The MAD Podcast with Matt Turck

In this episode, we dive deep into the story of how Datadog evolved from a single product to a multi-billion dollar observability platform with its co-founder, Olivier Pomel. Olivier shares exclusive insights on Datadog's unique approach to product development—why they avoid the "Apple approach" of building in secret and instead work closely with customers from day one.

You’ll hear about the early days when Paul Graham of Y Combinator turned down Datadog, questioning their lack of a first product. Olivier also reveals the strategies behind their iterative product launches and why they insist on charging early to ensure they’re delivering real value.

The second half of the conversation is focused on all things AI and data at Datadog - the company's initial reluctance to use AI in its products, how Generative AI changed everything, and Datadog's current AI efforts including Watchdog, Bits AI and Toto, their new time series foundational model.

We close the episode by asking Olivier about his thoughts on the topic du jour: founder mode!

In this episode, we sit down with Ali Dasdan, CTO of ZoomInfo, a titan in the B2B sector, who harnesses vast datasets and advanced AI to redefine sales and marketing for over 35,000 global customers with $21.2 billion in annualized revenue.

We delve deep into ZoomInfo's AI initiatives, including their transformative 'Copilot,' explore sophisticated data management, and discuss their dual platforms catering to internal and customer-facing needs.

ZoomInfo

Website - https://www.zoominfo.com

Twitter - https://x.com/zoominfo

Ali Dasdan

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dasdan

Twitter - https://x.com/alidasdan

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro

(02:03) What is ZoomInfo

(04:47) Data as service

(06:15) Ali Dasdan's story

(07:31) Organization of ZoomInfo

(10:48) ZoomInfo Data Platform

(21:02) Lessons from building a data platform

(23:19) AI application at ZoomInfo

(27:58) ZoomInfo's Copilot

(37:43) ZoomInfo AI toolstack

(39:30) Working with small vs. big companies in the AI business

(43:39) Using data and AI for internal productivity

In this episode, we sit down with Eric Glyman, co-founder of Ramp, the company that revolutionized finance management to become a powerhouse valued at $7.6 billion.

Eric shares the tradition of counting the days since Ramp's founding and how it fosters a sense of urgency and productivity, explains the use of AI to automate expense management and fraud detection, and gives an inside look at Ramp's cutting-edge AI products, including the Ramp Intelligence Suite and experimental agentic AI use cases.

Ramp

Website - https://www.ramp.com

Twitter - https://x.com/tryramp

Eric Glyman

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eglyman

Twitter - https://x.com/eglyman

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro

(01:49) What is Ramp?

(04:25) How did the company start?

(09:18) Technical aspects of Ramp infrastructure

(12:17) "We can tell you if you're paying too much"

(14:20) Data privacy at Ramp

(16:13) Data infrastructure tools used at Ramp

(17:58) Traditional AI use cases

(24:51) GenAI use cases

(27:47) AI/human interaction

(33:32) Ramp Intelligence Suite

(39:38) How Ramp keeps high product release and product velocity

(42:37) How did Ramp get to product-market fit?

(45:54) Eric's perspective on building a company in NYC

In this episode, we reconnect with Sharon Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Lamini, to dive deep into the ever-evolving world of enterprise AI.

We discuss how the AI hype is evolving and what enterprises are doing to stay ahead, break down the different players in the Inference market, explore how Memory Tuning is reducing hallucinations in AI models, the role of agents in enterprise AI, and the challenges of making them real-time and reliable.

Lamini

Website - https://www.lamini.ai

Twitter - https://x.com/laminiai

Sharon Zhou

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhousharon

Twitter - https://x.com/realsharonzhou

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro

(02:18) The state of the AI market in July, 2024

(10:51) What is Lamini?

(11:43) What is Inference?

(15:36) GPU shortage in the enterprise

(18:06) AMD vs Nvidia

(22:10) What is Lamini's final product?

(25:30) What is Memory Tuning?

(29:01) What is LoRA?

(32:39) More on Memory Tuning

(35:51) Sharon's perspective on AI agents

(40:01) What is next for Lamini?

(41:54) Reasoning vs pure compute in AI

In this episode, we sit down with Jeremy Kahn, the AI Editor at Fortune Magazine, who has recently published a book called "Mastering AI: A Survival Guide to Our Superpowered Future".

Jeremy shares his unique insights on AI's potential risks and transformative benefits, including the importance of UI design in maximizing AI's utility, the potential for AI to create a "winner takes most" economy, and the need for thoughtful AI regulation to mitigate risks without stifling innovation.

Book: https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-AI-Survival-Superpowered-Future/dp/1668053322

Jeremy Kahn

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-kahn-01100462

Twitter - https://x.com/jeremyakahn

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro

(01:43) Why the UI design is important for AI?

(04:32) The book is called "Mastering AI". Why?

(12:03) Automation Bias vs Automation Surprise

(20:16) The role of AI in the future of science and art

(25:32) "I think mass unemployment is a red herring, but we might see a lot of disruption"

(34:19) Jeremy's perspective on Agentic AI

(36:29) Does AI development need to be regulated?

(38:56) Should we worry about the AGI and Superintelligence?

(42:18) Who provided the most thoughtful conversation for the book?

(43:57) "I didn't use AI for the book at all"

(46:20) Jeremy's work at Fortune

In this episode, we sit down with Azeem Azhar, an expert on AI and technologies, whose weekly newsletter "The Exponential View" (www.exponentialview.co) is read by nearly two hundred thousand people from around the world.

We delve into the nuances of AI adoption, discussing how LLM's are reshaping industries and what this means for corporate leaders, the dynamics between the U.S., China, and Europe in the AI race, and the concept of sovereign AI.

Azeem Azhar

Website - https://www.exponentialview.co

Twitter - https://x.com/azeem

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro

(02:05) What does the "Exponential" really mean?

(05:43) "Moore's law has not died"

(11:52) Claude is the Macintosh of AI. What does it mean?

(25:57) How does AI affect the enterprise?

(34:06) Asia is more optimistic about AI than the West. Why?

(38:42) Azeem's perspective on the sovereign AI

(45:19) AI in the modern warfare

(48:47) What is the Exponential asymmetry?

(51:59) Energy transition and the influence of AI on it

(55:21) Big Oil vs Chinese Solar: who's going to win?

(59:18) AI opens new possibilities for everyone. How?

In this episode, we sat down with Aaron Katz, the CEO of ClickHouse, a company that went from an open-source analytical database into a highly successful cloud service, utilized by Spotify, Netflix, Disney, and many more.

Aaron Katz provides intriguing insights into the challenges of transitioning an open-source project into a thriving business, ClickHouse's go-to-market strategy, the role of technical support in pre-sales, and the strategic decision to avoid traditional SDR and CSM roles.

CLICKHOUSE

Website - https://clickhouse.com/

Twitter - https://x.com/clickhousedb

Aaron Katz

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-katz-5762094

Twitter - https://x.com/ceo_clickhouse

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro
(00:56) What is ClickHouse?
(04:28) What are the use cases for ClickHouse?
(06:17) Reducing the latency: why the world shifts to real-time
(09:05) How did ClickHouse evolve from an open-source to a cloud product?
(15:01) "Open source is the future of software"
(17:27) Self-hosted deployments
(18:45) ClickHouse's roadmap
(20:51) Is there a real-time data stack?
(22:25) ClickHouse partners in data ingestion
(24:32) Who are ClickHouse's main competitors?
(27:35) ClickHouse's sales process
(36:44) Is partnerships a good go-to-market strategy?
(37:44) When is the right time for startups to start partnering?
(38:22) Aaron's story of becoming the CEO
(43:50) Team and culture when working on two continents
(46:15) What's next?

In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Dines, the co-founder and CEO of UiPath. From a small rented apartment in Bucharest to $1.3 billion in revenue, UiPath's story is one of perseverance, innovation, and strategic pivots.

UIPath

Website - https://www.uipath.com/

Twitter - https://x.com/UiPath

Daniel Dines

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieldines

Twitter - https://x.com/danieldines

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

(00:00) Intro

(01:38) UiPath was founded in an apartment in Bucharest. How did it all start?

(08:05) Building a global product

(11:26) The growth stage.

(18:50) "We were AI from the beginning"

(20:10) Raising the first round of funding.

(23:48) Working with the board.

(25:11) How did UiPath expand from the Romanian to the global market?

(35:00) Process Mining, Task Mining, and Communications Mining.

(41:41) The Automation Layer explained.

(45:28) The use cases for using AI in UiPath's automations

(56:22) UiPath's strategy for Gen AI adoption.

(58:27) The team.

(59:42) How important are partnerships for enterprise

(01:02:48) Recruiting the best salespeople in the industry

(01:07:10) Scaling from a software engineer to the CEO of a large company.

In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Dines, the co-founder and CEO of UiPath. From a small rented apartment in Bucharest to a $10.9 billion market cap, UiPath's story is one of perseverance, innovation, and strategic pivots.

UIPath

Website - https://www.uipath.com/

Twitter - https://x.com/UiPath

Daniel Dines

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieldines

Twitter - https://x.com/danieldines

FIRSTMARK

Website - https://firstmark.com

Twitter - https://twitter.com/FirstMarkCap

Matt Turck (Managing Director)

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/turck/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/mattturck

LISTEN ON:

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/7yLATDSaFvgJG80ACcRJtq

Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mad-podcast-with-matt-turck/id1686238724

(00:00) Intro

(01:38) UiPath was founded in an apartment in Bucharest. How did it all start?

(08:05) Building a global product

(11:26) The growth stage.

(18:50) "We were AI from the beginning"

(20:10) Raising the first round of funding.

(23:48) Working with the board.

(25:11) How did UiPath expand from the Romanian to the global market?

(35:00) Process Mining, Task Mining, and Communications Mining.

(41:41) The Automation Layer explained.

(45:28) The use cases for using AI in UiPath's automations

(56:22) UiPath's strategy for Gen AI adoption.

(58:27) The team.

(59:42) How important are partnerships for enterprise

(01:02:48) Recruiting the best salespeople in the industry

(01:07:10) Scaling from a software engineer to the CEO of a large company.

In this episode, we sit down with Howie Liu, co-founder and CEO of Airtable, to explore the incredible journey of Airtable from its early days to becoming a powerhouse in the enterprise software space.