Ganesh Srinivasan speaks with Ekanth Sethuramalingam, a software engineer and technical leader at Notion, about the challenges of building large scale systems while experiencing massive growth. Previously a software engineer at Uber, where he helped solve some of their biggest challenges in the data space, Ekanth also shares what drew him to join Notion and his thoughts on building new primitives.

[00:01:18] Ekanth’s engineering background

[00:02:14] Switching from Uber to Notion

[00:03:39] Notion’s biggest challenge

[00:08:45] Applying generative AI

[00:12:04] Dream tool

[00:14:32] Rapid fire questions

Full transcript: https://vnrk.co/3qAAhV2

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Andrew Ettinger, ex-CRO at Astronomer, speaks with Ethan Batraski and gives a go-to-market masterclass for technical founders. Drawing from a well of experience that includes running sales at Pivotal and taking the business from 0 to $500M in annual recurring revenue (ARR), Andrew discusses when to hire your first account executive (AE), the most important metrics to focus on in early selling, what good sales conversion looks like in the early stages, and more. 

[00:01:21] Intro to Andrew

[00:03:43] Rapid fire questions

[00:06:04] When commercial open source CEOs should hire their first AE

[00:08:50] What sales metrics to pay attention to

[00:11:37] Defining the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

[00:15:50] Product–led growth or sales led?

[00:19:56] What’s happening with open source?

Full transcript: https://vnrk.co/3MAmu8c 

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Mike Boyarski, chief marketing officer at DeepL, chats with Venrock partner Ethan Batraski about the role marketing plays at an early stage company. A marketing veteran with more than 20 years of experience at companies such as Fivetran and SingleStore, Boyarski shares best practices for building a marketing foundation, engaging your community, and when early stage startups should hire their first marketer. 

[00:02:06] Rapid fire questions

[00:05:12] The role of marketing in an engineering-dominated company

[00:06:39] How to handle marketing before your first marketing hire

[00:09:23] Engaging developers in the marketing process

[00:17:05] When should a company hire its first marketer? 

[00:23:05] Metrics for marketing teams to consider

Full transcript: https://bit.ly/41QtR0R 

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Ganesh Srinivasan speaks with Vinoth Chandar, founder and CEO at Onehouse, about what led him to found Apache Hudi and the technical challenges involved in maintaining it. Chandar also shares the lessons learned in scaling Onehouse, best practices for maximizing employee productivity, and what technologies he’s most excited about.

• [00:01:07] Intro to Vinoth
• [00:01:41] Apache Hudi
• [00:03:10] The challenge of building on two fronts
• [00:05:47] New technologies Vinoth is excited about
• [00:06:53] Maximizing productivity
• [00:09:26] Rapid fire questions

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Tuomas Artman, co-founder at Linear, speaks with Venrock partner Ganesh Srinivasan about what inspired the idea for Linear. Artman also shares his thoughts on building world-class software to help companies build better product, the importance of minimizing technical challenges, and why he’s excited about the potential of AI.

[00:01:10] Tuomas’s start in the industry
[00:02:32] The early days of Linear
[00:04:44] The motivation to build better software
[00:06:20] Why users love Linear
[00:07:52] Minimizing technical challenges
[00:09:44] Scaling and planning ahead
[00:11:16] The database as a means, not an end
[00:13:34] Excitement for AI
[00:18:10] Rapid fire questions

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Venrock partner Ethan Batraski speaks with Anupam Singh, VP of engineering, growth & ML at Roblox, about the biggest challenges in serving Roblox's 50 million daily active users. Singh also discusses the strategy behind configuring and scaling a bare metal infrastructure and the biggest challenges in adopting and deploying a commercial solution internally.

[00:01:25] Anupam’s start in the industry

[00:03:40] The biggest challenges in serving 50 million daily active users

[00:07:10] Dealing with unpredictable loads

[00:10:02] The strategy behind configuring and scaling of bare metal infrastructure

[00:15:30] The biggest challenges in adopting and deploying a commercial solution internally

[00:17:59] Rapid fire questions

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Venrock partner Ethan Batraski interviews Abby Kearns, most recently the CTO at Puppet and previously, CEO at the Cloud Foundry Foundation, about her experiences building in open-source, open-source licensing, separating open-source projects from commercial product strategies, and more. 

[00:01:12] Abby’s career journey and what turned her to tech

[00:05:23] What’s happening in open-source right now

[00:09:38] Where it makes sense to have a commercial open-source model

[00:16:30] Choosing between an Apache-like or Elastic-like license

[00:19:17] Starting an open-source project with intent to commercialize

[00:23:08] The biggest risk of starting with an SSPL or BSL license 

[00:27:47] Rapid fire questions

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Anush Kumar, VP of technology at Expedia, speaks with Venrock partner Ganesh Srinivasan about the technical challenges Expedia faced during COVID, the importance of thinking about the "collective why" in engineering, and the need for planning for a worst-case scenario from the get-go. Kumar also shares his thoughts on the rise of intelligent applications.

[00:01:10] Anush’s path to Expedia

[00:03:39] The scale and challenges of Expedia during COVID

[00:05:34] Thinking about the "collective why" in engineering

[00:07:16] Planning for a worst-case scenario from the get-go

[00:08:34] The rise of intelligent applications

[00:10:41] Winning the future vs. planning for tomorrow

[00:14:19] Rapid fire questions

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