Writer’s May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate ‘Normal People’ The Labs Leave Behind

Writer’s May Habib: Building AI Tools For Corporate ‘Normal People’ The Labs Leave Behind

Writer’s May Habib: On VC Bias, Token Maxing’, And The Customers Anthropic And OpenAI Leave Behind Fortune 500 boards are in weekend crisis meetings about adopting AI. Many have nothing to show for it, despite spending millions with the big AI labs. "Anthropic and OpenAI salespeople walk in like heroes, get a contract, and leave to literally never be seen again,” says Writer CEO May Habib. That’s where her startup, Writer, cleans up. Valued at $1.9 billion, Writer builds for the ‘normal’ people in enterprise, its agents helping customers like Accenture, Cigna and Vanguard with everything from creating morning sales briefings to personalized product invites. On The Upstarts Podcast, Habib talks about the pivot from Qordoba’s machine translation to Writer’s AI models; ‘token maxing’ and tokenomics’ “absolute insanity”; and why she believes people should start getting fired for buying AI without results. Plus, she shares her Upstart Moment: facing VC bias first-hand, from Vinod Khosla falling asleep in their meeting, to a rejection from Sequoia that called her running a startup with two kids “inspiring.” Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 1:55 How Writer helps ‘normal’ people 9:31 The temperature in the C-suite around AI 16:56 The killer use case for Writer’s tools 21:16 Pivoting from Qordoba to Writer 22:31 Vinod Khosla, Sequoia, and bias in VC 27:43 ‘Survive, don’t sell, don’t quit’ 30:33 Why Writer trains models, but isn’t a lab 33:38 Anthropic, OpenAI and how Writer can compete 40:52 Why people should be fired for buying AI badly May's LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/may-habib/] Writer [https://writer.com/] For more, visit https://www.upstartsmedia.com/ [https://www.upstartsmedia.com/] Season 2 of the Upstarts Podcast is presented by ⁠⁠⁠Rippling⁠⁠ [https://rippling.ai/upstarts] Produced & edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod [https://lightningpod.fm/]

Mutiny’s Jaleh Rezaei: Walking Away From Millions In Software To Grow Even Faster With Sales AI

Salespeople have a problem: they only spend 21% of their time actually selling to customers. Founder Jaleh Rezaei set out to fix that – and business was booming. Her startup, Mutiny, reached $10 million-plus in revenue for software that helped take some of the busywork out of the sales process. “When you start a company, the expectation is failure,” she says. “It’s really hard to accept that you’re going to burn it to the ground for the possibility of a better future.” But the CEO now believes that re-founding Mutiny, including painful layoffs and firing all of its customers, was the best thing she could do. The reborn business now uses AI agents to automate away that pain, allowing sales reps to set custom pricing and share peer case studies with just a prompt. It’s growing 150% month over month. On The Upstarts Podcast, Rezaei shares why follow-ups are the sales killer; how AI is disrupting software; and how she got over ‘Claude spookies’ about the big labs. Plus, she shares her Upstart Moment: convincing her co-founder to start over again, on a fateful New York walk. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 2:41 An AI agent for sales 7:04 Why an AI ‘blank canvas’ doesn’t work 10:38 Jaleh’s founder journey and Gusto lessons 17:01 Mutiny’s early software success 22:51 Jaleh’s Upstart Moment: tearing it down 24:42 Why you can’t rebuild a business halfway 27:15 Intercom’s founders share valuable advice 30:44 Focus on the business, not the optics 34:53 ‘Speed is the only thing that matters’ 37:40 ‘Claude spookies’ in the AI app layer 43:59 Second-time founder advantage For more, visit https://www.upstartsmedia.com/ [https://www.upstartsmedia.com/] Season 2 of the Upstarts Podcast is presented by ⁠⁠⁠Rippling⁠⁠ [https://rippling.ai/upstarts] Produced & edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod [https://lightningpod.fm/]

TBC’s Alex Ksendzovsky: The Neurosurgeon Using Brain Cells To Build Better AI

Ever since neurosurgeon Alex Ksendzovsky was in college, he’s been captivated by an idea worthy of a mad scientist: turning brain cell ‘wetware’ into ‘software’ that can make predictions and help train AI. It sounds like science fiction, but at Ksenzovsky’s startup The Biological Computing Co., or TBC, the founder swears it’s already reality. A model improved with algorithms derived from a process that involves connecting a dish of neurons to tiny electrodes demonstrated a 27-fold efficiency gain. “I have about 500 million years of evidence behind me,” Ksendzovsky says. “So our moat is evolution.” Investors have poured more than $25 million into the project. But at least one told Ksendzovsky to leave the neurons out of their pitch, for now. He won’t listen. “We’re bringing something completely crazy to the world, and we’re showing that it works,” Ksendzovsky says. On The Upstarts Podcast, we discuss why algorithms derived by actual brain cells beat traditional ones only inspired by the brain; the ethics of using living neurons for training AI models; and a possible living data center future. Plus, Ksendzovksy shares his Upstart Moment: giving up, alongside his neurosurgeon co-founder, promising careers in academia to pursue a startup. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 01:12 Building software from wetware 05:09 A college idea to predict the stock market 08:40 The first test from an Airbnb 12:46 Rat neurons and electrodes 17:30 Pitching VCs with no data 24:52 Promising early AI results 31:09 The ethics of using neurons 34:40 ‘Our moat is evolution’ 35:38 A real-time biological computing future For more, visit ⁠⁠⁠https://www.upstartsmedia.com/⁠⁠⁠ [https://www.upstartsmedia.com/%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0%E2%81%A0] Season 2 of the Upstarts Podcast is presented by ⁠⁠⁠Rippling⁠⁠ [https://rippling.ai/upstarts] Produced & edited by Eric Johnson from ⁠⁠⁠LightningPod [https://lightningpod.fm/]

Vanta’s Christina Cacioppo: The Underdog Turning ‘Nonsense’ Compliance Into A $4.2B Security Standout

When Vanta co-founder Christina Cacioppo first pitched investors on compliance software, she faced a frosty reception. It wasn’t a viable product category, she was told. They’d sell for peanuts within a couple of months. No one actually wanted to work on compliance. But Cacioppo had felt the pain first-hand. She was convinced: software could prove the perfect painkiller for fellow startups to handle security audits and grow faster. Today, Vanta works with more than 16,000 customers like Lovable, Snowflake and Icelandair. It’s valued at $4.2 billion – and it’s successful enough that Cacioppo is now fending off a new wave of startup copycats. She welcomes the challenge. “I subscribe to the ‘never let them see you blink’ school of thought,” she says. On The Upstarts Podcast, Cacioppo shares how she created hype in a sleepy category; how she prioritizes “infinity things” as a startup unicorn CEO; and why when it comes to good security hygiene, we could all spend more time brushing our teeth. Plus, she shares her Upstart Moment: working to re-think, and attempt to future-proof, Vanta’s software business for the era of powerful AI models. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 1:39 What Vanta does 5:26 Selling to other startups 9:28 How AI agents change ‘pretty much everything’ 14:06 Christina’s *real* founder origin story 16:23 Underdog fundraising and gaming VCs 18:59 The problem with startup valuations 24:08 Turning LinkedIn ‘cringe’ into customer traction 26:41 Reinventing Vanta with AI 33:43 Whether AI could clone Vanta 35:23 ‘Never let them see you blink’ 37:24 Avoiding burnout with ‘infinity things’ to do For more, visit ⁠⁠https://www.upstartsmedia.com/⁠⁠ [https://www.upstartsmedia.com/] Season 2 of the Upstarts Podcast is presented by ⁠⁠Rippling⁠ [https://rippling.ai/upstarts] Produced & edited by Eric Johnson from ⁠⁠LightningPod [https://lightningpod.fm/]

Orchid’s Noor Siddiqui: Rigging The Genetic Lottery To Create Healthier ‘Superbabies’

If you could fix the genetic lottery to ensure your baby was born healthy, would you? For entrepreneur Noor Siddiqui, there's no question. Ever since her mother started to lose her vision as the result of a genetic condition, she’s dreamed of solving the problem through better genetic testing. And at Orchid, the startup she founded in 2019, she now offers a novel approach to genetic testing that can spot thousands of potential conditions in embryos before they’re implanted as part of the IVF process. Orchid assisted its first birth in 2023, and now works with more than 100 clinics in the U.S. and abroad. But Siddiqui’s vision for designer “superbabies” has plenty of doubters, from Orchid’s ethical implications to its cost, at $2,500 per screened embryo. Siddiqui’s heard it all. "Right now, it might be edgy for me to say, 'Sex is for fun, and embryo screening is for babies,' but I just think it's a statement of fact.” On the The Upstarts Podcast, Siddiqui talks about her founder journey as a Thiel Fellow turned Stanford research dropout; why she compares previous testing to proofreading only the chapter titles of a book; and how she’s gotten used to the backlash. Plus, she talks about her Upstart Moment: sparking a new wave of reproductive tech startups that she sees carrying the field far beyond where Orchid can go alone. CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction 1:45 Creating ‘superbabies’ 3:17 Motivated by mom’s blindness 8:04 Stigma around reproductive tech 11:26 How Orchid improves IVF 16:19 From Thiel Fellow to Stanford 21:42 Dropping out (again) for Orchid 24:40 Facing the ‘holy war’ haters 28:44 Orchid’s cost and improving access 34:00 Noor’s Upstart Moment 36:58 What success looks like For more, visit ⁠https://www.upstartsmedia.com/⁠ [https://www.upstartsmedia.com/] Season 2 of the Upstarts Podcast is presented by ⁠Rippling [https://rippling.ai/upstarts] Produced & edited by Eric Johnson from ⁠LightningPod [https://lightningpod.fm/]