MongoDB, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDB) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Michael Gordon: Yes, so for those people who don’t know Jim’s background, he spent about 17 years at AWS. He had a variety of roles but last two meaningful roles was he ran the Dynamo business at AWS which is AWS’s fastest-growing and largest non-relational database business. And then he ultimately then took over that identity access management business, which if you think about it, every AWS customer has to use as a service that has to not only perform but perform at massive scale. The fact EV has dealt and built two mission-critical services for AWS was very appealing to us given our ambitions to kind of the level of scale that we expect our business ultimately get to at some point in time. He, obviously, brings us very strong technical DNA, he obviously has a lot of network of relationships in the industry.

So, we expect him to help us grow the team around the world leveraging his relationships and in terms of priorities. I mean, right now, he still kind of really assessing the current state of the business. He has been quite impressed with the quality of talent that we have. But he is really kind of what I have encouraged him to do is we need to go slow to go fast to take his time in terms of really understanding the business, understanding the team, understanding the code base before he starts really prioritizing what to do and it’s not like there’s some things massively broken, it’s really helping us set-up to scale to the next level.

Tyler Radke: Great. And a follow-up for Michael. I know you talked about how Atlas consumption during Q3 was in line with your expectations. I’m just curious, given there were a lot of volatility in at least the equity markets and the economy, did it — was there any more variability within the quarter, in other words, did it start weaker and stronger and then I’m just curious throughout the month of November, have things kind of further improved ahead of the holiday seasonality? Just any additional color would be helpful. Thank you.

Dev Ittycheria: Yes. So it like you said, Q3 Atlas results were in line with our expectations there was a seasonal benefit to Q3 relative to Q2. But given the fact that we’ve seen less variability in consumption in fiscal 2024, we had expected that to be smaller than it was in fiscal 2023 and that’s exactly how it played out. The seasonal improvement, as it relates to Q3 is a little bit more in the back-half of the of the — of the quarter. As it relates to Q4, typically the back half is weaker, given the holiday slowdown and I hope that helps people understand a little bit.

Operator: Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Kash Rangan of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Kash Rangan: Hey, thank you very much, Dev and Michael. Happy holidays. Congrats on the results. So, going into calendar 2024, how does the management team feel relative to going into calendar 2023 with respect to how macro conditions are no longer impacting or maybe they are impacting some aspects of the business, any verticals that stand-out that you feel particularly excited about? So just wanted to understand how MongoDB is therefore fitting into customer priorities as you get into 2024. Thank you so much.

Dev Ittycheria: Hey, Kash. Thanks for the question. I think compared from last year, this year we don’t see things getting worse, but we don’t see things getting better. Where I said, last year with the Fed raising rates, you could really sense that people are getting much more cautious and there was probably more negativity in terms of the outlook coming into calendar 2023. So, that being said, we definitely see innovation, being a priority for customers. We clearly are. I would say the distinction between must-to-have and nice-to-have clearly, in the first category. But customers are also, as I mentioned in the prepared remarks remain focused on being sensitive to costs and ensuring that any investments that may have a high ROI.

So we feel that we’re well-positioned in terms of use cases or segments. I would say in general there is no real kind of material change in any across any vertical industry or geography. We do see. I mean we were at Reinvent last week and we had an amazing set of conversations with lots of senior-level customers. I think we’re really viewed as a mission-critical platform by all our customers, and I think people view us as a platform that they can bet on long-term. And so we see less I would say focus on like point solutions and more about like trying to leverage MongoDB for more and more use cases and I would say that’s pretty consistent across industries and geographies.

Michael Gordon: Yes, the only other thing I’d add Kash is clearly, things have stabilized, we are not guiding fiscal 2025. But just looking out there is clearly a difficult EA and non-EA compare that people should sort of keep in mind, and. I think the big assumption or the big determinant will be people’s macro outlook in terms of how that affects the fiscal 2025 numbers. But those are probably the key things to keep in mind.

Operator: Thank you. One moment, please. Our next question comes from the line of Ittai Kidron of Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Ittai Kidron: Thanks. Hey guys, nice numbers. Michael, I wanted to go back to one of the comments in your prepared remarks. I think you’ve talked about how you expect non-Atlas business to be down quarter-over-quarter in the fourth-quarter, because I think the third-quarter had multiple multiyear deals, correct me if I’ve got this wrong. I guess my question is, why would that affect 4Q unless there was a pull-forward also not just multi-years, is there a pull-forward element from 4Q into 3Q in your non-Atlas business?

Michael Gordon: No, it’s not about a pull-forward. It’s just when you take into account the 606 impact of a multi-year deal, you wind up recognizing a lot of upfront license revenue. And so when you think about what that means on a sequential basis, you see the difference in the delta there.

Ittai Kidron: Got it, helpful and then, therefore —

Michael Gordon: I think the only other thing, Ittai, just for people is, given the strength that we’ve seen of EA throughout the year, but including Q3 we effectively raised our outlook, if you will in Q4, in part given the strength of EA. Even though we don’t guide to product, Atlas is in line with our expectations. EA outperformed in Q3. And our full-year raise was more than the beat in Q3 and I think that shows that kind of continued strength of EA.