Ryan Cooke of WorkOS argues that software factories should be judged by customer outcomes rather than PR counts or AI-generated code volume. He describes how WorkOS embedded its product engineering process into its factory through TARS, Horizon, a PM agent that drafts Hilltop docs, and an internal MCP gateway connected to Snowflake, along with bug triage, owned sandboxes, a memory layer and outcome-focused metrics.
Ali Ghodsi, CEO of Databricks, shares his unconventional rise to leadership, his unique CEO playbook centered on extreme focus on bottlenecks, and how he built Databricks' commercial engine. He details the strategy against Snowflake, the controversial creation of the Lakehouse category, and his views on conflict-averse leadership. Ghodsi also discusses AI's impact on enterprise and organizational design, offering insights from his personal coding experience and operating system.
Flora Liu from Notion's GTM engineering team discusses transforming a fragmented Go-to-Market system into a unified, agent-driven platform. She details how Notion tackles challenges like dispersed customer data and unstructured insights by building a four-layered architecture (Know, Decide, Act, Learn) where humans and AI agents operate on the same substrate, leveraging Snowflake, DynamoDB, and Notion itself to create durable, self-improving workflows and boost sales and marketing effectiveness.
Jacqueline Cheong and Robin Tang, founders of real-time data streaming platform Artie, discuss their journey from identifying the critical need for fresh data at companies like OpenDoor to building a production-ready solution, acquiring their first major customer Substack via a cold email, and navigating the complex technical challenges of real-time data processing at scale.
Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy discusses the company's rapid transformation into an AI-first data platform. He introduces Snowflake Intelligence, an agentic system for enterprise data, and explores the strategic pivot, the ROI of AI for businesses, and the evolving roles of data platforms, partnerships, and search in the age of AI.