The Exchanges

Q Klarna announced that they were stopping their partnerships or, you know, customer, you know, contracts with that Workday and with service, with Salesforce. Um, and it led to this wave of, wow, this is the future. Companies will build their own SaaS tools. I'm interested. How do you feel about that? And how do you respond to that question and concern?

A I have no choice but to say that that's a terrible fucking idea. Uh, just like Intercom is eventually fucked by AGI, we'd also be fucked Buy companies building their own AI systems. The reality is hand on heart, independent of my association with Intercom. Um, I think that building your own AI agent platforms is going to be as smart as in a previous generation, building your own SaaS workflow tools. These things are super deep. Like I said, with Finn, our AI agent, it's the product of over a hundred different experiments. Many patented parts. We've got 30 ML engineers and counting, you know, a hundred other engineers working on all the application components. Um, you're just not going to build a highly performant, rich AI agent on the side, not going to be done. And I think any attempt to do so may yield some short term excitement, but even Klarna long term, I'm pretty sure we'll move on to a professional purpose built system.

AI assessment note: “I have no choice but to say that that's a terrible fucking idea.”

Q Do you buy the reduction in team sizing that AI has? I think if you look back to the seventies, people would say, God, if we had computers that did all these things, we wouldn't need anyone here. Yeah, there's still companies with hundreds of thousands of people. How do you feel about the reductive nature of AI on team size?

A Valuable businesses have got smaller with technology. You know, the size of Google or Facebook when they were worth a hundred billion dollars in employee size was, was substantially smaller than Um, you know, General Electric or Ford. So the, the long arc of technology and automation requires less humans, so it'll perpetuate that arc. You're not going to see mass layoffs. At Intercom, for example, we've been using our, this AI agent fin for nearly two years, and we've not let anyone go, but we've stopped growing the size of our support team. And so I think any future growth is going to be catered to by the AI agents. The AI agents will first do a lot of low level and simpler work, and the humans will do the higher level work. Now, when we hire for customer service, we're hiring a more talented, experienced person who can do the creative things that the AI agents can't. Eventually, as these teams get smaller and through attrition, um, the AI will be doing more and more of them, and there just will be less humans in the mix.

AI assessment note: “the long arc of technology and automation requires less humans, so it'll perpetuate that arc.”

Q No, I, I, I totally get you. How do you feel about defensibility and startups? I know you've invested too.

A There is no such thing. Yeah, there's no such thing. Even Apple don't have it. Apple very famously championed their patented iPhone technologies, and yet Samsung came and actually beat them on many different criteria. Technology is a cat and mouse game. It's about who builds it first and brings it to market, helps customers understand it and adopt it. It's always been the case. And so talking about moats, it's kind of silly. Now that said, some of the greatest technology companies of our generation then go on to build networks and other things that do become defensible, whether it's Apple's iMessages or their ecosystem, um, whether it's Google's data, whether it's Facebook's network. At some point you can build some degree of defensibility, but software companies and technology companies in particular They don't tend to have any defensibility other than the fact that they can build better and faster than anyone else, and that's okay.

AI assessment note: “There is no such thing. Yeah, there's no such thing. Even Apple don't have it.”

Q Just help me understand. I'm, I don't actually understand. Is it the existing data sources that you have which allow you to do that better?

A Yeah, it's all the existing data sources with intercom, it's your historical conversations that your human reps are also having. What's really interesting and what's key to understanding how AI is going to develop, and we can go back to your questions if I manage to remember it, is that, um, building domain-specific AI systems requires a phenomenal amount of work on top of these LLMs. Of course, yes, over a decade or two, the LLMs will get powerful enough that they will disrupt away all of these Detailed intricacies that we've built, but Finn, our AI agent, for example, is the product of over a hundred unique experiments to figure out how exactly to understand customer questions and resolve tickets. There's patented components to it. I think there are somewhere around seven different LLMs intricately connected together. There's homegrown AI and just a lot of very detailed Um, prompt engineering, massaging to make it, um, highly effective at closing tickets. When we first released our AI agent, the average resolution rate was in the high twenties to high 20%. So that's the rate at which it successfully closes tickets when it gets involved in the conversation. And now, like I said, it's approaching 50%. I think Zendesk is still high twenties. And so it just takes a long period of time and a lot of work to build all of the Um, functionality on top of the LLMs to make them really, …

AI assessment note: “Yeah, it's all the existing data sources with intercom, it's your historical conversations”

Q You mentioned the revenue there and kind of the seismic shifts that you've made to kind of cause the changes. Why did revenue plateau, growth plateau? What happened?

A We forced more and more customers to talk to sales. It certainly increased ACVs, but it actually cut out a phenomenal amount of growth in SMBs and small customers, and those small customers were actually the lifeblood for Our sales customers, they just needed some time to grow. Um, and so, um, that was a really, really, really, really big mistake. Our total customer count started to shrink. It's now growing very rapidly again after the changes I made, but it started to shrink. That's one example. Others where we're pricing, we got greedy. We wanted people to sign big contracts up front rather than allow them to expand into them. So it was just going against all our intuition. Bad commercialization. That was the main thing.

AI assessment note: “We forced more and more customers to talk to sales. It certainly increased ACVs”

Q Klarna announced that they were stopping their partnerships or, you know, customer, you know, contracts with that Workday and with service, with Salesforce. Um, and it led to this wave of, wow, this is the future. Companies will build their own SaaS tools. I'm interested. How do you feel about that? And how do you respond to that question and concern?

A I have no choice but to say that that's a terrible fucking idea. Uh, just like Intercom is eventually fucked by AGI, we'd also be fucked Buy companies building their own AI systems. The reality is hand on heart, independent of my association with Intercom. Um, I think that building your own AI agent platforms is going to be as smart as in a previous generation, building your own SaaS workflow tools. These things are super deep. Like I said, with Finn, our AI agent, it's the product of over a hundred different experiments. Many patented parts. We've got 30 ML engineers and counting, you know, a hundred other engineers working on all the application components. Um, you're just not going to build a highly performant, rich AI agent on the side, not going to be done. And I think any attempt to do so may yield some short term excitement, but even Klarna long term, I'm pretty sure we'll move on to a professional purpose built system.

AI assessment note: “I have no choice but to say that that's a terrible fucking idea.”

Q No, I, I, I totally get you. How do you feel about defensibility and startups? I know you've invested too.

A There is no such thing. Yeah, there's no such thing. Even Apple don't have it. Apple very famously championed their patented iPhone technologies, and yet Samsung came and actually beat them on many different criteria. Technology is a cat and mouse game. It's about who builds it first and brings it to market, helps customers understand it and adopt it. It's always been the case. And so talking about moats, it's kind of silly. Now that said, some of the greatest technology companies of our generation then go on to build networks and other things that do become defensible, whether it's Apple's iMessages or their ecosystem, um, whether it's Google's data, whether it's Facebook's network. At some point you can build some degree of defensibility, but software companies and technology companies in particular They don't tend to have any defensibility other than the fact that they can build better and faster than anyone else, and that's okay.

AI assessment note: “There is no such thing. Yeah, there's no such thing.”

Q You mentioned the revenue there and kind of the seismic shifts that you've made to kind of cause the changes. Why did revenue plateau, growth plateau? What happened?

A We forced more and more customers to talk to sales. It certainly increased ACVs, but it actually cut out a phenomenal amount of growth in SMBs and small customers, and those small customers were actually the lifeblood for Our sales customers, they just needed some time to grow. Um, and so, um, that was a really, really, really, really big mistake. Our total customer count started to shrink. It's now growing very rapidly again after the changes I made, but it started to shrink. That's one example. Others where we're pricing, we got greedy. We wanted people to sign big contracts up front rather than allow them to expand into them. So it was just going against all our intuition. Bad commercialization. That was the main thing.

AI assessment note: “Bad commercialization. That was the main thing.”

Q What trait do you have that you're slightly ashamed of, but you think has contributed to your success?

A You know, I have a lot to prove still. You know, I, I'm still just a boy who was bullied in school and is trying to find love and validation. Um, you know, tends to be the case for all founders. I've never met a founder that's really well-balanced. You can't possibly imagine someone who is grounded and centered, part of a loving community, I'm deeply at one with the universe who then says, I think I'll start a technology company. Most people that start companies, they have so much to prove, big chips in their shoulder. And so to get to your question, if there's anything I'm ashamed of, it's that I'm still trying to prove myself. Um, but you know, that's what tends to give us our edge and that's what creates artists. And you know, I think the secret is not in fighting that, but learning to love that. And I've learned to love that.

AI assessment note: “if there's anything I'm ashamed of, it's that I'm still trying to prove myself”

Q to cost a lot of money to provide such great high quality AI products, and you do a Canva and increase pricing by 300 X. Um, well, I'm Canva. Love those guys. Uh, or actually we see costs go way down as they have done so far. And actually, pricing remains relatively stable, but it's the cost that really reduces. What world do you think is more likely and why?

A Technology is deflationary. Technology gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper over time. You look at, look at these statistics where they show the real prices of various products and goods, and even as, um, uh, currency inflates, uh, the price of say TVs, flat screen TVs goes down. Um, and so, um, These AI agents will be way cheaper than humans while they're also better. That said, what you're going to see people do is augment their, uh, the savings they make in their budgets or use the savings they make in their human budgets to spend on as much AI as they can until They're now totally over serving their customer. I think people are going to start to find that if, for example, in our e-commerce, um, uh, story, uh, these companies can generate substantially better sales through providing these epic AI assistants, they'll happily spend more money for them. But when those themselves become commodities, then it'll get cheaper over time too.

AI assessment note: “Technology is deflationary. Technology gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper over time.”

Q Do you buy the reduction in team sizing that AI has? I think if you look back to the seventies, people would say, God, if we had computers that did all these things, we wouldn't need anyone here. Yeah, there's still companies with hundreds of thousands of people. How do you feel about the reductive nature of AI on team size?

A Valuable businesses have got smaller with technology. You know, the size of Google or Facebook when they were worth a hundred billion dollars in employee size was, was substantially smaller than Um, you know, General Electric or Ford. So the, the long arc of technology and automation requires less humans, so it'll perpetuate that arc. You're not going to see mass layoffs. At Intercom, for example, we've been using our, this AI agent fin for nearly two years, and we've not let anyone go, but we've stopped growing the size of our support team. And so I think any future growth is going to be catered to by the AI agents. The AI agents will first do a lot of low level and simpler work, and the humans will do the higher level work. Now, when we hire for customer service, we're hiring a more talented, experienced person who can do the creative things that the AI agents can't. Eventually, as these teams get smaller and through attrition, um, the AI will be doing more and more of them, and there just will be less humans in the mix.

AI assessment note: “the long arc of technology and automation requires less humans, so it'll perpetuate that arc”

Q Can I ask you, if we think about Silicon Valley Central Casting, PG's essay on founder mode went incredibly viral, obviously, in the last month. How did you feel and think about it when you read it?

A I think it was really, like, acute and fun branding for it. A thing that anyone who's built the company has deployed since the start of companies, um, that, you know, there's nothing new about it. There's countless books about Steve Jobs and how he operated. Maybe it gives permission now to founders to trust their gut and instinct, which I think is a really, really good thing. Um, but business is very much an art, particularly starting a business from scratch, um, is a deeply creative endeavor. And, uh, the worst type of art is art produced by committee. I would say it's just not art if you're trying to find the lowest common denominator and something that satisfies everyone. And so, um, highly agentic, um, uh, individuals and acting on their own intuition, I think is how greatness has always been made.

AI assessment note: “I think it was really, like, acute and fun branding for it.”

Q I totally agree with you here. Did people push back on that?

A Yeah, and on all the things, of course they did, yeah. Of course they did, but they were wrong for the company, and that's totally ok. I guess they pushed back on some of the tops-down way of working, you know. I would dictate values, I would dictate policies. The way a professional CEO runs an organization is by consensus. So, imagine they want to feel out an opportunity to bring people back to the office. They'll go and they'll poll leaders and staff on their opinions, and if it's not popular, they won't do it. Uh, and so they're stuck in stasis and mediocrity. The way a highly agentic enabled founder who will not apologize does that is simply tell people we're going to be two days in the office. Um, this is for a good reason. If you're not into it, God bless. And, um, I did that with many different things and people, certain people are allergic to that way of working. They want to be part of the communist, um, Uh, consensus approach. And that's not where greatness comes from.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, and on all the things, of course they did, yeah.”

Q So how do you feel about Brian Armstrong's, you know, famous piece about politics not having a place in the workspace?

A I think it's a, it's a effective practical solution. I introduced that years ago also, and we do not talk about politics and intercom, and, uh, I never do that, uh, within the company either. For me, it's also important that, um, intercom never tells employees what to do in their personal lives. I'll never tell employees what they can or cannot say. And if any employees ever attacked for their political positions online, Especially and particularly if there are positions that I disagree with, it's important that I, um, demonstrate that these principles in those moments, um, I, I will, I will defend them. Um, and, uh, it's important. I think that the CEO, uh, exercises and demonstrates, um, uh, their alignment with these policies. And so similarly, I'm going to be myself. I'm going to represent the things I believe in. Again, particularly when they're aligned with You know, things that are designed to better humanity and peace in the world.

AI assessment note: “I think it's a, it's a effective practical solution.”

Q Did you worry about turning off potential talent from applying or joining?

A No. I'm a really, really big believer in, um, authenticity. I think great leadership is all about being who you truly are. If you're completely open, honest, and vulnerable, then people can opt in and out accordingly. Because of the values I instituted and the performance management processes I followed, Um, to curate a certain set of people in the company. We're now really resilient. There was literally one person who left. And if you're not going to work with me because you're not willing to, um, Accept my individual beliefs and, um, uh, support my efforts to better humanity and find peace in the world, then we're not a good fit for each other. Um, but I've heard of no problems with customers. I've heard nothing from the board or investors. If you stay close to the moral high ground and you communicate the reasons you do what you do and you stay strong, don't apologize or flinch When the tiny minority of people come after you, you also, you'll find that the masses will be very supportive, and really I've had no problems whatsoever by my, uh, openness.

AI assessment note: “No. I'm a really, really big believer in, um, authenticity.”

Q And you have leaned in To political kind of commentary on social support. To start off, why did you decide to lean in on expressing your political views?

A Um, just because it's important for humanity. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a big believer in individual liberty and peace, and we're in a time where both of those are being threatened. Um, you know, western establishments, western governments Are impinging upon a lot of individual liberties, whether it's freedom of speech, start and run certain types of businesses. They don't like crypto. They don't like AI. And they're starting a lot of wars, um, between nuclear powers, and I think that that's, uh, just really, really, really, really, really fucking dangerous. That's the only reason I'm in any way involved. I hate politics. I tend to dislike politicians. Um, I have always been deeply apathetic about political games, but this time it's different.

AI assessment note: “just because it's important for humanity”

Q What trait do you have that you're slightly ashamed of, but you think has contributed to your success?

A You know, I have a lot to prove still. You know, I, I'm still just a boy who was bullied in school and is trying to find love and validation. Um, you know, tends to be the case for all founders. I've never met a founder that's really well-balanced. You can't possibly imagine someone who is grounded and centered, part of a loving community, I'm deeply at one with the universe who then says, I think I'll start a technology company. Most people that start companies, they have so much to prove, big chips in their shoulder. And so to get to your question, if there's anything I'm ashamed of, it's that I'm still trying to prove myself. Um, but you know, that's what tends to give us our edge and that's what creates artists. And you know, I think the secret is not in fighting that, but learning to love that. And I've learned to love that.

AI assessment note: “if there's anything I'm ashamed of, it's that I'm still trying to prove myself.”

Q to cost a lot of money to provide such great high quality AI products, and you do a Canva and increase pricing by 300 X. Um, well, I'm Canva. Love those guys. Uh, or actually we see costs go way down as they have done so far. And actually, pricing remains relatively stable, but it's the cost that really reduces. What world do you think is more likely and why?

A Technology is deflationary. Technology gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper over time. You look at, look at these statistics where they show the real prices of various products and goods, and even as, um, uh, currency inflates, uh, the price of say TVs, flat screen TVs goes down. Um, and so, um, These AI agents will be way cheaper than humans while they're also better. That said, what you're going to see people do is augment their, uh, the savings they make in their budgets or use the savings they make in their human budgets to spend on as much AI as they can until They're now totally over serving their customer. I think people are going to start to find that if, for example, in our e-commerce, um, uh, story, uh, these companies can generate substantially better sales through providing these epic AI assistants, they'll happily spend more money for them. But when those themselves become commodities, then it'll get cheaper over time too.

AI assessment note: “Technology is deflationary. Technology gets cheaper and cheaper and cheaper over time.”

Q Can I ask you, what do you believe will happen in the next 10 years that currently today is considered crazy or nuts?

A I think we're going to see a giant rise of robotics, um, in many different areas. Um, I, I think that a lot of blue collar work will probably be done by robotics. The one thing that's important to say, uh, while I'm kind of celebrating this human work being done is that technology has always put humans out of work when the work has been dangerous shit. And demeaning. Like, whether it's, um, individuals on factory floors, where they lose limbs, humans dying in mines. So much of these, uh, types of work that humans fucking hated, that actually killed them, has been replaced by technology. And all the while, the population of the world has increased, GDP has increased, longevity has increased. So, We have no reason to believe that we're not still on that same trajectory, um, and that we will put people out of work and make humanity better.

AI assessment note: “I think we're going to see a giant rise of robotics”

Q Can I ask you, if we think about Silicon Valley Central Casting, PG's essay on founder mode went incredibly viral, obviously, in the last month. How did you feel and think about it when you read it?

A I think it was really, like, acute and fun branding for it. A thing that anyone who's built the company has deployed since the start of companies, um, that, you know, there's nothing new about it. There's countless books about Steve Jobs and how he operated. Maybe it gives permission now to founders to trust their gut and instinct, which I think is a really, really good thing. Um, but business is very much an art, particularly starting a business from scratch, um, is a deeply creative endeavor. And, uh, the worst type of art is art produced by committee. I would say it's just not art if you're trying to find the lowest common denominator and something that satisfies everyone. And so, um, highly agentic, um, uh, individuals and acting on their own intuition, I think is how greatness has always been made.

AI assessment note: “I think it was really, like, acute and fun branding for it.”

Q I totally agree with you here. Did people push back on that?

A Yeah, and on all the things, of course they did, yeah. Of course they did, but they were wrong for the company, and that's totally ok. I guess they pushed back on some of the tops-down way of working, you know. I would dictate values, I would dictate policies. The way a professional CEO runs an organization is by consensus. So, imagine they want to feel out an opportunity to bring people back to the office. They'll go and they'll poll leaders and staff on their opinions, and if it's not popular, they won't do it. Uh, and so they're stuck in stasis and mediocrity. The way a highly agentic enabled founder who will not apologize does that is simply tell people we're going to be two days in the office. Um, this is for a good reason. If you're not into it, God bless. And, um, I did that with many different things and people, certain people are allergic to that way of working. They want to be part of the communist, um, Uh, consensus approach. And that's not where greatness comes from.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, and on all the things, of course they did, yeah.”

Q And you have leaned in To political kind of commentary on social support. To start off, why did you decide to lean in on expressing your political views?

A Um, just because it's important for humanity. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a big believer in individual liberty and peace, and we're in a time where both of those are being threatened. Um, you know, western establishments, western governments Are impinging upon a lot of individual liberties, whether it's freedom of speech, start and run certain types of businesses. They don't like crypto. They don't like AI. And they're starting a lot of wars, um, between nuclear powers, and I think that that's, uh, just really, really, really, really, really fucking dangerous. That's the only reason I'm in any way involved. I hate politics. I tend to dislike politicians. Um, I have always been deeply apathetic about political games, but this time it's different.

AI assessment note: “just because it's important for humanity. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a big believer”

Q So how do you feel about Brian Armstrong's, you know, famous piece about politics not having a place in the workspace?

A I think it's a, it's a effective practical solution. I introduced that years ago also, and we do not talk about politics and intercom, and, uh, I never do that, uh, within the company either. For me, it's also important that, um, intercom never tells employees what to do in their personal lives. I'll never tell employees what they can or cannot say. And if any employees ever attacked for their political positions online, Especially and particularly if there are positions that I disagree with, it's important that I, um, demonstrate that these principles in those moments, um, I, I will, I will defend them. Um, and, uh, it's important. I think that the CEO, uh, exercises and demonstrates, um, uh, their alignment with these policies. And so similarly, I'm going to be myself. I'm going to represent the things I believe in. Again, particularly when they're aligned with You know, things that are designed to better humanity and peace in the world.

AI assessment note: “I think it's a, it's a effective practical solution.”

Q Did you worry about turning off potential talent from applying or joining?

A No. I'm a really, really big believer in, um, authenticity. I think great leadership is all about being who you truly are. If you're completely open, honest, and vulnerable, then people can opt in and out accordingly. Because of the values I instituted and the performance management processes I followed, Um, to curate a certain set of people in the company. We're now really resilient. There was literally one person who left. And if you're not going to work with me because you're not willing to, um, Accept my individual beliefs and, um, uh, support my efforts to better humanity and find peace in the world, then we're not a good fit for each other. Um, but I've heard of no problems with customers. I've heard nothing from the board or investors. If you stay close to the moral high ground and you communicate the reasons you do what you do and you stay strong, don't apologize or flinch When the tiny minority of people come after you, you also, you'll find that the masses will be very supportive, and really I've had no problems whatsoever by my, uh, openness.

AI assessment note: “No. I'm a really, really big believer in, um, authenticity.”

Q infected by Europeanism, but like, I could mark a, a situation where, you know, a black person or a white person or a Muslim, you choose your race, is getting beaten in the street by 10 others, and it's completely staged because it's a joke, and guess what? I will put it in the right forums at the right time and incite a fuckton of hatred. But it's a joke.

A Then you should be shamed. You should be criticized. Um, people should stop following you. I think that that's really, really inappropriate. That's not a cool thing to do. But the powers that be, um, cannot decide what's right or wrong and what's a joke. Cause then they can just decide that various things that they don't like as a joke. Look, all freedom comes at danger. The freedom to own a knife. The freedom to drive a car, um, the freedom to say what you want comes at risk. But we are born sovereign and free, and for us to be able to live our own beautiful lives and create and love who we want, build companies, we need and deserve full freedom. And it's never been government's job to take that from us. The government works for us. They are our employees. Their job is to protect us, not shut us down and shut down our freedom.

AI assessment note: “Then you should be shamed. You should be criticized. Um, people should stop following”

Q What did you tell yourself when you had all of that shit happening?

A Not good things. Versions of like, am I a fucking loser? Like I fucked up. In doing so, when you go through a process like that, your ego is eviscerated. Your identity as whatever, um, perfect little image that your ego wanted to create for yourself is by necessity, you know, uh, burned. And so when you go through these processes, but then manage to survive it, What comes out the other side is a far more authentic person. You know, all these ideas of perfection can't possibly be held to be true anymore because they've been proven otherwise. So when I came back to Intercom, yeah, I felt so much more myself. That's just helped me speak my mind, be authentic and real with people, create and curate the culture and environment that I believe will be successful and do so making no apologies and being okay with people being upset by it.

AI assessment note: “Versions of like, am I a fucking loser? Like I fucked up.”

Q It's been my whole adult life, as you kindly suggested about my youth. But like for you, especially, you know, you were CEO of Intercom for many years, and then making a transition to chairman today, obviously you're not as operationally involved as you are as CEO, daily, daily, grinding, 24 hours a day. Was there a challenge for you in kind of detaching your identity from individual and company?

A Of course. These identities that we build for ourselves, this armor, these images, they're our place of comfort and safety, and we latch onto them. They're everything to us. We've worked so hard because we believe that they are the Everything we need, that they are us. We believe it so strongly that we will answer questions by saying things like, oh, I'm a founder, I'm a tech guy, I am a VC, and you're not. You're so much more than that. You're Harry, and that's a big risk and a big danger just getting stuck on to and associated with these images that then become limiting. Imagine what else you could do with your life. I'm not hating on VC. I think you're going to make a wonderful venture capitalist, and I think you're going to have a lot of fun doing it. But you can also do so many more things. You are so much more than that. There have been so many VCs in the world. What else could you become? Maybe you can become truly your own thing. Maybe you can become something truly unique. But if for the rest of your life or for as long as you say, I am a VC, then that's all you're going to be. So for me, absolutely. Yes. When I thought I was a CEO, I was trapped by that. Even though I knew I had so many more things I wanted to do with my life and ways I want to invest my energy and Different missions and adventures, and I had known that for years. It was a long process to be able to s…

AI assessment note: “So for me, absolutely. Yes. When I thought I was a CEO, I was trapped”

Q I love it. I love Iliati. I think Iliati and Mamuna, awesome team. Tell me, final one. Next five years for you and for Intercom. What do we have in store, Owen?

A I mean, Intercom's the easy one because we're on a trajectory, a path. You just extrapolate into the future. We continue to dominate the space of customer communications and no less than revolutionize how online business is done. We're starting to invest in customer support now, and so we're bringing all our innovation, like messengers and bots, to the masses and increasingly bigger businesses, so you'll see that Happen at ever greater scale, especially in the next few years. For me personally, let's wait and see. Maybe you'll have me back in five years, and I'll tell you the story, but I want to have some fun. I want to play and be creative. I have a lot of businesses and different ideas still in me, and there's different things I've been thinking about for some time, so I'm actively working on a couple ideas, but whatever I do, I hope it's silly, fun, playful, full of love, and yeah, let's see.

AI assessment note: “For me personally, let's wait and see. Maybe you'll have me back in five years”

Q think there's so much kind of chest pounding and chest beating in this industry that really I just get quite tired of. I think the question for me is when we think about this vulnerability with its relationship to leadership, How do you think about the balance of kind of real leadership and then pandering to employees and being that kind of champion at all times? What's the right balance?

A Well, there's many different things in that. I don't think about this in terms of balance. I'm pretty absolute on this point. I think that real leadership equates to a deep connection with your purpose and your values, and any deviation from that makes for a bad leader and poor leadership. I understand leaders today, they're in a precarious position when really your very talented employees can Work anywhere. The temptation to say what they want you to say and give them what they want is very real, but it's not sustainable. It's not enduring, and it's a slippery slope, and I see a lot of leaders today, especially in this age of extreme social activism, and there's a lot of pain out there in the world, and a lot of beautiful ideas from people who want to help and stop that pain. There's standing up for causes that everyone knows they care nothing about. They've never spoken on the topic about before. They've never acted in any way that might demonstrate that they have even thought about these issues. It's so toxic to their position as a leader. It loses them so much trust and respect and does no favors to the causes either. Whatever the cause may be, if there's an issue you care about, roll your sleeves up and do something about it. Not just tweeting or saying things to your employees that you think they want to hear. If you care about a topic, do something about it. If you don't…

AI assessment note: “I don't think about this in terms of balance. I'm pretty absolute on this point.”

Q theCUBE there with this multi-dimensions and how, you know, you need to have that multivariant approach. I'm intrigued then what your view is and self-assessment maybe of yourself as a CEO. We've seen the rise of specialized CEOs. How do you view yourself as a CEO? Do you agree with the specialization of CEOs? Do you take the diverse multivariant approach? How do you look at yourself as a CEO?

A Yeah. All, all successful CEOs I know of are both skewed or specialized in one area, but also extreme generalists. And it has shocked me to the degree to which I have had to become a generalist. We grow up in our society and in our education systems, we grow up to be told that you should be a specialist and you should focus and you should be a thing. Like, what do you want to be when you grow up? But actually, a great CEO needs to be just an extreme generalist. It needs to just be really fucking good at a lot of things. Like I said, they'll be skewed in one direction. My particular skew amongst a couple other things is kind of like product and product market strategy and business strategy and maybe some people stuff. But other people are skewed towards go-to-market or sales. Other people understand how to sell into, say, very large organizations and what the buying process looks like. What the internal politics are, but still, all successful CEOs have to be these extraordinary generalists, and so my own story, and my own experience, and how I've managed to get, at least to where I am today, has been through being able to learn about everything, frankly. You know, I didn't know a lot about finance, and the finance world, and capitalizing businesses, and raising capital, and how to think about cost of capital, uh, amongst so many other things, and I've had to learn that, and be p…

AI assessment note: “All, all successful CEOs I know of are both skewed or specialized in one area”