Jul 16, 2025 · 41m · saastr
Marketing in the Age of AI with Wiz's CMO Raaz Herzberg
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Wiz CMO Raaz Herzberg explores how her transition from product engineering shaped an unconventional go-to-market playbook focused on brand awareness, deep technical credibility, and sales alignment. She also details how generative AI and rigorous hiring standards serve as force multipliers for high-performing enterprise teams.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Jason holds 37.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Jason as informed peer 5.5 Guest teaching 4.1 Guest disagreement 1.7 Jason pushing back 2.5
speaking balance: gold is Jason, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 24:02 Raaz directly dissenting on talent reskilling and domain expertise
Raaz explicitly states she slightly disagrees with Jason's assertion on the difficulty of reskilling, reframing high performance around curiosity rather than established domain specialization.
Hardest push from Jason ▶ 32:50 Jason challenging content strategy biased toward prospectsJason pushes back against Raaz's premise of writing broadly for non-buyers, arguing that CISOs are interconnected peers who sell the software if given high-value existing customer content.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:12 Raaz explaining why field marketing belongs under salesRaaz educates Jason on why regional alignment with sales directors is far more critical than marketing centralization, giving up traditional CMO fiefdoms to improve deal velocity.
Jason holds their own ▶ 15:25 Jason diagnosing parallel marketing orgs created by CROsJason demonstrates seasoned SaaS pattern recognition, breaking down why hypergrowth CROs backfill marketing deficits when CMOs only excel in one or two niche disciplines.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Jason as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Jason pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unconventional Path: Transitioning from Engineering Product Lead to CMO | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Lemkin introduces Raaz and asks how someone with an engineering and product background was appointed CMO of hypergrowth startup Wiz. Raaz explains her initial hesitation before realizing her deep understanding of the customer and product was an asset despite not knowing marketing jargon. | |
| Early Traction Strategy: Prioritizing Brand Awareness over Pipeline | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Jason asks what engineering metrics Raaz focused on early to establish traction and how she made cybersecurity marketing engaging. Raaz explains that lack of brand awareness was their primary bottleneck, leading them to prioritize memorable, humor-infused technical content over conventional pipeline metrics. | |
| Standing Out in AI Noise: Deep Technical Content and CTF Gamification | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Lemkin asks about identifying early buyers and structuring the initial marketing team. Raaz details how deep technical CTF challenges provide genuine practitioner value amidst generic AI-generated content and describes assembling a growth team of high-execution doers. | |
| Redefining GTM Alignment: Parallel Marketing Orgs and Sales Collaboration | 7 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Jason shares an informed thesis regarding CROs creating parallel demand generation teams when CMOs specialize too narrowly. Raaz welcomes organizational fluidity, affirming that marketing fundamentally exists to serve the revenue team. | |
| Reassigning Field Marketing to Sales and Capitalizing on Executive Trust | 6 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Raaz explains transferring field marketing directly under sales leadership to ensure alignment with regional sales directors. Jason queries budget allocation dynamics, and Raaz notes that high executive trust freed her from guarding headcount or vanity pipeline metrics. | |
| Multiplying Impact: How AI Upgrades Marketers into 100x Operators | 6 | 4 | 2 | 3 | Jason asks how AI will alter human staffing in marketing and questions whether existing teams can truly be reskilled. Raaz explains that quarterly AI presentations are mandatory on her team, turning talented operators into 100x performers. | |
| Cultivating Curious Talent and Deploying Company-Wide AI Tone Checkers | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | Jason pushes back on widespread reskilling, arguing only 10 to 15 percent of people possess natural curiosity. Raaz respectfully dissents from domain-first criteria, detailing their automated brand-tone GPT and insisting companies must exclusively hire that curious minority. | |
| Eliminating GTM Mediocrity: Meeting Higher Customer Expectations | 6 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Jason recounts an excruciating sales call where he knew the vendor's software better than the rep, stating buyers will no longer tolerate unprepared GTM teams. Raaz agrees that AI easily automates mediocrity and explains her framework for tracking exponential LinkedIn growth. | |
| Content Marketing Strategy: Providing True Domain Value over Product Pitches | 7 | 5 | 3 | 5 | Jason challenges Raaz on why Wiz prioritizes broad non-customer content rather than deep tactical material for existing customers who drive word-of-mouth. Raaz defends creating top-tier domain research to capture the broadest relevant audience before pitching product specifics. | |
| Future Trajectory of Cloud Security and Uncompromising Hiring Standards | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Jason references Wiz's massive valuation and asks for future outlook and hiring guidance. Raaz highlights that 90 percent of enterprise workloads remain on-premise and advises founders to treat hiring like a marriage by never compromising on standard. |
Statements from this episode (18)
Lemkin: Wiz scaled from $1M to $100M ARR in under 20 months
“I mean, but in general, I think it did like one to a hundred in 18 months or 20 months or something like that.”
Herzberg: Early Wiz marketing prioritized brand awareness over pipeline generation
“I was not focused on building pipeline because I did not even know I was supposed to be focused on that. I was just like thinking in terms of how do I solve this problem as fast as I can?”
Herzberg: Fear-based marketing fails with technical cybersecurity practitioners
“Security products. Typically were like black and red type of thing that really most of the marketing was done on like scaring people. Hey, I will help you prevent this bad thing from happening. And as an actual technical practitioner, first of all, it's never …”
Herzberg: Non-users will not read blog posts about new product features
“Even as, you know, like, even I like Instagram, right? I'm never going to read a blog about the new Instagram feature. So why would somebody who does not use my product read the blog about my features, right?”
Herzberg: Deep technical marketing content cannot be easily automated
“Shallow content was never enough, but really deep content still requires a lot of work. And it's not something that can be easily automated around, but you really need that core expertise.”
Herzberg: Gamified CTF challenges drive strong marketing traction for Wiz
“One of the things we, that works really well for us right now is Really releasing they're called CTFs in the cybersecurity world, but releasing really complex challenges that teach people how to do security hands-on. Like, you can think of them almost like web…”
Herzberg: Wiz moved its field marketing organization to report to sales
“Today, in Wiz, the marketing team is actually structured untraditionally. So, like, about a year ago, I actually split the marketing org so that the field marketing org is under the sales org. Because to me, it's so attached to regional and to sales, and it's …”
Lemkin: CROs at hypergrowth SaaS startups increasingly build parallel marketing orgs
“I am seeing more and more CROs and revenue leaders build what I call parallel marketing organizations. Like they're tired that either marketing is getting me the wrong type of leads. Right. Or I need more enterprise and marketing is giving mid market, or I jus…”
Herzberg: B2B marketing exists fundamentally to serve the sales team
“At the end of the day, I work for the sales team. That's how I see it in MeToBe, right? I do. I work for the sales team. Either I'm helping them close deals and get customers, or I'm not helping them close deals and get customers.”
Lemkin: Most CMOs excel at two functions and are mediocre elsewhere
“Most CMOs have like two or three things they like to do and the rest, they sort of hand off to their team or are mediocre at it.”
Lemkin: SaaStr replaces departing marketing team members with AI
“Every time someone's left, broadly speaking, we've replaced them with AI.”
Herzberg: Wiz marketing team must show AI use in quarterly reviews
“Every person has to say like, what am I doing with AI and show cool things to the team. And we've been doing that for at least over a year.”
Lemkin: Reskilling marketing talent into AI natives is difficult
“I think reskilling is tough. I just showing up with a recipe that you got on ChatGPT to your marketing team doesn't count as being an AI native.”
Herzberg: Curious generalists outperform hyper domain experts in the AI era
“Like, I think when I say superstar, I never thought about it from being, you know, a super hyper domain expert, but rather being a person that is Extremely curious and just gets the job done. And I think that type of personality thrives right now in the AI lan…”
Herzberg: Wiz deployed an internal GPT company-wide to enforce technical tone
“Now I built, like, a super easy GPT that we call, like, the whiz spell checker that is used not by marketing. It's used by every single person in the organization. What it does is it makes sure that it's, like, according to our brand and tone of voice.”
Herzberg: Mediocre go-to-market work is now easy to automate
“I think like mediocrity now is not hard to automate.”
Herzberg: Marketing and pipeline metrics must grow over 20% quarter-over-quarter
“I look at the number and I want it to grow exponentially, meaning you have to go over 20% quarter by quarter. I want to see, like, you know, touch points and attribution and pipeline. Oh my God, there's so many ways to measure it. I just want it to grow expone…”
Herzberg: Wiz markets to end users over executive buyers
“No, see those are one part of it, but at the end of the day, my best friends are the users. They're the ones that at the end of the day have to love the product, have to use it, have to talk about it in their communities. So absolutely. It's not just, we don't…”