Chief Change Officer
#113 Connecting the Dots: Ian Myers on Finding Brilliant Global Talent for America
Fri, 20 Dec 2024
In this episode, I chat with Ian Myers, founder and CEO of Oceans, a talent agency bridging skilled professionals in Sri Lanka with U.S. companies. Ian’s impressive journey includes scaling his business from zero to $10 million in under two years, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A fellow Tintin enthusiast, Ian’s career has been an adventure in itself—spanning the U.S., Japan, literature, banking, venture capital, entrepreneurship, and gaming. His mantra? Follow your gut, embrace experiences, adapt, and keep moving forward. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Why Tintin Beats Tech Titans: Ian’s Unconventional Role Model “My role model is Tintin. He’s always up for an adventure, exploring new places, and embracing different cultures. That’s the kind of life I want to live.” Zen and the Art of Leadership: How Buddhism Shaped My Approach to Chaos “Buddhism has a lot of excellent teachings that are applicable to running a business… It’s at its core, a method of grounding yourself through honesty in your reality and the potential of everything around you.” Comparison Anxiety: Why Scrolling LinkedIn Might Be Ruining Your Life “I talk to young people today, and they’re always comparing themselves. They’ll say, ‘Oh, this person who went to my college is now a vice president. My life is ruined.’ I’ve never really worried about my career; I just follow what’s interesting.” Experiencing Ageism Across Cultures: From Japan to CEO at 26 “In Japan, age almost becomes the most important thing about you—your track record and success play a much smaller role. That was something I couldn’t personally tolerate.” Skeptical by Nature: Why Ian Questions AI Hype “The technology is impressive and important, but like most great innovations, the adoption curve will likely be much longer than people expect. If you look back at tech predictions, the timeline for changing the world is almost always too short.” Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Ian Myers ______________________ --Chief Change Officer-- Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself. Open a World of Deep Human Intelligence for Growth Progressives, Visionary Underdogs, Transformation Gurus & Bold Hearts. 6 Million+ All-Time Downloads. Reaching 80+ Countries Daily. Global Top 3% Podcast. Top 10 US Business. Top 1 US Careers. >>>100,000+ subscribers are outgrowing. Act Today.<<< --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.EdTech Leadership Awards 2025 Finalist.18 Million+ All-Time Downloads.80+ Countries Reached Daily.Global Top 1.5% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>170,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: Who is Ian Myers and what does his company do?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chan, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, I'm chatting with Ian Myers from New York, founder and CEO of Oceans, a modern talent agency connecting high-skilled talent from Sri Lanka with US businesses.
On most podcasts, you'll hear him share stories about scaling his company from zero to over $10 million in revenue in under two years, or his insights into venture investment. But today, I'm not interested in those stories. They are surely impressive, but not the full picture. What fascinates me about Ian is that, like me, he is a fan of Tintin.
Tintin's spirit of adventure clearly impacts Ian's own approach to work and life. From the US to Japan, from literature to banking, venture capital to entrepreneurship, and gaming to launching a talent agency. He's been on a true journey. What is his secret to success? It's not about over-calculating.
It's about doing what feels right, collecting data points and experiences, adjusting course as needed, and simply forging ahead. Let's dive into the ocean of Ian Myers.
Good morning, Vince, or good evening.
Good morning, Ian. Yes, it's evening time for me. Welcome to our show. You got a lot, a lot of things to share today, but let's start with your history, your background. You're fairly young, so let's start with your academic background, then we'll move on to your professional experiences.
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Chapter 2: How did Ian’s background shape his career path?
Yeah, and the reason I think it's important to talk about college is it's something that people are increasingly not interested in doing these days. Also worried about whether or not it's going to help them get a job, not get a job, waste of money, waste of time. For me, I just wanted to spend four years studying something that was interesting to me.
So I studied literature, and a big part of my journey has just been writing. Following what was interesting in the moment and not necessarily thinking about my career as a series of points on a line that I had to achieve, which I think a lot of people do. And it actually might serve to hurt people more than it helps them. So I studied literature in school.
I went to grad school for international policy because I loved interacting with people from all over the world. I had lived in Asia for a little while, studied abroad in Japan. And that brought me to work with a Japanese asset manager who was investing in venture funds in the U.S. And that was quite a cross-cultural experience.
Speaking Japanese, I was something of a translator, both linguistically and culturally. And that was my first exposure as someone who had a pretty mundane academic background to venture in startups and technology and flashy growth and lots of money and millions of dollars in financing. And it's hard not to... Feel the allure of that world.
If anyone's been in it, been around it, seen it, it's exciting. So naturally, I left banking. I went into venture capital and became an investor at a firm in New York. Spent some time there. Very rewarding. Met a lot of great people. But of course, the thing that happens when you're young and in venture is you always look at the entrepreneurs who are building companies and you say, wow.
What am I doing? I'm just moving money around. These people are building stuff. I want to do that. It looks like so much fun. And then if you do it, you realize it's just a lot of pain and suffering until it's great and rewarding. But from the inside, it seems fun. So I took the leap. I became CEO of a company called Newspix, which I built over a year and a half before it was acquired.
Then worked for the acquiring company for a number of years doing new products. And then I launched a second company in the gaming space. It was a total failure, shut down, didn't work out the way I'd hoped. And then I launched Oceans and that brings us up to today.
Great. We'll definitely talk more about Oceans in the second part of our interview. Now back to your personal journey. You mentioned that you actually moved aboard to Japan, to other Asian countries. And I believe you, in the grad school, Stanford in particular, you were into Buddhism, is that right?
Yes, I had a professor actually in my undergrad, and he was a Buddhist priest, and I took some of his classes. I studied with him at his temple. I eventually went to Japan to study more about Buddhism. It was a really interesting time of exploration for me, and it was a transformative period for sure.
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Chapter 3: What role does Buddhism play in Ian’s leadership style?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Your firm is called Ocean. I see that you are swimming in this vast ocean of the future of work. What fascinates you about this industry, about the challenges in this space that made you dive into this big ocean and decide to leave your mark?
I think there's a couple of reasons. One, and I of course should get this out of the way, there's a lot of ethos in entrepreneurship and startups in America that you're, specifically that you're building something to build and to scratch and itch and do those kinds of things.
And there's a stigma around saying, hey, I saw an opportunity to make a very profitable business that would be successful and make a lot of money. And I try to tell people, you don't need to hide that as a motivation. It's okay to say, I want to be successful, not in the size of my company or the amount of funding I've raised, but that I want to build a business that makes money.
And I personally want to become successful. And I saw that opportunity here. And that's not a small part of it. In addition to that, for me, this was an opportunity to bring a lot more people who are building businesses into the unique experiences I had around working with people all over the globe.
and develop a positive viewpoint of how the interconnectivity of people and cultures can help support a business's growth in ways that were just not possible before. And so it's an exciting new frontier. There is a lot of change. But what was most interesting to me was the receptiveness of a lot of companies in America to
working with folks around the world in a way that wasn't there before and i saw given my experiences a unique role for myself and for my company to play a guide as this kind of new age of global talent dawned for the audience who might not be familiar with your firm could you give us a quick rundown of what your firm does
Specifically, who are your top clients and what kinds of problems do you help solve?
It's very simple. Our company focus is on highly skilled global talent. We are an agency that hires folks mostly in Sri Lanka currently, but soon all over the world. These are highly skilled college educated professionals. They are interested in working with unique people. Companies around the world and our client base works with us to bring these people into their teams as embedded team members.
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Chapter 4: How can comparing yourself to others affect your career?
And so they come to us to hire really talented, well-educated, smart people, but at a 80% less cost than it would be to hire them in the U.S.
So the talent supply comes from Sri Lanka, and the demand for such talent is mainly from small and medium-sized service firms, particularly in the States, focusing on roles like operations and marketing. Your vision is to accelerate and scale this model to connect global talent with global demand. Is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct. And I think it's also important to mention that a lot of people that work for us, they're getting to access... We work with some of the top e-commerce companies in the world, some of the top AI startups in the world. They're getting to access... such incredible opportunities and learn from businesses that would be completely inaccessible otherwise for them.
And I think in a way we are opening doors on both sides and that is a great business. Everybody wins and I haven't built a business before where everybody was like really happy all across the board and that's been really rewarding.
I've seen business models like this before, essentially redistributing skills and talent by connecting supply and demand more closely. Now, there are a couple of major trends impacting the workplace and the workforce, not just in the U.S., but globally. I imagine they affect your agency's approach in solving problems for both sides. One of the hottest topics, of course, is AI.
You mentioned that you place roles like admin, operations, and marketing. areas where AI is increasingly capable of taking over tasks. So I'd like to pick your brain on how you balance this shift. How do you navigate the balance between providing human talent and accommodating clients who might prefer tech solutions over human ones.
The important thing to know about me is that I am inherently skeptical. I'm something of a cynic. I think the value of being involved in the tech community to a large extent, but also in many other industries around the world. And so I have a healthy amount of skepticism when I hear the tech industry's claims about AI and things like that.
My feeling is undeniable that the technology is impressive and important. I would argue that as with most great technologies, The adoption curve is going to be much longer than people expect. If you look back toward everything from VR to autonomous vehicles, the predictions around when it would change the world were always too short. I think we are at a stage where
AI is going to be an augmentative solution for much longer than people think before it is a full solution in any part of the roles that we fill for businesses. That doesn't mean there aren't going to be specific roles that can be done fully by AI, but I suspect that it will be augmentatives for longer than people think.
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Chapter 5: What are the benefits of connecting global talent with U.S. companies?
It's a uniquely US phenomenon. My advice to people is is this is a really uncertain time. Traditional career paths are broken. People are not just going to a four-year degree and then going to work their way up at a company and getting a nice salary and buying a house and doing all the things that used to be the milestones of success.
And you shouldn't go into this with the expectation that is going to be True. I also don't like to push people towards entrepreneurship. I think very few entrepreneurs succeed. And it can be a really damaging endeavor. It can cost people money. It can cost people relationships. It can cost people, most importantly, time. So I don't really recommend that people do that just carte blanche.
What I would say is... Most importantly, don't be afraid of taking the wrong step. That's the thing I see most frequently in young people today. They get analysis paralysis and they look at the world and they're trying to plot their career out 10 moves ahead. And I will tell you that used to work. There used to be a framework where you could say, okay, I'm going to go to this college.
I'm going to get this degree. I'm going to go to law school. I'm going to work at this firm. I'm going to achieve this. And if I just hit these milestones, I know what my life will be like. We live in an age of chaos and upheaval that is not anything familiar to any of us that are younger than 50 or 60 years old.
In these times, you can't plot your course, and so you shouldn't be afraid of making a wrong move. You should follow your instinct, follow what feels right, and constantly be adjusting and recalculating for the things that are important to you in life and not the things that you think should be important to you or you're told are important to you.
Because there might be moments in time where you feel like you made the wrong decision. You're at the wrong job. You took the wrong choice. But ultimately, a door might open as a result of that leads you to a place where you are very happy that wouldn't have opened if you hadn't made that quote unquote wrong choice. So keep moving forward.
Don't let yourself be afraid of decisions and just push the envelope and keep recalibrating as you advance through your career.
Exactly. It's truly an era of chaos. And now you know why I called this show Chief Change Officer.
I think enough change is called chaos.
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