“Culture has to be deliberate. It's first and foremost reflected by the people that you have, the leadership and the kinds of decisions that they make on a day to day basis. It's not values you put up on a wall.” - Karthik Rau

Karthik Rau is currently the co-founder and CEO of SignalFx, but he is a Silicon Valley original. His experience goes back to the beginning of the dot-com boom, and his early involvement includes hopping on the VMware rocket ship right as it was taking off. By the time he was starting SignalFx, the Internet was running full force, but the cloud was still in its infancy. 

On this episode, Karthik (with some help from Thomas Butta, SignalFx CMO) explains the journey he’s taken through the early days of the Internet to his role now as a very technical CEO. 

“There's no one size fits all, every leader is unique. Every company is unique, and it depends on the individuals and the circumstances. There's a different kind of grit, background, and mentality needed when you're getting something started from zero to one…. What I've observed is that my role keeps changing every 18 to 24 months as the company gets from one stage to the next.”

Tune in as Karthik explains what it means to be a CEO and how to build a positive company culture, and shares personal stories about his successes and failures along the way.

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