Who Got Me Here Connect The Dots

Mark Anderson is the CEO at Alteryx. In a conversation with Annie, Mark talks about his humble beginnings in retail sales that helped him break into the tech world. He shares stories about working with Jeff Bezos and Amazon in the ‘90s, and how learning from John Chambers at Cisco informs his current leadership style. Prior to his role as CEO at Alteryx, Mark was President of Palo Alto Networks, where he and the team grew the company from pre-IPO in 2012 to become one of the largest security companies in the world.

Jeff Epstein is an Operating Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, a global firm with $4 billion under management that invests in early-stage and hyper-growth startups, partnering closely with entrepreneurs to build durable businesses including innovative companies like Pinterest, Twilio, Box, LinkedIn, Shopify, Yelp, and Skype. Formerly, Jeff was the executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Oracle, one of the world’s largest and most profitable technology companies, with a market value of over $200 billion. Prior to joining Oracle, Jeff served as the CFO at several public and private companies, including DoubleClick (acquired by Google), King World Productions (acquired by CBS), and Nielsen’s Media Measurement and Information Group. Jeff co-teaches the Lean Launchpad class at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Engineering and the CFO Leadership class at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He holds an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar, and a BA from Yale College. In this conversation with Annie Riley, Jeff talks about how he was able to make over 10,000 introductions throughout his career, his experience co-teaching the Lean Launchpad at Stanford, and the path he took to become CFO, leaving us with advice for those aspiring to do the same.

Magdalena Yesil was the first investor and founding board member at Salesforce, a company that now has a $200 billion market cap. She is the Founder of Broadway Angles and serves on the SoFi, Smartsheet, and Zuora board. In a conversation with Annie, Magdalena shares her experience breaking into Silicon Valley, including stories about how Steve Jobs and Marc Benioff shaped her career. She describes how persistence and resilience let you take bold steps forward.

Nick Mehta is the CEO at Gainsight, a company with 1,200+ global employees and 20k growing customers. Their mission is to be living proof that you can win in business while being human first. 99% of the reviewers on Glassdoor approve of their CEO. So what’s Nick’s secret to success? In a conversation with Annie, Nick talks about breaking into the customer success industry, standing out through the details, utilizing LinkedIn as a career-building strategy, and his most important advice for what NOT to do when networking.

Kicking off a job search can feel overwhelming. It takes motivation to put yourself out there, and it’s emotionally draining when you don’t know where to go next. The good news is there are simple techniques to surface new opportunities and set yourself apart from all the other applicants. Who Got Me Here is a podcast about connections, career building, and relationships. In this episode, Annie and Jamie will share advice on tapping your network, making great asks, and acing the interview. If you know someone who has been laid off or is coming to you for career advice, share this link. The recommendation might prove immensely helpful in thinking about their next career move.

April Underwood is the former Chief Product Officer at Slack. She was early at Twitter and made great friends at Google. As she describes in the podcast, the collection of people from companies A, B, and C is the foundation of one's network. April picked companies where she loved the product and knew these were people (Stewart Butterfield, Dick Costolo) she'd love building with. At this point in her career, April is an early-stage investor, co-founder of #ANGELS, and serves on the boards of Zillow and Eventbrite. In a fun conversation with Annie, hear April’s recommendations on building relationships, making good asks, and connecting friends.