While Snowflake’s growth has been legendary in CEO Frank Slootman’s first three years, the real test for Slootman has arrived: Can he keep Snowflake flying high among CXO A-listers even as the Hungry competitors are entering and runaway inflation is reducing IT spending?
But if the ravages of inflation along with a potential recession and hungry competitors all wanted to pick a worthy opponent, they certainly did in putting Frank Slootman to the test. Not only is his company roaring with a new category of its own creation — the data cloud — but Slootman himself is a fierce blend of sharp wit and fearlessness. He is always on offense, he’s relentless about being customer-obsessed, and he’s a strategic visionary who’s also wickedly committed to operational excellence.
Slootman is also a shining example of a lost breed: a CEO who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and oppose the presumptive know-it-alls (aka ankle-biters) who don’t seem to understand innovative and customer- focused thinking. From the past 6 months, here are some of my favorite examples of Slootman using plain, hard talk to deflect some “expert” opinion or question:
On August 24, Snowflake will report its fiscal-Q2 results for the three months ended July 31 and we’ll all get a chance to see how close Slootman and Snowflake are to the 84% revenue growth they posted for the quarter ended April 30 .
My guess is that they will come in at around 75%, which is obviously a drop from the previous quarter of 84% but nevertheless an exceptional performance, given not only the budget cuts made by many customers but also the fact that the major cloud players completely bushwacked by Slootman’s “data cloud” positioning are finally getting their data-cloud acts together.
For example, late last month, the CEO of Google Cloud parent Alphabet said that in Q2, Google Cloud continued to “lead” the data cloud category, although Sundar Pichai did not offer data or reference to support that claim. Despite that vagueness, however, Pichai’s mention of data cloud as the top of the four reasons why customers choose Google Cloud gives us a very clear idea of the strategic importance Google Cloud places on data cloud . You can learn more about that in our recent Cloud Wars Minute episode, The Google Cloud Lists Four Flavors of Customer Love.
Then there’s the market’s 800-pound gorilla — or perhaps I should say $100-billion cloud vendor — Microsoft, which highlighted data and related cloud services in its recent earnings call for its fiscal Q4.
CEO Satya Nadella spoke at length about Microsoft’s data business and described it in terms very similar to the language Alphabet’s Pichai used to outline Google Cloud’s data-cloud business. That, in turn, gives Slootman a big opening to recognize what Snowflake is up to when he delivers his opening remarks at Snowflake’s call on August 24.
While Nadella didn’t use the term “data cloud,” take a look at what he said and tell me if it doesn’t sound like a data cloud:
- “Using our Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform, we provide a complete data fabric, spanning operational databases, analytics, and management, helping customers focus on creating value rather than consolidating a fragmented data estate.”
- “More than 65 percent of the Fortune 1000 use three or more of our data solutions, and we’re growing faster than the market. We see leaders in every industry, from LaLiga and Lenovo, to Swiss Re and Walgreens, unifying their data with our tools.”
- “Cosmos DB is the go-to database that powers the world’s most demanding, mission-critical workloads, at any scale. Transactions and data volumes increased more than 100 percent year-over-year for the fourth quarter in a row.”
All of that might be enough to make some executives reel, but my guess is that Frank Slootman won’t lose a wink of sleep over it. He has been through wars and he and the companies he manages — Data Doman and ServiceNow — have not only survived but by all possible measures thrived.
When I sat down with Slootman over Zoom earlier this year, we talked about how the “forward” section of his new book, Amp It Up, was taken from Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Man in the Arena” speech. Slootman describes how leaders must be willing to defy conventional wisdom, ignore the scorn of those in the know, and have the courage to stick it out under relentless and pervasive pressure.
As I mentioned above, some CEOs might shy away from that kind of fierce competition — but I highly doubt Frank Slootman would.
No, I suspect that Slootman will, as he always does, stick to the offense and fight the competition, the disruptions caused by inflation, and the reluctant consumers who try to opt out of decision making. because of the fear of recession.
And that’s why I think on August 24th we’ll see Snowflake report that product revenue is up 75% to $446 million.