Ryan Smith calls selling Qualtrics one of his most underwhelming days
Ryan Smith · The High School Dropout Who Made Billions & Bought An NBA team · Nov 5, 2025 · at 36:17
Ryan Smith, co-founder of Qualtrics, reflects on the psychological aftermath of selling Qualtrics for $8 billion to SAP in 2018.
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“And when Qualtrics sold, it was probably one of the most underwhelming days of my life.”
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More from Ryan Smith
Sequoia demanded Qualtrics formally name a single CEO to secure its investment
“When we took money in 2011, Sequoia, I remember, was like, We're only doing this if there's a CEO. Which one of you is the CEO?”
Qualtrics raised the largest tech Series A since 2008 in 2012
“We've taken this money from Excel, this is the largest Series A raised in 2000, in 12, since 2008, in all of tech, it's outside of the Bay Area”
Ryan Smith requires sales reps to be able to demo products blind
“This is where I've always told our reps, like, do you know your product? I could do the demo on the phone in a car with a link walking them through. Without me looking at the screen. And explain to them every single thing that's going on.”
Dave Goldberg's SurveyMonkey attempted to acquire Qualtrics before its Series A
“You know, the gentleman who was doing it ran a company, I'll just be honest, it was called Survey Monkey at the time.”