ExecuTalks
ExecuTalks
98point6 CEO & Co-Founder: Robbie Cape
Robbie was born & raised in Montreal, Canada and had an early fascination with the idea of being an open-heart surgeon. His interests would then shift to computer programming after receiving a gift from "Uncle Ronnie." Robbie's father ran a family business, and throughout Robbie's childhood, he would listen to his father openly discuss business ordeals and ideas at the dinner table.
Robbie would go on to attend Princeton University and get a degree in engineering & management systems before beginning his career at Microsoft. He would work for Microsoft for 12 years and in the podcast, he discusses his biggest career failure that resulted in humiliation followed by a strong bounce-back.
After a 12-year-run with Microsoft, Robbie decided to make the leap and start his own business, something he always dreamed of doing. The sense of urgency was sprouted from the sickness and death of an old friend that he discusses in the podcast as well; A truly emotionally intense time for him.
After starting Cozi Group, Inc. and selling it, he went on to start 98point6; a technology company that facilitates on-demand primary care through an application on a mobile phone. It's sort of like the "Uber" of doctors, so if you need a doctor, you just open the app! Today, 98point6 has raised almost $90M and is revolutionizing the way primary care is handled.
David Cole called me into his office and basically fired me from the position like, uh, like I crashed and burned in this position as publicly as anyone can crash and burn.
Speaker 2:Wow. Hey, welcome to the executive talks podcast. It's the show that gives you insight to the personal stories of today's top executives. In this episode, you will hear from Robby Cape, current CEO and cofounder of 98.6, a technology company that facilitates on-demand primary care through your phone. It's like the Uber of doctors. So if you need a doctor, you just open up your app. 98.6 has raised almost$90 million and it's truly shaking up the way primary care is done. And you want to stick around until the end to hear about Robbie's big failure that he shared only on this podcast. Hey guys, so real quick, we originally ran this episode last year, and if you haven't listened to it yet, this is one of my favorite because Robbie dives deep into one of his biggest failures during his time at Microsoft. He dives deep into the stories of what shaped him as a child. And he shares a defining moment in his life when a friend of his got sick with cancer and passed away, and it would ultimately change his life and his direction for ever. So if you think back to when you were five, six, seven years old, do you remember what you wanted to be when you grew up? I remember for me, I really wanted to be an engineer at that age. And for Robbie, it was one experience that made him believe that he wanted to be an open heart surgeon for the rest of his life. Then when he was 13 Robbie's uncle gave him a gift that would shift his interest into computer programming,
Speaker 1:Three experiences that I had, um, as a, as a child that had a, a phenomenal impact, um, on, on me, the, the first was actually, I mean, you won't remember this because you're, you're too young, but in the late seventies, it must've been in 77, 78, 79. Uh, I watched an episode of that's incredible. And I literally still remember, I have like a picture in my mind of watching the episode where they, they showed open heart surgery on that's incredible. So they would do all these vignettes of these things that were incredible on. That's incredible. That was, uh, an hour long show. And I saw this, uh, this episode where they showed, um, open heart surgery and I was amazed and I decided I wanted to be an open heart surgeon. How old were you at the time? I was seven, eight, nine for the next five years after that, when anyone would ask me, I mean, can imagine as a ten-year-old someone would ask me, you know, well, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I'd be like, I want to be an open heart surgeon. Uh, it was like the first time I really associated with a profession and it was the, and, and that first association was kind of, was certainly in the medical space. The, the next experience, uh, that I had, uh, was, uh, for my bar mitzvah for 13 or 13. Yeah. 13, exactly for my bar mitzvah. And I still remember him showing up uncle Ronnie showed up at this dinner club in Montreal the Friday night before my bar mitzvah on Saturday morning with a Commodore Vic 20, what is it? Uh, so this is an early day, uh, personal computer. You know, it was one of the first personal computers that people started to learn to program in basic on. And so I got this computer for my bar mitzvah and was incredibly excited about that and went on to, uh, you know, you know, the week after the bar mitzvah, you know, I found someone to teach me how to program and, um, I learned how to program a computer and basic, and that was certainly clearly by virtue of where my life would eventually go. Clearly. That was a pivotal moment getting that Commodore Vic 20, getting excited about computers, learning how to program. Uh, and, um, and, and just starting to understand the, the, the potential that existed in what computers could do the third event, which is sort of not really a single event, but more of a, of an arc is really the entrepreneurial-ism in my family, um, which had also a very dramatic effect on my eventual sort of transition from wanting to be a doctor to deciding that what I really wanted to do was build businesses. Um, and you know, my, my, my father, uh, was, um, was, was obviously a critical role model, uh, in my life. Uh, he was running our family business. So my uncle left Montreal and he left my father with this family business that at the time was this really small family business. Um, and, uh, my father, what kind of business was it? Uh, it was a skincare and cosmetics business. My father built this business and it was a medium sized business, but my father didn't have any investors and he didn't have a board. And, you know, yeah. He had executives who were around him, but he was really running the show. It was a, it was a family business that grew significantly, but it was really my father's business and he didn't have any peers at work. And it wasn't like here where I have this executive team and we're building this company together. Uh, and they help. I mean, we all do everything together as a team. Like this was my father's company, right. And so he would, but everyone needs a community and everyone needs someone who they can bounce stuff off of. Right. Everyone needs partners. So my father, like our dinner table was sort of like his boardroom. He would bring, he would bring issues home. Like I remember, I mean, now I know are HR issues, but like, he'd, he'd bring home challenges. He was having with people at the company decisions he had to make. Um, I remember, you know, there were companies that would approach him to try to purchase the business. And we would talk about that at the dinner table. I mean, usually you have those kinds of conversations in a boardroom. If you really look at my excitement with building a business and a lot of the core values that I've developed around building a business, you really have to, if we could go back and, and unravel all of those conversations that happened at those dinner tables, uh, like I'm sure it all goes back to there. It was just, it was just ingrained in me. And it wasn't like my father and mother weren't, it wasn't active. Like it wasn't like they were trying to ingrain business and me, it was just natural. It was organic. It was, it was just happening. And the business was incredibly interesting. Um, my father had, you know, several hundred employees, you know, he had a union that he was dealing with, you know, and I, you know, remember all those challenges and negotiating with the union and, and the strike and the lockout and having to decide, do we, you know, you know, do we allow them to strike, what do we do? You know? Um, interesting. It was all just, it was just part of my childhood. Interesting. Uh, and I think that probably, as I made my way through high school, I started to get really excited about going to work. Cause that's another thing by virtue of my father's work, being something he loved. And he only ever went to work because he loved it, you know, period. Like why didn't he sell the business? I mean, he could have made all this money and you think, Oh, you know, money solves everything and money makes the world go round. No, no like, like great work and a connection to the people who you're working with. And, uh, and the impact that you're having on their lives and on your life, that is what, um, has impact. And, you know, my father turned down all those offers. Why? Because, well, you know what his line to me was always, what do I do to, you know, what will I do tomorrow? That was his passion.
Speaker 2:So I've been hearing this a lot lately, and I'm not sure that it's accurate, but people have been saying that being successful doesn't necessarily correlate with attending a good school. And the numbers don't lie. Attending a good school with a great network can actually propel your career to the top. It helps you in many ways as it did for Robbie, he attended Princeton university and got his degree in engineering and management systems before going on to work for Microsoft, Robbie would stay at Microsoft for 12 years. And during his time there, he shares getting the best promotion in his life only to find out two months later that he was fired from that position.
Speaker 1:It was eight years in IDE. So I had worked for two years on visual basic, and then I'd worked for six years on, um, on Microsoft money. And, uh, things were going really, really well. I was sort of finishing up on my Microsoft money time. I'd been on Microsoft money for six years, and that was a lot of fun and great learning that amazing people. And I needed to figure out what I was going to do next at Microsoft and this truly phenomenal opportunity. I actually just had a walk a couple of days ago with, um, with the, uh, the leader at Microsoft. His name is Bob Muglia, who I had met with, as I was thinking about this career move, uh, this next move. Uh, and, uh, Bob, uh, sort of recruited me, um, into this, this role on his team. Uh, and it was this incredibly strategic, like it was one of the most new strategic sort of under the microscope, bright lights shining on it, center strategy, Microsoft effort, like this was the big leagues like I had and the project was called hailstorm. And so this position became available and they were talking to me about the position, which in and of itself was, was kind of crazy. And I remember this is nuts. I remember on April 1st, uh, and this must have been 2011.
Speaker 2:Okay. April 1st, 2011.
Speaker 1:Um, David Cole, let me know that I'd got the position to be the general manager of hailstorm. Okay. Okay. And I was going to build this team called hell storm. That is literally the most important for the next five years for all of Microsoft, uh, based on what they were telling me, you know, in terms of how it was to Steve and to bill. And I mean, this was like the big leagues I'd been in the I'd really been sort of in, in, uh, sort of growing up through Microsoft money. It was kind of like I was in the farm leagues. Okay. And I just got this position, um, in the big leagues. Uh, and I, I still remember when I learned that, uh, David was going to offer me the position and it was, uh, you could say it was the highest day, like the most exciting day of my career, two months later to, almost to the day, a day before. So the whole time I had planned to take my, uh, uh, one month, um, uh, paternity leave, uh, for the birth of my, um, our, our second son, um, in the month of August, uh, the month of July and, uh, the night before the Friday afternoon at five o'clock the night before I was going to be leaving for a month, um, David Cole called me into his office and, uh, basically fired me from the position, like, like I crashed and burned in this position
Speaker 3:As
Speaker 1:Literally as anyone can crash and burn. Like in front of me, remember this was under the microscope. Everyone was watching like, like everyone cared about this, like diet, like hundreds and hundreds, thousands of people. And I basically crashed and burned in the position.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 1:How did you feel at that time? That, that Friday afternoon, I still remember sitting. I mean, you know, my Noah wouldn't remember. I mean, Noah was less than one years old, but Benjamin was three and Benjamin asked me what had happened. And I remember, I think it is the
Speaker 3:Last,
Speaker 1:And maybe the only time that I've cried in front of Benjamin, and this is like 15 years ago now. Right. And I remember telling him that I got taken out of this position in full sight view. Like it, like, it'd be one thing if I failed off in a corner somewhere like that, that's one thing. But like, I, like, I literally had to send an email to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people from France. Cause remember I was gone basically letting everyone know that I was no longer in this position. Um, it was, it was horrible. It was horrible at the, at the time, like at the time it happened. Did you feel like that you,
Speaker 2:Your career was finished or did you feel like what were the negative or the negative emotions overwhelming enough to make you feel like, Oh my God, I'm done. Or was it, did you see a positive light or
Speaker 1:Like at that exact moment? Um, no, I, I think I, I was, uh, at that moment I was shell shocked. I felt all I felt was, uh, was, Oh my God, how can this be happening? Like, like I didn't even, I don't at the time, I did not even think about getting up. All I could think about is that I had, I was basically, I had done a face plant smack, like face plant. Wow. Like, uh, but it is absolutely true that, uh, that, uh, what doesn't kill you, what almost kills you will make you stronger. And it is absolutely true that I learned more. I mean, that, that experience was so dramatic and so negative. I mean, it, it left me severely scarred. There's no getting around that and you learn like scar tissue.
Speaker 2:That's what you need. I mean, you need it cause you can look down
Speaker 1:And you see it, you feel it. And so it's right. It's I mean, it's
Speaker 2:The reminder. When was the last time you thought about death? Not to be negative, but I'm sure you know, someone, or you may have even gone through this, but I'm sure you're aware of just how much of an impact the passing of a friend or family member can have on someone for Robbie. There was a close friend of his, that got cancer and would eventually pass away. And this would be an ignition to Robbie's flame. That would cause him to rethink everything and change his life direction completely.
Speaker 1:The, uh, the childhood friend, um, who passed away, uh, her name is a REIT. Um, and I'd met her when, uh, I was 15 in Israel. Uh, I was visiting a kibbutz and met, met her there and we became good friends. Um, and we lost touch literally when I was 15. So it was a long, long time ago and we lost touch for, uh, you know, we stayed in very close touch for several years. Uh, and then we made contact again just before, uh, I was supposed to travel to Israel with my family. Um, it was right around that time. Uh, when I learned that or REIT was sick, uh, so we're read, um, God cancer. And she told me since we were in touch, cause we were going to visit Israel and I'd got back in touch with her and we were going to meet up with her and whatever. Uh, a few months after that, uh, after we got in touch, she told me she was, she was, um, she was sick with cancer and I went to see her. I decided that like, this is a very, very old friend. It's my first old friend. Who's gotten sick with cancer and I'm just going to get on a plane and I'm going to go see her. Um, and I did, it was really, as she got more and more sick and I recognized that she was likely going to pass away, which, which, which she ultimately did. That was really when, so it was very kind of gradual over the course of about, uh, about 12 months. It was then that I realized how fragile life was and the realization actually, interestingly, it was, it wasn't so much that I was thinking that I needed to move on from Microsoft. It was the realization was, Oh my God, I need to go do what I want to be doing for the rest of my life. Like I like tomorrow could, I could find out tomorrow that I have cancer, you know, God forbid and, and, and I could have a year left to live. Right. And I would hope I would then look back and say that there was this thing that I wanted to do for the past 12 years or even longer for the past 20 years that I had just been planning to do, but I had never done. I mean, that's kinda, that's kinda crazy, right? You should do today, what you want to be doing for the rest of your life. Whoa. Right. So it was really that recognition that, you know, a lot of people, as they get a little older, they recognize life is short. You know, when you're young, you don't think life is short. You think you have unlimited time, right. But as you get older and things start happening, like good friends get sick, good friends die. You know, you, you, you know, maybe you lose a sibling. Um, my wife lost her, her sister a couple of years ago. I mean, these are all things that begin to happen to you as you grow older. And it just reminds you that, uh, you have a limited amount of time on this earth, um, productive, uh, and you should make the most of it. So you may or may not have had an experience like Robbie did, but the chances are, you probably had a life experience that made you question your life direction when extremely intense emotional experiences like this happened to us, they are meant to make our passions more clear to us. And for Robbie, it was very clear that his passion was building businesses because he felt this extreme sense of urgency. Also, if you're someone that wants to build a business, Robbie shares the dramatic difference of working as a leader, within an organization versus starting a business. It's a big difference. And it would be a mistake to assume that they are the same. I just, I made a decision, uh, during that year that I really needed to go do what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life. And I was very planful about it. I was like, okay, well, I'm in this job now. I'm good at what I'm going to do is I'm going to sort of finish up this job that I'm in. So it was the job that I took after hailstorm. I'm going to finish up this job that I'm, that I was saying it was actually in the set on the sales team. I decided I was going to move into the sales organization. Uh, and so I went and did that for a year and a half to two years. And then, and it was during that time that I decided I was going to go do a startup, but I was like, okay, maybe I should do a startup within Microsoft first. Like this would be good learning. It will be my last job. I'm making the decision. I'm going to go start a new group or a new effort at the company. And I'm going to learn some, the skills necessary to do that. And really prove to myself that, that I, I know what I need to know to build something from nothing. Cause I'd never done that at Microsoft before I thought I was learning all this stuff. But the truth of the matter is that like now looking back on it, when I left to co-found cozy with jamik Sofsky, um, gentlemen who I'd met during my time on Microsoft money, like I thought I knew what it took to build a business, but I had no idea, like I probably knew about 30%, maybe 20%. And maybe I hit learned two or 3% of that in that last two years. But the truth is I knew almost nothing. And the thing is you never know what you don't know. Right. That's kind of what it is. So I went, uh, you know, and, and co-founded cozy thinking that, you know, with, you know, the stuff that was flowing in my blood from, you know, growing up an entrepreneur, like growing up around entrepreneurs, along with the experience I developed at Microsoft, that I had what it took to build the business. And I had no clue. I had no clue. Thankfully we, we succeeded across a variety of different dimensions at cozy, you know, and we, we, uh, and we failed along many as well. And I'm, I also have lots of scar tissue. None of it is as big and prominent. It's more like, you know, the, not quite death, but it's more like a thousand cuts of, of, uh, of scar tissue versus the big, huge gash that I have from, from hailstorm. But I, I learned in aggregate certainly in the nine years at cozy, I learned dramatically more than what I learned, you know, even in my 12 years at Microsoft, including the hailstorm experience. I mean that, I just, you know, there's nothing more powerful, like doing it and stumbling and getting up and stumbling and getting up and doing it and doing it and doing it like that's how you learn and grow. That's like, you know, an athlete who goes out and trains and they can't do it the first time. And they try again. And that was like nine years of cozy and, and, and just training. It was like training and building it and building the muscle and, and making the mistakes. And we made car loads of mistakes. And we had a few successes that were meaningful. So we want to switch gears just a little bit here. We want to play a quick game of finish the sentence, in my opinion, what is the most important life skill collaboration? I'm 24 years old and I'm struggling to find my purpose. I should follow my passion. Being an entrepreneur means willing to fail, being, being willing to fail. If I were to meet the 24 year old Robbie, I would advise him to listen more, talk less I'm stranded on an Island and have access to one meal. My meal of choice is Buffalo chicken wings. Thank you for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed listening, please subscribe on Spotify or Apple podcasts. Please leave a review so that we can better serve you. Take care of dream big, and we'll see you next month.