Martin Gonzalez - Why Teams Are Harder Than Tech

Phronesis: Practical Wisdom for Leaders with Scott Allen

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Martin Gonzalez is the creator of Google’s Effective Founders Project, a global research program that uses people analytics to uncover what makes the best startup founders succeed and shares their success formula with the world. He has run leadership courses for thousands of tech startup founders across seventy countries in the Americas, Asia, Africa, and Europe. He is a frequent lecturer on entrepreneurship, organization design, and people analytics at Stanford, Wharton, and INSEAD. He is also the author of the bestselling book, The Bonfire Moment: Bring Your Team Together to Solve the Hardest Issues Startups Face.
Martin is a principal of organization and leadership development at Google. He works with Google’s senior leaders to shape team culture, develop their people, and expand their leadership, so they can build cool things that matter. In his ten years there, he’s worked with leaders across Google Research, DeepMind, Technology & Society, Responsible AI, Pixel, Fitbit, YouTube, Search, Maps, Android, and Chrome, to name a few.
In 2023, The Aspen Institute recognized him as a First Movers Fellow, honoring his pioneering work at Google. In 2024, he was featured on the Thinkers50 Radar List, a prestigious recognition dubbed the "Oscars of management thinking" by the Financial Times, highlighting emerging thinkers expected to significantly influence future management thinking.
Before Google, he was a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and a product manager at Johnson & Johnson.
Martin has studied organizational psychology and behavioral science at Columbia University and the London School of Economics. He’s a serial immigrant, having lived and worked in New York, Jakarta, Singapore, Taipei, and Manila, where he is originally from. Today, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Bea, and three kids: Noelle, Jaime, and Andrea.
A Quote From This Episode

• "Startups have a people problem."

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Website/Book - The Bonfire Moment
• Book - Creative Construction by Gary Pisano

About The International Leadership Association (ILA)

• The ILA was created in 1999 to bring together professionals interested in studying, practicing, and teaching leadership. Register for ILA's 26th Global Conference in Chicago, IL - November 7-10, 2024.

About Scott J. Allen

• Website
• Weekly Newsletter: The Leader's Edge
• Blog

My Approach to Hosting

• The views of my guests do not constitute "truth." Nor do they reflect my personal views in some instances. However, they are views to consider, and I hope they help you clarify your perspective. Nothing can replace your reflection, research, and exploration of the topic.

Chapter

1. The People Problem in Startups (00:00:00)

2. Building Startups (00:12:07)

3. The Bonfire Moment Workshop and Culture (00:25:59)