Meet the disruptors: mike maciag of dynatrace on making an impact in competitive industries

AN INTERVIEW WITH FOTIS GEORGIADIS > Dynatrace is an excellent example of a team that has executed well > together over many years. Going back to our previous conversation > about 

disruption, the shift to the cloud (and the resulting > explosion of data) changed everything. Accelerating our customers’ > digital transformation is a primary focus for us. This 

inspires us > to work as a team to constantly push the boundaries of our > innovation to provide solutions that simplify an ever-complicated > software world. As_ a part of our

series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing__ __Mike Maciag._ _Mike is the Chief Marketing Officer at software intelligence

company Dynatrace, where he is responsible for the company’s global marketing and business development functions. A Silicon Valley native, Mike has a long history of building enterprise

software companies. Prior to Dynatrace, he was SVP of Big Data Services at SAP, which he joined through the successful sale of data-as-a-service pioneer, Altiscale._ THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR

DOING THIS WITH US! BEFORE WE DIG IN, OUR READERS WOULD LIKE TO GET TO KNOW YOU A BIT MORE. CAN YOU TELL US A BIT ABOUT YOUR “BACKSTORY”? WHAT LED YOU TO THIS CAREER PATH? I always knew I

would be working in tech. Growing up in Silicon Valley allowed me to see firsthand how entrepreneurial spirit could turn innovative ideas into companies that transform industries. After

graduating from Santa Clara University, getting started in consulting, and then getting my MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, I started building my experience

in enterprise software markets. I followed my passion for decoding product/market fit to grow companies that solved unmet customers’ needs. I have experience leading both growth-stage and

larger technology companies, including SAP, Altiscale, and Electric Cloud. I have been the Chief Marketing Officer at Dynatrace since 2018 and am responsible for the company’s global

marketing and business development organizations. CAN YOU TELL OUR READERS WHAT IT IS ABOUT THE WORK YOU’RE DOING THAT’S DISRUPTIVE? Digital services now define nearly everything we do…how

we bank, manufacture, deliver healthcare, receive government services, and communicate with friends, families, and colleagues. These services are built on dynamic hybrid and multicloud

environments that have become extremely complex and produce an extraordinary amount of data about how these critical services perform and serve the needs of their users. In fact, 71% of CIOs

from the world’s largest organizations say this data explosion is beyond human ability to manage. Dynatrace helps organizations tame cloud complexity and drive digital transformation at

scale by delivering answers and intelligent automation from data. Our unified Software Intelligence Platform combines broad and deep hybrid and multicloud observability and continuous

runtime application security with advanced AIOps and automation capabilities to help our customers ensure that their software runs perfectly. Think of Dynatrace as an intelligent MRI on the

body that is always on — if something goes wrong, we will see it before symptoms show up and be able to pinpoint precise root-cause for rapid, even automatic, resolution. Whereas most

observability and application security solutions stop at presenting data on dashboards or rely on AI tools that they add or bolt-on to enhance their capabilities, the Dynatrace AI, called

Davis, sits at the core of our platform. Rather than relying on ML-based statistical guesses, Dynatrace leverages continuously updated topology and dependency mapping to enable a precise

causation-based approach to provide precise answers and intelligent automation. There’s no need to configure, script, or even know which apps or cloud platforms are running. With Dynatrace,

this is easy, automatic, and scalable, so there’s no wasted time or resources. CAN YOU SHARE A STORY ABOUT THE FUNNIEST MISTAKE YOU MADE WHEN YOU WERE FIRST STARTING? CAN YOU TELL US WHAT

LESSON YOU LEARNED FROM THAT? I was fortunate to learn in Silicon Valley the value of “failing fast,” and appreciating mistakes that you can learn from. I, like most, have made many mistakes

throughout my career so it is hard to pick one in particular. The important part is recognizing a mistake, admitting it, and learning from it. Otherwise, you are doomed to repeat it. WE ALL

NEED A LITTLE HELP ALONG THE JOURNEY. WHO HAVE BEEN SOME OF YOUR MENTORS? CAN YOU SHARE A STORY ABOUT HOW THEY MADE AN IMPACT? I was lucky to have been raised by my mentors — my parents. My

dad worked in food service, a very different industry from tech. Still, he gave me an early look into what it means to build a business. Because of him, business was a regular topic of

conversation around the dinner table. My dad inspired me with his framework for thinking about things, one of which was specific to the food business, “if you don’t sell it, you smell it.”

As time went on, I often thought about this seemingly funny saying and realized that it applies to most businesses, at least metaphorically. I’ve gotten to work with numerous business

leaders that have shaped how I think and lead throughout my career, many of whom are with me at Dynatrace. All these leaders have mentored me. I’ve always tried to take the best parts of

what I’ve learned from them to enhance my approach and execution across my career. IN TODAY’S PARLANCE, BEING DISRUPTIVE IS USUALLY A POSITIVE ADJECTIVE. BUT IS DISRUPTING ALWAYS GOOD? WHEN

DO WE SAY THE CONVERSE — THAT A SYSTEM OR STRUCTURE HAS WITHSTOOD THE TEST OF TIME? CAN YOU TELL OUR READERS WHEN DISRUPTING AN INDUSTRY IS POSITIVE AND WHEN DISRUPTING AN INDUSTRY IS NOT SO

POSITIVE? CAN YOU SHARE SOME EXAMPLES OF WHAT YOU MEAN? The answer to this isn’t exactly black and white. Whether good or bad, disruption is always happening because change is constant even

when progress is not. Our digital-first world is an example of positive change. Today, we handle banking through mobile apps rather than going to a teller. We order an Uber or Lyft instead

of waving down a taxi. We shop online instead of leafing through a Sears catalog. Shifting consumer needs, the pandemic, and many other external factors have forced industries to always

anticipate change and ensure adaptability. People should be nervous when it seems something has been perfected and doesn’t require change. This is precisely when disruption is likely coming.

CAN YOU SHARE FIVE OF THE BEST WORDS OF ADVICE YOU’VE GOTTEN ALONG YOUR JOURNEY? PLEASE GIVE A STORY OR EXAMPLE FOR EACH. I can share one word that stands out: Teamwork. It might be cliche,

but teamwork is a huge factor in success. This transcends businesses, sports, and music — great teams executing together to bring a shared vision to life. Dynatrace is an excellent example

of a team that has executed well together over many years. Going back to our previous conversation about disruption, the shift to the cloud (and the resulting explosion of data) changed

everything. Accelerating our customers’ digital transformation is a primary focus for us. This inspires us to work as a team to constantly push the boundaries of our innovation to provide

solutions that simplify an ever-complicated software world. The team’s ingenuity and commitment to excellence brought our flagship observability solution, the Dynatrace platform, to

fruition. It’s also what will continue to drive our company onward and upward. WE ARE SURE YOU AREN’T DONE. HOW ARE YOU GOING TO SHAKE THINGS UP NEXT? The convergence of observability,

security, and analytics represents a $50 billion total addressable market. This is a competitive space. Continuous innovation enables Dynatrace to stay ahead. Our recently announced Grail

technology is a good example. It unifies and analyzes the immense amount of data from modern cloud environments to provide IT, business, and development teams with precise answers and

intelligent automation to drive digital transformation at scale. In technical terms, Grail is the industry’s only causational data lakehouse with massively parallel processing. We launched

this technology in October 2022. We first applied it to revolutionize log management and analytics. In November, we extended Grail to power business analytics. In the upcoming months, we

will continue to extend Grail to power additional development, security, IT, and business use cases. This will help our customers do more with less and drive digital transformation while

maintaining the highest performance, reliability, and security levels. DO YOU HAVE A BOOK, PODCAST, OR TALK THAT’S HAD A DEEP IMPACT ON YOUR THINKING? CAN YOU SHARE A STORY WITH US? CAN YOU

EXPLAIN WHY IT WAS SO RESONANT WITH YOU? I’m a big fan of non-fiction — documentaries, biographies, and history. I really admire the writers who can tell these stories so well that they

captivate as well as well-done fiction. Stories about political figures and presidents, cultural icons like Muhammad Ali, civil rights protesters, and more teach are both humbling and teach

me about how leaders deal with great times of change. History doesn’t repeat itself, but history rhymes. It’s important to me to leverage lessons that come out of the past to do better

moving forward. Learning from these major figures gives me insights into how I work and live. CAN YOU PLEASE GIVE US YOUR FAVORITE LIFE LESSON QUOTE? CAN YOU SHARE HOW THAT WAS RELEVANT TO

YOU IN YOUR LIFE? Wyoming Senator, Alan Simpson, once said: “Hatred corrodes the container it’s carried in.” It’s human for us to give into our emotions once in a while, and it happens to

everyone, but stewing in them for too long stops us from moving forward. It’s important to take a breath before letting hate — or any other feelings of negativity — impact our ability to

progress. YOU ARE A PERSON OF GREAT INFLUENCE. IF YOU COULD INSPIRE A MOVEMENT THAT WOULD BRING THE MOST AMOUNT OF GOOD TO THE MOST AMOUNT OF PEOPLE, WHAT WOULD THAT BE? YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT

YOUR IDEA CAN TRIGGER. I learned from a friend, boss, and colleague something called the “Reasonable Person Principle.” In summary, it says that if you find yourself in a significant

disagreement with someone and you think they’re acting unreasonably, it’s incumbent upon you to put yourself in their shoes. Assume they’re the reasonable one, and try to understand which

experience, data, or other information gives them that perspective. If they do the same thing, approaching conflict in this way results in 90% of conflicts working themselves out. HOW CAN

OUR READERS FOLLOW YOU ONLINE? * Mike Maciag on LinkedIn * Dynatrace on Twitter * Dynatrace on LinkedIn THIS WAS VERY INSPIRING. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR JOINING US!