Every employee at Workday thinks about how they are going to help customers be successful. It is a simple formula, but a lot of companies go out, and they don't listen to their customers; they don't try to solve hard problems, making it tougher for themselves to create a great business.
I liked business. I found it fascinating.
Oracle is not known for its high levels of customer satisfaction.
NetSuite was a really good company.
We invest very heavily in the employees. We get the return, and the employee gets the return if they stay with us for a while. So, we focus on people that will commit to us for the long run.
The best way to avoid bureaucracy is to have small teams who are empowered to make decisions and get their work done.
We spend a lot of time looking at the things we like: Amazon, Google, Facebook.
Candidly, when you go back to '07 or '08, it was hard to sell cloud. We started out by focusing on large enterprises on day one. Everybody thought cloud was for SMBs (small and mid-size businesses), but we made the leap that it was going to be for large enterprises, that they were going to replace their core systems.
Small companies tend to go out of business. Large ones don't.
Every time you see a new paradigm emerge, it's always new vendors that lead it. I can't think of one case where an incumbent led a paradigm shift.
To really disrupt a big market, you have to look at the marketplace from a long-term perspective. You have to move very fast but knowing that disruptive solutions just take time to build.
Because everybody else was investing in the consumer Internet, I did, too.
When we started Workday, we were originally very focused on the core HR system. Then we added payroll, and then we got into performance management.
People like me, when we're interviewing, we're not going back to our desktop to fill out a recruiting form. If I can quickly submit my evaluation through an iPhone or an iPad, that makes me a lot more productive.
I'm not a stock expert by any means. Stocks go up; they go down.
All you can worry about as CEO is making sure your company continues to build great products, deliver the revenue, and keep your customers happy.
There's nothing slowing down about the shift to the cloud. I don't see anything on the horizon that is changing that.
What's great about the iPad and iPhone is that they are easy-on, easy-off.
The goal isn't just to make transactions: it's to make better decisions in the way you run your business. If that's not at the top of every executive's priorities, then they shouldn't be an executive.
I would be amazed if Oracle does not buy NetSuite.
