Hi there, 

A while back, we asked newsletter readers which founder/exec you’d back first if financial returns were the only metric of success.

Frank Slootman (Snowflake CEO) won out over Travis Kalanick (Uber co-founder) and Kevin Systrom (Instagram co-founder).

(Side note: how different would these poll options look today?) 

One predictor of future success? Successful exits. We actually score management/founding teams to predict which will be successful with our Management Mosaic score.

And Frank Slootman would be hard to beat here, with 3 tech IPOs under his belt. You can see this data on his CB Insights People profile here.

Since Snowflake’s buzzy IPO in 2020, the company has doubled annual revenue year-on-year, though its growth is slowing as the underlying base gets larger. 

In Yardstiq interviews with Snowflake customers, there are 4 primary competitors who most frequently come up:

• Amazon (also a major partner of Snowflake)

• Google

• Microsoft

• Databricks

We dig into the competitive dynamics below with Yardstiq’s software buyer interviews, and where the data cloud giant is looking next. 

Snowflake vs. Redshift and remaining cloud-agnostic

Snowflake won out handily vs. Redshift and Azure Synapse for this buyer

Race for integrations

Databricks coming for Snowflake? 

Eyes on AI

In 2022, Snowflake announced a focus on extending its machine learning capabilities. 

And in its sight lines to nobody’s surprise is AI.

This can be seen by its acquisition activity from CB Insights. In January, Snowflake acquired Myst AI, which develops AI models to help companies generate business forecasts. 

Snowflake also acquired Streamlit, which enables machine learning and data science teams to build data apps, in March 2022 for $800M.

To dig into all of the interviews with Snowflake customers, go here. To see Databricks’ customer interviews, you can go here.

You can also see Snowflake’s M&A and investment activity here.

I love you.
 

Anand

@asanwal

P.S. New transcripts on Yardstiq this week include: 

• Security: Proofpoint (CSAT: 9/10)
• AI: Hugging Face (CSAT: 8.5/10)
• HR: Multiplier (CSAT: 7.25/10)
• Insurance: MIB (CSAT: 8/10)