"AMP IT UP" or Fail.

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I listened to the Chairman and CEO of Snowflake, Frank Slootman, in the 'This week in Startups' podcast and was immediately intrigued by him. 

Maybe it is the immigrant in me, maybe I share some of the ideals he shared in the podcast, but his straight talk connected to me. And many of the ideas he shared was right out of what has been in my mind for a long time

I immediately put his book AMP IT UP on hold with my local library. I support my local library, but that is a totally different podcast. And got it within a few days. 

The book's title is: 

AMP IT UP. 

Leading for Hypergrowth by Raising Expectations, Increasing Urgency, and Elevating Intensity.


Frank Slootman was the previous CEO of disk storage company, Data Domain, that was acquired by EMC and now part of Dell Technologies.

He was then the CEO of the service management SaaS company, ServiceNow, taking it to a $100B market value.

Slootman is now the Chairman and CEO of the Data Cloud company, Snowflake, hovering at $75B market value during the writing of the book. 

The author breaks down the book into the following sections:

  1. Amping Up
  2. Raise Your Standards
  3. Align Your People and Culture
  4. Sharpen Your Focus
  5. Pick Up the Pace
  6. Transform Your Strategy
  7. The Amped-Up Leader 
The themes of the book, while sounds familiar, are not usually discussed in other books. My take on the book is split into the following ideas:
  1. Product: the author talks a lot about architecture and getting it right.
  2. Leadership: the author just wants the leaders to take the ultimate ownership and be assertive.
  3. Sales: There are a few chapters dedicated to various ideas behind running a good sales organization.
The entire book boils down to what I picked up in his interview:

"If someone says they will get back next week, ask them Why not tomorrow? If they say I will get back tomorrow, ask them Why not today?"

Basically, the author advises leaders to focus, increase the sense of urgency, reduce waste and delays, and most importantly deliver value to customers. 

"It's hard to beat any leader who combines great resolve, persistence, mission focus, and clarity about what is and is not important. 

It's hard to beat any leader who truly amps it up" - Frank Slootman.

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