Musings from Before and After

Tim Jenks

I remember the spring of 1982 being on the bridge of a U.S. Navy cruiser in the South China Sea. At 3 a.m. the expansive sea stretched before me as I guided the ship toward the Indian Ocean and on to the Arabian Sea. The “midwatch” was often my favorite – in the middle of night the glimmering sea would shine below the starry sky as 500 colleagues slept in their bunks in the decks below. For a 26-year-old young man, it was both surreal and a heady responsibility. Yet I remember many times pondering if I wanted to be in command of a Navy ship twenty years hence. I pondered this question as dawn approached and the waves washed aft with my thoughts being drowned by the activities of months at sea. It was because I decided to put myself on a path to be a captain of industry rather than a captain at sea that I was fortunate to become a member of the distinguished GSB class of 1985.

The son of a career naval officer, my path to that Navy cruiser was unsurprising. Yet I was very interested in the stock market and in innovation from an early age. As an eighth grader I plowed my lawn mowing earnings into ten shares of common stock in Tele-mart Enterprises, a San Diego start-up company that was ahead of its time. Tele-mart partnered with a local aerospace company for computer services and introduced Clara, a talking computer, with an early version of A.I. Clara would take grocery orders by phone and your order would be delivered to your door. Deliveries were free ($1 charge for small orders) and I berated my mom until she consented to become a customer–likely one of those small order customers. A headline in the San Diego Union newspaper said, “Computer Shopping to Kill Supermarkets”! This was 1969. GrubHub was decades behind! But at the time, before Whole Foods, Amazon, and COVID-19, consumers did not order groceries online. And using the telephone to talk to a computer was anything but user friendly. So in 1970, at the ripe age of fifteen, Tele-mart also gave me my first experience with corporate bankruptcy. Tele-mart was an early triple in terms of lessons learned! You have to pick the right trend AND the right company AND you have to get the timing right.

What follows as my contribution to this effort may simply be my reflections from long ago to 35 years after. My dear wife of 30 years, classmate Atsuko Kaneda, suggested that for this essay I might write about perseverance. Since I learned a long time ago to listen to her, not surprisingly, much of what follows has that topic as a core. My “lessons” were no doubt covered in B-school, but it still took me decades to learn.

You Choose Who

Perhaps I am an outlier as I have worked for just two companies since the GSB. After graduation I joined Raychem Corp, initially in Seattle but later in Menlo Park. Raychem was about the people. In the Navy, personnel were assigned. “Do your best” often meant “deal with it.” Leadership meant getting the best from your people. But at the GSB, you were all brilliant, talented and personable – clearly a different “model.” Raychem, run by MBAs, had a hiring gauntlet that predictably placed terrific people all over the world. I learned there that much of life is determined by the people you choose to work with.

The strategy at Raychem was to create novel products using polymer materials science that others could not replicate. We did not chase the next big thing; Raychem was about playing the long game smartly. Its businesses weren’t “cool” (I ran businesses making wire and later high voltage cable products), but the ethos was making sure products were “sticky” (some literally). It was not “get big, get niched, or get out.” We were constantly exploiting myriad niches.

Through a dozen years and six jobs at Raychem, our family also enjoyed five years in Europe. I learned about people, strategy, innovation, and international business. All topics I thought I had learned at the GSB.

When we returned to California in 1998 there was a new CEO at Raychem. So despite loving the company and my work, I was open to a headhunter’s call that resulted in my being employee 007 and CEO at a venture funded start-up NanoGram then, now NeoPhotonics Corp.

Running the Show is Not All Glamor

That start-up now spans 20 plus years, several rounds of VC funding (shout outs to Maurice Gunderson and Bob Williams!), four spinouts and divestitures, ten acquisitions, an IPO and a couple million air miles. From the Navy to GSB to industry, I thought I would be a big company guy. But my career has been more about entrepreneurship in building NeoPhotonics over more than twenty years. My job is personnel, and I often find myself saying that “NEO” (for “nano-enabled optics”) is my third child (in sequence, mind you – our kids might say it was first in time invested). Much of my time has been in Asia, notably China and Japan (and more there than Atsuko!). In the last twenty years I have spent more time in China than anywhere but home.

After 9-11 we did two spinouts and focused on wafer-based optical devices, but a year later we found ourselves in Chapter 11 with the telecom industry bust. (I was reminded about Tele-mart. Did I learn?) We reorganized, then scaled rapidly such that by 2010, I had been at NEO longer than either the Navy or Raychem, and we’d set our sights on an IPO. We listed in 2011 (NYSE: NPTN – note for this ex-Navy guy that our stock symbol is “Neptune,” God of the Sea in Roman mythology). We have had our ups and downs, but it has been a dream come true (with an occasional nightmare) to lead NEO people around the globe (hailing from more than forty countries) for all this time. We have good people, innovative ideas and a sticky business. Those lessons stuck.

NEO is niched. We are a leader in ultra pure light semiconductor lasers for high speed communications. (One Raychem boss said a niche is any business requiring three adjectives to describe it. Check.) We do deep technology in a global market that is highly competitive, and where key competitors are from each of Japan, China, Europe, and the U.S.. We built a culture to value and celebrate doing things that are difficult – that often makes our products sticky, and it keeps us moving from one technology generation to the next. As disruptive changes are always just over the horizon, we must constantly pursue innovations – to displace our products with our own next generation. Technology, innovation, execution, succession, repeat. These concepts were taught at the GSB, but it was more straightforward as a case study.

Beyond the Mountains There Are Mountains

Soul of New Machine by Tracy Kidder was syllabus reading at the GSB; a classic technology innovation story. But in Kidder’s book Mountains Beyond Mountains, I found a metaphor about technology development. The book is about Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Partners In Health, and his early focus was to deliver medical care to remote parts of Haiti where such care was previously non-existent. It is a poignant tale of heartfelt dedication to those in need. About Haiti, a mountainous island lacking suitable roads or infrastructure, Dr. Farmer explains that in traveling from village to village by foot through the mountains, one can realize that “beyond the mountains there are mountains.” It expresses the idea that while opportunities may be inexhaustible, so too are the challenges. When you surmount one obstacle you merely get a clearer view of your next obstacle. As Professor Steven Brandt said many times in New Enterprise class, this was an “ah-hah moment” – when you recognize what should have been obvious. It became clear only after being told.

To me, the world of technology development is expressed eloquently by Paul Farmer. When you metaphorically climb the mountain, you get a clearer view from that high peak. But truth often is that the view you find is a view of the next set of mountains. There is no solution or any cure. But there is a constant, always demanding and never-ending need for progress, invention, and renewal.

Grit…and Compassion

Author Angela Duckworth explains in her book Grit that in psychology, grit is a positive, non-cognitive trait. It expresses one’s passion for a goal, coupled with the motivation to achieve that goal. She says that it is the sum of compassion and perseverance. This lesson reflects my life running a tech company. Moreover, Duckworth says that talent times effort equals skill, and skill times effort equals achievement. I am an engineer, so this resonated as equations:

(Talent x Effort) = Skill; and (Skill x Effort) = Achievement

Another ah-hah moment! Achievement may be proportional to the square of effort! Effort is key! You may feel that this is self-evident (after all, Mike McTeigue taught us that a golf swing should be effortless; somehow mine never was.) Being told that toiling, adjusting, and passionately persevering can lead to success was a lesson I wanted to hear. It served to bolster conviction!

Duckworth further cites that successful people often have common traits in passion and perseverance. I have been leading one company long enough to see it as a marathon rather than a sprint. Long enough to have seen people come and go, products come and go, and one new and novel technology being displaced by the next generation. When we have climbed to the peak of one mountain, we do get a clearer view. Doing so takes perseverance. But a subtlety of this lesson is that to have perseverance you must have passion. Even more, with a team, you must have compassion. Because a company is a team and it is the team that has to get to the peak of the next mountain.

Believe. Always believe.

Competitive execution must improve over time. To win, we must execute faster and better than our competitors. Granted, my company’s track record is not unblemished in this regard. So how to connect the concept of never ending improvement in execution with what it takes for a company to achieve it? To do something hard over a long term and against obstacles can be almost spiritual. It becomes a calling. It must be, after all. It is always the job to lead the team to the “promised land.” But as a believer, I can take others there with me.

From this view, I always reflect first on who we will become as a company; about what is our core. But it also is about how we, together, can get to our future position. As a result, what tenets are set by company leaders to make sure the path forward is optimized? Some may say that this is where Organizational Behavior meets strategy, but it took me years to understand deeply. We first must survive. Then we must execute for the next mountain. With passion and compassion. And together we must believe. As only when we string together mountains after mountains after mountains can we look back and see the path taken as success.

Being Present Is Not Enough

Atsuko and I have raised two daughters, Saya and Hana. We all love music (shout out for 85.BAND!), and our daughters started early to eventually become very talented pianists. That required more than hours on the piano bench; so, more than effort. It required deliberate practice, which required discipline, which was hard for young kids. But deliberate practice required defining stretch goals, applying full concentration (and effort), getting helpful feedback, and then repeating and refining. Certainly it was persistence, but it was also passion.

Connecting some dots, to build a company I have learned the importance of hiring great people, motivating them to do innovative things, believing in each other and in what we are doing, and being passionate about what we do to persevere as a group. And finally, having compassion. We don’t just do our job, but we help others to do theirs.

What kind of people fit in this culture? What can we know in an interview? I believe that people who are great in our company are those who display passion, but also display a strength of will for perseverance and determination. They don’t abandon tasks when obstacles appear. Building a company may be about execution, but it is more and deeper than effort alone. It requires deliberate practice – we climb one mountain and gain a clearer view. But we also can be stronger at the peak. Only then will we be ready to climb the next one. Such is my view from two years at the GSB and 35 years since. So now I can look back over so many years and see all the mountains that have been climbed.

What About China?

NeoPhotonics’ largest market is China and our largest customer for many years has been Huawei Technologies, so a comment or two about China. This is the same Huawei that is now subject of a ban by the U.S. Department of Commerce. Having spent much of the last twenty years developing relationships at Huawei, recent U.S. actions have complicated my life. At the GSB, courses about strategy and technology with Dave Jemison and Robert Burgelman, power and politics with Jeffrey Pfeffer or how to deal with ethical and regulatory issues with Kirk Hansen – these were solid and helpful. But business today with U.S. government intervention is a heightened challenge when the stated goal includes unpredictability.

As an outcome of trade tensions, many of my lessons learned have been tested. NEO makes lasers that power Cloud and telecom communications. As Huawei has been the largest network equipment manufacturer in the world for several years, it stands to reason that they are our largest customer. Their communications gear goes to most countries around the world, and to support them I have been traveling to China regularly since 2003. Until COVID-19.

NeoPhotonics has three facilities in China, with headquarters in Shenzhen, factories in Dongguan, and an R&D center in Wuhan. By now, everyone knows Huawei and everyone knows Wuhan. U.S.-China trade tension is at the forefront, with the ban on providing controlled technology to Huawei now in place for a full year. Our COVID-19 response began in full force in Wuhan from mid-January. And while the trade situation is as novel as COVID-19, the lessons of good people, innovative ideas, adjusting strategies, and having grit are certainly on our path over the mountains.

I see China’s main goals to be stability, continuity of Party rule, and economic growth. They need a strong center for control. Without it there is fear about their own :flyover provinces.” Today there is unrest in Hong Kong, suppression in Xinjiang, and nationalism in Taiwan. These stoke fear from the deep historical lessons of control. China focuses on inculcating youth with pride and patriotism to make sure the young understand the goal for a rising China. The contrasts with the U.S. are stark. Or perhaps they find lessons in what and how we learned in grade school a half century ago. But with success and freedoms come differing perspectives. And unlike America, China lacks that experience. Stormy weather ahead.

Beyond Lessons Are Memories

The GSB was a peak. Everything since has been more mountains. At that peak there was a clear view of many things that today are great memories. In 2010, we “got the band back together.” 85.BAND, in the words of Skip Clemmons, was “a hoot”! Thanks to Ian Valentine, Bruno Figueras, Alan DeClerck, Patty Root, Ross Goldstein, Don Wilcoxon, and Eric Meyer. You rock! But you also fit a theme of the GSB and of people – 85.BAND was very different people with a common interest who could meld harmonies together, with every metaphorical interpretation intended. They can still do it after 35 years.

We choose the best people, notably my wife of thirty years (this October), Atsuko Kaneda. We started with a lunch, together with Steve Krausz and some red pepper soup, after our final exam in Cost Accounting. Our relationship and marriage has spanned 36 years, two children, four golden retrievers, three continents, four countries, countless personal case studies, many donuts, and a lot of good times, many of them with GSB classmates. Early on we realized that we both grew up in seaport towns, with beaches, fishing boats and more. To this day we both love nothing more than a walk in the sea breeze at the beach with our dog.

My Parents Were Wiser

I believe that the generation we will leave in charge are smart, group-thinkers, motivated to change the world. I hope they change it for the better, but again that track record is not unblemished. Those who may know best are among the most likely to be preaching to a clearing rather than to a crowd.

So I look to my parents, both now gone. The way they lived was to plan ahead, prepare for contingencies, live beneath their means, and treat everyone they met with the highest respect. Their decisions always stuck to these basic tenets and they left this world with many life-long friends, with professional admiration, with their affairs in order and with little left to chance at the end. The couple I learned from first also taught me the best lessons for the chapters ahead.