LOCATION

We built Datadog in New York, not San Francisco. Everyone told us that DevOps companies had to be in the Bay Area. Turns out infrastructure does not care where you write the code.

Building a gigafactory in northern Sweden — above the Arctic Circle — was either visionary or insane. We had cheap clean energy and political support. What we didn't have was enough skilled workers willing to move there.

We built this from Minnesota. Not San Francisco. Not Tel Aviv. Minnesota. Turns out you can build a $4 billion cybersecurity company anywhere if the product works.

Location is everything. The right 20 feet of storefront in the right block is worth more than an entire building in the wrong one.

Los Angeles makes games differently than San Francisco. We understand entertainment because we live in it.

I started Mindbody in San Luis Obispo because that's where I lived. Everyone said I needed to be in Silicon Valley. Twenty years later, we're still in SLO.