Improving hiring: back-channel references

Chris Degnan was the first sales hire at Snowflake and spent 11 years scaling the company from zero to $3.5 billion in revenue as its CRO, working alongside four different CEOs and learning from each one. In this episode, Chris breaks down what it actually takes to scale an enterprise sales organization, why MEDDIC is the methodology every founder should know, and what working under Frank Slootman taught him about firing fast, taking feedback and finding the fakers in your team.

In today's episode, we discuss:

• What the CRO job looks like at $10M vs. $1B+
• Why sales leaders must know how to sell the product themselves
• The MEDDIC methodology and why it's a founder's best insurance policy
• How to find the fakers, manage-uppers and passengers in your org
• What Frank Slootman got right — and wrong — about scaling Snowflake
• Why most AI companies will face a go-to-market reckoning

References:

• Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/
• Bob Muglia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-muglia-714ba592/
• Carl Eschenbach: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-eschenbach-980543/
• Christian Kleinerman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-kleinerman-a973102/
• Denise Persson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisepersson/
• Dell: https://www.dell.com/
• Frank Slootman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankslootman/
• John McMahon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmcmahon1/
• Michael Scarpelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-scarpelli-1b289b9/
• Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/
• Oracle: https://www.oracle.com/
• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/
• Snowflake: https://www.snowflake.com/
• Sridhar Ramaswamy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sridhar-ramaswamy/
• Stanford Graduate School of Business: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/

Where to find Chris:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-degnan/

Where to find Brett:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson

Where to find First Round Capital:

• Website: https://firstround.com/
• First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
• This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast

Timestamps:

00:00 What is the job of a CRO?

01:12 What excellence looks like at different revenue stages

02:59 Sales leaders need to know how to sell the product

04:52 The hardest skill leaders have to learn

08:17 You need to stay open to feedback - at all levels

14:01 Sales, segmentation, and international expansion

16:17 Why MEDDIC is the foundation for every sales org

20:32 The metrics that actually matter

22:56 A week in the life of a CRO at scale

28:32 Navigating compensation at a GTM organization

31:45 What technical CEOs get wrong about GTM

36:01 The role of hunger in great sales leaders

40:35 What makes an exceptional IC sales rep

46:41 Dysfunctional vs. high-performing executive teams

48:01 Chris' most impactful decisions at Snowflake

49:53 "When there's doubt, there's no doubt"

54:49 Learning from world-class leaders