Boomi was founded in the early 2000s by Rick Nucci, acquired by Dell in 2010, and then spun out to Francisco Partners and TPG Capital in 2021. Today it powers 30,000+ enterprise customers globally and moves more data per second than the entire Visa card network, times two. What started as an integration platform has evolved into something bigger: the leading data activation company, purpose-built for the agentic AI era.

Steve Lucas took over as CEO in early 2023, just as ChatGPT was about to reshape the entire software landscape. A three-time CEO with nearly 30 years in enterprise software, Steve previously led Marketo through its $4.75B acquisition by Adobe (the largest in Adobe's history at the time), scaled iCIMS into the world's leading talent acquisition cloud, and held senior roles at SAP, Salesforce, Adobe, and BusinessObjects. He's also the author of "Digital Impact: The Human Element of AI Driven Transformation," a book arguing that the AI revolution will stall unless companies fix the fragmentation of their data first.

In this episode, Sophie Buonassisi sits down with Steve at HumanX in San Francisco to unpack why 2026 is the year AI moves from pilot to production, the three diagnostic questions every CEO should ask before deploying agentic AI, and why "change only happens at the speed of trust." Steve also gets candid about the internal protest that erupted when Boomi rolled out its first CSM agent, his prediction that AI will go from influencing 20% of executive decisions to making 90% of them within 2 years, and how he picked up Claude Code on an airplane to vibe-code a contracts agent for his sales team.

If you're a founder, operator, or GTM leader trying to figure out whether your business is actually ready for agentic AI (or just chasing the buzzword), this one is for you.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00  Intro

0:58  Welcome to GTMnow at HumanX

1:10  Why 2026 is when AI moves from pilot to production

2:32  Influencing decisions vs. making decisions: the next 2 years

3:18  Digital Impact: why fragmentation will stall the AI revolution

5:01  "Get your data to the gym": the new slogan

5:20  The 3 questions to know if your company is AI-ready

6:47  Change happens at the speed of trust

7:53  The internal protest behind Boomi's CSM agent

9:32  From integration platform to data activation: the strategic shift

10:50 Steve's most transformative AI workflow as a CEO

11:12 Vibe coding with Claude on an airplane

12:20 Where to follow Steve and Boomi

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow

linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi  

Guest: Steve Lucas, CEO at Boomi

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nstevenlucas/

Visit us on: https://gtmnow.com

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow

Follow us on X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_

Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTM_now

Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gtmnow_

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gtmnow_/

Sponsors: 

.Tech - Domains, where the next generation of builders is planting their flag. Secure your .tech domain today from any registrar of your choice. 

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/

Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email gtmnow@gtm

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

Okta's CRO Jon Addison joins GTMnow host Sophie to break down the full story behind Okta's remarkable revenue turnaround, the launch of Okta for AI Agents, and the go-to-market playbook that's carrying them from $3B toward a $5B ARR target.

From nearly $850M in operating losses to over $760M in operating income, Okta's transformation is one of the most significant turnaround stories in enterprise SaaS. In this episode, Jon pulls back the curtain on exactly how it happened.

In this episode:

- Why 91% of enterprises are already deploying AI agents but only 10% have a security strategy for them

- How Okta's "AI governance gap" insight became the foundation for their biggest product launch in years: Okta for AI Agents

- The GTM restructure around specialization that unlocked productivity and drove 40% higher average contract value on new product deals

- How Okta became a partner-first company: 95% of their top 100 deals in the last fiscal year were partner-led, and what operationally made that possible

- Why the first discovery call no longer exists, and how sellers need to show up differently in the AI era

- Jon's new internal sales methodology, APEX, built on Command of the Message for the AI era

- How Okta is using AI internally to transform their own go-to-market motion, from conversational intelligence to pre-sales assistants

- What the path to $5B ARR actually looks like: enterprise expansion, international growth, public sector, and the massive new TAM unlocked by non-human identity

- Jon's leadership philosophy: why human-centric selling is becoming more critical as AI takes over the repetitive work

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi

Guest: Jon Addison, CRO at Okta

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-addison-3399175

Timestamp:

0:00 - Cold open

1:19 - Welcome + Jon's background: from London to Silicon Valley

1:52 - How Jon got into software and identity management

4:08 - Okta for AI Agents launch announcement

5:04 - 90% of customers live with agents, only 10% confident in securing them

6:31 - What's driving the governance gap in the market

7:53 - Speed of agent innovation must be matched by security and governance

8:36 - 40% higher ACV on deals that include new products

9:43 - Why consolidation around a single identity platform is resonating

11:45 - How AI agents unlock a massive new TAM for Okta

13:05 - Okta's turnaround: from $850M operating losses to $760M operating income

13:36 - Key decision 1: GTM specialization drove productivity

15:02 - Key decision 2: becoming a partner-first company

16:14 - What cracking the partner-led model actually looks like

19:08 - How long it takes to see ROI from a partner-led pivot

20:12 - The path from $3B to $5B: enterprise, international, public sector

21:49 - Using AI internally: launching "Apex," the AI-era sales methodology

23:04 - What the Apex sales methodology entails

24:25 - Buyers now show up with strong opinions before the first call

25:44 - How discovery is changing: human-centric selling in the AI era

27:33 - Headcount and AI: what skills matter in the future

29:31 - Why relationships are Okta's core competitive advantage

30:36 - The role of experiences: F1, events, and the 7-touchpoint rule

31:47 - Broad GTM surface area: ABM, ecosys

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

Jennifer Li, Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), breaks down why the firm allocated $1.7 billion of its latest $15 billion fund specifically toward AI infrastructure, and what she's betting on next.

Jennifer has backed ElevenLabs from Series A all the way through Series D, watching it grow to an $11 billion valuation. In this episode, she explains what she saw in voice AI before anyone else did, what makes a founder worth backing regardless of the tech, and why the next wave of AI infrastructure is being rebuilt from the ground up.

In this episode:

- Why a16z bet $1.7B on AI infrastructure (and why now)

- The shift from cloud to AI-native infrastructure: storage, compute, orchestration, memory

- How ElevenLabs crossed the uncanny valley in synthetic voice

- Voice agents as the first AI category to truly scale in the enterprise

- What "king-making" in AI go-to-market actually looks like

- The traits that made Jennifer write a check for ElevenLabs on founder conviction alone

- Open source vs. frontier models: what 2027 looks like

- Why world models and vision language models are the next unlock

- AI and human creativity: why directors and authors won't be replaced

- How a 1-2 person studio can now make a full movie

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi

Guest: Jennifer Li, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferhli/

https://x.com/JenniferHli

Connect with Max: 

https://x.com/hackitmax

https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler

Connect with Paul:

https://x.com/PaulGTM

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsirving

Timestamps:

0:00 - Cold open

1:06 - Max & Paul intro: are we in a bubble?

1:46 - AI vs. dot-com era: the key differences

4:55 - B2B SaaS disruption and value destruction (Thoma Bravo / Medallia)

6:39 - Intercom / Finn: crossing the chasm from legacy to AI-native

8:08 - Introducing Jennifer Lee, a16z General Partner

8:31 - Paul's key takeaway: the distribution era

9:41 - Why speed to default brand has never mattered more

11:33 - The ElevenLabs story: a16z led Series A, B, and C

12:02 - Why the seed strategy still works

13:37 - What the best founders do differently with model capabilities

15:58 - Jennifer Lee joins: why a16z raised $1.7B for infrastructure

16:22 - What existing infrastructure is being rebuilt for AI

19:19 - Specific areas a16z is focused on: models, storage, dev tools, security

20:35 - 90%+ of code now written by agents

21:52 - What Jennifer saw early in the 11 Labs / voice AI space

25:19 - Go-to-market in AI infrastructure: what's working

27:29 - Becoming the default brand: the "Kleenex effect" in AI

28:37 - What makes a founder worth backing on conviction alone

30:48 - Predictions for 2026/2027: open source catching up fast

31:39 - Most exciting new modalities: world models and vision language models

32:07 - AI and human creativity: can they coexist?

34:42 - What's blocking the creative AI future

36:05 - "The best ideas live in the graveyard"

36:57 - Closing advice: make AI tools your friends

Visit us on: https://gtmnow.com

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow

Follow us on X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_

Follow us on

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

Kyle Parrish joined Figma as the first-ever sales hire when the company was doing $2M in ARR and helped scale it to $950M ARR. Figma then went on to IPO (FIG).

But the path there was anything but smooth.

In this episode, Kyle breaks down what it actually took to build Figma's enterprise sales motion from scratch, including the no-discount rule that made procurement teams furious, the 40-hour interview weeks when hiring felt impossible to keep up with, and what it was like to lead a 300-person team through a failed $20B Adobe acquisition, and then have their best year immediately after.

We cover:

- Why Figma refused to discount, even when Microsoft pushed back

- How to hire the right first sales rep as a founder

- The PLG to enterprise transition most companies get wrong

- What the Adobe deal collapse actually felt like from the inside

- How Figma went from 3 products to 8 overnight and launched into an IPO

- What great sales look like in the AI era

Timestamp:

0:00 – Intro

1:02 – Guest intro: Kyle Parrish

1:35 – Joining Figma at $2M ARR in 2018

5:01 – First meeting with Dylan (Figma CEO)

6:13 – How to find your first sales hire

9:05 – Stage alignment in early hiring

11:43 – Early-stage operators need "scar tissue"

13:19 – Northstar metric at Figma

14:13 – Obsessing over customer conversations

16:44 – Building Figma's brand through community

17:31 – Scaling the "unscalable"

20:08 – In-person GTM vs. digital

22:47 – Was there a moment Figma might not make it?

24:48 – Pivoting after the Adobe deal collapsed

28:10 – Figma's no-discount rule

31:05 – Enterprise ELAs replacing discounting

34:47 – What makes a great salesperson in the AI era

36:56 – Missionaries vs. mercenaries in AI-era GTM

39:47 – Spotting the next Dropbox or Figma

43:46 – Kyle's post-Figma investing focus

45:58 – Family, travel & what's next

Guest: Kyle Parrish, former VP Sales at Figma

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kparrish8/

X: https://x.com/KyleHParrish

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/

X: https://x.com/sophiebuona

Visit us on: https://gtmnow.com

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow

Follow us on X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_

Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTM_now

Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gtmnow_

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gtmnow_/

Sponsors:

Nooks - the AI workspace for outbound teams: https://www.nooks.ai/gtmfund

.Tech - Domains, where the next generation of builders is planting their flag. Secure your .tech domain today from any registrar of your choice.

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/

Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

Kyle Parrish joined Figma as the first-ever sales hire when the company was doing $2M in ARR and helped scale it to $950M ARR. Figma then went on to IPO (FIG). 
But the path there was anything but smooth.

In this episode, Kyle breaks down what it actually took to build Figma's enterprise sales motion from scratch, including the no-discount rule that made procurement teams furious, the 40-hour interview weeks when hiring felt impossible to keep up with, and what it was like to lead a 300-person team through a failed $20B Adobe acquisition, and then have their best year immediately after.

We cover:
- Why Figma refused to discount, even when Microsoft pushed back
- How to hire the right first sales rep as a founder
- The PLG to enterprise transition most companies get wrong
- What the Adobe deal collapse actually felt like from the inside
- How Figma went from 3 products to 8 overnight and launched into an IPO
- What great sales look like in the AI era

Timestamp:
0:00 – Intro 
1:02 – Guest intro: Kyle Parrish 
1:35 – Joining Figma at $2M ARR in 2018 
5:01 – First meeting with Dylan (Figma CEO) 
6:13 – How to find your first sales hire 
9:05 – Stage alignment in early hiring 
11:43 – Early-stage operators need "scar tissue" 
13:19 – Northstar metric at Figma 
14:13 – Obsessing over customer conversations 
16:44 – Building Figma's brand through community 
17:31 – Scaling the "unscalable" 
20:08 – In-person GTM vs. digital 
22:47 – Was there a moment Figma might not make it? 
24:48 – Pivoting after the Adobe deal collapsed 
28:10 – Figma's no-discount rule 
31:05 – Enterprise ELAs replacing discounting 
34:47 – What makes a great salesperson in the AI era 
36:56 – Missionaries vs. mercenaries in AI-era GTM 
39:47 – Spotting the next Dropbox or Figma 
43:46 – Kyle's post-Figma investing focus 
45:58 – Family, travel & what's next

Guest: Kyle Parrish, former VP Sales at Figma 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kparrish8/
X: https://x.com/KyleHParrish

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/
X: https://x.com/sophiebuona

Visit us on: https://gtmnow.com
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow
Follow us on X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_
Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTM_now
Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gtmnow_
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gtmnow_/

Sponsors: 
Nooks - the AI workspace for outbound teams: https://www.nooks.ai/gtmfund
.Tech - Domains, where the next generation of builders is planting their flag. Secure your .tech domain today from any registrar of your choice. 

Transcript available under the episode here: https://gtmnow.com/tag/podcast/

Subscribe to GTMnow for the latest episodes! https://gtmnow.com

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected]

GTMnow is a media brand brought to you by VC firm, GTMfund: https://gtmfund.com/

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other intere

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

AI isn't just changing how we sell. It's changing how buyers make decisions before they ever talk to you.

Sam, Founder and CEO of Test Box, joins Sophie on GTMnow to break down exactly what's happening to the B2B software buying process right now, and what go-to-market leaders need to do about it immediately.

If you're a founder, CRO, or AE wondering why your pipeline feels different, this conversation will give you a clear framework for what's happening and what to do next.

What we cover:

• Why 70-80% of purchase decisions are already made before the first call (and it's accelerating)
• The shift from discovery calls to validation calls, and how to prepare
• CEO (AI-version of SEO): how LLMs are shaping what buyers believe about your product
• The "day one shortlist" shrinking from 3-4 vendors to 1-2 vendors
• Agent-to-agent procurement: Sam's timeline for when AI agents fully take over buying
• Why the mid-funnel is actually getting longer, not shorter
• The "Fake Nothing, Prove Everything" campaign that went viral post-Series A
• How Test Box runs 15 AI experiments per week across the entire company
• Using Google Vertex video analysis to read prospect body language on sales calls
• How to build an AI-first culture without burning out your team
• Books: The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, No Ego, Courageous Marketing, Good to Great

Timestamps:0:00 - Cold open

1:09 - What Test Box does

2:43 - How buying has changed

5:48 - What founders/CROs should do now

7:05 - GEO: AI version of SEO

9:02 - Why mid-funnel is expanding

21:17 - Agent-to-agent procurement

26:02 - All procurement by agents in 3-5 years

29:09 - How vendors differentiate beyond product

33:30 - The croissant campaign breakdown

45:50 - 15 AI experiments per week

47:10 - Analyzing prospects via video AI

48:29 - Building AI culture in your team

52:39 - Book recommendations

Guest: Sam Senior, Founder and CEO TestBox

Linkedin: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuelsenior/⁠

Test Box:⁠ https://www.testbox.com⁠

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/

Newsletter:⁠ https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com⁠

Visit us on:⁠ https://gtmnow.com⁠

Follow us on LinkedIn: / gtmnow

Follow us on X (Twitter):⁠ https://x.com/GTMnow_⁠ 

Fo

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

AI isn't just changing how we sell. It's changing how buyers make decisions before they ever talk to you.

Sam, Founder and CEO of TestBox, joins Sophie on GTMnow to break down exactly what's happening to the B2B software buying process right now, and what go-to-market leaders need to do about it immediately.

If you're a founder, CRO, or AE wondering why your pipeline feels different, this conversation will give you a clear framework for what's happening and what to do next.

What we cover:

• Why 70-80% of purchase decisions are already made before the first call (and it's accelerating)
• The shift from discovery calls to validation calls, and how to prepare
• CEO (AI-version of SEO): how LLMs are shaping what buyers believe about your product
• The "day one shortlist" shrinking from 3-4 vendors to 1-2 vendors
• Agent-to-agent procurement: Sam's timeline for when AI agents fully take over buying
• Why the mid-funnel is actually getting longer, not shorter
• The "Fake Nothing, Prove Everything" campaign that went viral post-Series A
• How TestBox runs 15 AI experiments per week across the entire company
• Using Google Vertex video analysis to read prospect body language on sales calls
• How to build an AI-first culture without burning out your team
• Books: The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership, No Ego, Courageous Marketing, Good to Great

Timestamps:

0:00 - Cold open

1:09 - What TestBox does

2:43 - How buying has changed

5:48 - What founders/CROs should do now

7:05 - GEO: AI version of SEO

9:02 - Why mid-funnel is expanding

21:17 - Agent-to-agent procurement

26:02 - All procurement by agents in 3-5 years

29:09 - How vendors differentiate beyond product

33:30 - The croissant campaign breakdown

45:50 - 15 AI experiments per week

47:10 - Analyzing prospects via video AI

48:29 - Building AI culture in your team

52:39 - Book recommendations

Guest: Sam Senior, Founder and CEO TestBox

Linkedin: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuelsenior/⁠

TestBox:⁠ https://www.testbox.com

⁠

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/

Newsletter:⁠ https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

⁠Visit us on:⁠ https://gtmnow.com

⁠Follow us on LinkedIn: / gtmnow

Follow us on X (Twitter):⁠ https://x.com/GTMnow_⁠ 

Follow us on YouTube: / @gtm_now 

Follow us on TikTok: / gtmnow_ 

Follow us on Instagram: / gtmnow_  

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

Auren Hoffman (Flex Capital) joins the GTMnow podcast to share some of the most contrarian takes in tech today, from why AI moats are gone, to why your next VC meeting will be with a bot, to why AI is secretly going to trigger a baby boom.

In this episode:
- Why Auren runs 500+ AI agents to source deals, and what that means for founders raising capital
- The "agent-to-agent" meeting prediction: by end of 2026, first VC conversations will be fully automated
- Why every software moat has been "blown up" and what Salesforce, LinkedIn & DocuSign need to do to survive
- The OpenAI x The Hustle acquisition breakdown: why it's the smartest (and cheapest) distribution play in AI
- Why missing a great deal is 10x more painful than making a bad one, Auren's honest VC mistake framework
- The baby boom thesis: why AI, IVF, self-driving cars & cheaper energy could reverse the fertility decline
- Why companies won't sign yearly SaaS contracts anymore, and what that means for every B2B founder

Auren Hoffman is the founder of Flex Capital, SafeGraph, and LiveRamp. He's an early backer of Replit, Perplexity, Rippling, Vercel, Coinbase, Chime, and AppLovin.

Connect with Max: 
https://x.com/hackitmax
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler

Connect with Auren:
https://x.com/auren
https://www.linkedin.com/in/auren/
https://www.youtube.com/@summationpod

GTMnow shares how the best in tech build, scale and invest.
Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes, The GTMnow Newsletter editions, and other content.

GTMnow is run by GTMfund - we are an early-stage venture firm made up of 350+ go-to-market executives from the fastest-growing companies.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:05 - GTMfund Q1 recap 
02:38 - OpenAI x The Hustle breakdown 
06:18 - Redpoint's optimal VC deployment period 
11:24 - Auren Hoffman intro 
13:04 - Why am I seeing this deal? 
26:26 - Sizing up founders at Replit, Perplexity & Rippling 
28:49 - What separates great founders 
32:10 - 500+ AI agents for deal sourcing 
33:40 - Agent-to-agent VC meetings by 2026 
45:13 - Every software moat is blown up 
49:09 - Who kills Salesforce next? 
51:30 - Why no one signs yearly SaaS contracts anymore 
51:50 - AI will trigger a baby boom 
56:22 - Thinking generationally

#AI #VentureCapital #GTM #StartupFunding #AurenHoffman #FlexCapital #SaaS #ArtificialIntelligence #Founders #Sales

Visit us on: https://gtmnow.com
Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gtmnow
Follow us on X (Twitter): https://x.com/GTMnow_
Follow us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GTM_now
Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@gtmnow_
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gtmnow_/

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

Auren Hoffman (Flex Capital) joins the GTMnow podcast to share some of the most contrarian takes in tech today, from why AI moats are gone, to why your next VC meeting will be with a bot, to why AI is secretly going to trigger a baby boom.

In this episode:
- Why Auren runs 500+ AI agents to source deals, and what that means for founders raising capital
- The "agent-to-agent" meeting prediction: by end of 2026, first VC conversations will be fully automated
- Why every software moat has been "blown up" and what Salesforce, LinkedIn & DocuSign need to do to survive
- The OpenAI x The Hustle acquisition breakdown: why it's the smartest (and cheapest) distribution play in AI
- Why missing a great deal is 10x more painful than making a bad one, Auren's honest VC mistake framework
- The baby boom thesis: why AI, IVF, self-driving cars & cheaper energy could reverse the fertility decline
- Why companies won't sign yearly SaaS contracts anymore, and what that means for every B2B founder

Auren Hoffman is the founder of Flex Capital, SafeGraph, and LiveRamp. He's an early backer of Replit, Perplexity, Rippling, Vercel, Coinbase, Chime, and AppLovin.

Connect with Max: 
https://x.com/hackitmax
https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxaltschuler

Connect with Auren:
https://x.com/auren
https://www.linkedin.com/in/auren/
https://www.youtube.com/@summationpod

GTMnow shares how the best in tech build, scale and invest.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes, The GTMnow Newsletter editions, and other content.

GTMnow is run by GTMfund - we are an early-stage venture firm made up of 350+ go-to-market executives from the fastest-growing companies.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:05 - GTMfund Q1 recap 
02:38 - OpenAI x The Hustle breakdown 
06:18 - Redpoint's optimal VC deployment period 
11:24 - Auren Hoffman intro 
13:04 - Why am I seeing this deal? 
26:26 - Sizing up founders at Replit, Perplexity & Rippling 
28:49 - What separates great founders 
32:10 - 500+ AI agents for deal sourcing 
33:40 - Agent-to-agent VC meetings by 2026 
45:13 - Every software moat is blown up 
49:09 - Who kills Salesforce next? 
51:30 - Why no one signs yearly SaaS contracts anymore 
51:50 - AI will trigger a baby boom 
56:22 - Thinking generationally

#AI #VentureCapital #GTM #StartupFunding #AurenHoffman #FlexCapital #SaaS #ArtificialIntelligence #Founders #Sales

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The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content. 

Wade Foster is the CEO of Zapier, a company that sits between 7,000+ apps and runs millions of automations every single day. That gives him a front-row seat to how companies are actually adopting AI, not just talking about it.

In this episode, Wade breaks down the exact decisions he made at Zapier to go from 10% AI usage to 97% company-wide, why agents and workflows are not the same thing, and what most leaders are getting completely wrong about AI fluency.

What you'll learn:

• The difference between agents and workflows (and when to use which)

• What triggered Zapier's internal "Code Red" after GPT-4 launched

• The one-week hackathon that took AI adoption from 10% to 50% overnight

• The AI fluency rubric Zapier built: Unacceptable, Acceptable, Adaptive, Transformative

• Why leaders who aren't using AI are the biggest bottleneck in their companies

• How to measure AI ROI: floor raisers vs ceiling raisers

• How AI now handles 50% of Zapier's customer support tickets

• Wade's personal "advisory council" of AI sub-agents he uses for every major decision

• Why building a company today is 10x cheaper but distribution is 10x harder

• The truth about fundraising: you're selling your company, not raising money

• How Zapier stayed profitable by only hiring when it hurt

  
  

Guest: Wade Foster, CEO of Zapier

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wadefoster/

Company - Zapier: https://zapier.com

Host: Sophie Buonassisi, SVP Marketing at GTMnow

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophiebuonassisi/

Newsletter: https://thegtmnewsletter.substack.com

Episode highlights
0:00 - Intro

1:13 - The Seinfeld Quote & Kanye Text story

3:16 - Workflows vs. Agents: What's the difference?

6:09 - Zapier's Code Red moment

8:55 - The hackathon that moved AI adoption from 10% to 50%

12:06 - Making AI fluency a hiring requirement

13:47 - Building the AI fluency rubric

16:40 - Why leaders are the biggest AI bottleneck

18:12 - Revenue impact of going AI-first

22:09 - Would Wade build Zapier differently today?

23:20 - Is Zapier's moat at risk from agents?

24:59 - Staying profitable with minimal capital

28:37 - The riskiest contrarian bet that paid off

31:52 - Wade's 3 personal AI workflows

36:53 - Favorite books for founders

GTMnow is the media brand of GTMfund, sharing go-to-market insights from working with hundreds of portfolio companies backed by 350+ of the best GTM executives.

Subscribe for weekly episodes with the operators, founders, and investors behind the fastest-growing software companies.

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

Visit gtmnow.com for more episodes and other interesting content.