Transparency in business is very crucial. CEOs aren’t always known for being humble or transparent. Pride and secrecy are synonymous with success in the world of business, but CEOs like ElectrifAi’s Edward Scott believe it’s time to change how the world does business.
Edward Scott says he believes humility and transparency have the potential to revolutionize both corporate culture and the customer experience. It’s something he’s seen firsthand as the CEO of a pre-built machine learning solution company. Edward Scott shares why humility plays a big role in ElectrifAi’s culture, as well as why he insists on radical transparency with every solution the company creates for its clients.
How ElectrifAi CEO Edward Scott Builds Culture With Humility
“What we’ve done is we figured out how to productize machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision so that companies can quickly use those things as tools to solve consequential business problems,” Edward Scott explains.
It would be easy for Scott to brag about his company’s abilities. Through the power of prebuilt artificial intelligence and machine learning models, ElectrifAi LLC helps enterprises generate value in as little as six to eight weeks. That’s no small feat, considering it typically takes 18 months or more for companies to create their own custom data models.
However, Edward Scott believes that humility is the key to not only building a strong culture where all employees feel valued but also creating an environment that encourages constant learning and re-invention. If his team doesn’t know something, they won’t hide it from the client.
Being too humble can cause a company to downplay its achievements, but Scott believes it’s important to strike a balance between humility and an honest assessment of his team’s capabilities. ElectrifAi does the work to figure out how to help its clients succeed. “We don’t have all the answers, but we’re sure out there trying to figure them out real quick,” Edward Scott says. The goal isn’t to overpromise or underpromise on their capabilities but to give clients a realistic idea of how ElectrifAi’s solution will function.
After spending years working in technology and the Valley, Edward Scott saw firsthand the dangers of pride — and the toxicity it creates in corporate cultures. “I’ve seen the culture of the Valley and the insidious underbelly. We found a really horrible, what I would call, patriarchal culture,” he explains. This made Scott determined to not only embrace humility at scale but to build a diverse team that brought a variety of ideas to the table.
“We went on a mission to put women at the heart and center of our data science business. I think … close to 50% of our management committee is now women,” he states.
Emerging research backs up Edward Scott’s approach, too. According to a report by the Society of Human Resource Management, humble CEOs are more likely to have stronger company performance and better-performing managers. In an era where tech companies compete for even the slightest edge, Scott believes that humility has the power to strengthen the culture of a company for the better — and that translates into better work and productivity.
Edward Scott understands the value of humble leadership, so much so that he removes anyone from ElectrifAi that doesn’t match those values. “People who violate the culture and values, they’re terminated,” Scott says.
ElectrifAi: Improving the Client Experience Through Radical Transparency
The culture of Silicon Valley also values secrecy. Transparency puts companies at risk of theft from the competition, so it isn’t unusual for companies like ElectrifAi to shroud the inner workings of their products.
But Edward Scott takes the opposite approach.
“We have created something here that does not exist, which is the ability to help clients turn their data into a strategic weapon to drive their business, and to drive their business quickly with what we call consequential AI,” he explains. ElectrifAi helps middle-market companies get results in spite of competing against larger, well-funded competitors.
While ElectrifAi invests a lot of work into its solutions, Edward Scott doesn’t believe in shrouding its products in secrecy. ElectrifAi clients can receive full access to the source code, which is unheard of in this industry.
“There is no black box at ElectrifAi. We will show you exactly how it works and why the decisions were made,” Scott shares. “The ethos of the company is to co-create and innovate with our clients. Data is hard and getting value from data is even harder. Our clients can frequently build on model solutions and accelerate,” Scott said.
This radical transparency is highly unusual in the world of data, AI, and machine learning.
For Scott, it’s simple: ElectrifAi creates a product for the client. This isn’t software as a service (SaaS); this is product ownership. Shouldn’t clients have complete access to everything they paid for?
“Why wouldn’t we be radically transparent with our clients to help them solve their business problems? It’s not about the tech or the alphabet acronym of the day. It’s about solving the business problem. Reduce the friction,” Edward Scott says. It might be unusual, but Edward Scott’s insistence on transparency differentiates ElectrifAi from competing solutions that take the opposite approach.
As the United States’ leading productized ML, NLP, and computer vision solution provider, ElectrifAi is poised for meteoric growth. Scott’s novel approach to culture-building and leadership is paving the way for ElectrifAi to continue solving consequential problems for businesses across the U.S., Asia, the Middle East, and India. In an industry plagued by secrecy and pride, Scott’s leadership approach is a breath of fresh air. It’s an approach that will equip ElectrifAi to compete on a truly global scale by prioritizing the needs of employees and customers first.
