Every CEO says culture matters. Fewer can articulate how they know it is working.
Greg Schott has a test I have not heard many leaders articulate so clearly. He told me his goal was simple. “When we’re done here, whenever people move on, everybody wants to get the band back together.” Not nostalgia. Not perks. A shared desire to do hard things together again.
That definition mattered more to him than the $6.5 billion outcome. And if you understand how MuleSoft scaled, that mindset explains a lot.
Why Culture Outlasts the Exit
Greg ran MuleSoft for a decade, taking it from 20 employees and $2 million in revenue to 1,700 people and $800 million. The company consumed less than $150 million in capital before selling to Salesforce for $6.5 billion.
Yet when I asked what he was most proud of, he did not hesitate. “The fact that people look back on it as a formative time,” he said. Former employees still call themselves Muleys. Some list MuleSoft alum and Muley for life on their profiles.
He recently spoke with a former employee he had not talked to in seven years. Only after leaving did she realize how different the culture was. Greg hears that story often.
“If you build that kind of culture,” he said, “the results will happen.” Not because culture replaces strategy, but because it enables people to solve problems faster than any plan ever could.
Talent Density Changes Everything
Greg pointed to one document that shaped his thinking early on. The Netflix culture deck and its focus on talent density.
“If you have high talent density,” he said, “you can let people run. They figure out how to scale the organization.” The opposite is also true. Low talent density forces rules, guardrails, and bureaucracy. That drives away the very people you want most.
At MuleSoft, the goal was simple. Surround great people with other great people.
- High performers challenge broken systems instead of working around them
- People are not afraid to put themselves out of a job
- Improvements compound because trust is already there
As Greg described it, people did not come to work to turn the crank. They came in asking why the crank existed in the first place and how to make it better.
That mentality only works when people trust each other and know they belong.
Scaling Means Reinventing Yourself
Taking a company from 20 people to 1,700 requires the CEO to change repeatedly. Greg pushed back on the idea of fixed stages. “I don’t really buy that there are these gates,” he said. Growth is a continuum.
Early on, most CEOs default to what they love. Selling or building product. That works for a while. Then the organization outgrows that focus.
“The product you’re building as a CEO is the company itself,” Greg said. That realization separates operators who scale from those who stall.
He referenced leaders like Zuckerberg, Jobs, and Musk who stay deeply involved in product. But even then, the company itself becomes a platform. Layers of systems, people, and communication that must work together.
He described the early days of MuleSoft when $100 million in revenue felt impossible. With $15,000 ASPs, the math looked absurd. A decade later, the company was adding $50 million per quarter because the machine had learned how to perpetuate itself.
The CEO’s Voice Carries Further Than You Think
One of Greg’s most honest reflections was about communication. Early on, he thought of himself as just another person adding value. Later, he realized something had changed.
“You’ve got a thousand employees and you don’t get a chance to talk to everybody,” he said. “You realize people are keying off how you communicate, how you lean.”
At MuleSoft, they adopted Radical Candor and pushed it hard. Greg thought everyone got it. Then he would have conversations that made it clear they did not.
“You realize the number of times you have to reiterate a vision,” he said. What worked when 20 people fit in a room does not scale to 1,700.
- You repeat the message until you are tired of hearing yourself
- Then you repeat it again
- Systems and infrastructure have to reinforce it
That repetition is not noise. It is leadership.
The Hiring Mistake That Slows Everything Down
From his board seat, Greg sees the same blind spot over and over. Hiring leaders who succeeded inside a machine but never built one.
This shows up most often in sales leadership. Big resumes. Big company logos. Strong track records. Then failure.
“The mistake,” Greg said, “is confusing success at one level of scale with what it takes to go from your current X to Y.”
Many leaders have spent years working within a well defined system. As a CRO at an early stage company, that flips. “Your job is not to work within something anymore,” he said. “Your job is to create.”
That applies beyond sales.
- CFOs who have never built financial systems from scratch
- Engineering leaders who have not scaled platforms
- Executives who manage well but do not lead change
As Greg put it, leadership and management are not the same thing. The difference shows up when growth demands creation, not optimization.
AI Is Not a Side Project
Greg views AI through the same lens as past shifts, but with a sharper edge. Unlike the web, AI will affect almost every employee, not just a channel or function.
“The challenge for CEOs right now,” he said, “is making sure the organization is putting the appropriate amount of energy toward AI instead of dabbling.”
Most companies are moving at a fraction of the pace they should be. Existing customers, systems, and habits slow everything down. Greg believes CEOs must actively pull the organization forward.
AI is not just a tool underneath the work. It is becoming a peer. A multiplier of intellect. That changes how organizations operate and how leaders lead.
No one knows exactly what management looks like in five or ten years. Greg was clear about that. What is clear is that passive adoption will not be enough.
What This Means for You
Culture is not a poster. It is a memory people want to recreate.
Scaling is not about hitting revenue milestones. It is about rebuilding the company and yourself over and over again.
Hiring is not about pedigree. It is about who can create the next machine, not just run the last one.
And AI is not optional. It is already reshaping how work gets done.
Greg Schott’s story is not about one company. It is about what happens when trust, talent, and discipline compound over time. Listen to the full episode of The Scaling CEO here.I am Glenn Gow. I coach CEOs. If you want to build a company people would willingly do again together, and scale yourself along the way, let’s talk.
