"Think ridiculously ambitious:" The leadership playbook behind Snowflake's AI sprint

"Start from the other side."

When Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy gave this directive to his teams last year, they weren't eager to make the change. The company had only recently become a tech titan — in 2020, it recorded the biggest software IPO in history— by selling services that helped companies analyze their data better and faster. Everything was working. But Sridhar knew that the fast-moving AI revolution required radical change ... and Snowflake had to lead it.

One year later, those same teams that were weary at the start had transformed Snowflake into a $59.9 billion AI powerhouse with thousands of customers using its AI products.

So he had the team start from the other side: To declare what massive success would look like with customers and build a plan backward from that. Throw away all of the spreadsheets that show how growth will work based on past performance. Forget the known seasonal changes. Create a new destination and then create the map.

"Sometimes you can say: 'Think ridiculously ambitious'," Sridhar told me for this week's This is Working. "Start from there and see what has to work for you to get to where you want. That can often give very, very different results [versus organic growth]... It doesn't work everywhere and sometimes you fall flat on your face. You got to play the game of averages. If you try enough ambitious things, a bunch of them work out."

"It doesn't work everywhere and sometimes you fall flat on your face. You got to play the game of averages. If you try enough ambitious things, a bunch of them work out."

This isn't just management philosophy for Sridhar, it's his personal playbook. From his 15-year tenure running Google businesses —?including its dominant ads product —?to launching an AI search engine aimed at disrupting Google, Sridhar has consistently shown he thinks big and drives teams to pursue massive goals. (They don't always love it, by the way: "I routinely have squabbles with teams about whether something is ambitious or not," he told me.) His latest challenge: transforming Snowflake into a leading AI company in a matter of months.

At this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, where AI dominated every conversation, I sat down with Sridhar to understand how he'd approached his first year as CEO. What emerged was a masterclass in leading through transformation – even when your company is already successful.

"In this world of AI, nobody knows what the perfect product is going to be, so you have to adapt," he told me. "But these are thrilling times – we can do things with AI that we wouldn't have dreamed of two years ago."

His strategy at Snowflake combined methodical planning with a big tent approach to buliding. Before taking the CEO role, he handed Snowflake founder a 20-point plan with specific AI-related deadlines – a clear roadmap to hold himself accountable. Then, once in the CEO role, he faced a bigger challenge: getting the entire organization to embrace this massive shift.

"I discovered our sales team was literally afraid to sell AI," he recalled. "Why? It wasn't an area they knew. So we had to go through a process: let's demystify AI for you. What do language models do? What do vision models do? What are capabilities you can touch and feel today to get comfortable with it?"

“I discovered our sales team was literally afraid to sell AI. Why? It wasn't an area they knew.”

He started a weekly war room, bringing together engineers, product managers, marketing and sales teams. They'd all be in this together. They identified key, huge customers like Siemens, AT&T, and Bayer who would become both their first clients and their critics. That was the other side. As the team sold, Snowflake would also learn what resonated and where the real needs lay and change accordingly.

"I would do pitches myself. Our head of product would do pitches. We kind of almost went into this as a little startup saying, 'We need to prove our credibility, we need to become a powerhouse'," he said. Big wins would lead to smaller company wins; revenue would lead to more revenue; margins would follow.

The results speak for themselves. "We now have thousands of customers using AI," he said. "This prioritization of how you go about building a business, that's what helps."

His career advice: Do stuff you're not sure you're qualified for

When I asked about the role of emotional intelligence in the AI age – referencing his former Google colleague Lorraine Twohill 's belief that EQ is what sets leaders apart – Sridhar was unequivocal: It's essential and it's how you get ahead.

"Taking responsibility, delivering, being a good colleague, bringing teams along while kind of having gaining breadth and being open to learning, I think goes a long way in making people see you as the person for the next job," he said. "All of my success in my life has come from people giving me jobs that I didn't think I deserved or qualified for. But there's always people like that because there's often growth in areas and the more you take responsibility ... the more likely it is that somebody is going to say, 'This is the person I want leading the next rung of the organization'."

For the complete interview, click on the link.

On LinkedIn’s video series, This is Working, I sit down with top figures from the world of business and beyond to surface what they've learned about solving difficult problems. See more from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole, INSEAD dean Francisco Veloso, Taco Bell CEO Sean Tresvant, Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, former US President Barack Obama, filmmaker Spike Lee, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, cosmetics legend Bobbi Brown, F1’s Toto Wolff, and many more.