In Depth

Rebooting Intercom: Eoghan McCabe on Defying Silicon Valley Orthodoxy | Co-founder & CEO


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Eoghan McCabe is the CEO and cofounder at Intercom, an AI customer service platform. Intercom has raised over $240M, and was last valued at $1.3B in 2018. After spending 9 years building the company, Eoghan left Intercom in 2020, but he’s since returned, reshaping Intercom and pioneering its pivot to an AI-first service. This episode highlights his unabashed takes on leaning into your intuition as a founder, and his perspectives on the critical junctures in company building.

In today’s episode, we also discuss:

  • Eoghan's reflections since leaving Intercom
  • The value of intuition and first-principles thinking
  • The changes Eoghan made upon returning to Intercom
  • How Eoghan increased Intercom's productivity by 41%
  • Tactical advice on hiring top talent
  • Why you can't make small improvements in big categories
  • Crafting a culture of ruthless honesty and transparency
  • Why software branding is in crisis
  • Referenced:

    • 37signals: https://37signals.com
    • Basecamp: https://basecamp.com
    • Brian Halligan (HubSpot): https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhalligan
    • David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals, Basecamp): https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-heinemeier-hansson-374b18221
    • Intercom: https://www.intercom.com
    • Jason Fried (37signals, Basecamp): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-fried
    • Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com
    • Marc Benioff (Salesforce): https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbenioff
    • Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com
    • Where to find Eoghan:

      • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe/
      • Twitter/X: https://x.com/eoghan
      • Where to find Brett Berson:

        • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
        • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson
        • Where to find First Round Capital:

          • Website: https://firstround.com/
          • First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/
          • Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround
          • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital
          • This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast
          • Timestamps

            0:00:00 - Founder intuition vs. standard practice

            0:25:00 - Silicon Valley knowledge loops

            0:28:13 - Building an executive team

            0:36:38 - Eoghan’s return to Intercom

            0:42:02 - Transparent and honest leadership

            0:46:42 - Changing Intercom’s strategy

            0:54:22 - AI and category disruption

            1:03:17 - How Intercom thinks about brand

            1:10:40 - Eoghan’s inspirations

            ...more
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