B2BaCEO (with Ashu Garg)

Latest Episodes:

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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