Artisanal Podcast Doug Merritt | Lessons from Tech's Toughest Battles & Building Billion-Dollar Empires
Aug 5, 2025
Doug Merritt, former CEO of Splunk and current head of Aviatrix, shares his experiences from scaling Splunk to over $2.5 billion and navigating the challenges of unexpected career shifts. He discusses the importance of resilience shaped by early life struggles and the lessons learned during his leadership at both Splunk and Acarion. The conversation dives into the complexities of transitioning to cloud solutions, the significance of board dynamics, and the urgent need for robust data security in today's digital landscape.
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Chaotic Childhood Built Resilience
- Doug Merritt had a chaotic childhood with frequent moves and family challenges that forced him to grow up fast.
- These experiences taught him resilience, empathy, and how to balance emotional attachment with practicality.
Embrace Life's Grind
- Embrace hard challenges as they build resilience and reveal who you really are.
- Accept that life involves constant grind and discomfort, and stop complaining to focus on growth.
Startup Lessons from Acarion
- Doug founded Acarion during the internet boom but struggled balancing sales and engineering focus.
- Despite raising $96M, the company failed due to overextending product direction and Y2K and dot-com crash effects.