June 18, 2025
[Full Podcast transcript at end of page]
There’s a lot of talk in the corporate world about culture, transformation, and intrapreneurship. But very few people have actually built systems that make those things real.
That’s why our conversation with Ed Essey felt so important.
Ed is the mastermind behind the Microsoft Garage Growth Framework, a cultural and operational engine that has supported over 20,000 innovation projects inside one of the world’s largest companies. He’s not just thinking about intrapreneurship—he’s designing it, teaching it, and scaling it with precision.
This episode wasn’t just about Microsoft. It was about what’s possible when companies take innovation seriously as a system—and what it takes to empower the “hidden intrapreneurs” inside your org.
Here are a few big takeaways we’re still thinking about:
What started as a small initiative inside Microsoft evolved into the largest corporate hackathon in the world. But Ed was clear: the hackathon itself isn’t the point. It’s how you use it.
Done well, a hackathon becomes a pressure cooker for experimentation, a signal to the org that bottom-up innovation matters—and a proving ground for ideas that might otherwise never see the light of day.
But to turn hackathons into a repeatable system, Ed realized they needed a structure—a framework that could help ideas move from prototype to real business impact.
A lot of internal innovation teams get trapped in the culture loop. They think their job is to inspire people, host workshops, run brainstorms. That stuff matters—but only if there’s a path to business impact.
Ed’s framework doesn’t just encourage ideas. It maps them to business goals, exec priorities, and real-world constraints. That’s why his title at Microsoft includes “Business Value.” It’s a signal—internally and externally—that innovation isn’t about flair. It’s about function.
As Ed put it, “If you focus only on culture, but not generating business value, you’ll lose the culture too.”
We were blown away when Ed shared this stat: teams that go through Microsoft’s internal coaching program have an 85% success rate of getting executive sponsorship—with just three hours of coaching.
That’s not a typo.
Why does it work? Because the coaching is focused, practical, and tailored to helping intrapreneurs understand the game they’re playing—inside a bureaucracy.
Ed calls it “sponsor development.” You’re not just validating the customer. You’re validating the exec. That’s a nuance too many corporate teams miss.
One of our favorite moments from the episode was when Ed talked about not pulling employees out of their day jobs. Even when people are granted “fellowship time” to work on ideas, they stay in their reporting chain. They stay grounded in the org. It’s a voluntary system—and that’s the point.
What matters is not a new team or a new budget. What matters is intrinsic motivation. People want to work on something meaningful. They just need a credible path, a little coaching, and a sense that it won’t be career suicide if it fails.
And when they get recognition? Like being invited to present to the CEO? That’s what flips the switch.
This was our favorite metaphor from Ed’s upcoming book: The Inside Job.
The best intrapreneurs aren’t just idea people. They’re orchestrators. They know how to:
They understand power dynamics. They time their moves. They speak the sponsor’s language. And most importantly, they only bring forward ideas that create true alignment between personal passion, organizational strategy, and customer need.
That’s the Venn diagram of sustainable innovation.
Ed closed with a powerful insight: “Winners don’t follow rules that don’t exist.”
So many intrapreneurs get stuck waiting—waiting for a new org chart, a new strategy, a new mandate. But the best innovation systems don’t start with permission. They start with a bias toward action.
If you’re a leader: give your people a hall pass. Create structures that make innovation less risky, less lonely, and more connected to the mothership.
If you’re an intrapreneur: assemble your crew, find your beachhead, and start moving. You don’t need a new job title. You need a system that gives your ideas a shot.
Big thanks to Ed for joining us. This was more than a conversation—it was a blueprint.
— Ben & Marcus
Ed Essey 00:00
I didn't want hackathon projects to die on the vine. That's often the problem with innovation in large organizations, is that you have innovation theater. And I really wanted to create an innovation engine. I was really inspired by the Lean Startup, and so I wanted to figure out, how do we translate those lean startup concepts into a big company, and at the Lean Startup conference in 2018 I brought in a talk on how to do that. That helped me really understand how we bring it in. But then what we realized is, after learning to validate it, what people needed was to get sponsorship. And I realized there was a pattern to the ones that got sponsorship. What they did way at the beginning, when they ideated that idea, how they had that idea in the first place? They were doing a combination of bringing in a big vision, doing a lot of empathy work, and creating not just an idea, but a well defined, well rounded, fully fleshed out concept. Then they'd use the hackathon to make a proof of concept quickly and cheaply, test this idea. If it was feasible, if they can make it, then we would validate it from a business perspective, and validate and then help them get sponsorship, and that became the garage growth
Marcus Daniels 01:18
framework. Blending entrepreneurship and growth, innovation might be the key to actually unlocking growth beyond the core. So I'm really excited today to have a conversation with Ed se, somebody who drives corporate innovation at the intersection of big systems, bold ideas and culture change. Ed, you know you help create one of the Microsoft's most important kind of innovation platforms, the Microsoft garage you help, you know, create as well, the the growth innovation framework as well. That spawned over 130 I think, projects so far, and you're publishing a book soon too, that. I mean, I think really, it's exciting. It's showing the whole journey and insights of everything you've been able to kind of corral together in such an amazing innovation platform. So there's a lot to cover today, you know, excited Microsoft garage, maybe a little bit on the art and of the in the psychology and economics of entrepreneurship, sparking h3 innovation in an h1 world. And, of course, you know, just the power of, you know, internal innovation and how that really sparks growth beyond the course, Ed, let's set the table. What's Microsoft garage and its mission? Yeah,
Ed Essey 02:33
our, our mission at at the garage is to basically accelerate the cultural transformation of Microsoft by giving people opportunities to experiment, be creative and collaborate, all basically creating a grassroots environment for innovation.
Marcus Daniels 02:55
Fantastic. And how has it evolved over the years? Oh, gosh,
Ed Essey 03:01
if I go back to, like, where it started, some of the first events were, and this was even before I was part of the program. There were, like, speed dating events between developers and designers. It began as this idea, like, hey, if we get developers and designers getting to gather and meeting on a regular basis, that that will be a great combination to make things fast. By the time I started working there, and there was only one employee at the time, I was the third one employee, we were running small scale hackathons all over the company. We had chapters around the world. At that time, saya Nadella became the third CEO in the history of Microsoft. He was already a fan of the garage. In fact, he did his first public address to the company standing in the garage headquarters in Redmond. And when I give tours, I like to even point people to the spot where he was, but in the green room before the meeting, he was asking some questions about the garage, and he was saying this thing, the industry doesn't respect tradition. It only respects innovation. And one of the things he wanted to change was how we did our company meeting, which was previously it was execs would go on stage. We'd rent out this this field, and like we would rent out where the field, where the mariners play, and the execs would stand and say, all the employees were in the stands, and the execs would be talking to them. We suggested a hackathon because he had already been a judge of hackathons in the past, and came through and talked to people that inverted it, because he wanted to hear what all the employees had to say, and we ended up running a hackathon. At the time, it was the world's largest corporate hackathon. It was 12,000 employees showed up for that. We didn't know if anybody would show up for it. Now, let me tell you, that was 11 years. Years ago, this past hackathon, we had over 20,000 projects around the world, so over 80,000 participants in the hackathon all around
Marcus Daniels 05:10
the world. And I think that's really important kind of insight you've been able to articulate there. So you had like the leadership was already bought into it, right? As you described it's it started at a certain point, and you've been able to take an idea of a hackathon and add kind of a systematic process around it to help scale it to so many innovation projects. And so when did the garage growth framework? Was it there from the inception? Or, you know, was you think about your tenure. So I'd love to dig a bit the story of how the framework came together and how it connected into the garage.
Ed Essey 05:47
And the garage growth framework came about from things we learned running this hackathon. So we would, we would run a hackathon. We had many, many projects come out of it. You know, now we're at 20,000 but we were in the we were around 2000 at the time, and year over year running. And we were, I was also running this thing called the Garage experimental outlet that helped take projects to market. We had it. We've had over 160 go. But then we've pivoted it, and we work it. We work these things in a different way now, which you know, that's a door we could open up a little bit later, if you want. But like one thing happened, I ended up having cancer in 2017 right after my daughter was born. So fortunately, because I knew I was going to be on parental leave, and Microsoft gave me a great benefit of three months off. I had already trained people to run the garage experiment, experimental outlet that I was running at the time, and when I came back, I said I ended up getting this important life lesson that your Second Life begins when you realize you only live once. And I knew I wanted to even make more change. So I wanted to really research what it would take to move innovation forward. And I took on three projects at the same time. The first was I watched every single one of those 2000 pitch videos from that year, and I cataloged them, and like I needed a lot of izeen to get through that that month, it would took me a month to watch them all, and then I picked one of them to embed with, and I spent eight months working with that team. And the way it would work was, every week, on Monday, I'd come in, I'd have a team of people that work with me in the garage, and we would plan out what I was going to do with that team in the week. And every Friday we would talk about what happened that week. But then the whole week, I would just sit in in a room with that team as a team member, working working at Ford. And then the third thing I did is I researched how innovation was happening in big companies and startups and everything all over the world, to get that outside in perspective. And that became the first nugget of the garage growth framework, realizing I didn't want hackathon projects to die on the vine, right, like, that's often the problem with innovation in large organizations is that you have innovation theater. And I, I really want to create an innovation engine. I was really inspired by the Lean Startup, and so I wanted to figure out, how do we translate those lean startup conference like concepts into a big company, and at the Lean Startup conference in 2018 I brought in a talk on how to do that, and I partnered with a guy from a startup who had pitched the same idea to the lean startup. I hadn't even met him before. His name's Brady, called CEO of sky pack, and we shared what we learned, and we were comparing and contrasting, but that helped me really understand how we bring it in. But then what we realized is, after, after learning to validate it, what people needed was to get sponsorship, so I spent and, by the way, that validate piece, that's what we were calling the garage growth framework in the early days. But then we realized, like, how do they get sponsorship? We started coaching more and more teams. So instead of me just embedding with one team, I'd coach more and more. And I realized there was a pattern to the ones that got sponsorship. What they did way at the beginning, when they ideated that idea, how they had that idea in the first place, they were doing a combination of bringing in a big vision, doing a lot of empathy work, and creating not just an idea, but a well defined, well rounded, fully fleshed out concept. Then. Use the hackathon to make a proof of concept, quickly and cheaply test this idea. Or like, quickly and cheaply test like, if it was feasible, if they can make it, then we would validate it from a business perspective, and validate and then help them get sponsorship. And that became the garage growth
Marcus Daniels 10:18
framework. Wow. Well, firstly, thank you for sharing so much of that, and I think, you know, we've had conversations before about the ability to go really deep into the details, but also have that macro kind of perspective. And a lot of what you just described is also what we see as being applied to really strong corporate venture studio models, regardless if they're internally and really focused on internal corporate ventures or on the outside in collaboration. It's tell me just a bit more about, you know, your title, if a really interesting title, you know, business value, is very explicit, you know, compared to some of these other titles that are maybe more exuberant, related to innovation, you know, it spells out that there's kind of like an ROI part to what you're doing in the garage. So maybe unpack a bit or the title came from, and why do you still hold it so dearly?
Ed Essey 11:10
Oh, yeah. So I actually had titles before, like director of I think I had intrapreneurship and incubation at one point, and then intrapreneurship, but then business value, we realized, made so much more difference to the connective tissue we were trying to make to our company and in the garage, we actually have, like a triple bottom line we look at, but it's different than the business triple bottom line we Look at, cultural value, customer value and business value. And when that happened, we realized that the the programs that I was running, with coaching and so on, were leading a lot to the business value, and it made sense for me to switch to that to be my title fully. And when I did it, it opened up like totally new ways of thinking about what I was doing and a little bit about what we've talked about so far, hints at, but doesn't quite say, really, what we're doing in grassroots innovation is creating a double sided market between the leadership in the hierarchy and the like that grassroots network around the company who are excited to address the challenges and opportunities that that the entire organization
Marcus Daniels 12:33
faces. Yeah, no, that's that's such an important insight. And I think also having the title be so explicit shows the level of partnership that you have with kind of the mothership, regardless of where you're situated in the organization. I think that's a key component there. How has that evolved with other titles in the group? Has that do other other people also line up nicely into those three areas of the bottom line of innovation in the group.
Ed Essey 13:01
For a while it did, and that was, that was a phase we had like one person in charge of customer value and another, another part of the org in charge of cultural value, though we're making more switches, realizing that everybody needs to be involved in business value and that, you know, the cultural value work is never done, but realizing that the business value work is really what excites everybody within our team, within the organization and with leadership now, like one thing we've learned is that if you focus only on the culture, but not generating the business value. You actually lose the culture too, because people feel disenfranchised if there are no paths forward for their idea and that, you know, that is the recipe for innovation theater that we don't want so and the recipe for creating an innovation engine is helping create paths forward and guiding people on how to walk those paths effectively, no matter where they are in the organization,
Marcus Daniels 14:13
right? And you mentioned earlier, I mean, as you really kind of supercharged the development of the framework that you embedded into one venture, and then you started embedding into more How do you can you talk a little bit about how you scale the framework and maybe the output of both business value without kind of disturbing the cultural framework side of things? So
Ed Essey 14:37
I'll actually like make one adjustment to how you phrase the question. After the first one, I stopped embedding with teams. I realized that, like, embedding was great for my learning process, it wasn't great for the team, and it wasn't the most effective way that I would be able to help at scale like. I would never be able to embed with, you know, the hundreds of teams that that were able to help on a on a regular basis, move forward. So we've created a kind of a four tier structure that I view it as a high touch, medium touch, low touch, and even no touch offerings. So once from the like our highest touch perspective, which we barely even do anymore, because it's not the biggest bang for the buck, but that is what we call a fellowship, where we grant a team of people six months to focus on their ideas, part of their day job from wherever they are in the company. Next tier down is coaching, which is it is the biggest bang for the buck. We have an 85% success rate in the teams that we coach, getting sponsorship with usually three hours of coaching at the below that, the low touch is workshops that are one to many. But at the at the bottom tier, the no touch, it began as taking lessons that we've learned from people, and we made an entire structure of videos and workshops and everything so that that could help people. Now that and the coaching together are like the best combo, because we're able to do what in education, they call a flipped classroom. A coach can work with you ask non directive questions. I view every coaching session as just trying to figure out what is like through questions and curiosity. How do we help? How do I help the person or the team on the other side come up with one thing that is the next step for them that they would not have come up with on their own? So that's what I'm doing all all my coaches are doing. And then we could just point them to individual nuggets that we have in this like almost 200 video structure of the garage growth framework, and say, like, Hey, if you do this or that, it'll help you with that next
Marcus Daniels 17:10
step. No, that's that's so tangible too, right? Why you, how you articulated that look. Highline beta has worked with over 100 organizations, and hearing about an 85% success rate in helping to get that level of support. Now, obviously it didn't start 85% in the beginning, but I'm curious if there's some insights that you've learned over the years on, how do you have such a high ratio getting, you know, sponsorship support?
Ed Essey 17:38
Yeah, you're right. It didn't start with 85% it started with 100% because I only
17:47
that is fair,
Ed Essey 17:49
yeah, gosh, I would say, you know, I could, I could point to the whole framework, but I want to point to one major piece, which is, I'd say a mistake a lot of people make is thinking like and this comes, I think, from people misinterpreting what's happening in the startup world, in the venture capital world, which is, they think they have to pitch an exec so they they think they need the exec To see it from their point of view. And it works so much better. And like I view it as anytime two people come, there's like a circle. So your your hack team's in a circle, your exec has their circle, and they're like, trying to pull the exec out of their circle into their own circle. It works so much better. If, instead of that, you understand the exact circle and show the exec they are already in it, and so they trust you as in their own circle. Once they see your that you're in their circle, then you're just helping them achieve what their charter already is so so much of this is just figuring out, what is the execs charter, what do they care about that's not already getting done by their team and bringing something that that they like. So the metaphor I often use here is, so I don't know. Marcus, are you a dog person? Do you have? Do you have pets at all?
Marcus Daniels 19:21
I had a dog and unfortunately, passed away last year, but I'm definitely a dog person. Oh, I
Ed Essey 19:26
hit a I hit a hot button there. I think, like, if somebody you didn't know rang your doorbell right now, and you went to the door and they were holding a puppy, and they're like, here, I heard that you've lost a dog a year ago, and I think you'd like a puppy. Like, how would you react to a stranger showing up at your door with a puppy?
Marcus Daniels 19:51
You take a step back and probably get a bit emotional and start thinking, How do I What's the right process to validate getting another dog quicker?
Ed Essey 20:00
Yeah, like, it would be really odd, yeah, if somebody showed up and you're like, like, Now, see they are. You know, in that case, they already done a little bit
Marcus Daniels 20:09
of research. They did their homework. They knew how to connect with me, right? In that sense, yeah, yeah,
Ed Essey 20:13
they did. Like, what if, like, but what if they brought the wrong breed, or your family wasn't ready for it, or something like, and you didn't know them, and like, it would be so weird, right? And free, you know, there's a saying free, like a puppy. That's what a team showing up and trying to convince a sponsor about their idea is, without that team having done any research, that it's like, Wait, you're giving me something I'm going to need to take care of for over a decade, and I need to change my whole family around and how I think about travel, and, you know, how I structure it? Like, do I need a yard now? Like, it's, this is what it's like when teams don't do that with executives.
Marcus Daniels 20:57
It's such an important point you're putting forward, right? And I think, you know, regardless of this gets applied to within the internal context, or even a startup on the outside that wants to try to earn a pilot, they often aren't in that circle, right? They haven't done the valid not even a question of the validation work. There's a level of trust and also understanding the perspective of what are the goals that we want to try to drive forward, tying it back into it there. I'd love to, you know, again, Microsoft garage, that's so much success. It's such a known quantity in kind of the corporate innovation circles. We often get asked, you know, mid size organizations, they're naturally aren't going to create something of the scale of a Microsoft garage. But what is your advice, since you were there more or less at the inception, on, on, how should they get started if they want to do something on a smaller scale, like a mini garage?
Ed Essey 21:51
Yeah, so when we're saying mid size, like, how many employees are we talking? Oh,
Marcus Daniels 21:55
I mean, not a fortune 500 company? Um, it could be something that, let's say a private, private company, not public yet.
Ed Essey 22:03
Okay, I asked that because it's different at different numbers, like what one of the reasons that ours can exist like, if I have 20,000 projects, I have this insane funnel that, if you know we're talking 20,000 projects, if you're talking about a company that doesn't have 20,000 employees, it's a totally different game. So when I've, I've worked with companies, I give, I give different input based on where they're at. But the I would start with, basically, you create the double sided market, you figure out what the leaders care about, what really matters, and what we did in the garage early on, the leaders weren't telling us to do this. We we were doing that research for them so you could do the same, like we were paying attention to their memos, to their public speeches, to you know, we would talk to other people on their team about their town halls, and then we would draft a challenge. We would say, like, hey, we think this is a challenge you're facing. Is that right? And, you know, their chief of staff would usually work with us on on that challenge, and come back and say, Yeah, our exec would like this, and we would do something with it if we got that answer. It's like, okay, great. Now let's bring these challenges from different execs to the company and make it persuasive and make it fun and give them an opportunity to work on it. So like, that's the first step, is setting up that double sided market. The second step is you need to give pathways for those ideas to move forward. And you there are five different buckets of ideas, and each one of them requires a different type of pathway in an organization. This is what I've I've learned so like horizon one, ideas, incremental growth, Horizon two and horizon three, they all three of them require different pathways and different ways of helping them. The other is any internal culture processes and tools. And I bundle those together because all three of them have to be addressed at the same time through change management and transformation. So that's the fourth bucket. The fifth one is if you are making a different type of impact, other than direct bottom line revenue impact. So if you're, if you're doing, you know, hack for society, what we call Hack for Good at Microsoft, like because we have a big philanthropical part of our history, given, you know, you've probably seen Bill Gates with the the Gates Foundation. It's always been a part of Microsoft's culture. So having a different path for moving those forward. So all five of these buckets need different paths
Marcus Daniels 24:53
forward back that you said there's different pathways to move these ideas forward, and you have such a high rate of. Exec sponsorship. How hard is it actually to put some of these ideas down? You know, again, again, having an Old Yeller moment of putting down, you know, because it seems like there's so much success in moving things through the pathway, and you have this system in place to be able to do it, and so many ideas and projects. I'm curious, just on the other side, how do you filter through some of these ideas and shut them down
Ed Essey 25:26
in some ways? And it's a lot of how our model structured. It's not that's not the difficult part, because the way our model is it's not that we've hired a team of people, and that's their job to make the idea work. And if it doesn't work, they're like, laid off and out of a job and and looking around, that's that's not our structure, it's more of they're working in it in parallel to test the ideas and get to a certain level of sponsorship. And so they all have a day job that. And even if they're in the fellowship, they still have a day job to go back to. We don't even take them out of their reporting chain. They're still reporting to the same manager, even if they're working full time on it. And it's, by the way, it's completely voluntary for the manager. The manager could say no, no manager ever has but a manager could say say no to this. But because of that, they already have a day job that they love. And so what I find is almost everybody, no matter how passionate they are, they are also skeptical of their idea and they want to work on something that is going to make an impact. And since their day job is already making an impact, and this new idea is making an impact for them, they need to activate themselves. So it's a bigger, actually, part of my program to figure out how to create the activation energy for people and when to do that, to help them know that this is something worth investing in.
Marcus Daniels 27:03
Yeah, no, that's a really powerful statement, because you could have described two really important points with respect to kind of intrinsic motivation, right? Because they're taking their own ideas, but also just the nature of just growth innovation, it's it's beyond nine to five. So you have your core job, plus you have this other burning desire to solve a problem you care about. You are going to try to validate this or find any resource. And like, naturally, the garage being a great framework to help that validation process to de risk it. And then, you know, as we, as you described before, a lot, often these things evolve, right? They evolve into other. But usually, it's usually your starting point is, what problem are we trying to solve? And then kind of, you know, look at what are the other ways and other solutions to try to solve that problem. You know, you said once intrapreneurs are entrepreneurs with constraints. I've always loved that saying, because it gives a bit of a bit of a context. But what have you seen over the years of who's really been able to thrive as an intrapreneur, like getting down to the human level, of all the characteristics and people who've leveraged the garage or the growth framework, is there any characteristics of the intrapreneurs that you've noticed that really can take these ideas and create even maximize the business value?
Ed Essey 28:25
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I want to add something, yes, they have constraints, but they also have so much ability to leverage the strengths of the organization they're with, and that the key piece is getting alignment to the organization. And if they're aligned to the organization, like, basic, you know what I was talking about before, about getting in the sponsor circle, if they can align their personal passion with a large opportunity and something that their organization cares about. And, you know, I'm like, kind of making a Venn diagram here, and you get that spot in the middle, like, that's a way that you could basically get your organization working for you, and the organization's happy to do it. You're creating a win win of your own passion with an aligned opportunity,
Marcus Daniels 29:12
right? And when you think about, you know, just the, maybe the most underrated skill that you see entrepreneurs have, that that had been successful. Have you, have you identified any of those skills that you think that really helped these folks to become successful?
Ed Essey 29:28
It's three pieces, and it's really being able to it's one skill, but it's being able to see all three pieces at once, a big vision, a a a really focused initial starting point, and then the ability to show a plan of how you could move from that initial starting point to the Big Vision in a series of phases. So it's like being able to think big, focused and bridge the two right.
Marcus Daniels 30:00
Right, right? And so many ways, it's a bit of like visionary execution skills. So you can't just have the belief you need to come up with the right vision, but naturally, the ability to execute systematically, and you have kind of a framework around it to help support people to go through that process. And when you think of, you know, all the different innovation activities that happen in the garage. You know, what do you think is, you know, outside of validation, we talked a little bit about that, how important that is. What are the other kind of, maybe core activities you think you just can't live without again, thinking, you know, maybe smaller organizations looking at building some sort of garage is there other elements beyond, you know, the validation phase you think are just mission critical to be successful?
Ed Essey 30:48
I'll even say this, the validation phase of what you need to get sponsorship is much smaller than you might think like. There's a lot of the stuff that we learn through Lean Startup methods that could actually be deferred until after sponsorship. So a big part of it is figuring out, like, what is that Minimal Viable bit of information that the that the sponsor cares about? So a little bit about what I've been talking about this whole time is when we apply all these validation principles to a to like users or customers. If you're a big organization, you have to apply those same principles to the sponsor and and understanding them. And so that's just thinking about your sponsor is one more stakeholder that you need to be able to do what we call sponsor development. So the ability, like, based on that, the ability that I would add is you need to be able to coach people on what to do, to get in the sponsor's circle, and sometimes to like, where to be patient, where to be impatient, like how to work up the chain of command, overcome objections. Know when the sponsor might actually think bigger than somebody who reports to the sponsor. Like there's a reason they're in the hierarchy anywhere, because the sponsor might be thinking about a different problem than a gatekeeper to the sponsor, and you have to be able to help navigate that, while also understanding that they might frame up objections in ways that are worth overcoming, so that that does require good coaching to be able to do. Yeah,
Marcus Daniels 32:33
I know you've highlighted that quite a bit so far about how the importance of coaching and some of these interactions, and I mean, like you're writing a book about it, I'd love to maybe dig a bit into that, just what got you excited about going on the Endeavor that's a venture on its own, writing a book, you know, sharing your journey, the insights, would love to understand more about some of the thought process of what you'd like to share. And I think it's getting published pretty soon.
Ed Essey 33:00
Yeah, it will be a spring of 2026, so it's, it's, it's quite a journey. But like what, what got me excited about it is I know my purpose on this planet is to empower people to know their worth and use their gifts to make meaningful change in the world. That's why I'm in this body on this planet at this time, is to do this, and I've had the great fortune that I've got to do it within Microsoft, within a really talented, passionate organization. I've actually been at Microsoft for 23 years. However, I work with a lot of people outside of Microsoft. I've worked with governments, government organizations, military organizations, nonprofits, other companies, and there are so many people in there that want to learn what what we're doing. So a big part of what I want to do is share what I've been learning working with all these people so that everybody could have it the same way. I created the garage growth framework to scale the coaching I do within Microsoft. I I've created this book, and I took a pretty fun approach to this, which is, I view it. I realized that entrepreneurship is like a heist movie. I love that. So the book is called the inside job, the entrepreneurs kit, or the entrepreneurs toolkit, the mastermind meaningful change and innovation. So it starts with the realization that you're a mastermind. You do your own self work to overcome the mole that's that like imposter syndrome talking within you. You recognize the over stories of your organization, but then you assemble your crew you know, like, imagine you're watching a Soderbergh film right now, or whatever. Your favorite heist movie, Marcus, you have a favorite heist
Marcus Daniels 34:56
movie. I don't have a favorite heist movie, but I do enjoy them.
Ed Essey 34:59
Okay? Okay, so if you're friends with lots of directors, I'm glad I didn't put you on the so okay, but then it's like this crew of all these different skills, but in the heist movies, it's not just their skills that pull off the heist. It's their personalities, their viewpoints, their background, like, that's what it's like with the team, and they need to bond and like, have a code. Like, here's how we're going to work together. It's interesting. Like, of entrepreneurs I've worked with Marcus, like, if they go and get married or have a life event, it's usually not their work colleagues that they invite to these special, personal events. It's the people that they worked on these side projects with, as entrepreneurs and like that, bonding that happens right? And then they're it's sort of like they're breaking into the vault, like they're trying to pick the right mark. And I'm not trying to say they're trying to pull it over on the sponsor. They're not right, like they're trying to create a win win for the sponsor. But it's good to think about who it is. Then you're doing the stakeout, right? All that research you're doing, like, watch this stuff. That's your stakeout. And you're you're preparing to come in. You want to bring in big numbers or, like, a pilot, statistics, or demos. So I say that's like you're packing your explosives. You're understanding their their object, their objections. So those are like your countermeasures. You're ready, also understanding the sponsors language versus your own language, and what metrics they use. This is, this is like your decoders. So you get in, but then what happens? You have a good meeting. You get out of the meeting. Have you ever heard any stories about how after the meeting like that, somebody came in, some manager who wasn't even supporting your idea all along, comes in and says, Hey, I had that idea. I'm actually running this program, of course.
Marcus Daniels 36:56
Yeah. So we've seen that movie before.
Ed Essey 36:58
You've seen that movie before, yeah. So that's why there's the escape. And in the book, I talk about how you could prepare for that escape, how you could sort of plan for your aftermath. And then also, how do you prepare for your sequel or your legacy, of like, what's the next project you're gonna go after, no matter what happened? How do you prepare for that? So that's what the book's
Marcus Daniels 37:20
about. No. And I think the way you've also put this together, I think, is a very useful, relatable tool. We've always believed that, you know, there's a hidden talent class of Intrapreneurs that need to be unlocked, and naturally, you've been to be able to create an environment frameworks for them to be successful. But a lot of it goes back to those human characteristics. And I love the fact that you've also kind of really highlighted. It's like these side projects, and the connection between these humans is what's really made one plus one equals three in some of these corporate ventures, regardless if they get spun out, regardless if they leave whatever organization they're in to go do a startup. I think it's that process and that connection points between the humans that really make it special, and the fact that they do have to be a bit of like renegades, and that's why there is kind of, like this mission and and shits gonna happen. You can these obstacles are gonna happen internally, and we don't put enough of a spotlight on what intrapreneurs go through to make things move forward, if it's a corporate executive taking credit, are now kind of swooping in to kind of maybe try to get some control or navigating, okay, how do we find budget internally, which could be even harder than raising capital on the outside world? Yeah.
Ed Essey 38:35
You know, this reminds me, like when I was at the Lean Startup conference in 2018 where I, you know, delivered the talk that became the seed of the garage growth framework. I also attended this talk by Elliot sou he and in it, he said something I'll never forget. He told the story of a Street Fighter, world champion. I don't know if you ever played the game Street Fighter,
Marcus Daniels 39:01
to know, but Street Fighter one, yes, okay,
Ed Essey 39:04
okay. Did you know that there are still, like, worldwide tournaments by, like, grown adults, like playing, playing, like the Street Fighter games. I'm well aware of that. Yeah, for prize. Okay, okay. So one, one year, you know, there are you know, there are these two characters in it, like Ryu and Ken, and there's this thing, like, if they button mash, they could get you in a corner, and they could button mash, and you, like, can't get out of it, and they'll win, right? So most people playing don't do that. There's like, this unspoken rule, like this, or this unwritten rule, you just don't do that. Well in the final match, this one world champion did it, and he went on and won, and they were interviewing him after, and that's why did you do it? He said winners don't follow rules that don't exist. And and. And and like, this is what I mean by that, like, by the over stories and like, I think what you mean by the renegade part, it's often that there are not even rules in the organization. Like, I'm not saying ignore security and privacy and stuff like that. You have to do those things, but it's following those rules that actually don't exist, that are just sort of people say, like, we just don't do that around here, or the things that are holding the organization back, like, that's the way you need to be a that bit of a renegade. That's the way, that's what you need to work around, is the the people who've appointed themselves the cops for rules that don't exist,
Marcus Daniels 40:39
right? I mean, the garage has always been, I think, a bit about like culture as a product. And you have an ability of try to foster this bottom up kind of innovation outside of whatever kind of other parameters are coming in. I think you have a really voice, had a really good balance between that. What are some of the on the point you just brought up, what sort of the organizational hacks to get that mindset of, let's not worry about some of these other rules and those unarticulated rules, we have to just not ask for permission and move forward. Has there been any organizational hacks for the intrapreneurs to get comfortable in doing those things? Because a lot of people have it in them, but they've gone through, maybe worked at a different organization, just what gives them the courage to just do without always asking? One of the things is to give them an award. It's recognition. Yeah, encouragement.
Ed Essey 41:33
Give them recognition. Give them a war, give them an award, give them a platform that maybe their chain of command isn't giving them. And we've, you know, we've created enough of a you know, I'm just kind of reflecting on this right now. I nobody's asked me this question before, and I love it. But one of the things is, if you recognize them publicly, they're doing something different. They're taking risks. You're connecting it to explicitly, to values or missions of the company, so it's still aligned, but you're but you're showing how they're doing it in a different way, and they're doing it in a risky, innovative way that opens eyes, and it a lot of times these, these people, like they get awards to just, just next, next week, I have a team that's going to meet with the CEO of Microsoft. Like almost everybody on the team two or three levels up their chain of command have never met with the CEO of Microsoft, right? So this creates a totally new opportunity for them. And in a way, it's like having a meeting like that. If they get a prize with a senior person, it it actually gives them like, almost like a Willy Wonka, like golden ticket to ask almost anybody in the company to take a meeting with them as they're preparing what they want to do next. So it's this, like, basically, you could bestow credibility indicators onto people so that they don't have to convince everybody every time they go. You can, you can say, you could give them credibility that's recognized in like anywhere in the hall you're giving them a hall pass.
Marcus Daniels 43:26
Yeah, I think what you just said might be one of the best advice to an executive of a risk averse company, if they can have a courage to put a spotlight and reward somebody and give the recognition, it will have such a profound impact to the overall culture of that organization and show that it can move forward. So I mean, we're getting close to time here. But what does growth, innovation, leadership mean in 2025 like you've been on this journey for such a long time, you've created and evolved as well the Microsoft garage, but as you see in this world of AI being applied into digital transformation. What does this look like going forward in 2025 and beyond? Well, AI
Ed Essey 44:09
itself is, is going to be, you know, amazing for productivity and thought and so on. I want to address something a little a little different, which is the speed of AI. Growth is having a hugely transformative effect on the industry, because for organizations that previously would have reorged for new opportunities, the industry is moving too fast for reorgs anymore, and because of that, they are working differently, and I'm seeing this differently. And, you know, I've been in the garage for 11 years now, helping helping projects move forward the types of things that will happen in executive meetings now, where an executive will in the middle of a meeting. Call in a dev lead from their organization into the meeting, into the sponsorship meeting, where we have and they'll say, like, Hey, would you work with this team? Spend the next two weeks actually adding this into the product, and come back in two weeks and have another meeting with our team and show us the demo of what you did in that two weeks, like, unheard of Marcus, like, never, never had anything move at this kind of speed before. And even the executives are saying, like, gosh, we love that the hackathon exists, because now the way we work is like the hackathon, but we've had 10 years training our workforce in how to be this agile and work with people outside of their hierarchy and so on, because we don't have time to reorg anymore. Yeah, I
Marcus Daniels 45:47
know that we're starting to see that in certain other organizations, in corporate venture studios that are even on the outside, that they've had at least some of that muscle that's been built through different sets and reps, and now they're ready to go even faster. So I think it's such an important point. But you know, Ed, I want to thank you for this kind of mini masterclass on kind of blending internal innovation into growth innovation. I think that's been invaluable. I can't wait to read your book once it drops. But how could people find you, connect with you?
Ed Essey 46:20
Yeah, thank you, Marcus, they could find me at Ed se.com and I'm, you know, I'm mostly on LinkedIn as well. So people can find, find me there. If they want to find the Microsoft garage, they could go to garage.microsoft.com
Marcus Daniels 46:36
Well, thanks again, and looking forward to maybe seeing you in Seattle soon. Oh,
Ed Essey 46:40
please, please look me up next time you're here. And it's been such an honor to be on this Marcus. Really fun conversation. Thanks.
We always enjoy conversations about innovation and startup building so please get in touch.
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