Datadog rejects executive playbooks in favor of leaders willing to learn
Olivier Pomel · 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 · Apr 5, 2021 · at 15:09
Datadog CEO Olivier Pomel responds to a question from MongoDB CEO Dev Ittycheria about what he looks for when hiring executive leadership.
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“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 make sure we solve the right problem, and we want that from all leaders too. So we're not hiring somebody typically to tell us, hey, this is how I've done it, and I've scaled to one billion at Company X before, and let's do the same thing again. We're looking for people who can say, hey, let's go and look at what's actually happening on the field, talk to the customer, look at the details of the processes and what's working and not working, and let's Design the next version of it, and solve it, and measure it, and see if it's going to work better, and improve it over time. And it's not for everyone. Some people have a playbook, and like to stick to it. Some others are really motivated, and really interested in their hiring, and are also willing to be proven wrong from time to time. I think that's what we're looking for.”
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