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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

20Sales: $0-$3.7BN: The Databricks CRO’s Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4637 Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2025

⏱️ 76 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ron Gabrisko is the Chief Revenue Officer at Databricks, where he joined in 2016. Under his leadership, Databricks has scaled from $0 to $3.7BN annualized revenue. He has grown the sales team from 0 to over 1,000 globally, leading expansion into enterprise, government, and international markets. Ron previously held senior sales roles at Cloudera and IBM, bringing deep experience in data and AI infrastructure. His tenure at Databricks has been defined by hypergrowth, multi-product adoption, and world-class GTM execution.

Agenda for Today:

00:04 – The Databricks Origin Story: Ali, Ben Horowitz & 7 PhDs

00:08 – Ali vs JPMorgan: Turning Down $10M to Stay Cloud-First

00:13 – Prospecting Day: How Ron Scaled the GTM Culture

00:16 – Why Databricks’ Pricing Model Was Its Secret Weapon

00:19 – Enterprise vs SMB: The Risky Bet That Paid Off

00:23 – From $2M to $13M ARR: How Ron Built the First Sales Engine

00:29 – Can AI Replace Salespeople? Ron’s Brutally Honest Take

00:36 – How to Get Your First Million-Dollar Rep (and Keep Them)

00:42 – The Culture Secret Behind Scaling to 5,000 Sales Reps

00:45 – Why Databricks Waited Until $500M ARR to Go International

00:52 – What Makes a Great Sales Meeting? Ron’s Gold Standard

00:58 – The Snowflake Wars: Why Ron Says Databricks Is 5 Years Ahead

 

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

You are listening to 20 Sales with me, Harry Stebbings.

0:02.4

Now, today we have an absolute unicorn from the sales world on the show.

0:06.7

We have Ron Gabrisco, Sierra Databricks, which he joined in 2016.

0:11.3

And check this out.

0:12.1

Under his leadership, Databrx has scaled from zero to over $4 billion in ARR.

0:18.2

He's growing the sales team from zero to over a thousand globally,

0:22.1

leading expansion into the enterprise, government and international markets. I do not know any other

0:28.5

CRO or sales leader that has gone from zero to four billion dollars leading the charge. Incredible.

0:35.7

And this is one of the best 20 sales shows we've ever done.

0:38.8

But before we dive into the show today, is your finance team a cost center tied up in enforcing policies

0:45.0

bogged down by cumbers and processes and drowning in operational busy work? Well, what if you could

0:50.5

unlock seamless, strategic finance that actually fuels your business growth?

0:55.1

This is why leading global growth companies use Payhawk, the finance orchestration platform

1:00.2

that unifies global spend management with conversational AI to deliver best user experience

1:06.0

for everybody dealing with company spending. Finance teams using Payhawk report a major shift from

1:12.3

operational to strategic work. New AI agents for each finance role handle the busy work,

1:18.5

acting with the same governance as your finance team, like having a small team of expert

1:23.4

assistance that work 24-7, but also providing an exceptional user experience to your employees.

1:29.4

Payhawk is built for growth and enterprise businesses that operate globally.

1:33.5

No six-month implementations, no consultant dependencies, just immediate finance transformation that scales with your business.

1:41.3

Leading growth companies like Vinted, Wallbox and hundreds more across 32 countries.

1:46.6

Use Payhawk to move finance forward, not just keep up. Ready to turn your finance processes into

...

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