The CEO & Founder Dynamic: Trystan Morgan Schauer & David Segel | Mako Trading

Ever wondered what kind of conversations leaders have at the top of a global organisation? If you're interested in understanding the dynamic between a Founder and CEO, then this episode is a must listen.

Jonny de Mallet Morgan is back at Mako Trading, this time talking to Trystan Morgan Schauer, CEO, and David Segel, Founder. If you're passionate about authentically serving your people, navigating extreme pressure and nurturing a high performance culture, then we know you'll enjoy this conversation.

They discuss:

1. The importance of community and connection at the very core of any organisation.
2. The responsibility that every good leader has to 'pay it forward with their teams. 
3. How to build a proactive culture, with shared purpose and authentic, lived values. 
4. Navigating the most challenging, high stake situations - providing guidance, support and structure for your teams
5. Staying creative and innovative under pressure, embracing mistakes and the learning from them.  

About Mako Trading: Mako is a leading options market maker with a global trading footprint. They've been at the evolutionary forefront of options market making since 1999, from the open outcry of traditional trading pits to the screen trading and automated algorithmic execution strategies that form the future of the industry. From offices in London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Singapore, Sydney, Brisbane and Chengdu, their culture of entrepreneurship, collaboration and philanthropy underscores their commitment to excellent.
Learn more about David and Trystan: https://www.mako.com/leadership

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to the podcast. So we're back in Mako trading today and, uh, I interviewed Dave , the founder and Trystan Morgan Schauer, the CEO. This is a really interesting podcast because if you want to understand how a CEO and a founder work together, the dynamic that they have together and how their example can and should infiltrate through the business, then I highly recommend listening to this.

Enjoy.

Hi guys. Welcome back, Dave. Um, Tristan. Tristan, you're the CEO. Dave, you're the founder. I'm going to start with you, Tristan. How long have you worked at Mako? I, it's my, it's my 18th anniversary in July of this year. Yeah, so, uh, so yeah, a long time. At what level did [00:01:00] you join the company? So I joined in as a, as a junior risk manager.

Um, I came in, I remember the stories because it was, um, it was a family member's birthday two weeks afterwards. And so I, I came and I joined for two weeks and then I had a week off. And so I went to this wedding and I remember everyone saying, Oh, you've got a job in the city. Like, how is it? And I was like, guys, A, I don't understand anything that's going on.

And B, if I'm still commuting in two years time, like, feel free to give me a slap and tell me to stop. And so here I am, in the same place, 17 years later, catching that train every single day. Um, that's, uh, yeah. What made you stay for the first year? It was the community, uh, the guy who hired me, um, uh, friend of mine, colleague named Johnny Day.

We're still friends. Um, and, [00:02:00] uh, there was a, there was a feeling, there was a real feeling of support and challenge and, and relationship and connection. Um, and, uh, truthfully in that, in the first probably three or four years I was, I was in Mako, I really thought that was, that was our team. I, it, it, it didn't even really strike me that that was a Mako thing.

I thought, um, I thought that Johnny is a, uh, excellent mentor and manager was creating that environment. And then Johnny left and I realized actually it was, it was a broader thing. And, um, and it was, it was, it's been so challenging at points. Um, but, but the thing that's kept me through it, uh, kept me going through it has always been the people.

Um, for the first period of that time, it was, it was Johnny and my colleagues in risk. Then it [00:03:00] was Chris Welsh and, and Lorraine and the other leaders. And then, you know, as I stepped up to the next level, building relationship with Dave, um, it, it struck me, um, it struck me that, that the way he likes to work is the way that, that Mako has, it seems to me has always worked, which is in this very collaborative, very connected way.

Um, but with huge kind of challenge and, uh, excitement and, um, Yeah. And, and, and curiosity as well. And do you often think about the 25 year old Tristan, however old you were, walking into the business for the first time? I suppose, yes and no. I feel a great sense of responsibility that people get the same experience out of Mako that I did.

I never [00:04:00] want, I never want someone to leave and say, Or even join and be around for a while and say, you know, I don't feel that connection. Um, because I feel like I, you know, I've been here for so long. Mako has, has, has made me, it's helped me in the tough times, it's challenged me in the good times, it's rewarded me.

And so I feel a great sense of responsibility to kind of pay that, pay that forward. Um, and a great, you know, honestly, a great loyalty to the company and to Dave for, for creating an environment, you know, that made it feel that way. So I, I mean, you know, my memory's not great. So like it's hard, it's hard to imagine myself coming in, but I do feel that sense of responsibility.

How important is it to you to create environments where people can excel, [00:05:00] um, when you are bogged down in an HR issue or a tax issue, as we were saying before? I think we have a great responsibility as leaders to not make it about us. And I think one of the most challenging elements to being a leader And to try and, you know, to try and pay forward that atmosphere of collaboration, connection, encouragement, growth, and curiosity is that you're constantly having to say, this isn't about me, you know, whatever, whatever room I've just walked in from, I'm going to sit there, I'm going to be present, and I'm going to be thinking about what, you know, your experience and what, what you need at any point in time.

And, and that's something I've both learned from being well managed in the past and, you know, and working with Dave much more closely over the last five or [00:06:00] six years. And, I mean, Dave will remember these moments, um, very acutely as well. But, you know, when we walk in, I remember, you know, a couple of years ago, You, you, you just arrived and you walked in and, and we saw one of the most significant challenges that certainly in my time Mako has, has ever faced.

And at that time, I'm going, I'm going to Dave in the way that people are coming to me all the time. I'm going to him saying, I'm overwhelmed. I'm under pressure. Don't really know what to do next. I'm a bit scared. Like, and what happens now, Dave? And whatever he was feeling at the time, which I'm sure he could share, maybe he doesn't want to, whatever he was feeling at the time, what he gave to me was a sense of confidence, a sense of backing, a sense of structure, and a sense of optimism that we could solve the problem and, you know, survive and [00:07:00] thrive.

And so every time, you know, every time I interact with Dave or Chris or, uh, or the board or any of the leaders that, you know, their job is, is, is to, is to both be a support to me, but also hold me to account. Um, every time I do that, I get that same sense of, of, of challenge and optimism and structure. And, and so, and, you know, I, I do think.

what we experience. Again, we have to provide for others. So that's what I do when, when I'm sat there, somebody comes in, I've got all of these pressures, you know, whatever they are. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking of that moment when Dave got off the plane. I'm sure what he wanted to do was like scream and shout and throw something.

And instead what I got was Let's fix this together.

How easy, Dave, do you find it? You [00:08:00] created Maker, you founded Maker, you have a deep passion for servant leadership, to disassociate or not get triggered by a certain crisis and want to emotionally react to something and instead give service. I don't actually remember that conversation. Not, not because my memory is bad, which it is.

But because that's just what we have to do. I do remember, um, several such situations that looked intimidating, but what I remember is that we solved the problem and that we are a stronger partnership in business together for it. And we're a stronger business for what we learned in. And then every one of those situations, we've looked at the puzzles in front of us, which are.

Puzzles is a euphemism for crisis. And we [00:09:00] have figured out a path through it with resilience. And then we've decompressed and we've done a post mortem and we've made changes. And through that journey, we've really learned not just the two of us, but the whole team has learned to trust each other or they've left because some people couldn't take it and that's fine.

Or we couldn't take them and that's fine. So, you know, that's one of the nice things about being in business together for a long time is you develop this maturity as a community. We have the privilege of getting to pick who we want to be spending our life in business with after this much time. And we've chosen people that, you know, we think are talented and we enjoy being with them.

They're filled with integrity. You know, those are deliberate choices. So it's not that easy when you're first starting a business. Or even when you're first starting in a job because you don't really know what you're walking into. Um, [00:10:00] but your question was, what was your question again? Do you find it easy to lean into servant leadership?

Yeah, well, look, first of all, I'm an adrenaline junkie still. Even if I don't have any, any more adrenaline in the system because I used it all. I love the challenge of having a big problem to fix. Ooh. Some of them are emotional. It's a great opportunity to learn to behave like a grown up and suppress that for the purpose that we can always come back to the emotions later.

And we, you know, you have to, so I don't really hold on to those super tightly. Those aren't the memories I have of those experiences. And we've had, you know, I think you're thinking of one in particular, we've had them in the past many times and we will have more of them and we've learned that We can surprise ourselves with resilience and success and usually really good things come.

Yeah, I'm always interested whether there's an [00:11:00] element in your, in your psyche when you, when you walk into one of those situations with me. I'm always interested if you're like, is there any element of you where you're like, This is the business that, that I started and built. How could you possibly mess it up this bad?

No, no, no. I've actually never thought that. Is that right? Well, first of all, I don't look at it like the business that I've started. I look at it like the business that we've collectively built, not just from a value creation perspective, but from a cultural perspective, you know, one of the, one of the beliefs that I have about markets, which I try to.

Explain to other people. I think it maybe it's changed a little bit in the last 30 years that I've been doing this, but is that markets are just collectives of people with emotions and they respond to things. That's why markets go down faster than they go up. There's a greed element and there's a [00:12:00] fear element and every market as a collective is a collective of people participating as a personality.

So our top performing traders, Understand the personality of the market that they're involved with and they can read it, respond to it, or engage with it. And honestly, Mako is the same thing. Mako is this collective of people and it has developed a personality. Not. Just because of my personality, you know, I was the first one here, so I've had a lot of influence on it, but we have that, we have a collective culture or ethos or set of values, which is really our building a personality together.

So, no, I don't even look at it like it's my business and I look at it like, wow, how could we have screwed up, put at risk, excuse me, put at risk what we've worked so hard to do. Develop and let's make sure we don't do that again. And I [00:13:00] think I can, I completely agree and understand. And I think that's, that's the thing, especially when things are tough, that's the thing that brings, um, that brings us all together.

It is a common value system and a common purpose. And the common purpose is we've, we've all collectively built this organization over many, many years, some longer than others, you all want to be successful. And we all know what our mountaintop is. Okay. Now we've just found another problem that we've got that shared purpose to fall back on.

And then we have that shared values. You know, if you, if you come into our team and you don't believe in servant leadership, and you don't believe in making mistakes are a positive step for learning and understanding. And that the only really important thing after you've made a mistake is to make the changes necessary.

Um, you know, then, then you don't really fit into the group. And that's, that's found out pretty quickly on the whole. So yeah, I, I think, uh, it, it makes sense. It makes sense. And those [00:14:00] are not wrong assumptions. No. They're just different approaches. Different approaches. Yeah. That's really interesting and wonderful that, that there is this sense of ownership, empowerment, um, and togetherness, uh, for people.

But how do you inspire people to connect to that when they've been here six months, six years, when they walk through the door? Um, I think, I think there are things that you can do, you know, you can try and be transparent around communications. You know, I think leaders using words like, I made a mistake and now I'm going to fix it, or now we're going to fix it.

I think all of those are really positive things that you can do, but they are just advertisements for what you believe, right? They're just ways [00:15:00] of demonstrating. The way that you make decisions, ultimately, and so, so the best way to demonstrate to people who you are is in everything you do in all the decisions that you make surrounding, you know, the effect, I'll give you some examples.

So, you know, sometimes somebody joins and there's been, there's been a miscommunication, you know, they, they walk in, they're like, I did not expect this to be this for some reason. And maybe it's our fault. Maybe it's our mistake. Maybe it's their mistake. But ultimately, it's at that point in time when you decide whether your value system includes integrity and servant leadership and collaboration and problem solving and curiosity.

And I've heard Dave, you know, say this hundreds of times. It's like, Let's solve this problem together. Not, you know, I'm a CEO of Mako and what [00:16:00] I say goes and now I'm going to tell you exactly how it's going to work, but let's try and solve this problem together. And, um, you come to that point with everybody.

Like it doesn't matter if it happens on the first day before they join six months later, that's when you advertise to them. This is who we are. This is how we make decisions. That's when they advertise to us as well, because many people say, okay. You know, you made a mistake. That's it. I'm out. Okay, like, like, that may be totally justified and certainly may be justified, you know, guaranteed to be justified from your perspective.

But that's not how we operate. The way we operate is We make mistakes. We learn things. We solve problems together. Curious. We collaborate. We're connected. And so, you know, there may be a cost to the relationship, but that relationship is strong. And so, by going through this process, we create an even stronger relationship at the end of it.

So that's what I think. I think, I think too many people, and you know, it's [00:17:00] not an original thought. You know, if, if you go around in an organization like we're going to redo the values, you come up with five words, you go out, put them on the wall and everyone's like, yeah, but those are just words on the wall.

Whereas I think more importantly for us is I want people coming out of that conversation going, wow, it's really curious and collaborative way to solve that problem. I wasn't expecting that. It doesn't matter where the words are on the wall. I now understand what those words should be.

What are your values? Oh, don't do that to me, Jai. Uh, integrity, collaboration, connection, ambition, and innovation. And what is, would you say, is the common misconception about those values? Well, I, I think [00:18:00] one of my fears is that People use words like collaboration and connection, and they think, Oh, well, this is a nice, friendly pace to work.

I love to come into work every day and, and enjoy myself and, and, and enjoy the people around me. But I think that integrity and collaboration mean having difficult conversations because Because we're constantly doing things all the time. We need accountability and we need somebody, you know, I said, Dave and I interact and, and, you know, had these big issues and I've gone to Dave and he said, no, let's solve the problems together.

But also Dave has come into a meeting and, you know, just landed and walked off the plane. And he said to me, This figure is a problem. What are you doing about it? You know, significant challenge. [00:19:00] Um, and, and discussion around making sure that we're being innovative and ambitious and that we're, you know, paying attention to the right things.

So, yeah, I think, I think culturally, um, some words have maybe slightly passive connotations and I think culture is never passive. Culture is always proactive. Um, where you're constantly saying, Yeah, but what about this? Why did you say that? I don't agree with you. We need to we need to collaborate in our disagreement to understand, um, understand how to get to an outcome.

I think I literally somebody we were having this conversation yesterday. Somebody said, Oh, you know, Who's on the board, and like, what happens on the board? Oh, there's four on you, there's four of you on the board. Sure you want an odd number, so that, so that nobody can, so that the vote is never tied. And I said, [00:20:00] that's not how we think about the board.

Our board, we want to discuss robustly and vigorously. And then we want to build a consensus approach to solving most problems. It's not always possible. Certainly, theoretically, it's not possible. But our goal is to listen and understand and evolve and change our mindsets and, and, and, and give people proper data driven arguments that allow them to change ours and therefore make the best decision for the, for the business.

And that, so that is collaboration. It's not nice. It's, sometimes it's difficult, challenging, but it is very collaborative. I often think that true values reveal themselves when You're in a point of crisis, not, not when every everything's fine. It's quite interesting what those behaviors that, that collaboration which you foster between you both [00:21:00] reveals itself, not when you're deciding what restaurant to go to, or what pub to go to.

Reveals itself when you're having the crunchy conversations. I think we also, a business like ours is always going to deal with some challenges. There's always something that's a challenge for the status quo. But we're not a business that really has a status quo, you know, Tristan and his team do a great job running the day to day operations of this business.

I never think about day to day operations. But our biggest focal point isn't the challenges, the problems we have to solve. It's the future that we want to build to. And so really a lot of the work that, certainly the work that I get to do. Engage with Tristan on is long term planning, the creative process in that, the, how are we going to solve using those same tools that we fixed the crisis issue, we're going to apply those tools to [00:22:00] making something happen.

That's totally unknown right now, whether it's, you know, a financial model that hasn't been built or a market that we don't have access to, or. Something, you know, larger in scope, and we've got some pretty large projects defined in sort of in scope that we're going to do. So you still need, there is no status quo is my point.

So there really is never a sit around and say, what restaurant are we going to go to? But most of our energy is spent using that collaboration and that teamwork and those disciplines to be building. It's interesting to think about values as disciplines, as opposed to These sort of ethereal, almost, words on walls, you know.

I think Dave always asks the question, what do you value? You know, that is an appropriate question in almost any decision you make. That like, ultimately, every [00:23:00] decision is, what do you value? Do you value doing new things? Do you value saving money on costs? In this situation, in this context. You know, this is how we make the decision at this point, we decide to, we're going to do a new thing, but it's going to cost more.

So in this situation, we value innovation above, uh, above the status quo. So, yeah, I think, I think it's a real, um, it's, it really anchors what a value is, is if in a situation you say, what do we, what do we value here? Um, yeah, I think it's powerful. It helps us prioritize for sure. Does that question that we're asking, where does that fit in the context of our mountaintop or north star objectives?

And the, the difference between what do we value and what are our values makes, it's much more personal. You don't have to refer to the ball of the [00:24:00] website or watch Ted Lasso to figure it out. You can. You can pretty intuitively know, do I value in this discussion, right? Do I value being respectful? Do I value getting the right outcome?

And you can value everyone, but that's a very different problem. Let's check and reference what we said earlier. And so they are kind of disciplines because you get a choice. You can choose to, you can choose to be curious. Or you can choose to, um, be innovative. Or you can choose to do things the way you are.

I, um, I had as part of my, my journey, you know, I, I can be, I can be quite emotional as in, I have, I have that part of me and, um, and that was a real question. It was a real question for me, like almost a really explicit [00:25:00] question was. Do I value needing to be the person who is right in a room at any point, or do I value actually what is correct?

And the way I really learned that lesson is by making bad decisions on my own. Be like, Oh, okay, that was my decision. And you know, the, the, the, the sort of the great thing about being in the role that I am is, I suppose you get, you get to be the person who makes decisions and the worst thing is you have literally no one to hide behind.

Um, and, and then I guess the third dimension that is, it's a bit like being football manager. I'm pretty confident everyone in Mako is saying, I wouldn't have made that decision. So there's a lot of ego in there. Like people are talking about me and I need to be right. Cause I'm the decision maker, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. And then, and then you get to this place where [00:26:00] you're like, I just don't want to be, I don't want, I don't need to be right anymore. Like, I don't need to feel right anymore. I just want to be right. That's way more important to me that we make the right decisions. Not that, like, in the room, I was the guy who had the answer and the power.

So, uh, that was something I, you know, that was something so interesting to me, like getting to CEO, you're like, Oh, you're the CEO now, you get to make all the decisions or you have all the, all the this and that. And very quickly, I was like, Whoa, there you do get to make a lot of decisions. And, and, you know, I am highly incentivized to make sure that all the information is heard, that all the right people get, get to sound.

Uh, about it, the people with, that I disagree with, I'm going to spend the most time talking to because like, what if they're right? Um, and that was, that was great. Like, uh, well, no, it was not a great experience, but, but I feel, I feel in a much better position now [00:27:00] having, uh, Having gone through that, I suppose, and hopefully it makes me better at the job as well.

No doubt. No doubt. And also, because you're not saying, I won't make the call, you still make the call, but, um, it's much more exciting as an individual to be so much more inclusive. It's like more informed, uh, and you look at problems in a, I find it much more exciting, a point of view, attitude. Dave, will you, um, When you were, as we were discussing in the previous podcast, in the 80s, late 80s, you're on the floor wearing jackets, the adrenaline and the cliche of the sort of, uh, Wolf of Wall Street esque, um, behaviors.

Did you always have this, um, point of view on, on values? Um, or is it part of your [00:28:00] personal evolution? It was a, I don't think I was thinking about what values I would put on my website because there were no websites. This is, you know, I was young and excitable and ambitious and loving trading, loving the competition, you know, just walked into the dream career, you know, wasn't thinking about any of that.

It's just a, it's a journey that we've developed as we've tried to figure out what are places in life and what our definition of success is and what are. Capabilities are and what our relationships look like and how to do business. Well, I didn't know then, but I can see now a very clear definition of success.

We were talking about success earlier, and we use that here all the time. A definition for Mako to succeed. So is it often debated thing? Do we want to set a annual revenue target? We want to set a [00:29:00] global ambition. Do we want to set a comparison to our competitors? And, you know, in the end, we've settled on success as a group and success as individuals contributing to that comes down to being the best that we can be doing the best that we can do with the opportunity that's in front of us.

That's our obligation to each other. You know, how can I help you make the most of your career? How can I challenge you if you're falling short of that? And I think that's, we're using that as a metric, right? Right now we're going through some very systematic analysis of desk by desk or product by product or group by group rating performance.

And sure. We're looking at our position relative to our editors and our revenues and our revenues against budgets. But really the key criteria is are you making the most of your opportunity? Cause if your numbers are great. But you're missing half the [00:30:00] opportunity. You're not being the best you can be.

And that applies to software developer. It applies to me and my sort of founder role. Am I contributing the most that I can? So I wasn't thinking about any of that. I was thinking about, I was, you know, 25. And if you, you get a chance, you should watch, um, Don Cheadle's new show called black Monday, which is set 1986 wall street, which is a spoof, maybe a little bit irreverent.

look at that world. And if you watch that, you'll say, nobody was thinking about values in 1986 on Wall Street.

Here's a question. Um, we've spoken a lot today about trading performance, company performance. Traders are obviously like the arteries into, into the business. But you have a huge, uh, development team, accounts team, um, [00:31:00] um, compliance, all that, or everything which goes into running an organization. Um, how do you, how do you not make the traders simply the rock stars?

And how do you have that inclusive ownership, um, piece that you were discussing, an empowerment piece that you were discussing, or is it something you just have to support? The way, the way I see it is that the organization is, is, uh, is an arrow head. And at the very pointy end of that arrowhead is an interaction with a market.

And that interaction with the market can be, um, Can be controlled either by software, well, it's always controlled by software to be honest, but like can be, um, controlled in, in, in, in sort of [00:32:00] the second stage is controlled by a trader or arguably a developer.

But like the arrow won't fly like, you know, you've got your arrow and you've got your arrow head. The arrow is not of any value to, to you unless it is flying through the air at its target. And so, so whilst our interaction with the market is the point of the arrow, and we should all think that way, you know, we're all here to make sure that point is as sharp and flying as fast and effectively as possible, but the arrow wouldn't fly with anything else.

Have we always got that right in, in Mako and other training firms? I don't know, probably not. But if your values are centered around collaboration and connection, um, a common purpose, a common mountaintop, then we're all, you know, we're all very supportive of [00:33:00] making sure that arrows is as fast and sharp as possible.

So yeah, it is a tricky one. It like, it can lead to kind of a, um, you know, an, an upstairs, downstairs sort of feel to it. But I think we've stepped away from that, and I think that in the new world, we're all just doing our part to make this arrow fly, fly, hit the target, fly as fast as possible. So, I think, that's my mindset.

I would go back to the creativity topic, because all of those contributors, particularly the software developers at Harvard, and the traders, Are going to help us excel as a unit if they're using their creativity. And so there is a very personal contribution that's beyond our push to [00:34:00] be very data driven.

And we've, we've really shifted our approach from intuitive or, you know, sort of what, whatever will be, will be to a highly process driven, highly data driven, highly algorithmic way of looking at price making and trading. But no doubt in the example of traders, and I think because of this traders need to be celebrated as rock stars, that personality, that relationship with the market that we talked about earlier is an, is an intuitive and relational talent that's developed over many, many years.

And we have looked at data that show performance differences between the proficient trader in a market. And the expert intuitive trader in that part. And they're substantial in the same way that when I took piano lessons as a kid, I learned [00:35:00] to read the music and I could play a song proficiently that was reflecting the notes that were on there on here, but I never developed music.

I never played music. So it's a funny one because we want to incur it. We want to take away all the hard parts for the trader, or I should say all the easy parts, all the parts that are easy for a computer to do so that they can apply them. It's the same thing for a software engineer. It's the same thing for us in our longterm strategic planning.

How do we still bring all that creativity to the process? And, um, so I, as much as we try to objectify everything and quantify everything and make everything a data driven and analytic process. Business is a creative exercise, and that's how we're going to do the best with our opportunity.

Guys, thank you so much. Thank you, Johnny. If you believe what we believe, please help us grow this podcast by [00:36:00] liking, subscribing, and sharing. Thanks.