We’re underway with this year’s Unleashed Winner’s Trip and have just completed day one. The day has been action packed with insight, tours and presentations from some of the world’s leading tech companies in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Our seven global winners came from all parts of the globe including Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, the UK and the US.
Early rise in San Francisco for the day one winner’s trip
First stop was Adobe where we were provided with an intriguing overview of a company that has reinvented itself in recent years through a series of very clever strategic acquisitions. This has enabled Adobe to provide a full end to end digital offering. If you think of Adobe in terms of PDF’s and Illustrator then think again as these guys have repositioned themselves with a very powerful offering.
Touring around the Adobe head office
From there we headed over to Airbnb who are truly unique in many ways. Their motto of ‘Belong Anywhere’ is perfectly exemplified in their highly creative workspace that has reproduced the Airbnb experience. In any company that grows quickly, there will always be growing pain. We enjoyed listening to their Head of Coaching about their expansive program of mentoring and development that ensures the company’s culture and values are maintained through the process of encouraging self-management.
Visting the Airbnb head office
After sampling the amazing ‘Impossible Burger’ at Cockscomb (check it out Vegans!) we made our way over to DocuSign to listen to their plans around the complete digital management of contracts, from initiation to signature and beyond. The success of their recent float suggests the market has high expectations of how far this company can go. With most major corporates adopting their technology I’d be keeping an eye on them. This is much more than ‘Sign here’!
We wrapped up the day enjoying a session with one of Uber‘s Data Scientists who provided a great overview of the various directions their product development is taking which is essentially driven by the new CEO’s vision of focusing on everything related to transportation including freight and health. Uber is also clearly committed to autonomous vehicles but interestingly only on a selective basis.
The Impossible Burger
After a long but inspiring day the group had dinner at the local favourite The House of Prime Rib where they were joined by Talent’s local US Execs to cap off a fantastic Day 1.