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Discussion on: I'm Vivek Saraswat, investor in Dev Tools + Infra startups @ Mayfield and former product leader @ Docker/VMware/AWS. AMA!

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Vivek Saraswat

Hi Michael! My early days working at Docker were awesome. Talented team, rapid iteration on the product, and a close relationship with customers.

Seeing internal hyper-growth firsthand is an experience. Internally, we went from dozens to hundreds quickly. When that happens, old processes stop working, and you have to swiftly put new ones into place. If you are thinking about being a founder or joining a high growth startup, make sure you have a tolerance for this kind of chaos. But, this is a unique experience and skillset that you can take with you anywhere.

The juxtaposition of communities was amazing too . At DockerCon 2016 I gave a keynote in front of an audience of several thousand (and thousands more over the livestream) while wearing an absolutely ridiculous Burning Man-esque getup--the videos are probably still somewhere on youtube. The next day, I was presenting the roadmap to our prominent enterprise customers while wearing far more dreary business casual attire. All part of the experience.

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Michael Tharrington

Wow, moving from dozens to hundreds of coworkers was probably quite a shock!

I attended DockerCon 2017 in Austin and it was amazing — such a good time. I'm trying to dig up your keynote on YouTube, but am having no luck. However, I did find this:

https://p78.f0.n0.cdn.getcloudapp.com/items/8LuJ6J06/Image%202020-03-21%20at%208.04.48%20AM.png?v=729def7bb8e78d01c62f7d8effd39cd9<br>

Burning Man-esque getup indeed, haha! 😁