Navigating the Tech Frontier: Lessons from Acarion to SAP

What happens when a CEO scales a company to over $2.5 billion in revenue, establishes it as a defining force in enterprise software, and then faces a shocking, unexpected exit?

In this episode of the Artisanal Podcast, Andy Price (Founder, Artisanal Ventures & Artisanal Talent) sits down with Doug Merritt — the former CEO of Splunk and current CEO of Aviatrix — to discuss his relentless drive, the "grind factor" that propelled his career, and the pivotal moments that shaped him. Doug shares his candid experiences from early roles at Oracle and SAP to founding Icarian, the challenges of leading Splunk through a monumental cloud transformation, and the profound impact of his abrupt departure. Now at Aviatrix, he’s tackling a new, critical mission: evangelizing a cloud-native security fabric to protect against the escalating threat of data breaches in a wide-open cloud environment.

A must-listen for founders, aspiring leaders, and anyone interested in the resilience required to navigate the complexities of enterprise tech, massive market shifts, and unforeseen personal and professional challenges.