YouSaid · the spoken record

Carl Eschenbach

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24
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2017-03-15
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2017-03-15
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1
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  1. “So, Harry, I've been here eight months, and just two weeks ago I was part of a Sequoia-led deal, myself and Pack Rady, into a very, very exciting company that is not public. It should become public in January, but I can't be more excited to announce this partnership and this investment. I think it's an incredibly successful company. With our partnership going forward and me taking a board seat, I really hope we can help this company accelerate its growth and drive deep into the enterprise to revolutionize a market segment that hasn't been disrupted in years.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Because it was an exciting transition for me being an engineer, but knowing I wanted to get into sales, it afforded me the opportunity to maintain my engineering background, but also get into sales. And it basically became a one-man band job, where I was the engineer and a sales rep simultaneously supporting customers and selling solutions and products and goods to the customers, but not having an engineer do it for me. showed me the importance to maintain your technology background and knowledge because if you just were to go into a customer and only try to sell something and not be able to back it up with a business act universe and technical acumen at the same time they would look at you as just a salesperson or a sales leader or a sales executive so i was very lucky to have the opportunity to do that role and again it just taught me to”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Live my life to the fullest focus on my family and always follow my heart first because it's the only thing that matters at the end of the day.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “So most people, when they talk about mentors, they talk about mentors through the eyes of their business, success or business career. My mentorship goes back to my father. It's very easy, right? He was an amazing man who grew up, who focused on his family first, didn't have a college education, came out of the service, and just worked really, really hard, and built a tremendous business, but his business was his family. His family meant everything to him. He did everything he could to ensure that his family was close, his family was safe and secure, and provided the best he could financially for us. And somehow he got into business himself owning ice cream stands and selling Christmas trees, and he just taught all of us. At the end of the day, the most important thing you have in life is your heart while your heart is not the biggest muscle in the body. It's the one that counts most because without it, you can't survive. So he taught me to...”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Well, it's actually pretty relevant. One of my favorite books of all time is a book called Halftime. It's written by Bob Eufer and it's been around for a long, long time. And it's this book that talks about as a middle aged male, at some point you get to the halfway point in your life and you should stop and reflect to think about what happened in the first half year of your life and the impact you've had on the world and then stop at halftime and say, okay, great. I'm going into the second half of my life. What do I want to be remembered as? How do I want to impact the world? How do I want to influence people in my family? And really stop and just pause to think about that and having just turned 50 yesterday. It was just an impactful book I read many, many years ago to help me set on the course and direction on how I want to live my life in the second half of my time here on earth and how I want to impact people around me and the people I touch or influence both.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I think the brand, the experience and the resources that we can bring a young company is unlike anything else in the venture community.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Yeah, as I said, Harry, it is a very competitive business that we're in, right? Because everyone, you know, has access to capital these days. But for Sequoia, we do focus on our past success. We have an amazing brand. We have tremendous experience inside the building that we can bring our companies, whether it's in an operating role, whether it's in engineering, whether it's in sales, whether it's in marketing. We have a tremendous amount of experience coming from the financial world and people coming out of different type of financial services companies, whether it be Goldman Sachs or any of the others. So I just think our experience, our understanding of pattern recognition, and the fact that we have helped so many great companies, some of the greatest technology companies in the world have successful outcomes, whether it be through an acquisition or taking a company public and having a 10x increase in their market capitalization.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “I don't know. I came in with my eyes pretty wide open. I knew I'd have to be patient. I know it would be an adjustment for me, Harry. And being now here at Sequoia, eight months, probably the biggest surprise is just how powerful a partnership Sequoia is. And the fact that we have global presence around the world between”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Outside of the board meeting itself on more of a day-to-day kind of operating model. Now you're not there every single day, but be involved in the company and participate in what they're doing more than just at the board level and the board meeting level, but really take the responsibility of being a part-time employee for that company to help them build and grow and scale the business. They're the most successful ones, not the ones, and I've seen them both, as I said, just sit there and question everything you're doing and try to pretend they're the smartest man or woman in the room. That's exactly what you don't want on your board.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “So, first and foremost, the board has to be supportive. They have to not just show up and come to a board meeting once a quarter, once every six weeks and say, okay, I'm on the board, this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to come and listen and not provide feedback. You have to actually care about the company and you have to want to be influential and you want to be seen as someone who is there to support them, not just question them. I've seen both type of board members, the ones who come in and question and think they know it all, and the ones who are there to say, hey, I'm here to support you, to help you build and grow your company. And I think the latter is the most successful ones who are there to help them and bring their experiences to the table. And then the other thing that I think is critically important is the board meetings is just a meeting. It's a three-hour meeting. The most successful board members are the one to work with the company.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Them do it. They have to want to do it. So again, that transition of hey, we're going to go and do this. This is the outcome. I'm the leader of the team. Let's get it done versus now going and working with teams and saying, hey, this is what we might think about doing. This is what you should try. But when you walk away from their office, you're not inside the building any longer and you might not see them for two or three weeks. They have to then want to go and execute on something that you've brought them and you can't force that upon them. They have to trust you and believe in you and what you're sharing with them, but they actually have to go do the execution. You can't. So that role moving from execution orientation to being an influencer was the second biggest transition I've had to work on.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “The first thing, there's a lot more thinking time, a lot more analytical time here in the venture world than there was in an operating world. So that was the biggest change initially was just to slow down, think more and understand we're playing for the long game, not the short game. The second is how you influence people in a leadership role in a large company, you can describe what the North Star is. You can put an execution plan in place and you can go violently execute against that plan, which ultimately defines whether you're successful or not. And then you can hold people accountable. Here, working with portfolio companies, you have these brilliant young entrepreneurs who are building the company, and it's their company. So here you have to go in and be more of an influencer. You have to instill upon them your experience and give them guidance on what you think might work or not work. But at the end of the day, you can't make”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “First of all, I'd start with what I describe pace, coming out of an operating role, Harry, especially when you own operations and you're in a publicly traded company. The biggest challenge I had to really overcome was this sense of pace. And what I mean by that in the role I was in, you focus on 90 day outcomes. You had to deliver every quarter and then you had to report to the street your performance every quarter. And that was at a 90 day clip. So while you try to focus on being quite strategic in how you build your business plan and your operating model and what you're doing, you always tend to be a bit tactical because you got to meet that 90 day objective. So you always are having a short-term outcome. In the venture world, you don't look at things purely at 90 days at a time. Now, you want your portfolio companies to operate and execute quarterly, but you really are looking at this thing over a multi-year period as you help them on this journey to build an enduring company. So I'd say pace is.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “First of all, people's true character is defined during times of failure. And when things are not going right, you really find out a lot about people. And I think the most successful people recognize failure and accept failure as a way of life. Now, if you're failing every day, Harry, and that's not a good thing. But if you have a track record of success and you find that failure only makes you stronger, then you can actually really make quantum leaps in how you're leading an organization and how you're actually performing. So I just believe that failure is a way of life. And if you're not failing at all, you're probably not pushing the envelope on you and your team enough. So I look at failure as a positive thing as long as it's not something that becomes a normal mode of operating. But failure is not a bad thing. Failure is a way to push the envelope on you and your teams and stretch people's”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Constant in this world is change, and the world is always changing. I always used to say if the world outside your company is changing faster than you are, then the end is very near. So just recognize your challenges or mistakes and make those changes fast. That's number one. Number two, I think, you know, you have to focus on productivity. A lot of people believe because”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “Another partner of yours in Pat Grady, who asks about the common mistakes that you see in terms of scaling a go-to-market organization and kind of how your experience with VMware affected those learnings. Oh, geez, Harry, you know, looking back, I made a lot of mistakes along the way in scaling an organization and growing it, especially on the go-to-market side. But the one thing I did recognize is if you're going to make mistakes, make them fast and move forward. And don't be afraid to make changes once you've identified the mistakes because a lot of people identify an issue or challenge when they're going to market and they really fight hard to fix the actual mistake they're involved in as opposed to just saying, hey, it's not working and start over. So you have to have a strong intestinal fortitude to recognize when you're going in the wrong direction and not just try to make incremental changes to it, but really just start something completely new. Because the only thing”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Starts and stops with people. And as you go forward, a lot of people say, you know what? You don't have to focus on the culture just like you articulated. You need to focus on the market and the market opportunity. I don't think they're inseparable. They're one and the same to me, but without great people and great people owning to work for companies with great cultures and values, how do you ever actually address the opportunity that the market may be providing you? And then another one from...”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Driscoll from Scale Venture Partners on the show the other day, and he actually said that the latter stage you get, the less people matter, he's obviously B and C stage, and he said that actually it's markets that make outcomes and not people. I'm intrigued kind of how you respond to that as you transition to the later stage. Well, so listen, as you get to the later stage, you can only get to a later stage if there's a market opportunity for you to go and attack and address. But you will never be able to do that if you don't have the people. So it starts and stops with the people and people want to work at companies that have great culture, right, and have a great value system. So just because you have a large TAM or total addressable market opportunity doesn't mean you can be successful because if you don't have the people to go attack the market, who cares about the market opportunity? Now, vice versa, you can have great people, Harry, right? And I'll have an addressable market to go after. That's a different challenge.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “If you have a culture and value system that is strong, they will be able to execute and then your vision can come true. So I don't do a bottoms-up approach, and I always start with the people first, the culture and the value systems and everything from there follows. I'm really intrigued.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “VM You did. Yeah, so that's a great question. So, first and foremost, I fundamentally believe that it starts with the people, not the company. I believe great people build great companies, great companies don't build great people. So it's really important that you focus on your people first. And when you think about companies, a lot of people think about companies from the top of the pyramid down, meaning they're really focus on what is this vision strategy and direction of the company, what do they want to do, then in the middle of the pyramid, they focus on how to execute against that strategy to be successful. But really at the bottom of that pyramid and what keeps it all, if you will, standing tall and strong is the people in the culture. So I flip it upside down and I prioritize in company building. I focus on the people and building a culture that can stand the test of time and build an enduring culture. So always.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Market and then executive management and leadership, and I've just been very blessed to have a lot of diverse experiences. And then I decided to finally step away from an operating role so I could be home and spend more time with my families since I was traveling around 300,000 miles a year, Harry, for the last decade. And with children going into high school, I thought it was best for me to be home a bit more than I had been. And in doing so, I wasn't sure what my next journey was going to be, but I knew a number of people here at Sequoia, and I very quickly decided to join them, and it's been a tremendous experience and something I'm very much enjoying and learning a lot about the venture business and bringing hopefully my operational experience to Sequoia and our portfolio companies.”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Such a pleasure to have you on the show Huge thanks to Pat Grady. Intro, but really appreciate you. Thank you. It's great to be here. Love to start today with a little bit about you and how you made your way into the world of VC and a quick bio of you. Sure. Well, let me do that. So I always start by saying I didn't venture to be a venture capitalist prior to joining Sequoia now eight months ago. I was more on the operating side for the last 29 years with the last 14 being at VMware where I was president and chief operating officer. And I grew up my career starting out as an engineer and I was always interested in getting into sales. So at one point I decided to stop supporting, if you will, the sales organization from an engineering perspective and actually moved into sales itself and moved from sales into sales management and executive sales management all the way to where ultimately just eight months ago I left VMware as president and chief operating officer. So I've done a lot in my career both on the engineering side, the marketing side to go to”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “That's x.ai. They bring you Amy and Andrew. They're AI powered personal assistants for scheduling meetings. And the beauty of Amy or Andrew is you interact with them like you would any other person and it allows you to avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong in order to schedule one meeting. Even better though, there's no sign-in, no password, no download. All you do is CCAME at x.ai. Absolutely fantastic. And you can check it out now at x.ai. It really is a must. And on the topic of streamlining, traditionally long and cumbersome workflows, you must check out workable, the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies, from posting a job to tracking and managing candidates. Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice, workables available for desktop and mobile, and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free. However, enough from me, so without further ado,”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “This is the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings, and you can find me on Snapchat at H. Stebbings with 2Bs, and writing frequently these days on MahitoVC.com. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on that. However, to the show today, and we're rejoining one of the world's greatest funds in the form of Sequoia Capital for this part two. If you missed part one with Pat on Monday, then that really is a must. However, to part two today, and I'm so thrilled to welcome Carl Eschenbach, now Carl is a partner at Sequoia Capital, one of the world's leading funds with investments in the likes of Google, WhatsApp, PayPal, and Stripe, just to name a few incredible companies. As for Carl, prior to Sequoia, Carl was president and CEO at VMware, where he grew the team from 200 to 20,000 people. If that was enough, Carl's also stepped in as CFO at a $5 billion company and transitioned three CEOs. I do also have to give a big hand to Carl's partner Pat Grady for the intro today, without which this show would not have been possible. But before we dive into the show today, there are some products that you simply cannot remember what life was like before them. For me,”

    2017-03-15 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Sequoia Partner, Carl Eschenbach on Building and Scaling High Performace Teams and The Common Mistakes In Scaling A Go-To-Market Strategy · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source