Chief Change Officer
#134 Food52 CEO Erika Ayers Badan: No One Cares About Your Career - Part Two
Sun, 5 Jan 2025
Today, we continue our two-part journey with Erika Ayers Badan, the CEO of Food52 and Barstool Sports’ first CEO. From her early roles at Fidelity, Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo to leading innovative brands, Erika’s career is packed with stories and lessons that resonate. In Part One, we delved into her debut book, No One Cares About Your Career, exploring why she wrote it and the practical wisdom it offers for thriving in any workplace. Now, in Part Two, Erika goes deeper—reflecting on her roots, her leadership style, and her take on addressing toxic work environments. Plus, she shares something you won’t hear elsewhere: the career advice she gives her middle and high school-aged kids in a world that’s constantly changing. Key Highlights of Our Interview: Blame It on the Parents? How Childhood Shaped a Love for Teaching and a Struggle with Authority “I really love to teach. I think my parents, who were in education, gave me that. I also have a fairly strange relationship with authority. I think that also comes from my childhood.” Do Titles Really Matter? Confessions of a CEO Who Once Cared A Lot “I don’t really care about titles. It’s a little bit hypocritical because the CEO is a great title. I did care a lot about titles in the hustle years where I was really trying to advance. You should always endeavour to take on more than you had six months ago. Are you doing the same exact thing you did six months ago, without learning, or growing, or tripping on yourself, or taking on something you didn’t know exactly how to do?” Why Failure Is a Good Thing: Tripping Over Yourself Is Part of the Plan What’s Your Leadership Style? Finding the Balance Between Boss and Buddy Toxic Workplace or Just a Bad Day? Getting Real About Fixing Office Culture “I think that people throw the term toxic workplace around a lot. I’m not sure what it means anymore. I would try to spend as much time as I can to get specifics – what’s going on?” Career Advice for My Teenage Kids: Balancing Business and Life Lessons What’s Next After ‘No One Cares’? Teasing the Next Passion Project Connect with us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Erika Ayers Badan ______________________ --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: What insights does Erika Ayers Badan share about her childhood?
Ooh, okay. So I had, I was born in Colorado and my dad was a math teacher in Colorado. My mom made all of our food. My mom was very busy. She was also a teacher and she had stopped working to have my brother and I, my brother and I are a year apart in age. We moved back east when I was probably five or six, and both my parents went back to work.
My dad became the principal of the school of the town I lived in, and my mom was a vocational teacher in the next town over. Our childhood, if I had to describe it, was you could read, you could play sports, you could hang out with your friends, but you'd have to go find something to do with yourself. You could stack wood or do chores and... That was pretty much it.
Chapter 2: How did Erika's upbringing influence her leadership style?
We didn't have a TV for a long time and then we got a TV and my brother and I shared an hour of TV a week between us. And I always say that's where I learned how to negotiate because my brother and I really had to duke it out to figure out what we were watching.
And ultimately we had to learn that if we both compromised to watch something we both wanted, instead of getting a half hour each, we could get a full hour of television. I also learned my mother used to block MTV, which MTV was huge when I was a kid. So I would just call the cable company every month and say that I was my mother so that I could get the MTV turned back on.
So I learned a lot of lessons, I think, just from how we were raised. I think when your parents are teachers, it's a selfless job and it's a super hard job, but it really is an incredibly generous job because you are trying to impart a love of knowledge and learning, and you're really trying to inspire growth in other people, which I think is just really admirable.
Also, it's strange to have my dad be the principal. I can remember my first day of middle school And someone scratching Erica Ayers is a blank, like horrible word. And so is her dad. They scratched it on the bathroom wall. So it also was in some ways sobering to have an authority figure in my school be my dad. I would say I learned a lot from both of those things or all of those things.
I think I really love to teach. And I think my parents gave me that. I think I have... fairly strange relationship with authority. I think that also comes from my childhood. But I also have an incredible desire to learn. And I think that's also what my parents gave me.
It sounds like you grew up to be pretty independent, solving problems on your own. Recently, I saw a post on social media talking about Generation X. They call it the figure-it-out generation. They said we had to learn how to solve things on our own because our parents were too busy to hover over us. I'm Gen X too, and I can definitely relate to that. The story reminds me of that experience.
I also grew up in a disciplined environment. And my parents actually blocked me from watching TV. Not just MTV, but all TV. The funny thing is, I am a visual learner. So I realized later that I learn best when I'm stimulated by visual images. Yeah, same. Okay. Now you've become CEO of two companies. Let's talk about your adulthood, in particular about building career.
From your perspective, are titles at work really that important?
I don't really care about titles. Now I think that I can say that now, and it's a little bit hypocritical because a CEO is a great title. I did care a lot about titles in my formative years of my career and in the hustle years where I was really trying to advance. I, I think here's how I feel about titles. One is. You should always be endeavoring to take on more than you had six months ago.
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Chapter 3: Do job titles really matter in today's workplace?
Oh, I love failure. I call it fail always mode. And the reason I say I love failure is I don't like to fail at all. But if you feel like you are failing, It means a couple things if you can take a step back. One means that you care. If you feel something about what you're doing, you care about it.
And two, it means you're trying something new or you're doing something that you don't exactly know how to do the right way or you haven't figured out the right way for you to do this thing. And I think that's a great way to feel because it means that you're pushing yourself. And what I really believe and value as a leader is people who push themselves. I value initiative.
I value entrepreneurial thinking. I value people who endeavor to make something happen, even if it doesn't happen. I personally will always reward the person who tried versus the person who played it safe and didn't evolve or change anything. So I think one thing that's hard for people, and myself included, is that it stings if you don't get something right. It can hurt.
Chapter 4: What lessons can we learn from failure?
It can make you feel ashamed. It can make you feel inferior or stupid. And It stinks to feel that way. But the more you push and try and explore, the more you can ultimately take on and the better you will get at doing those things. And when you look back over the course of time, it's the people who kept pushing and trying and experimenting and failing and learning.
It's those people who ultimately become people more successful and who are able to stay successful because they have learned and tried a great deal more. And I think it's very dangerous to make your world really small and to only do things that you know 100% you will be perfect at doing. One, I think it's a little bit boring. And two, I think it doesn't change your world ever.
So would you say the kind of culture you're building leans more towards a growth mindset? You've mentioned that you prefer employees to take risks, try things out. And even if it doesn't work out, you value the effort and the approach. Is that how you foster a culture of continuous improvement where the process gets refined over time and eventually leads to better results?
Chapter 5: How does Erika define success versus failure?
Chapter 6: What career advice does Erika give to her children?
Do you have more puzzles that you can't figure out? Do you have more poise? Do you have a bigger platform? I think that's way more important than title chasing. As I think about my career, yes, I definitely cared about titles. I care less about them now. I can remember going to Microsoft and Microsoft to be a vice president at Microsoft, what meant you had to spend 30 years at Microsoft.
To be a vice president at an ad agency, they gave those titles out like candy. So in a lot of ways, titling is different by industry, by company, by sector. But the sheer fact of what you oversee and what you are capable of doing stands irrespective of the title or regardless of a title. So I really feel the most important thing is that purview. It's that level of responsibility.
It's your resilience. It's your capacity for impact. is far more important than any title, and I tend to care about that now in my job. But I also understand that as people look to grow, they want a title and a salary that's commensurate with the level of advancement and growth.
Yeah, I must admit, I used to be quite conscious about titles. especially in the financial services industry where titles often align with salary. If you don't have a MD title, for example, the salary range can be significantly lower. So in the first few years of my post-MBA career, titles become a way to measure growth and progression. They were not an obsession, but they definitely mattered.
For a lot of people, titles are still tied to career advancement. On the flip side, in the tech and startup world, titles like CEO have become much more democratized. But like you said, it's not really about the title. It's about the impact you make. With great titles comes great responsibility. That leads me to my next question. As a leader, Beyond titles, how do you define success?
And how do you define failure? In your book, you mentioned that failure is actually a good thing. I'd love to hear your perspective on failure versus success.
Oh, I love failure. I call it fail always mode. And the reason I say I love failure is I don't like to fail at all. But if you feel like you are failing, It means a couple things if you can take a step back. One means that you care. If you feel something about what you're doing, you care about it.
And two, it means you're trying something new or you're doing something that you don't exactly know how to do the right way or you haven't figured out the right way for you to do this thing. And I think that's a great way to feel because it means that you're pushing yourself. And what I really believe and value as a leader is people who push themselves. I value initiative.
I value entrepreneurial thinking. I value people who endeavor to make something happen, even if it doesn't happen. I personally will always reward the person who tried versus the person who played it safe and didn't evolve or change anything. So I think one thing that's hard for people, and myself included, is that it stings if you don't get something right. It can hurt.
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Chapter 7: How to create a positive workplace culture?
And if you are in an environment that is like that, then and you don't like it, you've got to find a way to either protect yourself from the environment or get out of that environment. I also think people, if Gen X is the figure it out group, I don't know what the millennials and the post-millennials are, but I do think people throw the term toxic workplace around a lot.
And a lot of times I'm not sure what it means anymore. In some cases, toxic workplace can relate to just to people to having a bad boss and to a boss that is negative or a boss that is micromanaging or a boss that's inept. And when I'm at work anyways, I try to spend as much time as I can really getting to the heart of what someone is saying.
If someone's saying, hey, I'm unhappy here because of X, Y, Z buzzword, I try to spend as much time as I can to say, all right, let's get specific. what's going on? Do you have a chance to grow and thrive here? Are you able to do your best work? Are there high expectations of you? Are you clear on what those expectations are? Are you a positive member of a unit or a team? Are you collaborative?
And the same questions for people's who work for people. But really what I believe is that work is truly what you make it. And if you are punishing and punitive and negative at work, you're not gonna get a whole lot out of it.
In the same way that if you're a victim at work and you want to put the blame for everything going wrong in your career on someone else, that's not gonna get you very far either.
With four or five generations currently in the workforce, each having different experiences and perspectives, I imagine even the same situation can be seen through very different lenses. I know you have two teenagers in your family. and if they come to you for advice about their careers, not now, but maybe in a few years, they're considering what to study in college.
What kind of advice would you give them? Not as a successful CEO or social media figure, but as a parent, how would you guide them about their future, considering what you see happening in today's workplace?
I think in one way, Vince, I would say I would answer it the same as I would for anybody else, which is I think my kids should apply themselves. I think they should be students. I think they should. It doesn't really matter what you do first.
Just so long as you do something and you apply yourself to it and you give yourself to it and you humble yourself to learn something, that's what's most important to me, that these kids have a good work ethic, that they are resilient, that they are polite and show gratitude when someone offers to teach you something or someone gives you feedback.
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