Drue DeAngelis 0:01
The year was 2013. in Bedford, Massachusetts, there was a small startup there called biome. The company was started by do her PhD from MIT. Now special news about Hugh, He's eight years old, he was a child prodigy for rock climbing. He scaled a 12,000 foot cliff in Canada. And later by the age of 17. He was already one of the top ranked in the country you heard was rock climbing or actually ice face climbing. In Mount Washington, on a very technical track, when a terrible unexpected Blizzard came in that Blizzard was so disorienting that while they descended, they ended up descending into the Grand Gulch, where they were stranded for three nights in subzero temperatures, when, during the rescue, one of the rescuers was caught in an avalanche and was what perished. So when he was finally rescued through this harrowing event, who ended up with such severe frostbite, that he had both legs amputated below the knee. Now, he, he exhausted every effort to find a suitable prosthetic limb for it. But with both limbs, you can imagine he had no movement, hardly that was ever natural. So he was very disappointed, went on to create this first robotic ankle. Now, once that company got started, they began to surface a couple of problems, and they were pretty severe. One of them was that it would actually be reported to catch fire while sitting on the charger. The other was that the robot lacked the hardening to be able to withstand the kind of forces that it would receive. So they were having catastrophic failures. And that's when the CEO Tim McCarthy reached out to me at the urging of a board member, I conducted a search to find a suitable VP of engineering to solve these complex problems to to enable the company continue. After putting together a full slate of really qualified and interested leaders, there was one problem and it was that there was this one person, his name is Mark Chia Peda. Mark was a VP at iRobot for 16 years, very well regarded, not actively looking, not interested. But there was my slate here was Mark, was finally able to convince mark that he owed it to himself to meet Tim and have coffee. They did that. And while the two met. Tim, had a similar conversation with Mark that day that Steve Jobs had with John Sculley from Pepsi, if you remember the quote, he said, Do you really want to sell sugar water the rest of your life, or come with me and change the world? And it was that conversation that really captured Marc's imagination. The long story is that he went on to join the company, as VP of engineering, solve the complex challenges the problem that the company had with the product, and ultimately exited to Ottobock. Now I share that story with you. Because I am convinced that every problem that exists in a company has a solution and a person. But the people I believe who are most able to make the most dramatic impact on your company to solve these problems are scarcely looking for new work. They are the ones that are head down and at the plow. So it's only through great strategy, grit, perseverance, and creativity that you're able to compel them through casting a vision and capturing their imagination.
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