Bernd Greifender co-founded Dynatrace in Linz, Austria, 20 years ago. As CTO, he has seen the observability firm grow into a multi-billion-dollar tech giant.
Greifender says his competitive nature is behind his continued push to make Dynatrace a major tech player. He also channels that drive into high-performance boat racing for fun.
We had coffee with Bernd at Dynatrace’s Perform event in Las Vegas…
Where did your interest in tech begin?
As a kid, I loved to assemble and disassemble broken things, so I played with electronics. Then, I moved into computer science, and as a student, I started writing my first software, which was tied to observability.
But it became more than a hobby during the early internet days when I was working on load-testing and eventually set up a company in this space, but eventually, we were bought out.
But we had lots of customers who were happy with the load testing product but unhappy because, with our simulation, we could tell they weren’t ready to go live yet because they didn’t have the scaling capability.
This drove me to consider the available tools. At the time, they were mainly profilers, but for me, as an architect, they didn’t provide proper insights because you could only build a probability tree and not a casual root to trace problems.
Was there a “Eureka!” moment for you that led to Dynatrace?
Over the years, I have learned that some of the best products we build come from personal needs. If I’m unsatisfied with what is available, we should try to do things differently from everyone else; this has always yielded the best results for me.
Take Grail [Dynatrace’s analytics engine] is already defining the future of Dynatrace in a big way. Not everyone has seen how big the opportunity is there. Four or five years ago, the focus was on needing storage that brings a graph database, a metadata database, and all other sorts of data in one place. But that didn’t exist, so we created it — not just for us, but for others.
It’s challenging because you aren’t just sitting down and writing code or using generative AI to help you write it. You are breaking existing systems down to bits, not bytes. You are going to the core of it, and that is our key philosophy.
After 25 years in the industry, how do you maintain your passion for tech?
I have to admit I am very egotistical, and that really drives me. Every human wants to be loved by others, and this is why I want to build products and solutions that customers love — so I can indirectly feel loved by the customers using them.
This is also why seeing customers love our products at events like Dynatrace Perform fuels me!
I am also very competitive. I believe Europeans can compete with our US counterparts to build brilliant software, and that’s another big part of what drives me.
Do you channel that competitiveness into any other avenues?
I am competitive in sports. I played tennis for decades, but now I am more into high-performance sailing, such as catamarans.
I’m currently combining that with my love for tech by working with a team to build a boat with some guys from the Americas Cup teams.
This combines nature and what’s around me with real cutting-edge technology, which is inspiring. But it is also actual physical exercise. It isn’t cocktails on a boat, but capsizing, wetsuits, and travelling at more than 30 knots!
What was the most challenging part of your career, and how did you overcome it?
The hardest time in Dynatrace’s history was when we were around 20-30 people. Although I was the CEO, I still built products and coded. I was also involved in hiring and onboarding people and helping sell. So, there were a lot of things going on.
At the time, I felt, “This is too crazy.” How could I do all of this? But that was a big lesson: always look one or two years ahead at who you need and who you need to onboard. Hiring the people to head up the divisions that needed looking after paid off, and that freed me up to do my tasks — the things I wanted to focus on, the things that excite me.
What excites you the most in tech right now?
I am getting excited about AI. Those hype cycles obviously come and go, and people are freaking out about AI right now. I love this quote from Michel de Montaigne, a French philosopher: “People are most apt to believe what they don’t understand.” And I think this is very true.
There is true potential in AI, and there is no doubt about this. While there is much false understanding, the piece that excites me is the complexity this is driving. Now, we don’t have the fear that suddenly all software developers are going to lose their jobs.
Technology is doing what it has always done: increasing the gap between low- and high-educated people. This is a huge challenge. Consider the invention of the pocket calculator and its effect on accountancy. It didn’t make people jobless just because they had a better tool.
How do you take your coffee?
I actually have a very clear recipe. I use 2.5 grams of coffee grind, 2.5 grams of water, and a 15-g shot. This is put into a computer-controlled machine with sensors which release temperature-controlled water at the correct intervals.
I bought a coffee machine then input the specific requirements for my taste, so it makes my perfect cup.
What are you looking forward to in the near future?
We are already way more than an observability company, but at our heart, we are much more driven by the power of analytics overall. Observability is a key data source, but we are much more of an analytics company.
AI is a big part of analytics. But it also defines us now and in the future because it unlocks so many use cases across different audiences. This goes far beyond the AI hype.
For more articles in the series, visit our A Coffee with… page here.
