023: Shishir Mehrotra, CEO @ Coda | Mental Models, Frameworks, and how to go from nothing to $683M

Shishir Mehrotra is the cofounder and CEO of Coda, a new doc for teams that combines documents, spreadsheets, and powerful building blocks into a single canvas. Shishir was formerly an executive at YouTube, overseeing the YouTube product. Over his 6 years tenure, he helped grow YouTube to the world's largest video destination, one of Google's largest and fastest growing businesses, and the platform of choice for a new generation of video creators.

 

Prior to Google, Shishir spent 6 years at Microsoft and held leadership roles in the Windows, Office, and SQL Server divisions. Before Microsoft, Shishir was the founding CEO of Centrata.

 

Shishir is an MIT graduate, and was awarded the Technology Review's TR35 ("35 innovators under 35") award in 2012. He has been an advisor to Spotify since 2015 and joined the board in June 2017.

On this episode:

• Learn why Shishir made the difficult decision to leave YouTube and start a company of his own.
• Shishir explains why he was hesitant to found his own company.
• Discover how to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
• Learn the secrets to hiring well.
• Discover how to properly manage and develop your expectations.

Key Takeaways:

• Great businesses have an incredibly simple core thesis.
• Be brutally honest when you’re wrong.
• Ask every candidate you interview to do a presentation.

Tweetable Quotes:

• “By the time the whole world thinks a category exists, you can’t start the company anymore."

• “Entrepreneurship is full of naysayers.”