Elias Torres, Co-Founder and CEO @ Agency: What No One Tells You About Selling Your Company

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

March 21, 2025

Duration

1h 11m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Elias Torres is the Co-Founder and CEO of Agency, the AI agent for customer success teams. Prior to Agency, Elias was the Co-Founder of Drift, a company he sold to Vista for $1.2BN Before that he started Performable, which he sold to HubSpot. ---------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 02:54 Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders: How Backgrounds Shape You 11:34 Why are Incumbents Slower than Ever 30:43 Why Was Selling Drift For $1.2BN a Massive Failure 34:01 How to Hire F******* Rockstars 39:58 The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in Hiring 52:33 Everything You Think You Know About Working Parents is Wrong 01:07:27 Quickfire ---------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZ... Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Follow Harry Stebbings on X: / harrystebbings Follow Elias Torres on X: / eliast Follow 20VC on Instagram: / 20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: / 20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/con... ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #eliastorres #Agency #sellingtips #startup #Performable #Drift #HubSpot #moneyloss #coinbase

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Elias Torres

  guest

• Harry Stebbings

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Elias Torres and Harry Stebbings, Elias Torres, Co-Founder and CEO @ Agency: What No One Tells You About Selling Your Company explores immigrant founder on Drift regrets, AI agents, hiring grit, legacy Elias Torres, co-founder of Drift and now CEO of Agency, reflects candidly on why he considers Drift his biggest failure despite a $1.2B exit, and how that experience reshapes his approach to building a lean, durable AI-first company. He argues that incumbents like Google and Microsoft aren’t truly “dancing,” that AI agents will shrink company headcount while massively increasing compute needs, and that B2B software must move from human-operated tools to autonomous systems. Torres dives deep into his extreme hiring philosophy—prioritizing grit, speed, and “high agency”—and his belief in hiring slowly, firing fast, and rejecting ego-driven titles. He also discusses personal themes: growing up poor in Nicaragua, immigrating to the U.S., having kids early, the emotional toll of selling your company, and why he’s now more driven by legacy than money.

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