CMO Samsara, Sarah Patterson: What You Do vs. Why It Matters
Grit28 Feb 2022

CMO Samsara, Sarah Patterson: What You Do vs. Why It Matters

Sarah Patterson, CMO of Samsara, doesn’t believe in keeping your armor up around your coworkers: “You’ve got something else on your mind, it’s going to come through,” she says. While working at Salesforce, she worked with a career coach and discovered that opening up about her personal and professional struggles brought her team closer. And that has also held true in her current role at Samsara, a fast-growing fleet management company that went public in December.


In this episode, Sarah and Joubin discuss the silver lining of the pandemic for her family’s cohesion; why catching up on work is a form of recharging; the benefits of journaling, even if it’s in an email thread; what Samsara does for a vital but un-digitized sector of the economy; the scary experience of living in the era of “smoke days”; hiring for sustainable rapid growth; Samsara’s IPO and earning the trust of the whole team; and how Sarah prepared to interview star skiier Lindsey Vonn.


In this episode, we cover:

  • Making deliberate choices about how you spend your time (06:36)
  • Accepting imperfection and being vulnerable with your colleagues (11:18)
  • The practice that goes into looking polished onstage (17:17)
  • The year Sarah left Salesforce for BranchOut, and why she went back (23:15)
  • The rapid growth of Samsara, and what it does (27:35)
  • How a mandate for truckers in North America laid the groundwork for Samsara’s business (33:39)
  • How Sarah thinks about the challenge of hiring, and why “what you do” is not the most important thing (39:32)
  • “Trial by fire” - earning the trust of workers who were at Samsara before her (42:43)
  • Is it easier to be an interviewer or an interviewee? (52:55)

Links:

Episoder(282)

#177 President & Co-Founder Anthropic, Daniela Amodei: AI Hurricane

#177 President & Co-Founder Anthropic, Daniela Amodei: AI Hurricane

Guest: Daniela Amodei, President and co-founder of AnthropicWith a reported valuation of as much as $18 billion, Anthropic has the resources to be one of the dominant AI companies in Silicon Valley; h...

12 Feb 20241h 46min

#176 CEO MongoDB, Dev Ittycheria: Edge

#176 CEO MongoDB, Dev Ittycheria: Edge

Guest: Dev Ittycheria, CEO and President of MongoDBWhen you think about who you were and the decisions you made two, or four, or eight years ago ... how do you feel? Dev Ittycheria, the President and ...

5 Feb 20241h 5min

#175 CEO Snowflake, Frank Slootman: Amped

#175 CEO Snowflake, Frank Slootman: Amped

Guest: Frank Slootman, CEO and Chairman of Snowflake and author of Amp It UpSnowflake CEO Frank Slootman doesn’t recall a time in his childhood where new achievements were celebrated — because, accord...

29 Jan 202453min

#174 CEO & Co-Founder Ginkgo Bioworks, Jason Kelly: Life Finds a Way

#174 CEO & Co-Founder Ginkgo Bioworks, Jason Kelly: Life Finds a Way

Guest: Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Ginkgo BioworksAlmost everyone in the second generation of biotechnology entrepreneurs, says Ginkgo Bioworks CEO Jason Kelly, works in that field because of o...

22 Jan 202459min

#173 Author of “The Qualified Sales Leader,” John McMahon: The Five-Time CRO

#173 Author of “The Qualified Sales Leader,” John McMahon: The Five-Time CRO

Guest: John McMahon, author of The Qualified Sales Leader: Proven Lessons from a Five Time CROA hell of a lot of people work in sales. But until recently, says five-time CRO and The Qualified Sales Le...

15 Jan 20241h 33min

#172 Professor at UPenn & Author, Angela Duckworth: Grit

#172 Professor at UPenn & Author, Angela Duckworth: Grit

Guest: Angela Duckworth, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance“There’s got to be a cost” when you pursue your passions, says University ...

8 Jan 20241h 11min

#171 Founder & Former CEO Drift, David Cancel: Never Trapped

#171 Founder & Former CEO Drift, David Cancel: Never Trapped

Guest: David Cancel, founder and former CEO of Drift; founder of ReyAfter HubSpot acquired his company Performable in 2011, David Cancel became his acquirer’s Chief Product Officer — and didn’t give a...

1 Jan 20241h 13min

#170 Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr: Getting Into Trouble with Disruptors (Encore)

#170 Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr: Getting Into Trouble with Disruptors (Encore)

Guest: John Doerr, chairman of Kleiner PerkinsAfter Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr first invested in Google — $12.8 million for 13 percent of the company — he told co-founders Larry Page and Serg...

25 Des 20231h 6min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
stopp-verden
dine-penger-pengeradet
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
finansredaksjonen
pengesnakk
pengepodden-2
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
utbytte
rss-sunn-okonomi
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
liberal-halvtime
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
lederpodden
rss-markedspuls-2
okonomiamatorene
rss-politisk-preik