[SaaS Series] Turning Crisis Into Opportunity Every Time With Adam Miller

Adam Miller is the Founder and former CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand, a Los Angeles–based leader in cloud talent management software. He grew the company from a startup in his apartment into a $5 billion public company with over 3,000 employees, while also helping build Team Rubicon into a 170,000-volunteer global disaster response organization. Adam is also the Founder of Better Angels, tackling homelessness in LA, and LA-Tech.org, which has delivered over 2,000 internships to underserved youth since 2021. Known for his “player-coach” leadership style, he’s spent his career solving complex challenges at scale — and is now running for Mayor of Los Angeles.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [5:43] Adam Miller explains why running for LA mayor is his toughest challenge yet
• [6:46] The universal leadership lessons Adam applies across business and nonprofit work
• [9:02] Adam’s story of leaving Wall Street and the rare send-off that followed 
• [16:45] Why “player-coach” leadership style drives massive company growth
• [20:15] Inside Adam’s experience surviving near-death payroll crises
• [30:11] The pivotal moment Adam walked away from a major AOL deal
• [37:34] How Team Rubicon is transforming disaster relief through veteran leadership
• [41:15] The impact of LA-Tech.org on underserved youth and tech career opportunities

In this episode…

What does it take to lead through a crisis and still come out stronger? How do you scale a company into the billions while staying true to your vision? And what can leaders learn from navigating both business challenges and real-world community issues?

According to Adam Miller, a seasoned entrepreneur and nonprofit builder, effective leadership comes down to clarity of vision, alignment, and resilience under pressure. He highlights how staying anchored to a clear “North Star” helped him navigate near-failure moments — such as making payroll against the odds and walking away from deals that didn’t align with his long-term goals. Drawing from both startup and nonprofit experiences, he emphasizes that strong relationships and shared purpose are critical to scaling impact. These principles, he explains, apply whether you’re building a company or addressing complex social issues. His “player-coach” approach — balancing strategy with hands-on execution — has consistently driven meaningful results even in uncertain environments.

In this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast, host Dr. Jeremy Weisz sits down with Adam Miller to discuss leading through uncertainty and scaling impact. They explore surviving near-failure startup moments, building alignment across teams, and applying business leadership to public service. Adam also shares insights on making tough decisions and leading with integrity.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Adam Miller on LinkedIn
• Miller for Mayor
• BetterAngels
• Cornerstone OnDemand
• American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO)
• Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN by Bill Rasmussen, Mike Soltys, Garrett Sutton, Chris Berman
• Team Rubicon
• La-Tech.org

Special mention(s):

• Jason Nazar on LinkedIn
• Spencer Rascoff on LinkedIn
• Jim McGeever on LinkedIn
• Steve Singh on LinkedIn
• Marc Benioff on LinkedIn

Related episodes:

• “How Tom Vozzo Went From President of a Billion-Dollar Company to CEO of Homeboy Industries, The Largest Gang Rehabilitation and Re-Entry Program in the World” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “The Intersection Between Comedy and Business with Comedian Elon Gold and CEO of Get Visible, Jason Ciment” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Venture Capital Series] The Making of a Multimillion-Dollar Founder with Randall Kaplan of JUMP Investors” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “P90X: Earning Food & Rent Money as a Mime to over $500 million in Sales- with Tony Horton [Business Inspiration]” on Inspired Insider Podcast
• “[Top Author Series] The Story Behind ESPN’s Sports Heaven With Mike Soltys & Garrett Z. Sutton” on Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable moments:

• “Real success comes from bringing people along — it’s all about alignment.”
• “Set a vision, build a team, align them, and execute with excellence.”
• “No one has more time than anyone else — it’s how you use it that matters.”
• “Leaders make tough decisions with imperfect information — that’s what leadership is.”
• “I know how to get things done — and I can apply that to a city that needs it.”

Action steps:

1. Set a clear vision and align your team: Communicate a compelling vision so everyone understands the bigger picture and their role. 
2. Balance strategy with execution: Keep your “head in the clouds and feet on the ground” by staying connected to both big-picture strategy and day-to-day details.
3. Build strong relationships and partnerships: Focus on mutual benefit and understanding what drives others. 
4. Persevere and make tough decisions: Be willing to act with imperfect information and push through setbacks. Resilience and adaptability are essential in both business and public service.
5. Adopt a builder mindset for complex challenges: Combine bold thinking with practical execution to solve real-world problems. 

Episode Transcript

Intro 00:15

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz 00:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here. I am the Founder of InspiredInsider.com, where I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs and leaders. Today is no different. I have Adam Miller, and back in the day, he ran well. I’ll give you I’ll give a full background of Adam and a few. But he ran Cornerstone OnDemand, took it public. Right now, he’s a glutton for punishment. So he is running for public office. You can check out VoteMiller.com and Adam. I’m going to formally introduce you, but I always like to point out other episodes of the podcast people should check out, you know, since really, you know, when we talk about bringing tech to LA, you know, I think of you. And so I want to mention who are some cool, maybe LA or California-based businesses. And also you’re in the profit but nonprofit sector. 

So I’ve Tom Vozzo, he’s CEO of, he was CEO of Homeboy Industries, which is the largest and most successful gang intervention rehabilitation reentry program across the globe. I think he’s retired since I had him on, but it was a fascinating interview. I had Jason Ciment, who introduced us. I had Jason Ciment and also Jason Ciment and Elon Gold. I don’t know if you are friends or know Elon, but one of my favorite comedians. So it was a trip to have Jason and Elon on the podcast. Do you know Elon, too? I don’t know. Oh, okay. Randall Kaplan, Founder and CEO of JUMP Investors and VC firm. You know, just since 1999, he’s early days like you at Adam invested in more than 60 early-stage late stage technology companies. 

And Tony Horton of P90x also kind of likes you, actually. He was from the East Coast, I think it was Pittsburgh, decided he wanted to do personal training, and drove cross-country to California. Right. Probably to get out. Right. To get out of the crappy weather. So those are a few, right? I don’t know, I’m curious from your standpoint, I’m like, who are some of your favorite entrepreneurs, founders that you’ve maybe followed or friends with colleagues over the years? It could be in the LA tech scene, too. 

Adam Miller: 02:35

Yeah. I mean, look, in LA tech, it’s people like our IT service Titan, Tui at Procore, and Jason Nazar. Spencer Rascoff is now an Angelino after doing Zillow. There are some incredible people down here and some great companies down here. There are also the original SaaS companies. So, I learned a tremendous amount from the early founders in SaaS, like Jim McGeever at NetSuite, Steve at Concur, and Marc Benioff at Salesforce. All were really helpful as I did my journey.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 03:28

Yeah. And we’ll get into your journey a bit. Before we get into it, this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25, we help businesses connect to their dream relationships and partnerships. We do that in two ways. One, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast. We do the strategy, accountability, and execution production. And number two, we’re an easy button for our company’s gifting. So we make gifting stay top of mind. It could be clients, partners, prospects, or staff. From a cultural perspective, easy and affordable. You just give us the addresses. We do everything else. And for me, Adam, the number one thing in my life is relationships. I’m always looking at ways to give to my best relationships, and I’ve found no better way over the past decade to profile the people I admire in the podcast and send them sweet treats in the mail. 

So check out Rise25.com or email [email protected]. So Adam Miller is a Founder and CEO who built Cornerstone OnDemand into a global leader and a $5 billion public company that was headquartered in Los Angeles. I was talking with Jamie, Adam before we hit record here. And, you know, it’s funny when you say that people don’t see all of the near-death experiences, the rough patches, the almost missed payroll moments, the investors that it takes to do all of this right. So it’s not a smooth path. 

He’s also helped build some of the country’s most impactful nonprofits, right? That includes Team Rubicon and Better Angels. So he’s really, you know, looking to tackle disaster response and homelessness at scale. And he’s really taking that builder mindset that he’s used in these companies, nonprofits, and profits into public service. So he’s at the time right now was talking, he’s running for mayor of LA to fix, really one of the most complex cities in the world. So, Adam, thanks for joining me.

Adam Miller: 05:27

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 05:28

So let’s just start with, we’ll talk about Cornerstone OnDemand. You have some incredible stories as an entrepreneur. Let’s just start. What are you working on currently? And I’ll pull up the website, and you know, so you can talk that through.

Adam Miller: 05:43

Yeah. So right now I’m running for Mayor of LA. It’s the biggest problem I’m tackling to date because LA’s got lots of problems. We have physical problems. We have metaphorical problems. The city is broken in many, many ways, whether we’re talking about the streets or the homelessness epidemic, the housing shortage, the public safety challenges, or the lack of affordability. There are many issues in this city that need to be addressed and need to be fixed. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do as mayor.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 06:19

There are, you know, principles that span across business and politics. And really, it goes into leadership, operational experience. Can you talk about the leadership piece and some of the lessons you learned at Cornerstone that you’re like, oh, this directly applies to the nonprofits and also to the mayor?

Adam Miller: 06:46

Yeah. So look, the common thread throughout all the things I’ve done is leadership. I had my first management job when I was 21, and I haven’t looked back. I haven’t really worked for anybody since then. I’ve been either the general manager, the CEO, or the chairman of every single organization I’ve worked at and worked with. And that level of experience managing at scale is applicable in almost any domain. So whether you’re talking about a sports team, I coached a bunch of my kids’ soccer teams. I actually coached 21 AYSO soccer teams. Or you’re talking about a multinational public company like Cornerstone, or you’re talking about a global nonprofit like Team Rubicon, or even a local nonprofit like Better Angels. 

The skills are the same when you’re talking about leadership. You have to set a vision. You have to build a team and align that team with that vision. You have to operate with excellence. Measure your results and hold people accountable. And that’s how you build a successful business. And that’s exactly how you build a successful nonprofit. And that is how I would successfully manage a city like Los Angeles.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 08:23

One of my stories from your journey that I found super interesting is that it kind of shows that people will get behind you. Okay. You talk about an early stage in your career. I’ll let you tell the story a little bit, but most people who quit or are let go are escorted out of the building. Yeah, you had a little different result. And so talk about that for a second. But what I didn’t find when you were talking about is why, why they didn’t escort you out. But just.

Adam Miller: 08:59

Yeah, let me give you a reference.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 09:01

So yeah.

Adam Miller: 09:02

Yeah. So I had a brief stint after law school and business school, working. At an investment bank. So I had a job on Wall Street doing corporate finance as an investment banker, which is a high-end corporate finance job, right, which leverages all the skills around accounting and finance that I had learned at school. And in a role like that, there’s a lot of inside information in those firms because they’re working on M&A deals or working on IPOs, they’re working on corporate financings, and these are, by and large, public companies.

So there’s a lot of inside information that the companies are worried about getting out there. And one of the ways they ensure control is that if somebody is fired or if somebody resigns, then usually within five minutes, security personnel show up in your office and escort you out of the building. That’s the way it works. I’ve been working for about a year and a half. My job, I had been very successful internally. I had worked well with my teams. I was relatively junior in the I mean, not relatively. I was a junior in the firm. I was an associate. There was only one role lower than my role. And this is a very bureaucratic kind of organization. But when I went to the big boss to say I was leaving, he said, why are you leaving? And I told him I was going to start a company. 

And they said, well, he said, we knew you were going to do this at some point. What’s the idea? How long do you need, and how much money do you need to get going? And what happened was every single person in the chain of command, including the analysts below me, the director, vice president, managing director, and vice chairman of the firm, all became my seed investors in Cornerstone, and they let me stay for another couple of months while I finished up the business plan. And that was obviously a great start to the business, but also emblematic of the kind of relationships I would build even early on in my career.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 11:50

Adam. What did they see? That they knew. I mean, did you know all along that you would start a company, or did they just see something? Or what did they say?

Adam Miller: 11:59

I knew all along I was going to start a company. In fact, the reason I worked on Wall Street was to learn the finance piece of the business so that when I actually started the company, I would understand things like M&A and IPOs and how that all worked. And I did it. That was successful. That’s why I didn’t do it for that long. I wanted to. I thought about it as an extension of my education. I had a BA and a BS, and in grad school got a JD and an MBA, but I still thought I was missing a little piece of finance and wanted to round out my education. And that’s what that job was to me. That’s what the job was for. 

But they saw that I understood what was happening in the technology space. I understood how to do the work in finance. I understood how to partner with people. They saw the kind of relationship I developed with our clients. So we had one big project that I worked on, where the clients actually started requesting me to come to the meetings and asked me to lead the discussions at the meetings. And I was relatively junior on the team, so that was not typical. And that kind of experience, and seeing how I worked and seeing how intensely I could work, all led to them believing that I could be successful as an entrepreneur and wanting to back me.

Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 13:32

I know sometimes, you know, someone has a superpower, and it’s hard to identify what you’re doing when you think of that. How do you do in the relationship? Because it seems like you are very good at building relationships and working with teams, with other people. What? What’s your approach to relationships? And it kind of bleeds into leadership, I imagine, too.

Adam Miller: 13:55

Yeah. So I’m going to answer that. But I’ll give you a different superpower that I think has made me successful in all these different endeavors. You can’t do things on your own, no matter what role you have in an organization. It’s never just about positional power. And that is the most common mistake I see people make. They say I have role X, and therefore, I’m going to tell everybody what they have to do. I’m going to force people to do it. But the way to be really successful is to bring people along with you on the journey. It’s that alignment piece. I spend a lot of time on alignment in general, because if you get people aligned on goals, you don’t have to micromanage them. You don’t have to watch their every move. 

You can have comfort that they’re aligned with what you’re trying to accomplish, and they, too, will figure it out with you. Even if you can’t be there every moment of the day. And that’s been the key to success across all these different organizations. And people who are good at alignment are also good at partnership. They understand not just what’s in it for them, but what’s in it for you. And too often people will give talks at company meetings, talking about why the company should do X and Y for that person, right? For that CEO, for that vice president, for that general manager, when in fact, what you should be talking about is why it is good for them? Like, what’s the benefit for them? What is their contribution? How do they make a difference? 

And how are they contributing to the ultimate success of the organization? And by the way, why should they want the organization to be successful? What is the point of the organization? Or what’s the point of the initiative or the endeavor? And why is that a good use of your time? Because at the end of the day, some people have more money than other people, but nobody’s got more time than anybody else. We all have the same 24 hours a day, and people want to make good use of their time. They don’t want to waste their time, no matter what it is they’re doing. So, if you can help people understand, how can they contribute? How can they most effectively use their time? How can they have the biggest impact? That’s how you get results and how you build a high-performing team.

[Continue to Page 2]