Databricks’ Ali Ghodsi Never Wanted to Be CEO. Now He’s Among the Best
In a Nutshell
Ali Ghodsi became Databricks CEO despite never wanting the role, transforming a commercially failing $1.5M-revenue company into a lakehouse leader by identifying the single biggest bottleneck—commercial execution—and focusing the entire organization on it for years. He abandoned product-led growth for professional sales talent, hired Ron Gresco to build a real sales machine, and made the controversial lakehouse bet despite internal resistance and external ridicule, proving the strategy after 3-4 years. His approach centers on first-principles thinking, extreme focus on one strategic priority annually, being conflict-ready as CEO, and maintaining conviction through non-consensus bets that take multiple years to pay off.
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We're talking about humans. Why should I like you or trust you if I never get to meet you? If you're married, do you want to meet your wife and kids at all? Can't you just have a Google doc? We just write down the stuff you want to teach your kids and put it in the goddamn Google doc. Maybe you don't even need to respond to the Google Doc. Cloud cam.
Ali Ghodsi is the founder and CEO of Databricks. Ben Horowitz from A16Z named him as the best CEO without hesitation when asked. After interviewing him, the host agrees that Ghodsi is really sharp.
There were seven co-founders at Databricks. A few years in, the company wasn't performing well commercially. The board decided it wanted to make a CEO change. Ghodsi heard through the grapevine that they were interviewing other CEOs, including at least two specific people he knew about. He assumed they weren't going to pick him.
2015 was a turbulent year for Databricks. The company had great success with its open source project Apache Spark, but was not having commercial success. Gap revenue came in at $1.5 million that year. The vibe wasn't great. Ghodsi, who describes himself as a glass half empty guy, thought he was probably going to leave and that all the founders were probably going to leave.
Ghodsi actually applied for a faculty job at Berkeley and was going to take it. He faced the dilemma of whether to become CEO, which he never wanted to be, or go back to his dream of being a professor, which is what he always wanted to do.
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