Welcome to What We Don't Know with Matt Brittin & Hayaatun Sillem.

The show about better leadership in a truly chaotic world.

Across the series, episodes are hosted by Matt and Hayaatun as well as a range of other leading figures, bringing different perspectives to each conversation.

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Today we meet our co-host, Matt Brittin!

After 18 years at Google - including a decade running Europe, the Middle East and Africa — Matt Brittin has stepped away from one of the most powerful roles in global tech.

In this first episode of What We Don’t Know, hosts Hayaatun Sillem and Matt turn the lens inward - unpacking what happens when high-performance leadership stops, and what comes next.

Matt opens up about his “midlife gap year,” life after intensity, and learning to be present again following the loss of his father. From a disruptive childhood to rowing for Great Britain — and a very public defeat in the Cambridge Boat Race — he reflects on the moments that shaped how he builds teams and leads under pressure.

They also go deep on what really drove Google’s success: hiring at scale, building diverse teams, setting ruthless clarity of priorities, and the simple principle - put the best people on the most important problems, then get out of the way.

Plus: navigating public scrutiny on tax, YouTube extremism, and what leadership looks like when you have to say “we got this wrong” — and fix it.

This is a conversation about leadership after the job title — and why the most important lessons often come from what we don’t know.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

00:33 What We Don’t Know

02:14 Meet Matt Today

02:40 Midlife Gap Year

04:52 Family Time and AI

07:29 What He Misses

09:02 Pottery and Reset

10:28 Growing Up Britain

12:05 Bored at School

13:22 Rowing Changes Everything

15:13 Teamwork Lessons

19:02 Failure and Turnaround

23:52 From Sport to Business

27:32 Why Google Won

28:57 Day One at Google

30:38 Scaling and Hiring

33:21 Culture of Help

33:59 Hiring for Scale

35:07 Fixing Hiring Bias

37:04 Becoming Public Spokesperson

39:44 Stories Backed by Data

41:17 Crisis Comms on YouTube

45:14 Select Committees Pressure

46:54 Leadership Lessons Learned

48:37 Big Tech Backlash

51:06 Next Chapter Purpose

52:39 Resilience and Energy

55:09 Why This Podcast

01:01:57 Making Podcasts Work

01:06:55 Rapid Fire Wrap

01:11:32 Closing and Thanks

Follow Matt and Hayaatun below 👇

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayaatun/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-brittin-cbe-5aa6391/

Credits:

Producer: Sunny Winter

Producer: Thuy Dong

Producer: Jimmy McLoughlin OBE

Post Producer: Ben Alexander Kippen

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Episode ID: 1000758605814

GUID: 39005876-2d28-11f1-8089-e738505a8932

Release Date: 01/04/2026, 13:00:00