Ben Renda (LinkedIn | Twitter) is one of a kind. With mixed background of military service, government work, and tech, he’s uniquely positioned for his role as Chief Operating Officer of Google Fi. His experience allows for a creative blend of perspectives that helps him approach his position at Google with an innovative eye. Ben stopped by The Mission Daily to talk about emerging tech, the military, and his work at the Center for a New American Security.
After high school, Ben joined the military. “I decided I love my country, I want to give back to my country, and I want to join the military. I joined the military. I went to aviation officer candidate school. I got lucky. I ended up flying jets. I was in for twelve and a half years. VF-102, and F-14’s operationally. Then I was an instructor in the Super Hornet, in the F-18 ENF Super Hornet, which was really fun. Then I did a stint over in NATO working with NATO, which was extremely interesting looking at how the US operates at a senior military level internationally, and also at a senior political level for foreign policy decisions. ”
After leaving the military in 2005, he knew he wanted to come back and work in tech. He went to work at Google, where he took on different challenges. “I ran ad word sales teams for two years. I used to think sales was a dirty word. Things like Glengarry Glen Ross, always be closing, but when I heard about how Google did consultative sales it sounded really fun. I had a really good time doing that. Then I moved over. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Hey, there’s this thing called YouTube, it’s a bunch of cat videos and stuff, but did you want to come work on that? We need a policy and an ops person to come do this.’ With his degrees in policy, he knew this was something that was right up his alley. After helping launch YouTube Red, he was called back to the military.
“I got called back to active duty. Because that conversation was so bad, because DC is stuck in DC things, and Silicon Valley is stuck in Silicon Valley things with their own agendas. There are more patriots than I think people expect in Silicon Valley, but their incentives and their agendas for investments and returns, and just the environment out here isn’t a place where people talk a lot about things like foreign policy, anything outside of tech or other issues of the day. DC has a different agenda. I was trying to be a bridge spanner across that, so I did that for 17 months as a Navy Reservist. Then I came back to Google, and then joined a thing called, at the time, Project Fi, which has now been rebranded to Google Fi. I’ve been the Director of Operations and leading operations for this for the last six months.”
What exactly is Google Fi? Ben broke it down for us: “Google Fi is an MVNO, a mobile virtual and network operator. Think Cricket Wireless or Track Phone. It was started inside Google because a group of – and this predated me so I take no credit for this – but a group of really smart engineers sat around and said, ‘Hey, a lot of people spend a lot of time on Wi-Fi. When you’re at home, you’ve bought your Wi-Fi, so you’ve already self-optimized for that. You don’t need to be on a cellular network for that. If you work at an office, you typically have a guest Wi-Fi or some type of access to Wi-Fi, so why don’t we lean into that?’ Then. there are certain times when you’re running in a parking lot to Costco where you don’t have any Wi-Fi coverage, so you need cell phone coverage, so why don’t we use some smart switching technology and see if that makes it better for the user? Google Fi is a phone service, just like a Verizon or an AT&T, where it’s Wi-Fi first, but it smartly switches between T-Mobile, and US Cellular, and Sprint. It uses a switching algorithm to switch you through that. Then it’s basically buy the wholesale, and then provide a separate service that you have to pay for. We did it just because we thought that would be a better experience for users.”
And the users are what Ben is think about. “I’ve been spending a fair bit of time in customer experience and user experience conferences now that I’m back in the private sector, just trying to get my feet wet again. There’s definitely a theme these days about you serve your users that we just talked about, but you also serve your frontline employees as well. They’re also your customers in a way when you’re in management, because you give them the tools. I think they have two sets of demographics you need to meet.”
He’s also thinking big picture, which is why he decided to work for the Center for a New American Security. “I’ve worked with other organizations in the past where politics in this world, especially in the current environment, it’s bipolar. You have to gravitate to one of the poles. There are very precious few people are in the middle of the road these days. Everyone has dumped off to a pole. What I liked about Center for a New American Security is they were much more to the middle than other things I’d been interacting with in the past. There’s a whole litany of things that they’re doing that are really great, but in my mind they’re the most important questions and they’re approaching it from a balanced way to hopefully advance the conversation.”
To listen to the full interview, check out the podcast here.
