Snowflake's CMO and Former CRO: How Snowflake actually built to $4B+ in revenue!

0:00Chris Degnan:If you continue down this path and you let the current makeup of marketing exist in this way, you're going to get fired. True and fair. Right. I mean, John's an East Coaster. He's very blunt, just like I'm an East Coaster. And go figure it out. And so we sat down with Bob and I said, Bob, we just need someone that cares about demand generation. And so that's when we started our search for Denise. And I think without that guidance that John gave both myself and Bob, we would have probably been too late.

0:32What would happen if we just told the truth? Welcome to TruthWorks, where we dig into the nitty-gritty of leadership and work. And what needs to change. I'm Jessica Neal. And I'm Patty McCord. Our journey together started in HR, but trust us, it's evolved into something wild, honest, and, well, a bit rebellious. So throw out the handbook. We're here to redefine rules to work for us, not against us. Let's dive into another episode.

1:10Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of TruthWorks. I'm Jessica Neal, your host. And today we're joined by two guests, not just one, but we have two guests. And these two individuals are just so fascinating. and they were the architects behind Snowflake's success. And Snowflake, I mean, I don't know, I'm sure most of the listeners have heard of Snowflake, but the huge successful company. And basically these two were responsible, I wouldn't say solely for a success, but a lot of its success are from these two individuals. So welcome to the show, Chris and Denise. I'm so excited to talk to you.

1:54You guys have written a book called Make It Snow, which is fantastic, by the way. And so welcome to the show. I'm so excited to talk to you two. Thanks, Jessica. Great to be here with you today. Yes. And Denise, you were the CMO. And Chris, you were the CRO. And I guess if people, I'm guessing people know what those mean, but Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Marketing Officer.

2:15Chris Degnan:Correct? And Denise is still the CMO. I am the ex-CRO. Yes, you are now advising and doing the Silicon Valley Semide Retired Life, is that? Yes, I will lose my United Global Services status. And when you get it the first time, you're thrilled. And you know what? When you lose it, you're just as happy. You're just as happy. Yes, I bet. So I think one of, and we didn't have a traditional sales team at Netflix, but I've been on boards where we have and I advise, I'm in VC now and advise tons of companies. And I would say that these two roles are very complicated themselves, but also the relationship between these two roles is often not where you want it to be, right?

3:13And the partnership definitely affects growth and definitely affects sales. And there's sort of a tension between the to and who owns the customer and who doesn't. And so I don't know what you two did to make things so successful, but I want to know. So let's go back in time and talk about when you started and where the company was and what you did. Because I think the company was pretty small and sales were pretty minor until you two came along. So can you take us back in time to when you met and when this all started?

3:55Chris Degnan:Maybe I'll start because, yeah, I started. So Jessica, I started when Snowflake had no customers, actually no CEO. And I just worked for a couple of founders. And I appreciate you say that we had a lot to do with the company being great. But, you know, one of the things I'll always say is that, you know, you can be as great as you think you are in sales or marketing, but you need to represent a good product. And I think that the founders of stuff like built just this world class product and we were super lucky. So, but when I joined, there was zero customers, no website, all this other stuff. So it was really.

4:37No website?

4:39Chris Degnan:No website. It said stealth mode. I wasn't even allowed to put, you know, where I worked on my LinkedIn profile. So it was just... What made you want to join at that time? I call it my midlife crisis. So yeah, so I had been at a company that got... I had been at EMC, a data storage company for eight years, went to a security software company. and uh on my like 12 month anniversary uh we get acquired back by emc um and there were a bunch of uh sales leaders that wanted that that knew of me because i had had success for only a year but a success uh at this company that was um that was well known because there was a bunch of uh these these uh sales disciples that follow this this guy john mcmahon and john sat sat on snowflakes board of directors for for years and years and years and john is a wonderful guy and super helpful to me um but they all wanted to hire me because i had successfully survived a um a john mcmahon company and so uh i started talking to a lot of these guys realizing that that was I didn't like any of them.

5:55Chris Degnan:And so I found two French founders who one of them could barely speak. The other one was, was incredibly kind to me. And I, I, uh, I just decided, you know what, these are my type of people and this is kind of how I, you know, think I can get along with, with, um, with, uh, people. And that's why I joined. So I joined it, uh, as the director of sales, not the VP of sales, not the chief revenue officer, but the director of sales back in November of 2013. And there was a lot of begging, pleading, asking people to try the product for free. And then Denise came along and helped us become more well-known.

6:35Yeah. So I guess, Denise, so you joined and where's the business when you joined? When I joined, this was in May 2016, almost 10 years ago, we had done 3 million in total at that time. So I think the sales organization were about maybe 20 people or so. There were about seven, eight people on the marketing organization. Yeah, very, very early stage. I'd never worked for that small company ever before. And I think to Chris's point, right, he said, oh, this was a sort of a midlife, you know, crisis decision. I think it was almost like a midlife realization situation where you realize that culture matters tremendously.

7:23People, you know, matters more than anything. The people you work with and of course the product, right? There was a great product. But also like we start up in the early days, it's all about the believers, right? You believe and the founder's ability to get other people to believe. And definitely Benoit and Thierry, they had that ability to do that. They were able to attract a lot of great people, a lot of great engineers and people like Chris. And then also we had a CEO who had joined at that time, Bob Muglia, who's one of the former top executives with Microsoft. He had been with Microsoft for over 20 years.

8:00He had led many of the largest divisions there and he had become the company's CEO. And he said to me, Denise, this is the greatest product I've ever seen in my entire career. And it was like, okay, all these amazing people are here. I felt like home the minute I stepped, you know, across the, into the door there. And then the CEO, Bob Muglia says that this is the best product he's ever seen. So it's more like, okay, I gotta, I gotta, I believe I gotta, I gotta do this. There was that type of a moment. Yeah. And I think it's, it's also somewhat rare, not always, but for founders to know that time to bring in a CEO.

8:39to kind of take things to the next level. Like oftentimes you see the founders, you know, kind of stay in that role. And sometimes that makes a lot of sense, but sometimes it does make sense to bring in someone that has kind of been there, done that. And I think that has been very unique to Snowflake's success is the fact that our founders, they never wanted to even start a company, right? And they never even wanted to become the CEO. They really want to focus on building the best product ever. And our founding investor, Mike Spicer, really let them do that. I mean, he also wanted them to focus on that.

9:18So they have always really operated on their strength. And then we had CEOs coming in who kind of operated on their strength. I think that's also one of the reasons for Snowflake success. Because in many cases in Silicon Valley, right? I mean, founders are are technical engineers who've never led a company. They have never led sales or marketing or HR or any of these functions. And also Benoit said so many times, I don't want to deal with health insurances. There's so much to figure out when you start a company. I just want to build the best product ever. And this Snowflake allowed them to do that.

9:59Yeah. So remind people where Snowflake is today. So you guys were there when it was sort of not many customers and for you, Chris, none and no website. And now where is Snowflake?

10:15Chris Degnan:Well, I mean, so Snowflake had a great quarter this past quarter. We'll do well north of$4 billion in revenue this year. And just, I don't know, Denise, how many employees are there now at Snowflake? Yeah, we're a bit over 8 ,000. 8 ,000 employees. I mean, just incredible. Incredible. You kind of can only hope that a company has the success that we did. when we joined, there was no, I don't think either one of us thought it would be the company that it has become. So super lucky to be on that journey. Yeah. And maybe we should start out that Chris is employee number 13, right? And I'm employee 120.

11:02Wow. Yeah. And now there's over 8 ,000. That's incredible. So then you guys are sort of building out the culture, the systems, the ways of working that allowed for the success? Like what, what was it about the relationship between the two of you or the just point in time of the company's evolution that like, where you had that connection, that chemistry to, to do this? Like, what's the story there? Like what happened?

11:37Chris Degnan:So when we started going to market, and Denise joined when we were roughly about$3 million in ARR, and one of the things that worked out quite well for me is when I was joining Snowflake, there was no CEO. And so I had asked the initial investor, Mike Spizer, to put someone on the board that cared about me. uh and and so he he said like someone like who and i said well a person like john mcmahon so so i mentioned john earlier john's a legendary sales leader and and um john was on another on another board with with mike and so so i kind of made that as a part of my offer i needed to actually have john sign on and um literally john john and mike were at a board meeting the next day And John or Mike made John or convinced John to join the board of Snowflake, you know, as I joined.

12:33Chris Degnan:So having John on there was incredibly valuable for so many reasons, because Bob, even when Bob came on, Bob had never he had managed like 10 ,000 plus people at Microsoft. Satya Nadella actually worked for Bob at Microsoft. But Bob had never managed a go-to-market organization. And so having, you know, Bob could have John as an advisor to him, but equally, John was an advisor to me. And one of the things that, you know, I was Snowflake's demand generation engine. So when Snowflake, you know, was going to market with no customers, Um, I created, you know, these calm spam lists and I would spam thousands of people every week, um, from my Salesforce inbox of just trying to get meetings.

13:27Chris Degnan:Um, and John was like, Hey dude, like that, that's okay that you're doing that now. Um, but if you continue down this path and you let like the current makeup of marketing exist in this way, you're going to get fired. and he's like because True and fair Right, I mean John's an East Coaster he's very blunt just like I'm an East Coaster and he's like you know go figure it out and so we sat down with Bob and I said Bob we just need someone that cares about demand generation and so that's when we started our search for Denise and I think like without that guidance that John gave both myself and Bob I think you know we would have probably been too late And one of the kind of the things that our initial investor, Mike Spizer, said to us when we were building Snowflake was Snowflake needed to get market share before the competition got product.

14:32Chris Degnan:And so demand generation in our world meant we needed to get a lot of customers really quickly. And that's when we met Denise. And so thank God she showed up. she showed it couldn't have showed up a day too soon so so it was uh it was great to have someone with a demand generation focus and that's when uh you know Denise coming in really uh helped the trajectory of Snowflake because she because you know and any marketer will tell you you know even though she came in and she got her hands dirty day one you can look out and say it might take six to nine months for any programs that the head of marketing develops to come to fruition and we didn't have six to nine months.

15:15Chris Degnan:We needed to go out and go fast. So I think that's, but thank goodness that she showed up and started being super helpful to the sales team. Yeah, and so what was it about, Denise, when you joined and like the early conversations between the two of you that allowed you to kind of form the partnership necessary and the strategy necessary to really propel this massive growth? I think it was pretty easy for me to understand what are the priorities when I got in. And I think when you come in as a leader for any function, it's so important to really understand what are my priorities? How can I have impact now for the next three months?

15:58What do I need to do for the next six months and then for the next year and then communicate that plan? So it was pretty clear what Chris and the sales team needed and what I had to deliver on. And if I delivered on that, that's how I would build trust with Chris. I think that's what it is. If you deliver on the things you say you're going to do, that's how you build trust with the rest of the team. Also, I mean, Chris is probably the lowest ego sales leader there is on the planet. Very rare. No offense against your peers. Yeah, incredible opportunity to work with a leader like that who also then understood the value.

16:41Okay, I actually need marketing to help us grow this company. And there are even some sales leaders like, nah, I don't need marketing, right? Marketing is maybe nice to have sort of thing. And then there are marketing leaders who kind of have sort of similar type of view on the sales organization, right? And that doesn't work. I mean, that's not how you build as full companies. It comes back to that tremendous teamwork. work. What has always been unique with Snowflake as well is that many other companies, the CEO will go out and say, oh, we're a technology-led company, or we're a sales-led company, or we are a marketing-led company.

17:22At Snowflake, it's always been, we are a customer-led company. The customer has been at the center from before, at the point where company was even founded, to also where we are today. So that guides us. It's a North Star every day. We're all focused on that customer. And that really helps aligning in all organizations as well. It's not that one department is more important than the other. I think a lot of companies are making that mistake. And when you do that, and I've been working at some of those companies before, it basically puts some departments, you're the second class kind of citizen at the company, right?

17:59Because it's really this department that is important And it's this department we're all, you know, helping to support. But here's all about we're marching towards the same, you know, mission. It's all about the success, you know, of our customers that brings us, you know, all together. And we all play an incredible critical role, you know, on that path. So I think the culture and the values helped also tremendously. Also a factor really, really incredible, of course, to work with Chris, who also really always partnered so well, not just with Markin, but every, every team, right? It was always about developing that teamwork within all the different departments.

18:42And again, those people who couldn't do that. We had people coming in along this journey who were not that great team players. Some people that came in and it was all about them. It was about me, me, me. It was all about their ego and their personal success within the company that matters. But the culture became an antidote for those. We have several leaders, and it's been happening throughout the last probably 12 years, Chris, right? Every year, there's someone who's coming in, incredible backgrounds, pedigree backgrounds, tremendous experience, who come in. But they don't survive in this organization because this is not an organization where you can lead with your ego and a me, me, me kind of way of doing things.

19:30And the culture kind of creates like an antidote to those. So we have several people come in and they last for like three to four months. and I think Snowflake has been a really great example of the importance of culture and what that does and how it helps you bring in the right people, keep the right people and then kind of part ways with the people who are not helpful to our growth and our mission. Yeah, no, I mean like we were very similar at Netflix. I mean, I think people get very confused about what culture is and of course its values, but I really always think about it as your operating model.

20:10It's how you're getting alignment, how you're making decisions, who you hire, who you fire, how you, you know, disagree, right? Like all of the things. And when that is broken, then things come in the system that, you know, deteriorated, right? So what was it? I'm guessing it wasn't all rainbows and unicorns on this journey. I'm guessing that there were some really tough times. And it sounds like you two sort of had a instant appreciation and respect for one another that allowed you to be open. But, you know, was there something also in those tougher moments that you can recall where your trust and partnership was tested and you came through it stronger?

21:06Chris Degnan:I mean, there was a lot of things that certainly we went through. Like, you know, when Denise showed up at Snowflake, you know, day one, and this is what she said, there's like people that come in with these big pedigrees they they somehow think that like there's going to be a bunch of minions that are going to do stuff for them um and at a small company and denise had you know to her credit she she did have a good pedigree and she had been a very successful cmo prior to showing up to stuff like but that didn't prohibit her from going down and and sitting and meeting with every single one of our individual contributors in the sales organization to understand what was working and what wasn't and diagnosing problems.

21:56Chris Degnan:And so I think that's where she started to establish credibility, not only with me, but more importantly with the sales team. And I think that was the kind of beginning of the relationship that I think, well, I know was amazing. And so I was super appreciative of the work that she did. And that's, by the way, that was the culture that that we had at snowflake is every single leader at snowflake like needed to be able to do their job so i i certainly feel really important as a sales leader that every sales leader um knows how to sell snowflake uh even don't doesn't matter how high up you are if you can't sell it what how do you know what good looks like so those were things that i felt super important about, but like there were certainly dark days.

22:42Chris Degnan:I, you know, I, I think, um, you know, Denise have, and I have gone through, uh, so I've gone through four CEOs in my time at Selflake. Denise and I have gone through three together. Um, and when, when, you know, I, I remember clear as day, I was, uh, asleep and we were remodeling my house and I was, uh, uh, I got a text and I was sleeping in my brother-in-law's childhood bed. Uh, and I get a text at three in the morning, uh, from, uh, John McMahon, uh, who was on our board said, call me when you wake up at three in the morning. Okay. So of course I see that at three in the morning, I call it.

23:23Chris Degnan:Yeah. I call it six. I wait three hours, but of course I'm not sleeping. Um, and, uh, he's like, hey listen um bob's out and you've got a new boss uh and uh his his name is uh frank sleutman and i knew who frank was i didn't know frank uh and and and so um i'm thinking well okay i'm i'm gonna get fired and he and by the way he's like he's like you have a one-on-one with frank on friday and And this is like two days later. I'm like, okay, great. This will be interesting. So I remember that one-on-one because I went into that one-on-one and there was dysfunction at the executive team. There was like prior to Frank showing up, there was some, as Denise said, there were some bad actors.

24:13Chris Degnan:There were some people that were very much like out for themselves, didn't necessarily do the job, wanted like certain titles, like all these kind of weird things, not putting the company first or the customer first. and so it was this stuff that bob wasn't addressing i guess yes yeah yeah i mean yeah i mean and i love bob but like there was like i would have he would have bob would tell me hey go have go tell this person how you feel so i did uh and that didn't it didn't help it didn't like they were just they were actually nicer to me because i told them how i felt and i'm like this is stupid This is not, I don't, you don't need to be nice to me.

24:53Chris Degnan:I think you just need to do your job. Right. And that was, that was kind of the thing. So there was definitely some dysfunction there. And, and so I went into my one-on-one with, with Frank and I said to him, Hey, listen, great to meet you. And I, I, I was for sure certain I was getting fired. Like that was in my mind. I'm getting fired. And I said, yeah, I mean like a new CEO brings in their own team. I mean, it's pretty typical. In hindsight, Bob was like, I thought you were getting fired too, Chris. I mean, everyone thought I was getting fired basically. And so I walk in to Frank and I say, there's two things I need from you, Frank.

25:31Chris Degnan:I said, number one, I said, I have this deal, which was the largest deal in the company history that Bob was in the middle of. I need your help because the CEO is going to certainly want to know what's going on. You're going to have to talk to him. Okay, that was one. number two uh we have the best marketing department in the world and i wouldn't touch it and and he's like okay and he's like is that it i'm like that's it and he's like you're the first one of the executive team that has come in that has not thrown someone under the bus and i'm like i'm not here to throw anyone under the bus i'm here to get my job done yeah and and and then i walked out and that was it.

26:11Chris Degnan:And so that, that was like one of those, like, okay, I had her back and she had my back. Um, and there was some, a lot of commiserating, uh, that Denise and I did around, you know, our, you know, our one-on-ones were typically on Tuesdays with Frank and, and I'd have to walk up to his office and, you know, my assistant, I'd tell my assistant, yeah, may not see after this meeting for, for about six or seven months. Uh, and, and, uh, and I would, and I would go that. And then, and then like around this time, uh, like the, the, the holiday season, Denise and I get basically the same email and it says, you know, Merry Christmas.

26:53Chris Degnan:And, and then, uh, uh, he says, we've just granted you this. And it was life-changing amounts of stock for both of us the same amount and we both got this giant crann of stock and we're like uh okay so we have our job now and so that was kind of like one of those like dark days for through that transition because frank was evaluating and he was firing a lot pretty much most of the executive team got fired except for her and i and one and in our head of product. So pretty wild. Yeah. Well, it says something about the two of you, you know, and, and the fact that you, you were selfless and you were putting the company first.

27:34Yeah. I mean, so is that, so I don't know. I find both of these roles when I'm advising companies, companies, they're hard to find people that, I don't want to sound, you know, like I'm generalizing, but I kind of am. But like, you know, they're not, they don't have that. They don't have the put the company first thing. And, you know, whether it's the sales team or the marketing team, there's sort of these playbook things that just get applied that don't really take traction, you know what I mean? And so do you guys just do it differently and are better than the average or what is the secret? I think just learning by experience.