Summary
Dutch billionaire Frank Slootman is one of the most successful CEOs in history.
One of my favorite podcasts, The Knowledge Project, recently interviewed Frank.
Frank believes in “extreme meritocracy” and likens companies to professional sports teams.
Conversely, he believes family is a poor metaphor for running a company (he references Salesforce and Google in this vain).
Frank could be described as ruthless, direct, and decisive with a “natural malcontent posture” (the status quo tends to irk him - a lot).
“Let’s be like Peter Pan - we never grow up, at least not entirely.”
Source: www.sequoiacap.com; Frank sailing his yacht, Invisible Hand
Favorite quotes
“Focus and velocity and momentum is the art of management.”
“I like to hire sales people who have really been in shit fights because that breeds the type of skills and focus that you really want to have.”
Setting high standards “Gives energy, life, excitement, focus, and urgency” to the work we do.
The standard is “insanely great” (borrowing from Steve Jobs). Turns out “there just aren’t too many insanely great things.” Cut the rest.
“Not choosing is the worst thing you can do because now you’re compromising everything.”
“Now you’re a mile wide, inch deep, and swimming in glue.” - “Do things in sequence vs in parallel.”
“Revisiting prioritization over and over again is really important. You sort of want to convince yourself again and again this is correct, this is correct, or its not working based on what we’re seeing.”
“Hierarchy org charts mean nothing to us. We operate through influence.”
“Great people need to be celebrated, and rewarded, and singled-out in every way possible.”
“Everybody works for sales—they are the tip of the spear. Everybody else in the company is the wood behind the arrowhead. Sales experiences the reality of the marketplace the first and most profound way. The rest of the organization sits much farther away from the cold winds of competition.”
On bonus compensation
Frank’s perspective on bonus compensation is both fiscally responsible and refreshing. To him, bonuses are a tool—and a luxury tool at that:
“Every quarter the company has to first earn the bonus pool. No one gets bonuses unless the company earns it. Then: managers, departments get allocation. He tells them: “Use this money to send messages.” Who gets 2-3x their bonus vs. $0? Who’s performing well?
The goal is to make sure top performers feel treated differently.
“We do this every quarter.”
Bozeman, Montana - where Snowflake moved their headquarters in 2021.
On the healthy tension between Sales and Product
“Great sales people can’t sell a bad product. But lousy sales people can sell a great product. That’s very important because often in Silicon Valley they think sales is the problem.
“Typically sales problems are product problems, but this is hard because people are protective. Someone says ‘Let’s hire another VP of Sales’. . . well, that won’t work because the product is off.”
On hiring sales people from successful companies
Frank has a unique perspective on job experience: successful companies don’t create the best sales people. Why not?
He’s learned that hiring people from very successful companies is risky because they’ve never really sold—”they were just riding the momentum.”
“I like to hire sales people who have really been in shit fights because that breeds the type of skills and focus that you really want to have.”
On the value of first-hand information
“I experience things first hand.” In other words, Frank rarely trusts 2nd/3rd/4th hand information. Why?
“You don’t know if you’re dealing with a feeble person that has no fortitude versus a real issue.” It is not uncommon for Frank to talk to 5-10 prospects or customers per week as CEO.
On first-time CEOs
“I’ve always told first-time CEOs that you can count on the fact that you will be confronted with a need for transformation. It happens to all of us. The question is: Will you recognize it? Will you recognize it in time? Will you be able to execute on it?”
Frank observes that humans tend to have a linear attitude about the world. Rinse and repeat. Just look at the Fortune 100 - how many are still there after 20 or 50 years ago? Very few, if any.
“As CEO, you have to be extremely open minded about what is happening. The rest of the org will not have this posture, so it’s up to the CEO to have their head up while the others have their’s down.”
Go deeper
Frank’s book, Amp It Up, is a must read if you’re looking to evolve as a leader. He also published a Linkedin article by the same name which is a superb glimpse into his philosophy. My favorite part:
Bottom line: There is room up in organizations to boost performance by amping up the pace and intensity. Considerable slack naturally exists in organizations to perform at much higher levels. The role of leadership is to convert that lingering potential into superlative results.