AppDynamics CEO: Don’t call my $2B company a unicorn

We’re investigating the nature of these Innovation Engines in a series of What To Think podcasts, sponsored by Pivotal Tracker, and columns by VentureBeat editor at large Dylan Tweney. Tune in here to learn the secrets behind the tech world’s most successful platforms.

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This week’s guest is David Wadhwani, the (relatively) new CEO of AppDynamics. My interview with him is in this week’s podcast.

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Wadhwani joined AppDynamics as its CEO and president in late 2015, after a storied career at Adobe. AppDynamics, which provides application monitoring services for developers and enterprises, recently raised $150 million in a round that reportedly valued the company at close to $2 billion. Note: Wadhwani wouldn’t confirm the valuation and didn’t want to talk about it too much, which is not surprising, given how much downward pressure unicorn valuations have come under lately. Still, he gets some points for foresight and prudence: I recorded the conversation with him in December, well before this month’s valuation and stock market downdraft.

I talk with Wadhwani about the investment climate, application performance monitoring in general, DevOps, and about how he helped Adobe manage its transition from packaged software to cloud services.

Plus, Jordan Novet and I tell you what to think about:

• the possible bursting of the “unicorn” bubble in 2016
• Apple abandoning its iAd platform
• Google’s AMP platform for faster mobile pages, and
• Jordan Novet’s home-built Oculus Rift-compatible PC.

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