Adam Miller, founder of Cornerstone OnDemand (originally CyberU), discusses walking away from an aggressive AOL distribution contract right before the 2000 dot-com crash.
“And had we signed that deal, we definitely would have been out of business.”
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More from Adam Miller
Opinion
Founding a tech startup in LA was cheaper and easier than SF
“And I thought it would be cheaper and easier to start a company here and be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. And this is, I mean, that turned out to be absolutely true.”
Adam MillerJun 14, 2024▶ 14:13From the brink of closure to a $5.2 billion sale (with Cornerstone's Adam Miller) | Masters of Scale
Insight
Non-profits are trapped by bureaucracy unlike the forward-looking tech sector
“Government sector, and in particular, the nonprofit sector is filled with well-intentioned, hardworking people, but often are trapped in Infrastructure and ecosystem that has been built and most importantly, the bureaucracy that is surrounding them and they ca…”
Adam MillerJun 14, 2024▶ 1:08:18From the brink of closure to a $5.2 billion sale (with Cornerstone's Adam Miller) | Masters of Scale
Opinion
Advocating for gun safety is much harder for public company CEOs
“It would be much harder to do as a public company CEO.”
Adam MillerJun 14, 2024▶ 1:12:40From the brink of closure to a $5.2 billion sale (with Cornerstone's Adam Miller) | Masters of Scale
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Cornerstone was the first SaaS vendor for every early enterprise client
“Every single deal we did, we were the first software service company at that enterprise in the early days of SAS.”
Adam MillerJun 14, 2024▶ 35:48From the brink of closure to a $5.2 billion sale (with Cornerstone's Adam Miller) | Masters of Scale
AssertionPartly supported
Cornerstone raised in 2008, grew 60%, and never spent the money
“We ended up raising around Meritech led that round. We ended up growing 60% that year. And we never used a dollar of the money.”
Adam MillerJun 14, 2024▶ 54:19From the brink of closure to a $5.2 billion sale (with Cornerstone's Adam Miller) | Masters of Scale
Insight
Modern high-impact philanthropy requires multi-entity conglomerate structures
“Which is instead of thinking about a foundation as a single grant giving organization, they built a conglomerate. And the conglomerate contains a grant giving foundation, typically called a private foundation, a private operating foundation, which is also a fi…”
Adam MillerJun 14, 2024▶ 1:11:14From the brink of closure to a $5.2 billion sale (with Cornerstone's Adam Miller) | Masters of Scale
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