There’s tension in how Dhillon feels about the subject—gratitide for the runaway early success that shaped his life, and a nagging sense that things could have turned out differently.
“On one hand, we have this $8 billion outcome that’s satisfying,” said Dhillon, who has no stake left in Informatica. “On the other hand, who’s buying who, right? I mean, I was one of Marc [Benioff’s] first public company customers when he was starting Salesforce back in the day. So, you really have to continually double down on market opportunities to go forward. And this is what Informatica stopped doing that later led to the private equity years.”
“If you use the filter of ‘We’ll for sure make money in this fiscal year’ to say yes or no to projects, you’re going to run out of innovation,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time.”
Ultimately, Dhillon told Fortune that he doesn’t regret leaving Informatica behind. “If you’re graced with some success early in life, you have choice,” he said. “And when we have choice, we have to engage passionately with big problems.” Sometimes, said Dhillon, a clean break is all you need. He thinks back to that point of no return, 20 years ago.
Dhillon did, taking a year off learning Spanish at a university in Buenos Aires. And then he started over.
See you Monday,
