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Compass (COMP): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Compass

compass

Compass (COMP): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Wasim Khaled believes that “human beings are not yet ready” for the warped realities that can be spread through harmful AI. Compass, a “context product” launched by Blackbird, uses gen AI to help people check posts and other online media for misinformation and disinformation.

Blackbird.AI CEO on helping humans stop harmful AI

Illustration by Fortune. Photograph provided by Blackbird.AI.

Leadership

Compass, a “context product” launched by Blackbird, uses gen AI to help people check posts and other online media for misinformation and disinformation.

So I see what are people missing. What's the one headline that we're not seeing about A I? There are so many headlines out there about A I, I'm trying to think which one is not really being covered. I think the one that I would like to see and we're seeing a little bit more play there is that the degree to which A I can be used for good versus evil is not based on the morality of the A I, but in the morality of the user, it is a human problem, not an A I problem. Welcome to leadership. Next, the podcast about the changing rules of business leadership. I'm Alan Murray and I'm Mia, what does Blackbird A I do for me? So if we are equipping uh analysts and uh threat intelligence teams to get a better sense of what are the mechanisms behind this narrative attack. So most people perceive that as something that just happened and we show them, OK, there might be a bot network, for example, that was deployed, that is amplifying and driving the reach of that particular narrative. And if you think about it, every organization has a narrative and every narrative has a counter narrative. And so it is the seeding of all of these counter narratives that are tearing down the messaging that that company wants to put out there in the world uh that we really enable them to see. So I think what keeps you up at night when it comes to A I, I would say it's not just A I, but it's the application of A I to harmful acts, particularly in our space that is about warped realities. And uh I would say that the biggest problem today around those work realities and the utilization of A I to drive them is that as a society, human beings aren't yet ready to question every single thing that they see, whether I not even just see but see, hear uh read. And so the fact that we have to question our reality on everything that we look at and try to perceive is extremely disturbing. And I think about also what our younger Children, you know, I'm, I'm a father and, and I think about like the world that they're growing up in without that appeal to be able to know uh if what they're seeing or looking at is artificial or manipulated. And so that concerns me and that's really why we do what we do keeps me up to. There is reason to be hopeful because the same types of technologies that frankly are making the problem worse can be used as a, as a defensive measure or a kind of illuminating uh product as well. February 14th is Valentine's Day. Actually, we're launching a product. It's something we call compass. Uh we call it compass because it helps you see the way a little bit more. It is a context product. And so you can give it a question, you can give it a link or a post or a meme or even a link to a video and it will use our generative A I models and all of the risk signals we've developed for our enterprise customers around bot activity and, and, and harmful communities. And it will tell you as much non biased kind of two sided context along with sources and, and where that came from as well as summarizing points like a, like a chat GP T and uh and, and we think that's something that could be incredible for people who help the average person discern the truth. Why put it out on Valentine's Day? Is there a message there or is it a coincidence? It is for the love of what we do?

How President Anton Vincent is guiding Mars Wrigley with “The Compass," a five-principle strategy created to help foster cohesion and unity between the Mars family and company leadership.

Mars Wrigley’s billion-dollar commitment to sustainability and net zero

Well, I'm, I'm a proud associate of Mars Incorporated. It really is a unique company. I think we actually have a perfect blend of purpose and profit. Uh You may know us through our brands that are very consumer facing like an M and MS or Snickers or Twix or Skittles or Starburst. But we also happen to be the largest confectionery company in the world. We are the largest pet care company in the world and you know, we can make sure that we are impacting the biggest and broadest set of people possible and not just consuming our products and services, but also advancing our purpose in making the world a better place. When we talk purpose, we want to make sure that that purpose is not just a construction of words, but those words have uh have meaning that they have understanding and that they actually guide strategy. I think that's where a lot of companies miss it. You can come up with great words, those words can have great meaning, great emotion. But if you're not activating against those, you really can't see your purpose come to fruition in the marketplace around the world. Well, at Mars, we measure success in a very simple way. Uh First of all, back in 2017, we developed something called the compass. Uh The compass is essentially the agreement between the family and in leadership around how we want the company run. And that compass is pretty simple, has four quadrants. But at the top half, it's basically our economic engine, our economic ambition. And in the bottom half, it is essentially um how we make the world a better place. And part of what we do is try to put tension between those two halves. And so we have very scripted goals in terms of what that looks like. We try to be transparent, we try to be accountable, we try to make sure that leadership is scripted in such a way that we can achieve that compass over the long arc of time. And so that's our ultimate measure of success. You know, first of all, we think ESG is incredibly important, I think from perspective of Mars. Uh even before the term was coined, Mars had really been, you know, very significantly involved in sustainability efforts and equity efforts as well. And clearly, you know, as a part of a large global company, we had great governance in 2017, we established that their first public facing effort around our sustainability efforts, something called sustainable in a generation. And we committed $1 billion to making sure that we were putting the right types of projects and initiatives to make sure that we are executing against those objectives. Here. Recently, in 2023 we released our net zero road map. The big focus around that net zero road map is to make sure that we're clearly um at net zero by 2050 but also achieving 50% of that goal by 2030. I think my biggest responsibility as, as a leader is to make sure that um that the ideas and the principles and the brands that we have today are just as viable or just as transferring 100 years into the future. I think at the end of the day that my time and Mars and my time leading a big part of Mars is really going to be focused on making sure that our legacy and what we're here to do and our purpose is achieved and relevant and vibrant 100 years from today.

Robert Reffkin talks about how he can turn losses to profits at the real estate brokerage firm he founded and how civil rights leader Vernon Jordan inspired his career.

Compass CEO: “2023 will be the last year of the housing correction”

Robert Reffkin talks about how he can turn losses to profits at the real estate brokerage firm he founded & how civil rights leader Vernon Jordan inspired him.

Compass CEO: 2023 will be last year of housing correction

so great to meet you robert to talk about compass. You know, you've gotten a lot of attention for starting a real estate brokerage company from scratch and making it the go to brokerage for buyers and sellers from new york city to Los Angeles. You made news a year ago when you took compass public on the new york stock exchange and You earned evaluation of $7 billion 12 months have been tough the next 18 months. I fear that they can be tougher. What changed what happened? The real estate market in 2021 was a record year for agents in the overall industry. But policymakers started raising rates to bring down inflation. And what that did to mortgage rates is it brought us from an all time historical low in January to 20 year high in less than nine months, which really put the brakes on the real estate market. Alright, so on on that point, what's your turnaround plan? The turnaround plan is very clear. Uh it is bringing down our expenses along with the market, but our strategy is the same. We're still focused on hiring the best agents, 18% of the top 1000 agents of country or a compass. The company sells or leases the home on average, once a minute, we sell twice the, the average per agent and we have 30,000 agents in the country. And we, we as a company are building the best platform of tools, services and programs to help them grow their business and best serve their clients? The big question is, when are you an eternal profits? Yeah. So we made a commitment to our investors where we said on the last call that we're committed to being free casual positive next year, 2023, we feel very good about the progress in the path. And we're actually assuming the market is going to be worse than the average Of the analysts out there because we want to have a buffer just in case it's worse than people expect. It's clear that there were things that you had no control over policy makers, you know, raising interest rates, the inflation issues. But compass has just celebrated its ten-year anniversary and through that whole 10 years, you never turned a profit. Why is that? And so as a private company raised $1.5 billion dollars and all of those investors, they invested in the company with a mandate to focus on growth, in expanding the company over profit. That was the time of that period over the last year, the market really shifted to focus on profit overgrowth. And we're shifting with that market. Uh, and we're bringing down our expenses accordingly with the real estate market and we're pausing expansion so that we can create profit without having to expand and invest again and again again in new markets. One of the things that differentiated companies from a lot of other real estate firms is that you created this tech software platform, Do you think you got your money's worth? You spent almost a billion dollars to develop that. Would you have done that differently at Compass? We created the first con to close platform where a real estate agent can go from first contact, putting their client into a crm all the way through the buy and sell side process to their transaction management. Getting paid. There's no other place other than Compass where that can be done. We're very proud of that investment and you can see that the agents that use the platform the most grow their business and stay. Encompass the most. But do you think you got your money's worth for that $1 billion development. My mom has been an agent the majority of my life, she's an agent today at compass and I saw her move from firm to firm to firm, always hoping she would get the support and tools that she could realize her dreams as an entrepreneur build her business and best serve her clients. And so I created compass with the sole desire of how can we be best in the world and making agents better and agents are using over 700 tools in this country every single day. But no industry should have to use all these different tools, average 11 tools. We built it all in one place to make it easier for them to do their job. I understand that you gave an upbeat speech recently to thousands of your real estate agents in Atlanta and your message was personal emotional and you encourage them to embrace one of your entrepreneurial principles bounced back with passion and you guys standing ovation. Well, how do you bounce back? Well, I think there's mindset and actions on mindset, you have to know that there's opportunity everywhere around you and so regardless of the challenge, what's the good news and so, okay, it's a really difficult real estate market. Well, the good news is 18% of the top 1000 agents of country or a compass and historically the best agents always getting market share in a downturn. That's great. That's the good news. I give plenty of examples like that. Um, and as it comes to the actual company and our actions, like I said before, we're going to bring down our expense base, The real estate market will bounce back and is we keep our expense base at a moderate level. That will create a lot of opportunity for profit in the years to come. Well, let's talk a little bit about the housing market and pivot away from just compass. How long do you expect this housing correction to last? I think Next year, 20, will be the last year of the housing correction and I think we'll even see a rebound towards the end of next year. There's still buyers that are out there. They've just been sitting on the sidelines a little bit because there's just record volatility and mortgage rates and a lot of volatility in the stock market Robert. Let's talk a little bit about you. Some of the words you use to describe yourself, hardworking, perseverance, optimistic. Those characteristics have not only propelled compass, but also you in amazing ways compass broke into the Fortune 500 this year you're the first black founder on the list ever to make the list. And there are only six black Ceo on the Fortune 500 you're one of them. What did it take for you to achieve so much? And at such a young age we have eight compass on first principles. The first one is dream big. And so I think I've always been a big dreamer. I'm from Berkeley California. I moved to new york because it's the city of dreams where anything can happen. Uh and I remember when I was an intern during my first summer, I went to Columbia University and I saw who was the Ceo of American Express and he was one of the first black Ceos that was in the Fortune 500. And just seeing him in that role made me think I could accomplish more. Uh, it made me feel like more was possible. And so I think I've tried to do my best to dream big and stay positive uh and have a lot of role models like him who helped pave the way for me. Well growing up, you were raised by your mother and you say that she inspired and encouraged you. What was the most important lesson that you learned from her and how has that guided you? My mom is an entrepreneur, she's a real estate agent today, she's been an agent my entire life. The first half is a life insurance agent, the second half is a real estate agent. And so I think the best lesson I got from her is that no matter how many times you fail, you just got to get back up and I just saw through her that failure isn't a hard thing, it just makes you better and you just, and if you can keep trying and trying again, you'll eventually succeed. You worked in many places before you started your own business, Mckinsey Goldman Sachs Lazard and even when I worked at the White House and you say that you had many mentors along the way, you were always asking for their advice. One of those mentors was vernon Jordan who's famous for advising so many american presidents and he also was an investment banker at Lazard, which is one of the firms that you were working at, I'm sure you learned a lot from him, but what would you say is the best leadership advice that he ever gave you, it wasn't just the advice, it was the confidence. I think at that age when I was in my early twenties, I had this thing in my mind of, you know, I can't do this, I can't do that. And for one reason or another. And then I saw this six ft six powerful black leader who was on more fortune 500 boards than anyone in the history of the United States. And it became clear to me I can do whatever I want. Yeah. He walked in Martha King and came from the segregated south to advising Bill Clinton and working in the White House. Uh, and if he can do that, I can realize my dreams and he interests me to the White House fellows program. He told me to apply like his good friend Colin Powell. And that really changed the trajectory of my life.

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