Confluent’s Resilient Rise To Software Behemoth
EP 89 of The Logan Bartlett Show: Untold stories from tech's inner circle
Jay Kreps (CEO, Confluent) only went to one year of high school because he thought school was an inefficient way of learning. Since then, he’s continued to carve his own unique path. In my latest podcast episode, Jay shared Confluent’s resilient journey from LinkedIn spin out to public company, including details from turning an open source project into a commercial success, competing with AWS in the cloud industry, and his learnings from diving into a CEO role.
Click here to view the episode transcript | Watch on Youtube | Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
✉️ Episode Memo
“You'd rather fail as the company you wanna be”
Jay believes going all-in on the company’s core mission and failing is better than settling for a niche problem area. 100% commitment is liberating and will almost never lead to regrets. This mindset helped Confluent go all-in on their cloud offering and survive against AWS despite the odds.
Launching a second product when one is working
Prior to Confluent, zero on-prem products had successfully launched a cloud offering, and Jay was told never to launch a second product when one is thriving. Nevertheless, he believed expansion was necessary to fulfill big customers’ needs and it would provide great differentiation Despite the challenge of maintaining momentum in the core product while expanding, Jay's unwavering conviction in the strategy ultimately paid off.
Only going to one year of high school
Jay convinced his parents to let him teach himself high school subjects alongside his friends. He gained confidence from the freedom, but acknowledged that as a teenager, he may not have known how to take advantage of it. Regardless, he caught up on everything he missed in college at UC Santa Cruz.
Honor VS Money
Jay philosophizes that, in theory, people work for money, but they actually are motivated by honor and recognition. People tend to compare themselves to the least deserving person at their level, leading to dissatisfaction if they perceive unfair treatment. Beyond a certain salary threshold, people lose their minds over fairness, which can negatively impact partnerships and relationships if not carefully addressed.
⭐ Trailer
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