Boards
Over the years I've noticed how different CEOs take different degrees of ownership and accountability when it comes to the board of directors. For example, once, after a long debate where the board unanimously approved a budget contingent on reducing proposed R&D spending from $12M to
Entrepreneurship
Who else but my old friend Jim Milbery, a founding partner at ParkerGale, could come up with a podcast called the Private Equity Funcast, complete with its own jingle and with a Thunderbirds-inspired opening? Jim and I worked together at Ingres back in the -- well “pre-Chernobyl” as Jim
Communications
The other day I saw this tweet from my friend Nick Mehta, CEO of GainSight, and it got me thinking. It turns out that in addition to making fun music videos for company events, that Nick and I have another thing in common: we both wrestle with finding the right
Leadership
When it comes to evaluating a startup’s performance, I think there are two key, orthogonal questions that need to be examined: 1. Is the company delivering growth? 2. Is management in control of your business? Growth is the primary driver of value creation in a software startup. I’m
Communications
One day back at MarkLogic, we invited our local congresswoman, Jackie Speier, to visit our offices. Regardless of what you may think of her politics, she's an impressive person with an fascinating background including, for those with long memories, that she was the congressional aide shot five times
Leadership
I've been making a few presentations lately, so I thought I'd share the slides to this deck which I presented earlier this week at the All Hands meeting of a high-growth SaaS company as part of their external speaker series. This one's kind
CEO
A few days ago, Jason Lemkin from SaaStr sent me a link to the video of my SaaStr Annual 2019 conference presentation, The Five Questions Startup CEOs Worry About. Those questions, by the way, are: 1. When do I next raise money? 2. Do I have the right team? 3.
Culture
I am big believer in strong corporate cultures. Culture can be used to set powerful norms. Culture can bind people in an organization to a common set of values bigger than their quarterly objectives and key results (OKRs). Culture helps attracts the right people to your organization – and can drive
CEO
Thanks to everyone who attended my session today at the amazing -- and huge -- SaaStr Annual 2019 conference in San Jose. In this post, I'll share the slides from my presentation, Five Questions SaaS CEOs Wrestle With (and some thoughts on how to answer them). The folks at SaaStr
Boards
I’m super excited for the upcoming SaaStr Annual 2019 conference in San Jose from February 5th through the 7th at the San Jose Convention Center. I hope to see you there -- particularly for my session from 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM on Tuesday, February 5th. Last year
Leadership
Most employees tolerate their managers more than love them. According to a year-old survey in Forbes: * Only about 50% of employees say the boss values their opinion. * Only 35% of employees feel inspired by their boss. * Some 25% say they can do a better job than their boss does.
Culture
There are two types of restaurants: those where it's acceptable for a cook to pickup dropped food and serve it, and those where it's not. Sure, when asked, everyone would say it's unacceptable to serve dropped food in their kitchen. But is that how