The Exchanges

Q From episode one 73, Frank Slootman. So I understand there's no repeatable framework that you can just apply, but I would imagine there's, there's sort of repeatable principles and methods of thinking that you use. What are the ones that you find the most helpful?

A Well, I, I look very hard, uh, at what's working, what's not working. And in other words, you know, some things are, uh, not working at all. Uh, some things seem to be working reasonably well, and then there's sort of the stuff that you're sort of humming and hawing on. Um, so obviously you, you prioritize the, I mean, I've, I've sort of separated with people very, very quickly because I think the function, the functions that they were responsible for were barely breathing. And at that point, you know, I, I don't hesitate, you know, I move on quickly, immediately. You know, I go after cultural issues, you know, people that are, are just, you know, egregious violators of just things that we, we all generally find normal and acceptable, um, you know, We, we very quickly separate on behavior. You know, performance is something that we will give more time behavior. We won't. And that's because behavior is a choice, not a skill set. You know, when you come in as a new leader, everybody's watching, not just what you're doing, what you're not doing. So if you're not moving on things that people that everybody is seeing, your leadership brand is already in question because, you know, apparently you're blind and apparently you're hesitating. Uh, or you're tolerant of, of behavior that you shouldn't be tolerant of. So yeah, there's pressure because, you know, it's not just what you want …

AI assessment note: “performance is something that we will give more time behavior. We won't.”

Q Seems like there's a lot of organizations that Um, are more family based. I mean, they take a very similar approach to a family and they don't necessarily think in terms of performance. What are your thoughts on that?

A Well, you know, we, we, we've talked about this quite a bit in, uh, in recent years, you know, I don't think a business is a family. Unfortunately, in a family, you can't fire your family, even though you sometimes want to, you have to tolerate them and deal with them. And sometimes in the most egregious way, that is just the nature of families. I mean, all the dysfunction that comes with it. Um, but in, in business, it's more like being a professional sports franchise, right? You're, You're assembling the best players and, uh, you know, we may be friends, but we don't have to be friends because we're not coming together on the basis of friendship. We're coming together on the basis of mission, you know, in other words, share purpose, you know, we're very, very demanding of each other. And it's really about, you know, our, our respective contributions to the, to the mission. That's the basis of our relationship. So it is much more akin to, uh, to professional sports. I think that's the correct analogy. Now, some companies, Don't want to be that way. Companies like Salesforce and even Google come to, uh, to mind, but you know, in the end they're laying people off too, by the thousands. Okay. So I guess it's not family after all.

AI assessment note: “I don't think a business is a family.”

Q builds up, right? You start with one thing, it becomes successful, and then you sort of expand your footprint. And before you know it, you have, you know, before Steve jobs came back to Apple, they have, uh, I don't know. What was it like? 20 or 30 different products. The first thing he did was narrow the focus down to four key products. How do you think about that?

A Yeah. Well, the, the interesting thing about, about Steve was that, uh, he had a, he had a standard called, uh, insanely great, which, you know, I remember at the time that it was kind of a thing in Silicon Valley. So if it didn't meet that standard, you know, it would get scratched really, really quickly. If it wasn't, you know, incredibly exciting and world changing and all of that, we just couldn't be bothered to, you know, even have that on the pallet and, and, and work on that. So I think that's a great way to be, by the way, to just Demand to be inspired and be in awe, you know, um, of, of the nature of the mission and what we're trying to do. Because that's, that gives energy, that gives life, that creates excitement, that creates focus, uh, creates urgency and people come to work, you know, with, with, with a sense of mission rather than, well, I have to be here, you know, for my paycheck. So it's, it's really applying that filter rather than I got too many things going on. There just aren't too many insanely great things. So it will, it will naturally sort itself to a small set, you know.

AI assessment note: “applying that filter rather than I got too many things going on.”

Q It seems like the natural state for most people is to get reasonably good at something like driving a car. And then there's a bit of a complacency that sort of sets in. It's like I get to average or slightly above average in my job. And then I sort of like let off the pedal. How do you prevent that?

A Obviously, you know, the relationship, you know, with the people around you, your team and, and your manager is like, you know, are, are people driving you to higher standards or are they not? You know, are they accepting, you know, of, of the way things are, but you know, one way we do this, um, you know, this is throughout the organization, uh, all our employees, uh, that are not in sales because salespeople are on, on, on commission plans, but you know, every quarter, You know, the company has to, you know, earn the bonus pool. In other words, the money that we're going to use for bonus, we have to earn it. And then we tell people how, how, how we earn it, exactly what the metrics are. And, you know, we share all of that so they know, hey, none of us are going to get bonuses unless the company gets paid. But once, once we earn, once the company earns it, now we're starting to allocate the, uh, the bonus money to managers and departments. And we just say, look, you use this money, you know, to send messages To all your people. There needs to be a bell curve. We want to know who is, you know, deserving of two X, three X versus who is deserving of zero. Um, so that we, we see the full spectrum, the bell curve, if you will, uh, of people that are, you know, performing, you know, incredibly well. And, uh, and the ones who are not in good standing, this is not so much about, oh, I…

AI assessment note: “one way we do this... There needs to be a bell curve.”

Q Would you go as far as saying a great product sells itself?

A Almost. Um, I've certainly seen that, um, you know, with my own eyes, uh, in, in, in, in various companies, you know, I used to say about snowflake, it's like a two year old golden retriever. All I gotta do is, uh, is separate them around and everybody's going to want one. And, uh, it, it sometimes wasn't that far off because it was the, the, the, the benefits, uh, were amazing. I mean, you benchmark these products and sometimes they were an order of magnitude faster, you know, because of all the, the architectural breakthroughs and the, the provisioning of the workloads. Um, so people were like, wow, this, I mean, yeah, that, that wow experience is just, is just priceless, right? So all you have to do is get people to try it and they go like, yeah, this is a no brainer. And so in that sense, it almost sells itself. I mean, we used to see that with, with companies like VMware as well.

AI assessment note: “Almost. Um, I've certainly seen that, um, you know, with my own eyes”

Q Those passengers are probably the easiest ones to hire too, because they get to the interview, they say the right things, they check all the right boxes, and then they come in. Interviews are notoriously, like, difficult to, to hire with, I would imagine, because you just really want to see on-the-job performance. How do you, how do you assess that?

A Well, uh, you're, you're exactly right. Uh, interviews are, uh, far less valuable, uh, not for all roles. I mean, there's roles where, where interviews, like for example, in engineering, I mean, they're like, they put them in front of a whiteboard and say, here, here, here's, you know, right. Code that does this. So you, you, you can, you can very much, you know, test people's skills, uh, you know, that way, but you know, in, in, in, in the other roles where, you know, Um, you know, people become good at selling themselves, right? Because they've learned that over the years, and they, they, they talk well, they look well, and they're very pleasant, and they're getting along, and all these things. But the way to find out anything about people is to fully surround where that person has been, okay? And, you know, if they've been at Company A, you know, you go find out who in my company was at Company A while this person was there, and let's go, I'm gonna go ask inside the company first, Who knows this person? Because they, you were a contemporary and, you know, what was that person's reputation and so on. You'll learn a, you learn a whole bunch of things very quickly. You don't even have to go outside of your own company to, uh, you know, to find out. And then you see if, if, if consistency, you know, our, of, of information is, is manifesting or it's still confusing and contradic…

AI assessment note: “the way to find out anything about people is to fully surround where that person has been”

Q Seems like there's a lot of organizations that are more family based. I mean, they take a very similar approach to a family and they don't necessarily think in terms of performance. What are your thoughts on that?

A Well, you know, we, we, we've talked about this quite a bit in, uh, in recent years. You know, I don't think a business is a family. Unfortunately, in a family, you can't fire your family, even though you sometimes want to, you have to tolerate them and deal with them. And sometimes in the most egregious way, that is just the nature of families. I mean, all the dysfunction that comes with it. Um, but in, in business, it's more like being a professional sports franchise, right? You're, You're assembling the best players and, uh, you know, we may be friends, but we don't have to be friends because we're not coming together on the basis of friendship. We're coming together on the basis of mission, you know, in other words, share purpose, you know, we're very, very demanding of each other. And it's really about, you know, our, our respective contributions to the, to the mission. That's the basis of our relationship. So it is much more akin to, uh, to professional sports. I think that's the correct analogy. Now, some companies, Don't want to be that way. Companies like Salesforce and even Google come to, uh, to mind, but you know, in the end they're laying people off too, by the thousands. Okay. So I guess it's not family after all.

AI assessment note: “I don't think a business is a family.”

Q Aside from money, what other sort of mechanisms do you use internally to reward people?

A It's recognition and celebration. You know, um, you know, we, for example, we, we have, uh, equity awards in, in sales for people that are landing designated customers that we desperately want. And, uh, You know, we, we, they're often surprised because they may have forgotten about it because it's not a, you know, it's just something that only happens when you, you know, you, you land certain customers. And, uh, you know, we all get on it, you know, to send notes, you know, have conversations, uh, references in other conversations. All of a sudden, everybody knows in the whole company, like, wow, this guy, this team did this. And they're like, wow, you know, they, they're bathing in glory, you know what I mean? And, uh, You know, salespeople live for that. I mean, yes, they live for money. I know, you know, they're, they're, they're coin operated, but they also live for, for recognition because that is just a, you know, it's, it's very, very rewarding. It's in a very deep, you know, psychological way. It's very rewarding. So you want to bring that. Don't take it for granted, you know? It's not like, oh, that's just doing your job. Yes, it is. But at the same time, man, this is, this is, this is amazing. Okay. Especially when it comes from me as a CEO and they're like, my God, you taking time out of your day to tell me this. I'm like, yes, we are.

AI assessment note: “It's recognition and celebration.”

Q So I understand there's no repeatable framework that you can just apply, but I would imagine there's, there's sort of repeatable principles and methods of thinking that you use. What are the ones that you find the most helpful?

A Well, I, I look very hard, uh, at what's working, what's not working. And in other words, you know, some things are, uh, not working at all. Uh, some things seem to be working reasonably well, and then there are sort of the stuff that you're sort of humming and hawing on. Um, so obviously you, you prioritize the, I mean, I've, I've sort of separated with people very, very quickly because I think the function, the functions that they were responsible for were barely breathing. And at that point, you know, I, I don't hesitate, you know, I move on quickly, immediately. You know, I go after cultural issues, you know, people that are, are just, you know, egregious violators of just things that we, we all generally find normal and acceptable, um, you know, We, we very quickly separate on behavior. You know, performance is something that we will give more time behavior. We won't. And that's because behavior is a choice, not a skill set. You know, when you come in as a new leader, everybody's watching, not just what you're doing, what you're not doing. So if you're not moving on things that people that everybody is seeing, your leadership brand is already in question because, you know, apparently you're blind and apparently you're hesitating. Uh, or you're tolerant of, of behavior that you shouldn't be tolerant of. So yeah, there's pressure because, you know, it's not just what you wan…

AI assessment note: “performance is something that we will give more time behavior. We won't.”

Q Is there anything that gives you hesitation about AI?

A Yes, of course, and people talk about this, you know, all the time. I mean, social media created the fake news phenomenon because, you know, so many people use social media to inform their reality, which I don't, I don't recommend that, by the way. I always Tell people turn that shit off, man, because you know, you're, you're distorting what you, how you really should be interpreting, uh, things. And, and I don't, I don't like that. Uh, but social media had a lot of good things, uh, you know, obviously, but it also had, you know, the, the, the flip side, you know, is that, you know, people, uh, it, it became very, very powerful influencing people in terms of how they experience the world. Uh, obviously this can take that to the nth degree. You know, I mean, it can change the realities. How's that gonna go, right? You can see the, uh, the opportunities for, for abuse, uh, becoming extraordinary. Yeah, we're gonna have to deal with that, you know, but, uh, we have to still count on the goodwill of men and women because, you know, that's all we have at the end of the day, right?

AI assessment note: “Yes, of course... You can see the, uh, the opportunities for, for abuse”

Q would use sort of in the first 90 days to assess the degree to which the problem is not Sales or, or product. Like how would you go about determining where that problem lies? Do we have the wrong sales organization or the wrong culture? Do we have the wrong product? And, and obviously it's probably a little bit of both, but how do you go about thinking about that?

A Yeah. And by the way, it is often a little bit of both, which is what creates the confusion, um, you know, around these topics, but look, you know, I'm, I can't tell you how many customer slash prospect calls I've already been in this week. It's Friday, you know, and there were numerous when I must've talked to seven or eight banks this week, you know, CIOs, CEOs. I experienced reality the way the salespeople are obviously a little bit differently because I talked to higher level people and organizations, but you know, I experienced things firsthand. What you don't want to do is sort of, you know, rely on information, you know, because You just get a second hand, third hand, fourth hand, and you don't know whether you're dealing with a feeble person that has no fortitude or whether you're dealing with a real issue. So there's no substitute, you know, for inspecting things at the front lines and really be part of it. I always tell salespeople that if I can't sell it, I'm not expecting you to sell it. Okay. So if I, if you're going to get your nose bloodied, I'm going to get my nose bloodied. Right. And, um, so you need to get to reality. In other words, you need to see things as they really are. So you gotta be very, very careful with, with second and third hand, you know, uh, information. And sometimes, you know, I, I gotta whip people up the hill and it's like, look, you know,…

AI assessment note: “there's no substitute, you know, for inspecting things at the front lines”

Q choice on a skill set. I've never heard it quite framed that way. I think that's a very, um, that's a really interesting way to look at it. But you also said that you sort of, you'll give time for performance, but not for behavior. How much time, how do you learn? Like, when do you pull the plug? When do you reinvest? And how do you think about that?

A Well, look, you know, behavior is, uh, it's, it'll, it'll smack you in the face, uh, usually, but I've also seen things happen underground where, you know, I wasn't aware of it, and I wasn't seeing it, but it was happening because it would happen on calls that I wasn't on. You know, one, one time I, uh, I got tipped off by, uh, an employee of my former company that said, look, you know, that office over there is a complete, uh, You know, disaster, and, ah, because they knew people there, and you know how sad people are, right? Everybody talks, doesn't matter what company you're in, and then, you know, we started, you know, basically peeling away the layers, and all of a sudden, you know, you come across, you know, really bad situations, abusive situations, you know, harassment, all these kinds of things, because sometimes it's just not visible. It's happening. People don't like to talk about it. They're, you know, They're worried that they're ratting on people and they don't want to go to their manager because they don't trust their manager. You know, they don't, they don't trust HR, you know, which is usually, you know, your, your second choice or maybe your first choice to go when you have, you know, real behavioral, cultural problems. And then it's just, it just keeps going on. So, um, I've been surprised before about how much, you know, wasn't visible to us, not just to me,…

AI assessment note: “we will get to it, and then we will, we will move at lightning speed”

Q choice, not a skill set. I've never heard it quite framed that way. I think that's a very, um, that's a really interesting way to look at it. But you also said that you sort of, you'll give time for performance, but not for behavior. How much time, how do you learn? Like, when do you pull the plug? When do you reinvest? And how do you think about that?

A Well, look, you know, behavior is, uh, it's, it'll, it'll smack you in the face, uh, usually, but I've also seen things happen underground where, you know, I wasn't aware of it, and I wasn't seeing it, but it was happening because it would happen on calls that I wasn't on. You know, one, one time I, uh, I got tipped off by, uh, an employee of my former company that said, look, you know, that office over there is a complete, uh, You know, disaster, and uh, because they knew people there, and you know how sad people are, right? Everybody talks, doesn't matter what company you're in, and then, you know, we started, you know, basically peeling away the layers, and all of a sudden, you know, you come across, you know, really bad situations, abusive situations, you know, harassment, all these kinds of things, uh, because sometimes it's just not visible. It's happening. People don't like to talk about it. They're, you know, They're worried that they're ratting on people and they don't want to go to their manager because they don't trust their manager. You know, they don't, they don't trust HR, you know, which is usually, you know, your, your second choice or maybe your first choice to go when you have, you know, real behavioral, cultural problems. And then it's just, it just keeps going on. So, um, I've been surprised before about how much, you know, wasn't visible to us, not just to …

AI assessment note: “we will find it, and we will get to it, and then we will, we will move at lightning speed”

Q When you come in, uh, you also believe in sort of, uh, doing less, but doing better and narrowing the focus. How does that manifest itself in an organization? Like how do you go through and decide where to focus and what to cut on?

A We constantly have conversations, you know, around prioritization, you know, what, what is, we can't do everything. So we have to choose. Not choosing is the worst thing you can do because now you're compromising everything. Um, so the question is, you know, we, we use, I use all kinds of different ways of trying to figure out what is most critical. And then by the way, and we, we revisit that conversation constantly. It has to be sort of, you know, reaffirming, but it's like, Hey, if you can only do one thing, Which one would you pick and, and, and, and why, and what would be the consequences of not doing, you know, the other things? So we start sort of strapping it, strapping it on for size and like, can I live with that? Or what would happen if, if, if, if that was the scenario here, the problem is, you know, we, over time people create, you know, they're, they're a mile wide and an inch deep, right? We, we create more and more and more and then pretty soon we're swimming in glue. You know, we're lethargic, you know, we're moving like, like molasses, and, uh, that saps the energy, you know, out of the people and, and the organization. So what I go through is, okay, let's, let's just, Let's just take things out. Let's just, uh, you know, do things in sequence rather than in parallel. Um, because, you know, we, we just want to be lightning fast on the things that really matter…

AI assessment note: “if you can only do one thing, Which one would you pick and, and, and, and why”

Q It seems like bureaucracy naturally creeps into organizations if it's not fought. How do you go about fighting bureaucracy? What's your role in that?

A Yeah, that's, that's, that's a really important observation because, you know, larger companies, they, they tend to become their own worst enemies. It's not what the world does to them. It's what they do to themselves and introducing bureaucracy. Uh, in other words, undue process, you know, a lot of friction in terms of getting things done. So I often talk about this in my communications, you know, to the company is like, Hey, you know, we, we have to hang on to our youth, our innovative muscle, our audacity, our daring. And, um, you know, I always say, look, you know, hierarchy or charge mean nothing to us. You know, we operate through influence. If you can convince people, great. And if you can't, well, then you just can't. It doesn't matter what your title is or what organization you come from or who your boss is. So it's, it's really, it's an, it's an extreme meritocracy. It's really your ideas are judged on their merit, you know, not on, you know, where they're coming from. You fight it. I always say, let's be like Peter Pan, you know, we never grow up, you know, at least not entirely, you know. So, uh, we, we, we maintain that chip on our shoulder, that attitude, um, and you know, back to the insanely great thing, right? If we're not inspired what we're working on, that's a problem in and of itself. We, we gotta go get that back fast.

AI assessment note: “I often talk about this in my communications, you know, to the company”

Q There's a natural tension between sales and product. And at the start of an organization's life cycle, you can sort of get away with customizing the product per sale. But when you start getting into enterprise, you can't do those things. How do you think about the relationship between sales and product and who's driving the bus and who's not and how that looks?

A Yeah. You know, there's, there's, there's tension there. Uh, sometimes healthy, sometimes, you know, not as healthy and, uh, you know, it's, it's a relationship that has to be managed very aggressively. Certainly want a product organization that really views the reality of sales as their problem. Okay. As opposed to, well, you guys are just not smart enough or whatever. Um, and they're interested in all kinds of things that have nothing to do, you know, what the sales organization succeeding. The, the alignment again is, is number one, but you have situations where, you know, sales goes, this is not working. Okay. And we have enough data points to say that it's not working. Okay. What are we going to do? So that dialogue goes on all the time. Um, you know, we make mistakes, you know, we, we prioritize incorrectly. Uh, we're too slow on certain things. I mean, all these things happen. Right. But that's a, that's a continuous force field that we're, we're working on. Um, you know, the, the, The thing about sales is that You know, great salespeople can't sell a bad product. Right. But lousy salespeople can sell a great product. Okay. And that's, that's very important because, you know, oftentimes in Silicon Valley, they think that sales is the problem. And I'm like, no, because if you had a great product, you know, even an average or a below average salesperson will be able to sel…

AI assessment note: “great salespeople can't sell a bad product. Right. But lousy salespeople can sell a great product.”