\\ 02 Introduction Greylock devotes significant operational resources to In an effort to crystallize some patterns of collaboration our CXO Program, which invites C-level leaders at large — both the missteps and successes — we conducted enterprises to discuss tech trends with our investing team, dozens of in-depth interviews with C-suite technology and brokers meetings with relevant companies in our leaders from Fortune 500 companies, our CXO Program, portfolio. This program was developed in response to a and startup founders and CEOs from the Greylock network. wave of inbound interest from large organizations who We drew a map to guide the way through some common wanted to harness emerging technology, and buy from challenges that startups and their customers have to more innovative vendors. Through this program, we’ve navigate together. had the privilege to meet with hundreds of C-suite executives and customers across industries. Sarah Guo Why are large enterprises so interested in startup tech? General Partner It’s a matter of survival. Every company is undergoing a Greylock Partner digital transformation. Farsighted executives see the pace [email protected] of change in business accelerating. These executives @saranormous know that the companies who more rapidly adopt advancing technology will run their companies better, faster, cheaper, smarter. Technology is a weapon used to defend against competitive threats, and achieve and preserve market dominance. Similarly, for an enterprise technology startup to survive and thrive, they must understand how to effectively work with large companies. Within large enterprises are most of the employees, data, workflows, industry and institutional knowledge, assets, customer relationships, intellectual property, and budgets in the world. Still, we have found even enterprise-focused startups and self-selected “early adopter” customers often struggle to work together. Very few technology leaders are saying, “I don’t want to innovate.” And few startups are saying, “I don’t want to help the biggest companies.” But the obstacles to innovation are real, and failure to overcome them leads to an inexorable slide into irrelevance for big companies, and a rapid death for early enterprise startups. Startups Serving The Enterprise e