Clay CEO Amin Explains Path from $1 Million to $100 Million ARR

Clay CEO Amin 详解从 100 万至 1 亿美元 ARR 之路 资本主义从根本上奖励高风险的坚定投入，而非单纯的努力或天赋；初创企业将销售视为一门灵活的创造性学科而非僵化的软件工具集，从而得以实现迅速扩张。 Kareem Amin 回顾了 Clay 的发展历程：该产品最初是一款旨在降低人类思维与计算之间延迟的抽象工具，如今已成长为估值超 40 亿美元、将大语言模型（LLM）作为效能倍增器的 GTM 平台。他详细拆解了 Clay 如何瞄准极具创造力的 GTM 核心用户、采用基于用量的计费模式，并摒弃“快聘快解”等传统初创企业套路，转而采取人才重定位以及小丑表演和魔术等独特的文化实践。除商业策略外，Amin 还探讨了领导者如何凭借内心的“充盈”而非“匮乏”去承担大胆风险，将其哲学立足于勇气、真理与正义的核心价值观。此外，他还分享了从 10 天禅修闭关中获得的顿悟、类似“制造吉他而非微波炉”的音乐设计类比、极致清晰的沟通，以及针对已完成最初使命的公司所提出的发人深省的“死亡导乐”（death doula）概念。 Clay 致力于打破计算门槛，将 GTM 编程能力赋予非工程人员；通过把销售视为富有创造力的工种、采用按用量计费的模式并借力大语言模型（LLM），公司实现了 ARR 从 100 万美元到 1 亿美元的迅猛增长。 (5:00) 联合创始人 Kareem Amin 确立以“勇气、真理与正义”作为核心准则，指出资本主义本质上奖励的是承担真实失败风险的魄力，而非单纯的努力或天赋。 (10:00) 领导者若能从内心的“圆满”而非“匮乏感”出发，就能摆脱对外部赞誉的执念，以自尊为锚点，承担更纯粹、更大胆的商业风险并专注服务客户。 (18:28) Clay 拒绝盲从“快速招聘、快速解雇”等传统硅谷套路，倾向于花时间调整并赋能陷入瓶颈的员工，并倡导打造如同“吉他”般具有无限表现力与深度的软件，而非流水线式的“微波炉”。 (30:00)

Kareem Amin argues that enduring software companies are built by treating software as an expressive craft rather than a commoditized shortcut, while decoupling founder ambition from personal validation. Operating from internal wholeness, radical clarity, and deliberate organizational boundaries enables leaders to take genuine risks and navigate corporate growth with intention. Building Expressive Tools for Go-to-Market Alpha (5:00) Clay co-founders Kareem Amin and Nikola set out to bring computational leverage to non-engineers, targeting sales, marketing, and RevOps teams. Rather than treating sales professionals as mechanical operators needing pre-packaged solutions, Clay framed go-to-market work as an open-ended creative discipline requiring "go-to-market alpha." Amin contrasts software designed like a "microwave"—a commoditized appliance producing identical results—with tools built like a "guitar," which impose few rigid constraints while offering infinite depth, skill, and creative mastery. This thesis enabled Clay to grow from $1 million to $100 million in ARR over two years. Because the company built around open API primitives, served outbound sales agencies, and used usage-based pricing, large language models acted as a force multiplier rather than a disruption. Amin contends that idealized go-to-market execution avoids manufacturing artificial demand, instead timing outreach like offering an umbrella the exact moment it begins to rain. Internal Wholeness, Real Risk, and Foundational Virtues (10:00) Amin challenges the notion that capitalism purely rewards effort or raw talent, arguing that economic returns flow primarily to real risk-taking—defined as stepping into genuine uncertainty with exposure to public failure and shame. Clay's operational philosophy rests on three civic values: Courage to commit fully to a single vector, Truth to perceive reality clearly without retrofitted narratives, and Justice to maintain long-term stability and fairness across all employee and customer relationships. Personally, Amin advocates moving past building from "lack"—the desire to earn validation or love through success. Achieving multi-billion-dollar valuation milestones demonstrated that wealth cannot cure internal inadequacy. Instead, operating from wholeness empowers founders to take cleaner, bolder risks for customers rather than self-preservation. Amin recommends a practical ratio of 90% execution to 10% meta-analysis to prevent strategic paralysis, noting that large-scale operators bear an ethical responsibility to examine the downstream societal effects of their power. Unconventional Talent Models and Radical Communication (30:00) Clay rejects Silicon Valley's standard "hire fast, fire fast" philosophy. When employees flounder nine months into their tenure, leadership examines whether role design, organizational context, or executive management created the friction. In roughly half of these cases, readjusting the environment enables the individual to become a high-performing contributor. Clay also overinvests in traditionally undervalued areas, such as compensating early content hires like product managers, while introducing concepts from clowning to broaden creative and emotional range. When departures prove unavoidable, Amin seeks a "shared reality" through direct communication. Rather than letting unstated assumptions fester, he directly clarifies options, takes personal executive accountability when alignment fails, and transparently details what he will tell future employers—including admitting Clay's own management shortcomings. Drawing on his experience as a musician, Amin views structural transitions and clean endings as an essential discipline in organizational design. Resisting Perpetual Scaling and Corporate Mortality (50:00) Amin criticizes the universal incentive for companies to scale indefinitely, arguing that unchecked expansion often destroys the intrinsic quality that made a business special. Drawing on reflections from a 10-day silent meditation retreat—where he linked continuous future projection to Freud's "death drive"—Amin cautions against relentless resource accumulation. He questions why corporations, established conceptually in the 1500s, rarely sunset after achieving their original purpose, citing Microsoft's initial "computer on every desk" mission as an example of a goal that pivoted into secondary objectives rather than reaching completion. To counter this trap, Amin proposes the concept of a corporate "death doula" to help organizations gracefully dissolve, downsize, or spin out projects once their mission finishes. While focused on scaling Clay's platform to help global companies discover customers, he stresses that founders must know when an effort has run its natural course rather than pursuing scale for its own sake. Amin leaves unresolved how venture-backed enterprises can practically implement structured endings or withstand relentless capital pressures to perpetually scale without compromising their market position.

Clay 联合创始人兼首席执行官 Kareem Amin 主张跳出常规的科技扩张范式，将企业软件打造成赋予用户无限表达能力的“乐器”，并依靠摆脱匮乏感、直面真实风险与践行极致清晰的组织哲学来实现长期价值创造。 产品哲学：构建吉他而非微波炉 (5:00) Amin 与 Nikola 创立 Clay（现估值超过 40 亿美元）的初衷，是降低想法与屏幕呈现之间的延迟，让非技术人员也能运用计算的力量。他们避开为工程师重构终端的既有路径，将目标锁定在销售和营销团队。与传统软件将销售视作流水线投币操作机、提供死板预设答案的做法不同，Clay 将市场拓展（Go-To-Market）定义为一门极需创造力与试错的工程学科（GTM Alpha）。Amin 用现代客户通过谷歌卫星图排查商用建筑垃圾堆积以精准推销清理服务的案例，印证了让复杂非显性逻辑实现免代码落地的价值。 Amin 形象地将产品定位区分为“微波炉”与“吉他”：微波炉是千篇一律的功能型消费品，而吉他虽仅有六弦与十二品，却能为演奏者提供终身精通的空间与无限表达深度。基于将销售工作视为开放性工程、服务愿意探索工具的专业用户、以及采用基于使用量而非传统坐席收费这三大假设，Clay 提前完成了底层接口与数据整合布局。因此，大语言模型（LLM）的爆发成为其业务的加速杠杆，推动公司在两年内实现年经常性收入（ARR）从 100 万美元跃升至 1 亿美元。 组织基石：勇气正义与反常态用人 (10:00) 在公司治理上，Amin 提出了象征组织底层秩序的三座雕像：勇气、真相与正义。他反驳了资本主义单纯奖励勤奋或杂耍式技能的常见观念，指出经济回报本质上是对承担“真实风险”的补偿——即在高度不确定性中承受可能遭遇公开失败与羞耻的代价。正义与公平对待则是系统保持长期稳定、避免权力强权导致内耗的唯一基石。在此原则下，Clay 愿意反常态地重金投入品牌、内容与社区，早期加入负责内容业务的员工 Mishti 便获得了与产品经理对等的薪酬和权限。 在人才留任策略上，Clay 明确拒绝了硅谷盛行的“快速招聘、快速解雇”信条。对于入职九个月仍显吃力的员工，管理层倾向于首先反思是否是岗位、组织环境或高管决策限制了其发挥。在联合创始人 Varun Anand 看来，不匹配往往只是时机与即时需求的错位而非道德或能力缺陷；经由环境调适后，约有半数受挫员工最终成为卓越骨干。为激发团队创造力，Amin 还引入了包含身体表演、情感张力、弄臣直言与幽默传道在内的“小丑艺术”，并借鉴一家名为 69 Atlantic 的密室近景魔术馆经验，推行“让世界重拾魔力”的内部倡议，引导员工保持对软件技术与人际交往的敬畏、同理心与好奇心。 心智演进：摆脱匮乏与极致清晰沟通 (18:28) Amin 深入剖析了创业者的内在心理动机，指出许多人创业是源于内心的“匮乏感”（lack），企图通过世俗成功换取爱与认可。这种心态往往会导致自我防御和向内部政治妥协。经由朋友的无条件支持，他跨越至“后匮乏”（post-lack）状态，认识到内心完整能够赋予领导者纯粹的勇气去承担真正服务客户的重大风险。在为期十天的内观静修中，他觉察到不断幻想未来的倾向类似于弗洛伊德的“死本能”，即试图加速奔向死亡这一终极未来；打破这一执念后，日常的沉静转化为“美妙的无聊”。他同时强调，公司内部需维持约 90% 执行与 10% 元分析的比例，防止以战略推演掩盖实际行动。 在日常沟通与团队离职管理中，Amin 推崇“极致清晰”（radical clarity），认为人际冲突往往根植于未言明的假设与复杂的心理博弈。他主张主动挑明诉求、摆出合理选项，并在解雇员工时共同构建“共享现实”。作为首席执行官，他倾向于主动承担失职责任，明确承认是自身管理与支持不到位，并在后续背调沟通中如实向外部聘用方说明公司的过失，以此抵御行业常规剧本的伪善。 增长反思：发现导向与企业死亡助产士 (50:00) 针对创业界对僵化宏大愿景的推崇，Amin 结合科学史指出，许多重大突破（如宇宙微波背景辐射的发现）完全是偶然而非预设规划的产物。他提倡创始人应更专注于“优化发现过程”（optimize for discovery），在缺乏方向时坦然接纳处于愿景交替期的空白，而非事后粉饰叙事。谈及财富，他坦言数亿美元的估值与物质充裕无法治愈内心的不安全感，金钱积累只是一场无尽的竞技游戏，其最大价值在于买回时间，使创立 Clay 变成一项出于纯粹热忱的自主选择。 在探讨扩张的终极意义时，Amin 借用音乐中对停顿与尾声的处理智慧，批判了现代社会无休止激励企业规模化的惯性机制。他认为盲目扩张往往会毁掉组织最初的独特品质，如同优秀餐厅在连锁化后走向平庸。Amin 提出了“企业死亡助产士”（death doula for companies）的概念，质疑为何企业在完成历史核心使命后不能体面落幕，而是非要转向抽象目标沦为臃肿迟钝的僵尸实体。他呼吁行业建立允许企业优雅退场、拆分项目的机制，始终警惕为了扩张而扩张的虚幻增长。 Amin 的管理体系将高自由度工具设计、内省哲学与反传统的团队耐心融为一体，但这也对创始人的心智成熟度与组织试错资源提出了极高要求。在风险投资持续要求指数级增长的商业现实中，如何在追求规模扩张的同时真正践行“死亡助产士”与优雅落幕的构想，依然是该理念面临的现实张力。

## Background 本期节目来自播客频道 Colossus | Investing & Business Podcasts 的旗舰栏目《Invest Like the Best》（第 478 期），由主持人 Patrick O'Shaughnessy 于 2026 年 6 月 16 日发布在音频播客平台上。节目的核心嘉宾是估值超 40 亿美元的高增长企业级数据与自动化平台 Clay 的联合创始人兼 CEO Kareem Amin，深入探讨了他经营企业的非传统方法、他在公司核心树立的“真理、正义与勇气”精神支柱，以及十日内观禅修对野心与风险认知的重塑。 ## TL;DR 对话中，Kareem 回顾了 Clay 从“让编程力量民主化”到切入 GTM 领域、视销售为创意实验并捕获“市场 Alpha”的进化历程，阐述了按用量计费与定义 GTM 工程师等三大核心支柱。随后，对谈深入形而上学与创始人内心哲学：真正的商业风险必须伴随耻辱感与未知，而自尊、长远贪婪以及从“匮乏感”迈向“内在圆满”是承担激进风险的前提。Kareem 还结合十日静修洞察、小丑艺术、近景魔术与音乐留白理论，分享了他对宏大愿景叙事、坦诚沟通与解雇艺术的独到见解，并反思了盲目规模化的弊端，提出商业世界需要“企业临终关怀师”来打破僵尸企业的执念。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场对话沉静、深邃且充满极其罕见的哲学思辨质感，完全脱离了传统硅谷创业访谈浮躁的技巧复盘或融资炫耀。主持人 Patrick 与嘉宾 Kareem 之间有着极高的智性默契与信任，对话在极其务实的 SaaS 商业底层逻辑与直面死亡、非二元静修及情感创伤的内省之间流畅切换。Kareem 的表达兼具诗性与直率，不加防御与对冲，既有对商业世界虚妄赞歌的冷静解构，又有重塑世界奇迹感与彻底接纳自我的温和澄明，给听众带来一种震撼心灵且充满启发的力量感。 ## Bulletin - `03:07` Clay 估值已突破 40 亿美元，ARR 在生成式 AI 爆发加持下从 100 万美元跨越式增长至 1 亿美元，其核心在于将 Go-To-Market（GTM）定义为高自由度创意工程而非同质化流水线。 - `07:30` 公司采用按用量计费（Usage-based Pricing）而非按人头席位计费（Per-seat），使软件商业模式直接与客户生产力的指数级提升绑定，避免在团队提效减员时自我惩罚。 - `10:50` 创始人 Kareem Amin 将资本主义的真正奖励归结为“风险”而非勤奋或熟练度，真正的商业风险必须包含未知结果以及失败带来的强烈耻辱感与自我暴露。 - `52:14` 提出“企业临终关怀师（Death Doula）”概念，反思盲目崇拜无限规模化的商业体制，主张企业在完成历史使命后应当体面解散或分化新生，而非退化为僵尸独角兽。 ## Key takeaways - `03:07` Clay 的创办初衷源于计算工具的民主化：21 世纪的核心生产资料是计算，将机器的低摩擦执行快感赋予非工程背景人员能释放巨大社会价值。 - `05:00` GTM 的本质是寻找差异化的“市场 Alpha”：若全行业采用千篇一律的现成名单和话术模版只会制造噪音，销售工作需要像写代码一样自由实验与灵活编排数据。 - `07:30` 支撑 Clay 业务自洽的三大基石包括：坚信 GTM 是创造性学科、将核心画像重构为 RevOps/GTM 工程师、坚持按用量计费以共享效率增长红利。 - `10:50` 真正的商业风险伴随耻辱感与未知：拒绝二选一、四处留退路只是假装冒险，唯有敢于以令人尴尬的方式搞砸，才能探寻出新的市场认知。 - `12:35` 正义与公平是维持长期稳定的基础：依靠霸权与强权在企业内外部均不可持续，追求“长远贪婪”要求建立在让人心服口服的公正与自尊之上。 - `16:09` 外在赞誉与喝彩本质是虚妄的度量：估值或财富无法填补空虚，严苛的审判标准只能来自自己内心的自尊，切忌通过商业成功代偿“渴望被爱”的情感需求。 - `20:00` 从“圆满”而非“匮乏”出发创造世界：超越匮乏感能赋予创始人无所可失的博弈杠杆与承担激进风险的底气，带来更具建设性、更少内耗的生产力。 - `21:42` 警惕以内省之名行拖延之实：日常精力应遵循 90% 坚决执行与 10% 元分析，但当企业规模扩展到成为社会代理人时，必须主动承担反思自身影响的责任。 - `25:20` 对未来的过度预期本质是弗洛伊德式的“死亡本能”：十日静修顿悟出焦虑盲目奔向未来只会加速奔向确定性的死亡，专注于当下的充实才能从容设定“足够”的边界。 - `30:00` 在常规投入不足的领域超额下注：给予内容运营等非传统外围岗位 PM 级别的薪酬，对高潜员工给予长达数月的耐心诊断与岗位调整，不轻易归咎员工能力。 - `33:04` 品牌与沟通拒绝防卫性对冲：汲取近景魔术与小丑艺术的锋芒，敢于直抒胸臆并唤醒敬畏心，在理性逻辑泛滥的时代以真诚的情感共鸣构筑壁垒。 - `40:00` 做吉他而非微波炉：微波炉是高度同质化的大宗商品工具，吉他则是规则极简却能穷尽一生精进的乐器，GTM 的理想形态是“下雨时恰好递上一把伞”。 - `41:20` 优化发现过程而非执念于预设愿景：多数颠覆性突破源自机缘巧合，创始人无需编造宿命论叙事，坦然承认迷茫并给探索留出空间比捏造伪愿景更健康。 - `47:40` 极致透明的沟通与解雇责任制：直面利益分歧而非陷入猜忌，解雇时 CEO 主动揽下决策责任，背调时坦承公司管理架构不足而非单向甩锅给员工。 - `55:06` 放下执念与无条件的自我接纳：意识到个人价值无需依靠世俗成就来证明，方能以超然非执着的心态陪伴公司自由演变，而不施加畸形的个人欲望。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### `00:00` 赞助支持与节目开篇 本期节目开场介绍了数家支持高增长企业的赞助商工具：**Ramp** 作为旨在让财务团队更精简高效的平台，平均为企业每年节省 5% 的开支，客户收入增速达普通美国企业的 3.2 倍，服务包括 Visa、Vercel、Cursor、Stripe、Notion、ElevenLabs、Shopify 等 7 万家企业；**Felix by Rogo** 则是专为华尔街量身定制的 AI 金融智能体，能依据企业专属模板与上下文，将单一 Prompt 转化为交付级的 PPT、Excel 模型及溯源研究；**WorkOS** 则帮助包括 OpenAI、Cursor、Perplexity 在内的前沿软件公司一站式补齐 SSO、SCIM、RBAC 及合规审计等企业级基础设施。 主持人 Patrick O'Shaughnessy 正式引出本期嘉宾——企业级数据与自动化平台 **Clay** 的联合创始人兼首席执行官 **Kareem Amin**。作为近年来硅谷增长最为惊人的软件企业之一，Clay 的最新估值已突破 40 亿美元，其核心能力是帮助企业在规模化维度下精准锁定并触达目标客户。但在 Patrick 眼中，这场对话的分量远超 Clay 商业成功的表象，Kareem 是他所接触过最具原创深度的思考者之一。两人不仅探讨了公司创立过程中的关键分水岭，更深入挖掘了 Kareem 放置在公司治理核心的三座“精神雕像”——**真理（Truth）、正义（Justice）与勇气（Courage）**，以及他在一场为期十天的内观禅修（Silent Meditation Retreat）中所体悟到的野心、风险与自我认知。 ### `03:07` Clay 的起源：将编程的力量赋予更多人 在谈及创立 Clay 的漫长曲折路径时，Kareem 将其划分为截然不同却高度统一的“两部曲”。最初的起点并非具体瞄准某一类销售工具，而是一个极其宏大且抽象的技术理想：**如何将编程的能力赋予更多普通人？** Kareem 与联合创始人 Nicola 虽然都毕业于工程专业，但后来一直从事产品管理。他们敏锐地感知到一个时代的根本性矛盾：身处 21 世纪，计算机明明具备替人类完成海量工作的潜能，但只要你无法用机器理解的语言下达指令，你就无法捕获这轮技术革命创造出的任何价值。当时他们脑海中涌现过无数构想，但每次动手尝试构建，开发过程都漫长得令人沮丧。 与此同时，Kareem 正在尝试音乐制作，音乐工作站软件 **Ableton Live** 给了他深刻的震动——只要脑中有旋律闪现，创作者就能以极低的摩擦力将灵感从大脑提取并注入机器。他们随即回溯了计算科学的发展史，尤其是 1960 年代道格拉斯·恩格尔巴特（Douglas Engelbart）那场名垂青史的“所有演示之母”（The Mother of All Demos）。人机交互的顺畅度必须达到极高的境界，才能真正引导人进入下一阶段的深度思考，**“在产生想法与想法落地之间，你必须将延迟压缩到极致”**。在 Kareem 看来： - **时代的基底材料发生更迭**：如果过去的财富材料是石油或钢铁，那么 21 世纪最核心的生产资料就是**计算（Computation）**； - **技术的民主化价值**：将这种“向机器下达指令并立即得到反馈”的肾上腺素快感普及给更多人，社会才会涌现出更多颠覆性的创新，带来更平等的价值分配。 在大语言模型（LLM）尚未横空出世的 2017 年，他们最初甚至想过重新发明工程师天天泡在里面的命令行终端（Terminal），但很快意识到这只是让现有的工程师变得更快，无法扩大能够使用编程力量的人群基盘。经过反复权衡，他们放弃了 C 端消费者与单纯的软件工程师群体，决定扎入 B 端企业用户。他们进一步追问：企业内部哪一个部门想法最多、最具创造力，却最缺乏落地工程能力的工具？答案正是**销售与市场营销（GTM，Go-To-Market）团队**。 ### `05:00` GTM 是一项创意工作：寻找专属的“市场 Alpha” 为了说明一线市场人员的创意与传统工程手段之间的巨大鸿沟，Kareem 举了一个生动的实际案例：有一家客户的产品专门卖给那些会产生大量垃圾废弃物的企业。按照传统思路，这类客户极难通过现成的企业黄页或名单筛选出来。于是这家公司想到了一个奇思妙想——利用 Google 的卫星航拍视图（Satellite View），在地图上扫描哪些商业地块有大规模堆积垃圾的痕迹，以此精确定位潜在买家。这种策略在商业上极其有效，但如果依靠传统的人工排查或写死脚本，在规模化执行时几乎是一场灾难。而 Clay 的出现，恰恰能够让非技术人员把这种脑洞大开的逻辑自动化、工程化。 这也正是“**Clay（黏土）**”这个名字背后的精神内核：它赋予销售团队像可塑黏土一样的灵活度，打造属于自己的“GTM 工程师（Go-to-market Engineering）”工作流。Kareem 直言，这个定位让 Clay 与市面上几乎所有同类竞争对手形成了截然相反的路径对立： - **竞品视销售为“投币式机器”**：大量同类软件厂商认为销售人员是“投币驱动”的流水线工人，因此软件必须被做成极简的“黑盒”——提供现成答案、规定好受众名单、自动吐出话术模版。 - **Clay 视 GTM 为本质上的创意探索**：销售的核心在于找到属于你的**市场 Alpha（Go-to-market Alpha）**。如果你和所有人采用一模一样的现成模板和名单，你的营销就只是一堆毫无价值的市场噪音。为了找到差异化的 Alpha，用户必须拥有一个极其强大、允许自由实验与快速试错的开放式工具平台。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Clay 市场 Alpha 与竞品黑盒对比 accDescr: 对比传统竞品投币机模式与 Clay 创意探索寻找市场 Alpha 的底层逻辑差异 subgraph Competitors["竞品思路：投币机黑盒逻辑"] A["预设固定功能模版"] --> B["千篇一律的线索与话术"] B --> C["制造市场同质化噪音<br/>边际效应递减"] end subgraph Clay["Clay 理念：GTM 编程与创意实验"] D["开放式数据积木与底层计算"] --> E["灵活自由实验<br/>多源数据交叉验证"] E --> F["捕获独特的 GTM Alpha<br/>实现差异化规模触达"] end ``` ### `07:30` 爆发的前夕与奠定 Clay 飞跃的“三大核心公理” 进入 2022 年，外界常常以为 Clay 的崛起完全是搭上了 ChatGPT 的风口，但 Kareem 指出，事实是在生成式 AI 爆火之前，Clay 就已经实现了业务爆发。当时团队做出了几个在当时极其反直觉的激进决定： 1. **彻底聚焦出海拓展与主动触达（Outbound）**； 2. **专注于打通多元第三方数据孤岛**：专门满足那些希望从数十个不同数据提供商聚合信息、实现精准主动触达的企业； 3. **先做 Agency（营销代理机构）再做 Startups**：从代理机构切入，以“在阳光下公开构建（Building in public）”的方式提供全方位支持并培育社区。 当大语言模型浪潮汹涌而至时，Clay 的架构早已自然具备了完美的承接能力——一方面它本身就是为了与世界上任何 API 和数据源打通而设计的；另一方面，它是一个直接运用 GTM 语言写就的“类编程环境”。因此，LLM 的接入并不是从零开始的救命稻草，而是为原本就调校完备的引擎加注了一剂超级助燃剂。在短短两年内，Clay 的 ARR 便实现了从 100 万美元到 1 亿美元（“1 到 100”）的跨越式暴增。 Kareem 总结道，支撑这家百倍速成长的超级独角兽的，并非繁琐的管理规章，而是三条所有人都能清晰理解的核心基本假设（Pillars）。全公司几乎所有产品与业务决策，都能够从这三条假设中自然推导出来： ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Clay 战略三大核心假设 accDescr: 创意定位、用户画像与定价模式三大假设构成自洽的飞轮驱动 Pillar1["1. 创意属性定位<br/>GTM 是创意工作<br/>坚持提供最强大的开放工具"] Pillar2["2. 用户画像重构<br/>面向 RevOps 角色<br/>定义 GTM 工程师职能"] Pillar3["3. 激励完全对齐<br/>按用量计费 (Usage-based)<br/>打破传统按席位 (Per-seat) 限制"] Pillar1 --> Align["组织决策自洽与飞轮加速"] Pillar2 --> Align Pillar3 --> Align ``` - **第一，GTM 是一项创造性学科**：坚信最顶尖的市场人员需要的是自由度最高、最强大的底层控制权，而不是功能受限的“傻瓜式盒子”； - **第二，锚定并重塑核心画像（RevOps / GTM Engineering）**：将最强工具精准交付给负责业务运营的 RevOps 人群，并将他们的工作重定义为“GTM 工程师”——其核心职责就是运用系统化工具，排除一切阻碍业务增长的瓶颈； - **第三，按使用量收费（Usage-based Pricing）而非按人头席位收费（Per-seat）**：软件的目标是让人效极致提升。如果未来一个 3 人的团队能干过去 30 人的活，按席位收费的 SaaS 模式就会在商业上惩罚软件公司自身；按用量收费则让 Clay 的商业利益与客户生产力的指数级增长实现无缝绑定。 在对话的最后，Kareem 感慨，当今商业世界往往过度沉迷于细枝末节的技巧，而忽视了底层最核心的精神支柱。他提到自己曾做过一个具有极强启示意味的梦：在一座充满现代气息的繁华都市中心，矗立着一座座巍峨的雕像。他忽然意识到，现代文明早已停止建造精神象征，而在古代共和国里，人们总会以庄严的雕像来祭奠**勇气、诚信与仁慈**——这正是他在日后管理 Clay 时，始终试图找寻的深层力量。 ### `10:00` 电梯大堂的三座雕像：勇气、真理与正义 在创办与经营公司的过程中，许多人在当下往往忽略了那些看似抽象却至关重要的核心观念。当被问及如果可以在公司大厅电梯口设立三座雕像会选择什么时，Kareem Amin 毫不犹豫地给出了三个词：“勇气（Courage）、真理（Truth）与正义（Justice）”。 谈及为何将“勇气”排在首位，Kareem 提出了一个深刻的市场观察：资本主义本质上奖励的是“风险”，而非很多人盲目信奉的“勤奋”或“纯粹的技能”。现实中有无数人工作极其辛苦，却并没有获得丰厚的回报；也有人身怀绝技，能做到常人难以想象的事情（比如吞剑或杂耍），但赚的钱却远不如一个拍 YouTube 视频的内容创作者。这清楚地表明，市场并不单纯论功行赏或奖励熟练度。然而，绝大多数声称自己在承担风险的人，其实根本没有承担真正的风险。 Kareem 分享了一个与创业者交流的真实案例：对方毕业于名校，又顺利进入了 Y Combinator（YC），在介绍业务时宣称自己的产品“既服务销售团队，也服务招聘团队”。Kareem 当场打断并告诫他必须二选一。在 Kareem 看来，真正的价值恰恰蕴含在“做出选择，并承担选错的后果”之中。他将真正的商业风险定义为两点：第一，你必须处于一种真正不知道结果会如何的未知状态，准备去发现全新的东西；第二，它必须伴随着极高的“耻辱感（Shame）”与失败恐惧。只有当你可能以一种令人害怕、甚至感到丢脸的方式彻底搞砸时，你才是在承担真正的风险，而要迈出这一步，唯有依靠勇气。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 假风险与真风险的结构对比 accDescr: 对比缺乏勇气的安全妥协与伴随羞耻感及未知的真实商业风险路径 subgraph FalseRisk["表面风险：避风港与平庸"] A["拒绝聚焦<br/>'我们既做销售又做招聘'"] --> B["保留退路<br/>规避被证明错误的可能"] B --> C["缺乏真正价值与突破"] end subgraph RealRisk["真实风险：勇气的跃迁"] D["明确抉择并全力投入"] --> E["直面未知结果<br/>承担潜在的失败与耻辱感"] E --> F["发现新认知与市场真正价值"] end ``` ### `12:35` 正义、社会稳定与“长远贪婪” 谈及“正义”，Kareem 讲了一段在电影院外的奇妙经历。当时他正准备下楼去看 Talking Heads 乐队的经典音乐会纪录片《Stop Making Sense》，手里拿着一支准备点燃的关节烟（Joint），因为没有打火机便向旁边的一位陌生人借火。对方把打火机递给他，突然认真地问了一句：“这是什么？”Kareem 一时愣住，反问：“你是指这整个世界、整个人生吗？”对方点头确认。Kareem 当时回答道，这个世界是一个极其神秘而美妙的地方，人类才刚刚开始理解它的离奇与不可思议，我们本应将更多的时间用于探索这些未知；而要拥有探索未知的闲暇与从容，前提是必须生活在一个稳定的社会架构中。 要维系这种稳定，人与人之间就必须存在“正义与公平”。Kareem 认为，没有任何群体可以通过纯粹的压制和霸权来维持长久稳定，无论一方自认为有多么强大，一旦被统治者或弱势方感到遭受了不公对待，就会演变成无穷无尽的巨大阻力与混乱。无论是在国际地缘政治、经济体系，还是在企业管理内部，依仗权势大搞强权政治（“因为我是老板，你必须听我的”）是注定行不通的配置。 这种对公平与正义的执着，在 Kareem 身上几乎是一种本能的直觉。他回忆自己小时候踢足球，即使本方球队通过犯规占了便宜而且没被裁判吹罚，他内心深处也会觉得非常别扭，认为这种胜利毫无荣誉感。他将这种心理机制归结为高盛前掌门人常用的概念——“长远贪婪（Long-term greedy）”。他坚信： - 如果你对自己有足够强大的信心，你根本不需要通过短期的作弊或不公手段去赢。 - 只有在全过程中始终保持正直与公义，让人心服口服，所建立的事业才具备长久存续的基石。 ### `16:09` 喝彩的虚妄与唯一的裁判 外在的认可与世俗的赞美，并不能提供持久的动力。对谈中提到了 Airbnb 创始人 Brian Chesky 曾公开谈论过的心理体验：当公司市值突破 1000 亿美元时，自己内心反而感觉糟糕透顶。Kareem 对此产生了极大的共鸣。他坦言，尽管 Clay 现阶段的体量还无法与庞然大物相提并论，但在公司刚完成 A 轮融资时，他就体会到了类似的心境。 如果一个人创办公司的驱动力仅仅是为了获得外界的喝彩（Adulation）、社会声望或是赚取账面财富，那么这条路将永无止境，最终留下的只有虚无与空虚。外界的掌声来得快去得也快，根本无法作为评判成功的标尺。对于一个真正有远大抱负的人而言，这世上唯一的裁判只有你自己和你的“自尊（Self-Respect）”。因为唯有你清楚自己脑海里的每一个真实念头、每一个细微妥协以及做过的每一件事；正因如此，你自己内心的审判标准注定会比外界任何人的赞誉都要严苛得多。 ### `18:28` 以“自尊”为北极星：审视创始人的匮乏感 Patrick O'Shaughnessy 分享了自己与人相处后的一个私人习惯：每次交流结束后，他会刻意等待一个小时，让大脑自然过滤掉杂讯，随后在手机里记下那段对话中经过时间沉淀后依然留在脑海里的核心洞见。在上次与 Kareem 见面后，Patrick 记录下来的唯一一句话便是：“将自尊置于一切之上，以此作为行为决策的北极星”。这直接关乎一个人如何理解风险与勇气。 Kareem 指出，要想真正变得勇敢、敢于承担高额商业风险，核心在于诚实地剖析自己的内心动机。硅谷与风险投资圈长期流传着一个刻板叙事：优秀的投资人总倾向于寻找那些“骨子里带着怨气（Chip on their shoulder）”、内心有着某种深刻“匮乏感（Lack）”并试图去填补的创始人；这与大众对抑郁、焦虑的艺术家的迷信如出一辙，创业者甚至会因为害怕失去这种内在痛苦而担心自己失去拼搏的动力。 然而，真实的创始人内心动机与对外包装的宏大叙事往往大相径庭。Kareem 以自我反思为例剖析道：自己创办公司，内心深处是否隐藏着一种“如果我做成了一家世界级企业，我就能获得更多人的喜爱与认可”的潜意识需求？ - 当身边的朋友真诚地告诉他：“无论你成功还是失败，我都一样爱你”时，他最初以为这毫无意义，但随后意识到这恰恰卸下了他心理上的枷锁。 - 一旦意识到对“被爱与认可”的渴求可以在当下通过真诚的人际关系获得满足，创业者就不必再借由商业成败来代偿心理缺陷。 - 只有剥离了这种病态的内心代偿，创业者才能真正跳出自我保护的本能，客观、纯粹地面向业务本身去承担具有真实破局意义的商业风险。 ### `20:00` 从“匮乏”走向“圆满”：无所求时的创造与勇气 Kareem Amin 回顾自己的心路历程时谈到，他曾经历过一个转折时刻：他决定不再从“匮乏感（place of lack）”出发去创造任何东西。在那之后，他甚至会带着一种近乎有些招人烦的坦率到处对人说：“我已经拥有我需要的一切了，我很好。”这是一种“超越匮乏（post-lack）”的状态。从商业谈判的角度来看，这种心态构成了绝佳的博弈杠杆，因为“你没有任何可以给我的东西，我已经彻底圆满了”。 Kareem 认为大众对这种状态存在极其严重的误解——很多人以为在后匮乏世界里，人类将无所事事、整天闲逛。他驳斥道：“你去过火星时代火人节（Burning Man）吗？即便在资源并不匮乏的场景下，人们依然在不断创作与搭建。”从“圆满（wholeness）”的基点出发进行创造，不仅不会扼杀行动力，反而更具建设性、更少破坏力。许多公司整天把“客户第一”挂在嘴边，但在实际运作中，员工往往只关心自己的晋升、如何在内部讨好上级，完全陷在内耗中。一个人越是从内在感到完整，就越能承担巨大的风险并展现出真正的勇气，因为他已经“无所可失”。主持人和 Kareem 都谈到，商业史上最著名的一对组合——史蒂夫·乔布斯（Steve Jobs）与乔尼·艾夫（Jony Ive），显然也是从这种源源不断的生成性、圆满的状态中进行创造的；他们赢得了世人最多的崇拜，却罕见有人能真正践行他们的模式。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 两种创造心态的对比 accDescr: 对比从匮乏出发与从圆满出发在动机、行为和结果上的本质差异 subgraph LackMode ["匮乏驱动模式 (Place of Lack)"] L1["内在动因：追逐未满足的欲望与资源积累"] --> L2["行为表现：内部政治、博弈、患得患失"] L2 --> L3["结果：畏手畏脚、创造力受限且破坏性高"] end subgraph WholenessMode ["圆满驱动模式 (Post-Lack / Wholeness)"] W1["内在动因：自足、无所求、超越匮乏"] --> W2["行为表现：极高谈判杠杆、敢于下注、专注客户"] W2 --> W3["结果：真正的勇气、激进冒险与可持续创造"] end ``` --- ### `21:42` 内省的边界：90%执行与10%元思考 围绕内省（introspection）在商业和个人发展中的作用，业界始终存在着争论。Kareem 明确指出，内省至关重要，但必须警惕它变成拖延的借口。在日常工作中，“做事本身”与“元分析（meta-analysis）”的比例常常会发生倒挂。他给团队设定的基准是：应当把 90% 的精力用于坚决执行，剩下的 10% 留给宏观的元分析。 在 Clay 的团队内部，Kareem 经常遇到这样的情况：员工会过度纠结“一年之后会发生什么”、“为什么要做这个功能而不是那个功能”。面对这种空想，Kareem 的回应非常直接：“思考这些宏大问题，是否阻碍了你迈出本职工作的下一步？如果没有直接关联，那你只是在借内省之名行拖延之实。”然而，在规模化之后，思考的责任权重会发生质的改变。以沃尔玛（Walmart）为例，在初期你只需专注于早上醒来开出更多门店；但当沃尔玛膨胀到影响整个社会与共同生存环境的量级时，如果你还不反思“为什么开店”以及“更多门店会给世界带来什么”，那就是一种失职。当一家企业越成功、掌控的资源越庞大，它就不再是完全独立的商业个体，而是整个社会的代理人，必须向全社会承担起反思其作为的责任。 --- ### `23:08` 审视野心与临终反思：跳出资源的盲目积累 从“匮乏”走向“圆满”，对 Kareem 来说本质上是一场审视自我野心的探索。他坦言自己一度对自身的野心抱有极大的怀疑与戒备：“我到底想从这一切中获得什么？”Clay 在创立初期之所以花了很长时间才真正爆发，部分原因正是他在与内心的野心苦苦搏斗。他必须弄清楚，自己究竟是身体里的哪一部分试图通过创业来表达。如果仅仅是想成为一名出色的商人或打造一家大企业，他看着那些先行者会反躬自问：“那真的是我想要的人生状态吗？” 这背后源于他“极其严肃地对待自己与时间”。许多人会轻描淡写地对待自己的念头，觉得大家都在追求做大事，自己跟着做就是了；但 Kareem 选择严肃追问：为什么要做？成功后能给世界提供什么？会不会在获取商业成功的同时，给世界带来巨大的破坏？ - **临终视角（Deathbed Reflection）**：Kareem 经常思考死亡。躺在临终病床上那一刻，自己会怎么回看这一生？面对最后的反思，将如何评判自己的存在？除了每天过得充实，自己对世界留下了怎样的真实印记？ - **对盲目积累资源的警惕**：他拒绝把人生简化为“做了一件大事、积累了一大堆资源”。 - **对传统慈善的解构**：年轻时他也曾设想“赚大钱然后去做慈善”，但后来他推演到极致并开始质疑：世界上有那么多慈善家，世界真的变好了吗？这种模式真的有效吗？这究竟是为了真正改变世界，还是仅仅源于自己想要拥有挑选受助对象的“掌控欲”？ --- ### `25:20` 十日静修与“死亡本能”：在美妙的无聊中看清匮乏感 为了探索内在，Kareem 参加了一次为期十天的全封闭止语静修（Silent Retreat）。他本以为这只是个安静思考的假期，结果却是一场极其深刻的精神与心性洗礼。他参加的是基于非二元论（Non-dual）传统的赫里达亚静修（Hridaya Meditation），它不同于常见的聚焦于呼吸或特定外物的内观（Vipassana），而是采取直指本质的“直接路径（Direct Path）”，要求修行者去观照“呼吸与呼吸之间的空隙”，或是持续向内在追问一个极具挫败感、令人抓狂的问题：“我是谁？” 在静修的第七天，Kareem 陷入了一种心理机制：他开始疯狂幻想静修结束后如何向朋友们讲述自己的感悟。他突然意识到，自己的心智根本不在当下，而是在拼命奔向未来。就在那一瞬间，一道灵光闪现：**对未来的过度预期与构想，本质上就是弗洛伊德所说的“死亡本能（Death Drive）”**。在遥远的未来，唯一确定会发生的事情就是死亡；当你不断渴望快进到未来时，你实际上是在加速奔向死亡。 这一洞察让他猛然回到了当下的躯体之中，全盘接纳了身处的单调环境，并感叹这是一种“如此美妙的无聊（delicious boredom）”。在这个过程中，他也敏锐捕捉到了自己深层的匮乏本能： - **微观的食物焦虑**：在静修中他极度焦虑食物从哪里来，直到某一刻他吃下一颗豌豆，味道在嘴里如烟花般炸裂，他才意识到此前完全被焦虑蒙蔽了感官。 - **投射到商业管理**：他把这种“盲目积累倾向”与公司经营联系起来——创业时自己会下意识地恐慌“下一笔 ARR（年经常性收入）到底从哪里来”。看清这一点后，他明确了什么时候叫“已经足够”，从而能在不需要无休止积累安全感的前提下，为 Clay 承担更有价值的远期风险。 --- ### `27:27` 第五天的顿悟：万物相连的大写真理与向内铭记 当被问及静修第五天的顿悟究竟是什么时，Kareem 表示那种体验很难用语言具象化，那是一种瞬间切身体验到的“什么才是真正重要的”全息感。他强烈地感到自己与万事万物紧密相连，自己只是这个宏大整体中的一部分。这种顿悟带来了两层极大的认知震撼： 1. **彻底消除优越与自卑**：他明确感知到，自己绝不比任何其他人更好，也绝不比任何人更差。 2. **真正的同理心而非居高临下**：当看到他人遭受苦难时，不再是“我设身处地同情你”，而是“那个人其实就是我”。对方是在替整体、替自己承受着这份苦难，而不是“因为他们搞砸了，而我努力聪明，所以我过得好”。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 顿悟体验与商业决策的连接 accDescr: 展示从非二元同理心顿悟到真理铭记再到商业与现实决策的转化链条 A["第五天顿悟<br/>(非二元体验)"] --> B["消除分别心<br/>(无高低贵贱，他人受苦即我受苦)"] B --> C["大写的真理<br/>(Capital T Truth)"] C --> D["向内铭记<br/>(Remembrance)"] D --> E["商业决策与日常执行<br/>(拒绝琐碎内耗，释放人类潜能)"] ``` 主持人将这种顿悟与 Clay 核心价值观中的“正义与大写的真理（Capital T Truth）”联系起来。Kareem 认同了这一点，并指出各大古老哲学体系和宗教之所以强调“铭记（Remembrance）”，正是因为短暂体验到真理很容易，但在每天面对具体的商业决策、产品取舍和个人琐事时，要时刻在意识中锚定这种真理极其艰难。这正是走出人类无休止内耗、迈向更高维度的关键所在。世界上充满着未解之谜与令人振奋的可能性，而人类却往往在相同的荒谬琐事中循环打转。他内心深处最强烈的愤怒，正是看到大家在微不足道的虚耗中浪费了人类本该绽放的巨大潜能。这套深邃的形而上学思考，最终奇妙而坚决地反哺着他作为一名软件初创公司 CEO 的日常管理。 ### `30:00` 特立独行的创业方式：超额投入与极致耐心 Clay 在许多方面的运营方式都显得不同寻常，但 Kareem 强调，创始人不能简单地将个人信念强加给团队或外界，必须注意所处的上下文。这就像讲故事或做产品开发：如果普通公司的运营模式在 A 点，而你直接搬出一套常人无法理解的奇特模式放到 B 点，大家根本没有认知上下文，甚至不知道该如何交互。因此，合理的做法是基于底层的个人信仰和兴趣，在日常的常规业务中有步骤地做调整与推进。 从内部体验来看，这种不同寻常首先体现在公司对待员工的方式以及对个人发展的考量上，最具体的表现就是“超额投入他人往往投入不足的领域”——比如招聘、品牌、内容创作以及社群构建。Clay 经常聘用背景严重超配（overqualified）的人才来跨界尝试全新角色。例如早期员工 Mishti，她接下了一个内容运营的职位；内容角色在常规公司中通常薪酬较低甚至被视作外围职能，但 Clay 却按照产品经理（PM）级别的薪酬来支付并放手让她去做。 Kareem 指出，当把风险与勇气结合在一起时，紧接着最重要的就是“承诺与坚持”（commitment）。很多人鼓吹“快速招聘、快速解雇”（hire fast, fire fast），但 Clay 会选择与优秀人才长期并肩。曾有员工入职九个月依然处于挣扎摸索的状态，但 Kareem 坚信对方非常优秀，于是深入排查原因：究竟是角色定位不匹配、业务上下文不对，还是管理层自身的决策限制了其发挥？在 Clay，这种坚持有 50% 的概率会帮对方找到绝佳定位，进而蜕变为超级明星。 而在另外 50% 确实无法契合的情况下，Kareem 与联合创始人 Varun Anand 也从不会迁怒或怨恨对方。他们认为这只是双方在成长旅途上的节奏不同：“并不是你这个人好或不好，而是在当下我们需要你的这一刻，你是否恰好能发挥出来。”许多优秀的人才在 Clay 或许因为各种原因没有施展空间，但去到其他公司却能大放异彩，管理者在看待员工表现时必须具备这种细致的包容与理解。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 识别与培养特殊人才的路径 accDescr: 展示 Clay 如何在面对陷入困境的人才时进行诊断与分流 A["发现高潜或超配人才"] --> B["遇到瓶颈/表现不佳"] B --> C{"深度归因分析"} C -->|"角色不匹配 / 上下文不足 / 决策限制"| D["调整岗位与工作环境"] D --> E["50% 概率成为超级明星"] C -->|"当前阶段需求与能力不匹配"| F["体面且无怨言地解约"] F --> G["在其他公司绽放光彩"] ``` --- ### `33:04` 小丑艺术与无对冲的真实品牌表达 在外界看来，Clay 的文化中还有很多有趣的特质，比如 Kareem 对“小丑艺术”（clowning）的浓厚兴趣。他是在旧金山的一次派对上偶然听人聊起小丑工作坊，随后深入接触。他将小丑艺术理解为一种带有锋芒与张力的即兴表演（edgy improv），主要涵盖四种形态： 1. **肢体小丑（Physical clowning）**：最符合大众传统认知的滑稽肢体动作。 2. **情感跨度小丑（Emotional range）**：引导观众体验大喜大悲的情感过山车，先让你笑，再让你哭，复又让你破涕为笑，充分感受全部的情感光谱。 3. **弄臣（The Jester）**：敢于冒大不韪向权贵直陈真理（telling truth to power）。 4. **捣蛋鬼/恶作剧者（The Trickster）**：通过讲笑话或设计荒谬情境来揭示深刻的灵性真相，比如用幽默的手段让观众切身体会到“万事皆在变易”的现实本质。 Clay 团队极其痴迷魔术师，甚至将魔术元素深度融入公司的各项活动与日常构建中。相比一般的 B2B 企业，Clay 的品牌敢于承担大得多的风险。许多公司的品牌虽然标榜“真诚”，但在表达时往往充满对冲（hedging），因为害怕承担后果而不敢直抒胸臆；而 Clay 拒绝任何防卫性的对冲，以坦率直白的方式直接切中要害，这也是其品牌能够真正穿透噪音、赢得用户热爱的原因。 --- ### `34:41` 汲取自近景魔术的启示：重塑世界的奇迹感 Kareem 经常光顾位于大西洋大道 69 号（69 Atlantic）的一家隐秘魔术酒吧。那是一间隐藏在书店后方的密室，仅有 23 个座位，每月都会邀请世界顶级的魔术大师来进行近景魔术（close-up magic）表演。从这些魔术大师身上，Kareem 学到的不仅是出神入化的手法，更是顶级的故事讲述能力。魔术师深刻洞悉人类的心智运作机制与世界运行规律，他们所展示的一切，本质上都是为了重新点燃人们内心的好奇心。 Clay 正在酝酿一个名为“重塑世界奇迹感”（Re-enchanting the world）的理念。在 AI 技术爆发的当下，代码和算法在某种意义上就是活生生的“现代魔法”。然而，人们往往容易陷入麻木，误以为自己已经彻底参透了眼前事物乃至整个世界的运转机制，把世界看成一个无聊乏味的地方。魔术通过极其巧妙的手法打破这种自以为是，唤醒人们面对未知时的惊叹与敬畏（wonder）。 把这种好奇与敬畏带入日常工作，会让人变得更加友善且谦逊。在面对客户时，团队不会狂妄地认为“我已经看透了这个客户是怎么回事”，而是始终保持空杯心态与探索欲，以一种更加悦纳的方式与客户互动。魔术最珍贵的地方，就是让人重新找回“我完全不知道这究竟是怎么做到的，但我迫不及待想一探究竟”的纯粹感知。 --- ### `36:27` 音乐哲思：时间、留白与不协和音的解放 作为一个业余音乐爱好者（近期还组建了一支乐队），Kareem 从音乐的本质中汲取了大量关于组织与产品的思考。与一览无余的绘画不同，音乐和视频一样，都无法脱离“时间”而独立存在。没有时间的流淌与音符之间的静止留白（silence），旋律便不复存在。 - **留白与负空间的禅意**：这与禅宗思想如出一辙。如果一个房间塞满了实物，人就无法坐在其中；正是未被占据的虚空，才赋予了空间以意义。人们在创业时往往只想着不断增加功能或堆砌事务，却忽略了做减法和留白的价值。 - **叙事节奏的延展**：向别人传达愿景时，绝不能将所有信息一次性倾泻而出，因为创始人自身经过了漫长的时间消化，而听众需要时间来逐步理解和共情。 - **关于“终局”的思考**：大家往往热衷于筹划如何开启一家公司，却极少思考如何收场。当团队规模扩大后，公司就变成了微缩的人类社会，不可避免地要面对裁员和各种离别。音乐为理解“终结”提供了丰富的样本：有的曲子以一段重复的旋律渐渐减弱音量淡出，有的曲子则在爆裂的高潮中戛然而止，或是以一声微弱的呜咽落幕。如何优雅而有策略地处理终局，是管理者必须修行的课题。 此外，一篇名为《不协和音的解放》（The Emancipation of Dissonance）的音乐史论文给 Kareem 带来了极大的启发。西方音乐史本质上是一部“不断接纳更多声音被定义为音乐”的历史： - 最早人类只敲击鼓点，或演奏主音（如单音 C）与纯八度音。 - 随后巴洛克音乐引入了纯五度音。 - 当人们开始引入三度音从而构成大调与小调和弦时，最初遭到了强烈的抵触与不适感。 - 随着爵士乐引入七和弦，当时的主流社会更是斥责其“根本不是音乐”。 - 随着历史演进，音阶逐渐扩充。西方音乐体系有 12 个半音，而阿拉伯音乐或印度音乐则有 24 个音，甚至包含更丰富的微分音（microtones）。现代电子音乐更是可以合成出任何维度的声音。 Kareem 将“接纳更多声音被定义为音乐”提炼为一项核心的产品与管理原则：在工作和生活中，那些初看显得怪异、不顺眼、甚至令人不适的事物或行为方式，一旦被放置在正确的语境（context）与架构之中，往往能够迸发出惊人的生产力与创造价值。在 AI 能够轻易生成任何内容的时代，纯理性的逻辑（logos）已不再稀缺，如何唤起人们深层的情感共鸣（pathos）、让用户体会到前所未有的全新感受，构成了商业与产品最关键的护城河。 ### `40:00` 吉他与微波炉：探索 Go-To-Market 的理想形态 Kareem 用一个极具画面感的比喻阐述了 Clay 的产品哲学与企业定位：他们造的不是微波炉，而是吉他。微波炉固然实用，但早已彻底大宗商品化（commoditized）——用户只需按下一分钟加热键，它完成任务即可，市场上绝大多数微波炉没有任何本质区别。而吉他则截然相反，虽然仅有六根琴弦和十二个品格，但一个人可以穷尽一生去精进技艺，哪怕仅仅深耕一种音乐流派，也能不断弹奏出全新的旋律。Kareem 认为，如果将这种对工艺与深度的敬畏心引入销售和 GTM（Go-To-Market，市场进入）领域，可能会显得有些不可思议，但探寻销售、营销或客户成功的终极形态，正是 Clay 的核心动力。 在 Kareem 看来，Go-To-Market 本质上只有一个极度纯粹的目标：“如何把我做出的东西，在你正好需要的时候交到你手上？”他用雨天的雨伞作为比喻：外面下起大雨，我恰好递给你一把雨伞，你欣喜地表示感谢——这就是 GTM 的理想状态。尤其在如今新产品层出不穷的时代，创造者打造了一款极其小众的产品，而某个人恰好产生了这个需求，理想的商业逻辑应当是通过极富创意的方式精准定位并交付它，而不是人为制造或虚构出对方本不需要的欲望。 - **产品隐喻**：微波炉代表功能确定、高度同质化的工具；吉他代表规则极简、却拥有无限探索空间与表达深度的乐器。 - **GTM 的终极定义**：在用户产生需求的物理时刻准确送达解决方案（“下雨时递上一把伞”），而非通过营销操纵去凭空捏造欲望。 --- ### `41:20` 创业愿景的真相：优化发现，而非执念于目的地 谈及公司构建中领导者是否必须具备“宏大愿景”时，Kareem 将其直接锚定在 Clay 坚守的原则之一——“真理与真实”（Truth）。他的态度非常坦率：有愿景就是有愿景，没有愿景就是没有愿景，最关键的是绝不要自欺欺人，去宣扬那些根本不存在的宏图伟略。虽然领导者终归需要指南针或指导原则，但不必时时刻刻都强行维持一套宏大叙事。如果眼前只看得清下一步，那就坦然踏出下一步。人类历史上许多颠覆性发现——从绝大多数医学突破到宇宙微波背景辐射（CMB）的发现——纯粹是偶然与巧合，没有人能在出发前预设“我要去发现宇宙微波背景辐射”。 Kareem 直言，商业世界在复盘成功时往往习惯于重塑叙事，编造诸如“我13岁就立志为此奉献一生”的神话。这种失真的故事对正在摸索阶段的创业者构成了极大的误导与伤害。更诚实的创业状态往往是：很多人仅仅是想做一家公司，甚至不清楚确切的原因，但只要开始动手尝试，在过程中自然会偶遇真正激发兴趣的方向。他提倡“优化发现的过程，而非执念于预设的目的地”（Optimize for discovery rather than destination）。这如同美洲原住民文化中的“寻象之旅”（Vision Quest），人们需要通过独处、禁食和行动来等待愿景降临；同时，随着时代与外部环境的变化，过去的愿景若已失效，团队大可坦白承认“我们目前也不知道该往哪走”，通过脚踏实地的即时探索去迎接新的愿景。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 探索导向型创业模型 accDescr: 描述从盲目预设愿景转向以发现为核心的认知路径演变 subgraph Trap["传统叙事陷阱"] A["强行捏造宏大愿景"] --> B["陷入失真叙事"] B --> C["环境巨变后迷失困惑"] end subgraph Reality["真实探索路径"] D["坦诚现状：承认未知"] --> E["专注迈出即时下一步"] E --> F["保持空间：偶遇突破契机"] F --> G["水到渠成：接收清晰愿景"] end ``` - **重大发现的本质**：包括医学奇迹与天体物理学核心证据在内，绝大部分科学突破源自不可预测的机缘，而非精确规划。 - **创业心智模型**：给探索留出空间；当行业格局巨变时，敢于承认迷茫，不急于强行确立伪愿景。 - **Clay 当前的愿景定位**：帮助全球每一家企业精准定位其最佳客户群体，以最快速度发现更多目标受众并加速增长。 --- ### `44:29` 财富的本质与融资格局：内在圆满与掌控时间 伴随 Clay 估值突破数十亿美元，Kareem 迎来了跨越阶层的惊人财富。面对这个在商业访谈中往往被视为禁忌的话题，Kareem 分享了深层的心理反思：如果一个人内心原本就缺乏充盈感（Wholeness），那么再庞大的财富数字也填补不了空虚，因为外界财富只会沦为一场无休止的竞争循环游戏。他提到了一个有趣的融资悖论：“如果你想筹集 1 亿美元，你必须先在心理上感觉自己根本不需要这笔钱。”甚至需要提前建立起“我的银行账户里已经躺着 1 亿美元”的自信底气与心理预期，唯有不再表现出匮乏与渴求，才能在资本市场上展现出真正的力量。 Kareem 进一步剖析了自己的核心心理创伤——过度极端的“自力更生”（heightened self-reliance）。他过去习惯于认为自己不需要任何人、凡事单打独斗，这虽然是驱动创业者的强大动能，但如今他正努力调低这种孤立心智，转而体察人与人之间的深度互联，坦承自己需要外部支持与依靠。物质上的极致充裕并没有带来消费上的放纵，其核心价值在于“把时间的主导权赎了回来”。他今天选择继续投入 Clay，不是出于生存压力或对更多金钱的饥渴，而是全然自主的选择。这种自由赋予了他不惧失败、敢于在全球市场进行更大手笔冒险（take bigger swings）的纯粹心境，同时也促使他更深地思考回馈社会的责任。 - **融资心理学**：以充盈对抗匮乏；唯有展现出不需要资金的姿态与底气，才能在融资博弈中占据心理制高点。 - **自力更生的双刃剑**：极端独立造就了创业初期的坚韧，但也构成了隔绝外部连接的情感创伤，亟需转向承认相互依存（interconnectedness）。 - **财富的真正红利**：摆脱焦虑与外部评价绑架，重新获得对生命时间的自主支配权，以极高试错容忍度去践行长期抱负。 --- ### `47:40` 沟通与解雇艺术：在共同现实中直面分歧 针对他此前提出过的“所有问题本质上都是沟通问题”这一论断，Kareem 作出了更精细的澄清：这并不意味着人与人之间没有真实的利益冲突或需求分歧，而是因为双方在处理分歧时，往往陷入博弈论式的无休止揣测与假设，无法清晰摊开诉求。Kareem 的沟通与谈判准则是建立在极致透明的基础之上：假定对方具备完全的智力水平并掌握相同的信息，坦诚告知自己想要什么、推测对方想要什么，并共同罗列出所有可选路径。哪怕双方最后仍然无法达成一致，也是建立在“彻底清晰的现实”之上，而非建立在误解与怨恨的迷雾之中。 Kareem 以辞退员工这一管理中最艰难的挑战为例，阐明了如何在“共享现实”（shared reality）中进行真诚沟通。他不会用惩罚性或虚伪的考核去折磨彼此，而是直接开启对话：“你觉得目前在这里工作顺利吗？基于以下原因，我认为并不顺利，你怎么看？”当认知差距无法弥合时，他会以 CEO 的身份主动揽下全部责任：“听着，我对我们能弥合这段差距已经失去了信心。作为 CEO，我不能继续在这种状态下消耗你，这绝非理智与否的辩论，而是我个人的决定，我为此承担全部责任。”这种直接、不加掩饰的沟通反而让离职员工释怀。更进一步，在面对离职者最担心的背调（Reference call）问题时，Kareem 会主动拆解公司的不足：“当未来有人打来背调电话，我会直言你在哪些方面不适合我们，但更会强调你的长处，以及当时我们公司在管理和组织架构上存在哪些缺陷导致未能支持你。”他批评绝大多数管理层在背调时将责任单向甩给前员工，直言公司的管理短板才是许多合作破裂的真正诱因。 - **透明沟通模型**：拆除心理博弈假定，以“智力对等”为前提摊开各自利益诉求与选择空间，追求基于清晰认知的决策。 - **解雇对话中的责任担当**：管理者拒绝将解雇包装为对方的单方面过错，明确承认“这是我的主观判断与局限，由我负全责”。 - **背调的真实维度**：主动审视并承认企业自身管理能力的缺陷，拒绝让离职员工程担组织不成熟的代价。 ### `50:00` 突破规模扩张的传统教条 许多公司的组建与扩张往往受制于约定俗成的“经验法则”（rules of thumb）。当创始人在思考如何将团队从 100 人扩展到 300 人时，最常见的做法就是去找五位有过类似操盘经验的人请教，然后亦步亦趋地照搬对方的策略。这种现象的根源在于对风险的规避——当公司人数从 150 人迈向 300 人时，管理者通常不敢承担尝试新机制的风险，宁愿选择前人走过的老路。然而，这样做的代价是必然会全盘继承那些老套路所带来的组织弊病。 卡里姆（Kareem Amin）在 Clay 的扩张过程中采取了与传统建议截然相反的做法，并取得了非常理想的成效。此前曾有无数业内人士告诫他，团队规模从 50 人攀升至 300 人的过程中会出现各种各样棘手而怪异的典型问题；但事实证明，这些被视作不可避免的“标准困境”一个都没有在 Clay 发生。卡里姆坦言，团队确实遇到了一些新的考验，但正是因为没有遵循所谓的标配模式，他们才得以避开传统公司必然会踩中的组织陷阱。 - **组织惯性与避险心理**：大多数管理者盲目依循前人经验，表面上是稳妥，实则是用确定的旧体制问题取代未知的创新探索。 - **逆向践行的成果**：Clay 在 50 人到 300 人的跨越中打破行业常规，完全规避了传统规模化阶段普遍出现的典型组织震荡。 --- ### `52:14` 企业“临终关怀师”与对规模化崇拜的反思 帕特里克（Patrick O'Shaughnessy）重提了两人初次见面时记录下的一段对话：卡里姆当时曾感慨，商业世界里非常需要一种类似“企业临终关怀师”（death doula for companies）的角色。当今社会对“规模化”存在一种不加反思的盲目推崇，而关于商业规模化的讨论往往被局限在“拿风险投资还是自筹资金（bootstrapping）”这类枯燥乏味的陈旧框架中，从未真正触及核心本质。无论是经营一家出色的甜甜圈店还是一家备受好评的餐厅，人们总能目睹盲目做大之后品质急剧劣化（“这家餐厅以前棒极了，现在烂透了”）的悲剧。 事物本身皆有其自然生命周期。从历史上看，现代公司形式大约起源于 16 世纪（如东印度公司等特许组织），人们最初为了一个特定的目标汇聚在一起，那么在目标达成之后，企业是否应当顺理成章地解散，或仅维持最低限度的骨干力量？以微软为例，其最初的使命是“让每个人的桌上都有一台电脑”，当这一愿景彻底实现后，企业便不得不转向设备、云服务等全新方向以延续存在。加密货币领域也曾提出过类似思路——在底层协议搭建完成后，建设者便转向下一层生态。所谓企业的“临终关怀师”，核心在于当一家公司圆满完成了其历史使命时，社会机制能够帮助它体面地走向终局，或者促使其衍生出“下一代”，让团队走出去开创更酷的新事物，而不是无休止地诱导所有企业膨胀成毫无生气的“僵尸企业”（zombie companies），任由其退化成自身最初模样的劣质版。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 企业生命周期与临终关怀模式对比 accDescr: 对比传统盲目规模化导致僵尸企业与引入临终关怀完成使命后分化新生的两条路径 subgraph Trap["传统盲目规模化路径"] A["确立核心业务使命"] --> B["达成既定历史使命"] B --> C["受资本/社会激励盲目无限扩张"] C --> D["产品价值退化 / 沦为僵尸独角兽"] end subgraph Doula["临终关怀（Death Doula）机制"] E["确立核心业务使命"] --> F["达成既定历史使命"] F --> G["引入企业临终关怀与悼念过渡"] G --> H["体面解散或保留极简底层资产"] G --> I["分化衍生：孕育下一代全新创新生态"] end ``` 卡里姆坦承，自己每天醒来脑海中都在高速运转着“如何让 Clay 变得更强大”，这几乎占据了他大脑所有的计算资源，也是他与朋友聚会时不断探讨的重心。但即便如此，他依然坚持警惕单纯为规模而规模的冲动： > “我关心的不仅仅是规模化本身，我更在乎的是它究竟如何为世界创造真正的价值。” - **社会激励扭曲**：市场体制单一地奖赏规模扩张，缺乏对企业完成使命后优雅退出、悼念过渡与资产清结算的支持机制。 - **独角兽僵尸化困境**：全球目前存在约 1,500 家高估值但失去生命力的“僵尸独角兽”，行业极度缺乏安乐死或平稳过渡的退出生态，导致资源与人才被长期锁死。 --- ### `55:06` 最善意之举：无条件的爱与放下执念 在访谈的传统收尾环节，帕特里克提出了那个标志性的问题：“别人为你做过的最善意的事情是什么？”卡里姆分享了一段深刻改变他生命底色与创业心态的私人经历。在 Clay 取得真正的商业成功之前，几位挚友曾认真地对他说：“嘿，你其实什么都不需要证明，无论如何我们都爱你。”（"Hey, you don't need to do anything. We just love you anyway."） 这句看似简单的话彻底击碎了他内心深处的执念。卡里姆意识到，自己对朋友们的感情同样纯粹而无条件，无论对方在世俗意义上做成了什么或失败了什么，自己都毫无保留地认可并爱着他们；那么，他也应当学会将这种无条件的爱与接纳给予自己。他坦承，自己童年时期曾留有一种心理创伤，误以为“自己必须不断取得成就，才能换取他人的关怀与爱”。当意识到自己根本不需要依靠任何外在成就来证明自我价值时，卡里姆体会到了前所未有的澄明与清醒。 这种心理上的松绑深刻重塑了他对待事业的姿态：他现在全身心投入 Clay 的建设，纯粹是因为发自内心地想要去做，而不是试图从公司身上索取认可或填补内心的匮乏。正因如此，卡里姆能够对公司的得失保有一种超然与非执着（unattached）的心态——他不给公司施加畸形的个人欲望，而是怀着敬意，允许它按照自身内在的规律与方向自由演变。 ## Notable quotes > `03:07` 在产生想法与想法落地之间，你必须将延迟压缩到极致。 — Kareem Amin > `18:28` 将自尊置于一切之上，以此作为行为决策的北极星。 — Patrick O'Shaughnessy > `20:00` 我已经拥有我需要的一切了，我很好。 — Kareem Amin > `21:42` 思考这些宏大问题，是否阻碍了你迈出本职工作的下一步？如果没有直接关联，那你只是在借内省之名行拖延之实。 — Kareem Amin > `25:20` 对未来的过度预期与构想，本质上就是弗洛伊德所说的“死亡本能”。 — Kareem Amin > `30:00` 并不是你这个人好或不好，而是在当下我们需要你的这一刻，你是否恰好能发挥出来。 — Kareem Amin > `34:41` 我完全不知道这究竟是怎么做到的，但我迫不及待想一探究竟。 — Kareem Amin > `36:27` 接纳更多声音被定义为音乐。 — Kareem Amin > `40:00` 如何把我做出的东西，在你正好需要的时候交到你手上？ — Kareem Amin > `41:20` 优化发现的过程，而非执念于预设的目的地。 — Kareem Amin > `44:29` 如果你想筹集 1 亿美元，你必须先在心理上感觉自己根本不需要这笔钱。 — Kareem Amin > `47:40` 听着，我对我们能弥合这段差距已经失去了信心。作为 CEO，我不能继续在这种状态下消耗你，这绝非理智与否的辩论，而是我个人的决定，我为此承担全部责任。 — Kareem Amin > `52:14` 我关心的不仅仅是规模化本身，我更在乎的是它究竟如何为世界创造真正的价值。 — Kareem Amin > `55:06` 嘿，你其实什么都不需要证明，无论如何我们都爱你。 — Kareem Amin ## Mentioned Kareem Amin, Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Clay, Ramp, Rogo, Felix by Rogo, WorkOS, Nicola, Ableton Live, Douglas Engelbart, The Mother of All Demos, Google, ChatGPT, OpenAI, Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense, Brian Chesky, Airbnb, Steve Jobs, Jony Ive, Burning Man, Walmart, Hridaya Meditation, Sigmund Freud, Varun Anand, Mishti, The Emancipation of Dissonance, Microsoft ## Video description My guest today is Kareem Amin, co-founder and CEO of Clay. Clay has become one of the fastest-growing software companies of the last few years, valued at over four billion dollars. It helps companies find their best customers and reach them at scale. But this conversation is about a lot more than Clay. Kareem is one of the most original thinkers I know.  We talk about the statues he keeps at the center of how he runs Clay — truth, justice, and courage — and what those words demand of him in practice. We talk about risk, ambition, and what he learned about both on a ten-day silent meditation retreat.  I've had a lot of conversations with Kareem over the years. This is one I'll remember. Please enjoy this unique conversation with Kareem Amin. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.  ----- Become a Colossus member to get our quarterly print magazine and private audio experience, including exclusive profiles and early access to select episodes. Subscribe at ⁠colossus.com/subscribe⁠. ----- ⁠Ramp’s⁠ mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ramp.com/invest⁠⁠ to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- Trusted by thousands of businesses, ⁠Vanta⁠ continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Invest Like the Best listeners get a special offer of $1,000 off Vanta when you go to ⁠vanta.com/invest⁠.  ----- WorkOS⁠ is the infrastructure B2B and AI-native companies use to sell to enterprise. It covers everything enterprise security requires: SSO, SCIM, RBAC, Audit Logs, AI governance, and more. Trusted by 2,000+ fast-growing companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Cursor, and Vercel. ----- Rogo is the AI platform for finance. They're building agents for Wall Street that are trained to understand how bankers and investors actually do work: from diligence and modeling, to turning analysis into deliverables. To learn more, visit rogo.ai/invest. ----- ⁠Ridgeline⁠ has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Visit⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ridgelineapps.com⁠. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠). Timestamps: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like The Best (00:02:29) Kareem Amin (00:03:07) Clay's Origin (00:10:50) Truth, Courage and Justice (00:16:09) Adulation (00:18:28) Risk, Courage & Self-Respect (00:21:14) Jony Ive & Steve Jobs (00:21:42) Role of Introspection (00:23:08) Lack to Wholeness (00:27:27) The Day Five Insight (00:29:57) Running a Startup Unusually (00:34:41) Learning from Magicians (00:36:27) Music's Role in Your Life (00:39:38) Making People Feel Something New (00:41:20) Vision in Company Building (00:44:29) Wealth & What It's Taught You (00:47:40) All Problems Are Communication Problems (00:52:14) Death Doula & Scaling (00:55:06) The Kindest Thing [Source](https://traffic.megaphone.fm/CLS8649460424.mp3)

[3:07] Kareem Amin: 在产生想法与想法落地之间，你必须将延迟压缩到极致。 [18:28] Patrick O'Shaughnessy: 将自尊置于一切之上，以此作为行为决策的北极星。 [20:00] Kareem Amin: 我已经拥有我需要的一切了，我很好。 [21:42] Kareem Amin: 思考这些宏大问题，是否阻碍了你迈出本职工作的下一步？如果没有直接关联，那你只是在借内省之名行拖延之实。 [25:20] Kareem Amin: 对未来的过度预期与构想，本质上就是弗洛伊德所说的“死亡本能”。 [30:00] Kareem Amin: 并不是你这个人好或不好，而是在当下我们需要你的这一刻，你是否恰好能发挥出来。 [34:41] Kareem Amin: 我完全不知道这究竟是怎么做到的，但我迫不及待想一探究竟。 [36:27] Kareem Amin: 接纳更多声音被定义为音乐。 [40:00] Kareem Amin: 如何把我做出的东西，在你正好需要的时候交到你手上？ [41:20] Kareem Amin: 优化发现的过程，而非执念于预设的目的地。 [44:29] Kareem Amin: 如果你想筹集 1 亿美元，你必须先在心理上感觉自己根本不需要这笔钱。 [47:40] Kareem Amin: 听着，我对我们能弥合这段差距已经失去了信心。作为 CEO，我不能继续在这种状态下消耗你，这绝非理智与否的辩论，而是我个人的决定，我为此承担全部责任。 [52:14] Kareem Amin: 我关心的不仅仅是规模化本身，我更在乎的是它究竟如何为世界创造真正的价值。 [55:06] Kareem Amin: 嘿，你其实什么都不需要证明，无论如何我们都爱你。

[5:00] Kareem Amin: You need to set everything up so that you're pointing in the right direction so that when the wave comes, you go with it and you're not fighting it. [18:28] Kareem Amin: The more whole you can be, I think the more risks you can take and the more courage you will have because you have nothing to lose. [25:00] Kareem Amin: Whenever you're picturing the future or anticipating the future, it's kind of like Freud's death drive. The only thing that happens in the future is you die... Thinking about the future is the death drive. [36:27] Kareem Amin: Where the room isn't is where we are. [38:38] Kareem Amin: We're not building a microwave... we're building a guitar. [50:00] Friend of Kareem Amin: You don't need to do anything. We just love you anyway.

[0:00] Ramp is the only platform built to make your finance team leaner, faster, and better, saving businesses 5% annually on average so you can stay focused on growth. Ramp customers grew revenue 3.2 times faster than the average American business. Visa, Vercel, Cursor, Stripe, Notion, 11Lab, Shopify, and 70,000 other businesses all run on Ramp. Mine does too, and so should yours. Learn more at ramp.com slash invest. Felix by Rogo is a personal finance agent that turns a single prompt into finished client-ready work using your firm's own templates, context, and standards. Send Felix an email like, take these comments and turn them for me, or update my tracker with the context of these emails, or run the ability to pay math on this buyer, and Felix sends back finished PowerPoint decks, Excel models, and sourced research. Felix works the way your team already does, delivering work quickly and accurately around the clock. Learn more at rogo.ai slash Felix. The best AI and software companies from OpenAI to Cursor to Perplexity use WorkOS to become enterprise ready overnight, not in months. Visit WorkOS.com to skip the unglamorous infrastructure work and focus on your product. Hello and welcome everyone I Patrick O and this is Invest Like the Best This show is an open exploration of markets ideas stories and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money If you enjoy these conversations and want to go deeper, check out Colossus, our quarterly publication with in-depth profiles of the people shaping business and investing. You can find Colossus along with all of our podcasts at colossus.com. Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of Positive Sum, All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Positive Sum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of Positive Sum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit PSUM.VC. My guest today is Kareem Amin, co-founder and CEO of Clay. Clay has become one of the fastest growing software companies of the last few years, valued at over $4 billion. It helps companies find their customers and reach them at scale. But this conversation is about a lot more than Clay. Kareem is one of the most original founders and thinkers that I've met recently. We talk about the statues he keeps at the center of how he runs Clay truth justice and courage and what those words demand of him in practice We talk about risk ambition and what he learned about both I had a lot of conversations with Kareem over the years and this is one that I remember Please enjoy this great conversation with Kareem Amin. Can you describe the long, strange journey you've been on, why you started, and then what it was like to exist and have done some interesting stuff when this thing happened and then how you took advantage of it? I find the two-chapter story so interesting. We started with the really abstract ambition of how do we give the power of programming to more people. My co-founder, Nikola, and I, we worked in product even though we both studied engineering. I think it was really just, hey, you're in the 21st century. You have computers that can do things for you. And if you can't tell them what to do, then you can't capture any of the value that's being created. We had a lot of ideas and we wanted to build them. And every time we tried to build something, it was taking so long. I was also starting to play around with producing music. And I really like tools like Ableton Live. I have an idea. I can extract it from my mind and into the machine. And we were also in this kick of like looking at the history of computation, things like in the 1960s, the mother of all demos, just seeing the fluidity of the interaction between you and a computer needs to be super fluid for it actually to lead you to the next stage of thinking You need low latency between I have an idea it happened And because we were coding we felt that adrenaline that everybody feeling right now which is hey I can tell the machine to do something and it does In the 21st century, the material is computation. If in the past it was oil or steel or whatever it is, today it's computation. So the more we can give that to more people, the more interesting things happen, the more egalitarian it is. It's kind of interesting because that was our desire and there were no LLMs, which we started off by thinking about the terminal and we're like, how do we reinvent the terminal where engineers are spending all of their time? And then we're like, well, that's just going to speed up engineers. We need to find something that gives that power to more people. In 2017, we started thinking, do we give it to engineers or non-engineers? Do we give it to consumers or business users? We ended up deciding business users for a variety of reasons. Within that, we're like, okay, which department in a business actually has a ton of ideas but isn't able to execute them? And landed on sales and marketing where we think people are really creative, but they don't have the ability to turn a lot of their ideas into reality. I'll give you one example that's real today that is kind of wild, [5:00] I have one company that sells to businesses that have a lot of garbage. So now they're using Google, what's called Satellite View, to see which areas have a lot of accumulation of garbage. And then they figure out, OK, that's a good business to sell to. That's an idea that you might have, but it might be super hard to execute that at scale. And now something like Clay can actually translate that for you. Because of that, because the whole intention around Clay was how do we give the power of programming to people, That's kind of how the name came, because we're like, OK, it's go to market. But now you're an engineer. We came up with that before it was really possible to use LLMs to fully code. But it was how do you systematically think about a problem and break it down and then execute it? We've also kept that ethos in the company. That's what makes us really different than everybody else in our space. There are simple things that we've been saying out loud, but I think people don't really believe that that's why it works. So one is it's a creative task. So if it's a creative task, we need to leave it somewhat open ended. A lot of companies that counter position to Clay or in the space are like, hey, what you really want is salespeople are people have literally used the word coin operated So what you need is something that super easy to use It gives you the answer It tells you who you selling to and what you saying And it just works Whereas we think you always need in sales to find go-to-market alpha. How are you different than everybody else? Otherwise, it's just noise. In order to do that, you need to have a really powerful tool that allows you to experiment quickly and try things out and see what works. So we built that instead, which was very counterintuitive. Describe the takeoff of chapter two of now LLM's come out. What that moment felt like, what the subchapters have been. Yeah. What's interesting in that story that is maybe worth talking a bit more about is that this was back in 2022. We had made a decision to say, OK, we are targeting go to market teams, specifically sales. Specifically, we're going to start with outbound. Specifically, we're going to start with people who want to get data from lots of different data providers in order to do outbound. In fact, it's going to be agencies and not startups. And we're going to do a lot of what we're doing and support them in public and build a community. So we took a lot of decisions that I think were non-obvious. The main thing that happened was really the courage and commitment I think to making those decisions that actually allowed the company to take off because the company was already taking off before ChatGPT came out We were well set up to include LLMs in Clay because one, we were set up to allow any integration to anything. And two, we were a coding like product just designed with go to market primitives. As soon as we had LLMs, it just boosted everything. So for Clay, there were three core assumptions that we made. And I actually think this is how to build a really big company and one that grows really quickly. So we went from one to 100 in two years, but that wouldn't work if we weren't pointing in the right direction. So you need to kind of set everything up so that you're pointing in the right direction so that when the wave comes, you go with it and you're not fighting it. For us, we made a couple of decisions. One, Dupline and GoToMarket are creative, and so we're going to give them the most powerful tool. If you were going to give the most powerful tool instead of the simple out-of-the-box tool, then you need to find the right customer or user for it. For that, we said, okay, we're doing it for RevOps, which is an existing kind of role, and we going to call the subset or the word jobs to be done GoToMarket engineering to give it a framing This is the tasks to be done are all the things that you need to do the activities to grow your business, remove any obstacles to growth. The last part was we're going to charge for usage instead of proceed because we're trying to get more productivity. So if you have fewer people, we didn't want that to be something that is an anti-incentive for us. If you just look at those three decisions. Almost every other decision in the company falls immediately out of those. Anyone can come up with what we should do next if you believe these three things. That's the best way also to run a company that's growing really quickly because I have to just communicate to you these are the three things that we're assuming. And whenever you're making a decision, check to see if it works within these three concepts. I feel like people don't talk enough about the things that actually matter in building a business. I had this dream actually where it was kind of like a vision where I saw lots of statues in a modern city, but I was wondering like, oh, we don't build statues anymore. But I'm like, if you look at old republics, they would have statues for concepts like courage or integrity or gentleness. [10:00] And there are like gods for these different things. And I feel like we've forgotten these abstract kind of ideas that matter in the moment when you're building a company. It was actually, hey, you need courage to make a leap and commit to these ideas and then see what is the logical conclusion if we take these ideas seriously all the way to the end. If you could put three statues off the elevator in the lobby, what three would you build? courage, truth, and justice are the ones that come to mind. Say like one click more about each. Why those are? I think courage because one thing that I think a lot about is I think capitalism rewards risk more than anything else. I think a lot of people think it's like meritocracy or hard work, which I think is silly. There are a lot of people working really hard and not making a lot of money. So it's not hard work. There's some correlation there, but it's definitely not just that. It doesn't just reward skill. There's a lot of really skilled people. There are people who do things that I can't even dream of. You're eating a sword or you're juggling and they're not making as much money as someone doing a YouTube video It clear again that that not the case I do think it rewards risk which makes sense I don have a strong comment on whether that good or bad I just trying to figure out what's actually happening. There's a lot of people who think they're taking risks, but aren't taking real risks. I talked to one founder who went to a good school, then went to YC, and then was telling me about his company. And he's like, we serve sales and we serve recruiting. And I was like, you have to pick one. This is where you're actually providing value. In picking, committing yourself to serving some group of people in some specific way. For me, at least my definition of risk or how I've experienced it is you need to not know what's going to happen genuinely. You're going to discover something new. I think it needs to be coupled with a high potential for shame. It needs to be you can fail in a way that feels scary or maybe associated with shame. And when you're doing that, you're genuinely about to discover something new and learn from it. And that's when you can take real risks. And to do that, you then need to have many traits. One of them is courage. It's amazing. How about truth and justice? Let take justice for a second I want to live in a stable society that allows me to kind of like have the time and space to think of things I think the world is pretty crazy I went to see this movie called Stop Making Sense I was downstairs in the movie theater I had a joint that I was about to smoke and I was trying to light it up but I didn have a lighter I asked the guy who was standing there I was like hey can I borrow your lighter and he was like sure can I ask you a question I was like yeah of course and he was like what is this and I was like what do you mean this whole thing he was like yeah what is this and I was like well that's a big question I think like the world is a mysterious and amazing place and I feel like there's so much to know we're just starting to make progress on how wonderfully weird it is. And we should be spending more time like exploring that. And to do that, I feel like we need stability. So to get stability, I think you need to have justice between people. I think there's no stable way for some group of people to dominate others. It just doesn't work. No matter how strong you think you the other person is a tremendous nuisance if they feel like they treated unfairly So there no stable configuration around that And if you thinking about the economy or like countries you can't bluster your way out of it. You can't say we're the strongest. Even when I'm saying that, I have to remember when I have power over people, you tend to be like, they must do what I want because I want them to because I control this. It's just not a stable configuration. You can get by for a little bit And then you get tremendous pushback. So I think that having the value of justice, one thing I think about is like, how do you treat people with respect and fairness all the time in every situation, whether you're hiring them or firing them or you're disagreeing over what they should be doing? So I think that that maybe is what's fueling this democratization. Even people are stable in a place where they feel like they have the opportunity to get what you've gotten to as long as there's some fair chance for that. And they're okay with what they've gotten if they feel like, hey, this is what's available to me at the moment. This is just kind of like an internal thing that I've had. I used to play soccer even on my team if I feel like we fouled the other team and we could get away with it I would have like a really weird thing of integrity this feels off. Do you have a sense of where that came from? [15:00] nature nurture? It feels like it's some intuitive knowing for myself that I'm a long-term greedy person. One of the things we talk a lot about to the company is like, how do you be long-term greedy? And I think the only way to be long-term greedy is to stay in integrity for people to feel like there's justice all the way along. I think it's also just like a belief in yourself. You don't have to cheat in the short term to get something. You're going to win. Let's say you're playing a soccer game, you feel like you cheated or like this wasn't fair and then you won. It doesn't feel as good. I did hear your interview with Brian Chesky's, the statement he made around getting to $100 billion and feeling like shit. Yeah, I actually felt like I related and we're obviously in a much smaller spot. But even early on, when we raised our series A, I remember having that sensation of if you're doing this to get adulation or to get prestige or to make some money, there's no end to that. It's kind of like an empty thing that passes. The only judge of anything is yourself and your own self You have to be doing it so that you feel like what you done is interesting and worthwhile When you an ambitious person your judgment is actually way higher than anyone else because you know everything that you're thinking and you know everything that you've done. So I know everything that I'm thinking about or doing and my standards are higher than anyone else. Vanta automates security and compliance for over 16,000 fast moving companies like Ramp, Cursor, and Harvey, keeping them audit ready around the clock. It's the number one agentic trust platform, and it now helps companies like yours watch for the risks that show up between audits across your vendors, your AI tools, and your whole environment. Every new tool your team signs up for, every vendor that turns on AI features, is an opportunity for something to go wrong, and most security programs weren't built for AI's pace of growth. 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There's this thing I like to do where when I spend some time with somebody, I wait an hour and then I write down notes in my phone. I like benefit from the hour. It's like a cleansing function or something like whatever lasts in my brain through that hour. Like I want to write down when we last were together. This is the one thing I wrote down, which was this notion of optimizing for self-respect over everything else as like the North Star for behaving. I'm curious how that relates back to risk and courage. Do you think those things are related? Do you think it's possible to help people become more courageous and take more risk? For sure. I think in order to do that, you just need to understand your mind and your motivations more and be more honest about them So again back to the saying simple things honestly it very hard to admit to yourself I think why you doing something Even if you look at the narratives for companies, none of them have any relation to the motivation of the founders, and we don't talk about that in public. For me, for example, it's like, why am I building a company? do I think that I will be more liked or loved if I do something that is a success at a world-class level? Can I get that now? I've had friends come up to me that are like, hey, I don't care if you succeed or fail. I love you. And I was like, wow, that's actually helpful. I didn't think it would be, but it's feeding some part of my desire must be fueled by that. But I can get that right now. And now I can start to take real risks where I'm thinking about the business and not trying to fill this particular need. VCs have this common trope that is, hey, we invest in someone that has a chip on their shoulder or has some kind of lack that they're trying to fulfill. And this is common across creative work. The trope is like you're depressed or you're anxious or whatever, and you're trying to fill that, and you're actually afraid to lose that depression or anxiety or whatever it is because you feel like you'll be less... [20:00] productive or creative. Through my journey, I had this moment where I was like, you know what, I'm not going to create from a place of lack anymore. And I went around probably pretty annoyingly telling people, I have everything I need. I'm good. Post-lack. Post-lack, yeah. It's a great negotiation leverage because there's nothing you can give me. I feel great. I'm already complete. From there, you can still create. I think people are misunderstanding, tremendously misunderstanding this, in my opinion. If we were in a post-scarcity world, no one will do anything. Everybody will just be hanging out. I was like, have you been to Burning Man? People are still doing stuff and they have things you can create from a place of wholeness. And in fact, you will be less destructive in the world. I think you'll create less damage. We keep thinking here like, hey, let's think of our customers. What are we trying to give them? Why do people keep saying customers first? It's because when you're in a company, things start to happen where it's like this person's thinking about their career or this person wants to please this other person. They're not thinking about the customer. They're just thinking about the internal dynamics. The more whole you can be, I think the more risks you can take and the more courage you will have because you have nothing to lose. It funny to me that perhaps the most interesting duo in modern business history Johnny Ive and Steve Jobs were like almost undoubtedly creating from this generative place I don't know if they've used the same terminology or something, but you read it all like it's all there. They're the most adored, but maybe the least emulated. It demands the question, the things that got you to this sense of wholeness from this place of lack. There's been much strange debate about the role of introspection in business and in general. Naively, I would say like it's introspection that's a key tool in the toolkit to get from one to the other. Curious what your experience has been or what you would offer about that. I kind of understand the motivation here, because one thing I talk a lot about here and have thought for myself is the amount of work that's doing versus meta-analysis can sometimes flip. So you should be like 90% of the time doing and then 10% of the time meta-analyzing. At work, we've had this happen a lot. And I talk to the team a lot about it. where people are like, hey, what is going to happen in one year? Why are we building this feature instead of that feature? And I'm like, is that stopping you from taking the next step in your job? If not, then you're procrastinating. My sense is his conversation around that. I think his example is Walmart If you trying to build more Walmarts yes you should always be thinking about wake up in the morning build more Walmarts But at some scale when Walmart is affecting all of us if you don't think about why you're building Walmart, or what more Walmarts do to us, or to a shared environment, that responsibility is on you. I think that the more you make, and the more successful you become, it is part of your responsibility back to all of us to think about what you're doing, that you're our representative now. You're not a completely independent actor. And in fact, we have the power to pull some of that stuff back from you. So is there anything that you did in particular going from kind of lack to wholeness? For me, I think the introspection is it was a journey to kind of understand like why ambition. So I was suspicious of my own ambition. I was like, what am I trying to get out of this? part of why the company took some time to take off was because I was grappling with that. And that led me to investigate which parts of me are trying to kind of be expressed through this. And that was just my own personal interest. I just found that I couldn't just do something without understanding my motivation for it because I was looking at people who are further ahead in my field If you a great business person or you built a great company I was like do I want that I think it also coming from like valuing my time and myself I was having this experience where I like what if I took myself really seriously? You could take yourself lightly and just be like, well, these are just thoughts. I want to do something big, so do other people. Or take it really seriously and be like, why do I want to do that? What would I actually offer the world if I was able to do that? And then thinking like, hey, you can succeed and create a lot of damage in the world. I think a lot about death. When you're deathbed, like, what are you thinking? How does it feel in that moment? If you had a moment to reflect, how do you judge yourself? And there's like the experience of every day and living a life that you feel is worthwhile on a day to day basis. And there's also like, how did you impact the world if you did impact it? And I wanted to make sure that I felt like I really grappled with that correctly. And I didn't just try to accumulate resources and just be like, hey, I did something big. I accumulated some resources. It does go back to this like justice principle. It's like if you're going to do something big, you need to kind of think about the consequences of you taking that role because it's just a role. It's a really cool thought exercise to say, OK, play out the thing I'm doing to its natural extreme. Do I want that state? No one does that. I had one time where I [25:00] I remember when I was much younger, I was like, oh, like I want to make a lot of money and then I'll be a philanthropist. And I'm like, is that actually useful? There are a lot of philanthropists. Is it working? Are they actually impacting the world? Could we move faster in some other kind of formula or like setup? Or is it just that I want the control to pick the causes that I want? Maybe one more thing on the death thing that I think is kind of interesting was like my own insight that I had. I went on this 10 day silent retreat a while back. I thought I was going to just go think it was not that. It was kind of like a spiritual experience. It was called Herodaya, not like a Vipassana. Their approach, there's like a non-dual approach to meditation, where typically you kind of like meditate on your breath or some object, whereas in non-dual traditions, it's called the direct path. And in the direct path, you meditate on the space between the breaths, or you ask the question, who am I? A very frustrating question. I would say I would not recommend it. but anyway i'm doing this thing on the fifth day i have like this big insight where i'm like i figured it out i got it then on the seventh day i'm like okay well what now i start imagining going back and telling my friends about this insight but i like i not here i just imagining the future i kept wanting to go towards the end And then I had this big flash of insight that I try to remember But it said whenever you're picturing the future or anticipating the future, it's kind of like Freud's death drive. The only thing that happens in the future is you die, the far future, whatever it is. And so you're accelerating that. And as soon as I had that thought, it's kind of the death drive. Thinking about the future is the death drive. And so I like immediately felt back in my own body in the moment and felt the boredom of where I was. And I was like, wow, this is such delicious boredom. I finally got that insight, which is I'm so grateful to be bored right now because it's so amazing. I also realized that I have this scarcity, like food scarcity. I was thinking constantly about food and where am I going to eat? And then I just had this one P and it exploded in my head. I was like, this is too much. I can't. But I realized that I haven't accumulation tendency where I'm like, where's the food going to come from? And in the company, I noticed I'm like, where's the next ARR going to come from? Now I'm aware of that. And I'm like aware of when I have enough and then I can take more risk. I don't need to accumulate something that way beyond actually what we need What was the day five insight or was that the insight itself It hard to describe because it an experiential thing i think it was a momentary experience of like this understanding what matters or something like that because i felt like oh i'm connected to all things really bizarrely just feeling like hey i am a component or like a part of this whole thing and i'm connected to all things and they all matter. I had kind of this thought of one, I'm no better and no worse than anyone else. But also, it made me feel like this real empathy when I see someone who's suffering. I'm just like, oh, they're also me. Not I empathize with them as if I was them. I'm like, this is actually me. That's kind of like a really out there thought or a belief. Strange thing is it's actually not at all. Like it's like the longest lasting set of beliefs in the deepest, richest philosophical traditions. Yeah. Today it's still... This is an abstract idea today, but quite an old one. It used to be kind of like a common thing, supported with religion. But to me, what was crazy wasn't the idea. It was the experience of really feeling that. And then knowing that when I hear something in Buddhism that just freedom of all beings or knowing that the suffering of one person is the suffering of everyone So back to the justice thing Well I can solve everybody problems And in fact, that would be hurting me to try to help someone when I don't have capacity. But to really know every single person, they're carrying it for me rather than they fucked up or they screwed up. And I'm better because I worked hard and did X, Y and Z. Just to bring it back to our statutes, is that then truth? The day five insight? Is that just truth? Yeah, if we go back to capital T truth, it's understanding that. And then I understand why in philosophical traditions or even in religions, they're like remembrance. I can get that momentary understanding, but then remembering it in the moment when I'm making a decision about my business or about like my personal life is very tricky. But I do think that that is what's necessary for us to get to the next stage of what's interesting in the world. There's so many mysteries, so many interesting things. And I feel probably like many other people that were squabbling in circular ways around the same nonsense. My real anger is like, what are we doing? We're wasting our human potential, wasting our time. If I hear and digest all of that, and then I imagine, OK, this guy is now running a software startup. I'm, [30:00] imagine that that startup is run in some unusual ways. So I'm curious what those are and why you arrived at unusual ways of running the business. Yes, there are some unusual ways in which we run the business. But also, I think it's important to be careful of how much you push ideas onto other people or project onto them your beliefs and also to remember what context you're working on. It's almost like telling a story. If this is the normal way to run a business and then you think that it's this completely bizarro way over here, you also need to take the steps to tell the story. And I think it's the same in product development. I can't just give you a product that you have no context for. You don't even understand how to interact with it. It's like, hey, these are my personal beliefs and my interests that are underlying some of the normal activities that we do. and then there's adjustments that we make. I'd say the first and most important way is that it's a felt experience in the company of how we treat people and how we think about their personal development, but there are concrete ways in which it shows up. One way is that we overinvest in things that people typically underinvest in We overinvested in recruiting in brand in content in community building We've hired people who are very overqualified in some of these roles who are doing it for the first time. For example, we published an article about this with one person who was an early employee, Mishti. She took a content role. She would have never taken a content role. It's typically kind of not the most highly paid thing in a company or it's extra. and we compensated her like a PM and we're like, go do it. So we take those kinds of risks and then we stick with it. I think another thing, by the way, with risks is when you couple risks and courage, the next part is commitment. You actually need to kind of follow through to see what actually ends up happening. You can't just quit in the beginning. We take that seriously. And if we see somebody is really skilled or has some star potential, we stay with it for way longer than most. Everybody talks about hiring fast and firing fast. We've had people who nine months in were floundering and we're like, this person is excellent. I know they are. But what's going on here? Is it the role? Is it the context? Is it our decision making that's limiting them? Eventually we find an amazing spot for that person and they become a superstar 50 of the time The other 50 of the time this person might be really special but we just can create the conditions for them or they're too far away. One thing that I've talked to my co-founder, Varunat, is like we're never pissed off when someone doesn't work out. We're like, hey, you're just we're here and you're here maybe along the journey. One day you'll get there, but you're not getting there fast enough. You don't have what we need at this moment. So I don't even have a opinion on whether you're good or bad. people were like this person was good this person was bad were you good in the moment that we needed you to be you might also be super skilled but you just didn't perform here i've had people who are incredible i know they're incredible and they couldn't perform here for a variety of reasons and they've gone to other places and done a really good job so i think it's important to be nuanced there are some other things where i think some of the things that people have covered about us in the past i like clowning for example i discovered clowning what's clowning exactly i think i was an SF at a party and someone was telling me that they were going to go to this clowning workshop and I was like, what is that? I think of it as like edgy improv. There's kind of like four types of clowning. Physical clowning, which is the one you would imagine when you think of clowning. There is emotional range. Let me make you happy, then make you sad, then make you happy so you can feel the full range There the jester which is like telling truth to power Then there the trickster which I think is pretty interesting which is how do I tell you like spiritual truths through jokes You realize, hey, everything does change. That's like a truth about the world, but I get you to experience that. We are really into magicians at Clay. We incorporate it into our events or things that we do, and we take risks. Our brand takes a lot of risks, way more risks than I think general B2B brands. And that's why people love the brand and the company. It's authentic to us, but it's also honest. It's trying to really cut through and be like, hey, we think you'll be interested in this and we're not hedging. I think a lot of times people are authentic but hedging. So they're not really saying what they want to say because they're afraid of the consequences. What have you learned from magicians? I actually think the trickster thing is the thing that's been a common thread between us. There's this place called 69 Atlantic that we had been going to like. It's a small speakeasy magic, close-up magic. There's like 23 spaces in the back of this bookstore. And they get like world-class magicians every month. And the... [35:00] The thing that I remember from these really incredible magicians is it's not just a slate of hand thing. There's a storytelling component. It's kind of wild. A lot of them are telling a story of like a deep understanding of how your mind works or how the world works, where they're like, hey, I'm showing you this thing. And really what they're trying to do is to spark curiosity. We're going to do something about this at Clay. We're calling it re-enchanting the world. in a world where there is AI, it's literally magic in some form. And to remember that this is magic, a lot of these things that we're sitting in front of are still magic. It's pretty wild. And to re-enchant the world again and not make it like this boring place where you think you understand how it works, because you really don't. So I think they're doing simple things to reignite that feeling of wonder. And I think if you take that feeling of wonder actually in your everyday life. You're a more friendly person because you're not like, oh, I understand how this person works or I understand how this is. You're like more curious. It makes you more curious about our customers and makes us interact in a more pleasant way because we're like, oh, there's stuff to learn here I think what I been actually getting from this magic stuff is been like remembering what it feels like to be like I have no idea how this is working I can even begin to comprehend how to think about it I know that it a trick but I can figure it out For whatever reason this makes me wonder the same question about music the role that music plays and has played in your life and what you've learned from your many, many experiences with music. Well, I'm a dilettante musician, but I actually just started a band. I was talking to another famous musician who was calling me because he's starting a company. And I'm like, wow, I'm going the opposite direction, man. But I was reading this piece that was super interesting for me. And one of the key things I think with music versus other things is time. You can't listen to a song without time. Time is actually a core component and silence is a core component, like the spaces between things. So it's a good reminder that those are like fundamental things that you have to work with. It's like very Zen. Where the room isn't is where we are. If this room was full of things, we couldn't sit in here. And we only think about making things. We don't think about removing things. And we don't think about things unfolding. I think video is also like that. But a painting isn't. You can see it all at once. So I think about narrative. How are you telling the story? How are you bringing people along with you on the journey You can tell everyone everything all at once It overwhelming because you had time to process They haven This piece that I was reading it was talking about endings We always think about beginnings but we don really think about endings when you starting a company or not Well, what about all the people that I'm going to fire? And so many crazy things genuinely happen. As soon as you have a large number of people, you're dealing with a microcosm of humanity. You're running like a mini society. So it was like, hey, we can look to music to think about the different forms of endings and learn from that. Some songs end as just like repeating and it goes down in volume. Some things end suddenly. It's like a whimper or intensity. You can think of these as different ways to end something. Another one that I think is really cool, this was an essay that I read that was called The Emancipation of Dissonance, which first of all is a really cool title but it was theorizing the history of music as a history of accepting more sounds as music so in the beginning it was just maybe drumming first it's like the tonic you play the c and then the c an octave above and then it was adding the fifth that why it called the perfect fifth a lot of baroque music had that and then people started adding the third which is what creates chords minor and major chords And initially that was resisted People are like what the hell is this This feels off But then you add the seventh where you get jazz. And people were like, that's unacceptable. Like this is not music. And then eventually you start to add more and more tones. So this was arguing for in Western music, there's 12 notes, but in Arabic music or Indian, there's 24. And there's other scales that you can use that have even more tones. You can use microtones. Now that you have electronic music, you can make any kind of sound. I think this idea of accepting more sounds as music is actually a helpful product principle, just a way of being where you can start to think, what are all these other ways of being that you think are off that actually could be productive or useful if you put them in the right context. It seems also like an interesting through line is in the world we're going into how important it will be to make people feel something, but maybe also something new. If we can create anything, the logos of it all is, yeah, whatever, you can create anything you want, that the pathos becomes really important on top of that. Insights for music is like make people feel something new. We use this a lot, bring it back, I guess, to the business. I've been telling people [40:00] Like, hey, we're not building a microwave. Microwaves are useful, but they're commoditized. You just go and say, hey, one minute, heat it. It does what it needs to do. There's no difference between most of them. But we're building a guitar. With a guitar, there's just six strings and 12 frets. But you could spend your whole life just getting better at that. And you can only be playing one style of music. And it's still like new. If you bring that to sales or go to market things, it can feel like a crazy stretch if you actually respect that discipline and be like, hey, what is the ultimate version of sales, marketing or customer success? That's why it's called go to market. In my opinion, it's just like, how do I take the thing that I made and give it to you when you need it? If I really, truly was like, hey, what's the idealized form of this? That's what it is. It's raining. I bring an umbrella. You are like, great, thank you. That's what you actually want to get to. And I think there's a place where I made something, especially as people make so many new things and you happen to need it and it's very niche and I'm able to find you and give it to you without necessarily manufacturing that desire in you Ideally if you need something we can get it for you because we happen to be making it We thinking about all of the creative ways to figure that out One really interesting conversation you and I have had before is about the role of vision in company building and the leader's responsibility or lack thereof to have one in the first place or to have one sometimes. I'd love you to riff on the leader's role and responsibility to have or not have a vision. I think when we were having that discussion, too, my instinct is to go one level deeper or at least that's how it's coming up in me. Let's turn it back to one of our statues, truth. You need to say the truth. So if you don't have a vision, then you don't have a vision. If you do have a vision, then you do have a vision. I think it's important to not say something that actually isn't happening. That's my answer to that, is that I do think ultimately you need to have some guiding principle or some compass, but you don't need that at all times and you don't need to force it. If you just know what the next step is, you should take the next step. And sometimes things happen in all kinds of ways. Most of medical discoveries are complete coincidences. So many of the most advanced things, the cosmic microwave background, complete coincidence. You couldn have gone out and said I want to discover the cosmic microwave background There so many of these things And so I think we telling ourselves a story that is not true about the nature of discovery and how it happens And I think we do a disservice to everybody when we go back and retell the story in a way that is not honest, because it confuses the people who are on the path of figuring it out. So for me, a much more honest version, let's say you're starting a company and you don't know what to do. So many people have that problem. You're like, OK, I want to start a company. I don't even know why I want to start a company, but I feel like this is what I want to do. You don't need to have a reason. And then you can go and start doing things. And once you find something, you can be like, OK, this is interesting to me now. All the stories of greatness are like I was 13 and I saw this one thing and then I dedicated my whole life to it. And I think that happens. And it also happens in other ways. Optimize for discovery rather than destination would be like one way to think about it. Leave the space for the opportunity to discover. If you do have a vision, you should be clear about that and clear how confident you are in that. And if you don't have a vision, I don't think that's a problem. I think you can take the next step and allow the vision to come. In Native American traditions, there are things called vision quests, where you go and fast for a few days and you asking for a vision Sometimes you need to do things in order to get the vision of what you supposed to do And by the way in companies it also could change over time So you might have a vision and then either the vision is wrong or a lot of companies who started five, six years ago that are confused now because things have changed. Well, it's time to change the vision and you don't need to settle on a new one immediately. You can say, hey, we don't know what we're doing right now and we can take the immediate next step in what we're doing right now and wait to receive that vision. Do you feel like you have a vision right now? Yeah. Right now, I feel pretty clear. And within the scope of what we're doing, what the vision is, we're helping every company in the world find who their best customer is and find more of them and accelerate that. What about the notion of wealth? You've also in these two chapters had this interesting experience of now because of Clay's success, you've achieved a level of wealth that by any measure is extraordinary. what has that process been like and what has it taught you that's a very taboo topic i know that's why it's interesting my experience is the initial thing that i had thought is true is that if you're not feeling whole in yourself there's no amount of wealth that fills that it doesn't change that because it's a continuous competitive game it's a loop i was telling someone if you want to raise [45:00] $100 million, you need to first feel like you don't need that. Paradoxically, also that you already have that. In order to raise money, you need to be like, I have $100 million in my bank account. How does that feel? Act accordingly. Because you need to act like you don't need it, and you have the confidence. Maybe my own core wounding is I have this super heightened self-reliance where I feel like I don't need other people, and I can do everything myself, which is partially why I think it's helpful to be an entrepreneur. And what I've been doing is dialing that down to be like, no, I'm interconnected with people. I do need people. In fact, I need help. I need support. I also rely on so many things. But I think what material abundance gives you is the reality also of your time back. And I'm choosing, for example, to build this company. I don't have to. I don't need anything. I don't need it to succeed more. I don't need to make more money or whatever it is. I'm choosing what I want to be doing with my time. And that goes back to that truth part that's really empowering. I can make my own choices and I can test things out in the world and see if they work or not. I not scared or worried about what happens But I also needed to have that point of view in order to get here Having the opportunity to choose what I do with my time and to take bigger swings that feels really important. And then it's like, what responsibility do I owe back to society? You also once said to me that all problems are communication problems. I'm curious how you've gotten better or what you've learned about not falling into that trap. It's not that all problems are communication. problems, it's that we might have a disagreement or different needs, but often we can't resolve it because we're making assumptions about each other. We're doing all kinds of like game theory things about what would happen if you did this, if I did that, rather than being able to like explain clearly. And even within that, I think it's kind of like in negotiations, you might have different strategies, but my strategy is to be as clear as possible about what I want, what I think you want, and then what the possible options, assuming that you are really intelligent, can read and have access to the same information as me. I need to know what you want and what are the options available. And then we might still disagree, but at least we are disagreeing from a place of clarity rather than from a place of misunderstanding That very very difficult to do Let say we asking someone to leave clay which I think is a difficult thing You can do it in a way, I think, that in most cases, as long as the person is in a shared reality with us, in a way that is based on clear communication. Do you think it's working here? I don't for these reasons. What do you think? And maybe you're like, no, it is working. And I was just like, okay, let's bridge the gap because we can get to a place where it's like, I don't want to be giving you negative feedback every single day. That's not fun for me. I can't imagine that it's fun for you. So then why do you want to be here? And here are the gaps between us. At one point, I told someone, hey, listen, I've lost faith in the ability for you to bridge the gap. I'm the CEO, so it's not a good situation for you. It doesn't make sense. And even if you think you can get there, I'm taking responsibility for that. I'm not saying that this is rational, even. It's just, I can't do it. And that's it. In that case, it doesn't really make sense for you to continue working here. And I want to share that with you because I want to be like direct and clear about it and also own up that this is my call. Like any relationship, there's no compulsion. A lot of people actually really appreciate that and are just like okay I get it I wish that it was different but it not So I going to do something else Most times if someone leaving what are they worried about They worried about what are you going to say in the future to other people So I tell them, hey, if someone calls me up, I'm going to say it didn't work in these ways, but I think these are their strengths. Here are the gaps that we have in our organization that didn't support them. How do you not think about that? When I call up a reference, it's like, can you tell me what was wrong with your company at the time? Because it wasn't perfect. It's always about someone else. It's obviously not true. There are times when my management skills weren't there to handle this particular person or the company itself was not working. And so it creates a really bad vibe for everybody inside. When things are working, things are working. When things are hard, only a few people can handle that. The reason I'm saying these things, by the way, is I'm like, these are the things that I think are actually interesting. Part of my experience of building a company was I just wanted to know through building it and being given the hard choices of how to relate to people or given a quick profit versus a long profit, what would I do? And what's the experience that other people who are making these choices are facing? And I think we're not talking about these things because the risk is too high, right? Like if I talk about what I'm doing in a company and how... [50:00] on treating people, maybe someone will sue you or customers will lose faith in you. I really feel like companies are built through rules of thumb where I'm like, hey, how do you scale from 100 to 300? And then I talk to five people who've done it and they tell me. And by the way, I've done things that are completely the opposite of that. And it's worked. And the reality is back to the risk. When you're going from 150, for example, to 300 people, you don't wanna take the risk of doing something new. You're like, these people did it. But then you're gonna get the same problems that they had. So many people told me there would be all these weird problems scaling 50 to 300 people. None of them happened. We have some other things that happened, but I didn't have the typical problems because I didn't do it the typical way. As we approach the end, I have one more question about endings. I'm realizing I take a lot of notes after our various meetings over the years. The first time we met, the idea that I remember writing down was you told me something like you wish that there was something like a death doula for companies. And then earlier today, we were talking about this idea that scaling isn't just some universal good. So these are related in my mind. And I'd love you to end by just riffing on this death doula and scaling concept. I'm just like, why are we not talking about whether it is good to scale every business People talk about it a little bit in this like really boring super worn out way of should you raise VC capital or should you bootstrap Completely not interesting ways of talking about it. But it's like if you had a donut business, should you try to scale it? What does scaling it entail? What do you lose when you scale it? Should we be as a society incentivizing all businesses to scale? And we all know this problem, which is like, hey, this restaurant was really good. Now it sucks. So because I think there's a life cycle to things and maybe part of this meditation retreat and thinking about the death thing, I've been thinking about like, is there a life cycle to companies and should we just be OK with that? I'll pick Microsoft for a second because I think it's an easy example, but hopefully they don't hate me for this. You have an initial put a computer on every desk. I remember that mission when I was a kid. You did put a computer on every desk. But now the mission is devices and services and do cool things. Once you achieve a mission, the idea of a company, I think, started in the 1500s. I think it was the East India Company or something. So you get together for a purpose and then you do it. And then should you disband or should you keep like the minimal number of people I think the crypto people have had some of these ideas OK you built the layer Now you move on to the next layer I do think it worthwhile as all this disruption is happening to start thinking about the new ways of doing this I curious about it. A death doula for companies is, hey, if your company has achieved its mission, should we help it pass? Maybe it should have children and people come out and they do cool stuff. But maybe we can institutionalize these things rather than trying to scale things that become zombies or become worse versions of their former selves and then complain about it when we're incentivizing everybody to scale no matter what. I wake up every day and I think, how do I make more clay? I literally think about it. It's consuming all of the CPU time in my brain. In my friend group, they're all thinking about this because I just keep talking to them about it. So if that's what's happening, should we set up some kind of structures to be like, well, what happens when you scale everywhere? I don't just care about scaling. I care about how is this creating value in the world? People are talking about those, I don't know, 1,500 unicorns, if some of them are zombies, how can we help them? Dianized stuff. You need some grieving, you need a possibility to move on. We don't have support for that for companies, and I think it's because no one talks about endings. When you and I are together, I feel like we always talk a little bit about Clay and a lot a bit about even more interesting things And Clay is very interesting This has been yet another example of one of those conversations I loved having it When I do these I ask everyone the same traditional final question What is the kindest thing that anyone's ever done for you? The one that's coming to my mind immediately, I had already mentioned, actually, but it's a few friends have come up to me before Clay succeeded and were like, hey, you don't need to do anything. We just love you anyway. And then I realized, I don't care what they're doing. I don't care what they achieve. I just implicitly like this person and love them. And knowing that I had that, and then I could give that back to myself as well, without any achievement, because I think my childhood wounding was feeling like, oh, I must achieve in order to have care and love. And I was like, I actually don't need that. It created a ton of clarity, where I was like, oh, I'm doing things because I want to, not because I need something from it. So I think Clay is just the output of a lot of thoughts and things. And we're doing it in a way, for me, I hope, where I'm not attached. I'm not attached because I don't need anything from it. I want it to evolve the way it wants to evolve. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thank you, bud. If you enjoyed this episode, visit Colossus.com. You'll find every episode. [55:00] this podcast complete with hand edited transcripts. You can also subscribe to Colossus, our quarterly print, digital and private audio publication featuring in-depth profiles of the founders, investors and companies that we admire most. 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