This episode features an interview with Dave Alberga, West Point class of 1984, and Board Director of GovX and Citadel Defense. In this episode, Dave talks about his experience and training as an Infantry Officer, how he values his West Point education, and what it takes to build a billion dollar organization.
This episode features an interview with Dave Alberga, West Point class of 1984, and Board Director of GovX and Citadel Defense.
Dave has assisted in the launch of numerous start-up organizations, including their growth into large companies. He led The Active Network from pre-revenue to $480M in annual sales, and a $1 billion dollar exit for investors. Prior to Active, he served as COO of the CitySearch cityguide business, helping to lead it into a successful IPO and investor exit. Dave holds an M.B.A. and an M.A. from Stanford University.
In this episode, Dave talks about his experience and training as an Infantry Officer, how he values his West Point education, and what it takes to build a billion dollar organization.
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Key Quotes
“I didn't really have a sense for the level of education or the quality of the education I got at West Point when I graduated because I really didn't have anything to compare it to. What's really an interesting observation for me is that the more time I spent in my career, the more time I spent at grad school or with other really smart people who had gone through really good undergraduate programs, the greater realization I had that I got a really terrific education at West Point. And that's not propaganda. Let's be clear, I wasn't the greatest student at West Point. There were some things I was really good at, right, and it was mostly once you threw a rifle in my hand. I did okay in the classroom, not great. Despite that, I have come to the realization that the education I got, and that rounded education you speak about, in the foundational kind of skillset across a wide variety of functions, was a really great place to start. I got a much better education than I even knew, and it's taken me a long time to wrap my arms around that and understand that.” - Dave Alberga
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Episode Timestamps
(02:01) Attending West Point and cadet experience
(17:11) Experience at IOBC and diversity at the academy
(22:25) Transitioning into the civilian world
(25:16) Takeaways from graduate school
(27:34) Value of the West Point network
(30:57) Building a billion dollar organization
(34:10) Final thoughts
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Links
West Point Association of Graduates
Narrator: Hello and welcome to the WPAOG Podcast. This episode features an interview with Dave Alberga, West Point class of 1984, and Board Director of GovX, Citadel Defense, and Batch. Dave has assisted in the launch of numerous startup organizations, including their growth into large companies that led the Active network from pre-revenue to $480 million in annual sales and a $1 billion exit for investors prior to active.
He served as COO of the CitySearch CityGuide business, helping to lead it into a successful IPO and investor exit. Dave holds an MBA and MA from Stanford University.
In this episode, Dave talks about his experience in training as an Infantry Officer, how he values his West Point education, and what it takes to build a billion dollar organization.
Now please enjoy this interview between David Alberga, West Point class of 1984, and your host, Joseph Kopser, class of 1993, President at Gray Line Group.
[00:01:15] Joseph Kopser: Welcome to the AOG Podcast from West Point. Today we're joined by Dave Alberga. Dave, how are you doing? I look forward to the conversation.
[00:01:23] Dave Alberga: I'm doing great. I'm flattered and honored to be here, to be honest.
[00:01:28] Joseph Kopser: So am I, ever since AOG reached out to be a part of this. And just to kind of set the scene for those that are listening in and just for you and me in this conversation, you know, this will be back and forth.
We'll go into all different kind of topics. Our audience, most likely, our folks that are cadets at West Point, now, folks that are in the army serving in, uh, different stages of active duty gardeners, irv, and then there'll be folks that have gotten outta the military that are wanting to. Either stay connected to West Point or maybe this will help them in their, uh, civilian careers.
Or then you got folks that are flat out retired. So I think between you and me, we got all kinds of stories. So lemme start with the most obvious story or a question, which is why West Point, why'd you choose West Point? What was going on in your brain back then when you were a kid? I think
[00:02:10] Dave Alberga: it's a good question and I'm not sure I've got a terribly satisfying answer for you.
I, I think, uh, you know, look, I was 17 years old when I got to West Point. I was kind of one of the younger guys in our class and in many respects I was still a kid. I'm not sure I had that well thought through a rationale for going to West Point. You
didn't
[00:02:26] Joseph Kopser: have like a flow chart. It didn't have like diagrams.
You didn't know what a debt Mac was.
[00:02:30] Dave Alberga: I wasn't a legacy. I didn't have, uh, west Point grads in my family. Um, I had grown up not too far from West Point and so I was very aware of it for me. I think having gone to a public high school that was, you know, probably middle of the pack amongst high schools, uh, high school educations, and never finding high school to be terribly challenging.
Candidly, I think I was just really ready for something difficult and I. Challenging and hard. I was ready to kind of prove myself. Although my parents had not served in the military, I had grown up with being taught a sense of civic duty and that combined with, I know this is gonna sound kind of silly, but I grew up in the Boy Scouts and in a really good scouting organization, probably better than most, and that.
Really inculcated me with a sense of duty to serve. So I think I came out of that ready for a challenge and feeling like I wanted to find something where I felt like I
[00:03:22] Joseph Kopser: was serving. Yeah, you said it was silly, but it's not silly at all. The Scouts, boy Scouts and Girl Scouts have been fertile recruitment for West Point for decades.
In fact, I've read a statistics, I don't know if it's still true, but the single most. Common trait of NASA astronauts is Eagle Scout. Oh, no kidding? Yeah. No surprise.
[00:03:43] Dave Alberga: Yeah, I made it to Eagle Scout and I was always a little embarrassed by it, but I think it kind of put me on a track of trying to. Achieve and people's experience with scouting really depends upon their local troop in which they're in.
And some are a lot better than others, but my experience was a really amazing one, and I came out with this sense of how satisfying it is to serve. I love
[00:04:02] Joseph Kopser: the drawn to service. This idea that your parents put that civic engagement in you and in my parents did too. For a large part. I think your class of 84, right?
Yeah, I am. Yeah. And I'm 93, so just a couple years younger. And for me, the calculus was a little different. Yeah, sure. The duty on our country service to country was there, but man, we had no money for college. And the fact that it was gonna be a free education was a big appeal. Uh, and it's just fascinating what draws people.
But yet when you get to West Point, it has that normalizing effect kind of bringing folks together. So, so talk about your cadet career. What was that like for you? What was the biggest shock? What did you find to be, uh, your least favorite? You know, go into any part of it. We're gonna spend a few minutes in that area.
[00:04:42] Dave Alberga: I had a pretty transformative connect. Experience. I would say that my plebe year and my yearling year were pretty difficult. I was not the best academic student. I think not, not really because of my intellect, my ability to do the work, but rather because of my maturity level and probably a little bit of.
Quick to boredom and a little bit of attention deficit issues. Right. Undiagnosed attention deficit
[00:05:07] Joseph Kopser: issues. Yep. Yeah. They didn't have that for us in the eighties, did they?
[00:05:11] Dave Alberga: Yeah, but, right, exactly. And so my ability to sit down and really do the work at that time was, was kind of limited actually, and kind of a struggle.
I. I would've liked it to have been easier, and frankly, interestingly, when I, by the time I got to grad school when I was nearly 30, that had all changed. And so I became a really good student. It's interesting, and I, and I talked to classmates about this and I also talked to cadets today about it, which is it's very easy at West Point to become cynical.
I. There were some things that occurred over my cadet career, particularly between my yearling and cow year that kind of woke me up to why I was there and my mission there, and the reasons I was there and what I wanted to
accomplish.
[00:05:48] Joseph Kopser: You mean that purpose, that drive you mean?
[00:05:50] Dave Alberga: Yeah, where my cynicism disappeared kind of the summer before cow year, and I came back for Cal Year as a very different cadet one who.
You know, I wouldn't say was overly gray, but one where I knew what my mission was and what I had to get good at before I graduated, if I was gonna be successful. Um, afterwards, I had this really transformative ctlt experience with the seventh ID at, uh, it's still at Ford or before ford org got shut down.
I was given a tremendous amount of autonomy with, with an infantry platoon, uh, more autonomy than a cadet really should get right. And I came out of that with a couple of ahas. One was, wow, this is real. I'm gonna have a platoon in two years, and I better kind of get my stuff together. I know what I need to do to be good at this.
And so it got me just incredibly focused on what I thought was going to make me a great infantry officer by the time I graduated. And that, for me, made for a dramatically different second two years than the first two years where I was a bit in
[00:06:52] Joseph Kopser: survival mode. Well, I wanna, I wanna, you know, go back to that, those early years of struggling academically because, Obviously you're not alone.
A lot of people go through that transformation. What do you think helped pull you out of that or take you through that transformative moment? Was it a mentor? Was it a professor, was it a family member? Was it a classmate? Like, what
[00:07:10] Dave Alberga: got you through that? So one was kind of fear-based and the other was I I, that I can kind of point to and one was much more property productive.
One was being in Colonel Blasco, section 12 of calculus, which we were, had all been informed that there was a trap door, which was straight out there gate, right. It was the lowest section. I dunno if you recall. Back then you got ranked in sections and you got put into new sections. You know, it seemed like.
Every couple of months and I started in one section and kept working my my way down or up in numbers. And the 12th section was the lowest performing section and was taught by this, by this amazing. Old professor who, you know, I think had, was basically finishing his career, I believe it was Colonel Blasco.
And he was incredibly supportive and it taught me a couple of things, which was go ask for help, people really do want to help you. But I would say that kind of put fear in me of really being that close. I bet only half of us who were in that section ended up graduating. Oh wow. And maybe that reminds me of something else, which was, it occurred to me the other day that I think I had five roommates in my plebe, so I had a three man.
Room first semester and a four man room the second semester. So I had a total of five roommates. Three of us graduated. Of the six of us, so half of us graduated. Of the five roommates, only two of them graduated. That also left me candidly kind of traumatized, right of, am I gonna make it through here?
Which we can get to later. Maybe we can talk about how I think that has changed for the positive at West Point. Once you put people in real survival mode like that, they kind of stop learning. Obviously there's some positives to it, but there's a point at which you kind of stop learning. And so Blasco taught me that people really did want me to learn, and then as a yearling, And it was unusual to take, I think, this class as a yearling cuz it was mostly cows in there.
For some reason I got put in art history of the military art as a yearling. And it was the first class where I found it unbelievably interesting. I had an amazing professor by the name of Major Ray and I haven't seen him since. I'd love to reach out to him cuz he kind of changed my cadet career. I got the confidence in that class that I could do well at West Point that kind of helped the trauma of plebe kind of disappear.
Does that make sense? Oh,
[00:09:27] Joseph Kopser: it makes perfect sense. Um, we're gonna, Pick on some themes that I'm hearing and we'll take 'em through this full hour discussion. But one of them that I heard and hope we talk about, cuz I know this has impacted me in my business career too, since leaving the military, is this idea of going to ask for help.
Why do you think so many people, whether it's cadets in the army and business, why do they not ask for help, and what is the advantages of asking
[00:09:51] Dave Alberga: for help? So for me, and I don't want to project this on necessarily on other people, but I'm sure it does apply to other people, which is I think at that age, a lot of people, including me at that time, spend a lot of time pretending we're great at everything.
We kind of don't want to be found out that there's probably a lot of things we're not great at. And as a result, I think many of us. At least at that age, and at that time I was, maybe I should just speak about my own experience was I was kind of afraid to admit that I needed help with things. Dave,
[00:10:23] Joseph Kopser: I won't tell you right now, you're not the only person that has that imposter syndrome.
[00:10:27] Dave Alberga: Yeah, so I mean, I think it's really interesting and I think it was really important to my career that at some point, and unfortunately it took me to probably almost 35 years old to figure out that actually there were some things I was really good at. There were a handful of things I'm really, really good at, which it turns out is kind of rare.
And I could take pride in being really good at a handful of things. And once I figured that out, it was okay for me to let go of the things I wasn't great at and start admitting to the things I wasn't great at. And the knock on effect of that was it took all this pressure off of me to worry about being discovered.
And once you become happy with who you are, or once I became happy with who I was and the skills I was given, all of a sudden it became much easier to ask for help, uh, to be okay with the things I wasn't great at. And in a lot of respects, it kind of took a monkey off my back and, and made me a lot better at, certainly at leading and a lot better at, at almost everything I did.
It was a big relief.
Yeah.
[00:11:23] Joseph Kopser: You know, it's funny. I'm glad you hit that cuz that's what I was trying to draw out and I love the way you describe it. This idea that how, as I would interpret that almost is this motto that we have at West Point of Cooperate and Graduate. Meaning you can't possibly do it all.
You have gotta lean on your peers, you've gotta lean on others for help. And I think that is probably also, and we'll get into it in here in a little bit. Your success in business, everything that I read about you is this idea that you are not the one person with the one answer to all things, but you are a person who can build teams and build companies by finding the people around you that know best how to do their job or their life.
I
[00:12:01] Dave Alberga: think that really applies to me. Um, look, I think there are some entrepreneurs and some very famous ones who kind of carry their companies on their back. Whether that's the perception or not, that's never been the way I wanted to be perceived. And it's not really the way I work. Mine has always been one of how do I build and lead teams to accomplish stuff, and my job is there, is to make their job easier.
Candidly, you know, my own personal success has come with a lot of luck, right? Uh, which a lot of people don't really want to admit to. But what I did write was build really capable teams. You know, one of the things I wanted to go back to about, and maybe there's a little bit of a theme here, cause I like talking about how I think West Point has gotten better since I left and the cadet experience is better and I believe they're getting a better education and being better prepared to lead people in the Army than when I was there.
There's a sense at West Point now that the administration wants you to graduate. I. And that is a fundamental shift from when I was there. There was a sense when we were there that, no, we're gonna throw somewhere between 25 to 30% of you out whether you deserve to be here or not. And that creates kind of a negative feedback loop and really discourages any kind of risk taking.
And today, cadets feel like the Academy wants them to graduate if they're willing to put the work in and willing to ask for help. That's the key. Yeah, look, I don't think it's gotten, in fact, I think it's gotten harder in some respects, but there's support there to help you graduate and people want you to graduate if you have the right attitude and you're willing to put the work in.
And to me, that would've been a much better culture or environment to be in than the one that you and I went through, which was. Regardless of how hard everyone works, there's a whole mess. You were just
[00:13:39] Joseph Kopser: not gonna make it. Yeah. You know, and not to dwell too much on the past, but for the first 180 years of the academy, it was in large parts.
That attrition model, I found it peculiar as a plebe, especially in the, like say in the late nineties that. The leadership being shown by most of the upperclassmen in the traditional hazing in the fourth class system, and I'll be clear on the words I'm using, was not in a million years how you would treat people in the army.
And there was always this dichotomy of them trying to say, well this is how you're being treated as aple cuz this is the way we do it at West Point, but this is not the way we do it in the real army.
[00:14:14] Dave Alberga: You better not treat your troops that way. I mean
[00:14:16] Joseph Kopser: like, well wait a minute, this is vacated bus. So I was there actually as a knucklehead yearling.
We actually booed the commandant at Camp Butner when we learned that the fourth class system was being flipped to become a four class system, meaning everybody had equal responsibility. Not equal, but. Everybody had a burden put on them at all levels to look more like the real world, to look more like the army.
And I think that's what you were alluding to a second year. Such a healthy shift, right? Yeah. That the academy over time keeps getting better because it keeps shifting how they're focusing on the whole. Student, the whole cadet and preparing them for truly a lifetime of service to the country.
[00:14:58] Dave Alberga: You know, Joseph, there was a study, I'm trying to remember exactly what it was.
There was a study by Colonel Spain who now runs Bsnl. I don't know if he kind of created it, but I believe he did. He wrote about something called the Battalion Commander Effect. This goes directly to what we're talking about. What he found was that, Attrition rates among jmo from the Army could be directly correlated to essentially the attention and the success, the attention they got, and the leadership they got from battalion level command.
And yet there was a disconnect because battalion level command, at least at the time, and I don't know what's happening now, this was only a few years ago, was not really being evaluated on the retention rate of the J MNOs within their span of control. What it points to, and it's interesting because it, it really runs in parallel with the way I think about leadership.
I think about myself as a leader in civilian organizations, is it's my job to do everything I can to make the people under me successful. I say under me, it's kind of a pejorative, I guess, part of my team to be successful. It's my job to help them be successful and I'll do everything I can within my power to help them be successful.
If they then failed and some will, then it's my job to move them onto a, a role where they can be successful. But it is my job to help them be successful and if I can help them be successful, given that the vast majority of people wanna see success in their life, it's amazing what organizations full of people who are feeling success will do.
And I should be measured based on, and the way I measure my career is not on how much money I've made, not on the positions I've held, but rather where the graduates of my organizations, organizations I've built over the years, where they've gone and what they've gone on to build. That's the thing I'm most proud of.
I'd rather be measured on that than
[00:16:46] Joseph Kopser: almost any other metric. It brings up an idea a point that 20, 30 years ago, so many of the experiences that Cadets had during the basic course, their first opportunity to really see the real army. Was so radically different from the rest of their time at West Point.
Now, of course, it's much better because the training at West Point for cadets is much more closely aligned to the real world training they get in the Army. But everybody's O B C experience is a little different. What did you experience at O B C? What did you see when you were there in the first days? In the Army with the US Army
[00:17:20] Dave Alberga: name tape.
It's really interesting. I felt in my time, and this goes to some stuff that's going on at West Point now that I'm really in favor of. There were a lot of classmates. Look, I happened to have gone to a very ethnically diverse high school. I went to basically a city high school that was very ethnically diverse and I, and so I had grown up.
Surrounded by ethnic diversity. I thought it was interesting that many of my classmates had never really experienced a whole ton of ethnic diversity beyond what the limited amount we had at the time at West Point. Both ethnic and gender diversity right at West Point, and then were immediately thrown into units.
That in many cases were majority comprised of ethnic minorities in the greater population.
[00:18:03] Joseph Kopser: Even for those that might have been, let's say, white or perceived as the majority, a lot of 'em were first generation Americans. A lot of them were first generation to graduate from high school. There was a lot of what real America looks like in those ranks.
I think that's what you're trying to say.
[00:18:19] Dave Alberga: Yeah, that's, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And so, and look, you can go back and read, you know, a bunch of stories about Vietnam. And obviously the draft had a much bigger effect on this than probably an all volunteer force, but it was even more pronounced, right?
During the Vietnam War. You'd come outta West Point, which was at that time, principally white, right? And all male, all of a sudden into a unit that was probably principally not white. What does that experience look like and how do you think about. The background of your troops in thinking about how to best lead them.
And if you believe that that doesn't have an effect on how people are motivated and how you should speak to them and how, um, how to be most effective with them, then you're, you're probably, I. You're probably selling yourself short. And so it was really interesting to be thrown into an army that was dramatically more ethnically diverse than certainly West Point was.
But I had come at it coming out of a reasonably ethnically diverse growing up. You know, there's a woman at West Point now. Um, Who I've become pretty close friends with, because she was actually at aog. I first met her when she was at aog, a woman named Lisa Bonk, I'm pretty sure she's an early nineties grad.
I think she was like All American, two sports. She's just a stud, but she's doing really, I think, important work. Looking at how to expose, you know, cadets to greater ethnic diversity while they're at West Point so that it is not such a shift. Once you move into the real army, after having been at West Point, I personally think it's very important.
I think, you know, and I just love kind of tracking the work she's doing. I think some people view it as, you know, a bit, a bit of a, a, a woke expedition. I don't, I view it as we should be learning at West Point, first of all, understanding the ethnic diversity of the units that we're gonna be commanding and understanding the best way to motivate and, and understand the backgrounds of those people.
Yeah, well it, it's
[00:20:12] Joseph Kopser: a real challenge for a lot of people who, for whatever reason, based on the neighborhoods they grew up in or where they came from in life, oftentimes have not been exposed to a lot, which is the whole point of going to college. And I think West Point, to your point, is doing a fabulous job nowadays, really preparing folks for leadership, especially of large and diverse groups.
I'm looking at the time here, we're gonna, I want to get to your business career too, which has just been phenomenal. But before we leave that, You mentioned in the Green room before we got on that, uh, you had an experience at I O B C that was worth sharing.
[00:20:43] Dave Alberga: It's kind of funny. I think we've all become so, uh, sensitive to telling war stories that no one ever tells any war stories anymore.
And in fact, most of us like hearing war stories. Right. And while this is not a war story, it's certainly an Army story. And, and I think it's interesting cuz I tell cadets this today because I think they have to understand that. There's still a lot of fun to be had in the army. Right. And so I got to I O B C and um, I had been there a little early to do some schools and um, it turns out that one of my best, one of probably my two or three best friends from West Point was gonna be my exact same company in class and, and ended up in my exact same squad at I O B C.
And we were roommates at Benning now, now Fort Moore. And he showed up coming off of like 90 days terminal leave or whatever, you know, graduation leave. He had that extra amount of leave, or it was 60 to 90 days. It was a long time. And, um, he showed up and it looked like he had, back then we, we were wearing still black boots that we had to shine when we were in, in, in Garrison, which was really weird cuz you took 'em to the field and they got destroyed and then you had to bring 'em back and you had to shine 'em up and they had to look good again.
Right? Today everyone wears, wears, uh, sway boots and it's nowhere near the. The nonsense we had to go through. Right. So he shows up at I O B C with boots that looked like they hadn't been touched since, you know, firsty Summer, right. And looked like kind of, he had dragged them behind the car on the way down the drive down from Staten Island where he had spent his, where he had grown up and spent his graduation leave.
And so we show up literally on day one, and we're in the same squad and we're forming up for the very first time. And the designated squad leaders, another classmate of ours, and all of a sudden they say, okay, it's time for inspection. And I look over at my friend, he looks at me like, uhoh, there's big trouble.
Right? And so he's wearing these boots that just look absolutely horrible. And so down they come with, you know, the squad leader who is a classmate of ours and E six, who is, you know, our platoon sergeant. Not squad leader, sorry. Platoon leader comes down the line and, and he's making corrections on people.
And my friend, his name is John McNamara Mack, he looks at me and like, he's like, oh, I'm in trouble. And, and, uh, the name of the cadet, or the, the noun lieutenant classmate of ours, who's a platoon leader comes to him and kind of gives him a once up and down, and then goes right back down to his boots. And I'm like, Max's in trouble.
And he says, you know, Mac, like what is going on? What is with your boots? And this is the reason. I love this guy. John McNamara, without hesitation, looks up directly into the sun. He looks down at his boots, then he looks Wes right in the eyes and he says, Wes, you'd be surprised what a hot Georgia sun will do to a highly shined pair of boots.
In this case, every grad in the in the platoon is like nearly doubled over, right? I tell the story only to remind people that. There is a tremendous amount of fun to be had even in the schools. The Army puts you through and treasure and, uh, treasure your classmates. And while I want you to take, and you should be taking things seriously, there are times when, uh, humor is the best, is the best way to approach trouble.
[00:23:49] Joseph Kopser: Well, I think that's actually a perfect segue to the next chapter. So West Point, the Army. So then in the civilian world, in the private sector, you know, I've heard it said many times, one of the complaints that people have of military officers is that we're too serious, or that we seem like we're gonna be too serious when in reality, Every vet I've ever worked with in any company in the private sector are exactly those people that you're talking about.
I like to surround myself with people who take their work seriously, but they don't take themselves too seriously, and that's really the key. So you're leaving the army and you're going out into the wide world. So we've got grads that'll be, you know, listening to this or. Soon to be exiting themselves.
And then you find yourself, I think it was Proctor and Campbell, you're in a couple of different group, BCG group. What were those first few years like when you're trying to get your footing from what would be obviously West Point in the Army, a very highly regulated and structured world to the real world, or quote unquote the civilian world.
What was that like for you?
[00:24:51] Dave Alberga: Yeah, I would step back and say a little bit that I thought my transition out was semi disastrous and in the end I got really very, very lucky. And, and in fact the long gray line kind of came to the rescue a bit. I kind of avoided, uh, the head hunters who I thought were putting me in jobs that.
Did not necessarily have real career prospects, but the net was I wasn't getting a lot of bites on my resume. And at the time there were really no exit programs or transition programs available. And it happened that a resume got passed to a grad who then passed it to the head of hr, or a very senior HR person at Proctor and Gamble, who called me out of the blue and said, I hear you're looking for a job.
And so there was very, very. I was very lucky. I, I was literally no exaggeration living in my parents' basement and doing substitute teaching. Like I, I was teaching calculus at a local high school where the calculus teacher had, um, was having some real health issues. And then I got a call from Cincinnati, from headquarters at Procter and Gamble and invited to come out and interview and I immediately did, cause it was the only thing that was.
Really kind of moving for me and got a job in brand management, which I was very lucky to do. Only something like 25% of brand management or undergrads. Most of 'em are out of, out of good business schools. I was the benefit of a diversity initiative there, to be honest and spent, uh, something like two and a half years in brand management at p and g, um, kind of learning the ropes of business because as you know, at the time, you didn't graduate from West Point with really any idea of what business was about, and then was lucky enough to be given guidance.
I wasn't in love with being in, in consumer packaged goods. I just. Had a hard time getting too excited about, you know, half point share shifts in, in given markets of, so I really got some good guidance and I applied to business schools, which I didn't really, at the time, I didn't really know what business schools were I applied to, to business graduate schools and applied to three, got into two, and through some kind of clerical error, you know, I got into a, a really terrific business program.
[00:26:46] Joseph Kopser: Stanford's not too
[00:26:47] Dave Alberga: shabby. No. Yeah, it was a, it was an amazing two years, and again, I was very lucky to get accepted and went and spent two years at Stanford and had a, a really great experience there surrounded by incredibly talented people and, Kind of taught me the value of nurturing my network, cuz ultimately it would be my business network that would lead to the most interesting opportunities that would come along in my career.
Not it was someone calling me who knew me from a previous job or knew me from school saying, we've got something fun we're working on and we want you to get involved. I went from Stanford, uh, I went. Kind of typical for junior, you know, junior military officers. I went to the Boston Consulting Group mostly cause I was stressed about the student loans I had taken on to go Stanford and again, had an amazing experience at B C G.
I'd highly recommend that organization to anyone coming outta the army. And it's one of the few organizations out there left that kind of pays you to think. Rather than just to execute. So I spent two years at B C G, uh, was invited by a classmate to join a startup, which, you know, I had been taught at Stanford was the, was the badass thing to do in business.
I moved back out to the West coast and I've pretty much, I. With an exception here or there. I've pretty much been working in startups since then. I've done, I did three, uh, tech startups over the course of my career, one of which was kind of like a B minus maybe, maybe a c plus. It was like being in Colonel Blasco, section 12 of calculus.
And the other, the other two had were, um, really shockingly successful and learned a ton and had so much fun doing them. So,
[00:28:21] Joseph Kopser: Yeah, so we'll get to those in just a second. I, I'm looking forward to talking about active, especially cuz it has a theme that'll carious to the last few minutes. But when you talk about the graduate school experience and for those that are listening, obviously not everybody can get into Stanford or just simply not enough seats.
They all can't get into Harvard, but they can apply themselves and they can learn and study so, For someone that's listening. What were the takeaways from graduate school that even if you don't necessarily attend a graduate school or especially one as elite at Stanford, what were those takeaways that they can seek out and they can work on self-development, they can study on their own?
Just a couple of samplings from your business school experience that you then parlayed. I think,
and
[00:29:05] Dave Alberga: I'm not sure this goes directly to my business school experience, but just like being what it takes to be a successful. You know, officer, you need to be functionally proficient. You don't need to be the best, but you need to be functionally proficient.
And what business school did for me is it gave me a grounding in the things I needed to understand, you know, cost accounting, financial accounting strategy. It gave me a grounding in stuff that I didn't learn as an undergrad that in a sense, gave me at least technical proficiency. To be able to go into a business and understand and understand the drivers of the business.
And let's be clear, you don't need to go to Stanford to learn those foundational kind of skills. You can probably do it online today, but nearly any decent college program, you can pick up those foundational skills that I think are really critical. To understanding the mechanics of a business, and I think many times businesses fail, particularly startups because the founders don't have that grounding in just fundamental business.
[00:30:04] Joseph Kopser: I could not have teed up that answer any better. In fact, I didn't know where you're gonna go with it when I asked you the question. But I want to drive home the theme of what you just said to connect it back to what we said before about the West Point experience. Cuz if you remember, and we were talking about this in our previous calls, that West Point creates such a foundation of a body of knowledge, you everything from.
Philosophy, English mill art, this heavy emphasis on technology as well as the humanities. It provides a really broad foundation. And then your answer was when I asked you about business school, that next chapter, what you fell back on saying is you just have to be proficient in a lot of different parts of your business.
No different than a platoon leader has to know at least how the equipment that they're dealing with works. They have to be the expert. But they at least have to know how that equipment works. And there's a parallel to all three points you just made.
[00:30:58] Dave Alberga: Let's talk about that. Right. And I think this is encouraging, particularly for if cadets listen to this.
I think this is encouraging. I didn't really have a sense for. The level of education or the quality of the education I got at West Point when I graduated because I really didn't have anything to compare it to. What's really an interesting observation for me is that the more time I spent in my career and the more time I spent at grad school or with other.
Really smart people who had gone through really good undergraduate programs. The greater realization I had that I got a really terrific education at West Point, and that's not propaganda like, let's be clear, I wasn't the greatest student at West Point. There was some things I was really good at. Right?
And it was mostly, you know, once you threw a rifle on my hand, I did okay in the classroom. Not so great. Even despite that, I have come to the realization that the education I got and that rounded education you speak about in the foundational kind of skillset across a wide variety of functions was a really great place to start.
I got a much better education than I even knew, and it's taken me a long time to. Wrap my arms around that and understand that.
[00:32:12] Joseph Kopser: So I'm gonna blend it with something else you said, which is the power of the network and the people that helped you as you were transitioning out of graduate school and then going on.
I imagine that the West Point Network, once again, played a role in that. And then as you're building these startups, what was the impact of the West Point Network? What kind of value did it provide for you? Uh, and what did that look like?
[00:32:34] Dave Alberga: Well, it certainly got me my first job and that was, um, in many respects, set me on the path to what success I did see, and I can kind of talk about the ups and downs of this.
I would say my West Point Network combined then with my network from my graduate, uh, experience has in a sense been everything for my career. As I said before, every opportunity, every interesting, really good opportunity. That has been presented to me in my career have all come from the fact that I realized the things that I value are my relationships, and I try to curate.
My network and I don't do that with the idea of this is gonna generate business, or this is gonna generate,
[00:33:24] Joseph Kopser: you know, opportunities, which is the negative connotation that people so often misunderstand about the value of relationships and people. But I. Please keep going.
[00:33:33] Dave Alberga: I do it because it makes my life richer.
I've built a network of really talented people who I think are doing interesting work from whom I can learn things, whether that generates an opportunity or not, it's what makes my life rich. It's what grows me, and so I don't. Decide whether or not I'm gonna, you know, build a, a relationship with someone based on what I think the business prospects are.
And that is, I really don't value that very much. What I value is, is this person gonna enrich me? But by enrich me, I mean through knowledge and through maturity and help me grow, am I gonna learn things from this person? And it just so happens that it's those very same people who come up with the most interesting things to work on and who end up generating opportunities in your career.
I. Let's be really clear. It takes a lot of work. Like it's very easy to let relationships go and then only call someone when you need something or, or you have a request. And in fact, for me, it's a constant curation and a constant farming of relationships and maintaining relationships with people who make my life better.
Ultimately, it's been those friendships that have generated the greatest opportunities for me in my career. And again, it's a mixture of West Point people and Stanford people and some, a handful of people who checked both those boxes. And a good number of former military officers, whether they be Navy or Air Force, who also, uh, were at Stanford with me at the time.
[00:34:59] Joseph Kopser: Well, you know, it's interesting you talk about. Those relationships enriching or you know, raising the quality of life. And then in the end, as a serial entrepreneur, I'm going to bet that when you start new ventures and when you join boards, as you're doing quite often now, that it's that very group of friends that are pulling you forward into those opportunities every time.
[00:35:21] Dave Alberga: And when I look to fill a role, it's the people I've done something with in the past. It's the people I went to school with, who I reach out to first because they're known entities. Right. They're known quantities. There are a lot of people who are not really fundamentally built for an entrepreneurial lifestyle.
I find it incredibly rewarding. I don't really see the risk that other people see. You know, the risk is I gotta go get a real job, right? That to me, is the risk, right? I've never really viewed it as risky, is the way other, I think, the way other people view it. I view it as, In many respects, the exact same reasons that I was excited to be an Army officer, the exact same reasons.
I'm excited to go start a business. I have a tremendous amount of autonomy. I get the opportunity to, to build and lead, uh, teams. Boy, I mean, that to me is right in my sweet spot, right? And so when I'm looking to fill roles, I'm reaching back to people. I've built relationships with o over the years because they're known quantities.
The greatest determinant of your success at active. Was what we turned. Professional will can you will things to fruition will you against all odds. Whether they be industry odds or you know, organizational odds will you see through to get things done and to put points on the board, we just called it professional will.
Once you find people with that real professional, will you hang on to them and you bring them into your next projects? Cause they're hard to find.
[00:36:46] Joseph Kopser: Well, there should be no surprise for, you know, cadets that are listening to this or junior military officers, or even season, you know, old grads You've described in three different ways, much of that same concept.
What got you through those academic times early on was that grit and that will to see it through, you know, whether it be grad school surrounded by elite performers in their field, that pushed you to go forward. And then of course, you ended up. Making that a formal term, you know, this idea of do you have the will to do it at active?
So that's actually a great time and we, we've only got a few minutes, but we can't leave the conversation without talking about active, which for folks that don't know active you, they can look it up online. But the thing that I saw in the research that blew me away the most was just how. Big it became and how much of an impact in your industry it had.
I mean, it was probably no surprise. Then they ended up selling for a billion dollars, but you know, what were those experiences from West Point or the Army or early days in business that all came together? You've alluded to a few, especially around teams that allowed you to build such a, such an organization as active.
[00:37:52] Dave Alberga: So it was a handful of things and, and I end up getting asked about this a lot. Uh, look, I thought I was gonna be at Active for, I got there before there was any revenue. There was a handful of guys kind of. Sitting around a pizza box trying to, trying to write some code and figure out how to service the triathlon industry.
Uh, I thought I was gonna be there two or three years and then we'd sell it. It was during the.com boom that I got there. I got there in, in, at, in the very end of 99. You know, it was a 13 and a half year overnight success. Right. I ended up there 13 and a half years, which, Being a c e O of a company, a venture back company for 13 and a half years is pretty rare, particularly through a couple of big economic downturns.
First, the.com boom and then the financial crisis had came post nine 11. I look back on it recognizing just how hard it was. It was very hard. I never woke up to a dollar of revenue. I wasn't ex expecting a dollar 25 for right. That business was three yards in a client, was the definition of three yards in a cloud, adjust.
Like it was a very, very difficult business to build. And so part of the reason we came up with this, this term professional will is that we needed people who were, you know, building business in a very tough environment, very difficult, in very difficult circumstances. What. Ultimately what led to the success was building an organization that pushed decision making to every corner of the organization rather than retaining it myself, uh, or retaining it amongst the senior team, but recruiting and training and setting a culture for a team that was capable of making decisions at every level.
And so, in many respects, I just. I leaned on the things I was good at, which was identifying talent, putting talent in place, and then getting behind that talent to make sure to do the best I could to make it successful. I know a lot of people kind of point to their team, but in reality, it really was the team and it was me just trying to keep the wheels on it.
Uh, as they drove it forward and raised money, do a bit of strategic thinking. I spent a tremendous amount of my time recruiting, finding talent and putting them in the right roles in the company, and then doing what I could to make those people successful, helped those people be successful. And at Group A, as you said, you look, we were 4,000 employees.
When it got sold, it was monstrous and. It had turned into a job that was no longer, I believe, uh, you know, played to my strengths. I believed it had gotten so big that it probably was no longer benefiting at that point from the things I do really,
[00:40:19] Joseph Kopser: really well. That self-awareness that you have, the fact that you're really good at building them and starting them and making them successful.
But there's a different kind of personality, different kind of person who likes to run the steady state to keep it, you know, going and growing, of course, making money. But that's a very different, uh, personality. So I, I'm gonna ask you a question and, but I'm gonna do a little, uh, promotion for what we're doing here at West Point before we get to your answer.
But with only a couple minutes left, I want you to think about what do we not talk about? What, what are the books or habits or TV shows, or what are the things that you do in your daily routine or in your monthly routine that you think could benefit a listener? So, but before we get to that, I wanna remind those that are listening.
Whether you're hearing this when it premieres here in the summer of 2023, or if you are listening to it in the archives much later on down the road, know that the West Point Association of Graduates is doing a lot more deliberately. So to help those in business, to help those that are in the among the alumni.
To be able to continue that service to country and what they say is one of the most hyper-connected, uh, alumni groups in the world because our service like yours and like mine doesn't stop when we graduate from West Point. It certainly doesn't stop when we hang up the uniform and it continues in so many other ways.
So this year, in October in San Francisco, we're gonna have the West Point shared interest groups. Entrepreneur and business conference, uh, here in 2023. It's gonna be fabulous. We're also doing West Point AOG Entrepreneur Road shows around the country. We just did one in Nashville. We'll have one coming up in Seattle, San Diego, Boston, you know, check that West Point a o g website.
So if you're listening to this in the future from the archives, There'll be more road shows, more conferences that you can be a part of. So take us home, Dave. What is that last thing that we didn't discuss that you think was critical to your success that you learned from West Point or the Army? Or it could just be, uh, a moment to just pass along.
Any thoughts that you want the listeners to be left with?
[00:42:23] Dave Alberga: Let's talk a little bit about the long gray line in the West Point Network. I think AOG has been doing amazing work and I think Todd Brown is a really incredibly capable guy with really very good ideas. Candidly, I'm sad to see him go. I'm looking forward to seeing who replaces him and, and how that goes.
Much of our interaction, uh, with West Point is as a result of. Promotions or campaigns that a O G does to raise funds, look funds, private funds fund a tr a tremendous amount of the cadet experience today. And I think a lot of grads don't really realize that. And I, and I don't think West Point did a terribly good job, certainly.
Back when I was there of having us understand just how much of the experience is privately funded. Maybe that wasn't the case then, but we didn't leave West Point really with the idea that it was our duty to give back to West Point. I view it as my duty to give back to West Point, and certainly today much of the cadet experience is privately funded and so I do what's within my means.
What I do find interesting is that because it's very effective to raise the money this way, aog AOG has always focused on year groups where. But I view the long gray line as not really being delineated anymore by your group. Those two things are kind of at odds with each other, and so I love the fact that you guys are investing in activities and networking that is not class related, but rather is interest group related or functional group related, because my belief is, As a group of graduates are much stronger if we no longer if we can put away identifying by your group and begin identifying much first as a.
Cooperative group of all graduates. A and I've spoken to you offline about this, but I'm, I'm interested in continuing to develop ways for graduates to interact and network with each other unrelated to their graduation year or their class. Because I think you'll find that while, yeah, you certainly have things in common with your classmates, if you extend that, that network out to all graduates, all of a sudden there really is a core group for almost every interest group that's out there, or every functional group or every, as you say, special, special interest group, is that what you call it?
Uh, the, the shared interest group. Those shared interest groups become dramatically larger and more dynamic if you're looking outside of your class. And so finding ways to, uh, to nourish. The, uh, network as a whole rather than divided into class, I think serves us all. And I'm looking for ways to continue to do that.
[00:44:57] Joseph Kopser: Well, Dave, you have done quite a bit with the academy, especially as you say in recent years, and so what a better way that I can think of. No better way really to end this conversation than on that note. So I wanna thank all the listeners that tuned in, especially West Point and the Association of graduates for continuing this work.
Terrence and Austin from the West Point a o g team to help us put this podcast together. And uh, Dave, I look forward to seeing you in real time and in person and out and about. I'll look you up the next time I'm in San Diego.
[00:45:26] Dave Alberga: Joseph, it's always a pleasure. Your energy is great. I love it. Thank you.
Joseph Kopser: Thanks a lot, Dave.
Narrator: This has been a production of the WPAOG Broadcast Network. Please take a moment to rate and review the show and join us each week for a new episode. Thank you for listening.