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Season 1 | Episode 1 

The Inspiring Journey of Satyen Sangani, the CEO &

Co-Founder of Alation

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00:00 / 31:32
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Did you know that Satyen Sangani, the CEO & Co-Founder of Alation, never wanted to be an entrepreneur? Or that an 18-hour phone call altered the course of his life, forever? In this episode of The Tech Icon, Satyen shares his extraordinary journey, the future of data and analytics, and advice for founders, builders, and students.  

Show Transcript

Chitra: Welcome to the inaugural 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 today.

 

Chitra: Our guest today is a true visionary, Satyen Sangani. Satyen is the CEO and co-founder of Alation, a leading data intelligence platform. He's on a mission to empower a more curious and rational world. Satyen has raised $340 million US dollars in venture funding. His company achieved a unicorn status in the year 2021 and a centaur status in the year 2022. Now for our listeners out there, you're called a unicorn once you cross a billion in market valuation and you're called a centaur once you cross a hundred million in ARR, or the annual recurring revenue. Now, both of these are huge in the world of SaaS.

 

Before Alation, Satyen spent nearly a decade at Oracle. And today, his office overlooks a beautiful lagoon and is within a miles radius of Oracle. Satyen holds a master's in economics from the very prestigious University of Oxford and a bachelor's from Ivy League, Columbia University. Outside of work, Satyen is a family man: a doting dad, loving husband, and a caring son. He commands deep respect in the technology circuits. And, we are beyond delighted to have him on the show.

 

Satyen, you are a technology icon. Welcome.

 

Aditya: Welcome to the show.

 

Satyen: Thank you for having me. I don't always think of myself that way, but I'll take the praise. It's great to be here.

 

Chitra: Awesome. Now, while we focus on your journey in today's episode, let's begin by learning about Alation. So what is your vision for the company?

 

Satyen: Alation is a data intelligence platform, and what that means is that we are a platform for helping organizations and mostly commercial businesses, but also governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations to help them understand their data. What that ultimately allows people within those organizations to do is to find and understand and trust their data and our ultimate vision of the company is to basically enable a curious and rational world.

 

What that means is that we think data has a ton of power and a ton of potential to empower people and to allow them to think rationally and more critically and scientifically. Scientific progress is really what's helped most of humanity for the last 200 years. So to the extent that we can empower more people to think rationally and use empirics and not be intimidated by numbers, the better I think we can make the world around us. That's what our contribution is and hopes to be. And, that's what we're trying to do every single day that we all come to work.

 

Chitra: I think that's a great segue into the next one, which is, how is Alation really impacting human lives through technology?

 

Satyen: It's an indirect capability in that we're servicing analysts and data scientists who themselves are making massive changes. But it's pretty incredible to see the diversity of how data is used. You know, just this morning, I was talking to a Head of Data at a pharmaceutical and biological company that essentially helped produce enzymes to help other companies, like, for example, consumer products companies to produce cleaner and more efficient surfactants, which helped them make greener products for the rest of us who are trying to clean our houses in a more green and reliable way. So it's kind of incredible to see how data is impacting everything that happens in the world, and therefore the breadth of different companies that end up using Alation has just been pretty cool and pretty awesome to see.

 

Chitra: Very interesting. So whether it's impacting medicine or sustainability, it's really the data that lies at the core. Now, in your view, what does the future of data and analytics look like?

 

Satyen: That's such an interesting question, given where we are in time. There are people who argue that, with the advent of artificial intelligence, the need for many of these jobs could theoretically go away. I probably would take the opposite view, given everything that I know about AI. I do think that AI will help people think and will act as a copilot to experiencing people's ability to learn. But I also think that it's the case that people still have so many incredible and ingenious ideas and abilities to link concepts, which otherwise might not be put together and that power of being able to put information at people's fingertips, I think is super interesting.

 

There are lots of interesting unsolved problems that, though AI exists, haven't been really yet contended with. One of which is at the forefront, which is how do we make the unstructured data estate or the world of these large language models talk to the structured data estate or the stuff that applications have historically been built on. So I think there's a lot of progress that has yet to be made, lots of problems that still need to be solved. To me, the future looks like a human, bionic sort of capability and how far we're able to go, I think, is anyone's guess. People thought we were going to be today, in 2024, being driven by self-driving cars, and that hasn't happened as quickly. But there will be a lot of progress between now and the next decade and beyond. So there's a lot of work to do, and I think that's what excites me.

 

Chitra: Wow, that's pretty fascinating! Now for this next segment, let's take a walk down the memory lane and really celebrate your journey, your hard work, your perseverance. I am going to pass this over to my co-host. Adi, take it away.

 

Aditya: Yeah, I mean, the childhood experiences really shape one into their future self. So with that being said, let's get to know a bit about your early years. First, how would you describe your childhood?

 

Satyen: For the most part, happy. I grew up in a town called Orinda, which was in the north part of the East Bay. I actually was born in San Francisco, lived a little bit of time in Daly City, and both of my parents were immigrants. My dad actually immigrated from India in 1958. He was an entrepreneur through and through. He was trained as a chemical engineer, but through my childhood ended up starting a couple of electroplating factories where you would take microchips and bumpers, and you would coat them with chrome or gold or the like, and so he would do that. But then he sort of overextended himself quite substantially, and he ended up buying hotels and supermarkets, and we would end up working the front desk of those.

 

What was also interesting was that beyond sort of his career, in the background, I was one of very few. I think we were three or four, maybe three kids that were of South Asian descent or Indian descent in my high school class and maybe 20 or 30 people who are non-white altogether. So it was a really different childhood than I think what my kids are experiencing growing up, because there's a lot more diversity than there was back then. It was a really interesting upbringing but I learned a ton and had a really amazing first-generation experience and had a family that loved me. I guess what was most notable from an entrepreneurial perspective was my dad both made a lot of money, but also lost almost all of it. So in that process, there was sort of a joy of watching entrepreneurship but then as I grew up, I sort of hated it because I was like, wow, this is super painful and hard to deal with. So I didn't really always think of myself as being an entrepreneur or wanting to be one.

 

Aditya: Yeah, it seems like you had a quite interesting childhood with your dad doing all this cool stuff. And then you growing up in a school with, you know, maybe not as many people like you. So was that like difficult?

 

Satyen: I think in a couple of ways. I mean, I think besides the color of your skin, that's certainly one determinants of difference, but it's also like your social disposition that kind of determines how you react. I've always been an introvert and somewhat of a, you know, I don't think anybody would be surprised by calling myself a nerd. There was a lot of times where I was trying to figure out what my role was in a world where I didn't really fit in, like who were my friends, and it took me through high school to really find sort of a group of friends that I would ultimately jive with.

 

I think for better or for worse, being sort of not part of the main group was like about as good of a training as you could get to be an entrepreneur, because as an entrepreneur, you're literally doing something that nobody else is doing often, and you have to be sort of willing to be, I don't know, made fun of, ostracized to a greater or lesser degree. So at least I had that training early, and that helped me do what I'm doing now.

 

Aditya: Yeah, definitely. All worked out in the end. So you said you didn't want to be an entrepreneur growing up. What did you want to become growing up? Did you have a dream?

 

Satyen: Yeah, I had lots of dreams. I thought I was actually going to be a whole bunch of different things. I had this vision of my life where I would basically do different careers at different points in time, and so the first thing that I thought I was going to be was a point guard in the NBA. Then I thought I was going to do some acting, and then I thought I was going to be like this billionaire entrepreneur, and then I thought I was going to do some teaching.

 

That was going to be my life in stages and so I'm hoping to get the second half of that equation right. The dollars matter less but I would say it's been fun to be an entrepreneur. And this was, by the way, the earliest portion of my age. I mean, as I got to high school, the entrepreneur thing faded aside and I thought I was going to be a lot of things, some of which were totally hallucinations, and some of which were more realistic.

 

Aditya: Yeah, I feel like I think the same way. Okay, so then let's end this section with one final question: So we feel that the family, the values, the upbringing play an important role in shaping one as an individual. Are you able to share what your parents did and what kind of value system they set as a family?

 

Satyen: So we're Gujarati by background. Gujaratis in India are sort of known to be super hardworking and industrious and family oriented and I would say that my family was, you know, all of those things. My mom and my dad worked tremendously hard. I was always sort of their first priority, certainly my mom's first priority. You know, she would, like every Gujarati mom, feed me incessantly, and the pooris would never stop. And, you know, still to this day, she takes care of us, which is kind of incredible.

 

So I think, the value of hard work and family have always been really incredible for me. We just got a lot of love and a lot of support. But there were high expectations too. You know, that was a gift. And over time, you know, when you're going through it, you're like, oh my God, why are we so different and weird? Why are we like, you know, why do we speak this different language? Why does it smell different when we walk into this house versus the house of my non-Indian friends? And all of those thoughts go through your head. But then you realize, like, wow, it's just such a gift to have this upbringing that we've had.

 

Aditya: Yeah, it looks like your family like really helped you become successful.

 

Satyen: Yeah, I would say everything that I've done is on the backs of all of the opportunity and the privileges that they've provided to me. And, you know, that's, by the way, not only true for my own family, but also true for my wife's family, who have both supported her, but also, as we grew, supported us in building the company. And so, like, you know, it's funny that the show is named The Tech Icon. I think, in my case, a lot of the credit goes to me, but I think so much of the actual outcome is based on people who are not visible, both obviously people who are working at the company, but much more critically, my wife, who was the person who encouraged me to build the business, my family, who have always given me support, and my kids, who basically are constantly familiar with the idea that dad's not always around and available.

 

Aditya: Yeah, really cool. Okay, next, let's dive into your educational journey and get some advice for students out there. So which high school did you go to?

 

Satyen: I went to Miramonte High School in Orinda.

 

Aditya: And then, of course, you went to two of the best colleges in the world: Oxford and Columbia. Were there any challenges that you had to face either at school or college?

 

Satyen: Columbia was incredible. I mean, Columbia is in New York. It's got such a vibrant academic community. I ended up taking a year off between high school and college because I actually didn't get into Columbia directly. I got in on a deferred admissions basis. They didn't accept me in the first go around and I was tenacious enough to wait around. But I had this chip on my shoulder and I ended up finishing college in three years. It was an amazing experience. I mean, Columbia has this incredible curriculum. There are incredibly smart people. You're in the middle of New York. You get all these amazing opportunities by being there. So that was mostly amazing.

 

Oxford was different in that I actually was intending to do a PhD in Economics. So I did a little bit of professional experience between my Bachelor's and my Master's, and I thought I was going to be a Professor. Of course, as luck would have it, I ended up meeting my wife and talking to her on the phone for like 18 hours before we were leaving. So before literally the night before I was leaving for England, she and I got on the phone, we'd met up with each other at a couple of weddings. I got off the phone and then I was like, this is the girl that I'm going to marry. And, you know, ultimately did. But that meant that I spent most of my time traveling back from England to Los Angeles, where she was doing her medical residency. That was probably the biggest part of the challenge, which is I didn't get a PhD and I didn't end up spending a lot of time in England, even though I did get my degree.

 

Aditya: I see. Cool story. So would you consider yourself a good student?

 

Satyen: Somewhat. I mean, I don't think I was. There are always better students out there. Like, you know, it's funny, weirdly my college GPA was better than my high school GPA. I think I was more engaged in college. I think my study habits were reasonable but I don't think they were perfect by any extent. You know, I look at my wife, and she's just academically better, like you're just brighter, like, you know, her test scores are better. And, you know, she's just quicker. She memorizes facts better. I think I don't know. I have an intelligence of sorts, obviously, but I don't think it's necessarily the way that it's not necessarily optimized for the strict academic setting. I do think of myself as a lifetime learner. And in that sense, I'm just curious. I think that's probably the biggest skill. It's just this notion of constantly trying to work on yourself and learning. I tried to answer after a long one: Yes, I think I'm a good student.

 

Aditya: Yeah, I feel like curiosity is a very valuable trait these days.

 

Satyen: I think the most interesting people are just curious.

 

Aditya: Yeah. And finally, what is your advice to students who find themselves drowning in parental expectations, peer pressure, and crazy competition these days?

 

Satyen: That's really hard. I think that the world around us, more than ever, just trains us to have a lot of anxiety about what everybody else is up to, and parents see other kids. By the way, this was true when I was growing up. There would be other kids who would be more successful, and there would be comparison, and I wasn't immune to that growing up.

 

But I also think that as a kid, the most important thing to realize is that the biggest determinant of your success is just your own satisfaction with the work that you're doing, and just the ability to work hard. I think it's really hard to drown out all those voices, your parents, your peers, all of the expectations on social media. To the extent that you can sort of stay in the present, which is really hard to do, especially when you're a kid, and there's all sorts of new things in the world, and it's hard to know what's what. But I think, by the way, this is true for kids, I think this is true for adults, this is true for me. As much as you can sort of find joy in the work that you're doing, and like, be present in the work that you're doing, that's mostly the key to a happy life. Outcomes are really hard to control.

 

Aditya: And any advice to their parents?

 

Satyen: So, you know, this is a fake background, but I'm in my son's room. I don't know if I'm at all qualified to give parents advice as a parent of a 15-year-old and a 13-year-old. They're both amazing kids, but I give my wife most of the credit for that. Best advice I've gotten, so maybe I'll just, like, pass on advice that I've gotten, is no matter what you do, the most important thing is that your kids know that you love them. You can be busy, you can be not busy, you can be there for them, you can not be there for them, you can buy them gifts, you can buy them nothing. But, you know, my kids know a lot about me and they complain about me incessantly, but they know that every single day that I get home, I'm going to smother them with kisses and be really annoying about how much I love them.

 

Aditya: Nice. That's really amazing. You hear that, parents? Okay, now I'll pass it over to my co-host to talk about the next segment, entrepreneurship, the segment you've all been waiting for.

 

Chitra: Thank you to the both of you. I truly enjoyed that one: 18 hours over the phone, showering your kids with kisses. Now, what was your first job out of college?

 

Satyen: I was an investment banking analyst at Morgan Stanley, which was a big investment bank.

 

Chitra: It's interesting that you shared, you had this love-hate relationship with entrepreneurship after seeing your dad go through the highs and the lows. But was this something that you always wanted to become deep down? Was that your true calling: wanting to create and build and innovate?

 

Satyen: Yeah, I think so. I think watching dad, he worked so hard, and he was a hacker at heart. People talk about hackers, and he was a hacker at heart. He would repair, like, when our laundry machine would get broken, he would literally break the entire thing open and fix it. You'd have this random laundry drum in the middle of the kitchen, and there'd be tools everywhere, and you'd be like, there's no way he's ever going to put this back together. And he would do that with everything in our house, and it would drive my mom crazy. Growing up, I'm like, one day, I'm going to hire an appliance repair person. But he was just this kind of incredible person to deconstruct and construct things. And then he worked really hard as an entrepreneur. So I think those habits, you just learn them. I can't point to any single thing he ever told me. I can't point to any single thing that he did, but you watched him. And I think that learning by osmosis happened a ton.

 

Chitra: In the genes too. Startups are really hard. Behind all the glory, there's rejection and failure and heartbreak. Are you able to share some examples from your personal journey and tell us how you tackled them?

 

Satyen: From the outside in, the journey looks like all success. Like, it's a centaur and a unicorn and hundreds of customers, and it all looks like it's amazing. Ironically, on the other hand, inside out, it feels like it's all failure. I think there's a fundamental dissatisfaction that it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. You have to be sort of like, oh, this can be better, this can be different. And I think that feature is also a bug because you are on the journey always wanting things to be different and better. Often, I'm looking at sort of the company and everything that's broken about it, as opposed to things that are really good. And a lot of people tell me I should celebrate more.

 

Early on, one example that stands out is we had recruited a team that was really idealistic. We were roughly 20 employees, and I wanted to do something that was more enterprise-y in the world of data governance. The team basically revolted, and they were like: Look, we don't want to do this. We want to do something that's more analytically oriented, that's more inching towards curiosity and science and this different persona. And it was a crisis of leadership because I sold the team on this vision of curiosity and couldn't weave together how or couldn't tell them a story of how it fitted this other thing called governance. And, ultimately realized that, we had to not do it. That was a moment of really being true to your vision and making sure that you had a team that was true to that vision.

 

Through the experience, you learn so many things about managing people, managing yourself, managing your time, knowing when to make promises, and when to pull back from them. You have to make hard decisions, like, when to let people go. You know, there have been layoffs as much as there have been so many successes, and those are really hard moments. And, lot of those times, you're just like, oh, did I screw up? Did I fail? Could I have done this better? And those voices always exist in your head. I think that the best way to channel it is, obviously, to try to do better and to learn.

 

Chitra: Now, do you have advice for founders who are in different stages of their entrepreneurial journeys?

 

Satyen: I mean, if you're academically inclined or if you want to think about frameworks, I like Carol Dweck's Growth Mindset. The Mindset Book is really incredible. It's basically just about, like, the people that grow the most are the people that both are able to act, but also able to learn from their action. There are people with a fixed mindset who are like, look, I've got to learn these things, and only if I learn these things am I valuable, and there's only one way to learn these things. And there are people with a growth mindset who are, you know, very iterative in their learning.

 

I think being an entrepreneur, if nothing else, is about just having a growth mindset. I haven't quite figured out this trick for myself, but, you know, figuring out who to surround yourself with, I think, is super, duper important. The journey is really challenging, but at least in my experience, the most challenging part of it, beyond all of the more challenging parts of it, are related to people.

 

Knowing the types of people you want to surround yourself with and being true to that, being with people who are generally, I would say, good, like, who are generous, who are kind, who are thoughtful. You know, those things, I've made mistakes to sort of let people in who are really productive and really capable and really talented, but maybe not the best people, and I've never looked back and said I should have done. I think the last piece of it is that these journeys are long, so you have to work super hard, but you also have to rest. And that's something that I'm still working on and always try to work on.

 

Chitra: Absolutely.

 

Aditya: Cool.

 

Chitra: Adi, you're up.

 

Aditya: Looks like we've got some really nice insights for our viewers out there. Let's move on to some fun stuff. So what are your hobbies?

 

Satyen: Right at this moment, I wouldn't say I have very many active hobbies. I work out and do yoga to keep myself somewhat sane. I spend time with my kids. The one thing that I try to do with my younger one is we kind of get away and go skiing during the winter, and so that's a thing that the two of us have together. Watch sports. I hope to get back to rock climbing at some point, which is, like a real hobby. And, reading books and travel; although right now I hate travel because I'm constantly having to do it for work, and so it's not something that I particularly enjoy right now, but I think at some point I'll get to enjoy it again.

 

Aditya: Nice. And you have your own podcast, The Data Radicals. How has it been on the other side so far?

 

Satyen: Amazing. I think you learn so much from asking questions, and that seems like an obvious thing to say, but there's like a technique and a flow and everything. Like somebody once said that everybody in the world has something to teach you, and I take that mindset to these conversations. I get this privilege to have these incredible guests on: former generals, academics, journalists, and so you get these incredible people who have these incredible stories to tell. So it's been amazing. I mean, it's really just helped me expand my intellectual horizons and just how I think and what I think about. It's been really fun to do, and obviously great that it's been somewhat successful, but also just fun to be able to be a part of it.

 

Aditya: Would you like to share maybe a fun fact about you or your family that very few people know about?

 

Satyen: What can I share? My wife and I met at two weddings. We sat next to each other, and I asked her out on a whole bunch of times before she actually said yes to getting on the phone with me. About my two boys, all four of us are super willful people, and so the Sangani household is not a household of peace. It is a household of a lot of stubborn, willful, very argumentative people, but somehow we all figure it out. That's us.

 

Aditya: That's cool. And your mom was the first "informal CFO" at Alation. That's interesting. How did that happen?

 

Satyen: Well, my mom was always an accountant for nonprofits, and so I was like, I don't want to do this QuickBooks thing. Mom is here. She can do it. So somehow, I just basically started asking her to do the work. And it was funny because early on, we were at Costanoa Ventures, which was one of our earliest investors, and we were working out of their offices. And my mom would come in, and she would work out of the desks at Costanoa.

 

In the world of venture-backed companies, the idea that your mom would be working for your company is so ridiculous, and nobody would actually really believe that you would actually make this happen or have the willingness as an entrepreneur to make this happen. But Greg Sands, who was our early investor, is such a good-natured, trusting, amazing human being. So I've introduced him to my mom, and he's like, "Oh, so what do you do?" She's like, "Well, I do accounting for nonprofits." And, he's like, "Well, you've got a nonprofit right here, so that should be consistent with what you do." And somehow he was comfortable with it. My co-founders were comfortable with it, and it worked. You know, mom obviously is incredible.

 

Aditya: Yeah, no, that's pretty interesting. Finally, the question on everyone's minds: Does your son still want to become a CEO like you?

 

Satyen: Maybe one of them. I think the older one. It's so funny because like my younger one's like, "Well, dad. you know, you're your CEO. You can just tell everybody what to do. Like, why don't they just all do what you say?" And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, it doesn't really work like that. Everybody has the ability to find whatever job they want." But the older one definitely has a very entrepreneurial bent to him. So I could see him. The younger one, possibly. I mean, I don't know. Journeys are twisty and tourney. So I don't know, maybe.

 

Aditya: Yeah, we'll see what the future has. Thank you for sharing about your personal side. It clearly takes a lot on the part of your family and we would love to get some final thoughts in this last segment. So back at you, co-host.

 

Chitra: Totally love that. Let's end on a note of celebration. What would you have said to your younger self? Is there anything different that you would have done?

 

Satyen: I wish I just wouldn't have taken myself so seriously when I was younger. When you're younger, you're like, oh my God, everybody's watching. What I do matters so much. As you grow older, you just realize that nobody really cares. Everybody's caught up with their own thing. So yeah, I wish I just probably took myself way less seriously. Although maybe if I didn't take myself so seriously, I wouldn't be where I am. Who knows how to write yourself your own story.

 

Chitra: One final question: When you were growing up, did you know that one day you would become this pioneer and thought leader and industry veteran, really leading the way? Your family must be so, so proud. What do they say?

 

Satyen: I think they are proud, but we have a family where there are some people who are incredibly successful. Like, you know, a couple of my wife's cousins have founded in multiple companies. One of them runs or helps run a private equity firm, and one of our uncles has been a longtime multiple successful exec. Is there a recognition of that? I think there's also people who are not quite as successful, and we're all kind of equals, and I think we are all proud of the achievement, but we're also all just like family members that care about each other.

 

Chitra: Well, on that note, we want to thank you very much for joining us in our mission of giving back and inspiring students and entrepreneurs across the board. We wish you all the success.

 

Satyen: Well, this is an amazing podcast, and I'm honored to both kick it off and to be a guest. Thank you for listening to my story, and excited to hear everything that you do with this show.

 

Aditya: Thank you so much for your time. I'm feeling inspired myself.

 

Satyen: Thank you!

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