James Boyd
Ep. 7 — A pudgy British youth gives up a life of wealth and privilege to enlist for a punishing stint in the U.S. Special Forces / James Boyd, CEO and Co-Founder of Adyton In this episode, software entrepreneur James Boyd describes how he spent his childhood cocooned in wealth and privilege, frittering his time away in expensive schools and shuttling between homes in London and California. But the September 11, 2001 attacks happened on Boyd’s first week at Stanford University and shocked him out of his complacency. Boyd shares how he made the decision to give up his British citizenship and enlist in the U.S. Special Forces. He talks about the rigors of serving in the Army’s elite and demanding Green Beret 18X (18 X-Ray) program and the leadership lessons he learned along the way. Transcript Download the PDF Chitra: Hello and welcome to When It Mattered. I'm Chitra Ragavan. On this episode we will be talking to James Boyd. He is CEO and co-founder of the tech startup Adyton. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks happened in Boyd's first week at Stanford university and led him upon graduating with honors to enlist in the elite army special forces Green Beret 18 X-ray program. As a Green Beret, Boyd was deployed in multiple counter-terrorism and counterinsurgency operations. James, welcome to the podcast. James: Good morning, Chitra. Chitra: Good morning. Was there anything in your childhood or youth that showed a predisposition for a physically punishing career like joining the US Special Forces? James: I think it would be the absolute opposite. When I think back to my 11 year old self, I was frankly a rich kid living a comfortable life, going to a good school, and I spent a little bit more time eating pizza and eating candy and watching TV than I probably should have. And I think my parents, they tried to get me to go get some exercise. They tried to get me to stop playing around with the computer. And it was definitely, it was a comfortable lifestyle for an 11 year old to just have toys and games and all the candy you could want. Chitra: I imagine you weren't particularly physically fit either. James: No, absolutely not. I was a little bit pudgy as an 11 year old. in fact, I think I remember my dad had asked one of my teachers, he's like, "Hey, is this going to burn off at some point?" And he would take me on cycling trips. And so there was this sort of a push to try and get a little bit more exercise as a pudgy 11 year old. Chitra: So what happened next? James: Well, I remember at one point I was going through this great school. It was a feeder into one of the top high schools in the country, and you're around a whole bunch of other smart kids, and it was very competitive to get into it. But I was coasting, we had all of these fantastic courses available to us, study Latin and Greek and things like that. And I was kind of shooting for about middle of the road on things, getting fairly average to below average scores. And one day my mother saw my report card and she was absolutely livid and she told me that if you aim for 70 you're going to get a 60 and she threw me out of the house. And this was before school. So I remember sitting on the steps of my house in London at 11 years old. I have been told that what I was doing was not good enough. I sort of wondered what I'm supposed to do next. And that was a very, very visceral moment that let me know that I was wasting what was in front of me. Chitra: And you were living in London, but you had dual homes, you had a wealthy lifestyle. Your mom was American, your dad British. So you were going between countries, between homes, and it was just amazing till you had that realization. James: Absolutely. I think my parents had met in California and so we actually had a house in California and a house in London, and able to spend vacations in California and there was nothing that we wanted for.