In today’s episode, we speak with Joel Peterson, current chairman of JetBlue and Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Joel’s career got a big boost from being the CEO and CFO of the world’s largest real estate development company, after which he left to start a private equity firm.

Tune in to hear us discuss Joel’s experiences working as the chairman of JetBlue and how his career path has been quite serendipitous.

Topics: 

• A moment in his career where forgiveness played a large part


• Early on, Joel thought you could use “spin” to get out of anything


• Why keeping someone on when they’re not working out can be detrimental


• How he became the CFO of a private equity firm


• The terrible end to his tenure at the private equity firm


• Why Joel thinks he is offered leadership positions


• The importance of building trust in business


• Which world leader is Joel’s role model

Quotes:

“Early on in my career... I learned that you can’t talk your way out of problems you behaved your way into.”

“This was a $750 Million decision for a little start-up airline, so we knew we had to get this terminal right.”

“It would be hard to run a business without people trusting you.” 

Resources:

JetBlue