Oct 12, 2018 · 26m · 20vc
20VC: 7 Key Themes To Building A Great Company To IPO, The Right Way To Assess Market Timing & How To Balance Between Speed and Inspection When It Comes To Decision-Making with Patrick Morley, CEO @ Carbon Black
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of The 20 Minute VC, host Harry Stebbings interviews Patrick Morley, President and CEO of Carbon Black, about scaling venture-backed software startups into market-leading public companies. Morley shares actionable frameworks on executive leadership, market timing, organizational alignment, board relations, and the realities of navigating an IPO.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Harry holds 39.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Harry as informed peer 3.0 Guest teaching 3.7 Guest disagreement 0.1 Harry pushing back 1.3
speaking balance: gold is Harry, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 21:09 Patrick criticizes immature VCs
Patrick offers his sharpest critique of the venture ecosystem, calling out the lack of investor maturity and their failure to understand their negative impact on young founders.
Hardest push from Harry ▶ 12:29 Harry presses for tactical specifics on commsHarry pushes past high-level culture generalities to demand specific, practical examples of how internal communication actually functions at scale.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 15:16 Patrick explains market timing realities in cybersecurityPatrick educates Harry on how Carbon Black spent three years ahead of the market before Google's 2010 breach created widespread industry demand.
Harry holds his own ▶ 13:45 Harry cites VC thesis on market timingHarry demonstrates domain expertise by citing investor Mike Dauber's insight that market timing kills more startups than running out of money.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Harry as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Harry pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Morley's Background and the Founding Vision of Carbon Black | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Harry introduces Patrick and prompts him to share his background and the seven core themes of company building. Patrick outlines his seven principles derived from 25 years of scaling startups. | |
| CEO Roles and Balancing Speed with Inspection | 3 | 4 | 0 | 1 | Harry asks Patrick about CEO responsibilities, managing failure, and identifying team members who cannot scale. Patrick reframes CEO roles into three core pillars and notes that some executives choose not to scale rather than failing to do so. | |
| Communication Strategies and Alignment at Scale | 3 | 4 | 0 | 2 | Harry asks how culture and communication adapt during scale, pressing for tactical execution details. Patrick outlines Carbon Black's cascading communication process from orientation to written follow-ups. | |
| Market Timing, Transparency, and Investor Relations | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 | Harry brings up a quote from investor Mike Dauber about market timing killing startups. Patrick agrees and illustrates the point using Carbon Black's early struggles evangelizing cybersecurity prior to Google's breach in 2010. | |
| Navigating the Decision and Transition to a Public Company | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | Harry relays a question from board member Jeff Fagnan regarding the IPO timeline and asks about unexpected public company challenges. Patrick explains how going public alters internal comms transparency and requires heavy executive time for investor relations. | |
| Treating the Board as an Extension of the Team | 3 | 4 | 0 | 1 | Harry asks about securing investor alignment and the role of VCs during company scaling. Patrick emphasizes treating the board as an extension of the core team and keeping impatient investors off the board. | |
| Quickfire Round with Patrick Morley | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Harry runs a quickfire round asking about venture capital flaws, Boston tech dynamics, and self-analysis. Patrick offers concise answers, noting that Boston's top talent is distributed across multiple non-tech industries compared to the West Coast. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Morley has taken five startup teams public over his 25-year career
“Well, when you look at building a company, my experience, I've spent the last 25 plus years helping to build and scale a variety of different startups and have been fortunate enough to be part of five teams that have brought companies public, including Carbon …”
Morley: A CEO's core duties are scaling teams, strategy, and communication
“There's three core characteristics, three core elements for the CEO. I certainly think one of them is about the people and making sure that you continue to scale the team around you. Absolutely. And by the way, that gets hard because you have to do it quite of…”
Morley: Empowering department leaders with true ownership encourages organizational risk-taking
“The desire to allow people to run your own business, in my belief, their own department, allows people to take more risks. Because if I feel like I truly am empowered to run my business within the constraints of what we're trying to do as a company, within tha…”
Morley: Executives who become reactive rather than proactive must be replaced
“When you have people, team members who are reacting as opposed to being proactive about what's coming, It becomes very obvious that you're going to have to make a decision to bring someone else in.”
Morley: Carbon Black cycled through three distinct executive teams while scaling
“If you look over the years, I've effectively had three senior teams around me that I've had the opportunity to work with.”
Morley: Leaders often fail by making critical decisions without driving organizational alignment
“And that's a big place I see people fail. They'll make critical decisions, and then on the communication side and on the alignment side, they don't do a great job of aligning everyone.”
Morley speaks at every new employee orientation to explain Carbon Black's mission
“We do new employee orientation for every single and I speak at every single new employee orientation. I shake every single new employee's hand and tell them why we're here and what we're all about and what we're trying to achieve.”
Morley: Poor market timing kills more startups than a lack of capital
“Absolutely. I would agree a hundred percent with that statement.”
Morley: Google's 2010 hack announcement triggered a massive shift in cybersecurity demand
“In 2010, there was a market change when Google announced that they had been hacked.”
Morley: Going public forces difficult restrictions on internal transparency and employee communication
“I think one of the challenges, and many companies have spoken to this, one of the challenges of being a public company is the way that you communicate and the transparency that you exhibit inside the company from a comm standpoint has to change, and it's harde…”
Morley: Educating public equity investors consumes significant time for post-IPO executives
“Going out and helping public equity buyers understand who we are as a company, and the amount of time that that requires for myself and others at the senior level in the company.”
Morley: Founders should evaluate and treat board members like executive team hires
“First off, I think every founder, every CEO should look at their board as an extension of their team. They shouldn't think of them as separate. And by an extension of the team, I mean the same characteristics that you're looking for with regards to who you wou…”
Morley: Impatient VC board members ruin companies by forcing short-term decisions
“What I have seen is that in many cases, when an investor is not as mature or lacks patience, they can really screw up an opportunity because they end up Driving short-term decisions that will stop a company from having a long-term opportunity.”
Morley: West Coast tech talent density vastly outpaces Boston's diversified talent pool
“If you take 10 A players, In Boston, out of those 10 A players, maybe two of them will be in tech, and the other eight will be in financial services, or in pharma, or biotech, or blah, blah, blah. And on the West Coast, you know, out of the 10 A players, nine …”