Full Transcript

·YouTLDR

How AI Is Repricing Every Software Company

1:04:58EnglishBy Invest Like The BestTranscribed Oct 20, 2026
Analyze another video with Pro30-day money-back guarantee
0:00

We have talked to our customers a lot

0:03

about token based pricing and I think

0:05

what we've generally heard people are

0:07

real smart but actually and so if you

0:09

try to charge them based on tokens they

0:12

are very quick to say oh you've just

0:14

marked up a claude token forex are you

0:17

forex as good as claude I don't know let

0:19

me go try it out you actually put

0:21

yourselves in a competitive position

0:24

against the models and so what we've

0:26

seen on token pricing is like if If

0:29

you're trying to mark up at all, users

0:32

are very smart and you will lose on that

0:34

comparison.

0:49

>> So, Christina, I've been so excited to

0:50

do this with you. I think it's been five

0:52

years since we last did it. So, a lot a

0:54

lot has happened a lifetime ago.

0:56

>> Uh you've been very successful in the

0:57

intervening 5 years. So, so I'm excited

0:59

to catch up. Can you give us like the

1:01

one minute history of Vanta? I know

1:03

we've done this before, but just to

1:04

level set for people when you started

1:06

it, why, what it did then, how it's

1:07

evolved, what it does now. Just like a

1:09

quick quick overview.

1:10

>> Started Vanta about 8 years ago, which

1:12

was about 8,000. Yeah, exactly. You're

1:14

like in 17 centuries ago with the

1:18

premise of can we help companies build

1:20

and earn trust? and build trust is like

1:23

start security programs and compliance

1:25

programs or mature them and then go go

1:27

get credit for their customers through

1:29

audits like a sock 2 or ISO 270 and

1:32

HIPPA etc questionnaires trust centers

1:35

but basically this idea of can we build

1:38

a security company by helping companies

1:42

implement security because it's what

1:43

their customer is asking for and so

1:45

we're initially known for sock 2 we had

1:48

a billboard we do have a billboard on

1:50

the 101 that We're mostly known for

1:52

making billboards, I joke, but it

1:53

started like very compliance, very audit

1:56

centric. The idea was always, hey,

1:58

that's just like one way to get a

1:59

company started on this. And so since

2:02

then, we've gone into different areas of

2:04

security. We've gone into different ways

2:06

of like earning trust with your

2:07

customers. And so today we're about

2:09

16,000 customers global with about five

2:13

products.

2:14

>> How did you win? Like this this was a

2:16

new category when you started and then I

2:19

remember I had to go through it. my old

2:20

business get sock 2 compliant and

2:22

certified in order to win certain

2:23

accounts or whatever and so it became an

2:26

important thing kind of in the software

2:27

era there were many companies I I could

2:30

probably name a handful that were trying

2:31

to do what you're trying to do

2:33

>> you've emerged as sort of the only major

2:35

winner what would you attribute it to

2:36

over the last since we last talked like

2:38

how did you win

2:39

>> execution I think you have to both like

2:43

software the blessing and the curse and

2:45

this is you know more true now even than

2:46

it was 5 years ago like you're really

2:48

only as good as the last thing you

2:49

shipped

2:50

And so you can be first and you can

2:51

start it and doesn't really matter. I

2:54

mean that's more true now because it's

2:55

like someone can vibe code your thing in

2:56

a weekend. And so you've just got to

2:59

like constantly be shipping new

3:01

products, new features that make the

3:03

experience better for customers and like

3:05

running on that differentiation. And so

3:07

there's some feature level. I think the

3:09

other thing we really invested in when

3:11

it got competitive that was very good

3:15

was integrations pulling in data from

3:17

other tools. And so now you can connect

3:21

Vanta to one of 400 tools. We c we pull

3:24

a ton of data out of those tools and

3:27

that's what powers the automation, the

3:30

agent, the AI, all of that. We call it

3:32

our trust graph. It's really just like a

3:34

security data lake and that is bigger

3:37

broader than any other provider

3:39

including some of the security providers

3:40

because we touch areas they don't and I

3:43

think that in retrospect that data

3:45

foundation has let us build new things

3:48

faster software and agent. It was that

3:51

piece and then I think on the go to

3:53

market side it was like just push good

3:56

billboards

3:57

>> like shockingly good compliance that

3:59

doesn't suck too much. Um which got

4:01

really popular on our/ac accounting

4:03

which none of us knew was a bucket list

4:04

item in our lives but um when r/ac

4:07

accounting likes your things you're like

4:08

okay something something worked and then

4:10

the lived experience is just like you

4:12

can feel like you are going as fast as

4:14

you can and you should in fact lean in

4:16

further and like push harder.

4:17

>> What was the scariest moment? I mean,

4:19

you know, the last 12 months, South

4:22

Apocalypse, you're like, "Okay, great.

4:23

You know, great job building a system of

4:24

record. You're now screwed.

4:26

>> You're now worthless."

4:27

>> Yeah, exactly. You're worth like good

4:28

job playing the game. Here's some steak

4:29

knives. Parts of that are true and parts

4:31

of it are not true. But again, in the

4:33

vein of like, you're only as good as the

4:34

last thing you shipped. You're like,

4:35

great. So, you know, what are you what

4:38

is the agent? You have all this data in

4:40

a system of record. Fine. What what the

4:41

heck are you doing with it?

4:42

>> Say more about what that's felt like.

4:44

Roughly Vanta is a business that is

4:46

growing very fast by historical

4:47

standards with very high margins. Yes.

4:50

>> Which four years ago is considered like

4:51

the best business model ever.

4:53

>> Y

4:53

>> um nothing changed about that. I think

4:55

you're probably growing faster and the

4:57

margins are margins still really high. Y

4:59

>> and yet the market has decided that the

5:01

multiple for a business like yours is a

5:03

third of what it used to be or quarter

5:04

of what it used to be.

5:05

>> So what is that? Yeah. What what has it

5:07

been like to live through that as one of

5:09

those entrepreneurs?

5:09

>> I think cognitive dissonance like you've

5:11

got to hold two things in your head,

5:13

right? One is the like look I think at

5:15

the fullness of time a 80% growth

5:19

business with 80% margins will like

5:22

>> be good

5:23

>> be well not yeah be good and actually be

5:25

better than like over the same time

5:27

period run it out long enough a you know

5:30

160% growth business with 30% margins.

5:33

You're like one of these will like

5:34

return more cash right in the fullness

5:36

of time. But today the latter is valued

5:39

at you know 3x 4x the multiple of the

5:41

former 10x the multiple of the former

5:44

right and so there's a part where you're

5:45

like hey guys everyone's being

5:46

irrational here and then there's a and

5:49

like this is a good business and you

5:50

have to keep do you know keep doing

5:52

things that make business sense and

5:54

doing the things that customers want

5:55

which may or may not be

5:57

you know token pricing models that put

6:00

you more in the latter category than the

6:02

former profile.

6:03

And then there's like a very clear like

6:05

game on the field piece where you're

6:06

like a D like well if you need to be

6:08

financed again you're looking at

6:11

investors today many of whom are kind of

6:13

AI maximalists and are like talk to

6:15

firms that are like yeah we'll invest in

6:17

the labs and we'll basically invest in

6:19

tractors in Iowa and like nothing in

6:20

between you know robo like robo tractors

6:23

in Iowa at a lab and like everything

6:25

else and you're like huh interesting

6:27

point of view and then from a like

6:28

talent perspective right like people you

6:31

know you hire ambitious ious people who

6:34

want to do things and if it feels like

6:38

they're not in the right boat, they're

6:39

going to change boats, right? Like the

6:41

talent war part is very real, too.

6:43

>> And so, you just kind of got to live

6:44

with like, okay, in the fullness of

6:46

time, I think this will all kind of sort

6:48

itself out. And you have to live for the

6:50

fullness of time.

6:50

>> So, there's this there's this kind of

6:51

funny fear that now like bending spoons

6:53

is like the grim the grim reaper in the

6:55

hallway, you know, meme or whatever. Uh,

6:57

no one wants to be a Ben spoon. Love

6:59

bending spoons, by the way. I think it's

7:01

an interesting question of how do you

7:02

like the siren song right now is like

7:04

sell tokens yep

7:05

>> via agents for security and compliance

7:08

I'm sure or something like this

7:09

>> lots of thoughts on this

7:10

>> I'm just so interested by by companies

7:12

like yours that were sort of winners of

7:13

this last era that now have to make a

7:15

sort of set of decisions right

7:17

>> look at the tenure rate like the cost of

7:18

capital is going up because you can put

7:21

lots of money at really high return in

7:22

AI stuff for the time being

7:24

>> and so someone looking at your business

7:26

is like well I want you know higher

7:28

returns or the same returns and I get

7:30

that through agents or something. Talk

7:31

me through what it's been like to make

7:32

the decisions. What are you thinking

7:34

today? Do you think of yourself as an AI

7:36

business? What's that look like?

7:37

>> So, we do and not just like oh and I

7:39

like also think of myself as like the

7:41

best human in the world like not there's

7:42

probably some of that but like when we

7:44

go benchmark where we are from a agent

7:47

in our product perspective against

7:50

you know quote unquote AI applications

7:53

we have yet to find someone who is

7:56

further along. Now you could be like

7:57

we're doing a bad job looking is like

7:59

you know the obvious critique there but

8:02

just we are like constantly going to the

8:05

set of names you imagine when you think

8:07

AI applications and generally finding

8:11

they're not yet where we are where an

8:14

agent is doing most of the work the

8:15

agent the other one of the things it's

8:17

chat based but there's like longrunning

8:19

agents our agent is like autogenerating

8:21

UI on the fly because sometimes you want

8:23

chat right and sometimes you want UI but

8:25

we just have an agent that

8:27

building UI user can do something comes

8:29

back in the flow keeps it going like

8:32

very much optimized around the like keep

8:34

the user going in the flow loops

8:37

>> just so I make sure I understand meaning

8:39

you are like a watchdog that's always on

8:41

watching the security

8:43

>> you're definitely that but in some ways

8:45

you're you could do that in the past

8:46

with just like monitoring and alerting

8:48

this is more like the Vanta product

8:50

experience is now oriented around an

8:52

agent that is bringing you as a user

8:54

things and often saying, "Hey, I went

8:56

and did this for you. Are you good with

8:58

it? Then I will go do it." Okay, great.

9:00

The next thing I think I should go do.

9:02

>> What's an example? Just like ground that

9:03

an example.

9:04

>> Someone just left your company and you

9:05

didn't take, you didn't get them out all

9:07

of their accounts. I just like wrote a

9:08

custom agent for you that will go do

9:10

that. Do you want me to go turn this on?

9:12

Great. Do you also want me to go, you

9:14

know, remove accounts, access from these

9:15

three people? Great. You want that

9:16

running always?

9:17

>> So, it's not just like, here's a red

9:19

alert that someone didn't meet the

9:21

monitoring step. It's like too many.

9:23

Would you like me to go do this? And

9:25

then kind of it's it's we're taking a

9:27

lot from the AI labs in their UI, but

9:29

it's like you want me to do this once,

9:30

do you want me to do this always? Great.

9:31

>> And so the idea is like the agent will

9:33

just be doing more of this work with the

9:35

user's permission, but it's like if they

9:36

tell us to go do it, we're just going to

9:38

go. Anyway, in the course of that, we

9:40

end up using a lot of tokens. We have

9:44

talked to our customers a lot about

9:46

token based pricing. And I think what

9:47

we've generally heard is like people are

9:50

real smart but actually and so if you

9:52

try to charge them based on tokens they

9:55

are very quick to say oh you've just

9:57

marked up a claude token forex

10:00

are you forex as good as claude I don't

10:02

know let me go try it out and so and

10:06

then you're like you actually put

10:07

yourselves in a competitive position

10:09

against the models I think probably no

10:12

application really wants to do like we

10:14

can talk about harnesses but like you

10:16

don't want to get fair. And so what

10:17

we've seen on token pricing is like if

10:21

you're trying to mark up at all, users

10:23

are very smart and you will lose on that

10:26

comparison.

10:27

>> You can like not mark up and this gets

10:29

to the margin question, right? Um

10:33

but anyone who is marking up cloud

10:34

tokens forex and trying to like pass

10:36

that off to their users, I think it's

10:38

like that is not a model.

10:40

>> We're eating the token cost right now.

10:41

>> You're just taking lower margin. we're

10:42

taking lower margin and honestly just

10:45

like really concentrate on usage because

10:46

like that experience that I just talked

10:48

through where the agent is going off and

10:50

doing things we just like fundamentally

10:52

believe that is a much better user

10:54

experience and we've got call it

10:59

25% of our like all of our customers in

11:03

that sort of flow right now and we're

11:05

like look if we can get that to 75% one

11:07

I think we like much better retention

11:10

like net retention there you know it's

11:11

just like a much customer experience and

11:13

then if we need to go sort out pricing

11:14

later, we we should go sort out pricing

11:16

later. But like this is a usage phase

11:20

and like a deployment phase of this

11:22

technology and just go nail that and you

11:24

can figure out commercialization after.

11:26

>> Ramp is the only platform built to make

11:28

your finance team leaner, faster, and

11:30

better, saving businesses 5% annually on

11:32

average, so you can stay focused on

11:34

growth. Ramp just opened for business in

11:36

the United Kingdom. So, if you're

11:38

running a business in the UK, you can

11:40

now use RAMP's AI powered finance

11:42

platform to manage cards, expenses,

11:44

bills, approvals, and accounting all in

11:46

one place. I run my business on RAMP,

11:48

and so should you. Learn more at

11:50

ramp.com/invest.

11:53

OpenAI, Cursor, Anthropic, Perplexity,

11:56

and Verscell all have something in

11:58

common. They all use WorkOS. And here's

12:00

why. To achieve enterprise adoption at

12:03

scale, you have to deliver on core

12:05

capabilities like SSO, skim, arbback,

12:09

and audit logs. That's where work OS

12:11

comes in. Instead of spending months

12:13

building these missionritical

12:14

capabilities yourself, you can just use

12:16

work OS APIs to gain all of them on day

12:19

zero. That's why so many of the top AI

12:21

teams you hear about already run on work

12:23

OS. Work OS is the fastest way to become

12:26

enterprise ready and stay focused on

12:28

what matters most, your product. Visit

12:30

works.com to get started. ROGO is the AI

12:33

platform purpose-built for financial

12:35

institutions serving tens of thousands

12:37

of bankers and investors at hundreds of

12:39

leading firms worldwide. Rogo's AI

12:42

agents autonomously execute large chunk

12:44

of your firm's workflows. They can

12:46

screen deals, draft sims, run buyer

12:48

outreach, and do diligence on data

12:50

rooms, all with full security and

12:52

compliance handled. Every action feeds

12:54

Rogo Intelligence, the firm's context

12:56

layer, turning years of deal experience,

12:58

into a secure, governed institutional

13:00

memory that makes each new transaction

13:02

stronger than the last. To learn more,

13:04

visit rogo.com/invest.

13:07

I'm also so curious. You said marking up

13:09

a cla token, but what about marking up

13:10

like a Kimmy token or like something

13:12

that's much cheaper? like how what

13:13

what's it been like deciding what to

13:16

use, what's good enough versus cost if

13:18

you're not passing through the

13:19

>> Yeah, this was something we started

13:21

concentrating on at the beginning of the

13:22

year. It was basically like evals. Yeah.

13:24

>> For all the and like task specific or

13:26

agent specific evals from a product

13:29

perspective. We call it all the Vanta

13:30

agent and it's one thing of course

13:32

behind the scene it's like hundreds of

13:33

agents that all have specific tasks and

13:35

use tools and have computers and you

13:37

know that whole setup that I think

13:38

everyone's converging on. But in the

13:40

beginning of the year really invested in

13:43

using our our subject matter experts the

13:46

folks who like ran security and

13:47

compliance programs at other companies

13:49

to write the eval frameworks and then

13:51

eval their evals and using tooling for

13:53

that anyway. And so when we think about

13:57

model swapping it is right again right

13:59

now it's like mostly quality it's not

14:00

cost I also think some of it this is

14:03

because we don't use as many tokens as

14:05

coding I think we're also all starting

14:07

to like coding is and coding agents lots

14:10

of token use maybe legal and like

14:12

document drafting next and then when you

14:15

get to more of the decision action world

14:18

which is where we are get relative to

14:20

coding we just don't use that many

14:22

tokens

14:22

>> anyway and so that kind of lets like

14:24

optimize for quality versus being as

14:27

concerned about cost as some of the

14:29

other companies.

14:29

>> When you talk to other founders both of

14:31

your era and of this new era, what are

14:33

they doing here? Are they also eating

14:35

the cost and just charging a software

14:37

fee? What do you think the the end

14:38

state's going to be?

14:39

>> I think everyone wants to get to outcome

14:42

pricing and if you actually go talk to a

14:45

pricing person, they will tell you it's

14:46

actually output pricing because it's not

14:48

but whatever. Like everyone wants to get

14:49

to that. And like in another life I was

14:52

a microeconomics professor like I love

14:54

this conceptually like I love the like

14:56

we will we get paid for outcomes and the

14:58

alignment of incentives love it. The

15:01

hard part is just like what are the

15:02

outcomes and I think you know support

15:06

ticket closed makes a lot of sense

15:08

actually to that maybe differentiate

15:10

outcome and output as I understand it in

15:13

support the ticket closed is an output

15:15

the outcome is actually like my Sonos

15:17

now works right but even like the ticket

15:19

closed that is relatively

15:21

unobjectionable I think a lot of

15:24

companies included are trying to figure

15:26

out what's that like neat unit of work

15:28

that we can all agree on and you can say

15:30

it's oh it's a document drafted it's an

15:33

alert closed it's an account offboarded

15:35

and you can kind of do that but then

15:37

there's just so much cognitive overhead

15:39

because you're like I just named three

15:40

things I could name another 47 and then

15:43

our user has to be like oh well if I do

15:45

this with the agent I paid this but if I

15:47

do it you know and you're just like no

15:48

one no one wants that I think everyone I

15:52

talk to wants to get to outcome output

15:54

pricing but it's really not clear how

15:57

you get there I think token charging

15:59

tokens themselves

16:00

really puts you up against cloud. So

16:02

then people try to obscure that by

16:04

charging credits and having some like

16:05

credit token exchange rate thing which I

16:09

think again users are smart and they're

16:10

like I see what you're doing and I see

16:12

you've obscured it. Fine. Are you

16:15

similarly far along in if you compared

16:17

yourself to the just as you did just now

16:19

to companies and how you're building

16:21

product and the business using these

16:23

tools? Like how would you grade yourself

16:24

on like what are you doing that's

16:25

interesting there?

16:26

>> I think okay so we in the vein of like

16:29

8-year-old company and 8-year-old code

16:30

base it is so much easier to throw the

16:34

coding agents at a small codebase than a

16:36

large one and that's like a token input

16:38

thing and they're getting better and

16:40

better. But one thing we've spent a lot

16:42

of time also investing in in the last

16:43

year and I know notion has spent a bunch

16:45

bunch of time in and they were like nine

16:46

months ahead of us on is modularizing

16:50

parts of the codebase so that the agent

16:52

can just understand smaller parts of it

16:53

and understand it fully and then be

16:55

really effective. Whereas if you chuck

16:57

it at again eight your codebase site

17:00

unseen it just like doesn't have the

17:03

context window to understand everything

17:04

and will do silly things and so you then

17:06

you need a high context engineer to

17:08

babysit it which is helpful but like

17:11

sort of invalidates some of the point.

17:13

Um companies have always had this

17:15

problem. They've just talked about it as

17:16

like oh when we onboard a new engineer

17:18

it takes them a while to figure out the

17:19

code base. It's just agents have made it

17:21

like well great now we want to onboard

17:22

9,000 new engineers tomorrow. Um, and so

17:25

it's just like heightened that problem.

17:27

So I I give ourselves a lower grade on

17:30

that just cuz we've had we are like in

17:32

the process of using agents and people

17:35

to make the codebase easier to

17:37

understand too.

17:38

>> Like you had to grade yourself one

17:39

through 10 about like wow this changes

17:42

everything. Building this company from

17:43

this point forward is going to be

17:44

totally different. Is a 10.

17:45

>> Oh yeah. Like nine. Yeah.

17:47

>> You are like a nine.

17:48

>> Eight nine. I mean I think the like

17:49

principles are still the same. Like

17:51

everything is hard. People matter. you

17:52

know like all the tropes are still the

17:54

tropes but the way you do stuff it

17:56

should be quite different. Do you feel

17:58

like there's a separation happening?

17:59

Again, if I took your cohort of the

18:01

successful, you know, eight year ago era

18:04

companies,

18:05

>> like do you feel there there's a

18:06

bifurcation where some have gotten the

18:08

memo and are are doing really well and

18:10

some are just like going to bending

18:11

spoons

18:12

>> kind of. Yeah. Yeah. I think there are

18:14

just structural parts of some markets

18:16

and I think Bending Spoon's very good at

18:18

you know identifying these where

18:20

you can put any entrepreneur in the

18:22

world on in that structure. This is kind

18:24

of like the like does market or founder

18:26

win Andre Horowitz thing and you're like

18:28

market wins. I think that is still true

18:30

and I think this AI technology shift has

18:32

made what some markets that used to look

18:34

really good look really bad and the best

18:37

person in the world can run in that will

18:38

still run into a brick wall. And I think

18:41

there is a like founder motivation piece

18:43

where it's like you got to be in it and

18:46

like push in this era and if you don't

18:49

want to do that totally fine but like

18:52

the rest of the company will not you

18:53

know self-organized to do so.

18:55

>> So given that you've been at the edge

18:57

like what's the you know adopting AI 101

19:01

if you're back to being a professor what

19:03

have been the most important things that

19:04

have been hard to do but have proven

19:07

fruitful? just getting people to use it

19:09

which I think there's like a and then

19:11

okay so which sounds obvious but it's

19:12

like definitely use it yourself build

19:14

for your company personally does not

19:16

matter just like understand where the

19:20

models are where they're good where

19:21

they're bad what harness means like you

19:23

just like and like kind of do that at

19:26

least every two weeks because it just

19:28

changes so quickly and I do think you

19:30

have to have a like visceral

19:31

understanding of what works and what

19:33

doesn't so that when somebody comes and

19:34

they say we're going um

19:37

fire all of our SDRs because I built one

19:39

agent and you can kind of be like did

19:41

you know you know like where where is

19:43

that true and where that false anyway so

19:44

there's like a be in the mock and then I

19:47

think it's like yeah you want to get as

19:48

many other people in that as possible

19:52

broadly generalized it's very black and

19:54

white but it's like yeah and some people

19:55

just go do that and some people don't if

19:58

you'd asked me a year ago you'd been

20:00

like oh well there's like some you know

20:01

intrinsic motivation and you know kind

20:03

of the people who aren't separate

20:05

problems go deal with them.

20:07

I think I'm slightly more empathetic now

20:11

in that we have seen I can give a

20:14

specific example but like very strong

20:16

people kind of not go dive in and you

20:19

have to like nudge them more but like

20:22

try to figure out what's blocking them

20:23

and something can be blocking them and

20:25

you can get people into the like into

20:27

the muck even if they don't dive in

20:29

initially. So if you're a small company

20:32

starting out on Manta, great. We've got

20:33

this like set of controls for you. You

20:35

just you adopt them. You maybe mess with

20:37

them on the edges, but you're like off

20:38

to the races. If you're a larger

20:39

company, you clearly run a security and

20:41

compliance program. And you come to

20:43

Vanta because you want that visualized.

20:46

You want the automation and you want the

20:47

monitoring. You want the real-time

20:48

dashboards. You don't want the like jur

20:50

thing. Fine. Well, the hard part hard

20:53

part is you've got to get all that

20:55

existing stuff, the controls, the risks,

20:59

the data, the policies, the procedure,

21:01

all that stuff in Vanta. Classically,

21:03

the way you would do that SAS company is

21:05

you're like, "Oh, we're going to make an

21:06

onboarding wizard. It has four steps and

21:08

a progress bar and we will like give you

21:09

confetti, you know, like you're going to

21:11

do that whole thing." We were setting

21:13

out to build better better onboarding

21:15

this year. And the first couple product

21:18

reviews, the team kept bringing

21:20

onboarding wizards. Kept being like,

21:22

"Stop with the onboarding." Like, "No,

21:23

you know, go use an LLM. Stop." But they

21:26

kept bringing onboarding wizards. And

21:27

this was like a motivated team, talented

21:30

people. They cared and kept bringing

21:32

onboarding wizards. And we finally got

21:35

them. Anyway, the experience now they

21:36

shipped and is working is it's basically

21:39

clawed. It's like big canvas. Drag all

21:42

your messy files in, drag in all your

21:44

screenshots. we will like make sense of

21:46

it, ask you questions and then you are

21:48

set up and off to the races and it works

21:50

really well. So like why were these

21:52

smart motivated people bringing on

21:54

boarding wizards? So you go out like

21:56

finally and the thing was they were like

21:57

well we don't know if we can get the

22:01

like drag your files thing to work it

22:03

might not work and we know the

22:06

onboarding wizard will work because

22:07

we've built those before and like we

22:10

basically don't think we're allowed to

22:11

fail on this project. and you come and

22:14

you're like, "Oh, that's the thing.

22:16

Great. Well, like

22:19

we're just gonna like bet that the on

22:22

the LLM flow is going to work and we

22:24

will make it work and we will hill climb

22:26

all we need to, but like burn the boat

22:29

and just make this thing work." And then

22:31

they were like, "Oh, okay, great." You

22:33

know, do you want a next product review

22:34

tomorrow? But it was this like funny

22:36

thing where you're like, "I would not

22:37

have guessed that that was their

22:39

blocker." and you like solve that and

22:41

they were like going

22:42

>> you mentioned the talent war thing

22:43

before there's this big trend you know

22:45

the low low margin high growth thing

22:47

where like from an investor's

22:49

perspective the the funny example you

22:52

gave of a lab or a tractor like everyone

22:54

wants something that can be that thing

22:56

and so like tell me about how you're

22:57

going to be a hundred billion dollar

22:58

business or a trillion dollar business

23:00

somehow now every business needs to be

23:02

that big

23:03

>> um what's that like to face down where

23:05

you may not be building a business that

23:07

should be a hundred billion dollar

23:08

business there's like a hundred of those

23:09

in the world like there's not that many.

23:10

>> Yeah. And it's not to say Vanta won't

23:12

be, but I do think the it's funny. It's

23:16

like a uh I think for me it's like oh

23:18

should I adjust the pitch and be like

23:20

well inevitably you know the baseline

23:22

here is Fanta's 50 billion. The real

23:24

question you should be considering, you

23:25

know, is like, if you join, can you take

23:27

us on a journey to like 250 billion? And

23:29

you're like, should I just start saying

23:31

that? You know, like again, like pro

23:35

like the answer is like probably not,

23:37

but the answer is not definitely not.

23:39

Totally. Cuz you're like, well, that is

23:42

like that is the pitch that people who

23:44

work at Vanta are getting from other

23:46

companies, you know, and then and then

23:48

you're just kind of like, okay, well, do

23:49

you and I try not to like counter by,

23:53

you know, being like, well, they suck.

23:56

But it's just this like the market now

23:58

is saying that so much and so if you

24:01

don't you do seem unambitious.

24:03

>> So what do you do?

24:04

>> There's like a Vanta principle value but

24:07

principle of like do what it says on the

24:09

tin which is kind of like do what you

24:11

say you're going to do. And look you can

24:12

put ambitious things on a tin. It's not

24:14

that but like don't overpromise and

24:16

underdel.

24:18

And so kind of what we do is like give

24:20

some of that like here's what we do as a

24:22

company, good, bad, and different, but

24:24

just like here's the context. Now like

24:26

let me talk to you about the business

24:29

metrics and we'll generally just show as

24:32

candidate to like show everybody

24:33

everything. It's fine. They're good.

24:34

Like we don't really want them to leak,

24:36

but if they leak, it's not the worst.

24:38

And then walk them through that and what

24:40

we're doing and how that grows over time

24:41

and like try to root it in all of the

24:44

facts and all of the data. And so in

24:46

some ways it's like

24:48

counter the vibes with like data and

24:51

trustworthy vibes versus yolo vibes I

24:54

guess.

24:55

>> And and so what is it like in those

24:57

talent wars? Like if if the most

24:58

talented people are being told you know

25:01

this thing's going to go to a trillion

25:02

by basically every other company that's

25:04

trying to hire them. Well, the better

25:05

one is uh well, we're six billion today,

25:09

but like Sequoia is going to do a $10

25:11

billion check in a month and then like

25:13

somebody's going to write it up to 25

25:14

next year, but we can get you in at six

25:16

today.

25:16

>> Yeah,

25:16

>> that's a good one.

25:17

>> Yeah,

25:17

>> that one's tough.

25:19

>> So, you're faced with that like what do

25:20

you do? Do maybe like not want those

25:23

people like maybe it's a filter that

25:25

>> sometimes

25:27

I like no magic playbook here. I think

25:29

if you go to the person and be like what

25:31

are you optimizing for, right? And like

25:33

why are you kind of like why did you

25:36

entertain this but not in a pokey way

25:37

just in a like what's annoying you at

25:39

Vanta right and actually one of these in

25:42

specific very strong leader still at

25:44

Vanta but like it was basically this

25:47

person felt like they couldn't make

25:49

decisions that would put Vanta on a

25:51

similar trajectory and that would be

25:53

their preference but they're like oh but

25:55

this new place is promising me like full

25:57

decision-making authority on this

25:59

trajectory and you're like totally fair

26:02

feedback. back. What do you need to feel

26:04

like you can make these decisions? Like

26:05

just go make these decisions. Go. Like

26:07

there's a money part and a FOMO part for

26:09

sure. We've definitely gone up on comp.

26:11

And you know, comp bands are like people

26:15

are going to hate that I but like comp

26:16

bands are kind of a joke now. You're

26:18

like the comp band is whatever data you

26:22

have is wrong. It is like what is being

26:24

offered to these people in

26:25

>> how much more do you pay the top person

26:27

at Vanta than you did like as a multiple

26:29

versus like

26:30

>> oh I think we should have way more comp

26:31

dispersion than we do.

26:32

>> So how but but even so that's

26:34

interesting but if I go 5 years back and

26:36

that person made X dollars what multiple

26:38

of X does the person make now?

26:41

>> Total comp

26:42

>> it's probably like a factor of 10.

26:44

>> Wow.

26:45

>> And it should I think it actually should

26:47

be higher. My general comp philosophy is

26:49

like you never pay the top people

26:51

>> enough

26:52

>> enough and you should keep you should

26:53

always try to be like very clear you

26:55

should always try and you will never hit

26:57

it and there's a bunch of people you pay

26:59

much more than their contribution

27:00

>> say say a bit more about what those top

27:02

people are doing that's so valuable

27:04

typically

27:05

>> just like high agency get done like

27:08

it's in some ways it's that sounds so

27:09

milk toast and I don't know like

27:13

that's worth millions of dollars but

27:14

like yes actually it is like a high

27:16

context person who understands the

27:19

company and the customers and the domain

27:23

making generally reasonable decisions

27:25

and sometimes bad ones and then

27:27

iterating on their bad ones and just

27:29

moving is so valuable.

27:31

>> Do you think it'll be 10x again in five

27:33

more years or is that starting to get

27:35

too crazy? Is the rate at which the most

27:36

valuable people are getting more

27:38

valuable staying the same accelerating

27:40

>> accelerating the counterforce is like

27:43

when are we going to or at what point

27:46

will investors get more concerned about

27:47

ill dilution and stockbased comp and

27:50

right which I kind of like weren't

27:52

throughout the 2010s late 2010s we had a

27:56

more of a like stockbased comp

27:57

conversation as an industry in like 2022

27:59

23 now we're definitely not talking

28:02

about it but like that's the counter

28:04

side. I think as if um without that push

28:11

on like dilution, I think people just

28:13

get paid more and more. That's probably

28:15

should.

28:15

>> How much do you care about your

28:18

valuation and multiple and

28:22

pardon the use of the word, but like the

28:24

engineering of those things?

28:27

>> I've historically

28:29

not cared and sometimes even done things

28:31

to like demonstrate my not caring. uh

28:34

which were good and bad. I care about

28:36

ARR and AR growth and like I do pay I

28:40

pay a ton of attention to those and

28:41

those are the metrics. I think I've now

28:44

I mean a lot of been through enough

28:45

valuation environments like 2010s, 2021,

28:50

2022 seen the like multiple roller

28:52

coaster where I just don't put a bunch

28:55

of stock in that or I used to not. I

28:57

think the thing I care a bunch about

28:59

that then will get me to caring about

29:00

these multiples is like the sentiment of

29:04

people who work at Vanta and they feel

29:07

like they're at a company that is

29:08

growing and growing and then both in

29:11

general growing and then growing

29:12

relative to other their other

29:13

opportunities in the market. There's a

29:15

part of the market that is raising money

29:18

every six months at like you know 5x the

29:20

prior valuation and like

29:24

that's a real talent competitor. Yeah.

29:26

And what about like things like tenders?

29:28

Have you done those historically?

29:29

>> We have not done them historically, but

29:31

they're I think that is the game on the

29:33

field. If you're doing a tender every

29:35

time and you got to do them.

29:38

>> Does this feel unhealthy?

29:39

>> Totally. But that in some like my

29:41

opinions about it sort of don't matter

29:43

like actually can have all the feelings

29:45

I want in whatever direction about

29:47

tenders. They are normalized and people

29:50

expect them and they expect it as part

29:52

of their comp. And if you are not giving

29:53

it to them, you got to give them a bunch

29:55

of other stuff to make it up.

29:56

>> How does all this affect your exit

29:58

ambitions like to go public or to you

30:01

know be sold or realize some endgame for

30:04

Vanta? Not at all.

30:06

>> Not really. Which is again a very like

30:08

founder privilege statement, but

30:10

basically it's like the the endgame is

30:12

like how long can we keep this going

30:13

for? And look like 99% of the big

30:17

independent, you know, software

30:18

companies in the United States are are

30:20

public. And so

30:22

like yes, IPO in that sense. I don't

30:25

have it as a bucket list item myself.

30:28

It's more of like means to an end.

30:30

Again, I think lots of people join

30:31

companies and want the bucket list item.

30:33

So, you know, founder privilege caveat

30:35

here again. But goal is big independent

30:37

standalone company

30:38

>> on all this stuff. Tools for building,

30:40

ways of building, kind all these kinds

30:42

of things I'm asking about. What do you

30:44

think is overhyped and underhyped?

30:46

Underhyped is knowing the company and

30:50

the customers

30:52

relative to knowing the skill set. It is

30:54

still really hard to train to hire,

30:56

train, onboard, make effective people

30:59

who join a company. Company marines make

31:01

this better and easier and like put

31:03

information at fingertips, but there is

31:05

still totally something to be said about

31:06

someone who's like been in a company,

31:08

knows how to navigate the company, knows

31:09

the customers, all of that. I'm at a

31:11

phase right now where like we value that

31:14

skill set and compensate that skill set

31:16

more than like the vertical skill set of

31:18

like you're good at sales, you're good

31:20

at customer success and would take a

31:23

worse salesperson on sales skill who

31:25

knows the Vanta pieces more. There's

31:28

something in that and I think especially

31:30

as a lot of the labs and like fasting AI

31:34

companies are like building out go to

31:35

market teams, I think they're actually

31:36

very much evaluating like you're a good

31:38

salesperson. I think that's slightly

31:40

off. And then I think as we think about

31:42

building agents for all of this, the

31:44

company context piece, the customer

31:47

context piece is probably being

31:48

relatively undervalued to like, oh,

31:50

you're just good at you are good

31:52

salesperson.

31:53

The less valuable skill slightly today

31:55

than it was four years ago.

31:57

>> What about overhyped? Anything that you

31:59

feel like is getting

32:00

>> token based pricing low margins for the

32:02

sake of having low margins? um custom

32:05

training models for the marketing value

32:09

>> to be able to say we post trained a

32:10

model on our stuff why explain why

32:12

that's

32:13

>> uh I think if you go talk to the the

32:16

inference providers and sometimes give

32:18

them depending on the provider give them

32:19

true CRM they will say like look the

32:21

reason to post train a model is cost and

32:24

you might then some businesses have that

32:26

need

32:27

but there is not a quality reason to do

32:29

it there's like kind of a marketing

32:31

reason to do it right now in this

32:33

environment and I think there's a lot of

32:35

post training for marketing reasons for

32:36

investors and for customers mostly for

32:38

investors actually

32:39

>> if one of those people were pitching the

32:40

the the other side of this of like the

32:43

value of post training what what is the

32:44

pitch to you like some one of these

32:46

companies comes to you and is like we'll

32:48

do XYZ for you what are they saying and

32:49

what do they say the benefits are

32:50

>> you are putting a stake in the ground of

32:52

being a real AI company that customer

32:55

investors like customers will notice I

32:57

think that's the primary one I do think

32:59

there's a secondary one in some use

33:00

cases of like a form factor thing and I

33:03

Especially with large enterprises where

33:05

it's like you want to deploy this piece

33:07

of software wallto-wall that you know

33:09

requires integrations and 17 people to

33:11

sign off and like oof that's a whole

33:15

thing like why don't you just give them

33:17

a like model specific to them for this

33:19

use case there's like form I think it's

33:22

a semi-reasonable

33:23

>> so so if I was one of these people and I

33:24

came into Vanta what what do they what

33:26

does post training literally mean like

33:28

what would it mean in your context like

33:30

what are you doing what are the steps

33:31

that you would go through with Yeah,

33:33

>> we would need a bunch of data from that

33:35

specific customer and then go write a

33:38

bunch of eval

33:43

data.

33:43

>> The process would be they're trying to

33:45

achieve something, they've got some

33:46

data, you tune a model to achieve the

33:49

thing to increase the eval.

33:51

>> Yeah. Basically,

33:52

>> and then sell them that.

33:54

>> Exactly.

33:54

>> On an ongoing basis.

33:55

>> Yep. And and your point is that that's

33:57

overrated because it doesn't actually

33:59

improve their

34:00

>> it can I think I'm a skeptical in a

34:02

couple of like do does everyone really

34:03

want to be handed a model or there's so

34:05

much around that from a user experience

34:08

perspective from a deployment

34:09

perspective form factor like it feels a

34:12

little like you know in the social media

34:14

or like our mobile apps when we like we

34:15

hadn't figured out pulled a refresh yet

34:18

right it's like kind of that it's like

34:19

there's something here I don't think

34:20

anyone actually wants to be handed a

34:22

model the same way it's like hitting a

34:23

refresh button I don't know that sounds

34:25

silly but like That's what we did in

34:26

2011. There's some version of that here.

34:28

It's like we haven't figured out how

34:30

this actually works and handing models I

34:33

think is not the right reasonable

34:34

iteration but like not the right

34:36

solution.

34:36

>> Is there anything else like in the

34:37

popular discourse that you think is

34:38

crazy? FDES.

34:39

>> I kind of think FDES are crazy or like I

34:41

think FDEES or actually I think it's a

34:43

great talent arbitrage the same way like

34:46

chief of staff is what FDE often is is

34:52

professional services. But I think if

34:54

you call it a professional services

34:55

role, that's a very different talent

34:56

profile than FDE in the current

34:58

discourse. And I think you're not going

35:00

to get the, you know,

35:03

Harvard CS grad who's like high agency

35:06

and wants to go do things and learn how

35:08

to build a business to go sign up to be

35:09

like pro- serve person number four or

35:12

number 12 at a company. I think there's

35:15

a real job there, but I think this like

35:17

FDE

35:19

wrapping around it is probably not going

35:23

to stay. I also think it's like right

35:25

the company that we all think does this

35:27

well is Palanteer, which I think they

35:28

probably do.

35:30

They have eight figure contracts. There

35:33

are some companies that have eight

35:34

figure contracts. I think we're using

35:36

all FTEEs in a place where we're, you

35:37

know, there's like five and six figure

35:39

contracts and those economics probably

35:41

are upside down. No, we're in again era

35:43

of like 30% growth margin better and so

35:45

that sort of works, but like that

35:47

doesn't feel sustainable.

35:48

>> When you're at like a a dinner in San

35:50

Francisco with other founders, what are

35:52

you talking about? Like are you talking

35:54

about models and which ones to use? What

35:56

are the actual topics of conversation

35:59

between founders right now?

36:01

>> There's definitely like talent war

36:03

pieces. There was a time, this is more

36:05

nine months ago, but it was like the,

36:07

you know, joy to go around the table and

36:08

complain about cursor and like their

36:10

their taking of everyone. Um, like the

36:13

cursor of the moment is like there's

36:15

definitely that piece. There is a bit I

36:17

mean I'll take FTDs of like do you

36:19

actually do this? Is it working? Like

36:21

what do you like where are you on this?

36:24

I mean right now you know personal

36:25

agents uh which ones do you have what

36:27

are actually useful? when you think

36:29

about the open-source stuff,

36:32

>> Chinese models, this that and the other,

36:33

what have you learned talking to people

36:35

around the world that are grappling with

36:38

these same questions?

36:39

>> Yeah, I was with our customers in France

36:41

a couple weeks ago, which was lovely.

36:43

One of the things I was very surprised

36:45

is is a lot of the French software

36:47

companies in Paris are using Chinese

36:49

models predominantly. And I initially

36:52

thought it was sort of a nationalism,

36:54

maybe anti-American, you know, just

36:55

something there. and stupidly sort of

36:58

suggested that and someone very quickly

37:00

corrected me and said like absolutely

37:01

not. We basically all switched to

37:04

Chinese models when Trump uh closed

37:07

Fable off to non-Americans and we just

37:10

kind of realized there's a huge business

37:11

continuity risk. We can't trust that if

37:14

we build a business on one of these

37:15

American models it'll always be

37:17

available. So we stopped doing that. If

37:19

you dream the most about where the

37:22

business could go over the next several

37:24

years, like force you to answer the

37:27

hundred bill, you know, the $250 billion

37:28

question or something.

37:30

>> What's the version of Vanta that could

37:31

look like that?

37:32

>> We think of Vanta as a security company.

37:35

Started with compliance, but like I

37:37

think the the best version of compliance

37:40

is proving the security you have. You've

37:42

got to have good security. And we think

37:45

we can and are moving into a bunch of

37:49

security domains. It's sort of a

37:50

platform pitch of like look, we've

37:52

already got the data, we've already got

37:53

the intelligence via the agent, we can

37:56

start stacking products on top of that

37:59

and more security focused products. As

38:02

we understand the security of all these

38:04

companies, the pressure on them to go

38:07

prove they're legitimate and industrial

38:10

grade is just going to go up. That's one

38:13

of the founding thesis of anti eight

38:14

years ago, but it's it like feels even

38:16

more true now. Whether they're working

38:19

with enterprises, governments,

38:23

regulators, lawmakers, you just have to

38:26

like prove your software is industrial

38:29

grade in lots of ways and that will

38:30

happen more and more in more and more

38:32

ways in the future. And Vanta is the

38:34

thing that connects both sides of that

38:38

call it marketplace.

38:38

>> So what's the direction of security?

38:40

Like this this is of course an

38:42

incredibly interesting topic like early

38:43

internet everything broke everything got

38:45

hacked this will probably be that times

38:47

10 or times 100.

38:49

>> Um does security mean you compete with

38:51

crowdstrike and places like that? Like

38:53

what does security mean and what's its

38:55

trajectory in this crazy era?

38:57

>> These models just are like so much more

39:00

persistent than people actually. And so

39:03

they will just like try nine quadrillion

39:07

things the way a person would sort of

39:09

give up after I don't know 9,000 right

39:11

and then in the course of that they find

39:14

things and chain things together and so

39:17

I think there is a little bit like a lot

39:19

of the discourse is around zero days and

39:21

there's definitely some of that these

39:22

models are finding that we didn't find

39:24

before or didn't publicly find before. I

39:27

think actually though what's more so

39:29

happening is these models are able to

39:31

chain like 17 benignish or benign on

39:36

their own things together and then like

39:38

really find something and like if you

39:40

watch the the open AI talk at RSA about

39:43

hugging face it's basically that it's

39:45

just like persistence and putting

39:48

together things that on their own people

39:50

would have been like that's low severity

39:51

I'll fix it in 90 days right anyway that

39:54

anyway but that update which I

39:57

is tough and we have to fight with

39:59

machines because it takes what was like,

40:01

oh that's important but low severity and

40:03

again 90 days and like I'm going to fix

40:05

this other stuff first. Like it just

40:07

turns the prioritization on its head

40:10

and saying it makes everything critical

40:11

isn't helpful because you're like well

40:12

what do you do then? Right? But I think

40:15

what that ends up looking like is you've

40:17

just got to fix stuff as fast as you

40:19

find it. And some of the prioritization

40:22

does need to go out the window.

40:24

But if you're fixing, you know, again,

40:26

if you're fixing things at machine

40:27

speed, you sort of don't have to

40:29

prioritize. So that's where I think

40:30

we're going to get to. But I think it'll

40:33

it'll be rocky as we get there.

40:35

>> So as I visualize that,

40:36

>> what that feels like to me is a constant

40:39

penetration test.

40:40

>> Yes.

40:41

>> Where an agent is trying to break in

40:43

like a white hack white hacker agent all

40:45

the time and then every time it finds

40:47

something, it's like got a buddy agent

40:48

that's a patcher

40:49

>> goes fix it. Yeah.

40:50

>> Is that like the ultimate product vision

40:52

then? for some parts of Vanta. Yes. Yes.

40:56

I think we can do that in very

40:58

compelling ways for the bulk of our

41:00

customers. I think CrowdStrike will do

41:02

it better for an enterprise, right? I

41:04

think this is where choosing where you

41:06

play and like what market segment is

41:08

most important there.

41:09

>> Is there a firm that's doing something

41:10

now that you start to encroach on like

41:12

of the traditional security?

41:13

>> A different market. I mean, take a like

41:15

okay your um ongoing like penetration

41:19

tester and you know remediator fixer,

41:22

right? We think we can do that for the

41:25

cloud providers like an AWS and Azure

41:27

like misconfigurations there classically

41:29

like right whis does that whis will do

41:32

it for its customers. Whee's customer

41:33

base starts at a multi,000 person

41:35

company and their price point count

41:37

starts at a multi,000 person company and

41:39

so we're more thinking about the

41:41

platform as where are we already

41:43

embedded with customers? where are they

41:46

unlikely to go pay $150,000 for a whiz,

41:50

but very well could pay 40 or 50 for

41:52

something suited to them. And so kind of

41:54

thinking through where are we already

41:57

strong and where are the the competitors

41:59

focused probably elsewhere but probably

42:01

on a more market segment.

42:02

>> How has your personal motivation

42:04

changed? Like you set out to build this

42:06

thing. I remember talking to you the

42:07

first time about this uh very charming

42:09

way you built the original product like

42:11

building an Excel first and it seems

42:12

very old school you know looking back

42:14

looking back on it and there's always

42:16

like the dog that caught the car thing

42:18

where like all right you built like this

42:19

huge software business amazing how has

42:21

your own motivation evolved or changed

42:23

through all this

42:25

>> like why keep going

42:26

>> it's interesting and challenging and it

42:29

changes all the time I mean I think

42:30

there's like I really like my job

42:33

sometimes I feel like I'm good at it

42:34

often I feel like I'm bad about at

42:36

that's fine. Like that's in some ways

42:37

not the point. Um, but it's changes and

42:41

it's different and when I feel like I've

42:42

gotten good at it, usually something

42:44

happens where then I feel, you know, it

42:46

it just changes and then I feel bad at

42:47

it again. And I really like that

42:49

dynamic. I think in

42:53

the beginning I had a lot more of a

42:56

feeling of people think I can't do this

42:59

and I think I can and I'm going to show

43:01

them. And I still have that, you know,

43:03

even to the like you don't think band is

43:05

gonna be 250 billion, like let me show

43:07

you. I still have it, but I think you

43:08

can probably tell there's like less of a

43:11

dark edge to it. Still a little dark

43:13

edge, but like there's less of it. It's

43:14

like, oh, cool. We got here now. We're

43:17

just going to see how far we can run in

43:20

a way that feels a little bit more like

43:22

fun and joyful. I did it. It's not

43:24

always joyful. I don't mean that, but

43:25

just like that feels it feels more, oh,

43:29

cool. Let's see how far we can go with

43:31

this. And I think we can go pretty damn

43:32

far. Whereas I think in the beginning it

43:35

was more like you don't think I can get

43:36

off the starting line. Let me show you.

43:39

Vanta automates compliance so your team

43:41

can spend less time on security reviews

43:43

and more time getting customers. Vanta

43:45

cuts audit prep by 82% and gives you

43:48

instant up-to-date proof of trust

43:50

without all the manual work so you can

43:52

close deals faster and with less

43:54

friction. Customers report a 526%

43:57

return on investment and more than

43:59

16,000 companies use Vanta, including

44:02

Ramp, Harvey, and Snowflake. Get started

44:04

with $1,000 off at vanta.com/invest.

44:08

Ridgeline is the only AI native

44:10

investment management platform that

44:11

brings the front, middle, and back

44:13

office together in one system. It gives

44:15

firms one place for their data and uses

44:17

AI agents to automate repetitive work

44:19

like onboarding, reconciliation, post

44:21

trade, compliance, and reporting so

44:23

teams can spend more time on investing,

44:25

serving clients, and growing the

44:26

business. Ridgeline is built to give you

44:28

time back that can change the trajectory

44:30

of your firm and be the inflection point

44:32

that takes your growth from incremental

44:33

to accelerated. Ridgeline also wants to

44:35

help asset and wealth managers

44:36

understand and improve their firm's

44:38

growth trajectory. So, they built an

44:39

interactive dashboard that lets you see

44:41

how your firm compares to 16,000 peers.

44:44

If you file a form ADV, your firm is

44:46

already in it. Visit

44:47

ridgeline.ai/trajectory

44:49

to see where your firm stands. Then talk

44:51

to Ridgeline about how you can do more

44:53

with the team you already have.

44:55

>> How surprised would the 8-year-old

44:57

version of you be at some specific skill

44:59

that you've developed in the way?

45:01

>> I'm probably surprised.

45:02

>> What's like the most surprising one that

45:04

you're now good at that you old you

45:07

would have said, "No way."

45:09

>> I like go to market more than I ever

45:11

would have guessed. Um

45:12

>> because why?

45:14

>> Well, I think it's like you get to talk

45:16

to like personable like friendly people

45:19

all the time.

45:19

>> I mean, I was like a terrible public

45:21

speaker and public public speaker being

45:25

um and actually I would get the most

45:26

nervous in front of my own team because

45:27

I cared the most about what they thought

45:29

about me and like and I was like, "Oh my

45:32

god, I'm representing you. I want to do

45:33

this so well." Exposure therapy was

45:35

helpful on that one. You like you just

45:37

do it and you do get better at it. But I

45:40

think the like thought of like being at

45:43

kickoff or at all company get together

45:45

in front of a thousand people on a stage

45:48

and I think it would have been like a

45:50

like I'm going to be bad at that

45:51

and I think the people around me would

45:52

have been like yeah yeah she'll be bad

45:53

at that like maybe she should you know

45:55

how much coaching can she get and you

45:57

know I think it's like anything else

45:58

it's like yeah if you work hard at

46:00

developing a skill you tend to get

46:01

better you have to put in the work but

46:03

like

46:03

>> in that one particular I'm very

46:04

interested in that one seems always high

46:07

leverage what matters to like you're

46:09

giving you've given however many

46:10

hundreds of these things like what makes

46:13

one good

46:13

>> like the trope of like no one remembers

46:15

what you say but they remember how you

46:16

felt it's so annoying but it is so true

46:19

for me at least like I do have to

46:21

believe in the content and if I just get

46:23

up and it is like content I feel like it

46:25

is content less I will also I will feel

46:27

that way and it will be obvious to

46:28

everyone you know so like you kind of

46:30

have to figure out your version of it

46:32

which for me I try to put real content

46:35

in and then also hold in my head like no

46:37

one's going to remember any of these

46:38

facts So that's not heart matters more

46:40

than mind.

46:40

>> So much more. Yeah.

46:41

>> Yeah. Yeah.

46:42

>> And the key to good heart is just like

46:44

is what?

46:45

>> Believing in it yourself. Like I don't

46:47

know, authenticity one-on-one on a

46:49

stage. Like people are pretty good at

46:52

reading one another. And when someone

46:54

when you feel like the person you're

46:55

talking to is like going through the

46:57

motions or doesn't really feel like it

46:59

or is or is like misleading you, maybe

47:01

also misleading themselves, you know,

47:02

like people can tell. they can't

47:05

entirely articulate what's happening,

47:07

but it's like something seems off. Um,

47:10

versus someone who is like authentically

47:12

into it, you know, even if you even if

47:14

they're into something kooky, that just

47:17

comes off.

47:18

>> What are the big trade-offs that you

47:20

struggle with right now? Like, you can't

47:22

do everything. You got to make

47:23

decisions. The stakes are higher than

47:25

ever. It's easier to build than ever.

47:27

>> Seems like a cool time to be doing what

47:29

you're doing, but there must be big

47:31

trade-offs that you struggle with. What

47:32

What are those for

47:33

>> Yeah. I mean one conversation or ha have

47:36

had and have is we have tried over the

47:40

last year to build in such an

47:41

agentforward way. Can talk through some

47:44

of like what that's look like.

47:45

>> What does agent mean?

47:48

>> Like why is that not just AI? Like why

47:51

does that mean?

47:52

>> I don't know. You get 2x revenue

47:53

multiple if you say agent. It's like 3x

47:55

if you say harness

47:57

could say harness more

47:59

prompt file like minus 3x you know.

48:04

So is it the but agent just means AI,

48:06

right?

48:06

>> You live in San Francisco. Sorry.

48:10

>> I'm Everyone's saying agent so much. I

48:11

don't even know what that means. It just

48:13

means AI, right?

48:14

>> Yes.

48:14

>> Okay.

48:14

>> Yes.

48:15

>> So keep going.

48:16

>> Yes. We've tried to build such a great

48:17

harness.

48:20

you're trying to build

48:22

such a great hardness for our customers,

48:24

but actually and

48:27

not build a bunch of SAS UI, you know,

48:29

it's like, oh, you want reporting, we

48:30

will have our agent go make charts for

48:32

you on demand based on all of our data.

48:34

We're not going to like put Tableau

48:36

inside of Vanta, which is probably what

48:37

we would have done in 2022, 2021 if we

48:40

had been building it then. And we

48:42

believe in this in like a short-term

48:44

customer outcome sense, but also in a

48:46

like medium to long term, like this is

48:48

what software will look like. And no one

48:50

is going to be putting Tableau inside

48:51

their products.

48:53

More joking than serious. Although some

48:55

people actually put Tableau inside their

48:56

products.

48:57

>> So there's an aspect of like the this

48:59

diffusion thing is just scary because

49:02

maybe the tractor takes 10 years,

49:04

tractor company takes 10 years and in

49:06

the meantime you were right but early

49:08

and therefore wrong.

49:09

>> Right. And therefore wrong, you know,

49:11

and you're kind of betting on the time

49:12

horizon there. And um the other version

49:15

of this actually big enterprises were

49:17

working with a a US enterprise trying to

49:19

close and they basically were like hey

49:23

maybe we want your AI features maybe we

49:24

won't but can you turn them off for now

49:27

why the answer is like cuz I because

49:29

it's a way easier to get a nonAI tool

49:32

through procurement and we want your

49:33

>> turn it on after we're in

49:35

>> right and like we don't really have an

49:36

off switch on you know you're like oh

49:38

didn't we go build that but you're like

49:40

gross like we don't want to build that.

49:43

Hopefully, we don't have to use it. We'd

49:45

so much rather take that time and effort

49:47

and build something, you know, actually

49:48

useful. Anyway, we're not we're not

49:51

going to build this off switch. But it's

49:52

just one of those where you're like

49:54

those trade-offs.

49:56

>> If you were an investor, which you used

49:58

to be,

49:58

>> yeah,

49:59

>> where would you be focused right now?

50:02

>> O, do not envy the job at all right now.

50:06

>> Why Why don't you envy it? as much as

50:10

I can like critique and make fun of on

50:12

the company side the like oh I think

50:14

people are mis thinking about some of

50:17

these businesses in a like very short

50:19

term way I think the FOMO

50:24

and what are your returns and like I saw

50:27

this tweet if you haven't like invested

50:29

in a lab or an inference provider in the

50:32

last four years you should just shut

50:35

down your firm because like what are you

50:36

doing um it feels like more acute uh on

50:40

the investor side than the company side.

50:42

And so it's like however hard I think my

50:43

life is, my life's not hard to be clear,

50:45

but like whatever these trade-offs are

50:47

that we're facing, it feels like more

50:50

echochambery,

50:52

more judged on incremental returns and

50:54

paper returns on the VC side than the

50:56

company side.

50:57

>> So what would you do? Where would you

50:58

where would you hunt?

50:59

>> Yeah, the labs and the inference

51:01

providers apparently. No. Um those feel

51:03

a little Well, we can debate whether it

51:04

played out, but like high entry prices

51:07

It feels like the discourse and kind of

51:08

the certainty around the open source

51:10

provide open source model providers and

51:12

then like the tooling and the companies

51:14

around them feel sort of disconnected.

51:16

It's kind of like oh we've all decided

51:18

the open source model prov like will be

51:20

very real

51:22

and then the ecosystem around them is so

51:24

much less built out than the big labs

51:26

and that just feels off to me. You

51:28

probably have better

51:29

>> what do you mean by ecosystem around

51:30

them?

51:31

>> If you think that a like a lab or is it

51:34

long lake is that what it's called? like

51:36

these like we're basically just going to

51:38

go deploy this technology and put AI in

51:40

these businesses.

51:41

>> Can you build one of those around the

51:43

open source providers? If you think like

51:46

it see like of course yes and I'm I'm

51:47

like sure on some level along like it's

51:49

doing that but like can you really grab

51:51

one of those models the way OpenAI is

51:53

grabbing its own stuff and just kind of

51:55

replicate that playbook. Basically a

51:57

bunch of the like lab playbooks seems

52:01

like they should apply to the open

52:02

source models

52:03

>> and it's just less mature. Yeah.

52:04

>> And so there's more to do there.

52:05

Exactly.

52:05

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

52:06

>> Why Why isn't people Yeah. What am I

52:08

missing on that?

52:09

>> I just I think it's just like a pace

52:11

thing.

52:11

>> Yeah.

52:11

>> I think it's anything where these things

52:13

can go.

52:14

>> It's kind of like ironically private

52:16

equity or something what private equity

52:18

promised to do which was to shape

52:20

businesses up.

52:20

>> Yep.

52:21

>> Now they can much more easily.

52:22

>> Y

52:23

>> and so uh probably everything will get

52:25

way more efficient if it can

52:27

>> and the return will come from higher

52:29

margin, you know, more efficient

52:31

operations, whatever.

52:32

>> Yep. But that's that's like an

52:34

efficiency thing, not a generative

52:36

thing.

52:36

>> Yep. And so I guess what I'm more

52:38

curious about as you watch your peers

52:40

and people around you is where are the

52:42

green shoots on the generative side?

52:44

>> I mean, bunch of people starting

52:46

security cyber companies both because

52:48

the environment and like I see

52:49

proportionally more of those than other

52:51

things. A bunch of people attacking rev

52:55

like go to market technology which I

52:56

think is like makes ton of sense. I

52:59

think actually some of the you know old

53:01

SAS rev providers they should be

53:04

building all this stuff but it doesn't

53:05

seem like they are and actually they're

53:06

running more like PE ben spoon sort of

53:09

playbooks which is again a choice like a

53:12

maybe a reasonable choice. Robotics is

53:15

probably underplayed. I mean like

53:16

somewhat hot and hypy uh like that's not

53:19

a novel area but it's still definitely

53:23

underweighted compared to all the

53:24

software stuff. the models are also

53:27

getting like real damn good there to

53:28

state the obvious. So probably spend

53:30

time there.

53:31

>> What what else do you feel like you know

53:33

because of your unique path that others

53:36

don't yet fully appreciate? Over the

53:39

past couple of years, Vanta has spent

53:42

more time with governments at federal,

53:46

state, local levels inside the US,

53:48

outside the US. And

53:51

there is an appetite for modernization,

53:55

big stated priority of the current US

53:56

administration, but again exists outside

53:58

of the US too. And I think

54:03

the AI piece has created more FOMO in

54:07

like government officials where you know

54:10

they may have always known they did not

54:11

have modern processes or modern software

54:13

but it feels more of an imperative now

54:15

than it used to. So I think there's

54:18

something there.

54:19

Maybe here's a here's a broader answer.

54:22

All of the conversation around AI and

54:24

the technology has changed the priority

54:28

and upped the priority of a lot of

54:31

modernization. Sometimes it's within

54:33

governments, sometimes it's within

54:35

enterprises. We see this with actually a

54:37

lot of the cyber stuff in the CISOs we

54:39

talk to. their jobs are changing because

54:41

of AI and they're saying, "Oh, given AI

54:45

and like the risks from the agents, I

54:47

would like to overhaul my enterprise

54:48

risk program and I would like budget for

54:51

that." And I think if they kind of said,

54:53

"I want budget for my enterprise risk

54:55

program three years ago." People would

54:56

be like, "We'll talk about AOP maybe."

55:00

And I think because it's attached to AI,

55:02

they are much more likely to get that

55:03

budget today. So there is more of a

55:05

buying motion. What would be your big

55:07

pitch to come work at Vanta right now?

55:10

>> Oh, it's a fun stage. You get 16,000

55:14

customers

55:15

using a product, using agents. When you

55:18

ship things, they are in use by real

55:20

people getting like real feedback

55:23

instantly. It has product market fit.

55:25

You're just like going and experimenting

55:28

>> um with like fast iteration loops,

55:30

>> but early enough that you could still

55:32

>> But like you can move. Yeah. Yeah. We

55:34

let you move. Yes.

55:35

>> Yeah. Because it's such an amazing

55:37

Silicon Valley microcosm. Can you tell

55:39

like the most detailed version of the

55:41

Billboard war story that you've ever

55:43

told?

55:44

>> I was always very much a billboard

55:46

skeptic cuz it seemed like they didn't

55:48

actually or like who knows if they work.

55:50

The tracking is terrible, but like

55:53

founder like founder ego was why someone

55:55

would do a billboard. It's like cuz I

55:56

feel cool cuz my company has a

55:57

billboard. So I was always very anti-

55:59

billboard.

56:02

midsummer 2021

56:06

SAS conference which felt like a big

56:09

deal at the time like thank god we've

56:10

almost beyond that we decided or our

56:13

marketing team decided to try out of

56:15

home I was like super skeptical but it

56:17

was like fine whatever I

56:20

try it you know and we were going to put

56:22

something on the billboard and Sarah who

56:25

was our PMM at the time came up with

56:27

compliance that doesn't suck too much

56:30

and pitched to our head of marketing who

56:34

didn't like it cuz thought we were like

56:35

negging our users and was basically like

56:39

no don't think harder and much nicer but

56:42

like think harder and Sarah kind of

56:44

believed in it and so she went to me

56:46

which she usually does not like go she

56:48

is not a like go around her boss person

56:50

but like really believed in compliance

56:52

that doesn't suck too much and so took

56:55

it to me and I read it and I like

56:59

immediately left actually immediately

57:01

texted Andrew Reed, our investor, as

57:04

like, "What do you think? You have good

57:06

um internet meme taste. He loved it."

57:09

And so you're like, "Okay, let's try it.

57:12

Let's run it." So like, "What's the

57:13

worst that's going to happen?" People

57:15

will think we're obnoxious and then

57:16

probably forget in six months. Actually

57:18

seems like relative. Anyway, so we stand

57:20

the billboard up somewhere like near

57:23

Berlin Game.

57:25

It goes over so well. We tweet it. The

57:29

tweet goes viral. the tweet then is

57:32

still over the next couple months but

57:32

like ends up on our slash accounting as

57:34

a funnel right you're like oh this is a

57:36

gem and I think it it really worked

57:39

because like and it's our it's our brand

57:41

at our best and our marketing at the

57:43

best our our attribute is with a wink

57:45

but it's like you know we take our work

57:48

seriously but we don't always take

57:49

ourselves seriously and so I think there

57:52

was something to that that resonated and

57:54

then I think there was something to like

57:56

it was a little obscure but it wasn't so

57:58

obsc but it was like sufficiently

58:00

obscure where if you got it, you felt

58:01

like you got a secret anyway. And so

58:03

like compliance that doesn't suck too

58:04

much just worked. Okay. 22 market

58:07

crashes. Turns out there's a lot of

58:09

billboard inventory available on 101. So

58:12

we get this great spot, right, where

58:14

like 101 and 280 sort of intersect and

58:16

on this anyway great spot for like not

58:20

that much, especially in retrospect. And

58:23

we're like we joke and we're like, "Oh

58:24

yeah, we've like locked it up for years

58:26

like what?" And so we were known for

58:27

this billboard in this spot.

58:31

I think even on podcast I said the

58:32

contract was locked up for years. It was

58:34

not locked up for years, but that

58:36

billboard got famous. And so we people

58:38

would contact us and Sarah all the time

58:40

and be like, "How do you do billboards?

58:41

How do you do your billboards?" And

58:42

we're like, "Oh, we work with this

58:43

agency. We work with this guy." And so

58:45

we referred this guy all of this

58:47

business. So we just be like, "It's him.

58:49

It's him. It's him." All like millions

58:52

of dollars of business. Great.

58:55

Okay. Turns out in the background we did

58:57

not have a multi-year contract, which I

58:59

should have shown. Certainly if I was

59:01

going to say that on a podcast, not

59:02

really do what it says on the tin. And

59:05

the contract was basically like, you've

59:08

put the billboard up. That's it. Like

59:10

this this was like not a contract at

59:12

all. Multiple years go by,

59:15

Sarah's at like seeing one of her

59:17

friends for dinner, works at a startup,

59:20

and her friend was like, "Oh, it's so

59:22

sad you guys like gave up that billboard

59:24

spot. like why'd you do that? And Sarah

59:26

was like, "Pardon?" And they were like,

59:28

"Oh, yeah. We just signed for your

59:30

spot." And Sarah's like, "What? Will we

59:33

go back?" Or like, "Contract contract."

59:36

Contract written in crayon. There is no

59:38

contract. Basically, it's a placement

59:40

order.

59:42

Called the guy and he's like, "Yeah, you

59:44

know, it's a placement order. They they

59:45

paid more." So, we like swapped it out

59:48

underneath us. I go to founder of said

59:50

company and be like, "Hello, can I like

59:53

how much can I pay you?" And I am like

59:55

an extremely inelastic buyer here. Like

59:58

what can I pay you for this spot? And

1:00:01

he's like, "Nothing." And I'm like, "How

1:00:03

about I double?" I think he was paying

1:00:04

like a million and a half. And you're

1:00:06

like, "How about I give you three

1:00:08

just to get this spot?" And he's like,

1:00:09

"We're actually cash flow positive." So

1:00:11

like literally there is no like I'm in

1:00:13

an elastic seller.

1:00:16

And so we lost the spot. Things that

1:00:18

made me think where I was like, "Oh no,

1:00:20

Vanta's screwed." Honestly, losing that

1:00:23

billboard, I was like, we did probably

1:00:24

just lose a billion of market cap. Bad

1:00:26

omen.

1:00:26

>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Both bad omen

1:00:29

and like there is some market cap, you

1:00:31

know, like vibesy market cap decrease

1:00:33

that just happened here. Yes.

1:00:36

>> Is there anything I've missed a bet? Has

1:00:38

your curiosity, your attention that you

1:00:41

think is really important right now?

1:00:44

>> You see it in the data center

1:00:45

conversations

1:00:47

to some extent in the personal agent

1:00:49

stuff. It's like we just don't trust

1:00:50

software companies, tech companies the

1:00:53

way we used to. And that is like getting

1:00:54

worse year over year. And it's kind of

1:00:56

hard to imagine that inflecting back up

1:01:00

and getting to the like useful optimism

1:01:03

of 15 years ago. And so I think in that

1:01:07

companies showing that they are

1:01:08

trustworthy and industrial grade and

1:01:11

secure through lots of metrics and

1:01:14

actual definitions is like more

1:01:15

important than ever and will just get

1:01:17

more and more important. And again to a

1:01:21

host of customers, regulators,

1:01:22

lawmakers, auditors, etc. Vanta at 250

1:01:26

billion is like in the center of all of

1:01:28

those transactions

1:01:30

helping companies meet those high bars

1:01:33

or wherever those bars are set and then

1:01:36

conveying that like helping them go

1:01:38

convey that and accelerate their

1:01:39

business.

1:01:40

>> Another way of saying that like AI has

1:01:41

ushered in this extremely high

1:01:43

excitement but low trust.

1:01:46

>> Yeah, that's a good

1:01:47

>> era.

1:01:47

>> Yes. And Vant's job is

1:01:50

preserve the excitement but

1:01:51

>> increase yeah increase the trust and

1:01:53

like on legitimately so not just on

1:01:55

vibes on like yeah yeah

1:01:56

>> what will satisfy the market to trust

1:02:00

again

1:02:00

>> I think in a B2B context like businesses

1:02:04

I do think there's a bit of like there's

1:02:06

the vibes piece but there's a very real

1:02:08

data piece and it's like and I would

1:02:09

like to see specific things or specific

1:02:13

improvement curves or may have make

1:02:15

promises with maybe contracts behind

1:02:17

Right. I think that one's a much more

1:02:19

quoteunquote logical rational the way

1:02:21

like enterprise markets often are. I

1:02:22

think on the consumer side it is vibes

1:02:26

and I don't

1:02:28

that one seems very hard to turn. I do

1:02:31

not envy.

1:02:31

>> Do you trust them? Muse instinct etc.

1:02:35

>> big companies. No.

1:02:38

>> Why not?

1:02:39

>> It's not that there's anything

1:02:40

particularly interesting in my, you

1:02:42

know, email or, you know, chats or

1:02:44

whatever. like it's not my life's not

1:02:46

that interesting, but I would rather you

1:02:49

know just Google or like or just Apple

1:02:51

or just insert company here have that

1:02:53

information.

1:02:54

>> What's security like 5 years from now?

1:02:55

Like if you just wrap it up with like,

1:02:57

okay, here's here's we're going. We want

1:02:59

to be the person at the center of this.

1:03:01

Describe that state for us. security

1:03:03

from 5 years from now is faster, even

1:03:07

more intense, more offensive hopefully

1:03:10

in that like yes, we'll have more

1:03:11

attacks, but I think you need more like

1:03:13

white hat pushing back on all of that.

1:03:17

And just to get a speed that we haven't

1:03:19

had and I think you've got to get humans

1:03:21

to get to that speed, you've got to get

1:03:22

a lot of some amount of the human

1:03:24

decision-m out or humans are like

1:03:25

architecting systems and writing rules

1:03:28

but not making every single decision.

1:03:30

It's like falling from that

1:03:32

>> writing evals. Maybe that's all we're

1:03:33

doing in the future. We're all writing

1:03:35

evals all day long.

1:03:36

>> If you had to define what the next five

1:03:38

years of Vanta will be in one word, what

1:03:42

word do you pick?

1:03:43

>> Expansive.

1:03:44

I think we have this incredible base of

1:03:47

customers of data and now we get to go

1:03:50

build things on top of that. And it like

1:03:53

8 years to get here, we could go just

1:03:55

build stuff on top of it for the next

1:03:57

five or eight.

1:03:58

>> It's so cool that we did this 5 years

1:03:59

ago. So, here we are again. Thanks so

1:04:00

much for your time.

1:04:05

>> You know how small advantages compound

1:04:06

over time? That's true in investing and

1:04:08

just as true in how you run your

1:04:10

company. Your spending system is your

1:04:11

capital allocation strategy. Ramp makes

1:04:14

it smarter by default. Better data,

1:04:15

better decisions, better economics over

1:04:17

time. See how at ramp.com/invest.

1:04:20

As your business grows, Vanta scales

1:04:21

with you, automating compliance and

1:04:23

giving you a single source of truth for

1:04:25

security and risk. Learn more at

1:04:27

vanta.com/invest.

1:04:29

The best AI and software companies from

1:04:30

OpenAI to cursor to Perplexity use work

1:04:33

OS to become enterprise ready overnight,

1:04:35

not in months. Visit workos.com to skip

1:04:38

the unglamorous infrastructure work and

1:04:40

focus on your product. Ridgeline is

1:04:41

redefining asset management technology

1:04:43

as a true partner, not just a software

1:04:45

vendor. They've helped firms 5x and

1:04:47

scale, enabling faster growth, smarter

1:04:49

operations, and a competitive edge.

1:04:51

Visit ridgelineapps.com to see what they

1:04:54

can unlock for your firm.

Continue with YouTLDR

Analyze another video with Pro

Process a new video, search every timestamp, compare sources, and keep the result in your library.

Get Pro — $12/month30-day money-back guarantee

More transcripts

Explore other videos transcribed with YouTLDR.