Grit
338 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago -Grit explores what it takes to create, build, and scale world-class organizations. It features weekly episodes highlighting the leaders who are pushing their companies to make a difference. This series is hosted by Joubin Mirzadegan, go to market operating partner at Kleiner Perkins, a venture capital firm investing in history-making founders.
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Episodes
#187 President & COO of AG1, Kat Cole: Wings to Supplements
April 22, 2024 07:30 - 1 hour - 82.9 MBGuest: Kat Cole, COO of Athletic Greens You can’t make smart decisions if you don’t know the truth — the “true truth,” as Athletic Greens COO Kat Cole puts it. “As you get bigger and you have success, innovator’s dilemma, you end up talking to yourself instead of really being rooted in what’s going on.” That’s why she has embraced the anxiety of the unknown, channeling what she doesn’t know about the market into productive questions for her team and her customers. Anxiety can be ha...
#187 COO Athletic Greens, Kat Cole: Wings to Greens
April 22, 2024 07:30 - 1 hour - 82.9 MBGuest: Kat Cole, COO of Athletic Greens You can’t make smart decisions if you don’t know the truth — the “true truth,” as Athletic Greens COO Kat Cole puts it. “As you get bigger and you have success, innovator’s dilemma, you end up talking to yourself instead of really being rooted in what’s going on.” That’s why she has embraced the anxiety of the unknown, channeling what she doesn’t know about the market into productive questions for her team and her customers. Anxiety can be ha...
#186 COO Asana, Anne Raimondi: Recovering Perfectionist
April 15, 2024 07:30 - 1 hour - 91.2 MBGuest: Anne Raimondi, COO and Head of Business at Asana Asana COO Anne Raimondi feels pressure to perform in her job “every day, all the time.” But that pressure doesn’t come from her fellow executives; she imposes it on herself, trying to think carefully about how much each of her decisions will impact her team. “I have a lot of privilege and choice,” Anne says, “of how I spend my time, the resources available to me, and am I doing enough? ... Am I doing the most with the opportun...
#185 CEO and Founder Netskope, Sanjay Beri: The Trenches
April 08, 2024 07:30 - 54 minutes - 74.9 MBGuest: Sanjay Beri, CEO and Founder of Netskope “You can be waiting your whole life to do something, and then your life’s over,” says Sanjay Beri. After nine years at Juniper Networks, he left his comfortable job, moved his family to a house with a pricier mortgage, and launched the cloud security firm Netskope. His entrepreneurial story would make anyone stressed, he acknowledges, but “at some level, you have to be wired to enjoy it… that's why I tell everybody who joins, ‘It's no...
#184 Former CEO and Co-Founder Sun, Scott McNealy: In the Piñata
April 01, 2024 07:30 - 1 hour - 107 MBGuest: Scott McNealy, former CEO and co-founder of Sun Microsystems & co-founder of Curriki Scott McNealy never wanted to be CEO of Sun, and in his 22-year tenure before selling to Oracle, he knows there were times he failed to execute, or to rein in the once-iconic Silicon Valley firm’s worst impulses. But like his pro golfer son, Maverick, Scott doesn’t like to look back: “Golfers will always look back and blame the wind, a divot that wasn't repaired, a bad rake job, a mower cut ...
CEO and Co-Founder Harness, Jyoti Bansal: Three-Layered Cake
March 25, 2024 07:30 - 59 minutes - 136 MBGuest: Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Harness Cisco bought Jyoti Bansal’s first company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, making him a very wealthy man. But after two African safaris, a week of Michelin-starred meals in Tokyo, and more adventures all around the world, he realized that spending his money didn’t truly make him happy. After some soul-searching, he realized what he really enjoyed: “I liked to build companies. That is my craft ... If someone enjoys playing gold for six...
#183 CEO and Co-Founder Harness, Jyoti Bansal: Three-Layered Cake
March 25, 2024 07:30 - 59 minutes - 136 MBGuest: Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Harness Cisco bought Jyoti Bansal’s first company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, making him a very wealthy man. But after two African safaris, a week of Michelin-starred meals in Tokyo, and more adventures all around the world, he realized that spending his money didn’t truly make him happy. After some soul-searching, he realized what he really enjoyed: “I liked to build companies. That is my craft ... If someone enjoys playing gold for six...
#182 CEO and Co-Founder Cribl, Clint Sharp: Finding Traction
March 18, 2024 07:30 - 1 hour - 99.5 MBGuest: Clint Sharp, CEO and co-founder of Cribl New employees are joining the remote data platform Cribl every week, and as the staff grows, CEO Clint Sharp has noticed a problem: He can’t file a bug report without a lot of caveats. When there were a handful of users, no one would bat an eye at the CEO posting a bug on Slack, but now he has had to learn how to phrase things because people assume he’s “irate and we should change everything we’re doing,” Clint says. “I’ll post someth...
#181 CEO Transcarent, Glen Tullman: Problem Solving
March 11, 2024 07:30 - 1 hour - 207 MBGuest: Glen Tullman, CEO of Transcarent Before he was CEO of Transcarent, Glen Tullman presided over the biggest digital health merger of all time: His previous company Livongo was acquired in 2020 by Teledoc for $18.5 billion. Over his decades of experience in health tech, he has developed saying: Hire low, fire high. When one of his friends was offered a job and said he wanted to consider another offer, Glen withdrew Transcarent’s offer because he didn’t want to be the highest bi...
#180 CEO and Co-Founder Verkada, Filip Kaliszan: Outlier
March 04, 2024 08:30 - 1 hour - 166 MBGuest: Filip Kaliszan, CEO and co-founder of Verkada Great founders try to grow personally at least as fast as their companies do — but sometimes, says Verkada CEO Filip Kaliszan, that’s just not possible. By the time the company had about 200 employees, he says, “the scale of the business and the rate of the growth of the business ... outpaced my rate of learning, or my ability to consult the right people.” But over time, he has worked to fix past errors and earn everyone’s trust:...
#179 CEO and Co-Founder Zapier, Wade Foster: Missouri’s Connector
February 26, 2024 08:30 - 59 minutes - 137 MBGuest: Wade Foster, CEO and co-founder of Zapier When Wade Foster and his co-founders launched Zapier, he was 24, and doubted himself constantly. He consulted mentors like Paul Graham and Jay Simons, studied entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs, and also took inspiration from an unlikely source: Actor and martial artist Bruce Lee. “[He] had this fighting style, ‘The Way of No Way,’” Wade says. “He would study all the different fighting styles, and he would say, ‘None of the...
#178 Author of “Radical Candor,” Kim Scott: Uncommon Sense
February 19, 2024 08:30 - 1 hour - 95.7 MBGuest: Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity and Radical Respect: How To Work Together Better After her first management book Radical Candor became a worldwide bestseller, Kim Scott found herself giving talks to all kinds of companies about how they could apply her advice and build a stronger, kinder culture. But then, after one such talk, the CEO — a longtime friend and former coworker — came up to Kim with an asterisk. As a Black woma...
#177 President and Co-Founder Anthropic, Daniela Amodei: AI Hurricane
February 12, 2024 08:30 - 1 hour - 146 MBGuest: Daniela Amodei, President and co-founder of Anthropic With a reported valuation of as much as $18 billion, Anthropic has the resources to be one of the dominant AI companies in Silicon Valley; however, it was conceived as a public benefit corporation and always tries to strike a balance between hypergrowth and responsibility. Anthropic’s flagship LLM, Claude, must adhere to a “constitution” of values that prioritize the good of humanity. And even though every company wants t...
#176 CEO MongoDB, Dev Ittycheria: Edge
February 05, 2024 08:30 - 1 hour - 90 MBGuest: Dev Ittycheria, CEO and President of MongoDB When you think about who you were and the decisions you made two, or four, or eight years ago ... how do you feel? Dev Ittycheria, the President and CEO of MongoDB, says he’s embarrassed about certain things he did — and that’s a good thing. “If you’re not [embarrassed], that means you’re not really growing that fast,” he says. He recalled one of his mentors, former BladeLogic chairman Steve Walske, explaining that everyone has an...
#175 CEO Snowflake, Frank Slootman: Amped
January 29, 2024 08:30 - 53 minutes - 73.5 MBGuest: Frank Slootman, CEO and Chairman of Snowflake and author of Amp It Up Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman doesn’t recall a time in his childhood where new achievements were celebrated — because, according to his father, putting everything into your work and “leaving it all on the field” was the only choice. “The problem with it,” Frank says, is that “it becomes a ‘never enough’ dynamic, because when is it enough?” To this day, he comes home on Friday night and asks himself, “Did it...
#174 CEO and Co-Founder Ginkgo Bioworks, Jason Kelly: Life Finds a Way
January 22, 2024 08:30 - 59 minutes - 82 MBGuest: Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo Bioworks Almost everyone in the second generation of biotechnology entrepreneurs, says Ginkgo Bioworks CEO Jason Kelly, works in that field because of one thing: Jurassic Park. The Michael Crichton novel-turned-Steven Spielberg movie captured both the wonder and beauty of bioengineering, and the challenges of bending DNA to your own ends. “You didn’t invent biology,” Jason says. “You need to have humility in the face of it ... becaus...
#173 Author of “The Qualified Sales Leader,” John McMahon: The Five-Time CRO
January 15, 2024 08:30 - 1 hour - 128 MBGuest: John McMahon, author of The Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five Time CRO A hell of a lot of people work in sales. But until recently, says five-time CRO and The Qualified Sales Leader author John McMahon, it was rare for colleges and universities to offer a sales degree. Salespeople had to learn on the job from experienced coaches, and adapt. And their bosses, John explains, had to themselves as agents of transformation. “If somebody’s really smart, they’re go...
#172 Professor at UPenn & Author, Angela Duckworth: Grit
January 08, 2024 08:30 - 1 hour - 97.8 MBGuest: Angela Duckworth, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance “There’s got to be a cost” when you pursue your passions, says University of Pennsylvania professor Angela Duckworth; in fact, the word “passion” comes from the Latin word for “suffering.” But that doesn’t mean that gritty people are unhappy. After the time needed for sleep, daily exercise, friends, and family, Dr. Duckworth explains, “what’s left is more t...
#171 Founder and Former CEO Drift, David Cancel: Never Trapped
January 01, 2024 08:30 - 1 hour - 100 MBGuest: David Cancel, founder and former CEO of Drift; founder of Rey After HubSpot acquired his company Performable in 2011, David Cancel became his acquirer’s Chief Product Officer — and didn’t give any thought to how long he’d be in that role. When he started eyeing the exit a few years later, he was told that wasn’t an option: HubSpot had already filed to go public, and an officer of the company leaving in the first 18 months would raise major red flags. “Maybe this is what’s le...
#170 Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr: Getting Into Trouble with Disruptors (Encore)
December 25, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 91 MBGuest: John Doerr, chairman of Kleiner Perkins After Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr first invested in Google — $12.8 million for 13 percent of the company — he told co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin that they needed to hire a CEO to help them build the business. After they took meetings with a variety of successful tech execs, they came back to Doerr and told him “We’ve got some good news and some bad news.” The good news was that they agreed on the need for a CEO; the ba...
Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr: Getting Into Trouble with Disruptors (Encore)
December 25, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 91 MBGuest: John Doerr, chairman of Kleiner Perkins After Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr first invested in Google — $12.8 million for 13 percent of the company — he told co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin that they needed to hire a CEO to help them build the business. After they took meetings with a variety of successful tech execs, they came back to Doerr and told him “We’ve got some good news and some bad news.” The good news was that they agreed on the need for a CEO; the ba...
CEO and Founder Cato Networks, Shlomo Kramer: The Burden of Persona
December 18, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 86.4 MBGuest: Shlomo Kramer, founder and CEO of Cato Networks Shlomo Kramer has founded three companies to date — Check Point, Imperva, and most recently Cato Networks — and taken the first two public, with plans to do the same with Cato. By any measure, he is a successful entrepreneur, but he defines “success” as “a burden you need to shake off every day.” And the easiest way to do that he’s found is to keep moving, keep failing, and keep creating. The material wealth he’s created, he ex...
#169 CEO and Founder Cato Networks, Shlomo Kramer: The Burden of Persona
December 18, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 86.4 MBGuest: Shlomo Kramer, founder and CEO of Cato Networks Shlomo Kramer has founded three companies to date — Check Point, Imperva, and most recently Cato Networks — and taken the first two public, with plans to do the same with Cato. By any measure, he is a successful entrepreneur, but he defines “success” as “a burden you need to shake off every day.” And the easiest way to do that he’s found is to keep moving, keep failing, and keep creating. The material wealth he’s created, he ex...
#168 CEO and Founder Glean, Arvind Jain w/ Mamoon Hamid: New Playbook
December 11, 2023 08:30 - 45 minutes - 63.1 MBGuest: Arvind Jain, Founder and CEO of Glean, and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins “I’m an engineer, so I have doubts about everything,” says Glean founder and CEO Arvind Jain. Well ... almost everything. Since launching Glean in 2019, he has held to the belief that “all of us are going to have really powerful AI assistants” in the future. With a several-year lead on generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Glean has built a growing club of CIO fans. With the broad acceptance of A...
CEO and Founder Glean, Arvind Jain w/ Mamoon Hamid: New Playbook
December 11, 2023 08:30 - 45 minutes - 63.1 MBGuest: Arvind Jain, Founder and CEO of Glean, and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins “I’m an engineer, so I have doubts about everything,” says Glean founder and CEO Arvind Jain. Well ... almost everything. Since launching Glean in 2019, he has held to the belief that “all of us are going to have really powerful AI assistants” in the future. With a several-year lead on generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Glean has built a growing club of CIO fans. With the broad acceptance of A...
CEO StockX, Scott Cutler: Detroit’s First Unicorn
December 04, 2023 08:30 - 55 minutes - 76.8 MBGuest: Scott Cutler, CEO of StockX What’s the point of climbing a mountain, or heli-skiing in the Swiss Alps, or biking in the Tour de France? StockX CEO Scott Cutler has done all three, and for him, the answer is momentary perspective. “When you’re descending, you don’t see, but you know what is above,” he says. “You have experienced and have seen what you saw at the peak and you take that with you into the next experience.” He stressed that the pleasure of being at the top is a f...
#167 CEO StockX, Scott Cutler: Detroit’s First Unicorn
December 04, 2023 08:30 - 55 minutes - 76.8 MBGuest: Scott Cutler, CEO of StockX What’s the point of climbing a mountain, or heli-skiing in the Swiss Alps, or biking in the Tour de France? StockX CEO Scott Cutler has done all three, and for him, the answer is momentary perspective. “When you’re descending, you don’t see, but you know what is above,” he says. “You have experienced and have seen what you saw at the peak and you take that with you into the next experience.” He stressed that the pleasure of being at the top is a f...
Executive Chairman and Former CEO Attentive, Brian Long: Problem Hunting
November 27, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 89 MBGuest: Brian Long, former CEO of Attentive and author of Problem Hunting: The Tech Startup Textbook Brian Long’s most recent company, Attentive, was originally designed to help clients communicate with their distributed workforce — but about six months in, he and his co-founder realized that that business would not grow as quickly as they had hoped. So, they decided to pivot to SMS marketing, at the cost of a few dubious employees and a well-known Fortune 500 client. The successful...
#166 Executive Chairman and Former CEO Attentive, Brian Long: Problem Hunting
November 27, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 89 MBGuest: Brian Long, former CEO of Attentive and author of Problem Hunting: The Tech Startup Textbook Brian Long’s most recent company, Attentive, was originally designed to help clients communicate with their distributed workforce — but about six months in, he and his co-founder realized that that business would not grow as quickly as they had hoped. So, they decided to pivot to SMS marketing, at the cost of a few dubious employees and a well-known Fortune 500 client. The successful...
Former CEO and Co-Founder of Zillow, Spencer Rascoff: Real Estate Voyeurism
November 20, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 98 MBGuest: Spencer Rascoff, co-founder and former CEO of Zillow + co-founder and general partner at 75 & Sunny When terrorists attacked the US on 9/11, Hotwire co-founder Spencer Rascoff and his colleagues had to put their own trauma aside and “spring into action” — the travel site had sold tens of millions of dollars’ worth of non-refundable flights and hotel rooms and customers who wouldn’t be traveling wanted their money back. Now a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, Sp...
#165 Former CEO and Co-Founder of Zillow, Spencer Rascoff: Real Estate Voyeurism
November 20, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 98 MBGuest: Spencer Rascoff, co-founder and former CEO of Zillow + co-founder and general partner at 75 & Sunny When terrorists attacked the US on 9/11, Hotwire co-founder Spencer Rascoff and his colleagues had to put their own trauma aside and “spring into action” — the travel site had sold tens of millions of dollars’ worth of non-refundable flights and hotel rooms and customers who wouldn’t be traveling wanted their money back. Now a visiting professor at Harvard Business School, Sp...
CEO and Co-Founder Duolingo, Luis von Ahn: "The Pitch Was Never Pittsburgh"
November 13, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 87.7 MBGuest: Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo When Luis von Ahn wanted to go to college in the United States, he had to take a standardized test called the TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language. But there was nowhere in his home country of Guatemala that could accommodate another test-taker, so he flew to war-torn El Salvador, just to take the TOEFL. Many years later, as the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, Luis and his team “decided this type of thing, we could do a...
#164 CEO and Co-Founder Duolingo, Luis von Ahn: "The Pitch Was Never Pittsburgh"
November 13, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 87.7 MBGuest: Luis von Ahn, CEO and co-founder of Duolingo When Luis von Ahn wanted to go to college in the United States, he had to take a standardized test called the TOEFL, or Test of English as a Foreign Language. But there was nowhere in his home country of Guatemala that could accommodate another test-taker, so he flew to war-torn El Salvador, just to take the TOEFL. Many years later, as the co-founder and CEO of Duolingo, Luis and his team “decided this type of thing, we could do a...
#163 CEO Bill, René Lacerte: Hourglass Leadership
November 06, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 86.8 MBGuest: René Lacerte, CEO of Bill René Lacerte co-founded the online payroll firm PayCycle in 1999, and led it for six years until he was asked by the board to step down. Today, with 17 years as the CEO of Bill under his belt, he’s able to look back on that time with clearer eyes. “The title on my card is ‘CEO and Founder,’” he says. “At Paycycle, it was ‘Co-Founder and CEO.’” The order matters, because once you’ve become a founder or co-founder, you are one no matter what — and in ...
CEO Bill, René Lacerte: Hourglass Leadership
November 06, 2023 08:30 - 1 hour - 86.8 MBGuest: René Lacerte, CEO of Bill René Lacerte co-founded the online payroll firm PayCycle in 1999, and led it for six years until he was asked by the board to step down. Today, with 17 years as the CEO of Bill under his belt, he’s able to look back on that time with clearer eyes. “The title on my card is ‘CEO and Founder,’” he says. “At Paycycle, it was ‘Co-Founder and CEO.’” The order matters, because once you’ve become a founder or co-founder, you are one no matter what — and in ...
#162 CEO and Co-Founder Rippling, Parker Conrad w/ Mamoon Hamid: Compounding
October 30, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 143 MBGuests: Parker Conrad, CEO of Rippling, and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins How long did it take for Parker Conrad to stop wanting revenge? “I’ll let you know when it switches over,” the Rippling CEO and co-founder jokes. He resigned from his last company, the buzzy HR unicorn Zenefits, in 2016 and then quickly realized that the company’s new leaders would never return it to its former glory. He still loved the problems he had been trying to solve, and launched Rippling be...
CEO and Co-Founder Rippling, Parker Conrad w/ special guest Mamoon Hamid: Compounding
October 30, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 143 MBGuests: Parker Conrad, CEO of Rippling, and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins How long did it take for Parker Conrad to stop wanting revenge? “I’ll let you know when it switches over,” the Rippling CEO and co-founder jokes. He resigned from his last company, the buzzy HR unicorn Zenefits, in 2016 and then quickly realized that the company’s new leaders would never return it to its former glory. He still loved the problems he had been trying to solve, and launched Rippling be...
#161 Founder and EVP of Oracle NetSuite, Evan Goldberg: Endless Possibilities
October 23, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 90.4 MBGuest: Evan Goldberg, founder and EVP of Oracle Netsuite In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Evan Goldberg working at Oracle, helping to bring its database software to the Mac. He left in 1995 because “I always wanted to do my own thing” and — with Larry Ellison’s support — launched his first startup, Embed. When it failed, he told Larry that he wanted another bite of the apple. “It’s the most exciting, it’s the most satisfying,” Evan said of startups. “It’s the highest risk, but .....
Founder and EVP of Oracle NetSuite, Evan Goldberg: Endless Possibilities
October 23, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 90.4 MBGuest: Evan Goldberg, founder and EVP of Oracle Netsuite In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Evan Goldberg working at Oracle, helping to bring its database software to the Mac. He left in 1995 because “I always wanted to do my own thing” and — with Larry Ellison’s support — launched his first startup, Embed. When it failed, he told Larry that he wanted another bite of the apple. “It’s the most exciting, it’s the most satisfying,” Evan said of startups. “It’s the highest risk, but .....
#160 CEO Grammarly, Rahul Roy-Chowdhury: Better, Not More
October 16, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 86.5 MBGuest: Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, CEO of Grammarly Driven by generative tools like ChatGPT, artificial intelligence is hot — but Grammarly CEO Rahul Roy-Chowdhury wishes that “AI” stood for something else: “Augmented Intelligence.” A longtime Googler and lifelong believer in using technology to make peoples’ lives better at scale, Roy-Chowdhury now leads a company well-positioned to do exactly that. “In the early days, Grammarly was all about the rules of language,” he says. “Now, with g...
CEO Grammarly, Rahul Roy-Chowdhury: Better, Not More
October 16, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 86.5 MBGuest: Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, CEO of Grammarly Driven by generative tools like ChatGPT, artificial intelligence is hot — but Grammarly CEO Rahul Roy-Chowdhury wishes that “AI” stood for something else: “Augmented Intelligence.” A longtime Googler and lifelong believer in using technology to make peoples’ lives better at scale, Roy-Chowdhury now leads a company well-positioned to do exactly that. “In the early days, Grammarly was all about the rules of language,” he says. “Now, with g...
CEO 1Password, Jeff Shiner: Chief Eliminator of Obstacles
October 09, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 88.3 MBGuest: Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password Far from the Silicon Valley bubble, in Waterloo, Ontario, they try to do things a bit differently, says 1Password CEO Jeff Shiner. “Our mantra has been, build a good product, support the heck out of your customers,” he says. Some businesses and VCs in the Valley, he argues, don’t draw enough of a distinction between customers and users, spending all their time chasing the latter. For many years, the whole team at 1Password — including the co-fou...
#159 CEO 1Password, Jeff Shiner: Chief Eliminator of Obstacles
October 09, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 88.3 MBGuest: Jeff Shiner, CEO of 1Password Far from the Silicon Valley bubble, in Waterloo, Ontario, they try to do things a bit differently, says 1Password CEO Jeff Shiner. “Our mantra has been, build a good product, support the heck out of your customers,” he says. Some businesses and VCs in the Valley, he argues, don’t draw enough of a distinction between customers and users, spending all their time chasing the latter. For many years, the whole team at 1Password — including the co-fou...
#158 CRO Anduril Industries, Matt Steckman: On Defense
October 02, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 82.7 MBGuest: Matt Steckman, CRO of Anduril Industries Walk into one of Anduril Industries’ offices and it might take a minute for you to realize: This is a defense contractor. “It feels like a tech company, stylistically,” says CRO Matt Steckman, “because we know we have to recruit the best software talent in the world.” Matt says the executive team spends a “comical” amount of time on recruiting, one of his personal passions, and especially works to minimize the number of people who tur...
CRO Anduril Industries, Matt Steckman: On Defense
October 02, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 82.7 MBGuest: Matt Steckman, CRO of Anduril Industries Walk into one of Anduril Industries’ offices and it might take a minute for you to realize: This is a defense contractor. “It feels like a tech company, stylistically,” says CRO Matt Steckman, “because we know we have to recruit the best software talent in the world.” Matt says the executive team spends a “comical” amount of time on recruiting, one of his personal passions, and especially works to minimize the number of people who tur...
#157 CEO Udemy, Greg Brown: The Plunge
September 25, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 84.5 MBGuest: Greg Brown, CEO of Udemy Every night before he goes to bed, Greg Brown makes a to-do list. He has to because, as the CEO of the online learning platform Udemy, setting his priorities helps ensure that he makes the most of the scarce time on his calendar. “If I’m meeting with employees, what’s the message I want them to walk away with?” he asks. He also wants to make sure his team isn’t getting distracted by Udemy’s stock price. “Where it be sports, or life, or in business, y...
CEO Udemy, Greg Brown: The Plunge
September 25, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 84.5 MBGuest: Greg Brown, CEO of Udemy Every night before he goes to bed, Greg Brown makes a to-do list. He has to because, as the CEO of the online learning platform Udemy, setting his priorities helps ensure that he makes the most of the scarce time on his calendar. “If I’m meeting with employees, what’s the message I want them to walk away with?” he asks. He also wants to make sure his team isn’t getting distracted by Udemy’s stock price. “Where it be sports, or life, or in business, y...
CRO Snowflake, Chris Degnan: Part 2
September 18, 2023 07:30 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MBGuest: Chris Degnan, CRO of Snowflake Chris Degnan was a teenager when his world got turned upside-down: His stockbroker father was revealed to be a serial liar & fraudster and was sent to prison; the wealth he thought his family had evaporated; and their house was foreclosed on by the IRS. The traumatic experience gave him both an “insane drive” and a slew of anxieties, which shaped the person he became as an adult ... and led him, eventually, to the C-Suite of Snowflake. “Those t...
#156 CRO Snowflake, Chris Degnan: Part 2
September 18, 2023 07:30 - 53 minutes - 49.2 MBGuest: Chris Degnan, CRO of Snowflake Chris Degnan was a teenager when his world got turned upside-down: His stockbroker father was revealed to be a serial liar & fraudster and was sent to prison; the wealth he thought his family had evaporated; and their house was foreclosed on by the IRS. The traumatic experience gave him both an “insane drive” and a slew of anxieties, which shaped the person he became as an adult ... and led him, eventually, to the C-Suite of Snowflake. “Those t...
#155 CEO Yahoo, Jim Lanzone: Brand Rejuvenation
September 11, 2023 07:30 - 1 hour - 92.5 MBGuest: Jim Lanzone, CEO of Yahoo Jim Lanzone doesn’t waste time thinking about what other people think of him ... or the companies he has run. After helping to rejuvenate Ask.com in the early 2000s, he has more recently served as CEO of Tinder, and now Yahoo. As an expert in brand turnarounds, he says, “don’t worry about what the world thinks ... worry about your growth versus yourself.” With a focus on people and product, Jim believes, “not only can you accomplish a lot, you’re go...