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Coming off a stellar beat-and-raise performance last quarter, and in the wake of an impressive earnings report from fellow data platform and analytics company Snowflake (SNOW) on November 20, expectations were high for MongoDB (MDB) ahead of last night's Q3 results. As anticipated, the company easily surpassed EPS and revenue expectations -- a feat it has accomplished in every quarter going back five plus years -- but a slowdown in growth for its key Atlas product and a surprise resignation of Michael Gordon, MDB's CFO and COO, is taking the luster off the blowout results.

• The main catalyst behind the top and bottom-line beat was MDB's non-Atlas business -- namely, the company's Enterprise Advanced (EA) product. That fact is dampening investors' enthusiasm over the upside results given that Atlas cloud growth is the most closely watched demand metric for MDB. On that note, Atlas revenue growth slowed to 26% yr/yr from 27% last quarter, accounting for 68% of total Q3 revenue compared to 71% of total revenue in Q2.
• Similar to SNOW's business model, Atlas's revenue is based on consumption, or usage, rather than subscriptions. During the earnings call, MDB stated that seasonal improvement in Q3 was more muted than in years past, resulting in consumption that was only slightly ahead of its expectations. On the flip side, EA revenue significantly exceeded MDB's expectations as the company had success selling incremental workloads into its existing customer base.
• The problem, though, is that MDB benefitted from the signing of several multi-year non-Atlas deals in Q3, and it doesn't expect that to repeat in Q4. Meanwhile, the company is also shifting a portion of its go-to-market investments from the mid-market to the enterprise channel, which will drive higher growth over time, but will likely create a headwind in the near-term due to slower direct sales customer growth.
• Still, MDB's Q4 EPS and revenue guidance of $0.62-$0.65 and $515-$519 mln did beat expectations by a relatively healthy margin. With MDB expecting to see Atlas yr/yr growth decelerate again in Q4, some may be viewing its outlook as overly ambitious, especially as the company navigates through a major executive shakeup.
• Michael Gordon, who has been at MDB for nearly a decade, will step down from both CFO and COO roles on January 31, while Senior Vice President of Finance, Serge Tanjga, will serve as interim CFO until a permanent successor has been hired. Not only does the change create some potential execution risks, but it also adds to the uncertainty and angst that has materialized in the wake of MDB's slowing Atlas growth. 

The main takeaway is that while MDB's headline numbers look strong as it delivered another beat-and-raise earnings report, the upside results aren't resonating with investors because they were driven by MDB's non-Atlas business. Accordingly, concerns about consumption trends have returned to the surface, at the same time that MDB's long-time CFO has decided to step down, weighing on investors' confidence levels.