Frank Slootman
Chairman, Snowflake · 2 appearances on the record.
computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →
executiveauthoroperatorLinkedIn ↗snowflake.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Frank Slootman is recognized for scaling and taking three enterprise tech companies public: Data Domain, ServiceNow, and Snowflake. He is also the author of the leadership book Amp It Up.
32statements → 2claims → 1claims resolved → 4.06/5average certainty → 2.5/5average debate potential → ≈4.0/5argument clarity, estimated →
1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 1 not checkable as stated how the 2 claims stand · each chip opens the sources
1 prediction · 1 assertion · 6 opinions · 21 insights · 3 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertion are the 2 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 1 names 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 Frank argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.
How they sound: not measured why? →
We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Frank Slootman on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.
Everything Frank Slootman said on the Knowledge Project that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →
Slootman: Mass layoffs expose the hypocrisy of Google and Salesforce family cultures
“Companies like Salesforce and even Google come 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.”
Slootman: Fire quickly for behavior; it is a choice, not a skill
“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.”
Slootman: Businesses should operate like sports franchises rather than families
“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,…”
Fire employees immediately over poor behavior; it is a choice, not skill
“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.”
True ambition and drive require a lack of personal balance
“It is a lack of adjustment because if you were a perfectly balanced person, you wouldn't have any ambition. You're so happy with where things are. You barely have a reason to get up in the morning, you know?”
Performance cultures must reward top staff along a strict bell curve
“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. So that we see the full spectrum, the bell curve, if you will of people that are, you know, performing, you know, incredibly well. An…”
Companies achieve peak sales performance when every department supports sales
“You get much better sales organization when you have full alignment in the entire company so that everybody works, you know, for sales effectively. We always say that we're all working for sales here. Because they're the tip of the spear and the rest of us are…”
Great salespeople cannot sell bad products, but bad reps sell great ones
“Great salespeople can't sell a bad product. Right. But lousy salespeople can sell a great product.”
Enterprise sales failures are usually disguised product problems
“Typically sales problems are product problems, but Typically that's not the initial assessment because, you know, you don't want your baby to be called ugly”
Mediocre 'passenger' employees are the most harmful because they survive too long
“Some people are, you know, not good enough to keep, not bad enough to fire, you know, those are the worst cases because like, well, you know, person looks nice, speaks, speaks well, articulate, you know, but they're the ultimate passenger. They never move a di…”
Rushing to hit headcount targets in fast-growing startups is highly destructive
“I find that people rush, especially in fast growing companies, you know, we have hiring targets and they're just slamming bodies. And it's the worst thing ever. I'd rather hire, you know, more slowly, but better than faster.”
Applying rigid executive playbooks leads leaders astray
“You gotta be very careful that, that you don't get into a rinse and repeat mode where, you know, you just think you have a formula or an algorithm and you can just apply it over and over again. That's just really simplistic thinking. It will lead you astray be…”
Businesses should operate like professional sports franchises, not families
“In business, it's more like being a professional sports franchise, right? You're assembling the best players and 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…”
Salesforce and Google mass layoffs prove tech companies are not families
“Companies like Salesforce and even Google come 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.”
Monolithic functional structures kill momentum in large organizations
“You can create focus in, in a multi mission organization. You absolutely can. I mean, certainly Google was actually quite legendary for doing a lot of that stuff. Cause they had a lot of successful things that they did. And I think there's many other companies…”
Slootman operates companies through influence and merit; org charts mean nothing
“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…”
Text-to-SQL is table stakes and largely better than traditional dashboards
“Now the whole text to SQL has become, you know, table stakes. I mean, you can interrogate, you know you know, Salesforce data on Snowflake, you know, what just text to SQL. And it's really nice by the way. I mean, hell, it's all a lot better than using dashboa…”
Evaluating candidates requires surrounding their employment history with internal backchannel references
“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 …”
Slootman: Without deliberate leadership, strong personalities will hijack company culture
“Driving culture is really important because if you don't, You know, other people will fill that void, right? And you get subcultures in a city or a division because strong personalities can do that. So unless you are filling that void, right? It will get fille…”
Failing to act on obvious issues immediately damages a leader's credibility
“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…”
Undriven corporate culture gets filled by divisive regional or departmental subcultures
“Driving culture is really important because if you don't, you know, other people will fill that void. Right. And you get subcultures in a city or a division, Because strong personalities can do that. So unless you are filling that void, right? It will get fill…”
Demanding 'insanely great' standards naturally restricts organizations to few priorities
“So 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 naturally sort itself to a small set, you know.”
Priority counts cannot be fixed because initiative sizes vary drastically
“I don't start off saying it has to be this number or that number. I just want to see what it is because these things are not created equal. It might just be one thing because it's just so big that it's going to consume us, which is then fine. You know, sometim…”
Large companies harm themselves through internal bureaucracy, not external threats
“Larger companies, 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. In other words, undue process, you know, a lot of friction in terms of getting things done.”
Appearances (2)
| Episode | Date | Speaking time |
|---|---|---|
| Best of 2023: Conversations of the Year | Dec 26, 2023 | 5m |
| Frank Slootman: Doing Less, Doing Better | Aug 8, 2023 | 44m |