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

🎬 Podcast Ep. 5 | Stanford MBA – From Baby Boomer to Gen Z | Peter Crawford '95 meets Doug Phipps '25

• Katharine McLennan • Season 1 • Episode 5

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Today, I’m joined by Peter Crawford, a seasoned executive from the Stanford MBA Class of 1995. As CFO at Charles Schwab for seven years, Peter was instrumental in growing the company’s client assets under management from $1 trillion to $10 trillion during his two decades of leadership. Now transitioning into retirement, he is focusing on board work, community service with the Boys & Girls Club of San Francisco, and personal passions like skiing and guitar.

Joining us is Doug Phipps, a second-year MBA student from the Class of 2025. Doug is a social entrepreneur and educator with a background in theatre and teaching. He founded Student Productions, a peer-led theatre program in Washington, D.C., fostering creativity and connection among teenagers. At Stanford, Doug is pursuing a dual degree with the School of Education, focusing on innovative solutions for student engagement and addressing post-COVID learning loss while also leading in the Education Club.

Peter and Doug offer distinct perspectives, contrasting the tech-driven excitement of the 1990s with today’s AI-powered, socially conscious business environment. Peter reflects on leadership, purpose-driven work, and building a client-first culture at Schwab. Doug discusses the evolving educational landscape, AI’s role in learning, and Stanford’s emphasis on sustainability and inclusion.

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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.

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Contact: kath@katharinemclennan.com


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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 (01:55)

This is Episode 5 of Two Stanford MBA Alumni Bridge 30 Years. Today, I'm joined by Peter Crawford, a seasoned executive from the Stanford MBA class of 1995, who has spent over two decades shaping the financial landscape at Charles Schwab, with the last seven being the CFO.

During his tenure on the leadership team at Schwab, Peter contributed to the company's growth from $1 trillion to $10 trillion in client assets under management. Now transitioning into retirement, Peter reflects on his next chapter, including board work, community service with the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco, and personal pursuits like skiing and guitar. I'm also joined by Doug Phipps, a second year MBA student from

the class of 2025. Doug is a passionate social entrepreneur and educator, combining his background in theater and teaching to create a new company now called Student Productions, a peer-led theater program in Washington, DC, designed to foster social connection and creativity among teenagers. At Stanford, Doug has been an active leader in the education club and is pursuing a dual degree with the School of Education, focusing on

innovative ways to improve student engagement and address learning loss post-COVID. Peter and Doug bring unique perspectives to this conversation, offering a vivid contrast between the tech-driven buzz of the 1990s and today's AI-infused, socially conscious business environment. Peter shares reflections on leadership, purpose-driven work, and the importance of cultivating a client-first culture at Schwab.

while Doug provides insights into the evolving educational landscape, the role of AI in writing and learning, and the growing emphasis on sustainability and inclusion at Stanford. Together, they explore what has changed and what remains timeless about the Stanford MBA experience, the future of leadership, and how the decisions we make today shape the world for the next generation. Welcome, Doug and Peter.

Katharine McLennan (04:10)

I don't know how 30 years goes, but if I say that anymore, the

The youth of today will just keep looking at me like I am ancient. So welcome you guys. And I thought maybe we'd start with what you're up to at the moment in terms of activities, focuses and things like that so we can get a situation. Because both of you guys are in San Francisco. Yeah, Doug? are you up to, Doug?

Doug Phipps (04:36)

Yeah, I'm out in the South Bay, live near Stanford. And I'm a second year MBA student, as Katharine mentioned. So I'm up to a lot of the classic grad school things, of stuff, coffee chats with classmates, working on the education club at the GSB. And I'm a top coach

Katharine McLennan (04:40)

Nice!

you

Doug Phipps (04:58)

for our class, which means that I support classmates in sharing their well-prepared and 30-minute long life stories each week. that's my favorite thing that I do at Stanford for sure. And then I'm working on building a nonprofit that centers peer-led theater experiences in Washington, DC. I was a theater teacher

before coming to Stanford. And so I'm trying to create a program that would build more socially connected experience for high schoolers through peer-led theater and a ton of other stuff. So that's what I'm up to and what I spend a lot of my time doing.

Katharine McLennan (05:27)

Wow!

it's funny, Doug, because that just reminds me of one of our classmates, Al Samuel. You have to meet him at some point, but I'll come back to that. So Peter, what are you up to in your retirement these days?

Doug Phipps (05:37)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (05:45)

yeah, I'm about

to be in retirement. So yeah, so after 23 and a half years at Schwab, Charles Schwab lost seven and a half years as CFO, I announced my decision to retire about six months ago and officially handed over the CFO title October 1st and I'm gonna be essentially leaving Schwab in a couple of weeks now. Hard to believe. So very, thank you. It's no, it's very,

Katharine McLennan (06:02)

my god.

That's crazy. Peter, congratulations.

Doug Phipps (06:06)

Wow.

Peter Crawford (06:11)

Very exciting. I know everybody approaches these milestones differently. For me, I'm super excited. I feel really good about the time I had at Schwab. I love really believing in the company, love the experience. I mean, it was more gratifying, more rewarding than I ever could have imagined. learned a ton. But I'm also excited to have a little more balance in my life. And I'm also excited, I'm not gonna be just completely sitting around. I'm gonna be probably ideally working half time as...

doing board and advisory work for public and private companies. And then also spend more time on some community passions that I have. well, I'm on the board of the Boys and Girls Club in San Francisco, which is just a fabulous, fabulous organization. And I've had to take a little bit of a step back on several years on that and want to get back engaged with that organization. And then want to do something probably more internationally focused. Am I sure exactly what that looks like yet?

Katharine McLennan (06:43)

What, like what Peter? What's the community?

Peter Crawford (07:05)

but trying to leave time and mind share available for that. And then also there's some sort of personal passions. My wife got me a guitar so I can take some guitar lessons. I want to get back into school. I used to sing and want to do that again. I want to become a better swimmer. then I've got a lot of like, we have a house in Wyoming. So hopefully spend a lot of time there doing some back country skiing.

Doug Phipps (07:14)

Mmm.

Katharine McLennan (07:15)

No way!

Peter Crawford (07:26)

and alpine skiing and cross country skiing, et cetera, and hiking. some travel. Yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be, it's kind of like two, it's very over. Yeah. No, I know I'm not, I'm not being bored. know. I'd be like, I'm bored. Like, I'm not going to have, I'm not worried about that at all. So

Katharine McLennan (07:33)

Peter, you're like, are you planning to sleep at any point during this retirement? No.

Doug Phipps (07:38)

Haha

Katharine McLennan (07:44)

you're still at Stanford Peter and I and another beautiful friend Scott Fleming headed up the outdoor adventures whatever it's called. Yeah, yeah it was very fun. No I did not. It's not true. Did you guys still have that Doug? Were you? Yeah, yeah.

Doug Phipps (07:46)

you

Peter Crawford (07:52)

Exactly. Katharine did all the work though.

Doug Phipps (07:52)

Wow, cool.

Hahaha

We do, yeah, there's

an outdoors club at GSB and they host lots of trips to Yosemite for hiking, camping, skiing and all around the area.

Katharine McLennan (08:11)

Yeah, that's it. I'm

so glad.

Peter Crawford (08:15)

And the deal before

second year too, for the first, mean, sorry, before the first year, because we had like a five day program before, before business school even started.

Doug Phipps (08:23)

Yeah,

Katharine McLennan (08:24)

Yeah,

Doug Phipps (08:24)

there

was a Tahoe trip before school starts. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (08:24)

that's it.

how cool is that? Wow.

Peter Crawford (08:27)

Okay. Okay.

Katharine McLennan (08:31)

So this is like the fourth conversation I've had. And it's been pretty fascinating for me just to understand the differences and the similarities between Stanford 2025 and Stanford 1995. What's, it's, I know it's incredible. And I was just curious.

Peter Crawford (08:48)

I still have a hard time believing that, yeah.

Katharine McLennan (08:54)

What are the things you're most excited about Doug in learning at the moment? What's  kind of stood out for you on first year and even now when you're at? I just remembered it's Wednesday there. Of course you don't have any classes. How could I forget? How could I forget so?

Doug Phipps (09:09)

Exactly, it's the perfect day. Well, today

Peter Crawford (09:13)

I forgot about that.

Doug Phipps (09:16)

is executive challenge. So it's all of the MBA ones this year. And there are Arbuckle Fellows are at GSB from 7am to 7pm doing these extensive role plays with alumni playing investors of companies and they're like, no.

invest in this and they have to sort of yeah, role play out a bunch of scenarios and it's a really cool experience. that the GSB community is particularly engaged on this given Wednesday, but I am taking I am at home for right now. What am I most? Exactly. The talks. Yeah, I think what am I most excited about learning? The question is, what am I what am I learning that I'm most excited about? Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (09:48)

But you're coaching, you're coaching the, the, yeah. How cool is that? That's awesome.

Yeah, what are you learning? What are you most excited about?

Doug Phipps (10:04)

I think that I came into GSB with very little for-profit or just like financial understanding. And I think that the base classes like finance and accounting, I think many folks found them quite boring and repetitive. I thought they were super interesting. I was like, this is super cool.

Katharine McLennan (10:24)

I love you, go boy!

Doug Phipps (10:27)

I

definitely am not going to be an accountant or work in finance, but I was like, this is good stuff to know. It's also was a very, I think it was a fresh experience to feel like I'm back in school learning something that I no context for. Like I think since then I've taken some classes that I have a little bit more context for, but those were like brand new to me. I think the thing, the class that I'm most excited about right now is I'm in a class called winning writing taught by Glenn Kramer, which I'm

Katharine McLennan (10:30)

You

yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Crawford (10:40)

Thank

Katharine McLennan (10:54)

Really?

Doug Phipps (10:56)

I'm not sure if you've heard of it through the other conversations, but Glenn is this New York Times editor who teaches this class every quarter. And it's the best class I think I've ever been in. It's like, yeah, it's one three-hour block a week. three hour, I've been in few classes that are three hours long. And as with any class, three hours often feels too long. But this one, he just finds a way to, he like,

Katharine McLennan (11:04)

my gosh.

Peter Crawford (11:08)

What a great idea.

Katharine McLennan (11:19)

Long.

Doug Phipps (11:23)

asks folks to bring in pieces of their own writing to edit in front of the class, but in a way that's really warm and inviting and not scary. And it intersperses his own hysterical comedy routine throughout the lecture, has some short writing exercises to get better at different things. And that, I think really figuring out how to hold my communication with him has been the highlight of my GSB academic experience, for sure.

Katharine McLennan (11:30)

Wow.

how cool is that? You'd be fantastic in that class. Geez, Louise. You should teach some of those classes.

Peter Crawford (11:48)

What a great talk.

That's

Doug Phipps (11:55)

you

Peter Crawford (11:56)

such a great idea. because you think about it, I certainly, think writing is one of the most underappreciated key success and I mean, any kind of leader in business and leadership roles. I mean, it's so important and yet so many people don't have that. They take all the finance and accounting classes, economics, whatever, but they don't really learn how to write well, how to write persuasively, clearly, concisely. That's great, great idea.

Doug Phipps (12:02)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (12:17)

Absolutely. Peter,

what do you remember? Any classes that  stand out or learning doesn't have to be classes. What's the couple of things that strike you as?

Peter Crawford (12:29)

Well, think

for me, guess, I mean, I think if there's a single class that stands out, I think you're probably gonna know it was touchy feely. Doug, sounds like they still have that interpersonal. Yeah, that's probably the single class that stood out the most. mean, for me, a little bit like Doug, I mean, was a consultant before business school, but I was a history major in college. And so I hadn't had.

Katharine McLennan (12:37)

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Doug Phipps (12:37)

Mmm.

They do, I haven't taken it yet, but I'm excited for it, yeah.

Katharine McLennan (12:44)

Yeah.

that's right. You were too. Yes.

Peter Crawford (12:53)

I only taken a few, I took a bunch of math and science classes, but I hadn't taken a lot of economics and the consulting firm I worked at was pretty narrowly focused. So I didn't feel like I had a broad based business and I didn't really have any business mentors growing up or anything like that. I feel like everything I knew about business was probably from either consulting or reading in search of excellence, the Peters and Wildman book. Remember that? so it was exactly.

Katharine McLennan (12:58)

That's it.

Whose son was in our class!

Peter Crawford (13:20)

And so, you know, I think it was really helpful for me to have that broad-based business, know, sort of foundational experience. But honestly, when I look back on my time at Stanford, for me, in many ways, the biggest gift to me was this men's group that we formed, where I think you may know about that. So it was 11 guys. So kind of like what Doug was talking about, you were probably, Katharine, maybe one of these women's groups that had a formal facilitator, they were in doubt, and the women would get together.

Katharine McLennan (13:38)

I remember the-

Yes, yes, yeah.

Peter Crawford (13:47)

I guess once a week or something like that, and many of those groups have stayed, you know, meeting, you know, for 30 years, we decided, well, let's do that for men. don't have an endowed facilitator like that. We'll just do it ourselves. And so we started getting together, I think second year, early second year, and every week one person would tell their life story, kind of like what you're describing, and for the entire night. you know, I think we all told each other, I certainly told these guys things I never told anybody in my life. And

Katharine McLennan (13:50)

Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

my gosh.

Doug Phipps (14:06)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (14:14)

wow.

Peter Crawford (14:16)

And it really brought us together in a way that I think is unusual, particularly unusual for men to get that level of closeness. And these guys are my best friends in the world. we've stayed, we stayed, we got together at least once a year now for 30 years. And so it was just an incredibly powerful experience to have that connection with these guys and kind of...

Katharine McLennan (14:20)

It is unusual.

Doug Phipps (14:22)

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (14:31)

Wow.

Peter Crawford (14:38)

Yeah, sort of, and it's been a really important touchstone through my whole life since then.

Katharine McLennan (14:42)

Peter, that is inspiring. I just remembered that that I would have loved that. yeah, yo, well, I would have loved to be part of it.

Doug Phipps (14:43)

Wow.

Peter Crawford (14:52)

Well, was maybe an honorary member.

talked about it. I wish we had every year we get together and we do an update on our lives. And we always say, it would have been so great. I wish we'd kind of kept some kind of book and tracked what we talked about. Cause of course the first year is, know, we always have careers and it becomes, you know, girlfriends or boyfriends and then starting a family and then second careers. And now it's like retirement and, you know, and with one of our kids and

Katharine McLennan (15:00)

you

Doug Phipps (15:00)

in.

Katharine McLennan (15:05)

Yeah!

Doug Phipps (15:06)

Mm.

you

Mm-hmm.

Peter Crawford (15:20)

And so it's just a really, it's just been such a great, great experience and just a really talented, interesting, just good group of people that I, some of the way to who I would have known anyway, but some of them I would not have never gotten to know if I hadn't been for this group.

Katharine McLennan (15:32)

Peter, I'm so

glad. So Doug, if we're trying to understand what it's like at the business school 30 years, and you can use your imagination because it's hard. me tell you, in 1995, there's no way I could imagine what life was like for, I'd hate to say this, 1965, 1965. I'm thinking if that's the 1960s, we must be ancient.

Doug Phipps (15:44)

Hmm.

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (15:51)

gosh,

Katharine McLennan (15:57)

I mean, seriously, 19, I can't believe it. So whereas we look at 2025, I don't know, I couldn't imagine. But the activities, sounds like Stanford, how do you describe Stanford Business School to people now? Like what goes on there? What's the vibe? The things that are really on the class's mind right now? I don't know, if you're at a party, how do you describe Stanford Business School?

Doug Phipps (16:21)

Yeah.

Yeah, I think the first thing that comes to mind is, is to the, the stuff that you were just talking about, Peter, I think there's like the touchy feely and the life story. Like there's still so much of this urgency and desire to talk about life and like emotions and to really understand how you come across to others, how they come across to you and how you can.

Katharine McLennan (16:41)

Yeah

Doug Phipps (16:50)

best figure out how to be the best version of yourself that you can be in a business setting. I think that it feels like there's a real emphasis on the soft skills there, both in the classroom and outside of the classroom, through touchy feely and talk and all of these other things. And I think totally separate from that, people are obsessed with talking about AI. People know what stop talking is like, it's crazy. Everyone has an AI startup.

Katharine McLennan (16:54)

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (17:08)

Ha ha ha ha.

Katharine McLennan (17:14)

You

Doug Phipps (17:14)

And

I think there's this, there's this craze about, and I think I'm sure that some version of this has always been true at Stanford that the new big thing is the thing that everyone's trying to get on the bandwagon of make some entrepreneurial venture out of. And right now that happens to be AI and it's, it's a, it's a big one and people are excited about it. and so I think.

Katharine McLennan (17:28)

Yep.

What do you think about

it, Doug? I mean, does it...

Doug Phipps (17:37)

I think,

yeah, I think I'm an educator and I want to work in education and supporting students in reaching their goals. And I think I have some really vivid memories of when I was teaching one student, for example, who was, I solved her skip in class one day and she's a straight A student. I was like, why are you skipping class?

Katharine McLennan (17:43)

Yeah.

Doug Phipps (18:01)

And she was like, wow, my teacher quit. like there was a substitute and the substitute assigned to Khan Academy module and then like played on her phone for the rest of the class. And so she was like, I'm going to leave. And so I think as far as ed tech goes, I think there's a lot of folks that are really excited and interested about, you know, how AI is going to transform the teaching profession, learning all of these things. But when it really comes down to learning in the classroom.

I think it's more of an execution problem than it is an innovation problem. We don't have people that are really in the room. We know how to teach kids, we know how to do it well. Let's get in there and do it well, not innovate 15 new tools to maximize A to Z things with AI. So I'm really skeptical of AI's potential to move the needle on learning. think on a personal level, chat CPT has been super helpful for many tasks.

Katharine McLennan (18:32)

love it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I

mean, it's interesting because you got to remember Peter. Peter remind us like what technology was for us coming in and then leaving Stanford.

Doug Phipps (19:02)

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (19:05)

was so interesting as you were talking about how everybody had that sort of that passion, you know, for us, you know, graduating in 1995, mean, Kathy, you remember that remember this, there's only a couple people who went into the internet. class in 1997, 1998, it was all internet. But in 1995, there was I think two or three, you know, two or three people who basically, you know, sort of started internet companies, but they were very kind of leading edge. And it was this unusual and we had email, but we didn't really

Katharine McLennan (19:16)

That's right. That's right.

Doug Phipps (19:17)

Mmm.

Mmm.

Katharine McLennan (19:21)

And unfortunately they crashed.

Peter Crawford (19:36)

know what this whole internet thing was. So it hadn't really taken over the class, which I actually think was a good thing, right? Because people were, you know, there were people who were looking at very, very different things, you know, from a career standpoint and were, I think people were generally speaking very, they were very invested in the community and they were very present, I think, versus

Doug Phipps (19:37)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (19:40)

No, no, not at all.

Doug Phipps (19:43)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (19:57)

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (19:59)

everybody sort of focusing on what they, what's the, you know, starting their startup, but they're sort of Stanford is more of a means to an end. But people, felt like people really leaned into it and really were invested in the community, invested in the program, which I loved. And I always felt like that class with what, 350 people. And I felt like if I was in a random dropped into a random city with any one of my, just about any one of my classmates, I could go out have dinner, have a fantastic dinner and have a just a wonderful time. And that's happened. It's actually happened since then. I mean, there's a number of people I've gotten to know.

Doug Phipps (20:03)

Hmm.

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (20:25)

Yeah.

Doug Phipps (20:25)

Mmm.

Peter Crawford (20:29)

run across and like, my gosh, it's just been really, it's been really great. So, I think that was fortunate for us in terms of when we graduated.

Katharine McLennan (20:36)

It was, but it's

so interesting because that's why from somebody, I teach leadership, Doug, but I also reflect on culture and we've, we had to form this culture around, let's call it the information age. And we suddenly got information at our so-called fingertips, nothing compared to chat GPT, but we're hitting a weird age and you guys are going to lead us into it. And this, I'm so glad that you're in education.

Doug Phipps (20:43)

Mm.

evening.

Mmm.

Katharine McLennan (21:02)

How does chat GPT show up at the business school? What, what, how does it look?

Peter Crawford (21:07)

Does it solve all your case studies for you?

Doug Phipps (21:07)

Yes.

you nailed it Peter. Well, I think it's interesting. Last year was sort of like an experiment year. Like nobody really knows like how it's going to be used in this. And so there weren't a lot of regulations from the business school about here's how you should use it in the classroom. was totally at professional discretion. And so as a result, I think people did exactly what Peter did. are just like, I'm writing my final paper.

Katharine McLennan (21:12)

like.

Peter Crawford (21:16)

you

Katharine McLennan (21:21)

it be. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Phipps (21:37)

I'll chat GPT all the time. I think this year there's a lot more regulation, I'll say, around like, here's how it, for example, for finance and accounting in the core classes, there's now in-person required sort of like midterm and finals, like no tech, whereas for us there was tech allowed. I think one way that I'm excited about using is in this winning writing class that I mentioned.

Katharine McLennan (21:39)

Wow.

Yep. Yep.

Doug Phipps (22:01)

he brings in a number of guest speakers and one of them is a former student of his, who, has played around with how to use AI in writing. And he sort of compared it to like when IBM Watson came out and everyone was like, this thing, like the grand master, like the chess grand master could still beat Watson for at first. but if you like combine as an average person with.

Katharine McLennan (22:08)

Yep.

Doug Phipps (22:27)

IBM Watson, like they can be a chess grandmaster, I think, or something like that. And so like the Centaur approach to writing that like, if you are like an average Joe and you work, and so I've created like a, on chat GPT, a GPT, like uploaded all the files from this class, like help me write. And so now every time I write, I write, I always write it myself first, but then I always go to chat GPT and I'm like, can you make this better knowing what you know from the class and it makes it better. And so I think there's a lot of people that are.

Katharine McLennan (22:33)

You go!

Wow! It's incredible.

Peter Crawford (22:54)

Really?

Doug Phipps (22:56)

using it in that kind of use case of like, I want to get better at these things. And then there's also people that are generating it for summaries of case studies and all kinds of stuff, but it's crazy.

Katharine McLennan (23:04)

Yeah,

it is crazy. I think it'll be, Peter, we did not have such technology aids. And in fact, I remember going into, all of our exams were on these like blue books that we had to bring in and handwrite them. So I don't know if you guys even have learned how to write anymore.

Peter Crawford (23:10)

Yeah

Doug Phipps (23:17)

Mmm.

I think they're bringing the blue books back this year for these. Now that's a funny, like, there's blue books and then there's technology, now we're back to blue books. That's it.

Peter Crawford (23:30)

The big, I think the big technology tool that we had that was, you know, first year was solver in Excel. That was, remember that in like costing, I don't know, was a cost accounting or something like that. The professor was so excited about using solver to solve, you know, basically it was linear programming, I think, and you solve it. And it was like, that was a huge thing.

Doug Phipps (23:36)

Mmm!

Katharine McLennan (23:39)

Yes,

Hardly, hardly.

Doug Phipps (23:48)

Wow.

Katharine McLennan (23:51)

It was like macros for Excel, mainly. So, my gosh, that's crazy. It'll be interesting to see how your business world is affected by AI. Peter, what were you seeing in the last few years? How's it manifested?

Peter Crawford (23:54)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug Phipps (23:55)

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (24:07)

Just, I mean,

I would say just starting, know, early stages. I would say in some ways, perhaps like Doug was saying, is teaching. You know, wealth management is a personal business. I'm skeptical. I mean, think there are some market for people who are going to get their advice and their help from a computer, but I think it's more about AI enabling a client, you know, an actual person to be more effective, to know when to make phone calls, to be able to, you know, have...

Doug Phipps (24:28)

Mm.

Peter Crawford (24:32)

more intelligence on their client, understand what's going on in the markets, understand what's going on in the portfolio, et cetera, and get smarter and better able to serve more clients. I would say, and we are seeing that happening, but the client-facing application, I think, is gonna be a while.

Katharine McLennan (24:44)

Yep, yep.

It'll be a while.

And it's interesting because maybe it goes to education, Doug, because someone told me the term is prompt engineering. I was like, isn't that like Socrates said, how do you ask a question? You still need people to help you coach how to ask the question. So I would imagine, Doug, how are you going to see it as you go back into the education world? What's your thoughts about? Well, I think helping kids.

Doug Phipps (24:59)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (25:19)

Make the best of technology. Maybe that's the question.

Doug Phipps (25:21)

Yeah,

I think that's, I think that's right. I think I, there have been a couple of cases where, an old student of mine has reached out asking for help with a resume. And to those students, I'm like, first thing uploaded to chat, GBT tell it to like, do this, this, and this to make it like, make your experiences. Like first of all, to standardize the template, and then like to add some color to some things. And then you go back in and add some details and then put it back in.

So think that's one way of like just, you know, helping them with the deliverables. and I think there's a lot of use cases like that where writing is tricky for like writing is one of the hardest skills to learn. And I think it can at least get people from, especially young people from a baseline of like zero to like 50 pretty fast. think the like 90 to a hundred is the trickier thing. and it's good. That's like, we don't want AI to just be able to do to a hundred, but

Katharine McLennan (25:49)

Helping you.

I think it's tricky.

Wow.

Doug Phipps (26:11)

Zero to 50 is great. If everyone's at a 50 and not a zero, then I think the world's a better place.

Katharine McLennan (26:16)

I guess as long as their mind, I mean, if they have to go into a classroom with a blue book, you know, and they can, they can do it, but maybe we don't have to do that anymore. If you have the conceptual thing about what you want to produce for, you know, to the CFO of Schwab, you when you're writing and then you get to chat GPT and maybe it gets as good as this is for Peter Crawford. Make sure you understand what Peter relates to.

Doug Phipps (26:19)

Yeah.

That's right, exactly.

Peter Crawford (26:41)

Bye.

Doug Phipps (26:41)

Right.

Katharine McLennan (26:43)

I don't know. It'll be a real stickler. OK, so Peter, you've been in your position for 23 years. Is that what you said?

Peter Crawford (26:44)

the real particular on such and such.

I've

been in my company for 23 years, a lot of different positions in that time.

Katharine McLennan (26:57)

Yeah,

what have you seen as a historian, nonetheless? What have you seen over the last 23 years? Well, where did you go to Stanford? I mean, after Stanford, Peter, remind me where you went after Stanford.

Peter Crawford (27:09)

I went to

McKinsey for about three and half years. was in DC and some follow in Hong Kong and then San Francisco and I worked in the internet for a couple years. Got there. And now the phone company that was trying to chase Yahoo as being the biggest media company excited at home. Remember? Yeah. With actually a couple years a couple classmates there. And we got I kind of got to the party late basically. Got to the party was like the keg was kicked, you know, the

Katharine McLennan (27:11)

That's right. That's right. That's right.

the internet!

Yeah.

Doug Phipps (27:36)

Ha

Peter Crawford (27:37)

empty cups all around all, it was clearly the party was basically just about over by the time I arrived. So, and then this collapse in 2001, yeah, 2001, that's when I went to Schwab.

Katharine McLennan (27:40)

You

Is that right? Wait, so yeah.

Doug Phipps (27:47)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (27:49)

So Schwab for that long, what would you have seen if you can recall, like, I don't know, the top two or three historic growths or things that you had to change along the way? What was, what were some learnings there?

Peter Crawford (28:03)

Well, I it's amazing. I mean, it grew from company that had a trillion dollars in client assets to 10 trillion dollars in client assets over a quarter a century. And very much a focus on trading to much broader. I would say, think there's probably, gosh, I mean, there's so many incredible experiences that I had. I mean, think one of the things that was most interesting was 2001 through 2004 was a period of time when

Katharine McLennan (28:08)

Ten trillion. I don't even...

Yeah. Yeah.

Peter Crawford (28:32)

I would say Schwab was on the wrong track. We kind of lost our way a little bit. Got away from clients, away from our pricing got too high, our service had eroded. We weren't investing. And Chuck came back as CEO in 2004. he really, was amazing to see what can happen when you have a leader like that who says we need to focus on clients. And that period of probably 2004,

Katharine McLennan (28:34)

Hmm. Hmm.

Doug Phipps (28:35)

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (28:45)

That's right. Amazing.

Doug Phipps (28:55)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (28:56)

now.

Peter Crawford (28:59)

2008 when he stepped down as CEO, and made way for, you know, the person who's been CEO since then, who's stepping down in a few weeks as well. that period of time was such an interesting period of time just to see this, just how quickly you can turn a company of that size around making very, very hard calls, but just that focus on clients. And, and that was really, it was really neat to be, to be part of that and to be the middle of that.

Doug Phipps (29:16)

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (29:25)

been.

Peter Crawford (29:26)

You know, one thing that has not changed though, mean, Schwab is a very purpose driven organization, very mission driven organization. and you know, there's a lot of every company says our client focus, but I never run across a company that takes that as seriously as Schwab does. where one of my colleagues says, you know, we should feel proud to have a client walk into any meeting that we're ever having. And we're at what that client is hearing us talk about. And I, you know, I feel that way. And, and so that's, that's been really.

Doug Phipps (29:39)

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (29:46)

Mmm.

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (29:53)

rewarding to be part of that and for me, incredibly motivating. that's the number one reason why I stayed as long as I did is it just, once you've experienced that, it's hard to, you know, sort of give that up, I guess.

Katharine McLennan (30:04)

I'm not sure you would having been, let's say a purveyor of culture across many companies. I don't think you'd find that in many companies. don't think you'd, you know, I just, yeah, it's very motivating even in the last minute or so to listen to that Peter does.

Peter Crawford (30:21)

Yeah, it's certainly and it unites everybody, right? I mean, you don't

Doug Phipps (30:24)

Hmm.

Peter Crawford (30:24)

have the internal politics because it's like, hey, it's all about clients. And I think it brings people together. It attracts a certain kind. Not everybody fits in that culture. Not every once that it connects with that. But if you can't do, I think it's just an incredibly powerful force.

Katharine McLennan (30:38)

Well, Peter, you've been part of the leadership team, so that is totally awesome. Now, what's interesting too then, if we go back to the Stanford Business School now, Doug, as I talk to your guys, we were only just bringing a topic called, can you imagine leadership? And it was the first time that we actually had a course like that. So how is leadership?

Doug Phipps (30:50)

Wow.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (31:03)

You talked already about the touchy feely interaction people done, but how is the what Peter is talking about, which is the leadership ethos, focusing on the client looks like besides what was it? The four P's of marketing or something like that. what does that look like? You guys had exposure to that? Yeah.

Doug Phipps (31:22)

Yeah,

tons. That's so funny that it was just beginning at 1990, because I feel like it's the bedrock of everything now. I think I mentioned this executive challenge that's happening today at Stanford. It's the culmination of a required first-year fall quarter class called Leadership Labs, where every week, MBA ones do a series of role plays with five to six other

Katharine McLennan (31:27)

I know. I know.

Yeah.

Doug Phipps (31:48)

members of their class and it's a consistent, they call it a squad throughout the quarter. and so they get to know each other really well, and get to know what each of them wants to work on for their own leadership. The essential question of the course is why would anyone follow you? And so that they try and get you to think through that and, and answer that question through a lot of role plays. And then I think I took startup garage this past quarter, which is another.

Peter Crawford (31:53)

Okay.

Katharine McLennan (31:53)

Fantastic.

yeah, of course.

up the rest.

Doug Phipps (32:15)

It's an entrepreneurship class. start where you come into the class with a team and a problem. You have to apply to the class saying, want to work with these people and this is the problem we're trying to solve. And we've done some preliminary research on it. And the, the orientation of the class is a lot like what Peter's saying, just like 100 % focused on the user of whatever problem you're trying to solve. And like, how can you really target that problem before you

and solving the user's problem before you get to anything else related to business models. even like we, they strongly discourage any focus on the solution before you have a really, really clear validated sense of what the problem is. So I think it's, it's alive and well at GSB for sure.

Katharine McLennan (32:54)

Fantastic. Yeah.

I was thinking about that question, why would anybody follow you? And I was thinking, maybe many of our classmates would be, well, of course they'll follow me. I mean, I'm exaggerating. mean, our classmates would have made fantastic leaders, but we didn't, there was no practice of that, that I remember Peter, there was no,

Doug Phipps (33:02)

Yeah.

You

Peter Crawford (33:09)

Right, exactly. Because I've got a great idea and I'm really smart.

Doug Phipps (33:13)

Hahaha!

Hmm.

Peter Crawford (33:26)

now.

Katharine McLennan (33:27)

interaction of that. had a marketing simulation that I remember a course like that, but not real.

Doug Phipps (33:30)

Mmm.

Peter Crawford (33:32)

But I don't remember,

I mean, I think you're right, I do recall that leadership class, but I mean, think I just wrote this blog as I'm leaving, sort of wrote my, you know, they asked me to do a blog on leadership a little bit at Schwab. And what I talked about is sort of what I sort of described as the underappreciated in certain ways impact you can have as a leader, which is, and I didn't really appreciate this, but when you're a leader, you're in this position where you have this platform to...

Katharine McLennan (33:41)

yeah.

Doug Phipps (33:50)

Hmm.

Mm.

Peter Crawford (33:57)

have a huge influence on a lot of people, not just the people on your team, but the people more broadly in the organization. You can influence how they feel at work, the mood they're in when they go home and talk to their spouses or spend time with their kids, how they feel when they go to bed, how they feel when they wake up in the morning. And that can be a positive or a negative impact. And it's more than just delivering, there's a lot about leadership, which is about delivering results and...

Katharine McLennan (34:06)

right now.

Doug Phipps (34:10)

Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Peter Crawford (34:22)

you know, et cetera, and that's obviously important, that's necessary, but there's a lot more to it. And being intentional around how you show up every day, you know, how you walk the halls, the mood you're in, the writing an email. I mean, I just can't even, like I used to say, the hot, I still say the highest ROI of any activity I do is spending three minutes to write an email to thank somebody. Because when it comes from the CFO, like people will tell me that,

Doug Phipps (34:34)

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (34:47)

Yeah, there you go.

Doug Phipps (34:48)

Mmm.

Peter Crawford (34:50)

I put this on my wall and I've had it for 10 years that email you know, like it's just it's a it's a huge thing. I don't know that people talk about that. I mean, there's like gazillion books written on leadership and I've never sort of seen people talk about that aspect of it.

Doug Phipps (34:52)

Mmm.

Katharine McLennan (34:55)

It's huge.

Peter, I'm so glad because one of the coach, I've coached very senior leaders and I swear I actually take them for a walk, know, except for COVID. I take them for a walk and then we reflect, I reflect on how did you feel? What was your body? Did you look people in the eye? Did you, what kind of conversations did you have? And I'm surprised, you know, even in high forties and fifties that people have no concept of the fact that they,

Doug Phipps (35:22)

Hmm.

Katharine McLennan (35:33)

are the company because you can't imagine what Schwab is. You can see the clients, but you can imagine Peter and your CEO as Schwab. And you know, what do we do with our president? won't. We're not allowed to comment on any of that, by the way, because. But, you know, we people think of the United States and I think, you know, they go to the leader. that's what's what is besides AI, Doug.

Doug Phipps (35:35)

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (36:00)

Going into a strange world, or we think it's strange, or actually I think it's strange in terms of the political economies that are going on, the way we lead the world. Well, you guys really have an environmental challenge that we never considered. So what are the things that are on your classmates' minds as you go into the world next year?

Doug Phipps (36:09)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Katharine McLennan (36:25)

Only a few months away.

Doug Phipps (36:26)

in just a few months is terrifying. I think environment and sustainability is one of the big ones for sure. I think there's a ton of folks in our class who are getting really creative and thinking about ways that they can create a cleaner, greener future for the world. And that's super exciting to see. I think I'm cautiously optimistic.

Katharine McLennan (36:32)

Yeah. Yep.

Doug Phipps (36:50)

that the education focus is becoming a clearer picture in the minds of my classmates and the folks at GSB. I think in the MBA one class, somebody told me from the Stanford administration that education was the highest rated impact interest group for the MBA ones. And it's been sustainability many years running, this year we got it.

Katharine McLennan (36:56)

Yeah.

Is that right?

Education, fantastic.

Doug Phipps (37:12)

Yeah, which

is exciting. I think that there's been a lot of chatter about learning loss from COVID and we haven't, a lot, there's a lot of folks that think that we haven't made enough progress with all of the reform efforts of the last two decades. And so I think some philanthropists and funders are getting, the narrative is that some philanthropists are getting fatigued from not seeing enough progress in education.

And I think we need more excited, interested education entrepreneurs to do things that are gonna change that narrative and move it in the right direction. And it feels like we have a lot of that happening at GSB, which I'm thrilled about.

Katharine McLennan (37:55)

That is, it is thrilling.

Peter Crawford (37:57)

particularly since

we already solved sustainability. So I can totally see why education is.

Doug Phipps (38:02)

Yeah, sustainability is all good, yeah, 100%.

Katharine McLennan (38:04)

We would

have not even had the concept of that. There was only one person that stands out, one of our classmates, Julie Blundon, who was going into that green energy. that was kind of weird. We never questioned her about what she was doing. So, mean, Peter, we were out, yeah.

Peter Crawford (38:16)

solid.

I

think one or two people doing education, right? I mean, I think Vaughn was doing it, maybe was doing something in education, don't remember correctly. But definitely, yeah, not nearly to the same extent. That's great. That's wonderful. It is such a huge, and we see in the Boys and Girls Club, and just the learning loss, it's gonna take years and years to recover from that.

Katharine McLennan (38:27)

Yeah, most. Yeah. Yes, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

I think, yeah.

Doug Phipps (38:42)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (38:47)

Peter, so

the Boys and Girls Club, what is that and how are you seeing that reflected the years and years to recover?

Peter Crawford (38:54)

It's, you know, the well, it's it's it's, you know, not only the educational loss, but the emotional toll and the mental illness, you know, really spiked among this community. And, you know, we think about covid and. know, for for my kids, right, they were able to, you know, come home, work at home in a peaceful environment, have great Internet access, have a comfortable room, have parents who would, you or a parent who would check in or both parents, because I was working home too.

Katharine McLennan (39:00)

Yeah.

Doug Phipps (39:03)

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (39:22)

know, checking it, checking in on them, making sure they were staying on task, you know, intervening if they weren't. And, and yet the community of the Boys and Girls Club supports some, some of the kids have that, but a lot of them don't, right? Don't have internet access, don't have a home computer, don't have a peaceful place to work, don't you know, one or both parents who can check in on them. And so not only the learning loss, but then the, the isolation that they faced and the mental illness, we had to invest in, in

Doug Phipps (39:45)

Hmm.

Peter Crawford (39:50)

know, behavioral health, you know, mental health professionals in the clubhouses because so many of the youth we serve need that now. So it's been a, it's been a big, big impact. and it's, you know, these kids, that's, know, when they're in elementary school, it's going to affect how high, I mean, it's, don't just suddenly make up that time. You stay behind. If you're in fourth grade, how, what happens in fourth grade can impact, you know, about, you know, middle school.

Katharine McLennan (39:55)

Hmm.

our day.

matters.

Peter Crawford (40:18)

junior high, high school, even your college choices potentially, and also other indicators of that like drug use, unemployment, crime, et cetera. So it's a real, we're gonna be feeling this for, I I think we're gonna be feeling it for a decade plus.

Doug Phipps (40:28)

Any

Katharine McLennan (40:31)

Yep. Yeah.

It'll be interesting, Peter. That's why we need Doug and people, but also in your retirement, so-called retirement, I should say, the fact that you're continuing to be involved in that. is there an education force, Doug, where you guys come, we had come together with alumni of Stanford that are in education? Is there kind of connections across that force that could be?

Doug Phipps (40:51)

Mm.

Peter Crawford (41:03)

and

Doug Phipps (41:03)

Yeah, that's a great question. We have an education club at GSB and we're hosting our first ever education, I don't know, I don't think we have a name for it yet, but some sort of education career fair in late February. So that I think is a great touch point for it to bring in lot of alumni.

Katharine McLennan (41:08)

cool.

Okay.

Doug Phipps (41:25)

We got some email from somebody who runs a Stanford education alumni group and we exchanged two emails and that's, we don't have any kind of more specific relationship, but there's something there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's lots of times where folks come back to chat and there's opportunity there, but it's hard to figure out exactly what the right lever to pull is to make the best use of it. But yeah, there's some connection.

Katharine McLennan (41:35)

Well, maybe I'll inspire them.

Peter Crawford (41:38)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (41:49)

It is, so

my understanding, you guys, is that they have created some kind of a sustainability climate institute or like you can do a double major. so people are focusing on that, which I was glad to hear.

Doug Phipps (41:59)

Mmm, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and the same is

true for the School of Education. So I'm doing a dual degree with the School of Education and so are like 15 of my classmates or so and then 25 folks in the next class, I think. And yeah, so it's a strong community of folks interested in both.

Katharine McLennan (42:09)

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, okay, let's go to the living experience at Stanford. you guys get to, maybe that's not the right word, to live in a dormitory, or you live in a dormitory the first year, my understanding is. Is that right?

Doug Phipps (42:23)

Hmm

Hahaha

Yeah,

so my experience is quite different from the average classmates. I came out here with my partner who I met teaching in DC and she said, I will move with you across the country to California, but my one stipulation is that I will not live in a dorm. And I said, that seems pretty fair to me. So we've lived off campus in an apartment in Mountain View for

for the last year plus, and it's been great. think most folks certainly live in the dorms. And there's definitely a culture there of coming and going, chatting with whoever's around. I think people generally seem to like it from what I can tell. But I've loved living off campus because it just gives you a, when you leave GSB, you're like, all right, I can take a deep breath.

Katharine McLennan (42:59)

Nice.

Yeah!

I'm off.

Doug Phipps (43:22)

in the bubble of like all of the tensions and the energy. But no, the dorm seemed great too.

Katharine McLennan (43:27)

Yeah.

It qg be overwhelming that tension energy, Peter, because like I remember that like especially the, yeah.

Peter Crawford (43:34)

Yeah, but remember, mean, had,

I mean, we had all these, you know, folks that I wasn't one of them, but we had these folks there who had, you know, maybe been working in investment bank or there was paying for their education and people, mean, people had these Pat, these houses, group houses in Portola Valley and Los Altos and Atherton to then are probably now like $15 million houses. Yeah.

Doug Phipps (43:45)

Mmm.

Katharine McLennan (43:48)

That's right.

Doug Phipps (43:49)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (43:57)

At least,

Doug Phipps (43:57)

It's wild. it's like,

Katharine McLennan (44:00)

I

Doug Phipps (44:01)

the

Katharine McLennan (44:01)

still have that.

Doug Phipps (44:01)

pass down situation is good. Yeah, we still have them. it's so fun. You'll have like, yeah, we still pass down there. So in the in the first year, it's all dorms. And in the second year, folks usually move into pass down houses, or, you know, that's one of them. That's what they call it. And, and so it's, let's say, three to four friends rent a house in Menlo Park. They buy some furniture.

Peter Crawford (44:04)

you do? okay.

Katharine McLennan (44:13)

What's passed down?

Peter Crawford (44:14)

Okay.

Doug Phipps (44:23)

And then the next year they find three to four folks that are in the class below them and they say, yeah, they put a, pass down fee, which is just a way of saying we paid this much for the furniture, like, and you get to keep it, but at this fee, but then it's, it's, it's good. And also it creates a really interesting exploitation opportunity of like, this couch was a thousand dollars, like, or it was 300 on Amazon. There's no way really for them to know.

Katharine McLennan (44:26)

pass down, yes, yes.

I see, I see.

you

Doug Phipps (44:53)

And so

it's a controversial system for all those reasons. But yeah, it's like you have these MBA students living in these like unbelievable homes in Menlo Park and you're like, how did this even happen? It's so wild.

Peter Crawford (45:05)

I assume that wasn't a thing anymore because the housing market has gone so crazy.

Katharine McLennan (45:06)

Even Peter, yeah. Because

Doug Phipps (45:10)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (45:11)

Peter, you stayed, well no, you had a few gigs like in Hong Kong and, what was my other city that I heard? Yeah, and so forth. So you've been in San Francisco now for quite a while with your job, has it kept you

Peter Crawford (45:18)

San Paulo.

yeah. When I

met my now, my now wife, was 20, I moved back about 20 and night in, 1997. moved back.

Katharine McLennan (45:31)

1997.

So obviously you've been there for quite some time. so, yeah, I am surprised, but Peter would know the area. And what have you seen in San Francisco? And not only my understanding is it's quite bifurcated, like there's Silicon Valley and now there's the city of San Francisco, none the twain shall meet. What are you seeing?

Peter Crawford (45:52)

Well, I would say, know, in the early, in the late nineties, early two thousands, it was all about Silicon Valley. you know, I was living in San Francisco, committing down to Silicon Valley. then in probably the two, that early 2000s, San Francisco became the hotbed of innovation and bunch of venture capitalists moved up to San Francisco and a bunch of tech companies. you know, we're starting, you we're started here, grew their presence here, you know, Salesforce, Twitter, you know, you Google had a big, big office, et cetera. And so.

Katharine McLennan (45:58)

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (46:19)

San Francisco became this, know, really through frankly until 2019, it became a really hotbed of young, mostly tech professionals, but then also professional services as well. And then, but I would say underneath the surface, there were some problems beginning to form in San Francisco. And then of course, the pandemic hit in 2020, everyone went home. That was about the time that the homeless problem got worse.

Katharine McLennan (46:32)

didn't know that.

Peter Crawford (46:46)

The drug situation got worse and the downtown became pretty darn empty. today, you look downtown in San Francisco versus downtown Chicago, Manhattan, Washington DC, it's a lot quieter downtown San Francisco. there's areas that are a lot of empty offices, a lot of empty retail space. Even Union Square is an example, a lot of empty storefronts.

Katharine McLennan (47:06)

Really?

Peter Crawford (47:12)

And so the downtown area is still recovering. would say though the neighborhoods in San Francisco are hopping. And so the housing market in the neighborhoods has continued to be very strong, I guess for like a better word and very popular. so, but people often, so when you watch some cable news outfits around San Francisco, they focus on downtown. But if you walk out of a neighborhood,

Katharine McLennan (47:19)

Okay.

Peter Crawford (47:35)

whether it's my area where I live out in the Richmond or Seacliff or, know, the Castro or, Truro Hill or Burl Heights. I mean, those areas are hopping.

Katharine McLennan (47:45)

okay. That's better than some of the stories I've certainly heard on the media that you can always trust. Doug, do you guys get out much to the city or other environments or is it still... What do you experience?

Doug Phipps (48:03)

Yeah, I think there's always, you know, trips to San Francisco for parties or whatever. mean, like trips, like people ride the party bus and then they, yeah. But I think by and large, yeah, things are crazy. But by and large, I think people stick around the Bay, maybe do trip, like day trips out to Half Moon Bay or to Pacifica or just to go hiking in the area.

Katharine McLennan (48:09)

trips! I know!

Yeah,

I hope so.

Doug Phipps (48:29)

And

Peter Crawford (48:30)

No ski houses?

Doug Phipps (48:30)

yeah, but I think there are ski houses for sure. There's definitely folks who go on winter ski trips. There's like a five day ski trip over New Year's in Jackson Hole that is a recurring tradition now. I don't know if that was around when you guys were, no, but.

Katharine McLennan (48:44)

guys.

Peter Crawford (48:46)

different

people had ski houses so they would like they would get a winter ski house and

Doug Phipps (48:50)

Gotcha.

Katharine McLennan (48:51)

That was

pretty critical because I don't think you guys have that so much. Kate, another classmate of yours, was telling me that, because we, we don't know, we had like four houses, four different groups of houses. And people, we all rented them together. So they were permanently rented for the season. And for me, that was, that was so important because the first year for me was overwhelming. was like, who are these people?

Doug Phipps (48:57)

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (49:19)

And

Doug Phipps (49:19)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (49:20)

everybody seemed like they were very popular and always doing the right things. you know, talk about inclusion, exclusion, which is another word we didn't have in the... But the effects of that, and for me, it was great to... All the ski houses had different personalities. And somehow I found myself in one that really... was like, phew, my people, my people.

Doug Phipps (49:23)

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (49:23)

Hahaha

Doug Phipps (49:30)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (49:43)

can't even remember who owned it, but I just know my dear friend Karen Welchak was in it. I'm not even sure how to describe it, but, well, as we kind of come to the end of the hour, I'd love, cause you're in your late twenties, I guess, 29, which is.

Doug Phipps (50:01)

Yeah, 29, yeah.

Katharine McLennan (50:04)

the average age sort of you guys, yeah? Is that the average age of the business school? So the profile of the business school class has definitely changed remarkably. I mean, even gender based profile, because we always had the numbers of years before the numbers after about 30 % female. Yeah, and so now you guys I think are sitting at 50, 50 or so. So you don't notice that.

Doug Phipps (50:06)

Yeah, more or less, yeah.

Mmm.

Mm.

Wow.

Yeah, I think so.

Katharine McLennan (50:30)

But the international profile is incredible. And we had Peter, we have plenty of international people, what do you notice about the international take on that and how you experience the globe?

Doug Phipps (50:32)

Yeah.

Yeah, it's really interesting. You definitely have folks from across the whole world. international students are in every single class environment, like they are well integrated into the fabric of what GSB is. I think it's interesting to see some of the unexpected similarities. There's a lot of folks who have, I think like the-

If I had to pick like the median or mode like thing at GSB that people have come from, it's consulting for sure. A lot of former consultants. I think that's like, you'll expect even with international students, you'll, you know, meet somebody from Chile who worked at BCG. So they can like, you know, chat with a lot of folks and identify with a lot of the experiences of, on that level. But no, it's, it's super cool. And you have international students who are

Katharine McLennan (51:10)

yeah, always. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.

Doug Phipps (51:30)

very willing to lead treks to their home country over a winter break. There's I think at least two or three treks to think Saudi Arabia, Egypt in the next few weeks that are being led by students from those countries. And so they're really generous with their connections and offering to bring people into their worlds and communities. So it's really cool.

Katharine McLennan (51:34)

Yeah.

I think it's interesting. There's a guy called Thomas Friedman who put a book called The World is Flat. I don't think the world's flat anymore. know, I think it's, it was so interesting for us at that time to say, there's a world out there. But now with social media and the travel and the richness that you have, mean, Kate, also your classmate just came from, I'm hosting her. That's how I know.

Doug Phipps (51:56)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Katharine McLennan (52:16)

She

just came from a class at Beijing where you guys just flip over to Beijing as you do, you know, and you have the exchange program of the Chinese and really understanding how important is that, my goodness, for Americans to really understand those different parts of our world. had Peter, I think we had some kind of global management program, GMP, I think. Yeah, yeah. And it was like a thing, right? So I don't know.

Doug Phipps (52:20)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Peter Crawford (52:39)

by GMB. That's right. Yeah.

It was a

relatively new thing, as I recall.

Katharine McLennan (52:46)

Yeah,

yeah, and it was it was interesting. So as we come to maybe to an end, and this is always an interesting one, I actually always learn so much. Well, my children are your age now. My goodness. How did that happen? My daughter's getting married next year. What? I know. How? What? what? Doug, if you were to tell us.

Doug Phipps (53:05)

Congrats!

Katharine McLennan (53:12)

as soon to be, I don't know, Peter, you're probably about the same. I still have a few years, three years, till I get into my 60s. But if you were to think of the classic 60s kind of people, and you're going out into the world, and you can even put it in education terms, what do you think our role is for you guys? How can we best serve you?

Doug Phipps (53:32)

Mmm.

Peter Crawford (53:34)

Get out of their way.

Doug Phipps (53:36)

No, we need your help.

No, think Peter, your work with the Boys and Girls Club represents to me a pretty clear sense of how folks who are later in their careers can continue to support the entrepreneurs and the people, the community organizers and the folks doing the work today. think there's so much just advising on what the world is like and who to talk to.

Katharine McLennan (53:42)

fantastic.

Doug Phipps (54:00)

where the funding is and what to do entrepreneurially that we all have a sense of it, but I think there's a totally different knowledge set that you folks have and we so appreciate your generosity in sharing it with us as often as you're willing to share it. think that just the advising, I think is the most clear way I can think of in mentoring.

Katharine McLennan (54:24)

I love that. What do you think, Peter? What's your advice?

Peter Crawford (54:28)

I think what Doug says is spot. mean, there's two, you everybody's got a bunch of retirement books that have been recommended to me, you know, since I, since I know this, but there's two that I've been particularly powerful for me. One is Arthur Brooks from strength to strength where he talks about, you know, these two curves. One is your sort of mental acuity. And, you know, if you look at that, it sort of peaks probably in your late thirties, late twenties, late thirties, and you look a lot at it, which is very sad, but,

And that curve goes down, but there's this other curve, is sort of your wisdom and your knowledge. And the point is you've got to jump from the first curve to the second curve. And so of mentor, advisor, coach, et cetera. And that curve just continues to go up. And so I love that idea. And that's certainly, that's no accident that as I think about my next chapter, it's that. And then the other book, I've loved is David Brooks. The first one was Arthur Brooks. This one's David Brooks, which is Second Mountain, where he talks about you climbed your first mountain, which was your first career.

Doug Phipps (54:55)

Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

Peter Crawford (55:20)

which for many people is about, you know, whatever money, prestige, power, whatever, but there's a second mountain, is much more purposeful. Now, Doug, you, I admire your, that your, most people's second mountain is your first mountain, which is just awesome. And so, you know, trying to do purposeful work, you know, not just coast into the valleys, but actually climb this other mountain, which is around purpose. And so to me, it's about how do you bring those two things together? You know, be a coach, mentor, advisor, but in, with,

Doug Phipps (55:20)

Mm.

Mm.

Katharine McLennan (55:31)

You

Doug Phipps (55:44)

Mm.

Peter Crawford (55:47)

causes with and with people who are purpose driven. To me that's the holy grail.

Doug Phipps (55:51)

Mm.

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (55:53)

Peter, that's a great way to end. Doug, do you want to just say one thing that struck you about the conversation?

Doug Phipps (56:01)

what struck me about this conversation is how so much has changed and yet the kernels of everything that has proliferated today were all there when you were there. And it's so cool to hear about how leadership was a burgeoning new practice at GSB when you were there. And now it is like the whole institution is what it feels like now. So it's so interesting to see how that's changed over the years.

Katharine McLennan (56:11)

Yeah.

Yeah, simply.

And Peter, what would you take from the conversation off the top of your head?

Peter Crawford (56:33)

Well, for me, this has just been great. been great to reconnect with you, Katherine, after all these years and great excuse to see you. And Doug, I feel like I've met a new friend. really, I hope you keep letting us know as your kind of career evolves, please do keep in touch. And certainly if there's anything I can do to be helpful, be happy to. I'd love to. I've been talking to a couple of folks down there about how to get a little bit more involved in the school. So be working with one professor on a class we've got.

Katharine McLennan (56:40)

You

Yeah. God, they'd love you, Peter.

Doug Phipps (56:56)

Absolutely.

Peter Crawford (57:01)

Anyway, but I'm super excited to connect with both of you. This has been a lot of fun. This is going be my most fun meeting I have today.

Doug Phipps (57:06)

Yeah.

Katharine McLennan (57:08)

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.

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