How AI Is Repricing Every Software Company
We have talked to our customers a lot
about token based pricing and I think
what we've generally heard people are
real smart but actually and so if you
try to charge them based on tokens they
are very quick to say oh you've just
marked up a claude token forex are you
forex as good as claude I don't know let
me go try it out you actually put
yourselves in a competitive position
against the models and so what we've
seen on token pricing is like if If
you're trying to mark up at all, users
are very smart and you will lose on that
comparison.
>> So, Christina, I've been so excited to
do this with you. I think it's been five
years since we last did it. So, a lot a
lot has happened a lifetime ago.
>> Uh you've been very successful in the
intervening 5 years. So, so I'm excited
to catch up. Can you give us like the
one minute history of Vanta? I know
we've done this before, but just to
level set for people when you started
it, why, what it did then, how it's
evolved, what it does now. Just like a
quick quick overview.
>> Started Vanta about 8 years ago, which
was about 8,000. Yeah, exactly. You're
like in 17 centuries ago with the
premise of can we help companies build
and earn trust? and build trust is like
start security programs and compliance
programs or mature them and then go go
get credit for their customers through
audits like a sock 2 or ISO 270 and
HIPPA etc questionnaires trust centers
but basically this idea of can we build
a security company by helping companies
implement security because it's what
their customer is asking for and so
we're initially known for sock 2 we had
a billboard we do have a billboard on
the 101 that We're mostly known for
making billboards, I joke, but it
started like very compliance, very audit
centric. The idea was always, hey,
that's just like one way to get a
company started on this. And so since
then, we've gone into different areas of
security. We've gone into different ways
of like earning trust with your
customers. And so today we're about
16,000 customers global with about five
products.
>> How did you win? Like this this was a
new category when you started and then I
remember I had to go through it. my old
business get sock 2 compliant and
certified in order to win certain
accounts or whatever and so it became an
important thing kind of in the software
era there were many companies I I could
probably name a handful that were trying
to do what you're trying to do
>> you've emerged as sort of the only major
winner what would you attribute it to
over the last since we last talked like
how did you win
>> execution I think you have to both like
software the blessing and the curse and
this is you know more true now even than
it was 5 years ago like you're really
only as good as the last thing you
shipped
And so you can be first and you can
start it and doesn't really matter. I
mean that's more true now because it's
like someone can vibe code your thing in
a weekend. And so you've just got to
like constantly be shipping new
products, new features that make the
experience better for customers and like
running on that differentiation. And so
there's some feature level. I think the
other thing we really invested in when
it got competitive that was very good
was integrations pulling in data from
other tools. And so now you can connect
Vanta to one of 400 tools. We c we pull
a ton of data out of those tools and
that's what powers the automation, the
agent, the AI, all of that. We call it
our trust graph. It's really just like a
security data lake and that is bigger
broader than any other provider
including some of the security providers
because we touch areas they don't and I
think that in retrospect that data
foundation has let us build new things
faster software and agent. It was that
piece and then I think on the go to
market side it was like just push good
billboards
>> like shockingly good compliance that
doesn't suck too much. Um which got
really popular on our/ac accounting
which none of us knew was a bucket list
item in our lives but um when r/ac
accounting likes your things you're like
okay something something worked and then
the lived experience is just like you
can feel like you are going as fast as
you can and you should in fact lean in
further and like push harder.
>> What was the scariest moment? I mean,
you know, the last 12 months, South
Apocalypse, you're like, "Okay, great.
You know, great job building a system of
record. You're now screwed.
>> You're now worthless."
>> Yeah, exactly. You're worth like good
job playing the game. Here's some steak
knives. Parts of that are true and parts
of it are not true. But again, in the
vein of like, you're only as good as the
last thing you shipped. You're like,
great. So, you know, what are you what
is the agent? You have all this data in
a system of record. Fine. What what the
heck are you doing with it?
>> Say more about what that's felt like.
Roughly Vanta is a business that is
growing very fast by historical
standards with very high margins. Yes.
>> Which four years ago is considered like
the best business model ever.
>> Y
>> um nothing changed about that. I think
you're probably growing faster and the
margins are margins still really high. Y
>> and yet the market has decided that the
multiple for a business like yours is a
third of what it used to be or quarter
of what it used to be.
>> So what is that? Yeah. What what has it
been like to live through that as one of
those entrepreneurs?
>> I think cognitive dissonance like you've
got to hold two things in your head,
right? One is the like look I think at
the fullness of time a 80% growth
business with 80% margins will like
>> be good
>> be well not yeah be good and actually be
better than like over the same time
period run it out long enough a you know
160% growth business with 30% margins.
You're like one of these will like
return more cash right in the fullness
of time. But today the latter is valued
at you know 3x 4x the multiple of the
former 10x the multiple of the former
right and so there's a part where you're
like hey guys everyone's being
irrational here and then there's a and
like this is a good business and you
have to keep do you know keep doing
things that make business sense and
doing the things that customers want
which may or may not be
you know token pricing models that put
you more in the latter category than the
former profile.
And then there's like a very clear like
game on the field piece where you're
like a D like well if you need to be
financed again you're looking at
investors today many of whom are kind of
AI maximalists and are like talk to
firms that are like yeah we'll invest in
the labs and we'll basically invest in
tractors in Iowa and like nothing in
between you know robo like robo tractors
in Iowa at a lab and like everything
else and you're like huh interesting
point of view and then from a like
talent perspective right like people you
know you hire ambitious ious people who
want to do things and if it feels like
they're not in the right boat, they're
going to change boats, right? Like the
talent war part is very real, too.
>> And so, you just kind of got to live
with like, okay, in the fullness of
time, I think this will all kind of sort
itself out. And you have to live for the
fullness of time.
>> So, there's this there's this kind of
funny fear that now like bending spoons
is like the grim the grim reaper in the
hallway, you know, meme or whatever. Uh,
no one wants to be a Ben spoon. Love
bending spoons, by the way. I think it's
an interesting question of how do you
like the siren song right now is like
sell tokens yep
>> via agents for security and compliance
I'm sure or something like this
>> lots of thoughts on this
>> I'm just so interested by by companies
like yours that were sort of winners of
this last era that now have to make a
sort of set of decisions right
>> look at the tenure rate like the cost of
capital is going up because you can put
lots of money at really high return in
AI stuff for the time being
>> and so someone looking at your business
is like well I want you know higher
returns or the same returns and I get
that through agents or something. Talk
me through what it's been like to make
the decisions. What are you thinking
today? Do you think of yourself as an AI
business? What's that look like?
>> So, we do and not just like oh and I
like also think of myself as like the
best human in the world like not there's
probably some of that but like when we
go benchmark where we are from a agent
in our product perspective against
you know quote unquote AI applications
we have yet to find someone who is
further along. Now you could be like
we're doing a bad job looking is like
you know the obvious critique there but
just we are like constantly going to the
set of names you imagine when you think
AI applications and generally finding
they're not yet where we are where an
agent is doing most of the work the
agent the other one of the things it's
chat based but there's like longrunning
agents our agent is like autogenerating
UI on the fly because sometimes you want
chat right and sometimes you want UI but
we just have an agent that
building UI user can do something comes
back in the flow keeps it going like
very much optimized around the like keep
the user going in the flow loops
>> just so I make sure I understand meaning
you are like a watchdog that's always on
watching the security
>> you're definitely that but in some ways
you're you could do that in the past
with just like monitoring and alerting
this is more like the Vanta product
experience is now oriented around an
agent that is bringing you as a user
things and often saying, "Hey, I went
and did this for you. Are you good with
it? Then I will go do it." Okay, great.
The next thing I think I should go do.
>> What's an example? Just like ground that
an example.
>> Someone just left your company and you
didn't take, you didn't get them out all
of their accounts. I just like wrote a
custom agent for you that will go do
that. Do you want me to go turn this on?
Great. Do you also want me to go, you
know, remove accounts, access from these
three people? Great. You want that
running always?
>> So, it's not just like, here's a red
alert that someone didn't meet the
monitoring step. It's like too many.
Would you like me to go do this? And
then kind of it's it's we're taking a
lot from the AI labs in their UI, but
it's like you want me to do this once,
do you want me to do this always? Great.
>> And so the idea is like the agent will
just be doing more of this work with the
user's permission, but it's like if they
tell us to go do it, we're just going to
go. Anyway, in the course of that, we
end up using a lot of tokens. We have
talked to our customers a lot about
token based pricing. And I think what
we've generally heard is like people are
real smart but actually and so if you
try to charge them based on tokens they
are very quick to say oh you've just
marked up a claude token forex
are you forex as good as claude I don't
know let me go try it out and so and
then you're like you actually put
yourselves in a competitive position
against the models I think probably no
application really wants to do like we
can talk about harnesses but like you
don't want to get fair. And so what
we've seen on token pricing is like if
you're trying to mark up at all, users
are very smart and you will lose on that
comparison.
>> You can like not mark up and this gets
to the margin question, right? Um
but anyone who is marking up cloud
tokens forex and trying to like pass
that off to their users, I think it's
like that is not a model.
>> We're eating the token cost right now.
>> You're just taking lower margin. we're
taking lower margin and honestly just
like really concentrate on usage because
like that experience that I just talked
through where the agent is going off and
doing things we just like fundamentally
believe that is a much better user
experience and we've got call it
25% of our like all of our customers in
that sort of flow right now and we're
like look if we can get that to 75% one
I think we like much better retention
like net retention there you know it's
just like a much customer experience and
then if we need to go sort out pricing
later, we we should go sort out pricing
later. But like this is a usage phase
and like a deployment phase of this
technology and just go nail that and you
can figure out commercialization after.
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I'm also so curious. You said marking up
a cla token, but what about marking up
like a Kimmy token or like something
that's much cheaper? like how what
what's it been like deciding what to
use, what's good enough versus cost if
you're not passing through the
>> Yeah, this was something we started
concentrating on at the beginning of the
year. It was basically like evals. Yeah.
>> For all the and like task specific or
agent specific evals from a product
perspective. We call it all the Vanta
agent and it's one thing of course
behind the scene it's like hundreds of
agents that all have specific tasks and
use tools and have computers and you
know that whole setup that I think
everyone's converging on. But in the
beginning of the year really invested in
using our our subject matter experts the
folks who like ran security and
compliance programs at other companies
to write the eval frameworks and then
eval their evals and using tooling for
that anyway. And so when we think about
model swapping it is right again right
now it's like mostly quality it's not
cost I also think some of it this is
because we don't use as many tokens as
coding I think we're also all starting
to like coding is and coding agents lots
of token use maybe legal and like
document drafting next and then when you
get to more of the decision action world
which is where we are get relative to
coding we just don't use that many
tokens
>> anyway and so that kind of lets like
optimize for quality versus being as
concerned about cost as some of the
other companies.
>> When you talk to other founders both of
your era and of this new era, what are
they doing here? Are they also eating
the cost and just charging a software
fee? What do you think the the end
state's going to be?
>> I think everyone wants to get to outcome
pricing and if you actually go talk to a
pricing person, they will tell you it's
actually output pricing because it's not
but whatever. Like everyone wants to get
to that. And like in another life I was
a microeconomics professor like I love
this conceptually like I love the like
we will we get paid for outcomes and the
alignment of incentives love it. The
hard part is just like what are the
outcomes and I think you know support
ticket closed makes a lot of sense
actually to that maybe differentiate
outcome and output as I understand it in
support the ticket closed is an output
the outcome is actually like my Sonos
now works right but even like the ticket
closed that is relatively
unobjectionable I think a lot of
companies included are trying to figure
out what's that like neat unit of work
that we can all agree on and you can say
it's oh it's a document drafted it's an
alert closed it's an account offboarded
and you can kind of do that but then
there's just so much cognitive overhead
because you're like I just named three
things I could name another 47 and then
our user has to be like oh well if I do
this with the agent I paid this but if I
do it you know and you're just like no
one no one wants that I think everyone I
talk to wants to get to outcome output
pricing but it's really not clear how
you get there I think token charging
tokens themselves
really puts you up against cloud. So
then people try to obscure that by
charging credits and having some like
credit token exchange rate thing which I
think again users are smart and they're
like I see what you're doing and I see
you've obscured it. Fine. Are you
similarly far along in if you compared
yourself to the just as you did just now
to companies and how you're building
product and the business using these
tools? Like how would you grade yourself
on like what are you doing that's
interesting there?
>> I think okay so we in the vein of like
8-year-old company and 8-year-old code
base it is so much easier to throw the
coding agents at a small codebase than a
large one and that's like a token input
thing and they're getting better and
better. But one thing we've spent a lot
of time also investing in in the last
year and I know notion has spent a bunch
bunch of time in and they were like nine
months ahead of us on is modularizing
parts of the codebase so that the agent
can just understand smaller parts of it
and understand it fully and then be
really effective. Whereas if you chuck
it at again eight your codebase site
unseen it just like doesn't have the
context window to understand everything
and will do silly things and so you then
you need a high context engineer to
babysit it which is helpful but like
sort of invalidates some of the point.
Um companies have always had this
problem. They've just talked about it as
like oh when we onboard a new engineer
it takes them a while to figure out the
code base. It's just agents have made it
like well great now we want to onboard
9,000 new engineers tomorrow. Um, and so
it's just like heightened that problem.
So I I give ourselves a lower grade on
that just cuz we've had we are like in
the process of using agents and people
to make the codebase easier to
understand too.
>> Like you had to grade yourself one
through 10 about like wow this changes
everything. Building this company from
this point forward is going to be
totally different. Is a 10.
>> Oh yeah. Like nine. Yeah.
>> You are like a nine.
>> Eight nine. I mean I think the like
principles are still the same. Like
everything is hard. People matter. you
know like all the tropes are still the
tropes but the way you do stuff it
should be quite different. Do you feel
like there's a separation happening?
Again, if I took your cohort of the
successful, you know, eight year ago era
companies,
>> like do you feel there there's a
bifurcation where some have gotten the
memo and are are doing really well and
some are just like going to bending
spoons
>> kind of. Yeah. Yeah. I think there are
just structural parts of some markets
and I think Bending Spoon's very good at
you know identifying these where
you can put any entrepreneur in the
world on in that structure. This is kind
of like the like does market or founder
win Andre Horowitz thing and you're like
market wins. I think that is still true
and I think this AI technology shift has
made what some markets that used to look
really good look really bad and the best
person in the world can run in that will
still run into a brick wall. And I think
there is a like founder motivation piece
where it's like you got to be in it and
like push in this era and if you don't
want to do that totally fine but like
the rest of the company will not you
know self-organized to do so.
>> So given that you've been at the edge
like what's the you know adopting AI 101
if you're back to being a professor what
have been the most important things that
have been hard to do but have proven
fruitful? just getting people to use it
which I think there's like a and then
okay so which sounds obvious but it's
like definitely use it yourself build
for your company personally does not
matter just like understand where the
models are where they're good where
they're bad what harness means like you
just like and like kind of do that at
least every two weeks because it just
changes so quickly and I do think you
have to have a like visceral
understanding of what works and what
doesn't so that when somebody comes and
they say we're going um
fire all of our SDRs because I built one
agent and you can kind of be like did
you know you know like where where is
that true and where that false anyway so
there's like a be in the mock and then I
think it's like yeah you want to get as
many other people in that as possible
broadly generalized it's very black and
white but it's like yeah and some people
just go do that and some people don't if
you'd asked me a year ago you'd been
like oh well there's like some you know
intrinsic motivation and you know kind
of the people who aren't separate
problems go deal with them.
I think I'm slightly more empathetic now
in that we have seen I can give a
specific example but like very strong
people kind of not go dive in and you
have to like nudge them more but like
try to figure out what's blocking them
and something can be blocking them and
you can get people into the like into
the muck even if they don't dive in
initially. So if you're a small company
starting out on Manta, great. We've got
this like set of controls for you. You
just you adopt them. You maybe mess with
them on the edges, but you're like off
to the races. If you're a larger
company, you clearly run a security and
compliance program. And you come to
Vanta because you want that visualized.
You want the automation and you want the
monitoring. You want the real-time
dashboards. You don't want the like jur
thing. Fine. Well, the hard part hard
part is you've got to get all that
existing stuff, the controls, the risks,
the data, the policies, the procedure,
all that stuff in Vanta. Classically,
the way you would do that SAS company is
you're like, "Oh, we're going to make an
onboarding wizard. It has four steps and
a progress bar and we will like give you
confetti, you know, like you're going to
do that whole thing." We were setting
out to build better better onboarding
this year. And the first couple product
reviews, the team kept bringing
onboarding wizards. Kept being like,
"Stop with the onboarding." Like, "No,
you know, go use an LLM. Stop." But they
kept bringing onboarding wizards. And
this was like a motivated team, talented
people. They cared and kept bringing
onboarding wizards. And we finally got
them. Anyway, the experience now they
shipped and is working is it's basically
clawed. It's like big canvas. Drag all
your messy files in, drag in all your
screenshots. we will like make sense of
it, ask you questions and then you are
set up and off to the races and it works
really well. So like why were these
smart motivated people bringing on
boarding wizards? So you go out like
finally and the thing was they were like
well we don't know if we can get the
like drag your files thing to work it
might not work and we know the
onboarding wizard will work because
we've built those before and like we
basically don't think we're allowed to
fail on this project. and you come and
you're like, "Oh, that's the thing.
Great. Well, like
we're just gonna like bet that the on
the LLM flow is going to work and we
will make it work and we will hill climb
all we need to, but like burn the boat
and just make this thing work." And then
they were like, "Oh, okay, great." You
know, do you want a next product review
tomorrow? But it was this like funny
thing where you're like, "I would not
have guessed that that was their
blocker." and you like solve that and
they were like going
>> you mentioned the talent war thing
before there's this big trend you know
the low low margin high growth thing
where like from an investor's
perspective the the funny example you
gave of a lab or a tractor like everyone
wants something that can be that thing
and so like tell me about how you're
going to be a hundred billion dollar
business or a trillion dollar business
somehow now every business needs to be
that big
>> um what's that like to face down where
you may not be building a business that
should be a hundred billion dollar
business there's like a hundred of those
in the world like there's not that many.
>> Yeah. And it's not to say Vanta won't
be, but I do think the it's funny. It's
like a uh I think for me it's like oh
should I adjust the pitch and be like
well inevitably you know the baseline
here is Fanta's 50 billion. The real
question you should be considering, you
know, is like, if you join, can you take
us on a journey to like 250 billion? And
you're like, should I just start saying
that? You know, like again, like pro
like the answer is like probably not,
but the answer is not definitely not.
Totally. Cuz you're like, well, that is
like that is the pitch that people who
work at Vanta are getting from other
companies, you know, and then and then
you're just kind of like, okay, well, do
you and I try not to like counter by,
you know, being like, well, they suck.
But it's just this like the market now
is saying that so much and so if you
don't you do seem unambitious.
>> So what do you do?
>> There's like a Vanta principle value but
principle of like do what it says on the
tin which is kind of like do what you
say you're going to do. And look you can
put ambitious things on a tin. It's not
that but like don't overpromise and
underdel.
And so kind of what we do is like give
some of that like here's what we do as a
company, good, bad, and different, but
just like here's the context. Now like
let me talk to you about the business
metrics and we'll generally just show as
candidate to like show everybody
everything. It's fine. They're good.
Like we don't really want them to leak,
but if they leak, it's not the worst.
And then walk them through that and what
we're doing and how that grows over time
and like try to root it in all of the
facts and all of the data. And so in
some ways it's like
counter the vibes with like data and
trustworthy vibes versus yolo vibes I
guess.
>> And and so what is it like in those
talent wars? Like if if the most
talented people are being told you know
this thing's going to go to a trillion
by basically every other company that's
trying to hire them. Well, the better
one is uh well, we're six billion today,
but like Sequoia is going to do a $10
billion check in a month and then like
somebody's going to write it up to 25
next year, but we can get you in at six
today.
>> Yeah,
>> that's a good one.
>> Yeah,
>> that one's tough.
>> So, you're faced with that like what do
you do? Do maybe like not want those
people like maybe it's a filter that
>> sometimes
I like no magic playbook here. I think
if you go to the person and be like what
are you optimizing for, right? And like
why are you kind of like why did you
entertain this but not in a pokey way
just in a like what's annoying you at
Vanta right and actually one of these in
specific very strong leader still at
Vanta but like it was basically this
person felt like they couldn't make
decisions that would put Vanta on a
similar trajectory and that would be
their preference but they're like oh but
this new place is promising me like full
decision-making authority on this
trajectory and you're like totally fair
feedback. back. What do you need to feel
like you can make these decisions? Like
just go make these decisions. Go. Like
there's a money part and a FOMO part for
sure. We've definitely gone up on comp.
And you know, comp bands are like people
are going to hate that I but like comp
bands are kind of a joke now. You're
like the comp band is whatever data you
have is wrong. It is like what is being
offered to these people in
>> how much more do you pay the top person
at Vanta than you did like as a multiple
versus like
>> oh I think we should have way more comp
dispersion than we do.
>> So how but but even so that's
interesting but if I go 5 years back and
that person made X dollars what multiple
of X does the person make now?
>> Total comp
>> it's probably like a factor of 10.
>> Wow.
>> And it should I think it actually should
be higher. My general comp philosophy is
like you never pay the top people
>> enough
>> enough and you should keep you should
always try to be like very clear you
should always try and you will never hit
it and there's a bunch of people you pay
much more than their contribution
>> say say a bit more about what those top
people are doing that's so valuable
typically
>> just like high agency get done like
it's in some ways it's that sounds so
milk toast and I don't know like
that's worth millions of dollars but
like yes actually it is like a high
context person who understands the
company and the customers and the domain
making generally reasonable decisions
and sometimes bad ones and then
iterating on their bad ones and just
moving is so valuable.
>> Do you think it'll be 10x again in five
more years or is that starting to get
too crazy? Is the rate at which the most
valuable people are getting more
valuable staying the same accelerating
>> accelerating the counterforce is like
when are we going to or at what point
will investors get more concerned about
ill dilution and stockbased comp and
right which I kind of like weren't
throughout the 2010s late 2010s we had a
more of a like stockbased comp
conversation as an industry in like 2022
23 now we're definitely not talking
about it but like that's the counter
side. I think as if um without that push
on like dilution, I think people just
get paid more and more. That's probably
should.
>> How much do you care about your
valuation and multiple and
pardon the use of the word, but like the
engineering of those things?
>> I've historically
not cared and sometimes even done things
to like demonstrate my not caring. uh
which were good and bad. I care about
ARR and AR growth and like I do pay I
pay a ton of attention to those and
those are the metrics. I think I've now
I mean a lot of been through enough
valuation environments like 2010s, 2021,
2022 seen the like multiple roller
coaster where I just don't put a bunch
of stock in that or I used to not. I
think the thing I care a bunch about
that then will get me to caring about
these multiples is like the sentiment of
people who work at Vanta and they feel
like they're at a company that is
growing and growing and then both in
general growing and then growing
relative to other their other
opportunities in the market. There's a
part of the market that is raising money
every six months at like you know 5x the
prior valuation and like
that's a real talent competitor. Yeah.
And what about like things like tenders?
Have you done those historically?
>> We have not done them historically, but
they're I think that is the game on the
field. If you're doing a tender every
time and you got to do them.
>> Does this feel unhealthy?
>> Totally. But that in some like my
opinions about it sort of don't matter
like actually can have all the feelings
I want in whatever direction about
tenders. They are normalized and people
expect them and they expect it as part
of their comp. And if you are not giving
it to them, you got to give them a bunch
of other stuff to make it up.
>> How does all this affect your exit
ambitions like to go public or to you
know be sold or realize some endgame for
Vanta? Not at all.
>> Not really. Which is again a very like
founder privilege statement, but
basically it's like the the endgame is
like how long can we keep this going
for? And look like 99% of the big
independent, you know, software
companies in the United States are are
public. And so
like yes, IPO in that sense. I don't
have it as a bucket list item myself.
It's more of like means to an end.
Again, I think lots of people join
companies and want the bucket list item.
So, you know, founder privilege caveat
here again. But goal is big independent
standalone company
>> on all this stuff. Tools for building,
ways of building, kind all these kinds
of things I'm asking about. What do you
think is overhyped and underhyped?
Underhyped is knowing the company and
the customers
relative to knowing the skill set. It is
still really hard to train to hire,
train, onboard, make effective people
who join a company. Company marines make
this better and easier and like put
information at fingertips, but there is
still totally something to be said about
someone who's like been in a company,
knows how to navigate the company, knows
the customers, all of that. I'm at a
phase right now where like we value that
skill set and compensate that skill set
more than like the vertical skill set of
like you're good at sales, you're good
at customer success and would take a
worse salesperson on sales skill who
knows the Vanta pieces more. There's
something in that and I think especially
as a lot of the labs and like fasting AI
companies are like building out go to
market teams, I think they're actually
very much evaluating like you're a good
salesperson. I think that's slightly
off. And then I think as we think about
building agents for all of this, the
company context piece, the customer
context piece is probably being
relatively undervalued to like, oh,
you're just good at you are good
salesperson.
The less valuable skill slightly today
than it was four years ago.
>> What about overhyped? Anything that you
feel like is getting
>> token based pricing low margins for the
sake of having low margins? um custom
training models for the marketing value
>> to be able to say we post trained a
model on our stuff why explain why
that's
>> uh I think if you go talk to the the
inference providers and sometimes give
them depending on the provider give them
true CRM they will say like look the
reason to post train a model is cost and
you might then some businesses have that
need
but there is not a quality reason to do
it there's like kind of a marketing
reason to do it right now in this
environment and I think there's a lot of
post training for marketing reasons for
investors and for customers mostly for
investors actually
>> if one of those people were pitching the
the the other side of this of like the
value of post training what what is the
pitch to you like some one of these
companies comes to you and is like we'll
do XYZ for you what are they saying and
what do they say the benefits are
>> you are putting a stake in the ground of
being a real AI company that customer
investors like customers will notice I
think that's the primary one I do think
there's a secondary one in some use
cases of like a form factor thing and I
Especially with large enterprises where
it's like you want to deploy this piece
of software wallto-wall that you know
requires integrations and 17 people to
sign off and like oof that's a whole
thing like why don't you just give them
a like model specific to them for this
use case there's like form I think it's
a semi-reasonable
>> so so if I was one of these people and I
came into Vanta what what do they what
does post training literally mean like
what would it mean in your context like
what are you doing what are the steps
that you would go through with Yeah,
>> we would need a bunch of data from that
specific customer and then go write a
bunch of eval
data.
>> The process would be they're trying to
achieve something, they've got some
data, you tune a model to achieve the
thing to increase the eval.
>> Yeah. Basically,
>> and then sell them that.
>> Exactly.
>> On an ongoing basis.
>> Yep. And and your point is that that's
overrated because it doesn't actually
improve their
>> it can I think I'm a skeptical in a
couple of like do does everyone really
want to be handed a model or there's so
much around that from a user experience
perspective from a deployment
perspective form factor like it feels a
little like you know in the social media
or like our mobile apps when we like we
hadn't figured out pulled a refresh yet
right it's like kind of that it's like
there's something here I don't think
anyone actually wants to be handed a
model the same way it's like hitting a
refresh button I don't know that sounds
silly but like That's what we did in
2011. There's some version of that here.
It's like we haven't figured out how
this actually works and handing models I
think is not the right reasonable
iteration but like not the right
solution.
>> Is there anything else like in the
popular discourse that you think is
crazy? FDES.
>> I kind of think FDES are crazy or like I
think FDEES or actually I think it's a
great talent arbitrage the same way like
chief of staff is what FDE often is is
professional services. But I think if
you call it a professional services
role, that's a very different talent
profile than FDE in the current
discourse. And I think you're not going
to get the, you know,
Harvard CS grad who's like high agency
and wants to go do things and learn how
to build a business to go sign up to be
like pro- serve person number four or
number 12 at a company. I think there's
a real job there, but I think this like
FDE
wrapping around it is probably not going
to stay. I also think it's like right
the company that we all think does this
well is Palanteer, which I think they
probably do.
They have eight figure contracts. There
are some companies that have eight
figure contracts. I think we're using
all FTEEs in a place where we're, you
know, there's like five and six figure
contracts and those economics probably
are upside down. No, we're in again era
of like 30% growth margin better and so
that sort of works, but like that
doesn't feel sustainable.
>> When you're at like a a dinner in San
Francisco with other founders, what are
you talking about? Like are you talking
about models and which ones to use? What
are the actual topics of conversation
between founders right now?
>> There's definitely like talent war
pieces. There was a time, this is more
nine months ago, but it was like the,
you know, joy to go around the table and
complain about cursor and like their
their taking of everyone. Um, like the
cursor of the moment is like there's
definitely that piece. There is a bit I
mean I'll take FTDs of like do you
actually do this? Is it working? Like
what do you like where are you on this?
I mean right now you know personal
agents uh which ones do you have what
are actually useful? when you think
about the open-source stuff,
>> Chinese models, this that and the other,
what have you learned talking to people
around the world that are grappling with
these same questions?
>> Yeah, I was with our customers in France
a couple weeks ago, which was lovely.
One of the things I was very surprised
is is a lot of the French software
companies in Paris are using Chinese
models predominantly. And I initially
thought it was sort of a nationalism,
maybe anti-American, you know, just
something there. and stupidly sort of
suggested that and someone very quickly
corrected me and said like absolutely
not. We basically all switched to
Chinese models when Trump uh closed
Fable off to non-Americans and we just
kind of realized there's a huge business
continuity risk. We can't trust that if
we build a business on one of these
American models it'll always be
available. So we stopped doing that. If
you dream the most about where the
business could go over the next several
years, like force you to answer the
hundred bill, you know, the $250 billion
question or something.
>> What's the version of Vanta that could
look like that?
>> We think of Vanta as a security company.
Started with compliance, but like I
think the the best version of compliance
is proving the security you have. You've
got to have good security. And we think
we can and are moving into a bunch of
security domains. It's sort of a
platform pitch of like look, we've
already got the data, we've already got
the intelligence via the agent, we can
start stacking products on top of that
and more security focused products. As
we understand the security of all these
companies, the pressure on them to go
prove they're legitimate and industrial
grade is just going to go up. That's one
of the founding thesis of anti eight
years ago, but it's it like feels even
more true now. Whether they're working
with enterprises, governments,
regulators, lawmakers, you just have to
like prove your software is industrial
grade in lots of ways and that will
happen more and more in more and more
ways in the future. And Vanta is the
thing that connects both sides of that
call it marketplace.
>> So what's the direction of security?
Like this this is of course an
incredibly interesting topic like early
internet everything broke everything got
hacked this will probably be that times
10 or times 100.
>> Um does security mean you compete with
crowdstrike and places like that? Like
what does security mean and what's its
trajectory in this crazy era?
>> These models just are like so much more
persistent than people actually. And so
they will just like try nine quadrillion
things the way a person would sort of
give up after I don't know 9,000 right
and then in the course of that they find
things and chain things together and so
I think there is a little bit like a lot
of the discourse is around zero days and
there's definitely some of that these
models are finding that we didn't find
before or didn't publicly find before. I
think actually though what's more so
happening is these models are able to
chain like 17 benignish or benign on
their own things together and then like
really find something and like if you
watch the the open AI talk at RSA about
hugging face it's basically that it's
just like persistence and putting
together things that on their own people
would have been like that's low severity
I'll fix it in 90 days right anyway that
anyway but that update which I
is tough and we have to fight with
machines because it takes what was like,
oh that's important but low severity and
again 90 days and like I'm going to fix
this other stuff first. Like it just
turns the prioritization on its head
and saying it makes everything critical
isn't helpful because you're like well
what do you do then? Right? But I think
what that ends up looking like is you've
just got to fix stuff as fast as you
find it. And some of the prioritization
does need to go out the window.
But if you're fixing, you know, again,
if you're fixing things at machine
speed, you sort of don't have to
prioritize. So that's where I think
we're going to get to. But I think it'll
it'll be rocky as we get there.
>> So as I visualize that,
>> what that feels like to me is a constant
penetration test.
>> Yes.
>> Where an agent is trying to break in
like a white hack white hacker agent all
the time and then every time it finds
something, it's like got a buddy agent
that's a patcher
>> goes fix it. Yeah.
>> Is that like the ultimate product vision
then? for some parts of Vanta. Yes. Yes.
I think we can do that in very
compelling ways for the bulk of our
customers. I think CrowdStrike will do
it better for an enterprise, right? I
think this is where choosing where you
play and like what market segment is
most important there.
>> Is there a firm that's doing something
now that you start to encroach on like
of the traditional security?
>> A different market. I mean, take a like
okay your um ongoing like penetration
tester and you know remediator fixer,
right? We think we can do that for the
cloud providers like an AWS and Azure
like misconfigurations there classically
like right whis does that whis will do
it for its customers. Whee's customer
base starts at a multi,000 person
company and their price point count
starts at a multi,000 person company and
so we're more thinking about the
platform as where are we already
embedded with customers? where are they
unlikely to go pay $150,000 for a whiz,
but very well could pay 40 or 50 for
something suited to them. And so kind of
thinking through where are we already
strong and where are the the competitors
focused probably elsewhere but probably
on a more market segment.
>> How has your personal motivation
changed? Like you set out to build this
thing. I remember talking to you the
first time about this uh very charming
way you built the original product like
building an Excel first and it seems
very old school you know looking back
looking back on it and there's always
like the dog that caught the car thing
where like all right you built like this
huge software business amazing how has
your own motivation evolved or changed
through all this
>> like why keep going
>> it's interesting and challenging and it
changes all the time I mean I think
there's like I really like my job
sometimes I feel like I'm good at it
often I feel like I'm bad about at
that's fine. Like that's in some ways
not the point. Um, but it's changes and
it's different and when I feel like I've
gotten good at it, usually something
happens where then I feel, you know, it
it just changes and then I feel bad at
it again. And I really like that
dynamic. I think in
the beginning I had a lot more of a
feeling of people think I can't do this
and I think I can and I'm going to show
them. And I still have that, you know,
even to the like you don't think band is
gonna be 250 billion, like let me show
you. I still have it, but I think you
can probably tell there's like less of a
dark edge to it. Still a little dark
edge, but like there's less of it. It's
like, oh, cool. We got here now. We're
just going to see how far we can run in
a way that feels a little bit more like
fun and joyful. I did it. It's not
always joyful. I don't mean that, but
just like that feels it feels more, oh,
cool. Let's see how far we can go with
this. And I think we can go pretty damn
far. Whereas I think in the beginning it
was more like you don't think I can get
off the starting line. Let me show you.
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>> How surprised would the 8-year-old
version of you be at some specific skill
that you've developed in the way?
>> I'm probably surprised.
>> What's like the most surprising one that
you're now good at that you old you
would have said, "No way."
>> I like go to market more than I ever
would have guessed. Um
>> because why?
>> Well, I think it's like you get to talk
to like personable like friendly people
all the time.
>> I mean, I was like a terrible public
speaker and public public speaker being
um and actually I would get the most
nervous in front of my own team because
I cared the most about what they thought
about me and like and I was like, "Oh my
god, I'm representing you. I want to do
this so well." Exposure therapy was
helpful on that one. You like you just
do it and you do get better at it. But I
think the like thought of like being at
kickoff or at all company get together
in front of a thousand people on a stage
and I think it would have been like a
like I'm going to be bad at that
and I think the people around me would
have been like yeah yeah she'll be bad
at that like maybe she should you know
how much coaching can she get and you
know I think it's like anything else
it's like yeah if you work hard at
developing a skill you tend to get
better you have to put in the work but
like
>> in that one particular I'm very
interested in that one seems always high
leverage what matters to like you're
giving you've given however many
hundreds of these things like what makes
one good
>> like the trope of like no one remembers
what you say but they remember how you
felt it's so annoying but it is so true
for me at least like I do have to
believe in the content and if I just get
up and it is like content I feel like it
is content less I will also I will feel
that way and it will be obvious to
everyone you know so like you kind of
have to figure out your version of it
which for me I try to put real content
in and then also hold in my head like no
one's going to remember any of these
facts So that's not heart matters more
than mind.
>> So much more. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Yeah.
>> And the key to good heart is just like
is what?
>> Believing in it yourself. Like I don't
know, authenticity one-on-one on a
stage. Like people are pretty good at
reading one another. And when someone
when you feel like the person you're
talking to is like going through the
motions or doesn't really feel like it
or is or is like misleading you, maybe
also misleading themselves, you know,
like people can tell. they can't
entirely articulate what's happening,
but it's like something seems off. Um,
versus someone who is like authentically
into it, you know, even if you even if
they're into something kooky, that just
comes off.
>> What are the big trade-offs that you
struggle with right now? Like, you can't
do everything. You got to make
decisions. The stakes are higher than
ever. It's easier to build than ever.
>> Seems like a cool time to be doing what
you're doing, but there must be big
trade-offs that you struggle with. What
What are those for
>> Yeah. I mean one conversation or ha have
had and have is we have tried over the
last year to build in such an
agentforward way. Can talk through some
of like what that's look like.
>> What does agent mean?
>> Like why is that not just AI? Like why
does that mean?
>> I don't know. You get 2x revenue
multiple if you say agent. It's like 3x
if you say harness
could say harness more
prompt file like minus 3x you know.
So is it the but agent just means AI,
right?
>> You live in San Francisco. Sorry.
>> I'm Everyone's saying agent so much. I
don't even know what that means. It just
means AI, right?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
>> Yes.
>> So keep going.
>> Yes. We've tried to build such a great
harness.
you're trying to build
such a great hardness for our customers,
but actually and
not build a bunch of SAS UI, you know,
it's like, oh, you want reporting, we
will have our agent go make charts for
you on demand based on all of our data.
We're not going to like put Tableau
inside of Vanta, which is probably what
we would have done in 2022, 2021 if we
had been building it then. And we
believe in this in like a short-term
customer outcome sense, but also in a
like medium to long term, like this is
what software will look like. And no one
is going to be putting Tableau inside
their products.
More joking than serious. Although some
people actually put Tableau inside their
products.
>> So there's an aspect of like the this
diffusion thing is just scary because
maybe the tractor takes 10 years,
tractor company takes 10 years and in
the meantime you were right but early
and therefore wrong.
>> Right. And therefore wrong, you know,
and you're kind of betting on the time
horizon there. And um the other version
of this actually big enterprises were
working with a a US enterprise trying to
close and they basically were like hey
maybe we want your AI features maybe we
won't but can you turn them off for now
why the answer is like cuz I because
it's a way easier to get a nonAI tool
through procurement and we want your
>> turn it on after we're in
>> right and like we don't really have an
off switch on you know you're like oh
didn't we go build that but you're like
gross like we don't want to build that.
Hopefully, we don't have to use it. We'd
so much rather take that time and effort
and build something, you know, actually
useful. Anyway, we're not we're not
going to build this off switch. But it's
just one of those where you're like
those trade-offs.
>> If you were an investor, which you used
to be,
>> yeah,
>> where would you be focused right now?
>> O, do not envy the job at all right now.
>> Why Why don't you envy it? as much as
I can like critique and make fun of on
the company side the like oh I think
people are mis thinking about some of
these businesses in a like very short
term way I think the FOMO
and what are your returns and like I saw
this tweet if you haven't like invested
in a lab or an inference provider in the
last four years you should just shut
down your firm because like what are you
doing um it feels like more acute uh on
the investor side than the company side.
And so it's like however hard I think my
life is, my life's not hard to be clear,
but like whatever these trade-offs are
that we're facing, it feels like more
echochambery,
more judged on incremental returns and
paper returns on the VC side than the
company side.
>> So what would you do? Where would you
where would you hunt?
>> Yeah, the labs and the inference
providers apparently. No. Um those feel
a little Well, we can debate whether it
played out, but like high entry prices
It feels like the discourse and kind of
the certainty around the open source
provide open source model providers and
then like the tooling and the companies
around them feel sort of disconnected.
It's kind of like oh we've all decided
the open source model prov like will be
very real
and then the ecosystem around them is so
much less built out than the big labs
and that just feels off to me. You
probably have better
>> what do you mean by ecosystem around
them?
>> If you think that a like a lab or is it
long lake is that what it's called? like
these like we're basically just going to
go deploy this technology and put AI in
these businesses.
>> Can you build one of those around the
open source providers? If you think like
it see like of course yes and I'm I'm
like sure on some level along like it's
doing that but like can you really grab
one of those models the way OpenAI is
grabbing its own stuff and just kind of
replicate that playbook. Basically a
bunch of the like lab playbooks seems
like they should apply to the open
source models
>> and it's just less mature. Yeah.
>> And so there's more to do there.
Exactly.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
>> Why Why isn't people Yeah. What am I
missing on that?
>> I just I think it's just like a pace
thing.
>> Yeah.
>> I think it's anything where these things
can go.
>> It's kind of like ironically private
equity or something what private equity
promised to do which was to shape
businesses up.
>> Yep.
>> Now they can much more easily.
>> Y
>> and so uh probably everything will get
way more efficient if it can
>> and the return will come from higher
margin, you know, more efficient
operations, whatever.
>> Yep. But that's that's like an
efficiency thing, not a generative
thing.
>> Yep. And so I guess what I'm more
curious about as you watch your peers
and people around you is where are the
green shoots on the generative side?
>> I mean, bunch of people starting
security cyber companies both because
the environment and like I see
proportionally more of those than other
things. A bunch of people attacking rev
like go to market technology which I
think is like makes ton of sense. I
think actually some of the you know old
SAS rev providers they should be
building all this stuff but it doesn't
seem like they are and actually they're
running more like PE ben spoon sort of
playbooks which is again a choice like a
maybe a reasonable choice. Robotics is
probably underplayed. I mean like
somewhat hot and hypy uh like that's not
a novel area but it's still definitely
underweighted compared to all the
software stuff. the models are also
getting like real damn good there to
state the obvious. So probably spend
time there.
>> What what else do you feel like you know
because of your unique path that others
don't yet fully appreciate? Over the
past couple of years, Vanta has spent
more time with governments at federal,
state, local levels inside the US,
outside the US. And
there is an appetite for modernization,
big stated priority of the current US
administration, but again exists outside
of the US too. And I think
the AI piece has created more FOMO in
like government officials where you know
they may have always known they did not
have modern processes or modern software
but it feels more of an imperative now
than it used to. So I think there's
something there.
Maybe here's a here's a broader answer.
All of the conversation around AI and
the technology has changed the priority
and upped the priority of a lot of
modernization. Sometimes it's within
governments, sometimes it's within
enterprises. We see this with actually a
lot of the cyber stuff in the CISOs we
talk to. their jobs are changing because
of AI and they're saying, "Oh, given AI
and like the risks from the agents, I
would like to overhaul my enterprise
risk program and I would like budget for
that." And I think if they kind of said,
"I want budget for my enterprise risk
program three years ago." People would
be like, "We'll talk about AOP maybe."
And I think because it's attached to AI,
they are much more likely to get that
budget today. So there is more of a
buying motion. What would be your big
pitch to come work at Vanta right now?
>> Oh, it's a fun stage. You get 16,000
customers
using a product, using agents. When you
ship things, they are in use by real
people getting like real feedback
instantly. It has product market fit.
You're just like going and experimenting
>> um with like fast iteration loops,
>> but early enough that you could still
>> But like you can move. Yeah. Yeah. We
let you move. Yes.
>> Yeah. Because it's such an amazing
Silicon Valley microcosm. Can you tell
like the most detailed version of the
Billboard war story that you've ever
told?
>> I was always very much a billboard
skeptic cuz it seemed like they didn't
actually or like who knows if they work.
The tracking is terrible, but like
founder like founder ego was why someone
would do a billboard. It's like cuz I
feel cool cuz my company has a
billboard. So I was always very anti-
billboard.
midsummer 2021
SAS conference which felt like a big
deal at the time like thank god we've
almost beyond that we decided or our
marketing team decided to try out of
home I was like super skeptical but it
was like fine whatever I
try it you know and we were going to put
something on the billboard and Sarah who
was our PMM at the time came up with
compliance that doesn't suck too much
and pitched to our head of marketing who
didn't like it cuz thought we were like
negging our users and was basically like
no don't think harder and much nicer but
like think harder and Sarah kind of
believed in it and so she went to me
which she usually does not like go she
is not a like go around her boss person
but like really believed in compliance
that doesn't suck too much and so took
it to me and I read it and I like
immediately left actually immediately
texted Andrew Reed, our investor, as
like, "What do you think? You have good
um internet meme taste. He loved it."
And so you're like, "Okay, let's try it.
Let's run it." So like, "What's the
worst that's going to happen?" People
will think we're obnoxious and then
probably forget in six months. Actually
seems like relative. Anyway, so we stand
the billboard up somewhere like near
Berlin Game.
It goes over so well. We tweet it. The
tweet goes viral. the tweet then is
still over the next couple months but
like ends up on our slash accounting as
a funnel right you're like oh this is a
gem and I think it it really worked
because like and it's our it's our brand
at our best and our marketing at the
best our our attribute is with a wink
but it's like you know we take our work
seriously but we don't always take
ourselves seriously and so I think there
was something to that that resonated and
then I think there was something to like
it was a little obscure but it wasn't so
obsc but it was like sufficiently
obscure where if you got it, you felt
like you got a secret anyway. And so
like compliance that doesn't suck too
much just worked. Okay. 22 market
crashes. Turns out there's a lot of
billboard inventory available on 101. So
we get this great spot, right, where
like 101 and 280 sort of intersect and
on this anyway great spot for like not
that much, especially in retrospect. And
we're like we joke and we're like, "Oh
yeah, we've like locked it up for years
like what?" And so we were known for
this billboard in this spot.
I think even on podcast I said the
contract was locked up for years. It was
not locked up for years, but that
billboard got famous. And so we people
would contact us and Sarah all the time
and be like, "How do you do billboards?
How do you do your billboards?" And
we're like, "Oh, we work with this
agency. We work with this guy." And so
we referred this guy all of this
business. So we just be like, "It's him.
It's him. It's him." All like millions
of dollars of business. Great.
Okay. Turns out in the background we did
not have a multi-year contract, which I
should have shown. Certainly if I was
going to say that on a podcast, not
really do what it says on the tin. And
the contract was basically like, you've
put the billboard up. That's it. Like
this this was like not a contract at
all. Multiple years go by,
Sarah's at like seeing one of her
friends for dinner, works at a startup,
and her friend was like, "Oh, it's so
sad you guys like gave up that billboard
spot. like why'd you do that? And Sarah
was like, "Pardon?" And they were like,
"Oh, yeah. We just signed for your
spot." And Sarah's like, "What? Will we
go back?" Or like, "Contract contract."
Contract written in crayon. There is no
contract. Basically, it's a placement
order.
Called the guy and he's like, "Yeah, you
know, it's a placement order. They they
paid more." So, we like swapped it out
underneath us. I go to founder of said
company and be like, "Hello, can I like
how much can I pay you?" And I am like
an extremely inelastic buyer here. Like
what can I pay you for this spot? And
he's like, "Nothing." And I'm like, "How
about I double?" I think he was paying
like a million and a half. And you're
like, "How about I give you three
just to get this spot?" And he's like,
"We're actually cash flow positive." So
like literally there is no like I'm in
an elastic seller.
And so we lost the spot. Things that
made me think where I was like, "Oh no,
Vanta's screwed." Honestly, losing that
billboard, I was like, we did probably
just lose a billion of market cap. Bad
omen.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Both bad omen
and like there is some market cap, you
know, like vibesy market cap decrease
that just happened here. Yes.
>> Is there anything I've missed a bet? Has
your curiosity, your attention that you
think is really important right now?
>> You see it in the data center
conversations
to some extent in the personal agent
stuff. It's like we just don't trust
software companies, tech companies the
way we used to. And that is like getting
worse year over year. And it's kind of
hard to imagine that inflecting back up
and getting to the like useful optimism
of 15 years ago. And so I think in that
companies showing that they are
trustworthy and industrial grade and
secure through lots of metrics and
actual definitions is like more
important than ever and will just get
more and more important. And again to a
host of customers, regulators,
lawmakers, auditors, etc. Vanta at 250
billion is like in the center of all of
those transactions
helping companies meet those high bars
or wherever those bars are set and then
conveying that like helping them go
convey that and accelerate their
business.
>> Another way of saying that like AI has
ushered in this extremely high
excitement but low trust.
>> Yeah, that's a good
>> era.
>> Yes. And Vant's job is
preserve the excitement but
>> increase yeah increase the trust and
like on legitimately so not just on
vibes on like yeah yeah
>> what will satisfy the market to trust
again
>> I think in a B2B context like businesses
I do think there's a bit of like there's
the vibes piece but there's a very real
data piece and it's like and I would
like to see specific things or specific
improvement curves or may have make
promises with maybe contracts behind
Right. I think that one's a much more
quoteunquote logical rational the way
like enterprise markets often are. I
think on the consumer side it is vibes
and I don't
that one seems very hard to turn. I do
not envy.
>> Do you trust them? Muse instinct etc.
>> big companies. No.
>> Why not?
>> It's not that there's anything
particularly interesting in my, you
know, email or, you know, chats or
whatever. like it's not my life's not
that interesting, but I would rather you
know just Google or like or just Apple
or just insert company here have that
information.
>> What's security like 5 years from now?
Like if you just wrap it up with like,
okay, here's here's we're going. We want
to be the person at the center of this.
Describe that state for us. security
from 5 years from now is faster, even
more intense, more offensive hopefully
in that like yes, we'll have more
attacks, but I think you need more like
white hat pushing back on all of that.
And just to get a speed that we haven't
had and I think you've got to get humans
to get to that speed, you've got to get
a lot of some amount of the human
decision-m out or humans are like
architecting systems and writing rules
but not making every single decision.
It's like falling from that
>> writing evals. Maybe that's all we're
doing in the future. We're all writing
evals all day long.
>> If you had to define what the next five
years of Vanta will be in one word, what
word do you pick?
>> Expansive.
I think we have this incredible base of
customers of data and now we get to go
build things on top of that. And it like
8 years to get here, we could go just
build stuff on top of it for the next
five or eight.
>> It's so cool that we did this 5 years
ago. So, here we are again. Thanks so
much for your time.
>> You know how small advantages compound
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