Christopher Lynch

CEO of AtScale

(Forbes 30 Under 30)

7 June 2019 10 Min Read

Christopher Lynch: Insights on Building B2B Businesses

Meet Christopher Lynch, a self-proclaimed unlikely business-person. Christopher is the person behind AtScale, an industry leading company that virtualizes the data warehouse and modernizes the legacy tech stack for Global 2000 enterprises. He has an extensive background with other B2B businesses and has managed to use his experience for AtScale’s success.

Christopher earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Business Management from Suffolk University and his MBA and an Honorary Doctor of Commercial Science Degree from Bentley University. Before AtScale, Christopher was the CEO of Acopia Networks and Vertica and the co-founder of Tech Tackles Cancer, hack/reduce, and Reverb Advisors. Christopher has also held executive leadership roles at Wellfleet Communications, Prominent Corporation, and Arrowpoint Communications.

I invite you to hear Christopher’s story about his businesses, love as his driving force, and how he manages and spends his time!

The Logician

Hi Christopher! Thank you for taking the time to do this interview with me! Can you tell us more about who you are and what you do? How did you choose the career you have today?

Christopher Lynch

I’m an unlikely businessperson. I was raised in a working-class family living in Yonkers, New York surrounded by people who loved and supported me.

It was a tough neighborhood and getting beat up a lot led me to develop a tough exterior.

But that strength was sourced from a loving home environment — my parents instilled in me the belief that I could accomplish anything and encouraged me to surround myself with people I could trust, love and respect.

I was also taught not to accept anyone’s definition of me but my own.

The example my parents set was that money didn’t buy happiness and the path to a successful life wasn’t the pursuit of money but a love of what you do and who you do it with.

My dream was to become a musician. And because I wasn’t particularly interested in school, it allowed me to channel my creativity and building confidence in my unique expressiveness — and above all, not worrying about standing out in a crowd.

I used my 300-customer paper route from the age of 7 to support my aspirations (ultimately passing the route down to my brothers).

Although we were considered poor, I didn’t know it as I grew up in a home full of love. It wasn’t until later in life that I realized the paper route that I worked at was a supplemental source of income for our family.

While in high school, I aspired to be in a rock band, but the gigs didn’t come close to paying the bills once I graduated.

My first job was in inside sales selling software over the phone. (Given my punk rock exterior, where no one had to actually see me — it was the only path for me into a traditional business environment).

What I found was my non-traditional approach to business worked to my advantage. I leveraged my work ethic, the ability to connect authentically with people and to think outside of the box. I wasn’t formally trained and therefore could leverage my creative side to be resourceful and instinctive.

Fortunately, in my first job, I experienced business success first-hand when the company sold to Lotus. I was able to build upon my learnings in sales leadership, being customer-driven, taking risks and what a nose for white space in markets could yield.

The Logician

What is the vision behind AtScale? Why is it important?

Christopher Lynch

My gift is my ability to see the potential in things and reimagine the possibilities. When I encountered AtScale, it was under-capitalized yet armed with a technology that was revolutionary.

AtScale virtualizes the data warehouse and modernizes the legacy tech stack for Global 2000 enterprises.

Using a universal semantic layer, it democratizes data through virtualization so that it can be sourced from any platform, modeled for analysis and instantly imported into any business intelligence or AI/ML app of choice — on-premise or in the cloud — all the while achieving greater governance and security.

For the first time, business analysts and citizen data scientists have the ability to centralize their business logic in one place and leverage a single source of truth with a speed to insight that’s in minutes versus weeks or months.

Without this capability, enterprises can’t future proof their legacy investments to maintain profitability, they can’t meet customer expectations for service, and they lack the data to make better and more accurate business decisions to maintain their competitive edge. What VMWare did for the operating system, AtScale is doing for data warehousing.

The Logician

This is not your first launch of a B2B tech company, am I right? As a successful entrepreneur in the tech world, what would you say is best about your industry? Are there any downsides to it?

Christopher Lynch

I’m 4 and 0, so I’ve had some success to build upon. I have a formula that works for me that goes against the venture capital mainstream model and addresses what I consider a misalignment between the investors, employees, and customers.

I raised a $50M search fund called ‘0 Dark 30’ which provided a 0% management fee with a 30% return (where a traditional VC model was 2/20). What that provides is a motivation for everyone to build lasting value.

The traditional venture approach needs young, cheap, inexperienced ‘asses-in-seats’. They expect that people work tirelessly, take on all the risk and realize little of the return.

The big lie is that most startups fail and for those that succeed, 70% sell for under $70M. What’s worse, watching reruns of The Social Network romanticizes startups and sets a culture of unrealistic expectations with monetary instant gratification like fast food.

It’s rare that you’re creating lasting value in 2–3 years. It’s just not the reality.

I never did this for the money (although I’m not giving it back). I did what I loved with the people I loved.

I wouldn’t change it even if I didn’t win. Let’s face it — it’s a shallow victory if you don’t have belief in your team, if you can’t embrace and overcome the struggle, or savor the experience.

I generally don’t care what people think of me. I may not be politically correct, but I’m authentic. What I do care about is honesty and integrity. Nothing else matters to me!

The Logician

According to you, what are the best team-building strategies? How would you describe the working atmosphere in your company in three words? Why?

Christopher Lynch

I’m detail oriented and a rebel by nature — you could say I’m a control freak. But, I don’t control people. I focus on results.

I hire great people who have a work ethic, passion, honesty — and plain smarts. Those qualities are inherent in people and I can’t cultivate it, but what I can do is to welcome them into a team environment that’s safe, supportive and allows them to quickly adapt.

I like the example of Tom Brady. He gets 100% of the credit and blame, although it’s not 100% his doing.

No one works alone and succeeds. It takes a ‘f… army’. We have built a great team at AtScale.

It’s full of true believers who come to work with excitement and have no doubt that they can succeed. There is no cynicism allowed. Life is too short and there are too many good things that can happen when you truly believe.

The Logician

What do you wish you had known before entering the business world? Please explain.

Christopher Lynch

One of the most important lessons I learned in life was about failure. Along the path to any great success comes failure. It’s how you face that failure that separates the winners from losers.

Owning your failures makes you less judgmental and more reflective on your bad choices. There’s a German saying that sums it up: adversity reveals a man to himself.

I believe in business and in life, it’s unacceptable to win or lose alone. As a leader, I expect you to come to me if you’re struggling. I see it as a sign of strength and confidence.

Life is a journey of learning and that doesn’t come without struggling and some failure. Losers externalize the reasons for their failure avoiding any accountability. Winners embrace their challenges and see them as opportunities to learn and are inspired by it (learning to win vs. learning to lose).

The Logician

When running a company, or even multiple companies, effectively managing time can be one of the most challenging things. Do you agree? What is your secret to good time management?

Christopher Lynch

Your body is a temple.

Every day I get up and exercise — whether I feel like it or not.

It gives me the energy and clarity of thought I need to make good decisions.

I’m not an operational manager but more of a motivational coach that provides direction and builds trust within the team.

My time is spent building relationships with the team, investors, board members, and the industry.

It’s not about politics (I don’t tolerate that). It’s about getting people excited about winning because it’s a zero-sum game.

You succeed or fail in the end but you’re better off if people are excited and having fun on the journey.

The Logician

Which are the best qualities/skills every person who wants to be successful should have/learn? Why?

Christopher Lynch

I see myself as a student of people, observing their motivations, skills and intellectual abilities. In startups, you don’t want to be identified as a badge number or by the school you attended.

It’s about your ability to think bigger and not be constrained by conventional thought or past experiences.

I wasn’t formally educated which breeds conformity and therefore developed my own playbooks that were unique and creative which has given me an edge to win.

It’s leveraging gift that I was given of investing in people — and doing what you love. Being more of a big picture guy, I don’t get wrapped up in the problems.

I think inwardly which gives you confidence and avoids the pitfalls of worrying about external influences. You can take external cues as input, however, internalizing them as your own is a recipe for failure. Authenticity leads to courageousness which leads to success.

More importantly, investing in people requires giving back. I founded the Tech Tackles Cancer foundation back in 2013 to contribute towards the mission of curing cancer. The foundation allocates capital to the most innovative cancer research, care, and technology programs and is a vital part of my personal community.

The Logician

When was your “I made it” moment? How would you describe success? Can you also explain what happiness means to you?

Christopher Lynch

In life, there are two things that matter: who you spend it with and your work. You may not find those things right away in life but understand it’s all about the journey.

As long as you’re committed to learning, embracing the successes and failures you have, you’ll succeed.

Consider time as your friend and trust that it will give you the gift of introspection, perspective, and the strength to grow. When I realized that, I won in life.

The Logician

Where do you see yourself and your business in the next 5–10 years? Are there any milestones you want to reach within that period?

Christopher Lynch

I see myself as firmly invested in both my investment, leadership and community-based roles. I’m fortunate to have found what I love to do early in life, and I get up every day excited to interact with the people I’ve surrounded myself with.

AtScale is on an incredible trajectory to dominate the $150B market opportunity. Virtual database warehousing will be the enabling force for multi-cloud, hybrid cloud and cloud-based virtualization.

For enterprises investing in Al and machine learning, AtScale will provide the data workloads required both in both model development (via the virtual data engineering) and model deployment (via persistence back into AtScale).

In the end, it’s all about the data. AtScale removes the obstacles to sourcing and analyzing data agnostic to any tool or platform. That’s revolutionary and I’m excited to be championing this type of change in the industry.

The Logician

Last, what is your best advice for everyone who fears they will not succeed?

Christopher Lynch

Hard work never guarantees success. It’s the decisions you make each day and – choosing what you’ll work on that will move the needle is what matters.

Understanding what you’re good at and what you’re not — and then surrounding yourself with people who can help you overcome your weaknesses is the formula for your work — no matter what you do.

Ultimately, wanting to be part of something that’s bigger than you, has to be the driver. There’s no place for entitlement. You have to will success — even when faced with failure — and that can only be done in a supportive team environment.

The Logician

Christopher’s words were inspirational and reminded me that the love of what you do and who you do it with should be the leading force in our lives. Thank you, Christopher, for being yourself and not allowing anybody else to define you. It was a pleasure to hear your life story and how you emphasize trust, love, and respect in your business. I am excited to hear about your future as a revolutionary force in your industry - so I wish you the utmost luck getting there!

The Logician

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Christopher Lynch: Insights on Building B2B Businesses

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