Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got brought to you by Smith and Howard. I'm your host Sean Taylor, along with my producer, jb. And today our guest is Max Wein.
Max is a partner at TPG Growth, where he co leads investments across the business services sector. But before beginning his career in investing, Max played collegiate basketball at nyu, an experience that really helped shape how he thinks about competition, about teamwork, leadership, and performance.
He's also part of the TPG team behind its investment in Smith and Howard. So I'm personally looking forward to hearing more about his path, the lessons that have stayed with him, and of course, that worst advice that he ever got. So, Max, welcome to the show.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Sean. Jb, thanks for having me.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: Max, we've been doing this now for, I don't know, JB, 120 episodes and we never started differently than this. We just jump right in. What's the worst advice you ever got?
[00:00:59] Speaker B: So, guys, I would say the worst advice I've ever gotten is to always listen to your coach.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: Always listen to your coach.
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. That doesn't sound like bad advice. But take us back to when you first heard that, like, how old were you and what was happening? I'm curious.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Yeah, so I, I was in probably first or second grade, had showed up for one of my first rec basketball games as a kid, and the first thing that the adults, basically everybody in the room said to me was make sure you only listen to everything that your coach says.
[00:01:33] Speaker A: It's, it's about being a good young, a good young person. Right. Respect your elders kind of thing. When they said listen to your coach, what did you think? That's what they meant? Like behave yourself or did you think like something else?
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I was six years old, so I, I took it totally literally the, the second I heard that. To me, it meant literally listen to every single thing, that process, like, no
[00:01:57] Speaker C: matter what, even if, like, no matter what you're, if you're thinking something different, doesn't matter.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Right.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So then play it out. How, how did that go?
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Yes. I mean, for a long time it worked really well. So I, I think, yeah, I, I showed up, I prepared, I listened, I was respectful, and it led to the things you would want and the things that, I think as a young kid, you would kind of register a success. So I played a lot. I never got into arguments.
I didn't have to run suicides. Like, I just had a good, natural, healthy existence, which I think kind of prolonged the problem? I just kept listening to my coach.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Well, as someone who coached sports for kids anywhere From I'd say 4 years old to 14 years old, um, I definitely loved you. The version of you when I would say something, they would do it and not talk back or not complain.
Show up on time, listen, just do what I say. I can, I can see why that was working.
Working well for you. When did it start to create a problem? If this is the worst advice you ever got, clearly at some point always listening created a problem.
When did you start to see this creating a problem?
[00:03:13] Speaker B: I think what's, what's interesting about the advice is I actually didn't realize it created an issue until my, my full time athletic career ended. And so.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Oh wow.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: It really wasn't until I joined the workforce. I don't think I reached my full potential playing kind of my version of professional sports through college.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. Well, before we make the jump to college, right. You're, you're kind of evolving coming up. That's when maybe you fully realized it. But did it start to show any kind of.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Yeah, because I mean if you were going see, you know, you get all the way to college basketball for sure. Like, you know, that's, that's a difficult level. A lot of people play in high school doing thing. But like moving to the collegiate level, obviously you're still seeing a ton of success from this advice. Right?
[00:04:00] Speaker B: It came in waves and I think a lot. I think the waves, I mean the, the beauty or curse of growing up in amateur sports is you're also dealing with the realities of growing up. Right. And so I started off as a seven year old probably, you know, just for context for, you know, I'm six, six. So when, when I was seven years old, I was probably the tallest person in the gym. That helps. I happen to, you know, my, my maturity curve, like everybody matures differently. So I would show up to a game then in sixth grade and I was the shortest person and on the court. And so I think that was probably the first time where I saw it crack because from second to fifth grade I was respectful, but I was also the biggest kid. And so there was like this natural lacking of tension when then all of a sudden the physical benefits started to kind of dissipate. That's when I just realized I was kind of just falling into the middle of the pack. I would say though, that's all like hindsight stuff. I'm not totally sure as a 12 year old I fully understood what was going on.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: Sure, yeah, yeah. For sure. How does that play out through your prep school years and into college?
[00:05:16] Speaker B: It was totally different. So I showed up. I'm back to, everybody's the same size. Everybody was the best player on their team. Everybody was all state. Like, you don't have any of those benefits anymore. Now it's completely even playing field. And that kind of draws you right back to the six year old. Like, you know, I'm showing up and the only benefit I have is I've got this guy, you know, barking orders at me, like, I'm gonna just listen to what he says. I'm gonna always listen to, you know, Max.
[00:05:42] Speaker A: I have to, I have to interject here a little bit. I, I did not play collegiate level sports, but we've talked about this a little bit. My son did, and I've watched him go through a lot of what you just described. When he got into college, he was a role player. Like he went from being the star or the stud at his school to being around 28 other studs and they all had to take on different roles and responsibilities. Sounds like that's exactly what you went through, going from being maybe the go to man to being, you know, someone with a specific role that your coach
[00:06:13] Speaker B: asked you to play in college.
It didn't weigh on me mentally at all because I entered the room with a key goal of just, I want to blend into this system.
I don't want to stand out. I want to do just enough where I get playing time.
I'm a key participant in practice. Like my mentality had nothing to do with stardom or outshining or anything like that. Just happy to be out there.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Interesting. One more point of clarity on the college before maybe we think about how this happens post collegiate career is, do you, when you think back on it, were your coaches keeping you from taking on more or had this advice led you to sort of wait for them to instruct you or give you permission on what your role was supposed to be?
[00:07:04] Speaker B: I think it's both. So I think I was simultaneously waiting for the coaching staff to ask me to take on more while simultaneously not taking on opportunities to test the system a little bit.
And it kind of just led to like a word that I would never have used when I was in college, but it led to complacency. Like, I, I was just kind of, it was rinse and repeat, show up to practice, do what you're told, it's working well, show up to the game. Great, awesome. And I kind of did the same thing. Rinse and Repeat for three years.
[00:07:37] Speaker A: So let's move from, from your playing career and you know, post college and you start your career. I'm, I'm curious, did you recognize immediately that you were bringing this mindset with you into your career or did you even bring this mindset with you into your career?
[00:07:53] Speaker B: I did. I definitely brought the mindset into my career. It was, it was Jedi mind tricked into me. Like I, I don't think I realized it was happening. But the same sort of principles showed up right away. So if you use the corollary of showed up to that first practice my freshman summer, I showed up to training my freshman summer of investment banking right after school.
And I deployed the exact same survivor mentality of everybody here is kick ass. You've got leaders clearly in front of you. My job is just going to be to make those people's lives easier to know. Give me a spot on the, on the playing field.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Okay, so the coach shifted to the boss or whoever was your direct report, correct? Interesting. Well, I'm a boss to a lot of people. That sounds great to me.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: I'm sure my bosses would have said the same thing then.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: I did exactly the same thing. I listened, I worked hard.
There could have been smarter people than me. There were smarter people than me. There's no damn doubt. But nobody was going to outwork me. And so I was having success by doing that.
I'm curious, was the same thing happening for you when you started your career the same sort of way?
[00:09:10] Speaker B: Definitely. And I think it really matters how you define success, because for me, work really hard, prove myself, and generate a good reputation to those ahead of me. I think where the line started to blur a little bit is like, how do you define what a good reputation is? I had defined it as work super hard and be kind of an indentured servant. And I never really pivoted to what your boss wants. Is both that and like, how do you, how do you make the team better? I wasn't necessarily making the team better. I was just adding capacity.
[00:09:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Like this safe, sort of dependable guy like you said, the defender and the rebounder. And the thing is gonna, he's not gonna kill us, you know, but he's not out there, you know, get non Sports center top 10 either.
Like that same kind. It's that finding that balance as you're sort of like figuring that out, is this costing you opportunities? Are you start. Are we starting to shift into like, what is. Why am I not seeing more success?
[00:10:12] Speaker B: I didn't really start to see it impact my trajectory until I got a little bit older where I graduated from the bottom or middle of the totem pole towards something a little bit higher in the totem pole. And I didn't really fully understand that that comes with a responsibility of driving the team forward. Like, I actually had to make my own convict, you know, convicted decisions to better the full team. And I was still not really doing that. Like, I was. I was just working on behalf of somebody else, so.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Working on behalf of somebody else, working hard. Is there a moment, like an instance or was it just a general feeling that began to happen where you realize that just always listening to the coach or following that authoritative line might actually be costing you something?
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, a couple of years. There is one moment in time where I think the AHA hit me a couple years ago, sitting in an investment committee, bringing a deal forward that I felt really good about. I felt I had done the market work, done the theme work, built the relationships, generated pattern recognition, and the investment committee pushed back because that's their job. Their job is to ask provocative questions and make sure we're thinking about things from every single angle. And the submissive in me basically took to that meeting and just said, my elders are telling me no, so I'm just going to kind of cave. I think that was the first moment where I was like, I don't think that's what the group needs of me. I think you need to be respectful and engaging in constructive criticism. But they're not criticizing you to shut you down. They're criticizing to make sure we get the best thought process out of the group as a whole. And the only way you get that is if you, as a leader, actually push back and kind of, you know, use the pattern recognition and expertise that you have in your field.
Yeah.
[00:12:01] Speaker C: What does that mean? Like, kind of looking after yourself when it comes to sports and honestly in your job, too. Like, what does that mean?
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, there are two different ways you can do it. And I think there is a very right way to do it and a very wrong way to do it. So the wrong way to do it would be selfish. Right. So, like, you go into every setting, you just look out for number one, you don't care about the. You don't care about the performance of others, the outcome of the whole. Like, you just care about yourself. That is bad.
The good would be you recognize that your role can be something bigger and the team can benefit as a whole. With you pushing yourself.
[00:12:39] Speaker C: Yeah, you're adding value, but not as Much value.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: That's interesting. So this advocating for yourself and pushing back has brought you success, has it not?
[00:12:52] Speaker B: Definitely. I do think a piece of advice, probably the hardest part of moving off, of starting to move down that spectrum is actually just getting started.
You've been so trained and ingrained to behave a certain way. It's going to take discomfort to like recalibrate.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: Yeah. One of the words you used a lot was respect. You know, we came from here in respect a lot. How would this advice kind of been different to you if literally instead of them saying always listen to your coach, they said, always respect your coach? Would the approach have been different?
[00:13:27] Speaker B: I think as a little kid, probably not. I do think I would have figured this out sooner because listen is a very literal word. Respect can mean lots of different things. Like you could argue that a coach would find it disrespectful for you to not offer up alternative solutions.
And so I think it would have changed things. Like, I would have just thought about the relationship with a coach. It's not about authority. It's about like, they have a role the same way you have a role and they're, you know, if they're open to you debating different things, like, it's on you to bring the debate to the.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Hey, Max, I want to turn this a little interpersonally here because you and your company tbg, recently invested in Smith and Howard. And I'm curious how this lesson influenced the way you approach our partnership or a partnership like this one.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: I think the lessons are actually very relevant. I think the relationship should be grounded in respect.
The relationship should be grounded in expectations that both sides of the relationship need to make each other better. The ongoing working and interpersonal relationship should never feel one sided. It should never feel subservient. It should never feel authoritative. It should. It should be a true mended partnership where you make me better, I make you better. Our resources make Smith and Howard better. Smith and Howard's resources and thinking make us better investors. Like, it should be a true partnership.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: I think that's great. And I think it's also sort, sort of like always listen to the coach. The coach brings something into the relationship and the player brings something into the relationship. So take it to our relationship. What does TPG bring to this relationship and what does Smith and Howard need to continue to bring to the table for it to be a successful endeavor together?
[00:15:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'll start with Smith and Howard. I think Smith and Howard brings, you know, a 50 plus year track record of kicking ass. And taking names, Great client relationships, great service offering to its clients, real respect out in the market. I think what TPG brings to the table is its own pattern recognition of as a platform. Having done this with hundreds of companies, we bring different perspectives and expertise. I think we bring different resources. So you will now get the benefit of our entire network, all of the relationships we have, all of our portfolio companies, all of our operating resources, and obviously capital. But like, capital to a certain extent is a commodity. I think it's really going to just come down to how can we continue to ensure that you can scale what makes you so great and how can you ensure that you're open to taking bringing a new partner into the fold and accessing our expertise and our resources?
[00:16:16] Speaker A: You know, I think it's also important maybe for listeners to hear us talk about the aspect of an environment, of a relationship where people respect each other without being afraid to disagree. What's the secret to creating an environment where people respect each other without being afraid to disagree? Because it feels like it treads back on the lesson that you learned always listening to the coach.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: I think that's exactly it. There's obviously a difference between hearing and listening. We need to be open to listening to and accepting your perspectives. There needs to be really healthy room for debate and some tension. And I also think there just needs to be back to this word respect. Like, I think so long as we operate with a real cadence of respect and understanding, we're all smart people, we're all reasonable people. Like, we'll come to the right answer. We just need to be willing to work through it together.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: That's not none that, that speaks directly towards a lot of things we talked about when we were, you know, getting to know one another over the past several months. You were doing really well before you started this mindset shift. Right. Smith and Howard's been doing really well leading up to this investment. So it's a question of if things are going well, why do people ever really pursue change? Right.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: You guys have done fantastic things. That's a big reason as to why we are so excited to partner with you and invest in your partnership. And we would expect you to continue doing all the things that you do really well. I think complacency is the enemy of progress. So we all have grand ambition and the goal should really be continue doing all the things that you do really well. But let's build on it. Like, let's create levels to this and that. Like, that's spot on.
What I. What I understand you guys want to do, and, like, that's what we're looking for.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: I do think there are levels, right? There's levels of play, there's levels of success, there's levels of performance, and there's getting everything out of yourself that you can get out of yourself. And certainly at Smith and Howard, we believe that partnering with TPG is going to have us dig deeper and get more out of ourselves. We already have the belief in ourselves, but now we have sort of the backing of someone. Sometimes when people back you like a coach, you can get more out of yourself because you've got somebody who says they believe in you. TPG's investment says they believe in us.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, confidence is really important. It should be a real confidence builder and booster for your partnership that, you know, both Broad sky originally and now a new investor picked you guys. Right? Like, it's a huge industry. It's a big market. There are lots of platforms out there. And, you know, we picked you. The reason we picked you is because you guys work incredibly hard. You hone your craft to no end. You. We picked you because of what you do, not because of what we did. At the end of the day, what's causing all of the success is all of the work and confidence that you guys put into yourselves and your craft as partnership.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: So I guess my final question would be, if you look a few years into our partnership together down the road, what's success going to look like to you?
[00:19:22] Speaker B: The leading indicators will be, did we take care of our people? Did we drive culture?
Did we build on the business? Did we innovate? Do our clients still love us? Did we invest thoughtfully in AI? I think if we've done those things well, we will feel really good about the position the firm will be in in a couple years, and that will have led to attractive growth, good profitability, good cash flow, you know, good exit multiples, all the things that we care about.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Well, Max, obviously I see a lot of Smith and Howard's story in. In your worst advice you ever got. And in your story, things were going well for you, you were succeeding.
And the question wasn't really whether you were doing well, it was whether you could do even more. Same thing for Smith and Howard. We've been succeeding. It's a question of whether we can do even more. And I think if we can listen to one another, respect what each side brings to the table, and willing to push back when we need to, we'll get to ultimately what's the best approach, and if we can keep doing that and find a way to get smarter, better every day as our excellence value portrays. I think we're going to do something really, really special together. And I'm excited about what's ahead. I'm grateful you joined us to talk about your worst advice you ever got today. Max, thanks so much for being here.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: Yeah, Sean, jb, thanks for having me. This is great.
[00:20:42] Speaker A: Jb. What makes Max's story especially relevant to us is that it reflects exactly what we want from the new partnership between TPG and Smith and Howard. And we, We've been successful for more than 50 years. TPG didn't invest in us because something was broken. They invested in us because they believe in what we've built, and they see an opportunity to help us build even more. But that only works if both sides bring their experience to the table.
[00:21:06] Speaker C: Yeah, right. You know, TPG is. Isn't the coach coming in where. And Smith and Howard has to listen to every play that they write up, and it's like, here's what you're gonna do, you know, And Max was kind of making that clear from his perspective on the partnership as the person who sort of, you know, spearheaded this whole thing from the. From their side. You know, they bring resources and relationships and experiences and helping companies grow. And then Smith and Howard brings all the experience and the client relationships and the culture that they have that made it a successful thing in the first place. And, you know, that's the whole crux of his episode. That's the whole point.
[00:21:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Our partnership, any partnership, you know, for it to work, we've got to listen to each other without blindly agreeing to each other. That's the real lesson Max learned from the worst advice he ever got is that always listening to his coach made him hard working, dependable, and successful. But, I mean, eventually he realized that simply following instructions wasn't the same as making the team better. And he had to learn to advocate for his ideas. He had to challenge people respectfully, and he had to. Had to contribute more than just additional capacity.
[00:22:10] Speaker C: Yeah, right. That value add, you know, I love that distinction. It's like you could always be doing just a little bit better. Like, even if you're doing a great job, be a little bit better, a little bit better. You know, holding something back. The team doesn't need. Always just the person who's like, yeah, I'll just do whatever you ask, and that's it. You know, sometimes it needs somebody who's willing to say, I think there might
[00:22:29] Speaker B: be a better way to do this.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's not a respect thing either. Respect doesn't require silence. It's whether it's an athlete and a coach or an employee and a boss or two organizations building something together, the strongest relationships have to leave room for healthy disagreement. And that's the kind of partnership Smith and Howard and TPG are building. And we're excited to see where it takes us. So thanks again, Max, for joining us. And to all of our listeners, thank you for listening to the worst Advice I Ever Got brought to you by Smith and Howard. We'll see you next time.
