Data Domain

Slootman's public speeches make this distinction crystal clear, but the real evidence comes from what he does on the ground at each stage of a company's life cycle.

Before Snowflake, Slootman cut his teeth at Data Domain, a niche data deduplication firm that attracted EMC's attention.

He walked into a company with a brilliant product but uneven execution and a culture still focused on engineering.

The turnaround he engineered involved streamlining processes, sharpening performance targets, and making the engineering teams feel the urgency of being first to market.