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:
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How to structure large projects to avoid demotivation or burnout
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The "A.P.P.L.E" framework for diffusing tense situations and handling trolls
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How to decide what to work on
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Mitchell's unconventional transitions from CEO to CTO and then back to an individual contributor (IC)
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The quality that Mitchell values the most in an engineering team.
Segments:
[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?
Show Notes:
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