Getting rejected, then hired, by Elon Musk + The Future of Serverless Databases [Sugu Sougoumarane, CTO Planetscale]

So, this was 2000. Elon had just founded X.com. He had sold off Zip2, which was his previous company, and he was considered one of those up and coming entrepreneurs. He wasn’t as popular as he is today. But when I read X.com, if you read the description then, it said that it was an online bank. So, basically, there’s Wells Fargo, there’s Bank of America, and now there’s X.com, which is an internet-first bank.

That’s what it looked like. I said, “Wow. If it’s a bank, I better be formal.” So, I wore a tie and suit.

Beyang Liu:

Oh no. And I’m assuming the dress code was a lot less formal.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

That turned him off instantly. So, I’m sitting there, he walks in and says, “Who the hell are you?” “I’m here for the interview.” “Oi, why are you wearing a suit?”

Beyang Liu:

That’s hilarious.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

So it turned out that this was 2000, where the boom was happening–‘99, 2000. And there were so many “me too” companies. “I’m going to change the world” kind of companies.

Beyang Liu:

Sure. A lot of copycats.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

And I had been interviewing with a bunch of them. And none of them had a real story. A lot of them didn’t even have code written, but they had raised money from VCs because that’s how desperate VCs were to give you money. Anybody that said “I have an idea” got money.

Beyang Liu:

It was the height of the bubble.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

Yeah, it was the height of the bubble. I was completely disillusioned saying that, “My God, this is a disaster. There is not a single company that has anything viable.” So I show up there and I’m kind of low energy because I don’t expect anything from this interview. All previous interviews were disasters and I had just walked out. And this one, I was like, “Oh, okay. Let’s hear it out. Let’s see what you got.” And so that came across to Elon as a guy who has no energy. And he was kind of disappointed. And I was wearing a suit. That’s even worse.

Beyang Liu:

Two strikes.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

Two strikes. And as I’m hearing his story, by the time the interview ended, I was so excited by what he was building. I just couldn’t believe it. I said, “Oh my God, this will change the world.” That’s basically how I ended up leaving. But that’s not how he ended up seeing me. I went through a recruiter. And the recruiter says, “Hey, they’re going to pass on you. They’re not interested. They think you have low energy.” I said, “What? Give me Elon’s email now. I’ll send him an email.”

So I sent him an email. Essentially, paraphrasing what I did, I basically sold him back his own company. I told him why this is going to be huge. And it turns out that, apparently, he was struggling to convince the greatness of his company to his own employees. And so he saw that and he was impressed that I was able to see what he saw. He even sent that email to everyone and told them, “See, there’s a guy outside who believes in what we are doing.” And so he called me back for an interview.

And now, looking back, I can see everybody was smiling. Everybody was passing me by, giving me second looks, and smiling.

Beyang Liu:

You were the guy.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

Yeah, I was that guy.

Beyang Liu:

That’s awesome.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

The rest is history. Then I joined X.com. And then soon after that, X.com and PayPal merged, and that’s how I ended up at PayPal.

Beyang Liu:

Do you remember what it is you said in that email? Because I’m sure everyone who’s listening, who’s ever bombed an interview, is like, “What do you say? What do you say in an email that gets you that second chance with Elon Musk of all people?”

Sugu Sougoumarane:

I think actually I relate to what I said even now, because what I said was, “The most important thing is that I am sold on this vision and I will do anything to be part of it. I don’t care what you offer me. This vision is awesome. This is going to change the world. So I want to be part of this. I don’t care. My low energy is situational. Don’t read into that.” I need to dig up that email. I don’t think I was as eloquent as I am now.

Beyang Liu:

If you dig it up, we’ll link to it in the show notes.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

Yeah, I’ll find out. I’ll see if I can find it. This is literally 21 years ago.

Beyang Liu:

I was just trying to think of email systems back then.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

Yeah, exactly.

Beyang Liu:

But do you even remember what email you used in those days?

Sugu Sougoumarane:

I think it was Yahoo.

Beyang Liu:

Oh, Yahoo. Okay.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

So it may still be there. I should go look for it.

Beyang Liu:

Yeah, fascinating.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

He may not remember me, but I think if I reminded him of the story, he would remember me if I ever met him again. If I told him this.

Beyang Liu:

Yeah, it seems pretty memorable. I mean, a guy comes in and sells your company back to you so well–probably better than he could describe it. He shared it with the entire company. That’s awesome.

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part 2
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Beyang Liu:

Tell me about the key selling points of PlanetScale. So the front page says serverless database platform. What does that mean?

Sugu Sougoumarane:

So here is what is changing in the industry. Vitess was in some respects, the first step towards what PlanetScale became. At YouTube, we literally ran tens of thousands of nodes. That’s how big the Vitess deployment was at YouTube.

Beyang Liu:

Wow.

Sugu Sougoumarane:

And there is no DBA team that can manage anything of that size.

Beyang Liu:

It’s just too many no...