Frank Slootman is the only CEO to take three companies public and has led two of the world’s fastest growing enterprise tech companies of all time. In Unlocking Hypergrowth, Frank shares everything he's learned about what it takes to fully optimize an organization for hyper growth and scale. Broken into 20 chapters addressing the essential challenges for leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs, this book is a combination of first principles, mindsets, and tactical advice that, if embraced, will help readers unlock the true potential of their organization.
Unlocking Hypergrowth is difficult and uncomfortable—it’s about challenging the status quo every day, getting used to making conflicted trade-offs, avoiding incrementalism, refocusing resources to the only places where it counts, and being uncompromisingly objective. But its reward is great.
FRANK SLOOTMAN is the Chairman and CEO at Snowflake Inc. Frank has over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and executive in the enterprise software industry. Mr. Slootman served as CEO and President of ServiceNow from 2011 to 2017, taking the organization from around $100M in revenue, through an IPO, to $1.4B. Prior to that, Frank served as President of the Backup Recovery Systems Division at EMC following an acquisition of Data Domain Corporation/ Data Domain, Inc., where he served as the Chief Executive Officer and President, leading the company through an IPO to its acquisition by EMC for $2.4B. Slootman holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics from the Netherlands School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Part I – Amping Up 1
Chapter 1 Introduction: The Power of Amping Up 3
Chapter 2 My Journey from Teenage Toilet Cleaner to Serial CEO 13
Part II – Raise Your Standards 33
Chapter 3 Make Your Organization Mission Driven 35
Chapter 4 Declare War on Your Competitors and on Incrementalism 45
Chapter 5 Put Execution Ahead of Strategy 55
Part III – Align Your People and Culture 63
Chapter 6 Hire Drivers, Not Passengers, and Get the Wrong People off the Bus 65
Chapter 7 Build a Strong Culture 73
Chapter 8 Teach Everyone to Go Direct and Build Mutual Trust 83
Part IV – Sharpen Your Focus 91
Chapter 9 Put Analysis Before Solutions 93
Chapter 10 Align Incentives for Customer Success 99
Part V – Pick Up the Pace 103
Chapter 11 Ramp Up Sales 105
Chapter 12 Grow Fast or Die Slow 113
Chapter 13 Stay Scrappy as You Scale Up 123
Part VI – Transform Your Strategy 131
Chapter 14 Materialize Your Opportunities—the Data Domain Growth Story 133
Chapter 15 Open the Aperture—the ServiceNow Expansion Story 143
Chapter 16 Swing for the Fences—the Snowflake Growth Story 151
Part VII – The Amped-Up Leader 157
Chapter 17 Amp Up Your Career 159
Chapter 18 Just for CEOs—Dealing with Founders and Boards 171
Chapter 19 Conclusion—Great Leaders Have Great Outcomes 181
Acknowledgments 183
Index 185
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