'Team Rubicon' founder Jake Wood gives Wilkes University lecture
Oct. 12—WILKES-BARRE — Team Rubicon founder and former CEO Jake Wood returned to Wilkes University Tuesday with the same positive energy he brought in 2018 — but without the winter weather from that November appearance.
"It looks like we're not going to have a freak snowstorm," he quipped as sun streamed through partially shut blinder slats in the Miller room at the Henry Student Center, where he held a question and answer session with students in the afternoon before giving his second Allan P. Kirby Lecture in Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship in four years.
Then he launched into his philosophy of putting people and family first even in a tech company, creating a business culture rather than company policies, and acknowledging that in business money shouldn't be first, but the things that rate higher still require money.
A former marine who still bears the physical appearance and mien from his past service, Wood admitted he developed Team Rubicon — an organization that brings the know-how of military veterans to natural disasters — by accident. In 2010 he wanted to help the victims of the massive Haitian earthquake but couldn't do it through existing agencies. He got a group of vets together and headed for the Dominican Republic side of the island shared with Haiti, not even sure they could cross the border river — the inspiration for the non-profit's name, hearkening to the famous river crossing by Julius Caesar.
That wasn't the accidental part. Wood told the students that while he was there he got a call from his dad who said "a random lawyer incorporated you," in an effort to protect him and the other volunteers from liability. Without intending, Wood became "the president of a non-profit."
Team Rubicon, he pointed out, tries to help low-income people, those who may own their home but can't afford to buy insurance and can often barely scrape up $400 in a few weeks for an emergency. If their home is destroyed by a disaster, their lives are as well, he said.
The company grew from about eight or nine volunteers in Haiti to about 60 in three weeks, including a brain surgeon who knocked on the compound gate in the middle of the night and offered his services. "We're not doing brain surgery," Wood recalled, noting the injuries being treated were among the worst he ever saw, including crushed limbs that were later amputated and skull fractures. The best the volunteers could do was stabilize them for transport to higher level treatment facilities.
"Do you sew, do you suture?" Wood asked the surgeon, who answered yes. That, the group could use.
Team Rubicon grew to a company with revenues of up to $60 million a year and five permanent offices in two countries, but Wood got restless and gave up the CEO post, staying on as board chair. He then lined up money from Google Ventures, the capital investment arm of the search engine giant, and launched Groundswell, a software company he hopes will make it possible for anyone, not just the rich, to establish Donor Advised Funds for charity work. He said he wants anyone to be able to set up a fund via a smartphone with as little as $1 in seed money.
He believes Groundswell — groundswell.io — will help more people connect with charities through technology.
Despite the fact that it is essentially a software company, Wood said his "may be the only tech start-up who made human resources director my second hire." He's a firm believer that people, not technology, make any company. In fact, he's confident that despite the move to remote work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a big switch back to in-person work in a few years because it increases productivity, creativity and workforce cohesion.
Stressing he wasn't suggesting students slack off on school work, he admitted he tends to hire based on competency, not education level, and cited three traits he demands: Initiative, so an employee won't require orders before fixing problems or meeting needed goals ("if I hear 'that's not my job,' my head explodes"); tenacity, so that work gets done ("having initiative means nothing if you stop at the first obstacle"); and enthusiasm for the task, even when it does get hard.
"Those three things can't really be taught."
Wood also made a big distinction between a company culture and company policies. Culture is what lets an employee act on their own before being given orders if a specific thing needs to get done. Policies often systematize ways of doing something, usually created in response to a mistake by one or two employees. Too many policies can actually kill a good working culture.
Wood spoke with the students for about an hour and fifteen minutes. He gave the Allan P. Kirby Lecture, titled "Conquering Chaos," in the evening at 7 p.m. in the Dorothy Dickson Darte Center for the Performing Arts.
Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish
