Greymatter

Entrepreneur Chris Yeh and Greylock Partners Reid Hoffman and Sarah Guo on what it takes to scale to global dominance.

Blitzscaling is the secret by which Silicon Valley and China have built startups into global, category-defining businesses at lightning fast rates. This strategy utilizes a set of techniques to grow a customer base, revenue, financing and ultimately create a dominant global position in a market at speeds which were not possible before. Greylock Partner Sarah Guo moderates a discussion between Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman and entrepreneur Chris Yeh about the basics of blitzscaling, decision making and how startups can become dominant companies in Silicon Valley and beyond.

This episode of Greymatter is the first in a five-part series where we host several Greylock investment Partners to discuss their experience building tech companies from startup to scaleup. The episodes are in partnership with Chris and Reid to discuss the stories and lessons from their new book Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies.

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Advancement in technology has created a "disrupt or die" notion among large enterprises. To remain one step ahead of their competitors, leading CEOs understand that they need to bring in new technology and seek out partners who can help them achieve that goal. In this episode of Greymatter, Delphix CEO and President Chris Cook and Greylock Partner Asheem Chandna discuss how to lead during times of company uncertainty, what to look for in a new hire and how startups can effectively partner with large enterprises. 

 

Both Chris and Asheem know what it takes to scale enterprise startup companies. In 2016, Chris began as CEO and President at Delphix, whose mission is to free companies from data friction and accelerate innovation. Today, Delphix has nearly 400 employees in nine offices around the world and has grown the number of customer deals of more than $500,000 by 26% year over year. Prior, Chris served as President and COO of New Relic, a software analytics leader, where he spent over four years scaling the company's operations through a successful IPO. Asheem has helped create and grow multiple technology businesses to market-leading positions. He has served on 20 technology company boards including three public companies (Palo Alto Networks, Imperva, Sourcefire), and multiple companies that have been acquired in strong M&A outcomes including AppDynamics and Skyhigh Networks.

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Convoy VP of Operations Kristen Forecki discusses the future of shipping and logistics with Greylock Partner Simon Rothman.

Local and regional shipping is considered one of the largest and most antiquated industries in the United States. The multi-trillion dollar industry in many ways is the backbone of commerce, yet much of the logistics are still being processed manually with ample opportunity for human error. This episode of Greymatter features a discussion on the future of shipping and logistics from Greylock's Future of Transportation event. Greylock Venture Partner Simon Rothman and Convoy VP of Operations Kristen Forecki discuss the impact of automated technology on the space, competitor landscape, and what it takes to win.

Convoy is a digital freight matching network connecting shippers with small trucking companies to ship freight more efficiently. Prior to Convoy, Kristen ran operations in marketplace companies including Rover and Amazon. Greylock's invite-only event hosted CEOs, company founders, and top industry leaders to discuss the impact of technology on the transportation landscape and the role of autonomy over the next several decades. Below are key takeaways from the panel.

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The rise of new technologies has created an opportunity for enterprises to innovate, improve efficiency and provide differentiated customer experiences. For faster technology adoption and better service and support, enterprises often partner with startup companies to maintain competitive advantage. However, the path to a successful partnership involves several learning lessons.

At Greyscale, our annual conference that connects CXO leaders with enterprise founders, Greylock's Sarah Guo discusses how enterprise and startup leaders can effectively work together. Below, we share the four concerns all enterprises have when working with startups: scale, security, spend and supportability.

To listen to the full presentation, tune in to the latest Greymatter where she maps out the journey of a successful partnership between enterprises and startup companies.

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Throughout history, technology has enabled transportation to meet the shifting demands of society. Advancement in AI and ML technology is helping the industry get one step close towards an automated future. In this episode of Greymatter, we share a panel discussion from Greylock's Future of Transportation event. Greylock's Reid Hoffman, Aurora co-founder and CEO Chris Urmson and Nauto founder and CEO Stefan Heck discuss the opportunities and challenges, including driver insurance and the digital divide, and the importance of working closely with policy makers and OEMs as we transition to autonomous vehicles.

Aurora and Nauto are building software needed to build and scale autonomous vehicles safely. Prior to founding Aurora, Chris helped found the self-driving car team at Alphabet and led the team for seven years. Stefan was the co-architect of the sustainability practice at McKinsey and taught courses on energy and transportation innovation at Stanford before starting Nauto.

Greylock's invite-only event hosted CEOs, company founders, and top industry leaders to discuss the impact of technology on the transportation landscape and the role of autonomy over the next several decades. Below are key takeaways and quotes from the panel.

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"Your only job is to continue to grow, learn and evolve as fast as you possibly can," says Molly Graham. And, she knows hypergrowth. Molly has helped scale several leading technology companies as an early employee at Facebook, COO at Quip (which was acquired by Salesforce for $750M) and most recently the VP of Operations at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. In this episode of Greymatter, Molly and Greylock Partner John Lilly share how to define company culture, what to look for in a new hire and advice for dealing with constant change. 

 

At Facebook, she created Facebook's external "hacker" brand and built programs to strengthen the Facebook culture as it grew from 500 to 1,500 employees as well as a stint leading some of Facebook's long term mobile initiatives. After Facebook, Molly joined Quip three months before it launched in 2013 and was tasked with building out the business. She sold the first customers, ran sales and marketing, and ultimately hired key team members to help Quip scale. Prior to Greylock, John was CEO of Mozilla, the organization behind Firefox, the open source Web browser used by more than 450 million people. John also co-founded Reactivity, an enterprise security infrastructure company acquired by Cisco in 2007.

 

Both Molly and John share stories of their past experience scaling organizations at different levels of growth and lessons learned along the way. A few key takeaways are below.

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For startups, it's all about being the first to get to scale in a competitive market. Startups that build solid company practices around speed, transparency and market discovery can rapidly go to market and quickly defeat larger incumbents. This episode of Greymatter features Rubrik CEO Bipul Sinha (https://www.rubrik.com/company/about/#founders-modal) and Greylock partner Asheem Chandna (https://www.greylock.com/team/#asheem-chandna). The two enterprise tech leaders share actionable advice to inject speed into your startup, tips to implement radical transparency throughout your company, and strategies for due diligence of your product/market fit.

Both Bipul and Asheem have a deep understanding of what it takes to start and scale the next generation of enterprise-focused tech companies. Today, Rubrik (https://www.rubrik.com/) is considered the fastest growing enterprise software company; in just a few years, the company has a $300M global run rate and more than 800 employees. At Greylock, Asheem has incubated and invested in more than dozens of technology companies, many of which have gone public or have been acquired in strong M&A outcomes including Palo Alto Networks (PANW), AppDynamics and Skyhigh Networks.

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Research advances over the past five years in artificial intelligence and machine learning have caused organizations of all kinds to look for ways to apply these powerful algorithms and techniques in their businesses. Eventually, AI could have the same impact that electricity had across all industries a hundred years ago by transforming industries, displacing existing jobs and creating new ones, and requiring massive policy changes.

 

In this episode of Greymatter, Greylock’s Sarah Guo and Dr. Andrew Ng, one of the foremost leaders in AI discuss AI and ML techniques being used in industry today, areas of ongoing research, how companies can leverage this technology, and the broader impact on the future workforce.

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Poker is a game of variants and probability. You can be dealt the best cards and play every hand perfectly until the river, the final card dealt in a poker hand, is played and shifts the game completely to the opponent. Similarly, startups constantly manage and learn from unpredictable experiences. Scaling a startup requires quickly learning from the wins and losses, focusing on the long term goals, and having a framework in place to help you make educated risks. 

 

This episode of Greymatter isn’t your typical discussion around building enterprise startups. Greylock Partner Jerry Chen and Blend’s CEO and co-founder Nima Ghamsari discuss the similarities between making educated risks in startups and playing poker. The two also share “The 5 Whys”, a framework to learn from your mistakes and successes, and what it takes for your company to move fast.

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This episode of Greymatter comes from Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Series podcast. Greylock Partner Josh McFarland shared with students his presentation The First Derivative of Startup Life. In this lecture at Stanford, Josh charts the ups and downs of entrepreneurship through his personal story with TellApart. He opens up about the lessons he learned as a founder and CEO, offers fundraising advice for startups, and shares the untold story of TellApart's acquisition by Twitter, which was the largest acquisition in Twitter history.

Greymatter is produced by Greylock Partners and offers perspectives and lessons from some of the world's top technology entrepreneurs and business leaders.

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