Ben Horowitz and Ali Ghodsi: How to Run a Billion-Dollar Business
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Why did Ali Ghodsi decide to become CEO instead of returning to academia?
I was like, maybe they're right. Maybe we should just sell. And I remember having that conversation with Ben, which is he said, Hey, you can do whatever you want. You can sell, you're gonna make a lot of money and you'll be super successful in life. But you know, if you're like me, you're gonna look back the rest of your life thinking, you know, I missed that one shot. That was the one thing. I should have taken it all the way and now I'll never know how far I could have taken it. Could have been. So do you wanna live with that? Or do you wanna just have the money? You know, I'll support whatever you wanna do. I really couldn't care.
Yeah, but In twenty sixteen, when Databricks was on the brink, the board wanted a new CEO. Co founder Ali Gotzi was ready to go back to academia. Instead of leaving, he took the job and turned an open source project into a hundred billion dollar company. On this episode of Boss Talk, I'm joined by Databricks CEO Ali Gotzi alongside Ben Horowitz and Sarah Wang. We unpacked the 2016 crisis, the Microsoft deal that changed everything, and how Databricks built intensity without burnout. We also talk about giving feedback that actually lands and why not selling might be the boldest call a founder can make. Let's get into it.
Excited to bring back Boss Talk. This was a series that you guys did a few years ago on Clubhouse that was a big hit.
Yeah, we had fun. It was Ben's idea.
Yeah. Excited to bring it back. So, in the spirit of Boss Talk, let's talk about the first time that you became a boss in terms of running Databricks. Let's talk about the moment in 2016 when things weren't as smooth as perhaps they should have been. And we were looking for a new CEO. And Ben, you recommended Ali.
First of all, like kudos to Jan for building the company originally and Ben investing and believing in us. And then also, I kind of couldn't have done the CEO job. Ben basically Babysat me the first couple of years. So short babysat me you know. So I did know what was kind of wrong with the company because I had been there for two, three years and I had seen from inside what we should change and what the issues were. But we had an open source project that actually became very successful thanks to those first two, three years. Apache Spark became a worldwide sensation. And we could pride ourselves on the number of downloads of the software. Well and the Spark conference. Yeah. Yeah. Spark conference. Yeah, the
data and AI conference.
Yeah. But the problem was that as it is often with open source, is that everyone's just downloading the open source version. Actually, your biggest enemy is your open source project. The main thing you have to fight in the market is, hey, why can't I just download the open source version? Amazon is offering it, the cloud vendors are just offering it. I'm just gonna use that. So this was the biggest challenge that Databricks had at the time. And we needed to do very serious, aggressive pivots internally, which were gonna be very, very painful to lots of people, like to the whole ethos of the company internally. And so I kind of knew that for almost a year. So when I got the shot, that's what we started doing.
The strategy was like make Spark the biggest open source thing. I mean, I can remember it on all the slides now. And then Databricks would have the best Spark. Boop Databricks never had the necessarily we didn't do the lot to make it the best Spark or not differentiate it enough. And that was kind of the first thing all he did on the product side. And then he hired Ron Gabrisco, which That was transformational. Into the world.
So obviously th that was the right decision it and paid off. Zooming out, Ben, you've worked with and you know all the great CEOs of RN and worked with them. Where does Ali Spike and where are his superpowers as a CEO, as a boss that have uh helped contribute to the impact?
I mean Ali's really good. So th I always rate COs so okay, if I was running that company, would I do a better job or a worse job? And with Databricks I do a way fucking worse job.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why did Ali Ghodsi decide to become CEO instead of returning to academia?
0:00–7:53
2
How did Databricks turn an open‑source project into a $100 billion company?
7:53–15:23
3
What was the biggest crisis Databricks faced in 2016 and how was it resolved?
15:23–24:06
4
What leadership habits does Ben Horowitz use to stay connected with his teams?
24:06–33:07
5
How did the Microsoft partnership change Databricks’ growth trajectory?
33:07–40:55
6
What is Databricks’ philosophy on hiring, compensation, and retaining top talent?
40:55–48:37
7
How does Databricks decide when to build versus when to acquire?
48:37–55:59
8
What advice do Ben and Ali give to founders about ambition, risk, and scaling?
55:59–1:04:21
Speakers
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