Olivier Pomel

Co-Founder & CEO, Datadog · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

founderexecutiveoperator

Olivier Pomel is the Co-Founder and CEO of Datadog, a cloud monitoring and security platform. Prior to Datadog, he served as a Vice President at Wireless Generation.

21statements → 5claims → 2claims resolved → 4/5average certainty → 2/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 23said about them ↓

1 supported 1 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 assertions · 14 insights · 2 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 2 are resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Olivier argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Pomel: In 2013, only startups operated at scale in cloud

“Eight years ago, the only companies that were at scale in the cloud were new companies and smaller companies. The larger enterprises were not there yet.”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 10:50 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Expressed certainty vs assessment result

none yet certainty 1

none yet certainty 2

none yet certainty 3

100% certainty 4

50% certainty 5

weighted support: a fully supported claim counts one, a partly supported claim counts half. Each filled bar is clickable and opens exactly those claims; "none yet" means nothing said at that certainty level has resolved yet

How they sound: speaking style how? →

276 words/min while actually speaking · 2 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Olivier Pomel: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 32 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 5,985 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Olivier Pomel is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 2/10

pushed back at the host 2/10

setup questions received 85%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 5:09“Can I ask, and he asks the same, what did investors not see?” ▶ 15:59“Do you ever lose your shit, and how do you deal with the shit hit the fan moments when things are really tough?” ▶ 20:19“Is there anything that's really freaking hard about going from single product to multi-product?”

What they said21 What others said23 Episodes1

Everything Olivier Pomel said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight

Pomel: Infrastructure management software cannot rely on a narrow product wedge

“Turns out for some classes of problems, such as infrastructure management, which is what we do, the wedge doesn't work. Like there's a large amount of stuff you need to do from day one if you want your product to be useful.”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 6:17 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Pomel: Long-term investors often flip IPO shares immediately on 40% gains

“Many of them actually, even the long, the good long-term investors, like, they buy into your IPO, and they flip it right away because they've made, you know, 40% in one day, and that's good enough for them, and then they'll come back later.”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 29:28 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Enterprise product feedback must be counterbalanced by SMB input

“If you're going to spend more and more time with enterprise customers and give them more and more of a voice in your product, you need to make sure you counterbalance that with voices from the SMB and the low end as well.”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 12:01 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Quadrupling team size in one year paralyzes company operations

“If you try to do things like quadrupling the size of the team in one year, chances are maybe it's going to be great a few years from now, but for the next year, two years, you're going to be completely out of commission. Like, your team will not do anything ex…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 23:55 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Co-founders balance each other during emotional low points

“I think that's one of the reasons why it's good to have a co-founder, because your laws are not completely aligned, so there's always someone to pull the other up in those times.”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 4:48 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Product simplicity is driven by customer base, not design

“To a large extent, the simplicity of the products is driven by the user base you have for those products.”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 8:31 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Assertion Supported

Pomel: In 2013, only startups operated at scale in cloud

“Eight years ago, the only companies that were at scale in the cloud were new companies and smaller companies. The larger enterprises were not there yet.”

Insight

Datadog rejects executive playbooks in favor of leaders willing to learn

“The most important for us is the desire and the ability to learn. We don't think we've got So to speak, or should figure it out in general, we think we still have to learn pretty much everything, and that goes back to the early days of humility and trying to m…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 15:09 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: A CEO's role is being 'equalizer in chief' during highs and lows

“As a CEO in general, you have to be the equalizer in chief, you know, so when things look great, you have to temper people's enthusiasm a little bit and say, hey, This looks great, but, you know, all these other things are still broken, we need to fix them. Wh…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 16:27 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Leaders must constantly engage in details or employees stop communicating

“You actually have to show real interest. And you have to engage with the details, because otherwise people stop telling you things, like if they realize you don't even know what they're talking about, or you're just waiting for them to leave your office, you k…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 17:01 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Infrastructure monitoring is an ideal landing wedge due to wall-to-wall deployment

“That first product, that infrastructure monitoring, is the perfect place to land, you know, because it gives you a very large surface of contact with your customer's environment. An infrastructure monitoring product needs to see all the infrastructure, so it's…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 18:12 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Disclosure

Pomel: Datadog decided to IPO only after APM and logs succeeded

“When we started seeing APM and logs really take off, That's when we decided to take the company public, because that's when we saw the proof that the company's ultimate vision was right, and we gained confidence that we could see or deliver a lot of growth for…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 18:46 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Multi-product scaling requires a culture willing to fail on new products

“I think the thing that's the hardest is that when you're successful with one product, you're used to being successful and you're used to being right, and to having a good product that's fully fledged and everything else. When you start new products, you're goi…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 20:27 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Pomel: Datadog never more than doubled engineering headcount in a year

“We've been a little bit more measured early on, like we've never done more than double the size of the engineering team in one year, for example.”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 24:31 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Tech companies must scale recruiting capacity like sales teams

“When you think of things like recruiting, for example, you really should think about it like you do of a sales team. Like, it scales the same way. Like, a recruiter is going to have a given productivity, and if you want to go to a team in a certain way, you ne…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 25:03 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Disclosure

Pomel: Datadog waited too long by hiring Head of People past 50 headcount

“We were past 50 people when we had our first head of people, I think. We should have hired that person earlier. I would say earlier than that is my answer.”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 25:45 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Startup ground truth comes from internal operational data, not general advice

“The truth is usually in the details of your business. So it's not on the five liners you get from somebody at the cocktail party. Instead, it's looking at dozens of hundreds of customer emails, what's happening in your CRM, what's happening in your support cas…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 26:20 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: NYC startups must pitch constantly due to intense competition

“Well, in New York, you're competing with so many other things. Like, you're competing for talent, you're competing for space, at least you're used to, you know, for office space. You're competing for attention with a million other things. That's also what make…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 32:51 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Pomel: Datadog struggled to raise capital when founded in 2010

“It was actually very hard to raise money for Datadog initially, back in 2010 when we started it”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 3:43 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Assertion Partly supported

Datadog employees donated $1 million to communities from company pandemic grants

“We actually gave grants to our employees to help them solve their own problems. We also decided to donate some of these grants because some people were feeling bad. They're feeling okay themselves, but they're really feeling really depressed and bad about thei…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 13:35 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

Insight

Pomel: Customer DIY hacks signal valid opportunities for new products

“Before we started with our APM product, we saw customers build poor man's APM on Datadog. Before we started launching our security products, we saw customers also solve their own security use cases with Datadog. So seeing customers solve the problems with us t…”

Olivier Pomel Apr 5, 2021 ▶ 19:53 20VC: Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel on The Scaling Journey to a $26Bn Market Cap, The Challenges in Moving From Single To Multi-Product Company & How To Scale Efficiently into $M+ Enterprise Deals

The other half of the tape: Olivier Pomel's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 22 times in 11 episodes on 20VC. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Jason Lemkin 6 Dan Fougere 6 Harry Stebbings 4 Shardul Shah 3 Ishan Mukherjee 1 Eric Liaw 1 Eleonore Crespo 1

Statements about Olivier Pomel, by other people (1)

Disclosure

Shah: Datadog co-founder Olivier Pomel was initially not a great fundraiser

“When we invested in Olivier and Alexi Series A at Datadog, so he was not a great fundraiser.”

Shardul Shah Sep 16, 2024 ▶ 16:45 Shardul Shah: How Index Makes Decisions & Why Benchmarks & Averages in VC are BS | E1202 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings