Mario Harik is the best CEO's you've never heard of. He learned by working with a living legend, and now he's using everything he's learned at his 40,000-employee company.
Mario is the CEO of XPO, one of the world's largest trucking and logistics companies, with a market cap north of $25B. He joined as employee No. 3 and spent years as Brad Jacobs’ right-hand before taking over as CEO.
In this conversation, Mario shares the test Brad Jacobs taught him for spotting an A player in minutes, how to interview someone and actually determine if they're good, and the one habit that stalls most careers.
He walks through how he makes faster, better, decisions, what he does before and during meetings that makes them more effective, and how a rival’s collapse became one of the most important bets of his career.
Enjoy!
00:00:00 Introduction
00:00:19 How an engineering mindset improves leadership
00:01:58 Using engineering frameworks to execute as CEO
00:03:38 Why perfection is the enemy of effective management
00:05:14 The Brad Jacobs lesson on thinking bigger
00:07:13 The feedback loops that build strong teams
00:08:18 Three qualities to test for in every hire
00:12:50 The service-first strategy behind leading 40,000 people
00:16:21 Running a multi-billion-dollar company on real-time data
00:22:35 Using AI to catch mistakes before the customer does
00:28:35 Coaching through data instead of criticism
00:32:36 The prep work that makes meetings actually work
00:39:48 Going four clicks deep in an interview
00:47:30 What growing up in a war zone taught him about perspective
00:49:27 How an engineer calculates risk
00:50:56 The anatomy of a billion-dollar bet: The Yellow Acquisition
00:55:31 Turning strategy into execution with financial tracking
00:59:23 How to accurately identify A, B, and C players
01:02:12 Why belief is an underrated performance driver
01:04:18 How to give feedback that lands
01:07:33 The only three levers that create all the value
Follow Mario Harik:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marioharik/
XPO: https://investors.xpo.com/board-member/mario-harik/
Related Episode with Brad Jacobs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-FlqVzbj0s
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Thank you to the sponsors for this episode:
+Granola AI, The AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings: https://www.granola.ai/shane
Check out the Granola Notes: https://notes.granola.ai/t/87940e66-e34b-400c-beec-7169bf62f9ed-009c2hma
+CoinShares: Delivering Reason to Digital Asset Investing. https://coinshares.com/
*Shane Parrish*
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Website: https://fs.blog/
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*The Knowledge Project* uncovers the timeless principles that lead to success. Learn more at https://fs.blog/podcast
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