why aren't all 11 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public
record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable
ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't;
assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card:
▮▮▮▮▮ certainty ·
▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Opinion
Nair: Cloudflare's bot detection claims are bullshit protecting merchant dark patterns
“If you think of bot detection and Cloudflare and all of these things that they talk about, like they sometimes go on soapbox and saying, we are guarding the internet. We are keeping the bots away. It's all bullshit because What they're actually doing is preven…”
Insight
Jindal: Cloudflare delayed hiring enterprise AEs to protect 30-day sales velocity
“We hire, like, a lot of mid-market A's, not, we did not hire, like, your traditional enterprise A's early on... The reason for that was that we wanted to build a fast velocity motion which was, like, the deal size was about 50,000 dollar, and we wanted to do d…”
Insight
Jindal: Never leave a winning startup over a bad manager
“Never leave a company you believe in for like, you know, these kinds of reasons, you know, you have to stick it out because things change really fast. And one thing doesn't change is like, you know, the trajectory of the company, like if you are an interest co…”
Insight
Jindal: Startups Cannot Excel Across Multiple GTM Motions, Geographies, or Products Simultaneously
“Actually, you know, I'm a big believer that you can't be good at everything. And when I, what I mean by that is if when you're building a company, right, you can't be good at serving all kinds of customers. You can't be good at serving a customer through a sel…”
Disclosure
Jindal: Cloudflare rejected GTM leaders with rigid playbooks
“So, so in terms of even hiring the leadership team in the go to market, we were hiring people who were more open about like doing things in a different way versus like come with a playbook. So we never hired somebody who like, Hey, I have a playbook. This is h…”
Assertion Partly supported
Jindal: Cloudflare's First Enterprise Plan Was Just PLG With White-Glove Support
“So initial enterprise plan was nothing but The same product which you have on PLG with the white glove service, you know, because what happens with a lot of customers is they come through PLG because they love that it's very simple to start, very simple to use…”
Insight
Jindal: Software bundles create defensibility even when individual features commoditize
“And I think a lot of these companies who are acquiring, they feel like I want to build the best basket out there. Then I'm not displaceable, basically. But within the basket, few things may become obsolete or become like a commodity, and that's okay. But the b…”
Assertion Supported
Jindal: Cloudflare landed Bain Capital as first enterprise customer via website inbound
“So first customer, enterprise customer we have was Bain Capital. So Bain Capital was using ourselves a product and they were happy with it. And we just put a phone number on a website, you know, if somebody wants to call us and that phone number was pretty muc…”
Disclosure
Jindal: Cloudflare avoided pursuing Akamai's customers during its first four years
“Like in the first three, four years, we did not go after any of the Akamai customers at all. But if they come to us, we will, but there are times where we did say no to the customers, like, no, we are not ready for you.”
Assertion Contradicted
Jindal: Cloudflare was originally pitched as an ad-monetized network
“Business school idea was very much about like a more like ad revenue. So you basically build the network and a lot of traffic, and then you can make money through the eyeballs. That's kind of the idea versus like actually to be the security, the layer, the net…”
Assertion Partly supported
Jindal: Only 2% of websites used CDNs around 2012–2013
“Back in 2012, 13, there was only two percent of the website who actually was using some kind of a CDN solution or somebody did also, but not.”