Cloud Pipe Dream

Cai asserts that on a brilliant summer day in August 2021, George Fraser was trying to relax at his family's lakeside cabin deep in the woods of Wisconsin. Instead, the CEO and cofounder of Fivetran was worrying about his job and the company he had spent nine long years building with his childhood friend Taylor Brown, whose family also summered in the same patch of northern pines. One of Fivetran's board members was Bob Muglia, who had been CEO of Snowflake. Mugliaknew a thing or two about the stakes. He recalls that Steve Ballmer beat the crap out of me after he lost enterprise customers to Oracle while a president at Microsoft. In 2011, Satya Nadella, Microsoft's current CEO, replaced Muglia. He spent five years building Snowflake but was shown the door just a year and a half before the company had one of the largest IPOs in Silicon Valley history.