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.

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:

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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