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Skates: Innovation stalls at 50 engineers without deliberate organizational restructuring

Spenser Skates · Hitting Hypergrowth with Amplitude's CEO, Spenser Skates: Take Your SaaS Company from $25M to $100M+ · Nov 15, 2023 · at 6:26

Amplitude CEO Spenser Skates addresses the structural hurdles SaaS founders encounter when engineering teams expand beyond 50 people.

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“Almost every CEO that I talk to that goes past about 50 engineers runs into exactly this problem, and they realize they haven't spent enough time on this, so I can't overemphasize it, spending enough time on this.”

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