The Evolution from Software Engineering to Entrepreneurship

Mitchell co-founded HashiCorp in 2012 and created many important infrastructure tools, such as Terraform, Vagrant, Packer, and Consul. In addition to being a prolific engineer, Mitchell grew HashiCorp into a multi-billion-dollar public company. We discuss:

• How to structure large projects to avoid demotivation or burnout

• The "A.P.P.L.E" framework for diffusing tense situations and handling trolls

• How to decide what to work on

• Mitchell's unconventional transitions from CEO to CTO and then back to an individual contributor (IC)

• The quality that Mitchell values the most in an engineering team.

[0:14:19] Impactful lessons from working at the Apple Store in college

[0:22:26] Origin story of HashiCorp

[0:26:08] College side project that turned into Mitchell’s first financial success

[0:31:25] Why infrastructure?

[0:39:50] How individual products came about

[0:44:17] Challenges of fundraising as a company with an umbrella of products

[0:48:20] Balancing being the CTO and writing code: “I didn’t want to be that CTO that just produced technical debt”

[0:53:09] Transitioning from CEO to co-CTO

[0:57:26] From CTO to Individual Contributor

[1:06:03] What’s next?

• Mitchell’s blog: https://mitchellh.com/writing

• The “APPLE” principle that has guided Mitchell throughout his career: https://mitchellh.com/writing/apple-the-key-to-my-success

• Mitchell’s Startup Banking Story 😂: https://mitchellh.com/writing/my-startup-banking-story

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