Season 1 | Episode 6 

​Chitra: Welcome to the sixth episode of The Tech Icon. Hi, my name is Chitra.

 

Aditya: Hello, my name is Aditya and we're going to be your hosts for the show.

 

Chitra: Our guest today is Christian Beedgen, a leading technologist, founder, and builder, the former CTO and co-founder of Sumo Logic, a modern log analytics platform. His company raised more than $300 million in venture capital, made its public debut on Nasdaq in September 2020, and was acquired by Francisco Partners for 1.8 billion US dollars in May 2023.

 

Pre-Sumo, Christian spent more than eight years building at ArcSight. He was the chief architect and the director of engineering before the HP acquisition, and his colleagues tell us that he's got his fingerprints all over the ArcSight architecture. He is a self-taught programmer who loves to code and solve hard problems.

 

From driving a cab in Germany to driving technology trends in the United States, Christian has come a long way. He earned his associate's degree in social sciences from Humboldt University and a bachelor's in digital communication and multimedia from Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences. Today he lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three fur babies.

 

We are beyond delighted to have him on the show. Christian, you are a technology icon. Welcome.

 

Christian: Yes. Thank you.

 

Aditya: Welcome to Episode 6 of The Tech Icon.

 

Christian: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure!

 

Chitra: Thanks for joining. So while we'll focus on your journey for the most part, let's take a moment to learn about Sumo. How did the idea for Sumo Logic come about? And was it a culmination of a customer pain point that you identified at ArcSight?

 

Christian: That's actually a true statement. So in short, ArcSight was a great company and it was a great product. It was in the 2000s and it was architected and built as sort of a classic enterprise application, which meant that we would build the software and then we would ship the software to the customer on a CD or they would download it. Then they had to install it in their data center on the Windows box or Linux box or Solaris box, or ultimately some other kind of box, including IBM AIX and stuff that we had never seen before. And then connect it to an Oracle database that they would also have to run and maintain.

 

So it was your classic enterprise on-prem software. And those things are often like a burden for customers. That's sort of a distraction from the actual value that they want out of buying the software, right? In this case, to sort of help them with threat detection. And we learned that that was quite a bit of a hindrance. We found ourselves often spending more time talking about how to keep an ArcSight as great as it was, but also keep it installed, keep it running basically, right? And maintain it and update it and all of that. And then ultimately, this is a system that was dealing with lots of log events, basically crossed over eventually into really a big data system. So, yes, you had to really put a bunch of big iron behind it. It wouldn't run like just off of a Game Boy, right?

 

The more successful [ArcSight] became the more this became a pain point. It felt like we spent too much time talking to customers about these sort of non-functional aspects of the product rather than about how to use it for the intended purpose. So, inspired by successful companies in the 2000s, like Salesforce and ServiceNow, [we took the SaaS route]. They were very successful moving an enterprise software category that was primarily installed on-prem. For those folks who remember, Salesforce pretty much completely took out Siebel with a SaaS approach, and then ServiceNow did the same thing with Remedy, also with a SaaS approach.

 

So in enterprise software, the SaaS approach had already started to show real success, not just promise of real success. So it wasn't clear at the time whether that was going to work for a more big data type system, because there was this thought that it would be too expensive for us to run the big data system, basically, on behalf of our customers, which is where the SaaS leads you to. And we thought that the ultimate benefit of focusing the customer back on using the product was going to be worth that potential risk, and that by engineering it properly from the first principle, by leveraging multi-tenancy and so forth, that we would be able to actually do this in a way that was not going to be prohibitively expensive for the customers. And specifically, we thought we can make it work in a less expensive way because of multi-tenancy and resource sharing and so forth, compared to the incumbents, ArcSight Splunk, and so forth at the time. So yes, the answer to the question is a very long answer, but yes, Sumo Logic literally came out of sort of extrapolating from the ArcSight experience.

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Chitra: Yes, and it's amazing how you identified this risk and then really took the SaaS route. Do you recall where the very first investment in your company came from?

 

Christian: I do recall this very well. The first investment in Sumo Logic came from Greylock Partners and specifically the partner over there was Asheem Chandna who's obviously quite well known, he's been extremely successful. And the story there really behind that is that in 2009 or so, if I remember this correctly, I had sort of a chance meeting with him. You know, he was kind of interested in sort of learning what my experience was at ArcSight. I was not an executive over there, I was sort of an engineer, but I'd been there for quite a while and ArcSight was quite successful, so it was on the radar of folks that were investing specifically in cybersecurity as well, which of course, Asheem does, and you know, folks were sort of [interested in knowing] who's behind the scenes.

 

That's kind of how that meeting happened. And I was just talking through, you know, that like one of the things that I'm struggling with is kind of the on-prem focus. There's this kind of inkling of an idea that, if one were to build a system like that again, you would build it in a SaaS. And he said, "Funny that you should say that, I've been thinking about like literally exact same thing." And then that was one of those sort of magical moments that you just simply can't script.

 

Chitra: Yes, that's pretty amazing how a chance meeting really led to an investment.

 

Christian: Yes. So yes, the lesson there is take every meeting always. Not really, but like, yes.

 

Chitra: Cool. Now for this next section, let's take a walk down the memory lane to celebrate your journey and really inspire the world to your story of grit and determination. Adi, you're up.

 

Aditya: Yes, I think the childhood experiences really shape one into their future self. And we'd love to know a bit about your early years. So how would you describe your childhood?

 

Christian: Sheltered and, you know, safe and privileged in a way. I mean, I have to say, I couldn't have said that when I was 10 or 18 or whatever. But I grew up in Germany. I am from Germany. I'm sure you've all figured this out by now from the accent, right? My dad was a teacher and my mom was working in a bank. But then, like, she became a stay at home mom once I showed up. We grew up outside of the largest city in a slightly smaller village, but not really in the countryside. But it was like just like a little bit further away, still within reach of public transport; I took public transport to school. My dad was a school teacher, you know, and there was some amount of strictness. Yes.

 

And somehow after I was done reading all the comics in the library, the next section over was these early books on IT and computers. I somehow just picked one up and I kind of got stuck with that. I think when I was 11, 12, at that age, I ended up just sort of reading books about computers and programming languages. And, then ultimately I managed to get my parents to sort of, you know, buy a home computer. And it's like an Atari ST and then I had something to play with. I think you might have mentioned early [that I was] self-taught. Yes. So that sort of, nobody taught me how to program. I kind of sort of hacked my way around it myself. And that sort of stuck with me. It was always a hobby of some sort.

 

Aditya: So when you found those books which taught you how to program, would you say that was sort of like the fuel for your journey in computer science forward?

 

Christian: Yes, basically, in retrospect, for sure, you know, clearly I didn't know that at the time. It was just, I don't know, I just was fascinated by it. Then once I had access to a computer, I was able to funnel whatever sort of creative thing I had going on into building stuff and making stuff by using computers in sort of the widest sense. Yes.

 

Aditya: So you just found these books and they kind of just carried you forward. It's almost like it was destiny.

 

Christian: Yes. I think it's like life is a random walk, right?

 

Aditya: Yes.

 

Christian: And like, you know, I just happened to walk right by that shelf. I guess I, it's like, I really can't rationalize it any further. So it's, it's just what happened and it stuck.

 

Aditya: What did you want to become growing up? Did you have a dream?

 

Christian: I was always fascinated with music bands and, you know, I guess rock stars. I don't really know why. I guess maybe a little bit of influence from my dad as well. Like he had sort of all the classics, you know, from Johnny Cash to The Beatles and whatnot, and Bumps and Rolling Stones records lying around. And I kind of just like that thinking and reflecting about it. If you had asked my mom, what does Christian want to be when he grows up, when I was maybe five or so, you know, then she would say, well, like he's imitating, you know, rock singers in our living room with like a fake microphone. So maybe he wants to become a rock singer.

 

Aditya: Cool. A few quick rapid fire questions. What do you call yourself a good student?

 

Christian: No.

 

Aditya: What makes you say that?

 

Christian: I just had a lot of other things to do involving not going to school, alcoholic beverages, and various other distractions.

 

Aditya: Okay. What do you call yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

 

Christian: Most definitely an introvert. You know, I mean, you know, 10 out of 10.

 

Aditya: All right. I'll pass it over to my co-host to cover the next segment: Work and Entrepreneurship, the segment you've all been waiting for.

 

Chitra: Thanks, Adi. Thanks so much, Christian. Such great stories. I loved how you hacked your way into the world of technology and entrepreneurship. I hear you worked as a cab driver early in your career. I'm curious to know which car did you drive, and is there a passenger incident or a vivid memory that you recall?

 

Christian: Yes, so this was like after set school and before university or like before moving to Berlin. In Germany at the time, there was still mandatory military service. So when you get out of school, you have to do military service, or if you don't want to do military service, basically do a social service, right? And that's what I chose. That covered 15 months after coming out of school. And then I still didn't have an idea what to do.

 

I was living with a bunch of roommates, and this one roommate was actually driving a cab. And like this was this guy who owned the cab, but like he only wanted to drive at night. So he needed somebody to keep the car busy during the day. And this dude, my friend, you know, he didn't want to do it anymore. And he said, like, you should do it. And I was just like, cool. Boy, I mean, why not? I didn't really have anything better to do. And it was a Mercedes, which was pretty much that, like a cab had to be a Mercedes. It was a Mercedes E-Class back then. Like by far the fanciest car I've ever seen, you know. Passenger incidents, nothing really. I didn't do it for that long. It's maybe like three quarters of a year or so.

 

Chitra: And then you interned at a German company. It was later bought by Amazon, which in turn brought you to the United States. You also talked about social and cultural anxiety and the differences. How was that experience and how did you kind of adapt to the US way?

 

Christian: Yes, the internship was with Telebuch (Telebook). It got swept up by Amazon in mid-98 or so. It was late-98 and it became what is like kid of the German Amazon department now. Telebuch founders always had fun getting a bunch of interns and going to Miami. The idea was that we would go with them to Miami and just hack a bunch of stuff, some cool side projects they had. So that then they got changed to go to Seattle because now they were Amazon.

 

Then the Telebuch founder had some sort of idea that he wanted to pitch to the Amazon people now that he was one of them. And we were just hacking on that. So sitting there in Seattle, which for half a year (which is a beautiful place I've learned since), when we were there in the winter, it was pretty much raining the whole time and we had no car. So it's funny. But yes, that kind of first time I was in the US.

 

Chitra: Nice. And you're somewhat of an accidental entrepreneur, Christian, you never chose to be one. How did entrepreneurship happen? And what did the initial years of that journey look like for you?

 

Christian: Yes, I think it's this like random walk thing where like, you know, I just bump into stuff and I'm like, okay, cool, let's do this. Right. And so out of that internship came a connection with a bunch of German folks that wanted to build something. I was part of that. And then that went on for like three months or so. Then a bunch of people got cross. And I wasn't part of the core of that, right? It was just some of those guys got cross and then it split off.

 

I kind of stuck with one part of it and represented by a lady [who was] on the business side of things. Basically she said, hey, you and you, why don't we just, you know, work together? I can make some money happen. So she was good at raising money, right? And, you know, I had this idea that I should be able to store all my files in the Internet because then, you know, if I go to some random public terminal, then I can just log in and pull down my files and that would be cool. And we were like, yes, that actually makes a ton of sense. Let's do that. Right. And, okay, you know, you come to Miami. That's where she was located after all and so that's how I became a founder initially.

 

It turned out that that founder path was the one that just kept going for me. I mean, I was not a founder at ArcSight, I was an engineer, an early engineer hired, but it was a very early stage company, and I kind of learned a lot about it. Sure. Just picked up a lot of stuff, and I was able to kind of combine all these things with Sumo, and it worked out okay.

 

Chitra: So the common theme has always been like going with the flow, and it just somehow worked out for you.

 

Christian: I don't really have any better explanation for it. I'm unwilling to retroactively construct some sort of, oh, I had this grand philosophy when I was five years old and like I ticked off all the boxes, it's not what happened, you know.

 

Chitra: Yes, something very mystical about that. And then you built Sumo, of course. What was like, perhaps one of the biggest challenge that you encountered along the way?

 

Christian: I think the thing that you eventually learn, and once you've learned it, everybody will tell you, well, I could have told you this before, right? But none of this has anything to do with technology. You know, it's really all about people. Yes, of course, technology creates problems, but then you solve them and blah, blah, blah. But like everything that's kind of hard about a company, I think, is figuring out how to construct a tribe. And, you know, infuse the culture, align them on a successful path. You know, it sounds pretty grand. It's like, sure, you would do that. But it's a lot of really hard work on a day-to-day basis.

 

You're really in there with people the entire time. Even when you don't think you are, you are. I think that's true generally, whether you're an employee or founder, but like it's a little bit heightened if you're like a founder or an executive — that ends up sitting at a much larger level for the success of the company. Or failure of the company. I mean, it's the same level fundamentally. So that's maybe the best sort of approximation of an answer that I can give you there.

 

Chitra: Yes, I've heard that from so many folks. It all comes down to the people.

 

Christian: We do this for people, with people, on behalf of people. And I hope this won't change, even though apparently, I don't think that changes with ChatGPT. And so, yes, everything else is sort of manageable. People can be quite interactable, but it's also a lot of fun. But you do learn a lot about yourself by bumping into sort of people and not understanding their reactions, right?

 

Chitra: Yes, experience is really the best teacher.

 

Christian: Yes, and you can't teach that, unfortunately. So, you know, it seems like it's a cop-out answering questions like that. You can break these things down and, you know, try to create models on successful behaviors that you have learned. And again, a lot of this input depends on kind of your own personality and where you want to lead them and how you want to lead them and what your values are. I think that worked out, you know, overall quite well at Sumo.

 

I think, generally speaking, [we got confirmations from folks] both who were in the company for a long time [as well as the ones that] left and came back and said, well, this place had a really great culture, so a pretty respectful culture. That always made me a little proud, because that's what I would like, how you try to sort of implicitly or explicitly manage it. And that can become quite involved, because eventually your team will grow and then you have to travel and then eventually you travel around the world.

 

I guess I've spent so much time in India because we had a big team there. Also, we had a big team in Poland, and people are all the same except for they aren't because they're differently socialized, have different cultural backgrounds, and even different ways of them reading body language or their own body language. And again, you just have to live your way through this. And the fundamentally best for me always works to be somewhat unassuming, right? And they're just like, okay, clearly this person seemed to signal that they're extremely unhappy with you right now. Don't get mad. Maybe they are, maybe that is, maybe there's a different reason, or maybe you're just reading it wrong.

 

Chitra: Yes, humans are very complex. But congratulations, such a great job on keeping that culture alive. Like you said, folks were mostly happy and the company was thriving. So that's great. And then 10 years later, really came the momentous day of September 16, 2020, when you made your public debut on Nasdaq. Can you relive that feeling for us?

 

Christian: It was pretty nuts. This is a huge milestone for a company and then, of course, for an entrepreneur getting your company to go public is pretty cool. There's a lot of things that happen, that have to happen, and a little bit of luck along the way. And there's a lot of people doing a lot of companies that are incredible, that never get to that because there's something missing, sometimes out of their control. It's quite a confirmation, and that sort of can be quite overwhelming.

 

Actually life gets much harder once you're public. I don't know, you just have to let go of all of that baggage, just enjoy the moment, I guess. Just be happy for the entire company, right? You know, it also sort of leads you down that path of [the fact] that people are going to make money at that point, like real money, and it matters a lot, because money is very important. And, you know, a lot of people work very hard, and, you know, they work very hard towards the point where that's worth something, right? If you can be part of a group that gets, like the group there, it's a great feeling.

 

Chitra: Awesome. I'm sure you created a bunch of millionaires out there.

 

Christian: Yes, I want to think so, yes. I mean, I know so, actually, but I wish it would have been more, but, you know, and more millions and all of that, but like, but no, this is pretty cool.

 

Chitra: Interestingly, you IPOed on the same day as Snowflake, another leading Silicon Valley based company, also in the cloud space. Now, what are the odds of something like that and did that take away anything from your IPO?

 

Christian: Yes, it did and it didn't because if you zoom out and you look at it, IPO is kind of a bit of a branding event and all that. It's kind of the sort of ultimate press release basically, right? And, you know, you work up to it and you see, it's a huge opportunity to get your name into sort of a wider like audience, like known by a wider audience. But then you have Snowflake right next to you, right? We're like, okay, Sumo Logic is a great company. Love it. It was very successful. But like, Snowflake, I mean, it's a different galaxy. It's just a much bigger valuation, an incredible company. So yes, we got like sort of, if you sum out from a public eye, we got completely dwarfed, right? You know, if Snowflake goes public, nobody really cares about anybody else at that point, you know, that day, right? It's the reality. And then okay, you know, it's a day. And then there's another day. You just let go of all of this and you say, hey, you know, this is a celebration of what we achieved as a company and we do not care about that other celebration. You know, we're super happy for those guys. But like today, as far as we are concerned, it's about us. That's how you handle that, right?

 

Chitra: Nice. Now let's cut across to Aditya for some fun stuff next.

 

Aditya: Sure. What are your hobbies?

 

Christian: Well, yeah, I don't have any other than working with computers. And so that's just that. Yes, I don't really have any other hobbies.

 

Aditya: Is there anything that keeps you up at night?

 

Christian: It depends on what point in my life. But assuming you're asking today, I will just answer it that way. Yes, my parents are getting older and starting to get bit by bit into those advanced ages. It just causes thoughts that keep you up at night. Let's just say it like that. Everybody goes through that. So it's actually a privilege to be able to be my age and still have both of my parents around. It's really a big privilege. The same is actually true for my wife. Both parents are still around. They're quite advanced in age. That's definitely one thing that at times keeps me up.

 

Aditya: Yes, that's really understandable. You named your company after your pet dog, Sumo. That's really cool. Is he like the real boss around here?

 

Christian: Yes, in ways. In 2009, we rescued a little Terrier Mix–Chihuahua Terrier Mix. He was pretty small. and so clearly we named him Sumo. Then when it was time to sort of name the company, like, I don't know, it was just in the air. I said, hey, Kumar (Kumar's my co-founder), how about [naming the company] Sumo Logic? I think it was Sumo Data originally, and then it was like Sumo Logic, and he was like, love it.

 

The incredible part of that is that, you know, that little Terrier is pretty robust, and he's actually still around. So he would be maybe 16 now. We don't exactly know when he was born because he was rescued. But I'll go home later, and he'll be there greeting me, you know? So he was at the IPO, actually. He was at the IPO. I wasn't, I was actually in Germany because my dad was in the hospital and but Simone and my wife took Sumo to the IPO celebration. So he was on TV and everything. It's pretty funny. And yes, I think he maybe thinks he's the boss, but like again, you know, he's not that big. But yes, if he gets hungry, he will not stop letting you know about it.

 

Aditya: And just out of curiosity, was Sumo your first pet?

 

Christian: Sumo was our second pet, actually. We got a small white rescue Terrier-ish of some sort, and fantastic dog in 2008. She passed away two years ago at a very decent age. She's not around anymore, but that was the start.

 

Aditya: Next, would you like to share anything that very few people know about?

 

Christian: Oh, man, after everything we've talked about here, I don't really have anything specific here. No, well, actually, maybe I do — I need glasses to read my computer. So maybe let's make that publicly known now for the first time on the Internet. Christian is wearing glasses because I can't see my own code anymore.

 

Aditya: Cool. A new fact for the viewers out there.

 

Christian: There you go. Excellent.

 

Aditya: And let's end off with this question. What does it take on the part of your family to make you thrive?

 

Christian: Oh my God. You should ask Simone, my wife, that. And also my parents because, you know, I kind of went against their will. I moved out when I was 17 and I went on this long random walk of eventually having a career, I guess. There were a couple of years that were super rough on them. But like, you know, they didn't send the police after me. So, you know, I guess that's what it takes. And then, for my wife, giving me sort of the freedom and sort of headspace and time [and sort of dealing with my type of] being weird. When I'm into the stuff that I'm doing whether I work or whether I'm a founder. It was not really that different when I was at ArcSight as an employee versus like it gets kicked up a notch when you're a founder, obviously, because, you know, it just does, right? But it is. But, you know, she leaves me and like she gives me an incredible amount of space to sort of be me. And so that's my observation.

 

You know, she would maybe phrase this differently, but you can write it one day. You know, I take this stuff pretty seriously and it's not like I can come home and suddenly be a different person that I am that person all the time, right? I am, as we mentioned a few times, I am pretty hardcore introvert. So I need time to recharge. And yes, I mean, partially recharging means, you know, being able to be at home and enjoy time with my wife and the dogs and all of that. But sometimes that also means that I have to sort of go into a room and be on my own at home. I could imagine it being not so easy, you know, to sort of live with me, and I'm like that, you know?

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Aditya: Yes, being an entrepreneur, it's pretty consuming, as you said, lots of hours and then lots of thinking and planning. And a lot of things that just go into entrepreneurship, it's pretty cool that you're able to have a wife who's able to accommodate things like that. Right.

 

Christian: My basic sense is that whether it's like, you can leverage that into like entrepreneurship and success, but like if you really love what you're doing, it's going to be on your mind all the time anyways. Right. And so, you know, so I don't. Yes. But the point is you really love it. And I think that's a net plus, I think.

 

Aditya: Yes, totally. Thanks for sharing about your personal side. It clearly takes a lot on the part of the family. We're now nearing the end of this fabulous episode of The Tech Icon and would love to get some final thoughts in this final segment. Back at you, co-host.

 

Chitra: Thanks, Aditya. Christian, it's amazing that Sumo was able to sub for you on the big day, on the IPO day. That is so cool.

 

Christian: I mean, we did not plan for that, like ahead of time. You know, it wasn't a master plan again. But like, you know, then when we knew that I wasn't going to be there, then yeah, we just brought him.

 

Chitra: Cool. We hope you're enjoying your career break at the moment. Is it a real break or are you secretly building away?

 

Christian: Yes, I'm building. There's a whiteboard, right? So pretty much a dead giveaway.

 

Chitra: All right. I will not ask the details. My final question for you is, growing up in a small village in Germany, did you think that one day you'll build a massive technology company?

 

Christian: No, absolutely not. Yes, no, just not. But yes, no, I didn't.

 

Chitra: And the family must be so proud. What do they say?

 

Christian: They don't, you know, I know they're proud. It's not a thing that we kind of [discuss], they don't write poems about it. You know what I mean? It's like, no, but I know, you know, like I can read them on multiple levels, right? That they are very, very proud. They are, like, it's humbling, but like, yes, they are, they're quite proud. And, you know, this wasn't, this was not a clear, it wasn't a straight path. So there were times, you know, this is now multiple decades ago, but there were times, they were really worried. So, yes.

 

Chitra: Well, on that note, thank you very much for joining us today in our mission of giving back and really inspiring students and budding entrepreneurs across the board. We wish you the best.

 

Christian: Thank you so much.

 

Aditya: Thank you for your time.