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Frank Slootman did it again. Now it\u2019s succession time.<\/p>\n
Slootman is leaving his CEO role<\/a> at Snowflake while remaining chairman, as surprised investors learned in an earnings call this week. Filling his shoes is Sridhar Ramaswamy, previously senior vice president of artificial intelligence at the cloud data analytics company.<\/p>\n Slootman said<\/a> of the leadership change, \u201cWe didn\u2019t have to. We did it because we wanted to\u2026With the onslaught of generative AI, Snowflake needs hard-driving technologists to navigate the challenges the new world represents.\u201d<\/p>\n Slootman, 65, joined<\/a> Snowflake in 2019 and led it through its blockbuster IPO the following year. That was hardly his first rodeo, however. He shepherded two other enterprise technology companies through their IPOs: Data Domain in 2007 and ServiceNow<\/a> in 2012.\u00a0<\/p>\n But his hard-charging leadership style has garnered perhaps as much attention as his track record, with some likening him to his counterpart at Tesla<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFrank Slootman is the Elon Musk of enterprise software,\u201d Gainsight CEO Nick Mehta posted in a since-deleted tweet<\/a> a few years ago.<\/p>\n Under Slootman\u2019s leadership philosophy, chief executives need to boost the intensity among employees and get used to confrontation<\/a>, as he wrote in his 2022 book Amp It Up<\/em>. He\u2019s noted that many young CEOs feel uncomfortable doing so.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey just think, \u2018I hire a bunch of people, and then I sit back and wait for greatness.\u2019 They have no idea that they have to relentlessly drive every second of the day, every interaction, and seek the confrontation,\u201d Slootman told<\/a> the No Priors<\/em> podcast last year.<\/p>\n He added, \u201cCEO jobs are insanely confrontational, which is not human nature. We don\u2019t like it. We\u2019re not naturally confrontational.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Slootman, like Musk, has courted controversy. In 2021, he drew backlash<\/a> after saying that, when hiring or promoting employees, Snowflake should focus more on merit than diversity goals\u2014a view he said other leaders shared but were reluctant to express publicly. (Later, he apologized<\/a> to \u201canyone who may have been hurt or offended by my comments,\u201d which \u201cmay have led some to infer that I believe that diversity and merit are mutually exclusive.\u201d)\u00a0<\/p>\n The previous year, he said<\/a> that he had little patience for employee activism and \u201csocial justice issues,\u201d seeing them as distractions from the \u201csingle-minded focus\u201d he favors.<\/p>\n Asked on No Priors<\/em> whether he feared employees would be turned off by his approach and leave the company, Slootman answered, \u201cWell, if they leave, they should leave. This is the great thing\u2026You attract the right ones, and you start losing the wrong ones, so it\u2019s actually quite perfect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n This week, he was asked a rather different question: whether employees would flee because he was no longer running the company. \u201cThis is not a personal cult,\u201d he replied, adding that he did not fear an exodus.<\/p>\n Employee uneasiness could be forgiven given Snowflake\u2019s revenue growth under Slootman: It hit $2.8 billion in the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, up from the $265 million reported on the same date in 2020.<\/p>\n Also under Slootman\u2019s watch, Snowflake lured a highly unusual investment from Warren Buffett\u2019s Berkshire Hathaway<\/a>. While the legendary investor avoids new stock offerings, Buffett made a rare exception<\/a> in 2020, buying $250 million worth of Snowflake stock at the IPO price. The share price then surged from $120 to over $250 on the day of the offering.\u00a0<\/p>\n Snowflake shares currently stand at $188, after having dropped 18% on Thursday following the earnings call\u2014its worst one-day fall ever. On the upside, new CEO Ramaswamy will have an easier starting point<\/a> as he attempts to fill Slootman\u2019s shoes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\u2018Seek the confrontation\u2019\u00a0<\/h2>\n
\u2018Not a personal cult\u2019<\/h2>\n
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