Grit

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#184 Former CEO & Co-Founder Sun, Scott McNealy: In the Piñata Apr 01, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 that wasn't done properly, a gust of wind,” he explains. “If you blame yourself for all of the mistakes you make. You will hate yourself ... I look forward.”

In this episode, Scott and Joubin discuss Scott Cook, Maverick McNealy, why big companies are riskier than startups, Al Gore, Marc Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, Kodak, Dick Kleinhans, Harvard University, “bozo invasions,” Myers-Briggs, making an example, Motorola car phones, the Moscone Center, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, NVIDIA’s valuation, farewell letters, “you have no privacy,” open-source education, and toothpaste.com.

In this episode, we cover:

(01:00) - John Doerr
(02:47) - Fathers, sons, and sports
(07:29) - Living in the piñata
(10:48) - Why Scott left Sun
(13:49) - The heyday of Sun Microsystems
(18:24) - Vinod Khosla and founding Sun
(21:24) - How Scott became CEO
(27:21) - Profitable in three months
(30:02) - Inferiority complex
(32:20) - Executive exits and fun at work
(35:49) - Managers and recognition
(38:18) - “HR hero” Crawford Beveridge
(40:35) - How Carol Bartz became VP of marketing
(43:07) - Sharing in success
(45:25) - Scott’s love life & meeting Susan
(50:54) - The dotcom boom and crash
(53:45) - Unicorn CEOs and IBM’s offer
(55:49) - Competitors and hindsight
(58:20) - “The planet system”
(01:00:13) - Too many employees
(01:04:06) - Larry Ellison and selling to Oracle
(01:07:01) - Blaming yourself and looking forward
(01:10:11) - Curriki
(01:12:12) - The AI boom
(01:14:42) - “Grit” and insecurity

Links:

Connect with Scott
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#183 CEO & Co-Founder Harness, Jyoti Bansal: Three-Layered Cake Mar 25, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 hours, I would enjoy working on a startup for six hours.”

In this episode, Jyoti and Joubin discuss the evolution of Grit, Carlos Delatorre, Tom Mendoza, Glean, growing up in India, traveling the world, three-star restaurants, soul-searching, automating gruntwork, paying for nice hotels, red-eye flights, product-market fit, Jeff Bezos, the “three-layered cake,” Frank Slootman, raising the bar for distribution, technical debt, structural efficiency, and taking pride in your work.

In this episode, we cover:

(00:59) - Top-tier CROs
(04:18) - The video game levels of startups
(07:24) - Selling AppDynamics to Cisco
(09:16) - Keeping up with high-growth companies
(12:10) - The chip on Jyoti’s shoulder
(16:15) - How he thinks about money
(18:02) - Do what you enjoy every day
(22:32) - “What would make me happy?”
(24:56) - Starting BIG Labs and Harness
(29:16) - Adjusting to a new reality
(34:13) - Work-life balance
(36:30) - What gets easier — and harder — over time
(41:44) - Product vs. distribution
(46:46) - Paying it forward
(48:29) - The next level
(50:24) - The four lists
(53:45) - Assigning clear responsibilities
(56:06) - Jyoti’s favorite interview question
(57:41) - Who Harness is hiring

Links:

Connect with Jyoti
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#182 CEO & Co-Founder Cribl, Clint Sharp: Finding Traction Mar 18, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 something and there’s a flurry of DMs that are happening in the background, like ‘Oh my God.’” Unless the tone of his bug report is clear, workers with more experience at Cribl then have to reassure the newbies: “Calm down. When he does this, he’s not upset. He’s one of the power users of the product.”

In this episode, Clint and Joubin discuss being on the road, niche audiences, top-of-funnel problems, “come to Jesus” meetings, moving the goalposts, building for building’s sake, “down and to the right,” mediating re-orgs, flat organizations, filing bugs as the CEO, setting the example, Henry Schuck, Baldur’s Gate III, legal narratives, Hacker News, Cisco, Doug Merritt, Gary Steele, Rippling, and dead trends.

In this episode, we cover:

(01:08) - Running a remote company
(02:57) - Cribl’s management meetings
(05:56) - Looking back and recognition
(08:08) - Growing quickly and what Cribl does
(11:21) - Traction
(14:53) - Solving a new problem
(17:56) - Friends and family funding
(21:45) - Why not shut it all down?
(24:36) - Healthy arrogance and control
(31:02) - Serial entrepreneurs and founder-CEOs
(33:38) - What Clint loves about the job
(35:31) - The hardest parts
(38:41) - Core values
(41:43) - Favorite interview questions
(44:26) - Drawing boundaries
(47:18) - Vacation and work-life balance
(52:53) - Splunk’s lawsuit against Clint
(56:26) - “Their brand is synonymous with expensive”
(58:41) - Who owns the data?
(01:01:59) - Building platforms
(01:07:35) - “I’m so sick of AI”
(01:11:25) - Who Cribl is hiring

Links:

Connect with Clint
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#181 CEO Transcarent, Glen Tullman: Problem Solving Mar 11, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 bidder — in other words, hire low. But whenever he has to let someone go, he sees it as his responsibility to “help them go off and do something else that’s great, and be successful.” Firing and replacing executives, he said, is “just part of growing ... it doesn’t have to be ugly.”

In this episode, Glen and Joubin discuss conservative values, John Doerr, Teledoc, failures of leadership, Steve Case, Bill Gates, changing expectations, Travis Kalanick, incentive bonuses, Bucknell University, massive layoffs, criticizing in public, anonymous charity, cycling events, Michael Jordan, Bill McDermott, Barack Obama, private jets, and hiring without titles.

In this episode, we cover:

(01:11) - How Glen splits his time
(03:55) - Looking back and leaving Livongo
(09:03) - Would he do it again differently?
(13:42) - Energy at work
(18:00) - Failure and starting over
(21:16) - What Transcarent does
(25:29) - Taking on the system and stress
(30:33) - Turning Allscripts around
(33:48) - “We educated you to make a difference”
(38:06) - The birth of electronic prescriptions
(42:52) - Hire low, fire high
(47:47) - Radical honesty
(53:04) - Charitable efforts
(57:55) - Glen’s competitive childhood
(01:00:55) - His family and priorities
(01:08:24) - Would Glen go into politics?
(01:12:32) - “I hate to sleep”
(01:15:06) - Peloton meetings
(01:17:32) - Trading money for time
(01:24:11) - Sharing credit
(01:25:54) - Who Transcarent is hiring
(01:28:05) - What “grit” means to Glen

Links:

Connect with Glen
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#180 CEO & Co-Founder Verkada, Filip Kaliszan: Outlier Mar 04, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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: “I can be only as good as the rate at which I fix my mistakes,” Filip says.

In this episode, Filip and Joubin discuss “the good old days,” first principle thinking, the business impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bay Area bubble, going public, Aaron Levie, going down rabbit holes, power dynamics, idea validation, Brian Long, Hans Robertson, DIY entrepreneurship, commercial kitchens, cash efficiency, VR headsets, zeitgeist-y platform shifts, Mark Zuckerberg, and John Doerr.

In this episode, we cover:

(00:50) - Verkada’s office culture
(04:37) - The loss of community
(10:37) - Not going remote during COVID
(16:37) - Palo Alto Networks
(22:15) - Does Filip like being CEO?
(26:02) - Time management and flow state
(29:47) - The problem with huge meetings
(31:59) - Fundraising for Verkada
(34:02) - Building a “camera company”
(37:29) - Zero to one
(41:17) - The first 10 people
(42:48) - Allocating capital wisely
(46:19) - Hiring in-house
(51:17) - Biggest screw-ups
(54:00) - The feeling of failure
(55:05) - Customer therapy
(56:39) - Divide and conquer
(01:00:47) - The Apple Vision Pro
(01:05:05) - Mark Zuckerberg’s response
(01:09:25) - Who Verkada is hiring and what “grit” means to Filip

Links:

Connect with Filip
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#179 CEO & Co-Founder Zapier, Wade Foster: Missouri’s Connector Feb 26, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 them is the best or the worst ... My job was to take the best of each and then discard the rest, and make it my own.’”

In this episode, Wade and Joubin discuss fully remote companies, long-term thinking, hyperscaling, product-market fit, broken products, secondary offerings, “delocation packages,” interview questions, mind-breaking growth, doubting yourself, LLMs, hackathons, and adding a sales team (eventually).

In this episode, we cover:

(01:10) - Living in central Missouri
(04:15) - Will Wade do this forever?
(10:23) - Startup envy
(13:09) - “Do people actually want this?”
(18:44) - What Zapier does
(20:15) - Taking outside capital
(22:43) - Why Zapier is fully remote
(28:01) - The pace of hiring
(30:35) - Why résumés can be a trap
(37:09) - When to promote from within
(41:06) - Scaling problems
(43:47) - Self-confidence and mentors
(47:37) - Reacting to ChatGPT
(53:43) - How Zapier’s team uses AI
(58:12) - Who Zapier is hiring

Links:

Connect with Wade
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#178 Author of “Radical Candor,” Kim Scott: Uncommon Sense Feb 19, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 woman, she explained, “as soon as I offer anyone even the most compassionate, gentle criticism, I get assigned the ‘angry Black woman’ stereotype.” Kim realized in that moment that her book needed a prequel of sorts, explaining what you need to have before you can create radical candor: “You're not going to care about people who you don't respect,” she says.

In this episode, Kim and Joubin discuss regret minimization, Juice Software, Sheryl Sandberg, saying “um,” moments of connection, Dick Costolo, negative truths, James March, snobbery, Charles Ferguson, Shona Brown, Fred Kofman, Christa Quarles, Jason Rosoff, Andy Grove, founders as outliers, Jack Dorsey, Steve Jobs, glows and grows, the Post Ranch Inn, failing your colleagues, sexual harassment, DEI, and intellectual honesty.

In this episode, we cover:

(01:04) - Loud voices
(03:59) - Writing a bestseller
(07:48) - Why Kim wrote Radical Candor
(14:21) - How to show you care
(18:04) - Coaching tech CEOs
(21:24) - Ruinous empathy and obnoxious aggression
(25:40) - Leaving things unsaid
(30:30) - Not an academic
(35:21) - Learning from failed startups
(38:55) - Performance reviews
(42:30) - Why feedback feels risky
(49:21) - How to reject feedback
(53:11) - Creating space for feedback at home
(56:08) - Running and sleeping
(59:45) - Radical Respect and Kim’s other books
(01:04:27) - The hardest story to share
(01:06:44) - Optimism about the future

Links:

Connect with Kim
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#177 President & Co-Founder Anthropic, Daniela Amodei: AI Hurricane Feb 12, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 to “do AI” right now, President Daniela Amodei says some of them should slow down. “I keep coming back to this idea of, ‘How much are you buying the hype?’” she says. “’How grounded are you in the reality of what's actually happening?’ And sometimes in business conversations, we tell a potential customer, ‘We don't think we're right for you.’”

In this episode, Daniela and Joubin discuss her brother Dario, staying grounded, hypergrowth startups, Claire Hughes Johnson, mechanistic interpretability, Paul Graham, AI training, what AI companies can learn from social media, Stripe, the pool of venture capital in the Bay Area, leading people, giving feedback to all your coworkers, interview questions, and Sheryl Sandberg.

In this episode, we cover:

Holidays with the Amodei family (01:15)
The tech industry bubble (05:35)
Inside the AI hurricane (09:53)
Scaling as a superpower (14:39)
Complementary abilities (16:39)
Claude 2 and constitutional AI (20:05)
Making AI trustworthy, safe, and powerful (28:58)
Generative AI’s high cost (31:03)
Anthropic and OpenAI’s massive responsibility (37:50)
The impact of new technology (42:32)
Public benefit companies (46:55)
Extremely lean go to market (53:36)
AI as a business-led industry (01:00:37)
Customer obsession (01:06:58)
Where do you want to use your innovation? (01:11:31)
Who shouldn’t use AI? (01:14:33)
“Everything to everyone” (01:18:15)
Working with Daniela (01:22:26)
Interviews at Anthropic (01:25:38)
Intense performance reviews (01:29:47)
Middle managers are underrated (01:35:46)
“Tell me about yourself” (01:39:47)
Who Anthropic is hiring (01:42:33)

Links:

Connect with Daniela
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#176 CEO MongoDB, Dev Ittycheria: Edge Feb 05, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 overinflated opinion of themselves, and the great leaders keep the gap between that opinion and reality narrow. One of the hallmarks of such a leader, Dev says, is that they have the intellectually honesty to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses, which others perceive.

In this episode, Dev and Joubin discuss looking for bad news, chips on your shoulder, Ivy League schools, being an outsider, highly educated parents, “aging out,” Bruce Springsteen, Chief People Officers, Frank Slootman and John McMahon, passive aggression, vulnerability as strength, imposter syndrome, open-source licenses, introverts, and time management.

In this episode, we cover:

Shlomo Kramer and the “burden of persona” (00:59)
Why BladeLogic started in Boston (04:30)
The psychological edge (07:08)
Dev’s family and education (08:56)
“Am I good enough?” (13:11)
“Do not squander this opportunity” (16:22)
Dev’s wife (19:32)
Fear of irrelevance (21:23)
Relevance after retirement (26:06)
Why CEO is a lonely job (28:14)
Trusting your team (31:43)
The meaning of life (35:16)
Judgment and introspection (38:16)
Taking people to the woodshed (40:54)
What matters to other people (44:39)
Taking risks at MongoDB (51:08)
Founder-led businesses (53:26)
What type of company is MongoDB? (57:39)
Work-life harmony (01:00:20)
Who MongoDB is hiring (01:03:17)

Links:

Connect with Dev
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

#175 CEO Snowflake, Frank Slootman: Amped Jan 29, 2024

Show notes

Guest: 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 mater that I was there? ... If I’m just a passenger on the ship, that’s my nightmare.”

In this episode, Frank and Joubin discuss acting with urgency, Shlomo Kramer, negative role models, Elon Musk, Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech, aptitudes and weaknesses, ServiceNow, and the life spark of business.

In this episode, we cover:

Being tough on yourself (00:59)
Sailing and inner peace (03:00)
Confronting your demons (09:07)
Scaling Data Domain (11:15)
Judging talent (15:20)
That gnawing feeling (18:16)
Daring greatly and rejecting pride (21:04)
“Did it matter that I was there?” (25:02)
How you play the game (27:59)
The best version of yourself (29:59)
Learning from the best (34:06)
Sales as inspiration (37:52)
Retirement and Tom Brady (39:09)
The fog of war (41:16)
Snowflake vs. Data Domain (44:31)
Respect for luck (48:48)
Who Snowflake is hiring (50:42)

Links:

Connect with Frank
- LinkedIn
- Buy Frank’s book, Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

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