Podcasts about bizops

In this episode Host Paul Barnhurst (aka The FP&A Guy) sits down with Elias Apel, the CEO of Lucanet, to explore the evolving landscape of financial planning and analysis. From transforming the Office of the CFO with AI to driving strategic acquisitions, Elias shares how he's leading Lucanet through hypergrowth and innovation while staying grounded in customer-centric leadership.Elias Apel is the CEO of Lucanet, a global provider of “Office of the CFO” software solutions for enterprises and SMEs. Founded in 1999, Lucanet offers tools for financial planning, consolidation, ESG reporting, tax compliance, and treasury management. The company supports nearly 6,000 customers in over 50 countries, with offices across Germany, Europe, the UK, Asia, and North America. Elias previously served as Lucanet's CFO and VP of International Go-to-Market. He is also the co-founder of Argonas Corporate Finance Advisors, specializing in complex M&A and financing transactions.Expect to Learn:What makes FP&A truly impactful and strategicHow to build trust across finance functionsLeveraging AI to boost financial operationsTransitioning from advisor to successful CEOIntegrating data analytics under finance leadershipStrategy behind Lucanet's acquisition of CausalHere are a few relevant quotes from the episode:"Communication is the most important soft skill for any finance business partner.""Data analytics is the number one technical skill FP&A professionals should master today.""A modern CFO needs to be commercially minded, not just financially accurate."Elias Apel shares valuable knowledge on leading through transformation, leveraging AI, and redefining the role of the CFO. He emphasizes the importance of trust, data-driven decision-making, and staying customer-focused. Whether you're in FP&A or executive leadership, his journey offers inspiration for building an agile, future-ready finance team. Operators Guild:Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at https://bit.ly/3F6sghSFollow FP&A Tomorrow:Newsletter - Subscribe on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=6957679529595162624 Follow Elias:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/eliasapel/Website - https://www.lucanet.com/en/solutions/extended-planning-and-analysis/Follow Paul: Website - https://www.thefpandaguy.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguyFP&A Community Hub: Tired of searching for answers and sifting through sales pitches? The FP&A Hub is your go-to online community where finance professionals connect, learn,...

In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst (aka the FP&A Guy) welcomes Glenn Snyder, a seasoned FP&A leader with over 20 years of experience. Glenn shares insights on financial planning and analysis, leadership strategies, and building effective business partnerships. He discusses the keys to driving business impact, managing teams, and navigating career growth in FP&A.Glenn Snyder is a Senior Director at Riverrun Consulting, specializing in interim financial leadership. With a career spanning financial services, fintech, SaaS, private equity, and more, he has held leadership roles at Franklin Templeton, Visa, Charles Schwab, and Digital Realty. Glenn is also an author, educator, and board member, passionate about mentoring finance professionals and improving FP&A effectiveness.Expect to Learn:The key elements of great FP&A and how it drives executive decisionsHow to balance company goals with employee career developmentStrategies for building strong business partnerships in FP&AThe role of automation and efficiency in FP&A reporting and analysisHow to successfully transition into a new leadership roleOvercoming resistance from business leaders and earning trust in financeThe importance of storytelling and data visualization in financial reportingHere are a few relevant quotes from the episode:“The best leaders give credit to their teams and create opportunities for them to shine.” - Glenn SnyderYour career growth is your responsibility. Stay curious, stay connected, and keep learning.” - Glenn Snyder“You don't have to be the smartest person in the room, but you must be the most adaptable.” - Glenn SnyderIn this episode, Glenn Snyder shared his expertise on what makes FP&A impactful, how to lead finance teams, and the importance of strong business partnerships. He emphasized that great FP&A professionals don't just report numbers, they drive decisions, build trust, and continuously improve processes. Being proactive, investing in relationships, and focusing on delivering insights, not just reports, are key. Success in FP&A comes from adapting, influencing, and always adding value.Operator's Guild:Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at https://bit.ly/3F6sghSFollow FP&A Tomorrow:Newsletter - Subscribe on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=6957679529595162624 Follow Glenn:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/glenntsnyder/Follow Paul: Website - https://www.thefpandaguy.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguyFP&A Community Hub: Tired of searching for answers and sifting through sales pitches? The FP&A Hub is your go-to online community where finance professionals...

In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst (The FP&A Guy) sits down with Jeff Casale and Rich Wagner to explore the role of Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A). They discuss how AI, external data, and continuous planning are transforming the industry, making FP&A a more strategic function. The conversation covers the power of AI-driven forecasting and how businesses can leverage external economic indicators to gain a competitive edge.Jeff Casale is the CEO of Board, a leading FP&A software company. With previous leadership roles at MarkLogic, Dell Technologies, VMware, and EMC, Jeff has a deep understanding of enterprise technology and how finance functions can drive business growth. Rich Wagner is the Field CTO at Board and the former CEO & Founder of Prevedere, a predictive analytics company that leverages external data for accurate forecasting. With over 20 years of experience in technology, consulting, and Fortune 500 leadership, Rich brings valuable expertise in the intersection of AI, finance, and business strategy.Expect to Learn:How AI is transforming financial planning, reducing manual work, and improving decision-making.Why integrating external data is essential for more accurate forecasting and risk management.Why traditional budgeting cycles are outdated and how real-time, agile forecasting is becoming the new norm.How CEOs and finance leaders rely on FP&A teams for strategic decision-making.How finance professionals can improve their skills and become more valuable business partners.Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:“AI is revolutionizing FP&A by reducing manual work and improving time-to-value.” - Rich Wagner“The companies that embrace continuous planning will be the winners in their industries.” - Jeff Casale“External data helps FP&A teams anticipate risks, not just react to them.” - Rich WagnerThis episode reinforced the idea that FP&A is evolving into a strategic powerhouse. AI, external economic data, and real-time forecasting are changing how companies plan, react, and make decisions. FP&A professionals must develop both technical and strategic skills to stay relevant.Operator's Guild:Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at https://bit.ly/3F6sghSFollow FP&A Tomorrow:Newsletter - Subscribe on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=6957679529595162624 Follow Jeff:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreycasale/Board- https://www.board.com/Follow Rich:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rich-wagner1/Prevedere -

In this episode of FP&A Tomorrow, host Paul Barnhurst (The FP&A Guy) welcomes Albert Ramos. He shares his thoughts about financial planning and analysis (FP&A), the role of AI in finance, and how businesses can leverage predictive analytics to make better strategic decisions. They also discuss pricing strategy, AI adoption, and the growing importance of financial professionals transitioning into advisory roles. Albert Ramos is a fractional CFO, AI strategist, and the founder of Stratego Intel Consulting, an AI-powered fractional CFO and virtual Chief AI Officer firm. With 15 years of executive leadership across finance, operations, sales, and technology, Albert has worked with publicly traded, private equity-backed, and employee-owned companies. He is a strong advocate for mental health awareness in high-pressure industries, emphasizing how AI can help reduce stress and improve efficiency.Expect to Learn:How AI and predictive analytics are shaping the future of finance.Why businesses often get pricing wrong and how FP&A can help fix it.How AI and agent-based automation are streamlining financial processes.Transitioning into a strategic business partner and the key skills required.How AI tools can help reduce anxiety, stress, and improve work-life balance.Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:“AI won't replace finance professionals, but those who use AI will replace those who don't.”“AI can enhance financial modeling, but the human element of strategic thinking is irreplaceable.”“Companies that ignore AI today will be struggling to catch up in the next two years.”Albert explains how AI is revolutionizing finance, why pricing strategy is critical for business success, and how finance professionals can future-proof their careers by evolving into strategic advisors. He also shared an important perspective on mental health, emphasizing how AI can help reduce stress by automating repetitive tasks, allowing finance professionals to focus on higher-value work.Operator's Guild:Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at https://bit.ly/3F6sghSFollow FP&A Tomorrow:Newsletter - Subscribe on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=6957679529595162624 Follow Albert:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertramosjr/Company - https://www.strategointel.com/Email - albertramosjr@strategointel.comFollow Paul: Website - https://www.thefpandaguy.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/thefpandaguyPlanning in BI...

In this episode, CJ interviews Ross Grainger, the CFO of Paradox, to discuss work-life integration (instead of balance), why the corporate ladder is less like a ladder and more like a jungle gym, and the hallmarks of a great CFO/FP&A/controller relationship. He starts by sharing his own unconventional career journey and talks about the importance of the hustle, giving examples from his own life of periods when things were weighted towards life or work and how this benefited him. He also describes why the career ladder is more like a jungle gym and gives examples of times when he had to step backwards or sideways to get ahead. He sheds light on the value of investing in work relationships outside of finance, such as product marketing and sales, before discussing the hallmarks of a good CFO/controller/FP&A relationship. With a team in Vietnam, he gives advice on how to expand internationally. The episode includes an explanation of why Ross doesn't believe in annual planning, what he does instead, and how he justifies this to the board. If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

In this episode, CJ has an exceptionally candid conversation with Will Cureton, the CFO of Nitrogen Wealth. Will sheds light on what Nitrogen Wealth does and how it incorporates a tolerance functionality built on the prospect theory into its software platform to better serve wealth management firms. After taking on some private equity backing in 2021, Nitrogen Wealth made a big price increase mistake. Will talks about how the company went about revisiting its growth assumptions. He explains how they assessed the company's TAM, exited unsustainable business lines, and unbundled some of their products in order to maintain or regain their customers. Will then does a deep dive on mitigating churn, covering which metrics Nitrogen tracks to predict churn, how they formulate a churn score, and other steps they take to support customer retention. If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Alyssa Shadinger, CFO of Sisense, sits down with CJ in this episode for a masterful deep dive on building and scaling analytics teams and perfecting the art of the OKR (Objectives and Key Results). They discuss the optimal structure for data and analytics teams and where they should sit within the org. Alyssa explains how Sisense clarified their data models for more accurate self-service reporting, how the company maps their analysts to different teams, and where the costs of this should sit in the P&L. Then CJ and Alyssa delve into OKRs, the biggest challenge to their success, the role of finance in helping the rest of the company define them, and the necessity of linking them to measurable financial outcomes. They also talk about the optimal number of OKRs that an org should have, and other tips for achieving them. If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:RemoFirst is a full-service Employer of Record solution that handles all your global employment needs. RemoFirst can help you navigate the maze of regulations and logistical challenges to onboard employees and contractors from anywhere in the world and streamline payroll, taxes, and compliances. Get two months free on EOR fees for your first hire in any country by visiting RemoFirst.com/metrics. Mercury is the fintech ambitious companies use for banking and all their financial workflows. With a powerful bank account at the center of their operations, companies can make better financial decisions and ensure that every dollar spent aligns with company priorities. That's why over 100K startups choose Mercury to confidently run all their financial operations with the precision, control, and focus they need to operate at their best. Learn more at mercury.com.Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

In this episode, CJ interviews Rebeca Sanchez Sarmiento, the CFO of Dotmatics and the queen of managing operational complexity. With over seven acquisitions under her belt in just a few years, Rebeca shares insights on managing the complex realities of inorganic growth. She breaks down how Dotmatics balances autonomy and integration across multiple entities while finding synergies and implementing system consolidations. The conversation delves into the intricacies of managing 16 P&Ls, creating consistent forecasting frameworks, and determining whether to lean into an 80/20 approach or aim for all-around excellence. Beyond M&A, Rebeca's extensive experience in investor relations and as a sell-side equity analyst adds depth to the discussion. The conversation also touches on her personal journey, including a bold move to Los Angeles, how it helped her career, and her approach to work-life balance and remote work. If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Mercury is the fintech ambitious companies use for banking and all their financial workflows. With a powerful bank account at the center of their operations, companies can make better financial decisions and ensure that every dollar spent aligns with company priorities. That's why over 100K startups choose Mercury to confidently run all their financial operations with the precision, control, and focus they need to operate at their best. Learn more at mercury.com.Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Samarth Mital, Senior Director of Global Sales Strategy, Planning & Analytics, Renewals & Sales Development at Rubrik joins CJ for this episode to talk all things pipeline, territory creation, commission plans, and renewals. Samarth joined the company when it was doing 70 million in ARR. Rubrik is now doing $1 billion and recently went public. He sheds light on his role at Rubrik in fostering this growth, the teams under his purview, and the cadence of the recurring meetings they have for forecasting. He discusses the value of an “accountability forum”, the best practices for inspecting pipeline, how to set up sales reps for success, and the art and science of territory design. He explains why territories get smaller as you add more products. He also delves into the characteristics of a good comp plan and how he deals with reps who feel their quota's too high, before breaking down what a healthy renewals function looks like. If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

This episode does a deep dive into stock-based compensation (SBC) and employee equity. Joining CJ for this conversation is Curt Sigfstead, the CFO of Clio, a leading vertical software provider for legal firms. CJ and Curt unpack the complexities of SBC, examining its importance, evolution, and how to effectively communicate its value to potential hires and the organization as a whole. They cover the evolution of share types as a company scales and how finance leaders should budget for equity compensation. Then Curt provides a detailed walkthrough of Clio's recent fundraising process, highlighting the importance of meeting and beating financial targets to maintain investor confidence. You'll also hear about building trust with everyone you work with and strategies for CFOs to empower founders to do their best work.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Guy Melamed, CFO & COO of Varonis, joins CJ to discuss the company's two major transitions. In 2019, Varonis shifted from a perpetual model to an on-prem subscription model, completing the transformation in record time. They are currently in the process of transitioning from an on-prem subscription company to a SaaS company. Guy and CJ delve into the challenges of these transitions, the pressure of doing them in the public eye, and how to communicate these processes to your customers, investors, and sales reps. He highlights the key KPIs that Varonis tracks, the ones that are overrated, and the importance of clearly defined metrics. Guy also touches on the challenge of keeping your eye on short, medium, and long-term strategy, before reflecting on his career, the risks he has taken, and lessons learned from his time in sports and business.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

In this episode, CJ interviews Justin Coulombe, the CFO of Miro. Apart from his “less but better” philosophy where he encourages listeners to strategically divest from less important things to focus on what's most impactful, he also shares a wealth of profound advice on being an effective CFO in SaaS. He explains Miro's approach to blending data from usage patterns, predictive modeling, and AI to identify upsell opportunities, prevent churn, and enhance customer retention. The discussion dives into the company's unique combination of product-led growth (PLG) and human-touch sales motions, exploring how to harness both while avoiding internal channel conflict. Justin also offers his perspective on the per-seat pricing model, why it still works for Miro, and whether outcome-based pricing is the future. Drawing on his experiences leading major transformations at Autodesk, Box, SurveyMonkey, and now Miro, he provides a framework for CFOs navigating business model transitions and explains why they fail. He also shares bold takes on SaaS business practices that need rethinking and his thoughts on how to balance growth and profitability in SaaS.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:RemoFirst is a full-service Employer of Record solution that handles all your global employment needs. RemoFirst can help you navigate the maze of regulations and logistical challenges to onboard employees and contractors from anywhere in the world and streamline payroll, taxes, and compliances. Get two months free on EOR fees for your first hire in any country by visiting RemoFirst.com/metrics. Mercury is the fintech ambitious companies use for banking and all their financial workflows. With a powerful bank account at the center of their operations, companies can make better financial decisions and ensure that every dollar spent aligns with company priorities. That's why over 100K startups choose Mercury to confidently run all their financial operations with the precision, control, and focus they need to operate at their best. Learn more at mercury.com.Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

While companies often go public, not many CFOs have taken a company private. In this episode, CJ interviews Navaid Mansuri, the CFO of Dialogue Health, a Canadian health tech company, that went from private to public to private again in less than five years. The discussion covers Navaid's career journey, including his experience negotiating broadcast rights at Rogers, his involvement in a joint venture with VICE Media, and his role in Dialogue's significant business transitions including being acquired by Sun Life. Navaid shares insights into the challenges and strategies of managing a company's financial health and P&L through these stages and breaks down the differences between the roles of public and private CFOs. He also highlights the importance of adaptability and credibility for CFOs and the unique aspects of operating a healthcare business in Canada.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Mercury is the fintech ambitious companies use for banking and all their financial workflows. With a powerful bank account at the center of their operations, companies can make better financial decisions and ensure that every dollar spent aligns with company priorities. That's why over 100K startups choose Mercury to confidently run all their financial operations with the precision, control, and focus they need to operate at their best. Learn more at mercury.com.Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning.Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com.Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Sarah Spoja, the CFO of Tipalti joins CJ to discuss M&A as a growth lever and the evolution of the CFO role in high-growth environments. Drawing from her background in private equity operations at KKR Capstone, she shares insights on the current M&A environment and the boom she predicts for the near future. She also explains how to avoid crushing the soul of a startup in the M&A process and the value of getting your hands dirty in PE Ops. As the CFO of a rapidly expanding SaaS company, Sarah sheds light on how to evolve as the company scales. She shares how to reassess priorities, balance hands-on work with strategic oversight, and navigate external-facing demands like conferences and panels. The conversation covers building investor relationships while avoiding perceptions of always being in-market and highlights the CFO's dual role as strategist and salesperson. From navigating M&A to solving problems across stages from seed to IPO, this episode is packed with insights.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

In this solo episode, CJ experiments with a new format called S-1 Cinema as he delves into the intricacies of Snowflake's remarkable IPO which debuted on September 16, 2020. Excluding social media giants like Facebook and Snap Inc., it stands as the biggest software IPO to date, marked by an explosive stock price jump that surpassed its already high issue price. CJ unpacks Snowflake's cloud-based data storage offering and its usage-based pricing model. He explores the company's unique position at the time of its IPO, operating as both a competitor to and a customer of major cloud providers like AWS. CJ also discusses the company's financial metrics, growth, the leadership changes that shaped its trajectory, and the major investors that profited. Listeners will learn about the IPO pricing strategy that left significant money on the table and how the company fares today.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

In this episode, CJ interviews Georgy Egorov, CFO of ZeroAvia, who shares his journey from pioneering AI drug discovery to co-inventing a Covid vaccine, and now leading the charge toward zero-emission aviation with hydrogen-powered airplanes. They talk about the complexities of getting funding for a climate tech company and the need for these products to outperform traditional options without relying on green labels. Then Georgy explains the importance of risk management in this industry and some of the many factors he has to consider. With roots in investment banking, he discusses how this experience has helped him become a better CFO and provides advice for identifying the right career opportunities. Tune in for a conversation with a forward-thinking CFO driving innovation in one of the world's most ambitious startups. If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Leapfin is accounting automation software that automatically prepares and posts reliable journal entries. High-growth businesses like Reddit, Canva, and Seat Geek choose Leapfin to eliminate manual tasks, accelerate month-end close, and enable accounting leaders to provide faster insights to help their companies grow. To automatically standardize your revenue data with measurable business impact, check out leapfin.com today. Mercury is the fintech ambitious companies use for banking and all their financial workflows. With a powerful bank account at the center of their operations, companies can make better financial decisions and ensure that every dollar spent aligns with company priorities. That's why over 100K startups choose Mercury to confidently run all their financial operations with the precision, control, and focus they need to operate at their best. Learn more at mercury.com.Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Bill Koefoed, CFO of OneStream Software, sits down with CJ for an in-depth look at the company's recent IPO journey. Bill sheds light on the events that resulted in OneStream's stock soaring from $20 to $27, a 34% leap, on day one despite market uncertainties. He shares insights on the decision-making process leading up to going public, the challenges faced during their roadshow, and the unique experiences they had along the way. He also delves into building the book for investors and the metrics OneStream prioritizes. With experience at Microsoft, Bill discusses what it was like working in their investor relations, his time with Steve Ballmer, and his role in Microsoft's acquisition of Skype. He shares lessons from his journey on transparency, handling tough news, and the qualities that set extraordinary CFOs apart. This episode provides a comprehensive look at the intricacies of taking a company public and the ongoing responsibilities of a public company CFO. If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

In this episode, CJ interviews Adam Berg, CFO of Zero Hash, about the evolution of financial services infrastructure and the role of crypto in accelerating this change. With Zero Hash's clients including the likes of Stripe, Interactive Brokers, Franklin Templeton, Shift4, and BlackRock, Adam discusses the importance of blockchain, not just as an asset class but as a fundamental technology that enhances value transfer and settlement processes. He highlights the differences in business models within the fintech ecosystem and the critical need for balance sheet evaluation and liquidity management. Adam talks about the complexities of a B2B2C business model, the challenges and strategies of managing macroeconomic conditions as a CFO, and the importance of a resilient tech stack. He shares insights on the build versus partner framework and explains why he believes that margin compression and price optimization can actually hurt end users in the long run. You'll also hear advice for anyone pursuing a career in finance as Adam reflects on pivotal career decisions.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Mercury is the fintech ambitious companies use for banking and all their financial workflows. With a powerful bank account at the center of their operations, companies can make better financial decisions and ensure that every dollar spent aligns with company priorities. That's why over 100K startups choose Mercury to confidently run all their financial operations with the precision, control, and focus they need to operate at their best. Learn more at mercury.com.Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust®; Members FDIC.NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Ganapathy Subramaniam, CFO of TerraPay, joins CJ for a deep dive into the complex world of cross-border payments. Together they unpack the complexities of moving money internationally, such as high fees, slow processing times, and the lack of transparency. Ganapathy sheds light on the global payment landscape, highlighting key transaction corridors and the wallet share of different regions. He delves into TerraPay's business model, explaining how they monetize their payment infrastructure and manage FX margins, before sharing his perspective on trends shaping cross-border payments over the next five years. The conversation also covers the evolving role of the CFO which GS characterizes as the “chief value creation officer” before breaking down what he believes are the the pillars for creating value. The episode concludes with insights into the qualities that set great CFOs apart, offering a roadmap for finance leaders looking to elevate their roles and impact.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform ✅, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning. Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

Scott Voss, Managing Director of one of Boston's preeminent venture capital firms HarbourVest, joins CJ for an in-depth exploration of secondaries, continuation vehicles, and sidecar funds. Scott starts by outlining HarbourVest's value proposition and investment strategies, covering primary investments, secondaries, and direct co-investments while underscoring the importance of private market access for diversified portfolios. He shares the framework HarbourVest uses to identify and support emerging fund managers ahead of their success, and the process of due diligence and evaluation. Scott sheds light on how continuation vehicles work in the private equity space and other trends or innovations he has identified. The discussion also covers the complexities of succession planning within private equity firms, the evolving landscape of global entrepreneurship and venture capital internationally, and Scott's views on AI.If you're looking for an ERP head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get a customized KPI checklist.—SPONSORS:Operators Guild is where the best CEOs, CFOs, VPs of finance, and BizOps leaders in the business connect, network, and grow together. Built by operators for operators, this members-only community is home to more than 1000 of the most elite high-growth operators in the world. Experience connection and knowledge share with professionals who understand you like no one else does. Learn more and apply at operators-guild.com. Maxio is the only billing and financial operations platform that was purpose built for B2B SaaS. They're helping SaaS finance teams automate billing and revenue recognition, manage collections and payments, and put together investor grade reporting packages.

In many companies, operations roles, whether it's RevOps, BizOps, or DevOps, are often pigeonholed into support functions. But Matt Curl, COO at Apollo, argues for a different approach: strong Ops.  This model doesn't just reduce pain points; it drives long-term value by shaping the business strategy. Highlights include: Who Owns PMF vs. Who owns the customer (11:23), Who's The Customer? (37:30), And more… Are you looking to create repeatable, scalable, and predictable revenue? We can help! ► https://predictable.fm/get-growth

www.CPOPLAYBOOK.comEpisode TranscriptAboutIn this podcast episode, Bryce Hoover, former Head of People Analytics at Tesla, highlights the crucial role of people analytics in guiding organizational success. He emphasizes the need for clarity of purpose and organizational structure within analytics teams, advocating for direct reporting to HR leaders. Hoover underscores the importance of prioritizing HR leader success and fostering a data-driven culture. He also discusses the challenges of integrating people data across business units and the significance of operational independence and hiring the right data leaders.*Bryce HooverBryce served at Tesla for seven years and built analytics capabilities across BizOps and HR functions. He's a trusted executive partner that sits at the intersection of technical and business leadership to ensure that data assets are harnessed for maximum business value.*All media inquiries: media@cpoplaybook.com

When we think about strategy, we usually picture two groups: those who come up with high-level vision, and those who execute that vision through a strategy. But how do we actually get from ideation to execution? And who's responsible for seeing that through?Shobhna Upadhyaya, BizOps & Strategy Leader, joins the podcast to talk about business operations (aka BizOps), which she explains as the team responsible for that important middle phase between strategy development and implementation. In demystifying BizOps, strategy leaders across industries can find themselves better equipped to cultivate cross-functional collaboration and overcome challenges within corporate structures and strategy.Join us as we discuss:How to maintain objectivity while being embedded in a specific line of business or functional areaStrategies for building trust and influence without authorityBalancing one-on-one conversations and group discussions to foster cooperation and resolve conflictsThe value of clear ownership and definition of roles in the strategy development process

Satan i gatan, nu kommer vi revolutionera IT-konsultbranchen. Låt oss presentera CompanyAsCode, BizOps, CoOps - eller vad vi kommer kalla det när vi tar över världen.Om vi får möjligheten att tänka om helt, hur skulle alla processer och verktyg fungera i den nya världen. Vi tar inspiration från systemutvecklingens verktyg att använda kod, teamarbete, ansvar, pipelines, markdown, repos, pull-requests och cron-job för att helt ändra/ersätta dagens arbetsuppgifter.LänkarBiz Ops Dyson Sphere ProgramDave the diver Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we're joined by the homie Amir Prodensky. Amir's first job out of college was in Banking, but he always knew he wanted to get into Tech. He first made a transition into a BizOps role at Revolut and eventually into a Product role. He later became one of the first business hires at an early stage Stripe backed fintech company and is now the CEO and Co-Founder of Strada, a YC-backed automation tooling company. Amir talks through how he discovered product management and why he ultimately decided to leave a path of certainty in Banking to pursue the tech industry.  This episode is for friends in Banking who are thinking about switching to a career in tech as well as anyone who is looking to switch internally into a Product role Timestamps: (1:51) - Navigating high school and college (4:29) - Experience in Banking as a new grad (9:40) - Switching to Tech as BizOps hire (29:24) - Thoughts working in Tech  (36:45) - Navigating the internal transition into Product (45:24) - Skill gaps as a newly minted Product Manager (51:27) - Reflecting on the transition and general career advice

How much does a Chief of Staff make? On average $144,121. But the salary range varies. Deep dive into the factors that go into a Chief of Staff’s overall compensation. Rahul Desai, the General Manager of COS Network, joins the show and walks through the latest annual COS Network’s Compensation Report. The report breaks down: - Average Salary by Chief of Staff Level (1-5) - Average Salary by Company Size - Average Salary by Education - Average Salary by Gender - Average Salary by Geographic Region - Percentage of Compensation by Base Salary vs. Bonus - What Roles former Chiefs of Staff are currently in - and more… If you are considering a Chief of Staff role, interviewing for one, or looking for a raise, don’t miss out on this episode! The information presented in the Compensation Report equips you with empirical data to build a well-informed case for your career progression. Rahul Desai on LinkedIn Chief of Staff Network Website Chief of Staff Network Salary Report Chief of Staff Network Pathways Report Chief of Staff Network Job Board Rahul Desai is a former Chief of Staff turned entrepreneur and General Manager of the Chief of Staff Network. With a wealth of experience in the corporate sector, he has co-founded several companies, applying his strategic expertise to drive business success. At the Chief of Staff Network, Rahul spearheads initiatives that provide vital support to corporate Chiefs of Staff worldwide through resources such as peer networking, coaching, and professional development. His insights into the evolution of the role make him a leading authority on the dynamics of corporate leadership and the empowerment of Chiefs of Staff. – – – – – 01:43 Exploring the Chief of Staff Network 07:14 The Role of Chief of Staff in Different Regions 10:17 Chief of Staff Salary Report 12:01 Understanding the Factors Affecting Chief of Staff Salary 20:48 The Impact of Company Size on Chief of Staff Salary 29:49 The Effect of Experience on Chief of Staff Salary 31:58 Gender Pay Gap and Career Progression 35:11 Gender Breakdown in BizOps and Chief of Staff Roles 38:18 Career Planning and Growth Opportunities for Chiefs of Staff 43:53 Skills Required for a Chief of Staff 47:04 Career Paths for Chiefs of Staff 52:57 Demographics of Chiefs of Staff – – – – – Emily Sander is a C-suite executive turned leadership coach. Her corporate career spanned Fortune 500 companies and scrappy start-ups. She is an ICF-certified leadership coach and the author of two books, An Insider’s Perspective on the Chief of Staff and Hacking Executive Leadership. Emily works with early to senior executives to step into effective leadership with one-on-one coaching. Go here to read her story from seasoned executive to knowledgeable coach. Get your free Chief of Staff Skills Assessment Checklist here. Download your free Chief of Staff Toolkit here. To learn more about Emily and Next Level Coaching, click here. Follow Emily on LinkedIn | YouTube

Você sabe o que é BizOps? Explore novos horizontes conosco no episódio mais recente do Performa.Q.Pod!Junte-se a nós e ao Diretor de BizOps da Superlógica, Omar Branquinho, enquanto exploramos os caminhos que moldaram sua trajetória.Vamos descobrir os pontos cruciais dessa jornada e promover a troca de conhecimentos e experiência!Ouça essa conversa inspiradora! Aperta o play.

The world of chargebacks and returns, two headaches that many business owners face. Understanding this payment process is crucial for your financial success. In this episode, we're going to break down the intricacies of chargebacks and returns, why they happen, and how you can prevent them from affecting your gym business.In today's digital age, consumers have more protections than ever when it comes to their payments. Chargebacks and returns are part of the game, but with the right systems in place, you can minimize their impact on your bottom line.So, if you want to take control of your business's financial health and reduce the stress associated with chargebacks and returns, dive into this episode. Few things you will learn today: 1-You'll learn about the key players in the payment process: the merchant, payment gateway, and payment processor and how each entity contributes to transaction costs, giving you insights to cut down on processing fees.2- You'll learn the importance of clear and binding agreements with customers to shield your business from chargebacks and returns. Discover how to secure explicit agreements covering payment terms and methods as your primary defense.3-Discover how to streamline chargeback and return processes using tools like Buzops. Learn how to input, track, notify customers, and restrict service access for those initiating chargebacks or returnsAnd remember, for more detailed information and resources, visit buzops.comIf you found this episode helpful, please like, subscribe, and share it with fellow business owners. By doing so, you'll stay updated on future episodes that can help you navigate the complexities of running your fitness business. For any questions or additional support, reach out to us at Support@buzops.com. We're here to help you succeed.This Podcast is Presented to you by BUZOPS Software! Your next-generation gym management software and operational system, meticulously engineered for gym owners who seek excellence and efficiency. BUZOPS It's designed to empower you to flawlessly automate administrative tasks and optimize access management to your facilities, synchronizing effortlessly with member accounts, staff management, class bookings, scheduling, individual services, and user-friendly comprehensive business reports.

Thanks to the over 11,000 people who joined us for the first AI Engineer Summit! A full recap is coming, but you can 1) catch up on the fun and videos on Twitter and YouTube, 2) help us reach 1000 people for the first comprehensive State of AI Engineering survey and 3) submit projects for the new AI Engineer Foundation.See our Community page for upcoming meetups in SF, Paris, NYC, and Singapore. This episode had good interest on Twitter.Last month, Imbue was crowned as AI's newest unicorn foundation model lab, raising a $200m Series B at a >$1 billion valuation. As “stealth” foundation model companies go, Imbue (f.k.a. Generally Intelligent) has stood as an enigmatic group given they have no publicly released models to try out. However, ever since their $20m Series A last year their goal has been to “develop generally capable AI agents with human-like intelligence in order to solve problems in the real world”.From RL to Reasoning LLMsAlong with their Series A, they announced Avalon, “A Benchmark for RL Generalization Using Procedurally Generated Worlds”. Avalon is built on top of the open source Godot game engine, and is ~100x faster than Minecraft to enable fast RL benchmarking and a clear reward with adjustable game difficulty.After a while, they realized that pure RL isn't a good path to teach reasoning and planning. The agents were able to learn mechanical things like opening complex doors, climbing, but couldn't go to higher level tasks. A pure RL world also doesn't include a language explanation of the agent reasoning, which made it hard to understand why it made certain decisions. That pushed the team more towards the “models for reasoning” path:“The second thing we learned is that pure reinforcement learning is not a good vehicle for planning and reasoning. So these agents were able to learn all sorts of crazy things: They could learn to climb like hand over hand in VR climbing, they could learn to open doors like very complicated, like multiple switches and a lever open the door, but they couldn't do any higher level things. And they couldn't do those lower level things consistently necessarily. And as a user, I do not want to interact with a pure reinforcement learning end to end RL agent. As a user, like I need much more control over what that agent is doing.”Inspired by Chelsea Finn's work on SayCan at Stanford, the team pivoted to have their agents do the reasoning in natural language instead. This development parallels the large leaps in reasoning that humans have developed as the scientific method:“We are better at reasoning now than we were 3000 years ago. An example of a reasoning strategy is noticing you're confused. Then when I notice I'm confused, I should ask:* What was the original claim that was made? * What evidence is there for this claim? * Does the evidence support the claim? * Is the claim correct? This is like a reasoning strategy that was developed in like the 1600s, you know, with like the advent of science. So that's an example of a reasoning strategy. There are tons of them. We employ all the time, lots of heuristics that help us be better at reasoning. And we can generate data that's much more specific to them.“The Full Stack Model LabOne year later, it would seem that the pivot to reasoning has had tremendous success, and Imbue has now reached a >$1B valuation, with participation from Astera Institute, NVIDIA, Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt, Notion co-founder Simon Last, and others. Imbue tackles their work with a “full stack” approach:* Models. Pretraining very large (>100B parameter) models, optimized to perform well on internal reasoning benchmarks, with a ~10,000 Nvidia H100 GPU cluster lets us iterate rapidly on everything from training data to architecture and reasoning mechanisms.* Tools and Agents. Building internal productivity tools from coding agents for fixing type checking and linting errors, to sophisticated systems like CARBS (for hyperparameter tuning and network architecture search).* Interface Invention. Solving agent trust and collaboration (not merely communication) with humans by creating better abstractions and interfaces — IDEs for users to program computers in natural language.* Theory. Publishing research about the theoretical underpinnings of self-supervised learning, as well as scaling laws for machine learning research.Kanjun believes we are still in the “bare metal phase” of agent development, and they want to take a holistic approach to building the “operating system for agents”. We loved diving deep into the Imbue approach toward solving the AI Holy Grail of reliable agents, and are excited to share our conversation with you today!Timestamps* [00:00:00] Introductions* [00:06:07] The origin story of Imbue* [00:09:39] Imbue's approach to training large foundation models optimized for reasoning* [00:12:18] Imbue's goals to build an "operating system" for reliable, inspectable AI agents* [00:15:37] Imbue's process of developing internal tools and interfaces to collaborate with AI agents* [00:17:27] Imbue's focus on improving reasoning capabilities in models, using code and other data* [00:19:50] The value of using both public benchmarks and internal metrics to evaluate progress* [00:21:43] Lessons learned from developing the Avalon research environment* [00:23:31] The limitations of pure reinforcement learning for general intelligence* [00:28:36] Imbue's vision for building better abstractions and interfaces for reliable agents* [00:31:36] Interface design for collaborating with, rather than just communicating with, AI agents* [00:37:40] The future potential of an agent-to-agent protocol* [00:39:29] Leveraging approaches like critiquing between models and chain of thought* [00:45:49] Kanjun's philosophy on enabling team members as creative agents at Imbue* [00:53:51] Kanjun's experience co-founding the communal co-living space The Archive* [01:00:22] Lightning RoundShow Notes* Imbue* Avalon* CARBS (hyperparameter optimizer)* Series B announcement* Kanjun/Imbue's Podcast* MIT Media Lab* Research mentioned:* Momentum Contrast* SimClr* Chelsea Finn - SayCan* Agent Protocol - part of the AI Engineer Foundation* Xerox PARC* Michael Nielsen* Jason Benn* Outset Capital* Scenius - Kevin Kelly* South Park Commons* The Archive* Thursday Nights in AITranscriptAlessio: Hey everyone, welcome to the Latent Space Podcast. This is Alessio, Partner and CTO at Residence at Decibel Partners, and I'm joined by my co-host Swyx, founder of Smol.ai. [00:00:19]Swyx: Hey, and today in the studio we have Kanjun from Imbue. Welcome. So you and I have, I guess, crossed paths a number of times. You're formerly named Generally Intelligent and you've just announced your rename, rebrand in huge, humongous ways. So congrats on all of that. And we're here to dive in into deeper detail on Imbue. We like to introduce you on a high level basis, but then have you go into a little bit more of your personal side. So you graduated your BS at MIT and you also spent some time at the MIT Media Lab, one of the most famous, I guess, computer hacking labs in the world. Then you graduated MIT and you went straight into BizOps at Dropbox, where you're eventually chief of staff, which is a pretty interesting role we can dive into later. And then it seems like the founder bug hit you. You were basically a three times founder at Ember, Sorceress, and now at Generally Intelligent slash Imbue. What should people know about you on the personal side that's not on your LinkedIn? That's something you're very passionate about outside of work. [00:01:12]Kanjun: Yeah. I think if you ask any of my friends, they would tell you that I'm obsessed with agency, like human agency and human potential. [00:01:19]Swyx: That's work. Come on.Kanjun: It's not work. What are you talking about?Swyx: So what's an example of human agency that you try to promote? [00:01:27]Kanjun: With all of my friends, I have a lot of conversations with them that's kind of helping figure out what's blocking them. I guess I do this with a team kind of automatically too. And I think about it for myself often, like building systems. I have a lot of systems to help myself be more effective. At Dropbox, I used to give this onboarding talk called How to Be Effective, which people liked. I think like a thousand people heard this onboarding talk, and I think maybe Dropbox was more effective. I think I just really believe that as humans, we can be a lot more than we are. And it's what drives everything. I guess completely outside of work, I do dance. I do partner dance. [00:02:03]Swyx: Yeah. Lots of interest in that stuff, especially in the sort of group living houses in San Francisco, which I've been a little bit part of, and you've also run one of those. [00:02:12]Kanjun: That's right. Yeah. I started the archive with two friends, with Josh, my co-founder, and a couple of other folks in 2015. That's right. And GPT-3, our housemates built. [00:02:22]Swyx: Was that the, I guess, the precursor to Generally Intelligent, that you started doing more things with Josh? Is that how that relationship started? Yeah. [00:02:30]Kanjun: This is our third company together. Our first company, Josh poached me from Dropbox for Ember. And there we built a really interesting technology, laser raster projector, VR headset. And then we were like, VR is not the thing we're most passionate about. And actually it was kind of early days when we both realized we really do believe that in our lifetimes, like computers that are intelligent are going to be able to allow us to do much more than we can do today as people and be much more as people than we can be today. And at that time, we actually, after Ember, we were like, work on AI research or start an AI lab. A bunch of our housemates were joining OpenAI, and we actually decided to do something more pragmatic to apply AI to recruiting and to try to understand like, okay, if we are actually trying to deploy these systems in the real world, what's required? And that was Sorceress. That taught us so much about maybe an AI agent in a lot of ways, like what does it actually take to make a product that people can trust and rely on? I think we never really fully got there. And it's taught me a lot about what's required. And it's kind of like, I think informed some of our approach and some of the way that we think about how these systems will actually get used by people in the real world. [00:03:42]Swyx: Just to go one step deeper on that, you're building AI agents in 2016 before it was cool. You got some muscle and you raised $30 million. Something was working. What do you think you succeeded in doing and then what did you try to do that did not pan out? [00:03:56]Kanjun: Yeah. So the product worked quite well. So Sorceress was an AI system that basically looked for candidates that could be a good fit and then helped you reach out to them. And this was a little bit early. We didn't have language models to help you reach out. So we actually had a team of writers that like, you know, customized emails and we automated a lot of the customization. But the product was pretty magical. Like candidates would just be interested and land in your inbox and then you can talk to them. As a hiring manager, that's such a good experience. I think there were a lot of learnings, both on the product and market side. On the market side, recruiting is a market that is endogenously high churn, which means because people start hiring and then we hire the role for them and they stop hiring. So the more we succeed, the more they... [00:04:39]Swyx: It's like the whole dating business. [00:04:40]Kanjun: It's the dating business. Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's the same problem as the dating business. And I was really passionate about like, can we help people find work that is more exciting for them? A lot of people are not excited about their jobs and a lot of companies are doing exciting things and the matching could be a lot better. But the dating business phenomenon like put a damper on that, like it's actually a pretty good business. But as with any business with like relatively high churn, the bigger it gets, the more revenue we have, the slower growth becomes because if 30% of that revenue you lose year over year, then it becomes a worse business. So that was the dynamic we noticed quite early on after our Series A. I think the other really interesting thing about it is we realized what was required for people to trust that these candidates were like well vetted and had been selected for a reason. And it's what actually led us, you know, a lot of what we do at Imbue is working on interfaces to figure out how do we get to a situation where when you're building and using agents, these agents are trustworthy to the end user. That's actually one of the biggest issues with agents that, you know, go off and do longer range goals is that I have to trust, like, did they actually think through this situation? And that really informed a lot of our work today. [00:05:52]Alessio: Let's jump into GI now, Imbue. When did you decide recruiting was done for you and you were ready for the next challenge? And how did you pick the agent space? I feel like in 2021, it wasn't as mainstream. Yeah. [00:06:07]Kanjun: So the LinkedIn says that it started in 2021, but actually we started thinking very seriously about it in early 2020, late 2019, early 2020. So what we were seeing is that scale is starting to work and language models probably will actually get to a point where like with hacks, they're actually going to be quite powerful. And it was hard to see that at the time, actually, because GPT-3, the early versions of it, there are all sorts of issues. We're like, oh, that's not that useful, but we could kind of see like, okay, you keep improving it in all of these different ways and it'll get better. What Josh and I were really interested in is how can we get computers that help us do bigger things? Like, you know, there's this kind of future where I think a lot about, you know, if I were born in 1900 as a woman, like my life would not be that fun. I'd spend most of my time like carrying water and literally like getting wood to put in the stove to cook food and like cleaning and scrubbing the dishes and, you know, getting food every day because there's no refrigerator, like all of these things, very physical labor. And what's happened over the last 150 years since the industrial revolution is we've kind of gotten free energy, like energy is way more free than it was 150 years ago. And so as a result, we've built all these technologies like the stove and the dishwasher and the refrigerator, and we have electricity and we have infrastructure, running water, all of these things that have totally freed me up to do what I can do now. And I think the same thing is true for intellectual energy. We don't really see it today, but because we're so in it, but our computers have to be micromanaged. You know, part of why people are like, oh, you're stuck to your screen all day. Well, we're stuck to our screen all day because literally nothing happens unless I'm doing something in front of my screen. I don't, you know, I can't send my computer off to do a bunch of stuff for me. And there is a future where that's not the case, where, you know, I can actually go off and do stuff and trust that my computer will pay my bills and figure out my travel plans and do the detailed work that I am not that excited to do so that I can like be much more creative and able to do things that I as a human, I'm very excited about and collaborate with other people. And there are things that people are uniquely suited for. So that's kind of always been the thing that has been really exciting to me. Like Josh and I have known for a long time, I think that, you know, whatever AI is, it would happen in our lifetimes. And the personal computer kind of started giving us a bit of free intellectual energy. And this is like really the explosion of free intellectual energy. So in early 2020, we were thinking about this and what happened was self-supervised learning basically started working across everything. So worked in language, SimClear came out, I think MoCo had come out, Momentum Contrast had come out earlier in 2019, SimClear came out in early 2020. And we're like, okay, for the first time, self-supervised learning is working really well across images and text and suspect that like, okay, actually it's the case that machines can learn things the way that humans do. And if that's true, if they can learn things in a fully self-supervised way, because like as people, we are not supervised. We like go Google things and try to figure things out. So if that's true, then like what the computer could be is much bigger than what it is today. And so we started exploring ideas around like, how do we actually go? We didn't think about the fact that we could actually just build a research lab. So we were like, okay, what kind of startup could we build to like leverage self-supervised learning? So that eventually becomes something that allows computers to become much more able to do bigger things for us. But that became General Intelligence, which started as a research lab. [00:09:39]Alessio: So your mission is you aim to rekindle the dream of the personal computer. So when did it go wrong and what are like your first products and user facing things that you're building to rekindle it? [00:09:53]Kanjun: Yeah. So what we do at Imbue is we train large foundation models optimized for reasoning. And the reason for that is because reasoning is actually, we believe the biggest blocker to agents or systems that can do these larger goals. If we think about something that writes an essay, like when we write an essay, we like write it. We put it and then we're done. We like write it and then we look at it and we're like, oh, I need to do more research on that area. I'm going to go do some research and figure it out and come back and, oh, actually it's not quite right. The structure of the outline. So I'm going to rearrange the outline, rewrite it. It's this very iterative process and it requires thinking through like, okay, what am I trying to do? Is the goal correct? Also like, has the goal changed as I've learned more? So as a tool, like when should I ask the user questions? I shouldn't ask them questions all the time, but I should ask them questions in higher risk situations. How certain am I about the like flight I'm about to book? There are all of these notions of like risk certainty, playing out scenarios, figuring out how to make a plan that makes sense, how to change the plan, what the goal should be. That are things that we lump under the bucket of reasoning and models today, they're not optimized for reasoning. It turns out that there's not actually that much explicit reasoning data on the internet as you would expect. And so we get a lot of mileage out of optimizing our models for reasoning in pre-training. And then on top of that, we build agents ourselves and we, I can get into, we really believe in serious use, like really seriously using the systems and trying to get to an agent that we can use every single day, tons of agents that we can use every single day. And then we experiment with interfaces that help us better interact with the agents. So those are some set of things that we do on the kind of model training and agent side. And then the initial agents that we build, a lot of them are trying to help us write code better because code is most of what we do every day. And then on the infrastructure and theory side, we actually do a fair amount of theory work to understand like, how do these systems learn? And then also like, what are the right abstractions for us to build good agents with, which we can get more into. And if you look at our website, we build a lot of tools internally. We have a like really nice automated hyperparameter optimizer. We have a lot of really nice infrastructure and it's all part of the belief of like, okay, let's try to make it so that the humans are doing the things humans are good at as much as possible. So out of our very small team, we get a lot of leverage. [00:12:18]Swyx: And so would you still categorize yourself as a research lab now, or are you now in startup mode? Is that a transition that is conscious at all? [00:12:26]Kanjun: That's a really interesting question. I think we've always intended to build, you know, to try to build the next version of the computer, enable the next version of the computer. The way I think about it is there's a right time to bring a technology to market. So Apple does this really well. Actually, iPhone was under development for 10 years, AirPods for five years. And Apple has a story where iPhone, the first multi-touch screen was created. They actually were like, oh wow, this is cool. Let's like productionize iPhone. They actually brought, they like did some work trying to productionize it and realized this is not good enough. And they put it back into research to try to figure out like, how do we make it better? What are the interface pieces that are needed? And then they brought it back into production. So I think of production and research as kind of like these two separate phases. And internally we have that concept as well, where like things need to be done in order to get to something that's usable. And then when it's usable, like eventually we figure out how to productize it. [00:13:20]Alessio: What's the culture like to make that happen, to have both like kind of like product oriented, research oriented. And as you think about building the team, I mean, you just raised 200 million. I'm sure you want to hire more people. What are like the right archetypes of people that work at Imbue? [00:13:35]Kanjun: I would say we have a very unique culture in a lot of ways. I think a lot about social process design. So how do you design social processes that enable people to be effective? I like to think about team members as creative agents, because most companies, they think of their people as assets and they're very proud of this. And I think about like, okay, what is an asset? It's something you own that provides you value that you can discard at any time. This is a very low bar for people. This is not what people are. And so we try to enable everyone to be a creative agent and to really unlock their superpowers. So a lot of the work I do, you know, I was mentioning earlier, I'm like obsessed with agency. A lot of the work I do with team members is try to figure out like, you know, what are you really good at? What really gives you energy and where can we put you such that, how can I help you unlock that and grow that? So much of our work, you know, in terms of team structure, like much of our work actually comes from people. Carbs, our hyperparameter optimizer came from Abe trying to automate his own research process doing hyperparameter optimization. And he actually pulled some ideas from plasma physics. He's a plasma physicist to make the local search work. A lot of our work on evaluations comes from a couple of members of our team who are like obsessed with evaluations. We do a lot of work trying to figure out like, how do you actually evaluate if the model is getting better? Is the model making better agents? Is the agent actually reliable? A lot of things kind of like, I think of people as making the like them shaped blob inside imbue and I think, you know, yeah, that's the kind of person that we're, we're hiring for. We're hiring product engineers and data engineers and research engineers and all these roles. We have projects, not teams. We have a project around data, data collection and data engineering. That's actually one of the key things that improve the model performance. We have a pre-training kind of project with some fine tuning as part of that. And then we have an agent's project that's like trying to build on top of our models as well as use other models in the outside world to try to make agents then we actually use as programmers every day. So all sorts of different, different projects. [00:15:37]Swyx: As a founder, you're now sort of a capital allocator among all of these different investments effectively at different projects. And I was interested in how you mentioned that you were optimizing for improving reasoning and specifically inside of your pre-training, which I assume is just a lot of data collection. [00:15:55]Kanjun: We are optimizing reasoning inside of our pre-trained models. And a lot of that is about data. And I can talk more about like what, you know, what exactly does it involve? But actually big, maybe 50% plus of the work is figuring out even if you do have models that reason well, like the models are still stochastic. The way you prompt them still makes, is kind of random, like makes them do random things. And so how do we get to something that is actually robust and reliable as a user? How can I, as a user, trust it? We have all sorts of cool things on the, like, you know, I was mentioning earlier when I talked to other people building agents, they have to do so much work, like to try to get to something that they can actually productize and it takes a long time and agents haven't been productized yet for, partly for this reason is that like the abstractions are very leaky. We can get like 80% of the way there, but like self-driving cars, like the remaining 20% is actually really difficult. We believe that, and we have internally, I think some things that like an interface, for example, that lets me really easily like see what the agent execution is, fork it, try out different things, modify the prompt, modify like the plan that it is making. This type of interface, it makes it so that I feel more like I'm collaborating with the agent as it's executing, as opposed to it's just like doing something as a black box. That's an example of a type of thing that's like beyond just the model pre-training, but on the model pre-training side, like reasoning is a thing that we optimize for. And a lot of that is about what data do we put in. [00:17:27]Swyx: It's interesting just because I always think like, you know, out of the levers that you have, the resources that you have, I think a lot of people think that running foundation model company or a research lab is going to be primarily compute. And I think the share of compute has gone down a lot over the past three years. It used to be the main story, like the main way you scale is you just throw more compute at it. And now it's like, Flops is not all you need. You need better data, you need better algorithms. And I wonder where that shift has gone. This is a very vague question, but is it like 30-30-30 now? Is it like maybe even higher? So one way I'll put this is people estimate that Llama2 maybe took about three to $4 million of compute, but probably 20 to $25 million worth of labeling data. And I'm like, okay, well that's a very different story than all these other foundation model labs raising hundreds of millions of dollars and spending it on GPUs. [00:18:20]Kanjun: Data is really expensive. We generate a lot of data. And so that does help. The generated data is close to actually good, as good as human labeled data. [00:18:34]Swyx: So generated data from other models? [00:18:36]Kanjun: From our own models. From your own models. Or other models, yeah. [00:18:39]Swyx: Do you feel like there's certain variations of this? There's the sort of the constitutional AI approach from Anthropic and basically models sampling training on data from other models. I feel like there's a little bit of like contamination in there, or to put it in a statistical form, you're resampling a distribution that you already have that you already know doesn't match human distributions. How do you feel about that basically, just philosophically? [00:19:04]Kanjun: So when we're optimizing models for reasoning, we are actually trying to like make a part of the distribution really spiky. So in a sense, like that's actually what we want. We want to, because the internet is a sample of the human distribution that's also skewed in all sorts of ways. That is not the data that we necessarily want these models to be trained on. And so when we're generating data, we're not really randomly generating data. We generate very specific things that are like reasoning traces and that help optimize reasoning. Code also is a big piece of improving reasoning. So generated code is not that much worse than like regular human written code. You might even say it can be better in a lot of ways. So yeah. So we are trying to already do that. [00:19:50]Alessio: What are some of the tools that you thought were not a good fit? So you built Avalon, which is your own simulated world. And when you first started, the metagame was like using games to simulate things using, you know, Minecraft and then OpenAI is like the gym thing and all these things. And I think in one of your other podcasts, you mentioned like Minecraft is like way too slow to actually do any serious work. Is that true? Yeah. I didn't say it. [00:20:17]Swyx: I don't know. [00:20:18]Alessio: That's above my pay grade. But Avalon is like a hundred times faster than Minecraft for simulation. When did you figure that out that you needed to just like build your own thing? Was it kind of like your engineering team was like, Hey, this is too slow. Was it more a long-term investment? [00:20:34]Kanjun: Yeah. At that time we built Avalon as a research environment to help us learn particular things. And one thing we were trying to learn is like, how do you get an agent that is able to do many different tasks? Like RL agents at that time and environments at that time. What we heard from other RL researchers was the like biggest thing keeping holding the field back is lack of benchmarks that let us explore things like planning and curiosity and things like that and have the agent actually perform better if the agent has curiosity. And so we were trying to figure out in a situation where, how can we have agents that are able to handle lots of different types of tasks without the reward being pretty handcrafted? That's a lot of what we had seen is that like these very handcrafted rewards. And so Avalon has like a single reward it's across all tasks. And it also allowed us to create a curriculum so we could make the level more or less difficult. And it taught us a lot, maybe two primary things. One is with no curriculum, RL algorithms don't work at all. So that's actually really interesting. [00:21:43]Swyx: For the non RL specialists, what is a curriculum in your terminology? [00:21:46]Kanjun: So a curriculum in this particular case is basically the environment Avalon lets us generate simpler environments and harder environments for a given tasks. What's interesting is that the simpler environments, what you'd expect is the agent succeeds more often. So it gets more reward. And so, you know, kind of my intuitive way of thinking about it is, okay, the reason why it learns much faster with a curriculum is it's just getting a lot more signal. And that's actually an interesting general intuition to have about training these things as like, what kind of signal are they getting? And like, how can you help it get a lot more signal? The second thing we learned is that reinforcement learning is not a good vehicle, like pure reinforcement learning is not a good vehicle for planning and reasoning. So these agents were not able to, they were able to learn all sorts of crazy things. They could learn to climb like hand over hand in VR climbing, they could learn to open doors like very complicated, like multiple switches and a lever open the door, but they couldn't do any higher level things. And they couldn't do those lower level things consistently necessarily. And as a user, I do not want to interact with a pure reinforcement learning end to end RL agent. As a user, like I need much more control over what that agent is doing. And so that actually started to get us on the track of thinking about, okay, how do we do the reasoning part in language? And we were pretty inspired by our friend Chelsea Finn at Stanford was I think working on SACAN at the time where it's basically an experiment where they have robots kind of trying to do different tasks and actually do the reasoning for the robot in natural language. And it worked quite well. And that led us to start experimenting very seriously with reasoning. [00:23:31]Alessio: How important is the language part for the agent versus for you to inspect the agent? You know, like is it the interface to kind of the human on the loop really important or? [00:23:43]Kanjun: Yeah, I personally think of it as it's much more important for us, the human user. So I think you probably could get end to end agents that work and are fairly general at some point in the future. But I think you don't want that. Like we actually want agents that we can like perturb while they're trying to figure out what to do. Because, you know, even a very simple example, internally we have like a type error fixing agent and we have like a test generation agent. Test generation agent goes off rails all the time. I want to know, like, why did it generate this particular test? [00:24:19]Swyx: What was it thinking? [00:24:20]Kanjun: Did it consider, you know, the fact that this is calling out to this other function? And the formatter agent, if it ever comes up with anything weird, I want to be able to debug like what happened with RL end to end stuff. Like we couldn't do that. Yeah. [00:24:36]Swyx: It sounds like you have a bunch of agents operating internally within the company. What's your most, I guess, successful agent and what's your least successful one? [00:24:44]Kanjun: The agents don't work. All of them? I think the only successful agents are the ones that do really small things. So very specific, small things like fix the color of this button on the website or like change the color of this button. [00:24:57]Swyx: Which is now sweep.dev is doing that. Exactly. [00:25:00]Kanjun: Perfect. Okay. [00:25:02]Swyx: Well, we should just use sweep.dev. Well, I mean, okay. I don't know how often you have to fix the color of a button, right? Because all of them raise money on the idea that they can go further. And my fear when encountering something like that is that there's some kind of unknown asymptote ceiling that's going to prevent them, that they're going to run head on into that you've already run into. [00:25:21]Kanjun: We've definitely run into such a ceiling. But what is the ceiling? [00:25:24]Swyx: Is there a name for it? Like what? [00:25:26]Kanjun: I mean, for us, we think of it as reasoning plus these tools. So reasoning plus abstractions, basically. I think actually you can get really far with current models and that's why it's so compelling. Like we can pile debugging tools on top of these current models, have them critique each other and critique themselves and do all of these, like spend more computer inference time, context hack, retrieve augmented generation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like the pile of hacks actually does get us really far. And a way to think about it is like the underlying language model is kind of like a noisy channel. Actually I don't want to use this analogy. It's actually a really bad analogy, but you kind of like trying to get more signal out of the channel. We don't like to think about it that way. It's what the default approach is, is like trying to get more signal out of this noising channel. But the issue with agents is as a user, I want it to be mostly reliable. It's kind of like self-driving in that way. Like it's not as bad as self-driving, like in self-driving, you know, you're like hurtling at 70 miles an hour. It's like the hardest agent problem. But one thing we learned from Sorceress and one thing we learned by using these things internally is we actually have a pretty high bar for these agents to work. You know, it's actually really annoying if they only work 50% of the time and we can make interfaces to make it slightly less annoying. But yeah, there's a ceiling that we've encountered so far and we need to make the models better. We also need to make the kind of like interface to the user better. And also a lot of the like critiquing. I hope what we can do is help people who are building agents actually like be able to deploy them. I think, you know, that's the gap that we see a lot of today is everyone who's trying to build agents to get to the point where it's robust enough to be deployable. It just, it's like an unknown amount of time. Okay. [00:27:12]Swyx: So this goes back into what Embu is going to offer as a product or a platform. How are you going to actually help people deploy those agents? Yeah. [00:27:21]Kanjun: So our current hypothesis, I don't know if this is actually going to end up being the case. We've built a lot of tools for ourselves internally around like debugging, around abstractions or techniques after the model generation happens. Like after the language model generates the text and like interfaces for the user and the underlying model itself, like models talking to each other, maybe some set of those things kind of like an operating system. Some set of those things will be helpful for other people. And we'll figure out what set of those things is helpful for us to make our agents. Like what we want to do is get to a point where we can like start making an agent, deploy it, it's reliable, like very quickly. And there's a similar analog to software engineering, like in the early days, in the seventies and the sixties, like to program a computer, like you have to go all the way down to the registers and write things and eventually we had assembly. That was like an improvement. But then we wrote programming languages with these higher levels of abstraction and that allowed a lot more people to do this and much faster. And the software created is much less expensive. And I think it's basically a similar route here where we're like in the like bare metal phase of agent building. And we will eventually get to something with much nicer abstractions. [00:28:36]Alessio: We had this conversation with George Hotz and we were like, there's not a lot of reasoning data out there. And can the models really understand? And his take was like, look, with enough compute, you're not that complicated as a human. Like the model can figure out eventually why certain decisions are made. What's been your experience? Like as you think about reasoning data, like do you have to do a lot of like manual work or like is there a way to prompt models to extract the reasoning from actions that they [00:29:03]Swyx: see? [00:29:03]Kanjun: So we don't think of it as, oh, throw enough data at it and then it will figure out what the plan should be. I think we're much more explicit. You know, a way to think about it is as humans, we've learned a lot of reasoning strategies over time. We are better at reasoning now than we were 3000 years ago. An example of a reasoning strategy is noticing you're confused. Then when I notice I'm confused, I should ask like, huh, what was the original claim that was made? What evidence is there for this claim? Does the evidence support the claim? Is the claim correct? This is like a reasoning strategy that was developed in like the 1600s, you know, with like the advent of science. So that's an example of a reasoning strategy. There are tons of them. We employ all the time, lots of heuristics that help us be better at reasoning. And we didn't always have them. And because they're invented, like we can generate data that's much more specific to them. So I think internally, yeah, we have a lot of thoughts on what reasoning is and we generate a lot more specific data. We're not just like, oh, it'll figure out reasoning from this black box or like it'll figure out reasoning from the data that exists. Yeah. [00:30:04]Alessio: I mean, the scientific method is like a good example. If you think about hallucination, right, people are thinking, how do we use these models to do net new, like scientific research? And if you go back in time and the model is like, well, the earth revolves around the sun and people are like, man, this model is crap. It's like, what are you talking about? Like the sun revolves around the earth. It's like, how do you see the future? Like if the models are actually good enough, but we don't believe them, it's like, how do we make the two live together? So you're like, you use Inbu as a scientist to do a lot of your research and Inbu tells you, hey, I think this is like a serious path you should go down. And you're like, no, that sounds impossible. Like how is that trust going to be built? And like, what are some of the tools that maybe are going to be there to inspect it? [00:30:51]Kanjun: Really there are two answers to this. One element of it is as a person, like I need to basically get information out of the model such that I can try to understand what's going on with the model. Then the second question is like, okay, how do you do that? And that's kind of some of our debugging tools, they're not necessarily just for debugging. They're also for like interfacing with and interacting with the model. So like if I go back in this reasoning trace and like change a bunch of things, what's going to happen? Like, what does it conclude instead? So that kind of helps me understand like, what are its assumptions? And, you know, we think of these things as tools. And so it's really about like, as a user, how do I use this tool effectively? I need to be willing to be convinced as well. It's like, how do I use this tool effectively? And what can it help me with? [00:31:36]Swyx: And what can it tell me? There's a lot of mention of code in your process. And I was hoping to dive in even deeper. I think we might run the risk of giving people the impression that you view code or you use code just as like a tool within InView just for coding assistance. But I think you actually train code models. And I think there's a lot of informal understanding about how adding code to language models improves their reasoning capabilities. I wonder if there's any research or findings that you have to share that talks about the intersection of code and reasoning. Hmm. Yeah. [00:32:08]Kanjun: So the way I think about it intuitively is like code is the most explicit example of reasoning data on the internet. [00:32:15]Swyx: Yeah. [00:32:15]Kanjun: And it's not only structured, it's actually very explicit, which is nice. You know, it says this variable means this, and then it uses this variable. And then the function does this. As people, when we talk in language, it takes a lot more to extract that explicit structure out of our language. And so that's one thing that's really nice about code is I see it as almost like a curriculum for reasoning. I think we use code in all sorts of ways. The coding agents are really helpful for us to understand what are the limitations of the agents. The code is really helpful for the reasoning itself. But also code is a way for models to act. So by generating code, it can act on my computer. And, you know, when we talk about rekindling the dream of the personal computer, kind of where I see computers going is, you know, like computers will eventually become these much more malleable things where I, as a user today, I have to know how to write software code, like in order to make my computer do exactly what I want it to do. But in the future, if the computer is able to generate its own code, then I can actually interface with it in natural language. And so one way we think about agents is kind of like a natural language programming language. It's a way to program my computer in natural language that's much more intuitive to me as a user. And these interfaces that we're building are essentially IDEs for users to program our computers in natural language. Maybe I should say what we're doing that way. Maybe it's clearer. [00:33:47]Swyx: I don't know. [00:33:47]Alessio: That's a good pitch. What do you think about the different approaches people have, kind of like text first, browser first, like multi-on? What do you think the best interface will be? Or like, what is your, you know, thinking today? [00:33:59]Kanjun: In a lot of ways, like chat as an interface, I think Linus, Linus Lee, you had on this. I really like how he put it. Chat as an interface is skeuomorphic. So in the early days, when we made word processors on our computers, they had notepad lines because that's what we understood these like objects to be. Chat, like texting someone is something we understand. So texting our AI is something that we understand. But today's word documents don't have notepad lines. And similarly, the way we want to interact with agents, like chat is a very primitive way of interacting with agents. What we want is to be able to inspect their state and to be able to modify them and fork them and all of these other things. And we internally have, think about what are the right representations for that? Like architecturally, like what are the right representations? What kind of abstractions do we need to build? And how do we build abstractions that are not leaky? Because if the abstractions are leaky, which they are today, like, you know, this stochastic generation of text is like a leaky abstraction. I cannot depend on it. And that means it's actually really hard to build on top of. But our experience and belief is actually by building better abstractions and better tooling, we can actually make these things non-leaky. And now you can build like whole things on top of them. So these other interfaces, because of where we are, we don't think that much about them. [00:35:17]Swyx: Yeah. [00:35:17]Alessio: I mean, you mentioned, this is kind of like the Xerox Spark moment for AI. And we had a lot of stuff come out of Parc, like the, what you see is what you got editors and like MVC and all this stuff. But yeah, but then we didn't have the iPhone at Parc. We didn't have all these like higher things. What do you think it's reasonable to expect in like this era of AI, you know, call it like five years or so? Like what are like the things we'll build today and what are things that maybe we'll see in kind of like the second wave of products? [00:35:46]Kanjun: That's interesting. I think the waves will be much faster than before. Like what we're seeing right now is basically like a continuous wave. Let me zoom a little bit earlier. So people like the Xerox Parc analogy I give, but I think there are many different analogies. Like one is the like analog to digital computer is kind of an example, like another analogy to where we are today. The analog computer Vannevar Bush built in the 1930s, I think, and it's like a system of pulleys and it can only calculate one function. Like it can calculate like an integral. And that was so magical at the time because you actually did need to calculate this integral bunch, but it had a bunch of issues like in analog errors compound. And so there was actually a set of breakthroughs necessary in order to get to the digital computer, like Turing's decidability, Shannon. I think the like whole like relay circuits can be thought of as can be mapped to Boolean operators and a set of other like theoretical breakthroughs, which essentially were abstractions. They were like creating abstractions for these like very like lossy circuits. They were creating abstractions for these like very analog circuits and digital had this nice property of like being error correcting. And so when I talk about like less leaky abstractions, that's what I mean. That's what I'm kind of pointing a little bit to. It's not going to look exactly the same way. And then the Xerox PARC piece, a lot of that is about like, how do we get to computers that as a person, I can actually use well. And the interface actually helps it unlock so much more power. So the sets of things we're working on, like the sets of abstractions and the interfaces, like hopefully that like help us unlock a lot more power in these systems. Like hopefully that'll come not too far in the future. I could see a next version, maybe a little bit farther out. It's like an agent protocol. So a way for different agents to talk to each other and call each other. Kind of like HTTP. [00:37:40]Swyx: Do you know it exists already? [00:37:41]Kanjun: Yeah, there is a nonprofit that's working on one. I think it's a bit early, but it's interesting to think about right now. Part of why I think it's early is because the issue with agents, it's not quite like the internet where you could like make a website and the website would appear. The issue with agents is that they don't work. And so it may be a bit early to figure out what the protocol is before we really understand how these agents get constructed. But, you know, I think that's, I think it's a really interesting question. [00:38:09]Swyx: While we're talking on this agent to agent thing, there's been a bit of research recently on some of these approaches. I tend to just call them extremely complicated chain of thoughting, but any perspectives on kind of meta-GPT, I think it's the name of the paper. I don't know if you care about at the level of individual papers coming out, but I did read that recently and TLDR, it beat GPT-4 and human eval by role-playing software agent development agency, instead of having sort of single shot or single role, you have multiple roles and how having all of them criticize each other as agents communicating with other agents. [00:38:45]Kanjun: Yeah, I think this is an example of an interesting abstraction of like, okay, can I just plop in this like multi-role critiquing and see how it improves my agent? And can I just plop in chain of thought, tree of thought, plop in these other things and see how they improve my agent? One issue with this kind of prompting is that it's still not very reliable. It's like, there's one lens, which is like, okay, if you do enough of these techniques, you'll get to high reliability. And I think actually that's a pretty reasonable lens. We take that lens often. And then there's another lens that's like, okay, but it's starting to get really messy what's in the prompt and like, how do we deal with that messiness? And so maybe you need like cleaner ways of thinking about and constructing these systems. And we also take that lens. So yeah, I think both are necessary. Yeah. [00:39:29]Swyx: Side question, because I feel like this also brought up another question I had for you. I noticed that you work a lot with your own benchmarks, your own evaluations of what is valuable. I would say I would contrast your approach with OpenAI as OpenAI tends to just lean on, hey, we played StarCraft or hey, we ran it on the SAT or the, you know, the AP bio test and that did results. Basically, is benchmark culture ruining AI? [00:39:55]Swyx: Or is that actually a good thing? Because everyone knows what an SAT is and that's fine. [00:40:04]Kanjun: I think it's important to use both public and internal benchmarks. Part of why we build our own benchmarks is that there are not very many good benchmarks for agents, actually. And to evaluate these things, you actually need to think about it in a slightly different way. But we also do use a lot of public benchmarks for like, is the reasoning capability in this particular way improving? So yeah, it's good to use both. [00:40:26]Swyx: So for example, the Voyager paper coming out of NVIDIA played Minecraft and set their own benchmarks on getting the Diamond X or whatever and exploring as much of the territory as possible. And I don't know how that's received. That's obviously fun and novel for the rest of the engineer, the people who are new to the scene. But for people like yourselves, you build Avalon just because you already found deficiencies with using Minecraft. Is that valuable as an approach? Oh, yeah. I love Voyager. [00:40:57]Kanjun: I mean, Jim, I think is awesome. And I really like the Voyager paper and I think it has a lot of really interesting ideas, which is like the agent can create tools for itself and then use those tools. [00:41:06]Swyx: He had the idea of the curriculum as well, which is something that we talked about earlier. Exactly. [00:41:09]Kanjun: And that's like a lot of what we do. We built Avalon mostly because we couldn't use Minecraft very well to like learn the things we wanted. And so it's like not that much work to build our own. [00:41:19]Swyx: It took us, I don't know. [00:41:22]Kanjun: We had like eight engineers at the time, took about eight weeks. So six weeks. [00:41:27]Swyx: And OpenAI built their own as well, right? Yeah, exactly. [00:41:30]Kanjun: It's just nice to have control over our environment. But if you're doing our own sandbox to really trying to inspect our own research questions. But if you're doing something like experimenting with agents and trying to get them to do things like Minecraft is a really interesting environment. And so Voyager has a lot of really interesting ideas in it. [00:41:47]Swyx: Yeah. Cool. One more element that we had on this list, which is context and memory. I think that's kind of like the foundational, quote unquote, RAM of our era. I think Andrej Karpathy has already made this comparison. So there's nothing new here. And that's just the amount of working knowledge that we can fit into one of these agents. And it's not a lot, right? Especially if you need to get them to do long running tasks. If they need to self-correct from errors that they observe while operating in their environment. Do you see this as a problem? Do you think we're going to just trend to infinite context and that'll go away? Or how do you think we're going to deal with it? [00:42:22]Kanjun: I think when you talked about what's going to happen in the first wave and then in the second wave, I think what we'll see is we'll get like relatively simplistic agents pretty soon. And they will get more and more complex. And there's like a future wave in which they are able to do these like really difficult, really long running tasks. And the blocker to that future, one of the blockers is memory. And that was true of computers too. You know, I think when von Neumann made the von Neumann architecture, he was like, the biggest blocker will be like, we need this amount of memory, which is like, I don't remember exactly like 32 kilobytes or something to store programs. And that will allow us to write software. He didn't say it this way because he didn't have these terms, but that only really was like happened in the seventies with the microchip revolution. It may be the case that we're waiting for some research breakthroughs or some other breakthroughs in order for us to have like really good long running memory. And then in the meantime, agents will be able to do all sorts of things that are a little bit smaller than that. I do think with the pace of the field, we'll probably come up with all sorts of interesting things like, you know, RAG is already very helpful. [00:43:26]Swyx: Good enough, you think? [00:43:27]Kanjun: Maybe good enough for some things. [00:43:29]Swyx: How is it not good enough? I don't know. [00:43:31]Kanjun: I just think about a situation where you want something that's like an AI scientist. As a scientist, I have learned so much about my fields and a lot of that data is maybe hard to fine tune or on, or maybe hard to like put into pre-training. Like a lot of that data, I don't have a lot of like repeats of the data that I'm seeing. You know, like if I'm a scientist, I've like accumulated so many little data points. And ideally I'd want to store those somehow, or like use those to fine tune myself as a model somehow, or like have better memory somehow. I don't think RAG is enough for that kind of thing. But RAG is certainly enough for like user preferences and things like that. Like what should I do in this situation? What should I do in that situation? That's a lot of tasks. We don't have to be a scientist right away. Awesome. [00:44:21]Swyx: I have a hard question, if you don't mind me being bold. Yeah. I think the most comparable lab to InView is Adept. You know, a research lab with like some amount of product situation on the horizon, but not just yet, right? Why should people work for InView over Adept? And we can cut this if it's too like... Yeah. [00:44:40]Kanjun: The way I think about it is I believe in our approach. The type of thing that we're doing is we're trying to like build something that enables other people to build agents and build something that really can be maybe something like an operating system for agents. I know that that's what we're doing. I don't really know what everyone else is doing. You know, I can kind of like talk to people and have some sense of what they're doing. And I think it's a mistake to focus too much on what other people are doing, because extremely focused execution on the right thing is what matters. To the question of like, why us? I think like strong focus on reasoning, which we believe is the biggest blocker, on inspectability, which we believe is really important for user experience and also for the power and capability of these systems. Building non-leaky, good abstractions, which we believe is solving the core issue of agents, which is around reliability and being able to make them deployable. And then really seriously trying to use these things ourselves, like every single day, and getting to something that we can actually ship to other people that becomes something that is a platform. Like, it feels like it could be Mac or Windows. I love the dogfooding approach. [00:45:49]Swyx: That's extremely important. And you will not be surprised how many agent companies I talk to that don't use their own agent. Oh no, that's not good. That's a big surprise. [00:45:59]Kanjun: Yeah, I think if we didn't use our own agents, then we would have all of these beliefs about how good they are. Wait, did you have any other hard questions you wanted to ask? [00:46:08]Swyx: Yeah, mine was just the only other follow-up that you had based on the answer you just gave was, do you see yourself releasing models or do you see yourself, what is the artifacts that you want to produce that lead up to the general operating system that you want to have people use, right? And so a lot of people just as a byproduct of their work, just to say like, hey, I'm still shipping, is like, here's a model along the way. Adept took, I don't know, three years, but they released Persimmon recently, right? Like, do you think that kind of approach is something on your horizon? Or do you think there's something else that you can release that can show people, here's kind of the idea, not the end products, but here's the byproducts of what we're doing? [00:46:51]Kanjun: Yeah, I don't really believe in releasing things to show people like, oh, here's what we're doing that much. I think as a philosophy, we believe in releasing things that will be helpful to other people. [00:47:02]Swyx: Yeah. [00:47:02]Kanjun: And so I think we may release models or we may release tools that we think will help agent builders. Ideally, we would be able to do something like that, but I'm not sure exactly what they look like yet. [00:47:14]Swyx: I think more companies should get into the releasing evals and benchmarks game. Yeah. [00:47:20]Kanjun: Something that we have been talking to agent builders about is co-building evals. So we build a lot of our own evals and every agent builder tells me, basically evals are their biggest issue. And so, yeah, we're exploring right now. And if you are building agents, please reach out to me because I would love to, like, figure out how we can be helpful based on what we've seen. Cool. [00:47:40]Swyx: That's a good call to action. I know a bunch of people that I can send your way. Cool. Great. [00:47:43]Kanjun: Awesome. [00:47:44]Swyx: Yeah. We can zoom out to other interests now. [00:47:46]Alessio: We got a lot of stuff. So we have Sherif from Lexicon, the podcast. He had a lot of interesting questions on his website. You similarly have a lot of them. Yeah. [00:47:55]Swyx: I need to do this. I'm very jealous of people with personal websites right there. Like, here's the high level questions of goals of humanity that I want to set people on. And I don't have that. [00:48:04]Alessio: It's never too late, Sean. [00:48:05]Swyx: Yeah. [00:48:05]Alessio: It's never too late. [00:48:06]Kanjun: Exactly. [00:48:07]Alessio: There were a few that stuck out as related to your work that maybe you're kind of learning [00:48:12]Swyx: more about it. [00:48:12]Alessio: So one is why are curiosity and goal orientation often at odds? And from a human perspective, I get it. It's like, you know, would you want to like go explore things or kind of like focus on your career? How do you think about that from like an agent perspective? Where it's like, should you just stick to the task and try and solve it as in the guardrails as possible? Or like, should you look for alternative solutions? [00:48:34]Swyx: Yeah. [00:48:34]Kanjun: I think one thing that's really interesting about agents actually is that they can be forked. Like, you know, we can take an agent that's executed to a certain place and said, okay, here, like fork this and do a bunch of different things. I try a bunch of different things. Some of those agents can be goal oriented and some of them can be like more curiosity driven. You can prompt them in slightly different ways. And something I'm really curious about, like what would happen if in the future, you know, we were able to actually go down both paths. As a person, why I have this question on my website is I really find that like I really can only take one mode at a time and I don't understand why. And like, is it inherent in like the kind of context that needs to be held? That's why I think from an agent perspective, like forking it is really interesting. Like I can't fork myself to do both, but I maybe could fork an agent to like add a certain point in a task. [00:49:26]Swyx: Yeah. Explore both. Yeah. [00:49:28]Alessio: How has the thinking changed for you as the funding of the company changed? That's one thing that I think a lot of people in the space think is like, oh, should I raise venture capital? Like, how should I get money? How do you feel your options to be curious versus like goal oriented has changed as you raise more money and kind of like the company has grown? [00:49:50]Kanjun: Oh, that's really funny. Actually, things have not changed that much. So we raised our Series A $20 million in late 2021. And our entire philosophy at that time was, and still kind of is, is like, how do we figure out the stepping stones, like collect stepping stones that eventually let us build agents, kind of these new computers that help us do bigger things. And there was a lot of curiosity in that. And there was a lot of goal orientation in that. Like the curiosity led us to build CARBS, for example, this hyperparameter optimizer. Great name, by the way. [00:50:28]Swyx: Thank you. [00:50:29]Kanjun: Is there a story behind that name? [00:50:30]Swyx: Yeah. [00:50:31]Kanjun: Abe loves CARBS. It's also cost aware. So as soon as he came up with cost aware, he was like, I need to figure out how to make this work. But the cost awareness of it was really important. So that curiosity led us to this really cool hyperparameter optimizer. That's actually a big part of how we do our research. It lets us experiment on smaller models. And for those experiment results to carry to larger ones. [00:50:56]Swyx: Which you also published a scaling laws, which is great. I think the scaling laws paper from OpenAI was like the biggest. And from Google, I think, was the greatest public service to machine learning that any research lab can do. Yeah, totally. [00:51:10]Kanjun: What was nice about CARBS is it gave us scaling laws for all sorts of hyperparameters. So yeah, that's cool. It basically hasn't changed very much. So there's some curiosity. And then there's some goal oriented parts. Like Avalon, it was like a six to eight week sprint for all of us. And we got this thing out. And then now different projects do like more curiosity or more goal orientation at different times. Cool. [00:51:36]Swyx: Another one of your questions that we highlighted was, how can we enable artificial agents to permanently learn new abstractions and processes? I think this is might be called online learning. [00:51:45]Kanjun: Yeah. So I struggle with this because, you know, that scientist example I gave. As a scientist, I've like permanently learned a lot of new things. And I've updated and created new abstractions and learned them pretty reliably. And you were talking about like, okay, we have this RAM that we can store learnings in. But how well does online learning actually work? And the answer right now seems to be like, as models get bigger, they fine tune faster. So they're more sample efficient as they get bigger. [00

Join Michael Benso in this captivating episode as he explores the revolutionary impacts of Virtual Reality (VR) and Cryptocurrency in the fitness industry. Michael navigates through the exciting realms of immersive VR fitness experiences, urging listeners to explore and adapt to these transformative technologies. He also demystifies the complexities of cryptocurrencies, providing a practical guide on embracing this digital currency wave safely and confidently.Get hands-on advice from Michael on setting up and securing your cryptocurrency wallets and delve into the fascinating world of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). With his insightful guidance, learn how to safeguard your digital assets effectively and avoid common pitfalls.Michael emphasizes the significance of staying abreast of technological advancements and adapting to remain relevant in the rapidly evolving fitness industry. He encourages engagement with innovative platforms and services, highlighting the inexorable move towards a technologically enriched fitness landscape.For personalized guidance and support, discover how Buzops, devoted to pioneering future growth and technological adaptability, can enhance your transition to the fitness industry's revolutionary future.Links Mentioned:-The Fitness Business Podcast : THINKING AHEAD ROUNDTABLE: THE PROSPECTS OF AI, AR AND VR AND THE POTENTIAL IMPACT ON THE FITNESS INDUSTRY- Coinbase: https://www.coinbase.com/- MetaMask: https://metamask.io/- Black Box VR: https://www.blackbox-vr.com/This Podcast is Presented to you by BUZOPS Software! Your next-generation gym management software and operational system, meticulously engineered for gym owners who seek excellence and efficiency. BUZOPS It's designed to empower you to flawlessly automate administrative tasks and optimize access management to your facilities, synchronizing effortlessly with member accounts, staff management, class bookings, scheduling, individual services, and user-friendly comprehensive business reports.

In this podcast episode, Michael Benso has an enlightening conversation with Shawn Stewart, a veteran entrepreneur in the fitness club industry, specifically in North Carolina where he operates six Fuel Fitness Clubs.Shawn is not a novice in the industry; he has nearly 30 years of experience and has held executive-level positions before transitioning to an entrepreneurial role. He has been featured in Club Solutions Magazine where he also serves as an advisory board member; a testament to his extensive knowledge and profound insights in the fitness sector.This is a two part episode. What You Will LearnPart 1:Mastering Lease Agreements: Grasp the intricacies of escalators and rent abatement to negotiate win-win leases.Acquisition Strategies: Discover actionable strategies to acquire and merge fitness clubs successfully.In Part 2, Michael and Shawn deepen their conversation to unravel the complexities of securing financing.Navigating Funding Challenges: Learn the real-world solutions to overcome financing hurdles and the inventive approaches to navigate them.Exploring Owner Financing: Understand the pros and cons of owner financing The impact of your brand identity on exploring various financing optionsConnect with Shawn Stewart:Email: Shawn.Stewart@fuelfitnessclubs.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/c-shawn-stewart-61a841119/This Podcast is Presented to you by BUZOPS Software! Your next-generation gym management software and operational system, meticulously engineered for gym owners who seek excellence and efficiency. BUZOPS It's designed to empower you to flawlessly automate administrative tasks and optimize access management to your facilities, synchronizing effortlessly with member accounts, staff management, class bookings, scheduling, individual services, and user-friendly comprehensive business reports.

10X取締役CFOの山田がモデレーターを務め、スタートアップ組織やコーポレートのあるべき姿を、様々なゲストと紐解いていくPodcastシリーズ「山田の部屋」。 第7回目となる今回のゲストは、株式会社hacomonoでBizOpsを担当している上村(カミムラ)さんです。最近スタートアップの中でも急激に存在感を増してきているBizOpsというロールの必要性・重要性・実践についてお話を聞いてきました。 ▼スピーカーゲスト：株式会社hacomono BizOps上村篤嗣さん（@Kam_ats⁠⁠）ホスト：山田聡（CFO / ⁠@syamada0⁠） ▼ハイライト 上村さんのご紹介、今までのキャリア hacomonoのBizOpsでやることについて 一般的にBizOpsとは 専業としてのBizOpsの重要性 BizOpsロールの立ち上げ方 BizOpsに向いている人材について 10Xへの逆質問 最後に一言 ▼参考リンク株式会社hacomononote：BizOps実践論 ●番組へのおたよりフォームhttps://bit.ly/3TBBpSCTwitterからは「#10Xfm」にて感想等お待ちしております！ ●10Xでは一緒に働くメンバーを募集しています！https://bit.ly/42teLQh ●10X.fmについて10X.fmは、「10xを創る」をミッションに、小売チェーン向けECプラットフォーム「Stailer（ステイラー）」を提供している株式会社10Xのメンバーが、日々の仕事や生活の中で経験した出来事・学び・プロダクトに対する思いを（つつみ隠さず）リアルにお届けしていくポッドキャスト番組です。

Matt Hammel sits down with our host, Luis Martinez-Moure, to talk about his journey as a Co-Founder of Airops. AirOps makes technical work easier for less or non-technical people using AI. We talk about Matt's experience pivoting from consulting to tech, scaling a BizOps team from Series A through Series C, and the many challenges (and successes) experienced along the way. The Commons brings together the power of continuous learning, mentorship and community to help top talent develop hyper-specific skills and powerful networks to be successful on-the-job. Learn more and level up with us ⁠here⁠

Alvin Schexnider, author of A Kids Book About Radical Dreaming, talks about the conscious and courageous effort to see hope and to pursue and value things counter to what negative influences would have us believe. A Kids Book About Radical Dreaming (view book)Full Book Description:Radical dreaming is having the hope and courage to dream BIG, no matter who you are, where you come from, or what others might say. The author describes a kind of dreaming that breaks all barriers and knows no bounds, and encourages readers to adopt the habit of radical dreaming—no matter how old they are—as a means to create the positive, inclusive, life-changing realities we wish to see!About the Author:Alvin (he/him) is a designer, futurist, strategist, and illustrator. As an equity designer he uses foresight and BizOps strategy to help companies and government agencies make impactful products and services. Besides hanging with his partner and 2 kids, you'll find him reading N.K. Jemison or a Black Panther comic book.*If you want to be on a future episode of A Kids Book About: The Podcast or if you have a question you'd like us to consider, have a grownup email us at listen@akidsco.com and we'll send you the details. 

Did you start learning new skills during the pandemic? Would you like to take them to the next level and start building your own entrepreneurial venture? Then check out dollarEd's range of e-learning courses in BizOps, Crypto, and Internet Marketing!Visit https://dollared.courserious.com/ for more information. 10XEcom 3535 US-1, Princeton, NJ 08540, Princeton, NJ 08540, United States Website https://10xecombiz.com/ Phone +1-609-236-8802 Email kishor@dmnuggets.com

Sudha is most recently the former Vice President of Strategy and Business Operations at Dropbox. Prior to Dropbox, Sudha led Growth Strategy at Amazon, LendingClub and Silicon Valley Bank, where she also led BizOps and Product Management. After receiving her Bachelors in Mathematics and Statistics from University of Connecticut and her Masters in Management Science from Stanford University, she started her professional career working in management consulting.Enjoy!

Rachel Nazhand, Vice President of Business Operations at Zelis, sits down with KD in this throwback episode of the Live Better Sell Better podcast. Effective systems, processes, and operations are some of the most essential aspects of scale and growth. These serve as foundations and you'll find them everywhere!Rachel dives deep into how sales leaders could and should leverage revenue operations and business operations for growth. For one, data should not only be looked at as numbers and figures. Data can help tell stories and many of these stories can be explored and expressed regardless if you're in sales or operations.HIGHLIGHT QUOTESFigure out what works best for someone through empathy - Rachel: "Building empathy is what makes someone amazing at their job versus good at their job. And so how do you connect back to reality? You connect back to the reality to say, 'If I were in their shoes, could I do it that way?' and it's like watching to see something in action and being willing to be wrong."Rachel's tip for sales leaders to leverage RevOps and BizOps - Rachel: "Get really comfortable dumping all of your problems on the table and letting your operators help you figure out how to attack them. If you come to me with these one-offs, I may not be able to pick up on the themes and I may not be able to support you. You give me all 15 of your problems at once, I'll show you that 3 of them are actually the same thing and can be solved overnight and these other 12 can be hit in this order." You can find out more about Rachel in the link below:LinkedInLive Better. Sell Better. is sponsored by our proud partner:Rocket Reach | rocketreach.com

Introducing our first video podcast episode. In this episode of the Art of Automation podcast, IBM Fellow Jerry Cuomo shares a story about the first autopilot designed in 1912 and equates it to a new style of AI-powered automation called BizOps. He explains how BizOps is like an autopilot for your business, allowing it to fly straight and level without your undivided attention. Through examples, he demonstrates how BizOps can automate critical aspects of your business by connecting the left and right sides of the enterprise brain (business and IT) to observe and correlate data and events across various disciplines. Jerry discusses how BizOps can help in situations like IT events triggering immediate automated business actions, or business events triggering IT automation to save the day. Finally, he explains how IBM assets like Instana, Turbonomic, and Watson AI OPS can help correlate business and IT events to achieve successful automation outcomes.

TODAY'S SPONSORSLooking for a holistic doctor who isn't just trying to shove prescriptions down your throat? Looking for a doctor who can actually help support your wellness and preventive care goals? A doctor who will LISTEN to you? Look no further than Wild Health! Head to wildhealth.com and use the code DANIELLE10 to get 10% off. TODAY'S GUESTLauren Kelley-Chew, MD is the Head of Clinical Product at Levels. Prior to Levels, Lauren led Strategy & BizOps at Verily Life Sciences, driving product, commercial, and clinical strategy with a focus on wearables, digital biomarkers, and emerging products. She previously founded a Y Combinator-backed digital therapeutics startup for digestive diseases and worked as a private equity investor. Lauren graduated from medical school at UPenn, where she was a Gamble Scholar. Throughout her career, Lauren has been inspired to build products and businesses that solve system-level problems and make good health accessible to everyone.Levels Instagram: @levelsLevels blog: levelshealth.com/blogLevels website: levelshealth.com

In this episode, Eveline Oehrlich is joined by Rami Tamir, Co-founder and CEO of Salto. They discuss DevOps for Business Applications, help listeners understand the topic of BizOps, no-code and its opportunities. Rami Tamir is  the Co-founder and CEO of Salto. Salto reimagines the way business applications are configured and managed. They do so by bringing concepts and methodologies from the software development and DevOps worlds - the use of structured language, version control and automation - into the business operations environment. Special thanks to our sponsor Range! Enjoy the Humans of DevOps Podcast? We're incredibly grateful to be voted one of the Best 25 DevOps Podcasts by Feedspot. Want access to more DevOps-focused content and learning? When you join SKILup IT Learning you gain the tools, resources and knowledge to help your organization adapt and respond to the challenges of today.  And if you're looking for the answers to DevOps' persistent questions, pop on in to SKILup Discussions, one of the fastest-growing DevOps communities around! Have questions, feedback or just want to chat about the podcast? Send us an email at podcast@devopsinstitute.com

Dr. Lauren is Currently Head of Clinical Product @Levels. Levels help people see how food affects their health through real-time feedback. They're working with world experts in metabolic health to push the science forward, using insights from over 100 million glucose data points to help people make healthier choices. She previously led Strategy and BizOps at Verily (formerly Google X), founded a Y Combinator-backed digital therapeutics startup, and worked as a healthcare investor.    Links:   https://www.levelshealth.com/   I LOVE LMNT. If there is one person I trust with my nutrition and supplementation, it's Robb Wolf. LMNT is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don't. That means a science-backed electrolyte ratio – with none of the junk. No sugar. No coloring. No artificial ingredients. No gluten. No fillers. No BS. The benefits are numerous, but here's a few to wet your whistle... ​  Prevent and eliminate headaches, muscle cramps, fatigue, sleeplessness, and other common symptoms of electrolyte deficiency  Boost performance and recovery. Electrolytes facilitate hundreds of functions in the body, including the conduction of nerve impulses, hormonal regulation, nutrient absorption, and fluid balance  Support a low-carb lifestyle by preventing, mitigating, and eliminating the “low carb/keto flu”  Support healthy fasting. LMNT replaces electrolytes without breaking a fast ​ Personally, I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting and drinking LMNT daily during my fasting hours provides noticeable improvements in energy, focus, and gut function. Most of all, it helps me drink more water throughout the day and that's never a bad thing (it also mixes well in a cocktail, but you didn't hear that from me).   The Ultimate Plan tests up to 43 blood biomarkers—including glucose, cholesterol, cortisol, and hemoglobin—for a complete and holistic analysis of your health. Whether you want to improve athletic performance, extend longevity, or improve your overall wellness, this is your all-encompassing solution. ​ Your data tells the story of your health. Insidetracker goes beyond identifying generic, “clinically normal” ranges to unveil your body's unique, optimal biomarker zones. you'll discover where you're optimized and where there's room for improvement. ​ Insidetracker puts a nutritionist and personal trainer in your pocket with daily, data-driven recommendations. precise adjustments to your diet, exercise, and supplement intake can help you reach healthy biomarker zones and achieve your wellness goals. ​ What you'll get:  Blood test and analysis of 43 biomarkers  Personalized optimal biomarker zones  Action plan with nutrition, exercise, supplement, and lifestyle recommendations  Connect your Fitbit or Garmin fitness trackers via our iOS or Android app  Ability to upload third party blood test results

This week, we're super excited to have Brandon Li, co-CEO and co-founder of Power, a platform to find promising new treatments through clinical trials. Power's platform allows patients and providers to search every trial currently available in the U.S. It includes over 30,000 clinical trials and 100,000 researchers spanning 10,000 medical conditions. In Aug 2022, Power announced a $7M seed round led by Footwork and CRV. Brandon has spent a long time building and scaling consumer marketplace platforms to help people navigate traditionally opaque industries. Prior to founding Power, Brandon was the Head of Bizops at Thumbtack where he led growth strategy for the Home improvement marketplace. He landed at Thumbtack after Setter was acquired, where he was the GM of California. Before Setter, he spent time at McKinsey as an Engagement Manager focused on fast growth marketplace clients. Brandon has a background in high growth companies—Brandon is a serial entrepreneur, starting multiple companies across logistics, hometech and even suits! Another native guest from Canada, Brandon graduated from University of Toronto in Industrial Engineering. In this episode, we discuss how to navigate the idea maze, building from patient perspectives, and the emerging field of new pharma tech companies.

In economic turbulent times leaders get asked questions like: “What's the return on investment of your DevOps or Cloud Transformation? Did we really get better and more efficient? Or did we just blow a lot of money out the window?”Connecting business results with your technical initiatives is what would answer those questions. To learn how this works we invited Adam Dahlgren, SVP Product at Allstacks. From Adam we learn about Value Stream Management, how to align with your top level OKRs and how to improve your DORA and SPACE metrics. Because as Adam says in the beginning: “Inspection is coming especially during turbulent economic times and they will question your investment in transformation projects!” If you want to follow up with Adam check out the following links we discussed:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-dahlgren/What are DORA Metrics: https://www.allstacks.com/blog/dora-metrics/?hsLang=enWhat is the SPACE Framework: https://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=3454124Allstack: https://www.allstacks.com/DevOps World sessions from Allstack: https://events.devopsworld.com/widget/cloudbees/devopsworld22/conferenceSessionDetails?tab.day=20220929&search=dora

Did you know that 9 out of 10 Americans have some metabolic dysfunction? Dr Lauren shows us how our metabolic health can affect hot flashes, weight loss, Alzheimer's, and your overall life. Lauren Kelley-Chew, MD is the Head of Clinical Product at Levels. Prior to Levels, Lauren led Strategy & BizOps at Verily Life Sciences, driving product, commercial, and clinical strategy with a focus on wearables, digital biomarkers, and emerging products. She previously founded a Y Combinator-backed digital therapeutics startup for digestive diseases and worked as a private equity investor. Lauren graduated from medical school at UPenn, where she was a Gamble Scholar. Throughout her career, Lauren has been inspired to build products and businesses that solve system-level problems and make good health accessible to everyone. Check out Levels here Connect with Dr. Lauren Levels blog Dr Lauren's Instagram . . . Seed cycling from Funk it Wellness: LEAH15 Real Mushroom extracts here Code LEAH10 Rowe Casa Organics here LEAH for 20% off Mushroom coffee here Get your supplements at a discount here. All of Leah's favorite products can be found here Apply for the waitlist for 1:1 coaching Learn more about FDN here. You can join our private facebook group, Balancing Hormones Naturally Follow us on Instagram @balancinghormonesnaturally Follow me on Instagram @leah_brueg The recommendations presented in this podcast are not a substitute for for medical advice from a qualified doctor. Before making any changes to your diet and lifestyle , please consult with your health care provider. Some of these links contain affiliate links

This episode of the Live Better Seller Better Podcast features Rachel Nazhand, 4x startup operator, BizOps and RevOps Evangelist, and Founder of Vice President in Residence. Almost every department has an ops component to it and Rachel shares how to leverage ops when the goal is to scale a business.She discusses how operations can do this by aligning the goals to the practical and best steps to achieve those said goals. Rachel also talks about the advantages of BizOps in various stages of growth, from making the correct first hires to building a dedicated ops team to hiring specialists.   HIGHLIGHTSOperations are the glue to achieving company goalsBizOps/RevOps provide the how to the whatInsights from the data and empathy to stay grounded Leverage ops in various stages of growthAdvice to sales leaders and operators QUOTESRachel: "Tell me what you're going for and I will give you an amazing way to accomplish it. Don't tell me that you need a dashboard. Tell me that you need your reps to know how they're pacing so that they can make an amazing decision on how to structure their day."Rachel: "As an operator, I'm going to start thinking if that's really what's working for my top seller, is there a piece that I can replicate across the board for everyone? I've learned something new, I've built some empathy, I've figured out someone's secret sauce, now how can I start to sprinkle that out?"Rachel: "In those early hires, give them as much visibility into the full life cycle as possible. The more that you are building a customer-centric experience, the better your results are on the other side. Nothing crushes a prospect's soul faster than having to tell their story 10 times, pre-sale, post-sale, etc."Rachel: "Get really comfortable dumping all of your problems on the table and letting your operators help you figure out how to attack them. If you come to me with these one-offs, I might not be able to pick up on themes and I might not be able to support you. You give me all 15 of your problems at once, I'll show you that 3 of them are actually the same thing." You can find out more about Rachel in the link below:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelnazhand/

Today, we are digging into the archives and revisiting an early episode that is a favorite of ours and our listeners. We were lucky to have an awesome guest on the show with us, Rachel Nazhand (Head of Business Operations at Lunchbox). Jordan and Rachel had been bouncing ideas around for almost a year in the DMs before she finally joined us on the podcast. (He wouldn't admit it, but it's probably why he's so good at his job.) Rachel's POV provides a TON of value. She's been working with startups for a while. Lunchbox is her fourth. And they're growing fast, from 60 to 235 employees since the start of the year. So on this episode we focused on what happens when you enter an organization and need to build out ops. Referenced articles: Business operations: when you'll need it and why, eventually, you won't What is BizOps? And why every founder should hire a BizOps pro, early Guest: Connect with Rachel Nazhand on Linkedin Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn: Jordan Henderson (Director of Revenue Operations) Brandon Redlinger (Sr. Director of Product Marketing) Jonathan Stevens (Sr. Marketing Operations & Automation Manager) Sponsored by: Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe: Sales Enablement Podcast Selling with Purpose Podcast RevOps Podcast

Join Kris as he sits down with Gary Yang, Head of Product & Operations at Placeholder, an online marketplace that connects those with unused space with fast-growing companies. Gary candidly shares his insights on BizOps and Product, what it takes to succeed in the ever growing world of start-ups and his journey from management consulting into tech.

Many people can only dream of 6-figure incomes, rolling around the block in a supercar while flexing Rolexes and bulging wallets that can barely fit the back pocket. But do you have what it takes to turn that dream into a reality? This week, we serve yet another hot dish of sizzling sales tips on how to become part of the top one percent as a salesperson! Join me and my good pal, Pat Stuart, as we discuss the qualities that a top one percent salesperson has, why NEPQ is the car that's going to take you to destination success, how to differentiate junk and legit training so you can easily dodge a bullet, and more. Do yourself a massive favour and help yourself become a top one-percenter by watching today's episode! See you there!   Episode Highlights: Hey, guys! What's up? [00:00] What does it mean to be a “Top One Percent Sales Rep”? [01:13] Two metrics that you need to meet to be part of the top one percent [04:28] What happens to people who fall for BizOps [06:14] How to differentiate garbage training and legit training [12:12] What makes Jeremy Miner the mack daddy of sales [20:04] How NEPQ helped Matt become a top one-percenter [28:56] Why NEPQ is the best sales training on the planet [35:42] Identifying the right people to sell [42:33] About Our Guest: After his 12-year career in the army, Pat Stuart began training dogs full-time, mentored and coached by the best trainers in Australia and the world. He is a certified NePoPo instructor as well as an active competitor in the PSA. A former special forces K9 Handler, he now has a business called the Operant Canine dedicated to helping dog owners, handlers, and trainers handle and train their dogs better. He also hosts his show The Canine Paradigm. Resources: Sales Sniper Website Closing Code (Sales Coaching Training) Visit our FREE RESOURCES page and find just what you need to boost your sales game! Join the Closing Code Facebook group today! Download the Sales Sniper's holy grail—the Objection Handling Matrix Visit the Sales Sniper merch store!   Connect with Matt and James: YouTube Facebook Instagram Email LinkedIn   If you liked this episode, don't forget to subscribe, tune in, and share this podcast! Thanks for tuning in! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Neeraj Gunsagar is the CEO and President of byte®, a direct-to-consumer aligner company that is revolutionizing the orthodontic industry.  Byte was recently acquired by Dentsply Sirona for $1.04 billion to expand its DTC Aligner business to dentists across the world. Prior to joining byte®, Neeraj was the Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Revenue Officer and SVP of Finance & Operations at TrueCar, Inc (NASDAQ: TRUE). In his various roles, Neeraj was responsible for the Company's overall marketing strategy, corporate communications, consumer acquisition, research, finance and business operations (BizOps). Neeraj helped the Company go public in 2014 and played a significant role in profitably scaling the business from $70M of revenue in 2012 to over $350M in 2018. Prior to joining TrueCar, Gunsagar spent the first 15 years of his career as a Private Equity/Venture Capital Investor. He was Vice President at both Matrix Partners' India and Garnett & Helfrich Capital, and a Financial Analyst with Qualcomm Ventures.   Gunsagar started his career on Wall Street at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ), where he advised companies such as Worldcom and Iridium on complex restructurings and acquisitions. Gunsagar holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.

Show Notes(02:27) Taimur reflected on his education studying Computer Science at UT Austin in the early 2000s.(06:26) Taimur recalled his first job working as a quality assurance engineer at Vignette.(08:47) Taimur went through his time with Oracle / Siebel, where he transitioned from a purely technical engineering-focused role to more customer-facing functions.(13:44) Taimur reflected on his proudest accomplishments at Oracle.(18:23) Taimur recalled dropping out of studying at the Stanford Center of Professional Development and moving to Seattle to work for Amazon Web Services.(20:35) Taimur provided insights on attributes of exceptional sales talent, given his time as an enterprise sales manager in his first two years at AWS.(23:55) Taimur shared anecdotes of successful product launches and their market expansion strategies while leading business development for AWS's database and compute services.(28:33) Taimur discussed instituting the culture of customer obsession and operational excellence into his teams - while leading the incubation, market development, and technical go-to-market strategy and execution for the AWS Platform across infrastructure, data, developer services, and emerging technologies.(33:14) Taimur talked about his decision to join Microsoft to lead the Worldwide Customer Success function for their Azure Data Platform, Analytics, and AI business.(36:24) Taimur unpacked his talk called “Enabling Customer Success through Evolutionary Architectures.”(43:07) Taimur compared the BizOps culture between Azure and AWS.(46:29) Taimur discussed his decision to onboard Redis as their Chief Business Development Officer.(50:07) Taimur went over the data challenges with operational ML, the emerging data architecture of feature stores, and the powerful capabilities of Redis as a solution.(55:58) Taimur unpacked key ideas in his talk "First Principles in Building A Real-Time AI Platform."(01:01:52) Taimur hinted at Redis' product vision of "caching for ML data."(01:05:21) Taimur gave advice for a smart, driven operator who wants to explore angel investing.(01:10:17) Taimur described the evolution of tech leadership, strategic business development, and customer success strategies in the past two decades.(01:15:29) Taimur shared three books that have greatly influenced his life.(01:16:48) Closing segment.Taimur's Contact InfoLinkedInTwitterRedis ProfileRedis' ResourcesWebsiteRedis Open Source | Redis Enterprise Software | Redis Enterprise CloudRedis AILinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | YouTube"Redis Labs Becomes Redis" (Aug 2021)Mentioned ContentPeopleAndy Jassy (CEO of Amazon)Melanie Perkins (CEO of Canva)Jeff Lawson (CEO of Twilio)Books"Man's Search For Meaning" (by Viktor Frankl)"Thinking In Systems" (by Donella Meadows)"A Treasury of Rumi" (by Muhammad Isa Waley and Rumi)"Start With Why" (by Simon Sinek)Talks"First Principles in Building A Real-Time AI Platform" (March 2021)"Redis as an Online Feature Store" (April 2021)"Redis as an online feature store, Redis Labs" (May 2021)About the showDatacast features long-form, in-depth conversations with practitioners and researchers in the data community to walk through their professional journeys and unpack the lessons learned along the way. I invite guests coming from a wide range of career paths — from scientists and analysts to founders and investors — to analyze the case for using data in the real world and extract their mental models (“the WHY and the HOW”) behind their pursuits. Hopefully, these conversations can serve as valuable tools for early-stage data professionals as they navigate their own careers in the exciting data universe.Datacast is produced and edited by James Le. Get in touch with feedback or guest suggestions by emailing khanhle.1013@gmail.com.Subscribe by searching for Datacast wherever you get podcasts or click one of the links below:Listen on SpotifyListen on Apple PodcastsListen on Google PodcastsIf you're new, see the podcast homepage for the most recent episodes to listen to, or browse the full guest list.

Jerry is joined by IBM Senior Technical Staff Member and Lead Architect for Observability, Chris Bailey. They begin by discussing what "BizOps" is and why connecting data and events from across the enterprise creates unique challenges for modern businesses. Chris explains that the world's digital transformation means most of today's business is implemented in IT, and how, with advanced Observability technology, enterprises can be proactive about mitigating IT issues and keeping their customers happy. Chris and Jerry close by gazing into the crystal ball and analyzing where this all might be headed in the next decade.Connect with us: https://www.linkedin.com/in/art-of-automation/   Art by Jerry Cuomo.

What are good business level objectives (BLOs) besides conversion rates? Who is responsible for defining them? Who needs to report and who is held accountable?We invited John Kelly, Sales Engineer at Dynatrace, to answer those and even more questions. John – aka Tech Shady - has been helping our customers over the past years to implement business level reporting for their critical applications. It was exciting to hear that there is much more than your classical availability or conversion rate business metrics. The one we think is really excited is Engagement Rate. So – tune in and learn for yourselfShow links:John Kelly on Linkedinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/john-kelly-b22b992/John Kelly on Twitterhttps://twitter.com/JohnKelly17

Today we are excited to have an awesome guest on the show with us, Rachel Nazhand (Head of Business Operations at Lunchbox). Jordan and Rachel have been bouncing ideas around for almost a year in the DMs. He wouldn't admit it, but it's probably why he's so good at his job. Rachel's POV provides a TON of value. She's been working with startups for a while. Lunchbox is her fourth. And they're growing fast, from 60 to 235 employees since the start of the year. So on this episode we're focusing on what happens when you enter an organization and need to build out ops. Referenced articles: Business operations: when you'll need it and why, eventually, you won't What is BizOps? And why every founder should hire a BizOps pro, early Guest: Connect with Rachel Nazhand on Linkedin Follow the Hosts on LinkedIn: Jordan Henderson (Director of Revenue Operations) Brandon Redlinger (Sr. Director of Product Marketing) Jonathan Stevens (Sr. Marketing Operations & Automation Manager) Sponsored by: Revenue.io | Powering high-performing revenue teams with real-time guidance Explore the Revenue.io Podcast Universe: Sales Enablement Podcast Selling with Purpose Podcast RevOps Podcast

Databricks has raised $1.6B at a valuation of $38B from Counterpoint Global and others. The company aspires to build on its lead by investing in innovations that simplify AI and establish lakehouse as a modern replacement for traditional data warehousing.Walnut, a company helping sales teams manage their demo experience and reinvent sales experience, has raised $15 million in a Series A funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures to improve product demonstrations.OwnBackup, a cloud data protection platform provider, has acquired RevCult, a provider of Salesforce security and governance solutions and SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM), to enhance its platform with proactive data security.Peak raises $75M in Series C from SoftBank Vision Fund 2 to fuel global expansion, open offices in the US and India and invest in R&D of its platform. Peak's Decision Intelligence software enables companies to embed AI into the core of their decision making to boost their operational efficiency across sales, marketing, demand management and supply chains .Rafay Systems raises $25M in Series B to hire engineers, grow sales, marketing and customer success teams and accelerate its strategic vision for its Kubernetes platform. It helps platform teams move beyond traditional Kubernetes cluster management to streamlined Kubernetes operations for modern applications.Apna, a job-search and professional networking site, is on the cusp of becoming India's fastest tech firm first unicorn. Apna is building a scalable networking infrastructure to connect low-skilled workers with relevant employers and help them find work.Rattle, a BizOps automation & orchestration platform, has announced that it has raised $2.8 million in a seed funding round co-led by Lightspeed and Sequoia Capital India.Octane, a software billing firm, has secured $2M at a valuation of $10M post-money. The funds will be used to hire engineers and product, marketing & sales personnel. Octane collaborates with a wide range of businesses, notably in the infrastructure and depth gauge industries.Harri, a service-oriented employee experience platform, has received growth funding from Golub Capital as part of a bigger funding round. Harri plans to use the capital to capitalize on the excellent momentum in the large corporate market and expand into other markets.

Join Kris as he chats with Pete Huang, currently leading BizOps at WorkOS - A San Francisco based startup that is building Stripe for enterprise ready features. Pete and Kris dive into multiple topics together - from the importance of the role of sales at startups, all the way to how Pete has decided which startups to jump into. This is a recording from a Skillful Fireside Chat where our community came together to connect and listen to Pete's story. https://www.joinskillful.com/join-waitlist sign-ups just opened up for our Fall cohort!

Oracle è un colosso del tech e porta la tecnologia nella vita delle persone. Gli obiettivi sono: valorizzare la digitalizzazione, l'uso efficiente dei dati e migliorare i processi, tutto questo grazie a costante innovazione. L'obiettivo finale è uno solo, il giorno che verrà deve essere migliore del precedente.

Melanie Fellay is the CEO and Co-Founder of Spekit (https://spekit.co), the highest-rated and easiest-to-use digital enablement platform that maximizes employee productivity, helps you onboard faster and drives tool adoption by reinforcing your training and enablement in real-time, in any application. Spekit was born out of the first-hand pain that Melanie and her co-founder Zari felt trying to drive tool adoption and enabling employees using outdated and ineffective solutions that couldn't keep up with today's pace of growth and change. Spekit became the solution to that pain and is now the software of choice for customers across sales enablement, learning & development and revenue operations roles. Melanie is a BizOps and Enablement enthusiast with expertise driving Salesforce transformations and architecting employee-centric learning solutions. Melanie graduated from the University of Colorado, Boulder with a degree in Accounting & Finance. In her free time, Mel enjoys dancing to live music at Red Rocks or hanging with her mini-goldendoodle puppy, Rufus. Connect with Melanie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniefellay/ Connect with Poya Osgouei: https://www.linkedin.com/in/poyaosgouei/ Connect with Robby Allen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbyallen/ This week's episode was supported by Oracle NetSuite (sign up for a personalized product tour at www.netsuite.com/scale) and Indeed (get a $75 credit for your job post at indeed.com/scale) --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/uncharted1/support

Dan is the Former VP of Business and Data at Coinbase. Prior to Coinbase, Dan created LinkedIn's Business Operations function and popularized “BizOps” across the Valley. He also served as the COO of NerdWallet and founded and successfully exited ReliaQuote, an online insurance brokerage. In this podcast we spoke to Dan about the following: Dan's recent decision to leave Coinbase after the company announced its apolitical stance Why going through your career just checking the boxes may actually limit your growth The role Asian Americans play in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion conversations in the workplace ------------------------------- Episode resources: Dan's LinkedIn post announcing his departure from Coinbase: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6720304711662235648/ Follow Dan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danyoo/ Follow Dan on Twitter: https://twitter.com/danyoo?lang=en Dan's former colleague John's medium article: https://medium.com/@jcu1932/dear-well-intentioned-white-people-46c97f869333 ------------------------------- If you enjoyed today's conversation about the intersection of work and Asian American identity, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review to spread the word. We'd really appreciate it! Learn more about the show at acrossthelinespodcast.com, follow us @acrossthelinespodcast, and subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest updates.

Alex Petit-Chouraqui et Matthieu Thiroux nous emmènent dans les coulisses de l'équipe BizOps (business operations) de la startup française Tiller. Vous découvrirez ainsi comment des outils no-code tels que Integromat et Typeform sont utilisés pour simplifier la vie des équipes commerciales de Tiller et rendre les process plus efficients. Ressources Alex sur Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthieu-thiroux-b2348ab0/ Matthieu sur Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-petit-chouraqui/ Le site de Tiller : https://www.tillersystems.com/fr/ À propos de >Contournement> : Notre site web : https://www.contournement.io/ Nos formations : https://www.contournement.online Notre blog : https://blog.contournement.io/ Nos réseaux : Twitter | Linkedin | Instagram | Facebook

On this Episode of The Internship Show, we speak with Amy Morimoto and Niki Patel from Confluent. A UC Berkeley graduate, Niki started her career at Houzz as a recruiting coordinator, where she first learned her passion for University Recruiting as she helped build out their program. Over the last 4 years, she has built the University Programs for both Rubrik and Confluent from scratch and today owns hiring for G&M, BizOps, and University Programs globally for Confluent. Where Amy started her career at Lockheed Martin in University Programs. After a year at Google, Amy found herself working at a fast growth startup, Confluent, where she helped grow the University Programs to all parts of the business. Having experience working at both large public companies and an early (now mid-stage) startup, Amy uses her unique perspective to help both interns and new grads navigate University Recruiting to land their dream jobs. We discuss the benefits of interning at a high-growth company, what their program goals are and why Confluent is a great place to work as an undergraduate or recent graduate. This episode was brought to you by Scholars. Scholars matches college students and employers for internships, virtual events and entry-level jobs based on skills, experiences, and interests. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts Subscribe on Spotify Subscribe on Google Podcasts Listen to past episodes here! Want to be a guest on the show? Click here to contact Parker about why you should be featured on The Internship Show! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Capbase is working to streamline legal paperwork for startups to free up time and capital. Their mission is to create solutions for multiple startup business operations to help them launch their company more efficiently.Listen to how founder, Greg Miaskiewicz, is launching his second venture with a global remote team!

In this StraightTalk podcast, Whynde Kuehn, has a conversation with Mike Rosen on the topic of BizOps. Rosen is a published author and recognized authority in the field of digital transformation, enterprise architecture, and business and application development. Rosen unpacks Business to Operations (or BizOps) by revealing how business architecture and BizOps can play a pivotal role in managing the end-to-end journey of creating, delivering, and monitoring business outcomes.

CLA (CliftonLarsonAllen) is a national accounting firm with over 120 offices nation-wide and 6,000 employees. What really sets CLA apart from the other accounting firms is that, while they do the traditional services such as audits, reviews, and tax work, they also help clients with outsourcing work, talent solutions, and a wealth advisory group. In this episode, I talk with Chris Wright, the BizOps leader, and we go deep into some of the back-office operations for a small business, common mistakes, things you should be looking into as a startup company, and what they do at CLA. Hopefully, you get a lot out of this conversation and are able to apply some of these things to help your business grow.Topics in this episodeWhat BizOps are, and what it looks like to be a biz ops clientWorking with a company that is struggling with their financial conceptsWhy it’s important to not over-buy and over-stock on inventoryHelping business owners communicate with their investors and board of directorsThe new package at CLA for small and emerging companiesCommon mistakes they see early-stage companies makingWorking with a small bank versus a national bankPartnering relationships CLA can provide to their clientsThe value of creating connections and communityContact InfoEmail: chris.wright@claconnect.comPhone: 317-569-6159LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-wright-cpa-963ab425/

Current situation will make a lot of us re-think. Overnight, we are all faced with the fact that nobody knows what will happen next. But what we know we will all need to change and adapt at some extent. But, how can you build a future-proof technology stack that will be up to the task to change or when the next "big change wave" hits us, just like the current one did? To get you some answers, I talked with a person who knows a thing or two about how to build modern, future-proof technology and digital platforms. Miha Kralj worked for IBM, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and is now at Accenture. We talked about key technology and digital trends that will impact us in the near future (2020-20205): - Key tech trends - How to start big digital transformation projects - 4 key pillars of future-proof technology setup (architecture, process, tooling, execution platform) - Transition from DevOps to BizOps and server-less - Who is responsible for digital transformation (CIO, CTO, CDO, CFO or CEO) - Why airlines are playing catch-up with big travel digital platforms - The technology that will have biggest impact in the future  You can find the link to the full interview article with notes and all links here: https://www.diggintravel.com/future-proof-airline-technology-2020-2025/    

Watch the video recording of this show, See the highlight videos Gain access to online real estate syndication resources ACCESS THE SHOWNOTES PAGE BY CLICKING HERE.

In this episode we speak to Liz Goll Lerner from Your Inspired Choices, LLC, a psychotherapy practice that helps people live the inspired life that they wan to live! Liz is not only a psychotherapist, but she is also a life coach and art therapist. With over 30 years in practice, Liz is a thought leader in the fields of counseling and coaching and has developed numerous highly respected programs for both her own practice and for health centers across the nation. Liz is known for getting results through gentle encouragement, creative techniques, sensitivity and compassion. Read more about her practice at, https://yourinspiredchoices.com/. Josh Scharf is a China Manufacturing Expert and gives his insights on how the factories work in China and why the Corona Virus it affecting trade. Featured Presenters: Marc Goldner is the founder and CEO of Golden Bell Studios, an entertainment company focused on Comics, Animation, Children's Books, Games, Stuffed Animals, and much much more. The CSR is centered around "Comics for Change" - a mission to bring entertainment to every part of the world where it's lacking, and "Comics for a Cure" is a traveling gallery exhibition housing all the original art from Golden Bell's The Sunday Comics, at https://www.goldenbellstudios.com/Paul Kandle is the President and CEO of Boast Groupware, a BizOps platform that gets businesses running smoothly through a powerful, streamlined and integrated, single cloud-based platform that gives access to entire businesses from any location, at https://www.boastgroupware.com/index.html Visit https://passagetoprofitshow.com/ for the latest updates and episodes.

In this episode we speak to Liz Goll Lerner from Your Inspired Choices, LLC, a psychotherapy practice that helps people live the inspired life that they wan to live! Liz is not only a psychotherapist, but she is also a life coach and art therapist. With over 30 years in practice, Liz is a thought leader in the fields of counseling and coaching and has developed numerous highly respected programs for both her own practice and for health centers across the nation. Liz is known for getting results through gentle encouragement, creative techniques, sensitivity and compassion. Read more about her practice at, https://yourinspiredchoices.com/. Josh Scharf is a China Manufacturing Expert and gives his insights on how the factories work in China and why the Corona Virus it affecting trade. Featured Presenters: Marc Goldner is the founder and CEO of Golden Bell Studios, an entertainment company focused on Comics, Animation, Children's Books, Games, Stuffed Animals, and much much more. The CSR is centered around "Comics for Change" - a mission to bring entertainment to every part of the world where it's lacking, and "Comics for a Cure" is a traveling gallery exhibition housing all the original art from Golden Bell's The Sunday Comics, at https://www.goldenbellstudios.com/Paul Kandle is the President and CEO of Boast Groupware, a BizOps platform that gets businesses running smoothly through a powerful, streamlined and integrated, single cloud-based platform that gives access to entire businesses from any location, at https://www.boastgroupware.com/index.html Visit https://passagetoprofitshow.com/ for the latest updates and episodes.

Mark Goldberg is a Partner @ Index Ventures, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Dropbox, Revolut, Supercell, Plaid and Transferwise to name a few. As for Mark, since joining Index he has largely specialised on all things financial services and sits on the board of Plaid, Nova Credit, Intercom, Pilot and more incredible companies. Prior to Index, Mark spent 3 years in BizOps at Dropbox where the company increased tenfold during his time there. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Mark made his way into the world of venture with Index having spent 3 years at Dropbox during a transformational time for the company? What were Mark's biggest takeaways from seeing the growth cycle at Dropbox? How did that impact his investing mindset with Index? 2.) Why does Mark believe that venture as an asset class is commoditising? What does Mark believe the best funds will have to do to stay ahead? How does Mark build relationships of trust and authenticity so early with founders? What works? What does not? What is the right way to deliver direct and tough feedback to founders? 3.) How does Mark feel about multi-stage funds re-entering seed investing again? What are the right questions seed founders should ask multi-stage funds when determining whether to take their money? What does Mark believe it takes to be competitive and win the very best of deals? How is the Founder VC dynamic changing with capital supply? 4.) Why does Mark believe that most angels are going to lose their money? What does Mark wish all angels knew when they started? How does Mark feel about the rise of founders investing alongside operating? What are the pros? What are the cons? How does Mark feel about the rise of scout funds? Where is there place in the ecosystem? 5.) We are seeing unparalleled levels of activity in fintech, is this a boom or are we at the start of a fundamental shift in the landscape? Why does Mark believe we will soon see our first $100Bn neo-bank? Why does Mark believe we will see a strong rise in the consolidatory environment for fintech moving forward? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mark’s Fave Book: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mark on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.

The guest for this episode is Manny Reimi. BlocKade met him in Hong Kong at a crypto meetup and found him fascinating. Having grown up in Venezuela, lived in the US, and currently residing in Hong Kong, he has the ability and experience to zoom out and see the big picture when it comes to finance, politics, immigration, crypto, free speech, inflation, ex-pat life, and business. On this episode, we go back in time a few decades to see how things went so bad in Venezuela and how Crypto is helping people there. After that, I get his take on the recent happenings in Hong Kong. Don't skip this one! For BizDev or BizOps in Hong Kong, he can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mannyreimi/ You can also follow DSOTHM here: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/darkside_of_the_hodl_moon/ You can follow BlocKade here: https://twitter.com/kadeblock https://www.instagram.com/block.kade/

Chris Castle introduces Becky Jaimes, the product manager for Heroku Dataclips. Dataclips is a feature that allows you to save and version SQL queries against a Postgres database. You can export these queries to JSON or CSV, share them online, or simply access them through an HTTP API. The two discuss the history of Dataclips, namely what its original needs were and how it has evolved. It was originally targeted towards individuals who simply wanted a quick way to get access to rows from a database, and now it's grown to be a useful source of information for BizOps teams, engineers, and product managers. The newest release of Dataclips came out of a very long beta program involving customers of various sizes. Some customers had a few dozen queries they accessed frequently, while others had thousands of them. The team at Heroku wanted to create a one-size-fits-all solution, while at the same time reducing technical debt which had been a hinderance to shipping quickly. Becky shares some of the features that are now available. Links from this episode A Dialog with Your Data Using the New Dataclips Dataclips is often used as a lightweight Extract, transform, load (ETL) framework

It sounds like 3 buzzwords, But there is more than that. We were intrigued by the Digital Mastery & Joy ( https://info.dynatrace.com/apm_wc_panera_na_registration.html ) webinar Klaus Enzenhofer @kenzenhofer ( https://twitter.com/kenzenhofer ) did with Panera Bread. In his introductory statement, Klaus cited a recent study from IDG on Digital Customer Experience. The biggest challenges are data silos, poor data quality, redundant data, and missing coordination between departments that manage the individual digital touchpoint channels (Mobile, IoT, Web, Physical, …). In our discussion we find lots of parallels between the problem that DevOps tries to solve and which challenges digital transforming businesses face: Silos! Disconnected Silos! But instead of Silos between Dev & Ops its Silos between your Business Teams that are all strictly focusing on their slice of bread (to reference some great stories from Prashant Karre, Director of Performance Engineering at Panera)Listen in and join our conversation. Make sure to check out the webinar recording Digital Mastery & Joy ( https://info.dynatrace.com/apm_wc_panera_na_registration.html )

It sounds like 3 buzzwords, But there is more than that. We were intrigued by the Digital Mastery & Joy ( https://info.dynatrace.com/apm_wc_panera_na_registration.html ) webinar Klaus Enzenhofer @kenzenhofer ( https://twitter.com/kenzenhofer ) did with Panera Bread. In his introductory statement, Klaus cited a recent study from IDG on Digital Customer Experience. The biggest challenges are data silos, poor data quality, redundant data, and missing coordination between departments that manage the individual digital touchpoint channels (Mobile, IoT, Web, Physical, …). In our discussion we find lots of parallels between the problem that DevOps tries to solve and which challenges digital transforming businesses face: Silos! Disconnected Silos! But instead of Silos between Dev & Ops its Silos between your Business Teams that are all strictly focusing on their slice of bread (to reference some great stories from Prashant Karre, Director of Performance Engineering at Panera)Listen in and join our conversation. Make sure to check out the webinar recording Digital Mastery & Joy ( https://info.dynatrace.com/apm_wc_panera_na_registration.html )

Part 2 of 3 of our Veteran Operators Series. Dan Yoo, COO of NerdWallet, not only survives the tech bubble bubble, but he also builds a 120-person BizOps team at Linkedin. Dan establishes his definition of BizOps, a role that has been a linchpin to the top tech companies. If you're interested in this role, don't miss this one!

Adi, Allen, and Sascha join this week's panelist episode to tackle different deployment applications in Elixir. Allen leads the show as he talks about the application "Fly.io". He describes how he used the software, how it works, and its benefit to users. On the other hand, Adi explains why he prefers to use Heroku. He explains its process and why it is also user-friendly. Lastly, they highlight the tools they think developers should utilize in 2023.SponsorsChuck's Resume TemplateDeveloper Book ClubBecome a Top 1% Dev with a Top End Devs MembershipLinksFly.ioHeroku: Cloud Application PlatformAppSignalLogDNA is now MezmoGrafana OnCallSentryPicksAdi - Hogwarts LegacyAdi - VampyrAdi - * Great candidates! Head of Customer/Client Success Candidate: Delaney Widen: With 10+ years of startup experience, I'm a self-starter and creative problem solver. Effective and entertaining communication is of the utmost importance to me professionally and personally. I love being the voice of the customer and the team, providing their feedback as a liaison to guide and develop strategies, ultimately making more seamless experiences. Head of Operations: Olivia Del Bacro: Olivia is a multifaceted operations expert with a history of building and scaling out processes for fast-growth businesses. She is passionate about people and process while being a champion of change. With 10+ years of experience in the start-up world, she has demonstrated success in BizOps, Marketing Operations, Sales Enablement, and Project Management roles.Allen - Bright Memory: InfiniteSascha - Stick Fight: The GameAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy