"Nothing we did in China we knew. Nothing I did in Uber I knew how to do before. But I literally went in, like, 'Give me an hour or two, let me go learn it.' I learned the growth mindset in consulting... I realized that it's actually not rocket science for a lot of these things. You can actually learn it." - Wen-Szu Lin
"Something is going to go wrong, and you can really take it as, 'Oh, this sucks,' or you can be like, 'Oh, you know what? That's a good learning moment.' There are three things I always ask our talent acquisition team to look for: hard work, a positive mindset, and a growth mindset." - Wen-Szu Lin
"I was the first person internationally to get hired into Community Operations. As Uber kept scaling, other teams asked us to help do operational work, so we started taking up back-office operations. We just kept growing organically across Asia to teams of thousands. It became one of the largest teams at Uber that no one has ever heard of." - Wen-Szu Lin
00:00 - Introduction to Wen-Szu Lin
01:47 - From US Consulting to Entrepreneurship in Asia
04:48 - Securing the Auntie Anne's Master Franchise Deal
09:55 - The Realities of Doing Business in 2008 Beijing
15:20 - Why the Pretzel Franchise Ultimately Failed in China
20:45 - Winding Down the Business and Pivoting to the Philippines
22:07 - Writing "The China Twist" to Process Failure
24:45 - Building Uber's Community Operations in Asia
27:54 - Writing "Deliver" and Growth Hacking Your Career
30:52 - The Three Key Traits of Successful Tech Talent
Keywords: Startup Failure, Uber Asia, China Market Entry, Growth Mindset, Franchise Business Operations, Tech Leadership, Career Development, Food and Beverage (F\&B) Asia, Community Operations
