81. On the Novel Bit Flip and Ambition in Silicon Valley with Mike Trigg

Overview

In this episode, I’m happy to be joined by my business school classmate, Mike Trigg. Mike has worked for twenty-five years in Silicon Valley as a founder, executive, and investor in dozens of venture-funded technology start-ups. And now he’s turned his attention to creative pursuits, having just published his first novel, a corporate thriller called “Bit Flip.”

In this fun conversation where Mike and I talk about the book, we discuss what it’s like to have an entrepreneurial career in tech, the role of ambition in Silicon Valley and how it plays a central role in the book, the shifting view of the tech industry today, and how an unbridled and over-abundance of ambition is resulting in negative impacts in our world. The book is meant to be a cultural critique and to get people thinking. Mike wanted “Bit Flip” to “be a cautionary tale for people coming to Silicon Valley embarking on their careers to say, ‘I need to keep this in balance. I need to do this in a way that is sustainable, not just for two years of doing a startup but for the 40 years of my career.’”

I encourage you to pick up the book for a fun, energetic read that will make you reflect on your own ambitions.

Mike - I loved this conversation! Congratulations on the book and can’t wait to read the next one!

More About Our Guest

Mike Trigg was born in Kentucky and raised in Wisconsin. He earned a BA from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley. Over his twenty-five-year career in Silicon Valley, he has been a founder, executive, and investor in dozens of venture-funded technology start-ups, as well as a contributor to TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, and Fast Company. He lives in Menlo Park, California, with his wife and two sons. He currently is an advisor and angel investor, along with a newly published author of his first novel, Bit Flip.

Topics Covered

  • We start by hearing about Mike’s career journey and what brought him to now becoming a newly published novelist. We discuss how creativity is a draw for many of us in the later stages of our careers, which is antithetical to research that older people aren’t as creative, and we hear how Mike made this transition and stepped into this new identity.

  • One of the things I appreciate about hearing in Mike’s career story that relates to Sustainable Ambition is how he managed his career across what I call arcs. He had several interests after college, including writing, but he made a choice of what he thought was best for his career at that time. He then paid attention to what was interesting to him and followed that path to his next career in Silicon Valley. He started at a large company, believing that it was a good place to gain foundational knowledge. And it’s now that he’s coming back to this next arc led by creativity. Although Mike makes the connection that he now realizes how entrepreneurship is creative, as well.

  • I asked Mike about his experience with pivots in entrepreneurial environments, which ask a lot of people and takes resilience. At some point, Mike asked, “How much longer can I do this?”

  • Mike’s new book, Bit Flip, is a corporate thriller (I think of it as The Firm meets Silicon Valley, and it kept me turning the page!). Silicon Valley is central to the book, where Mike has spent his 25-year career, and he shares how the narrative and story, that many say hits close to home, can be interpreted. We discuss the role of tech today and how the view of the industry has shifted from an optimistic “we can make the world a better place” to now been negatively viewed as big, bad tech.

  • Mike sets the scene for the book and we delve into how ambition is a central theme of the book and how the title, bit flip (meaning “the changing of one’s mind 180 degrees), relates to the storyline. Mike shares how one’s view of ambitions can get warped in the valley, where one starts to think they are a failure if they aren’t a Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. What does that mean for our own definitions of success?

  • I ask Mike if he has advice for people navigating the tech world today, where people are asked to give a lot of themselves for a questionable payout and where people get tested on doing the right thing. People are starting to question—is the tech world delivering on its promise, and do they want to be a part of it anymore?

  • I love how Mike shares later in the conversation that he started to view his work based on intrinsic motivators, enjoying the early process of building a start-up rather than worrying about the outcome. He was enjoying the journey.

  • We close with Mike’s view of and advice around Sustainable Ambition. His response broadens its lens to not just being about oneself but about the unbridled, over-abundance of ambition and its impact on our world today. Ambition run amok has resulted in many negative consequences in our world, along with our own unhappiness as opposed to being satisfied with what we have.

  • For Mike, he wanted the book to “be a cautionary tale for people coming to Silicon Valley embarking on their careers to say, ‘Okay, I need to keep this in balance. I need to do this in a way that is sustainable, not just for a two years of doing a startup but for the 40 years of my career.’”

  • I encourage you to check out Bit Flip and keep an eye out for Mike’s next book in the works, Burner, coming to you likely in Spring 2024.

Resources Mentioned

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81. On the Novel Bit Flip and Ambition in Silicon Valley with Mike Trigg

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2022-2Kathy OnetoRight Aspiration, Right Success