Monday.com CEO on Is SaaS Dead: Will Everything Be Vibe Coded | Eran Zinman

1. 0:00 – 3:10

   Intro

   1. EZEran Zinman0:00

      Some days I feel like I was ran over by a truck, hit by a plane, and barbecued, and it's just eleven AM. What the market is saying to me is the company is worth zero. Okay, fine. Now I need to build. Screw it. I'm gonna go all in.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:12

      The SaaSpocalypse is real, and no one has felt it more than Monday.com. With close to one point three billion in revenue, they're valued today at just three point nine billion dollars in the public markets. Today, we sit down with Eran Zinman.

   3. EZEran Zinman0:26

      Nobody will wanna buy software. They're not doing the majority of the work for them. We're changing everything. It's the biggest pivot moment for us in the history of the company. The TAM of software, how much companies are gonna spend on software, is gonna be a hundred x from what it is today.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings0:41

      Ready to go? [upbeat music] Eran, it is so good to have you on the show, dude. I have been wanting to do this one for a while, so thank you so much for joining me.

   5. EZEran Zinman1:00

      Thanks for having me, Harry. It's great to be here again.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings1:02

      And by the way, if anyone is listening, you should be watching 'cause Eran looks younger than he did last time. [laughing]

   7. EZEran Zinman1:11

      [laughing]

   8. HSHarry Stebbings1:11

      It's extraordinary the volume that your hair has today, dude. But I wanted to start-

   9. EZEran Zinman1:16

      Thank you.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings1:16

       Um, you're like, "This is not how I expected the show to go." Uh, clearly, we, we are lacking incredible discipline in our research. Um, I wanted to start on communication actually because we see stock price respectfully in the dumps, but actual kind of fundamentals may be different. So what is the stock market not seeing that you think they should be seeing?

   11. EZEran Zinman1:39

       Yeah, so f-first of all, I wanna acknowledge it's, uh, kind of a crazy period, uh, I think for all of us, uh, especially, you know, us, us founders going through this, uh, you know, massive change in the market. Uh, so it's definitely not easy. I'll, I'll, I'll give you that. Uh, definitely, uh, it feels like a rollercoaster, uh, almost every day, you know. Uh, um, you know, some days are extremely difficult, uh, but it's definitely, uh, quite a journey. I think fundamentally we need to distinguish between what happens in businesses, which is one thing, and the sentiment change that happened, I would say in the last year and a half, but more precisely in the last six months, which from my perspective feels, you know, very aggressive, very powerful. Um, you know, on one hand, like if you look at the earning calls and how business operate, everything is, is kinda normal. Uh, some companies have even exceeded expectations, and businesses are working great, but at the same time, the sentiment has shifted drastically, like I've never seen before, uh, as far from... at least from my perspective. Um, and the negativity that now it's been attached to software companies, and it seems like every day there's a new doomsday scenario, a new tweet. Um, so the, the, the sentiment definitely changed. By the way, there's some a lot, a lot of truth to that and, and a lot of things I do understand, uh, from the investor perspective, so I'm not dismissing it. But, uh, definitely we need to distinguish between the operation of businesses and the sentiment change that happened in the

2. 3:10 – 6:30

   Threats Monday Faces Today

   1. EZEran Zinman3:10

      market.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings3:10

      I think a realization that the public markets and a lot of people are having is, wow, if we see agentic evolution in the way that we think it will happen and proliferate, then there are core systems potentially like a Monday, like a Salesforce, which bluntly are never used again and just turn into databases, if anything, which agents crawl on top of. Why does Monday not become a layer that gets abstracted away?

   3. EZEran Zinman3:38

      Yeah. So f-first of all, I think there's like, uh, five doomsday scenarios I'm, I'm familiar with, so that's, uh, one of them. Uh, but, you know, I'll, I'll just take you back a little bit in time. But, uh, first of all, it was everything about, uh, people will vibe code their own apps. That was one of them. Uh, another, uh, um, you know, uh, option for doomsday scenario was that, uh, some players like, you know, Anthropic or OpenAI or Gemini will capture, you know, all the value, uh, from enterprise software. I think that's another scenario people are talking about. And the third one, uh, is maybe what you refer to as, um, you know, um, s- a platform becoming essentially system of records, uh, and then other companies capturing the entire, uh, value, uh, that those companies offer. So, uh, I don't mind going through each one of them if you want. Uh, I can address each, each one of them.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings4:32

      I love the way I suggested one of them, and you're like-

   5. EZEran Zinman4:34

      Yeah

   6. HSHarry Stebbings4:34

      ... "Well, actually, here's three more." [laughing]

   7. EZEran Zinman4:37

      Well, I, I, I can come up with a, a, additional three ones if, if you want. [laughs]

   8. HSHarry Stebbings4:41

      No, dude, I, I, I would love to. Let, let's start on the, the one that's actually, you know, you mentioned at the beginning, vibe coding. I... it was a journalist, actually. I can't remember what-

   9. EZEran Zinman4:49

      Yes

   10. HSHarry Stebbings4:49

       ... American channel it was, CNN, CNBC, or one of the acronyms that, you know, uh, America has, um, where she vibe coded her own Monday in a couple of hours or whatever. Why will people not vibe code their own Monday?

   11. EZEran Zinman5:03

       Yeah. So, uh, first of all, from my, uh, personal ex- uh, perspective, uh, I was after a long day of work, I was about to go to sleep. Uh, suddenly I got a lot of messages on my phone saying that, uh, uh, we were broadcasted live on CNBC and, um, you know, from all the software in the world, that journalist, uh, picked Monday, so, uh, to show, uh, that you can vibe code a software. Uh, obviously, she could pick any software on the planet, but, uh, you know, initially, uh, I said, you know, it's a compliment. Uh, Monday is a beautiful software, so I felt, uh, it was a compliment she, uh, she's done it to Monday. Uh, but at the s-- you know, she could have done it for, uh, Salesforce or ServiceNow or she could even create like a search engine or a social network at the same time. So, um, so again, like it's, it's a matter of perspective, I guess. Going back to the vibe coding, um, theory in general. Look, first of all, I have to say vibe coding is amazing. Uh, I've, I've been coding all my life since I was a kid, andSeeing this amazing technology, uh, become real is unbelievable. Uh, but I think there's a big difference between vibe coding a user interface and building an actual software that works across the organization with all the depth and, and functionality that's built into that. There's a big difference. You know, I, I've been coding all my life, and I know how, you know, relatively easy it is to create an interface and how hard it is to build the software. Uh, so I think there's a big difference, and I think some people might get confused by that.

3. 6:30 – 9:26

   Threat #1: Vibe Coding: Will Companies Vibe Code Everything

   1. EZEran Zinman6:30

      Also, I think that, um-

   2. HSHarry Stebbings6:32

      I completely, I completely, I completely understand that on the enterprise end, but on the consumer and SMB end, for that journalist, for an investor in a fund, does it not just cannibalize your consumer and SMB business?

   3. EZEran Zinman6:47

      Yeah. I, I... Look, I've said e-every, each one of those theories, I think it has some truth to that, but I think it's marginal. I think it's a very small impact, if any. Uh, I think, you know, going back, uh, to the topic itself, think, I think people underestimate how hard it is to maintain software over time. I think it's, it's very easy to create the first increment of a software, but to change it, adopt it over time, uh, it takes a lot of effort and a lot of dedication to do that. And at the end of the day, from my perspective, businesses have a core business operation they need to focus on. If you think about a software today, it's a very small expense for most companies. And, um, you know, having a dedicated person or a team of vibe coding some apps is a huge cost. So I think at the end of the day, vibe coding is amazing technology, but I don't think it's going to disrupt, um, software companies. Um, I'll give you another point of data which I think is relevant. You know, you can see amazing, uh, VCs like yourself and other people in the industry and amazing founders building companies. If you could vibe code, you know, any company and any startup, no company will have value, not in history and not today, and still people invest billions into new companies, new startups, entrepreneurs build new startups. You know, I've, I've read amazing news about Ramp raising at thirty billion, uh, Harvey, Lawora, uh, companies you talked about. You know, you can argue you can vibe code them as well, but still the smartest people-

   4. HSHarry Stebbings8:16

      But, but, but, but, but you couldn't actually. And so when you actually look at like a, a Lawora or a Harvey, they are trained on a huge amount of legal data, which they have gained in the last two years from doing what they do. And so you couldn't vibe code with the same quality output that you could if you were to vibe code Monday as a consumer.

   5. EZEran Zinman8:36

      No. Um, actually, I, I don't think so because at the end of the day, those companies, it's true that over time they accumulate data and information, but I can argue you can probably get the vast majority of the value even without that specific training. So I think at the end of the day, you could argue you can vibe code any company. What I'm trying to say basically is that as much as I think the technology is awesome, we have our own vibe coding capability within the product. From all the theories of how software is gonna be disrupted, this is my least favorite one. I don't think it's gonna happen. And I think, you know, most investors that I speak with and people within the industry don't think that's, uh, what's actually behind what's impacting, uh, stocks and software companies today. So again, it can marginally have some impact, but I don't think that's the majority of what we've seen in the market. Uh, and

4. 9:26 – 12:12

   Threat #2: Will OpenAI and Anthropic Own the Application Layer

   1. EZEran Zinman9:26

      it will become-

   2. HSHarry Stebbings9:27

      I completely agree with you.

   3. EZEran Zinman9:28

      Yeah.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings9:28

      I completely agree with you on enterprise. The idea that enterprises will is a wonderful... Uh, sadly, enterprises don't work like that. Otherwise, I would be much richer if their buying decisions were so much quicker. Um, the, the second one you mentioned was that we're gonna see OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, kind of the model companies move into the application layer. We've seen Anthropic do co-work. We've seen Anthropic do legal. Fuck Dario, he just killed my CrowdStrike over the weekend. Thanks, Dario. Cheers. Um, why, why are they not gonna move into the application layer so much more aggressively?

   5. EZEran Zinman10:05

      Yeah. So, so again, I think there's, uh, obviously some truth to that, and they might capture some of the value, but I, I think people overestimate, uh, how much they're gonna capture. I, I wanna take you back in history. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm old enough to remember when, uh, AWS, uh, built, uh, when Amazon built AWS, and everybody, um, back then said that Amazon is gonna capture all, uh, enterprise software value. Because before that, um, the hardest part about building a company was actually getting the servers up and running, the website working, storage, uh, having like twenty-four-seven availability. That was the hard part. That was the heavy lifting. I remember how people got excited when you got a website online. And when AWS came out and it was so easy now to build a website, everybody said Amazon is gonna capture all the enterprise value because it's just so close to the value they offer. What really happened is the exact opposite. Uh, we saw a boom of companies building on top of Amazon and software became, you know, was growing exponentially. Because at the end of the day, I'm not saying Anthropic or OpenAI are not capable of building enterprise software. I'm saying the opportunity they have a-as being the infrastructure of, you know, the LLMs of the future is so massive. And going after enterprise offering is a whole different business to build. Because at the end of the day, when you sell to companies, it's a different sales process, it's a different mechanism. Uh, nobody's gonna buy software for the entire organization, uh, based on purely PLG play. And the way they're gonna adopt, they wanna be handheld, uh, especially if you wanna use the software across the organization. So I'm not saying people will not use Anthropic and OpenAI. For sure they will. But I don't think they're gonna capture all the enterprise value because they have a much bigger opportunity ahead of them, and it's not their focus. And no company on Earth, with AI or without, can do everythingUh, I don't believe in one player being the, uh, one software to run everything in the organization or at all. So I don't see this, uh, plays out.

5. 12:12 – 17:13

   Threat #3: Will Agents Turn Monday and Salesforce into a Database

   1. HSHarry Stebbings12:12

      I think that's probably the weakest one. I totally agree with you. I-- When you look at OpenAI, or, sorry, Anthropic moving into security, it's a very weak argument to suggest that replaces CrowdStrike or Palo Alto Networks [chuckles] . So I, I completely align with you on that, actually. The third one is, is a tough one, I think, which is like how you embrace an agentic future and does it make you a database and not an interaction platform as well?

   2. EZEran Zinman12:37

      Yeah.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings12:37

      How do you take that one?

   4. EZEran Zinman12:39

      So it's a tough one because it's true. Uh, that's why it's tough because it's true. That's-- I, I believe with that with all my heart. Basically, the way I look at it is that, uh, if you think about it very broadly, software, as we know it, haven't changed for twenty-five years. Um, even before the web, uh, I was building software for, uh, DOS, you know, without interface. Um, same thing. You would build a database, you will create dashboards and analytics on top of it. You might have some automations and workflows, but essentially the value, same from day one. And it's true that interfaces have changed. Uh, people initially built for, you know, so, uh, desktop application on Windows, it moved to the cloud. So there was a major benefit because it became real time. Everybody was seeing the same thing at the same time. Um, mobile came into our life, but if you judge by value, basically the same for twenty-five years. And if you think about it, it doesn't matter if you built a CRM software, um, IT software, work management software, ninety percent of the work was done outside of the tool. So, you know, if you're a salesperson, um, you would make the call outside of the CRM, you build the deck outside the CRM, um, you'll prepare for the call outside the CRM. Eventually, yes, you will track the data into a CRM and your VP of sales will be able to see what's going on. Same goes for IT, same goes for Monday. Uh, you would track your workflows and projects, and you will do everything within Monday, but the work itself was done outside the tool. So if you think about it, software was extremely beneficial. I, I, I can-- cannot imagine the world before software because we take so many things for granted, like everything is centralized, real time, one place, everything is tracked. So we might take it for granted, but it was a major step. But now, going back to your question, AI changed everything. Because now with AI, I, I think we flipped the equation. I think AI can potent-potentially do seventy, eighty percent of the work and not ten, twenty percent like it used to be, uh, before AI was brought into our lives. And I think that changes, um, everything in what companies need to do for their customers, what customers expect from software. Uh, it will only grow over time. Nobody will wanna buy software that not doing the majority of the work for them, uh, 'cause otherwise you're just buying legacy software.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings15:14

      I-- If it's true, where is-- And, and then it does become a database, where is their value in that?

   6. EZEran Zinman15:23

      Well, I think, I think this is, um, in my opinion, where investors in the public market get it wrong. Um, I think, you know, if you judge but-- by what software is, is doing today, you're right. You know, if we don't change, eventually we'll become a database, and nobody will buy Monday to track their work because you will buy software from other vendors that fulfill that promise. But that's not [chuckles] the way it's gonna be played out. Uh, I think, um, you know, I can talk about specifically if you want, but we're, we're changing everything, basically. Uh, I, I think that, you know, going back to what I've said, that I think some of the investors or the public market, um, you know, I totally understand the way it reacted because I, I think what the public market is saying, essentially, we understand that the value is changing and software will be different going forward, but we don't know who will be able to change. And I get it, uh, because it's hard. Change is extremely hard, uh, especially for an existing company. Uh, and the public market is saying, "We don't know, uh, which company will be able to change. There's so many parameters to that, and we're out until we get that confidence." But if I take a step back, I think that, um, you know, software going forward, the TAM of software and how, how much companies are gonna spend on software is gonna be a hundred X for what it is today. Software going forward will be much more valuable going forward. S- uh, software TAM is gonna grow exponentially. And if you combine this with the fact that companies are going to change and gonna capture this value, I think this-- the opportunity in the software market today is like we've never seen before in

6. 17:13 – 22:42

   Why is Monday Adding 15% Headcount When Everyone is Cutting?

   1. EZEran Zinman17:13

      our lives.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings17:14

      So, so we see enterprise spend on technology at eight to twelve percent. It's a varying range on a number of different verticals and kind of variables. What do you think that will be in twenty-thirty? I know it's a hard question, but-

   3. EZEran Zinman17:26

      Yeah.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings17:26

      -guesstimate.

   5. EZEran Zinman17:28

      Look, um, I can give you an example from, from Monday. You know, I've, I've actually done this, uh... I, I've, I've checked it myself. So I think a company like Monday, let's say we have like one billion in expenses. A company like Monday will probably spend, you know, sixty, seventy percent, uh, of the budget on headcount and then seven, eight percent on software. But if we can flip the equation and scale businesses not on headcount going forward, you know, every, uh, CEO, uh, will be gladly increasing the expense on software because it's gonna be marginal compared to the headcount growth.That you plan for your business going forward. And I think this will play out more and more into the future, um, as AI become, uh, more dominant. Companies will spend much more on software and much less on headcount, uh, going forward because they'll just become more efficient, and they'll gladly spend that software spend.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings18:25

      Can I, can, can I ask you though, your analyst day presentation showed twenty percent year-on-year headcount growth in '26.

   7. EZEran Zinman18:33

      Yeah.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings18:35

      Is that not completely paradoxical to what you just said about more spend on technology, agentic usage in organization efficiency when we're increasing headcount by twenty percent?

   9. EZEran Zinman18:46

      Yeah. No, I agree, and I think, uh, I think we need to differentiate between the transition and where we're going. So for us, um, you know, actually we, we brought it down a little bit. Uh, in the last earning call we said it's gonna be, uh, mid-teens. Um, and I think there's also potential, you know, we might even take it lower. I don't know. We'll see. But I, I don't wanna, you know, press the brakes, uh, violently. I think we need to do this responsibly because, uh, there's a transition period. But if you look at the horizon, you know, two, three years-

   10. HSHarry Stebbings19:18

       Can I, can I push you? Wh-why, why not?

   11. EZEran Zinman19:20

       Yeah.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings19:20

       I mean it in a nice way, dude. The stock's in the dumps.

   13. EZEran Zinman19:23

       Yes.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings19:23

       Uh, I just had Seb from Klarna on. I'm, um, we said we'd be honest. You're Israeli, I'm British. [laughing] No, it's, uh... Yeah, it's fine. Um, I, I just had Seb on from Klarna. I mean, dude, he's in the dumps too. Poor chap. I love Seb. Um, but he's like, "We were at seven thousand. We're now at three thousand. By twenty thirty, we're gonna be at two thousand." I mean, I think in a couple of years there's only gonna be Seb at Klarna. Um, why are we not being more aggressive? Fuck it. Now is the time.

   15. EZEran Zinman19:50

       [chuckles] Look, first of all, you know, it's discussions we have in the leadership team, and maybe we'll make other decisions, but I don't think that's the point. I don't think that, uh, you know, if, if we reduce headcount dramatically, it will change, uh, you know, investor perception about Monday. Uh, I di- I just don't think that's the essence of what we're seeing in the market. Going back to what I've said, I think investors don't know, uh, which company, uh, is going to change. And, you know, we just had the earning call two weeks ago, you know, a lot of fun, you know, o- obviously I'm being sarcastic. Um, but, um, you know, go- going back to investors, and I've talked with, you know, all of our major investors, and everybody's saying the same, everybody's saying the same thing. Eventually, what they wanna see, uh, is business' revenue accelerate, and I totally get it because I think what people are saying is this. This is there's huge demand, uh, for AI products, and people wanna buy AI, and, uh, we're gonna have a few years now that companies are lo- gonna look for AI solutions. Given that, uh, we're going to see infinite demand, uh, for AI products, there shouldn't be a demand problem. So you need to show us or prove to us that you can supply, uh, that demand to your customers and new customers, and because of that, we wanna see acceleration of revenue going forward. And they're right. I think that's the best way to prove it because if there's infinite demand and you're able to capture that, no reason for your business not to accelerate, and I think that's our role. Uh, this is exactly what we need to do and prove to ourselves and to our investors going forward, that we are able to accelerate the business, and we are able to capture that AI demand that exists now in the market. And this is, you know, Roy and I'm res- responsibility going forward.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings21:47

       I get you, but like everyone is cutting headcount. To still increase it by mid-teens is still a lot. Is it just like you need the people? I, I still don't understand.

   17. EZEran Zinman21:55

       Yeah, so, so look, the way I look at this is this. I, I'm not, I'm not arguing that companies need to become more efficient, uh, so I'm not dismissing it, and we will become more efficient. I, I'll give you some example of things we're already doing. Uh, first of all, uh, we had a team of about a hundred, a hundred SDRs, uh, and we now doing, doing it with agents. A hundred percent is being done with agents. We moved those SDRs to do outbound. Uh, all of our support is being done with AI. All, all of our developers is using CloudCode and Cursor. So, you know, um, um, I, I, I don't think there's any company that's pushing, uh, AI efficiency, uh, more than we do. We wanna be at the forefront of that, and we're pushing that with all cylinders, and we are becoming more efficient.

7. 22:42 – 29:15

   How Monday is Using AI to be More Efficient

   1. EZEran Zinman22:43

      Um-

   2. HSHarry Stebbings22:43

      I just wanna drill down on that 'cause that's super interesting for me nerdily. When we look at the sales team utilization of AI, when you say, like, we've replaced SDRs, but then you said they're moving to outbound, how are you using AI specifically in the sales team to make the sales team more efficient?

   3. EZEran Zinman22:58

      So basically, uh, a customer today that goes into Monday, when they leave their details on the website, let's say they leave a contact sales form, uh, the way we used to do it before AI was that, um, we had a f- a team that will call back those customers, try to figure out to qualify them, to check the opportunity, uh, and basically qualify them and help them schedule a meeting with a, a, AE, uh, account executive on our team. Uh, so this is all down, done by AI today. So I'll give you some stats. It used to take on average twenty-four hours to get back to a customer. Now it takes three minutes. Um, we used to miss a lot of the calls. People would not answer the calls. Now everything went up. Conversion rate went up. Um, people answering the call went up. Um, um, opportunity to book went up. So all parameters went up. Uh, AI speaks all languages, uh, available twenty-four/seven, so it's been quite an amazing transition.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings23:58

      Love that. Fascinating. You said support also impacted. I'm really intrigued. Do you use an external provider for customer support, or have you built your own? I interviewed, you know, Ariel Cohen from Navan, Jack from Outwallix, and they built their own.How did you think about that?

   5. EZEran Zinman24:15

      So when it comes to the SDR part, we've done it our own. Uh, we built our own solution. Uh, and support, we use some third party, but a lot we do our own as well. I think, um, you still need to highly customize tools today in order to properly enjoy them. And things are moving so fast that, uh, we just felt bu- building our own is probably the right path to take at this point.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings24:37

      Have you seen a shift in the eng team building with cursor to claw code?

   7. EZEran Zinman24:42

      I've seen some of it. Uh, I, I think right now it's a sense of flavor. Um, but, but essentially we're in transition period and, uh, definitely we see increase in output for engineers. By the way, uh, I think part of it is that you find, uh, new bottlenecks, uh, that are not attached to writing code. I think there's a, um, on one hand, we see increase in personal productivity, uh, but again, there's new bottlenecks you find each time you increase one of those, uh, productivities. And, um, basically, we're on a journey to increase more and more the output of our R&D team.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings25:15

      So Sabercorn has said three thousand today, and they would be two thousand by twenty thirty. How many do you have today, and how many people do you think you'll have in twenty thirty?

   9. EZEran Zinman25:25

      So today we have about three thousand people. Um, and, and, uh, gonna be when? Uh, which year?

   10. HSHarry Stebbings25:31

       Twenty thirty.

   11. EZEran Zinman25:33

       Twenty thirty. Wow. [chuckles] My gut feeling is, is probably we're not, um, gonna grow, uh, substantially. But, but look, I think efficiency is important, but I think what's even more important is the opportunity that we have. And I think this is where people are missing the point from my perspective. Because it's true that we can focus a hundred percent on, on efficiency and, you know, reduce headcount, reduce expenses. But going back to my point, this is the biggest opportunity in software ever in our lifetime, the biggest opportunity, uh, that we ever had as a company and as an industry. Okay? This is-- it's like the beginning of the most amazing journey for all of us. So what I wanna do is to capture as much as I can out of this opportunity because it's out there and we can do it. And I think this is where people are getting it wrong. Like, you know, on one hand, I see people excited about private companies because they build, um, tools in the AI era that kinda capture the, what I refer to as doing the work. But I'll tell you a secret, you know, public companies will do it as well. We're gonna do it. Uh, we are already doing that.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings26:47

       The challenge I have is like bolt-on AI strategies, which I'm not delineating between public or private. I'm delineating between scale companies and, and non-scale companies or AI native companies. And I think the bolt-on AI strategy, sorry, I'm being blunt, could be a you, it could be an Airtable, it could be a you name that ilk era of company, um, versus a AI native built from the ground up with AI, is just very different in how you build, integrate, and adopt or approach AI as a, as a kind of fundamental platform, no?

   13. EZEran Zinman27:22

       A hundred percent. And we were the victims of this as well. Uh, you know, going back, um, I'll, I'll share a little bit of our journey. So going back a year and a half ago, um, or even two years a- you know, when Sam, Sam Altman wrote that famous, uh, tweet, "This is ChatGPT, you can play with it." Um, I remember that tweet. You know, I'll, I'll give you the kind of the relationship that we had with AI. So initially, you know, I was excited. I, I'm, I'm excited about every new technology. I'm, I'm also a person who like to try things in my own hands, and we played with it, and it was amazing. Um, but we didn't get it, to be honest. Like the, the... I, I think most of us didn't get it. Uh, maybe some of us got it, but so... And, and, you know, initially also the investors, they didn't know, you know, what it means. And we heard from investors, you know, "It's cool. There's hype around it, but we don't know." Um, but something changed about, I would say a year ago. I don't know what it was, to be honest. Like, it's not like one tweet that I've seen or one product. I feel it was, um, you know, combining meta- many data points, but I think with a, a collective understanding that things are changing and things are changing forever. And this is where you started to see the change in the market sentiment, and like I felt like a light bulb moment at that point. And before that, we've done a lot of things. Like it's not that we didn't do things, but we built some AI features. But like you said, I call it, uh, we spr- spr- sprinkled some AI dust on top of our product. So essentially, we didn't know what to build. So we built, uh, a way for people to be- build, um, formulas using AI. We built AI blocks, AI columns, but essentially, it, it was, uh, sugarcoating our product because the value haven't changed. The value was the same.

8. 29:15 – 36:25

   What Happens to Seat Pricing? What Comes Next?

   1. HSHarry Stebbings29:15

      How do we solve the problem of seats, Eran? Uh, you know, we, we've lived in, you know, I'm showing my age obviously, but we've lived in a, a seat-based SaaS economy where we sell seats, and that's fantastic when headcount scale as they always have done and people renew. But in a world where headcount is reducing, where efficiency is increasing and we're moving away from seats, what do we do when our core pricing dynamic goes away?

   2. EZEran Zinman29:40

      Yeah. So, so, so look, g- going back to, uh, the transition, like I said, initially, it was the AI dust that we sprinkle in the product, but then we realized, you know, what I've said is that the value we need to give to our customers, uh, not just us, every software is completely different. So what we've done internally is to rethink what we are doing as a company, what's the value we try to provide to our customers with Monday work management platform and also with CRM and service, and rethink our whole product. Part of it is pricing, like you said. That's gonna change dramatically. Our go-to-market is gonna change, our homepage is gonna change, the ads are gonna change, and the most important partWhat our, what our product is giving to our-- the value it gives to our customers is now going through the biggest transformation since we launched the company back in twenty thirteen. It's the biggest-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings30:29

      Can I, can I-

   4. EZEran Zinman30:29

      -pivot moment for us, uh, in the history of the company.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings30:32

      Can I push you on the pricing? It's gonna change. What does it change to?

   6. EZEran Zinman30:36

      Well, eventually, I think, uh, it's gonna be more consumption, uh, and then entirely consumption going forward. So I think this also be a transition, but now it's, um, gonna be hybrid, then eventually it's gonna be a hundred percent consumption.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings30:51

      Got you. Totally. How do you feel navigating that transition?

   8. EZEran Zinman30:56

      So, so maybe I'll just explain the transition that we're doing, uh, just to make it, uh, more concrete. So ba-basically, companies wanna adopt AI and, uh, they're gonna adopt vertical tools to do that like the, you know, the SDR example I gave you. Maybe another example for support, um, for legal. There's a lot of vertical solutions people are gonna adopt, but I think there's a big room, uh, for horizontal plays, and this is exactly what we're gonna do with Monday. So basically, we wanna be a place that orchestrate between agents and humans, because at the end of the day, um, you know, maybe in the far future, agents will do a hundred percent of the work. Uh, I don't think it's gonna happen, but maybe it will happen to some extent. But we're gonna have a, you know, a huge tr-transition period where humans and agents need to work together, and we wanna make Monday the default place for people to build agents and c- to collaborate between agents and people. So essentially, you'll build Monday-- or you build agent on the top of Monday. Those agents will output tables, docs, files. People will go over it to build their own agents, and essentially we wanna become the default place to do horizontal agents across the company.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings32:04

      Do you think you're best placed to do that, though? Everyone wants to do that. Anthropic wanna do that. ChatGPT wanna do that. Going back to that one, actually, they, they do wanna do that, and that's right in their wheelhouse. Um, but why are we best placed to do it?

   10. EZEran Zinman32:20

       So first of all, I don't think that ChatGPT or Gemini or Anthropic are gonna do it because going back to my, uh, the second theory that we ta-- discussed, you know, of course, you know, people are buying Anthropic, uh, Claude, they're, they're buying ChatGPT, but, uh, it's not a tool where y- you work with another thousand people and share information. It's a personal tool that people use. There's a big difference between selling a tool that be-- can be used personally and building a tool for people to collaborate with agents. It's a d-- very different product.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings32:51

       If you look at OpenClau and what Peter's done and what he's doing joining the team at OpenAI, and then you look at their movement into enterprise and Anthropic's focus on enterprise, again, critics would push back and say, "That's just not true."

   12. EZEran Zinman33:04

       Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll explain again. I think, you know, a company today that wanna adopt AI, they have no idea what they need to do. No idea. It's a new technology. Uh, you know, I, I think we live in a echo chamber of, uh, tech, but the world out there is very different. And I think essentially companies will wanna buy AI. Uh, they will do whatever they need in order to buy AI capabilities, because it's gonna be a competitive market, and if they won't do it, they won't survive. But I think they will need-

   13. HSHarry Stebbings33:32

       Do you not think that's where-- Do you not think that's where ChatGPT's brand wins? Which is like, you know, fundamentally the brand of ChatGPT is so strong that they are signing enterprise contracts with a velocity we haven't seen before because of that brand. Anthropic are too. But again, I go back, and as a Monday holder, do we not need to jack the shit out of our enterprise brand because otherwise they are gonna eat the momentum on the enterprise side.

   14. EZEran Zinman33:57

       So, so I think we need to differentiate what e- enterprise contract means, okay? So the fact that ChatGPT or Gemini or Anthropic are selling a contract that a thousand people, let's say, within Monday can use Anthropic, it's, it's great, but that's not the product I'm talking about, okay? That's-- it's like, um, comparing Microsoft Office with Monday. It's not the same thing. There's tools that people use individually, which is great. Personal productivity tools, building agents, but then there's, there's the actual work. It's like claiming that, you know, there's no need for SDR software because you, you bought Anthropic. It's a different problem to solve. So I think the problem of solving how people and agents are working toge-together in one workspace, if it is a very different product, is a very different problem. I think companies will want guidance on how to do that. They're gonna need help setting up agents, figuring out what they can automate, uh, with agents and what they can replace in terms of, um, headcount. And this is not by buying off-the-shelf product, um, that is a generic product. You will need a product that can help you collaborate between humans and agents if it's a very different, uh, product compared to just buying a license to LLM. And I think eventually, if you look at Anthropic, OpenAI and Gemini, they have a much bigger opportunity they wanna chase. They wanna be the backbone of the LLM industry. They wanna capture as much as they can in terms of that market share, and I get it. It's a huge opportunity. Uh, again, going back to my AWS comparison, they are the infrastructure, uh, but there's gonna be a lot of products built on top of that. I think if anything, we're gonna see, uh, an excess of software being built on top of the LLMs, not less, exponentially more, uh, because the opportunity is so massive and the TAM is so huge. Going back to Monday, we're going all in for that. We're changing the product, the value proposition, how people use the product, how people onboard, and what people should expect from the product. If you haven't built an agent on Monday, you're not using the product properly, and that's a major shift. The boards, the dashboards are gonna be more in the background and the agents more in the forefront. And it's a, it's a huge change. It's a scary change, but I believe in that with all my heart because I think the opportunity is massive. We're at zero point zero zero one percent done of where the world is going.

9. 36:25 – 39:42

   What No One Sees About Enterprise AI Adoption

   1. HSHarry Stebbings36:25

      Do you think we overestimate the speed of adoption for enterprise AI usage, or do you think actually we're at a tipping point and it will tip much faster than we think?

   2. EZEran Zinman36:34

      I think technology is moving fast. I think organization's gonna take more time.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings36:39

      Mm.

   4. EZEran Zinman36:39

      You know, what is AI adoption? It's, it's-- there's so much nuance to that. There's so many th- Look, at the end of the day, I, I think, I think what people are confusing is, you know, AI can get super smart, and we've seen it grown exponentially.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings36:55

      Mm.

   6. EZEran Zinman36:55

      But no matter how smart you are, if you don't have context, you cannot perform your job. You know, even the most intelligent person on Earth cannot do their job if they don't-- are not aware of the context. And if you think about any company, even Monday itself, ninety percent of the context is not documented anywhere. Nobody knows it. You know, it's something that kind of floats in the air. You know, what's the idea? What's the strategy? Who's doing what? What's next month? What's next year? How we gonna do it? Why are we doing what we're doing? What's the th-thought process behind it? So I think we're gonna see a transition period before all that information and knowledge, uh, and intelligence is gonna be documented, which might happen in the future. I think we have a huge transition period of people working with agents. I think you can see some small companies and, you know, I've been following Jason Lemkin and what he's doing on your own-- his own team. Um, you know I'm a big fan of Jason. Um [laughs]

   7. HSHarry Stebbings37:53

      Dude, I, you, you, you know the joke I say with Jason is the best venture fund of the last decade was Jason Lemkin's unresponded inbox.

   8. EZEran Zinman38:01

      [laughs]

   9. HSHarry Stebbings38:01

      Because every great founder sent him an email being like, "Please invest," and he just didn't get back to them. [laughs]

   10. EZEran Zinman38:08

       I, I, I, I always joke with, uh, Jason that, um, uh, we have like a one-sided relationship where I, I listen to every word he says, and he's, he's my mentor, but he's not aware of it. So it's like, uh [laughs]

   11. HSHarry Stebbings38:21

       Dude, dude, I, I do a show with, I do a show with him every week, and he is my mentor, and he is aware of it.

   12. EZEran Zinman38:26

       [laughs]

   13. HSHarry Stebbings38:26

       Um, but he's such a good dude.

   14. EZEran Zinman38:27

       So, so, so, so, so-

   15. HSHarry Stebbings38:28

       He is so rad. He is so into it, it's insane.

   16. EZEran Zinman38:32

       I know. But look, at the end of the day, um, I think, uh, you know, a small team like Jason's team, and Jason is very, um, um, forward-leaning, uh, can replace everything they do with AI. But for an existing company in business, it's gonna be more of a transition over many years. And we need to remember that most economy, you know, ninety-five percent of economy is, is not software companies, it's actual businesses. So, uh, going back to my point, we're gonna see a transition period of companies adopting AI, AI working with humans, humans collaborate with agents. It's a massive opportunity, and I, I don't think OpenAI or Anthropic or Gemini are gonna go for that because it's such a different sales process, enterprise sales, top-down, a different, uh, uh, tool use, and we're gonna go all in for that opportunity because our advantage is that we are the best platform for people to working together a-across the organization. So we're gonna take that part of the business and add the agents on top of it and change the value in what people do with the product, and I believe it's gonna be massive going forward.

10. 39:42 – 43:48

    How Google AI Overview Smashed 10% of our Customer Acquisition

    1. HSHarry Stebbings39:42

       If we shift a little from enterprise down to kind of-- well, it can still be, but more SMB and consumer, one thing that Monday has done unbelievably well, and we spoke about it last time, was the customer acquisition machine you've built on SEO, content, YouTube. It's been phenomenally successful. How do you think about critics who say that customer acquisition engine is completely changing in a world of GEO or, you know, LLM discovery, um, in a changing content world? How does customer acquisition channels, funnels change?

    2. EZEran Zinman40:14

       Yeah. So I think going back to my, um, uh, o-original opening where I said that, uh, there's the sentiment change, but businesses are unaffected. So we were affected, uh, by o- by one thing, uh, which is, uh, Google introducing AI mode in the search results. So Google used to be a significant, um, acquisition channel for us, and definitely it took a hit in terms of people clicking on sponsored links because people see the AI answers. Um, so definitely, um-

    3. HSHarry Stebbings40:45

       When you said it took a, when you said it took a hit, how, how much of a hit? I'm sorry, I'm really naive here. Like a ten percent, a twen- a thirty percent, a fifty percent? Broad strokes.

    4. EZEran Zinman40:53

       It, it was about ten percent of our acquisition, um, in terms of new ARR. Um, but again, Google is very transactional, so people usually, when they're searching for something, they're, um, willing to buy at this point because the intent is very high. So we lost some of the more transactional deals, uh, more SMB oriented, uh, and we shifted that budget to other channels, but they're kind of longer sales cycles. So we definitely took a hit because of that. But apart from that, um, w-we have seventy other channels that we acquire customers from, and we didn't see any impact on other channels. So it was a significant impact, uh, but from my perspective, it's isolated to that.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings41:33

       Can I ask a hard one? If we are the work platform between agents and humans, and we have this grand vision and it's the most exciting time ever, why have you not bought any of your own shares back?

    6. EZEran Zinman41:45

       Uh, well, we are. Uh, we announced a buyback program of eight hundred and seventy million, uh, and we said we're gonna spend it, um, over the la- next, uh, two, three years. Uh, we already, um, done some buyback in, uh, Q4. Uh, and, you know, we said that, uh, w- if we're gonna see opportunities, we're gonna buy back our shares. Um, and definitely there's opportunities right now. So, uh, we are looking into that, and we do have a buyback program.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings42:12

       What about you personally, dude? We saw ServiceNow CEO spend three million bucks, and that was revealed to be less than his car collection.

    8. EZEran Zinman42:20

       [laughs]

    9. HSHarry Stebbings42:20

       Which was a rather annoying title for an article, I have to admit. I saw it and I felt sorry for him. I was also really intrigued to see the cars, which they didn't show. Um, why not buy it back personally?

    10. EZEran Zinman42:33

        Yeah. So first of all, um, I'm on a ten-by-five program, so basically I have to, uh, six months in advance, uh, make a six months plan ahead. So I'm not saying I won't. When the plans open up, uh, I might, uh, buy more shares personally. Again, it's something I need to decide with my wife, you know, it's not a personal, uh, decision for me. Uh, but definitely it's opportunity. Uh, but I can share another thing is that, um, you know, not myself or my partner Roy or the rest of the leadership team is selling shares. I... In my ten-by-five, I've, um, you know, a number I'm not willing to go below in terms of sh-selling shares, and I can say the price now is much, much lower, uh, than that number. So I'm not selling any shares personally. And, um, maybe I'll share another thing because it's public information. You know, since the IPO, I still hold, again, I don't know the exact number, but probably eighty something percent of my shares. So I sold less than twenty percent, uh, fourteen years in this journey. So I, I don't think I need to prove more that I have, like, all my skin is in the game [chuckles] , you know, I'm, I'm a hundred percent in. I believe in the future of the company and, um, I think the, the, um, you know, as I said, it's one of the biggest opportunity that we ever had as a company.

11. 43:48 – 47:59

    How to Manage Internal Morale When Stock is Down 60%

    1. HSHarry Stebbings43:48

       Can I ask you from a, like, personal perspective-

    2. EZEran Zinman43:51

       Mm-hmm

    3. HSHarry Stebbings43:51

       ... or leadership perspective, when you have a challenging period like this, what do you know now about how to galvanize a team when a stock price is so impacted? And of course, people look at it every day and look at their net worths.

    4. EZEran Zinman44:07

       Yeah. Look, uh, it's, it's been a rollercoaster. Uh, it's been hard, you know, emotionally, um, everything, uh, in the last few months. I, I can share that, um, you know, uh, it's still fresh, but, you know, the last earning call, the stock went down to seventy, um, uh, dollars. You know, obviously when the stock is going down, and, and I've seen all the earning calls before Monday and after Monday, I, I felt like no matter what companies are gonna announce, uh, the stock is gonna go down twenty percent. So I was not optimistic. I was not sure what's pricing and what's not, but it is what it is. I get it. The sentiment is so negative and-

    5. HSHarry Stebbings44:43

       How do you feel going in when you know that you're gonna get pummeled?

    6. EZEran Zinman44:48

       Yeah.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings44:48

       Are you like, "Fuck it, you know what? There's nothing I can do."

    8. EZEran Zinman44:50

       [laughs]

    9. HSHarry Stebbings44:51

       Are you like, "Oh God, I'm dreading this. Oh, no"?

    10. EZEran Zinman44:54

        So it's, it's... Look, I didn't know what to expect and, and overall, I'm not trying-- I'm, I'm trying not to make the stock price to manage, you know, my decision-making process, but I look at it, it's, it's, you cannot ignore it. Like, it has a psychological impact for sure, and definitely it's not easy or fun when you go up and talk with analysts and investors and, you know, nobody's happy. Uh, again, I don't think we're unique because, you know, ServiceNow is down fifty percent, Salesforce is down sixty percent, so you know, I, I, but it's not, it's not helpful, you know? So I understand, you know, there's things I can control, there's things I cannot control. I cannot control the negative sentiment in the market. What I can control is what can we do about it. So I'm trying to focus on the things I can control. Going back to the earning call on Monday, the stock went down. Uh, I can share that, um, you know, I obviously, you know, lost some sleep over it. [chuckles] I woke up three AM thinking about it. Tuesday, woke up two AM, didn't fall back asleep. But, um, you know, when I woke up Wednesday and the stock was seventy, and I had like a, a feeling of, uh, relief, you know, to be honest, because, um, I said, "Okay, you know, it's seventy represent, let's say three point seven market cap." We had like, um, I don't remember the exact number, but roughly, let's say one point five billion in the bank cash, no debt, so the enterprise value is two billion. We have like, again, I don't wanna disclose specific number, let's say over one point three billion of ARR, so it's like one point five multiple. So I felt like, okay, like what the market is saying to me is like, uh, again, air quotes, like the company is worth zero. Okay, fine. You know, it's now I need to build, I need to prove, and suddenly I felt, you know, relieved because I'll do everything needed in order to do... to make the company successful. Like, it can't get any worse. Yeah, the stock can go down, but I feel this is like the lowest sentiment, uh, that software company's ever had. So yeah, it can get lower, but, you know, to be honest, like it's, it's pretty low right now. [laughs]

    11. HSHarry Stebbings47:13

        [laughs] No, no, dude, I, I, I love you, and we get on well. You know, my, again, the fan channel goes, you know, 'cause I, I, I obviously I'm an, um, a Monday holder, he's like, "Dude, the thing about Monday, I thought there was a flaw. I was wrong." [laughs]

    12. EZEran Zinman47:27

        Yeah. Look, it, it, I'm not saying it cannot go down. Obviously, everybody, every, every day there's a new tweet, and all the stock is going down seven percent. I cannot control it, but what I feel now, you know, screw it. I'm go- gonna go all in. I'm gonna go all in on, both Roy and myself and the management team. This is the biggest opportunity. There's only upside to where we at. We're gonna take the risks. We're gonna go all in. We're gonna take and do whatever is necessary to win, and I'm extremely motivated for that.

12. 47:59 – 51:48

    Do Private Companies Have Advantages Public Companies Do Not Have

    1. HSHarry Stebbings47:59

       Do you think private competitors have an advantage on you that you don't have because you're public? If you look at Stripe and Adyen, I think Stripe have an inherent advantage in being private that Adyen don't have because they're public in what they can do, how aggressive they can be, how they approach product, you name it. Do you think that's the case here?

    2. EZEran Zinman48:21

       I think the opposite.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings48:23

       Mm.

    4. EZEran Zinman48:23

       The opposite because if you kinda relate to what I've said, you know, I, I feel like I was kicked in the ass so many times by now that, okay, I get it, and I feel when, when you're private, you know, you, you can try and, and ignore what's going on and even say, you know, everything is okay. But for meYou know, I get it. And, and I don't blame the investors. I think investors are super s-sophisticated, and it's, it's an amazing market. And I feel what the investors are saying, I got the message, you know. Uh, I got the message, and they're right. Um, they don't know who's gonna be successful. But I think this is where they get it wrong because I feel if you... Uh, uh, basically, I think what I'm trying to say, uh, Harry, throughout our conversation is, are you playing defense or are you playing offense? And I think every, every day I go on Twitter, and I read what people are saying, and everybody's publishing an article. You know, this company has more robust system of records. This company has a mode. This company is enterprise. Who cares? Who cares? Y- what are you arguing? Who's gonna change last? Who have more time? I'm saying the opposite. This is the biggest opportunity. Everybody has to change. Everybody has to change. The faster you change, the better. And I think some c- some company, companies will not be able to change because, I don't know, the founders are not there, because it's hard, because the DNA is not there, because it's a hundred thousand people company, because they're not sure where they're going, because they don't have a culture of execution. My confidence come from the culture we built, the fact we always were great ex-execution, the fact that once we make a decision, we're gonna go all in. We have everything needed. We have the cash, we have the talent, we have the execution. We know what we need to build. That gives me a lot of confidence, the people in the company and our mission. So I think, you know, if you're, if you're playing defense, good for you. I feel for us, it's an opportunity to play offense and do whatever we need in or- in order to win. And this gives me a lot of confidence because I'm building the future.

    5. HSHarry Stebbings50:36

       Can I ask you, you said that you have a billion and a half, and it's, you know, three point seven or whatever it was. There comes a time when actually it's j- it's just too low, it's mispriced. And at that point, again, I have many public market friends now, they are going, "Fuck this. I wanna take it private. This makes no sense anymore. It is, it is strategically wrong." Would you like to take it private?

    6. EZEran Zinman50:59

       No.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings51:00

       Why not?

    8. EZEran Zinman51:00

       I don't see a reason. No. We-- Look, I, I think at the end of the day, you know, you can be private, you can be public. The question is, do you need to raise more money? And we don't.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings51:09

       Mm.

    10. EZEran Zinman51:10

        Uh, we generate, uh, twenty-seven percent of free cash flow. We don't need to raise more money. Uh, we have everything we need going forward. If anything, we'll become more efficient. Um, I see the retention rate highest ever, gross retention highest ever. We're still acquiring a lot of customers. So I'm very confident about the business, and I think this is where people don't understand that the businesses are working good. And things might change, but, you know, nothing is more sticky than a SaaS product. So I definitely-- I'm not worried about, um, you know, operationally, and we are changing, um, you know, as we speak. So we don't need to raise more money and no need-- reason to go private, and we can stay

13. 51:48 – 59:34

    With $1.5BN in Cash, Why is Eran Not Buying More Companies…

    1. EZEran Zinman51:48

       public.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings51:48

       You said about a billion and a half in cash. What a wonderful luxury that is also that not many have. What would you like to buy that you haven't bought? From an M&A perspective, why are we not being more aggressive?

    3. EZEran Zinman52:01

       Yeah. So look, w-we are looking into companies, and, uh, we also met a few that we were close to acquiring. Uh, but look, at the end of the day, um, this is, this is not how we're gonna win. You know, i-if I need to bet the whole company future on an acquisition of a startup, I'm not doing my job as a CEO. You know, uh, look, there's-- the problem now with private companies is that we have the opposite, um, valuation between private and public. You know, if Monday.com is valued at three point seven, every startup in the private market with five million of ARR is now being valued at two billion, you know? So yeah, I can buy it with partially cash, but I'll need to use my stock as well. So I don't have a lot of opportunity buying, you know, a few billions, uh, worth of, of a private company. Uh, it's not gonna play out. And, and again, like, I feel we have everything we need in order to execute. So I think, you know, it's a cycle. It's a cycle for public companies. It's also gonna be a cycle for private companies. Um, now there's a lot of money in the private companies, uh, in private investors, but it, you know, it's a cycle. Uh, at some point, the investor is gonna see the same company twenty times a month, and LPs is, is, is not gonna pour a lot of money. And I get it. I've, I've been in cycles before.

    4. HSHarry Stebbings53:17

       Are you in CEO groups, WhatsApp groups?

    5. EZEran Zinman53:21

       Um, not WhatsApp group, but, uh, I have a few CEOs I consult with, yeah.

    6. HSHarry Stebbings53:26

       What do they say? Are you guys all just going, "What the fuck" together?

    7. EZEran Zinman53:30

       [laughs] Uh, not really. Uh.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings53:34

       [laughs]

    9. EZEran Zinman53:34

       You know, the, the problem with other CEOs is, uh, people don't expose their emotions too much. I'll say that. Uh, but, uh, I, I, I think, uh, people feel resilient. I think we give each other confidence. I think some CEOs are, I wouldn't say ignoring the problem, but don't understand the magnitude of what needs to change. And I think some are more, are more kinda advanced in how they think about it and understand the magnitude of what needs to be changed. Again, my, my confidence is, is coming from doing and changing. So that's g- that gives me a lot of confidence going forward. Uh, so I don't need anybody to kinda pat my back. And I got Troy, my partner, and the rest of the leadership team, and we feel very confident on where we're going.

    10. HSHarry Stebbings54:17

        Can I ask you personally from like a, a marriage and from a personal perspective, it is hard what you're going through, and I don't think a lot of people like quite realize the emotional and personal toll that it takes. Getting on a show like this with me even after everything that you go through is intense. And I remember Seb from Klarna saying he does shows, interviews, and he did one that was so fucking hard, and they just shit on him, shit on him, shit on him. And he got in his car, and he played Queen under pressure.And he just like sang full pitch under pressure and like he always thinks to that moment. Like from a personal perspective, I... What are the things that get you through the really hard times?

    11. EZEran Zinman55:00

        So, so first of all, I wanna acknowledge it's, it's hard, okay? Like, uh, it, it's hard and, you know, I told somebody, someone the, the other day that, uh, some days I feel like, um, I was ran over by a truck, hit by a plane, and, and barbecued, and it's, it's just, uh, eleven AM, you know? [laughs]

    12. HSHarry Stebbings55:20

        [laughs]

    13. EZEran Zinman55:21

        So, so definitely there's, there's days like that. Um, but, but I, I, I must say that, uh, I feel very good now, uh, and I feel we're doing the right things. I'll tell you, I'll give you, I'll say two things that really help me. So, so one, uh, is the people in the company. That, that's something that's very significant to me because, you know, once we tell them what we're doing and, and focus on doing an execution, I could see in their eyes, like although it's scary and we're changing a lot of things, and we're taking big bets, I can s- tell in their eyes that they're excited, that they appreciate we don't ignore the problems, that we don't say everything is okay. We are changing. We are adapting for the future. And people are working incredibly hard. They're dedicated from the bottom of their hearts, and that one gives me a lot of confidence. And the second thing, and I don't wanna get too emotional, is, is my family. My wife and, uh, my kids, uh, super significant.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings56:20

        Yeah. I, I'm sure. I c- I remember when I... I had a hard time fundraising years ago, and I remember crying in the middle of Leicester Square-

    15. EZEran Zinman56:30

        [laughs]

    16. HSHarry Stebbings56:31

        ... on, on the phone to my mother. And, you know, I was expecting this loving response from my mother. She's very sweet. And she goes, "Harry, I did not give birth to a fucking loser." [laughs]

    17. EZEran Zinman56:43

        [laughs] That's hard.

    18. HSHarry Stebbings56:44

        And I was like, "Oh, shit." She's like, "You know what? Wake up tomorrow and tomorrow is another day. You've got this."

    19. EZEran Zinman56:51

        Yeah.

    20. HSHarry Stebbings56:51

        And I think whatever it is, there is something about your family in that moment that just gets you through it. And so I, I totally get that. And, um, yeah.

    21. EZEran Zinman57:02

        Yeah. And, and, and, and, uh, you know, also my extended family, my parents, uh, my sisters, like, I feel I have like a network or support. And, you know, at, at, at the end of the day, what I really care about, you asked me about my personal wealth, I don't care. I don't care. I just want the company to be successful. I feel immense sense of responsibility for the future of the company, for the employees, for the investors, um, for everybody that's part of that ride, and I wanna, uh, do whatever it takes, uh, to capture this opportunity. And I wanna play offense. I think that's the point. At the end of the day, as I said, going back to the... I, I, I think there's so much noise, and I think just listening to the noise is the wrong thing to do as a leader and as a CEO. Noise is Twitter, another article, even public market, but I, I wanna focus on the essence. For me, the essence is very simple. It's the biggest opportunity of our lifetime in terms of software. We need to change, and we are changing, and because of that, I'm confident we're doing the right things. And this is what in, in my control. I will do whatever is necessary. So this is the essence, and this is what we're doing, and that gives me a lot of confidence going forward.

    22. HSHarry Stebbings58:19

        There, there's a kind of content creator influence or whatever. I'm quite into these kind of k- uh, inspirational speakers. It's got Alex Hormozi, and he says, you know, "Whenever I'm going through a hard time, I think, you know, the harder the challenge, the greater the story that comes out of it." And this is the story that you will one day tell your kids. [laughs]

    23. EZEran Zinman58:37

        Yeah.

    24. HSHarry Stebbings58:38

        And, uh-

    25. EZEran Zinman58:38

        I'll, I'll tell you how I look at it. I got the front seat in probably the, one of the most exciting period in human history, the birth of intelligence, and I can navigate this ship, and it's amazing. It's such a great opportunity. I think everything is life. Is, is it a, a, a glass half full or half empty? I can look at it and say, "Oh, you know, like I was on a path and everything was great and we built this great company," and so on. But the way I look at this today is maybe this is our big- biggest opportunity as a company. Maybe we waited for that moment, and if we do the right things, we can reaccelerate the company and even grow much larger than what we could have become as a company. So I, I, I hold into that, and that gives me a lot of confidence. And if you ask me today how I feel, I feel great because, as I told you, we hit the bottom or maybe close to the bottom, and from here we can only grow and focus on execution. And this is exactly

14. 59:34 – 1:03:52

    What is the Most Offensive Bet Eran Would Like to Take?

    1. EZEran Zinman59:34

       what we do.

    2. HSHarry Stebbings59:34

       You said about kind of this is time for offensive. Before we do a quick fire, if I were to ask you like what's your most batshit crazy offensive move that I'm sure is totally unrealistic, but you would like to do? So like for me, I look at it as a load of companies like you, Duo, and a load of others where I'm like crazily mispriced assets, clearly brilliant companies. Let's roll up and buy in a really aggressive, "I wanna raise a hundred billion dollars and do this." It's a batshit crazy offensive idea. What would you say is yours?

    3. EZEran Zinman1:00:07

       So basically, our strategy is, um, is twofold. One, in terms of our horizontal platform, we're going all in, agents and humans working together. We're shifting the product a hundred percent, the pricing, the go-to-market, the product. We have two vertical offerings, the CRM and service. Uh, for that, we're building those product from scratch, being a hundred percent agentic. So basically going full in on that opportunity. The way I look at this today, service dominated by ServiceNow, CRM dominated by Salesforce is open market today. I, I believe in their ability to change, but they need to prove it. I wanna go all in. I think we made this choice to go for CRM and service back in the days where we have crazy competition. Now, I feel the, theUm, you know, play field is leveled and there's opportunity. So we, we have one big horizontal bet, two vertical bets with service and CRM, and we're going all in on all three, and I'm very confident about that. So I think it's a big bet, and we'll do whatever is necessary to capture that opportunity. And I-

    4. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:14

       Who is a harder, who, who is a harder competitor, HubSpot or Salesforce?

    5. EZEran Zinman1:01:19

       Again, the question is who's, who's gonna be able to change? That's the most important factor for me because at the end of the day, it's not what they built, but how can they change? And I think going back to my point about public market, I think this is where companies are mispriced. Everybody's priced now on the downside, but again, it's because of lack of, of information, not because, not because the market is not sophisticated enough. 'Cause you don't know. You know, you don't know who's gonna be able to change. But I'm confident we will change. There's a lot of questions how, and there's a lot of risks to it, but we're gonna change and the question is who else is gonna change and who else is gonna change successfully and responsibly?

    6. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:59

       Who do you think will change more effectively, HubSpot or Salesforce?

    7. EZEran Zinman1:02:03

       Look, I think, um, being in a bigger company is harder because it's hard to move humans. That's the hardest part. I think people think enterprise is a bene- is a benefit. Maybe SMBs is better because SMBs are more open to adopting new technologies. When you play defense, some of those things might look as disadvantages, selling to SMBs or being a smaller companies. If you play offense, those disadvantage might become advantage because those customers might be sooner to adopt technology and will buy those products before enterprise will buy. So, um, I don't know, to be honest, and it's, it's for them to prove. Uh, you know, I, I, I will never underestimate each one of those companies because they've built incredible things. I think in general, I think investors underestimate incumbents' ability to change, their willingness to change, their motivation to change. Um, you know, private companies are great, but you know, those companies reach where they reached because of multiple things and they're very successful companies and I think the cycle is gonna shift once, um, you know, like fungus after the rain, you're gonna see another public company change and accelerate, another one accelerate, and then investors are gonna say, "Hmm, you know, it happens, so let's rethink whose else is gonna change over time" and valuations will go up.

    8. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:21

       What do you-- People say that the babies are being thrown out with the bath water. Very strange analogy, but it's kind of what they say for the public market today.

    9. EZEran Zinman1:03:28

       [laughs]

    10. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:28

        Other than Monday, what is the biggest baby being thrown out with the bath water?

    11. EZEran Zinman1:03:33

        I don't know. I think, I think most of them. Uh, I, it's not like I, I'm, again, I'm not an investor, so I don't have my own list. I think, uh, um, you know, it's been a bloodbath, so [laughs] it's really hard to pick.

    12. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:47

        [laughs] It, it to-

    13. EZEran Zinman1:03:49

        Uh, who, who's underpriced? Yeah.

    14. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:51

        It totally has

15. 1:03:52 – 1:14:06

    Quickfire: Marriage, Biggest Short, Mentors

    1. HSHarry Stebbings1:03:52

       been. Um, listen, I wanna do a quick fire round, dude. So I say a short statement, you give me your immediate thoughts. What have you changed your mind on in the last twelve months? What did you think that you maybe don't, or what didn't you that you now do? What's been the biggest mindset change?

    2. EZEran Zinman1:04:05

       Obviously AI. Like, um, you know, a year ago I didn't, I'll be honest, I didn't understand. I don't think I was the only one, but I didn't understand the magnitude of the change. Uh, but today I understand that software is fundamentally changed forever. Uh, so that's something I didn't understand, but now I totally get it and, um, you know, it's obvious to me that the future is gonna be very different for software.

    3. HSHarry Stebbings1:04:30

       What criticism about you stings because it's partly true?

    4. EZEran Zinman1:04:34

       About myself?

    5. HSHarry Stebbings1:04:36

       Yeah.

    6. EZEran Zinman1:04:37

       I think one thing that, uh, I think we can do better is, uh, to tell our story in a better way. I think Roy and myself, we're not, uh, even though we do great marketing for our product, I don't think we tell the story good enough for the company and, and definitely that's something that I feel we can improve. Um, because I often feel like, uh, you know, if people knew what I knew, they will be much more confident, uh, in Monday and where we're going and I feel it's, it's my res- responsibility, uh, to do a better job telling our story and our strategy.

    7. HSHarry Stebbings1:05:11

       OpenAI at five hundred or Anthropic at three eighty, which one would you rather be an investor in?

    8. EZEran Zinman1:05:18

       First of all, I think we all need a little bit of, uh, humility. Uh, w- what I've heard in the last year is, is, is this: Microsoft is the most, uh, amazing companies. Microsoft is, is finished. Google is finished. Google is the best company on Earth. OpenAI is the most amazing company. OpenAI is finished by Anthropic, and this is like three months cycles. So [laughs] it's, well, I, I feel it's like, uh, 1998 and we say, um, you know, Yahoo and Netscape gonna, uh, suck all the value from the internet revolution and we know nothing. Uh, so I feel we're in the beginning of an exponent. Um, we don't know. It's really hard, uh, to say who's gonna win, who's gonna lose. Uh, it's a horse race and I think we're probably missing ninety percent of the picture of us, how it's gonna play out. So I don't know. I'm not an investor. I'm not, uh, ma- I'm, I'm making bets on Monday, not on other companies. Definitely I feel Anthropic have a little bit more momentum right now. They can change, uh, and it will change, I'm sure. Um, so I don't know, to be honest.

    9. HSHarry Stebbings1:06:22

       The, the, the trouble is when you don't know, we don't know and no one knows.

    10. EZEran Zinman1:06:26

        Yeah.

    11. HSHarry Stebbings1:06:27

        And what the trouble then is it's a flight to safety and a flight to cash, and that's the problem that I think we're gonna see now, which is like no one fucking knows and so no one wants to play the game. I've had enough of casino roulette in the public markets.

    12. EZEran Zinman1:06:39

        [laughs]

    13. HSHarry Stebbings1:06:39

        Like, fuck this, I'm selling and I'm just going to cash. And that is what you're seeing everyone do, a movement to cash.

    14. EZEran Zinman1:06:46

        Yep.

    15. HSHarry Stebbings1:06:47

        Warren did it brilliantly with Berkshire six months ago. That's a problem for us though, because we need that cash in Monday.

    16. EZEran Zinman1:06:55

        Yeah. Yeah, but, but look, it's a cycle. What happens in the cycle is that over time, you know, you see consistency and you're getting confident, and then you see companies accelerate, you gain confidence. Nothing I will say will change perception. Time and execution will change perception, and this is our responsibility as CEOs, and this is what I'm planning to do. So over time it will change. It's a cycle. I, I've been through so many cycles so far, like, uh-

    17. HSHarry Stebbings1:07:23

        Is this the hardest one or is this like every other one?

    18. EZEran Zinman1:07:26

        Look, uh, everybody enjoyed the twenty twenty-one cycle with COVID, right? Like, uh, but it, it was also, also a cycle. I remember when, um, our stock went u- went up to four hundred, uh, after we IPO'd and, um, one of our investors told me something, Ken Fox from, uh, from Thrive, he told me something which was brilliant. He told me, "Isn't it great that the stock is going up without the revenue going up?" And I said, "What? What are you talking about?" And he said, "Yeah, uh, everything you gained is through sentiment change, nothing you've done." And it really, uh, resonated with me. I said, "Okay, you know, I need to distinguish between what we do as a company and our growth and the market sentiment." And if you don't praise yourself when the stock is high, you won't be impacted because the sto- when the stock is down. If you don't attach your personal success and personal, um, um, ability to lead a company with the sentiment, and you need to focus on the business performance. That, that, that was his point, and it really resonated. And I didn't celebrate when it went up to four hundred because I knew it was temporary at the end of the day, it's a cycle. So everybody enjoys when the cycle is up, but also now when the cycle is down, I need to focus on the business metrics, the revenue, the retention, the things we are doing. That's the important part. Not be carried away by the cycle itself.

    19. HSHarry Stebbings1:08:48

        Totally agree with you, and a hundred percent very difficult to do, and that's where I like the experienced CEO that you are in terms of having seen many before. I think it's actually where younger CEOs struggle, where it's the first cycle and the depths are so low and the highs are so high when it's the first time you've done it. Can I ask you for penultimate one, which other CEO do you most respect and admire? When you look across the board at your counterparts, which one are you like, "Damn."

    20. EZEran Zinman1:09:13

        Yeah. So, so of course, and, and again, it's a personal friendship, but I really love, um, Avishai from Wix and Nir. Um, and I, I feel like, um, you know, we're, we're close friends, so obviously I ask him a lot of questions. Um, but we also have, uh, other CEOs that I talk with and, and again, uh, it's hard for me to pick like a name because I don't know them personally. So, uh, you know, when you pick somebody, you, you take their entire [chuckles] personality with it. So it's really hard for me to pick. But look, I'm, um... The amount of information that I acquire through podcasts, blog posts, videos, I, I probably acquire like five, six hours of content a day. You know, I walk to work, I walk back, I do the dishes. I, I've, um, you know, my kids are saying, "Why do you have the, uh, uh, AirPods in your ear all the time?" Because, um, I just feel we need to learn like crazy. I, I try to gather as much information as I can, and I think I'm learning a lot from different people perspective. Also, I love the show you guys are doing, uh, the four of you. The three of you, sorry. So I listen to that. Um, and, um, you know, I think, um, now, uh, you need to be learning as much as you can. So, um, that's the mode I operate in.

    21. HSHarry Stebbings1:10:28

        I'm adding in a penultimate one. W- to... What is your biggest marriage advice? When you go through a really tough time as well, like it's very difficult for you, it puts a strain on a man. What's the biggest marriage advice? Like, advise me.

    22. EZEran Zinman1:10:42

        Um, are you getting married or not yet? [chuckles]

    23. HSHarry Stebbings1:10:46

        Not yet, but-

    24. EZEran Zinman1:10:47

        Yeah

    25. HSHarry Stebbings1:10:47

        ... um, you, you, you know women. [chuckles]

    26. EZEran Zinman1:10:50

        Yeah. Uh, well, first of all, I've been with my wife for, uh, twenty-three years now. Uh, so we basically grew up together. But, uh, I'll tell you one thing. So, uh, um, my wife has been nothing but amazing throughout this, uh, journey, and specifically, I would say the last, uh, six, eight months. Like, it's not like she doesn't care. She know what I'm going through, but the, the amount of support I get is, uh, unbelievable. And, um, so one advice I would say, and this is actually from my, uh, therapist, so she, she gave it to me and, uh, because I told her what I told you now, uh, about my wife. So she told me, "Say it to her. You know, when you meet her this evening, say to her what you said to me." I said, "Right. I mean, I have to because I feel it, but I haven't said it to her." So I think, you know, communication, sharing, um, how you feel, the good, the bad, talking about it, it's the best advice I can give, uh, with, uh, with my wife, uh, and also with the partners at work. So, um, I feel the more you open, the more, uh, vulnerable you are, the more you share, the more intimacy you create and the better relationship you create, uh, with other people.

    27. HSHarry Stebbings1:12:07

        Very un-English of you. We tend to not share much.

    28. EZEran Zinman1:12:10

        [laughs] I know, I know.

    29. HSHarry Stebbings1:12:10

        Including bedrooms. Yeah, we're very uncomfortable. We, we, we normally call each other kind of Mr. and then surname. It's like Mr. and Mrs. Stebbings.

    30. EZEran Zinman1:12:16

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 1:14:16