It was super interesting to me, sort of my first encounter with American management. Many in the emerging tech sector would name Frank Slootman easily because of the kind of substance he gives when he speaks. I don't know what, if you go back to those days. Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio. Not all CEOs have this, but a lot of CEOs do. And when you let it happen, you get feed-ups. And you had literally physical media that could logistically manage. Right? I mean, anecdotal observation has pretty much run its course. But one day, and this was in March of 2019 and he said, "What would it take for you to take the helm?" It was very formative. They've never really been asked that before. At some point, we were going to get stunted in our growth. 10 Things You Didnt Know about Loggi CEO Fabien Mendez, 10 Things You Didnt Know about Mark Nelson, 10 Things You Did Not Know About Thoughtspot CEO Sudheesh Nair, 10 Things You Didnt Know About Guy Nirpaz, 10 Things You Didnt Know About Paul Stovell, How Ali Wong Achieved a Net Worth of $3 Million, Eight Reasons to go to French Polynesias Marquesas Islands, How Lisa Rinna Achieved a Net Worth of $10 Million, 20 Cities with The Worst Weather in Europe. The San Francsico 49ers admitted that they might be forced to go quarterback hunting this offseason. And by the way, data platforms have been extremely fragmented historically. And Mike, he takes on the end entire spectrum of controls and administration. It's not just a scale. They always have a twinkle in their eye and they're going to do this, they're going to do that. What you're doing now is doing pretty good, so keep yourself in the game, Frank. to keep connected with us, please login with your personal info. I look at the situation, "What does this require?" Okay? Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman is the toast of the big data community, and following the $3.4 billion IPO, a favorite on Wall Street too. Snowflake, while not yet generating $1 billion in annual revenue, leaped into the Cloud Wars Top 10 several months ago and . It was just a beautiful thing when a company has massive scale and distribution, what a good product that gets entered into that context can do in a short period of time was mesmerizing. the internship sort of came about because I was about a year ahead of schedule at the university. The ecommerce industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors, and at the moment, it features several players. That was career death for people, so it was just the least flattering place in the entire IT operation was backup and recovery based on tape, very logistically, intense. Museum Shop Hours: 9:30 am - 5 pm daily; 9:30 am - 4 pm in January and February. Most people just preside over culture. So, they looked around and they found the guy with a passport to Dutch language proficiency like. It's a transformation that is still going on. If you want to know more about this CEO, this might be the book to read. It was the lowest ranking job in the entire world of IT, if you were involved with tape automation. I'm buying aptitude and then I'm going to develop that with experience, right? The introduction of risk management tools for LNG freight will boost the efficiency of the virtual pipeline of LNG, a new catalyst for the liberalization of LNG and a critical milestone in the globalization of natural gas. So, I ended up in odd places because they didn't know what to do with me. Obviously all the financial reporting, all the systems. So in hindsight, I understood that I was just burned out, classic burned out. So, getting an internship in the US in those days was a really big deal and it really didn't matter to me, where it was, what company it was, I just wanted to have the exposure to what is that like. Let me bring you back 10 years to 2012, Benoit Dageville, Thierry Cruanes, and Marcin ukowski started Snowflake as the secret name of the startup they were working on during that particularly hot summer. And obviously that is not the best way to go about things because that's just one man's opinion against another, right? Between 2011 and 2017, Slootman was Chairman and CEO of ServiceNow - one of the world's leading SaaS . It's like, "That's not exciting." At 61 years old, Slootman has created quite the reputation for himself. No, I didn't. Frank, you write about trying to convert your experience, taking on the hard problems of your employer, into making a path to the C-Suite. And fortunately, the temperament that is in you, it's going to re-manifest itself sooner or later. That is the X factor in companies, but it starts with weaponizing the mission. Bachelor of Science, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Master of Science, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands. At the same time, I ended up in conversations with the lead director and investor at Snowflake. So, I finally caved, okay. And that is our culture. For example, he made a few changes at Snowflake when he became CEO. Once you understand relationships, you can now predict them. I mean, in the book, Frank, you used the analogy of getting in the right elevator. Well, they knew now. That's the point of it. But eventually, I returned to Holland about a year later, resumed my education. And then being able to talk about it in an intelligent, really rich-considered manner. So, I got pestered by VCs over the years, like "When are you going to do an update to your book because you now have two more companies to talk about." You just get into this cycle where all you want to do is leave. That's a running joke that we always have. I mean, for example, I remember when we first, got involved with Geico and Todd Combs, the CEO, said, "Look, I don't need any more lectures from you guys on architectural prowess and all this sort of thing." welcome back! It becomes the beating heart of a modern enterprise. There's new business models. What was that? We actually won everything that we wanted to win. So, I really lift that cross and the chasm dynamic. SAN FRANCISCO, March 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Instacart, the leading online grocery platform in North America, today announced that Frank Slootman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of . Never heard of that company." Slootman applies this philosophy in the workplace as well. So after a while, it's like, "Okay, we've done enough of this." He cuts back where he sees fit. The Dutch-born Slootman, who now lives in Montana, has had three hits in a row since 2003: He was made CEO of enterprise storage startup Data Domain and grew it to a $2.4 billion acquisition. And people are, are mesmerized by Snowflake results because they don't quite understand, where is this coming from? Prior to joining Snowflake, Frank served as the CEO of ServiceNow and that's NYSE ticker symbol, NOW and Data Domain, leading both of those firms successfully through their IPOs. Frank has been involved in the business programming market for over 25 years as a business visionary and chief. Hes quite knowledgeable in the market industry, and he doesnt confuse with unnecessary jargon. And how that allowed him to grow Snowflake into the biggest software IPO ever, and how. A lot of people think that that's possible, but there's a real limit to what salespeople can and can't do. You've said that you were really born in the wrong country. And then my career thrived as each sort of, it veered just taking on jobs that nobody else would take, in other words. Meaning that we would run something like Tableau on top of Salesforce or whatever. Obviously, that required even more resources, so we really had the strategic dilemma that we couldn't grow beyond our core market. As cool as it may sound, Slootman doesnt actually have a literal invisible hand. It's really every leader in the organization needs to internalize and then, want to act on it. I'm the opposite. It takes nothing. And I was like completely taken aback because there not a single thread thinking about that, considering that, considering any role of any sorts. Company still around, by the way. The ambitions that happen, the boldness that happens as a result of that, that becomes the magic. But this was quickly set aside because Frank appears to walk the walk. That's not a healthy dynamic. The founder brings you in to scale up the company, but finds it difficult to step aside. It takes a ton of work to maintain intense focus on the mission, so that's the weaponizing. You ever noticed that NFL quarterbacks just can't leave the stage. And then Snowflake is again, a totally different. Presiding is the worst word. Everyone's watching. And we publish the data transparently on our site, so anyone can come and see what actually happened in the auction. And a lot of our people have the same malcontent attitude that I do. And it was difficult for him to sort of hand over the reins, but the investors in the company convinced him that, "Look, we think that this is needed," because the company was growing well. In other words, you got to really mean it, okay? Can you explain how you overcame both to lead the company through its 2012 IPO? And by the way, for most people, that's a very difficult question. In the Dutchman Frank Slootman, a non-coddling, no-nonsense executive who had taken Data Domain public before selling it to EMC, Leone saw "a match made . Now, it was actually pretty interesting because this was sort of a forerunner of a data analytics, business intelligence type of company. It was originally known in Dutch as de Waalstraat when it was part of new Amsterdam in the 17th Century, an actual wall existed on the street from 1685 to 1699, protecting the early entrepreneurs and fur traders of Fort Amsterdam from encroachment from the north. In Amp It Up, Frank, you say that a company's mission really has to be weaponized. Its none other than CEO Frank Slootman, and here are 10 things about the guy behind the current Snowflake craze. I mean, it's a hell of a cash burner as well. They're kind of like-. We're going to nuke an entire industry out of existence. And I'm like, "You know what? I mean, it's hard to believe at this day and age that things were that way back then, but they were. They sold the living hell out of that product. When a company is buying a million dollars from you in the course of a year, what are they getting? Back then, there were hardly any software companies around. And you can take it or leave it and try it on for size and see if you like it." We now use consumption models instead of subscription models. And also in sailing, you're always looking for new adventures, different platforms and things of that sort to sort of keep it interesting, continual learning experience and so on, rather than rinse and repeat. But for many, many other enterprises, including a lot of banks actually in the world of financial services, because they operate through branches and very conventional brick and mortar ways of interacting with customers, all of a sudden, it has to change rapidly. Given his accolades, Slootman gets invited to speak at many events. Now, we're going to go move the pieces and I'm just a piece on the chessboard." And I said, "Why not?" Here's why this makes sense while looking at some options. That culture really keeps you safe from being indulgent or just, you're sort of presiding. And he and I have very short conversations because by the time we start asking the question, we already know what the answer is type of thing. So, you need to create a platform that allows data to be enriched and be joined and be blended and be overlaid in ways that data scientist only have insight into. I mean, what drove you to move on? That's why they're big in banking and insurance and distribution and logistics. It's a small country, obviously, which is why they sort of veer far and wide. And opinions, everybody's got one, but data doesn't lie. And that's, I had a question the other day from somebody that hit me on LinkedIn and he was putting all kinds of labels on himself. Because if I sailed before, I always felt guilty because I was doing something that wasn't the company and now, I was completely free of guilt because it was my own time, my own money, et cetera and it was great. And it wasn't until the consent degree with IBM that really unbundled the software from hardware because software industry couldn't even happen because software was bundled. Frank Slootman (born 1958) is a billionaire businessman, and the chairman and CEO at Snowflake Inc., a cloud data-warehousing company. Another Dutch trend setter with the Winfrey title is Frank Slootman, the chairman and CEO of Snowflake. And when you're burned out, you don't regenerate anymore. When I was considering Snowflake, I told Snowflake, "I will not do this if Mike doesn't come along." The question is, what are you going to do? We left off before the break with your decision to literally set sail after 33 years of a career that took you all over the globe, including bringing two companies public. Your mission is you're pursuing an end state or at least the closest thing to what you can envision, to what you want to realize as a couple. Theres no surprise here. What is the core of your being, right? And Frank, while you were getting your degree from the Netherland School of Economics, you came to the US for an internship with UN Royal and returned after graduating to get a job at Burroughs, which is now Unysis and ticker symbol, UIS. So, what are things that we should absolutely not ask you to do ever? CEO Frank Slootman (second row, fourth from left) and the Snowflake team virtually rang the opening . Because, and this is another important observation, I think. I mean, it was doing well. And he and I were serving on another board together and every time we we'd go to our quarterly board meetings, we'd have lunch and discuss the state of a affairs in the world and blah, blah, blah, sort of thing people do in Silicon Valley. Yeah, in some areas it's easier than others, and in sales, we can just look at what people have done the past. I mean, that's how aligned this is, okay? Frank Slootman (born 1958) is a billionaire businessman, and the chairman and CEO at Snowflake Inc., a cloud data-warehousing company. When I was at Data Domain, hell, we were 15 people when I joined there. The perception in Holland of United States is very, and I don't want to use the word biased, that might be too strong. You hit a mark, you have to do two 360s. I mean, you probably have even a sense of things that you know you're not good at. Fred Luddy, the founder of ServiceNow, I mean, super talented guy, obviously. [+] NYSE When Snowflake went public in the largest software IPO of the year on Wednesday,. I need to know what that is. And did you have a sense that the sector was really about to explode? In Amp It Up, you're pretty open about the struggles the company faced in its business and leadership. They're very well dialed into it. Frank Lloyd Wright designed some 14 buildings for Japan: an embassy, a school, two hotels and a temporary hotel annex, a commercial-residential complex, a theater, an official residence for the prime minister and six private residences. We just never backed off of it. Now, tape technologies go all the way back to the early days of computing, because that was the form of magnetic storage that we had. I'm just, I'm fighting that tide. Everybody has access to talent. The biggest guess is that Frank Slootman simply had the track record for having previously taken data storage companies successfully out of trouble and into the future.