The Exchanges

Q What do you spend on that has made the biggest change to your life?

A I think, first of all, getting help, like having people around you that can do stuff that you don't want to do. I don't know, fixing stuff in the house. You know, doing stuff that also I'm not good at doing. Getting help free up a lot of time. Something that definitely, to your point about, I, I'm now, I live in both New York and here in Palo Alto. That's recent, and, and I love it. I can enjoy some of the things here. My kids, by the way, live there, but I, I can also enjoy New York, and I love big cities. So that's kind of similar to what you said. We are kind of have this really, like, apartment in a neighborhood that we love, and that's fun.

AI assessment note: “getting help, like having people around you that can do stuff”

Q That's very, very kind. I'll pay you later. Um, but we were talking beforehand. You said to me, you know, school and university, you don't really go to that many lectures or lessons. I was just intrigued. Like, why?

A I, you know, it's interesting. I'm the type of person that I am. I can learn stuff by myself, but I can only learn stuff that really, really interests me. And the reality is that I think that most of the things that you learn at School and universities. They're just not interesting. Uh, there are things that, like, you know, like, for example, some case studies, uh, that you're gonna go through, and I, I could be so much fascinated by that, but then I go, I can go all in. So, for me, the way that I can learn, it's only if, uh, it interests me. If it's not, I cannot really study it, and that was kind of my school, my school life. I was actually, uh, extremely average, Students. But it's really average, right? So I could either have, like, really, really, really good, like, straight A, but on the, like, really good side of it, or I would totally fail, and it's really based on the way that kind of maybe my brain works. If it gets my interest, I would geek out and learn everything about it. If it doesn't, you cannot get me even starting to get interested in this.

AI assessment note: “most of the things that you learn at School and universities. They're just not interesting.”

Q be more worried about Ramp than I would Concur and Amex. My question to you there is, does someone like Ramp not have an inherent advantage over you by being private? Because it can spend on growth, on Super Bowl ads, on crazy shit, and be margin negative. While you are really scrutinized for every dollar you spend for being public, and you don't have that elasticity on customer acquisition.

A The first thing is, I actually reflected with one of our execs here, our president, Michael, Michael Sindesich, about something really interesting. He, he was our 10th employee, so he's seen everything right there with me. Almost like a co-founder in the company. We talked about the ones that came and go during the years. Like, when we started Navan, There was this company, Upside Travel. We raised four million dollars. They raised 200. Same year, ok? Talking about the same Navan, like, we're gonna disrupt corporate travel. Their founder was the founder of Priceline. So if you think about, like, somebody that needs to win against us, that's them. Way more finance, the right people, the right connections. I don't even know what, uh, what a GDS is at that point, right? And they're not around. And then there were so many companies, uh, you know, along the years, including in the fintech industry, and you saw the Brex announcement last year, and I love the Brex guys. We are partners. We are, you know, we know the founders really well, but I don't think that you want to end your journey in Capital One, right? So I'm basically saying people came and go throughout the years. I think our culture is what matters, and that's what will keep us around, and that's what will keep us, uh, A winner, and probably the winner, and this mechanics of maybe it's better to be in the private market be…

AI assessment note: “this mechanics of maybe it's better to be in the private market... doesn't create a good business”

Q 3000. How do you retain that innovation and agility?

A I think it's about decisions. I think, you know, we kind of starting to feel comfortable with travel innovation, right? That we really thought that we figured out How to create this magic between the company and the employees. How to book fast. How to support yourself fast. And Ilan and I looked at this. Ilan is my co-founder. Uh, and this was like five years ago. And we said, you know, if we would have started drip actions again, we wouldn't do it like that. And out of this came everything that we did around payments and expense management. And two years ago, uh, we looked at this again. And this is, and we said, you know, today with machine learning, you can achieve a much better service by servicing people fast. Like, you know, you cancel your flight. Are you going to get your tickets back or not? It's very hard to automate it, but we've managed to automate it with a lot of uses of, of smartness inside. We are calling it, we have an internal board, we call it Cati's IQ. And this is this thing that keeps learning. And therefore keeps generating value for the users. So again, we kind of killed what we had and recreated it. So I think you keep this innovation if you have the courage, first of all, to look at the mirror and come and say, okay, what we had done up until now was relevant back then with our understanding that in the technology back then, but maybe it's time to kill…

AI assessment note: “I think you keep this innovation if you have the courage, first of all”

Q Yeah, Ariel, oh no, this is my job. Why are you changing the name, Ariel? Great question.

A And I'm, and I'm, and I'm saying it because I think it is related to your question, but we wanted to actually create this new category to show the way, to lead the way, and show All of the companies around, you have to develop a new kind of software, a software that is more inviting. So Navant, just the name, it's about navigation, navigating the world, and about Avant, right? This is really where the name is coming from, and it's a palindrome, right? So it's really inviting you from all, all directions, right? So it's really about us. It's about us inviting all of the employees, all of the, all over the world, To use Navan, inviting the company to achieve all of its goals, uh, all of the company's goals, while the employees are participating in it. So it's, it's magical. That's, this is really, I, the way that I, I'm thinking about Navan. And if you think about it in these terms, it's not, not only a point solution, it really solves a really big problem. Companies are spending seven percent of their entire budget on T&E, so it solves a really big problem, but it also shows the way To companies that lost that way, to companies like Salesforce, like SAP, it shows the way for all of the companies around the world that today you can create really good software for the company and the employees.

AI assessment note: “Navan, just the name, it's about navigation, navigating the world, and about Avant”

Q But when you look at Facebook, they said when you get five friends, then you're like a retained customer. I think it's our three orders on GoPuff. You're a retained customer. What's your, like, understanding of what a truly retained customer is?

A Yeah, we have, because of the expense side, we actually know if you booked outside. Right? So we know if you booked our trip, ah, outside. And that's the issue. Like, if you know that you're getting 100%, ah, what you are calling inside attainment of the company's, ah, budget, we know that we are retaining the employees and the customers time and again. Not just as a big customer that maybe uses 50% of the time, but retaining them all the time. So we are comparing this data all the time, and we have a really good idea. Of who is the user, and also who decided to not use us, and if you're not using us, we're getting curious about it. Why? And, you know, we'll contact you. We'll call you. This is something that we started when we started at the company, and all the way till now, and, and based on their feedback, we are introducing stuff like the loyalty club that I've mentioned.

AI assessment note: “if you know that you're getting 100%... inside attainment of the company's, ah, budget”

Q is, you said there about kind of like things getting outdated in what you learn. I think there are core management principles which stay the same, actually. And I do, I was intrigued, when you look back to Streamonce, your prior company, What management principles did you take with you from there to trip actions that really worked, and what did you go, that didn't work, let's leave them behind?

A Yes, three ones was never, you know, an organization that they needed to really scale. So it was very small. We sold it very early after nine months. We had basically two customers there. Uh, so, uh, definitely didn't make any impact. Like, you know, if you kind of, as a founder, you want to make an impact and, and to change something that they, and founders really want to do it, to change something meaningful. Uh, three ones that, that didn't achieve it. And I think there is a reason for that. And it's not really about management, because again, there was not a lot to manage. It was really small. It was, ah, about what type of startups you want to start with. And we went on a market that was not woven and fairly small, ah, so in a lot of ways we've invented a problem that nobody needed us to solve. And I think that, ah, a lot of, ah, kind of tech geeks, ah, sometimes will do that, right? Like, ah, starting, you know, the technology was amazing. Uh, so we loved the technology, and we kind of played with it, and we were kind of very impressed by ourselves, right? But nobody needed us to solve that problem, and to begin with, the market was not proven or even imported, uh, and I think that's what we, that's why we failed, right? We eventually sold the company, and financially maybe it was a good deal, but from, again, building something that lasts for generations, which I think t…

AI assessment note: “it's not really about management, because again, there was not a lot to manage.”

Q Can I ask you, uh, so, uh, again, I, I've, uh, got more opinionated over time, uh, apologies, uh, when you think about Concur and Amex, do you think they're just gonna sit back and go, ah, fine, let Navan go do this, they're eating our lunch, or how do they respond?

A It kind of starts with what we said, uh, earlier. Uh, in the nineties, uh, you know, SAP and Concare innovated something, right? It was the first, I think, generation of, uh, of IT software, this, uh, process, and, uh, how do you get efficiency by running workflow and some approvals, and basically, how do you treat people? Like packages. Like, you know, I'm gonna, right, and it's, it's not that surprising that Concare found himself as part of SAP. It's like, you are treating people like packages. And, and probably back then, that was innovation, right? Uh, but the world has moved on, and these companies have lost their way around innovation. They don't know anymore how to innovate. They cannot attract the people that know how to innovate. Nobody would expect, you know, OpenAI to be a research project inside SAP, right? So, so, these companies actually, I would argue, will just die, right? That's what will happen, because innovation happens, these companies lost their way around innovation, uh, and they will just die because they are not relevant, you know, like, we know, you know, we, we joke that we are old, right, so we know a set of companies from the nineties, take Siebel, uh, for example, you know, from the nineties, that are no longer allowed, right? Why aren't they around? Because, uh, you know, Benioff came in, uh, the beginning of, uh, like, uh, 20, 22 years ago, And b…

AI assessment note: “these companies actually, I would argue, will just die, right? That's what will happen”

Q So I think, uh, secretly I've always wanted to be a psychologist, but we mentioned children there, and, you know, psychologists always give everything to, you know, your childhood and how it impacted you. I, I do think everyone is a function of their histories. Uh, what do you think you're running from, Ariel?

A Yeah, it seems, I think that, you know, if you take a step back, and it kind of leads to our founding story at TripActions, um, we wanted to innovate and to create this, uh, magic between the company's needs, so, you know, stuff like reporting and compliance, all of the company's efficiency, and the employees' needs, and really not compromise, really creating, uh, this innovation around this magic that you can create between the two, so creating software that people really, really like, And I think that there are a lot of companies out there. Um, I think the one that comes in mind always are, for me, Salesforce and SAP, which are not innovating. I think the last time that SAP innovated something was in the nineties, and the last time that the, that Salesforce innovated was in the beginning of, uh, 2000. And, and I'm looking at this, and besides the fact that I think it's embarrassing that companies that are kind of, uh, located in the middle of, uh, you know, Silicon Valley, uh, Have not been innovating, uh, for years. Um, it's also what I'm running, uh, you know, running from, right? The one thing that scares me is that one day, uh, Navan will be that kind of a company, a company that the only way that you innovate is through M&A, and through using kind of your, uh, market dynamics and your power in the market to basically sell, and this really scares me.

AI assessment note: “it's also what I'm running, uh, you know, running from, right?”

Q How do you get over being afraid? How do you bring people with you as well? Also, when you're deprioritizing something, you don't want those that were prioritized on it to feel like the unloved child. How do you get over that?

A First of all, you never give up. And I, I'll, I'll give you an interesting anecdote. Um, you know, COVID started, um, and we, uh, kind of lost all of our revenue, but decided to continue to be in the market and sell, do M&A, raise money, but the most important thing, innovate, like continue to innovate. Uh, but back then I've decided that the innovation would not necessarily be just about level, but we're actually going to Shift resources. We're going to shift the designers, product managers, uh, developers, uh, from the travel side to the expense management, uh, side. And that was a decision that actually the employees, uh, back then didn't like. Okay. From a lot of various reasons. Again, we've talked about being afraid of change. So in that process, I actually lost most of my product team. Okay. And, you know, two years afterwards, I started to look at the data that showed how much both are picking up, like travel and expense management. And I remember that they, I told my co-founder, you know, sometimes you need to do these decisions, even if it means that you're going to lose the team in the process, because that was the right decision. So sometimes you can bring people along with you. I think most of the cases, Uh, that's what we, that's what I do, and you can do that. But you cannot be afraid of the consequences, of the implications, of doing what you believe, um, intuit…

AI assessment note: “you cannot be afraid of the consequences, of the implications, of doing what you believe”

Q You spoke about kind of product innovation driving value there. You chose to integrate OpenAI into your chatbot. Talk to me about that decision. What does it mean for the business? Why did you make that decision? And, and I guess broad, how do you see the future of AI integration into your company?

A Welcome to the party, right? Uh, Elon, my co-founder, will go to events, uh, six, seven years ago, a lot in the travel industry, and will talk about, uh, machine learning and AI, and people looked at him as like, what, what is he talking about? And then we were trying to explain it in value terms, so we'd say, you know, our search, when you are, uh, trying to book a trip in TripActions, uh, it takes you five minutes to do that, because we know what would be the first three things that probably you're gonna select, right? So we always set it, and I don't know if people fully, fully understand it. Uh, a year ago, we launched our, uh, first, uh, bot. We are now naming this bot Eva, which is kind of part of Navan. And that bot today handles 30% of our, of our support interactions. Basically, it behaves like a travel agent that will say, change your flight, will handle flight cancellations, will go and get a refund from an hotel. In fact, Navan, Navan's users, when they check out from an hotel, they actually, they don't need to go to the reception and get the receipt. We are, through a bot that we have, are actually calling the hotel, getting the receipt for them, automatically itemizing it, and automatically expensing it, right? That's how much today, right, uh, our, our technology is effective around, around AI and machine learning. So now, um, uh, and, and all of this was not pow…

AI assessment note: “OpenAI did a huge leapfrog... And so we decided to do it.”

Q So, so I, I look at businesses like, kind of, machines with levers, and when you think about 80%, you know, gross margins on, on yours today, you have a lot of leverage to go down to 60% and put 20% more in marketing brand growth. Like, fucking burn the boats, field, go. Why didn't you do that?

A So actually, it's interesting, you know, as part of, uh, of the, of the van and the rebranding, We are opening our product for everybody. And as part of this, so everybody can go and sign up to the product. As part of this, we are introducing new cost structure for different markets. So for example, on the lower end of the market, we are free, right? And that's new. We are completely free. You go in and you don't need to pay us. So I think if you are basically talking, should I use my gross margins? To reach more people, the answer is yes, and that's actually what we are doing. Uh, we are doing another thing. We are actually introducing our own loyalty club, which means costs, right, to make you more loyal to us. So again, how can we do all of these things? Because we've gained over the last eight years because of our bets on technology, on machine learning, on AI, uh, we've gained a lot of efficiency, And you know, when I'm walking in an airport, I was, I have to tell you this story. People, people at Novan here hate hearing this story because I cannot stop mentioning this story recently. I was stuck on an airplane in, in Buenos Aires with my family. The trip kept getting delayed on the airplane. You sit four hours there eventually, and we have a tight connection in Houston, and we have already missed the connection, right? So what we gonna do? And I'm using, you know, obvious…

AI assessment note: “should I use my gross margins? To reach more people, the answer is yes”

Q So do you think it is your fault on messaging or the market's fault on negative perception for the negativity today?

A I actually don't think it's matter. I'll tell you why. There was this weekend in the, in New York, right? I was actually in New York in the weekend. Airports were shut down. New York and JFK were completely shut down, so it's not like flight got canceled. The airport was shut down from, I think, Saturday evening all the way through, ah, Monday at noon, right? That's the, in the entire eastern part of the U.S. We've managed to support all of our customers in timely manner. How did we do that? Eva, our AI chatbot, ok, managed to, at that time, you're talking about the hardest thing ever to support. This is, my flight got cancelled and the airport was shut down. I need to sleep somewhere. I need a new flight. I'm in panic. 55% of the chats were run through Eva, ok? Our call center, in the worst time during this event, The wait time was 16 minutes, one six. You'll think that 16 minutes is something horrible, but try to call any other, you know, provider in the space during that time that airports are shutting down. So this is the power of Navan. This comes from AI. This comes because we are having our own AI destiny with our own platform that actually understands how to support you, not only setting your password, but how to change a very, very complex trip. And you're going to see us. We are very soon going to release Navan Edge. It's a completely new product. I think it's the big…

AI assessment note: “I actually don't think it's matter. I'll tell you why.”

Q is, you said there about kind of like things getting outdated in what you learn. I think there are core management principles which stay the same, actually. And I do, I was intrigued, when you look back to Streamonce, your prior company, What management principles did you take with you from there to trip actions that really worked, and what did you go, that didn't work, let's leave them behind?

A Yes, three ones was never, you know, an organization that they needed to really scale. So it was very small. We sold it very early after nine months. We had basically two customers there. Uh, so, uh, definitely didn't make any impact. Like, you know, if you kind of, as a founder, you want to make an impact and, and to change something that they, and founders really want to do it, to change something meaningful. Uh, three ones that, that didn't achieve it. And I think there is a reason for that. And it's not really about management, because again, there was not a lot to manage. It was really small. It was, ah, about what type of startups you want to start with. And we went on a market that was not woven and fairly small, ah, so in a lot of ways we've invented a problem that nobody needed us to solve. And I think that, ah, a lot of, ah, kind of tech geeks, ah, sometimes will do that, right? Like, ah, starting, you know, the technology was amazing. Uh, so we loved the technology, and we kind of played with it, and we were kind of very impressed by ourselves, right? But nobody needed us to solve that problem, and to begin with, the market was not proven or even imported, uh, and I think that's what we, that's why we failed, right? We eventually sold the company, and financially maybe it was a good deal, but from, again, building something that lasts for generations, which I think t…

AI assessment note: “it's not really about management, because again, there was not a lot to manage.”

Q So I think, uh, secretly I've always wanted to be a psychologist, but we mentioned children there, and, you know, psychologists always give everything to, you know, your childhood and how it impacted you. I, I do think everyone is a function of their histories. Uh, what do you think you're running from, Ariel?

A Yeah, it seems, I think that, you know, if you take a step back, and it kind of leads to our founding story at TripActions, um, we wanted to innovate and to create this, uh, magic between the company's needs, so, you know, stuff like reporting and compliance, all of the company's efficiency, and the employees' needs, and really not compromise, really creating, uh, this innovation around this magic that you can create between the two, so creating software that people really, really like, And I think that there are a lot of companies out there. Um, I think the one that comes in mind always are, for me, Salesforce and SAP, which are not innovating. I think the last time that SAP innovated something was in the nineties, and the last time that the, that Salesforce innovated was in the beginning of, uh, 2000. And, and I'm looking at this, and besides the fact that I think it's embarrassing that companies that are kind of, uh, located in the middle of, uh, you know, Silicon Valley, uh, Have not been innovating, uh, for years. Um, it's also what I'm running, uh, you know, running from, right? The one thing that scares me is that one day, uh, Navan will be that kind of a company, a company that the only way that you innovate is through M&A, and through using kind of your, uh, market dynamics and your power in the market to basically sell, and this really scares me.

AI assessment note: “Um, it's also what I'm running, uh, you know, running from, right?”

Q But you're a silver fox, my friend. My first question was, you mentioned some of the additional products you've created over time. How do you determine, as a leader and strategist, between an additional product that you should chase and should do, Versus a distraction. It's so easy to be distracted. What's the difference between a product you should do and a distraction?

A You know, I think people by default are afraid of a change, and they will do whatever it takes to not make a change, even here in Silicon Valley inside the tech companies. And, you know, even last night at eight p.m., there was a designer that actually showed me yesterday a design for the new unified app. We are actually releasing as part of the Naval rebranding. Uh, we are consolidating all of our technology to one, uh, technologies to one super app, uh, that will basically service you around the travel, payment, expenses, your personal trips, everything, and everybody can use it. And we have a design. The app looks amazing. Uh, you will see it on February seventh. Uh, we, we all been, uh, been using it here in, uh, trip actions or inside in a van. And then this designer showed me Really interesting design. Like, something much better, and we are two weeks before the release. So what do you do? Right? And, and, you know, I've said, I've told the team, hey, I, I cannot unsee. I saw this design now. I cannot unsee. That should be our design. And this is scary. Like, changing everything in the last minute is, is scary. But then, here's the thing. You know, we've agreed with the team that will do this change. But then for quite some time will not do more design changes, because now I want to focus on something else. Other innovation in a, in a van. Other two big projects that we h…

AI assessment note: “I think people by default are afraid of a change”

Q almost forgetting Navan, I'm always intrigued on where you sit on this one. Do you agree with Bill Gurley that you should kind of price it to perfection so there's no pop and you and your employees achieve the kind of fair market price? Or do you think there should be a baked in pop to make everyone feel good on day one to make it an incentive to buy?

A My thinking about Navan is much less about something Price engineering in a, in a certain day, even if the IPO day is very important, it's more of like, can you take a long-term view of Navan? Do you believe that Navan will take the market, right? And the market in the way that we define it, we define the market very, very differently than everybody else. Like everybody think about it, maybe we are kind of disrupting Conquer and Amex. That's not the way that we define it. We are, we want to service. Every frequent traveler that is out there. There is the managed side, you know, Amex and Concare. There is the non-managed. Everybody that are doing whatever they want to. It's actually a bigger market, and we think that we have an opportunity and the right to win in both markets, and that's what matters. Now, that by definition makes the point of view that I have a very long point of view, and it starts in two, three years from now because, you know, you have so much mechanics. You have lockups, and you have VCs distribution, and you have this quarter, and that quarter, and bit and raise, and a lot of mechanics. At the end of the day, I think what matter is, and that's what I hope that the investors that invested in Navan and the IPO have, it's a long-term view that Navan will take the entire market of frequent travelers.

AI assessment note: “My thinking about Navan is much less about something Price engineering in a, in a certain day”

Q Can I ask you, uh, so, uh, again, I, I've, uh, got more opinionated over time, uh, apologies, uh, when you think about Concur and Amex, do you think they're just gonna sit back and go, ah, fine, let Navan go do this, they're eating our lunch, or how do they respond?

A It kind of starts with what we said, uh, earlier. Uh, in the nineties, uh, you know, SAP and Concare innovated something, right? It was the first, I think, generation of, uh, of IT software, this, uh, process, and, uh, how do you get efficiency by running workflow and some approvals, and basically, how do you treat people? Like packages. Like, you know, I'm gonna, right, and it's, it's not that surprising that Concare found himself as part of SAP. It's like, you are treating people like packages. And, and probably back then, that was innovation, right? Uh, but the world has moved on, and these companies have lost their way around innovation. They don't know anymore how to innovate. They cannot attract the people that know how to innovate. Nobody would expect, you know, OpenAI to be a research project inside SAP, right? So, so, these companies actually, I would argue, will just die, right? That's what will happen, because innovation happens, these companies lost their way around innovation, uh, and they will just die because they are not relevant, you know, like, we know, you know, we, we joke that we are old, right, so we know a set of companies from the nineties, take Siebel, uh, for example, you know, from the nineties, that are no longer allowed, right? Why aren't they around? Because, uh, you know, Benioff came in, uh, the beginning of, uh, like, uh, 20, 22 years ago, And b…

AI assessment note: “these companies actually, I would argue, will just die, right?”

Q So what pitfalls do you have to avoid? To prevent you from becoming the next Concur or Amex?

A You are asking about my nightmare. My nightmare, right? My nightmare. I think there are probably, I don't know, a handful of companies that are capable of continuing to innovate in their 2030, 40th year anniversary. Um, I think by the way, look at Microsoft. It's so amazing how they kind of came out Like, now they are like, people are talking about them right now as Google. It's unbelievable, right? And I think, but again, there are a handful of companies, and by the way, leaders, and I think, you know, I've mentioned that innovation comes with leadership, uh, leaders can, that can pull this off, and I hope that we will be able to pull this off, to continue to innovate even in our, our 10 years anniversary, and our 20 years anniversary, and so on, And, you know, it's not innovation for the sake of innovation. It's innovation to create, that creates value, uh, magic, uh, for our customers, right, and for the users that are using Navan. And if we do that, I'll be very happy, but, you know, that's actually my nightmare, that we will not be like that, and we'll become an SAP exactly in the same way that Salesforce became SAP. You know, Salesforce, right, we're the opposite of SAP. Right? They were like, I think that Benioff cannot stand them. But over time, they became SAP. And I hope that we'll never become a concurrent American Express.

AI assessment note: “my nightmare, that we will not be like that, and we'll become an SAP”

Q What are the big challenges in moving from a MorePoint solution to that super app?

A Yeah, I think first of all, it's to bring it all together, right? So from a, you know, thinking about it from a design perspective, uh, you know, you are booking a trip, right? And today you're going to book a hotel, car, and whatever, you know, and you're going to do it again and again and again. So I travel a lot to London. We have a, our biggest team actually is in, uh, is in London. And I'm traveling there a lot. And here's the thing. I'm always taking the same flight. I'm always staying in the same hotel. And guess what? I'm always going to the same coffee in the morning. And I'm kind of visiting the same kind of restaurants. So why do I need to book it again and again and again and again and again? It doesn't make any sense. I have all of this data inside the van. We know that our machine learning algorithm, which we've implemented six years ago, knows that. So why not just asking you, you know, pre-book the trip. Like the trip that you're always doing, just book it. And maybe you know the The availability will be slightly different, or the pricing will be slightly different. All of these things are easy problems to solve from a, you know, from a compute perspective. So I think that that's kind of a, the point about the super app. Um, I think that we are the best, and I mean it, the best all-in-one travel, expense, and payment solution. So we are the best by far. Um, brin…

AI assessment note: “everybody can slap some things that are not connected into one app, but bring it to one experience”

Q But when you look at Facebook, they said when you get five friends, then you're like a retained customer. I think it's our three orders on GoPuff. You're a retained customer. What's your, like, understanding of what a truly retained customer is?

A Yeah, we have, because of the expense side, we actually know if you booked outside. Right? So we know if you booked our trip, ah, outside. And that's the issue. Like, if you know that you're getting 100%, ah, what you are calling inside attainment of the company's, ah, budget, we know that we are retaining the employees and the customers time and again. Not just as a big customer that maybe uses 50% of the time, but retaining them all the time. So we are comparing this data all the time, and we have a really good idea. Of who is the user, and also who decided to not use us, and if you're not using us, we're getting curious about it. Why? And, you know, we'll contact you. We'll call you. This is something that we started when we started at the company, and all the way till now, and, and based on their feedback, we are introducing stuff like the loyalty club that I've mentioned.

AI assessment note: “if you know that you're getting 100%, ah, what you are calling inside attainment”

Q almost forgetting Navan, I'm always intrigued on where you sit on this one. Do you agree with Bill Gurley that you should kind of price it to perfection so there's no pop and you and your employees achieve the kind of fair market price? Or do you think there should be a baked in pop to make everyone feel good on day one to make it an incentive to buy?

A My thinking about Navan is much less about something Price engineering in a, in a certain day, even if the IPO day is very important, it's more of like, can you take a long-term view of Navan? Do you believe that Navan will take the market, right? And the market in the way that we define it, we define the market very, very differently than everybody else. Like everybody think about it, maybe we are kind of disrupting Conquer and Amex. That's not the way that we define it. We are, we want to service. Every frequent traveler that is out there. There is the managed side, you know, Amex and Concare. There is the non-managed. Everybody that are doing whatever they want to. It's actually a bigger market, and we think that we have an opportunity and the right to win in both markets, and that's what matters. Now, that by definition makes the point of view that I have a very long point of view, and it starts in two, three years from now because, you know, you have so much mechanics. You have lockups, and you have VCs distribution, and you have this quarter, and that quarter, and bit and raise, and a lot of mechanics. At the end of the day, I think what matter is, and that's what I hope that the investors that invested in Navan and the IPO have, it's a long-term view that Navan will take the entire market of frequent travelers.

AI assessment note: “My thinking about Navan is much less about something Price engineering in a, in a certain day”

Q Do you think you skipped the design process in a world of vibe coding? Instead of going through mock-ups and designs and design reviews, do you skip all that and say, Ilan?

A It's a good question. It's a good question. You know, I'm coming from a product background, right? And I keep asking myself, is the product person becoming really the most important person? Because actually knowing the use case is a super, super, super important, probably more important than any time. And suddenly the product manager gets a tool to come and say, you know, like there is always this tension between a Product and engineers, right? The product people will want to do something. The engineers will tell them that you cannot do that. I wonder if the, if this tension is going away by the product guy just saying, I'm going to do this by myself and prove you wrong. I don't think that we are there yet, but I think we are increasingly getting there, which again, talking about modes, I think the knowledge mode is going to be very, very high, like knowing and very important, knowing what, the nuances, right? What exactly the users wants, what customers wants, and so on. So I think the power dynamics are changing kind of in engineering, you know, between product design and, but cycles will get shorter. I'm sure, I'm certain about that.

AI assessment note: “I'm coming from a product background... is the product person becoming really the most important person?”

Q What are the big challenges in moving from a MorePoint solution to that super app?

A Yeah, I think first of all, it's to bring it all together, right? So from a, you know, thinking about it from a design perspective, uh, you know, you are booking a trip, right? And today you're going to book a hotel, car, and whatever, you know, and you're going to do it again and again and again. So I travel a lot to London. We have a, our biggest team actually is in, uh, is in London. And I'm traveling there a lot. And here's the thing. I'm always taking the same flight. I'm always staying in the same hotel. And guess what? I'm always going to the same coffee in the morning. And I'm kind of visiting the same kind of restaurants. So why do I need to book it again and again and again and again and again? It doesn't make any sense. I have all of this data inside the van. We know that our machine learning algorithm, which we've implemented six years ago, knows that. So why not just asking you, you know, pre-book the trip. Like the trip that you're always doing, just book it. And maybe you know the The availability will be slightly different, or the pricing will be slightly different. All of these things are easy problems to solve from a, you know, from a compute perspective. So I think that that's kind of a, the point about the super app. Um, I think that we are the best, and I mean it, the best all-in-one travel, expense, and payment solution. So we are the best by far. Um, brin…

AI assessment note: “I think that we are the best, and I mean it, the best all-in-one”

Q So if I'm looking at investing in these companies, how do I make that an attractive picture? If every company is in its own vertical, if you're a fintech business, you're going to need verticalized fintech support. If you're a travel business, you're going to need verticalized travel support.

A I think we're at the beginning of a huge revolution that will have its ups and downs, right? We kind of joked about our age, right? I've been around when, you know, the browsers start to get introduced generally, but into, into, then into the enterprise, right? And, you know, people, like, moved from a client server app to, to browser apps, right? I'm really old. And then, you know, then came, obviously, SaaS cloud, and then came mobile, This one is not even, you know, it's so much bigger, so much faster, but it will have the same cycles. Do we see crazy valuations that only God knows how, you know, how he will justify them? Yes. But are people estimating the size of this, uh, this change correctly? I think they're probably underestimating it. So it's a huge, huge, huge, huge change. And I think there are companies that will benefit from this change and companies that will actually die in the process.

AI assessment note: “I think we're at the beginning of a huge revolution that will have its ups”

Q So what pitfalls do you have to avoid? To prevent you from becoming the next Concur or Amex?

A You are asking about my nightmare. My nightmare, right? My nightmare. I think there are probably, I don't know, a handful of companies that are capable of continuing to innovate in their 2030, 40th year anniversary. Um, I think by the way, look at Microsoft. It's so amazing how they kind of came out Like, now they are like, people are talking about them right now as Google. It's unbelievable, right? And I think, but again, there are a handful of companies, and by the way, leaders, and I think, you know, I've mentioned that innovation comes with leadership, uh, leaders can, that can pull this off, and I hope that we will be able to pull this off, to continue to innovate even in our, our 10 years anniversary, and our 20 years anniversary, and so on, And, you know, it's not innovation for the sake of innovation. It's innovation to create, that creates value, uh, magic, uh, for our customers, right, and for the users that are using Navan. And if we do that, I'll be very happy, but, you know, that's actually my nightmare, that we will not be like that, and we'll become an SAP exactly in the same way that Salesforce became SAP. You know, Salesforce, right, we're the opposite of SAP. Right? They were like, I think that Benioff cannot stand them. But over time, they became SAP. And I hope that we'll never become a concurrent American Express.

AI assessment note: “You are asking about my nightmare. My nightmare, right? My nightmare.”

Q But you're a silver fox, my friend. My first question was, you mentioned some of the additional products you've created over time. How do you determine, as a leader and strategist, between an additional product that you should chase and should do, Versus a distraction. It's so easy to be distracted. What's the difference between a product you should do and a distraction?

A You know, I think people by default are afraid of a change, and they will do whatever it takes to not make a change, even here in Silicon Valley inside the tech companies. And, you know, even last night at eight p.m., there was a designer that actually showed me yesterday a design for the new unified app. We are actually releasing as part of the Naval rebranding. Uh, we are consolidating all of our technology to one, uh, technologies to one super app, uh, that will basically service you around the travel, payment, expenses, your personal trips, everything, and everybody can use it. And we have a design. The app looks amazing. Uh, you will see it on February seventh. Uh, we, we all been, uh, been using it here in, uh, trip actions or inside in a van. And then this designer showed me Really interesting design. Like, something much better, and we are two weeks before the release. So what do you do? Right? And, and, you know, I've said, I've told the team, hey, I, I cannot unsee. I saw this design now. I cannot unsee. That should be our design. And this is scary. Like, changing everything in the last minute is, is scary. But then, here's the thing. You know, we've agreed with the team that will do this change. But then for quite some time will not do more design changes, because now I want to focus on something else. Other innovation in a, in a van. Other two big projects that we h…

AI assessment note: “I think people by default are afraid of a change”

Q You mentioned open models earlier and the willingness to use them. I'm intrigued to hear how you think about open model usage versus closed and what drives that?

A I think the way that we look at this, we, we have these concepts of models supervising other models, and it's for different tasks, and for different tasks, you need different things, and our point of view, you know, when you think about PII, when you think about security, we have an extremely, extremely strong CISO person in the company, and he is, on one side, very good on telling us what not to do and what are the risks, and on the other side, Finding a, you know, the right solutions, and it's important. That's why I said it's actually hard to create software generally in the enterprise, but with new technology to lead into the enterprise, there are so many things that you need to take into consideration. But regulation is one of them. Travel and FinTech is regulated, and it's very much license driven all over the world. So all of these things, we are really good on taking them into consideration. And kind of completely changing the way that people are thinking about travel. By the way, that's why I think we're going to win. The reason that I think that we're going to win, we are almost in the middle between, I would say, companies that already, like, the way that they perceive risk and we cannot do anything is very much there, to we are also not a startup. We are in the middle, and we're going to do the right thing for our customers. That's kind of what drives us.

AI assessment note: “By the way, that's why I think we're going to win.”