Inside Adobe’s Partnership Revolution with Rustin Fullmer

welcome to the know your ship podcast presented by ehub I’m your
host Frank Dolce this podcast is so is going to be so interesting because
you’re the most interesting person that nobody knows of course that’s Rustin
Fulmer oh of adob of adobe and if you’re if you know anything about boxing
and Utah then you know the Fulmer name like that’s your family yeah yep and
but you didn’t grow up to be a boxer No in fact I only went to that gym once
MH was that an uncle or something grandfather’s cousin so I I don’t even I
don’t know how to do the hereditary math but um yes he is he is a close
relation just Generations away is there math involved with hereditary it
seems like it stuff I don’t know chromosomal math is that a thing I skipped
that in college it seems like there are whole businesses based on that yeah
have you done one of those have you taken the test no I haven’t either but
what would your test if you took the test what do you suspect your test would
say like where where are you what’s your heritage well my father maintains
that were English royalty I know there’s got to be a lot of German cuz my mom
is 100% German mhm mhm without doing the chromosomal math born she was born
and raised in Germany um my dad was born and raised in little Mackie Idaho so
we’ll call it Germanic idahoan yeah that’s close I suspect that I’m half
Italian and half German because my parent my dad is I think he’s full Italian
and I think my mom’s full German but I’m sure it wouldn’t turn out that way
and yeah but there’s other things there’s other things well this we had a
chance to talk a little bit before this you have a fascinating story I can’t
wait to tell everybody about your St no one knows yes that’s the interesting
thing is that PE more people need to know about you I don’t agree this is
your platform the know your podcast this okay you never know where this is
going to this is going to lead you were a military kid and so you moved
around quite a bit Yeah in your life MH uh tell us about your family tell us
about your dad and mom my mother like I said was was born and raised in
Germany her parents were they they they are survivors effectively my grand my
German grandparents they survived the war um my OA was conscripted into the
Nazi army Army and um fought on the Polish front was shot in the head sent
back to the hospital and then prematurely sent to the Russian front where he
was captured and spent six years in a the G the yeah the Siberian camps oh
said he he ate turn-ups and onions and that’s how they survived so you know
and he had the this big dent in his head he would always let us feel it but
he would never tell us anything about his experience not until he was 88 did
he actually speak it out to everyone and my mother then recorded it and stuff
and then my she was on the the wrong side of the fence when the fence was
built and she and her sister escaped through the fence and they met down in
um effectively down in Bavaria and my mother was born and raised in strot and
then my dad met her when he was stationed there for the Army so she is a GI
bride as they the Germans don’t affectionately call it that oh and then yeah
she had a rough time with with my OA after that happened getting involved
with an American mhm yeah so but then they soon as they had me you were the
Great uniter mhm do people still call you that yeah the great connector the
great uniter once a month people once a month maybe it’s diminished yeah
nobody knows me so well they will now yeah okay they will now all right okay
so is that our theme yes people know like this is the opposite of Ron
Burgundy people know me the most interesting person that nobody knows that’s
that’s our that’s going to be the title of this I’m fortunate to know you you
you’re your parents then moved back to the States at that point Y and your
dad had a very interesting career yeah he grew up as a Farmer Boy in Mackie
Idaho which that entails a lot of different jobs but uh he was working as he
would affectionally tell me I started working when I was out of the womb at 8
years old I was riding the motorcycle and 10 years old I was driving the
truck and you know all that kind of stuff but he uh yeah Mao’s a beautiful
place a lot of fun memories going there except for anything related to sheep
and are some dumb animals they’re itchy and just dumb but the uh um the
upbringing that he had was hard like it was it was a hard it was it was a
farm life No Nonsense hard up early working all day long pay your own way
yeah pennies a day kind of thing and it’s my uncle or I guess my great uncle
did Sugar beats for you and I sugar MH uh Grandpa drove truck and did all
sort you know he ran sheep all that kind of stuff so it was it was tough
tough as Nails kind of thing and so he went he went into the military to kind
of Escape it and then after he met my mom and they got married he came back
to the University of Idaho and got his engineering degree mhm and then became
an officer in the Army as a core cor engineer Corman so yeah and and the the
Army Core of Engineers that that’s a fascinating unit and their fingerprints
are all across the nation probably the world MH but some of the things that
that they did are bridge building um dams a lot of dams a lot of lot of your
kind of your National Force projects to there’s a lot of Cold War era
projects that they they did dur you know effectively during peace time when
you weren’t deployed you were working on the many projects that we have here
in the country and our partner Nations and stuff but yeah but he was deployed
a lot and it was um was an intense time until the ’90s and then they were
deployed for other reasons sure yeah and and that manifested itself in an
interesting way I think in your childhood well your dad had a you know a a
strict upbringing like the farm life upbringing that’s that could be tough
yeah and and that teaches it certainly teaches valuable lessons and then he
finds himself in this military career and the the career didn’t really allow
him to share all of the stuff that he was doing mhm and so how did that
manifest itself in in the family makeup because it it must have been
difficult in terms of communicating what your dad was doing and where he was
spending all of his time and and when he got to spend time with you I mean I
think it it definitely it brought up more questions than answers and um it’s
certainly a very stressful career especially when he was a company commander
and was in charge of the lives of a lot of young people that were just
joining the military and it’s kind of a you know you rule with an iron fist
there’s a lot of I mean you’re dealing with lives and so there’s no room for
no there’s no room for error for back talk for um anything that is uh not
part of the planner path and and I know that they teach you like you know adapt
overcome you know improvise all of that but it’s not exactly an area where
creativity is uh rewarded in that way it’s kind of a structured Arrangement
and I think he brought he definitely brought that home with him is that like
it was it’s this is the way it is and being the oldest I I was I was afraid
of ever deviating from this is the way it is and so he he expressed his his
love and his pride and all of that in being at my sporting events and and
sometimes being a loud voice at my sporting events but and then in the
written word like he would write letters and that’s how I would know how he
felt about me a lot of times and but aside from that it was a very um you
know it was a very rigid environment and you know my mom she’s all about the
love and the the heart and you know you but you want that from both if you
have an opportunity to have it from both and so that that I think kind of
affected the way I apparent today the way I work and manage today and and so
yeah every everybody’s their their initiation story if you will is different
but it certainly does influence a lot of how you do what you do today
especially if you want to do it different some people are blessed to have
like this perfect the way that they would have liked to have been brought up
MH and it now translates in how they parent and there’s an easier transition
form for some of us probably probably an equal number you you’re like there’s
goodness there but there’s definitely things I want to do different because I
did not I did not maximize my youth or my interesting you you told one one
story you you’re athletic and and you were a good athlete growing up uh but
but that wasn’t always the path in your household and very early on you you
were taught basketball story yeah yeah that the path was nope you’re you have
to make your way in life and here’s how you make your way in life work effort
sacrifice and how did that sacrifice come about for you well this this was um
sophomore year and I’m from Virg I I claim Virginia Virginia is where we
settled dad retired from the Army there joined the state department there all
my family still there so I’m a Virginia boy but um made made the basketball
team um you wouldn’t tell by my size but it was a pretty good ball player for
a little bit there you’re a sophomore and you made the varsity basketball
team right yeah and um at the same time my dad had um you know we had looked
into where would be interesting places to work and we had heard good things
about working at Chick-fil-A and um I went down both paths at once and both
paths worked out and dad was like no you’re taking the path of work you made
a commitment there this is more important life lesson wise you could there’s
a long list of reasons why that was chosen and I had to put myself through
school pay for my own gas all that kind of stuff and so working with what was
chosen did your at that point did I know your your your dad had a military
career uh your mom was full-time stay-at-home mom yeah so was it more of a
financial thing or did your parents have the means to financially support you
through post High School I mean I always had we didn’t do anything it it was
just tight it’s tight mhm I mean the military doesn’t pay nearly what we
value them same thing as teachers and others right and um even as an officer
it’s not it’s not a whole lot especially when there’s four kids and you’re
constantly moving around and you actually live in expensive areas typically
that’s where a lot of the bases are mhm and so um there wasn’t a lot there
wasn’t a lot and and there was no mystery about that like we went to I
believe it was seventh grade basketball where we went to um a used shoe store
and on the Shelf it was like one of those Aura moments I saw a pair of
British Knights and at the time the bks were pretty sweet that yep absolutely
and um and I immediately wanted those and as I like picked them up off the
shelf like the the soles were like hanging on by a thread and but I was like
this if we’re buying shoes from this store this is these are the ones I want
and they and we got them and we super glued them and they they lasted for the
rest of the season it was pretty amazing and then the next year my mom got me
a pair of um rebok and I remember that that being it was communicated to me
how much of a sacrifice that was but a brand new pair of rebok for my eighth
grade basketball season that was a big deal for for them so it’s it’s always
been part of our lives that that’s that you know just because you don’t have
much in terms of a financial commitment from your parents that doesn’t mean
that it’s going to that doesn’t that doesn’t impact the way that you feel at
home it just manifests itself a little bit more and as soon as you leave the
home right and sure and that’s that’s what we struggle with now we were
talking about but that’s what we struggle about with our kids sometimes like
this culture of immediate gratification whether it’s on social media or
whether it’s hey I want those shoes those are the shoes everybody else is
getting and even recently my son our whole baseball team did a buzz and
bleach buzz and bleach it is they Buzz their heads and then they bleach it my
son has he’ll hate this but he has beautiful hair like Curly awesome hair and
now he looks like Eminem like Sam hair yes like where the strength go yeah
now you can only pitch 60 M hour instead of 70 but it’s this thing where they
there’s just everything’s immediate and when when the I think the way that my
parents were raising me was you have to it’s it’s it’s a grind and that has
affected me throughout my life it’s It’s a Grind it’s a step-by-step process
it’s not GNA we’re going to get into that because I think knowing your
backstory a little and you now and the way you approach your work life and
your family life there’s lots of things to pull out from your past and I
think the really interesting thing is we’ll we’ll think about this as we’re
talking is how thoughtful you are about all of your experiences and trying to
pick the really good stuff and sift out the stuff that maybe was overbearing
or uncomfortable aable and trying to be the best parent the best peer at work
that you can be based on all of this stuff that you had to go through and by
the way we’re not even there yet like you’re you’re just you’re just in high
school right now we got to get we got to get this could be a three-hour
podcast and so many people would love that yes and you know what they’re
gonna say I’m so glad that I got to know that guy I didn’t know anything
nobody knew about nobody I love it absolutely enigma so you’re you’re now
okay you’re you’re working you’re getting through high school and you have
this thought in the back of your head like I have to pay for everything I I’m
going to have to figure this out um te tell us about that path and that story
as you head into that post high school era of your life I so I worked for
through through high school at Chick-fil-A mhm and evenings and Summers and
um at the time I don’t even know if they do it anymore but if you make a
certain level like crew leader and you’ve done two years and or 2,000 hours
of more they’ll pay for your first semester of college so immediately I went
from earning $7 an hour to effectively $850 an hour and that was fun math and
then I um so I knew that my first semester was going to be paid for which was
a huge relief for me because like like I like I had mentioned I I will say
one thing one thing that my the biggest surprise my parents ever gave me was
that I thought my whole High School career I was saving up to go on my LDS
mission mhm because that was the next thing and um and at the time it’s at 19
and I wasn’t even going to go to college for a year I was just going to work
and save up to go on that mission and I was pushing carts at Costco which was
probably the best hourly paying job at the time was like n bucks an hour and
um and I was like I’m in Sun I’m getting exercise you know all this great
stuff and then um I put in my for those of your audience that are familiar
with the process for going on a mission there’s you put in your application
and you kind of cross your fingers you’re like oh well I need to learn German
better so I can communicate to my German family I wrote German all through my
application they’re going to choose Germany cuz I got a German mom absolutely
and and um but wait and you’re you’re kind of excited about it but you’re
working and while after I had officially put in my papers um my parents came
to me and they said all right we have a deal for you we’re going to pay for
the rest of your first year of college or we’re going to pay for your mission
and that was the single biggest Financial surprise I’ve ever and had to that
point or ever have since because the wave of relief that came over me on being
able to just focus on one of them and not like lose sleep as an 18-year-old
on how I’m going to take care of all this stuff um that was huge and so um I
get my paperback and I thought it said Indiana at first but it said India
they’re sending you to India and I’m like there’s no LDS mission in India and
there barely was there was 17 Visas so that’s a different story altogether
like all the times we almost died and all the great people that you met and
all the wonderful things that you did that was like my first operations job
really mhm um so that was that was an incredible experience you basically had
to be a leader the whole time you were there and um and when I came back I
thought I was going to go to University of Virginia um I had been accepted
there and that’s a great University and it would have still but I no longer
counted as a resident oh because I’ve been gone for two years years and so it
was no longer financially viable so came to brickham young as an undergrad
first year first semester was paid for by Chick-fil-A and I was immediately
applying for all the FAFSA stuff yeah for for student aid and stuff and that
paid for the the rest of the first year and I have a couple questions before
we move on how do you feel about Indian food today oh my it’s um I yes
favorite love it it’s right up MH is is Indian food in America the same as
Indian food in India um if you go to like a Bombay House uh that that is a
that is a a really nice if you’re getting the normal Curry mhm with uh non
that’s a normal or high-end North Indian meal if you’re getting like the
Biryani that’s what we would have every day that’s rice with chicken that
they make in a huge pot that tastes wonderful but that they just put a huge
scoop out on your plate and that’s what you eat that’s so that’s like your
dayto day gotcha um um the curry with the NBR that was that was a bit
spendier and that was typically less South India more North India at the time
gotcha was attending was deciding to attend BYU the biggest mistake you ever
made in your life I mean it’s up there that it was great I had a feeling it
was great all right I mean okay I love the bias but you you probably you get
into the you yes and you know I I I can wear red just as much as I wear I’m
an American Fork football coach yes I have to wear red and black and and you
look Dar I love the look okay so you you go to BYU and BYU is is very much a
financial decision as much as it is a well-respected university MH am I
missing time here where is the ROC oh that’s that’s how do you pay for the
rest of school okay so you’re you’ve applied you’re you you’ve been admitted
I’m at school you’re at school and now you decide that Roc I’m going to
become an Air Force pilot right yeah you saw aan and you were you’re Maverick
you um there’s there was uh there was a bit of an urgency to how are you
going to support yourself and um and so I was working immediately at
different places and but one of the one of the options was what organizations
allow you to say to get your degree but offer a career path mhm and um having
grown up in the military and multi-generations of military in some form or
fashion it made sense to look into it and I I just wasn’t the Allure of the
army wasn’t there but being an Air Force pilot was like that sounds cool I I
I could do that and um and so I I enrolled in the RC program and that changed
the entire approach to my degree like I did geographic information systems I
did Aerospace studies I did polyi and stats and like all these things that they
want you to do MH so it changed my minors and majors and then it um you know
it paid for my final two years of school so yep and then you had a little bit
you were talking about this the the uh the military isn’t as strategic as the
military is they they’re not always as strategic in terms of how many people
they take in and when they halt that process and then managing that if they
have too many people and you were the unfortunate I’ll say victim but victim
maybe isn’t the word but you had a medical issue that yeah they don’t do
disqualified they’re not um they’re not known for their um hiring practices
and and termination practices like it’s um at least the how it was
articulated to us is that they they they struggle with um like just in time
demand and that would be how many how many Pilots do we need how many
Engineers do we need um and so they’ll solve for that not with a long-term
approach but more like just you know just in the moment and they had hired
too many uh Pilots over the over the two or three preceding years from when I
was going to commission and so we’re we are very close to commissioning at
this point I’d already done some training down at Luke Air Force Base in T3
7s and t-38s we already started that process and I was all set to become an
Air Force pilot and then it felt it felt like minutes before graduation and
commissioning that they said you know what we’re now in a nutrition year
we’re going to reexamine all the Medicals that’s the first place they start
and um I had put on my application which you know you’re supposed to be as
honest as possible and I had put that I have consistent heartburn mhm and and
um they made me go get an endoscope or the scoping thing and it found they
found out that it wasn’t acid reflex it was gird gastro esophageal reflux
disorder which is technically debilitating like you don’t get better from it
you can just it’s easy to manage but you don’t get better from it there’s no
way to self-heal it and what is the management of it so you can’t fix it I
take one pill of pantol a day it’s basically Nexium a day and I operate as a
normal human being but because you check the box of debilitating that was a
disqualifier that year then then all of a sudden and there’s lots of Peaks
and valleys to to many people’s stories and I think that’s what makes human
all of us interesting but um that was a valley for me because there one there
was concerned that I’d had to pay the scholarship back because they were not
clear about that initially they said initially said the standard practice is
that if you don’t commission you you pay it over time back pay back your
scholarship and um thankfully they came back and said that not the case but
everything I’d been doing for those two and a half plus years was designed to
be an Air Force pilot mhm and so I I’m I’m at this moment this Crossroad
moment of you know I’ve been rejected and where do I go from here mhm and
that was that was one of several moments like that that that have um you know
like what do you do where do you where do you go when you’re at Crossroads
where do you go when you’re at low points how do you handle that burden and
you know I’m out here in Utah my parents are only so helpful right and across
the country in Virginia M and you feel alone you feel alone and that is um
those are low moments but thankfully i’ been doing part-time work with uh the
founder of ehub and um at the time it was a different company and and he was
looking to go into some new Ventures because the other company he had been
operating we had been operating was doing really well and he’s like I want
you to come and run operations and and stuff for this new um this new Venture
fund that I’m basically putting together MH and that was a huge that was a
huge uh moment that hey if you if you open yourself up to people you trust
with your problems then other people are generally good and they’re going to
look out for you and if they trust you they’re going to find something
something and that’s that was my one of my first moments of of that where
somebody extended trust in my moment of need that then put me down a new path
that I had unex was unexpected that’s a great story so you you hit this
Valley you’re you’re you’re you have some work career opportunities though
that you’ve been working on now that’s going to turn into more maybe more
fulltime stuff where are you in your personal life at this point are you
married are you No No I um yeah I was single and obnoxious Yeah well yeah now
you’re married and obnoxious yeah at least somebody has has put a vote card
in my cor um no the the woman that I did end up marrying she at this time
Nikki was on a mission mhm she went on a mission late in her I think she was
24 when she went and um she went to Hawaii and so I decided to get my life in
order while she was gone so that when she came back I was attractive to her
and um you know even even hers hers her version of me is she’s still
surprised that that I just saw I just saw that hey the path for us is we’re
going to get married and and I just wouldn’t you know I wouldn’t deviate from
that until you know it was time for something else to happen but she’s like
you’re always good about a vision but you’re even better at making making
that become a reality when you really care about it and and um I think that’s
been kind of an approach for a long time is that if you’re if you’re down
like let’s let’s dream it up and if there’s a path to it then let’s go for it
yeah is that is that behavior that you learned through all of this experience
growing up like you were you were kind of put on a path and you just had to
follow that and are there lessons in there about having some vision and then
sticking to whatever that path is working through it grinding through some of
the difficult times like you’ve had to do yeah I think you could look at the
sum of the experiences and where they have led not as a bunch of you know
there’s there’s so many people that have these Amazing Stories where it just
it popped like they nothing to rags to riches and this these big moments
where people’s lives changed overnight um and I think that coming out of each
of those valleys it’s never been a quick fix it’s been a grind and while I
wish it was different I wish I was sitting here in maybe different circumstances
because some of those moments were immediate I don’t know that I would have
done well with that I think that it’s always been the the value is in the
grind and I think that’s even true for where I’m at today like at Adobe like
it’s um it’s never been easy it’s always been a stress test pushing you to
new new places and I don’t know I don’t know that I would have it any other
way because it’s just that’s how I want to live life and how I want to raise
kids and stuff is that it’s you know there’s a military phrase it’s like slow
as smooth and smooth as fast M right that’s something my dad said all the
time my youngest brother is a special operator now in the Army and they still
use it right like you want to get something done right that’s the fastest
path not not necessarily speed yeah so so you so so you’re working now
Nikki’s on a mission uh how how are things going with the company um at that
time that was it was good it was good you’re on the yeah it was there was
high demand for what the the fund was working on and tons of great real
estate projects and um 2007 hits and you said tons of great real estate
projects there was real there was a lot of things that the company was doing
and maybe that’s one of the not maybe as you look back there was too much
diversification and there was too much leverage going on and um we were just
a year too late on a lot of those projects like a lot of people made made
their made Buu bucks and they were raking it in a year before and it’s just a
little bit late and too much leverage and then you have a situation like
20072 2008 where if you had any positions in real estate that where you
required leverage then you were kind of your so so so you go through this
experience with the military that you described as a valley that was just
what two years previous to this experience yeah two and a half probably so
two two and a half years later so you go through this Valley you’re working
your way out newly w newly wed and now you hit this other mhm incident what
do you call it obstacle Valley another Valley another Valley M okay and now
you’re newly married mhm one thing that you said is that I thought was
interesting is and maybe you can explain this you internalized this and took
it upon yourself to work your way out of it try and figure it out mhm and are
are you saying that you did just you just didn’t share that with your family
at that point or how were you now trying to dig yourself out of this next
hole that you found yourself in I don’t know this is the right way to do it
this but this is the way that I did it like I it was minimal involvement of
other people in terms of um sharing the load sharing the burden like um to
this day Nikki is saying that when we talk about it she’s surprised by the amount
of stress and the the lack of sleep and things cuz I I held the burden and I
I held it on my own and what I did ask for was I I went to a few people that
I trusted and said this is what I can offer I don’t want to get paid I just
want I want something else before I take the next step I need to work went my
way out of this with more credibility mhm and um luckily enough there was
some people that I had worked with before that were you know trusting of that
enough and there was a it’s a well-respected venture capital firm in uh Salt
Lake City and they they let me be an associate for a year or so and then I
parl that into um into business school but it was it was a full recet it’s
just like the missing out on being a pilot it’s it was this event that just
required a full reset and there was no Miracle path out of the full reset
like you you had to take it step by step it’s so fascinating because military
ends and you don’t say well I can still do something with the military you’re
describing it as a full reset nope I’m going a different path here we go down
again full it’s it’s not like I mean you did did a little bit parlay it into
something else because of the relationships that you had and built but it
wasn’t related to what you were doing previously so another full reset and
and I know you said you didn’t rely on people but you did have a few people
who stepped up when you were applying to the business school yeah later on
for sure like and when I say I meant sharing the sharing the burden like I
wasn’t seeing anyone to be on their couch to say what was me yeah um I don’t
think anybody wanted to hear that but I love this part of your story but go
ahead um but I I decided hey the best way to do a reset and to exit this
whole experience with full credibility is one of several things and one of
those things was to go and get your go to get your MBA and um that was we we
didn’t have any money we didn’t have any I wasn’t sure about it at first cuz
it was like hey that’s that’s a two-year commitment I didn’t know enough
about business school to know what it would yield but I knew that having a
reset was going to be important if I wanted to be attractive cuz my story is
they don’t when you’re trying to interview for internships or for full-time jobs
in business school they don’t give you this time to talk about your story
they want it in two minutes yeah and it’s like I’m like was going to be a
pilot then I did Venture and we sucked at it and then I did Venture again and
yada yada y you know he did worse yeah there’s they’re and what do you want
to be oh I an executive you know and and so they’re not anyway so um I start
down the path my GMAT test practice scores sucked I was at like 650 and
you’re not getting any into any top tier program at with 650 I didn’t have
any letters of recommendation I didn’t um I didn’t have the Sterling hey I
worked at Mackenzie for 3 years work work resume so I was pretty stressed out
about it and one thing after another kind of fell into place where I I don’t
know how it happened but I went to the testing center that day didn’t even
feel like I did well but I got a 700 and that’s like okay you want a top 15
program that’s your that’s the the number they want to see a seven mhm then I
um went to breakfast with a few people that didn’t judge me for past failures
they actually looked at it as like look you’re going to come into this more a
more richly experienced than other people and I’m happy to write your letter
of recommendation and I’m like crying because I did not expect them to say
that so I had four just amazing letters of recommendation from people that
you would recognize the names and certainly the BYU decisions board and the
UCLA decisions board both recognized the the names enough and and then finally
like I started turning this woe is me or this burden that I’ve been having on
this experience into something that is a differentiation it’s like yeah I’m
not the McKenzie person I’m I’m the person that has been through the fire a
few times and will come and join your company and not repeat the mistakes of
the past and that that actually seemed to resonate like I got an internship
at a private Equity Firm in New York and another internship at amateur MH
locally and was interviewing with Google Amazon