CRO Stripe, Mike Clayville: Building Tornado Companies

Guest: Mike Clayville, CRO at Stripe In this episode, we cover: Mike’s early life in Declo, Idaho, where he worked on his family farm - and the symbolism behind his cowboy hat. (3:11)...The reason behind Mike’s switch from engineering to finance - and a look at his tenure at IBM, the tremendous challenge he faced during its decline, and how he turned it around. (7:06)...Mike’s philosophy on uncovering the first principle mindset and the qualities of a tornado. (13:44)...The early days of Amazon and public cloud - and how Mike used first principles to lead some of the largest enterprises into a new world of technology. (18:33)...An overview of Stripe: How Stripe helps companies understand their customers and how it compares to AWS in today’s internet economy. (26:42)...Why you should fail as an innovator and be willing to be misunderstood- and how Amazon’s innovation model contains the secret sauce of success. (32:56)...Selling as a muscle memory sport: Why Mike refers to prospecting as the calisthenics of sales - and a dive into the stages of prospecting. (39:42)...More on the importance of prospecting and why cold-calling is the best way to start a sales career. (43:15)...Mike talks about his detailed briefing process and how it helps maintain efficiency when getting to the heart of their customer’s needs. (48:50)...How Mike’s daily runs inspire some of his best ideas - and an in-depth look at his effective decision making process. (53:51)...The Clayville Foundation: How The Clayville Foundation honors his late wife and seeks to find cures for cancer through technology and science. (01:03:00)