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

🎬 Podcast Ep. 3 | Stanford MBA – From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Michael Rodriguez meets Kailash Sundaram

• Katharine McLennan • Season 1 • Episode 3

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This is Episode 3. Today, I’m joined by Michael Rodriguez from the Class of 1995, a distinguished CEO and director in early-stage companies with a focus on healthcare innovation, who now also teaches managerial accounting and business ethics at Baylor University’s Hankamer School of Business and Kailash Sundaram from the Class of 2025, a former member of the White House Biden Administration, venture capitalist, and advocate for sustainable capitalism with AI-driven solutions.

Michael and Kailash share their unique perspectives from the healthcare and venture capital sectors. Reflecting on their experiences, they delve into the evolving landscape of business education, the impact of AI on creativity, and the critical need for mentorship and patient care. Their conversation highlights the importance of adaptability, aligning profit with purpose, and embracing failure as a path to success, all while underscoring the lifelong value of personal connections formed during their time at Stanford.

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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.

Remember to rate, review, and subscribe to stay connected with future episodes!

📺 Also available on YouTube:
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https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSaVisoF0D_GKxVmHmakNxdpAJCb5_VTP

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

Contact: kath@katharinemclennan.com


Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katharinemclennan/

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

Katharine McLennan (00:06)

Welcome to the Stanford 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.

Katharine McLennan (01:56)

This is episode 3. Today I'm joined by Michael Rodriguez from my class of 1995. Michael is a distinguished CEO and director in early stage companies with a focus on health care innovation, who now also teaches managerial accounting and business ethics at Baylor University's Hand Camera School of Business.

Katharine McLennan (02:20)

and Kailash Sundaram from the class of 2025.

Katharine McLennan (02:25)

a former member of the White House Biden administration, a venture capitalist, and an advocate for sustainable capitalism with AI driven solutions.

Katharine McLennan (02:35)

In this episode, Michael and Kailash share their unique perspectives from the healthcare and venture capital sectors. Reflecting on these experiences, they delve into the evolving landscape of business education, the impact of AI on creativity, and the critical need for mentorship and patient care. Their conversations highlight the importance of adaptability, aligning profit with purpose, and embracing failure as a path to success.

all while underscoring the lifelong value of personal connections formed during their time at Stanford. Welcome to Michael and Kailash.

Katharine McLennan (03:16)

the name of a mountain, a huge mountain in Western Tibet that I have been to and circled around. Yeah, it's very important.

Kailash Sundaram (03:22)

wow, that's so cool that you both

Michael Rodriguez (03:24)

Check that out.

Kailash Sundaram (03:25)

know the name and you've also been there. That is so cool.

Michael Rodriguez (03:27)

Isn't

that cool? That's for sure.

Katharine McLennan (03:28)

very, very

important to many different religions in different ways. So when I saw your name, was like, I've got to talk to that guy.

Kailash Sundaram (03:30)

Yeah.

Yeah,

Michael Rodriguez (03:37)

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (03:37)

fair enough.

That is so cool. Thanks for knowing that. Yeah, most people don't know that, so that's very cool.

Katharine McLennan (03:39)

Awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (03:43)

That's

so neat.

Katharine McLennan (03:43)

I'm glad you know it too. So Michael, where do we find you at the moment and doing what? Very shortly.

Kailash Sundaram (03:45)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (03:49)

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (03:50)

Mhmm

Michael Rodriguez (03:51)

Yeah. Yeah. So we, are here in Waco, Texas, central Texas. we're effective tomorrow. My wife and family and I will have resided for six years. so we're hitting our sixth anniversary and, and enjoying it. quite fun. So we are, we are definitely representing several different time zones. mean, Kailash and I are only a couple of hours apart. so that's not all that bad.

Kailash Sundaram (04:05)

Wow.

Katharine McLennan (04:08)

amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. Now it's easy. This is a good time for Australia and the United States. yeah, Michael, where are you? Kailash? I'm assuming you're. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (04:21)

Yeah, right.

Kailash Sundaram (04:22)

So

you would think I'd be at GSB. I'm actually back home in Boston because I basically didn't have classes. We don't have classes on election day. And then we don't have classes on Wednesday. so we basically had a weekend. actually, my investments class, which you guys probably remember was taught by Jack McDonald, meets Monday, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

Katharine McLennan (04:26)

I

Michael Rodriguez (04:26)

Thank

Katharine McLennan (04:28)

Really?

really?

Michael Rodriguez (04:36)

Okay.

Katharine McLennan (04:38)

yeah, of course.

Michael Rodriguez (04:39)

Remember that?

Katharine McLennan (04:47)

my goodness.

Kailash Sundaram (04:49)

But it doesn't meet tomorrow or on Thursday this week And so I had a three-day weekend and I'll be in China for this exchange program with Tsinghua University Over Thanksgiving and so I thought I'd come back this week to the next week. Yeah

Katharine McLennan (05:00)

Of course you will.

Michael Rodriguez (05:04)

That's great.

Katharine McLennan (05:05)

So,

so that's amazing, I can't believe Jack McDonald is still teaching my god like that's fantastic. okay. Okay. But that's a class. Okay. How cool is that? In my

Kailash Sundaram (05:10)

So unfortunately he passed away in 2018. But the class is still taught by guy named John Hurley, who is class of 93 at Stanford GSB. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (05:15)

you

Okay.

Well, I was

going to also say a good friend of mine from class of 94 as a professor there now, Rob Siegel.

Kailash Sundaram (05:30)

Yes, that's fit, yes, and I've actually had Rob in class. I'll be TAing for him actually in the spring, and Rob is like a total fan favorite at the GSB, like a total fan favorite, yeah. Really? Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (05:31)

wow!

Michael Rodriguez (05:32)

And is that right? great.

Katharine McLennan (05:37)

Isn't

Michael Rodriguez (05:40)

No question. He's a fan favorite of me and I was just a class that we were a class after

him. He and I were just trading emails as a matter of fact this past week trying to reconnect so.

Kailash Sundaram (05:47)

Wow.

I don't get how

he does so much. Like he just, feels like he's everywhere and everyone knows him, but he somehow manages to make it all work.

Michael Rodriguez (05:54)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (05:56)

I'm wonderful. What

Michael Rodriguez (05:56)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (05:57)

does he teach, Kailash?

Kailash Sundaram (05:58)

So he teaches finance 207 as his kind of main course which is a course that you can take in the winter of your first year after you've taken your introductory finance course and it kind of runs through the gamut of venture financing all the way to hedge funds and activist investing but then he's also got a bunch of electives as well. So he teaches like systems leadership and he brings in speakers like David Solomon, Jeff Immelt

Katharine McLennan (06:01)

okay. Okay.

Michael Rodriguez (06:13)

Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (06:15)

Fantastic.

that's awesome.

Michael Rodriguez (06:22)

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (06:24)

CEO, former CEO of GE. So he's got a roster  he's just so personable and like builds his relationship with students that make you want to go back and like seek his advice and get wisdom from him.

Katharine McLennan (06:25)

Well, yeah, of course.

Michael Rodriguez (06:30)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (06:35)

And I'm thinking that this is very similar to Michael. So Michael, what are you teaching these days?

Michael Rodriguez (06:36)

Sit.

Yeah, so I've been on faculty at Baylor University here in Texas for two years. teach managerial accounting undergrads and I teach a graduate course in business and professional ethics. And so the cool thing for me, you know, and I'm listening to you, Kailash, describing what really I think, Kat, you'd probably say too, it's very much our experience when we were at the GSB and some common threads still obviously exist. And that is the type of people and instructors

Kailash Sundaram (06:48)

Wow.

Well.

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (07:09)

that we had access to, man, it still today blows my mind. And, you know, we're talking about Rob Siegel, who, who's a personal friend for years, but we could probably go down the list of 1995ers and okay, I'll give credit to the 94ers and the 96ers. But there are some incredible folks that we were in class with and studied from. And, you know, in a, in a small way, I'm trying to, to carry that, you know, that, that sort of

Kailash Sundaram (07:11)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (07:37)

responsibility into this next generation of undergrads and really just having been inspired by the faculty that we had and inspired now by a lot of our friends who've gone back to faculty. It's such a cool thing and I think it's neat to just hear how you've been reflected even briefly about the people that you've been able to learn from already.

Katharine McLennan (07:55)

It's amazing. In my investment class 30 years ago, we had Warren Buffett join us. That was pretty cool.

Kailash Sundaram (07:55)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (08:02)

That's cool. That's so

cool. It's funny. It's I was gonna say real quick. mean, Jeff, MLT site, one of my previous companies where I was CFO, we sold to GE Healthcare. And, and, and MLT was, you know, the CEO at that time. And he was sort of the deal sponsor for our particular transaction, which was very unusual. So had the opportunity to have dinner with him in the corporate dining room. And it was kind of like meeting

Kailash Sundaram (08:04)

Yeah. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (08:05)

So,

okay, yeah, go Michael.

Kailash Sundaram (08:13)

Wow. There you go.

Katharine McLennan (08:14)

I love it.

Michael Rodriguez (08:28)

you know, a president of a country or a dignitary from a country. Cause you had the proper order in which people came into the room and Jeff was last and he had had at least one sound bite on all of us and knew how to engage with us personally.

Kailash Sundaram (08:31)

Wow. Wow.

Katharine McLennan (08:31)

Yeah.

I love that.

Yeah,

I love it. So, Kailash what is, you're right in the midst of it. You're graduating next year. What is the most special thing and the most influential thing that Stanford's having you on right this minute?

Kailash Sundaram (08:42)

Wow.

think what's been most influential for me, I probably say it's twofold. One is I am part of the speaker series View from the Top. And so we bring in leaders every year to come speak to us about kind of their life, their stories, and kind of the journey that they've been on to the top metaphorically. And my favorite part, and the reason I got involved in that was because I used to watch that when I was applying to GSB before I got here.

And to be part of it is pretty cool. The thing that always struck me was it felt like it was ordinary people doing extraordinary things. And being able to see the stories they share, the vulnerabilities, I just found that really personal and something that I wanted to be part of and help share, help share those stories. And so I got to open this year by interviewing Roloff Boetta, is the current head of Sequoia Capital. And he was class of 2000 at the GSB.

Michael Rodriguez (09:24)

Thank you.

Katharine McLennan (09:26)

What

the?

Michael Rodriguez (09:30)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (09:30)

Yep.

Love it.

Michael Rodriguez (09:49)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (09:49)

Wow! Wow! Wow!

Kailash Sundaram (09:52)

So was really cool to see someone come back who had been in our shoes and give the

Katharine McLennan (09:57)

Okay.

Kailash Sundaram (09:58)

opening view from the top. And I think we're all kind of in this place where, you he, talked a lot about these kinds of crucial decisions that he made in his career, especially decision to join PayPal out of school. And he turned down a sponsorship from McKinsey and offer a return offer from Goldman Sachs to join PayPal, which in retrospect seems like an amazing decision, but at the time.

Michael Rodriguez (10:09)

Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (10:10)

Okay.

Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (10:17)

Wow.

Katharine McLennan (10:17)

I

love that.

Michael Rodriguez (10:20)

Okay.

Kailash Sundaram (10:21)

I didn't feel perfect. And it was kind of a note to us, especially me being my second year, I'm thinking a lot about what I'm going to do after school. And it's, where do you go where you can sort of bet on yourself? You can take those risks. You can have the life, the journey that you want. But there were three things that he said that really stuck out to me. And the first was, nobody's an authority on your potential but you. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (10:32)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (10:44)

Yes! Yes!

Michael Rodriguez (10:44)

I love that. That's awesome.

Kailash Sundaram (10:47)

And the second was

that you don't have to be a founder to be entrepreneurial.

And the third was we asked him about failure and he goes, there are 15 times in the history of Sequoia that I've written an investment that's actually gone to zero. And that was pretty cool to hear that like, know, this guy that is presumably like at the top of his game has dealt with his own fair share of struggles and questions about the world he's in, the business he's in. And so, I don't know, I found that inspiring. I find talking to him.

Katharine McLennan (11:02)

Yep. Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (11:03)

Wow.

Kailash Sundaram (11:19)

really inspiring as well as like the journey that we're going to be on. And so that's what's kind of got me really thinking about like what the future looks like.

Katharine McLennan (11:23)

I love, so it's so interesting.

Michael Rodriguez (11:25)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (11:27)

Michael, cast your mind back to 1995, comparing what you are now. mean, can you remember the, I don't know, the excitement or the trepidation that you were graduating with?

Michael Rodriguez (11:33)

Mm-hmm.

Kailash Sundaram (11:39)

hehe

Michael Rodriguez (11:42)

Well, I mean, it was a little bit of both. think when I think back, there's a lot of what you just said, Kailash, that really resonated. mean, as I reflect back now, it was certainly, I don't know about trepidation, because I do, I think we all kind of felt like, okay, we're just going to launch into the world. We're all starting from square one. And our journey is just being written day by day from here after. And what I came away with out of there was

Kailash Sundaram (11:57)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (12:01)

Yep.

Kailash Sundaram (12:04)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (12:04)

Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (12:09)

man, we were all just people. We were all just people and we had dreams. And what I loved about being there, and I still love about it even reflecting now, and I do a lot of, I still try to engage with a lot of our classmates. mean, Kat, I've reached out to her, I've reached out to four others from our class and the class after us recently, because I'm teaching in Sydney this upcoming summer. But that's the thing, right? Like we all started there and we got through it, but now we have this

Katharine McLennan (12:23)

Absolutely,

Kailash Sundaram (12:27)

Wow.

Katharine McLennan (12:31)

in Australia!

Kailash Sundaram (12:32)

Wow.

Michael Rodriguez (12:39)

amalgamation of all of us who are just people who just try to leave a life behind us that is worthy of being called legacy. And there was so much about us that was so different and so much more about us that was so common. And exploring that was extraordinary. 354 of us in our class. And, you I really strove during the time that we were there for our two years, try to go to coffee with

Katharine McLennan (12:53)

It was the same. Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (12:55)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (13:07)

as many of our classmates as I could, or to spend some degree of concentrated time one-on-one with everybody, because there was something special in every single one of us. know, save for me, I'm still, I know for a fact I'm the admissions mistake from, you know, back in 93 when we started, but it was extraordinary because here you are talking to the head of Sequoia, who back in 2000 was just another one of us.

Kailash Sundaram (13:08)

Wow.

well.

Katharine McLennan (13:21)

Yeah, yeah, Michael, Michael, No, no, no.

Kailash Sundaram (13:22)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (13:33)

going and launching into the world yet to understand exactly the impact that he's going to have. And now I think about the magnitude of impact that our class alone had and the success of classes since then. It's extraordinary. I don't even know if it's calculable.

Kailash Sundaram (13:36)

Yep.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (13:51)

what's interesting about the kind of wisdom exchange, I think that's really important that we do not just here, but I mean, in society in general is if we like, let me give you a technological interesting thing. You know, when we graduated in 95, we didn't have internet, we had mosaic crawling through the web and Netscape went public so our class had a technology club.

Kailash Sundaram (14:09)

Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (14:09)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (14:16)

you know, of which I was not involved with. And there was no idea except for a few brave people that really went out. Now, Kailash your class is going into a maybe similarly weird tech, at least technological, actually also social economic. What's your take on how you guys lead the best and Kailash what are you looking at? What are you looking at?

Kailash Sundaram (14:18)

Crazy.

Michael Rodriguez (14:19)

Nor I, for that matter.

Kailash Sundaram (14:36)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's so funny you say that because I had that same thought where you guys went in to the world of the internet, and we're going into the world of the AI. And you can think about sort of 93, 94, where sort of the internet really started emerging. And you can think about the same thing here, where in 22, 23, you're seeing AI start to merge, but now it's really accelerating.

Katharine McLennan (14:45)

doing, making impact.

Michael Rodriguez (14:49)

you

Katharine McLennan (14:55)

That's right. That's right.

Michael Rodriguez (14:57)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (15:01)

Yep, that's it. That's it.

Michael Rodriguez (15:10)

Mm-hmm.

Kailash Sundaram (15:10)

And I think the next couple of years,

especially, and I'm sure our lives moving forward, but will be defined by AI. And in some ways that feels like a really amazing time, because you've seen what's happened with your class and the classes in kind of that time period. And we have that opportunity to participate hopefully in that gold rush. But at the same time, it's really nerve wracking because you don't know what jobs look like. You don't know where careers will take you. You don't.

Katharine McLennan (15:29)

Yep. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (15:31)

Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (15:35)

Yeah.

Mm-mm.

Kailash Sundaram (15:39)

No, so now I'm just going to impact your life. And so I think in some ways there feels, every time you have a speaker come to class, they talk about there being more of a dispersion outcomes

Michael Rodriguez (15:42)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kailash Sundaram (15:49)

where there are some people who are going to benefit tremendously from this and others who might get left behind. And so there's a little bit of a feeling of, I'll be honest, I feel a little bit of excitement, but also some of that anxiety that you sort of touched on with the word trepidation, where it's, what is this going to look like? Like we don't know.

Katharine McLennan (16:01)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (16:08)

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (16:09)

You

talk to older GSB classes like Michael, you mentioned there's so much that you guys have created and done. And that's the hope I have. And I think we all want that. But it is kind of anxiety. This thing is a little bit like both exciting and anxiety provoking to think about the world we're headed into.

Katharine McLennan (16:17)

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (16:24)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (16:25)

It's interesting because you use the word creation. And I think that's such an important word, Michael. Like when you look back on the 30 years that you've been there, what have you learned about the invitation to create from scratch or to do something different that you would have never thought in the business school you may have done?

Kailash Sundaram (16:43)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (16:44)

Yeah,

well, and it's funny because, you on the one hand, Kailash, what you're saying is right on, right? mean, there's there's sort of this thing we feel like we can join, like we felt we can join the Internet. But at the same time, you can also join a rushing river and you could be part of it. But you're just going wherever it's going to take you, right? At some level. And so, you know, so I spent the 30 years or so that I've been a CFO and CEO of companies until now joining Baylor.

Kailash Sundaram (16:54)

Yeah. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (17:00)

Yeah

Kailash Sundaram (17:04)

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (17:13)

I was in a lot of early stage companies and in 15 years of that period of time, was in sort of cancer diagnostics and genomics and things like that. And again, back in when we were graduating, we hadn't sequenced the human genome. We had no idea about the importance of molecular pathways and conveying the information that allows cancer to propagate in organs.

Katharine McLennan (17:23)

Wow. Wow.

Kailash Sundaram (17:24)

Hmm

Katharine McLennan (17:30)

No.

Kailash Sundaram (17:37)

Wow.

Michael Rodriguez (17:38)

You

know, we,  used to talk an awful lot about, because now what we know about where cancer propagates from, if you've seen one cancer, you've seen one cancer, you know, it's no longer about where's the cancer reside. It's what's germinating, you know, to allow proteins to go and invade cells or cause weird cell creation or whatever it might be. So some of it is it's just going to happen and we might be, you know, thrust into it. I was talking with a friend today who says, Hey, I think I'm going to

Katharine McLennan (17:46)

Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (18:06)

start a consulting company. I'm like, well, sometimes we started a consulting company or sometimes a consulting company starts us. And in some way, I feel like the internet was a little bit like that for us in my medical career, like understanding what the nature of the human genome really meant, which I don't believe yet we've truly uncovered, right? There's still a conundrum inherent in cancer. And so part of it, I think now looking back, it's

Kailash Sundaram (18:13)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (18:34)

If I were to reflect 30 years, you know, sort of backward, I'd say, don't be too concerned about what you do in the context of what happens, because to some extent, you might just get sucked in it without even being aware that you're sucked in it. And in that respect, you know, enjoy the ride and contribute as much and wherever you can. But at some level, you know, we can only

Katharine McLennan (18:53)

I love that!

Kailash Sundaram (18:56)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (19:03)

define or declare or create the word. We can only do that so much. And some of it really is going to be a lot of serendipity in some sense.

Katharine McLennan (19:06)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Kailash Sundaram (19:10)

Yeah. Well, it's

funny you mentioned that because I think that touches at the core schema of a Stanford GSB student, which is that for a lot of our lives we have been very planned and we like following roadmaps and we're good at building roadmaps. And now it's interesting because I see a lot of alumni come to class and you look at their careers and you go, all right, how can I have something like you?

Michael Rodriguez (19:20)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (19:24)

Absolutely. Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (19:28)

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (19:37)

and your immediate urge is to build a roadmap that maps onto exactly what they did. But you realize they've already done that, and that was a totally different time period in which you can take away the values or the way they thought about things. But to your point, Michael, it's hard not to realize that you can't build a roadmap for life, but you've sort of got to go with the current or the wind and trust yourself. It's that Steve Jobs quote about you can't connect the dots looking forward, only backwards.

Katharine McLennan (19:41)

Oris. Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (19:43)

Yeah.

Yeah, Yeah, yes

Katharine McLennan (20:06)

Yep, that's it.

Kailash Sundaram (20:06)

But that

Michael Rodriguez (20:06)

Thank

Kailash Sundaram (20:07)

looking into graduation is the thing that I say, like, it's really easy. And I know it's hard, because I've been a planner. And I know that looking forward, there's definitely a feeling that I have of like, I wish I could chart what it looks like. And I don't necessarily know. And that's where the excitement is.

Michael Rodriguez (20:12)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (20:20)

And Kalesh,

it is exciting. And to some degree, Michael, was trying to reflect. I don't know what exactly the statistics, but it feels like 70 % of our class kind of went into investment banking, consulting, and corporate. So we didn't take those ladders away. We kept those next ladder, next ladder, next ladder. But I think that it's almost reversed for your class. think, I don't know, but my gut says 70 % are going to do something

Michael Rodriguez (20:23)

That's great.

Kailash Sundaram (20:34)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (20:40)

Yeah.

bullseye and finding a job at the startup company in Orange County, California coming out of Stanford GSB. And that was about as much as I had had defined. The rest of it was just like, okay, we're just going to figure out where those dots are. And when a dot comes up, I'm gonna try to figure out how to make a connection. And a lot of it was serendipitous, a lot of it was luck, a lot of it was being in the right place at the right time or avoiding being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Kailash Sundaram (20:52)

Hmm

Katharine McLennan (21:00)

There you go.

Yeah.

Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (21:19)

And, and, and so part of it, I was going to say what I really was super excited about what you said, Kyle, I says to just lay in place this idea that the excitement comes from the adventure of the ambiguity. like, like not having a single idea of what is going to be your life in five years. Now that we can reflect back, you know, like I'm staring straight in the eyes of 60 in a couple of years.

Kailash Sundaram (21:33)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (21:35)

Yep.

Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (21:49)

Like my biggest thing is, but that's what makes life amazing. Because now you're going to get to see it unfold little by little. And yes, we all, right? We're all type A, we all want to plan it. We want to control it. We want to define it. But I think the glory comes from not being able to control it, not being able to plan it, not being able to define it until it then reveals itself to us.

Kailash Sundaram (21:53)

Huh, yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (22:14)

And it's like, wow, this was way better than I ever would have thought it could be. You know, that's the cool thing. So I don't know. It's easy to say now, obviously, maybe in about 30 years, we'll have another chat. I'm still around.

Katharine McLennan (22:15)

Cool.

I love that, Michael.

Kailash Sundaram (22:26)

Ha ha ha

Katharine McLennan (22:26)

Well, So, so

let me cast your mind because without going into who won the election, I, I, whatever, cause I don't want to get into those politics, but I do want to talk about the, the socioeconomic sort of environment that's going to affect the way we lead. Now, Michael, back in, I think it was Clinton. It's, only use that name to kind of get us back to, to what it was like. And, you know, it was interesting because healthcare, course figured.

Kailash Sundaram (22:41)

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (22:44)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (22:56)

And that was a very important, it's still an important thing. So when your class

Michael Rodriguez (22:59)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (23:00)

talks about any aspect of the world, I don't care if it's political, economics, social, technological, what's on their mind? What if you guys started to say, we've got to do.

Kailash Sundaram (23:05)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (23:12)

they don't.

really even know what it looks like and 30 % are going to go back on those ladders. So I don't know if that's true, but Michael, did you go on a ladder when you when you left? what was the thing that you were doing?

Michael Rodriguez (23:26)

So an old friend of mine, one of my former CEOs coined a phrase that I still use to this day and it's experience is what you get when you wanted something else. mean, so I had like this sort of very, very broadly diffuse vision, if you want to even call it that, right? And there's sometimes it's vision, sometimes it's a solution. I can't tell which, but

Katharine McLennan (23:36)

It's so true.

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (23:50)

You know, I knew

my goal was like, I know that I want to help lead early stage companies because I had come from an accounting background. I did four years in public accounting, Kailash, before I went to the GSB. So I'm like, okay, the most logical path for me is probably as a CFO. So, okay, I want to become a CFO. And I had defined in that point either of a technology company because it was just obviously emerging and there was so much beginning to happen or in healthcare because

Kailash Sundaram (24:02)

Well...

Katharine McLennan (24:04)

Okay.

Michael Rodriguez (24:20)

If I'm really going to have some degree of impact in the world, wow, what good places could I otherwise choose? And then for my wife and I were getting married just three months after we graduated in 95. We're like, okay, we can go anywhere in the world we want to go. Where do we want to go? And we chose Orange County, California, where I grew up. And it was because that's where we had family, right? We figured we're going to have children at some point. And so it was, I was literally shooting from about a thousand yards trying to

Kailash Sundaram (24:41)

Yeah.

That's a great question. that's why I prefaced it with that's a great question. That's how you preface the answer to a medium.

Katharine McLennan (24:50)

You don't have to the answer. Wait, like Michael said, Michael said.

Michael Rodriguez (24:53)

Yeah

You

Katharine McLennan (24:59)

Yeah, of course, of

Kailash Sundaram (25:01)

I find what our class, what I find really special about the GSB is that essay question, what matters to you and why. And it's because every student that I met, every one of my classmates has something that like stokes a fire in them, a problem they want to solve, a thing they want to create. And I find the GSB is really good at picking people who have some sort of mission that they care about pushing towards.

Katharine McLennan (25:26)

Yeah. Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (25:26)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Kailash Sundaram (25:27)

Like I heard that

Katharine McLennan (25:28)

Yep.

Kailash Sundaram (25:28)

in Michael, where Michael was talking about the human genome. It seemed like that was a mission that he'd made, a central mission to his career. And I think all of us are trying to figure out what that is. I find our class to be really compelled by the world's big problems. I think we're thinking a lot about the climate. We have a joint degree with a new Dover School that's really popular. And

Michael Rodriguez (25:38)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (25:51)

Fantastic.

Kailash Sundaram (25:52)

I think people care a lot about making sure this planet's alive for the next generation. I know we're thinking a lot about healthcare. We feel really burdened by the high healthcare costs and the fact that there's so much health inequity. And we're thinking a lot about AI and how we can use that to tackle some of these problems. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (26:01)

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (26:09)

for the good.

What's your thing, Kailash Do you remember what you wrote and what's your passion?

Kailash Sundaram (26:15)

Yeah.

Yeah. I wrote my essay about sustainable capitalism. So I wrote my college thesis on the opioid crisis. And I'm from near New Hampshire and Massachusetts. And New Hampshire has the second highest rate of opioid deaths in the country. And so because of that, it was something that I felt was really personal to me and something I really wanted to write my thesis on. And in that process, I learned a lot about Purdue Pharma.

Katharine McLennan (26:22)

Okay.

wow.

Michael Rodriguez (26:26)

wow.

Katharine McLennan (26:35)

Really?

Michael Rodriguez (26:35)

you

Katharine McLennan (26:40)

Heh.

Kailash Sundaram (26:43)

And Purdue Pharma, if you think about it in a business school way, is actually a great business. And I don't want to sound crass, but it's like they have recurring revenue. They had a great go-to-market motion with these doctors that these representatives would go and secure. They had no churn because people were addicted. And in terms of a business, when you're sitting on that board, you're going, this is a great company. But then you think about the impact that they're having on people's lives and you wonder, is it really that great of a company? And I saw that in

Katharine McLennan (26:57)

Yep.

Yep.

Kailash Sundaram (27:13)

venture capital, I was my first job out of college. worked in VC and I remember going, I was a junior VC. So I remember going to board meetings with partners and thinking we're in the room, these decisions are made about products that impact people's lives. And then I worked in the 2020 campaign, because that was something that was super important to me. And I ended up working in the Biden administration. And I think to me, was again, like, how do we combine?

Katharine McLennan (27:30)

Mmm. Mmm.

Kailash Sundaram (27:40)

How do we get businesses to just not just think about the shareholder, but also the stakeholder? And I don't mean impact investing. I think there is, but I think there's a way where we can have businesses that can pursue profits. But think about the people they serve, and hopefully the two can be in mutual alignment. And so to me, that's the big issue that's been driving for us at the GSB is how we can do that. And you asked a question about what I want to go into after. I'm thinking a lot about AI.

Katharine McLennan (27:45)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (27:45)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (27:53)

Mm.

Michael Rodriguez (27:56)

Yes.

you

Kailash Sundaram (28:07)

I'm thinking a lot about venture. I'm thinking a lot about a place where I can sort of help work on that mission of creating organizations that align both the shareholder interests and the stakeholder interests.

Katharine McLennan (28:19)

Kailash, going back to Michael, mean, my passion for my career is organization, culture and leadership. And, you know, I've looked at the psychology of organizations. Michael, how have you, have we changed any aspect of our culture and the way we do things in business? I mean, are we improving, disproving? I mean, if you make a parallel to the economy, I don't, what do you think?

Michael Rodriguez (28:20)

That's awesome.

Kailash Sundaram (28:26)

Hmm.

You

Mm.

Michael Rodriguez (28:42)

you

Well, I mean, and Kailash pointed out well, mean, again, for me, the passion and I didn't realize I had this passion until I arrived in a business where we were treating patients with cancer in a way. You know, the first, the first kind of cancer business was a medical device company that was finding a minimally invasive way to treat prostate and renal and liver and lung and bone cancers. And going into the OR even as the CFO was profound for me because

Kailash Sundaram (28:59)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (29:15)

It became not a business transaction. It became not, you know, a razor razor blade model. It became not a really cool technology born out of a military application now applied to a medical one. It became about the patient. And that's where it drew true value. And to your point, Kailash, I we absolutely knew that we could be an excellent company.

We could derive value for our stockholders and we can leave our fellow humans better off, even if it was one at a time. Another business subsequent to that was in a cancer diagnostics company. And we did a thousand accessions a day. That's incoming either tissue samples or blood samples. And we, we changed the nomenclature, not samples, but it was patients. Those were patients.

Katharine McLennan (30:08)

love that.

Michael Rodriguez (30:09)

And so we wanted to treat every one of them pristinely. wanted to make sure we got all the information that we could get. wanted to result out tests rather than having, you know, not enough sample to work with. So perhaps a little roundly stated, I think we have had an impact in that we've taken what has sucked us into this rushing river, but we've looked for ways in the small manner in which I can have a contribution.

Kailash Sundaram (30:23)

in that we take what has sucked us into this rough and dribbly, but we look for ways in the same

Michael Rodriguez (30:36)

I've tried to have that contribution. And now in this stage of my life, I've flipped that to now investing in this next generation of college students, right? Now I'm going to hand off a baton and Kailash, we might be handing it to you. We might be handing it off to now some younger folks in your generation. But I take that incredibly seriously and with an extraordinary degree of honor. Like every one of my students, I joke around with them all the time.

Katharine McLennan (30:43)

The next generation. Yeah. Yep.

Kailash Sundaram (30:57)

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (30:58)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (31:04)

But I'm like, I love all my students equally, but every one of them learns differently. Every one of them has got different goals. Every one of them comes from different families of origin. Every one of them has different perspectives on our world and objectives on what they want to do to be the next ones who impact our world. And so I think if I look across our class, I can't imagine a single person, at least that I recall, that took it with any degree less sobriety than what you just expressed, Kailash that

Kailash Sundaram (31:10)

Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (31:31)

Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (31:32)

We all do know while our part might be small, collectively, it might be able to be enormous. Or if I can impact one life who then chooses to impact another life and in turn another, that just sort of replication of this geometric growth. So I think that is the unique thing about the GSB and the unique thing about the unique thing is its ability.

Kailash Sundaram (31:41)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (31:59)

to have cultivated that so strongly in the class of 95 and to continue to be doing it in the class of 2025. It's just as hardcore in our innate nature and who we are. We're applying it differently. The issues might be different. We might see it different vocally. I don't know, but it's just as we are just as voracious in our appetite to make that difference.

Kailash Sundaram (32:00)

Yeah

Katharine McLennan (32:07)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (32:27)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (32:27)

as you guys now are. Like we are all just the same in that way.

Katharine McLennan (32:31)

And despite all the golf lessons that some of us took during Stanford, we are not going to retire. And I haven't met anyone that's going to be retiring on the golf course without anything to do. So, Kailash, it's fascinating that you actually took a job with the Biden administration and you're looking at venture capital. And I'm not sure, Michael might be able to correct me, if we saw any of our classmates

Kailash Sundaram (32:34)

Okay. Okay.

Michael Rodriguez (32:43)

Not at all.

Katharine McLennan (32:57)

bring those two together. indeed, Silicon Valley was seeded by the government. There's no way that Valley would not have existed had DARPA not suited it. HP came along. So what's your take? I found it interesting, the federal government and the VC

Kailash Sundaram (33:17)

I think the big thing that I, the way I connect that is it's pretty interesting. It's basically the way it would happen was I worked on the, I worked in venture in Detroit. So I graduated college and I really wanted to be, I felt like there was, I grew up on the coast, I up in California until I was 13 and I moved to Boston. That's where I'd been till I was graduating college. And I remember thinking there was so much technology on the coast, but there's not much in middle America. And I felt that was a big part of the inequality we were seeing. And so,

Michael Rodriguez (33:37)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (33:38)

Mmm.

Okay

Kailash Sundaram (33:43)

While most of my friends were moving to San Francisco or New York, I took a job in Detroit with a guy named Dan Gilbert who owns, who founded Quicken Loans or now Rocket Mortgage. And so I worked for his family office in Detroit. And that was a fascinating experience to kind of be in middle America, figuring out like what technology is being built there and how we can hopefully revitalize and reduce that inequality. But in the back of my head, I always wanted to work on the 2020 campaign because I had been in college

Katharine McLennan (33:48)

Wow.

Michael Rodriguez (33:53)

Absolutely, yeah.

Katharine McLennan (33:53)

Of course,

yeah, yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (34:12)

when Donald Trump was first elected. And so to me, it was something like super important to be part of. At the time, I felt like an effort to preserve democracy. And so I ended up volunteering on the Biden campaign in Iowa when I was in Detroit. that was, you know, then COVID hit. And so was there, it was like a priest in Katman, Iowa, knocking on doors, making sure people got to vote. And then COVID hit and I wasn't sure how to volunteer. And so.

Michael Rodriguez (34:15)

Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (34:29)

in Iowa. Wow.

Michael Rodriguez (34:40)

wow.

Kailash Sundaram (34:40)

I reached out cold to the legal counsel because I knew they were getting busy and I was like, Hey, I want to help. Like, can I volunteer? And in that process of like setting up, you know, me helping volunteer, she asked if I wanted to come on full time to the campaign about a hundred days for election day to kind of manage the operations behind the legal team because they were getting so busy. And so it was pretty serendipitous how my kind of government story got started. Cause I had always planned to be in venture and tech.

Katharine McLennan (34:58)

I love it. Yeah, they were.

Michael Rodriguez (35:00)

Wow.

Kailash Sundaram (35:08)

politics was something I care a lot about and I felt it was really important, but not something I planned to do. But I just felt at that time it was so important for me to do it. So I took a leave after my job in venture. I went to go work on the Biden campaign. And then things happened where the transition happened, but the legal team was still pretty busy with January 6th and so forth. My boss got named White House counsel. And so I followed her in to the White House counsel's office. And that led to me eventually

Michael Rodriguez (35:27)

Hmm.

Kailash Sundaram (35:34)

working there on judicial nominations. And then I was a speechwriter for Mitch Landrieu, the National Economic Council. He worked on infrastructure implementation. And so it's kind of a interesting journey where I didn't really plan to go into government to the point about making plans and like not, what do they say, plans break at first contact. And I didn't exactly expect to do that. And so for me now going, was, GSB was a big reason to come to GSB was to be back in tech and to be back in Silicon Valley and to kind of

Michael Rodriguez (35:48)

you

Katharine McLennan (35:51)

So.

Michael Rodriguez (35:52)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (36:01)

Aha! Okay.

Kailash Sundaram (36:03)

be part of it all again. And so that's kind of the

Katharine McLennan (36:05)

Okay.

Kailash Sundaram (36:05)

impetus behind GSB is like, I just feel like the energy around here being in Silicon Valley, you feel like you're at the tip of innovation. I love Detroit, but the one thing I felt was it sort of was a little second hand the innovation that we felt. But when you're here at Stanford GSB, just feels like you're at it. Like you're walking around Coupa Cafe, walking around town square, and you just see.

Michael Rodriguez (36:15)

Yes.

Katharine McLennan (36:20)

secondhand.

you

Michael Rodriguez (36:28)

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (36:29)

You just hear ideas, you have this excitement, energy. And so, yeah, it's a little bit of a pivot for me to go from government to back to venture, or something, also like a late stage startup or building. But to me, that's what I wanted to do with Come to GSB is to be part of that. I think government's super important. But at the same time, I feel like the private sector and innovation, that's where like.

Katharine McLennan (36:39)

Yeah.

for that.

Michael Rodriguez (36:51)

you

Kailash Sundaram (36:55)

change happens, like the things that we build, the things that drive our society forward. So we'll see what that looks like, but that is how I tie government and venture together.

Katharine McLennan (36:57)

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (36:57)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (37:01)

Thank

I love it. Michael, what's your take on what we've learned about the ride of innovation? And do you see it changing now? How it's funded, how it's exciting, how it's growing? You know, we don't know how AI is, but what do you think?

Michael Rodriguez (37:07)

you

Yeah.

Yeah,

Kailash Sundaram (37:23)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (37:24)

it is really interesting. I want to resonate so well with what you said, Kailash, because that's exactly why I went to the GSB at that time as well. Like, because I knew where I wanted to land in terms of the phase or, you know, the structure of company and in those two arenas, I'm like, I can go other places, I can go to some of the other great schools in the United States. But if I want to be where it's all going to start from, I need to be at the GSB.

Kailash Sundaram (37:30)

Mm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (37:48)

You know what? I think what's awesome. I think what we've all probably learned is the pace of change. It probably feels to us like it's as fast as it's ever been. I suspect if we went back to maybe the mid 19th century when things like telegraph and telephone and photography or whatever, we might be like, wow, this is mind blowing. At the same time,

Katharine McLennan (38:07)

you

Kailash Sundaram (38:12)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (38:16)

I think what we're seeing is that the changes rapidly, in some ways the utilization of what the changes are, it's still not totally understood or determined. Even I think what we thought the internet was going to be was not at all what it became and the manner in which we use it. Like right now, without the internet, we're not looking at one another and recording this conversation on two different continents and three time zones, right?

Kailash Sundaram (38:29)

Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (38:38)

Nope. That's right.

Michael Rodriguez (38:42)

And so that's a sort of a cutesy way of applying it. When I think of artificial intelligence, so I also do some work for a very nascent local venture capital firm here in Waco that has kind of tentacles throughout Texas. We have one company that's employing artificial intelligence to help expedite the information that we can gather from our mobile phones to...

Kailash Sundaram (38:52)

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (39:07)

Diagnostically ascertain what might be happening in a person at a particular point in time and then predict what intervention might be necessary. Like we, don't even know that we understand yet what AI will be like. just used it a couple of months ago. I need to get back into a workout routine. had a genetic test done by another company whose board I serve on and it tells me, Hey, you should do your workouts this way. I fed it into co-pilot. said, can you make me a workout three days a week, one hour?

Kailash Sundaram (39:13)

Wow.

Wow.

Michael Rodriguez (39:35)

different, you know, muscle groups, blam, within, you know, three seconds, I had my workout and off I go, right? That's not even close. Like I think back to my days at a company called Clarion, which is the company that GE healthcare bought. And our objective was to democratize information that otherwise only at that time resided at academic centers. And we wanted to send it into the community, to rural communities in particular. And if I think about now,

Kailash Sundaram (39:41)

Yeah.

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (40:04)

with the way that image analysis in those days was done. used learning models that could look at a slide image taken digitally off a slide of a slice of human tissue. And a physician, a pathologist having to look at that with the aid of some degree of image analysis, that was 15 years ago. Now what we're going to be able to do

Katharine McLennan (40:17)

Mm.

Michael Rodriguez (40:31)

I don't even know that my P brain can fathom it. It is so extraordinary what is yet to be determined. And that is a minor precursor to what it will be 15 years hence. And so I just think what we have learned is that there is so much advancement that we have at the cusp of being able to develop. I concur with you, Kyle. I think it has to happen in the private sector. I think there are ways that the federal government can facilitate.

Katharine McLennan (40:35)

it is.

Michael Rodriguez (41:01)

One of the ways that I've been working most recently is facilitating the tech transfer process out of universities like Baylor or Texas A or even Abilene Christian University up in Abilene, Texas. How do you then allow them to have a mechanism to commercialize these discoveries and then allow them to free form go out and figure out what those can become? And again, it's going to be kind of like, you know, the speaker from Sequoia where you're going to have 99 fail in one hit.

Kailash Sundaram (41:06)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (41:09)

fantastic.

Kailash Sundaram (41:29)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (41:30)

That's the model. And

Kailash Sundaram (41:31)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (41:31)

that's what then gets to serve the next generation. That's what gets to serve fellow humans with that one advancement out of a hundred. That is the game changer. And so I think that that's, know, when we play this stuff out, that's what becomes most meaningful, but it requires failure in order to have success. If you're to have any chance of success, you have to take the chance of failing.

Kailash Sundaram (41:57)

Yeah, it's funny you say that.

Katharine McLennan (41:58)

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (41:59)

You know, think of,

yeah, I was gonna say, but I think of all these internet companies that existed in 95, then nobody in your stage of life has heard of  they're gone. Just nothing.

Katharine McLennan (42:06)

It's even heard of there was a there

Kailash Sundaram (42:08)

Hehehe

Katharine McLennan (42:09)

was a small startup though that I think had 300 people in the valley. It's called Cisco. Kailash, you were going to say something.

Michael Rodriguez (42:15)

Right.

Kailash Sundaram (42:19)

Yeah, I mean, I think it's so cool that you talk about this idea of failure being almost a precondition for success. We had a speaker come to class and she's about two years out of business school building a company. And I think the big question was, how do you feel so comfortable putting all your eggs in one basket, right? I mean, she's just doing everything to build this company out of school. She's in debt. She doesn't have like much to fall back on. And she's like, well, I actually don't think about my life as one.

Michael Rodriguez (42:27)

Mm.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (42:37)

question.

Kailash Sundaram (42:46)

I think about it as a venture portfolio in the sense of I'm going to go really hard at this company and I'll know in two, two and a half years if it's working or not. And if it's not, I'll go on to the next thing. And if I think about the 25 years after I graduated from GSB, I basically got 10 bites of the apple. And so at some point, one of them is going to really take off. You're going to see that power law work with one of them. And that's all it takes. And so in some ways like that, that drive, it speaks right to what you're saying where

Michael Rodriguez (42:55)

Yeah. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (43:07)

Love it.

Michael Rodriguez (43:15)

Yes.

Kailash Sundaram (43:16)

It

is we have to be comfortable with failure. Like, and that's one thing I'm working on, all of my classmates are working on is being comfortable with the journey ahead, not looking perfect because it's it's to your point, the ambiguities where the adventure is. And sometimes you stumble on things that you don't even know you stumble on.

Michael Rodriguez (43:25)

Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's the beautiful aspect of this, right? I mean, I remember one of our classes way back, we studied this company begun in the garage and, you know, there was a trio of people as I recollect, two guys and a gal, and they couldn't, you know, totally define what they wanted to do. And they just knew that they wanted to be, you know, great as engineers.

Katharine McLennan (43:31)

Yeah, I tell you.

Kailash Sundaram (43:53)

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (43:53)

I

remember our reactions as a collective, most particularly mine was, this is gonna fail. If you don't have a clear direction of what you're gonna do, if you don't have a defined product, if you don't even know your roles, this is ridiculous. Hewlett Packard now has been in around for a hundred years, whatever it's been. So that is, I think there's an aspect to...

Katharine McLennan (44:02)

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kailash Sundaram (44:06)

Yeah. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (44:09)

course.

Michael Rodriguez (44:16)

being willing to not only embrace failure, but being willing to be the only one that believes when everybody else is questioning. Now, I also happen to teach a case in my grad ethics class on a company called Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, a former Stanford student, not a grad, but a student. And so, you we talk a lot about kind of how she formed her view on what was possible. Of course, she would have had to physically, well, had to literally break the laws of physics.

Kailash Sundaram (44:24)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (44:30)

hahahaha

Michael Rodriguez (44:45)

So there again comes a time when we have to still be governed by reality, but then there's the belief that we can actually create reality like Steve Jobs did in so many of Apple's products. We just didn't know we needed the things that he was developing.

Kailash Sundaram (44:49)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (45:04)

And that's the most exciting thing about your class, Kailash. Like, you know, we'll still create and, know, we could call this the age of creativity. I'm fascinated by what AI can do for our creativity. I actually feel more creative having chat TBT by my side than I've ever felt before. So what do you, I mean, what's the most exciting application you guys have seen about AI that your classmates, Kailash, are kind of getting excited about? What's the?

Kailash Sundaram (45:14)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (45:21)

No doubt.

Kailash Sundaram (45:29)

You

Yeah,

well I think one is it helps to get our homework done faster. So that's great. Yeah, right. Well it's funny because this year they actually, last year I don't know if AI was allowed in every class, it was allowed in some. But this year, ChatGPT is totally A-OK in every single class in Stanford GSB. And so there's almost a realization that we're not trying to counter AI.

Katharine McLennan (45:34)

What's the dream?

Michael Rodriguez (45:37)

Hahaha

I'm noting this as a professor just to make sure.

Katharine McLennan (45:49)

Okay.

Okay, fantastic. Okay.

Yes.

Kailash Sundaram (46:00)

We're

in fact figuring out how we can use this in our lives to be productive. It's part of our lives, in fact. We should try to figure out how we can leverage AI to do more and be more creative to what you said, Kat. So that's been pretty cool.

Katharine McLennan (46:04)

Love it.

Michael Rodriguez (46:05)

Yes.

Katharine McLennan (46:10)

What's your experience

though with that? are you becoming more creative?

Kailash Sundaram (46:13)

Yeah.

It's funny you say that. I think yes and no. So there are times where I feel like once I start using AI, I start thinking, how do I get this tool to do what I want it to do, as opposed to thinking about the problem? And so I kind of know the right answer I want to get. Like, let's say, for example, it's like sort of a qualitative question, or I've got to write an essay, and I've kind of given it the talking points that I want, like the main thesis.

Katharine McLennan (46:17)

Okay.

Okay.

Kailash Sundaram (46:39)

the evidence and I know what I want it to get to, I'm no longer really thinking about what I want to write in the essay. I'm more thinking about how do I prompt engineer AI in order to get the right essay that I like. So I would say in a weird way, sometimes I think, well, maybe I'm not being as creative, maybe I'm not. then, and so I almost think the creativity is in the prompt engineering where, yes, it helps you get the task done quicker. So then I've got to like, you

Katharine McLennan (46:48)

Got it. Got it. Got it.

Michael Rodriguez (46:48)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (47:00)

I love it. It is. Totally.

Kailash Sundaram (47:05)

So maybe I'm being less creative on that front, but it gets the task done. And then almost my creativity comes in like what I can do. So I'm thinking about a project, for example, it's on me to scope it out and I can use AI to achieve the mini task quicker, but then I've still got to use myself to figure out where I want it to go. And so I think about it very much like a personal assistant almost. And I find that like, to your point, I can be a lot more creative in the ways that I want, as opposed to maybe a task that I wish I could get done quicker.

Michael Rodriguez (47:19)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (47:26)

Yeah, absolutely.

You know what's interesting about that though? The quantum physics physicists have a term called observer created reality. And if you want to have a conclusion, you can make it by looking, know, being an observer, Michael, to the experiment. And so if we've got to be careful, because if we're forcing AI to get to what I would like to see, we may miss this great experimentation.

Kailash Sundaram (47:44)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (47:51)

Yeah, yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (48:00)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (48:03)

that

Michael Rodriguez (48:03)

Yeah. Well, I mean, I use it in different contexts. I just had we use copilot.

Katharine McLennan (48:03)

we all want to do. What do think, Michael?

Michael Rodriguez (48:13)

Not so sure I love it, but it's certainly a good tool. So I just said this past term when I was teaching my grad class, I said, I want to do something different than I'd done in the previous couple of terms. And so I asked it to create a simulation of a financially related ethical scenario that was significantly ambiguous, high stakes, personal to the students. came in and I had to do the same thing like you were saying, Kailash. I had to

Kailash Sundaram (48:32)

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (48:40)

go through and make sure that I really created a prompt that was getting kind of what I wanted. I had to go back a couple of times to clarify, but then I got the ultimate deliverable and I still looked at it and tweaked it. But I walked into my class one day and I told them, you don't have any readings. That made them suspicious from the get-go. They give them a ton of reading. And I said, here you go. You have one hour to talk about this with your team. You have to come out with unanimity no matter what you decide to do.

Kailash Sundaram (48:45)

Mm-hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (49:08)

And then you have one hour to give me no more than three pages in an essay. Right. So, so just putting that together is one way I've also used it at times to just help me kind of kick off a case and say, Hey, this is the situation I'm in. Can you just give me maybe some good prompt questions? And I actually got that idea. had taken a course at Harvard business school on teaching with cases. And, you know, they were, they had us use chat GPT to come up with sort of that sort of setup.

Katharine McLennan (49:11)

Perfect. Got it.

Kailash Sundaram (49:12)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (49:35)

But I'm still thinking about it and I'm still figuring out what I can use it with. But then I also have thought I could have chat come up with a particular scenario and a solution and then ask my students freeform to critique the solution. Like, why don't you now evaluate chats evaluation of this scenario? Cause I still want them to be able to think critically. I still really want them to be able to communicate.

Kailash Sundaram (49:52)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (49:52)

Love

it. Love it.

Kailash Sundaram (49:57)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (50:05)

Well, both in writing form and in verbal form.

And so now it's just like you said, we are doing the same at Hankamer School of Business at Baylor. How do we employ this tool? Because our students are going to use it and they're going to use it in the workplace in the mere couple of years until they're there. So we would do them a disservice to preclude them from using it for our fear of not being able to control it, right?

Katharine McLennan (50:20)

Of course.

Kailash Sundaram (50:22)

Yeah.

Right.

Michael Rodriguez (50:31)

So now how do we make sure that we incorporate it like we all incorporated the internet back in the day to their benefit and still derive the learning objectives that we have for them? And now that's on us to employ that and to make that productive.

Kailash Sundaram (50:36)

Right.

Katharine McLennan (50:46)

to create.

And Michael, what you say, I've got to come back to Kailash because so you're saying in some ways asking the questions prompt engineering, so to speak. And then you're saying, let us not lose the evaluation talent. And so if I take that back to the venture capital world that you're going to go in, you're going to be evaluating. my gut would still like to say that there is a very human

Kailash Sundaram (50:59)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (51:12)

skill capability that Chachi VT is not going to be able to evaluate. What you're going to invest in, for example, what do you think?

Kailash Sundaram (51:13)

100 % Yeah

Michael Rodriguez (51:13)

Yes.

Kailash Sundaram (51:19)

I 100 % agree with you. I think Michael had it spot on, which is that critical thinking and evaluation almost becomes more imperative. I think if you're that person that can't do that, then you're going to have an outsized advantage because you can't trust. at the end of the day, the models are trained on chat. GBT isn't thinking, thinking it's running models to help to create an answer. So I think we've got to remember that it's not a brain as people call it.

Katharine McLennan (51:28)

Yeah, there you go. There you go. Yep.

Michael Rodriguez (51:28)

Yeah.

Yes.

Kailash Sundaram (51:46)

It's using data that we've provided that you've provided to produce an answer. so really to your exact point, Kat, I think in our day and age, getting tasks done is going to be a lot easier. hopefully, but that means that our ability to critically think our ability to evaluate is going to be almost more important because everyone can do the basic. So everyone's going to be able to like process a lot of data to do the diligence quickly for a deal, to be able to write investment memos.

Michael Rodriguez (51:50)

Yeah. Yes.

Katharine McLennan (51:50)

Yep, there you go. There you go.

Kailash Sundaram (52:15)

But the question will be still, when you're sitting around the table discussing a deal with your partners, discussing a deal by, or just thinking about a deal yourself, how do you come to a different conclusion? How do you come to, if you look at every, you know, almost everyone I see who's made an impact, they have some sort of contrarian view or a view that not everyone believes in at the start. And so, ChatGPT by default is giving you what it's indexed as the best answer for it.

Michael Rodriguez (52:26)

Yeah. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Katharine McLennan (52:35)

Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

what people think.

Kailash Sundaram (52:44)

And so if you're just going to trust the model to tell you what's right and everyone's using the same data, you're not going to generate alpha. And so in some ways, you've got to be the one to critically sense. I think in my perspective, that's what I'm focused on is how do I use this to get stuff done? How do I use this to enhance and enhance my abilities? But how do I remain the ultimate decision maker?

Michael Rodriguez (52:44)

you

Katharine McLennan (52:45)

huh.

Michael Rodriguez (52:51)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (53:06)

But also, your phrase is fantastic. I'm going to have to take that phrase of generating alpha. I love that phrase. That is fantastic. That is fantastic. I love it. How do we, like I see, we're getting, what? You're coming to 60. I'm coming to 60. OK, three years, three years. I've got three years. The perspectives that have changed since we were 28, 29, whatever, if you had to name the number one

Michael Rodriguez (53:06)

Yeah Yeah, isn't that great

Kailash Sundaram (53:12)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (53:23)

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (53:27)

Hmm.

Michael Rodriguez (53:30)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (53:33)

Let's say personal perspective. We've talked a lot about the ladders and the being there and da da da da da. What's changed about life perspective?

Michael Rodriguez (53:45)

That's such an awesome question. when I think about how I thought in those days, I think it kind of harkens back to what we were saying a little bit earlier. And I don't know exactly how to articulate it, but I'll, I'll attempt it this way. That everything that I thought was important then. I don't know that it really was as important then as I thought it was. I don't know that I was as important as I thought I was. I don't know.

Kailash Sundaram (54:06)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (54:09)

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Rodriguez (54:14)

that what happened in that particular day mattered as much as I thought it was going to matter, right? We make everything so much bigger. And I kind of joke around with our kids. Our kids are, like I said, 26 and 20, almost 24. And I'm like, well, yeah, one day in your life is like half of a day in the context of my life, right?

Katharine McLennan (54:24)

Hmm.

Yeah, there we go.

Michael Rodriguez (54:38)

And I also talk a lot about like, if I look at every day of the past 57 and a half years of my life proceeding, it's a snap of a finger in my memory and my, in my ability to relate to every one of those days and minutes and seconds. But tomorrow feels like it's forever from now. And so I look at that and I just say, you know, what it allows me to do is to, I think, take things more at ease.

Katharine McLennan (54:48)

snap.

Truly.

Yeah, there you go.

Michael Rodriguez (55:09)

at a different pace with a different sort of recognition about the impact that it might have. Like, you know, tomorrow might start off cruddy. Okay, give it an hour. It might be better. I don't know. Not. I just, I think when I think about it back then, everything felt so much bigger and more important, including me, you know, and, and, and I think now I, maybe it's as we get to near nearer to the

Kailash Sundaram (55:29)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (55:30)

Yeah, including me.

Michael Rodriguez (55:38)

end of our days, I really do think it becomes a lot more about others than it was then. I'm not saying that I or any of us were like fundamentally selfish. I'm not trying to suggest that, but I think it's just become more about how do I in every individual engagement that I have, and I'm here in central Texas, man. So we talk to people at the checkout counter at the grocery store, right? We have a conversation like we were cousins from just down the street.

Kailash Sundaram (55:45)

Thanks

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (56:07)

I

love it.

Michael Rodriguez (56:08)

But how do I leave that person feeling better today than they might've felt before? Maybe I'm the one person that that person is going to hear, a great day, or really, really wonder when I ask, how are you, how they really are. And again, I'm not suggesting that we were just a bunch of selfish, you know, sort of, I don't know, overly capitalistic goons back in the day, but I just think, you know, you're, you're,

Kailash Sundaram (56:11)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (56:12)

and they did.

Kailash Sundaram (56:24)

Mm.

Michael Rodriguez (56:37)

your understanding of the world around you changes over time. And I really value that. And think it's not despite the GSB, I really do think it's in a large part because of it.

Katharine McLennan (56:42)

sure does.

So I'm start to, well, I'm bringing it to an end now. Kailash, what do you need from our generation? Because you guys are really striking out now and we are putting great hope in what we've left you. Yeah, no, I'm not sure we've left you for that, but what do you most, yeah, sorry for the mess, see ya.

Michael Rodriguez (57:04)

Sorry for the mess we'd have an additional if if if our legacy was like an Airbnb

Kailash Sundaram (57:05)

Right. Right.

Michael Rodriguez (57:10)

there'd be an additional cleaning fee

Kailash Sundaram (57:11)

That's right. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (57:14)

do you wish for?

What could we do most for your generation, do you think? In one or two words, or let me

Kailash Sundaram (57:18)

Hmm.

I think it's perspective. I think Michael just offered it, which is, it's funny because he was talking about everything seemed really big and I'm like, that's how it feels with the GSB. Every day it's like, feel every interaction is important, every class is important. And it all is, but you blow it up in your mind. And I think when you speak to folks who have seen more life, they show you that there's that perspective of it doesn't matter as much as you think.

Michael Rodriguez (57:22)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (57:24)

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (57:49)

it does, but then also to focus on the big picture items, like less on the granular. Like you obviously want to be detail oriented, but almost focus on the big things you want out of life as opposed to kind of the day to day. And they kind of help you see the forest from the trees. So I think that would be the, that would be helpful from your generation is that kind of guidance and mentorship. I think a lot of us, the one thing I think a lot of us feel is we're so connected in today's day and age.

Michael Rodriguez (57:53)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Kailash Sundaram (58:18)

But we're still looking, I'm still looking for mentors and for guidance and wisdom and people who can help me see where I'm going, can serve as guides. And so your generation's ability to kind of be a guide to us, to mentor, and I don't think we're always going to ask for it because we're that generation that probably won't. We think we can do it ourselves. But to be

there to lend a helping hand when we stumble, that would be awesome.

Michael Rodriguez (58:47)

That's so neat, man, I will tell you this, man, that's an honor for us to hear. And look, for just the sake of this conversation, count me as someone available to you. Count me as someone available to your classmates. I think Kat would say the same and so would others. The jewel, the true jewel of the GSB is multi-fold. Clearly the education, clearly the brand, clearly whatever delivers the education and the faculty and everything else.

Katharine McLennan (58:47)

Gosh, so beautiful.

it

Michael Rodriguez (59:15)

When I look back, what I most treasure is 353 other world changers. Every one of them and the individual conversations we had, the LPFs, the band practices that I had, I was the drummer in our band. We were terrible, but it was awesome. Don't, don't miss.

Kailash Sundaram (59:34)

Heh heh.

Katharine McLennan (59:36)

Love it.

Michael Rodriguez (59:43)

the incredible value that is in every one of your classmates, man. Take that time. Take that time. It is so awesome. And it is a lifetime of payback that you get from that. Honestly, I mean, I'm gonna see a bunch of my classmates in Australia next summer. I went to Paris 20 years ago and one of our classmates, Francois Josseron, know, hey, back in those days even I emailed him, we had dinner in Paris.

Katharine McLennan (1:00:07)

That's right.

Kailash Sundaram (1:00:08)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (1:00:12)

Ha

Michael Rodriguez (1:00:12)

we reach out to each other. Because we took the time. To make that connection, it wasn't just about the class and wasn't just about the case. It wasn't just about the paper. It was about the people. Man, my cup runneth over dude. My cup runneth over big time.

Kailash Sundaram (1:00:19)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (1:00:31)

what a great place to end.

Katharine McLennan (1:00:34)

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.