B2BaCEO (with Ashu Garg)

How to Solve AI-Powered Search (Arvind Jain, founder and CEO of Glean) Jan 24, 2025

My guest today is Arvind Jain, the founder and CEO of Glean. Before Glean, Arvind spent over a decade building Google's search infrastructure. He then co-founded Rubrik, which recently passed $1B ARR.

With Glean, Arvind is tackling the longstanding challenge of enterprise search. Yet his vision goes beyond this. He believes every employee should have their own team of AI agents to help them work smarter and achieve more.

In our conversation, Arvind shares his journey as a technical founder and offers his unique perspective on what it takes to build a successful startup today. We also discuss where AI is heading, and where he sees the biggest opportunities for founders.

Hope you find this conversation valuable!

Chapters:

00:00 Cold open
04:42 How Arvind began his journey in search
06:59 Arvind on Glean's mission
08:50 The evolution of enterprise search
12:56 How AI unlocks a new dimension for search
16:56 Lessons for AI startup founders
21:23 Navigating the AI startup landscape
25:44 The "build vs. buy" decision with AI models
31:09 Defining the role of AI in business
34:57 The future of work with AI agents
39:30 The shift from SaaS to Service-as-Software
41:21 Concluding thoughts

How to Rewrite the Rules of 'Founder Mode' (Frank Slootman, Chairman, Board of Directors, Snowflake) Nov 01, 2024

Frank Slootman turns the 'founder mode vs. manager mode’ debate on its head.

Frank’s track record in B2B land is iconic: He took Data Domain from pre-revenues to a $2.5B acquisition by EMC. He led the IPO at ServiceNow, and when he left the company, it was worth $34B. Frank then took Snowflake public, and the company was worth over $70B when he retired earlier this year.

After three successful CEO stints, Frank isn’t buying Silicon Valley’s fairytales about founders. His leadership style combines a manager’s prowess with a founder’s passion. Frank epitomizes what some might call “owner mode!”

(00:07) Frank's thoughts on 'founder mode' vs. 'manager mode'

(00:47) The role of non-founder managers and CEOs

(09:59) How to manage effectively without micro-managing

(17:11) The importance of intellectual honesty (18:32) Frank's thoughts on being 'in the arena'

(21:04) What it really takes to build a viable business

(28:34) Contrasting ServiceNow and Snowflake

(33:40) The impact of AI on business

(39:01) The future of app ecosystems

(44:50) Becoming a student of leadership

(46:31) Managing investor relationships

(48:04) Why Frank doesn't think about his legacy

(50:17) Closing Thoughts

How to Adapt and Win in Enterprise Software (Aaron Levie, Co-Founder & CEO of Box) Oct 11, 2024

Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box, has guided the cloud content management platform from a dorm room project into a publicly traded company with over $1B in annual revenue. In his second appearance on B2BaCEO, Aaron reflects on his founder journey, sharing how Box capitalized on cloud computing and their recent push to integrate generative AI.
But our conversation goes far beyond Box. Aaron’s role has given him a unique vantage point on what the latest advances in AI mean for founders. We explore the AI applications that excite him most, where he sees opportunities for startups over incumbents, and the potential areas in AI that founders might be overlooking.
(0:00) Intro
(2:26) The Box journey
(4:23) Transitioning to enterprise
(8:26) Building a GTM flywheel
(11:45) Lessons from the enterprise journey
(15:16) Where AI is heading
(18:14) Facing the innovator's dilemma
(20:54) AI agents
(26:15) Why AI is positive sum for the economy
(30:24) The AI doomer debate
(34:22) The evolving model ecosystem
(40:30) Parting advice for founders

How to Build a Company Around Cutting-Edge AI (Srinath Sridhar, Founder of Regie.ai) Jul 16, 2024

In this episode, I talk with Srinath Sridhar, CEO & Cofounder of Regie.ai, who has always been ahead of the AI curve. Sri and his co-founder Matt Millen started Regie.ai in 2019 with the idea that GPT-3 would transform how all of us write emails. Today, Regie uses AI to automate sales prospecting for the enterprise. The company's Auto-Pilot automates most of the repetitive tasks involved in demand generation, including writing sequences, scheduling calls and responding to emails. Sri knew in early 2019 that LLMs would be a game-changer. What he didn’t know was exactly what product to build. In this episode, we’ll dig into the details of how he did it.

How to Build a Multi-Billion-Dollar Software Business (Mohit Aron, Founder of Cohesity) Jun 14, 2024

In this episode, I'm excited to welcome Mohit Aron back to B2BaCEO for the second time. As the founder of Cohesity and co-founder of Nutanix, Mohit is a titan in the world of enterprise GTM and infrastructure software. With two wildly successful companies under his belt, he's a true expert when it comes to building enterprise software businesses from the ground up. In our conversation, Mohit shares his proven frameworks for validating startup ideas. He reveals hard-won lessons from starting Nutanix and Cohesity, with real-world examples that bring his advice to life. We explore product-market fit—what it really looks like in practice—as well as how to build a team and manage performance in a high-growth startup. We wrap up by discussing the topic du jour, generative AI, and the opportunities it opens for startups. This episode is full of insights for technical founders. I hope you enjoy it! (00:00) Intro (00:21) Mohit's framework for a bulletproof startup hypothesis document (07:53) Why your MVP shouldn't be your full vision (10:39) Cohesity's journey from 0 to 1, 1 to 10, and 10 to 100+ (17:19) Examples of founders not being intellectually honest about their hypotheses (20:35) How to accurately size your startup's market (TAM) (23:55) Balancing founder conviction with naysayer feedback (31:02) Adapting the hypothesis document for the generative AI era (34:19) Mohit's definition of product-market fit (39:05) When to hit the gas on sales hiring (and when not to) (44:59) Mohit's system for competency-based hiring (53:17) Implementing performance management via quarterly calibrations (56:00) What Mohit would do differently as a technical founder (58:07) Mohit's top advice for founders (60:09) The industries ripe for disruption by generative AI (62:04) Book recommendations for founders

How to Grow from Ph.D. to Two-Time Startup CEO (Sanjit Biswas, Co-Founder & CEO of Samsara) May 03, 2024

My guest today is Sanjit Biswas, the co-founder and CEO of Samsara, a platform that helps companies digitize their physical operations. In 2023, Samsara reached $1 billion in ARR, making it one of the fastest startups in history to hit this milestone.
But this wasn't Sanjit's first major success. Before starting Samsara, Sanjit left his Ph.D at MIT to build Meraki, a cloud networking company that Cisco acquired for $1.2 billion in 2012.
In our conversation, Sanjit shares his journey from grad school research to bootstrapping Meraki in the early days. He reflects on the lessons he learned from Meraki's pivot to the enterprise, the decision to sell to Cisco, and the insights that led him to start Samsara.
We then turn to how Samsara found product-market fit, Sanjit's philosophy on allocating capital, and the areas where he believes generative AI will have the biggest impact.
It was a really fun and insightful conversation that I think you'll enjoy!
(00:00) Intro
(00:16) Sanjit's background and the genesis of Meraki
(06:25) Meraki's pivot to the enterprise and rapid growth
(09:45) Lessons from building Meraki's enterprise sales motion
(16:15) The decision to sell Meraki to Cisco
(20:05) Founding Samsara and its mission
(27:11) Defining Samsara's product strategy based on customer feedback
(31:00) Samsara's unique journey to $1B in revenue
(39:16) Sanjit’s "70/20/10” framework for allocating capital
(43:13) The importance of board alignment and company culture
(50:58) Sanjit's thoughts on AI and hype cycles
(54:22) Sanjit's advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

How to Win Your First Enterprise Customer (Doug Winter, Founder and CEO at Seismic) Mar 29, 2024

My guest today is Doug Winter, the founder and CEO of Seismic, a leading enterprise sales enablement platform. Today, Seismic has a team of 1,500 people and nearly $400 million in recurring revenue. We start the conversation with Doug explaining what sales enablement actually means. From there, we turn to the early days of Seismic and unpack Doug’s approach to finding product-market fit, positioning, and targeting enterprise customers from day one. He speaks candidly about the challenges of scaling and closes with actionable advice for founders in 2024. Fewer than 1% of B2B software companies reach Seismic’s scale. Doug’s story offers a valuable blueprint for founders with similarly audacious ambitions. I hope you find this conversation as inspiring as I did. Let’s dive in! (00:00) Cold open (2:21) Doug explains what sales enablement is (3:39) Genesis of the idea for Seismic (7:08) Seismic's scrappy early days (13:10) Lessons from fundraising (18:23) Targeting large enterprises from day one (22:32) Scaling a GTM engine (28:23) Making proactive leadership changes (37:12) Running great board meetings (40:59) Impact of AI on Seismic's business (44:42) Advice for founders starting in 2024

How to Shape the Future of AI (Naveen Rao, VP of Generative AI at Databricks) Dec 22, 2023

My guest this month is Naveen Rao, the co-founder of MosaicML and current head of Generative AI at Databricks. Naveen's journey is unique, as it echoes the evolution of AI itself. He’s best known for founding and selling two successful companies. The first, Nervana, an AI-focused chip company, was acquired by Intel for $400 million in 2016. The second, MosaicML, was acquired by Databricks in June for $1.3 billion. In our conversation, we unpack the insights and frameworks that led Naveen to make these bets in the first place. We begin by exploring his long history in AI research and startups, from his early days at Qualcomm, his founding of Nervana, and the genesis of MosaicML. We then turn to the complexities of the ever-changing AI landscape and go behind the scenes of MosaicML’s acquisition by Databricks. We close with Naveen’s takes on the most urgent questions in AI, including the recent tumult at OpenAI, the road to AGI, the role of regulation, and where he thinks generative AI will go next. What struck me most is Naveen’s remarkable ability to not only anticipate the future but also actively pave the path toward it. For founders looking to navigate our current AI moment, this episode is full of valuable lessons.

How to Power the AI Boom (Robert Nishihara, Co-Founder & CEO of Anyscale) Nov 17, 2023

In this episode of B2BaCEO, I speak with Robert Nishihara, co-founder and CEO of Anyscale. Anyscale’s aspiration is to build the fastest, most cost-efficient infrastructure for running LLMs and AI workloads. When it is successful, Anyscale will be to the AI era what Microsoft was for the PC era: the underlying operating system on which all AI applications are developed and run. Anyscale is built on Ray, an open-source compute framework that Robert and his co-founders developed as PhD students at UC Berkeley. Under the guidance of Professor Ion Stoica, who also co-founded Conviva and Databricks, the team sought to make distributed computing broadly accessible. Anyscale was then launched as a fully managed platform for Ray, making even the toughest problems in distributed computing easy for developers to tackle. Today, Anyscale is a billion-dollar business powering mission-critical AI use cases at companies like Amazon, Cohere, Hugging Face, NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Visa. If you’ve been a PhD student at UC Berkeley, created a popular open-source framework, and built a billion-dollar business on top of it, you’ve likely learned a thing or two along the way. Robert’s story offers valuable lessons for fellow founders and builders at all stages of the startup journey.

How to Build, Scale, and Sell a Startup (Tracy Young, Co-Founder of TigerEye & PlanGrid) Sep 15, 2023

My guest this month is Tracy Young, the co-founder and former CEO of PlanGrid, a productivity tool for construction companies. From going through YC and losing a co-founder to cancer, to being acquired by Autodesk for $875 million, Tracy has picked up many valuable lessons that other founders and CEOs can learn from. Our conversation unpacks these lessons, including finding (and keeping!) product-market fit, navigating startup growing pains, showing up effectively to board meetings, and managing the emotional toll of fundraising. We also speak about Tracy’s new venture, TigerEye, and what she’s doing differently the second time around. After having countless conversations with founders over the years, I thought I’d heard it all. Tracy proved me wrong. Her story serves as an inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs in any industry.

How to Deploy AI in Your Company (Matei Zaharia, CTO & Co-Founder of Databricks) Jun 02, 2023

If you’re not hardcore about AI, then stop the podcast now — because this episode for real technology nerds. Ashu’s guest is Matei Zaharia, CTO and cofounder of Databricks, and a professor of computer science at Stanford University. Ashu and Matei cover a lot of ground — most of it technical, all of it very relevant for anyone who’s serious about building with artificial intelligence. They start with a discussion of Databricks’ early days: how the startup established a foothold in a market dominated by entrenched incumbents and some of the challenges Matei and his cofounders faced. The rest of the conversation is all about AI. Matei breaks down the most common challenges that enterprises run into when attempting to adopt AI. He shares tips for how startups can best deploy foundation models. And he speculates on what the game-changing new use cases for AI will be over the next two years. Matei also pulls back the kimono on some of the cutting-edge machine-learning research he and his team at Stanford are working on. Finally, listen to the end for a fascinating exchange about artificial intelligence beyond large language models.

How to Capture the AI Moment (Bobby Yerramilli-Rao, Chief Strategy Officer at Microsoft) Apr 26, 2023

As everyone listening to this podcast knows, the release of ChatGPT last November ushered in a new age of AI and catalyzed a wave of AI startups. For this episode of B2BaCEO, Ashu goes deep on AI with Bobby Yerramilli-Rao, former serial entrepreneur and investor, and current Chief Strategy Officer at Microsoft. Ashu picks Bobby’s brain on what sectors and problem spaces he thinks are ripe for innovation with AI and what the opportunities for startups are. They then dissect the four layers of the AI stack, from applications to platforms to infrastructure to models. Lastly, they talk about flavors of artificial intelligence beyond large language models. If you’re a founder or executive who wants to understand the AI moment and all the opportunities it holds for enterprises and society — listen to this conversation.

How to Grow in a Bear Market (Beerud Sheth, Co-Founder & CEO of Gupshup) Dec 16, 2022

Beerud Sheth is the Co-Founder and CEO of Gupshup, a leading platform for cloud messaging. Prior to that he was the cofounder of what is now Upwork, a pioneer of online freelancing and remote work. Beerud took the slow and steady pace to winning the race, building two unicorns over 25 years. On the show, he and Ashu draw from Beerud’s depth of experience and break down how a company can achieve capital-efficient growth in the current economic environment. They also lay out the case for why India might be the Silicon Valley of the future.

How to Build a Hundred Billion Dollar Company (Jonathan Siddharth, Co-Founder & CEO of Turing) Oct 25, 2022

Jonathan Siddharth is cofounder and CEO of Turing, the platform that helps companies source, vet, match, and manage the world's best software developers remotely. Jonathan started Turing in Foundation Capital’s offices four years ago and he’s since grown it into a $4B company. On this episode of B2BaCEO, Ashu gets him to talk about how he did it: from best practices for hiring execs and communicating with investors, to the unique fundraising machine that Turing’s built, to navigating through choppy economic waters. Jonathan is one of the most methodical, forward-thinking entrepreneurs active today. For four wild years, he’s been living the startup life, and fighting the founder’s fight, and embodying this show’s ideal of growing from engineer to CEO.

How to Build an Organization (Alex Bouaziz, Co-Founder & CEO of Deel) Sep 22, 2022

Alex Bouaziz is the guest for this edition of the show. He is the Co-founder and CEO of Deel, a global payroll solution that helps businesses hire anyone, anywhere. Founded in 2019, Alex and his team have grown the company into a unicorn with almost a thousand employees in just three short years! In this conversation, he opens up about the thrills and perils of scaling Deel so rapidly: from the things he got right, like how to hire and how to foster a culture of excellence; to where he got it dead wrong, including titles and product development. Alex and Ashu hit every angle of what it takes to build an organization.

How to Be a SaaS Wunderkind (Christian Owens, Founder & CEO of Paddle) Jul 27, 2022

On this episode, Ashu is coming to you from London, where he’s spending the summer. His guest is Christian Owens, founder and CEO of Paddle, a B2B payments infrastructure platform. Christian is a fascinating fellow. He dropped out of high school at 16 to run his first software company, which he scaled to $5 million in revenue — not a bad lemonade stand! He started his second company, Paddle, when he was 18 and, in the ten years since, he’s scaled it to a unicorn with over $55M in revenue. In this wide-ranging conversation, recorded in person at Paddle’s offices, Ashu and Christian cover everything from Christian’s brief and wondrous career, to how to scale an enterprise company when you’re starting as a complete novice, to what the current economic environment means for “growth at all costs.”

How to Hire People Better Than Yourself (Ashutosh Garg, Founder & CEO of Eightfold) Jun 24, 2022

On this episode, it’s Ashu Garg vs. Ashu Garg. Our guest is his good friend Ashu Garg, who also goes by Ashutosh. Ashutosh is the founder and CEO of Eightfold, an AI-powered talent-acquisition and -management platform, where our Ashu is a board member and early investor in the company. In this conversation, the two Ashus trace Eightfold’s not-always-easy path from altruistic mission to Silicon Valley unicorn. They spend much of their time discussing how to hire the best people. And CEO Ashu shares everything he wished he knew at the beginning of his startup journey.

How to Sell Software (Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot) Apr 26, 2022

On this episode, Ashu’s guest is Yamini Rangan, the CEO of HubSpot. The tagline of the B2BaCEO podcast is “from engineer to CEO,” and that’s exactly the path that Yamini took. She started out as an engineer, then moved to sales, and then eventually to running go-to-market operations as an executive. Less than a year ago, Yamini became the CEO of HubSpot, under unexpected and trying circumstances, which she details in the conversation. Ashu and Yamini spend most of their time discussing how to make the transition from engineering to sales and how to build a customer-focused organization.

How to Be a One-Man C-Suite (Nikesh Arora, CEO of Palo Alto Networks) Mar 28, 2022

Nikesh Arora began his career at Fidelity Technologies, where he served as VP Finance. He then went onto T-Mobile, where he was CMO and then in 2004 joined Google, initially running Europe and was ultimately the Chief Business Officer of the company before he left in 2014. He was then president and COO of Softbank Corp before becoming CEO of Palo Alto Networks in 2018. Nikesh has held so many different functional leadership roles that it’s small wonder we’ve dubbed him the “One Man C-Suite.” On this episode, Ashu and Nikesh explore the importance of culture, and how it separates the great companies from the also-rans. Nikesh explains how he went about defining the culture at Palo Alto Networks and then translated that aspiration into reality, including how he approaches hiring.

How to Lead With Gusto (Josh Reeves, Co-Founder & CEO of Gusto) Mar 03, 2022

On this episode, Ashu interviews Josh Reeves, founder and CEO of Gusto, which is reimagining payroll, benefits, and HR for modern companies. Josh joins Ashu to celebrate Gusto’s 10th anniversary. Josh explains Gusto’s atypical focus on building for “durability and accountability,” as against the usual Silicon Valley dogma of grow fast or die. He walks listeners through how he scaled the company in stages and the new muscles he had to build at each stage. Ashu delves into how Josh successfully made the transition from founder to CEO, how Josh’s leadership style evolved over time, and how has this translated to Gusto's culture.

How to Build a Decacorn (Ali Ghodsi, Co-Founder & CEO of Databricks) Feb 17, 2022

DataBricks CEO and cofounder, Ali Ghodsi, is back on the podcast for a third time, making him the most frequent guest we’ve had on the show. On this episode, courtesy of our recent enterprise conference, FC BUILD 2021, Ali shares the founding story of Spark and DataBricks, and his own story of going from an academic to a CEO. Ali breaks down the evolution of DataBricks’ business model and the company’s go-forward vision as a broader platform for data scientists and ML engineers. And he offers advice for founders trying to build a company out of an open-source project. Ali also gets the best way for startups to engage with DataBricks. And he shares what he’s learned, from the ground up, about getting go-to-market right and converting that know-how into a $10+B company.DataBricks CEO and cofounder, Ali Ghodsi, is back on the podcast for a third time, making him the most frequent guest we’ve had on the show. On this episode, courtesy of our recent enterprise conference, FC BUILD 2021, Ali shares the founding story of Spark and DataBricks, and his own story of going from an academic to a CEO. Ali breaks down the evolution of DataBricks’ business model and the company’s go-forward vision as a broader platform for data scientists and ML engineers. And he offers advice for founders trying to build a company out of an open-source project. Ali also gets the best way for startups to engage with DataBricks. And he shares what he’s learned, from the ground up, about getting go-to-market right and converting that know-how into a $10+B company.

How to Amp It Up (Frank Slootman, Chairman & CEO, Snowflake) Jan 19, 2022

How to Win (Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign) Nov 05, 2021

Dan Springer is a three-time Silicon Valley CEO. He’s currently the CEO of DocuSign, which he took public and subsequently scaled to more than $2 billion in run-rate revenue and $50+ billion in market cap. Any losers out there will want to stop listening now, because this episode is all about how to win: how to win as a CEO, how to win at go-to-market, and how to win the war for talent.

How to Scale Product-Market Fit (Rob Bernshteyn, CEO & Chairman, Coupa Software) Sep 16, 2021

Rob Bernshteyn’s definition of product-market-fit is having “the least lines of code with the maximum amount of value and the highest willingness to pay for that value.” Rob is the CEO of Coupa, the leading business-spend management platform. He’s a product-led and metrics-driven CEO. So, naturally, this conversation is all about product and SaaS metrics. In this episode, Rob unpacks his definition of product-market fit and talks about his formula for scaling a SaaS company to a billion dollars.

BONUS: How to Architect the Future (Max Simkoff, Founder & CEO of Doma) Aug 03, 2021

This is a special bonus episode of B2BaCEO featuring one of Foundation Capital’s own CEOs, Max Simkoff. In 2016, Max founded Doma, a real estate transactions startup, out of our San Francisco office and Foundation led his Series A. Just last week, less than five years later, Doma started trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

You can watch the full story of how Doma went from proof-of-concept to public company in our new video series, “Diary of a Startup."

But this episode of the podcast focusses on what Max learned it takes for a FOUNDER-CEO to build a great company. Max walks us through all the critical first steps, even the seemingly trivial ones, for starting a business. He gets into the minds of VC investors and what founders need to do to really impress them. And he lays out, in no uncertain terms, who exactly is and isn’t a real entrepreneur.

How to Do OKRs Right (Deidre Paknad, CEO & Co-Founder of WorkBoard) Jun 28, 2021

This episode goes deep on a topic that many founders, especially first-time founders, obsess over but usually get wrong: OKRs, objectives and key results. And there’s literally no greater authority on this topic than our guest Deidre Paknad, CEO and cofounder of WorkBoard, the enterprise standard in OKR software and expertise. Deidre is one of the most methodical, systematic, and gutsy leaders we’ve ever had on the show. Many CEOs overdo or underdo OKRs. Listen to Deidre and she’ll tell you how to do OKRs right.

How to Protect Your Perimeter (Doug Merritt and Mike DeCesare) May 12, 2021

Doug Merritt and Mike DeCesare both hold leadership roles at prominent cybersecurity companies. But before they made their way into the CEO seat, both spent many years in a variety of operational positions, gaining a 360-degree view of their respective businesses. Today, Doug leads the team at Splunk with empathy, ensuring all contributors feel valued. And Mike, now co-chairman at Forescout Technologies, explains how his holistic professional journey has made him a more thoughtful leader. We’ll hear from both executives in this next installment from our FC BUILD series, this time moderated by my partner and resident cybersecurity expert, Sid Trivedi. Sid questions Doug and Mike about where privacy is heading in a post-Covid world and about some of the hot topics in the world of cybersecurity today.

How to Go From Idea to IPO (George Kurtz & Michelle Zatlyn) May 04, 2021

In this session from our FC BUILD conference, Ashu interviews two billion-dollar founders. When it comes to scaling management, engineering culture, and anticipating future markets, Cloudflare COO Michelle Zatlyn and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are the ones to ask. Each shares a bit about their respective company’s journeys — plus, George explains how a company is like a race car!

How to Grow as a CEO (Tien Tzuo and Edith Harbaugh) Apr 21, 2021

In this installment of our FC BUILD series, my partner Steve Vassallo talks with Edith Harbaugh, co-founder and CEO of LaunchDarkly, and Tien Tzuo, co-founder and CEO of Zuora. Both former engineers, Edith and Tien offer advice for building a startup, discuss scaling in the time of virtual work, and dissect the art of managing others and themselves.

How to Commercialize Open Source (Ali Ghodsi, Co-Founder & CEO of Databricks) Mar 18, 2021

In this discussion from our recent enterprise conference FC BUILD, Ashu interviews Databricks founder and CEO Ali Ghodsi. A rather unconventional company, Databricks began as an open-source project at UC Berkeley that moved into the commercial space after the team realized its impact. Ali and Ashu discuss commercializing an open-source project, identifying product-market fit, and optimizing go-to-market.

How to Manage on the Edge of Chaos (Reed Hastings, CEO & Co-Founder of Netflix) Feb 19, 2021

This is a special episode of B2B a CEO. Last month, Foundation Capital held a special event for all of our CEOs. We hosted a conversation with Foundation’s most illustrious CEO, Reed Hastings, the CEO and cofounder of Netflix. General Partner Steve Vassallo and General Partner Emeritus Mike Schuh interviewed Reed about his new book, No Rules Rules. Reed discusses the evolution of Netflix, and what he’s learned over the decades about how to build a high-performance culture. He also shares a few stories from back in the day. https://foundationcapital.com/how-to-manage-on-the-edge-of-chaos/

How to Build a Snowflake (Frank Slootman, Chairman & CEO of Snowflake) Jan 28, 2021

From FC BUILD, our recent enterprise conference, Foundation Capital General Partner Joanne Chen interviews Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman. On the heels of his third major IPO, Frank discusses performance culture, scaling, and the future of data.

How to Sell Yourself, Your Startup, and Your Product (Edith Harbaugh, CEO & CoFounder of LaunchDarkly) Nov 09, 2020

On this episode, Ashu interviews Edith Harbaugh, co-founder and CEO of feature management platform LaunchDarkly. They discuss what it takes to leap from an established job to pursue an idea, and how to tackle the woes of fundraising. Edith and Ashu spend the lion’s share of the conversation on the all-important topic of sales. How to sell yourself, your company, and your product. And what to look for when you’re hiring a sales leader.

How to Be an Anti-Racist CEO (Ralph Clark, President & CEO of ShotSpotter) Sep 14, 2020

This episode’s guest is Ralph Clark, the president and CEO of ShotSpotter. Ralph has more than 30 years of experience in corporate finance and organizational leadership roles at IBM, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and several successful tech startups. He and Ashu talk about how executives and the tech industry can confront bias and systemic racism.

How to Hate Losing (George Kurtz, Founder & CEO of Crowdstrike) Jul 15, 2020

George Kurtz, the founder and CEO of Crowdstrike, the most successful cybersecurity company of the past decade, is the very special guest for this episode. George joins Ashu for in-depth conversation on everything from hiring, to board composition, to balancing a hybrid product-and-services model. George also gives specific advice for all you security founders listening.

How to Go to Market (Ali Ghodsi, Co-Founder & CEO of Databricks) Jun 12, 2020

On this episode, we have Ali Ghodsi, cofounder and CEO of Databricks, a cloud platform for massive scale data engineering and collaborative data science. For the first third of the podcast, Ali tells us the story of how a research project at the AMP Lab at UC Berkeley grew into Databricks. This will be of particular interest to anyone who wants to know how to commercialize open source. After that, Ali gives listeners a crash course on how to build an early stage go-to-market machine—from how and who to hire, to how to coordinate sales and marketing, to how to execute. It's a fantastic bootcamp for startup CEOs.

How to Make Your CEO Dreams Come True (Mark Leslie, Managing General Partner at Leslie Ventures) Apr 21, 2020

In part 2 of my interview with Mark Leslie, we dive deeper into his experience founding Veritas and leading it to become a Fortune 100 software company. We hear more about Mark’s eventual departure from his role as CEO to his current passion for teaching and investing.

How to Get Through the Covid-19 Crisis (Various) Apr 01, 2020

This special episode of the podcast is part oral history of when the plague came to Silicon Valley and part anthology of advice for startups dealing with the fallout of Covid-19. Five CEOs and one CFO, at companies ranging from early stage to public market, share their experiences of coping with the business impact of the pandemic and offer advice for how best to manage through the crisis. The guests for this episode are Mohit Aron, CEO at Cohesity; Andrew Feldman, CEO at Cerebras Systems; Jack Lazar, former CFO; Mark Leslie, retired CEO at Veritas Technologies; Jonathan Siddharth, CEO at Turing; and Derek Steer, CEO at Mode.

How to Manage Your Board & Everything Else (Mark Leslie, Managing General Partner at Leslie Ventures) Mar 18, 2020

Mark Leslie is the founder & CEO of Veritas Technology, a company he grew from an idea to a Fortune 100 powerhouse worth over $1B in revenue. My interview with Mark was so full of wisdom that we decided there was enough material for at least two episodes. In this first episode, I get into the weeds with Mark on topics ranging from how to manage your board, to pricing and sales, to annual planning. It’s a can’t-miss for all CEOs or CEO-hopefuls!

How to Be Your Best CEO Self (Dane Holewinski, Startup Founder & CEO Coach at Decode) Jan 31, 2020

For the first episode of the new year and new decade, a startup-founder-turned-CEO coach offers some guidance on being your best CEO self.

How to Be a VC Jr. (Adi Garg & Ashu Garg) Dec 16, 2019

This one is for you really, really early-stage founders. Fifth-grader Adi Garg interviews his dad about startups and venture capital and chocolate.

How to Change the World (Ion Stoica, Executive Chairman & Former CEO of Databricks; & Co-Founder of Conviva) Nov 21, 2019

Two-time founder/CEO, and Berkeley computer science professor, Ion Stoica chats with Ashu about what it means to have an impact and how to go from academic to entrepreneur.

How to Scale Sales (Sudheesh Nair and Ajeet Singh of ThoughtSpot) Oct 31, 2019

Sudheesh Nair and Ajeet Singh discuss the tricky process of handing off the CEO baton. They also go deep on how to build a world-class sales organization.

How to Create a Mission-Driven Culture (Jennifer Tejada, CEO of PagerDuty) Sep 23, 2019

Jennifer Tejada, CEO of PagerDuty, puts people and relationships at the forefront of her business strategy. In this episode of the podcast, she tells me what she’s learned as a two-time CEO and how important it is to create a good company culture with diverse talent.

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Jennifer Tejada joins PagerDuty

https://www.pagerduty.com/newsroom/pagerduty-appoints-saas-industry-veteran-jennifer-tejada-as-ceo/

PagerDuty’s IPO

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2019/04/11/pagerdutys-ipo-values-it-at-18-billion--heres-why-it-had-doubters-early-on/#492fc12632b3

Jennifer rings the NYSE opening bell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtRKFLOHXuU

Inclusivity as good business strategy

https://www.inc.com/ryan-jenkins/here-are-benefits-of-inclusion-how-to-create-an-inclusive-culture.html

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/delivering-through-diversity

How to Manage Through Influence (Kevin Johnson, CEO of Udemy) Aug 08, 2019

Kevin Johnson led two companies in very different stages of growth. Here’s how he did it and what he looks for in new hires.

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Ratuken buys Ebates

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ebates-m-a-rakuten/rakuten-says-to-buy-u-s-rebate-site-operator-ebates-for-1-billion-idUSKBN0H40JM20140909

Kevin Johnson becomes CEO of Udemy

https://about.udemy.com/press-releases/udemy-board-appoints-kevin-h-johnson-as-new-ceo/

Managing through influence

https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/how-to-lead-with-influence-instead-of-authority

How to Plan for Success (Mohit Aron, Founder/CEO of Cohesity) Jul 10, 2019

Two-time founder Mohit Aron tells me how blueprints and checklists can guide your startup in its earliest stages.

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Mohit goes into more detail about his entry point framework

https://rajeshsetty.com/2017/06/29/mohit-aron-evaluating-ideas/

Cohesity is on CNBC’s Disruptor 50 list

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/cohesity-2019-disruptor-50.html

More about Geoffrey Moore, creator of the “technology adoption life cycle”:

http://www.geoffreyamoore.com/

How to Hire and Fire (Burton Goldfield, CEO of TriNet) Jun 04, 2019

Burton Goldfield tells me his CEO strategy: know the results you want and build your company towards achieving them.

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TriNet goes public

https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/03/27/san-leandro-trinet-ipo-gives-east-bay-a-new-1-billion-company/

How to Scale Company Culture (Aaron Levie, CEO & Co-Founder of Box, Part 2/2) Apr 10, 2019

Aaron tells me how to scale your company while maintaining its culture and the benefits of going public.

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More about Andy Grove’s 10X theory

https://thekeypoint.org/2018/03/19/only-the-paranoid-survive/

Aaron talks more about maintaining company culture while scaling

https://firstround.com/review/Aaron-Levie-on-How-to-Scale-10x-as-a-CEO-Built-a-Billion-Dollar-Business/

A Box employee makes his mom proud

https://blog.box.com/make-moms-proud

Box finally goes public

https://money.cnn.com/2015/01/23/investing/box-ipo-tech-stocks/index.html

How to Pivot (Aaron Levie, CEO & Co-Founder of Box, Part 1/2) Mar 15, 2019

Dorm room startup co-founder Aaron Levie tells me how he made the decision to pivot Box from a consumer product to an enterprise solution.

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Getting Mark Cuban

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-a-cold-email-brought-mark-cuban-to-box-11554474601

Aaron’s 2006 email to an investor about the need to pivot

https://www.fastcompany.com/1787627/starred-how-box-cofounder-aaron-levie-enticed-vcs-mark-cuban-battle-microsoft-google

Aaron talks to Harvard Business Review about Box’s pivot to enterprise

https://hbr.org/ideacast/2017/12/boxs-ceo-on-pivoting-to-the-enterprise-market.html

How to Scale Happiness (Eric Yuan, Founder/CEO of Zoom) Jan 28, 2019

Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan tells me why and how happiness is an essential part of his multi-billion-dollar company.

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Glassdoor names Zoom the best tech company to work for in 2019

https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/best-tech-companies-2019/

… and the second best company to work for overall

https://www.glassdoor.com/Award/Best-Places-to-Work-LST_KQ0,19.htm

Zoom’s first customer

https://blog.zoom.us/wordpress/2013/08/15/stanford-continuing-studies-takes-education-online-with-zoom-video-conferencing/

Yes, there really is a happiness crew

https://www.builtincolorado.com/2018/07/27/spotlight-working-at-zoom-video-communications-culture

Zoom goes public, happiness (and stock prices) increase

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/zoom-video-rockets-to-nosebleed-valuation-after-ipo-but-ceo-says-he-is-comfortable-with-it-2019-04-18

How to B2B a VC (Ashu Garg, General Partner at Foundation Capital) Dec 19, 2018

The man, the maniac.

How to Tell Your Company’s Story (Tien Tzuo, Co-Founder/CEO of Zuora) Nov 15, 2018

Tien Tzuo, Co-Founder and CEO of Zuora, tells me how he tells his company’s story when he pitches to customers and investors and how to scale up to $1 billion.

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Tien’s book

https://www.zuora.com/subscribed/author/

Zuora prepares for its IPO

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/zuora-prices-ipo-at-14-per-share--valuing-the-company-at-1-point-44-billion.html

Tien’s daughter rings the opening bell

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/04/12/opening-bell-april-12-2018.html

Tien’s interview with NYT where he mentions his dislike of one-on-ones

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/business/tien-tzuo-of-zuora-dont-expect-me-to-manage-you.html

Tien’s “climb to $1 billion” strategy

https://www.zuora.com/guides/climb-build-billion-dollar-run-rate/

Tien discusses his three room structure

https://www.zuora.com/2017/09/14/3-questions-for-tien-tzuo-ceo-founder-of-zuora/

How to Turn Failure into Success (Frederic Laluyaux, President/CEO of Aera Technology) Oct 18, 2018

Frederic Laluyaux’s first startup flopped but he has taken that experience with him to his current position as president and CEO of Aera Technology. Frederic tells me how to new founders can find what they’re looking for.

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Aera Technology

https://www.aeratechnology.com/

Anaplan’s re-launch

https://www.dcvelocity.com/articles/20170620-fusionops-rebrands-as-aera-technology-after-landing-50-million-in-venture-funds/

Anaplan’s $1 billion valuation

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-14/anaplan-valued-at-1-1-billion-after-90-million-pre-ipo-round

How to Nurture Executive Talent (Doug Knopper, Co-Founder/Co-CEO of FreeWheel) Sep 19, 2018

Co-Founder and Co-CEO of FreeWheel Doug Knopper tells me how he uses his considerable Silicon Valley experience to train the next generation of talent with his new project, CEOhacker.

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DoubleClick acquired

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/14/technology/14DoubleClick.html

FreeWheel acquired

https://techcrunch.com/2014/03/01/comcast-freewheel/

Silicon Valley’s diversity problem

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/silicon-valleys-diversity-problem-is-its-achilles-heel.html

FreeWheel’s commitment to diversity

http://freewheel.tv/freewheel-views/engineers-week-thriving-through-diversity/

CEOhacker

https://www.ceohacker.com/

How to Succeed at Customer Success (Nick Mehta, CEO of Gainsight) Aug 12, 2018

Super-networker and Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta tells me how listening to people and creating a good company culture has turned the customer success software platform into a market leader.

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Nick Mehta’s site

https://www.mehtaphysical.com/

Gainsight

https://www.gainsight.com/

The one page strategic plan

https://scalingup.com/book/

Shoshin

https://alyjuma.com/shoshin/

Gainsight was one of the best small companies to work for in 2018

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/12/10/costco-google-t-mobile-ranked-best-companies-work-2018/2202327002/

How to Go from Underdog to Top Dog (Dheeraj Pandey, Co-Founder/CEO of Nutanix) Jul 24, 2018

Co-Founder and CEO of Nutanix Dheeraj Pandey took his company from an idea to a unicorn in just five years. He tells me how he still feels like an underdog and why simple, reliable products make successful companies.

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Nutanix is a unicorn

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2014/01/14/nutanix-101m-round-unicorn/#429b0793582a

Nutanix goes public

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/business/dealbook/ipo-values-cloud-company-nutanix-at-2-18-billion.html

Red ocean vs. blue ocean

https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/tools/red-ocean-vs-blue-ocean-strategy/

Dheeraj’s “focus, listen, respect” and “less is more” parenting advice

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-important-lessons-youve-learned-from-founding-that-youre-teaching-your-kids

How to Go from Engineer to CEO (Jyoti Bansal, Founder/CEO of AppDynamics) Jul 08, 2018

Jyoti Bansal’s AppDynamics recently sold to Cisco for $3.8 billion. As a first-time sole founder and CEO from a tech background, Jyoti tells me what he learned about the business side of things.

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Cisco buys AppDynamics for $3.7 billion

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/24/cisco-buys-tech-ipo-candidate-appdynamics-for-37-billion.htm

AppDynamics completes first funding round

https://www.appdynamics.com/press-release/appdynamics-secures-55-million-venture-funding-greylock-ventures-and-lightspeed/

“The Four Horsemen of Saas”

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-four-horsemen-of-saas/

AppDynamics raises $11 million in Series B round

https://www.appdynamics.com/press-release/appdynamics-raises-11-million-series-b-round/

Jyoti Bansal’s new company:

https://harness.io/