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My co-founder stood in front of the whole engineering team a couple of months ago saying, "Hey, in two quarters, we're not writing any any code anymore."
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And we saw, like literally, absolutely excellent developers, like not beginners, but people rebuild whole systems in a couple of days alone that were absolutely amazing.
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Things that would have been possible, but you know, done by a team of six over six months. >> Uh welcome, Olivier. >> Thank you.
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>> [applause] >> By the way, it looks like an IQ test of sorts here, like there's like >> Like which one uh >> six microphones of different colors on it, you know, so we always like that. >> Yeah.
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Uh as we as we're preparing that uh that session, Olivier reminded me about something here.
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I'm sure you wanted to say that, right?
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>> Yes, so we actually did not get into Y Combinator.
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DataDog did not get into Y Combinator.
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>> I checked, they applied. >> Yes, we applied. We we got an interview.
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I've got uh I've got a rejection email from from Paul Graham still, you know.
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Um >> you put that on the wall, framed it, and like so it's thanks to us that you become such a >> Exactly, you know, like we we had we had to prove you wrong, so.
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>> Okay, so so if any of you get ever rejected, here is the outcome. >> Yes, yes.
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And then and then and then here's the thing.
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So then I received like when when I agreed to do this and then I received an an invite to a YC dinner >> [laughter] >> in in Paris.
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And then I said, "Oops, sorry, you didn't We are not into YC, so you're not invited anymore."
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So I got rejected twice by YC, you >> Well, the second time hopefully didn't hurt as much.
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Uh well, but you're here and we'll make up for that. Hopefully. >> Yes. >> [gasps] >> All right.
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Um you and your co-founder Alexy, you met So you were in Paris, right? At Centrale. Yeah.
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Uh that's how you you met and then you ended up working in New York. So uh why did you leave?
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Like was that a deliberate choice back then?
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>> So, no, it was not a deliberate choice.
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So, we So, I graduated in '99.
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Uh I had a an end of study internship and I did it at IBM Research in upstate New York.
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Which at the time was a you know fairly legit place for research. Not anymore.
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Uh I mean I mean now you know look now there's there's uh you know DeepMind and OpenAI and >> More sexier places to do research. >> Yes, yes.
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[clears throat] >> What were you doing research there?
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>> I was doing research on internet protocols.
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You know, so at the time sending emails.
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So, no, not quite AI, but you know, it's a email works.
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Um so, but anyway, Alexy, my co-founder, was a couple of years ahead of me in school.
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He had already been to that internship and was still there.
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He actually started working in IBM after that.
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Uh and so, we met there for for real.
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Like we met a little bit in school in a in in weird ways.
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Um I can come back to that.
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Um and then we we uh we spent some time in at at IBM.
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Um I thought I would stay in New York 6 months and I'm still there.
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You know, it's like 26 27 years later.
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So, uh so, that part was a was a happy accident, I would say.
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When um halfway through the the experience at IBM, um it was the the the dot-com boom.
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Um so, we would start-ups everywhere in New York. Super exciting. Lots going on.
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Uh we I started working for start-ups.
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We actually started working together with Alexy.
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>> How how many here know about the dot-com boom?
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Well, they may have heard a little bit about that.
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>> Um and then after that, it was the dot-com bust.
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Um so, I got a little bit of the dot-com boom and the entirety of the dot-com bust.
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Um so, a lot of lessons learned about what to do and what not to do in a start-up for that >> But you were not building a start-up back then.
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>> I was I was actually working in start-ups. Not not mine.
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Um but I was working in startups.
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One of them was was actually should have been pretty amazing, but made a lot of mistakes, you know, in terms of you know, spending too much on the wrong things, not shipping product when they should have shipped product, like a number of things to remember. >> Okay.
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Is that where you got the idea for Datadog? >> So, later on.
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So, after that, the things got worse in New York.
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There was the September 11th and everything else. So, it was pretty dark.
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Uh, but I decided to stay there for personal reasons.
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And uh, I started working again with Alexey in a um, uh, educational software startup.
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And at the time, it was after the bust, so nobody thought technology would be worth anything ever again.
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Um, and so we we started going working there.
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That company was pretty successful.
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Um, we built the tech teams there.
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So, I was I was building the the dev team.
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Alexey was building the ops team, like tech ops team.
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Um, it was pretty successful. It grew. It was SaaS.
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And that's what led us to Datadog.
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>> How how big was the company?
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>> When when we left, it was like uh, 800 people or something.
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>> Okay, so it's pretty big.
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So, you had like a lot of uh, devops issues, operation issues. >> Yes, yes.
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And also we I mean, we we lived through a you know, developers hate operations, operations hate developers, people point fingers at each other all the time, you know.
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Um, and it was weird because Alexey and I were very very good friends.
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The teams reported to us.
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Uh, we tried not to hire any any jerks jerks, and that was the uh, >> There were there were already uh, observability companies out there back then, right?
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>> It was not called observability, it was called monitoring. >> Okay.
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>> Um, and it was very job specific and very reactive.
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So, you know, for network monitoring, you'd have a product.
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For, you know, um, you'd have something that the ops team would use, but the developers would never touch it, you know.
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Developers would be blind to anything that happened in production, pretty much.
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>> And you started like targeting that audience, right?
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You were uh, mostly bottom up, at least at first.
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>> Yes, bottom up, uh and we we started in 2010 um and what we didn't completely realize at the time was that the the premise for the company, which was uh let's bring DevSecOps together into one platform, uh was actually completely central to the explosion of the cloud.
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Um and we also completely underestimated the explosion of cloud.
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We thought, "Oh, that's interesting, you know, this Amazon thing."
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Um but, you know, when you talk to real companies, they all say, "It's a toy and I'm never going to use it."
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Um turns out they all did.
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But that was >> bet back then because you were a cloud first.
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>> Y- Yes, so the bet was it was DevSecOps together.
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And then the first infrastructure we started supporting for that was cloud infrastructure because we talked to small smaller companies and the smaller companies or more modern companies were built on the cloud.
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And that's what got us to that.
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>> That became the tailwind of everything like a new >> Yes, the cloud market exploded.
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>> Cloud market exploded, DevSecOps were smooshed together.
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Um our product also was a like we we called it infrastructure monitoring initially.
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We didn't call it observability.
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The word didn't didn't exist.
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Um but it didn't look at all like infrastructure monitoring that came before.
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And one of the reasons for us to there was we didn't do that initially.
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Initially, we had a we called it something different.
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Like it was a data platform for DevSecOps to collaborate and things like that, you know.
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And um but because we thought monitoring was a thing from the '90s and it was boring and it was old.
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Um and it turns out uh people love the idea of a new thing, but they have no idea why they should pay for it and their boss has no idea why they should pay for it.
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Whereas you say you say, "Oh, this is infrastructure monitoring."
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Uh and then everybody's everybody and their boss understands, "Yes, actually it's a product. We need that. It's a category. It's a it's a it's real. Let's get it."
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>> So how fast did you get there?
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Because like you kind of like uh nearly I mean owning that category, I would even say today.
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Uh was it obvious really fast that it would work or did you have like to go through a very difficult times?
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>> It was not obvious at all.
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I mean, for one we didn't get into a community >> Yes, yes, yes.
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That's probably a >> Um and uh >> Did you have any other rejections or any low times after?
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>> No, the >> [laughter] >> the first one we we raised the angel round and it was super painful.
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Um we couldn't get any of the smart investors to to pay attention.
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Like if you are a big VC and they were we were we were in New York.
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You had VCs in New York, VCs in the Bay Area.
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Uh not much going on in Europe.
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Um and uh we'd go to the to to to New York and the VCs would be interested and then they realize like they would they see our competitor slide and they realize they don't really understand any of these companies and then they think okay, it's not for me.
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I don't I don't know this market.
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And then we'd go pitch the VCs in the Bay Area.
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At the time they only invested in the Bay Area.
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Uh like very very, you know, focused.
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And it it to them it was a form of mental impairment not to uh to to try to start to an infrastructure company but not in the Bay Area.
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And so I I I could even hear them speak slower and louder, you know, like uh >> Just to make sure you understand that. >> Yes, yes.
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So, I think it was uh >> You couldn't frame that on the wall.
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>> Yeah, couldn't frame that.
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Yeah, you know >> But I guess I guess it's kind of like uh you want to prove them wrong. >> Yes.
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>> And in a way you can turn that into crazy motivation to prove them wrong. >> Oh, exactly.
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And I think we in the way we built the company afterwards there's a number of things we did that were on purpose different from what we saw uh Bay Area companies do.
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Because we thought hey, we're going to you know, we we're going to do differently.
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We're going to be better.
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We're going to do a So, for example, you know, we we never wrote down the culture.
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Like you know, at the time I think a bit less today but at the time every company had, you know, five values or eight principles or you know, uh nine concepts or you know, there's a >> So, what did you do instead?
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>> So, what we didn't we said what we said is hey look, uh if you need if you need don't be evil to be written on the wall, you probably shouldn't work here shouldn't work here, you know, like a Um and what we said in studies culture flows from the top.
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Uh so we exemplify the culture, we hire, we promote, we fire based on the culture, and today that still works.
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>> So your culture is you.
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>> Well, I mean the the culture is we what we do.
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That's not us, that's what we >> I mean like you said needs to bring to come from the top, but that's that's cool.
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I mean I'm not uh >> And and look, we're we're fairly uh we're pragmatic, too, right?
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Every year we ask ourselves, hey, is it the year we need to we need to write it down because look, we need to hire 3,000 people, we need to we need to train those 3,000 people. >> We are 8,000. 8,000.
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Uh we need to train those people.
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What do we what do we tell them?
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And so far I think it it still works. It still works. >> Awesome.
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Uh actually makes me think about like conversation I had with the PRB 21 that you know very well uh because I work with him, too.
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Uh because of because of this conversation I asked him, hey, like what should I ask Olivier?
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And actually one of the thing he was very impressed is how heavily involved you are still on like some very small product decisions, and you don't spend your time in that strategy kind of whatever slide decks and stuff. Uh how do you keep that?
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How do you how do you keep that going?
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>> Yeah, so first of all, I hate the S word, you know, so I when people use strategic in a sentence, I usually I replace that mentally by you know, so um that's uh uh I mean in some cases it's meaningful, right? Not always.
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Um the >> everyone in the company knows that. >> Yes.
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>> Yes, well, I mean not >> That's the culture thing.
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>> Well, people people make the mistake once usually, but you know.
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Um the um the so first of all, I think product when you for for we do like we're uh like infra and then product company.
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Um it's very important to be in touch with the product.
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It's a big part of my job.
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Of course, we have plenty of people who handle the product.
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Like we have people who spend time with customers, we have people who focus on all the small things.
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But I think it's very important for me and a lot of the management team to to be aware of everything that's happening in product, read all of the new developments.
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And as as as you get further up in the order ending with me, you're in a position where you can really edit.
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Like you can say, "Hey, I think this is too much."
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or "I think it's not enough."
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or "Let's stop doing that."
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or "I don't understand that part."
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If I don't understand it, how are all the customers going to understand it?
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Like this is this is this level of a of a level.
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You think it could become a bottleneck at some point?
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So, it's not it's not blocking, you know?
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So, I don't try to I'm not I'm not a necessary approval step, you know, on everything.
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But um and part of the game is to understand where to direct the direct the attention and where not.
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But another thing I think I I I encourage everyone to do as soon as you start scaling a little bit in your company is to um keep in touch with what's actually happening on the ground.
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And by that I mean the actual support requests, the actual uh sales transcripts from the sales conversations, the actual customer feedback, the actual employee comments that you get in the uh you know, employee surveys and things like that.
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Of course, you can't read everything.
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I mean, except for I still read all of the employee survey comments, but for the rest, I don't read everything. You sample.
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But when you do that, um you get a good sense for what the uh fabric of the universe actually is um in the company, and you don't just get the beautiful summaries that, you know, find their way up to you, you know, where you know, everything's beautiful.
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All these new products is great.
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And then you see, "But I read two complaints about it from customers.
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Like they say it doesn't work."
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Like, you know, "Or it's too expensive."
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What what what do you mean?
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>> How often does that happen?
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Like like kind of like you discover something reading some survey or some feedback from customers, and then you go to the team, "Hey, come on. Like it's not working. Look."
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And before they were kind of like trying to massage or the message.
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>> Well, what I do is I just pick up those random emails.
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Um or you know, slacks or whatever and I just I just reply with a question, you know.
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I say, "I don't understand what's going on." >> Yeah.
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>> And then >> That's passive-aggressive.
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>> And then, you know, the what happens is that two things happen.
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The first one is the person who's receiving that is wondering, "Oh, why why why is he looking at that?"
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Uh And then after that, the positive effect is that the whole management chain, if they know instead of looking up and trying to figure out what they're going to manage up, they start looking down and starting to figure out, "Okay, so what's actually happening?
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I better know because uh if I get asked, I need to understand, you know."
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>> So, going back to the culture of showing by example in a way. >> Yeah.
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>> You need to demonstrate to live the culture yourself so that your everyone who reports to you is going to do the same thing.
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>> Yeah, your your job is not to understand what I want as a boss.
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Your job is to understand what's happening within your span of control and and understand it very very precisely.
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What what's working and not working.
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>> Uh I mean, the company has become huge now and is a multi-product.
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How many products have you Do you have?
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>> Uh we have about around 20 25. >> 20 25 products.
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I mean, how how do you decide how you expand the portfolio?
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How do you decide the next thing to build?
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>> In a way, so we we're kind of platformy as a product.
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So, we see a lot of usage from our customers around our product so they they sort of build things around our product and they they have their own kind of extensions, their own, you know, workflows that they use us in, you know.
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So, it gives us an idea of what kind of problems they have and where they think we we belong.
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So, we we do a lot of that.
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Like, we build a lot of things that we see them do.
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Um and um sometimes we also have some, you know, more, how can I say, uh I'll I'll use the S word.
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It's the most strategic, you know, projects. >> Uh one >> Yes.
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Where we, you know, we think, "Okay, we're not Nobody's asking us to do that, but looks like the world is kind of going that way.
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And so, we should be doing something there."
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When you do that, those tend to have potentially a bigger impact because they can this can be brand new things.
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On the other hand, you you you tend to be wrong often because you just made that up.
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Um and I would say one thing that's a bit uh changing now is that with with AI in particular, things are changing so fast that you just can't wait to see the demand materialize from the customer base.
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Uh so you need to get ahead of it, which I think us and many others I think are going to get wrong more often and we need to be at ease with that.
15:48
>> How uh does the the fact you're public now impact how you make decisions then?
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Like I mean uh I guess uh like yeah, like the price of the share is an important factor for you now or >> The price of the share is not like you know we so we've been public since uh uh 2019.
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Um our um our lockup expired the day of the COVID lockdowns.
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So I don't know if you remember there was a there was a big market crash that day.
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It was also a lockup expiring.
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One of our biggest investors got scared and they dumped everything that day.
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So I think I don't know we're we're down like 65% or something like it was it was >> What was the enterprise? >> What's that?
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>> Like I know that you what you're valued today, but I don't know how that was when you >> Well, at that time I think we went down from you know being worth from from being worth 10 billion to being worth you know I don't know four or something like that. >> Like a huge drop.
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>> Yes, especially when you know when everybody is sitting at the at that valuation before they were when people are waiting to sell after the when the lockdown expires, you know?
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Like it's real money that people can use to buy real apartments.
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Like you know it's a uh it's tangible, right?
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And so that uh that was that was pretty bad and then we saw and then that that crash lasted two weeks and the market went up like crazy again and it kept kept going up like crazy in in 2021, 2022 and then it started crashing again and then it started going up again.
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So you know we've seen like we've seen the the the stock go up and down all the time and I think that we've we've gotten used to it.
17:21
>> Did you have to change how you lead the company because you were public?
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>> So, not really, you know.
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I think it's a Like what you'll see that as you as you run a company uh private company, you spend a lot of time talking to investors.
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Um because you you probably will need to raise funding again.
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And your job when you're the CEO of a company is to make sure you don't run out of money.
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And as as part of that uh every single investor out there should believe that you're the future of sliced bread and you know for that you need to spend time and make sure that they know you and they understand what you do and they think you're great.
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So, you spend a lot of time at least I did spend a lot of time with investors.
17:58
When you're public, um it's very choreographed.
18:00
Like there's a couple of great quarter you have that call. Yes.
18:04
Yeah, you have a you spend a couple of days every quarter on on that.
18:05
Spend a week preparing, you know, to make sure you have the right message.
18:10
You don't but then you don't worry about the share price like how the market is going to react whatever you announce.
18:15
You do I mean you you look the the main issue it creates is if you if you do something that's unpopular with the market.
18:22
Um you're going to maybe you're going to lose you know 20 30 40%.
18:23
Um Does it impact the company in the short term?
18:28
No, but it creates a comp issue because people are paid in RSUs.
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So, the the main thing you have to to worry about is okay, so what does it change to to comp and how can we >> So, the the actual risk is not the survival of the company is kind of like losing key performers. >> Yeah.
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>> Because their RSUs are worth less. >> Yes. Yes.
18:47
And it mean and and that becomes comp management.
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That becomes okay, so how do we do?
18:49
Uh are there are there And also keep in mind that people join at different point in time, so they have their comp is actually at different levels, you know, so you have to be to to be more to look at into more details what's going on.
19:02
>> How about um the AI kind of like revolution in a way?
19:08
Uh I guess the market also was thinking about that uh looking at your company, because obviously early on it was not obvious you would be a winner or loser. How did that impact you?
19:18
>> Um I mean, well, see, it changes every couple of months now. >> Okay.
19:21
Um but like it looks like you're on a good trend now.
19:23
>> Yeah, now we're now we're on the winner side, which is good.
19:25
Uh we we should >> But you didn't start there.
19:28
>> Yeah, we well, we started in the uh don't know uh side uh from the from the investors um and um I mean, look, the the reality of it is there's a ton of disruption and for investors in general, but I would say even more so public investors, it's really, really hard to understand, you know, what things look like, you know, 3, 4, 5 years from now.
19:47
And you know, sometimes if you when you start a company, uh you're going to you're going to pitch VC investors, you're going to have maybe two or three of these VC investors that are on your board or or spend time with your company.
20:00
And you might go and uh you know, have have coffee with your friends and say, "Oh, my my VCs don't understand me."
20:04
Um but you will be the VCs you have as a as a private company, they spend so much more time on your company, they're so much more concentrated than the public investors.
20:15
Like public investors have they're looking at, you know, 20, 30 different names, they come in and out of these names in a couple of times a year, as opposed to a VC that's going to be in like seven, eight companies and and, you know, stick around for 5 to 10 years.
20:26
Um so, that's a very, very, very different deal.
20:30
Um so, public investors, they have less it's for them it's harder to reason about about things.
20:35
So, what you need to do is you need to make sure that you uh tell the right story uh to beneficial you're going and then you produce the numbers that actually agree with that story.
20:45
And if you do that consistently enough through the years, that's all your job as a public company, then you do fine with them.
20:52
>> And what does that mean for you on the like on the company side, not the public investor side?
20:55
Uh because I guess you would like to rethink the product, you had you had to make new bets.
20:59
Uh in a way, you couldn't stay defensive, you had to become aggressive and on the attack, right?
21:07
>> Yeah, so I mean there's a few things.
21:09
One is working in a bit of a different way.
21:11
You know, so I mentioned earlier AI is changing fast, so you you need to take more shots and be wrong more more often.
21:18
And so we pivoted a little bit to that.
21:20
You know, in one example being look at the way development has changed.
21:24
You know, it's changed three times like the the way you write code or don't write code has changed three times in the last year.
21:30
Um it's impossible to break that a year ahead of time, so you have to be very reactive and you have to to try a lot of things all the time.
21:39
>> So so what are your latest bets?
21:42
>> Um well, so we're we're getting earlier into the the So a few things.
21:46
So one is we're making a we're investing a lot so that the product can be used by agents.
21:49
Uh because we see that like in our customers, we see a lot of that.
21:52
Another one is that we're building a lot of the smarts directly into the product.
21:57
Um you know, if you just cloud code for example to uh you know, work on your ops issues, uh it's a little bit like uh you know, trying to to send a postcard by buying a business class ticket for it, you know.
22:11
Um there's a lot you can do and you should be able to do um that's would be directly fused on the in the data plane for us inside the observability as being you know, outside of it.
22:19
So we're building a lot of that so that the the the system can do everything on its own.
22:26
>> And I and I guess AI companies uh who are growing super fast also need observability.
22:30
Is that a big piece of your market now?
22:33
>> Yes, and that's also you know, in terms of how we find out what to do next and where the world's going.
22:38
Um so we have the top 10 AI companies in the world as customers.
22:42
Uh we have all of the startups that are doing not all but you know, a good fraction of the startups that are that are building on AI.
22:48
And we also have the big enterprises that make up the you know, the the normal world so to speak like you know, the big banks, the you know, train companies and and whatnot.
22:58
Um and so we get had pretty good panel of what uh what people do.
23:00
We see the the AI labs like you know the the top like two or three AI labs in the world uh use our product in weird ways because they have infinite compute and infinite uh you know inference and the models that nobody has yet.
23:16
And so it you know does that give you a glimpse of what's coming up after?
23:22
>> Yes, but it's not necessarily the most representative because again they they're they're they have all that.
23:25
So we see we get a sense of that but you know the rest of the world doesn't have infinite compute.
23:32
So they might do things in a way that the rest of the world is not going to do like you know your most companies are not going to be very happy to you know incinerate a you know a billion in compute to to do a lot of internal things in a way that these people can do. >> How about you?
23:46
How are you like how do you use AI internally? Are you token maxing?
23:50
>> We're not token maxing but but look we we my co-founder stood in front of the whole engineering team a couple of months ago saying hey in two quarters we're not writing any any code anymore you know.
24:00
So um >> So directive no code anymore.
24:04
>> Yes, I mean we look the reality of it is we will write code we will rewrite code right?
24:08
But the the point here is it's an inversion like you used to mostly write sometimes automate and now you're going to mostly automate sometimes write.
24:17
>> Does that change how you lead the teams how you hire them like I know any any any uh surprising things you've seen?
24:24
>> It changes everything.
24:25
Uh but the the tricky part is we don't know what the destination looks like yet.
24:30
So we know So we know for example that smaller teams can do a lot more and you know which is part of the hey you can do more and be wrong more often but that's fine because you also you know instead of having a team of eight to explore something you can do it with a team of two or three you know. So that's great.
24:44
On the other hand uh nobody knows what the process looks like a year from now.
24:49
Nobody knows how many PMs how many designers how many security people how many engineers you need to build a thing.
24:55
>> Um and so do you get some benefits on the way?
24:56
It feels like you probably have already some big ROI on some of these changes. >> Oh, yeah.
25:03
I mean, look, we've seen like like many companies like, you know, we we had this moment in um in in December uh I think in part because the models got really good.
25:14
Uh the threshold was crossed, but also in part because people had a bit more time on their hand, you know, it's the holiday season.
25:18
Hey, maybe I'll do a bit of a hack project on my own.
25:22
And and we saw like literally like just I mean, absolutely excellent developers, like not beginners, but people rebuild whole systems in a couple of days alone that were absolutely amazing.
25:35
Um, things that would have been possible, but you know, done by a team of six over six months.
25:38
Um, and so that convinced us that yes, you know, there's enough.
25:43
We we have to pivot the organization.
25:45
It's going to be painful.
25:46
It is painful, but we're doing it.
25:49
>> And speaking of uh your co-founder, Alexy I mean, you've been working together for like 20 years or something.
25:54
Like, how can you still like how does how did you make that last?
25:59
>> Yeah, I mean, like look, we're a bit of an old couple now, I guess, you know, it's uh I think there's a couple of things.
26:03
So, one is we worked together uh without starting a company together for almost 10 years.
26:09
And so we we have already had a good a lot of uh experience like, you know with what's the right way of working together, the right boundary, you know, like you have to test those things a little bit, you know.
26:20
Um, and then as we when we started the company like we also tried to give ourselves a lot of space to talk. Um, so >> Any hack? Any tips?
26:28
>> I mean, you just have we just have a standing lunch, you know, and and there's no >> Like once a week or something?
26:33
>> Yeah, well, I mean, it's mostly once every two weeks now, but yeah, it's a uh And the And the the point here is you don't have a specific agenda, you just talk.
26:41
And and it's uh it's important to get what's in in the area.
26:45
>> I couldn't agree more. >> Yeah.
26:46
And also like you you know, when when you when you run a company like you there's not a lot of people you can to or you know like you you you can't you so a co-founder is a great person for that like yeah.
26:59
So uh most of the people here are not necessarily Paris but at least Europe.
27:04
Uh if they start a company should they start it here or should they go to New York or SF?
27:09
I think it's fine to start here.
27:09
Uh I think it was not true when I started Datadog.
27:12
I think you started a little bit a little bit later.
27:15
>> I started here in 2012. >> Yes.
27:18
>> But then we moved to SF so it's kind of like >> I see.
27:21
>> But we kept the team here so I think it So when when I started it was there was not it was hard to get funded.
27:25
It was hard to get everything.
27:27
I think now you can get funded pretty much anywhere in Europe.
27:29
Uh On the other hand I think it's absolutely critical to go after the US market as soon as you can.
27:37
So as soon as you have a product with some sort of market fit uh go after the US market.
27:42
>> And But don't you need to be in the US when you do that?
27:45
>> Yes but I think the whole company doesn't need to be.
27:46
I think the you know typically if there are two founders um one of the founder moves to the US and you cannot start in the US without without having a founder there.
27:56
Um and you should absolutely go to the US.
27:59
Uh but I don't think you need to move the whole company.
28:01
>> And you did the reverse move right?
28:01
You created a team in Paris once you were bigger. >> Yes.
28:06
>> Was that mostly talent acquisition? >> It was mostly talent.
28:07
It was In fact we had a number of people in the US on visas who uh either couldn't renew their visa or you know wanted to go go back to to France for family reasons and that's our little office in Paris.
28:21
>> You had a lot of French employees >> Yes. Yes.
28:23
We we hired like we we we came there on a on an internship and that's that's the thing we we hired a lot of people that way you know. >> Excellent. All right.
28:31
Uh maybe to conclude is there one piece of advice you would give yourself like 15 years ago?
28:39
>> So so here's the thing.
28:39
Uh all of the mistakes and all the hardship and everything like this this sort of kind of you know made us successful like you know I said not not being easy to fundraise initially.
28:49
I think that that sort of create of a value from YC is the reason of your success, right?
28:54
Yeah, I mean maybe we should we could have we could have gone to YC you know and everything would be better.
28:59
>> Hopefully hopefully we would not do that mistake again.
29:02
>> Yes, but but look there's there's a the one thing the one thing the one lesson I keep learning all the time so is that you should always move faster especially when it comes to hiring and firing.
29:13
I think these are the two things that um >> Firing I hear all the time. >> Yes.
29:18
Hiring I I don't hear it that that all the time.
29:20
Why I hire >> Well, I think the the two the two go together.
29:22
I think it's a you can take more risk and you can hire faster instead of So for example, one thing I hear often is oh we're we're looking for a head of sales um cuz most founders are not you know sales people.
29:33
And so oh I'm looking for a head of sales.
29:36
Um but I'm not sure I found the right profile yet.
29:40
And my answer to that is have as find someone who looks good, hire them right away and if it doesn't work out, you know, you fire them.
29:47
Uh but it's much better to do that than to uh to wait.
29:50
Like you you you'll have you'll run more cycles, you'll have more chances.
29:53
I think it's too hard to know anyway before you've tried.
29:54
So >> So I guess you've done that yourself now.
29:58
>> Yes, but you know, I made the mistake initially I was paralyzed trying to make the perfect hire and you know >> And then you would have kept them for too long.
30:06
>> And then and well that's the other the the other part, you know, it's a usually like so the first time you fire someone in your company, you feel horrible and you think everybody's going to hate you for it.
30:16
And mostly what you see the rest of the company is like What I mean what took you so long? >> What did you wait? Awesome.
30:20
Thank you Olivier for those time with us. >> [applause]