Doing Tremendous Things by Putting People First with Ed McLaughlin, President & CTO at Mastercard

(Intro Narrator at 00:00:00) Today, we're talking to Ed McLaughlin, President and CTO at Mastercard, about their next-level technology and Ed's perspective on putting people first. You're listening to Joel Beasley, Modern CTO.

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:18) I wanted to start with just helping me have an understanding of where payments are and what's happening in the payments world right now.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:00:27) Yeah. Payments are one of the most dynamic parts, I think, of technology if you've seen the rise of fintech, if you see the expansions that are going on. So I always say one of the great things about being at Mastercard is it's one of those anchored human activities. We entertain ourselves, we chat with each other, we buy stuff. If you think of how e-commerce and the Internet has evolved.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:00:51) So we provide the mechanisms that let people do what they want to do. No one actually wants to do a payment. You're trying to do something else, and this is how we make it happen. So I see it moving in a couple of directions—the digitization of everything. We've all seen that.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:01:05) And I remember a few years ago where people thought what we did was that iconic plastic card. For me, that's just a token we used to have to give you to get you onto the network. So we're now seeing cars as embedded payment platforms. We're seeing everything we're doing through mobile applications, everything we're doing through digital applications. As gaming gets more and more immersive, we're weaving payments into that experience.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:01:28) So your ability to buy stuff, to engage in commerce, to have access to everything on the Mastercard network wherever you happen to be, that's been an amazing shift for us. The other big thing that's happening in payments, though, which is probably even more exciting, because these are things we can do for you and me—we're also using this new connectivity to reach and serve people we never could before. So quite a few years ago, it was 2014 at Mobile World Congress, we said the Internet of everything must lead to the inclusion of everyone. And we made a commitment to bring over half a billion people into the formal financial system.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:02:09) Because if we can connect you digitally, but you're not connected financially, you're still cut off. So all of the options that we enjoy online, you don't have access to. Well, we did that. We brought a half a billion people in, and we're working to bring the next half a billion people. So with new partners, working with government organizations, and just expanding the reach of the benefit that we can bring out to people.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:02:32) So it's an amazing time to be in payments.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:34) Yeah. I was having a conversation with Sri from PayPal a couple months back.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:02:39) Sri? Well, yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:40) Yeah. He's a great guy. And Sri, I love you, but you need a better microphone. We'll send him a microphone. So I was talking with him and he made a good example to me about the future of payments and he said that they're going to become sort of in the background.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:54) So I forget the exact phrase, but he said when you do an Uber, what's the exact moment that you pay? And I was stunned. I was like, I don't know. It kind of happens in the atmosphere, right?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:03:04) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:03:04) And background payments. And so I was curious. Are we going to see more of that?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:03:10) Yeah. The phrase we usually use for that is contextual commerce, where it used to be payment was a distinct thing. You know, maybe there's a gray box terminal sitting there that you would interact with to do the ceremonial payment thing. What we're seeing more and more, and this is what happens in everything digital, that those APIs, that experience is woven into everything else you're doing. So if you're in a deeply immersive gaming environment, right, you want to be able to level up or do the next thing without it breaking the flow.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:03:40) If you're in your car and you want to drive up to the parking gate and the toll to the parking garage and the gate opens for you and you go through, you just did a payment. So a lot of it is exactly that—we're figuring out all the different contexts of what people are trying to do. And we share our roles to make that happen as seamlessly and as securely as possible, because that only works if you have the right security, if you have the right parameters set up around it. But then we can bring all sorts of new and incredibly rich experiences.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:10) Yeah. And I think about that because it becomes easier to live your life, but it also becomes easier to spend money. So I could see how there could be some negative side of that. But at the same time, you know, look, I'm an optimist and I'm a technologist. And if you put a bunch of really smart people on making life really easy, that's just going to come along with it.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:04:29) That's exactly right. And then you're not deciding the payment. You're deciding what it is you want to do. And then we just make that safe, secure, simple, and really, really fast.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:39) Are there any interesting ways people are doing sort of confirmation of these payments? Like, for example, in the Amazon store, you pick the different items, and then you have this moment of checkout. But if you were talking about, let's use your example of driving into the parking garage—is there any sort of interaction or feedback that I'm getting from the system that's like, hey, if you continue to go, you're going to get this payment, or is it just completely seamless?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:05:06) Well, I think there's two things for that. Right? And let's go engineering. Right? There's binding and telemetry, which always has to be involved on these things.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:05:13) So the first is very much when you say to do this thing. I want to use this Mastercard. I want to use it in this way. Sometimes we have limits you can set on it. And then there's also alerts and notification.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:05:25) So you can actually get more feedback and more information about what you're doing, and you can subscribe to that. So it's essential that people feel like they're in control and know exactly what's going on, but you make it as easy as possible to use. So I think about first just how you set that up. This is the instrument I want to use. Here's how I want to use it.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:05:44) Here's where I want to go. I'm going to have my car be able to talk to the parking garage. Great. And then how do you get that notification of the information so at your fingertips at all times, you can see exactly what's going on? You can turn it off.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:05:57) You can turn it back on. And one of the critical factors, I think, for all of us to see that adoption of these new experiences is people want to feel like they're not losing any control, but they're getting all sorts of new convenience.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:10) That's what I was getting at. Yeah. You want to still feel like you have this ability to control it and you want to actually have control, but I guess the burden ultimately is going to end up falling on, you know, a company like yours to figure out how to handle that so that people will use the technologies versus shunning them. Right?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:06:31) Yeah. And that's the—we spend a lot of time on the user experience and working backwards from that. So you'll see interesting things. I'll use, you know, classic e-commerce for an example. Right?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:06:42) If everything's worked perfectly, technically, you shouldn't have a notification. And some environments, people like the click-through box to say, hey, everything went great. Click yes. Okay. Right?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:06:55) They want that acknowledgment. So we spend a lot of time thinking about the experience, and there's that mix of just making it seamless as well as making sure people feel like they always know exactly what's going on. And that's why the contextual commerce aspect of that is so important to make sure that you feel that the systems are serving you and you're getting exactly what you want out of it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:16) Yeah. And I really like that phrase. Today is my first time hearing that. And that's, when I heard it, I'm like, that makes sense. That's a good categorization for this technology.

(Joel Beasley at 00:07:25) You've been at Mastercard 20—man, that's crazy. Yeah. How did you do it?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:07:30) So it's really funny because I grew up in startup. I actually grew up on the creative destruction side of the business. And I think in my time at Mastercard, I feel like I've worked for a couple of companies just because of how dynamic the industry is. So I came in when we were getting ready for our IPO. A lot of people don't know that we IPO'd Mastercard in 2006, and it was, I think around a $4 billion valuation.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:07:53) And I don't look, but I think we're north of $350 now. So it's been an incredible growth and incredible time for that. And it really was going from that first wave of card-based payments to how we enabled everything to make it safe for e-commerce. And then with the whole wave of mobile, working with Apple and Android, enabling that. And now, now the generation we have where literally every device could be a commerce device.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:08:16) Anything you're interacting with. So if you think of an Internet of Things environment, when the sensor says I'm hungry, you know, that's an opportunity for that contextual or seamless commerce we've talked about. So the evolution of Mastercard where we were, you know, really starting as a payments company and building it to being a real pure-play technology company. And the things we've done with AI, things we've done with services around it, the things we've done to extend where, how you can use your product. Like I said, the work we've been able to do with financial inclusion, reaching people all over the world we never could before. It's just been an amazing growth story.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:52) Yeah. I mean, it sounds like it makes sense to me. So I did financial planning software before I started the podcast. Okay. So it was seven to ten years ago.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:02) So I did a series of catch-ups about two years ago where I had on Robinhood and Credit Karma and a bunch of different people in the financial space just to see what was happening because I was excited. And they talked about the underbanked people. Right? And they're opening into new countries or new communities and reaching the under—that seemed to be something that the financial services industry really took on.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:09:26) Yeah. Yeah. And it is because the key to anything is sustainable economic development. That comes from commerce. Right?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:09:35) That comes from helping people. It comes from what we can literally do, which is giving people safe ways to access and store their funds, giving merchants ways to sell more to more people, open world to both digital and physical channels, and bringing all that together in a safe way. So I think that's really where the shift to digital first has benefited us tremendously because of all the people we can now reach and talk to that the traditional models just wouldn't support.

(Joel Beasley at 00:10:04) So one of the questions I had was, do you, or do you know, does Mastercard publish shopping or spending trends on their data?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:10:14) Yeah. We actually have a really great thing we publish out called SpendingPulse. So we get to see a pretty big slice of the economy just because of the markets we're in. But we actually look and can gauge the whole economy for that. So we work with government agencies.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:10:30) We work with all of our customers, and we actually publish out a SpendingPulse report where we can see the actual spend, predict the trends. We do a lot of work on, you know, where is inflation going, how is consumer spend shifting as market conditions change. So one of the great things we're able to do, and always in a completely anonymized and aggregated way—we don't really want to know what any individual's doing on the network, nor do we actually have that information. But we can look at all of the overall trends and flows in the network and make really, really accurate predictions about what's going to happen next.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:11:04) So we can get you more on it, but SpendingPulse is just a great resource.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:09) That's very cool. I've been asking a lot of companies lately that have this huge overview into the economy if they're doing it. I'd say most aren't, but some are. And I always think it's really cool because that's good information, especially if we can anonymize it and understand what's happening.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:11:24) Yeah. And you touched on a really important topic, if I could build on that one, because I think what we're seeing over and over again is it's essential for companies to make sure that they're using data in a responsible way. So we've been a long leader in things like ethical use of AI. We have a consumer data bill of rights we've published out a few years ago that you know exactly the data we have. You know how we use it.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:11:48) We know what we're using it for, and we use the data to make the service we give you better. So if we get really precise fraud scoring because we can see so much commerce activity, what does it mean? The only loser is the fraudster. It means more good transactions can go through. We can do a better job taking care of you.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:12:04) So I think for all of us as technologists, our job is to make sure we're good stewards of the information that people give us from the services we provide to them, and that we can use it to generate incredible new value, like you talked about, better predictions about where the economy's going.

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:21) So most people think of Mastercard as a credit card or maybe a payment processor. Is that what it is, or are you in other services? Have you gotten into banking and other things?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:12:33) So what we do, we're a technology services provider. Right? We don't issue the credit. We don't have the bank accounts. We don't do anything like that.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:12:41) We run a network that we connect together, you know, billions of merchants, tens of thousands of banks, and bring all that together to enable the commerce around it. What we've been doing a lot, particularly over the last five to ten years, has expanded the services we can do around that. So things like incredibly sophisticated fraud scoring that we can do, the information like the SpendingPulse that we talked about earlier. We have digital identity services. We have open banking services that we can provide.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:13:11) But it all gets back to that core value of how are we enabling commerce, how are we leveraging the data information, how are we building on the technologies we have to really create new value, not only for the traditional banking and business or merchant customers that we have, but for governments, for the financial inclusion, really across the system.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:32) So when I apply for a Mastercard, that's being underwritten by a bank. So it's not Mastercard themselves doing that.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:13:40) Yeah. From literally from our founding, what we are is a network that was designed to bring together—even, you know, our iconic logo, the interlocking circles. It's really bringing together everywhere you want to shop, all the stores and retailers and everything else with your financial institution, whether it's a line of credit or your debit account or a prepaid account. We're working with governments on CBDCs, central bank digital currencies around that.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:14:11) We have a big effort in account-to-account payments or sort of real-time ACH payments around that. But the heart has always been enabling commerce and bringing together what you want to do, where you want to shop, where you want to go, what you want to buy with where your accounts are. So any institution that you want to work with will give you a Mastercard. That means we're the network that's going to handle the transactions for you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:37) I'd argue 70% of society doesn't understand that. That's my number if I was a betting man.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:14:46) Yeah. We've been working that a long time. But yeah. So the relationship you have with whatever financial institution or fintech or merchant with a co-brand, you know, if you want to go get an American Airlines card, you can absolutely do that. And then what we do is we make sure it just works seamlessly everywhere you want it to be, and that's our part of the equation.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:10) Has the interest rates that have been just the act of them changing, has that affected anything in technology at all? How do you deal with that?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:15:19) So that doesn't necessarily affect the core technology we run. You know, in some ways, from a tax standpoint, it just changes the dollar amounts or the whatever currency you're using that flow through the system. And we're in, I think, it's over 210 countries and regulatory domiciles. We do 150 different currencies. So we're part of just about, or literally, every economy around the world.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:15:44) So when we see the shifts in inflations, things like people's spending pattern might change. You might spend a little bit more at the gas station and the grocery store than you might spend on restaurants and things of that nature. But it's just the type of commerce that goes through the network. It doesn't really impact us directly. Now, what is important for all of us is sustainable economic growth, healthy economies, you know, people doing well, increases in wages. All those things are just great because it's great for the economy, and that's really where we benefit.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:16) Well, I'd say you guys are doing a pretty good job. I mean, as far as payment networks go, I've been a consumer. I'm 35 for context, so I've been using debit cards and such in those networks for a while. And it always gives me a little bit of a smile when it happens so quickly, when they can detect fraud so fastly. And when I can just sit there and I'm shopping, I check out, I pump gas. It is so fast. I've always respected that as far as an engineer goes. And what's your philosophy? How do you find these people that, they have to be people that tremendously care. They have to be the smartest people in the world. Like, how do you find them? How do you think about, you know, you're leading Mastercard and you have this expectation and this resiliency. How do you go about attracting those people to your teams?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:17:06) Well, what's kind of funny is it's not, you know, convincing someone who wants to make a streaming cool app type of thing. That's what they want to do. That's awesome. What I always look for is, what we do, like I said, what we do is really important, right? We've been designated as national critical infrastructure. You know, when COVID happened, we got the letter from the Secretary of Treasury to say whatever you do and whatever you need, you got to stay up to be able to, they can buy their medicine. They can do what they need to do. So, you know, from an engineering standpoint, it's building hyper-scaled, unbelievably reliable systems, right, that have to work every day, all the time, right? If you find that inspiring, there's no better place to work. And then we build on that. We always say what we're designing today will determine tomorrow. I'll give you a great example. So you probably use mobile payments, contactless payments, and Android Pay or an Apple Pay or things like that. A lot of that's built on foundational technology that came from Mastercard. And in, I'll go back quickly, like 2018, we did about 100 million of those tokenized transactions a month. We're now doing 3 billion a month. So we always say if it doesn't scale, it doesn't matter. And to build high-scale performance systems is just a fabulous engineering challenge. So we always look for the people where the passion, you know, is for what you do and for building those type of systems. And if that's what you want, there's no better place to be. There's another element, though, and just to expand on that, is we're constantly doing, it's not necessarily pure research, but applied research. Because I always say if there's anything out there that does what we do better, we'll be the first to adopt it. And so AI is just a fantastic topic for it. You know, we talked a little bit earlier about, you know, the parameters on how you use it. Now let me just one moment on what we do with it. We have a platform. It's called our Decision Management Platform. It's just like this engineering marvel where we have 2 billion card profiles with a couple hundred analytical vectors hung off of it that in real time looks at every one of the transactions flowing through the network. We did about 125 billion last year. And in less than 50 milliseconds, running unbelievable engines, we actually can score and inject in whether or not we think that's fraud. That system has stopped over $10 billion worth of fraud just this year alone, and that's not potential fraud. That's when the bad guys gave up because it wasn't getting through. But what was more interesting out of it, because of how we use the AI, we had a six times increase from the rules-based stuff in good transactions that go through. Joel, that's you as a customer going to do something, and we know it's good. So nothing gets in your way and you get what you want to do. So that idea of building for scale, building for resiliency, building, you know, systems that are important that people depend on every day everywhere, that's kind of the inspiration we take.

(Joel Beasley at 00:20:06) And so when you look at your role on a day-to-day basis of running this or representing at least this side of the organization, what are the two, maybe three areas where you spend most of your time?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:20:19) Sure. It's, in a job like this, and I'm sure a lot of people listening to this podcast have a similar job, it's almost split brain because I always say the experience is the operation. It's keeping our promises every day. It's making sure that every transaction counts, that we're focused on that. And so we really, really are obsessed with the run. But at the same time, you've got to build your future and what we're doing for modernization. And that's both the core modernization of the underlying network and what we're doing to anticipate what's going to happen next, like we talked about earlier, to apply research and incorporate new technologies like we've done with AI and the fraud engines to always make it smarter and always make it better. And then probably what's most exciting for me is how can you solve problems you never solved before? So just like a decade ago, we were working with the mobile majors to make their smartphones platforms for commerce. You know, we're working with automotive companies now because your car is just a computer on wheels. So what's the contextual commerce from there? And so all the ways we can make people's lives easier, bring in new capabilities. We talked a lot about the services we build. You know, what are new services that naturally fit in with what we're doing? So it really is saying as society and consumer behavior changes, how are we constantly adapting and incorporating through that? And, you know, over and over, what we're designing today will determine the future. So I think for everyone, it's how do you have that kind of split brain of making sure everything's working and always being ready for what's next? I had great advice years ago to do a job like this. And it was, you know, you've got to know when to be on the dance floor and when to be on the balcony. And you can't spend all your time in either place and you've got to know contextually when you should be where, and that's kind of what the job's like.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:16) Yes. It's definitely part art. Yes. The quantum storm, quantum computing, that's been a word that's thrown out a lot. You know, breaking encryption was an interesting one. I talked with a couple people. They had said that we have quantum-safe encryptions. This was about a year ago, and they said that the only difference between the quantum-safe and the non-quantum-safe is that the quantum-safe took longer, and this was specifically in relation to blockchain technology. How are you thinking about quantum computing?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:22:48) Well, the first thing, and I'm not sure who you're talking to, I would correct them. I wouldn't say it's safe. I would say it's resistant. So at a minimum, I think a lot of people look at the current technology we use for public key encryption is really based on what, something's really hard to calculate. So if you had a computer that could calculate that in, you know, substantially better way, then there's real risks there. There's something called Shor's algorithm, which is how you can factor large primes and, you know, from a risk standpoint, therefore, you say, look, in an indeterminate time frame, there's something that could have a massive negative impact, so that puts you pretty high on your risk radar. So we're doing a couple of things for that. Moving away from straight RSA, we've incorporated things like elliptical curve cryptology. The NSA has just put out a set of recommendations for what I would call quantum-resistant techniques that we're already and have already incorporated into some of the work we're doing on the network. There's national and global standard boards that we participate heavily in because a lot of times everyone's got to make it work for it to work for everyone. So there's a group called EMV, which does the, remember the old chips that you would glue to a plastic card?

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:59) Yeah.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:23:59) They defined all the standards around that. We're working with them as a standards body for how do you make sure it will have quantum-resistant encryption on that. And then the other thing is the technology which could be a problem could also be the solution for it. So, in fact, I just want a word on this one. I'm kind of proud about it. We've already tested quantum key distribution, QKD, where you use actually entanglement to secretly move, in essence, not a field that can be calculated, but a one-time key, which is incredibly secure, truly randomized key to all points in the network. So therefore you don't have to worry about a quantum computer breaking the encryption because there's nothing to break. There's no problem to solve. So we already tested that out. We worked with some great partners, Arista, Cisco, Verizon, but we were able to demonstrate using fiber. So you have about a 100 kilometer, I think, distance for this. But we could show that the network we're putting in place, our backbone will be ready for quantum key encryption. So that's a sort of forward-looking handicapping you do. I don't know if we're ever going to need it. I don't know when we're going to need it, but, you know, our baseline systems are ready for it. And then last one on quantum, we get to the business driver side, which is, you know, are there incredibly hard problems that we need to solve that this could solve in a new way? So we've seen a lot in things like drug research. It looks like there's really potentially interesting things there. Well, if you think about it, we have all of that information that's coming from the transaction flow and the ability to distill new information from it by applying powerful new analytical techniques. It's something we've been working on. We did deal with D-Wave a while ago to do some primary research on that. So I think there's always a question of clarity versus proximity. I think some of the impacts of quantum computing are quite clear. The question is how far away is it, and our view there is just something you plan for and get ready for.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:52) I want to talk a little bit about leadership. I'm watching the time too. We will get you out of here on your hard stop. Everybody's going to be happy.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:25:57) Fantastic. Thank you.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:59) I saw empathy written a lot in your bios and then in different descriptions. I was like, all right, this guy likes the word empathy. There's got to be a story there. Can you explain your experience with empathy?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:26:10) So many things, but when we were, I was just doing a tech strategy for our board. And one of the things I always say is in the end, any tech strategy is just a people and talent strategy. Technology doesn't do anything. It's who we are and what we do with it. So I think our primary role as technology leaders is to create environments, to create a space where people can do their best work. And if you want that, you've really got to understand and honor the work we're doing, that they're doing. And so I think a lot of times we get so fascinated with the how it works, and we don't quite spend enough time on who does it and what it means to them. And we ask, all of us, ask tremendous things out of our people. When you asked earlier about Mastercard and knowing what we do is important, and when things go wrong, when things break, because they always do, it's just amazing to be at our facility here and see people come in with, like, bunk rolls because they will not leave until those problems are under the ground. And at that point, you can just only be grateful for that. And the other thing I'd say is my early career, most of my early career had three startups, and, you know, fortunately, they all made it, right? They're all successful there. But what you realize is when you have no brand, you have no customers, you have no revenue, barely have a product yet, the whole company is just the product to the people who show up every day to make it happen. And I think in many companies, and it's something I don't want to miss in Mastercard, you know, we're standing on the shoulders of giants who helped build the organization, you know, incredibly successful for over 50 years. But you've got to realize all of that, all of that is just a product, the dedication and skill of the people who came in every day to make it happen. And so that's where I start.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:06) I've been seeing that, well, as you just described it in your company and Tesla, SpaceX, there are these certain companies that they'll get this core group of people who really genuinely wake up every day because they understand that this is their contribution in life and into society. And to me, I am so grateful for those people because my life depends on all these amazing things working really well and working together. So I like getting to, you know, I do a lot of these conversations. I think we're like north of 700 now. So, wow. You're one of the rare ones. We can edit around that and everything. But just between you and me, right?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:28:47) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:48) Like, the culture there, the way you describe it, I don't think I've ever gotten that answer before. I've gotten the answer a lot when hiring about curious people. We like curious people. We like problem solving. But I don't think I've ever gotten that answer that you gave me where you said the people that really truly care about this specific problem. I think a lot of people are almost scared to say that because they don't want to alienate people or lower their recruiting numbers or anything like that. But when you find greatness, and I can tell that there's greatness within Mastercard, when you find that, I want to study it. You know? I'm like, how are they doing that?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:29:21) Yeah. And, you know, maybe it's a little bit about myself, but my wife in the past has referred to me as binary boy. Like, I'd be all in. What we do, like, either I'm done or I'm all in. Because what we do, it just takes so much out of people, and there should be a passion there. And, you know, I've always felt whether it's the smallest startup, like, literally two guys and a blank piece of paper to what we're seeing at Mastercard is just get people who are really smart, absolutely committed to the cause, and not being a jerk about it. And that's where magic happens.

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:56) From a leadership perspective, you mentioned your wife, your family. How have you been able to have such a notable career and do well and solve these problems, but also be able to lead your family?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:30:10) Yeah. That's, and this is something I talk to people a lot about. You have to find what works for you. And I'll tell you what I learned doesn't work for me. I do not, like, timeshare well, right.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:30:23) So what I try to do is when I'm home with my family, I try to be all the way there with them. And I remember years ago when the Blackberry was the Crackberry, and I never wanted my kid to think this was more important than them. So I had a secret room in my house that I would leave it. So if I had to go, I would do that. But I see that all the time.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:30:44) It breaks my heart where someone's holding the device, they're literally pushing their kid away. Right? So what I try to do is—task switching is incredibly expensive, right, just from a processing standpoint. So when I'm working, and I also travel a lot, which in an odd way helps.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:31:02) I'm sort of 24/5. But when I'm home with my family, I want to bring an equal commitment to that. And I want them to know that they are the most important thing in the world, that I'm going to have to go away and do other stuff. So I know people and they're fantastic at it, and they can be on the sidelines at their kid's game and just knock off a couple of emails and they do that. My brain doesn't work that way.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:31:23) Me either. So first thing I tell everyone is find what works for you. But just like we talked about, if the work's important for you, your family's got to know that they are the most important thing. And the other thing I'll say as a leader, you've got to live that. If somebody's got something with their family that is more important than what we're doing, and that's where the team is the strength.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:31:45) Let them know you'll cover for it. Let them know that, look, all this will be here for you when you get back, and we need you to take care of your business so you can be all here to help us with our business. So I really—we talked about it, I go by that, where I really try to say this is my context now, and then I'll switch into the other context.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:32:06) In fact, my daughter used to catch me. I have a tell. When I start really thinking about work, my right hand floats up. And she would catch me and grab it and pull it down. And so then I'd switch back to the right context. So that's what I tell people. Figure out what works.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:32:23) Some people are great at time slicing and interleaving, and they can do that. I'm just really bad at it, so I play it differently.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:29) Yeah. I'm exactly like you. I can't—if I'm in the email, I'm in the email. I'm not even at the game, you know, type deal. And to your point of leading your family, the better job I do at home, the more stable of a foundation and supportive of a foundation I have, the better—they're entangled with certainty.

(Joel Beasley at 00:32:50) Yeah. Yeah.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:32:51) Yeah. And there's probably a third piece of that. I assume you have the same too. But it's also giving yourself time to think, because it is really easy, and there's always the next thing happening and the next thing to go after and all that. So I intentionally carve out.

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:33:08) I'm a pretty passionate runner, and I don't do music, I don't do anything, and I just use that to grind on problems. And it was a joke I have here, how many miles is this one? But it gives you that time. And I think people sometimes also don't give themselves that space, and they think it's a luxury, not a necessity. And you really do have to find a way where you can just think about the stuff you're trying to untangle. And particularly if you have an operationally focused job, there's always the next ticket coming in, next thing happening on the stack, next thing like that. So I think that's an equally important part of the algorithm.

(Joel Beasley at 00:33:46) Have you gotten to mastery of that? Meaning, when you know you need to go on the run, you go on the run right away? Because when I started—my first experience with this was when I was engineering. When I was younger writing a program, I would have this problem and I knew I'd need to take a break. But I wouldn't want to take a break because I wanted to solve it, but I knew I needed to, and that would be the answer. And so as I got older and further along in my career, I got better at that, but I'm by no means a master. It still gets at me, and I still have—or have you mastered it? Is that possible?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:34:20) Well, particularly with scheduling, it's not usually a run, but I do find I always say the longer you go without going outside, the dimmer you get. So I will force myself to break context. I will say I'm just churning here. And get up, take a walk. You don't lose the problem, but you force yourself to look at it differently. I think that is a key.

(Joel Beasley at 00:34:44) Well, Ed, you are a brilliant human being. I love the culture over at Mastercard and our time together today. We made a podcast, man. How do you feel?

(Ed McLaughlin at 00:34:53) All right. Well, it's great talking to you, and I'd love to do it some more, man. Let me give it back to you. I think very insightful in the questions you had there. And these are big topics. These are really important topics. And I think really what's happening is these are societal topics that are just sort of expressing themselves through technology, and we really do have to take the time to think about it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:35:14) Thank you so much for listening. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with a friend or colleague who you think would get value from it. And if you have topics that you would like to hear discussed on the podcast, either add me on LinkedIn or send me an email: [email protected]. Every time I get an email or LinkedIn message, it absolutely makes my day and inspires me to keep going.