Uncapped #17 | Christina Cacioppo from Vanta

Christina Cacioppo is cofounder and CEO of Vanta, which is on a mission to secure the internet and protect consumer data. The trust management platform was valued at $2.5 billion in 2024 after a Series C investment led by Sequoia. Vanta went from $10M in annual recurring revenue in 2021 to $100M in 2024, while also giving us one of the best tech billboards of all time, “Compliance that doesn’t SOC 2 much.” Before founding Vanta in 2018, Christina was an investor at Union Square Ventures and helped bring Dropbox Paper to market as a product manager. We covered: Operating in a competitive market Fundraising frameworks Recruiting as you scale What should be AI-ified internally The inner game of being a founder --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:25) Staying under the radar (3:29) No referees in capitalism (5:20) Shipping velocity (6:43) Mindset on competition (8:09) Structuring a GTM approach (10:25) Fundraising strategies (16:36) VCs being “helpful” (21:57) Recruiting as you scale (28:33) Adapting to the AI era (32:09) What should be AI-ified (38:18) Mental game of being a founder --- More on Vanta and Christina: https://www.vanta.com/ https://x.com/christinacaci More on Alt Capital and Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  No, you just have to like Stockholm syndrome yourself into being like, well, I used to be someone who liked to build products, but now I love building teams. And whether or not I identified as that person at two years ago, doesn't matter. Now that's me and I believe it, you know? And then like, when it changes, you're like, now I'm this person. I love HR policy. Because that's what the company needs right now.

• 0:19Jack Altman?

  All right. I'm here with Christina from Vanta and very excited for this conversation. Thanks for doing this with me.

• 0:23Speaker 00

  Thanks so much for having me.

• 0:24Jack Altman?

  Okay, so what I want to start with is we are in a moment with AI where I would say markets are probably as promising, but also as competitive as they've ever been. There's a lot of ideas that seem very greenfield and the result of that is there's tons of startups going at them. And so I think a very, very common founder experience today is you build a thing that makes a lot of sense and you look around you and there's 13 other companies also building something that makes a lot of sense. You've operated in a really competitive market for a really long time. And so I thought something founders could learn from you about would be operating a competitive market. So I want to start there. I guess the first place I wanted to go with it is the mentality, I think, that you've learned over the years that it takes to succeed. So can you talk a little bit about what's the mindset that

• 1:08Jack Altman?

  you've gotten yourself to over the years?

• 1:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, for sure. And a bit of like, very short version of the history, which is Vanta started in 2018. We were the first person who did what we did. We had about two years where our competitors were accountants and consultants. And when we were selling to founders and engineers, that was wonderful. Would you like software? Would you like an accountant? And then I tried to kind of keep it quiet about how well we were doing. We'd got out. And then in 2020, when everyone was at home board, lots of people started Vanta competitors.

• 1:34Jack Altman?

  You did try to keep it quiet for a while there, right?

• 1:36Speaker 00

  We did, yes. And some of it actually was like, we know this is really good and we know people will knock it off. So how far can we run?

• 1:42Jack Altman?

  And your mindset was basically just like, let's get as much traction as possible before people think that this is a good idea.

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Yes, because people thought it was a terrible idea. No startups got socked to us. No one knew, no one could spell it. It was just like, why are you like seemingly nice people working on compliance? Like, what's like, do you need some help?

• 1:58Jack Altman?

  And how did you know it was good? How did you have the confidence to know it was good enough that you should keep it a secret?

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Because when you talk to people, when you talk to founders who had this problem, they were like, I will pay you any amount of money and I will crawl through any amount of money for this. It's like, I really want this thing and I can't get it. And if you can get me there, I am all here for whatever you put me through.

• 2:17Jack Altman?

  Were you getting customers with like a janky product?

• 2:19Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 2:20Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  During Y C, a Y C company that bought Vanta called it the brutalist white website.

• 2:25Jack Altman?

  That sounds nice.

• 2:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, that was, that was, the brutalist white website sucked in a million ways, except it got people to their outcome.

• 2:33Jack Altman?

  I guess you also had a very good why now, right? Like there like a thing really happened.

• 2:36Speaker 00

  Kind of, or like, yes.

• 2:38Jack Altman?

  Or did that just seem that way?

• 2:39Speaker 00

  It just seemed that way. Like, the why now existed in 2016 and 2014. I think, like, why was it 18? And I think it was because generally if you said compliance to an engineer, they ran screaming from the room.

• 2:50Jack Altman?

  So what was the first year it could have happened?

• 2:52Speaker 00

  14, probably, 13, 14.

• 2:54Jack Altman?

  Okay.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:54Jack Altman?

  So it was a reasonable thing, but it was like,

• 2:56Speaker 00

  But I couldn't give you a-

• 2:57Jack Altman?

  A startup could have done it for a few years.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:59Jack Altman?

  Okay.

• 2:59Speaker 00

  And so that's actually, I used to love the why now question, especially about USV. You're like, oh, it's so intellectual and like-

• 3:04Jack Altman?

  Well, I didn't know that there was that gap in time between-

• 3:06Speaker 00

  And then with Vanta, you're like, yeah, yeah, I only have one of a why now.

• 3:09Jack Altman?

  I thought Vanta was the first one take, which I guess you were the first one to take advantage of it.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  But like, again, someone could have.

• 3:14Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:15Jack Altman?

  Okay.

• 3:15Speaker 00

  There were a couple really manual solutions, but I think it was like lawyers looked at the problem, compliance people looked at the problem and they so, they solved it in just a different way than an engineer.

• 3:24Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  But like, we weren't particularly, you know, it was like, anyone could have figured that part out. They just didn't.

• 3:29Jack Altman?

  Okay, so you, you stayed secretive as long as you could, but then at some point you didn't, you weren't secretive.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, and the word kind of got out. And so, and then we got this like host of knockoffs and, you know, I think we went through like, oh, well, they're just knocking off. Or like, oh, they took screenshots of Vanta and sent them to a dev shop in Mexico and got the product back. And then said, Vanta took two years to build this and we built it in two months. And like, they suck and we're awesome.

• 3:51Jack Altman?

  Is that how they said it too?

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Yes, they're literally in that.

• 3:53Jack Altman?

  That was their voice.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Yes, very surfer bro.

• 3:54Jack Altman?

  Uh huh.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  You know, we like went through the phase of like, well, that won't work or that's not fair or like. And I think the thing, you know, you learn is like, all is fair in love and capitalism. And it doesn't, you know, no one cares. And like customer, like customers are trying to solve the problem.

• 4:11Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  And like, they don't care if you're first. They care if you're the best thing today.

• 4:15Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  They don't care if, you know, you were secret chopped and someone took screenshots and like ripped everything off. There's no referees in capitalism.

• 4:23Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Um, and you kind of want there to be one, but like, there's not.

• 4:26Jack Altman?

  There's not.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  And I think you've got to stop searching for one. And

• 4:30Jack Altman?

  Did you have a thing switch for you? Like, were you at one point looking for referee? And then you decided to stop?

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Yes. And then you're like, there's like, what am I, you know, like even like if I had a magic wand, what would I con like, what would the referee? And you're like, I don't know, you know?

• 4:41Jack Altman?

  Great.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  I think you see, you see investors fund these, like investors don't care. And you're like, kind of take it personally. And then you're like, you know, it's like not, it's capitalism. Like it's not personal.

• 4:51Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  And so I think the, the switch was eventually, it's like, cool, we started this thing, but again, no one cares. I'm also kind of trying to de-emphasize it. I mean, it's important internally, but it's also not or not to not like rest on your laurels way.

• 5:02Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Like, I think a lot of why I do and a lot of us like software is because it's so fast moving.

• 5:06Jack Altman?

  Mm hmm.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Blessing and cursed. And you're like, only as good as the last thing you shipped.

• 5:09Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 5:10Speaker 00

  And so it's like, okay, cool. What have you shipped for me lately?

• 5:12Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  And like, that's how customers think. And that is great and terrible, but like also reality. And so you just got to go with that.

• 5:19Jack Altman?

  Yeah. What else from a mindset, you know, perspective, did you end up building over time besides like all's fair and love and capitalism? Which I think is like a very, uh, that is like hard, hard earned wisdom. But what else came to you over time?

• 5:33Speaker 00

  Shipping velocity. Uh, cause I think also, you know, then the Vanta, and even the Vanta of like a pre-competitive era, we like tried to get stuff right the first time. And so we'd write these long specs and do all this work and then like take a long time to ship something. And then it was wrong and not, you know, through anyone's fault. It's just usually the first thing you put in front of a customer is in fact wrong. But we would like had spent six months on that.

• 5:55Jack Altman?

  Right.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  And then we get this kind of negative feedback and then, and then we're just like very demoralized. And then customers like, what have you shipped for me lately? Like nothing.

• 6:03Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Right? And so trying to get to like the frame, and I feel it's way in my career too. It's like, I very rarely if ever ship the right thing the first time, but I can usually ship the right thing by like the fourth time.

• 6:14Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  And so the team, it's like, how do you minimize the time between, you know, the zero within the fourth shift?

• 6:20Jack Altman?

  How quickly can we get to V four?

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 6:22Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  And like V four should be right and I'll hold you to that. But V one, like V one does not have to be right. And like trying to switch to that mindset, because I think we had a lot of people who are, you know, like good students and done one in school. And want to get it right on the test and get it right the first time and feel bad. And you're like, no, no, no. Like that's the mental model of school, but actually not to real life.

• 6:40Jack Altman?

  Totally.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  And trying to like flip that too.

• 6:42Jack Altman?

  Competition is one of the like more psychologically vexing parts of a startup.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:48Jack Altman?

  Do you try to minimize how much you think about it or how much your team thinks about it? Like, what's the, what have you tried to cultivate for yourself, your exec team, your broader team about competition?

• 7:01Speaker 00

  I think there is, and this works kind of sometimes well and sometimes not, but I think for me, what I, when I'm at my best, what I try to do is like, if a competitor is do, if a competitor is just copying, like, fine. But also there's a little bit of like, how can we use that to our advantage? And we have in some ways where we're like, we're gonna call this new field this and like, everyone's gonna call it and like, have we created a category now, right? Like, there's, there's parts you can kind of weaponize for yourself.

• 7:23Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 00

  The other part is to do something different.

• 7:25Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 7:26Speaker 00

  Why? And I think it's trying to start from the like, assume they're smart. Not like assume they're idiots.

• 7:31Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 7:31Speaker 00

  And be like, what do they know that I don't? And try to figure that out. And again, maybe you conclude they know nothing, you don't, and they're idiots. But like, I think it is always a useful thought exercise, even if you've dismissed them the last 10 times, something like this.

• 7:45Jack Altman?

  Have you had it go the other way where you've ended up cloning something from a competitor? Cause like, yeah, they figured something out good.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, actually, um, there was a bunch of, one of our early competitors was really good at talking to our customers and finding out the parts of the product. They didn't like it, fix them. It was particularly brutal, honestly, because I was like, oh yeah, they just listened to our customers better than we did. And so that, we were like, okay, like that needs, that needs to stop right now.

• 8:07Jack Altman?

  Yeah, totally.

• 8:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:08Jack Altman?

  Yeah. Have you learned anything about how to do like the go to market side in a competitive market? Whether it's like the way you, you know, position at the top of the funnel. I mean, like you had, I think you've been running the like compliance that doesn't talk too much billboards for a long time. Those still like the best billboard I've ever seen.

• 8:25Speaker 00

  Zaster 2021 was its debut.

• 8:28Jack Altman?

  It's crazy.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:28Jack Altman?

  Keep it going.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:30Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 8:30Speaker 00

  That billboard's locked up for.

• 8:31Jack Altman?

  10 more years.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Like, kind of, actually.

• 8:33Jack Altman?

  I love that.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:34Jack Altman?

  But like, what have you learned in sort of like the way that you structure your go to market? When you're, I mean, most markets are really competitive, but like, what have you learned?

• 8:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think one bit is like, man, A confidence is so real. And not as rational as like a EPD person, like a engineer or PM would imagine.

• 8:50Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  And that works on the way up and it works on the way down. When the team is starting to lose confidence, like you gotta go fast and you can't just go in with logic. And I think we messed that up for a while. And it works on the way up too. And but then it kind of becomes this like, how do you build confidence amongst your salespeople?

• 9:07Jack Altman?

  How do you build it?

• 9:08Speaker 00

  What we did, and this is all credit to our CRO Stevie, was one of the, one of our issues with early competitors was they were actually so good at like secret shopping Vanta and like maybe exfiltrating, you know, like they just like knew everything. And we knew very little. And I think we were also like very Midwestern, like, oh, but we're nice and isn't it, you know, and like not, not good at competitive intel. And so the way we solved that was we put one or two people on every competitive deal. And they just like listened to all the call or like they were in all the calls. They talked to all the customers, they talked to like rip customers in both directions. And they just got smart about what was going on.

• 9:46Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  And they figured out the talking points and the weak points and all of that. And then they got confident in winning and it was one or two people. And then we started adding them to everybody else's calls. And then like A8 would be like, oh, I want that person to come join.

• 9:59Jack Altman?

  Show the confidence, yeah.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Exactly. And like, when I add them, I win more. So like definitely want them in.

• 10:03Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 10:04Speaker 00

  And then that like sort of osmosed out.

• 10:06Jack Altman?

  That's brilliant.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  There's also honestly probably something there is we tried to do all this enablement with like enablement people and PMMs and me and PMs. None of it works. Like, I mean, it works and everyone tries really hard.

• 10:16Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  But like salespeople learn from salespeople and everyone else is, you know, not as good. Doesn't matter like who you are or what you're trying to do.

• 10:23Jack Altman?

  Yeah, totally. Um, I want to go over to fundraising. I guess you started fundraising at your seed in, when was it? Two thousand eighteen?

• 10:32Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 10:32Jack Altman?

  Is that right?

• 10:32Speaker 00

  April eighteen.

• 10:33Jack Altman?

  April eighteen. You then, I think, if I recall, had like a lot of investors who wanted to talk to you over a period of time between then and your A.

• 10:40Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:41Jack Altman?

  Can you just talk about like some of the stuff you did? I know we've talked about this before, but like, can you talk about in that period? How you made most use of that time?

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think so for the seed, what we did was only took money from seed funds. The thinking was, or like, don't take money from anyone who will write an A check. Because we did the like post YC, you know, raise your seed round in six days.

• 11:00Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Crazy thing and didn't want to choose a board member. And like, that just felt silly. Board members are like harder to get rid of than, you know. Execs, co-founders, right? Like, be thoughtful about that decision. And then I did a, I can't remember who told me to do this. Raised a seed round, then went around to all the A firms. And we're like, hi, just interesting, Vanta, we just raised. No opportunity for you to hear. Just want to say hi and like, put the first, like, put the first dot on the map.

• 11:25Jack Altman?

  Like, right after the round?

• 11:26Speaker 00

  Right after the round.

• 11:27Jack Altman?

  Like, within weeks, kind of thing?

• 11:28Speaker 00

  The one week.

• 11:29Jack Altman?

  Wow.

• 11:29Speaker 00

  It was like, schedule all of them, but just schedule them after it's done.

• 11:32Jack Altman?

  Wow.

• 11:33Speaker 00

  And so just like, just to be my-

• 11:34Jack Altman?

  Someone gave you advice to do that?

• 11:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it's like, putting, putting myself on the map, you know? Nothing for you now, but like, here you go.

• 11:39Jack Altman?

  I love that. It also creates a very low stakes conversation where nobody is thinking, like, that they can ask you about certain, like, you just can control that conversation so easily, I bet.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:49Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  So did that. And then it was like, I obviously, there was this moment of like, shit, we just like, raised three million dollars to do all this stuff. And we have, you know, two people sitting on a couch, like, we gotta, gotta, we gotta get, we gotta get hopping.

• 12:00Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  So there was some amount of just that. And then at some point, six months later, you're like, okay, this is work. Like, this is different. Vanta feels different than literally everything else I've worked on in my career. It is a true, like, pulling, like, the market is pulling something out. There's a million things wrong, a million things going on, but like, there's something here. And then, did not really talk to VCs. I think what started happening was there was like, some amount of word of mouth amongst San Francisco founders about like, hey, if you want to stock to, there's this Vanta thing. We had this call response of like, stock to Vanta going. It would start to come up with these companies' VCs. They would start to talk to us. And look, it was like, half I was playing a game and half was actually really busy.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  But I generally reply and be like, look, I am just too busy fielding customer calls.

• 12:48Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 12:49Speaker 00

  Because I kind of was, like, I don't have time to meet with you, but it sounds like you know, you know, this founder at this company, you can go talk to them.

• 12:58Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  And like, look-

• 13:00Jack Altman?

  An existing customer.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  An existing customer.

• 13:01Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  And look, the thing, you know, I'm trying to do is grow the business. And so if you have referrals for me, I mean, of course I'll take them, but like then go talk to them, talk to them about the sales process. If they buy, if they don't buy, talk to them about the process.

• 13:14Jack Altman?

  Right.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Like, that is better diligence and information than I could ever.

• 13:18Jack Altman?

  Yeah. If you want to see if Vant is good, go try to send us a customer, see if they close and then see if they're happy.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. And it's like, that is better than anything.

• 13:24Jack Altman?

  And that happens.

• 13:25Speaker 00

  Amazing. Which, that worked very well.

• 13:28Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Speaker 00

  You know, and I do think there was like a game, but I couldn't call it a game because I was a bit of like, oh, no, sorry. I'm just too overwhelmed by like, you know, customers and dollars.

• 13:35Jack Altman?

  And there's an implied dynamic in there of if you want to get time with me, send me a lot of customers.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:39Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  And you have to kind of be careful to not sound like total jerk.

• 13:42Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  Yeah. Cause I think you can very easily go to jerk territory or like, especially if your thing isn't working. You know, it's like they send you a bunch of stuff and.

• 13:49Jack Altman?

  Yeah. Well, part of why that thing works is because that's an incredibly confident dynamic for you to be running.

• 13:55Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:55Jack Altman?

  Yeah. Which helps.

• 13:56Speaker 00

  Which helps. And I think, you know, I think one of my pieces of advice for founders is investors are not people you should seek approval from. They want to back people who are confident in what they're doing.

• 14:07Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Not people who are seeking their approval.

• 14:09Jack Altman?

  And it's really hard. There's a real dynamic where founders want investors approval.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 14:13Jack Altman?

  Particularly early, because I think like, at least in my experience, it was like before I had real customer traction. You're like, well, at least investors, you know, think that this is worth backing. So that gives me something to hold on to.

• 14:23Speaker 00

  Yes. And whereas I think, and I think I just like, well, got lucky in lots of ways, but got lucky because early in my career, I worked for really good early stage investors and I kind of saw these pitches and be like, oh no, this is not compelling. You want to back the person who like, believes in where they're going and that might change a million places, but can put one foot in front of the other.

• 14:42Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  And not look up and be like, is this right? Am I on the right trail?

• 14:45Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 14:45Speaker 00

  And so then I think it's like, okay, as a founder, how do you get that? And some people can just kind of manifest their confidence, which is great. I'm very jealous of, and I've always been like, need to figure it out and do it to get confident.

• 14:56Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  But like, it sort of doesn't matter. It's like, as long as you are, you are confident in the way you get confident doing that. And that makes the founder like much more compelling to investors, but. You know, they should also just be like much more compelling to customers and like building said business.

• 15:09Jack Altman?

  So what ended up happening at your series A or the round when you picked a board member?

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, so it was that one. So there was this whole, you know, had this whole framework on how we choose a board member and like did reference calls for people and I had this spreadsheet. I remember I did some of them over the holidays because it was like customer or email. Like I just had time or time and had this whole thing and then literally ended up choosing an investor and board member who was on the spreadsheet and like fell off the framework.

• 15:36Jack Altman?

  How'd that happen?

• 15:37Speaker 00

  I was not going to talk to Sequoia because I mean, they're great, all the things. But just actually in those like early days of like, hi, you know, I don't have anything to, you know, I might have something to talk about you later, but I'm like showing up today.

• 15:50Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  They were like very politely entirely uninterested and just like, nice girl, bad idea. Maybe she'll work at one of our companies one day, you know, and they were like, they didn't quite say that. But it was like totally the vibe.

• 16:02Jack Altman?

  That was the vibe.

• 16:03Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 16:03Jack Altman?

  Were they sending you customers or they weren't?

• 16:05Speaker 00

  No.

• 16:05Jack Altman?

  They were not playing along the back end?

• 16:06Speaker 00

  No, zero. They were just like, I wonder when that company's gonna die.

• 16:10Jack Altman?

  No.

• 16:11Speaker 00

  Very politely though. And so I was like, cool. Like I don't have to talk to you. You know, like, cool, great. Agree to disagree. I'm the business, you don't, whatever. And then it was a close friend of both of us who was like, you're being an idiot. Just, you know, call Sequoia. What are you doing? And so had another mutual friend introduce me to Andrew Reid and he's great. I ended up going with him and no regrets, but also no framework or like framework left by the wayside.

• 16:35Jack Altman?

  Yep. On this podcast, I've talked to a bunch of VCs about in what ways they think VCs might be helpful. But I'd like to hear from you in what ways you think VCs might be helpful to the extent that you think that they are.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  Sometimes some of them. I think VCs, I mean, at their best, like all of us, like smart, motivated people who are good at their jobs. Their jobs are investing, their jobs are not operating. Like that is like, it sounds dumb and trite, but I think there's something deeply there, like. They're probably not good at running companies. Or if they are and are now doing like,

• 17:07Jack Altman?

  And I could have run your-

• 17:08Speaker 00

  No, they've now chosen to do something else and like don't want to run your company.

• 17:11Jack Altman?

  Right, yeah.

• 17:11Speaker 00

  You can just make this better than I can.

• 17:13Jack Altman?

  Yeah, and they probably couldn't run your specific company anyway.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 17:16Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 17:16Speaker 00

  And so when you're looking to them for like, or like things they're probably not good at is, you know, how do you like hire your first salesperson? How do you compensate them? When like Chili Piper starts writing leads under a couch cushion, what do you do? Like, that is not DC stuff.

• 17:30Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Almost universally. Or if it is, I guess Andrew not like super, super early stage or some special thing, like something's probably off.

• 17:38Jack Altman?

  Right. Well, they're probably capable at giving you an answer to that. It's actually, I would think it's more like you probably shouldn't need to, you probably should have other vehicles to get that stuff.

• 17:47Speaker 00

  Right. I think recruiting support, especially in the early days.

• 17:52Jack Altman?

  Yeah. When you say recruiting support, do you mean sending you candidates or do you mean closing candidates?

• 17:57Speaker 00

  I more mean closing candidates. There's some sending of candidates, but I do think that is like-

• 18:01Jack Altman?

  Do you find the sending of candidates helpful? Or do you think the closing is what's all that?

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Tomato, tomato. Yeah.

• 18:05Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 18:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, like, there's some stuff there and, but I think in the early stages and it's like Sequoia's model is like, okay, we'll send you candidates up until this point and then we will basically cut you off.

• 18:14Jack Altman?

  Did you get candidates from that? I mean, did you get hires from that?

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Very rarely.

• 18:19Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:21Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 18:21Speaker 00

  I also think in general, like, those are hard because the candidate you're getting from that lead flow is also going to 14 other companies. And then, so then you're like, okay, you were like one in the like cohort, but like, how are you differentiated? And do they, you know, like, there's, those are hard candidates.

• 18:35Jack Altman?

  How does the closing play out? So like, what's the way that, because I, that's how I most, you know, poignantly, I would say, use my board.

• 18:42Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 18:42Jack Altman?

  I'm curious what that played out like for you.

• 18:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I think in the early days, there is a bit of like the brand and the like, oh, you know, here you have person from Sequoia who's, you know, legendary firm from, you know- Founding IPO would be whatever, you know, and like, let me tell you why Vanta is going to be the next thing we put on the wall.

• 18:59Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  And of course, I, you know, I can say that, but like, is, they seem like they're more external than they probably are, and they're very experienced. So there's that bit. I also just think, and you can use, but like, in some ways, VCs just close more and get more practice because you're closing founders on deals, you're closing people for the company. You just have more reps.

• 19:17Jack Altman?

  It's just professional sales, basically.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  Yes. And there's like a lot of more practice.

• 19:21Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 19:21Speaker 00

  A little bit of candidate support.

• 19:23Jack Altman?

  I've actually never heard someone say it quite like that, but I think that's true.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  You just like practice that more.

• 19:26Jack Altman?

  Founders are also closing all the time, but it's like all VCs do.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  Right.

• 19:29Jack Altman?

  Yeah, you're right.

• 19:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. As much as I kind of, we talk about this, like, hate it and it offends the, like, rational person in me, like VC brand matters.

• 19:38Jack Altman?

  Yeah. Do you think that's the top thing?

• 19:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:40Jack Altman?

  You think it just sprinkles a little fairy dust on everything and helps like self fulfilling prophecy?

• 19:43Speaker 00

  I think just like, it's like all your conversion rates at every stage just gets slightly better.

• 19:47Jack Altman?

  And this is for like candidates, for customers, for the next funding round?

• 19:50Speaker 00

  For media, yeah. It's like, everything just gets 10 to 30% better.

• 19:54Jack Altman?

  Once you had Sequoia, did it make recruiting a lot easier?

• 19:57Speaker 00

  Yes, in a way that we talk, but like, yes, in a way that I was like, kind of annoyed by, but like.

• 20:01Jack Altman?

  What's the dynamic?

• 20:02Speaker 00

  We'd have, I don't have like a literal person, but you know, we'd have candidates and we'd like approach them and, uh, you know, Vanta's a little funny because we raised our Series A at 10 million, but we'd be like, hey, we're the seed stage company, but like, we actually have all this revenue and like, do you want to come work with us? And where I see, and someone would be like, no, you know, and then like, and then like the next day, yeah, no, like have fun over there.

• 20:23Jack Altman?

  Next, yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Yeah. And then like the next day, we like announced the Series A from Sequoia, like 50 and 500. And then like the following day, we like followed up.

• 20:30Jack Altman?

  Everyone's in your mind.

• 20:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. And you're like, we are the same company.

• 20:33Jack Altman?

  Right. Except now you have a higher foreign name.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  Exactly. Like now it is a worse economic deal for you.

• 20:37Jack Altman?

  Yeah, right.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  But like, if you want to outsource your judgment to Sequoia, like, I guess I'm here for it.

• 20:41Jack Altman?

  Yeah, right. Did you experience it as like a one time pop? Or have you experienced it as like a durable lift?

• 20:47Speaker 00

  Durable. And again, a way that I think I wouldn't have expected, but the like, the brand and halo glow continues. And I should also say, like, I think Sequoia is very good at what they do. I'm very glad we worked together. Like all of that, like there are real stuff here, very real stuff here. And the brand halo just continues.

• 21:03Jack Altman?

  Just dominates.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:04Jack Altman?

  Is there anything on the actual help besides closing candidates that you get a lot of value out of, or that you, even on a personal level, particularly value?

• 21:12Speaker 00

  No, on the recruiting sense, we get back channels and sometimes have, you know, their team. You know, sort of, they are very good at knowing sort of everyone in the valley.

• 21:21Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  I think they pride themselves on, but it's true. And so they are very, you know, there's someone we're talking to and like, we don't have a lot of mutual connectivity and curious to talk to, you know, like they.

• 21:30Jack Altman?

  Someone on the team knows.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  They're very good at doing that. There was a period when you're like trying to raise the company's profile. And again, to the emails that don't get replied to, you know, you email like conference or reporter and they're like, you are one of 9,000 and, you know, next please. We would like partner with Sequoia and like Andrew and I would like do our conference together and they like.

• 21:50Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 00

  We got on the conference stage because of Andrew, you know, because of Sequoia, right? And I was just like the tag along.

• 21:54Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  But there was some of that where that helped too.

• 21:57Jack Altman?

  That makes sense. I guess on the recruiting topic in general, maybe now unrelated to investors, but with your own recruiting, what have you found over time that that's changed for you or that has been important for you? But like, if you go back, you know, and you think about like how you recruited when you were a seed or series A company.

• 22:15Speaker 00

  So bad.

• 22:16Jack Altman?

  I guess something changed. Yeah, basically.

• 22:17Speaker 00

  I think in the early days, we were trying to be very frameworks driven and rigorous and everything was bespoke.

• 22:24Jack Altman?

  Like your VC spreadsheet.

• 22:25Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yes.

• 22:26Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  And it's like, you know, there's a little bit of like, you hire like the first person in every role. So every role is distinct.

• 22:32Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 00

  But we had had these like crazy, like multi-day interview loops that were like, we would send someone through a, I don't know, tough mutter, you know? And like, wonder why candidates dropped out.

• 22:42Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  And you're like, well, that's because we asked them to like, I don't know, do an obstacle course.

• 22:46Jack Altman?

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 22:46Speaker 00

  And we'll say the people who got through, like, man, were they down.

• 22:48Jack Altman?

  They really wanted to join, yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  They were really down. But like in retrospect, you're like, wow, we made that really hard for candidates and us to like unclear ends.

• 22:58Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Engineering recruiting, you just, you mess it up every two years, no matter what. It is hard. It is both hard and doable and you just have to do it. So it's my, I talked to someone last night about this. And then you like figure out engineering recruiting for a bit and then something changes.

• 23:11Jack Altman?

  What changes? Inside the company or in the market or what?

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Both. Well, again, to the example, we for years just hired generalists. And then like year and a half ago or so, like, okay, cool. There we have a general, we should have a generous pipeline. But like, man, we, you know, we have Mongo, we should give people really know Mongo. We use GraphQL, that technical solution, whatever. We need people know GraphQL, you know, and like, we should have these like separate pipelines.

• 23:34Jack Altman?

  In a way that this doesn't happen in design or sales or marketing? Cause like the tech stack changes in.

• 23:39Speaker 00

  You know what? I think what it is, is like engineering recruiting, I mean, is just harder than all the other roles.

• 23:45Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 23:45Speaker 00

  And that timelines are longer. And so when you break the pipelines, you just.

• 23:49Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 23:49Speaker 00

  It takes longer to get them stood up again.

• 23:51Jack Altman?

  Did you do work trials?

• 23:53Speaker 00

  At that, yeah.

• 23:54Jack Altman?

  You don't now, right?

• 23:55Speaker 00

  We don't.

• 23:55Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 00

  We don't now. We do our general, especially for like leadership roles of, of many sorts. We generally do just send them a bunch of data and information from what the role would be.

• 24:07Jack Altman?

  Hmm.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  And the project is usually like, so uh, we dumped the Google, do I have a stuff on you? Like, what should we do? And like, there's very binary responses to that. There's people who are like, what do they want here? Like, this is madness. And people are like, oh, well, this is illuminating at least, you know, when I can like opt in or opt out.

• 24:24Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 24:24Speaker 00

  But we try to do very, specific example, recruiting our CRO. So it's three years ago. Her thing was we sent her seven Gong calls, top reps, middle pack reps, bottom reps. We're like, here's your team. What do you think?

• 24:39Jack Altman?

  Oh, wow. And you're trying to see like, can they tell from the Gong calls?

• 24:42Speaker 00

  Kind of. And also like, this is literally the team you're going to get handed.

• 24:45Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  Like, if you wanna, if you don't like this, like, let's just get that out now.

• 24:49Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 24:49Speaker 00

  Like, and so we don't have to, you know, be like, oh, we're bearing skill sets on the team. You know, you're like, here they are.

• 24:53Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 24:54Speaker 00

  And like, again, this is, this is the, the range.

• 24:56Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 00

  She stood out for many reasons, but part of it, she watched it and she's like, oh. Here's what I saw. Here's what we do, like, you know, like unfazed and like very clear eyed and broke it down.

• 25:06Jack Altman?

  Have you been like the type of CEO who wants to like be in every loop forever? Or did you let that go at some point? To what degree do you distribute decision making on recruiting?

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. So actually back to the early days, we had a principal's interview.

• 25:19Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 25:19Speaker 00

  You know, Vanta interview and I did those probably up until we were about 50 people, all of them. And then like I did have a team intervention where people were like, Chris, you know, you were spending too much time on this. Stop doing it.

• 25:31Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  And so I like distributed it. I should not have done that. I think you should go through two, maybe three team interventions.

• 25:38Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  Not the first one.

• 25:39Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  You don't give it up after the first, at least the second.

• 25:42Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  So I should have hung on to that a little bit longer.

• 25:44Jack Altman?

  Like hang on till it's 200 people, you think? Like when, when do you think it's like, what's your now assessment of like when it's like enough is enough?

• 25:51Speaker 00

  When you're spending probably more than a day and a half of your five days.

• 25:54Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  On it.

• 25:55Jack Altman?

  And when did that come for you?

• 25:56Speaker 00

  See, I didn't get there because I capitulated after the first intervention.

• 26:00Jack Altman?

  I see.

• 26:00Speaker 00

  Which is probably like three quarters of a day.

• 26:02Jack Altman?

  Got it. Okay.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:03Jack Altman?

  So maybe you could have gone twice as far.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I think you should like at least wait for two interventions.

• 26:06Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 26:06Speaker 00

  But then what I started doing six or nine months ago is now I do do that for every director plus candidate. So I like reinserted.

• 26:13Jack Altman?

  And they can't get in without your blessing?

• 26:15Speaker 00

  I'll do non-blocking nos.

• 26:17Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  And they're truly non-blocking and it's like, here's what I saw.

• 26:20Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  If you is the manager.

• 26:21Jack Altman?

  I wouldn't do this, but I'll support you.

• 26:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. And like here are the gaps and like if you as the manager like think you got this, cool, I will hold you to that. But if you want to make this call, like.

• 26:30Jack Altman?

  When you do that, does it usually go through or not go through?

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a good, it's like, are they actually non-blocking?

• 26:35Jack Altman?

  Yeah, exactly. Or are people like, I probably shouldn't do it.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  Usually like I shouldn't do it.

• 26:38Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 26:39Speaker 00

  But more of them should go through. Yeah.

• 26:40Jack Altman?

  Has it ever happened?

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:42Jack Altman?

  That it's gone through?

• 26:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:43Jack Altman?

  And then it's been good?

• 26:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:44Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 26:45Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

• 26:46Jack Altman?

  Yeah, that's a good sign.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:47Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  No, more people should like, yeah.

• 26:49Jack Altman?

  You do a lot of angel, or you do some angel investing, let's say at least when you're thinking about if you want to back a founder versus if you want to hire somebody. Obviously you're looking for both people to be talented and capable and, you know, whatever else, but like, how different is the texture of what you're looking for?

• 27:06Speaker 00

  Pretty different.

• 27:07Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 27:08Speaker 00

  Um, cause I think there's a lot of like how we work stuff at Vanta that have like kind of been baked into the culture and you know, there've been very talented people, actually some of how we get the questions and the pieces of the principal interview is you like the very talented people who don't work out at the company and trying to tease that apart. Anyway, so there's like a whole thing there that I just like don't care about when you're angel investing.

• 27:27Jack Altman?

  Right.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Cause people don't want to work at Vanta, they don't have to work with me. Like doesn't matter. They can, you know, go do themselves in the universe.

• 27:32Jack Altman?

  Basically the culture, there's no culture interview. It doesn't matter.

• 27:33Speaker 00

  No.

• 27:35Speaker 00

  No.

• 27:35Jack Altman?

  Does that make it easier then? Because at Vanta, you need to both be good and you need this.

• 27:39Speaker 00

  I think so. Yeah.

• 27:40Jack Altman?

  So you'd invest in somebody before you hired them, basically?

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:43Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 27:44Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 27:44Speaker 00

  Cause they like deeply, there's like lots of ways to build these companies and like Vanta, you know, I think there's a, it's, it's a like meta version of the, the Gongcall. Sales example is like, people should just know what they're opting into.

• 27:56Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  And we tried to do that in our review process and be like, this can be for you or can not be for you, but here's what it is. And it's kind of not immovable, but like it's not going to turn 180 degrees.

• 28:05Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 28:06Speaker 00

  Whereas like somebody can build a company in a totally different way.

• 28:08Jack Altman?

  Have you basically learned that a talented person who doesn't fit the culture, just it doesn't work out anyway?

• 28:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:13Jack Altman?

  Like you've tried it and it just doesn't go the way you want it to.

• 28:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:16Jack Altman?

  Or on either direction.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  Yes. And so I think, you know, one of the things, and probably two years ago, we tried to get better at this, but was like, just be hyper transparent about what the thing that's in the interview process and hope like smart people will sort themselves out.

• 28:28Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Some of it works, some of it doesn't, but like that's, I do think we owe that to candidates.

• 28:32Jack Altman?

  Yeah. I think one of the, one of the sort of interesting sort of secular things that's happened to Vanta and you is you started a company at sort of the tail end of cloud, SaaS, bull run. Great. And then the world's all AI, everything, everywhere, all the time now. And so I'm curious how you've taken the moment and how you basically are running things, given that you have this obvious thing that comes in and you obviously have to adapt. Like what are like, what are like the main things that have happened for you running the company now?

• 29:04Speaker 00

  There is a lot of. Hopefully like AI encouragement and excitement across the company. And that is both in how we work, like our, you know, engineers using insert tool here. What are we building for customers? And I think, you know, really broadly, you know, like we've got half of folks who are like totally down and half of folks who are a little like, I have a job and it's really busy. And like, you want me to do what now? Like, can I just do my thing here?

• 29:28Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  And so it's like, okay, how do you, how do you bring those together? Um, and like, what are the carrots? And so, but I think at the, my level, leadership level, there is just like a ton of conviction that like, this is real.

• 29:41Jack Altman?

  Does it matter for your product? Or does it matter for just what you're, the way you're building, the way you're doing?

• 29:46Speaker 00

  I think it matters a ton for our product. Because so much of compliance is taking information in one format and putting it in another.

• 29:52Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 29:53Speaker 00

  Right? Like actually, and so there's just, and like, I think the pieces of compliance will not change. But like, will you have to, you probably, you were, Eric, kind of like write your own policy documents. Isn't that like kind of, you know, you're like, yeah, and you also use a carrier.

• 30:05Jack Altman?

  Yeah, at least copy paste them and hope they're right or something.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And then you're like, if you had, if you want to know what was in them, you had to read them.

• 30:10Jack Altman?

  Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, now you can just get the summary.

• 30:12Speaker 00

  Exactly. You know, but like literally, like we have all that stuff in the product now. That's a very small example, but I think it's a concrete one.

• 30:17Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  And so it's like, yeah, there's still be policy documents, but like, how will they be created? How will they be disseminated? How do you know what's in them? How do you keep them in sync with everything else? Like, that is all AI.

• 30:27Jack Altman?

  How much AI are you consuming? Just like other AI products, just to run your company differently across everything?

• 30:33Speaker 00

  We're, we're in an AI procurement boom. I hope I don't say this in a million emails.

• 30:37Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, but a little bit. We used to be much stingier and I think.

• 30:41Jack Altman?

  If you're selling an AI product, here's Christina.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  I know. Christina and Vanta.com. Please don't. But I think the thing we have actually, like now it's a large enough company where you have to somewhat be thoughtful here. And what we're trying to do is like, okay, let teams do what they want to do and procure the tools. And then have a forum for it, which is like IT kind of runs and be like, okay, now we all come together and be like, oh, we bought five meeting recorders.

• 31:05Jack Altman?

  Right.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Cool.

• 31:06Jack Altman?

  Let's pick one.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Figure it out. And but like do that incrementally along the way.

• 31:10Jack Altman?

  Do you prefer people to, would you prefer that AI gets to you bottoms up? That the best product wins through the team rather than somebody trying to come sell you top down with no usage?

• 31:19Speaker 00

  Yes. Yes, now, because I think we, we were trying to do the top down no usage and. We're not making good tooling decisions.

• 31:26Jack Altman?

  Interesting.

• 31:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:27Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 31:28Speaker 00

  And like, again, I can like critique and be like, oh, we should think more like PMs and our procurement. And but like,

• 31:32Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  That is not where the effort goes.

• 31:34Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 31:35Jack Altman?

  Yeah. Do you want to use basically as much as possible?

• 31:39Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 31:39Jack Altman?

  Yeah, okay.

• 31:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, there was actually a, a, this is kind of a cute phrase, but we were going back and forth about how many chat GPT licenses we have. Cause chat GPT license were like kind of expensive and Gemini is free.

• 31:49Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  And like, so can we just like be stingy about chat GPT licenses and make everyone use Gemini basically? And the answer is no.

• 31:56Jack Altman?

  It's not worth it.

• 31:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, so it's like unused chat GPT licenses are very expensive. Used ones are actually pretty cheap.

• 32:02Jack Altman?

  Right.

• 32:02Speaker 00

  Right? And so it's like, okay, can you like get the energy focused on like getting the licenses used versus like being parsimonious about them?

• 32:09Jack Altman?

  What are some of the, I was about to ask this question in an obnoxious way of like, if you had to start a startup right now, what would you start?

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:15Jack Altman?

  I'm going to ask it a different way. What pieces of software do you think that you could be or should be consuming that you're not yet? Like, what are some of the areas of the business at Vanta that you think should be AI-ified?

• 32:25Speaker 00

  I think go to market systems is a Rube Goldberg machine constructed by like seven different tools.

• 32:33Jack Altman?

  Yeah, that's what we had. And we had like nine biz ops people holding it all together.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  Exactly, yes.

• 32:37Jack Altman?

  Yeah. And it was like, once it gets to that system, they're going to grab this ball and put it over here.

• 32:41Speaker 00

  Exactly. Exactly. And it's just kind of nuts because you're like, okay, if this were engineering, like, or this does not exist in engineering.

• 32:48Jack Altman?

  It would be unacceptable.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  It would be entirely unacceptable. It was unacceptable a decade ago.

• 32:51Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 00

  And so like, someone should fix that.

• 32:53Jack Altman?

  Yeah. Can you say a little bit more about the, like, can you, you don't have to name the vendors, but like, name the parts of, like, maybe the parts of the funnel you're talking about.

• 33:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, like, I don't even mean the marketing, but it's like, someone goes to vanta.com and is like, okay, I want a demo or I want Vanta. And then like, how does that get to a sales rep or how does that get to closed one? And like, oh, man, we got, we got the ball, the balls are going into the tubes or onto the floor.

• 33:16Jack Altman?

  Yeah, I never understood why it had to be so messy. Like, I get that it's kind of complicated and.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  And then you have like race conditions between the tools and you're just like, how does anyone put up with this? Everyone put up with it.

• 33:26Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 00

  Kind of nuts.

• 33:27Jack Altman?

  Okay, that's good. What else?

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Um, collections, contract terms. It is like the least favorite part of everyone's job, including the, like, the art customers, right?

• 33:36Jack Altman?

  You'd think AI would be really good at that.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 33:38Jack Altman?

  Like parsing the document, doing the perpetual reach outs to people.

• 33:41Speaker 00

  Yes. And like, we've got some of it, but it's, it's like rules based and doesn't work and people miss the emails and like, oh, and then it's like heightened emotions and like, oh, boy.

• 33:51Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 33:51Speaker 00

  Support kind of, or like the, like. Something is not working or.

• 33:56Jack Altman?

  In support?

• 33:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:57Jack Altman?

  Customers, just regular customer support. You're saying that the chatbots are not working well? Is that what you're saying?

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Some of them.

• 34:04Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 34:04Speaker 00

  Yeah. Or I think we have some of that. And then I think we have.

• 34:09Jack Altman?

  Or is it the tooling around them and like the reporting on it? Is that the issue?

• 34:12Speaker 00

  I do want a lot of this stuff to go further. So one thing we have built is just like custom GPT for like the Vanta tone of voice. We call it Elma Bach because Elma is our mom's name. But you know, it's like our, our copywriters can only do so much. And so how do you kind of Vantify the writing? And I think that's works very well for marketing copy. I kind of want it for like all support tickets.

• 34:32Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  And honestly, like all customer columns.

• 34:35Jack Altman?

  Yep. Do you think sales will get AI-ified?

• 34:39Speaker 00

  Somewhat, I think there will be reps, but like even like we actually, I think are quite good at enforcing sales force hygiene amongst our reps, you know? So like it works, but like, whoo, how much time these folks spend, you know, filling out command plans? And look, there's a part where you're like, you do actually want them to know the command plan.

• 34:57Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Cause that's what they're supposed to go execute on.

• 34:59Jack Altman?

  Have you had any luck with like AI SDRs?

• 35:01Speaker 00

  No, we haven't really tried. We tried a little bit, but we haven't, we're not a good.

• 35:04Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Still walking up the like hierarchy of SDR tooling.

• 35:07Jack Altman?

  Yeah. What else? Anything in like security or operations or anything like that?

• 35:10Speaker 00

  I think that like security operations center and the like other SOC.

• 35:14Jack Altman?

  SOC.

• 35:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:15Jack Altman?

  That's confusing. That's frustrating.

• 35:17Speaker 00

  Space, you know, like the old way to solve that is put a bunch of people in a room, maybe in your company, maybe outsource that like look at alerts all day.

• 35:24Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 35:25Speaker 00

  And then like the 10 years ago Dropbox way was like write a bunch of rules and like kind of, but I think there's a bit of like, okay, that was like the rule writing phase. How do we just AIify what is important, what is not? And that's hard and you don't want to mess it up. But like, turns out, you know, again, hardworking people working all the time staring at alerts all the time also mess it up.

• 35:42Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  And so how do you do that?

• 35:45Jack Altman?

  What about like marketing very top of funnel? And has anything like changed there?

• 35:49Speaker 00

  Like the LLM SEO stuff, whatever you call it, AI EO or whatever people call it. Yeah.

• 35:55Jack Altman?

  Is that it?

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:56Jack Altman?

  I don't know.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  But like that thing.

• 35:58Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Is I think like very real. We actually see. Impressions on our keywords dropping. It's like, we might have like the same or higher impression share, the same or higher like CPMs or CBCs, but like overall seems like search volume is dropping and like we see that.

• 36:14Jack Altman?

  That's crazy.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  In our SEM spend.

• 36:16Jack Altman?

  That's really crazy.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:17Jack Altman?

  And your assumption is basically that's all just gone to the LMS?

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:21Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 36:22Jack Altman?

  That's just like a whole new work stream, I guess.

• 36:24Speaker 00

  It seems like, and you probably know the tools better than I do, but when I kind of poke around, it seems like a lot of the tools or work is like, you just keep repeatedly run the same query in a bunch of tools and then, you know, like write down where, you know, like how you do and then rerun it the next day and you rerun it, you know? I'm sure someone will build a bot thing, but like, oh, boy.

• 36:42Jack Altman?

  Is there anything else in like HR, like people stuff or anything in finance?

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Oh, we did something like, maybe moderately controversial and curious for your take, was we actually encouraged and wrote a, built a like, or prompted a custom GPT, but for managers to use in perf reviews.

• 37:00Jack Altman?

  Hmm, to, to help them give feedback?

• 37:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:02Jack Altman?

  Yeah, I think that's good.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  And yeah, because it's kind of like, I think my, I don't know, my general thing, you have much smarter ideas, but like my general thing on perf reviews, it's like 360 and perf reviews are super helpful if you actually do them.

• 37:13Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 37:13Speaker 00

  If you kind of do it halfway, it just ends up taking 60 hours from everyone's time and being terrible.

• 37:17Jack Altman?

  Totally.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  And so like, you know, you either need to go like all in or like all out.

• 37:21Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 37:22Speaker 00

  And so how do you get it?

• 37:23Jack Altman?

  My whole thing with, with performance reviews is basically, it's like what you're trying to get to is a shared agreed, you know, nugget of insight about what could be better. And maybe that takes three hours to get there, maybe it takes 30 minutes to get there, maybe it never gets there, but I think oftentimes doing the work to get there is important, but really what you need is just like a consolidated insight that both the manager and the person being reviewed are like, yeah, that is something I need to get better at.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 37:47Jack Altman?

  So however you get there.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  However you get there.

• 37:49Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 00

  And like, get there and get it clearly articulated and like that thing.

• 37:53Jack Altman?

  It's not so dissimilar from like the way a lot of consumers are using AI for like, kind of like borderline therapy or just straight up therapy type uses where it's like, you know, maybe it's a human better in some ways, but just getting to the like, here's an insight that's useful.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 38:06Jack Altman?

  Is worth a lot.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Right, right. And like, I can read it and like, think about it and agree or disagree, but like,

• 38:12Jack Altman?

  It has a condition.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  I got it.

• 38:13Jack Altman?

  Yeah, it just has to be a useful insight, but if it gets there, which it seems like in a lot of cases it does, it's really good. The last topic I want to go to is, so you're what, seven years in?

• 38:21Speaker 00

  Something like that, yeah.

• 38:23Jack Altman?

  What's the founder sort of mindset that you've, you know, settled into? Not that you're settled into one, and I'm sure there's still

• 38:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:30Jack Altman?

  turmoil in evolution, but like, what is the inner game journey that you've been through?

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, two things, the like trope of like a dozen could either you just go faster is deeply true. And I think the lived experience is like, you know, kind of every day you, I don't know, like I feel like I only halfway know what I'm doing or like, that's a new skill. And so you're, you never feel like you're like on it. I feel like I'm totally on it. But then every once in a while I'll like go back and, you know, someone's out. So I'll like, do the one on ones with their manager and be like, oh, I can do this now. Right. And the first time I was managing or managing a manager, I didn't feel comfortable. But like, I got, I did learn something.

• 39:06Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  And you have these kind of moments, which is one of like talking to an early stage founder. And you're like, oh no, I, I have a point of view here and I adamantly believe it. Maybe I'm wrong, but like, I've learned something.

• 39:17Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  So there's some of that, even if in the day to day, you're like still in like, well, I've done this before, but here we go.

• 39:22Jack Altman?

  Yep.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  And then I think there is a, all the like, there's like different types of CEOs or like the job changes and your job is to like, make the, build the product and then build the company and then build the team or team, whatever it is, you know?

• 39:34Jack Altman?

  Some order.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  Some order.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Product team company, now they say that out loud. And like, those are very different. And there's like, oh, a different types of people. You enjoy different things. And like, I think in some way that's true, but I also think, I don't like, you know, joke, that's kind of not a joke. It's like, no, you just have to like Stockholm syndrome yourself into being like, well, I used to be someone who liked to build products, but now I love building teams.

• 39:58Jack Altman?

  Right.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  And whether or not I identified as that person as two years ago, it doesn't matter. Now that's me and I believe it, you know? And then like, when it changes, you're like, now I'm this person.

• 40:05Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 40:06Speaker 00

  I love HR policy.

• 40:09Speaker 00

  Cause that's what the company needs right now.

• 40:10Jack Altman?

  Yeah, totally.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  And like, you know, joking, but not like figuring out how to be like, this is the game and the puzzle and like the journey and I need to take joy in it. Cause otherwise I will just, you know, like be sad and burned out and unfulfilled. And like, this is not sustainable.

• 40:24Jack Altman?

  Did you have a part of the journey where you? We're both doing things that you didn't enjoy and hadn't yet figured out how to like control your own like mindset and emotions like that.

• 40:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:37Jack Altman?

  Cause I imagine at the beginning.

• 40:38Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:38Jack Altman?

  I mean, who doesn't love, I mean, everybody loves building a product. Everybody loves getting that early customer.

• 40:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 40:43Jack Altman?

  Like that stuff is just like objectively fun.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:45Jack Altman?

  And then there are things that are like debatably fun and some people might love them, but not everybody loves them.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:49Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 40:50Speaker 00

  And I think it's, and especially in the early days, cause like for me, the first version of this was, okay, we have this product and company and recruited a couple of engineers. Now I have to go like do all of go to market and both do it and recruit people.

• 41:02Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  And I didn't know how to spell go to market, like kind of actually. And so it was like, I gotta do this. Everyone else is counting me on to do it. I'm like, wow, am I bad at it?

• 41:10Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 00

  Cause I've never done it.

• 41:11Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 41:12Speaker 00

  And like kind of raking myself over the coals for that.

• 41:15Jack Altman?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  And then sort of being like, okay, right. I'm bad at it. Cause I haven't done it. My job is to get good fast.

• 41:21Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  Right. Like it's, it's trajectory, not, you know, anything else, but like kind of reframing that.

• 41:25Jack Altman?

  Did you do anything to get that sort of like self-control that you're now at of being able to say like, I like this because I told myself I'm gonna like that. Like, was there like, you know, somebody you picked this up from? Was there, did you like read a bunch of like Buddhist books? Did you like something, you know, like what did you do to get to that? Cause I think very few people have that kind of ability to tell themselves that this is how I'm gonna feel about this thing.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think a bit of, for me, it used to be runs. I went long, it was like four miles, you know, but it was just like, and I live by going to get a park and you're like, also when I get really frustrated or pissed off, I'd like go run.

• 41:58Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Usually at some point there is like some, something, we have a mutual friend, Jay Zach Stein, who was like very, who I think is a very helpful like playback, sounds like what you're saying. Sounds like this is a thing, you know, like, uh, like prompting on self-reflection. And then I think also just talking to other founders, right? And then you talk to the folks who are like, oh, I'm supposed to be building the company, but like, I still just want to build the product. And like, I'm really, you know, and I'm a nor and I'm unhappy and just kind of being like, oh, that seems bad, you know?

• 42:28Jack Altman?

  Yeah.

• 42:28Speaker 00

  But like, I get it, right?

• 42:30Jack Altman?

  Absolutely. Well, Christina, this was really fun. Thank you for taking the time to do this. It was a, it was a blast for me.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  Thank you so much for having me.