Chris Robinson and Great CEOS - Inertia Destroyers

Last week was definitely one that made me want to travel less and less. I had meetings in New York City on Thursday so I needed to be there by Wednesday night and then head back home to Orange County on Thursday evening. United has a non-stop from John Wayne to Newark which is really convenient. Unfortunately, due to the weather in the New York area and some of the peculiarities of Newark Airport, my flight arrived five hours late and I didn’t get to the hotel until 3:15 a.m. Much to my surprise the room was spacious and beautiful. There was a note left for me welcoming me to the hotel along with a bottle of wine. Too bad I had very little time to enjoy the room and the wine as I had to be up by 7:15 to get ready for our first meeting. Despite a lack of sleep I woke up fairly energized and headed to Joe and the Juice for my morning smoothie.

The first two meetings went well and the third one was for lunch at a steakhouse near Rockefeller Center. What a madhouse that area was with streets closed to accommodate the holiday rush of tourists, particularly near Radio City. Adding to this was Trump being in town as well. 

During lunch it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked in for my 6:00 p.m. return flight so I quickly went to the United app to do so but didn’t see that I had that option. Upon deeper scrutiny I realized that I had mistakenly booked my return trip for Friday, rather than Thursday. While the other six people were in conversation I did some further investigation to see if I could get on that night’s flight. Unfortunately it was sold out. I had to get right into action so I called American Express Travel and they switched my flight to one leaving at 6:45 p.m. arriving at LAX.

After our fourth meeting a car service was scheduled to pick me up at 4 but given all of the street closures and traffic I didn’t get in the car until about 4:20. Initially the estimate to get to Newark was 60 minutes but it was closer to 80 minutes. By the time I got to my gate it was 5:55 which was enough time to make this flight but may have caused very big problems if I had still been booked on my 6:00 flight. Par for the course for this trip we left an hour late and got to LAX 30 minutes late but also waited on the tarmac for another 30 minutes. I finally got home at midnight. The joys of travel!

I point all of this out because as I write this I would describe my mood as a bit ornery. This is actually a good thing as it fits in with the tone of this week’s post. I want to tie in something I saw on X with an experience I had very recently at the Black Crowes concert Heather and I saw with another couple.

Snowflake

Snowflake is a very large cloud storage company with a market capitalization of approximately $56 billion. And while the stock hasn’t performed so well since the company went public, it’s still worth $56 billion even though it only produces approximately $2.5 billion in revenue. I decided to do some research on the company based on the assumption it must have experienced tremendous growth to support such a high valuation. I was shocked to learn that the company produced $2.3 billion in revenue in 2014, so it has had very little top-line growth and flat earnings during the last 10 years. And, yet, it still has a massive valuation. It pays to be a strong player in an industry investors perceive to have great long-term fundamentals and growth prospects, even if you’ve shown very little evidence of generating growth.

As an aside, let’s compare Snowflake’s results to Meta’s. In 2014, Meta’s revenues were $12.5 billion; during the last 12 months, it’s been $156.2 billion. Operating income has grown from $5 billion to $65 billion. What a juggernaut! Say what you will about Mark Zuckerberg, but he has been an extraordinary CEO in hyper-scaling growth and doing so with extraordinary profitability.

The following is what I saw on X, so perhaps, given Snowflake’s unimpressive growth, you might take what he says with a grain of salt. On the other hand, I think most successful CEOs would wholeheartedly agree with what he says, so just imagine Mark Zuckerberg saying this rather than Frank Slootman, the chairman of Snowflake.

A body at rest tends to stay at rest without an outside force acting on it while a body in motion stays in motion without an outside force acting on it. This is the law of inertia.

Momentum

Momentum has to be built so that a growth and achievement mindset is embedded in a company’s culture. If not, sclerosis will set in. Of course a company can be too hard charging and act in unethical ways or in ways that will come back to bite them in the long-term. There is a happy medium but there should always be a bias towards pushing ahead and trying to establish and maintain momentum.

So what does this have to do with the Black Crowes concert? Like the Gallagher brothers of Oasis, the Robinson brothers have had a notoriously fractured and disharmonious relationship over the years. Chris, the lead singer, is an extroverted wild child while Rich, the younger brother, is an introvert and the musical creative force of the two. To show how talented and deep into music Rich was at a young age, the music for one of the band’s classic hits, She Talks To Angels, was written by Rich when he was only 15. To Chris’ credit, the lyrics are very powerful as well so the two of them make a dynamic duo when it comes to writing great songs.

Unfortunately, the two of them had great challenges getting along. The tension became so great that the band broke up for a number of years and stopped producing new music all together. After years apart, both maturing, and coming to see the value each brought to the other as well as the band, they reunited and recently produced new music for the first time since 2009. It’s a really good album in my opinion and shows what powerful rockers they are.

Chris Robinson has always had a reputation for having a really big mouth and having very little filter when it comes to biting his tongue. The Black Crowes were fired as the opening act for ZZ Top in 1991 when Chris criticized the tour’s affiliation with Miller Beer. As time went by my sense was that he mellowed a bit. Prior to going to our show I read a review of their concert in Salt Lake City that took place earlier in the week. The reviews were good and nothing was mentioned of Chris’ behavior.

Now it’s time for our show and they come on and play a rocker from their new album to start the show. After the song ends, Chris starts going off on the people in the front row dropping F bombs telling them to get up and dance or switch seats with those behind them who are dancing. He seemed to feel that those in the front row had an entitled attitude and didn’t really want to be there. I honestly didn’t know if this was some sort of antic that was perpetuating a stage persona or something he truly felt.

As the show goes on he then turns his attention to the far right end of the front row and he is scowling in that area and then says something that is not very intelligible but he is clearly bugged by something and in an ornery mood. A little while later he totally loses it and starts dropping even more F bombs and telling security to stop preventing people from leaning up against the front of the stage because all they want to do is have more freedom to dance and express themselves. He said something to the effect that if you want to be cops then go join the police force. Their uniforms don’t entitle them to turn a rock and roll show into a joyless, non-interactive event. He said the audience members paid good money to see them, hear great music, and to dance and let loose and they need to get the hell out of the way.

Well, what do you know? Security backed off, fans came closer to the stage, and the atmosphere completely changed and became so much more free and joyous. After this metamorphosis took place, Chris came back to the microphone at the end of the song and said how much better he felt now and that he knows he’s a needy, attention-seeking, Sagittarius lead singer, but this is what he wanted and, more importantly, it’s what the fans wanted and the situation called for.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Steve Parish, the lead roadie of the Grateful Dead. He said that no matter what was happening, “The situation is in charge.”

You do whatever is needed based on the situational requirements while never losing sight of the end goal which is to make sure the band is fully equipped with all of its instruments working and in tune and the sound and lighting are in working order for show time.

And similar to what Slootman said about how CEOs need to be the outside force to avoid inertia, Chris Robinson felt the very same way. In the case of the concert, venue security was keeping the entire scene and vibe subdued and making it the antithesis of a rock and roll concert. Robinson, sensing, feeling, and despising this, took control of the reins and became the more powerful outside force to convert resting inertia into momentum inertia, and he did it masterfully and brilliantly. He had the power, and he was going to exercise that power because he knew what the situation called for. That was a really good reminder for me. I have a resting inertia side to me while also periodically, like Robinson, when I see something I really want, I will push for it. However, after going to that concert, the energy generated by the latter can surely be far more inspiring and memorable than resting on one’s laurels as a result of the former.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the Robinson brothers from the show and to remind yourself that nothing happens unless someone takes ownership of a project and is energized by the mission such that he or she leads the charge, sticks with it, overcomes obstacles, and delivers something great. 

Sam Walton attributed much of his success to this simple approach to how he ran Wal-Mart: “We got after it and stayed after it.”

So much of success is a result of showing up over and over again and being reliable, consistent, steadfast, energized, motivated, and enthusiastic. If you can bring all of these attributes to the table as a CEO or any kind of leader then you have what it takes to be a body at rest inertia destroyer.

Chris and Rich doing what they do best.

Chris Robinson channeling his inner Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart.

Rich Robinson cooly playing lead guitar and occasional rhythm.

Chris talking to the audience after his fury has been unleashed, and he is now in a much better mood.