Greymatter offers perspectives and stories from some of the world’s top technology entrepreneurs and business leaders. The featured company builders share personal and insightful lessons while shedding light on common, relatable challenges in the entrepreneurial journey.
Greylock presents
Greymatter.
Lessons and insights from the biggest names in technology, business, and beyond.
Notable guests
Brian Chesky
CEO & Co-Founder of Airbnb
Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky joined Greylock partner Reid Hoffman on Greylock's Iconversations speaker series to talk about how he guided Airbnb from an 80% loss within the first two months of the pandemic to a record-breaking IPO by the end of 2020; why Silicon Valley needs to redefine how it measures growth; how Chesky’s design background informs Airbnb’s business strategy; and, ultimately, the importance of putting people first.
Eric Yuan
CEO of Zoom
When Covid-19 pandemic hit, suddenly, everything was happening on Zoom. CEO and founder Eric Yuan, who founded the company in 2011 as an enterprise service, told Greylock's Sarah Guo they were able to meet the surge in demand thanks to the company's customer-centric approach. Today, Zoom a lasting everyday part of work, school, entertainment, healthcare, and everything else.
Sarah Friar
CEO of Nextdoor
Nextdoor is willing to take some risks on its mission to build the neighborhood network. CEO Sarah Friar shared how Nextdoor has deployed tools that may impact growth, but are ultimately, "the right thing to do in order to build communities." Sarah joined Greylock general partner and Nextdoor board member David Sze on Greylock's Iconversations speaker series to discuss how the company strives to reflect the communities of the world.
Bret Taylor
President & COO of Salesforce
Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor talks with Greylock general partner Sarah Guo on Greylock's Iconversations series. During this discussion, Bret talks about lessons learned from his career as a product developer, two-time startup founder, and an operations leader within several large tech companies. He also talks about the high-profile acquisitions he has led at Salesforce, and lays out his vision for the future of the all-digital, work-anywhere world.
Mellody Hobson
Co-CEO of Ariel Investments
Ariel Investments President and co-CEO Mellody Hobson, who was recently named the chair of the board of Starbucks Corporation, joins Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman. Hobson, who is the first black woman to chair a Fortune 500 board, shares highlights from her career as an investor, board member, financial educator and philanthropist, and discusses the fundamental changes necessary to diversify corporate America.
Alex Konrad
Forbes Senior Editor
Forbes senior editor Alex Konrad has been covering VC and startups for nearly a decade. While many founders have learned how to work well with press, the learning curve is steep, and Konrad sees persistent miscommunication, misunderstanding, and misinformation between the two. Compounding the issue, today’s startup founders have to navigate the increasingly blurred lines of journalism, marketing, social media, and company-directed content, and then try to figure out where their story fits in.
Featured Episodes
Greylock investor Christine Kim shares the top five lessons she learned scaling product while working at Uber. Prior to joining Greylock in 2020, Christine spent five years at the ride-hailing business. where she led the product team that launched and scaled Uber Eats. The app started as a small pilot project that quickly caught on, and Uber Eats now generates $50 billion in revenue annually. Read the essay based on this podcast at greylock.com/greymatter/strategy-at-scale/
Greylock general partner Sarah Guo speaks with Aneel Bhusri, the chairman, co-CEO and co-founder of Workday. This interview is part of Greylock’s “Iconversations” series. Bhusri who is also a former managing partner at Greylock, is known for his laser focus on two things: product vision, and the ability to find and retain great people. He and his Workday day co-founder and co-ceo Dave Duffield actually interviewed the first 500 employees themselves, and they did so with the goal to find the people who embodied the values to guide Workday’s company culture.
You can read a transcript of this interview here: greylock.com/greymatter/workday-aneel-bhusri-engineering-values/
You can watch a video from the event on our YouTube channel here: youtu.be/bh5MA4Y60h0
A re-broadcast of Reid Hoffman’s discussion with his Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh on the pros and cons of two different courses of study: the standard business school MBA, or a degree in philosophy. Hoffman, who holds a philosophy degree from Oxford, shares why he generally views pursuing an MBA as an adverse signal for entrepreneurship. This episode is the second in a two-part series on philosophy and entrepreneurship. You can read an essay from this podcast here: greylock.com/greymatter/philosopher-versus-mba/