Like Jamie Dimon, Databricks CEO hates days with too many meetings. He says it means he gets nothing done and he’s just got ‘monkeys on his back’

With a valuation of $190 billion, Databricks is now one of Silicon Valley’s biggest—and fastest-growing—software companies.

But according to CEO Ali Ghodsi , one key to scaling the company hasn’t been getting his top talent into more meetings—it’s making sure they aren’t stuck in conference rooms all day.

“I try to compress the calendar,” Ghodsi said on a recent episode of the Long Strange Trip podcast .

“What I mean by that is I try to put nothing on the calendar.

It ends up being packed anyway, but there are many blocks that are free where I can go back to this main thing.” At 8 a.m. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Ghodsi said he and his team meet to identify that “main thing”—essentially, the biggest bottleneck facing the company and how they can work together to solve it.

“I want to unblock that big thing that I think is the thing that’s going to get us 10x,” he said.

Other than that, Ghodsi said he wants to avoid other meetings being put on his calendar.

A day with back-to-back meetings isn’t just exhausting—it can mean losing control of his own schedule.

“I think if I do the 8 a.m. back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-5 or 6 p.m., I consider those days I’ve just been a slave to my calendar.

I’m just working for my calendar,” he said.

Instead of focusing on his own priorities, he’s spending the day working through everyone else’s demands: “Monkeys on my back, right?” Fortune reached out to Databricks for further comment.

CEOs are pushing back on unnecessary meetings and bad etiquette In a business environment where companies are constantly being pushed to move faster, it can be tempting to solve every problem with another meeting—and invite a handful of stakeholders.

However, meetings can quickly become distractions themselves, filling up with small talk, veering off topic, or getting bogged down in corporate jargon.

In fact, a 2024 survey by software giant Atlassian found that nearly three out of four meetings are ineffective at disseminating information.