The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20VC: 3 Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Scaling, Management 101 on Trust Building, Morale Maintenance and Hiring & What We Can Learn About Parenting From Nature Programs with Scott Dietzen

Feb 28, 2022

Scott Dietzen, Vice Chairman of Pure Storage and a four-time entrepreneur, shares insights from his rich tech journey. He highlights the biggest mistakes founders make when scaling, particularly in hiring top talent. Trust-building in teams is essential; he emphasizes honest communication even about failures. Dietzen connects lessons from startup struggles to parenting, advocating for role modeling as a key to success. His approach fosters transparency, encourages learning from losses, and promotes a supportive company culture.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

ANECDOTE

Journey to Pure Storage CEO

Scott Dietzen, though a CTO, took the CEO role at Pure Storage.
He was drawn to the company's potential and his belief in flash storage.

ADVICE

Embrace Competition

Welcome competition; it improves your product and drives innovation.
Learn from losses; analyze them openly to avoid repeating mistakes.

ADVICE

Building Trust

Build trust by using "we" instead of "I" when discussing company actions.
Take responsibility for problems, but give credit to the team for successes.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Scott Dietzen is Vice Chairman of the Board of Pure Storage and served as the Company’s CEO from 2010 to 2017. Under his leadership, Pure grew to thousands of employees and completed an IPO in 2015. Dietzen is a four-time successful entrepreneur with WebLogic, Zimbra, and Transarc. Before Pure, he was President and CTO of Zimbra (now part of VMware), but originally acquired by Yahoo!, where Dietzen served as interim SVP of Communications and Communities. Prior to Zimbra, Dietzen was CTO of BEA Systems, where he helped craft the technology and business strategy for WebLogic that drove BEA from $61m in annual revenues prior to the WebLogic acquisition to over $1B.

In Today’s Episode with Scott Dietzen You Will Learn:

1.) The Journey to Pure Storage CEO:

How did Scott make his way into the world of tech and startups?
What was the hardest element of making the transition from CTO to CEO?
What advice would Scott give to more technical leaders looking to make the move to CEO? Where do so many make mistakes?

2.) How To Build Trust in a Team:

What are the most important ways that leaders can build trust with their teams?
How can leaders be honest and share the hard truths without damaging role?
What is the right tone to communicate both the big wins and big losses?
Why does Scott always believe the losses teach more? How does Scott approach post-mortems?

3.) The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make:

What are the single biggest hiring mistakes that founders make?
What are the single biggest firing mistakes executives make?
Why should founders sometimes say no to customers?
How should founders approach investor selection and valuation for rounds?

4.) How to Optimise a Board:

What specifically can founders do to optimise their board?
What are the biggest errors founders make when communicating with their board?
What is the value per word framework? How does it tell which board member is the best?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode with Scott Dietzen

Scott’s Favourite Book: The 22 Immutable Laws Of Marketing