Our guest is Chad Dickerson, the CEO of Etsy. We're really excited to share Etsy's story with you and talk about the leadership of the company. Glad to be here. Great to have you, thank you. So, let's start with Etsy's mission. So, Etsy's mission is to re-imagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world. As we were talking about, you're an English major, you like words, you like reading. So, I'm going to imagine that those words, re-imagining commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world, I'm imagining that you thought about those words. What does that mean in practice? Yeah. First of all, before I answer that, how many of you are Etsy buyers or sellers? All right. Yes. Great. Okay. We're doing something right. Thanks to all of you, that's why I'm sitting here. So, re-imagine commerce in ways that build a more fulfilling and lasting world. What it's really about is, building a company, and when I talk about the company, the way we operate the company, but also a business and a business model that really combines people and profit and puts them on equal footing. The equal footing part is really, really important. I think everyone in the room here would agree that purpose-driven businesses are better businesses. But I think sometimes when we talk about purpose-driven businesses, we focus more on the purpose side than the profit side. One of the things that I've learned is that you have to have a self-sustaining business in order to pursue that really important social goal or set of social goals that you have. So, the way we re-imagine commerce, which is our mission is, we're doing it in such a way where we're building a company that provides services that really benefit all stakeholders. We've designed a business model in such a way that when we do well, when our sellers do well, we do well. So, just to talk math, so it's not just language. When you sell something on Etsy, three and a half percent of your sale goes to Etsy, but 96 and a half percent goes out into communities all over the world. So, we have sellers all over the world. So, the way we've built all aspects of our business is to make sure that when we do well, our sellers and our community of sellers do even better. So, that's what re-imagining commerce is about. You mentioned that your public company, Etsy, went public in April of 2015. So, talk with us about this decision and the shift to become a public company while maintaining this very strong social mission. Yeah. It's really my belief that in order to really change how business is done, we need a movement of businesses in places like the public markets, large scaling businesses, insisting that social good and business be combined. One of the things that I worry about a little bit is, if we all work together to build a movement of businesses who care about social good, but it's that really small group and a small number of companies. Some of the big challenges we have, everything from diversity to global warming, et cetera won't be solved if we have a small group of small companies. So, I wanted Etsy to go public, participate in the public markets as a way to really open that conversation with the business world in a much bigger way. So, I've probably done 500 Wall Street investor meetings at this point, and we talk about the social mission and how it drives the business, how it increases brand loyalty, all the things that help a business. But I think being out there on that stage and being a public company is the way to deliver social change over in the end. Do you feel like you're finding credulity among the analysts and others who you're meeting with? Or is there skepticism? Is there pressure to compromise your social mission? I don't think there's skepticism to compromise the social mission. I think one of the things that, and this is why I said earlier, that the profit side of the people-profit equation has to be strong. At the end of the day, your shareholders really do care about business results, and I think that's fine. If you all put money in 401(k)s, you all put money in mutual funds, you do want a return on these things. What we've been trying to emphasize is, you can get a return on an investment while also delivering social goods. I think creating a strong business and a strong long-term business is the best way to prove that. We're still very early in our time as a public company. We've been out for 18 months. Right. The stock has been up and down. Stock has been volatile, which is pretty normal for an early public company. Any particular lessons, any particular effect of being a public company that perhaps you didn't anticipate earlier? I think one of the things that I really love about being a public company is that, and I think this is the most underrated part of being a public company. If you're a public company, anyone in this room can go out and buy shares of the company. I admire many purpose-driven companies that have chosen to remain private for a lot of different reasons, but when I think about companies that are about community and about connecting to other people, being public means that anyone can own a piece of the company. So, you asked me about surprises. One of the things I've noticed is, there are times when I'm going through security at the airport and someone will come up to me and say, "I'm an Etsy shareholder, and keep up the good work," or they might say, "I think you need to do X, Y, and Z in marketing," or anything like that. So, without a doubt, it can be challenging at times, but I really like the idea, a company that's based on community, that anyone in the world who has access to the stock market here can own a piece of Etsy, and tell me what to do in airport security as an owner of the company.
