The Exchanges

Q Dude, I think most companies are founded on insight developments, which is a way that you see the world that other people don't agree with. When you think back to starting Gong, how did you see the world and sales that other people didn't agree with?

A You know, if you take like Peter Thiel said like great companies are built on secrets, right? Our secret was that everybody thought, still do, that CRM is a single source of truth. This is not true. CRM doesn't have truth. The only thing that's true out there is like who your customers are, what they bought, how much they're paying you, maybe their phone numbers. Everything else is not true. It's like, uh, information that sellers are Bothering to put in. It's highly subjective. They put maybe, like, one percent of the information that's actually happening. I experienced it firsthand. In 2015, I was, like, a CEO of a software company. We're growing really fast, and then all of a sudden, I had a shitty quarter, and then sales are just not, just taking a nosedive, and I have no idea what's going on. I started digging, like, in our CRM, like, uh, you know, do we have enough opportunities? Do we have enough people making enough calls, enough emails? Everything looked fine, except for, like, We weren't selling. So it dawned on me that the secrets is not like how much work we're doing or how many people we have, but it's like the essence of the, uh, the conversations with customers. And I sent my product manager to sift through CRM notes and they spent a couple of weeks, load everything to Excel. And they came back and said, there's nothing there. I mean, I realized the problem is th…

AI assessment note: “Our secret was that everybody thought, still do, that CRM is a single source of truth.”

Q Dude, I think most companies are founded on insight developments, which is a way that you see the world that other people don't agree with. When you think back to starting Gong, how did you see the world and sales that other people didn't agree with?

A You know, if you take like Peter Thiel said like great companies are built on secrets, right? Our secret was that everybody thought, still do, that CRM is a single source of truth. This is not true. CRM doesn't have truth. The only thing that's true out there is like who your customers are, what they bought, how much they're paying you, maybe their phone numbers. Everything else is not true. It's like, uh, information that sellers are Bothering to put in. It's highly subjective. They put maybe, like, one percent of the information that's actually happening. I experienced it firsthand. In 2015, I was, like, a CEO of a software company. We're growing really fast, and then all of a sudden, I had a shitty quarter, and then sales are just not, just taking a nosedive, and I have no idea what's going on. I started digging, like, in our CRM, like, uh, you know, do we have enough opportunities? Do we have enough people making enough calls, enough emails? Everything looked fine, except for, like, We weren't selling. So it dawned on me that the secrets is not like how much work we're doing or how many people we have, but it's like the essence of the, uh, the conversations with customers. And I sent my product manager to sift through CRM notes and they spent a couple of weeks, load everything to Excel. And they came back and said, there's nothing there. I mean, I realized the problem is th…

AI assessment note: “Our secret was that everybody thought, still do, that CRM is a single source of truth.”

Q Do you want to be a public company CEO?

A This is not something that is, like, a personal desire. I mean, it makes sense for Gong to become public, like, one day, you know, people invest in the company and, and need to see a return, but I don't think it's like, ah, you know, some people see it as, like, their mission in life. Certainly, it comes with a lot of, like, ah, sure, the IPO is kind of cool, and some people get paid, but There's also comes with a lot of, like, uh, restrictions on what the company can do, and the flexibility, and where your attention goes. Do I enter the next generation of AI, or, like, focus on, you know, three percent EPS, like, on this quarter?

AI assessment note: “This is not something that is, like, a personal desire.”

Q So you raised six on 26. What happens then? Do we have product market fit then?

A It was insane. We raised the money. We started developing first year, 2016. We haven't been, weren't planning any revenue and We just coerced, uh, a few friends and family companies to try the product so we can get data, so we can start training our models. We didn't plan on charging anything, and people think, oh, free product, people would be, you know, happy to try it out. No, like, people don't want to waste their time, but we use anything from emotional extortion to bending people's arms, they use a favor, they tried it. So we started, like, the system started to work, I think it was January, 2016, we launched, like, not even an alpha, kind of like, hey, kick the tires, tell us if things, like, even make sense, and then we started seeing that the sellers are actually logging in, like, engagement was not zero, because, oh, that's, that's pretty interesting. What are they doing over there? So we started looking at logs, we saw what they're, how they're using the product, and we started tweaking the GUI a little bit, moved some buttons, relabeling, like, uh, we thought people were gonna search for keywords, like a competitor name. But that's not what they're looking for. They're looking like, okay, my customer name, right? Like, where am I calling the customer, or like a person's name, like a seller's name. So we tweaked, engagement improved, we started getting complaints, wh…

AI assessment note: “We raised the money. We started developing first year, 2016.”

Q Do they know it's a trial or they don't?

A No. You just say, Hey, uh, are you ready to buy? And people say yes or no. If it's no, usually it's a no, right? But at least you know what you're missing. So we wanted to know, we didn't need the money, we didn't have like any revenue goals, but do we have something that is valuable enough that people would be willing to pay? We saw that they're using it, they're engaged. Is it like valuable enough? Because there are plenty of product people use and love when you go and ask for money, they're not willing to pay. So we didn't have a price lease, but we said, you know what, let's start something like, you know, Which is a non-trivial amount. We wanted to be, like, somewhat painful, but not outrageous. We had a dozen customers, and we reached out to all of them, and said, hey, sorry boys, the, uh, beta is over, it's time to pay. And they hated us. But, 11 out of 12 bought. So, within six months, we had, like, uh, paying customers, and I said, okay, like, that's really good.

AI assessment note: “No. You just say, Hey, uh, are you ready to buy?”

Q So you raised six on 26. What happens then? Do we have product market fit then?

A It was insane. We raised the money. We started developing first year, 2016. We haven't been, weren't planning any revenue and We just coerced, uh, a few friends and family companies to try the product so we can get data, so we can start training our models. We didn't plan on charging anything, and people think, oh, free product, people would be, you know, happy to try it out. No, like, people don't want to waste their time, but we use anything from emotional extortion to bending people's arms, they use a favor, they tried it. So we started, like, the system started to work, I think it was January, 2016, we launched, like, not even an alpha, kind of like, hey, kick the tires, tell us if things, like, even make sense, and then we started seeing that the sellers are actually logging in, like, engagement was not zero, because, oh, that's, that's pretty interesting. What are they doing over there? So we started looking at logs, we saw what they're, how they're using the product, and we started tweaking the GUI a little bit, moved some buttons, relabeling, like, uh, we thought people were gonna search for keywords, like a competitor name. But that's not what they're looking for. They're looking like, okay, my customer name, right? Like, where am I calling the customer, or like a person's name, like a seller's name. So we tweaked, engagement improved, we started getting complaints, wh…

AI assessment note: “we started getting complaints, which is like a very good thing”

Q When will you move into the human labor budget? Because that's the cool question for me as a VC.

A We already are. So sometimes, you know, I'll speak with a CFO, and he says, oh, we don't have budget for Gong, like, it's a, it's a 100,000 dollars. He's like, okay, like, how many sellers do you have? A hundred. Now, Stack ranked them. Surely there are two at the bottom that aren't Going to come even close to quota? You'd say yes. Okay, like, do with 98, but given the technology to do it, so you're already, like, tapping into things. But if you're asking about usage, that's probably coming, like, next year. I think it's real, and again, it'll be applicable to companies that create a unique offering with, like, strong moats that is not easily replicable by anybody else out there.

AI assessment note: “We already are. So sometimes, you know, I'll speak with a CFO”

Q Are you moving into the human labor budget now?

A We have not yet. So we're building the foundation. The key asset that companies have, especially like in our domain, and they're even like in other domains, is the data that you're sitting on. Because you could go to any of the labs, you could load a couple of cold transcripts and tell like, what do you make of this? Like help me sell. But it will not And it'll give you an answer, but it'll not be like a good answer, and you wouldn't even know it. The real answer, have you captured like everything. What's in the emails, what's in the back channels, in Slack, what's like, and is it the right information? So the battle is now for two things. Data, or in LLM words context, and the second workflow. Is it like something that is weaved into the workflows of people? That's where we spend, like, most of our effort, but future products that are coming will transition to more value-based pricing than per seat.

AI assessment note: “We have not yet. So we're building the foundation.”

Q How does the art of salesmanship change in a world of AI?

A I think the art stays the art. The drudgery goes away. AI is, does not generate great art. You try it like with imagery, right? Uh, or whatever, uh, with Sora or whatever. So art is created by our creativity and intuition that, that people still outperform AI. But the numbers are sellers spend It's like updating forms. It's like the forecast calls. It's like one-on-one meetings, uh, sifting through lists, running workflows, researching information, preparing for meetings. This is insane. You're paying three out of four dollars you're paying them is to do uninteresting work that can be decimated with AI, and the salespeople would be willing to pay out of their own pocket for this because they hate it. That's definitely, uh, going away. The bigger thing is the sales effectiveness, just to know how to sell. Like, Obviously, there is a very big variance between the best sellers and the worst sellers. Just look at the graphs, right? Look at attainment graphs. Even the best sellers, right? Not like every deal show up the best form. Just everybody, you know, LeBron has like a bad day, right? So the performance is very uneven across people, even within the same people. So AI can make sure that you show up in the best form, best shape, Every time, every game, and maybe some people shouldn't even be in the profession.

AI assessment note: “I think the art stays the art. The drudgery goes away.”

Q Can I ask you, you're a pretty chill dude. Maybe you're like, just sorry, ice cold Israeli, but like, are you stressing out at this point, internally?

A No, no, uh, absolutely not. I, I, I think it's important. Like it's not the first time. So I've, you know, I've experienced like 2002 1008 COVID. So it's the first time, you know, the cycles like our thing. Second, I know, listen, we have like plenty of cash. When you have enough experience, you know, like a crisis in a crisis, there are like plenty of opportunity. Just look around, like, keep your head up. And we knew, listen, we have cash. Our competitors are going to struggle. We're going to step on an R&D gas pedal and develop like crazy. First, we need to, right, to expand the platform, and they're not going to be able to do it. So this is a great opinion. This is what we're seeing right now. I knew that we're going to win. It's going to take a while. I didn't know, like, how long or how fast, but I was very transparent with the team. No doubt, like, this team is going to win. I don't know how long it's going to take. And we saw, like, uh, first there was, like, no growth. There was, like, you know, a little bit, you know, maybe, like, three percent. And then like five percent and 10% and, you know, 20% and 30% and higher, so the company is accelerating.

AI assessment note: “No, no, uh, absolutely not.”

Q How does the art of salesmanship change in a world of AI?

A I think the art stays the art. The drudgery goes away. AI is, does not generate great art. You try it like with imagery, right? Uh, or whatever, uh, with Sora or whatever. So art is created by our creativity and intuition that, that people still outperform AI. But the numbers are sellers spend It's like updating forms. It's like the forecast calls. It's like one-on-one meetings, uh, sifting through lists, running workflows, researching information, preparing for meetings. This is insane. You're paying three out of four dollars you're paying them is to do uninteresting work that can be decimated with AI, and the salespeople would be willing to pay out of their own pocket for this because they hate it. That's definitely, uh, going away. The bigger thing is the sales effectiveness, just to know how to sell. Like, Obviously, there is a very big variance between the best sellers and the worst sellers. Just look at the graphs, right? Look at attainment graphs. Even the best sellers, right? Not like every deal show up the best form. Just everybody, you know, LeBron has like a bad day, right? So the performance is very uneven across people, even within the same people. So AI can make sure that you show up in the best form, best shape, Every time, every game, and maybe some people shouldn't even be in the profession.

AI assessment note: “I think the art stays the art. The drudgery goes away.”

Q When will you move into the human labor budget? Because that's the cool question for me as a VC.

A We already are. So sometimes, you know, I'll speak with a CFO, and he says, oh, we don't have budget for Gong, like, it's a, it's a 100,000 dollars. He's like, okay, like, how many sellers do you have? A hundred. Now, Stack ranked them. Surely there are two at the bottom that aren't Going to come even close to quota? You'd say yes. Okay, like, do with 98, but given the technology to do it, so you're already, like, tapping into things. But if you're asking about usage, that's probably coming, like, next year. I think it's real, and again, it'll be applicable to companies that create a unique offering with, like, strong moats that is not easily replicable by anybody else out there.

AI assessment note: “We already are. So sometimes, you know, I'll speak with a CFO”

Q When you think about deal wins, what deal win is most memorable to you, and why?

A You know, I told you about the event that we went to in April, 2016, and, and, uh, one of the customers that I met was, uh, the senior buyer from ADP. So it's a big, uh, payroll and HR company globally, but mostly in the US. And he asked, he was impressed with the AI technology, but I told him like, you know, I don't think we're ready for you, which he actually like was pretty, uh, pretty impressed because not a lot of people would say that, but we met the following year and then they bought, which was, uh, incredible. They're using some other things that didn't work well, so they already had a budget, and they bought Gong. LinkedIn was our first customer, first large customer, like, early on, before we even, like, thought that, uh, we will sell, we said, one day we're gonna sell to bigger companies, but there was never, like, an idea. They evaluated us, and they evaluated, like, a course at the time, and, uh, for those who remember, and they said, okay, we decided to go with Gong, and now they're, you know, they're Growing and expanding, and that's very exciting. So there are plenty.

AI assessment note: “one of the customers that I met was, uh, the senior buyer from ADP”

Q Do you think founders should be the one to build the sales playbook? You there are very provocative in terms of being the one on stage, getting your friends as customers. Should the founder be the one to create that playbook?

A Yes, yes, absolutely. It is very difficult to change things after that, once you start bringing, like, we still think it's gone, that I say, I wish we've changed it now, because once you have the momentum, it's never, like, important enough to change things. Now, if you're like an extreme introvert engineer, maybe not. I think a mediocre founder can do probably the best job early on because you understand the picture, you have the passion, you understand, you know, you're, you still don't have a playbook, so if you're an average, like, communication skills founder, do it yourself. Just figure it out, like, uh, because you understand the vision, you understand what people understand, what they don't understand, probably better than anyone else. You're not, you're not a better seller. But overall, I think it's a great, ah, great experience.

AI assessment note: “Yes, yes, absolutely. It is very difficult to change things after that”

Q Are you moving into the human labor budget now?

A We have not yet. So we're building the foundation. The key asset that companies have, especially like in our domain, and they're even like in other domains, is the data that you're sitting on. Because you could go to any of the labs, you could load a couple of cold transcripts and tell like, what do you make of this? Like help me sell. But it will not And it'll give you an answer, but it'll not be like a good answer, and you wouldn't even know it. The real answer, have you captured like everything. What's in the emails, what's in the back channels, in Slack, what's like, and is it the right information? So the battle is now for two things. Data, or in LLM words context, and the second workflow. Is it like something that is weaved into the workflows of people? That's where we spend, like, most of our effort, but future products that are coming will transition to more value-based pricing than per seat.

AI assessment note: “We have not yet. So we're building the foundation.”

Q Seven. Were you like, oof, that's a high price to raise at?

A It was a high, a high multiple. Uh, definitely the multiples are different today, but still, I don't think it's something like, you know, we're thinking like such a big company. If you take like a 20 year view, then yeah, still think like the potential is like far greater. It was a number of things. First time got tough. We had like a lot of concentration, a lot of like companies and technology businesses were hurt by interest rates. So money wasn't cheap. So a lot of our customers, what happened like in 20, 22, they would buy, let's say that they bought They had, like, a hundred people, and the sales are, the gongs, okay, like, you know, how much are you growing? I said, 50%, okay, I'll throw in, like, 50 more license, so they bought, like, a 150 seats, right? Comes the renewal. Now, not only do they don't have the 50, now they have, like, 70, so really high, like, downgrade and churn, so we lost a lot of seats that were not real because the company didn't have the growth, so that's number one, and it was painful. Second, I think we lost some of our muscle tissue. Like when we were told about the hustle, like when we're like three people at the company, but all of a sudden people just bought. So our game, like we just gave them licenses and moved on to the next thing. The way we supported the customer was not, uh, as tight as, as you need to, but all of a sudden, you know, CFO…

AI assessment note: “It was a high, a high multiple. Uh, definitely the multiples are different today”

Q Can I ask you, you're a pretty chill dude. Maybe you're like, just sorry, ice cold Israeli, but like, are you stressing out at this point, internally?

A No, no, uh, absolutely not. I, I, I think it's important. Like it's not the first time. So I've, you know, I've experienced like 2002 1008 COVID. So it's the first time, you know, the cycles like our thing. Second, I know, listen, we have like plenty of cash. When you have enough experience, you know, like a crisis in a crisis, there are like plenty of opportunity. Just look around, like, keep your head up. And we knew, listen, we have cash. Our competitors are going to struggle. We're going to step on an R&D gas pedal and develop like crazy. First, we need to, right, to expand the platform, and they're not going to be able to do it. So this is a great opinion. This is what we're seeing right now. I knew that we're going to win. It's going to take a while. I didn't know, like, how long or how fast, but I was very transparent with the team. No doubt, like, this team is going to win. I don't know how long it's going to take. And we saw, like, uh, first there was, like, no growth. There was, like, you know, a little bit, you know, maybe, like, three percent. And then like five percent and 10% and, you know, 20% and 30% and higher, so the company is accelerating.

AI assessment note: “No, no, uh, absolutely not. I, I, I think it's important.”

Q Why do you wish they went into sales?

A That's a good question. I think it's a very useful skill. I mean, they're doing things that are like as interesting and not more like in, in other ways, but sales is a very, very useful skill in life. And again, it's not like selling like a phone. You sell ideas. You ask me, how can a young founder bring like a hotshot CRO, right? You sell the dream. Why do you want to ditch their successful company? Because it's not exciting and come to your company that you said is like shitty right now. You want to sell to investors. You want to sell to your kids sometimes, like an idea. You want to promote ideas. So it is like, it is a very useful skill, and it takes a...

AI assessment note: “I think it's a very useful skill”

Q Why do you wish they went into sales?

A That's a good question. I think it's a very useful skill. I mean, they're doing things that are like as interesting and not more like in, in other ways, but sales is a very, very useful skill in life. And again, it's not like selling like a phone. You sell ideas. You ask me, how can a young founder bring like a hotshot CRO, right? You sell the dream. Why do you want to ditch their successful company? Because it's not exciting and come to your company that you said is like shitty right now. You want to sell to investors. You want to sell to your kids sometimes, like an idea. You want to promote ideas. So it is like, it is a very useful skill, and it takes a...

AI assessment note: “I think it's a very useful skill. ... sales is a very, very useful skill in life.”

Q Do you think founders should be the one to build the sales playbook? You there are very provocative in terms of being the one on stage, getting your friends as customers. Should the founder be the one to create that playbook?

A Yes, yes, absolutely. It is very difficult to change things after that, once you start bringing, like, we still think it's gone, that I say, I wish we've changed it now, because once you have the momentum, it's never, like, important enough to change things. Now, if you're like an extreme introvert engineer, maybe not. I think a mediocre founder can do probably the best job early on because you understand the picture, you have the passion, you understand, you know, you're, you still don't have a playbook, so if you're an average, like, communication skills founder, do it yourself. Just figure it out, like, uh, because you understand the vision, you understand what people understand, what they don't understand, probably better than anyone else. You're not, you're not a better seller. But overall, I think it's a great, ah, great experience.

AI assessment note: “Yes, yes, absolutely. It is very difficult to change things after that”

Q Do you buy the future of cold calling?

A Yes. Yes. I think, well, it could be like, I don't know what the communication means going to be, but the idea is like reaching out to someone. Yeah, definitely. Like, you know, you reach to a stranger or create an introduction. Absolutely. I think that that'll stay like one way or another. So they know how to create their own pipeline. They get a lot of like, uh, I call it like abuse, right? People and they develop their resilience. They know how to position the product. People say, oh, we already use this, but They build so much strength and resilience. It's unbelievable, right? And they go into sales. It's almost like they have the hard part behind them. Now it comes the easier part. I do believe that, uh, it's a great school, especially for people that did not come from tech. So, but now there are companies that aren't growing. Why do you need something that's optimized for hypergrowth and have like SDRs and moving? I think we'll have like fewer roles that are more, um, able to do multiple jobs. You know, maybe sellers should be able to support customers as customer success. So I think we'll see like a blend of these roles, like in a one person, almost like a one person band that is doing like multiple roles at the same time, because they have the tools to do it, right? They use agents.

AI assessment note: “Yes. Yes. I think... the idea is like reaching out to someone. Yeah, definitely.”

Q Seven. Were you like, oof, that's a high price to raise at?

A It was a high, a high multiple. Uh, definitely the multiples are different today, but still, I don't think it's something like, you know, we're thinking like such a big company. If you take like a 20 year view, then yeah, still think like the potential is like far greater. It was a number of things. First time got tough. We had like a lot of concentration, a lot of like companies and technology businesses were hurt by interest rates. So money wasn't cheap. So a lot of our customers, what happened like in 20, 22, they would buy, let's say that they bought They had, like, a hundred people, and the sales are, the gongs, okay, like, you know, how much are you growing? I said, 50%, okay, I'll throw in, like, 50 more license, so they bought, like, a 150 seats, right? Comes the renewal. Now, not only do they don't have the 50, now they have, like, 70, so really high, like, downgrade and churn, so we lost a lot of seats that were not real because the company didn't have the growth, so that's number one, and it was painful. Second, I think we lost some of our muscle tissue. Like when we were told about the hustle, like when we're like three people at the company, but all of a sudden people just bought. So our game, like we just gave them licenses and moved on to the next thing. The way we supported the customer was not, uh, as tight as, as you need to, but all of a sudden, you know, CFO…

AI assessment note: “It was a high, a high multiple.”

Q What do you not know about how AI changes your business that you would like to know?

A I wrote a post that is real observation that, you know, people think it's like AI destroying the world which,, which is a real risk. I don't know. I'm optimistic by nature, but I think it, it can drive mediocrity. The way that LLMs work, they're very consensus uh, driven. So they aggregate like everything that they've heard and create something. It doesn't create great copy, for example. So I'm a pretty good writer, I think. Maybe not the best, but pretty good. And I, whenever I try to say create something like witty or that, it's not It's okay. So the risk is I have someone at the company says, okay, come up with a strategy for this market. And they've actually used like one of the LLMs to generate the plan. That's a terrible idea because I could get like an average. It is sensible. It makes sense, but it's not the best plan, right? So how do I know that work, strategic work that done by people at my company is not like a product of LLMs?

AI assessment note: “how do I know that work, strategic work... is not like a product of LLMs?”

Q What do you not know about how AI changes your business that you would like to know?

A I wrote a post that is real observation that, you know, people think it's like AI destroying the world which,, which is a real risk. I don't know. I'm optimistic by nature, but I think it, it can drive mediocrity. The way that LLMs work, they're very consensus uh, driven. So they aggregate like everything that they've heard and create something. It doesn't create great copy, for example. So I'm a pretty good writer, I think. Maybe not the best, but pretty good. And I, whenever I try to say create something like witty or that, it's not It's okay. So the risk is I have someone at the company says, okay, come up with a strategy for this market. And they've actually used like one of the LLMs to generate the plan. That's a terrible idea because I could get like an average. It is sensible. It makes sense, but it's not the best plan, right? So how do I know that work, strategic work that done by people at my company is not like a product of LLMs?

AI assessment note: “how do I know that work, strategic work... is not like a product of LLMs?”

Q When did you take your eyes off the prize, and how do you reflect on that? Like, when did you get distracted by something that shouldn't have distracted you? A shiny object that you shouldn't have spent time on?

A Not Chinese, but sometimes listen, there's real, you, you know where you want to get, and there are some things that are real that aren't, you know, a straight line to where you want to get, and you take a little detour because you need to do it. Building an engagement product, kind of like took him from sales life and outreach. We had like other plans that are like, uh, even like bigger potentials, but 20, 23 came and said, if we don't develop it now, I don't know that we'll get a chance. Because once a country gets, like, really bruised, like, it's very difficult to, uh, get over it. So we said, okay, like, forget the strategic plans. Let's develop this, like, right now, like, really fast. So we crossed this hurdle, and then from a power position, a position of strengths, we can continue with our more strategic plans. So this was like a little detour. Again, it's not, it's not a waste, and it's, it's created a ton of revenue and strengthened the market leadership position. But it's always like a judgment call between the same kind of the long-term vision of the company and some things that you need to do. Technically, you know, the customer has a problem, right? You need to take care of it now. You know, realize our customers need, like, more stability with the system. The system is mission critical right now. So we said we halted, like, all engineering work for four weeks. N…

AI assessment note: “So this was like a little detour. Again, it's not, it's not a waste”

Q Are the best CEOs the best resource allocators?

A Yeah, I think you can't suck at resource allocation, right? I mean, it has to be reasonable. The most important thing for the company is the strategy. So I think if the execution is like 80%, okay, and a good strategy, you will still win. Yeah, you could do better or worse. There are two things that matter, right? The team, which is basically execution and the market. The market is the most important thing. And this is a strategy. The strategy, like what do you sell to whom and what's your unique positioning, unique value that you're creating, nobody else. That's the most important thing for the company. And you can, I've seen companies that are doing extremely well and, and I know the team, they're okay. I mean, they're not bad. They're not phenomenal. And I've seen smarter people that fail. The most important thing is the strategy of the company.

AI assessment note: “you can't suck at resource allocation, right? I mean, it has to be reasonable.”

Q Oh, thank you. But what we're seeing is like, you know, FDs, forward deployed engineers at Palantir, Microsoft laying off 9000 people, largely sales, and replacing with kind of product-centric solutions engineers. Clay, a smaller company, but still a fast-growing company, Doesn't have a sales team. It just has kind of product specialists that sell. Are we moving away from a world of respectfully less technically minded salespeople?

A No, no. Uh, so sales, salespeople are required, there'll be fewer sellers, I'm pretty sure, and I'll give you some numbers to think about it, right? There are roughly nine million sellers, like, in, in the world. Let, let's say 10, just for even, let, let's say that they're all on average are making like a 150 thousand dollars a year. So that's like one and a half trillion dollars in cost. Remember three quarters of that you pay them not to sell, but to do administrative work. So that's the opportunity. Now that's the petty cash. So let's say average quota or average revenue per seller, let's say, 700 K a year. I'm just throwing a number. So that's like seven trillion, seven trillion dollars a year sold by the sales community. This is bigger. People talk about like, you know, cursor for engineers or Harvey for lawyers. Gong or revenue AI is for sellers. It's way bigger because not just the cost or the headcount, it's the revenue they're generating. It's like a magnitude of order bigger. So this is a multi-trillion dollar opportunity that AI can tap into.

AI assessment note: “No, no. Uh, so sales, salespeople are required, there'll be fewer sellers”

Q 2030, where's Gong then? ARR-wise, company headcount-wise, hit me.

A We are now working on a plan, uh, how quickly can we cross The billion in ARR, and they're like different bets, but they're not, we think within a few years we can get there. But the most important thing is that our vision is to become the revenue AI operating system for companies, right? That's the, the central system that we move from like a data entry world to a system of intelligence that runs the entire organization. And we want it to be used by a more diverse set of companies, so we're expanding the industries that we're in, and we want, like, every company to benefit from AI. So selling becomes easy, you just need to compete on having the best products.

AI assessment note: “But the most important thing is that our vision is to become the revenue AI”

Q I mean, listen, you have expanding secondary markets, which provide liquidity more and more. On secondaries, different founders have different takes on them. If you're advising a founder friend on yours, on what do you know now about secondaries that you would advise them? What advice would you give them?

A Well, it's, it's actually like a pretty good, uh, pretty good option. There are companies, not a lot, but, uh, that are growing fast. So you, you go public for either you need cash, you want the brand recognition comes and it does come with more brand recognition and some, uh, liquidity. Many companies don't need the cash. They have enough and they're generating cash. So that's like one second liquidity is, is a good option with secondary. Now the market is actually evolving and the brand. Okay. Like it's real. But let's say, you know, if you think about the cost of an, of being a public company, take that money and buy Superbowl ads. So there, there's alternative ways to get the publicity that aren't, don't come with the restrictions. But secondary, um, yeah, don't go crazy with valuation. Sometimes a little bit of like an ego thing, right? Then you want to think about the next round. So you don't, because otherwise it can create like problems for employees, like, uh, down the road.

AI assessment note: “don't go crazy with valuation. Sometimes a little bit of like an ego thing”

Q Are the best CEOs the best resource allocators?

A Yeah, I think you can't suck at resource allocation, right? I mean, it has to be reasonable. The most important thing for the company is the strategy. So I think if the execution is like 80%, okay, and a good strategy, you will still win. Yeah, you could do better or worse. There are two things that matter, right? The team, which is basically execution and the market. The market is the most important thing. And this is a strategy. The strategy, like what do you sell to whom and what's your unique positioning, unique value that you're creating, nobody else. That's the most important thing for the company. And you can, I've seen companies that are doing extremely well and, and I know the team, they're okay. I mean, they're not bad. They're not phenomenal. And I've seen smarter people that fail. The most important thing is the strategy of the company.

AI assessment note: “The most important thing for the company is the strategy.”