No Priors Ep. 94 | With CEO and Founder of Agency Elias Torres

Today on No Priors, Sarah sits down with Elias Torres, CEO and founder of Agency, an AI agent for customer success teams. Elias shares his journey from growing up in Nicaragua to founding several companies, leading engineering at HubSpot, and selling Drift for $1B. He also discusses his work consulting with OpenAI in 2022, which deepened his understanding of the business opportunity LLMs presented and inspired him to start Agency. In this episode, Elias offers a unique perspective on the future of AI and customer success, explaining how current software has fallen short and his vision for a new generation where customers have direct relationships, spend less time on tasks, and have software working invisibly on their behalf. They also discuss the evolving landscape of hiring as teams shrink, and Elias reveals his ambitious plan to reach $1B in revenue with fewer than 100 employees. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @EliasT Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:34 Elias’ journey to entrepreneurship 2:36 Growing HubSpot to IPO and founding Drift 6:19 Consulting with OpenAI, learning about LLMs, and diving into AI 9:35 Founding Agency to focus on customer success and AI-driven solutions 11:40 What will a customer experience look like in 5 years? 15:48 Company building in an era of AI, as a 5th time founder 18:32 Reducing headcount while raising the bar on hiring 20:35 Key challenges in building Agency and crafting a standout product 23:06 Addressing software flaws and transitioning to an era of intuitive, self-operating solutions 26:27 Timeline for the next-gen software revolution + the power of building from first principles

Sarah GuohostElias Torresguest

Dec 19, 202431mWatch on YouTube ↗

EPISODE INFO

Released: December 19, 2024
Duration: 31m
Channel: No Priors
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Today on No Priors, Sarah sits down with Elias Torres, CEO and founder of Agency, an AI agent for customer success teams. Elias shares his journey from growing up in Nicaragua to founding several companies, leading engineering at HubSpot, and selling Drift for $1B. He also discusses his work consulting with OpenAI in 2022, which deepened his understanding of the business opportunity LLMs presented and inspired him to start Agency. In this episode, Elias offers a unique perspective on the future of AI and customer success, explaining how current software has fallen short and his vision for a new generation where customers have direct relationships, spend less time on tasks, and have software working invisibly on their behalf. They also discuss the evolving landscape of hiring as teams shrink, and Elias reveals his ambitious plan to reach $1B in revenue with fewer than 100 employees. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @EliasT Show Notes: 0:00 Introduction 0:34 Elias’ journey to entrepreneurship 2:36 Growing HubSpot to IPO and founding Drift 6:19 Consulting with OpenAI, learning about LLMs, and diving into AI 9:35 Founding Agency to focus on customer success and AI-driven solutions 11:40 What will a customer experience look like in 5 years? 15:48 Company building in an era of AI, as a 5th time founder 18:32 Reducing headcount while raising the bar on hiring 20:35 Key challenges in building Agency and crafting a standout product 23:06 Addressing software flaws and transitioning to an era of intuitive, self-operating solutions 26:27 Timeline for the next-gen software revolution + the power of building from first principles

SPEAKERS

Sarah Guo
host
Elias Torres
guest

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of No Priors, featuring Sarah Guo and Elias Torres, No Priors Ep. 94 | With CEO and Founder of Agency Elias Torres explores immigrant founder reimagines customer success and software in AI era Elias Torres, repeat founder and former HubSpot engineering leader, discusses his journey from poor Nicaraguan immigrant and math-competition kid to building multiple billion‑dollar companies. He explains why selling Drift for over $1B felt like a failure relative to his ambition to build a $30B public company, and how that led to a period of burnout, kite-surfing, and then renewed energy sparked by ChatGPT. That energy turned into consulting for OpenAI customers and ultimately founding Agency, a company focused on transforming how businesses support and empower customers using AI agents instead of bloated customer success orgs. Throughout, he argues that most enterprise software is “enslaving” busywork, predicts a shift to invisible, proactive AI-driven systems, and outlines how he’s building a lean, high‑leverage, billion‑revenue company with only 100 world‑class people.

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