Drayton Wade – Kognitos, Head of Product Strategy and Business Operations

Drayton Wade helps UiPath IPO in 2021 and then makes a career leap to take two years to attend Dartmouth’s highly prestigious Tuck School of Business for an MBA. While studying he finds time to join start-up Kognitos to be their head of Product Strategy and Business Operations.

Listen to the entire podcast here at Taking The Leap Podcast or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

• Drayton Wade, with a Clemson undergraduate degree and London School of Economics (LSE) Master’s degree, decides to go back to get an MBA at Dartmouth Tuck School of Business.
• Left UIPath after their IPO
• The key data point for SAS (Software as Service Companies) – ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)
• Drayton realized he enjoyed the chaos of start-ups instead of the structured systems of a public company. This led him to make a leap.
• Drayton realized he wanted to grow in sales development but also wanted to get an MBA to get more business experience.
• The lifeblood of all business is sales (8:45)
• Key to success for young people? “Seek out more responsibility. Add value.” (12:00)
• Different people are created for different companies AND even different stages of companies. You have to know what your gifting is and where you will thrive. What is the culture and what will be rewarded? (16:00)
• To achieve “outsized” success you have to go “all-in.”  Do you know what you want? Do you know how you are designed? (19:00)
• Smaller college towns do a better job of fostering community and engagement.
• Drayton joined Kogintos as Director of Business Development and Operations while he is finishing his MBA. www.Kognitos.com
  • “Kognitos is the world’s first automation solution that understands English. This means any business user can create, modify, and maintain automations. Kognitos can automate the many tasks that run your business such as quote generation, invoice processing, credit card payment reconciliation, bills of laden entry, or any other repetitive process.”
• Much of what you learn at a top-tier MBA program can be learned via www.Coursera.org
• Drayton learns about the issues with impact investing and ESG and “greenwashing.” (32:00)
• Book Recommendations
  • The Power Law – Sebastian Mallaby
  • AI 2041 – Ten Visions for our Future – Kai-Fu Lee
  • Angel – Jason Calcanis
  • The Firm – Duff McDonald
  • The Terminal List – Jack Carr
  • Amazon Unbound – Jack Stone
  • Meditations – Marcus Aurelius
  • The Daily Stoic  – Ryan Holiday
• How to use Meditations to control emotions (49:00)
• The benefit of “first principle” thinking and removing emotions from a critical decision moment to stay focused on the logic of the issue. You will obtain better results and not make bad decisions. (52:00)
• Drayton wonders if Gen-Y has over-corrected and is too emotional and vulnerable and taking it to far. Emotions are not built and are not founded in logic.
• Kognitos allows you to write in English and create automations for your business. (1:05:30)
• The story arch of data processing using from using coding languages like Python to Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to Kognitos…the process continues to get better all to help take data and clean it, process it, and give it to the right people so analysis can take place faster and cheaper.
• What do you look for in a job interview?
• Drayton asks Bob for the his Tennessee football prediction for the Florida game and 2022 regular season record
  • 9-3 for the regular season
  • 35-21 Vols over Florida (actual score 38-33)
• “Everything rises and falls on leadership!” John Maxwell