi.

Jeff Barnett (07:57)
Holy cow! This is nuts!

Zach Dyce (07:59)
Yeah, I, were too stablefor me, I guess, that I wanted more chaos in my life. So I moved to Kenya, where I'd never actually been. I'd been to East Africa, but I'd never been to Nairobi. And I cold emailed my way.

Katharine McLennan  (08:13)
 Okay, Zach, just pause,pause because we are already noting the difference between our class and your class because we would not just pick up and go to Kenya.

 

Zach Dyce (08:24)
it's crazy, but not as crazy as you sound. mean, in my friend group in Kenya, think four of us came here, all American or all, no, Kenyan. And so there's a whole ecosystem. Yeah, the Sanford, the GSB, there's a whole ecosystem. Like the Nairobi startup scene really figured it out, like labor arbitrage.

And so I moved to Kenya. So long story short, I moved to Kenya, worked at the first African unicorn, which is like the Amazon of Africa, this company called Jumia. They IPO'd on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019. I joined there in 2021 when the world was still talking about profitability coming out of COVID. So I was focused on as chief of staff helping the company become profitable. But then halfway through 2021, the craziness of the stock market and the growth and the zero interest rate phenomenon hit. 

 And so it was all growth, growth, growth. And so I actually got voluntold to launch the scale of 20 minute grocery delivery business, which is also very hype cycle-y across 10 African countries. So I did that and had the time of my life. It was incredible. It was energetic. It was exhausting. I had no idea what to do half the time. I had to learn about logistics, warehousing, growth. grocery delivery, food delivery, quick commerce, and I loved it and did that for two and a half years and had the time of my life and from that point on I knew that I could never work a job again and I reported to the, yeah.

Katharine McLennan  (09:53)
 I am. Why just pause there? You could never work a job again. Okay, Jeff, let's go back to 1993 as we're all entering the business school. And I'm thinking, would we have met anyone that had started up a business in Africa, much less build a grocery company across four countries? I'm just trying to remember if there were any.

Jeff’s Reflections

Jeff Barnett (10:22) 
eah, I mean, I do think that the GSB has changed. I've interviewed candidates. helped Marie Mookini create the interview program almost 25, 27 years ago. And I've interviewed ever since. So I've interviewed dozens and dozens, many dozens of candidates. so I've seen this transition over time where, I mean, to be blunt about it, like, you  most of the people came in our class were very conventional. came from banking consulting and then went back to banking consulting and then there were oddballs like me and that sort of gave the little extra, the special sauce to the school and there were plenty like me. I wasn't the only one by any means.

Katharine McLennan  (10:59)
 Remind us why you are not both deaf.

Jeff Barnett (11:01)
Well, I was a professional musician. worked in the music business and did some other random things and worked in politics. I just retired last year from singing, by the way, which broke my heart. was time to hang it up. Yeah, my last eight gig was last year. But anyway, no, no, it's okay.

 

Katharine McLennan  (11:13)
 Jeff, reminder, reminder,wait, reminder for our classmates in 2025. Jeff has a career of the most stunning classical voice. Classical, so beautiful. Class.

Jeff Barnett (11:27)
Well, it's very sweet. No, you can't.

Zach Dyce (11:27)
Can we hear it one more time? One more time for thepodcast.

Jeff Barnett (11:30)
Not right now. You can find me on YouTube. There are a few things out there. anyway, yeah. no, no, like Bach and Handel and Mozart. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, the point I was going to make is that when, and even when I got out, like I did a conventional thing, I went to a bank too. And that's what most of us did. And nowadays,

Katharine McLennan  (11:35)
 Classical voice, classical voice. Yeah.

Zach Dyce (11:38)
Are we talking Sinatra or like?wow. Wow.

Cultural Shock and Diversity in Business School

Jeff Barnett (11:55)
I'm not even sure the banks even interview on campus anymore. I'm not even sure they, it's just changed completely. So it's really a different world. I still think that the GSB is all about changing organizations, changing the world or whatever the cliche is. I think that's as true as ever, but it's expressed quite differently as Zach is living proof.

Zach Dyce (12:00)
Goldman does. Barely.

Katharine McLennan  (12:02)
 Yeah.
 So Zach, what you finding? Let's take you back to 2023 and the entry into the business school with, you you've got four mates that are Australian term, that have come from the African initiatives. Now, what do you find when you arrive at Stanford? What do you notice about the students?

Zach Dyce (12:38)
I mean, I was surprised. mean, so I had worked at Jeffreys, I'd worked at BCG, but being in an elite educational institution for the first time, I mean, it was a culture shock somehow. It was like, all right, I saw you all and...

like working in New York, I was friends with all of you and on dates with people like you, but I never had been in this environment. And so it was different levels. It was, mean, just the opulence of wealth and success and interesting backgrounds that it was,

 I mean, it was exhilarating, exhausting, and I can't think of an E word, but almost like frustrating in a way that it was like, wow, there's so much to learn. There's so much to 

sort through, there's so many interesting people to get to know that it was very overwhelming, but also eye-opening in the sense that it's showing just so many different perspectives, so many different, I'm not gonna say different shows of like class because I was surprised how much it did skew like towards upper middle class. That I found just very interesting that coming in that it was, you have so many people

interested in so many different topics that they're so passionate about and that it was energizing in the sense that, okay, I'm around you, that some of you have done things that I aspire to do or you come from industries that I aspire to learn about, that I did find it empowering and motivating for many different reasons that I wanted to be as successful as the person next to me or attain a certain level of wealth that they came from. So it was just very, very by opening in fun.

Katharine McLennan  (14:26)
 We got such an interesting perspective. For me, it was intimidating and I thought people were really too cool for me. I don't know what you thought, Jeff, in that 19...

Jeff Barnett (14:37)
Well, I felt completely
out of my league. one of the things just like if you think of culturally, this is true now. And I think it was true then this notion that these were people, these were doers. These were people who wanted to do things. They want to fix things. I thought for sure I was going to go to public policy school. I had it all worked out in my mind. And the more I looked at it, I thought that's like I don't want to sit in a cubicle and write a paper about

(you know economic policies. I just didn't, I wanted to do things, fix things, build things and even though most of us went at least initially to conventional careers, the culture of sort of innovation, the culture of, know for lack of a better word, of activity of wanting to do and fix things was very real and really energizing. There was no problem that nobody, that people said, we can't do that, it's too hard. I never heard that once in two years, not once.

Katharine McLennan  (15:28)
 Yeah, it was amazing. I, one of the things I look at is it was such a weird time for us and Zach, I'd love to get your comment because, you have to remember, and Jeff can add a little bit to this. was really no internet when we arrived. I don't even, I don't even think we bare. I don't think we even have emails and I didn't, I don't even, we did. Okay.

Jeff Barnett (15:47)
We had email when we arrived, but that was the first time I'd ever had email. I didn't have it at my previous job.

How does this all work? It's crazy. Along those lines, I have to tell an anecdote because it's so funny. This goes to the eras. We were graduating business school and somebody, I don't know who it was, got a cell phone. It was very early. This is sort of like Gordon Gekko with a giant briefcase phone. I remember saying,

 

What a dumb idea. I don't want a cell phone. People just call me all the time. I don't want one of those. I'm happy to report. Luckily, I did not choose venture capital as my career because I would have.

You know, think any number people made small and large fortunes on technology that I probably did not see coming. It's just kind of crazy how it's played out.

Zach Dyce (16:36)
How did you communicatewithout email? Like, I mean, it's insane. I mean, that's how you find out about anything. I mean, we have what we call BLAST and it's a listserv. What's that?

Katharine McLennan  (16:43)
 Pigeon holes! Pigeon holes! them? You remember like the they're actually a huge long hall of. Yeah. Yes, yes. It's. So if we had to, if somebody wanted somebody to like a big gig or something, wanted to do, they literally would get copies of one piece of paper saying, hey, come to this and stuff 300.

Jeff Barnett (16:57) Yeah, yeah, course, like for mail for physical mail Yes. Yes, I do remember that. Of course. It's like, yeah, that's,

Katharine McLennan  (17:21)
  the mailboxes. I know, Zach. The time. The time. I don't either.

The Impact of AI on Business and Startups

Zach Dyce (17:24)
I don't know how you survived. It's insane. Now you just type up an email and find a funny meme because you have to put a meme at the end of the email.

if you're blasting it out to everyone. Yeah, it's called a blast tax because that's what our list service called. It's called GSB Blast. Then it sends it out to everyone. And so you get, mean, 10, 15, 20 a day. And yeah, very, very few like relate to you. I mean, maybe ones about foam, which is I think that was an institution. Yeah. But it's like you have to put a meme at the bottom because otherwise, like, why am I going to read these emails? So I'm.

I mean, I don't even know if memes existed in 1993. Like, yeah. That's so interesting.

Katharine McLennan  (18:08)
 gosh, no, no, no, no.okay, so foam's still on, right? So friends of RJ Miller, duh, okay. Jeff, were you a regular attender at foam?

 

Jeff Barnett (18:18)
Friends of RJ Miller. Yep.

 

Not too often to phone, I did go to the liquidity preference. TGF, no, what is it called on Fridays? LPF, sorry, I want to say TGF. I went to LPFs pretty religiously. And in fact, my wife went to the GSB. And the joke we had was that I went to more of her LPFs than she did. And she was seven years younger, so it was kind of comical. I got to know her classmates better than she did in some ways.

 

Zach Dyce (18:33)

LPF.

Jeff Barnett (18:51)
I was reliving my youth at that point, I guess.

Katharine McLennan  (18:54)
 So, okay, so let's think about Zach. You know, we sort of gave a brief introduction when we all graduated from 1995, who would have known that Netscape was going to go public that year. And actually Zach, I noticed working for consulting that it was a boon to consulting because all of a sudden information could be just zapped, well, slowly, but at least electronically zapped across the world and these consulting firms really leverage that knowledge. But now you're in the AI age. What does that mean to a class like you? does AI mean as you go out into the world? You're already using it. So why don't you talk a little bit about that?

Zach Dyce (19:35)
No one really knows what it means. That everyone, it's very buzzwordy, but it's all the hype. mean, in the sense of...

It's what everyone talks about, whether it's what they're building, the startups that they want to go work for. It's like big tech and part of it's the cycle of where we are economically and hiring to where it's much sexier to go intern or work at an AI startup than it is to go work at Apple or Google. Or maybe it's like if you are going to Apple or Google, it's how is it touching AI? And so I mean,

It's a discussion that comes up and everyone feels very strongly about it that I went to for what I'm building. I never answered that. So I'm building a patient engagement and case management solution for Medicaid populations, for people struggling with addiction, housing insecurity, HIV, et cetera. And so I went to a dinner with the VC that invests in companies working towards social mobility. And then it was a Harvard economist turned VC. Then he asked a question.

was what is AI? Will it actually make a difference? Or something trying to be thought provoking. We spent 45 minutes talking about it and no one knows what they're talking about. We all have ideas, but we know that it's gonna be here in some way, form. And everyone has a different view on what that form's gonna look like.

Or is AI being used deployed effectively right now? And that's the big thing that it's trying to figure out is it AI that's gonna be gobbled up by Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, or is this AI in figuring out where the actual applications can be used? But I mean, the VC is if you're not putting AI in your tagline when you're talking to them, no one's gonna give you money. So it's a very abstract concept right now. It's definitely hype driven, but it's not the only one. mean, climate's very hot, very much talked about, and so it's probably climate and AI are the two things that are most talked about on campus, and even better if you can hit the intersection of both climate and AI.

Katharine McLennan  (21:42)
 I'm so glad to hear that because Jeff, think the big, you tell me, but the big difference for us, we actually suddenly had a global, it was like a global specialization. And I actually think they also introduced the leadership specialization. I don't know, I'm trying to remember what it was called, global economic.

Jeff Barnett (22:18)
There was a year long class, a multi quarter class called Learning to Lead, which might be what you're thinking about. there was the Wobble Initiative was just being rolled out right when we left. And I don't actually know what the status of that is anymore. know that it was sort of an extension of, for a while it was an extension of the public management program and I think it spun out on its own. I think actually

Katharine McLennan  (22:27)
 That's right. Pfeffer.

Jeff Barnett (22:43)
I'm not 100 % sure, but I think our very generous classmate Jeff Skoll helped fund a big initiative in that regard. mean, Jeff's funded a lot of stuff over time, but I know that I'm pretty sure he's involved in that. I don't know the status of those today.

Katharine McLennan  (22:58)
 Yeah, it's, and so you can see that you guys were like, yeah, multi global, whatever, but to us, it was a big deal because we weren't able to communicate so well across the world. certainly had international students, Jeff. I'm trying to, you know, I'm remembering all the countries that were represented, but I have a hypothesis, Zach, that your diversity kind of blows us out of the water in terms of countries and professions. And what, what did you find when you arrived, Zach, the? with your students, your fellow students in terms of diversity.

Zach Dyce (23:32)
Yeah, I mean, there is a ton and I have no idea what it was like 30 years ago, but I know it's a huge topic of conversation, like amongst different groups. know that I think we have two or three students from Thailand and one from the Philippines, but none from Indonesia, which is like the most populous country on earth or something crazy. And I think the Indian population went up, then like I'm the African pop. There's just always this waiting going on.

of where are we pulling students from? Do we have enough representation? Because like kind of what you're mentioning, when information started flowing more freely, it opened up your eyes and without globalist, I mean talking about the election, like how globalist we are as an economy right now, that you really need those perspectives. You need people to talk and share their experience, their thoughts about their corner of the world because it's all in intertwined

and that's something that I found to be really cool is that in the election season like the Brits had their election like the summer and so there's a lot of talk about that and just different perspectives on China because that's a hot button issue that we have Chinese classmates to give different perspectives India like South America big Latin American contingency so I find it to be really powerful and cool and very important because if not it gets stuck in an echo chain

that, I mean, I would say like probably two thirds of the class, maybe a little bit less worked in banking or consulting. So we can like pre business school. And so we all kind of talk the same way and think the same way. So it's nice when you can break it up and have a classically trained singer or an international student bring a different view to really spice up the conversation and get us out of the echo chamber here in Palo Alto.

The Power of “Touchy Feely” 

Katharine McLennan  (25:10)
 Wow. I love it. So let's zoom back and forward, Jeff. So as you look at the last 30 years, what stands out as a lesson that still sticks with you at Stanford and maybe a lesson that you wish you had had while we were there 30 years ago?

Jeff Barnett (25:45)
Well, I mean, it's probably a great cliche in the GSB, but like the touchy feely class was just epic and that the whole construct, I'd never heard of until I got there. And of course, this is a deeply unfair simplification of touchy feely, but the whole notion of saying, when you say that, I feel this. And like as a concept, it's just incredibly powerful. And I've used that.

so many times in my life. I've used it, I use it at work, I use it at home, I use it with my wife, I with my kids. I mean there's really no one I wouldn't use it with. And recognizing that the flip side is so deeply negative. When you say, you're a bad person or you did, you know, whatever and like you put these, you give these, you attach characteristics to people in a way that is, that disempowers them and typically makes them feel more distant and 
 here very often they get angry. anyway, that was definitely the most powerful learning I had.

Katharine McLennan  (26:43)
 Or Jeff, the other one is, you made me angry.

Jeff Barnett (26:47)
Yeah. that was a great one. I don't really have a, I can't say that I have an example of where I say I learned something after and think I should have learned it at business school. I definitely learned plenty after business school, but I don't know if could say it's like, it's not like business school let me down on some front. I feel like I got a really good education for what it was. mean, it wasn't, it's two years, you can learn a certain amount and then you move on. so I'm grateful for all that I did learn and not.

I don't really focus much on what I didn't, to be honest.

Katharine McLennan  (27:17)
 yeah. Zach, what stands out as the most interesting thing you've learned so far given that you still have a little bit more than a half a year left?

 

Zach Dyce (27:25)
Yeah, so for me coming in that I was a finance major and undergrad, working in banking and consulting. So I was less interested in the hard skills, but more interested in soft skills and leadership than anything related to entrepreneurship. But I think what stood out is the importance, kind of what you're talking about with touchy feeling. I haven't taken it yet, but a lot of different ways to approach it. So I'm taking conversations and management with Irv

Katharine McLennan  (27:54)
 No way.

Zach Dyce (27:55)
back right now

Jeff Barnett (27:57)
Grossbeck teaches that?

Zach Dyce (27:59)
yeah yeah he's yeah still kicking doing well and it

Jeff Barnett (27:59)
Interesting.

Zach Dyce (28:06)
I'm learning so much. mean, I'm not a huge fan of role plays that I just don't find them to be that useful for me. But the way the class is set up that there's one role play that one person does in front of the class and with the antagonist or protagonist of the case on zoom. And I find it to be really powerful, but it's simple lessons. And I use that word simple that that's been a key takeaway is that. Especially in the world today, we try to make everything so complex and over-engineered.

that what is the simple route that we're trying to drive towards? Let's not over engineer, like let's make it simple. And that's something I picked up from, or Grosbeck that I think is incredible. That it's really changed the way I view. And then the second is, you kind of mentioned it in the intro, is that everyone here has something going on.

And it's, I've learned the importance of just doing, like getting forward momentum and trying something that it's easy to talk, but it's a whole nother thing to try. And at Stanford, there's competing methodologies or viewpoints on entrepreneurship. One is the lean methodology, which is I'm going to very systematically break down a problem space and find a need. I'm going to validate that need. I'm going to find a problem,

validate the problem, or they're scrappy prototyping. And I fall under the scrappy prototyping, which is I don't really care what, how, test this, have a hypothesis, put an LOI in front of someone and ask them, will you pay for it? Yes or no. Then if they're not going to do it, it's not worth spending an hour of your time. It's not worth an hour, a day or a week. And just really learning that way. And so I think combining like the message of like, keep it simple. What's in the best interest of myself, of the organization.

in the most simple way possible and just trying to get things done. It's changed my perspective so much at Stanford and leaving here. I'm so confident in my ability now to actually be a mover and shaker to get things done because of the lessons and the space to try out and fail at these skills.

Memorable Experiences at Business School

Katharine McLennan  (30:22)
 What's interesting is, I don't even think we had the term soft skills at that point. And the fact that, gross Becca's teaching conversations. I don't think we would have thought about training ourselves on conversations, but in fun, you know, when Jeff, you think about the touchy feely it is, they are conversations, but I don't think we actually explicitly said. Let's train ourselves. And it was interesting that leadership came in just as our second year was,

was in. interesting. So all right, let's make it a little fun. What's the most fun thing that you remember Jeff or the funny event that was indicative of the two years?

 

Jeff Barnett (31:04)
I mean both the first year and second year shows were just epic experiences, just so funny, so much fun and so many of our classmates who were way outside their comfort zones, I mean doing really crazy stuff. Yes, just for our audio listeners, Kath just raised her hand. For a few of us was a little less of a stretch but for lot of kids it was really something. So that's an amazing experience.

Katharine McLennan  (31:23)
 Hahaha!

Jeff Barnett (31:32)
I remember crazy clear memories about my outdoor adventure trip, which happened before school even started. And I'm still close friends with a number of people who are on that trip, like Dave Welling and CJ and Chris and Jacob Simons on that trip. And just a whole bunch of people that I'm still in touch with regularly. And it was just great memories about that and such a wonderful start to my GSB experience.

Katharine McLennan  (31:56)
 Jeff, which one did you do? Which was the...

Jeff Barnett (31:58)
It was one of the Yosemite trips.

Katharine McLennan  (32:00)
 How could it be so good? Geez. Zach, you guys still have the outdoor adventure where you go before school in Little crews

Jeff Barnett (32:00)

Yeah.

Zach Dyce (32:09)

No.what has taken over is there are two main events and they're all unofficial. One is Yacht Week somewhere in Croatia or Greece.

Katharine McLennan  (32:14)
 Okay. Yep.Of course.

Jeff Barnett (32:21)
Yacht

Katharine McLennan  (32:21)
 Of course.

Jeff Barnett (32:22)
Week, my god. That's like, don't let the Wall Street Journal get ahold of that news. That is really kind of appalling on some level, but I love it.

Katharine McLennan  (32:24)
 Yes! Of course! 

Katharine McLennan  (32:33)
 How many people go on that? Tell us about that. Did you go?

Zach Dyce (32:33)
Yeah, no. So I had zero desire. It's not as glamorous as it sounds. It's like...

it's like 10 or 15 people sleeping in small bunks on a crappy sailboat for a week. then you, and so everyone just gets very, I mean, they enjoy themselves and you enjoy yourself and it's just a party. And so like people got to know each other very well. mean, like no one really cares now that you're second year in, but first year it's like, people went on yacht week. It's a good way to know people. And then there's a big trip to Columbia.

that probably like 200 or 250 people went on. And it's just overwhelming because you're meeting so many people at once. And it's just no one really has any friends. Everyone's trying to figure out like, well, I have any friends, like, how do I fit in? And it's just chaos. And I'm glad I went. It was a good time, but it was one of the more overwhelming things I've ever done in my life.

Katharine McLennan  (33:11)
 Of course. in Colombia. Why Columbia, Zach? What was the choice there?

Zach Dyce (33:40)
I don't know, like it's been a thing and it's just a quintessential business school trip. Every school does it. Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia, everyone, and there's a company that they rip you off. I mean, they make so much money.pay like $3,000

to go for a week and they like host these dinners and whatnot. So it's become an institution, almost a rite of passage. I mean, I could have lived without going on it, but I'm glad I went, that it was a good time. But it sounds like the partying has really ratcheted up in the last 30 years in terms of preschool activity.

Katharine McLennan  (33:57)
 ratchet it up. Well, see, that's interesting. Here's the question. Like we, I don't know, Jeff. mean, I worked pretty hard during the two years, but I also, for example, was part of the ski houses in Lake Tahoe. And that was a really important part of our, I don't know, part of my, my life, Jeff, did you, what do you think about, the balance of whatever is important to you versus studying?

Jeff Barnett (34:46)
I was not a great studier. Just Zach, your FYI, Kath was one of our very top students. I think she was in the top two or three in the whole class. So she definitely worked really hard and she did it quietly. I had no idea that she was as successful academically as she was. I definitely was going for big P. I was not even a, you know, forget about H. I got a few H's probably by luck more than anything. So I had a different approach to that. But

you know it really what i remember was that just very dramatically there are people who just want to school and i think work very little play a lot of golf a lot and there are other people who are very studious and it ran the entire spectrum and i i suppose that i probably felt closer to the middle than most so you know i would go to occasional farm and i would go to the lp apps and i go to a party now and again but like so and there are other people who i think

by either lack of interest or maybe life circumstances. And we had some married parents and some who had kids. I think of Erve who had little kids at the time during school. so it's not like he's gonna go out partying a lot. He's got two little girls at home. I was probably in the middle in that regard and I was comfortable there. That worked for me.

 

Katharine McLennan  (35:47)
 What were you doing when you weren't studying? Were you singing?

Jeff Barnett (36:03)
well, especially second year, I did a lot of singing cause I, I, you know, was getting ready for some, major concerts and stuff. the, I don't know. did a lot of sports. mean, a lot of it is, you know, there's just tons of jocks there. I mean, and I was a terrible athlete. I've never been good, but like everyone was always doing a sport. You're always, you know, it's mountain biking and running and trail running and, and, you know, and, people were playing,

Katharine McLennan  (36:13)
 Fantastic.

Jeff Barnett (36:26)
frisbee football whatever it was called the time but yeah i think i remember that minsock was at the first day we're there i played and minsock was mad at me because i wasn't any good he's like not really good and i was like yeah i'm not i'm sorry i'm terrible at this minsock probably doesn't remember that but anyway

Katharine McLennan  (36:43)
 really courageous.

That's such a courageous thing though. I laughed at that. So with you guys all, Zach's doing vent, you know, your own ventures. Do people find time to do things that are not related to either ventures or study?

Zach Dyce (36:59)
Yeah, I mean, it's good to know that it hasn't changed that much because it's the same dynamic here. Is that people are here for so many different reasons, that some people use it as a two-year break, that it's a vacation. But yeah, I I would say that the second year, I found it's a lot more chill in terms of people focus, or it's more chill in the less social and different ways, that it's more like,

everyone's kind of figuring their life out right now. But like, for example, there's a democracy day foam party, a darty, to where they got a dunk tank and that there's always events going on, always partying. But yeah, I mean, there are a ton of weekend trips. People are always traveling like during the week. There's foam on Tuesdays. We have beer pong for leaders on Thursdays. So there's social events going on. Party buses, the sam-Francisco. Sorry.

Friendships and Networking

Jeff Barnett (38:02)
Yeah,I always admired our classmates who go up to the party and go clubbing. I was way too intimidated. was like, know, stodgy Midwest boy. I just, yeah, I couldn't imagine doing that. It just felt so exotic.

Katharine McLennan  (38:16)
 I know, it's going to San Francisco versus Columbia, you know? So Jeff, when you look back, I mean, one of the things I called this was like a wisdom exchange and maybe you reflect on the 30 years since, it will be 30 years since we've graduated, what would stand out as something you'd love to tell the Stanford class as they go out next year?

 Jeff Barnett (38:20) 
Yeah I've made some of the best friends of my life during those two years and they've stuck with me way more than I would have imagined even when I was there because you think maybe they're friends of convenience because you're thrown together or whatever and I imagine there are a few of those and maybe some people viewed me that way too at the time and I don't begrudge them for that but when I look now it's who I spend time with I mean I just literally a couple weeks ago spent a three-day weekend with nine of our classmates and had a phenomenal time. And they're still among my closest friends. 

And I still call upon the GSB network often one way or the other, whether it's for professional reasons or personal or some of the nonprofit boards I'm on. And I find the collegiality between and among all GSB alumni is really is extraordinary. I mean, it's a really special thing. can pretty much cold email anybody and you can have a realistic expectation of a response and I don't think that's normal.

Katharine McLennan  (39:41)
 It's not normal. Zach, as you look going forward, what do you think is going to be the most challenging in your leadership and going out into the world? What's on your head as you imagine yourself, let's see, a year from now?

Zach Dyce (39:59)
I mean, that's a very loaded question. I have no idea. mean, they're, and that's part of the fun of it all is that.

It's being here that there are academic approaches and lessons that are helpful, but less translatable to real life scenarios. But I think that there's just a lot of uncertainty in the world as well. mean, we talked about AI is that we don't really know how all of this is going to unfold. That there's a number of different crises. I mean, that we're facing, I mean, climate crisis. mean, look at what's happening in my home state of Florida recently with all the hurricanes.

I mean, the presidential election, global instability, supply chain shortages. And I think it'll just be very interesting. I mean, with Gen Z becoming a larger part of the workforce that I am like the youngest millennial like by a year, I think. And so I remember dial-up, remember 9-11. So that's a big test of are you a millennial or not?

But they're, yeah, I mean, that probably makes you too.

Katharine McLennan  (41:10)
 You have some classmates that don't remember any of that

Zach Dyce (41:13)
Yeah, so I turned 30 in almost two months, less than two months. So I'm chugging right along. Yeah, so I was.

Katharine McLennan  (41:17)
 Okay, okay, okay. Wow, you're perfect. You were born when we graduated. Was it 1995? that's pretty special. Who would have thought? I don't think we could have even imagined a student going to the business school when we were there.

Zach Dyce (41:25)
Yeah, yeah, honestly, 30 years, wow. Five. So I was born January 2nd, 1995.

Katharine McLennan  (41:42)
 We were talking about the instability and the climate change and even Florida is such a fascinating thing. And I'd love to think about the leadership mindset going out because these are really important people in many regards. Of course they're important. That was kind of a silly statement. But I'd love to think about as we went out into the world, our perspective, Jeff.

I don't know if we were thinking about the world as unstable. I think the internet was kind of not even a thing. And I don't recall leaving going, I'm worried about this world. What about you, Jeff? Did you?

Jeff Barnett (42:23)
Definitely not. I I think I felt just unbridled optimism in part coming out of this experience of seeing these extraordinarily talented motivated classmates that and so many of them have gone on to do really important work in so many endeavors and not just in business but in other endeavors as well. And we knew about climate change a little bit. Al Gore was out there talking about it or whatever. So it was a little bit.

But not anywhere like his famous book and movie didn't come out until the early 2000s. So it's not like that was a huge focus. you know, even things, you know, probably the biggest concern we would have had, at least that I would have had at time, was maybe something geopolitical. But, you know, the Berlin Wall had fallen and we weren't and Putin hadn't really risen to power. And China, we were in a in a huge growth mode with China thinking like they could be our next huge partner and that that would help to

you know, to de-radicalize them from a political perspective, if that's the right apologies to people who know better language to describe that dynamic. And, you know, so I just felt unbridled optimism and I don't feel that today the way I do. I'm very happy in my life and I feel good about what I have, but the concerns of the world are very legit in a way that, and I have to think if I were Zach in his class, I'd feel a certain weight on my shoulders about that, that I think that we were

just didn't feel that burden to be to be candid

Katharine McLennan  (43:47)
 So Zach, your class, mean, unbridled optimism, Jeff says, if you had to describe the counterpart, what would you, what would you say of you kind of already have, but when you talk to your friends, what do you feel like?

Zach Dyce (44:03)
I think it's a different kind of unbridled optimism. And so, I mean, I was around in 1995, not conscious, but, and from what I understand, I mean, the budget was getting balanced, that there was this growth, I mean, leading into like the very beginning of the dot com era, that there was sort...

Katharine McLennan  (44:06)
 And   Clinton had just
 started his reign. So he came in in 1993. So it was an interesting,

Zach Dyce (44:27)
out of like the early like 1999, the first goal four, there was so much going on from what I understand and

I think we're in a different scenario stage now to where you do have AI, that it is a potential gold mine. This is one of the biggest, if not the biggest fundamental shift since the internet companies of the 2000s. And so there is opportunity out there and optimism that there's so much for us to tackle. something I've noticed and something that for better or for worse, depending on how your perspectives is that there is bigger

focus at the school on social innovation and social impact and there are people view it completely different ways is that a lot of people do want to have some sort of purpose in their life and career now it's how do you marry the two And we have the Center for Social Innovation here at the GSB. And they provide funding for people like me who want to start ventures or people who want to go work in that space. And it's made its way into the class. mean, with the Doar School being climate and sustainability focused, like at the university as a whole, the curriculum now focuses more on understanding our role in the world 

and how we can change lives, change organizations, change the world. So I do think that with that aspect that it's almost conflicting, but it's also in the sense of, there's so much optimism and opportunity out there that we're gonna, interest rates are gonna come down, funding, money's gonna be available, AI, but also some of what I was talking about that there are questions on like instability in the world, Israel, Palestine, China, like Ukraine, Russia, just different aspects in like balancing those two.

I mean, not to mention domestic issues, mean, of rising income inequality, cost of living crisis, housing crisis, that there's just so much out there to where it's, if you think about it too much, can be sad. But I think that's the beauty of being here at the GSB is that people are thinking about these problems deeply and critically and are trying to dedicate their lives and careers to innovating and helping solve them.

Social Innovation and Purpose

Katharine McLennan  (46:44)
 What I love about it is the combination, for example, you've you're doing Zach of the Medicare and the addiction and how that's going to work. And I don't know if the integration of those purpose. We always had purpose. Don't like, you know, we were definitely I think all leaders that come to business school is what are we here for? What are we here to do? I don't know if we have the creativity that you guys

do because just I'm not sure it was a meme in our in our society. we didn't I don't know Jeff. What do you think about that to be able to do something like Zach's doing? I don't know if it was like if you think about Jeff Skoll and the like of Steve Jurvetson, they were in the technology club and I thought, okay. But their create the creation of a new way of thinking was pretty amazing. Whereas I think these guys just have it by default. What do you think about that?

Jeff Barnett (47:44)
I'm not sure I don't know that I know Zach's generation well enough to say. I think that the building blocks were the same or maybe not the same, but certainly similar in terms of how we in our class prepared for and enrolled in business school and the kinds of skills that we got out of it a general way. Most of us came out of business school with critical thinking skills that were pretty good, were problem solvers, etc. I think Zach's would be the same.

But it does sound, by what Zach's saying, that there probably is definitely more of a direction towards that independence, that building from nothing, the entrepreneurial streak that's the strongest it's ever been at the school. And that's awesome.

Katharine McLennan  (48:27)
 Yeah, that's awesome. Well, as we wrap up, I'd love to have Zach tell Jeff and myself what you'd like us to do in society. That's a big question. So I'll give you a few minutes to think about that. But so let's see, Jeff, we're all sort of hovering around turning 60, you know, give or take a few years. And we're all kind of coming to grips with what that means to so-called retire, but I don't know many people that are going to be playing golf. I'd love to know what you want us to do. I know that's a weird question. And then in exchange, Jeff, what would you wish, wish upon Zach's generation? So who wants to go first?

Zach Dyce (49:13)
I can go first.

Katharine McLennan  (49:13)
 Those are hard questions.

Zach Dyce (49:14)
So I think the first thing is give us your money. That you... Like very simply, give us your money.

Jeff Barnett (49:24)
You

Katharine McLennan  (49:24)
 Not advice, just give us the money.

Zach Dyce (49:24)
And I was gonna get to advice, but I would say I think money's like really the most important aspect. And I think it's re-imagining what it looks like to invest in people, processes, problems, and leveraging the experience that you've accrued over.

60 years of life, let's use a round number, 30 years of post-business school experience to leverage the learnings and the experiences of going through a number of economic cycles for seeing the end of the world two, three times, to understanding the cyclicality of it all and helping provide that guidance to young people like myself who are experiencing some of this for the first time. And when we see the world ending, we think it's for real this time. You may think it's for real this time too, but

It's helping us get through those tough times and offering advice. But also, I mean, it's something that I think it's always a fine balance is that I understand and I think there's a big power in naivety of being young and young and dumb and hungry.

Katharine McLennan  (50:35)
 Isn't it wonderful?

Zach Dyce (50:35)
but also having an open mind to understand some of those problems and looking at it that, yes, we are still leaders, but let's invest in the next generation as well of understanding that there are different perspectives, different.

Katharine McLennan  (50:50)
 love it.

 

Zach Dyce (50:56)
I'm not say views, but different ways to approach problems. And I think that that could really be the most rewarding next step for a lot of people in older generations. It's let me learn, let me adapt. Let's take the best of my generation, but also leverage the best of the next up and coming generation. So I would say that, yeah, that's top of mind for me.

Katharine McLennan  (51:16)
 Well, you said it well. Yeah, you said it.

Jeff Barnett (51:18)
Yeah, that's brilliant.

That's brilliant. And by the way, you asked for the order, which is perfect. Like, you know, got to ask for the order. I love it. Well, I got a tiny piece of advice for our classmates, Cath. And then, and by the way, I want you to answer this question, too. So get ready to give your own answer. But, know, there's a there's a little book by a well-known Harvard professor, Arthur Brooks, called From Strength to Strength. And have you read it, Cath, or no?

Okay, it's a good book, so I recommend it. And it's about how in different stages of your life you have different kind of gifts to offer. so, and there's some science around it. I think it's real science. It's not pseudo science about how the brain changes and the plasticity and things of that nature change. So like, why do Nobel laureates like, they never do anything important after age 35. But then there's an enormous amount of wisdom as you get older. And how do you sort of transition in your life to understand how you still add value and where it is?

I'm thinking a lot about that because I find in my own job where I'm like, I'm forgetting shit. I've forgotten more than I ever knew, I feel like. But I also legitimately recognize I'm still adding value in certain ways, in certain contexts that only I can add based on the full sort of panoply of experiences I've had. And this is not unique to me. This is everyone in our class. Everyone has that within them.

And I think that's the kind of stuff we can offer Zach. I can't give him technical knowledge about AI. I don't know anything about that. But I might be able to say, you know, as you think about how you build a team, here's a thought, you know, or whatever it is. So that's just one thing. And that's for our classmates to think about, anyone who listens to this. Read that book and think about what you can still offer that's of value and maybe unique to your life situation. And then Zach, I just say, don't quit on us.

You know, I think the world has got a lot of problems, but we need you. We need your generation. You got a lot of work to do. So get to it. Because it's not our generation is going to fix the problems the world faces. It's going to be yours.

Katharine McLennan  (53:18)
 Yeah. I think that's a great way to end you guys. you're very special people and I'm, it's such a privilege. Yeah. It's such a, such a privilege to, yeah, it's such a, it's, it's a wonderful thing, Zach. And I, I love what Jeff said. I love that. You know, we,

Zach Dyce (53:19)
Amen.

Jeff Barnett (53:25)
So are you. You're amazing.

Zach Dyce (53:28)
Thanks for bringing this together.

Katharine McLennan  (53:38)
 We want to help you, but man, you guys are the energy. I will read that book. So, Hey, thank you guys very much. look forward to, catching up with Jeff in less than a year. And I wish you all the best Zach as you lead the world for us.

For more insights, subscribe to this podcast series and visit katharinemclennan.com

Katharine McLennan  (53:55)
 For more insights and information, visit my website at katharinemclennan.com That's K-A-T-H-A-R-I-N-E-M-C-L-E-N-N-A-N.com.

Don’t forget to subscribe to the series so you know when the next episode will be as we continue exchanging wisdom, connecting past, present, and future through the perspectives of Stanford MBA graduates of 1995 and 2025.