Zulema Quintans runs operations at an energy company, and she has a clear theory about why goals fail. This is a conversation about making OKRs actually work, and how AI is changing the operator's job.

In this episode, Zulema and Michael discuss:

- Why most OKRs never get done, and the one link that fixes it

- Running OKRs as an operating system, not a quarterly ritual

- Aiming for 70 percent completion, and the Federer mindset behind it

- Being directive without micromanaging

- The $200 billion commercial buildings spend on energy, and how much is wasted

- How Noda connects to legacy buildings and cleans messy data

- Automated demand management, and the knob that quietly saves energy

- Why AI makes this a golden age for operators

- Where the human still has to stay in the loop

Chapters

00:00 Cold open: the energy waste problem

01:05 Meet Zulema and Noda

01:45 From Juilliard ballet to COO

03:30 Holding focus and flexibility

06:01 Why OKRs fail, and the 70% rule

08:41 Top-down meets bottom-up OKRs

13:09 Making OKRs the operating system

15:55 Inside Noda: climate tech for buildings

19:19 Turning messy building data usable

20:39 The modular path to automation

22:50 AI cuts onboarding from weeks to hours

24:50 The Buildings IoT acquisition

25:46 AI, the COO role, and human judgment

32:09 The five-year view for buildings

34:42 A warehouse full of sensors

About Zulema:

Zulema Quintans is the chief operating officer of Noda, an energy and building intelligence platform for commercial real estate, where she leads product, operations, and customer success. Before Noda she held leadership roles at Arcadia, American Express, and Bain & Company. She began her career as a professional ballet dancer trained at Juilliard.

Resources mentioned:

- Roger Federer, 2024 Dartmouth commencement address: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqWUuYTcG-o

Connect with Zulema:

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zulema-quintans-36152223/

- Noda: https://noda.ai

Connect with Michael:

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-koenig514

- Building Helm: https://helmapp.ai

Subscribe to Between Two COOs:

- Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/between-two-coos/id1635533318

- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2NjVgGm6mqLPEbJUvHnHEH

- Newsletter: https://betweentwocoos.com
- Episode Website: https://betweentwocoos.com/zulema-quintans-noda-ai-okrs-energy

Watch on YouTube.
Peter Rojas has built new things at almost every scale there is, and he planted the seed for this show years ago in an email to Michael.

In this episode, Peter and Michael discuss:

• How building new products inside a big company differs from a startup, and why you have to invest ahead of traction
• Why corporate product development is a harder numbers game than a venture portfolio
• AI, vibe coding, and the Mozilla Pioneers program for widening the top of the funnel
• Why incumbents keep losing the next technology wave
• Why coordination breaks down at scale, and the clarity that fixes it

About Peter: Peter Rojas co-founded Gizmodo and Engadget, two publications that changed how people understand technology. He has been an operator and investor across AOL, Meta, and BetaWorks, where he was a founder and VC. Today he leads new product development at Mozilla and runs Mozilla Pioneers.

00:00 Cold open

01:46 The email that started the show

03:33 Startup vs building inside a company

06:57 The corporate product numbers game

11:03 Vibe coding and Mozilla Pioneers

15:13 When a trusted brand is the advantage

18:04 Why incumbents lose the next wave

21:58 Meta's metaverse bet vs AI

25:44 If I were running Meta

29:02 Was the VR bet a failure

30:27 Why coordination breaks at scale

35:07 Fear, focus, and the CEO filter

38:56 How Mozilla runs on KPIs

40:30 The founder who hid his idea

46:33 Where to find Peter

Resources mentioned:

• Mozilla Pioneers: https://newproducts.mozilla.org/mozilla-pioneers/
• WordPress: https://wordpress.org
• Lovable: https://lovable.dev
• Replit: https://replit.com
• Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code
• Rec Room: https://recroom.com

Connect with Peter:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterrojas/

Connect with Michael:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-koenig514
• Building Helm: https://helmapp.ai

Subscribe to Between Two COOs:

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/between-two-coos/id1635533318
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2NjVgGm6mqLPEbJUvHnHEH
• Newsletter: https://betweentwocoos.com
• Watch on YouTube.

Get 90 days of Fellow free at Fellow.ai/coo

In this episode, Michael Koenig speaks with Greg Keller, co-founder and CTO of JumpCloud, about identity access management and why it’s becoming one of the most important operational systems in the age of AI.

Greg explains how traditional identity systems were designed for office-based companies running Microsoft infrastructure and why that model broke as companies moved to SaaS, cloud infrastructure, and remote work.

The discussion then turns to the next big shift: the rise of AI agents and synthetic identities inside organizations.

As companies deploy more AI tools, the number of machine identities may soon outnumber human employees. Managing what those systems can access will become a critical security and operational challenge.

What a CTO actually does

Greg explains the different types of CTO roles and how technology leaders help companies anticipate where the market is headed.

Identity Access Management explained simply

IAM answers three core questions inside every company:

Who are you?

What can you access?

How is that access managed?

Why the old IT model broke

Traditional identity systems were built for on-premise offices and Microsoft infrastructure. Modern companies now operate across:

SaaS applications

cloud infrastructure

remote work environments

multiple operating systems

How JumpCloud approaches identity

JumpCloud was built to manage identity across devices, applications, and infrastructure regardless of platform.

Where Okta fits in the ecosystem

Okta helped modernize browser-based authentication through Single Sign-On, while JumpCloud focuses on broader identity infrastructure.

Why COOs should push AI adoption

Greg argues AI adoption is no longer optional. Companies must encourage teams to improve productivity and efficiency using AI.

The rise of synthetic identities

AI agents, bots, APIs, and service accounts are becoming new actors inside companies that require identity governance.

Bots may soon outnumber employees

Organizations will soon manage more machine identities than human ones.

AI as a potential insider threat

AI systems can become security risks if they are granted excessive permissions or misinterpret policies.

The API key governance problem

Many AI integrations rely on API keys, which are often poorly managed and can create hidden security risks.

As companies adopt AI, identity access management becomes the control layer that determines what both humans and machines are allowed to do inside the organization.
The companies that manage identity well will move faster and operate more securely.

Links:

Michael on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/michael-koenig514

Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregorykeller/

JumpCloud: https://jumpcloud.com/

Between Two COO’s: https://betweentwocoos.com

Episode Link: https://betweentwocoos.com/ai-agents-identity-access-greg-keller