Prukalpa Sankar, co-founder of Atlan, rejects the notion that enterprise sales professionals do not need to build or possess deep technical understanding in the AI era.
“Well, I actually think they do. I think if you're trying to sell to the frontier what, how are you going to have a conversation with a customer who's talking to you about, you know, the difference between model gateways and three harnesses and memory systems, like, how are you going to have that conversation? Why are they even going to talk to you?”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
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More from Prukalpa Sankar
Insight
Sankar: Selling to personal networks creates fake traction because people want to help
“I believe, most people love founding stories. Most people want to help. And most people will find a way if you speak with them and tell them this is the problem you're trying to solve, they'll find a way to help you. And that doesn't mean that they are going t…”
Prukalpa SankarSep 10, 2026▶ 11:08Why Startups Fails Even After Finding PMF | Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
Insight
Sankar: AI-native companies must foundationally redesign hierarchies and processes
“You have to like leveling structures, like you have to foundationally reimagine how you operate as a company to be truly AI native or on the frontier versus I think The other option of it is you could say, hey, this is how I do things today. I'm gonna go slap …”
Prukalpa SankarSep 10, 2026▶ 42:58Why Startups Fails Even After Finding PMF | Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Sankar: Humans will always remain at the center of AI development
“One of our biggest realizations has been that humans will always be the center of AI. And how humans expand their creativity and their thinking through this is what is going to actually drive the next wave of this.”
Prukalpa SankarSep 10, 2026▶ 44:29Why Startups Fails Even After Finding PMF | Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
Insight
Sankar: Settling for average PMF stalls startups at $5M to $7M
“You either never find product market fit or you find product market fit, but it's an average product market fit. And so you peter out at five million or seven million because you can't scale beyond that.”
Prukalpa SankarSep 10, 2026▶ 1:01:34Why Startups Fails Even After Finding PMF | Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
Insight
Sankar: Software is fungible, but building products people use is hard
“Rebuilding technology is actually the easiest part of this problem, right? Like software itself is fungible. It has always been fungible. Like, I don't know why people now in AI suddenly are like, oh my God, it was always fungible. It was never that hard to Bu…”
Prukalpa SankarSep 10, 2026▶ 18:46Why Startups Fails Even After Finding PMF | Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Sankar: 50% of Atlan's platform users are AI agents
“Actually I, I'd say 50% of our end users are now agents and the rest 50% are humans.”
Prukalpa SankarSep 10, 2026▶ 22:05Why Startups Fails Even After Finding PMF | Prukalpa Sankar, Atlan
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