74 - Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral founder and CEO: A Multi-Billion-Dollar Midlife Crisis
Fortt Knox28 Apr 2018

74 - Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral founder and CEO: A Multi-Billion-Dollar Midlife Crisis

Vlad Shmunis just wasn't an enthusiastic employee. Didn't like following directions. And he had ideas – lots of ideas. Eventually, something had to give. So the entrepreneurial engineer took a leap, even though family members said he was nuts.

How'd that work out? Well today, Vlad Shmunis is the founder and CEO of RingCentral, a Silicon Valley company at the intersection of communication and cloud. The company went public just under five years ago. Today it's worth more than $5 billion.

If you're a long-time Fortt Knox listener, you're going to sense a pattern. Vlad is the third CEO I've had on who grew up in the former Soviet Union and eventually found his way to the U.S. There was Citrix CEO Kirill Tatarinov, Coupa CEO Rob Bernshteyn, and now Vlad. Their stories are all pretty different in key details, but similar in some important core ways, when it comes to education, values and … please listen for this one … the family's approach to risk.

If you or someone you know is thinking about taking a leap to start your own thing, but you're not quite sure, listen to Vlad's story.


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Episoder(147)

83 - Ex-CEOs: Intel, Ford, Qualcomm, WPP – Revisiting Bosses Now Gone

83 - Ex-CEOs: Intel, Ford, Qualcomm, WPP – Revisiting Bosses Now Gone

Nothing is forever. Especially when it comes to running a multi-billion-dollar public company. This week, in a Fortt Knox podcast special, we're going to do a little retrospective … interviews with CE...

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82 - Michael Reitblat, Forter CEO: Defending Against the New Digital Organized Crime

82 - Michael Reitblat, Forter CEO: Defending Against the New Digital Organized Crime

Digital fraud is a big business. The same trends that are powering the cloud computing era – global brands, pay-per-use pricing, open-source collaboration – are making thieves rich, too.  Michael Reit...

2 Jul 201832min

81 - Tobi Lütke, Shopify founder and CEO: Snowboards Don't Sell in Spring

81 - Tobi Lütke, Shopify founder and CEO: Snowboards Don't Sell in Spring

Tobi Lütke is the founder and CEO of Shopify, a public company worth $17 billion. The shopping landscape is changing fast, with new tax laws, same-day delivery, in-store pickup and mobile payments add...

23 Jun 201828min

80 - Q-Tip, the Abstract: Championing Creativity in the Digital Age

80 - Q-Tip, the Abstract: Championing Creativity in the Digital Age

Q-Tip. The Abstract. He’s not going to say it about himself outside of the the playful banter of a rhyme, so I’ll say it: He’s one of the most recognizable voices and influential minds in the history ...

16 Jun 201846min

79 - Scott Wagner, GoDaddy CEO: Big Plans for Small Businesses

79 - Scott Wagner, GoDaddy CEO: Big Plans for Small Businesses

Few companies have gone through the kind of image transformation GoDaddy has over the past decade.  Back in 2005, GoDaddy launched its first commercial that used women in revealing outfits and sexuall...

3 Jun 201820min

78 - Anthony Wood, Roku founder & CEO: Continual Reinvention

78 - Anthony Wood, Roku founder & CEO: Continual Reinvention

Today it's a $4-billion publicly-traded company. It's synonymous with streaming video, going head-to-head with Apple, Amazon, Google and lately Netflix, in the cord-cutting era. But Roku's been around...

26 Mai 201831min

77 - Kay Koplovitz, founder of USA Network: The Tools to Break Barriers

77 - Kay Koplovitz, founder of USA Network: The Tools to Break Barriers

A little more than 40 years ago, there was a live event that changed television forever. Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier. A boxing match: "The Thrilla in Manilla." But the men in the ring weren't the onl...

19 Mai 201834min

76 - Bastian Lehmann, Postmates CEO: Forget About Plan A

76 - Bastian Lehmann, Postmates CEO: Forget About Plan A

Sometimes Plan A doesn’t work out. You’ve got to be ready to improvise.  That’s one of the themes in Bastian Lehman’s story. He had a different career path in mind, but ended up settling for entrepren...

14 Mai 201832min

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