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X'I Think It's the Perfect Time for Me to Start My Second Act.' Cornerstone CEO Adam Miller Steps Down
Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.

After two decades building Cornerstone OnDemand into one of the largest cloud-based learning and talent management software vendors in the world with a market capitalization of more than $2 billion, CEO and founder Adam Miller is finally ready to walk away.
"This year I celebrated the company's 20th anniversary, I celebrated my 50th birthday, and we acquired our biggest original competitor," Miller told dot.LA. "I think it's the perfect time for me to start my second act."
Santa Monica-based Cornerstone closed its acquisition of Saba Software, headquartered in the East Bay, April 22nd and the company's former CEO, Phil Saunders, will replace Miller June 15th while he becomes co-chair of Cornerstone's board.
The world has changed dramatically since the deal was first announced at the end of February, which is reflected in a lower closing price. Saunders acknowledges it will be no easy task integrating the two companies when their 3,000 employees are working remotely and he is quarantining with family on the East Coast.
"It is a bizarro time," Saunders said. "I guess if you could have a few wishes granted to you, one of them would not be taking over a CEO role in the midst of COVID."
Saunders and Miller spoke to dot.LA's Ben Bergman how the deal got done in such a challenging environment, how they will integrate the companies, and Miller's views about L.A. tech, which he has seen grow up alongside Cornerstone.
Former Saba Software CEO Phil Saunders will become CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand on June 15, 2020.
Adam, you've been CEO for so long. Why step away now?
I started the company 20 years ago with the idea that we would help improve access to education on a global basis, and we have been able to do that. We now have the company clearly on track to a billion in sales and we have delivered over 800 million online courses in the last year. So I'm feeling really good about where we are. We are about to kick off the next chapter in the company with integration with Saba to become a larger scale player. And I think it's the perfect time for me to start my second act, which is really about philanthropy and public service.
CEO and founder Adam Miller is finally ready to walk away from Cornerstone OnDemand
Was it always the plan to step aside when you acquired Saba?
It wasn't definitive when we first started talking two years ago. I've been thinking about this for a couple of years and what transition might look like. As I got to know Phil better and the board got to know him better, it became clear it was the right time to do it.
Phil, this is a challenging environment to come into. You're not even in the office right now. What is it like?
It's sort of like a marriage. When things are going well marriage is pretty easy. It's when things get dicey you test the balance of that personal relationship. Adam and I have been through a lot.
This deal could not have gotten done at a more complicated time. We had very emotional and agitated boards and stakeholders because of COVID-19. And I would say to Adam, "If we just put everyone out of the way, what would you want to do? Do you think this is still a good bet?" And when we both talked it over and said "hell, yeah!" then you know you have something special and it's worth fighting for. I'm really proud of the fact that we fought our way through to the other side because it would have been easy to quit.
Did you ever think about not going through with the deal in light of the coronavirus?
(Saunders) It's public knowledge that when the deal got signed it was at a certain value and when it closed, it was another. [The price fell from $1.395 billion to $1.295 billion at closing.] So there was definitely a bit of a OMG there. But I think it just shows where perseverance and belief and conviction really come through. You know ultimately Adam and I looked at each other - virtually at some point - and made sure that we both believe that the thesis is still rock solid and we both knew it was. There were definitely people all around us that had questions. But I think the belief in the conviction won.
How does the coronavirus change what you will do at Cornerstone?
(Miller) What we do is very applicable to this environment. We help companies recruit online, onboard their people, train them, manage them, and improve communication between managers and employees using digital tools. We're even using our own tools to make this integration happen.
Phil, how does this acquisition change Cornerstone?
If I just kept doing what Adam did for 20 years, then you really would not need me. So part of what I'm here to do is help extend Adam's success. Adam is a founder with an idea he had 20 years ago in his New York City apartment. I never had an original idea in my entire life. I'm just a really good operator. I always like to get my arms around things and make them better. And so it doesn't sound like it, but it's a really good fit between me and Adam. People need to understand that we take combining the companies very seriously. If you do well, you build a really awesome company. If you do it really poorly, you have a mess on your hands. We believe we will get this integration right and we're taking the care and time to do it right. We also have to acknowledge with our employees and with our customers that there's going to be some change. It's undeniable. For example, Cornerstone was running the company like it was the Golitah in talent management. Saba was the David of David and Goliath. Now we're one company and we have to get our minds around the fact that there is a new competitor out there and it's not each other.
Adam you are really one of the forefathers of the L.A. tech scene. Can you reflect on what has changed in the last 20 years as you've built up Cornerstone?
It couldn't have been more different back then than it is today. When I started the only acceptable jobs in L.A. were in entertainment, real estate or perhaps finance. There was no tech community to speak of. I had a very hard time convincing our earliest investors – who were quite frankly friends and family – that it made sense for me to move what was really just me from New York to L.A. to build the technology company there. About 10 years in, we started to see the real development of L.A. tech. I used to say that we were forced by necessity to hire based on potential and not experience because it was impossible to find people with experience. We were a B2B software company in Los Angeles at a time when there weren't even tech companies, much less enterprise software companies. Today it's been an amazing transformation in Los Angeles. I feel like we've accomplished a dual mission. On the one hand, we built Cornerstone from scratch into one of the largest cloud computing companies in the world and simultaneously took L.A. from obscurity to one of the top tech centers in the world.
Could you have imagined 20 or even 10 years ago that the L.A. tech scene would look like it does today?
Not at all. I knew it was becoming legit when people started proactively saying they were going into tech and I knew we had first made it when I started to hear engineers who were at L.A. colleges start talking about staying in L.A. I think the next problem to solve in L.A. is dealing with that seed stage gap, which has to do with companies getting seed funded and maybe even getting their A-round funded, but not being able to get to that B and C round. I think that's the next evolution of L.A. tech and I'm absolutely going to be one of the people helping solve that problem.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity
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Ben Bergman is the newsroom's senior finance reporter. Previously he was a senior business reporter and host at KPCC, a senior producer at Gimlet Media, a producer at NPR's Morning Edition, and produced two investigative documentaries for KCET. He has been a frequent on-air contributor to business coverage on NPR and Marketplace and has written for The New York Times and Columbia Journalism Review. Ben was a 2017-2018 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economic and Business Journalism at Columbia Business School. In his free time, he enjoys skiing, playing poker, and cheering on The Seattle Seahawks.
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Plus Capital Partner Amanda Groves on Celebrity Equity Investments
On this episode of the L.A. Venture podcast, Amanda Groves talks about how PLUS Capital advises celebrity investors and why more high-profile individuals are choosing to invest instead of endorse.
As a partner at PLUS, Groves works with over 70 artists and athletes, helping to guide their investment strategies. PLUS advises their talent roster to combine their financial capital with their social capital and focus on five investment areas: the future of work, future of education, health and wellness, the conscious consumer and sustainability.
“The idea is if we can leverage these people who have incredible audiences—and influence over that audience—in the world of venture capital, you'd be able to help make those businesses move forward faster,” Groves said.
PLUS works to create celebrity partnerships by identifying each client’s passions and finding companies that align with them, Groves said. From there, the venture firm can reach out to prospective partners from its many contacts and can help evaluate businesses that approach its clients. Recently, PLUS paired actress Nina Dobrev with the candy company SmartSweets after she had told them about her love for its snacks.
Celebrity entrepreneurship has shifted quite a bit in recent years, Groves said. While celebrities are paid for endorsements, Groves said investing allows them to gain equity from the growth of companies that benefit from their work.
“Like in movies, for example, where they're earning a residual along the way, they thought, ‘You know, if we're going to partner with these brands and create a tremendous amount of enterprise value, we should be able to capture some of the upside that we're generating, too’,” she said.
Partnering in this way also allows her clients to work with a wider range of brands, including small brands that often can’t afford to spend millions on endorsements. Investing allows high-profile individuals to represent brands they care about, Groves said.
“The last piece of the puzzle was a drive towards authenticity,” Groves said. “A lot of these high-profile artists and athletes are not interested, once they've achieved some sort of level of success, in partnering with brands that they don't personally align with.”
Hear the full episode by clicking on the playhead above, and listen to LA Venture on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
dot.LA Editorial Intern Kristin Snyder contributed to this post.
Rivian Stock Roller Coaster Continues as Amazon Van Delivery Faces Delays
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
Rivian’s stock lost 7% yesterday on the back of news that the company could face delays in fulfilling Amazon’s order for a fleet of electric delivery vans due to legal issues with a supplier. The electric vehicle maker is suing Commercial Vehicle Group (CVG) over a pricing dispute related to the seats that the supplier promised, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The legal issue could mean that Amazon may not receive their electric vans on time. The dispute hinges on whether or not Commercial Vehicle Group is allowed to raise the prices of its seats after Rivian made engineering and design changes to the original version. Rivian says the price hike from CVG violates the supply contract. CVG denies the claim.
Regardless, the dispute could hamper Rivian’s ability to deliver electric vans to Amazon on time. The ecommerce/streaming/cloud computing/AI megacorporation controls an 18% stake in Rivian as one of the company’s largest early investors. Amazon has previously said it hopes to buy 100,000 delivery vehicles from Rivian by 2030.
The stock plunge marked another wild turn for the EV manufacturer. Last week, Rivian shares dropped 21% on Monday after Ford, another early investor, announced its intent to sell 8 million shares. The next few days saw even further declines as virtually the entire market saw massive losses, but then Rivian rallied partially on the back of their earnings report on Wednesday, gaining 28% back by Friday. Then came yesterday’s 7% slide. Today the stock is up another 10%.
Hold on tight, who knows where we’re going next.
David Shultz is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Barbara, California. His writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Outside and Nautilus, among other publications.
Snapchat’s Attempt to Protect Young Users From Third-Party Apps Falls Short
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Some Snap Kit platform developers have skirted guidelines meant to make the app safer for children.
A new report from TechCrunch released Tuesday found that some third-party apps that connect to users’ Snap accounts have not been updated according to new guidelines announced in March. The restrictions, which target anonymous messaging and friend-finding apps, are meant to increase child safety. However, the investigation found a number of apps either ignore the new regulations or falsely claim to be integrated with Snapchat.
The Santa Monica-based social media company announced the changes after facing two separate lawsuits related to teen suicide allegedly caused by the app. Over 1,500 developers integrate Snap features like the camera and Bitmojis. Snap originally claimed the update would not affect many apps.
Developers had 30 days to revise their software, but the investigation found that some apps, such as the anonymous Q&A app Sendit, were granted an extension. Others blatantly avoided the changes—the anonymous messaging app HMU, which is now meant for adult users, is still available to users "9+" in the App Store. Certain apps that have been banned from Snap, like Intext, still advertise Snapchat integration.
“First and foremost, we put the privacy and safety of our community first and expect the products built by our developer community to adhere to that standard in addition to bringing fun and positive experiences to people,” Director of Platform Partnerships Alston Cheek told TechCrunch.
The news is a blow to Snap’s recent efforts to cast itself as a responsible social media platform The company recently announced Colleen DeCourcy would take over as the company’s new chief creative officer and CEO Evan Spiegel to recently made a a generous personal donation to graduates of Otis College of Art and Design. The social media company currently faces a lawsuit from a teenager who claims it has not done enough to protect minors from sexual exploitation. In April, 44 attorney generals sent a letter to Snap and TikTok urging the companies to strengthen parental controls.
Lawmakers are considering new policies that would hold social media companies accountable for the content on their platforms. One such bill would require social media companies to share data with independent researchers.
Snapchat recently rolled out augmented reality shopping features and influencer-led original content to grow its younger base of users.
Snap Inc., Snapchat's parent company, is an investor in dot.LA.
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.