Today we are talking to Yasir Anwar, the CTO of Williams Sonoma. And we discuss their exciting developments with AR and VR, creating an outcome based culture , and making sure your investments align with your passion to achieve success

All of this, right here, right now on the Modern CTO Podcast!

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Show Notes

• Sunny day in San Fran
• WSI AR/VR implementation
• Customer facing room planner
• Who’s idea was it to engage with AR/VR
• Yasir oversees the company that was acquired for AR/VR
• How did you get started in technology and work your way up to WSI
• What qualities stand out for great leaders X axis – passion Y axis – expertise
• Customer is moving in to mobile
• What gets you excited to jump out of bed in the morning
• Companies are either tech companies or doing business through tech
• What are the brands associated with WSI
• Unique challenge for technologists having multiple brands
• Pie Chart of a day – 1 slice is strategizing on initiatives – 1 slice engaging with people in different layers, ask questions get feed back – 1 slice EC meetings – strategy – operations – people
• What piece of advice would you give to yourself if you could talk to yourself 10 years ago
• Follow your passion and make sure that your investments align with your passion
• Passion is technology leadership and the customer
• A business exists to bring value to a market
• It’s so important to have the right talent
• Outcome based cultures – shifting from output to outcome
• Core competencies of the executive level
• Has been very heads down in the transformation of WSI
• Do something great and then go and share it