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ServiceNow ft. Frank Slootman and Fred Luddy - From Starting Over at 50 to Dodging a $150B Mistake

Frank Slootman, Fred Luddy, Roelof Botha, Doug Leone, Pat Grady, Carl Eschenbach, Rolof Huerta

Founded by Fred Luddy in 2004 after a previous bankruptcy, ServiceNow evolved from a free IT help desk tool into a $150 billion enterprise platform through a strategic pivot to broad, seat-based licensing and a complete cloud infrastructure overhaul. In 2011, Luddy ceded the CEO role to Frank Slootman to enforce operational discipline, while investors from Sequoia Capital blocked a $2.5 billion acquisition offer from VMware to force a path toward an IPO. This decision proved prescient as the company's market value surged to $10 billion within two years of going public in 2012, validating the strategy to prioritize long-term disruption over immediate financial stability.