Grit29 Jan 2024

#175 CEO Snowflake, Frank Slootman: Amped

Guest: Frank Slootman, CEO and Chairman of Snowflake and author of Amp It Up

Snowflake CEO Frank Slootman doesn’t recall a time in his childhood where new achievements were celebrated — because, according to his father, putting everything into your work and “leaving it all on the field” was the only choice. “The problem with it,” Frank says, is that “it becomes a ‘never enough’ dynamic, because when is it enough?” To this day, he comes home on Friday night and asks himself, “Did it mater that I was there? ... If I’m just a passenger on the ship, that’s my nightmare.”

In this episode, Frank and Joubin discuss acting with urgency, Shlomo Kramer, negative role models, Elon Musk, Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech, aptitudes and weaknesses, ServiceNow, and the life spark of business.

In this episode, we cover:

Being tough on yourself (00:59)
Sailing and inner peace (03:00)
Confronting your demons (09:07)
Scaling Data Domain (11:15)
Judging talent (15:20)
That gnawing feeling (18:16)
Daring greatly and rejecting pride (21:04)
“Did it matter that I was there?” (25:02)
How you play the game (27:59)
The best version of yourself (29:59)
Learning from the best (34:06)
Sales as inspiration (37:52)
Retirement and Tom Brady (39:09)
The fog of war (41:16)
Snowflake vs. Data Domain (44:31)
Respect for luck (48:48)
Who Snowflake is hiring (50:42)

Links:

Connect with Frank
- LinkedIn
- Buy Frank’s book, Amp It Up: Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity
Connect with Joubin
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

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