Tennant: Product and sales drive tech, non-engineers should pick sales
AJ Tennant · AJ Tennant: How to Build a Sales Machine and Where Most Go Wrong | E2118 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings · Oct 23, 2024 · at 44:52
AJ Tennant is VP of Sales & Success at Glean and former sales leader at Slack. He outlines why enterprise sales is the premier career trajectory for ambitious non-technical talent in tech.
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“In technology companies, and this might be controversial because like, you know, this is like putting aside like all the other things that make these companies go. There is product. And then there is sales. Like, what drives technology companies and most businesses is one of those two functions. If you are the smartest, smartest person that's graduating from, you know, Yale, whatever, Harvard, I don't even want to say it's Ivy Leagues, but I actually don't think the smartest people are always from those schools at all. You either are going to find success in a path through product, but if you realize, you know what, I'm not an engineer. I don't like that. I don't want to do product management. If you are smart, that where you should go is sales.”
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