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Advice from a Founder Who Built a $390M Company at 57 | LucidLink, Peter Thompson

EO18:06Added Aug 31, 2026

Peter Thompson is Co-Founder and CEO of LucidLink, a cloud-native file service provider enabling fast remote access to data for collaboration. After a 20+ year career culminating as Vice President of Emerging and Developing Markets at Datacore, Peter made the bold decision to return to Stanford graduate school at 48. During his studies, an unexpected call from former colleague George launched him into an entrepreneurial journey. Just as they were p

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  1. Intro

  2. 00:00So were were there days when I regretted
  3. 00:03taking the step to create our own
  4. 00:05company? Yes, there were mainly nights
  5. 00:08like dark nights when the demons come
  6. 00:10out and things are really tough. No
  7. 00:13funding, capital markets have dried up
  8. 00:15and a short runway. I went out and I
  9. 00:18started asking all my mentors and all of
  10. 00:20the uh people for advice and they said,
  11. 00:24"Lay off everybody you can except just
  12. 00:27the core people. protect the IP, live to
  13. 00:30fight another day. George and I looked
  14. 00:32at each other and
  15. 00:33said, "That doesn't really align with
  16. 00:36the core values that we said we were all
  17. 00:39about. And if we don't use our core
  18. 00:42values to make the hardest decision of
  19. 00:44our life, then they're not really our
  20. 00:46values." So, we said, "All right, we're
  21. 00:49not going to do that." Instead, we got
  22. 00:51the entire team together, about 25
  23. 00:53people at the time. Uh we told them
  24. 00:56exactly the what was going on. We asked
  25. 00:59everybody to take deep cuts to have a
  26. 01:02belief in the company and us to feel
  27. 01:04figure out how we're going to weather
  28. 01:06this storm and we ended up keeping
  29. 01:09everybody. I don't think I slept during
  30. 01:12that period. I mean, yeah, I closed my
  31. 01:14eyes at night, but you know, it was just
  32. 01:16terrible. It wasn't just me anymore. It
  33. 01:18was 25 people and their families who had
  34. 01:20a belief in what we were doing. And
  35. 01:23during that time, that's when we did
  36. 01:25find our product market fit. It was
  37. 01:28during that time we got the first call
  38. 01:30from A&D networks and they said, "Can
  39. 01:33you help us?" And we said,
  40. 01:36[Music]
  41. 01:46"Yeah." My name is Pete Thompson. I'm
  42. 01:49co-founder and CEO of Lucid Link. Lucid
  43. 01:52Link transforms cloud storage into an
  44. 01:56unlimited high-performance drive that
  45. 01:59can be accessed from anywhere and
  46. 02:02collaborated on with your team without
  47. 02:04having to synchronize, download or ship
  48. 02:08files around. Lucid Link has over a
  49. 02:10100,000 active users now and we've grown
  50. 02:13the business over the last few years
  51. 02:16from effectively zero to over 40 million
  52. 02:20in ARR. Our next stage is we're focusing
  53. 02:22on that 50 to 100 million ARR milestone.

  54. Embracing Ambiguity

  55. 02:33Embracing
  56. 02:35ambiguity. That was one of the things I
  57. 02:37think I learned early on in my life. I
  58. 02:40was in a program to become a doctor. I
  59. 02:43was in a premed program. I thought
  60. 02:45that's what my path was. And it was just
  61. 02:48by chance that I had this opportunity to
  62. 02:50go to Japan. And as it turned out, it it
  63. 02:54changed the trajectory of my life. after
  64. 02:56I had spent a year of uh university
  65. 02:59studying in Japan and just realized that
  66. 03:01I wanted to do something in my career
  67. 03:04that involved Japanese that I had
  68. 03:06learned. So I joined data core as uh
  69. 03:09employee number 20. My role in dataore
  70. 03:12was to help them establish their
  71. 03:15business in Asia Pacific. But in doing
  72. 03:18so, I spent a lot of time traveling to
  73. 03:20these areas and speaking to people and I
  74. 03:22had to speak to them as the
  75. 03:25representative of data core as a storage
  76. 03:28expert. But there was a problem. I
  77. 03:29wasn't a storage expert at the time. I
  78. 03:32needed to be able to gain their trust. I
  79. 03:34couldn't lie to them. I couldn't pretend
  80. 03:37that I knew things I didn't. So, there
  81. 03:39were a lot of very uncomfortable moments
  82. 03:41where I was kind of right on that edge.
  83. 03:43I knew I was slightly out of my element,
  84. 03:46but I was honest about it at but at the
  85. 03:48same time they realized, okay, he's
  86. 03:50still, you know, we can we can trust
  87. 03:52what he's saying. And gradually over
  88. 03:54time and through a lot of uncomfortable
  89. 03:56moments, I just that's how you learn.
  90. 03:58You know, you push yourself out of your
  91. 04:00comfort zone and you gradually one day
  92. 04:03you wake up and you realize, you know
  93. 04:04what, I kind of am an expert.
  94. 04:09At some point while I was working at
  95. 04:11dataore I realized that my job was
  96. 04:15becoming easy for me. It became a little
  97. 04:19bit repetitive. I wasn't growing and I
  98. 04:23didn't have that feeling of challenge
  99. 04:24anymore. So all of this told me it's
  100. 04:27just time to move on. But I wasn't sure
  101. 04:29how to move on. But uh it was at this
  102. 04:32time that a friend of mine had gone
  103. 04:34through the same program uh the Sloan
  104. 04:37Fellowship program at Stanford. Well,
  105. 04:39Mike and I were fishing buddies. So,
  106. 04:41while you're sitting out on the ocean, I
  107. 04:43learned more about the time he spent at
  108. 04:45Stanford. And he finally said, you know,
  109. 04:47this was you should just go there, do
  110. 04:49this program, find a figure out
  111. 04:51something to do and start a company. And
  112. 04:53I said, "Huh, yeah, maybe I should. Let
  113. 04:55me try that." And so I I was accepted
  114. 04:58into the program and I went into it with
  115. 05:00that. I said, "Okay, I I'm I've got one
  116. 05:03year here. I want to address some things
  117. 05:05that I want about myself, challenge
  118. 05:07myself in in some uncomfortable
  119. 05:10situations and either come up with an
  120. 05:12idea or meet some people who have an
  121. 05:15idea that I can join and start a company
  122. 05:17from scratch." How old was I when I made
  123. 05:20that decision? Uh I was 48. I was the
  124. 05:23oldest person in the program.

  125. Unexpected call from old colleague

  126. 05:33How did it feel to go back to graduate
  127. 05:35school after such a long time in the
  128. 05:36workforce? It felt really uncomfortable,
  129. 05:41but also it was amazing. I was worried
  130. 05:45that the time was going to go too fast.
  131. 05:47I was worried that after a year maybe I
  132. 05:51didn't know what that next thing was
  133. 05:54going to be. I felt I have to make the
  134. 05:57best use of this
  135. 05:59time. I think it was October or November
  136. 06:02when I was in in the program. I didn't
  137. 06:04know what I was going to do, although I
  138. 06:06was certain that it would have nothing
  139. 06:08to do with storage. That was the last
  140. 06:11thing I thought I was going to do. All
  141. 06:13of a sudden, my co-founder George called
  142. 06:15me up. We didn't work very closely at
  143. 06:17Dataore, but I knew him well because he
  144. 06:20was the first engineer that they hired.
  145. 06:22He was known to be a brilliant engineer.
  146. 06:25He called me up and he said, "Hey, Pete,
  147. 06:28I don't know if you realize this, but I
  148. 06:29left shortly after you did because I had
  149. 06:32this idea in my head. I needed to get it
  150. 06:34out of my brain and into code and see if
  151. 06:37it had merit. Are you interested in
  152. 06:39seeing what I built?" And I thought,
  153. 06:41"Yeah, of course I am." He showed me a
  154. 06:44demo that blew my mind after all those
  155. 06:47years in storage. I said, "Wait a
  156. 06:48minute. Is this just a demo or is this
  157. 06:50actually happening live because this
  158. 06:52shouldn't be possible? He said, "Look,
  159. 06:54I'm I've got this idea. I'm looking for
  160. 06:56some partners to help find investors to
  161. 06:59grow the business, to do all of this,
  162. 07:01and I'm at Stanford learning how to
  163. 07:04start a business, get investors, know
  164. 07:06how to build a business, and I'm looking
  165. 07:08for an idea. This could be a perfect
  166. 07:10combination. Tell you what, let's use
  167. 07:13the rest of the time I have here at
  168. 07:15Stanford and the resources, some of the
  169. 07:18classes that are available to me to
  170. 07:20really pressure test this idea. Let's
  171. 07:21try to prove to ourselves that there's
  172. 07:24nothing here. Let's try to disprove this
  173. 07:26theory that there's a company in this
  174. 07:29technology. The problem that we were
  175. 07:31trying to solve was you've got large
  176. 07:34sets of data and a whole bunch of people
  177. 07:36that need to access it. Some of these
  178. 07:38files within this data set are super big
  179. 07:41and that makes it even more difficult.
  180. 07:43Today you have two choices. You can move
  181. 07:45the compute and the applications to
  182. 07:47where the data is stored or you can move
  183. 07:50the data and the files to where the
  184. 07:51compute is running but they have to be
  185. 07:54together. And most of the technology was
  186. 07:57all based on either moving the data
  187. 07:59faster or creating replicas of those
  188. 08:02files so that they were next to the
  189. 08:05applications. What we were doing was
  190. 08:07something completely different. We said
  191. 08:09keep the data stored where it is, keep
  192. 08:12the compute running to where it is. We
  193. 08:15will present it as if it is local and
  194. 08:18our technology will solve the problems
  195. 08:21around performance and collaboration. If
  196. 08:24you can break that fundamental
  197. 08:26difference or fundamental dependency on
  198. 08:30an application requiring a file to be
  199. 08:32right next to it, now you can make those
  200. 08:35decisions separately. You can choose
  201. 08:37where to store stuff based on place to
  202. 08:39store it and you can choose where to run
  203. 08:42your applications based on a separate
  204. 08:45set of criteria. That unlocks all of the
  205. 08:48productivity that we've been doing. But
  206. 08:50first, we had to get funding. We knew
  207. 08:52this was going to be a difficult and
  208. 08:54highly technical product to build. So we
  209. 08:57needed funding and we needed time. After
  210. 08:59I graduated from Stanford, we began
  211. 09:01pitching to VCs
  212. 09:04and they all told us no. They all told
  213. 09:08us it'll never work. It's a bad idea.
  214. 09:12People won't pay for it. Even if you do
  215. 09:14get build it, they won't care. There
  216. 09:16were so many reasons not to invest in
  217. 09:20it. And that was hard. Let me tell you,
  218. 09:22venture capitalists are very smart. They
  219. 09:27see a lot of great ideas. They have a
  220. 09:29lot of success uh investing in
  221. 09:32worldclass companies. So when they tell
  222. 09:34you that your idea sucks, it's hard to
  223. 09:37say you're wrong. But you have to you
  224. 09:41have to believe you have to say that
  225. 09:42there's something that they don't see.
  226. 09:45There's something I know that they don't
  227. 09:47know. They're a generalist. They see a
  228. 09:49lot of things. I'm a specialist. I know
  229. 09:51storage. I know this problem firsthand.
  230. 09:54So, what was the problem? Maybe I'm not
  231. 09:56uh pitching it correctly. Maybe I have
  232. 09:58to change my story, you know. So, we
  233. 10:00kept iterating on trying to figure this
  234. 10:02out. Finally, after 33 rejections or 33
  235. 10:07nos, we finally found an investor who
  236. 10:10said, "I think there is something here."
  237. 10:12And he was willing to invest in us. That
  238. 10:15was Steve Anderson at Baseline Ventures.
  239. 10:18He was well known for picking winners.
  240. 10:20So the fact that he saw something here
  241. 10:24really motivated us as well. So we got
  242. 10:27funded and now we had to build the
  243. 10:30product and it took 2 years to build
  244. 10:33this

  245. Are you ready to fire everyone?

  246. 10:35[Music]
  247. 10:37product. From 2017 to 19 we were
  248. 10:40building the product. From 2019 we
  249. 10:43really had the product out and we were
  250. 10:44trying to find the initial product
  251. 10:46market fit. So we were getting close to
  252. 10:48that in 2020. We had to go out and get
  253. 10:52more funding. We weren't funding because
  254. 10:54we had the metrics. We were funding
  255. 10:56because we were running out of money.
  256. 10:58Not a great position to be in. So we
  257. 11:00knew that this was still going to be a
  258. 11:02case where we are going to have to sell
  259. 11:04vision. We were ready to to do that. We
  260. 11:06got um a whole list of uh VC meetings
  261. 11:10set up and on a Monday morning we were
  262. 11:13driving up Sand Hill Road in early 2020
  263. 11:16and suddenly we got a phone call and
  264. 11:18they said, "Oh, hey, by the way, we're
  265. 11:20going to have to cancel this meeting
  266. 11:21today. Uh we're not allowed to take any
  267. 11:24more in-person meetings. We're going to
  268. 11:26put a pause on all new investments until
  269. 11:29we kind of see how this CO thing is
  270. 11:32going to shake out. It'll probably be
  271. 11:34maybe two weeks or a month and then
  272. 11:36we'll be back back to business as
  273. 11:38normal. Well, we've got a couple hours
  274. 11:41before our meeting in the afternoon.
  275. 11:43Let's go to a coffee shop and work on
  276. 11:45our pitch deck. So, we go to the coffee
  277. 11:47shop and walk in and we get another call
  278. 11:50the next meeting. Basically, the entire
  279. 11:52week of VC meetings got wiped out in one
  280. 11:55day. No funding. Capital markets have
  281. 11:57dried up and a short runway. That was
  282. 12:00kind of a moment we went,
  283. 12:02"Uhoh, what have we done?" I went out
  284. 12:05and I started asking all my mentors and
  285. 12:08all of the uh people for advice and they
  286. 12:11said, "Lay off everybody you can except
  287. 12:14just a core people. Protect the IP. Live
  288. 12:17to fight another day." George and I
  289. 12:19looked at each other and said,
  290. 12:21"Hm, that doesn't really align with the
  291. 12:24core values that we said we were all
  292. 12:27about. And if we don't use our core
  293. 12:30values to make the hardest decision of
  294. 12:32our life, then they're not really our
  295. 12:34values. So we said, "All right, we're
  296. 12:38not going to do that." Instead, we got
  297. 12:40the entire team together, about 25
  298. 12:43people at the time. We were very
  299. 12:45transparent, which is one of our values.
  300. 12:47Uh we told them exactly the what was
  301. 12:50going on. We asked everybody to take
  302. 12:53deep cuts to have a belief in the
  303. 12:55company and us to feel figure out how
  304. 12:58we're going to weather this storm and we
  305. 13:00ended up keeping everybody. I don't
  306. 13:03think I slept during that period. I
  307. 13:05mean, yeah, I closed my eyes at night,
  308. 13:07but you know, it was just terrible sleep
  309. 13:10and there was a lot of pressure and it
  310. 13:12wasn't just me anymore. It was 25 people
  311. 13:14and their families who had a belief in
  312. 13:16what we were doing. And during that
  313. 13:19time, that's when we did find our
  314. 13:21product market fit. It was during that
  315. 13:24time we got the first call from A&D
  316. 13:27Networks and they said, "So, we don't
  317. 13:32know anything about your company, but
  318. 13:34somebody over at Adobe said we should
  319. 13:36call you. Um, we just sent home 80
  320. 13:39engineers with a a laptop, a hard drive,
  321. 13:42and a VPN connection, and that's
  322. 13:44probably going to let us get through
  323. 13:46about the next 2 weeks of production,
  324. 13:48and then we're just not sure what we're
  325. 13:49going to do. Can you help us? And we
  326. 13:52said, "Yeah, yeah, that's exactly. We
  327. 13:55can absolutely help you." So we set them
  328. 13:57up on a P and they the P ended up
  329. 14:01running from directly into production
  330. 14:04and we closed them at nearly 100k ARR
  331. 14:08contract. Now remember we our total ARR
  332. 14:11at that time with 50 customers was
  333. 14:13around 100K. So this was huge and it was
  334. 14:16during that time that we got the next
  335. 14:17call from Viacom CBS and then the third
  336. 14:20call from Vice News. And all of them had
  337. 14:24the same story, the same problem, the
  338. 14:26same outcome. And at that point, we
  339. 14:29said, "All right, we are no longer a
  340. 14:32general file access platform. We are now
  341. 14:35a creative content collaboration tool."
  342. 14:38And that's when we went from 100K in ARR
  343. 14:42to a million that first year and then
  344. 14:44went from 1 to 5, 5 to 15, 15, 30, and
  345. 14:49we're still going.
  346. 14:52to people who haven't found their
  347. 14:54product market fit or are trying to wait
  348. 14:57for their opportunity to come. I guess
  349. 15:00I'd say
  350. 15:01believe. If you have done the work and
  351. 15:05you know your product and you know the
  352. 15:07market, you know there's something
  353. 15:08there, you have to believe in it and you
  354. 15:10just have to have the resilience and the
  355. 15:14grit to to keep bringing it every day.
  356. 15:19That's the hard thing about being an
  357. 15:21entrepreneur. You've got to dig deep
  358. 15:23when no one else believes and you have
  359. 15:25to believe. Not only do you have to
  360. 15:27believe, but you have to make sure that
  361. 15:29your team believes. That would be my
  362. 15:31advice. You just you can't give

  363. How to Challenge Your Life

  364. 15:38up. I was worried that after a year
  365. 15:42maybe I didn't know what that next thing
  366. 15:45was going to be. I felt I have to make
  367. 15:48the best use of this time. So, did you
  368. 15:52make the best use of that time? I think
  369. 15:54I made the best use of the time there. I
  370. 15:57mean, the fact that I was able to start
  371. 15:59Lucid Link and it's become such a an
  372. 16:02important part of my life and an
  373. 16:04important part of almost 200 people who
  374. 16:08work for the company. It was absolutely
  375. 16:10worth it. I think u I I can't imagine a
  376. 16:14better outcome for me personally. How do
  377. 16:16I think about uh the ability to nurture
  378. 16:20instinct to challenge yourself or just
  379. 16:22to put yourself in challenging
  380. 16:24situations? I think this is something
  381. 16:27you can nurture. People talk about
  382. 16:29growth all the time. They say, "Oh, this
  383. 16:31is amazing. We get this chance to grow."
  384. 16:34Growth is hard. Growth is painful.
  385. 16:36Growth kind of sucks sometimes. The
  386. 16:39result of growth is awesome. The process
  387. 16:42of growth kind of sucks. It's hard. How
  388. 16:44you can do that? It's through habits.
  389. 16:47It's through not taking those shortcuts.
  390. 16:50It's through recognizing when you have a
  391. 16:54a decision in front of you and doing
  392. 16:57something that is right, not necessarily
  393. 16:59easy. The more you do those, and those
  394. 17:01can be small things. They can be small
  395. 17:03things like waking up and being like,
  396. 17:05"Yeah, I don't know. I don't have to go
  397. 17:07to the gym." Or go to the gym and say,
  398. 17:09you know, I'll just do one one set
  399. 17:11instead of three. every time and no
  400. 17:14matter how small or big those decisions
  401. 17:16are that you take not the easy path but
  402. 17:19the right path you're going to gradually
  403. 17:23build that habit within yourself. You'll
  404. 17:26build that muscle uh to be open to
  405. 17:29challenging yourself. How you do one
  406. 17:32thing is how you do everything.
  407. 17:35[Music]