Todd McKinnon

Co-Founder and CEO, Okta · 1 appearance on the record.

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

founderexecutiveengineer@toddmckinnon ↗LinkedIn ↗okta.com ↗

McKinnon co-founded Okta in 2009 to establish cloud identity and access management, leading the company through its 2017 IPO and the acquisition of Auth0. Prior to Okta, he served as Senior Vice President of Development at Salesforce and held engineering roles at PeopleSoft.

14statements → 1claims → 1claims resolved → 3.86/5average certainty → 1.79/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 21said about them ↓

0 supported 0 partly supported 1 contradicted how the 1 claim stands · each chip opens the sources

1 assertion · 1 opinion · 9 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertion are the 1 claim: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved. 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 Todd argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable contradicted claim

Assertion Contradicted

McKinnon: Okta was Andreessen Horowitz's first VC fund investment

“Like we were their first investment actually as a fund.”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 32:36 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

How they sound: speaking style how? →

249 words/min while actually speaking · 0.6 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Todd McKinnon: 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 28 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 7,101 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Todd McKinnon 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 ▾ 1/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 1/10

setup questions received 75%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 11:17“How do you think about head versus heart when decision making with that in mind?” ▶ 17:06“Is that not why you hire a head of people?” ▶ 17:34“How do you know when's the right time then?”

when Todd pushed back ▶ 10:24“I don't think of it as binary, like reversible or irreversible.” ▶ 17:14“It's an and. I mean, you have to do both.”

What they said14 What others said21 Episodes1

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

Disclosure

McKinnon: Okta's biggest early mistake was relying on contingency recruiters

“One of the, I think, the mistakes we made early in Okta is we didn't hire recruiters, full-time recruiters that worked for the company. This is obviously very early, but we waited too long to hire full-time recruiters. We tried to use contingency recruiting fi…”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 17:17 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Insight

McKinnon: Leadership vulnerability becomes unproductive past the point of building trust

“I definitely think you can be vulnerable to a point where it's almost, you're a downer, you know. I have this problem, and I have this angst, and I'm, I have this hang-up, and this is messed up, and you come across as a complainer, or as a, or it's just not pr…”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 19:41 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Insight

Todd McKinnon: Platform shifts offer the best opportunities to build new companies

“And whenever there's a platform shift in terms of how applications are built and how services are delivered, whether it's PCs or mobile or in this case, the cloud, there's a big opportunity to build new companies, or at least you have the best opportunity to b…”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 3:52 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Insight

McKinnon: Very few business decisions are truly irreversible

“I think there are very few irreversible decisions. I think if you think about really irreversible decisions, you could get into paralysis.”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 10:03 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Insight

McKinnon: Effective leadership decisions require arguing with yourself

“To make effect good decisions, you have to be able to argue with yourself. You have to be able to, in your head, hold opposing viewpoints.”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 12:01 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Insight

McKinnon: Radical transparency in recruiting self-selects better long-term talent

“You should go the other way than your instinct. You should be super transparent about that and embrace what you are. Like, don't try to be the coolest thing on the block. Embrace what you're doing. It's more effective because it's just, it comes off as more ge…”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 18:59 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Insight

McKinnon: Startup CEOs should present clear board recommendations, not ask what to do

“The right way to do it is come in there strong and be, you know, open to input, of course, and be transparent and share information, but end it with a very strong statement about this is what we should do.”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 23:43 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Insight

McKinnon: Establish quarterly predictability before pitching long-term vision

“Once you set that foundation and you kind of can set the, you can, here's the expectations. There's predictability. Yes, we might, there might be a little bit of variance from it, but it's not going to be dramatic. Then you've earned the right to kind of tell …”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 27:27 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Assertion Contradicted

McKinnon: Okta was Andreessen Horowitz's first VC fund investment

“Like we were their first investment actually as a fund.”

Insight

Todd McKinnon: The 'CEO filter' impedes effective executive decision-making

“It's the CEO filter, I call it. Everyone that talks to you is putting on their CEO filter, like, what does the CEO want to hear? What does he not want to hear? What kind of mood is he in? It's natural, right? Anytime you talk to someone that has a prominent po…”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 36:13 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Opinion

Todd McKinnon names Ben Horowitz as his top board member

“Yeah, it's a lot of good ones, but I think Ben Horowitz is the first. He's been there from the very early days, so we have a special, special connection, and also, he's also, we're compatible, like, in the way we think about things. Pretty logical thinkers. Ou…”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 38:32 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Disclosure

McKinnon: PeopleSoft was the biggest influence on Okta's culture

“It's probably the biggest influence on what we've tried to do at Okta in terms of the culture.”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 5:15 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Insight

McKinnon: Providing rich context maximizes board member advice quality

“You're going to get better input from the board, the more you equip them and arm them with context. If you don't share much context, and you kind of leave them guessing or speculating about the context of what's going on in the business and the industry, the q…”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 24:33 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

Disclosure

McKinnon: Okta failed to anticipate customer identity demand 10 years ago

“I didn't anticipate, you know, 10 years ago saying it's not only going to be workforce technology, but it's also going to be every customer interaction is going to be online and that's going to need identity.”

Todd McKinnon Feb 22, 2021 ▶ 31:28 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management

The other half of the tape: Todd McKinnon's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 21 times in 6 episodes on 20VC. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Mike Maples 8 Frederic Kerrest 6 Pat Grady 4 Ben Horowitz 2 Jason Lemkin 1