 Today's guest is both an entrepreneur and our CEO. Amman Bhutani joins us to talk about his leadership philosophies, championing the everyday entrepreneur and taking on his new role as CEO at GoDaddy. This is School of Hustle, the show of refined advice and inspiration from people who are making their own way. I'm Shannon, the VP of social here at GoDaddy, and I live and breathe the hustle of business. Amman, we're so excited to have you on the show and absolutely thrilled to have you as our new CEO. Thank you, Shannon. I am super excited to be here. And honestly, grateful to have the opportunity to serve our everyday entrepreneurs and serve our employees. You know, it's good to be here. Well, you've been in your role for only a few weeks and I know that you're diving right in and I can imagine that it's a lot. What is important to you as you're ramping up in your new position? You know, I had a couple of weeks break between jobs and I thought, what do I want to do as I get in on the first day? And the only thing on my mind was, how can I avoid that first day embarrassment, you know, when you do something wrong? Well, I wasn't so lucky. I got in and the door got me and I literally mean the door got me. I walk up to the door, I put my badge on and there's a bit of a delay between when the badge takes and the door opens. And it's a bit more than what I'm used to. So I go and badge, open the door and we're open. So I push it, pull it and we'll open it to badge again and slowly open it. And I was like, I hope nobody's watching because the new CEO can't open the door, you know. But now that I'm past the door, what I'm trying to do is the number one thing for me is to learn about our everyday entrepreneurs for me to go and meet as many of them. And honestly, there's people all around me that work with GoDaddy. So, you know, that's what I'm doing the most. Well, a CEO has a very aggressive set of goals. I would say some of the most aggressive out there, how do you balance, you know, hitting those aggressive goals and inspiring your team? Yeah, the way I like to think about it is that there isn't a trade-off between inspiring the team and hitting aggressive goal. In fact, as a senior leader, the weight is not just on my shoulders, I truly stand on the shoulders of giants. You know, I'm in the grateful position where we have great teams, you know, our product teams, our engineering teams, our marketing teams, our corporate teams, and of course our GoDaddy guides, you know, that sort of bring together the human and technology element of just bringing in, bringing anyone's idea to life. And so we share that and, you know, my focus is to inspire people and we all hit the aggressive goals together. So it works. Well, it is a big decision for anybody at any position to leave a great role that you're in, take a calculated risk, move on and do something else. How did you go about that decision? What was your process in knowing that this role at GoDaddy was right for you? Yes, picking a job is actually the number one question I get in mentoring sessions. People ask me, I've got this opportunity, should I take it? So over the years, I build a little acronym and I call it the S-O-U-L, soulmate's test. And what you want to do is when you get an offer, you want to think about, S, is it something I'm hungry for? It must be something that wakes you up in the morning. And with GoDaddy, you know, what I wanted was a global brand that has a bold purpose and a match of values for me. And we know GoDaddy has all of those things in spades. The O is really about, is there opportunity for everyone, not just for you. And at GoDaddy, not only is there opportunity for all of us, there's opportunity for all our everyday entrepreneurs. So truly, we're riding a wave where there's opportunity for all of us. The U is about bringing something special to the table. You must have a competitive advantage coming in. And I do have a number of things in my background that fit in quite well with what we're trying to do here. And the L is about learning. And the idea there is that every new role should involve learning for every person. And I have a tremendous amount to learn here. And that's what's gotten me excited. So I did the soul test. It was a match. And I said, I'm in. We are glad that you felt that way. We're all so excited to have you. And I was excited to join GoDaddy when I started. And I went through a similar process. One of the things that was interesting for me was to think about how GoDaddy champions the everyday entrepreneur. And I feel like, who am I working for? We're working for our customer, right? And there's a lot of joy for me in that. And what does it mean to you to champion today's everyday entrepreneur? Yeah, I think the mission of GoDaddy to empower entrepreneurs everywhere or to empower everyday entrepreneurs everywhere is truly fantastic. From the core of my heart, I believe if we all do the things we love, we'll do them well and it makes the world a better place. And at GoDaddy, what we're trying to do is put the tools together, provide the human capability together with those tools, and really make ideas come to life. And honestly, it's a great place to be. I come in and in the first week, I hear stories of our customers. I heard about Jackie and Nikki that did the furlough cheesecake. I'm sure you're aware of. And what a great name, by the way. The government shuts down and they open the furlough cheesecake because they're trying to sort of make up for the jobs. And I heard about Dan, who's sort of creating new community in neighborhoods by turning basketball courts into works of art. And it's not just people out there, it's people in my personal life. You know, one of my best friends, Robert, he left a job and wanted to pursue his passion to make films and write films. And he's a GoDaddy customer. And now he's got a website with GoDaddy and it's sort of in my personal life. And I think when something touches you in that way personally, you really feel connected to it. So that's what it means to me. And not only do we work for our customers, but we kind of work for ourselves too because GoDaddy doesn't frown upon moonlighting. GoDaddy actually encourages employees to have a side hustle. And if you don't have a side hustle at GoDaddy, you almost feel like, oh my gosh, you know, I better get on that. You know, can you tell me about how does GoDaddy go about encouraging employees to take that leap and launch a side hustle? Well, first I've got to say, oh my god, what an amazing idea. To take the mission of the company, turn it inwards and say we're going to support all our employees also having a side hustle. This is uniquely GoDaddy and I love it. In terms of what we do to support our employee base, actually very recently we've launched an employee resource group called GoDaddy Entrepreneurs. This is a group that brings, does meetups. They bring together resources to help people and also just bring people together so they can help each other. And I soon shall have a side hustle to talk about as well. I'm not talking about it today, but very, very soon I'm going to have one for everyone to see. I've changed the way that I shop because of the culture of this business that we're in and I am just so fascinated by everybody on my team. One woman on my team does hair. She has a kit, she goes around New York City and does hair and I pay her out of my pocket to do my hair for School of Hustle. She didn't do it today. I'm sure my hair could look a lot better, but we're on the road today with School of Hustle. But I feel like Krista on my team does photography and content publishing and creative work and she's an influencer and social. A food influencer. It's really, it's so fascinating that we walk the walk and I feel, I just feel so proud to be a part of it and I cannot wait to see your side hustle. It's coming soon. I cannot wait. Well, a day job in itself is very time consuming, right? And then you add a hustle on top of that and oh my gosh, that's all the more time consuming and now we have not yet considered family and family I know is very important to you. How do you balance everything and what advice do you have for someone who feels that they just don't have the time for a side hustle? Yeah, the one piece of advice I normally give is that often we talk about family or our jobs or the side hustle as these competing priorities as if we take from one and give it to the other. And that's not how I think about it. The way I think about it is that our life is a fabric and what we want to do is weave in our family, weave in our job, weave in our hustle. In fact, whatever we love, whatever we have interest in, we will find time for it. And you're right, I have a big family. Ten years ago, we decided to live... Ten years ago, we decided to live in a three-generation household so my parents, my brother, his family, my family, we all live together. We share a kitchen and we find time for each other and I'm serious about my job and I'm serious about my interests but it's because everything's woven together and I'm not trying to take from one and give to the other. That's really, that's fantastic. What are you most excited about in your new role? I think I'm most excited about getting to meet so many of our everyday entrepreneurs, getting to know their stories, getting to, yes, build tools and capabilities so that we can help them, but just to hear how they're changing the world and how that makes them happy and how together we can truly make the world a better place. Thank you for that. I really appreciate you opening up. Let me know, countdown. Best place you've traveled? Shanghai. Finish this sentence, when I dance, I look like? Like a pig. Sashimi or rolls? Sashimi. Favorite workout, arms, legs or abs? None. First place you visit when you retire? Hawaii. Number one guilty pleasure? Watching YouTube later night. One word you wish you could take away from the English language? Vary. Boozy brunch or morning workout? Boozy brunch. Beer or wine? Beer. Favorite part of a s'more? All of it. Top quality you look for in an employee? Hunger. Instagram or Twitter? Twitter. Favorite holiday? My wife's birthday. Worst trend you've ever participated in? Um, tight jeans. New York or London? New York. Ideal, fake, sick day? Spend time with the kids. Would you rather visit Licorice Castle or Peppermint Forest? Peppermint Forest. M&Ms or Skittles? Skittles. Number of times it took you to pass your driver's test? Once. All right. That was pretty fantastic. Okay, now it's the moment of truth. Let's see how we did. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. Okay. Nice job. That is good. Favorite part of your day? When I'm with my kids. Best piece of advice you've ever gotten? It's hard to take anything away from its origin. Worst piece of advice? It's just business. It's not personal. How do you use your career to inspire others? Monday morning leadership said it really well. To be a better leader, be a better person. Ever felt like walking away? Only to have the excitement of walking back. One thing you still need to learn? Well, I believe life is a journey of learning. It never ends when you master something. You start again. So I would say, you know, just learn at everything. But one particular thing I'm learning now is karate. I love that. What do you want people to learn from you? Be a shokuni, which in Japanese means be a craftsman. It means to come in every day and just compete with the person you were yesterday and be a tiny bit better than you were yesterday. What's next for you? Serve everyday entrepreneurs and serve our teams. Who inspires you? A lot of people inspire me. But one that comes to mind is Malala because of what she did at such a young age to support education for women at the global scale. It's truly fantastic. Who challenges you? I believe that only the people really close to you can challenge you. So I'd say my family, you know, they've taught me patience. They've taught me discipline. My kids are going to teach me a lot more. I have really enjoyed talking to you today. And we are sadly at the end of our interview. And we always close School of Hustle by sharing three quotes and asking the entrepreneur to pick the quote that resonates most in why. Great. So the first quote I'm going to share with you is don't let the fear of losing be greater than the excitement of winning. Number two, success is liking yourself. Liking what you do and liking how you do it. And number three, the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers. Definitely the second success is liking yourself, liking what you do. That brings true with me. Well, I know that everybody watching felt inspired listening to you today. I know that I did. Thank you, Shannon. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And I want to remind everybody that every week we are bringing fabulous entrepreneurs and inspiration, stories, and advice to School of Hustle. So follow Go Daddy across social. We have full episodes on YouTube and Instagram TV, short clips across Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And as always, we'll see you all next time. Bye.