The Twenty Minute VCTristan Handy: Why The CEO Should Make As Few Decisions As Possible | 20VC #937
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
105 min read · 21,492 words- 0:00 – 0:20
Intro
- HSHarry Stebbings
Tristan, this is such a joy to do. As I said to you beforehand, uh, I was sitting with Matt in a restaurant in London, and I said, "Who must I have on the show?" Immediately, Tristan. Uh, and so I'm so excited that we made this happen, and thank you so much for joining me today.
- THTristan Handy
Yeah, absolutely. Um, M- Matt, thank you for always being a cheerleader.
- HSHarry Stebbings
A fantastic cheerleader, by the way. I think I
- 0:20 – 2:30
How did you make your way into startups?
- HSHarry Stebbings
was distracted by the, the steak in front of me. But, uh-
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... I would love to start (laughs) with a little bit on you. How did you make your way into the world of startups first? And then how did you come to found DBT most recently?
- THTristan Handy
I was a lost soul, went to, uh, undergrad business school, um, went to work for Deloitte Consulting. I didn't really have any idea what I wanted to do. I spent five years there. Uh, I, you know, still lost, went to, to get my MBA, um, and then I, I had a, a lucky break. Uh, my... One of my good friends from high school and college is Anthony Casalena, and Anthony had founded Squarespace, I don't know, some five or so years before. Things were moving quickly, um, and I ended up spending a year there, um, to, to, uh, to do a bunch of things, but partially to help them raise their Series A. Um, and, uh, it was an environment that I had never seen before. I mean, ju- just the whole concept that I could wear jeans and a T-shirt to work-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- THTristan Handy
... coming from a Deloitte background, was just... I, I, I loved it. I loved that, like, you could just sit down and do the work, and not make PowerPoint slides about doing the work. Um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- THTristan Handy
... and so I, I just, like, decided that I was never going back. And then, and then the hard thing, honestly, for a, a consultant was to figure out, like, how to make myself useful in this context, because, um, m- the majority of the skills that I had learned to this point in my professional career, uh, were, like, not that useful. Like, I, I wasn't the person who built the product. Um, I wasn't, uh, the person who was going to sell the product. And so I really, uh, doubled down on my data skillset, which had been something that I'd, I'd, uh, been good at for a long time. But, um, I had to figure out ways of making that useful. Um, and for me, that was, was marketing. I, like, learned how to do, uh, performance marketing. I learned how to, like, do... Y- you know, early-stage marketing is, like, highly quantitative. And so I spent my s- um, seven, my first seven years in startups, uh, doing, doing marketing in various shapes and forms.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I love that. I mean, I have a couple of things I have to unpack there. First, I actually had Anthony on the show before. Fantastic dude. I've loved him. Uh, the first thing that you mentioned, though, was, uh, luck. I always think, like-
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... how
- 2:30 – 3:56
How important is luck vs skill?
- HSHarry Stebbings
important is the role of luck versus skill? And I go back and forth on this. When you think about that, how important do you think luck versus skill is?
- THTristan Handy
I think that you need some amount of luck to kind of be in the game. Whate- whatever it is. Like, you need, you need some, like, minimum bar of luck. And then above that, it's, it's probably skill. But I can tell you for a fact that, um, you know, I, I... Anthony and I both come from this little town called Hereford, 30 minutes north of Baltimore. Um, we'd, we'd talk about it as, like, we're from the forest. Um, there's, there's nobody that works at a startup there. No- nobody that has any concept of, you know, what the technology ecosystem looks like. And so there was just not a path, uh, f- for me, uh, to, to, to go in this direction. H- you know, y- you, you've already spoken to him, so you kind of know his story. Uh, but, but... So if I hadn't had that little moment of, of luck there, um, I, I honestly don't know what I would be doing in my life right now. But it, it certainly wouldn't be this.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I love that. This little town has created, like, you know, 10 to $15 billion of enterprise value-
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... in, in markets. It's pretty impressive, to be honest. It's more than most European countries. Um, I do wanna touch on... You know, I spoke to many of your investors before the show, and one thing where they were resoundingly agreed upon is your skills in terms of team building, and then specifically talent detection. So I wanted to double down on this. How
- 3:56 – 7:05
How do you spot talent so much better than anyone else?
- HSHarry Stebbings
do you spot talent so much better than anyone else? You know, we look at, like, non-obvious sources, you know. Um, I spoke to, obviously, you know, uh, Ines on your marketing team, and she said about n- never having done marketing, your cofounder being a marketing intern before. How do you spot talent so much better without historical data?
- THTristan Handy
Uh, um, it... This is such an interesting question. It's not one I've, uh, p- processed out loud before. So l- let me, let me see what I can do. Um, uh, d- do you know that feeling that you get when you have a conversation with somebody and it's, like, locked in? It's like the, the two of you are very tightly communicating and have a shared understanding of the world. Um, th- that is the f- the feeling that I get when I get really excited about somebody. So, um, the, you know, you, you... We could talk about Drew, my cofounder. We could talk about Janessa. But, but I think that the, the, like, most interesting example of this is, is Erin, who was our very first employee. Um, she worked with, uh, myself and Drew and Conor at our last company, RJ Metrics. And I had really spent almost no time with Erin there. We were on different teams, whatever. But, um, I had been in exactly one meeting with Erin, and Erin was, like, kind of a junior-ish person there. She was an individual contributor, uh, sales engineer. And there was some conversation happening in this meeting, and Erin s- kind of raised her voice and said, like... (laughs) Uh, she, she kind of, like, cut through some kind of, like, complexity or, or BS that was going on in th- in this moment. And I was just like, "Hm? Who's that?"
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- THTristan Handy
And, um, I, I... Fr- from that point onwards, I was like, "That's a person that I need to, um, to, to stay in touch with." And so she was one of my very first calls as, t- to figure out, like, how are we gonna grow this team and, um, and, and it... Erin now runs customer success for us and has for five years. And Erin has never...... you know, led a large team before. She's never... Sh- certainly never, like, operated at, at this level. But w- I don't know. This may... This might be controversial, but honestly, I don't think that a lot of our jobs, including my job, are, like, that hard. The, the... I- it's, it's not that you need to have seen this a million different times and that you need to be the best in the world, da, da, da, da, da. You just... You need to, to have a certain set of traits. You need to be hardworking. You need to have a, like, clear mind and be willing to say what, what your mind has on it. Um, eh, eh, d... You know, we, we can talk more about values later. But, but I think that, um... I think it's, like, fundamentally n- Th- the talent search algorithm is fundamentally, like, not that hard. People just get focused on the wrong stuff. Like, have, have you led a customer success team at scale before? Like, that's the wrong question.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Okay. Can I, can I... and this is where, like, I used to... remember, I started when I was, like, 17, 18-
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... and so I just agreed with everything everyone said 'cause I didn't know
- 7:05 – 9:40
Doesn’t experience have value?
- HSHarry Stebbings
anything.
- THTristan Handy
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, you know, if I look now, I, I've built a media company over eight years. If you hired me as your CMO, say, I would know a lot because (laughs) I've been doing it for eight years. If you hired someone fresh into marketing, they would have no idea about how to think about distribution, flywheels, channel by channel optimization, all of the hard yards that it's taken me eight years to learn. Same with sales, same with CS. Do you not think that experience has value in, in that way?
- THTristan Handy
Okay. It's, it's a good point, and thanks t- for giving me the opportunity to, to clarify. So, uh, one of the de-... one of the strategic levers that I've tried to use throughout the, our six years is, uh, to use time as a weapon. Um, I, I think that there's this tremendous focus inside of the tech ecosystem to, at every point in time, grow as quickly as possible. You know, from Y Combinator, like, "If you're not growing your user base 10% every single week, then, like..." Uh, whatever. I was-
- HSHarry Stebbings
You're out.
- THTristan Handy
Should I say? Yeah, I was gonna say, "Fuck you, get out."
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- THTristan Handy
Um, (laughs) uh, and, and it did, like... You know, uh, blitzscaling, uh, with, with, you know, Reid's book. Um, and, and I think that making the decision to strategically take a long time in certain cases, uh, a- allows you to create strengths that are uncopyable-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Perf-
- THTristan Handy
... um, in, in the market. And s- so our first three and a half years, we were bootstrapped. Um, we certainly could have raised money, um, but we didn't. We, we were a revenue generating business, um, and we, we built dbt on the side. And there were so many good things that came out of that. We, uh, ha- uh, developed a, like, user experience that was beloved. Uh, we didn't feel in a rush to do that. Uh, we, uh, grew a team that had, uh, some, some core members that are still leading the business today, that d- developed this, like, deep trust between all of us and, like, shared, shared headspace. Uh, there's just... There's some things that you can't actually replicate by just throwing dollars onto a fire.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I... So, I... Sorry. I was writing on my hand because I didn't want to forget-
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... and when you get to my age, memory is not a strength. Um, you, you said there about, kind of, you know, b- uh, building slowly, but building defensibility and moats within that. And actually-
- THTristan Handy
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... sometimes
- 9:40 – 11:37
What did you do to build defensibility?
- HSHarry Stebbings
you have to s- go slow to go far. What did you do, in terms of building defensibility and moats, that was a deliberate decision not to go fast, but to build the right way?
- THTristan Handy
The two biggest things are our w- we... We took a long time to monetize our software. Um, dbt Core, um, is, is open source. It's used by, I don't know, over 14,000 companies today. Um, and we, for a very long time, didn't have a commercial product on top of it. Um, and, and so the way that we supported it was we sold consulting services to implement it, which is a hard business. I mean, taking... Like, r- running a consulting business and then taking the dollars from that and reinvesting them into, like, building the, the open source software is, is, you know, challenging. Uh, but it, it allowed us to create this, this user experience that, um, you know, was, was unreplicated throughout the industry. And it very... You know, today, even today, you know, maybe, maybe we have some, some competitors that, that, uh, have popped up here and th- uh, here and there. But, but really, dbt is as close as you can get to a standard in the modern data stack and, um, it's just, like, very widely deployed. And if somebody wants to do data transformation, what dbt does, they, they use dbt. And I, I really think it's because we spent such a long time, you know, refining this use case and, and being users ourselves. Um, and then the other obvious one is just community. We, we took a long time to build the community and we, we did it from a place of being members of that community. Like, we were practitioners ourselves, and so we built the community that we needed.
- 11:37 – 14:45
Move fast and break things?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think startups idealize the MVP, move fast, break things, test, test, test, get something out every week? How would you advise founders who are often told that?
- THTristan Handy
Um, I really believe in that. So we, we do... I, I still try to get us to. And, and certainly in the early days, we released, uh, we released software that was not always...... perfect. (laughs) And- and that, I think, is- is fine because if we, in the early days, had these, like, you know, very, uh, extensive release processes and et cetera, like, i- i- i- uh, we would not have had the iteration speed and cycles that we needed to- to get to a good place. Um, the- the- I'm not suggesting that you move slowly from an execution standpoint, I'm suggesting that you move slowly from a monetization standpoint, um, and- and, like, growing the business. So- so, there's- the- what we- what we found out is that the minute that you have a million dollars in software ARR, you're on a clock. Like, that- i- people can take kind of infinitely long to get to a million dollars, it doesn't really matter. That's perceived to be like wandering around in the wilderness, and that's fine. Um, but as soon as you hit a million dollars, it's like, "Well, next year you better have three, and the next year after that you better have nine." Um, and, uh, so- so you should take a really long time to get on that treadmill, 'cause you can't really get off once you do.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And it's actually almost harder to raise once you have revenue.
- THTristan Handy
Correct.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I know it sounds strange, but it's easier to raise pre-revenue with adoption.
- THTristan Handy
We- we- and- and that is a common playbook in commercial and- and, like, B2C companies-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- THTristan Handy
... um, but it is much less well-understood inside of, uh, B2B enterprise software. Um, I think that maybe we were not, at the very beginning, but we were certainly early in, um, having e- investors kind of accept that, uh, our business was going to grow differently. And we- I talked to investors throughout our three and a half years of bootstrapping, and, uh, the question was always, you know, "What metrics would you evaluate our business to determine whether or not we were ready for a Series A?" And the answers were, like, kind of all over the place and, you know, they're n- like, not that relevant. And when- when we eventually went down the- the road of fundraising, it was because we were getting good answers to that question. The answers were, like, "Well, you folks are, you know, category creators and are set to, you know, own this part of the market, and we understand that, um, for- for open source companies, when they become standards in a certain part of the market, that, like, that is a- a boulder that is gonna keep rolling downhill." You know, like, okay, okay, that's the kind of logic we use when we think about our business.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I get
- 14:45 – 17:05
Why did you decide to turn on monetization?
- HSHarry Stebbings
it. Can I ask, why did you decide to turn on monetization when you did? 'Cause those are the two questions. When do you raise, and when do you monetize? Why- why did you decide the time you did to turn on monetization, given what we said about kind of the benefits of not?
- THTristan Handy
I am a big fan of, uh, a company called Reboot, and, uh, an individual named Jerry Colonna. I- I read his book a while ago, and he talks about something called the pathless path. I think it's a, it's like a Buddhist concept that- that, uh, you- you can't really know what the road in front of you looks like, and so instead, you have to adopt some principles f- whereby you- you figure out how to navigate that road when it, you know, ge- when you get closer to it. Um, so I- I honestly, I don't have a strategic answer to that question. I have a principles-based answer, and the principles-based answer is, uh, that we navigate as much of our strategy as we can by asking what the community needs from us at any given point in time. And so, what happened in 2019 is that we went from a kind of- the dbt community went from a- a place where kind of the cool kid early adopters hung out to a place where the Fortune 500 data people showed up, and we heard from half a dozen or so of these folks, and they said, "We wanna use dbt too, but w- we are actually not allowed to use open source software without a commercial relationship to the vendors, and you don't have anything for us to buy." (laughs) Uh, like, "We- we want to pay you money. Please help us figure out how to pay you money." And it was this moment where ... and- and you know, we- we owned 100% of the cap table at this point, myself, and my two co-founders, and our employees, um, and so it was- we were like- we were hoping to do the kind of base camp path of, like, let's just own this thing internally and, uh, you know, grow it on internally-generated revenue, um, but it was very clear that these companies needed something that we were not going to be able to deliver without meaningfully
- 17:05 – 19:05
What did you need to transition to enterprise?
- THTristan Handy
investing in- in the business.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What did you need? When you think about transition from community and community adoption to enterprise adoption, I think a lot of people think SSO.
- THTristan Handy
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But like, what is required to make the transition from community grassroots to enterprise-heavy, full rollout across Fortune 500s, 'cause it's so much more complex?
- THTristan Handy
(laughs) I'm- I'm laughing because, um, we're s- we're still- we're still in the process of- of doing that, and um, I'm getting PTSD from even- even thinking about that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- THTristan Handy
Um, no, uh, certainly the f- I don't remember if it was the first thing or the second thing that we built, uh, our SSO integrations, uh, we- we built role-based access control, we've built audit logging, uh, we've had to answer a lot of kind of d- questions about the- the security profile of the application. Uh, you know, if- if you have an extremely mature, uh, multi-tenant environment, then, um, you can answer all the security questionnaires in a- in a certain way, and if you aren't yet there from a technology perspective, then you have to think about other deployment options that will, uh, allow you to answer the security questions that way. So- so I think that there's this kind of-... and, you know, I've, I've talked to now so many enterprise software founders who have kind of like made it through this messy period of like hacking together the, the, like, checkboxes that you need to sell into the enterprise. Um, but, but fortunately, if you keep... if you do the, the, like, unscalable thing first, but you slowly have a motion to, like, m- make, make it do the scalable version of it, then you'll slowly work your way through. And I think that, you know, you can see that in Databricks and Confluent and Snowflake. And, like, they've all kind of hit this escape velocity where they've checked all the boxes and they can do it in a scalable way.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Totally with you, and, uh, yeah, I, I think you're absolutely right in terms of finding
- 19:05 – 22:59
Hiring mistakes & team building
- HSHarry Stebbings
that scalability. We, we mentioned hiring earlier, and you know, when you move into enterprise, your, your org also changes as well as the product does. When you think about hiring mistakes that you made, are there some big hiring mistakes that stand out to you? And how did that change your mindset?
- THTristan Handy
Um... This is, this is a hard one for me. Um, I... W- we have... We now have 350 people on the team, which either is u- unbelievably huge or still very tiny depending on your perspective. Um, and certainly not everyone who has joined us on that journey is still at the company, um, but I would say that we have an unbelievably high, uh, retention rate both voluntary and involuntary. So, so we... there really just aren't that many people who we've hired over the years that are no longer with the company. I mean, it's like maybe a dozen, maybe... m- som- somewhere around that number. Um, there, um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I be blunt? You're e- you're either a fucking Majestic picker or-
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... you've done... Or you have s-... Or you have B or C team players still, which-
- THTristan Handy
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I... That is, um... (laughs) That is a fair, fair, uh, response. Um, I don't... And, and, you know, to a certain extent none of us know what we don't know.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- THTristan Handy
Um, but-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you, do you even believe those, or... I'm interrupting people-
- THTristan Handy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... but I don't buy this whole A-team, only A-team player thing. If you have more than 100 people, by definition A-team is like the top 1% in my mind. You can't have only A-team if you're gonna build a sizable company. It's impossible.
- THTristan Handy
(sighs) Um, I don't know that I come at it from that exact perspective, but I also have my own challenges with the, like, A-team, B-team, C-team players because I don't... This k- kind of goes back to what I was saying before that I don't think that most of our jobs are that hard, and I think that oftentimes it is our ability to work together, to communicate, to have a consistent set of... s- consistent approach and consistent set of values that really determines the performance of the team. Because what we really need to be solving for is the performance of the team and not the performance of individuals. Um, there... You know, I, I guess that that is an answer, is that, um, some of the ways that, uh, th- that we've found that f- folks are no longer at the company have to do m- less with individual performance and more with team, team issues.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I worry with, like, team goals, you lose individual accountability. You can have people who kind of coast along in a good team and actually aren't good individual contributors and, like, executors of plan. Do you worry that with team plans and team goals, it can hide a lot of sins on the individual basis?
- THTristan Handy
(sighs) Um, I'm in no way trying to say that individual performance is a non-factor, um, and we... (laughs) Maybe... We maybe overinvest in, uh, performance management, like formal performance management. We've done this since the very beginning of the company. When it was three of us, we've, like, had quarterly performance reviews, um, and so we spend a lot of time, uh, talking, writing, uh, holding ourselves accountable to, uh, to,
- 22:59 – 25:23
How to structure performance reviews
- THTristan Handy
you know, the goals-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What, what-
- THTristan Handy
... that we set for each other.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What do they entail? Sorry, I, I don't do-
- THTristan Handy
Hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... performance reviews for my, my teams and I probably should. (laughs) Um, what, what do they entail? How do you structure them? What do they look like?
- THTristan Handy
Historically, it's been an hour once a quarter, and we actually have... It's a little unusual. We have three people in the room. We have a... your... the, the person, their direct manager, and then typically a skip level. Although we've s- stepped away from that a little bit. It's like a... uh, we call it the third person. Um, and the goal that I always set for these meetings is that we don't leave the room without somebody saying something that feels uncomfortable. Because, you know, the, the way that I like to say it is that, you know, if you've ever been in a, a long-term relationship, you know that that relationship does not stay healthy just by itself. (laughs) Like, there, there need to be these, uh, hard conversations every once in a while. Like, "Hey, you've really been pissing me off by doing X, Y, Z." Um, and if you don't have those conversations, then slowly people build up animosities, r- r- you know, relationships deteriorate without them. And so, these hour-long sessions once a quarter are these reset opportunities to say like, "Okay, let's just get your shit out there and let's talk about it."
- HSHarry Stebbings
So this is not how many SQLs and MQLs you bought
- NANarrator
(instrumental music)
- HSHarry Stebbings
This is, "Hey, I feel like you're not contributing the same way that you did last quarter. Is something up? Why, why are you acting this way?"
- THTristan Handy
T- totally. Um, it is also, um, (smacks lips) you know, the f- feedback goes the other direction too. Um, you know, "I, I feel like, uh, you're not setting me up for success because you're not, uh," you know, "We've changed our goals twice in the past quarter, and it's, it's impossible to, like, actually create programs th- along that kind of cadence." You know, that kind of thing.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. To which you say, "You're fired." (laughs) No, I'm joking.
- THTristan Handy
(laughs) No, no.
- HSHarry Stebbings
No, I, I hear you're brilliant at accepting feedback. The hard thing though with, like, these conversations, which are very human and, uh, deep and, and meaningful hopefully, is you're not in-person a lot of the time.
- THTristan Handy
Hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And I wanted to talk about this, and remote in particular,
- 25:23 – 31:07
Remote work is terrible but distributed companies are amazing
- HSHarry Stebbings
and you said before, "Working remotely is terrible, but distributed companies are amazing." (laughs) I kind of did a double take on this. I was like, "Where's Tristan going with this one?"
- THTristan Handy
Mm-hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, so what did you mean by, "Working remotely is terrible, but distributed companies are amazing"?
- THTristan Handy
We, we have a, an HQ location in Philadelphia 'cause the original team's from Philadelphia. We are now, um, m- most of us are, are in the States. I th- I think it's, like, 75% or 80% are in the States, but we're located in, I don't know, something like 40 states. Um, and, uh, we have maybe 10% or 15% of us are in EMEA, Europe, and, uh, 5% or 10% are, uh, are in, uh, Australia and New Zealand. And, um, so we are very much a distributed company. Um, the other word that I like to use, uh, is asynchronous. So, I think of us as an, uh, distributed, asynchronous company. And those things describe how work is done. You know, it, it, work gets done by people who are far apart and often on different time zones. Um, but that doesn't mean that we need to be remote. We are, um, we are in the process of opening up an office in San Francisco. Our biggest concentration of, of talent is now in San Francisco. I think it's, like, 15% of, of the employee population. Um, and it's, it's not because we've tried to hire people in San Francisco. It just turns out there's a lot of great people there, and when you open up job, job postings, then, you know, people apply from there. Um, uh, uh, and so there's no specific t- it's not like we have engineering in San Francisco or support in San Fran- nothing like that. It's just that there are team members there. And so, um, one, one of my favorite lines on this was from, uh, Sid at GitLab. Um, he said, "Working remotely doesn't mean working from home." And, uh, so I've, we've really taken that to heart. Um, we all have different things that we get outta work, and one of those things is community. And so, we don't plan our office spaces around doing work together in person. We plan them around giving people a place to work that is outside of their home and allowing them to connect with their, their local community.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, can I ask, why d- v- uh, um, so much to unpack here. Why, why is remote terrible in your mind? Like, just briefly.
- THTristan Handy
Because it's, because it's lonely and dehumanizing, and because we're built to interact with other humans. And m- for many of us, especially for, uh, you know, e- early career folks who are, you know... I mean, I lived in an apartment with four roommates right outta college. Like, I wouldn't have wanted to work there, uh, 40 hours a week. So, so, it, it, um, it's just, like, not totally consistent with how we are wired as humans.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And then, uh, so, totally get you and agree with you there. I love doing this show 'cause it's human interaction. And it's, it's nice to break up the day with, you know, real conversation. My question to you is on the, like, facilitation of Distributed. I had Matt Mullenweg on the show from WordPress-
- THTristan Handy
Hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... who spoke about the budgets that they give to all employees to go work in a coffee shop, to go find a local space. What budgets, and how do you structure them to allow for these distributive workspaces?
- THTristan Handy
Everybody gets, I think it's $250 a month for, um, an out-of-home stipend. So, whether that's, um, w- we, we work with a vendor called LiquidSpace, and so if there's LiquidSpaces in your area, w- it makes it very easy to, to sign up for them. Um, but you can also just expense, uh, you know, drop-in space or, or wherever. Um, and the $250 is, is probably not enough to get outside your home every single day, but it's hopefully enough to, um, make it so you don't go crazy. Um, and, and, but, so then, so that's step one, and then step two is... Oh, of course, we, we al- we also have a budget for people to, like, set up their home offices. Um, but step one is, like, blanket everyone with a work-out-of-home budget, and then step two is, uh, in places where we have high concentration of employees, open up satellite o- uh, satellite offices. We're calling this our Many Satellites strategy. Um, and then the people who live in... I, uh, we haven't finalized the, like, driving distance or anything, but, but for people who live in commutable distance of these satellites, then you lose your two of- $250, and you are assumed that you're gonna go into this satellite as your out-of-home experience.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, if you're, like, 46 minutes away, and it's-
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... a 45-minute drive, are you fucked? (laughs) Like...
- THTristan Handy
I don't know. I don't know. We, uh, so it's-
- HSHarry Stebbings
This, this is a brilliant idea. (laughs)
- THTristan Handy
Well, it's, it's-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- THTristan Handy
I don't know if you've spent any time in a, in a WeWork, or in a coworking space generally, but-
- HSHarry Stebbings
They are terrible. Terrible.
- THTristan Handy
Yeah, we s- we spent three years in coworking spaces, and, you know, they were the right thing for the right time for our company, and I don't wanna, like, say that, that that's n- not a good option to have on the table, but...Uh, w- I actually, uh, got really into... You know, when, when we rented our office space, we rented it, um, back in the beginning of 2019. It opened at the end of 2019. I spent a tremendous amount of time on selecting it, working with architects and designers. Like, we really built it out to convey our brand values, and it's, it's so much better for your employee community to be working in the space that, like, reflects our values back at that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I... Oh, man, I totally agree with you. I w- was not a fan.
- 31:07 – 34:01
How do you align success between founder and investor?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, so very much aligned. Can I ask you, you know, we, we spoke earlier about, you know, the growth. We also spoke about growth of community, monetization, fundraising, and I did wanna touch on before we focus on your management. W- we've spoken before about aligning success between specifically two different parties. One is, like, success from the founder, and then the other is success from an investor. How do you think-
- THTristan Handy
Hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... about kind of aligning success in that way and not making it binary either way?
- THTristan Handy
There's so much here. I think that, I think that maybe the most important job of the CEO, at least in, in the way that I think about it, is to keep all of the different stakeholders in mind at all times and try to balance their interests, their, like, long-term interests, um, against one another. So, s- if you specifically think about it from the perspective of the, uh, founders and, and investors, um, for a long time, I had... You know, we, I, I talked before about the, like, vision of creating Basecamp be like internally funded thing. Um, and you can imagine where, if that's the path th- you go down, that success looks very different. I mean, I grew up in a, you know, very kind of middle class background, and, um, all the money in the world to me felt like, I don't know, uh, 10 million dollars, 15 mi-... I mean, that's, that was like all the money I could possibly imagine. And so you can imagine growing a company to that kind of scale, and if it's completely employee and founder-owned, i- an acquisition at that level is great. That's a great outcome. Um, but the minute that you get institutional capital involved, then that changes. And, um, this is one of the biggest decisions that we had to... This was, was the trade-off that we made when we first fundraised. It was like, you know, do we wanna trade this modest success goal for a, you know, unicorn, whatever you wanna talk about it, um, uh, goal. And, and the risk associated with going big is much greater. You can, you can really imagine how... And there, there's, there's really great people in the, uh, in the SaaS community that, that really are pushing hard to, uh, create funding opportunities that allow founders to optimize for these 5, 10, 50 million dollar exits, and I love that, um, and I, I wish that that was (laughs) the path that made sense for us. Um, but, but, but that was a real cost for us, and we only wanted to, to take the first step down that path when we felt like we had a shot at success on that level and that, like,
- 34:01 – 36:45
Tradeoff between scale and freedom
- THTristan Handy
it's really what our community needed from us.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, I, I have, uh, many thoughts here. Uh, the first thought I have is... And I'm gonna make a bold statement. This is coming from a VC, so like-
- THTristan Handy
Okay.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... you know, I'm admitting my sins. Um, I think you sold freedom for scale of money. And I think about this today too. Like, when I have, you know, the fund sizes I have now, I have more freedom because they're smaller funds. If I wanna go and be the next Andreessen or Thrive, I lose a lot of freedom. You have to build team out very quickly. You have to do a lot more in terms of performance reviews, one-on-one structuring. When you're small, you have freedom. You have flexibility. You could print, you know, 5, 10 million dollars a year in revenue, which I'm not belittling. That's fantastic. But you could do it and just kind of keep going and make great money. But you decided to go big, and with that, you do lose freedom.
- THTristan Handy
S- so, I... The trade-off for us was... I agree with you, the cost is freedom, but the upside wasn't m- more money. It was, uh, expanding the community, expanding the, the set of humans that we could actually include in, in the community.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But you could've done that over time. Y- it was the acceleration of that community.
- THTristan Handy
I don't think so. It was very binary. Like, the, the kind of business that we, uh, were building towards, we could, we could build a credible, you know, credit card swipe, 100 dollars per user per month, something like that, but, but, you know, our, our customers today, that's not... I mean, that, that still makes up a, a large percentage of our... the companies that we sell to, but there was just no path to get from there to, you know, Fortune 50 company adopting this across a thousand employees. Like, it j- just wasn't feasible.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Totally. But you couldn't have used the self-funded bootstrap business to then fund an enterprise business over... I know it's slow, but
- THTristan Handy
... the entire space would
- 36:45 – 38:25
Do you worry about dilution?
- THTristan Handy
have changed by the time we got there.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask you a blunt question as well? And I- I ... Y- you should have come on this show years ago, it was so much more friendly.
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, do you worry that with all the cash coming in, you just get diluted to shit? And what I mean by that is, like, you know, we've seen founders who have $10 billion assets and made like $40 million dollars-
- THTristan Handy
Hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... because they have 4%. With more and more cash, you just get continuously diluted. How do you think about that and how ... Wh- what's your mentality around that?
- THTristan Handy
(sighs) Um, (laughs) that is an interesting question for, for me to answer. The, um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Sorry.
- THTristan Handy
You can, you can look up our, uh ... I, I think ... I don't know how many of our evaluations are public. Uh, uh, we, we were public about our last one, the 4.2 billion, uh, v- valuation. And, um ... So our, our fundraise in, I think it was January or February, um, was-
- HSHarry Stebbings
How big, how big was the fundraise?
- THTristan Handy
It was 222. It was-
- HSHarry Stebbings
See, that is a great raise. So you dilute by, like, 5% or 6%-
- THTristan Handy
Yeah, it was like a- it was like a 5%-ish.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... not that much, and you add 200 million to your balance sheet.
- THTristan Handy
Right.
- HSHarry Stebbings
That ... (clicks tongue) Beautiful.
- THTristan Handy
(laughs) Well, the market was very conducive. Um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- THTristan Handy
But, uh, so, so I, I honestly ... I don't know how, um, I would, I would have tried to balance that in a, in a different market environment. It turns out that we raised four rounds of funding, all during COVID, and the, um, the valuations during that period started off attractive and only got more attractive. And so, um, fortunately, for employees and founders, uh, we're
- 38:25 – 40:16
Do you worry about living up to your valuation?
- THTristan Handy
not in the situation that you described there.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I totally get you. Can I ask you ... And, again, I used to be so nice. Um-
- THTristan Handy
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
4.2, it's, it's, it's a, it's a lot and, you know, you're a fantastic company, but that's a lot of cash.
- THTristan Handy
Hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, do you worry? Everyone's like, "Wow, these companies are gonna have to live into those valuations now."
- THTristan Handy
Mm-hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you worry about living into, you know, what was a very excited valuation?
- THTristan Handy
Um ... (sighs) I think that there's a lot of companies, including, uh, public software companies that are doing a lot of living into a lot of things, so we're not, we're not alone there. Um, th- the, the good news is that we are executing incredibly well. We are growing very quickly. We are, um, m- moving ... I think, I think that one of the challenges, um, that was introduced by the valuation environment is that it prized growth to such an extent that efficiency was, like, not even a conversation. Um, like I ... I'm trying to search my, my memory banks. I don't even know that I talked about an efficiency metric in any of our fundraises. Um, and, and ... fortunately, my, my history in growing the business over the course of three and a half years in a bootstrap fashion, I, uh, am a cons- ... I'm, uh, like a reasonably financially conservative person-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- THTristan Handy
... because (laughs) of that experience. Um, and so w- we have always been, um, a, a, a pretty efficient business. Um, w- we have had to recalibrate a little bit over the past six months, um, but it hasn't been some, like, gut-wrenching change. It's been like some, some
- 40:16 – 42:19
What efficiency metrics do you use?
- THTristan Handy
nudging of the steering wheel in one direction.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask, when you say about efficiency metrics, what sort of tr- efficiency metrics would one expect to be asked about?
- THTristan Handy
Oh-
- HSHarry Stebbings
I should probably know this, but I'm not a growth investor.
- THTristan Handy
Uh, COGS, gross margin, uh, n- n- really not, not like, um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Well, that, that wasn't as scientific as I thought. (laughs)
- THTristan Handy
Oh, no. Uh, uh, we internally used ... W- we were very focused on a, a metric called, um, cost of book. Um, so w- which, which is, like, not that different from customer acquisition cost, but it, it's like the, the math works just slightly differently. Um, I think that that's probably the main one that you see growth stage enterprise software companies f- focusing on now, because it-
- HSHarry Stebbings
And sorry, cost of v- just so I understand it, is customer acquisition cost-
- THTristan Handy
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... but not? Wh- how does it differ? Just so I gather.
- THTristan Handy
Oh, geez. Um, i- it, it, it, um, excludes margin, um, so it, it, it's done ... Or r- rather, it's done on a margin basis as opposed to a revenue basis.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Uh-huh.
- THTristan Handy
Um, so if you're a margin-inefficient busi- business, then your cost of book will look worse. Um, m- most companies, if you, if you, if you just look at customer acquisition cost, you'll ... And you're selling, you know, $100 sneakers and the sneakers cost, you know, $50 to get from your suppliers, you're, you're actually overstating, uh, how efficient your business is if you just look at CAC. Um, anyway, I think that a lot of, um ... I think a lot of enterprise software companies, because they were so focused on growth, they've, they've often paid a lot of money for that growth. Um, and, you know, very, very fortunately, um, because our fundamental growth comes from organic community adoption of our open source product, we've always been a pretty efficient growth business.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I
- 42:19 – 44:52
High performance in leadership
- HSHarry Stebbings
totally get you in terms of that bottoms-up community, like, growth that you have. Can I ask you, you know, when we think about, you know, you as a leader, um, you mentioned the growth of the business. I'm always fascinated by the term high performance, and so I just wanted to hear your thoughts. When you think about high performance today in leadership, what do you think of?
- THTristan Handy
I think ... I don't use that formulation for leaders or for individuals. I, you know ... Certainly, I would, I would kind of understand how to call it business high performance or not. Um, and so maybe for me, a high-performance leader is one that, like, m- results in a high-performance business. The ...Um, I think that we found that the best leaders communicate very clearly. They bring, uh, their entire organizations along for the ride, whether it's the good parts or the bad parts. Um, they... Like, transparency is a core value of ours, and... But- but- but transparency, um, it's not exactly clear how to operationalize transparency. And so, when we hire leaders from the outside, um, there is this period of learning what transparency means internally. And sometimes that can be awkward for folks, even who supposedly come from environments where- that are transparent. Um, you know, we- we recently... We were talking about efficiency a second ago. Um, we recently went through this whole, um, exercise in, um, optimizing our cost to book inside of our- primarily inside of our revenue organization. And this was, you know... In many organizations, this would be like, finance dictates certain changes have to happen, the CRO decides how to do it and pushes it out to the teams. And that's just, like, not at all how that happened at- at our company. Um, it was collaborative between sales and finance, and then our sales leader, Nick, actually wrote up this seven-page-long document in Notion and then asked for comment from the folks on his team. Like, "How- how should we roll this out? How- how do you wanna do this?" And- and it was all, like, in the light of day, and- and these changes really did have real impact on the humans in- in, uh, Nick's team. But this is just, like, the way that we communicate with each other. We're like, we- we share good news and we share hard truths and- and we ask for people to be a- adults. And I think
- 44:52 – 46:27
Are there limits to transparency
- THTristan Handy
that's really how you get the most out of your team.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Are there things that you... Okay, so a couple of things. Are there things that you can't be transparent on? So, like, exits, you can't be transparent. People g- you know, see their exit numbers light up and, "Whoo, they're checked out." Or they're fundraising, they suddenly get super jacked that there's new rounds coming together, and then it doesn't for whatever reason.
- THTristan Handy
Hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And there are thing... Do you think there are limits to transparency?
- THTristan Handy
Um, the main limit to transparency that we have drawn is when it conflicts with an individual's privacy. Um, so we don't... You know, and- and in Netflix, in- in No Rules, Rules, Rules, um, Reid talks about, um, how they're very transparent about employee exit reasons, and we don't do that. We... I mean, w- we don't... We say more than nothing, but we don't say, like, "Oh, that person was doing terribly. We fucking fired them." Um, that, like... (laughs) That is-
- HSHarry Stebbings
"Harry was a shit interviewer. We never liked him, and..." (laughs)
- THTristan Handy
Right. Right, right, right, right. That, so- so... And- and there's other things that, like, uh, we share public, uh, salary bands on every job posting, uh, but we don't, uh, share an individual's salary. Um, so you know it's in- in that band, uh, but you don't know exactly what... So- so this, it's this, um, you know, line we try to draw between being transparent and being, um, you know, invasive of- of people's privacy.
- 46:27 – 50:18
Most painful lesson as a leader
- HSHarry Stebbings
I totally get that. Yeah, I think that's right in the individual level. Um, can I ask, I think, you know, in leadership, there's- there's painful moments often, um, and they're often the most useful from an education standpoint. When you think back to the DVAT journey, what's been the most painful lesson that you're also quite pleased to have been through from a learning perspective, and what did you learn?
- THTristan Handy
It's... It flows nicely. Um, I think it was about operationalizing transparency. Um, so the companies that I'd always worked at, the expectation was that you as an employee were gonna learn about a fundraise once everything had been signed and the money was in the bank, and it's like, "Hey, guess what? We got, you know, five million bucks," whatever. Um, because, as you know, um, there are a million things that can go wrong with a deal before the- the money is wired, um, and- and you don't want to have egg on your face if- if something does fall apart. Um, the- the challenge with that approach is that it doesn't give employees, um, information that they might use to, for example, decide things like when to exercise their options. Um, and that has real tax implications, or, you know, all- all kinds of implications for- for employees. And so when we raised our series B, we raised our seed A and B, we used kind of the historical approach that I had been familiar with, which is like, "Hey, guess what? We just raised money." Um, our employees were not super jazzed about that, um, in, uh, at- at our series B. They- they wished that we had been more transparent with them, and- and I might-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Because they sold beforehand and they could have exercised in post and been better off.
- THTristan Handy
They- they, yes, they- they wished that they... The- the, uh, I believe that the sentiment was, "We wish that we'd known that this was coming together so that we could sell before the 498 change." Not- not sell. Uh, "So we could exercise before the 498 changed." Um, and, uh, ooh, uh, a- again, I- I was like, "Does anyone do this?" And- and the answer came back, like, "Yes." GitLab, as in so many things, uh, taught us how to do that differently. Um, GitLab actually says to their employees, "Hey, we're thinking about fundraising right now. Uh..."... full stop. (laughs) Um, and, and they, they, they don't say like, "Here's the terms you're gonna-"
- HSHarry Stebbings
But the data's s- but the data's so incomplete that it could be two billion, it could be four billion and the, the numbers associated are so different that actually I almost feel unfair communicating with such imperfect data.
- THTristan Handy
(inhales deeply) Um, I, I will... Uh, so, so, eh, I think that's, that's a fair... that's a fair statement-
- HSHarry Stebbings
I'm defending you here, Tristan. (laughs)
- THTristan Handy
... but I think that our, our employees have been very consistent that they want more information rather than less. And so, what we've done, we did it in our C and our D, was that we, you know, a month before, um, any- anything kind of came, came together, we said like, "Hey, there's, there's interest from the market. We're, we're probably going to raise in some, you know, reasonably near term timeframe. We don't have any details, but w- you know, that... we wanted to let you know that the, the wheels were happening and we're not gonna sign any term sheets for the next 30 days, so you got time." Um, and that has been challenging to operationalize because, um, you know, sometimes fundraising markets move very quickly, sometimes- whatever. But, but that's a commitment to our employees that we've felt pretty strongly about b- because of how (laughs) strongly they
- 50:18 – 55:35
How do you think about your relationship to money?
- THTristan Handy
voiced their feedback in, in, uh, the series B.
- HSHarry Stebbings
One thing that I ask myself with scaling funds and scaling media companies is like my relationship to money, um, has changed over time. How do you think about your relationship to money? How do you think about secondaries options and exercising them? How do you think about that as individual and personally?
- THTristan Handy
Yeah. Um-
- HSHarry Stebbings
I'm always keen for founders to take secondaries, (laughs) ironically.
- THTristan Handy
Yeah. I, uh... E- we, we did... We have started a secondary program. Um, we, we did it, uh, was it...? It was like a little over a year ago. We did it earlier this year, um, where our, our goal is, you know, in a new way it's impossible to know whether the market will continue to support this, but we, we did it this year in the middle of a very challenging market. Um, so our goal is to provide opportunities for secondary on an annual basis, and you know, we have a, a general way that we think about, you know, uh, h- how to allocate those. Employees always get to... Uh, employees of a certain tenure always get to participate at a certain level, um, but in... and we try to do it in a way that, um, you know, it's, it... All the rules are consistent between, you know, everybody at the company. Um, so all... Uh, I think that fairness in doing this stuff is just unbelievably important, but I also think it is s- just so important for everybody that's putting like real, real work into this thing that we're all doing together, that they don't have to kind of wait on the edge of their seat with all of their money invested in this illiquid, uh, stock. Uh, they, they should be able to, you know, get some returns for that bef- before an eventual exit.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, you have equal rights between like C-suite and, you know, tenured employees and founders? 'Cause that's something that I've seen more and more, this, um, the obviously clear dislike that there is this imperfect relationship between the rights of one and the rights of another.
- THTristan Handy
Correct. And it's, um... I've followed the news on that, just as I'm sure you have, and it... As a founder, I try to imagine, um, making some of the decisions (laughs) that have been made at some of these companies, and it, it's, uh, I, I can't understand how some of those decisions have been made.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Uh, C-A-S-H, my friend. Cash. Uh... (laughs)
- THTristan Handy
(laughs) Yeah, I, I get it. I get it. But there, again, you were asking personal relationship to money. Like m- eh, I talked before about like my fairly modest upbringing and, um, you know, I... I'm in a very fortunate position right now where I've exceeded all of my own personal aspirations from a, uh, cash perspective. And so, um, it's, it's not, um... it's just not-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you agree that you're-
- THTristan Handy
... a thing that makes me come to work in the morning anymore?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Final one before we do a quick fire. Do you agree with me in terms of being encouraging your founders to sell? I think the minute that you have... I'm not saying f- 20, 30 million, I'm saying five million, which I... is still a lot of money. I'm not belittling it. But you're not-
- THTristan Handy
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You can own a house. You can pay the bills. You can have a family comfortably. And I think that unlock is just such a different level of ambition that it enables. Do you agree with me?
- THTristan Handy
Um, I, I do. My, um, m- my wife and I both work very hard. Um, the fact that I've had the opportunity to do a little bit of secondary has meant for, for me that we can... Uh, we also have two little kids. We have a two-year-old and a four-year-old. And, um, it, it has meant for, for us that we, uh, can renovate our home to actually have (laughs) bedrooms for our kids. It's meant that we can, uh, have childcare support that we need to actually like be able to, to do our jobs and, and focus on them. Um, there's, there's a lot of... And, and, and it, it's a tremendous luxury just from a stress reduction perspective. Like, there's like things that, um, things that are just less stressful than they used to be. And not that... I, I know that there's an incredible-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What's the biggest thing, uh, uh, for, for you, what's the biggest stress that is taken away by money?
- THTristan Handy
Um, so, eh, there are... Uh, you know, throughout COVID, being, being a parent during COVID is, uh, w- (laughs) i- is/was tremendously challenging. And, uh, just, just making it through, uh, was, was, uh, hard. But I think that if you're trying to... if you were trying to navigate that, but then also saying...Uh, we, we can't hire a nanny. We can't send our kids to this camp. We can't ... you know, whatever. It- like, we talk about solving s- certain classes of problems, a lot of them childcare problems, s- uh, solving them with, with money, um, b- because otherwise we would, uh, you know, actually suffer meltdowns, I think, in, (laughs) in my family at least.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I, I, I totally get you, and, uh, so, uh, very much with you there. I do wanna dive into my favorite, which is a quick fire round.
- THTristan Handy
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So,
- 55:35 – 56:15
Working remotely in Italy
- HSHarry Stebbings
I'm gonna say a short statement, my friend, and you dive in. Um-
- THTristan Handy
Hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... I, I heard there was a trip to Italy. Why was it-
- THTristan Handy
(clears throat)
- HSHarry Stebbings
... so special and important to you?
- THTristan Handy
(sighs) Um, I have a grass is greener problem. Um, I, I wanna live every life. I wanna experience everything. And, uh, w- I, uh, y- you know, that, that is a little inconsistent with, uh, having a startup for, you know, a decade or more. Um, it's also inconsistent with, with being a parent. And so, this was a really exciting way for me to, like, l- tr- truly live and work in a different location and absorb the, the local culture and, uh, just try to, to, you know, experience something, something
- 56:15 – 57:29
Night at Frank Slootman’s house and Sequoia CEOs
- THTristan Handy
brand new. I'm looking forward to doing a lot more of that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Tell me, uh, Frank Slootman, the trip to his house with the Sequoia CEOs, what did you learn and how was that experience?
- THTristan Handy
I think that a lot of the content you could get if you just, like, read his book. Um, but what was interesting is that, you know, F- Frank has become one of these kind of iconic figures, you know? He, he's kind of larger than life and, you know, some people love him and some people, you know, maybe don't love him as much. Uh, but, but he's, he's certainly larger than life. And, uh, this was an opportunity for me to, to just kind of see him as just another person. He's just, like, kind of... I mean, yeah, he has a really nice house and he likes, uh, to, he likes to be outdoors, and, uh, you know, uh, he has ... it's a beautiful view from where, where he is. But, but at the end of the day, he's just, like, a guy. And I know that sounds weird, but sometimes, uh, when the, the, um, moment that I'm in feels very unreal, uh, it, it's nice to, to understand that, like, all of us
- 57:29 – 58:37
Hardest thing about the job
- THTristan Handy
that are trying to figure out these journeys are, are just people doing our best.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What's the hardest element of your role with dbt today?
- THTristan Handy
Hardest thing is public speaking. (laughs) I hate public speaking, and I have to do it more often than ever, and, uh, I, I've gotten better at it, but I, I don't know that I'll ever enjoy it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What's the secret to a successful marriage?
- THTristan Handy
Uh, listening before you talk.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Negotiating well. Um, if you could be CEO of any other company, what would it be and why?
- THTristan Handy
It would be a, a ten-person SaaS company that had never taken any funding. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) What do you-
- THTristan Handy
The freedom.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Fr- freedom is a benefit. What do you know now that you wish you'd known at the start of dbt?
- THTristan Handy
I think I had a lot of post-job baggage from prior companies that didn't work out the way that, um, that I and others had wanted them to work out. And so, I think I was a little gun-shy, uh, and, uh, m- didn't have, didn't have enough confidence. I think that, um, I, I should've operated with a
- 58:37 – 59:18
What have you changed your mind on recently?
- THTristan Handy
little bit more confidence when I saw things starting to work.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What have you changed your mind on recently?
- THTristan Handy
Um, I don't have a good answer to that. One of ... it's not that ... it's not that I never change my mind, it's that I try not to be the person making decisions. I think a lot of people see the, the CEO as the person who makes a lot of decisions, and I explicitly ... I have a doc that says, like, working with me and what do, what do ... how do I see my job. And in it, it says, "I try to make as few decisions as possible." And so, I, I ... you could also ask me, like, "What are the five most recent decisions you've made?" And I ac- ... I actually
- 59:18 – 1:01:12
What do you do to make async work?
- THTristan Handy
... I don't know the answer to that.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) I love that. What do you do to make async work well for you? Is it specific tools? Is it specific timings of the day? Is it blocking time of the day? How do you make async work for you well?
- THTristan Handy
We write a lot, um, and we put, uh, both, like, cultural and technical guardrails in place to actually nudge people to work in the way that we need them to. Um, the problem with async and the re- the time when it's really hard to adopt well is when it's adopted inconsistently. 'Cause if people start putting a bunch of meetings on everybody's calendars and that's how everybody expects work to get done, then all of a sudden, async work is impossible because you spend all your time in meetings and nobody gets to write and think and react.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Totally agree. Uh, why do you think most people go wrong with async?
- THTristan Handy
Um, I think it is really hard to say, "Please cancel that meeting and send us a doc." I think it's really hard to say, like, "I'm not going to join that meeting." It's very ... it's like when, when ... it's, it's almost like a human thing. If somebody knocks on your door and says, like, "Here's this delightful pie. I made it just for you," uh, it ... you're, you're just like, "Oh, thank you so much," even if you don't like the pie, right? And, uh, in the same way, if somebody, like, says, "Oh, I'm inviting you to a meeting. Here's the agenda, da, da, d-" it's, it's very challenging to say, like, "That's inconsistent with how we get work done at this company."
- HSHarry Stebbings
"Well, I, I actually just say now, I super appreciate that. Um, I, I actually think that we can cover a lot of this in email, and if there's anything left over, then let's jump on a call, but I think we can take the majority by email." Da, da, da. Do you see what I mean? And then I do-
- THTristan Handy
Yes. I'm stealing them.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. It works really well. Um, especially for, like, repeatable processes,
- 1:01:12 – 1:02:38
Where will dbt Labs be in 5 years?
- HSHarry Stebbings
sales processes, anything like that. Uh, final one for you, my friend. Five years time, 2027, what does dbt look like then and where are we then?
- THTristan Handy
I think that the innovation that's happening in data today is still ... an- ... okay, I know every founder in the world references Jeff Bezos' day one letter. Um, I think that data is unbelievably early, um, and the, um ... a lot of the conversation in the ecosystem today is about how we've unlocked all these capabilities but things still feel pretty chaotic for practitioners, and there's a l- there's really a lot left to do. Um, so I, I think that in five years, there will be more people participating in, you know, creating data, analyzing data. Um, there will be more quality around the data that is produced and consumed. Um, more consistency. More ... like, it, it will feel less messy.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Tristan, listen, I've loved doing this. I'm sorry for, for pushing and prodding in ways that I, uh, quite enjoy doing, I have to say.
- THTristan Handy
(laughs) Thanks.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Uh, but I, I loved it. You're a fantastic guest, and I really appreciate the time.
- THTristan Handy
Awesome. Thanks so much. It's been a lot of fun.
- HSHarry Stebbings
You are here, my friend.
Episode duration: 1:02:38
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