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Doug Merritt | Lessons from Tech's Toughest Battles & Building Billion-Dollar Empires
Manage episode 498508942 series 3666788
What happens when a CEO scales a company to over $2.5 billion in revenue, establishes it as a defining force in enterprise software, and then faces a shocking, unexpected exit?
In this episode of the Artisanal Podcast, Andy Price (Founder, Artisanal Ventures & Artisanal Talent) sits down with Doug Merritt — the former CEO of Splunk and current CEO of Aviatrix — to discuss his relentless drive, the "grind factor" that propelled his career, and the pivotal moments that shaped him. Doug shares his candid experiences from early roles at Oracle and SAP to founding Icarian, the challenges of leading Splunk through a monumental cloud transformation, and the profound impact of his abrupt departure. Now at Aviatrix, he’s tackling a new, critical mission: evangelizing a cloud-native security fabric to protect against the escalating threat of data breaches in a wide-open cloud environment.
A must-listen for founders, aspiring leaders, and anyone interested in the resilience required to navigate the complexities of enterprise tech, massive market shifts, and unforeseen personal and professional challenges.
Chapters
1. Introduction (00:00:00)
2. Forged by Fire: Doug Merritt's Chaotic Upbringing & the Birth of Grit (00:01:16)
3. Early Career Lessons: Coding, Sales, & the Icarian "Faceplant" (00:05:30)
4. The Oracle-SAP Knife Fight: A Battle for Market Dominance (00:19:05)
5. Godfrey's Courtship: How Doug Landed the Splunk CRO Role (00:22:31)
6. Splunk's Ascent: Real-time Data, Security Dominance, & Consumption Pricing Challenges (00:29:03)
7. Navigating the Storm: Leading Splunk's Cloud Transformation (00:40:39)
8. The Unforeseen Exit: Doug's Shocking Firing from Splunk (00:53:28)
9. Aviatrix: Pioneering Cloud-Native Security (00:58:46)
10. Doug's Enduring Wisdom: Advice for Young Leaders (01:05:57)
8 episodes
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