#90 Guillaume Clement - CTO at Dailymotion
Today we are talking to Guillaume Clement, the CTO of Daily Motion. And we discuss creating a vision for your team to follow, the concept of autonomous leadership, and hiring A players to create an atmosphere of trust
All of this, right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!
Guillaume leads the entire product and engineering teams (around 200 people) and is in charge of defining and implementing the dailymotion repositioning to a premium platform and premium high-end product sets (B2C and B2B), through an aggressive product and technology roadmap.
He also leads design, product, engineering and customer support teams, manages transformation to break silos and identify strategic team cross skill sets, and manages all aspects of the technology roadmap, data, infrastructure, network, security, and scalability.
Show Notes:
In New York this week. Based in Paris and NY
Has 1 girl and 1 boy
What is DailyMotion? Has been around for 10-11 years. Created 1 week before Youtube
Figuring out the direction. Video landscape was changing for more trust and transparency
Had 200% growth in Asia
What creates the trust? It comes from the sources and partners uploading on the platform
Building a great content and monetization platform
Have to go through the process and enjoy the pain of learning to make the appropriate decisions
13:33 How much traffic? 3 billion views per month. 215m Users.
Joined the company in 2013. Have built a lot of things to address specific problems.
Only working on the pieces that make sense for the business. Where when and at what cost?
We have a vision and focus and will leverage the tools that pop up along the way - Joel
It's the most important thing to do is to control your aspects of the business
17:55 France and Europe is ⅓ of the business
What challenges have you faced in leading 200+ Engineers
Make sure the vision and the strategy is clear. Make sure it makes sense. Make sure everybody is looking in that direction. Hire the people and grow the team that looks in the same direction. Communication. Removing Roadblocks.
How does it play out on a tactical level? Once they have defined the centralized strategy. Have a decentralized execution. Provide the team the resources needed and freedom to execute. Hire people who are smarter than you - Hired Nick who is an expert in ruby. The better the talent you hire, the less you worry, the better the atmosphere of trust
Once they have defined the centralized strategy. Have a decentralized execution. IT only works if you have good people and the collaboration is there. Applies to other dimensions. The people are spread through the globe and you can't be everywhere at once. So they need to always be connected to the problem trying to be solved
Scheduling time to think. Taking time to be strategic. Put in place the framework and people need to feel safe taking the time. Need to put in the culture
Sees the trend with video going to mobile. Every big publisher is trying to engage the audience. Built the Partner Solutions to be as friendly to the producers as possible
How do you work with the CEO and Head of Sales to work on the vision for the company. Sometimes we have to compromise. Have 3 clients.
What are you most excited? Passion is to build the team. Have been very lucky to meet the people on his team.
You have to create luck. You have to put the ingredients there and then it will come. The level of caring and the willingness to have an impact. The more likely that you will create luck.
Do you do anything intentionally to spread your culture through the organization. The most important thing you can give to people is your time. It’s not a sacrifice. Put together the moment to share
What piece of advice would you give yourself? Despite you have expertise and vision. You’re going to have to listen to people very very carefully. Make sure you create the foundation so those ideas can grow without you.
Can find Guillaume on twitter