The Twenty Minute VCDaniel Dines, UiPath CEO & Founder: Why Agents Do Not Mean RPA is F*** | E1240
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
100 min read · 19,894 words- 0:00 – 1:03
Intro
- DDDaniel Dines
This is a story that, uh, I never told anyone. (screen whooshes) I've wasted my, uh, late 20s, big part of my 30s and 40s thinking in this way. It's a totally waste of cycles (laughs) and energy, man. (screen whooshes) I am a lonely wolf. I find life pretty lonely, man. That's not only about this job, but I live mostly in my head, thinking, analyzing, reflecting. This is how I spend my life.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Ready to go? (upbeat music) Daniel, dude, I am so excited for this. Thank you so much for joining me in the studio again.
- DDDaniel Dines
Well, I invited you basically (laughs) for this podcast.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Now, uh-
- DDDaniel Dines
So thank you for having me.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Dude, honestly, our first show did so well. I got so many emails from young entrepreneurs so inspired by your journey. And so I thought I would capitalize on the success of the
- 1:03 – 8:08
Why Does Product Matter More Than Innovation in AI?
- HSHarry Stebbings
first show. And I wanted to start with something that you said to me before, which is, at this stage of kind of the AI cycle, product matters more than innovation. Can you unpack that for me?
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah. Actually, I was thinking a lot lately, what's, you know, our story in, you know, in within the AI narrative we've... where we can really bring a lot of value. So over the last two years, we, um, we've spent a lot of time really trying to fine-tune LLMs, build around them, and to a certain degree of success. But I've got really inspired by stories like Cursor.ai, and my development team loves that product. It's a beautiful product built on the top of multiple LLMs, but it just, it just works. And I, uh, I recall actually how we started UiPath. There, maybe there is a... This is a story that, uh, I never told anyone. And, uh, so in the beginning, we, uh... So we were always based on AI in a way, but we were using a library called OpenCV, which among many other things provided a really cool feature to find a, a smaller image within a bigger image. So, and we repurposed that library for the sake of automation. So we can take a screenshot of an application, and if you want to click on a button, we can take an image of that button and then, uh, find it, you know, during, uh, during replay, just call, you know, a function, find this image of the button, I will get the coordinates, and I will click on the button. But that was not the only thing that we did. We created, I think, a magical experience. So we let someone to basically record the flow on the screen, just show I need to click this button, indicate on the screen the button, and then we'll generate, like, a very simple statement, like click that button with the image. Everything was stored. So you could have recorded an entire flow based only on, you know, working with images, even typing in a, typing in an edit box. So we will capture the edit box image and then, like, a label, and we can, we will find them during run time. But from the perspective of the user, it was really simple. So I remember it was, like, 2013 when I showed, I demoed this product to some guys that were really Blue Prism experts. And in order to do the same thing in Blue Prism, it would have taken, like, two days, and, uh, the outcome would be not as reliable as in our case. I did in front of them this flow, like, in three, five minutes, press run, and it worked. And I asked them, "What do you think, guys?" Total silence. They couldn't believe their eyes. And this is how actually we found our first niche to fight what was a giant for us, like Blue Prism at that point, and it was that niche where people would have to automate processes without having access to the applications other than by remote desktop via, like, Citrix, kind of. And this image-based recognition was the only way to, to do it properly. And that was our first niche where people would deploy and would prefer us versus Blue Prism. And from that one, we have basically expanded, you know, into what we are today.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So do you believe that we're then in that stage in the AI cycle's day, which is, like, ease of use, product simplicity, great UI is the driver of adoption, not technological advancements, sophistication of models, you name it?
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah, I personally don't believe that, uh, the models can innovate in a material way in a reasonable amount of time. I think they reach maturity in a way. I think I am pleased with, uh, what LLMs can deliver, both frontier models but also something like, uh, you know, smaller models. Look, for instance, we are using, uh, uh, Gwen, which is a fantastic model built by Alibaba, which is totally open source. We are using it into, into understanding, like, um, a lot of our semi-structured documents. But (clears throat) it's a lot of product.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why do you use an Alibaba model versus the other models?
- DDDaniel Dines
Because at this point in time, that's basically the best model for this particular job.... we might change it. This is why I think the experience around the product will be so important, because we do a lot... it's very difficult to use that model without the entire product experience. Without helping people, tagging documents, uh, and, uh, retraining the model on the fly. So it, it's an entire experience that we make it extremely simple, and it can exchange the model. If we find another model, maybe LLaMA 3.3 is better, and it's always a cost versus, uh, speed and versus accuracy equation that we have to-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think we will continue to live in a world of many models which are specialized in many different areas, or do you think there will be one or two monolithic models similar to what we have in cloud today with AWS, Azure, Google Cloud?
- DDDaniel Dines
I don't think models would match the... would match the cloud development. I think there will be, there will be multiple models. And, look, e- even if we look at the human brain development, we have multiple models in our... we, we have some general cognitive models, but we have a lot of specialized models that would do some tasks better than using my general model. Even if I... look, one of the most difficult tasks to replicate in, uh, today is to take this, uh, you know, this cup and drink out of it. I am doing... it's just perfect how I do it. But that's a dedicated model that we are training since we are very young. So this is... we, we train how to walk. I don't think in how to walk, so it's a dedicated model. So obviously, there will be a world of few frontier models and a lot of dedicated models. And dedicated models will be built on the top of... I think it's more likely to be built on the top of open source models that, you know, closed source
- 8:08 – 9:15
What’s Next for UiPath with Product as the Priority?
- DDDaniel Dines
frontier models.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So with the recognition that Cursor is the right approach, that product is so much more important than technological advancement in that respect or product matters more, how does that impact how you view the next chapter for UiPath and what you do?
- DDDaniel Dines
Um, it has a big impact because we, um... it's, um... it's, it's, it's a very big shift that we have actually made in, uh, in the company, in the way we've built software. It's not enough to think building incremental. Cursor was built from ground up, really, and in an AI world. It was an AI first product. This is how we should build. So we are, we are building our agentic AI approach from the ground up. And we, we, we gave up on some of our, you know, RPA stuff in order to come on the new technology, new frameworks, building from scratch because we want to build an AI first experience.
- 9:15 – 13:16
Why Is RPA Compatible with Orchestration & Agents?
- DDDaniel Dines
- HSHarry Stebbings
What did you give up on the RPA side?
- DDDaniel Dines
Look, we had a... we had a workflow engine, for instance, that was like Windows Workflow Engine, and, uh, we have perfected it over the years. But now we have switched to a more modern technology that, uh, that workflow engine, and we are building on the top of that. So we... I resisted for so many years, and, you know, engineers in UiPath will realize how many discussions we had pro, "Should we bring another workflow engine? Should we not?" AI finally convinced me that's the right moment where we, we should bring a new workflow engine that is specifically designed for what we call agentic orchestration, specifically designed to, to facilitate very well the connection between agents and human users and other robots or other models, dedicated models, and some other API, some other entry points.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Help me understand when we think about kind of this entrance into agentic orchestration, uh, people are skeptical about how RPA coincides in the future of agentic orchestration and agent use in the enterprise. Why are they wrong to think that they are incompatible?
- DDDaniel Dines
Because I think, uh, very few people understand what are the use cases where RPA is really used and valuable, and, uh, what are the... and why actually agentic doesn't work for those use cases. I can elaborate if you like.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can we k- can we unpack them?
- DDDaniel Dines
So the sweet spot for RPA is to automate tasks that span multiple business systems and are of medium to complex... to, to, to m- medium to high complexity. So they can spend multiple steps. Usually, it can be even 100, 200 of steps.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Wow.
- DDDaniel Dines
And, but the key is they are rule-based. The input is structured, and then the steps that you go are rule based, but they... in a way, they capture company knowledge within the rules. Even simple things like if the VAT starts with this particular two numbers, then you have to take this particular flow. Well, but you capture it in rules. Okay. Th- this is very important. But these tasks, th- these automations are very reliable. They, they simply work until the underlying system changes. Now, when it comes to agentic, LLMs are actually not good at following repetitive steps. You are not gonna have LLMs multiply two numbers. No, you are gonna follow an algorithm, and you are gonna use-... creep language or you will program it, right? This is kind of the same with automations. LLMs work v- relatively well when we are dealing with unstructured parts in a business process. And it's sometimes the enterprise knowledge, it's difficult to express in rules. It's really ... You can eventually, but it's ver- it's very difficult. There are, there is a lot of tribal knowledge, you know, on the top of the public knowledge that human user is supposed to have. So when you cannot express in rules, then you can build an agent that will mimic what the user will do, but with the intent that will reduce the human input on that part of the process. You cannot really eliminate a task from one place using agentic, but ... unless some rare cases. Because in way, agentic AI, it's about delivering something autonomously.
- 13:16 – 18:38
Will Enterprises Split Vendors for Rule-Based vs. Non-Rule-Based?
- DDDaniel Dines
- HSHarry Stebbings
But if we look at it as, like, rule-based versus non-rule-based, 'cause I think that's kind of the easiest distinction between the two, does that mean that enterprise customers will essentially buy from two different vendors for rule-based versus non-rule-based? And why would you not just go, "Fuck it, we'll just do non-rule-based"? (laughs) And why will non-rule based not just go, "Sod it, we can also do rule-based"?
- DDDaniel Dines
Well, this is a, this is a great question, and-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Thank you. (laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
(laughs) Well, and I think this is the essence why we have it right at the agentic AI table. And the answer, in short, is, uh, rule-based and non-deterministic part actually sit within the context of a business process. It's like a long, long business process, like order to cash or procure to pay. You'll have non-deterministic parts and you'll have deterministic parts. It makes really sense to have the same technology and put them in the same framework. And we have the ... This is why agentic orchestration is so important. We have the technology that connects all the parts of the process, and we have the technology to automate those steps in the process. This is powerful. Think about as a metaphor, like robots are more like low-skilled employees, while, while agents are high-skilled employees. But you manage them within the same platform. There is no ... You don't have two different work days.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And so you want to be the platform that manages low skilled and high skilled?
- DDDaniel Dines
We are the platform that manages low skilled, and we are adding something to manage also the high skill. And h- I think another thing that it's not so easy to realize, it's not enough to have a technology that automate a single task. You will have to be capable of automating thousands of tasks and manage them, deliver l- deploy them, monitor them, get analytics out of them, access control, who can run agents, who can run these particular workflows, what applications they can access. We have this. We build a key differentiator at, in UiPath platform. It's our ability to orchestrate robots.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But do you have them? Because you have them in a rule-based environment and rule-based processes, and now we're moving into a completely different universe of non-rule-based ambiguity.
- DDDaniel Dines
Well, it's not, it's not a completely different universe. You know what's the, what's the common denominator? Both RPA and Agentic actually imitates people. And when you imitate people doing a process, there are slightly different ways in order to deploy and manage because it's more fragile. You need to have a lot of exception handling into places. You need to have a lot of retries of different things, maybe ... Think about, you load a website. It's variable until it responds back or maybe, you know, it's a big time on- ... It's a lot of things that you have to build within the technology to make it more reliable. We have the experience with robots, and we are taking this experience to the agents. It's not so difficult to build an agent as to make it working reliably thousands of times. You go there, you call it, as part of a enterprise workflow, and it has to work. Otherwise, enterprises are not gonna deliver them in an autonomous fashion in production. And look, one story that I keep hearing from (laughs) our customers is, they prefer our workflows to fail than to be too smart. Because their risk appetite for this type of workloads, it's low. This is the mentality of our customers. That will be the same mentality with delivering agents. Agents will make recommendations. Agents are not gonna take actions directly. There will be a progression from agents ta- making recommendations, going to a human user for validating, and then calling an action.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And that ... And just so I understand, and that is because we are scared of them being too smart and making decisions that are wrong on our behalf?
- DDDaniel Dines
Not because we are scared. Because they, they are like idiot savants. Sometimes they can be extremely smart, sometimes they can be extremely dumb. And we have no idea right now how to distinguish between these two scenarios.
- HSHarry Stebbings
With respect, is that not a little bit like workforces? (laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
(laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Like, they make mistakes.
- DDDaniel Dines
But-
- HSHarry Stebbings
They, they do. They make errors, they make errors of judgment.
- DDDaniel Dines
This, this is why most enterprises will create a lot of rule-based.... work flows and a lot of pre- ... you know, precision type of enterprise work flows. They would not let people every time to decide, "Who should I call? Should I call Daniel or should I call Harry for this job?" No, that's, it's, it's based on
- 18:38 – 25:43
How Long Until Users Fully Trust AI Agents?
- DDDaniel Dines
rules.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How long do you think it will take to move from a recommendation-based engine, uh, adoption cycle to a fully trusting agent automa-
- DDDaniel Dines
As long, as long as, uh, it's gonna take for, uh, you know, the nice self-driving cars that we have today to be fully autonomous and to drive, you know, asides with people on the streets and they will just work.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you really think that long? 'Cause I mean, that, uh, self-driving car development has been-
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
... I mean, it's ...
- DDDaniel Dines
I, I, I truly think it's gonna be that long. But in the same time, we will reduce actually a lot the human input. So I, I think it's gonna be we are going to a place where we'll have a semi-autonomous agent that will do most of the job, and humans will just sit, monitor their inboxes. They will get tasks like, "Please validate this. Please validate this," or, "Answer this. I need this information." And then feedback to the agents and to the, an enterprise work flow that will be orchestrating the work. And the enterprise work flow will be rule-based.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Uh, s- so when we think about this kind of landscape, we've got the orchestration layer on top. We have kind of rule-based RPA, and then we have kind of, um, non-rule-based kind of agent work flows.
- DDDaniel Dines
But the orchestration is rule based. That's, that's, that's kind of important.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Okay, so y-
- DDDaniel Dines
But this is how, this is how enterprises, this is how work is done today. You'll have a lot of rule-based work flows that will connect different people to do, do their job.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But do you as UiPath also want to be the provider of agent-based, non-rule-based action?
- DDDaniel Dines
Yes, but we also will integrate with agents built with other platform. Because maybe for within-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Voice.
- DDDaniel Dines
... sales. You know, mo- ... We call a lot of APIs from different platforms, right? An agent, to me, within the Salesforce platform will be just an API. I will just call an API. I will get an answer back, and I will feed it to a human user, say, "What do you think about that answer?" And then based on human response, I will call another action maybe in another or call another agent in another enterprise. Because we will be the orchestration on the top. And there is also ... It makes a lot of sense to have an orchestration technology that is agnostic. We call it the Switzerland of the platform. Because an orchestration engine should be, should provide equally good access to different platforms. What's the interest of Salesforce to provide amazing connections to SAP and vice versa? No, it's not. So they will focus on building agents that work specifically for workloads that stay within their platforms. Why would focus-
- HSHarry Stebbings
But th- but that ... Respectfully, uh, that's not true. Like, Benioff-
- DDDaniel Dines
Why?
- HSHarry Stebbings
... Beni- ... Well, no, no, because Benioff is saying, "I want to build customer support. I want to build marketing agents." Benioff wants to build your full suite of agents.
- DDDaniel Dines
It's not about what he wants. It's, it's about what customers-
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Yeah.
- DDDaniel Dines
... will actually do.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And why would they not do that, because the date-
- DDDaniel Dines
Because I, I can-
- HSHarry Stebbings
... they won't wanna take the-
- DDDaniel Dines
I will, I will give you a real quote from one of our largest, uh, healthcare customer in United States. I was talking to the CIO, which is close to us, and he said, "I will never put data from Epic into Salesforce in order to create an agent. Never. There is no chance to do this." So it's as simple as this. They will, they will prefer to use us to have connectors, feed agents only with the data they really need to make a decision, and then have the orchestration in an agnostic way.
- HSHarry Stebbings
That's so interesting. So it's the data migration between the kind of, uh, core home of where the data is that they will not be willing to compromise on. And so what you're saying is we're gonna have a future where we have specialized agents within data repositories and an orchestration layer on top.
- DDDaniel Dines
Yes. And also agents that will be on our platform for tasks that require connecting to multiple platforms. You know, most of RPA tasks today don't work with one single platform. They work across platform. There are so many tasks that you will create agents for that require data from two or more systems simultaneous in order to make a decision.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can we just go into just, like, a little bit on the task side? 'Cause we mentioned Benioff and fantastic show and loved (laughs) having him on the show, but stayed at a certain level. What tasks are we, like, we will meaningfully see game-changing results in the next one to three years, and where will we not?
- DDDaniel Dines
Instead of going to see what kind of roles do you have in your company, like you have a BDR person and so on, we go and ask, uh, "What kind of processes do you run today? How does your procure-to-pay process look like? What are the rule-based parts? What are the parts that are non-deterministic that are good use cases for agents? And let's go and deliver those." It's the same approach that we did with RPA. And I think that, that can lead to immediate successes. Because you actually look to smaller tasks. In a, in a healthcare system, you are doing something small like, uh, processing denials or prior authorization. We will focus on these type of tasks, and we will create agents specifically for-... this, and we will connect them with the robots that do the, the rule-based task in the, in this orchestration layer.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What do you think is the biggest misnomer that people have about the non-rule-based agent layer, that they think, but they're wrong about?
- 25:43 – 29:27
Why Doesn’t Wall Street Value UiPath’s Position More?
- DDDaniel Dines
- HSHarry Stebbings
If I'm blunt, if you, if you already have the position in Switzerland, you already have the distribution. I think you mentioned kind of product being more important than innovation. I think distribution's more important than product.
- DDDaniel Dines
True.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, if you have that position in Switzerland, if you have the orchestrator, named wonderfully, Already, respectfully, why does Wall Street not appreciate you more?
- DDDaniel Dines
Because it's early. We... The Agentic, the Agentic, it's really early. And we have to deliver on the roadmap that we have. We still, we have the orchestration engine, but we need to deliver the, the Agentic orchestration workflows, and we have to deliver the agent builder. By the way, we have just launched it in, uh, in private preview. And it's the, it's the early innings of a huge movement to adopt agents.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Okay.
- DDDaniel Dines
AI, gen AI was not so successful in enterprise so far. I think within next year, we are gonna see a lot more use cases, particularly in the Agentic AI space.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why was gen AI not successful in enterprise for the last few years?
- DDDaniel Dines
Because it's not predictable.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And it will be in the next few years because?
- DDDaniel Dines
Because we will put it in the context of an Agentic workflow, and we will surround it with rules, and we will limit the non-predictable aspect, and we will put humans in the loop to validate the outcome. But it's gonna be important. It's not gonna be like a chatbot. It's, we'll get to... It's gonna be the conductor will be this enterprise workflow that can be triggered by an external factor. Maybe a client will send you an email, you know, asking for a mortgage application, and then you will trigger an enterprise workflow that will call an agent that will process, you know, the application, will make a recommendation, is gonna create a task that will come in my inbox. I will validate. I can reply from my inbox, "I'm okay," or not or anything. That will trigger back the enterprise workflow that will resume and will go and will create, will call a robot that will grant the mortgage and will do necessary changes in the banking system. This is a very different way of working compared to a chatbot.
- HSHarry Stebbings
It's a very different way of working. To what extent are your conversations with customers customer education versus selling?
- DDDaniel Dines
I think we are...
- HSHarry Stebbings
Like, do enterprises get it?
- DDDaniel Dines
Right now, I, I'm not... I'm... (laughs) I was never a seller myself, and I'm not into, I'm not into selling. I'm in, I'm into actually learning from customers and also educating them on how we see the world. But-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What's the best thing you've learned from customers in the last year?
- DDDaniel Dines
You need to think end-to-end process versus thinking piecemeal task by task. We, we, we were, we were a company thinking let's go bottom up. Let's identify a few tasks that are rule based. Let's put them in production, get q- quick, you know, return on investment, and then move on. But many customers feel you have to have the end-to-end picture of the process, and I think for Agentic, will be, will be truly important because I don't believe in, so much in isolated agents that, you know, business user will chat with rather than these enterprise workflows that will connect
- 29:27 – 33:07
How Will Agents Reshape Roles & Functions in Enterprises?
- DDDaniel Dines
agents.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How does this change the structure of companies, do you think? When you think about the internal roles, functions, how people work within large enterprises, how does it change them? Do we have more people in compliance, less people in BDRs, sales, whatever? How do we think about how functions change?
- DDDaniel Dines
I think that, uh, that people will become more productive, for sure. And, uh, roles will be changed more from, uh, doing things to more overseeing technology doing things, and, uh, validating what technology is, uh, is creating for you.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Uh, sorry, does that not sound really fucking dull? Like, we're just gonna become-
- DDDaniel Dines
(laughs) .
- HSHarry Stebbings
... validation monkeys. Tick, validate, tick, validate, tick, val- Fuck, I prefer doing it. Like...
- DDDaniel Dines
No, I, I don't think so. This, uh, this-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What?
- DDDaniel Dines
... validations will be actually mostly on the, on the difficult cases and in the longer term. So you asked me when agents will become, like, fully autonomous.I think there will be a progression to become comfortable with the output of an agent. If you say, let's take this example of a travel agent, right? So I'm working with the agent. So agent gets to know me, know my preference, and I discover that most of the time the agent will make recommendation that I will just check the box and say, "Okay," and do it, right? I can put very simple limit. "Okay, if the entire trip that I'm asking is less than $10,000 or something, just book it automatically. Otherwise go and validate." And that, I can reduce my input on the process only on the cases that matter, and that will happen across the board.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask, does the democratization of agents with agent builders, with the different elements that we've spoken about, does that mean that you can access a different part of the market? You are an enterprise company very much so today. Does that mean that you can act as SMBs in the way that you never have done before?
- DDDaniel Dines
I'm not sure about it, because the, the catch here is that, um, agents, building agents require some interesting skills. And today we are in a... today we are in, at the point where we know technology works, but in order to make it working, you require, you know, very high skilled people in some particular areas. Building an agent require creating a prompt, and, uh, building a good prompt, it's actually more difficult than building a, building a, a script. A script is more predictable. You have the requirements, and then you just follow the requirements, you know, using s- you know, logic, algorithm logic. With the prompt, things are not (laughs) like this, because s- slight changes in the prompt can make it working like you want or not.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- DDDaniel Dines
And, uh, I think, uh, we, we put a lot of work right now into helping our automation developers building better prompts, suggesting them prompts, helping them build evaluation sets. It's much more... it's much easier to test a script that works as intended than a prompt, because you'll have to... you... the input data can make such a huge difference, and it's very hard to test
- 33:07 – 42:01
Will AI-Driven Verification Reduce Company Size?
- DDDaniel Dines
it.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Will we see the size of companies reduce in the future? You mentioned there we'll move to a more verification approvals-based, uh, function for humans. That could also mean that you need less.
- DDDaniel Dines
I think jobs are, jobs are changing over time. We are seeing, uh, in agriculture, in... if, if you think about 100 years ago, 50% of, you know, UK or US population work in agriculture. Nowadays, it's only 2%. And they, they are actually... it's a good example. They are mostly people that supervise machines doing their work. Yes, you know, many of the jobs today will change, but they will be new jobs. They will be... you know, society evolves. It's... you don't want to be stuck in the existing society. This- th- this thing will create abundance, and the only way to, to keep with the economical growth is to increase productivity. It's... our... with the popula- with population aging, and actually on the verge of starting to reduce like in many, in many, you know, first, you know, first world countries, it's only increasing the productivity. This tool is essential to increase productivity. Why we are focusing on the doomsday scenario when actually we live in, in one of the best world possible, when it's the... you know, the rate of unemployment is the lowest in, I don't know, ever maybe.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So I, I mean, I, I can pose a different argument back to you, which is that the speed of progression through this technology cycle will likely be much faster than any other technology adoption cycle. So you mentioned the farming industry. That was over multiple decades actually that you saw the adoption of farm machinery.
- DDDaniel Dines
Mm-hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
People were able to transition. This transition-
- DDDaniel Dines
You underestimate the inertia of, of, you know, of corporations, honestly. Even with RPA, our RPA technology, it's pretty good, and it's not, it's not fully penetrated, not, not, not at all. It's all about inertia-
- HSHarry Stebbings
When you say not fully penetrated, like 10%? 20%?
- DDDaniel Dines
It's kind of hard to, to understand really, but I would say, yeah, it's probably less than 10, 20% penetrated, but the rest is... it's not, it's not an easy technology to deploy. You need to... you need to put an entire program in, uh, you know, behind RPA. It's kind of the same with agentic AI. It's not that, you know, suddenly you will have, uh, you'll have an agent that sits next to you and you show, you do this and this, and then you just go and they will run the job. No, it's not... it's, it's gonna be... I think it's, it's, it's gonna take next five, 10 years to... with the current state-of-the-art LLMs, it's gonna take next five to 10 years to, to, to get to very wide scale deployment of agentic plus automation. If LLMs, of course, will go to AGI, it's-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Well, I mean, that is bluntly what many people are thinking, is that scaling laws will continue. We are seeing more compute lead to an equal level of performance increase, and that actually there is a lot more room to run in LLMs. Sam Altman says that we will see AGI in 2025-
- DDDaniel Dines
Well, it depends-
- HSHarry Stebbings
... which means that you have about 15 days. (laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
... it de- I have... I have... yeah. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
Look, my definition of AGI, it's a bit different than their definition of AGI. So, AGI for, uh, for enterprises would be when I have an LLM that has the, has the capabilities of a guy with an average IQ like 120 points. But predictably. Not 180 in some fancy math jobs, and 60 into (laughs) , you know, other type of jobs. Predictably. This is AGI. (laughs) When we will get there, I think, uh, the jobs, uh, landscape will, will change completely. And it's not about RPA or automation. I think it's, it's a lot. Every industry will, will be subject for a big change. But I also believe that we need a new giant leap in order to get there. I think ... I on- I don't believe that actual LLMs reason in the sense that I expect a guy with a 120 IQ reason. It's, it's still, it's, it's a stochastic engine in the end. I don't ... there, there is a big argument. Is the intelligence purely stochastic, or it's something else? I believe there is something else in the ...
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why?
- DDDaniel Dines
Because otherwise, look, I am stupid compared to LLMs in many tasks. But I am much better than LLMs in so many other. Why it's, why LLMs make logical mistakes that I cannot do, while can do, solve some problems like math, Olympiad problems, that I don't have any chance to do. Why? This is, th- this question has to be answered. Because it show, it, it shows me that actually the essence is different. It's a different type of intelligence. But that intelligence is not equipped to work in the context of business operations, where you'll need reliability. And does it make sense or not?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah, you know, i- it totally makes sense. I, (laughs) I'm just actually thinking though, you know, when we're talking about the transition of, of labor forces and kind of what happens to people, uh, you know, Masa said that there's nine trillion of capex, um, that will need to be invested to see AI agents fully deployed, and that would then create nine trillion a year in GDP gains.
- DDDaniel Dines
It's very small to invest nine trillion (laughs) to create nine trillion a year. Look, I think, I think it's, it would be an easy investment if there is a predictable outcome. But I don't ... Do you really think that just adding GPUs and with the existing algorithm to train, they will suddenly become, become godlike intelligent? I don't understand. And it looks like there are many signals that the training kind of plateaued at some ... It's, it's, it's mostly, it's-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What, what are the signals that the training plateaued?
- DDDaniel Dines
I think I, I heard even Sundar saying recently that they are not seeing much more gains by training alone. So, there should be something else.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think NVIDIA will be able to retain their chip monopoly? You've seen Amazon, Meta, uh, Google all trying to build out their own chip capabilities, very naturally. Owning the whole kind of supply chain. Do you think NVIDIA will be able to retain it?
- DDDaniel Dines
It's hard to see it at existing levels. And think about, I think half of NVIDIA, uh, revenue today is from these five hyperscalers.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaniel Dines
So, and if they are all in the business of building, it's kind of ... I think it's hard, but, but obviously NVIDIA has such an important, uh, you know, moat in, in both hardware and software. It's how ... Who, who would have thought in 2007 that Apple could maintain, you know, such an incredible moat?
- HSHarry Stebbings
I completely agree. When we think about, like, business models of the future, everyone says, "Hey, we're gonna ... Fuck the seat model. We've had, we've had enough of seats. We're gonna replace it with, like, units of work or units of cognition, and that's what you're gonna pay for." Do you agree with that transition? And with your statement there of, like, you underestimate this inertia and speed of enterprises. Is that wrong?
- DDDaniel Dines
I don't think it's wrong, uh, as a North Star of evolution. Why would, why would I pay for seats when I need to pay for transactions, basically? But, I think there will be ... It's again, it's, it's not binary. It's not zero and one. I think the, the pricing models in the future will be both seat-based and some kind of, they will have some kind of consumption-based mechanism combined.
- 42:01 – 43:47
UiPath’s Biggest Challenge in the Next 2 Years
- DDDaniel Dines
- HSHarry Stebbings
What do you think is the biggest challenge that you as CEO of UiPath have to embrace, approach, cha- like, wrestle with, in the next 12 to 24 months?
- DDDaniel Dines
My biggest challenge is, uh, is, uh, transforming the company to be an AI-first company. And, uh, re-energizing our people. That, uh, you know, we had-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do they need re-energizing?
- DDDaniel Dines
Yes. We, we had a rocky ride into the public markets. And probably in 2021, we were-
- HSHarry Stebbings
To what extent was that avoidable versus unavoidable?
- DDDaniel Dines
For a company that IPOs-... maybe I think if I do a second IPO, I would be better equipped.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What would you do differently if you did a second IPO?
- DDDaniel Dines
I think I would, uh, I would look into, into finance and go-to market a bit, uh, a bit differently. And I would, I would rather-
- HSHarry Stebbings
What does that mean, sorry, go into finance and go-to market differently?
- DDDaniel Dines
I think you can, uh, you can plan maybe a bit less aggressively, but more consistently. I think it's better to plan and execute the growth of 30% year over year ra- rather than 80, 60, 30, 20, 10. You know? Because in a way doing such a huge aggressive growth makes you maybe sometimes steal from the future, not knowingly, but you discover in time. It's, I think organic, an organic growth in, in a public market, I think it's, uh, it's better
- 43:47 – 46:26
Thoughts on Founder Mode
- DDDaniel Dines
rewarded.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Paul Graham wrote about founder mode.
- DDDaniel Dines
Mm-hmm.
- HSHarry Stebbings
And the incredible benefits of having founder-led companies. You hired a CEO and then you come back as CEO. What are your reflections on founder mode and the importance of founder-led companies?
- DDDaniel Dines
I think, um, there are stages where founders mode, uh, work better. And, uh, I think I, I under ... when I, when I hired, uh, Rob, who's actually a great guy, but when I hired him, I didn't realize that we were still at the stage where founder mode, I think, is essential. I th- I thought we are at the stage where we are more established and we need, we need, uh, ex- an experience that is stage appropriated for something bigger than us. So I think for $1 billion in revenue company, it's actually, it's, it's not, uh, it's not that established in a way. You need to get to a critical mass. I, I think maybe that critical mass is made.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think that's it? I think the revenue's actually irrelevant. I think what's relevant is the technology cycle. And I think when you see Larry and Sergey, they are back at Google fucking working. Bezos is at Amazon every day again. Everyone is coming back home, because founder-
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah, but Larry and Sergey didn't get back to the CEO job.
- HSHarry Stebbings
No, but they've come back.
- DDDaniel Dines
No. No, I can ... I, I was try ... I, actually I never, I never left the company, okay? So I ran product and engineering directly while Rob was co-CEO and CEO, okay? But it's, um, it's actually-
- HSHarry Stebbings
I almost think that's harder with respect to you, 'cause you're kind of like in-
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah, it-
- HSHarry Stebbings
... and watching someone else run
- NANarrator
Mm-hmm.
- DDDaniel Dines
No, it is. In, in many ways it's harder.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- DDDaniel Dines
It's hard, I know, it's a bit of a dance that people ... maybe I didn't speak enough to him, he didn't speak enough to me, and it could've been, it could've been probably, probably better. But I agree, it's i- in a, in a time when there is such a huge change in technology, I think the CEO baton is so important, because you, you connect instantly product and go-to market and marketing. And this is ... it, it's, it's a powerful, you know, flying wheel that has to
- 46:26 – 48:26
Daniel’s Way To Motivate His Team
- DDDaniel Dines
work.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Both of us are not very good at fluff. I f- I hate empowerment, I hate alignment, I hate all the bullshit corporate words that people use which mean little.
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Um, how do you reenergize a team? How do you say, "Hey," like, oh, oh, oh, you know, kind of Wolf of Wall Street style?
- DDDaniel Dines
My way is to, to speak really very, um, transparent to, to the teams and, uh, "This is where we are guys. And, uh, it's a lot of work ahead of us. We made these mistakes. We have to fix these things. And, uh, it's not easy. It's gonna, it's gonna require a serious, serious work." And maybe there's not a way to energize them, but it's a way to, to make them heard. I think one of the things that as you grow bigger is that people feel smaller and smaller. I don't want ... they ... this is, this is hard. I don't ... I want to work in a company where people have joy, people feel that they are empowered to do things, not in a bullshit alignment. But it's very important that, look, if you wanna, if you wanna make a big change, go and drive a big change, and, uh, and have the voice to fight for it. If you are shut down, then it affects the moral more than the stock price, I think.
- HSHarry Stebbings
But how do you actually do that though? You say, "Hey, go take big bets. I support you."
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah. We are, uh, we are trying to reduce bureaucracy. We are trying to empower the regions to have more in their control. We are trying to get closer to the customer. That was, this is how we build a lot of shit inside, taking cues from the customer up to the product.
- 48:26 – 49:17
Biggest Management Rules Daniel Thinks Are BS
- DDDaniel Dines
- HSHarry Stebbings
Mm-hmm. And what do you think are the biggest rules of management that are most bullshit?
- DDDaniel Dines
People, um, put too much, um, um, importance on being disciplined and, uh, having, you know, regular one-to-ones. I don't believe in one-to-ones with my directs. We have to call each other. If you cannot call me, if you don't have ...... you know, an honest, candid discussion. It's not, it's not gonna work in a one-to-one.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Uh, how many direct reports do you have? You know, Jansen Nick at Revolut, who we had on the show the other day, uh, they've both talked about having, I mean, 45, 50.
- DDDaniel Dines
I think that's a great model to, to, hmm, to have, uh, to have as many as you can handle. I think I have around
- 49:17 – 50:45
Which Part of the CEO Role Daniel Struggles With Most?
- DDDaniel Dines
12.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What do you think about the role of CEO you are not handling well enough today?
- DDDaniel Dines
I have two, two ways of working with people. One, it's very direct, and sometimes might be constructed as, uh, rude and tough. And one which is indirect, when I avoid to, to really tell them what's wrong. And because I, I don't want to necessarily take the bull from the horns. But it's, uh... Actually, what, what I'm telling people that, where we, we, that I work with in a very direct style, that's, that's a se- that's a sign of appreciation. The moment you see that I, I'm, you know, working around, and I'm finding my words, that's not really a good sign.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Have you changed a lot as a leader?
- DDDaniel Dines
Mea, in the essence, no. In, uh, in, uh, in become, in, in understanding better what does it mean to run a company, of course. But in the essence, I have not changed since I was 17, and who am I? And, and really my essence, I have not changed. I would've led this company as a 17 years old, without really the experience to run it, but ma- in the same way, as a, as a person.
- 50:45 – 52:41
The Recent Decision Daniel Wishes He Could Undo or Do
- DDDaniel Dines
- HSHarry Stebbings
When you look back at the last few years, what did you do that you wish you hadn't done?
- DDDaniel Dines
(sighs) Man. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
Look, I cannot point to something really major. Maybe I should... I, I, I hired for experience, and, uh, and I, I should have never done compromise on chemistry for experience.
- HSHarry Stebbings
That's what you did that you maybe shouldn't have done. What did you not do that you should have done?
- DDDaniel Dines
We should have landed into Agentic six months, uh-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Six months earlier.
- DDDaniel Dines
... six months earlier, yes. That, that's for sure. We sh-
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you feel like you're behind?
- DDDaniel Dines
No. No, no, we are not behind. It's, uh, it's very early.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah.
- DDDaniel Dines
It's very early. But we could have, uh, been, uh, even, even faster.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Now, Benioff said on the show that went very viral, they are not hiring any more software engineers.
- DDDaniel Dines
No, we are not hiring as well. We have, uh, repurposed a lot of engineers from products that we de-emphasize into Agentic.
- HSHarry Stebbings
He also said that the existing software engineer cohort have been made so much more efficient from the tools that they're now using, mostly AI tools. How are you seeing efficiency within development teams change internally at UiPath?
- DDDaniel Dines
Look, with all, uh, respect to Salesforce, our technology is much harder to build.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) That's like saying to someone, "With respect, your child's very ugly." (laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
(laughs) In a company like ours, where it's, it's really difficult, what, what we are, uh, building, and it spans many different technologies. We will, we'll get some productivity improvement that I don't think will be gigantic.
- 52:41 – 56:57
How Daniel Balances Gratitude with Ambition?
- DDDaniel Dines
- HSHarry Stebbings
Can I ask one final one, which is a weird one? And it, it's, it's kind of personal too, and it's just kind of advice, which is, um, you know, I, I, I invited you round to mine the other night, and you saw my apartment, and you were like, "Wow, this is really nice." And you're 28, and like, "Great life." And I actually been thinking about that for the last few days, 'cause all I can think is, "Well, it's not as nice as yours," and, "Well, it'd be nicer if there was a bigger kitchen, and it'd be nicer if this, and it'd be nicer if that." And I was walking in the park with, like, one of my oldest friends today, and I felt really guilty for this in my head, 'cause all I can think is, "It'd be nicer when." What, what do you advise me as a friend when you hear that?
- DDDaniel Dines
I've wasted my, uh, late 20s, a big part of my 30s and 40s thinking in this way. And, uh, it's a totally waste of cycles (laughs) and energy, man. I, I was fortunate in life to, to understand what does it mean to have it all, basically. It doesn't fucking matter.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
Everything that matters is here, and it's how we think day by day. Thinking about a, a bigger kitchen will take cycles from reading, understanding world, understanding people, understanding AI. Do... I mean, you're doing f- we, we live in a pretty amazing world, where think about with almost zero capital, you can build amazing stuff. It's fucking incredible. And it, it do- I, I know it doesn't really matter. There is not a single thing that I possess that it's worth spending cycles wanting it. It's... not a single one.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you think this is the best time ever in history to be alive?
- DDDaniel Dines
I'm 100% sure. And it's the best time of my life, actually. I, I feel way better than in my, uh, in my 20s.
- HSHarry Stebbings
How so?
- DDDaniel Dines
I don't know why. Even, even, uh, you know, from a health perspective, from my, my, my mindset, and, uh, and not wanting things, it's so powerful.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you feel freer not wanting things?
- DDDaniel Dines
Yes. You feel free. That's, that's the right word. What I-
- HSHarry Stebbings
When, when did you feel freer?
- DDDaniel Dines
When you have peace and you don't want anything. But not necessarily in the zen type of mood, but in the sense that, well, I wanna do my best, but irrespective of the outcome of my best.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Is that... I, I'm just trying to understand. Is that because the outcome doesn't actually change your life at all, in the nicest way? Like, whatever happens now, uh, you know, if stock price goes down 20% or up 20%, respectfully, you still have everything.
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah, but it... Look, it's gonna affect employee morale. It's, it's, it's... You, you have responsibilities in the, in the world. So, stock price is important. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
Not for my, you know, wealth, for how much money I can spend in this life, but it's important for what we can build, for the talent that we can attract. So, it's... We are part in a much bigger game.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Final one for you before we do a quick fire. My brother is having a baby in a month and I'm trying to offer him words of advice and wisdom from great fathers. What advice would you give to my brother having a baby in a month for the first time?
- DDDaniel Dines
Well, I think the best is to enjoy the ride. And, uh, it starts as very difficult and it's becoming more and more enjoyable with every month that goes and every year that goes on.
- HSHarry Stebbings
I said he could have two weeks off. (laughs)
- DDDaniel Dines
(laughs) Not, not in the first two years. (laughs)
- 56:57 – 1:06:32
Quick-Fire Round
- DDDaniel Dines
- HSHarry Stebbings
Listen, I'm going to do a quick fire. You're gonna give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?
- DDDaniel Dines
Let's try.
- HSHarry Stebbings
So, what do you believe that most around you disbelieve?
- DDDaniel Dines
I believe in some certain lack of discipline, it's, it's very important in order to stimulate creativity.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Where did lack of discipline hurt you?
- DDDaniel Dines
It doesn't. No, lack of discipline actually empowers me. It, it was... That's, that's, that's an essential part of myself. Without that, I would have not created what I did.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What is the single hardest element of being a CEO of UiPath that people don't see?
- DDDaniel Dines
The hardest?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Yeah. Do you find it lonely?
- DDDaniel Dines
Um, the hardest part is to manage the unhappiness of people. Because, look, good news don't, don't go to me, really. They, they are in day-by-day, in their day-by-day jobs and... But everything that is not working well goes up to me. So, I have to deal. But that's not only being CEO of UiPath, it's being basically running any sort of company.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you find it lonely?
- DDDaniel Dines
I am a lonely wolf. I find life pretty lonely, man. So that's not, uh, that's not only about this job. But I, I live mostly in, uh, in, in my head, thinking, analyzing, reflecting. This is what, how I spend my life. So, it's not only about being CEO. Even when I was a software engineer at Microsoft, I felt equally lonely.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you find that hard? Like, I actually find it hard to switch context. Again, I was on this walk this morning talking about it and talking about our conversation the other day. When I go to spend time with family, I find it hard to switch context because I live in my head and then they're talking about TV and the weather.
- DDDaniel Dines
Yeah. It's kind of, it's kind of hard. And I feel I am getting more and more disconnected. It's... Because you know what, why it's hard? The more we get into our stuff, it's, the more it's difficult into providing bits of information. If someone is asking me, "What do you, what have you done today?" I need to tell... I need two hours to give you context of my job and then I can tell you what I did today. So, I don't have these two hours. So, let's talk about TV. It's easier.
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) It, it is strange. I find that hard. Um, there's... I heard this brilliant statement, which is, "The heaviest things in life are not iron or gold, but unmade decisions." The big decisions that weigh on you, essentially. The big decision that weighs on me is, should I have gone to San Francisco when I was 19, built a career there, become friends with Sam Altman and the biggest Silicon Valley founders? Which I could have done. Or was I right to stay here? That's the decision that weighs on me. What decision weighs on you?
- DDDaniel Dines
I think, you know, one is, should I have enjoyed life more? Because I, I didn't have a enjoyable life in the... if you measure it by the, by the nowadays standard.
- HSHarry Stebbings
What does that mean? That you weren't happy doing what you were doing or...?
- DDDaniel Dines
I didn't live, like, a hedonistic life. And for many reasons, not necessarily that I didn't want and I have a fantastic ethic about it, but it just happened that I didn't. So, I had the many years of anxiety. It was hard, you know? And, uh, fighting with myself, fighting, you know, my way. So, I, I am wondering how it would have been to, you know, try to have fun in my 20s, in my 30s. And, um, and even today I still... You know, I can go... I can give up on everything I do and I can just go, you know, for a life of much...... a lot more pleasurable things. But I don't do it, and I feel there is something inside me that are always like no.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Why don't you do it?
- DDDaniel Dines
I don't know. There is something inside me that is... it's, it's a more powerful aspect of myself that tells me, no, this is the right thing to do. And I always did. Man, it was so hard for me to work in Microsoft, especially the last couple of years, because I felt that's... you know, I doing, I'm doing as a compromise for myself just to be capable of building later what I want to build. But I really didn't want to do it. I felt so lonely, so depressed, so far away from the world that I like it. But it was a constant fight within myself because I believed that was the right thing. So, there is a quest for the right thing. That's...
- HSHarry Stebbings
When we see stories like UiPath where it's like zero to, you know, billions and everyone's like, "Wow, wow, fantastic. Zero to billions, that sounds great," there are times when you don't believe. When did you not believe and what got you out of that?
- DDDaniel Dines
No, it's, um... I questioned the success most before actually raising any money. I, I bootstrapped the company for 10 years man. Those 10 years were the most difficult. I think the, the moment I raised some capital and I, I got some people trust in me, something change in my brain and all the fear disappeared. And then it was just, you know... I just went killing it, and it never kind of stopped in a, in a way. Maybe the most terrifying moment was like March 2020 when the... with the onset of COVID when I was thinking maybe, maybe the world is gonna stop. We'll have to basically fire, you know, almost everyone in the company to survive. We were still bleeding money. So, it was... it was very hard moment, but it, it passed really quickly. We realized that actually it's, uh...
- HSHarry Stebbings
How do you deal with moments of intense stress?
- DDDaniel Dines
Look, I have my own sorts of, uh, coping mechanisms. I, um, I like to write poetry. This is a thing that makes me forget a bit the source of stress and it dials into a creativity aspect. Uh, the stress is painful and you, you can put this pain into words. And finding the metaphor somehow alleviate for me this type of pain.
- HSHarry Stebbings
Oh, that's a cultural thing to do. Um, I was gonna (laughs) I was gonna say something else.
- DDDaniel Dines
No. (laughs)
- HSHarry Stebbings
(laughs) Wait, wait, don't put it in the show.
- DDDaniel Dines
What do you do, man?
- HSHarry Stebbings
Do you know what? I write poetry actually. Yeah, no, I don't write poetry. (laughs)
Episode duration: 1:06:42
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