#223 Frank Slootman – Episode Notes

Key Takeaways

Frank Slootman says he never thought he would be the extremely successful position he is today. When reflecting back on the beginning stages of his career, he believes it was all about how he optimized the opportunities he was given.

“It’s a combination of the cards you’re dealt which is a function of luck and how well you play those cards which is a function of skill, and it’s the same with companies”

When Frank began his time at Data Domain, the company was on a quick path to running out of business in a couple of months. Within 6 years Frank had turned the company into a multibillion dollar value.

“You never get to experience that again because there’s only a first time once. You learn a lot of yourself and other people in these kinds of experiences and I wish it upon everybody to have lived a life like that and everything that comes with it”

Frank believes that human nature is to work slower than we are capable of, and he does not stand for it. He is constantly asking his employees and himself if they are doing enough and where other opportunities are.

“It’s never over, it’s every interaction, every moment of the day these situation are in front of you and you need to be willing in terms of mental energy to get after it every single time”

5:25 What Inspired Frank to Move to the USA

Frank said that he was always inspired by the United States’s ideals. While Frank was studying at university he had the opportunity to do an internship in the United States.

“This is a very open society, it’s a very buoyant society meaning that everybody feels that they can do better and I just love that optimism, that energy and that incredible desire to advance themselves and their children”

7:26 Frank’s Ambition

Frank says that he could not have imagined that he would be as successful as he is today. He never had great ambitions and

“My career strategy became one of taking on challenges that nobody else would touch with a ten foot poll”

Frank says that it wasn’t until his mid 40’s that he started to get great opportunities.

“While I didn’t enjoy working on these crummy businesses it was incredibly informative”

9:28 Career Opportunities like Cards

Comparing opportunities to cards, Frank says,

“It’s a combination of the cards you’re dealt which is a function of luck and how well you play those cards which is a function of skill, and it’s the same with companies”

Within his analogy, Frank says that he wasn’t dealt the best cards in the beginning of his career.

When he is asked for career advice, Frank tells people to be careful of what elevator they step into.

“You’re not in full control over these outcomes, a lot of it has already been determined before you get there. Some elevators go up, some go down, some don’t move so learning to step into a good elevator is like learning to get a good hand of cards”

12:11 Why Frank Joined Snowflake

Prior to his current role, Frank says that he had been burnt out and ready to retire but he knew he wasn’t done. He says it wasn’t an active decision but he got together with the lead investor at Snowflake and it turned into his current role as Chairman and CEO.

“All of a sudden that just went from polite conversation to what would it take for you to take the helm of the company”

15:20 Running a Sailing Team

During his time off of work before joining Snowflake, Frank was running a professional sailing team. He compares it to running a business, with the combination of finding the best talent and the intense competition.

“The only difference with sailing was if you made a bad move it would be obvious within seconds and minute that you made a bonehead move, in business unfortunately, it can take much longer”

Frank describes himself as a lateral abstract thinker and not a functional executive.

“CEO’s typically benefit from being lateral abstract thinkers because you have a very broad preview of how you think about things and so on”

17:10 Day One of Turning A Company Around

Sean references a quote of Frank’s from the time he took over Data Domain in 2003:

“The time I joined Data Domain had about 20 employees, no customers, no revenues, and a few units in field tests with a few million dollars left in the bank. We were months away from running out of money”

Frank says that his first day in the office was a trainwreck and it took years and years to turn the company around.

“Data Domain is still the proudest set of moments in my career because we just built something out of nothing.”

Frank and his team took 28 million in capital and turned it into 2.4 billion in 6 years.

19:41 Challenges Lead to Confidence

Frank says that he learned so much about himself during his time at Data Domain because of the immense challenges.

“We become so much stronger because the amount of confidence that we gain from these experiences is enormous”

20:58 Business is Modern Warfare

Frank explains how he looks at business like it is a form of modern warfare.

“We live in a state of war at all times, that should be our mental mindset because that’s really what it is. Business is a modern form of warfare and luckily people don’t get killed but companies do”

24:05 Relating Biology to Businesses

Frank mentions a principle from biology and Sean asks if studying nature biology has helped Frank in understanding the biology of a business.

“You look at giant sequoias as like there was a time where that was just a seedling right? That’s just a fact. You just marvel at things that get to be so enormous”

24:33 Rapid Business Growth

Frank grew Data Domain to be a multibillion dollar company and out performing all of its competitors in 6 years. He credits this success to having extremely high clarity on mode of execution.

“That clarity and that extreme focus just kept opening up the markets so much for us that after a while there were no constraints”

29:35 Adaptability

Sean reads a quote that Frank has said in the past about being CEO:

“My role is situational, I become the CEO I need to be, the one the situation warrants. It also changes overtime, I have no playbooks, I am entirely situational and operate on so called first principles”

Frank says that he has to tell people to forget playbooks because they turn you into a prisoner of your own experience. He compares business problem-solving to a doctor, you can’t apply the same diagnosis to everyone.

33:14 Startup CEO vs. Public Company CEO

Frank compares being the CEO of a startup company to being the CEO of a public company, he uses sailing as an analogy; it’s much easier and simpler to run a well built ship, and a ship that has to be built from the ground up takes more attention to sail smoothly.

“When businesses get too big, I felt like I started to preside instead of drive and I don’t want to preside”

35:25 Increasing Velocity

Frank’s article, Amp It Up!, focuses on three main elements to focus on in a high performance culture: increase velocity, raise the standards, and narrow the focus. Frank says that humans naturally work at a slower pace than they are capable of and that’s what drains the energy.

“When you pick up the pace all of a sudden it feels like the place is getting engulfed in energy”

Frank says that maintaining a good tempo at work is very important, so compressing the time frame is a way to do this.

“What changes when you compress the time frame is people just start thinking differently, that’s exactly what I want them to do”

39:18 Instilling Expected Quality

Frank says that there is always room to increase quality. Whenever one of his employees is presenting something to him, Frank constantly asks them “What do you think?”, to take the focus away from what he thinks and onto the quality of the output.

“If we’re going to do something let’s do it with everything we’ve got”

41:36 Narrowing The Focus For Your Team

It starts with hiring for Frank, he needs like minded people to work the way he wants his company to operate.

“I often tell people, if I’m not telling you no ten times a day, you’re not pushing me yet, you’re not even getting to the bar because if I have to start pushing you we have the wrong relationship”

42:57 Frank’s Mental Model

Frank says that he thinks in terms of what he does with the potential that has been handed to him, going back to his card analogy.

“I live in constant fear that I’m missing opportunities and I’m not doing enough”

He says this conversation is the same for all of his employees, making sure that they are doing enough.

“We’re constantly trying to get to the fullest potential that we can envision for ourselves”

44:41 Franks Job & Delegating Roles

Frank’s time is spent campaigning at the highest level with the top dollar values. For the other rules in his company, Frank says that being a successful recruiter is a key component.

“Talent is everything. If you have an incredibly good talent game you can actually be quite mediocre yourself”

The mental energy to get after every responsibility and create opportunities is vital to Frank’s success.

47:36 Company Culture

Frank says that he used to be more tolerant and thought he could change people, but now he focuses on making changes instead of waiting around to see what happens.

“Some people will get with the program, some will not and they have to go”

Reinforcement comes from every interaction in every day to ensure that it is sustained.

“Culture is not a poster on a wall, culture is a willingness to prosecute the deviation of culture”

50:32 Snowflake’s IPO

Frank deep dives into the process behind Snowflake’s building process and owning the IPO. Frank worked with the CFO on the intangibles – assembling the institutional ownership that they wanted to own the company.

“It’s a great way to do things because the quality of your ownership is really really important.”

53:22 What Metric is Most Important to Frank

Consumption is the most important metric to Frank and it is what Snowflake’s business model is based around.

“You pay when you use it. If you don’t use it you don’t pay, it’s a consumption model”

54:43 Book Recommendations

The Speed of Trust by Stephen Covey

“I do believe that trust is the highest currency in life and business and any other endeavor”

56:42 Frank’s Interview Choice

If Frank could spend an evening interviewing anyone, he would choose George Washington.

“I am immensely inspired of character of that magnitude”