The Powered by Battery podcast features guests from inside and outside the Battery ecosystem discussing major tech issues of the day. Guests from the Battery portfolio in this season of the podcast represent a subset of business-software and enterprise-infrastructure companies, across investment stages and geographies, highlighting the trends of marketing tech; the broader use of big data and AI; productivity software; user experience; and healthcare software. If you’re interested in learning more about these companies, or others in the Battery portfolio, you can access more information here.
On this episode of Powered by Battery, we chat with Max Schireson, a Battery executive-in-residence who previously served as the CEO of open-source database company MongoDB.
After growing up in a tent in Canada (his parents were hippies), Max followed a fairly non-traditional path to the CEO suite. He also has some interesting stories to tell about working with Oracle founder Larry Ellison—including searching for the Oracle chief’s glasses in the Pacific Ocean. Max also discusses managing work-family balance, the future of artificial intelligence and the potential antitrust implications of some recent industry moves in cloud computing.
Key takeaways:
- You can take a non-linear path to becoming a leader in the technology industry–and might not even need to graduate from college.
- As a CEO, you don’t always have to be reasonable to be an effective leader. In fact, being unreasonable may help sometimes–such as having the vision and ability to solve extremely difficult technology problems.
- Successful open-source companies need to win the battle for securing developer mindshare and adoption as well as figure out a sustainable monetization strategy. Companies can’t just do one or the other.
- Amazon Web Services’ move to compete with some open-source startups could raise antitrust concerns.
- Machines are on track to perform a lot of intellectual, creative human tasks better than us, and this will have a huge impact on society and the economy, including, potentially, a universal basic income.
Have a listen.
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