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A conversation with Joe Steinrock, VP of Product Strategy at ADP, on venture investing, global expansion, and why good, fast, and cheap rarely coexist.
When people think of ADP, they often think of payroll.
That association makes sense. After all, the company has been a cornerstone of payroll processing for decades. But as Joe Steinrock explains, that perception tells only part of the story.
“It's sometimes hard to shed a brand that's 75 years old,” Joe told me. “But at ADP, we don’t try to shed the brand. We’re infinitely proud of who we were when we started, who we’ve been, who we are today, and where we’re going.”
Instead of distancing themselves from their legacy, ADP leans into it.
Joe often frames the company’s trajectory with a simple challenge: look at the scoreboard.
“I often say go look at the scoreboard,” he said. “The scoreboard being the past. And the past is often a great indicator of the future.”
For ADP, that past includes decades of innovation in the HR and payroll ecosystem. But the more interesting story is how the company is approaching the next wave of change.
One of the most interesting developments inside ADP over the past few years has been the growth of ADP Ventures.
Joe describes the organization as having two main responsibilities.
One arm focuses on building new products internally from the ground up. The other focuses on investing in emerging HR technology companies.
“It's probably one of the more exciting pieces of what I get to do day in and day out,” Joe said. “Innovation.”
These investments aren’t random bets. They’re targeted moves designed to complement ADP’s existing capabilities or expand into areas where the company sees opportunity.
And ADP brings something unusual to the venture ecosystem: scale.
“We have an unfair advantage when we talk to founders,” Joe explained. “We've got over a million clients and upwards of 10,000 sellers.”
That distribution engine changes the conversation quickly.
Many early-stage companies struggle to turn promising technology into meaningful revenue. For them, access to ADP’s ecosystem can be transformative.
“Scale is everything,” Joe said. “If you can't get from point A to point B with your idea and your tech, it's not going to go far.”
For Joe and his team, venture investing isn’t just about financial returns. It’s part of a broader strategic framework for innovation.
ADP evaluates new capabilities through four potential paths:
Each option serves a different purpose depending on the situation.
Joe likes to explain the decision-making process with a framework he learned early in his product strategy career.
“Someone put a slide in front of me that showed three circles: good, fast, and cheap,” he said. The lesson was simple. “You can’t get all three.”
Instead, companies must choose which two matter most in any given situation.
“If you want something really good and really fast,” Joe said, “it’s not going to be cheap.”
That tradeoff plays directly into the build-versus-buy conversation. Some technologies make sense to develop internally. Others require partnerships or acquisitions to move quickly enough.
And sometimes the answer evolves over time.
A partnership may eventually turn into an investment. That investment may eventually turn into an acquisition.
One of the most visible examples of that thinking was ADP’s acquisition of Workforce Software.
Time and payroll have always been closely connected. But as organizations become more global and workforce management becomes more complex, the technology required to manage time has become far more sophisticated.
“Payroll and time have always been in a symbiotic relationship,” Joe explained. “You really can't do one without the other.”
ADP already had strong solutions for small and mid-sized businesses. But the company recognized an opportunity to strengthen its capabilities in complex, global workforce management.
That’s where Workforce Software came in.
“We knew they were the best technology in the market for highly complex time,” Joe said. “And we knew they operated really well across the globe.”
The acquisition ultimately became the largest in ADP’s history.
And according to Joe, the decision was both deliberate and inevitable.
“When you know it's right, you know it's right.”
Another major shift shaping ADP’s strategy is the rapid expansion of global workforces.
Just five years ago, Joe estimates that roughly 15 percent of mid-market companies had some kind of international footprint. Today, that number has doubled. “It’s right around 30 to 35 percent now,” he said.
The change isn’t driven solely by traditional global expansion. Instead, it’s often about access to talent.
Remote work and digital collaboration tools have made it far easier for companies to hire internationally without opening physical offices.
“The need for talent, the scarcity of talent, and the cost of talent have accelerated this,” Joe explained.
For many organizations, global hiring is now less about strategy and more about necessity.
Of course, the global HR technology landscape still has its challenges.
Many buyers are searching for a mythical “all-in-one” platform that can manage everything: global payroll, contractor payments, employer-of-record services, and localized HR systems in every country.
Joe is realistic about that expectation. “That’s a unicorn today,” he said. But he also believes the industry is moving steadily in that direction.
ADP’s approach focuses first on compliance, security, and accuracy.
“When we move, we move with intentionality,” Joe explained. “We move with compliance and security at the forefront.”
Those priorities sometimes slow down expansion, but they ensure that customers are protected as they grow internationally.
And ultimately, ADP believes it can build toward that global vision over time.
“We’re going to get there,” Joe said. “We will be that unicorn.”
If global expansion is one pillar of ADP’s future, artificial intelligence is another.
The company has invested heavily in AI across its platforms, but Joe believes the biggest shift is still ahead.
“I’ll leave you with one teaser word,” he said. “AI agents.”
In the coming years, Joe expects intelligent agents to become embedded across HR systems, helping organizations analyze data, automate decisions, and operate more efficiently.
“Within three years it’s going to be a different world,” he said.
Exactly how that world will look is still evolving. But if history is any guide, ADP plans to be at the center of it.
After all, as Joe reminded me, the scoreboard matters. And ADP has been keeping score for a long time.
