David Meyer
SVP of Products, Databricks. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
executiveoperatorfounderengineerLinkedIn ↗databricks.com ↗
David Meyer oversees product strategy, roadmap, and delivery at Databricks, driving key platform offerings including the Data Intelligence Platform, Lakehouse architecture, and AI products. Prior to joining Databricks in 2017, he co-founded UniversityNow, ran engineering and product management at OneLogin, and managed a business intelligence product portfolio at SAP.
1shows
1appearances
50statements
0resolved
0supported
0contradicted
Everything David Meyer said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
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 …”
Meyer: New product leaders should minimize operational changes in first 90 days
“Do as little, like, changing the world of how the company works as possible in the first 90 days.”
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.”
Meyer: Uncover hidden PM potential by interrogating a candidate's past impact
“You ask them where their biggest impact was, right? And if it has nothing to do with product, You know, if it's like calming down an angry customer, but it has nothing to do with the value, the, you know, so you just tease it out, and then interrogate from the…”
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…”
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…”
Meyer: Product managers are roadies, not rock stars
“Most people don't have, like, the hunger and the curiosity to keep going, because it's a thankless job in a lot of ways. You think you're going to be the rock star, you're the roadie.”
Meyer: Engineers need belief in product vision to maintain high velocity
“Whether you're talking to engineers, engineers have to believe, right? Otherwise, they're just not gonna have the same velocities.”
Meyer: Guide engineers to discover product decisions themselves rather than issuing directives
“You know, you need to take them down your mental travel because you're not, well, you might be stupid, but you probably have a point of view of why this is the right thing. And you need them to discover that.”
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…”
Meyer: More Detailed Models Create a False Impression of Correctness
“The gist of it is the more detail you see, The more correct you think something is.”
Meyer: Employees Follow Leaders Who See Them, Not Formulaic Managers
“I think a lot of leaders are formulaic. And I think the people follow people that see them.”
Meyer: Leaders Must Get Feedback on Their Feedback to Retain Employees
“When you give people feedback, you need to get their feedback on your feedback. Because, you know, you might not give them any space to talk about the why or, you know, what they're going through. That doesn't mean not to be resolute on the feedback. Like, I n…”
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…”
Meyer: Products serving everyone lose the fanatic power users driving viral growth
“If your product becomes everything to everyone, you lose the fanatics. But your fanatics are the ones that talk about it in bars. Bring their friends in, have the viral coefficients and stuff, but they're also the ones that push you to do unimaginable things, …”
Meyer: Plumtree attempted to acquire Atlassian early on, but was rejected
“We tried to acquire Atlassian back in Like, 98 or something. We thought we should get them cheap. They're a little dinky company, but they had a plan, you know, and they're like, pound sand, there's no way.”
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: Meetings with ten or more people cause damaging miscommunication
“If you get 10 people in the room, they'll oftentimes, it'll be like damaging. We'll say something, we'll understand each other, they'll interpret it differently, and they'll report the news to other people that's wrong.”
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…”
Candidates fail if the hiring committee lacks full conviction in them
“So if you can't enroll the hiring committee to believe that this person's great, they're gonna fail.”
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…”
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.”
Meyer: Early product wins should prioritize human relationships over technical achievements
“If the early wins are human, more than technical, you'll build the followership you need.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens David's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 20VCLEDGER | SVP of Products, Databricks | 1 | 50 | — | full record on 20VC → |