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No Priors Ep. 76 | With Ramp Co-Founders Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh

In this episode of No Priors, hosts Sarah and Elad are joined by Ramp co-founders Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh of Ramp. The pair has been working to build one of the fastest growing fintechs since they were teenagers. This conversation focuses on how Ramp engineers have been building new systems to help every team from sales and marketing to product. They’re building best-in-class SaaS solutions just for internal use to make sure their company remains competitive. They also get into how AI will augment marketing and creative fields, the challenges of selling productivity, and how they’re using LLMs to create internal podcasts using sales calls to share what customers are saying with the whole team. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @eglyman l @karimatiyeh Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction to Ramp 3:17 Working with startups 8:13 Ramp’s implementation of AI 14:10 Resourcing and staffing 17:20 Deciding when to build vs buy 21:20 Selling productivity 25:01 Risk mitigation when using AI 28:48 What the AI stack is missing 30:50 Marketing with AI 37:26 Designing a modern marketing team 40:00 Giving creative freedom to marketing teams 42:12 Augmenting bookkeeping 47:00 AI-generated podcasts

Sarah GuohostElad GilhostEric GlymanguestKarim Atiyehguest
Aug 14, 202448mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Ramp Co-Founders Build Self-Driving Money And AI-First Productivity Platform

  1. Ramp co-founders Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh explain how their previous startup Paribus inspired Ramp’s core thesis: use data and software to help businesses spend less money and less time on finance operations.
  2. They describe Ramp not just as a fintech, but fundamentally as a productivity company focused on automating tedious financial workflows and building toward “self-driving money” for organizations.
  3. AI is embedded throughout Ramp’s product and internal operations—from transaction categorization and bill payment timing to sales and marketing tooling—always constrained to well-defined tasks to reduce risk in a regulated environment.
  4. They argue that the real advantage comes from pairing systems thinking with taste and clear business outcomes, and from re-architecting company functions like sales, marketing, and finance around AI-augmented workflows rather than treating AI as a buzzword.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Design financial products to help customers spend less, not more.

Ramp’s contrarian thesis is that businesses value cash in the bank and time saved over points and perks; they built tools to eliminate redundant software, cut waste, and automate expense workflows instead of optimizing for higher card spend.

Treat fintech as a productivity layer that sells time, not just money.

By automating expense reports, bill pay decisions, procurement approvals, and accounting, Ramp positions itself as a productivity company—allowing lean finance teams to support larger organizations without adding headcount.

Use AI on tightly constrained, well-defined tasks to minimize risk.

Ramp applies AI where there are clear right answers—like categorizing transactions from a fixed chart of accounts, three-way matching for fraud checks, or pre-filling forms—rather than open-ended decision-making, keeping reliability high in a regulated space.

Embed engineers into go-to-market functions and goal them on business outcomes.

Ramp’s engineering teams work directly on sales and marketing problems (e.g., SDR tooling, lead generation, A/B testing outbound email), turning traditional cost centers into profit drivers and dramatically increasing sales productivity.

Architect for rapid model swapping instead of over-investing in fine-tuning.

Rather than deeply fine-tuning models, Ramp hardened its AI infrastructure to quickly evaluate and switch between foundation models (e.g., adopting GPT-4o mini in production within a day where it’s “good enough”), optimizing cost and performance over time.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

People don’t want points or cashback; they actually want more in their bank account.

— Eric Glyman

We get classified a lot as a fintech company. I actually think we’re a productivity company.

— Eric Glyman

I honestly don’t think there’s that much risk if you constrain the problem well.

— Karim Atiyeh

Before jumping straight to ‘I’m gonna hire an AI salesperson agent,’ we said, ‘Let’s give him an Ironman suit.’

— Eric Glyman

The one thing that I think will remain for a very long time is having good taste.

— Karim Atiyeh

Origins of Ramp and lessons from ParibusShift from consumer to business spend and savings thesisRamp’s philosophy: fintech as a productivity and time-saving companyAI applications in financial workflows (categorization, bills, fraud, accounting)AI-augmented sales and marketing, including SDR automation and creative productionRisk, reliability, and constraints for AI in regulated financial servicesFuture of work in finance and marketing: systems thinking, taste, and automation

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