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It's interesting (and mildly embarrassing) how much I used to think this too. Holy fuckola, how wrong I was. https://twitter.com/onefuncman/status/1336817446884265984
Don't get me wrong, our storage engine is the rock upon which everything rests.
As the market matures over the next few years, our strategy and differentiation will shift away from "only we deliver o11y" to exploiting all the unusual capabilities of our storage tier.
As the market matures over the next few years, our strategy and differentiation will shift away from "only we deliver o11y" to exploiting all the unusual capabilities of our storage tier.
Subsecond ad hoc querying over weeks of webscale traffic.. unsampled? 
Drill down from high level SLOs to see all of the dimensions, diffed in order of their degree of outlieriness vs the baseline?
The raw speed and flexibility unlocks soooooo many product daydreams.
Drill down from high level SLOs to see all of the dimensions, diffed in order of their degree of outlieriness vs the baseline?
The raw speed and flexibility unlocks soooooo many product daydreams.
But that's just good engineering. How to build a product that helps our customers achieve meaningful observability...that is a design problem.
Teaching people to lean into their curiosity and follow the signal? Design (and product) problem.
Teaching people to lean into their curiosity and follow the signal? Design (and product) problem.
This time last year, we were hiring our first product leader, our very first design leader. We had ~9 people writing code.
We've been busy
we now have four in product, seven in design, and just doubled our engineering firepower. Every single one of them is 
amazing 
We've been busy
we now have four in product, seven in design, and just doubled our engineering firepower. Every single one of them is amazing
What I'm saying is, I'm not just yapping; we really are putting our chips down big on design this year.
We will succeed largely to the extent that our design, product and engineering teams are equal players of equal caliber who love the shit out of each other.
We will succeed largely to the extent that our design, product and engineering teams are equal players of equal caliber who love the shit out of each other.
Speaking from within my own little domain of R&D, that is. and as a product-led company, getting this right is huge. But not everything.
In some ways, for a company like us, getting the product right is the easy (
!) part. When you're creating a category, GTM is FUCKING HARD
and as a product-led company, getting this right is huge. But not everything.In some ways, for a company like us, getting the product right is the easy (
!) part. When you're creating a category, GTM is FUCKING HARD
Our customer success team is going to bear the brunt of helping users navigate their observability journey while helping our product folks make it better, faster, easier.
Our sales team is the only one I know of in software that is 0% threatened by our generous free tier
Our sales team is the only one I know of in software that is 0% threatened by our generous free tier
Our marketing team (and mighty devrel) have to span worlds effortlessly and invisibly; building the demand gen engine, building enduring partnerships, pushing the industry forward with OTel, educating and explaining. Oh, and positioning can be one of the hardest parts of product.
Did I mention how small but mighty our sales team is? It is hard to build a high performing sales org, but it's harder when so many of your prospects show up already acting like they hate you.
"Your sales folks are the only ones I'm ever genuinely happy to hear from" - a user
"Your sales folks are the only ones I'm ever genuinely happy to hear from" - a user
Fact: it is easier to hire world class biz folks when you don't casually demean them or their work.
If an engineering candidate exoticizes or dismisses sales or marketing, they get an auto thumbs down from me.
If an engineering candidate exoticizes or dismisses sales or marketing, they get an auto thumbs down from me.
One of the (many) things I love about @lizthegrey is how easily she agreed to put devrel with product marketing. (This also put her multiple hops away from the C*O, a devastating blow at a hierarchical org).
I can say this shit all day, it's actions like these that make it real.
I can say this shit all day, it's actions like these that make it real.
Each of these functions has to be individually stellar at executing and course-correcting, respect each other and resolve conflict productively, and they need a strategy that is mostly correct and under continuous alignment...
It's basically impossible. We're probably doomed.
It's basically impossible. We're probably doomed.
