CNBC Television · Sep 29, 2026
With Dev Ittycheria, interim CEO of MongoDB, who ran the company for 11 years before stepping back last year
MongoDB shares fell about 20% to start the week after Chirantan "CJ" Desai stepped down as president and CEO, effective immediately, to take a new job as Meta's chief enterprise platform officer.
The board turned to Dev Ittycheria, who had run MongoDB for eleven years before handing the job to Desai, and asked him to take over again with a week's notice, hours ahead of an investor day already on the calendar.
"I don't really view Meta as a competitor." — Dev Ittycheria
Ittycheria ran MongoDB for eleven years before stepping back last year, and he's the one the board called when it needed someone in the chair immediately.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 3 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
The board called Ittycheria back with only a week's notice, days before an investor day already on the calendar
He says he'll stay only "until we find a really suitable successor"
Ittycheria says Meta lured his successor away with money, not a better opportunity
He argues AI's unpredictable workloads make MongoDB more necessary, not less, because customers need a database that can scale up and down on demand
MongoDB already has relationships "up and down" the frontier AI labs, including Anthropic and OpenAI
He doesn't see Meta as a competitor, and says a bigger AI ecosystem — including apps built on other platforms — only helps MongoDB
1. A Week's Notice
Ittycheria said the board asked him to step back in only days before Wednesday's investor day, catching him off guard as much as anyone.
The board called him back with only a week's notice
"The timing was not great. I found out about it last week and so the board asked me to step in and I agreed to do so." — Dev Ittycheria
Asked how long he intends to stay, he tied his own tenure to finding a permanent replacement rather than to a fixed term.
He's staying only until a permanent successor is found
"I'm going to stay as long as until we find a really suitable successor." — Dev Ittycheria
