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Databricks

also referred to as: data bricks

includes Databricks India Academy

127 statements across 48 episodes · 51 bullish · 21 bearish · 24 people on the record · first statement Jan 14, 2021 by Ali Ghodsi · said 410 times in 95 episodes since 2020 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by Harry Stebbings (158), Jason Lemkin (45), Rory O'Driscoll (17), Chris Degnan (13), Lucas Swisher (10), David Meyer (9), Ali Ghodsi (9), David George (5)

tap a year for its mentions
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2026 107 mentions in 29 episodes 4 per episode
2025 224 mentions in 38 episodes 6 per episode
2024 33 mentions in 13 episodes 3 per episode
2023 16 mentions in 5 episodes 3 per episode
2022 5 mentions in 5 episodes 1 per episode
2021 24 mentions in 4 episodes 6 per episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about Databricks, oldest first

Jan 14, 2021 neutral
Insight
Ghodsi: Jack-of-all-trades talent essential early, harmful in later stages
“In the early phases, you're looking for these people that are just really smart. They can figure things out, and they can roll up their sleeves, and just pretty much do anything. They can do a decent job at pretty much anything. Those are the kind of people th…”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 10:32 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ghodsi forced Databricks executives into annual 'sky is falling' downside scenario planning
“So during the years when Databricks was sort of growing super fast every year, I would force the executive team every year to do this sky is falling exercise.”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 4:48 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Databricks' annual downside planning prepared the company for the COVID-19 pandemic
“That actually kind of helped us when the pandemic hit, because we kind of immediately knew what to snap into. We had those plans, like, you know, from previous years.”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 5:27 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021 neutral
Disclosure
Ghodsi: Databricks requires teams to present lowlights alongside victories
“I would always ask, hey, can we also list what are the lowlights? For everything that we list that we're celebrating, please list also what's not going well. Because those are the things that we're not paying attention to, and those are things we need to fix, …”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 7:10 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021 negative
Insight
Ghodsi: Hands-on execution is an anti-pattern in late-stage startup leadership
“Rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself is actually an anti-pattern at our face, because that means you're solving it in an ad hoc way.”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 31:19 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021 negative
Insight
Ghodsi: Explosive growth masks operational and process flaws in startups
“Success masks all problems, so you can do really, really well, and you don't need to do all your homework. You don't need to get All your ducks in a row. You can get away with cheating in a lot of things, a lot of processes, a lot of things that, you know, if …”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 6:04 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021 positive
Insight
Ghodsi: Finance leaders are crucial early GTM counterbalances to sales spending
“The finance function will be a counterbalance. So find the right finance leader that works well with your sales leader to make sure that there are checks and balances. Finance leader will make sure that the bottom line also still works out, that you're not bur…”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 21:59 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021 negative
Insight
Ghodsi rejects gut instinct, favoring cerebral processes for startup decisions
“I don't believe in gut feeling. This is just my personal sort of leadership style. When people tell me, you know, ultimately you have to have a gut check and you make that gut decision and ultimately you sleep on it and the answer comes to you and so on. I don…”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 34:18 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021 positive
Insight
Ghodsi: Startups should hire a sales leader before hiring marketing
“The recommendation, actually, that we got was hire first the head of marketing, because, you know, the conventional wisdom in Silicon Valley is you need a marketing person to create the story and write the marketing material, otherwise the salesperson that you…”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 20:20 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jan 14, 2021
Disclosure
Ghodsi: Databricks generated just over $1M revenue three years in
“In the first two, three years, we had a little bit over a million revenue three years in.”
Ali Ghodsi Jan 14, 2021 ▶ 8:30 20VC: Databricks CEO, Ali Ghodsi on The 3 Phases of Startup Growth, How to Evaluate Risk and Downside Scenario Planning & Who, What and When To Hire When Scaling Your Go-To-Market
Jul 19, 2021
Disclosure
a16z made up to four follow-on investments in Stripe and TripActions
“We've invested multiple times in many of our companies. So Coinbase, we invested three times. Roblox, twice. Databricks, three times. Stripe, four times. TripActions, four times.”
David George Jul 19, 2021 ▶ 13:46 20VC: a16z's David George on Leading a16z's Growth Fund Today, The Biggest Misconceptions of Growth Investing, How a16z Think Through Portfolio Construction, Investment Decision-Making and Scenario Planning & How The Entrance of New Players Has Changed Th
Oct 18, 2023 bearish
Prediction Partly held up
Stebbings: Tech IPO market will not re-open until H2 2025
“But I think it's going to be longer. Like, you know, it, you'll see it in the update coming out this weekend, but it's like, you know, data breaks, stripe, it's not going to be enough to actually crack open the IPO markets like we think it will be, I don't thi…”
Harry Stebbings Oct 18, 2023 ▶ 11:25 Beezer Clarkson: Are LPs Open for Business & Why Do LP Incentive Mechanisms Need to Change? | E1073 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 20, 2023 bearish
Prediction Held up
Stripe and SpaceX Will Not Go Public in 2024
“I don't expect Stripe or SpaceX to go out next year, and Databricks alone won't be enough to crack open the IPO windows.”
Harry Stebbings Oct 20, 2023 ▶ 20:33 20VC: NEW FORMAT: Harry Stebbings on Why Seed Pricing is as High as Ever, Why Series A is the Best Place to Invest Today, Why Growth Founders Need to Reshape Expectations, Why M&A Windows Remain Shut and When Will IPO Windows Crack Open
Nov 1, 2023 positive
Insight
Meyer: Developers drive CFO software purchasing decisions at Databricks
“For Databricks, the developers are, we, developers have to love us, right? Because they're going to be the ones influencing the decision that the CFO makes.”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 46:44 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023 positive
Disclosure
Databricks replaced 'data-driven' with 'truth-seeking' as a core value
“Databricks used to have this value called data-driven. Where we wanted everybody to be data driven, but it has a dark side because you can weaponize data, right? You can argue any point of view with any set of data if you're clever enough with numbers, right? …”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 12:58 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
Meyer: Active usage is the most ungameable product value metric
“Things like, ah, active users, like daily, weekly, etc., depending on, you know, enterprise or consumer, time is so precious. If people are spending time in your product, there's value there. Now, it might be never, ah, credible to revenue value, right? That's…”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 18:03 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Meyer Promises to Help Departing Direct Reports Find Their Next Role
“If you're gonna leave the company, I'm gonna help you find the best job imaginable. But first, I'm gonna figure out if you're running away or running towards. Like, if you're running away from the company because something's broken, I wanna fix it. If you're r…”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 36:18 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
Meyer: Interrogate customers until you can do their job
“I use the same methodology for like everything I do. Go in knowing nothing and then interrogate the person until you feel like you could do their job.”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 5:55 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023 neutral
Disclosure
Meyer: Databricks employs 1,000 engineers and over 100 product managers
“But again, we're, you know, a thousand engineers and, you know, more than a hundred people in product, so.”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 21:23 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Meyer: Databricks engineering and sales each blamed the other for ruining the company
“When I came into Databricks it was bimodal, right? Engineers thought sales ran the company. And we're destroying it. And sales thought engineering ran the company and we're destroying it.”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 1:00:07 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023 positive
Disclosure
Meyer: Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi insists on deep founder involvement in product work
“And I tried that for the first six months at Databricks. And that's not what Ali wanted to hear. He didn't want me to go off and do something and then show him how awesome it was. You know, he wanted to be deeply involved and have the founders deeply involved …”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 1:10:25 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Disclosure
Meyer Operates on Implicit Approval Model with Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi
“It's oftentimes, I send a lot to him that I don't necessarily get responses on unless he disagrees.”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 1:05:45 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
Meyer: Large Companies Should Only Adjust Targets Annually Unless Facing Existential Threats
“When you're a company of 6000 people, you gotta be very careful, right? They, you know, there's a lot of grumpiness to do it more frequently than annually. Just because it's hard to, you know, a lot of people have built up flywheels that are organizationally c…”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 14:37 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
Meyer: Leaders must acknowledge abandoned work during pivots to avoid team churn
“When you're gonna change target and people have been working their ass off to build something meaningful to the old target, you just have to give it the morning cycle, you know? You have to be empathetic and human because you need them to come along with you o…”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 25:49 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
David Meyer: Employee mistakes stem from management failing to provide context
“Well, if someone does stupid shit on my team, I didn't give them the context because they're smart people. I hire smart people. So if they're doing something dumbass, it's because I failed to give them the context And the framework to understand why it's dumba…”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 51:35 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
Meyer: Be collective customer obsessed, never listen to feature design requests
“People like to talk about being customer obsessed. But I think of there's the customer, and then there's the collective customer. So you have to be collective customer obsessed. So you never want to overfit to a customer because then it'll be a tiny town, righ…”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 8:04 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
Meyer: Product managers waste 60% of their time on administrative tasks
“Like, a third of their time should be talking to customers. A third of their time should be using the product and working with engineering. And a third of their time should be thinking properly, you know? But it never works out that way, because usually, 60% o…”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 59:41 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
Meyer: Speed of Learning Matters More Than Speed of Shipping
“Like, speed of learning is everything. But that doesn't mean shipping. That doesn't mean, you know, people talk about one-way doors, Two-way doors, type one, type two decisions, and all this stuff. Like, the key is maximizing your learning curve, and there's s…”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 15:17 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Nov 1, 2023
Insight
Meyer: Unemotional product management only works for incremental optimization
“That's great if you're doing something incremental. If you're like, let's grow revenue 10% on a product that has product market fit. Yeah, you can be, you can have no emotion then. A lot of the job is not about speccing the product and building the product. A …”
David Meyer Nov 1, 2023 ▶ 27:01 David Meyer: Why You Should Hire People Who Aren’t In Product Already | E1076 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 4, 2024 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Mega decacorns will allow top growth funds to hit 3x net
“I think there are, there will be enough stripes and data bricks and open AIs that some growth funds can do three X net or more, and that will get the LPs to re up and that will rearm the decacorn hunters.”
Jason Lemkin Jan 4, 2024 ▶ 53:00 Jason Lemkin: Predictions for 2024 - What Does a Trump Administration do for Startups? | E1099 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 19, 2024 bearish
Prediction Held up
Stebbings: Stripe and Databricks Will Not Go Public in 2024
“I don't think Stripe or Databricks will go out in 24.”
Harry Stebbings Feb 19, 2024 ▶ 26:26 Roger Ehrenberg: Why VC Returns Will Get Worse & Why LP Incentive Structures are so Broken | E1117 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 24, 2024 bullish
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: Databricks is outpacing Snowflake at $2.5B revenue
“It seemed like Snowflake was going to be the next great platform, but it is Databricks. I know it's not completely fungible product, but it's growing even faster at 2.5 billion, right? It's just mortal. Databricks, I think proves Snowflake was mortal.”
Jason Lemkin Jul 24, 2024 ▶ 45:42 Jason Lemkin: Crowdstrike, WTF Happens From Here? Wiz Rejects Google’s $23BN Acquisition Offer|E1181 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 23, 2024 negative
Opinion
Many join Databricks solely because it is perceived as hot
“Look at Databricks, right? Like Databricks is hiring lots of people. Some might argue too many people. I, we'll see how that plays out. But A lot of people are just going to Databricks because it's a hot company, or so they think.”
Chad Peets Aug 23, 2024 ▶ 45:10 Chad Peets: Why Most Sales Reps Underperform & Remote Reps Ignore Development | E1193 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 6, 2024
Assertion Partly supported
Bookman: Databricks and Stripe raised massive rounds primarily for employee liquidity
“They're raising, Databricks is raising most of that to deliver secondary to employees, including to deal with some tax issues, and I know that's what Stripe did, and Josh, I think, is doing most of these.”
Zachary Bookman Dec 6, 2024 ▶ 1:01:14 Zachary Bookman: Why Valuations and Fundraising are BS | E1235 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 10, 2025 negative
Assertion Contradicted
Ramaswamy: Databricks Buys Revenue and Has Double Snowflake's Sales Headcount
“It's very clear that they're buying a bunch of business. That they don't have to worry about things like you know free cash flow. They have doubled the number of sales people that we have.”
Sridhar Ramaswamy Feb 10, 2025 ▶ 29:31 Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO @Snowflake: Deepseek is Not a Threat to OpenAI & OpenAI Beats Anthropic|E1258 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 10, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Ramaswamy: Snowflake is Ahead of Databricks in Generative AI
“They were first to market. That was their sweet spot, and they've been good at it for a for a while. We were very much in in catch up mode. But AI is a much younger field. Didn't really exist, let's call it pre-ChatGPT. There, I feel incredibly confident that …”
Sridhar Ramaswamy Feb 10, 2025 ▶ 27:13 Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO @Snowflake: Deepseek is Not a Threat to OpenAI & OpenAI Beats Anthropic|E1258 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 10, 2025 negative
Opinion
Ramaswamy: Databricks Shifts Narratives Between AI and SQL to Mislead
“Even if you look at, you know the competitor that we talked about for a few months, it was all about like amazing. AI is going through the roof. I haven't heard much from them about AI recently. All of a sudden, amazing. It's equal going through the roof. It f…”
Sridhar Ramaswamy Feb 10, 2025 ▶ 32:48 Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO @Snowflake: Deepseek is Not a Threat to OpenAI & OpenAI Beats Anthropic|E1258 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 19, 2025 neutral
Disclosure
Baillie Gifford maintained pro rata in Databricks' $60B round without doubling down
“Remember we did our pro rata in the sixty billion round, which is a little bit different from saying we're doubling down, right? So it's, we stood our hand, we put a small amount of extra capital into it, but we didn't double down in the 60 round.”
Peter Singlehurst Mar 19, 2025 ▶ 38:55 Peter Singlehurst: Lessons from Turning Down Stripe, Coinbase and Losing Money on Northvalt · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 17, 2025 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: Capital flows to venture will fall if major IPOs stay delayed
“If on the other hand, if those keep pushing out, then at some point it becomes really hard to have all this money in private illiquid assets when you have pressures on your endowment and all that. And then at that point you would see the money go down.”
Rory O'Driscoll Apr 17, 2025 ▶ 1:04:44 a16z's $20BN Fund & Founders Fund's $4.6BN & Why Josh Kushner Has Mastered the Game · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 22, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe May 2032
O'Driscoll: Four or more venture exits will top $65B in 5-7 years
“If there's not four exits, Above sixty five billion in the next five or seven years, then the people who bought Stripe, SpaceX, Databricks, OpenAI and Antropic are screwed. So I don't think they're screwed. So I think there's going to be, this trend is going t…”
Rory O'Driscoll May 22, 2025 ▶ 31:41 Rippling vs. Deel Lawsuit: WTF Happens Now? The Future of the Late Stage Private Market · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 5, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: Databricks acquired Postgres database startup Neon for $1B
“Databricks bought its own Postgres database company Neon for a billion.”
Jason Lemkin Jun 5, 2025 ▶ 1:06:17 Is DPI The Only Thing That Matters? with Sam Lessin, Jason Lemkin & Rory O’Driscoll · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 12, 2025 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: The IPO window is always open for $50B companies
“Look, the window is, was, and always has been open for Databricks and Stripe. They just don't want to go through the window, right? There's no, like, The windows open and shut for the two billion dollar market cap IPO. The window is always open for the fifty b…”
Rory O'Driscoll Jun 12, 2025 ▶ 10:47 Elon’s Empire: SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink After the Storm & Anduril’s $2.6BN Power Move · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 16, 2025 bullish
Disclosure
G Squared is actively buying secondary shares in Anthropic, OpenAI, and Databricks
“A lot. A lot. And I've got appetite for more. Same with OpenAI. Same with Databricks. Wiz.”
Larry Aschebrook Jun 16, 2025 ▶ 1:25:18 Larry Aschebrook, Founder & MP @GSquared: How We Lost Money on Uber and Made Millions on Lyft · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 19, 2025 bullish
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: Databricks recently held an analyst summit and is IPO-ready
“Literally the fact that this last week they had an analyst summit where they went through all their metrics, their revenue, their growth rate through through an entire group of investors and analysts says to me, they will decide one data file and it will just …”
Jason Lemkin Jun 19, 2025 ▶ 49:30 Chime IPO: Are IPOs Hotter Than Ever? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 4, 2025
Disclosure
Databricks waited until $500M ARR to verticalize its sales team
“I didn't go vertical at Databricks until we were probably five hundred million plus, right?”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 25:37 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Disclosure
Databricks' early average contract values were $18K to $20K
“18 to 20 grand. I mean, when I came. Yeah, when I came in, we're, it was tiny. But the first, you know, say month I was there, we probably did a million bucks”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 14:42 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Databricks currently has 5,000 total sales employees and 1,400 quota-carrying reps
“We have 1400 reps now. We have 5000 people in sales.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 37:30 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Assertion Supported
Databricks reached $13M ARR in its first year of enterprise sales
“We did, in our first year, which I think we did 12 or thirteen million ARR, we did two million dollar deals.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 22:15 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 positive
Assertion Contradicted
Databricks generated $3 billion in revenue last year
“We just did three billion last year.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 57:21 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Prediction Didn’t hold up
Databricks will fund $200M in partner projects this year
“You know, we'll fund two hundred million in projects to partners this year, but I would spend even more on partners and distribution.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 1:00:42 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Assertion Supported
Databricks rejected a $10M on-premise deal from JPMorgan to stay cloud-only
“They're like, we'll give you ten million bucks to put this, and at the time, we're less than a million, like our whole first-year target's like ten million, to put it on-prem. And Ali was like, no way, we're not doing anything on-prem.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 8:54 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Insight
Enterprise partner leaders should have direct sales experience
“Just getting the person that's always been in partnerships, sometimes it's a little bit dicey. I'd rather find somebody that's done some sales and done some partnerships.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 44:53 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Assertion Contradicted
Databricks had hundreds of thousands of free Spark users when Gabrisco joined
“When I joined, we had hundreds of thousands of spark free users.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 23:21 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Insight
Expanding internationally requires transplanting high-performing HQ talent
“One of the big lessons I learned is you want to transplant some of your talent. So I literally, like when we opened EMEA, Took four or five of my, you know, best young hungry sellers and said, okay, you're going to go to Amea for a year. It's going to be great…”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 45:48 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2028
Ron Gabrisco predicts Databricks will reach $10 billion in revenue soon
“I think we'll be ten billion in a few years.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 57:23 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Disclosure
Early Databricks dedicated every Wednesday exclusively to sales prospecting
“Every Wednesday, all we did was prospecting.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 13:02 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Disclosure
Databricks offered free technical resources to early customers spending $100K
“We developed There's a whole thing we call the strategic customer program where we'd be like, hey, if you spend a hundred grand, we'll give you free resource.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 16:30 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 positive
Insight
Consumption pricing beats seat-based pricing by removing caps on growth
“Having a consumption based model is super smart. I see this mistake a lot. Like people will be like, oh, I'm going to price on users. There's a cap on users. You know, if the economy goes down, then there's maybe less users. But if you can price based on, you …”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 15:40 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 positive
Disclosure
Microsoft remains Databricks' largest commercial partner
“Ali and I did the deal with Microsoft, right? Which became kind of pretty historical, I think in legend. And it's still, you know, Microsoft's our, you know, biggest partner. It's a amazing partner for us.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 43:15 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Assertion Contradicted
Databricks is growing at three times the rate of Snowflake
“And if you look at it too, right, we're three times their growth rate.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 59:44 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Opinion
Ben Horowitz called Databricks his highest-upside portfolio company in 2015
“So I was like looking at Mongo or Square or some of those companies and he was like, yeah, this company called Databricks, it's way earlier stage than anything you're looking at, but it's got the most upside of any company in my whole portfolio.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 4:37 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 positive
Disclosure
Databricks has individual customer accounts generating $100M in annual contract value
“Like we have a hundred million dollar accounts.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 34:22 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Assertion Supported
Databricks generated less than $1M in revenue when Ron Gabrisco joined
“Yeah, well less than a million.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 7:05 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2030
Ron Gabrisco predicts Databricks will become a trillion-dollar company
“I think Databricks is a once in a lifetime type company. It will be a trillion dollar company. Somebody in that data and AI space will become a trillion dollar company, and we're the innovation leaders. I think we can do it, right?”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 39:40 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 positive
Disclosure
Databricks uses Perplexity, Glean, and custom AI for sales workflows
“Yeah, we use Perplexity. We use Glean. We actually built some of our own AI, like a sales AI assistant.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 53:38 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Databricks scaled from zero to $4B ARR under CRO Ron Gabrisco
“Under his leadership, Databricks has scaled from zero to over four billion dollars in ARR. He's grown the sales team from zero to over a thousand globally, leading expansion into the enterprise, government, and international markets.”
Harry Stebbings Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 0:11 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bearish
Opinion
Ron Gabrisco claims Snowflake is five-plus years behind Databricks
“Five plus years, in my opinion. You know, we bet on the future early days. We bet on AI. We bet on the lake house. We bet on open source. They're just dipping their toe into that.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 59:33 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Insight
SaaS companies under $100M ARR should prioritize direct sales over channels
“If you're less than 50 or a hundred million, like you need to build a strong direct sales channel, and then you can build the partner channel. But at five hundred million now, we should be scaling, moving stuff through channels, right?”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 44:00 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Disclosure
Ron Gabrisco hired roughly 40 salespeople in his first six months
“Second, I, you know, I hired probably 40 people the first six months, some of the best salespeople from my network, and I was literally just go set up meetings and find out what people will pay for and get the brand out there.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 11:11 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 negative
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Databricks avoids hiring sales candidates with a pattern of short stints
“Like if they have a bunch of one or two year stints, they're not long for Databricks.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 32:56 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2030
Databricks will expand sales headcount despite AI efficiency gains
“As long as humans are buying software, I think you need humans to sell software. So we definitely use AI to become more efficient, but we're going to hire quite a few folks because we're going to go big, so.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 56:16 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Disclosure
Databricks expanded into EMEA at $100M ARR and APJ at $250M ARR
“We probably started to do that to EMEA, maybe a hundred million plus, a hundred to two hundred and fifty million. And then we were an APJ, probably, you know, about two hundred fifty million plus.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 45:23 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Insight
Enterprise sales reps should spend 10 hours preparing for a one-hour meeting
“You practice 10 X more at least than you play. So if you have a one hour meeting, you should be preparing for it 10 hours.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 50:51 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025
Disclosure
Databricks immediately disqualified non-cloud prospects during its early GTM scaling
“One of our qualifying questions is, are you in the cloud? If you're not in the cloud, then you're not ready for Databricks.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 27:14 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Databricks has approximately 20 sales reps earning over $1M annually
“Now we probably have 20 guys make a million bucks in in the sales team.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 37:00 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Databricks recently closed a single customer contract worth $190M
“Yeah, we just did one for a hundred and ninety million actually.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 34:51 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 positive
Opinion
Ron Gabrisco says Ali Ghodsi is 100x better than other technical founders
“He's a hundred X better than any of them because he can do the technical stuff, but he's also an inspirational leader and he knows the business.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 5:34 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 4, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not publicly verifiable
Databricks has migrated eight of Snowflake's top 10 customers
“We've done 250. Snowflake, the Databricks migrations, eight of their top 10.”
Ron Gabrisko Aug 4, 2025 ▶ 59:47 20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO's Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
Aug 21, 2025 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Upcoming tech IPOs could trigger a double bubble
“We might get the next wave of IPOs that are even better very quickly, and the amount of froth that that could create in the ecosystem, the amount of just returns to LPs could create a bubble on top of a bubble, because times might just get much better in the n…”
Jason Lemkin Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 6:53 Databricks at $100BN, CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker - Ep.19 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 21, 2025 bullish
Opinion
Stebbings: Databricks is undervalued at a 25x revenue multiple
“It actually feels undervalued at 25 X revenue, Given the growth rate, given the fact it's found a lead, given the macro trend where it sits, it really feels like actually very reasonably priced.”
Harry Stebbings Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 4:14 Databricks at $100BN, CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker - Ep.19 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 21, 2025 bullish
Assertion Open · timeframe Aug 2025
Lemkin: Databricks crossed $4B in revenue while growing at 50%
“Databricks just said they're crossing four billion, growing 50.”
Jason Lemkin Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 4:02 Databricks at $100BN, CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker - Ep.19 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 21, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Stebbings: Databricks is valued at $100B, surpassing Snowflake's market cap
“Listen, I want to start with Databricks now at a hundred billion dollars worth more than Snowflake.”
Harry Stebbings Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 1:25 Databricks at $100BN, CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker - Ep.19 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 21, 2025
Insight
O'Driscoll: A 25x revenue multiple requires two more years of 50% growth
“If you're paying 25 X runway for anything, you know, what you're really saying is, you know, the only thing, you know, for sure is that when things level out in growth rate, they get valued like normal companies. So implicit in that is some statement about how…”
Rory O'Driscoll Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 4:33 Databricks at $100BN, CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker - Ep.19 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 21, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
O'Driscoll: Andreessen Horowitz has invested at least $500M into Databricks
“For that guy, you probably, I'm willing to bet they have the guts of a billion dollars in that deal. Could be wrong. Half a billion at least.”
Rory O'Driscoll Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 17:58 Databricks at $100BN, CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker - Ep.19 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 21, 2025 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: Tech IPO wave will eliminate private market scarcity premiums
“If all those companies were to go public, as you say, if the canvas of this world, if the database wanted to go out, it's not clear to me that they'd get that three X pop. Instead, you might want to have is, okay, they'd probably trade at the very high, quite …”
Rory O'Driscoll Aug 21, 2025 ▶ 7:57 Databricks at $100BN, CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker - Ep.19 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 28, 2025 positive
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: Databricks acquired database startup Neon for billions
“I mean, Neon got bought for, by Databricks for billions,”
Jason Lemkin Aug 28, 2025 ▶ 48:09 Anthropic's $10B Round, Klarna's IPO, Inside a16z's 72 Deal Seed Investment Machine ft. Marc Benioff · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 28, 2025 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Benioff: Snowflake, Databricks, and Palantir Foundry each generate $3B-$4B revenue
“When you look at other data clouds, Snowflake, Databricks, Palantir Foundry, they're all in the three to four billion dollar revenue.”
Marc Benioff Aug 28, 2025 ▶ 0:17 Anthropic's $10B Round, Klarna's IPO, Inside a16z's 72 Deal Seed Investment Machine ft. Marc Benioff · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Sep 22, 2025 positive
Insight
Taneja: Private markets function like public markets for elite startups
“I think for the very best companies, private markets behave like public markets. There's a secondary market, you can liquidate, so your shareholders can take liquidity, employees can take liquidity, you have access to credit, you can do M&A, your stocks value,…”
Hemant Taneja Sep 22, 2025 ▶ 1:08:15 General Catalyst CEO, Hemant Taneja: Lessons Scaling GC to $40BN in AUM · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 9, 2025 bullish
Assertion Open · timeframe Oct 2028
Stebbings: Andreessen Horowitz will generate $40B+ back from Databricks
“They're about to get the payday of paydays in Ventureland with a minimum of forty billion back from Databricks.”
Harry Stebbings Oct 9, 2025 ▶ 37:05 OpenAI's Multi-Billion Deal with AMD & Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Oct 10, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Degnan: Databricks grows faster than Snowflake despite lower total revenue
“They're, they are growing faster. They are behind Snowflake, but they are growing faster than Snowflake.”
Chris Degnan Oct 10, 2025 ▶ 32:38 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan
Oct 10, 2025 bearish
Assertion Supported
Databricks has double Snowflake's headcount but generates less revenue
“Look at Databricks. Their sales team is, they're less revenue than Snowflake. Their sales team is twice the size of Snowflake. Their engineering team is twice the size of the engineering team.”
Chris Degnan Oct 10, 2025 ▶ 31:31 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan
Oct 10, 2025 positive
Opinion
Degnan: Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi's noisy strategy works
“Ali at Databricks, he shouts pretty loud and he's done a good job, and I don't necessarily agree about how he goes about doing things, but It's worked for Databricks.”
Chris Degnan Oct 10, 2025 ▶ 54:17 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan
Oct 10, 2025 bearish
What-if
Snowflake could have killed Databricks by building a notebook and Spark connector
“I would just would have hired more salespeople and focused on new logo acquisition and pounded on product to give me a notebook and a spark connector, and we would have kicked the shit out of Databricks and they would be dead.”
Chris Degnan Oct 10, 2025 ▶ 35:02 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan
Oct 10, 2025 negative
Disclosure
Databricks outbid Snowflake for startup acquisitions by two to three times
“They buy companies that Snowflake Has had term sheets on for three times or two times the amount of money that Snowflake is offering to buy the companies for, because there's no consequence.”
Chris Degnan Oct 10, 2025 ▶ 31:41 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan
Oct 10, 2025 positive
Opinion
Degnan: Snowflake and Databricks are complementary, not direct competitors
“They're a pretty dominant, in terms of the data estate, Snowflake and Databricks own the data estate together. And they're complementary for the most part, not, not really competitive.”
Chris Degnan Oct 10, 2025 ▶ 33:46 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan
Oct 10, 2025 negative
Opinion
Former Snowflake CRO calls Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi a dick and liar
“I, you know, I strongly dislike the CEO of Databricks, but I think Mike, cause he's a dick and he's a liar, but you know, I look, I think at the end of the day, if I, if I'm honest about it, I think the two companies as a combined entity, that would be a amazi…”
Chris Degnan Oct 10, 2025 ▶ 33:16 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan
Nov 10, 2025 negative
Insight
Randle: Writing mega-growth checks prevents firms from staying focused on Series A
“When you're writing billion dollar checks, that is your main product. Like it's, that's, what's going to make you all the money. And so if you put three billion dollars in open AI and it's going to turn into twelve billion dollars, it just subconsciously, whet…”
Everett Randle Nov 10, 2025 ▶ 1:01:14 Benchmark's GP, Everett Randle on Why Mega Funds Will Not Produce Good Returns · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 4, 2025 neutral
Prediction Not checkable as stated
O'Driscoll: Databricks and Snowflake Will Fight Fiercely for 10 Years
“They're going to struggle and fight against each other for the next 10 years, just like SAP and Oracle fought against each other for the last 20.”
Rory O'Driscoll Dec 4, 2025 ▶ 10:35 Eventbrite Sold for $500M, Databricks $5B Raise at $134B Valuation & Why SaaS is Like Japan · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 4, 2025 bullish
Opinion
Lemkin: Databricks Would Be the Second Best Public Software Company
“I think the simple answer is it would be the second best public company if it were public today.”
Jason Lemkin Dec 4, 2025 ▶ 6:40 Eventbrite Sold for $500M, Databricks $5B Raise at $134B Valuation & Why SaaS is Like Japan · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 11, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2026
Lemkin: Anthropic and Databricks will IPO in late 2026
“I think Anthropic and Databricks have an incentive to IPO, as best I understand it. They have an incentive. As Rory said, times are great. And so I think it'll be the, unless, unless, unless the market crashes for some reason, I think they're going to do it wh…”
Jason Lemkin Dec 11, 2025 ▶ 13:20 SpaceX Valued at $800BN & Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Price & Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 15, 2025 positive
Insight
Avoiding stock volatility is the primary advantage of staying private longer
“I think the biggest advantage is the avoidance of volatility in your stock price and sort of employee management. And so, you know, I think You know, if you can kind of steadily grow or control your stock price in the private markets, even if it's a slight dis…”
David George Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 10:31 a16z's David George on the Most Controversial Bet at a16z & Do Margins and Revenue Matter in AI? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 15, 2025 bullish
Disclosure
a16z's best fund ever saw Databricks return 7x and Coinbase 5x
“Our best performing fund in the history of the firm is actually a one billion dollar fund. So it's a large fund, right? In that fund, Databricks has returned seven X the fund so far. Coinbase has returned already DPI five X of the fund.”
David George Dec 15, 2025 ▶ 2:33 a16z's David George on the Most Controversial Bet at a16z & Do Margins and Revenue Matter in AI? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 22, 2025 bullish
Assertion Supported
Lemkin: Databricks reached $5B revenue and is accelerating at 55% growth
“But Snowflake's AI revenue is pretty small. It's a Gentix strategy is just starting, and Databricks rode this to, now they're both at five billion, and Databricks is growing and accelerating at 55% growth.”
Jason Lemkin Dec 22, 2025 ▶ 25:05 Predictions for 2026: Top Buy & Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win & NVIDIA’s Challenges · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 22, 2025 bullish
Prediction Open · timeframe Dec 2026
Lemkin: SpaceX, Canva, Databricks, and Anthropic will IPO in 2026
“I think we see four IPOs backloaded next year. SpaceX goes out first. Canva comes out of nowhere second. Databricks does it in the back half of the year because it's just time. Anthropic does it at the end of the year. OpenAI probably should have gone first, b…”
Jason Lemkin Dec 22, 2025 ▶ 0:00 Predictions for 2026: Top Buy & Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win & NVIDIA’s Challenges · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Dec 31, 2025 bullish
Opinion
Fitzpatrick: Databricks is the most useful foundation for AI
“Look, I think their tech is great. And I think that it's interesting in a lot of ways, the most useful foundation for AI is really good Databricks infrastructure.”
Matt Fitzpatrick Dec 31, 2025 ▶ 1:17:34 Matt Fitzpatrick: Who Wins the Data Labelling Race & Why Al Needs Forward-Deployed Engineers · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 8, 2026 positive
Insight
Lemkin: Going public enables Databricks to execute tens of billions in M&A
“Maybe at some point, even if you're Revolut, if you really want to do deals for real, it's, there are limits to private stock in cash, and if Databricks goes public, and it's worth two to three times Snowflake, it can buy, it may be able to buy the parts of it…”
Jason Lemkin Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 1:14:44 Groq’s $20BN NVIDIA Deal | Why Sam Altman Doesn’t Care About Dilution & Invisible Unemployment 2026 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 8, 2026 neutral
Insight
O'Driscoll: Late-stage VC has bifurcated into sub-$400M and mega-private tiers
“There really are two different late stage businesses now. It used to be late stage was, I remember Meritech would say, beyond 10 Million is late stage, and you'd think 10 to a hundred million was quote late stage. Now, late stage is 10 to four hundred million,…”
Rory O'Driscoll Jan 8, 2026 ▶ 1:09:49 Groq’s $20BN NVIDIA Deal | Why Sam Altman Doesn’t Care About Dilution & Invisible Unemployment 2026 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 15, 2026 positive
Assertion Supported
O'Driscoll: Databricks generates $4.5B-$5B at 40%+ growth and is cash-flow positive
“I'm going to pick on, in my view, one of the best companies out there, Databricks. It's doing four and a half, five billion dollars, right? It's valued at, it's got a growth rate of 40% plus. It's cashflow positive.”
Rory O'Driscoll Jan 15, 2026 ▶ 1:00:09 Anthropic’s $10B Raise | a16z’s $15B Fund: Is the Middle Dead in VC? | How OpenAI Could Go to Zero? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 19, 2026
Disclosure
Weinberg: 40% of Harvey's product org are senior infrastructure engineers
“And now if you look at our team, it's almost like 40% of our entire EPD org is very senior from like a data breaks or something like that, infrastructure engineers.”
Winston Weinberg Jan 19, 2026 ▶ 32:13 Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg: How to Make Mega Deals | Lessons from Rabois, Halligan & Grady · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jan 22, 2026 negative
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Will Never Invest in Technical Startups Lacking Technical CEOs
“I'm super skeptical of technical companies where the CEO isn't One of the greatest technical visionaries in the industry. I'm just, I'll never do that investment again. I'll never do an investment again where, where, where it's not like Databricks are better a…”
Jason Lemkin Jan 22, 2026 ▶ 16:35 Elon Musk vs Sam Altman | The Implosion of Thinking Machines | Can VC Survive Public Pricing? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 2, 2026 bullish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Zeev: Venture liquidity could surge in 2026-2027 driven by mega-IPOs
“By the way, that might change in twenty-twenty-six, in big way, in a big way, because there are a host of a host of huge, unprecedented size IPOs in the works now. You know, companies like SpaceX, and Stripe, and Databricks, and, you know, and others. So there…”
Oren Zeev Feb 2, 2026 ▶ 39:30 Oren Zeev: Why AI Growth Expectations Are BS & Won't Last? Why GPs Shouldn't Tell LPs Their Strategy
Feb 19, 2026 positive
Opinion
O'Driscoll: Thrive executed exceptional stock-picking with Stripe, Databricks, OpenAI
“I mean, I think, we said it in one of the shows earlier on, Thrive has done an amazing stock picking job of backing Stripe, of backing Databricks, of backing OpenAI, and of backing them at scale.”
Rory O'Driscoll Feb 19, 2026 ▶ 1:11:02 Thrive Raises New $10B Fund | OpenAI Buys OpenClaw | Stripe at $140B: Is Adyen Wildly Undervalued? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 23, 2026
Assertion Supported
Swisher: Investors passed on Snowflake and Databricks early rounds over low margins
“Snowflake and Databricks. Very low margin early. A lot of people passed on those early rounds because they're, ah, in SaaS, you have to have 80% gross margin.”
Lucas Swisher Feb 23, 2026 ▶ 33:48 Insights from Coatue's Growth Investor Lucas Swisher · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Feb 23, 2026
Disclosure
Swisher: Coatue was the only private investor in both Snowflake and Databricks
“I think we were the only private investor that was Invested in Snowflake and Databricks when they were both private.”
Lucas Swisher Feb 23, 2026 ▶ 22:26 Insights from Coatue's Growth Investor Lucas Swisher · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Mar 9, 2026
Insight
Clements: Only top 10 private tech companies can avoid IPOs
“With that said, I think that applies to like the 10 best private companies in the world. Like Databricks can do those things. Stripe can do those things. There's a lot of companies that just do need to get public.”
Miles Clements Mar 9, 2026 ▶ 45:30 "Cursor is Dead" is Total BS: Here is Why | Miles Clements · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 2, 2026 bullish
Assertion Contradicted
Stebbings: Anthropic made $6B in February, exceeding Databricks' lifetime revenue
“28 day month of February, where they did six billion in revenue, which was more than Databricks has done in their entire lifetime.”
Harry Stebbings Apr 2, 2026 ▶ 1:16 OpenAI Kills Sora & Hits $100M ARR on Ads | Oura Going Public & Whoop Raises at $10BN · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Apr 25, 2026 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Masad: Enterprises are skipping SaaS tools to build directly on data warehouses
“People are skipping the SaaS tools entirely and like building on top of their data warehouse.”
Amjad Masad Apr 25, 2026 ▶ 20:34 Replit CEO: Why the SaaS Apocalypse is Justified & Why Coding Models are Plateauing | Amjad Masad · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 2, 2026
Insight
Lindquist: Databricks breached Snowflake accounts by taking small initial footholds
“You see, I saw this with Snowflake and Databricks, right? Snowflake would own everything, and then Databricks would get one small foothold somewhere, and suddenly now they're fighting over the same workloads, and someone's going to win that.”
Becca Lindquist May 2, 2026 ▶ 42:27 Inside Clay's Sales Playbook | Becca Lindquist · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 2, 2026
Assertion Partly supported
Lindquist: Snowflake and Databricks comp reps on net revenue to defend workflows
“You look at like a Snowflake or a Databricks, that's their model, and it's because they're competing over workflows in the account.”
Becca Lindquist May 2, 2026 ▶ 51:06 Inside Clay's Sales Playbook | Becca Lindquist · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 23, 2026 bearish
Opinion
Peets: Databricks is not worth 2.5x Snowflake's $55B market cap
“Snowflake today is worth what? Fifty five billion. So is somebody going to make the argument to me that Databricks is worth two and a half times snowflake? You are, nobody's making that argument to me.”
Chad Peets May 23, 2026 ▶ 1:09:42 Why Anthropic Are Causing a Comp Crisis & Why You’d Never Hire From Salesforce or ServiceNow · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
May 28, 2026 bullish
Assertion Partly supported
Lemkin: Over 90% of Neon Databases Are Built by AI Agents
“At Databricks neon, which is their super base competitor, over 90% of the databases are built by agents, not by humans.”
Jason Lemkin May 28, 2026 ▶ 1:17:36 OpenAI & SpaceX S1 Drops | Layoffs at Cloudflare & ClickUp | OpenRouter & Polsia Raise Mega Rounds · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 11, 2026 neutral
Assertion Supported
O'Driscoll: Databricks fetches a higher private multiple than public Snowflake
“Databricks can get capital at a higher revenue multiple because they're higher growth rate than Snowflake can and on hassle-free terms.”
Rory O'Driscoll Jun 11, 2026 ▶ 1:08:16 SpaceX Launches Largest Ever IPO | OpenAI Files to Go Public | Uber Cuts 23% of HR · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 11, 2026 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Stebbings: Databricks raised privately at $165B, up from $134B
“Databricks come out today. No, no. We're going to do another round. We're going to do another round. One hundred and sixty five billion price up from one hundred and thirty four billion earlier this year.”
Harry Stebbings Jun 11, 2026 ▶ 1:06:38 SpaceX Launches Largest Ever IPO | OpenAI Files to Go Public | Uber Cuts 23% of HR · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jun 22, 2026 positive
Assertion Supported
Arora: Snowflake, Glean, and Databricks are reshaping analytics with LLM data lakes
“I think the analytic world is getting reshaped already where you can see people like Snowflake or Glean or Databricks. All these people boast enterprise data lakes where you can bring the data and run LLMs against it and get you much more synthesized analytics…”
Nikesh Arora Jun 22, 2026 ▶ 53:49 Nikesh Arora on the Frontier Model Problem: Breadth vs Depth | The Future of Token Costs · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Jul 16, 2026 positive
Insight
O'Driscoll: Cost per completed task matters more than cost per token
“I'm trying to, the big picture at the start was the basic point is, you know, cost per token is really not a useful metric. It's kind of cost per completed task was the first thing. How much does it cost to get things done?”
Rory O'Driscoll Jul 16, 2026 ▶ 17:00 Zuckerberg Back on X Challenging Codex & Claude Code | SK Hynix’s $26BN IPO · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
Aug 20, 2026 neutral
Prediction Open · timeframe Aug 2031
O'Driscoll: a16z DOJ board investigation will resolve by exiting Fivetran board
“But my guess is it peters out into some version of the venture firm just saying, we'll take off the board member on Fivetrans, whatever, right?”
Rory O'Driscoll Aug 20, 2026 ▶ 1:13:27 Stripe's $8B OpenRouter Bet | Anthropic's First Profit & The Math Behind Reaching $600B in Revenue?
Aug 27, 2026 bearish
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Lemkin: Databricks and OpenAI IPOs will be nail in coffin for SaaS
“I think it will be the nail in the coffin for almost every public software company. And what I mean is when Stripe and data, like, okay, there's OpenAI, there's Anthropic, we can put them in a different category, right? They clearly are on many levels. When Op…”
Jason Lemkin Aug 27, 2026 ▶ 1:10:21 Anthropic's $30T Assumption & OpenAI Confirms IPO | Why Customer Service & Robotics are Overinflated
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