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Lessons from Building Netlify with Matt Biilmann, CEO at Netlify

Matt Biilmann, CEO and co-founder of Netlify, for an in-depth discussion about the company's incredible growth journey—from a bootstrapped two-person startup to a global platform serving over 5 million developers and powering sites for major companies like Unilever and Asana. Matt reflects on the key lessons he’s learned while scaling Netlify, including raising $212 million in venture capital and growing the team to 200 employees. He shares valuable insights on balancing day-to-day operations with long-term vision, navigating the challenges of hiring experienced leaders, and fostering a culture of clarity and focus. Matt also highlights the importance of reducing friction for web development teams and ensuring fast time-to-market for web projects.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction 01:00 - The Origins of Netlify 02:30 - Netlify’s Growth Journey 04:00 - Impact of Netlify on the Web Ecosystem 05:30 - Building the Right Team 07:45 - From Developer to CEO: Evolving as a Leader 10:00 - The Balance Between Vision and Operations 12:00 - Delegating vs. Staying Hands-On 15:30 - Hiring Experienced Leaders 18:00 - Building Diverse Teams 20:00 - Intuition in Leadership 22:30 - Simplifying Goals and Objectives 25:00 - The Shift in Tech Leadership 28:00 - Changing Expectations for Engineers
30:00 - Advice for Startup Founders
32:00 - Where to Find Matt Online
33:00 - Conclusion

Follow Matt Biilmann on Social Media Twitter: https://x.com/biilmann Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mathias-biilmann-christensen-a5a3805/ Github: https://github.com/biilmann

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