Guest: Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake

“People underestimate what it is to go through a complete reset,” says Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy. And he knows it: After an incredible 15-year run at Google, he started over from zero with an AI search startup, Neeva. And in hindsight, he regrets not trying to port over more of the skills that had made him a successful leader before. “You should be truthful with yourself about what is it that you know that you're really good at,” he says.

In this episode, Sridhar and Joubin discuss Morgan Stanley, working with urgency, avoiding comparisons, following your passions, Steph Curry, summer school, the Google bubble, axes of improvement, Vivek Raghunathan, Bill Coughran, Bell Labs, Mark McLaughlin, Nikesh Arora, daily emails, Chris Degnan, competitiveness, aircraft carriers, and size 31 pants.

Chapters:

(01:05) - Travel challenges
(03:55) - Crisis mangement
(08:59) - Parenting
(14:01) - Defining success
(20:37) - From Google to Neeva
(27:57) - Transition troubles
(31:06) - Glean vs. Neeva
(34:08) - Becoming Snowflake’s CEO
(38:41) - Authority
(39:58) - Frank Slootman
(44:24) - Palo Alto Networks
(48:27) - Transparent culture
(50:56) - Sridhar’s morning ritual
(54:23) - Complete visibility
(57:49) - Priorities
(01:00:10) - Snowflake’s stock price
(01:02:33) - Who it’s hiring

Links:

Connect with Sridhar

Connect with Joubin

Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

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