Why We Sold To Grammarly

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Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions. Why email never died — and why Superhuman is betting on voice, AI, and the future of work Rahul Vohra [https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvohra/], founder of Superhuman [https://superhuman.com/] and now CEO of Superhuman Mail [https://superhuman.com/products/mail] inside the newly formed Superhuman group, joins NEW ECONOMIES on why email remains the most important layer of modern work, how AI is transforming productivity beyond the inbox, and why distribution and focus matter more than technical moats in the age of infinite software. In our latest podcast episode with Rahul, we unpack Superhuman’s eleven-year journey — from the contrarian decision to reinvent email when everyone said it was dead, to building one of Silicon Valley’s most iconic productivity brands and eventually becoming the foundation for a much bigger ambition: the AI-native productivity suite. We also explore why voice could become the default interface for knowledge work, how AI assistants are becoming a new growth channel for software companies, and why Rahul believes the next generation of winners won’t be defined by who writes the best code — but by who owns distribution, executes relentlessly, and knows what not to build. If that’s not enough, we go deep on the acquisition story that led Grammarly to rename the entire company around Superhuman, why email continues to outperform every prediction of its demise, and what building the productivity bundle of the future actually looks like. Watch or listen now on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-ideas-by-new-economies/id1829098542], and Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3oVCdw4btnIL1mWGarCT7i] Download the transcript Timestamps (0:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8]) Rahul Vohra(1:44 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=104s]) Why Go After Disrupting Email(4:22 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=262s]) Will Email Still Stay Relevant?(9:20 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=560s]) The Impact of Voice(14:20 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=860s]) PLG: Sent by Superhuman(18:57 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=1137s]) Why Moats Are Becoming Increasingly Hard to Build(24:30 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=1470s]) How Does Superhuman Group Stay Focused?(28:55 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=1735s]) Inside Superhuman(33:20 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=2000s]) Missing Products from the Bundle(36:52 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=2212s]) The Acquisition(45:45 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=2745s]) Ollie Joining as Chief of Staff(47:45 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8dy67rGzo8&t=2865s]) Angel Investing Our notes from this conversation * Email is still the most important protocol at work. Every few years someone declares email dead — and every few years they’re wrong. Email remains identity, authentication, and the default layer for company communication. The interface will change. The infrastructure probably won’t. * Voice is becoming the new keyboard. The breakthrough isn’t transcription — it’s intent. Instead of writing emails, scheduling meetings, and prompting AI manually, people will increasingly speak outcomes and let software execute. Work becomes orchestration. * The biggest moats aren’t technical anymore. Software is becoming cheaper and easier to build. Features get copied faster than ever. Distribution, trust, brand, and knowing exactly what not to build are becoming the new defensibility. * Distribution compounds. Products alone don’t. The winners won’t necessarily be the teams with the smartest models — they’ll be the teams that own attention, create habits, and get embedded where users already work. Distribution has become product. * AI changes interfaces before it changes infrastructure. Voice, agents, and AI-native workflows will reshape how we interact with email, docs, and software — but the systems underneath often survive much longer than people expect. * Focus becomes more valuable as building gets easier. When the cost of creation trends toward zero, restraint becomes leverage. The companies that win won’t build the most — they’ll build the few things that matter. * The next growth channel is AI itself. Users are no longer only discovering products through search, social, or sales. Increasingly, AI assistants recommend, connect, and even activate software on behalf of users. Tools such as The Prompting Company [https://promptingcompany.com/] help companies get cited in AI models for example. * The future isn’t humans or AI — it’s humans with AI. The products that endure won’t remove people from work. They’ll amplify judgment, creativity, and decision-making while automation handles the repetitive layers underneath. Links Subscribe to NEW ECONOMIES on YouTube here [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD]. Follow Ollie on X (https://x.com/ollieforsyth [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa1NEYnBoMjJCTzl2SkgwWXpJX1Z6cXU4SVVfQXxBQ3Jtc0trVW9adnpoY0hYMmxGb1YzRG9DMlFKWE1FTlljRDRWMG1lZ0hLd1J1cG5MRXRTNVA0bHVvZUFZTHF3OGJpUTBvb0RLNl8xamZsVjYxYl8ta19PQ0JsRi1CaFpxTjBadGFmWlhzdlFLSjhXNUI1NmhMSQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Follieforsyth&v=W8dy67rGzo8]) Follow Rahul on X (https://x.com/rahulvohra [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqazJ4bXFaT3F5YXJDOE9idFlfbElaZjB5ajBnZ3xBQ3Jtc0tudUVxRjJPUzVLWWxrMEJXMEJNTjE5M3Jhb2wtRUNRc3lCYXdKOUhfY1hpZHlJc0VpY3VsdjJlRTdwZmlia1lHcUNQb1VINGJ4ZGs5Y3FWLWpiYXczN3ZkUFdnZkdEdHlMMEFZU0Jzd1NYTVpkYjBrTQ&q=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Frahulvohra&v=W8dy67rGzo8]) Sign up to Superhuman (https://superhuman.com [https://superhuman.com/]) Related previous episodes If you enjoyed this episode, help sustain our work by clicking ❤️ and 🔄 at the top of this post. Get full access to NEW ECONOMIES at www.neweconomies.co/subscribe [https://www.neweconomies.co/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Inside Gusto's Founding Story | Co-Founder & CTO Eddie Kim

Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions. Why I built America's most-loved payroll company then reinvented it with AI Eddie Kim [https://www.linkedin.com/in/edawerd/], Co-Founder and CTO at Gusto [https://gusto.com/], joins NEW ECONOMIES on cracking the small business market, keeping all three co-founders for 15 years, and why he just built the most important product of his career in eight weeks. Watch or listen now on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-ideas-by-new-economies/id1829098542], and Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3oVCdw4btnIL1mWGarCT7i] Download the full transcript: Eddie Kim [https://www.linkedin.com/in/edawerd/] is the co-founder at Gusto [https://gusto.com/], the small business platform that just crossed a billion dollars in annual revenue serving over 500,000 companies across payroll, benefits, HR, and compliance. A two-time YC founder who met his co-founders at Stanford and at a half marathon starting line, Eddie has spent 15 years proving that the most unglamorous problems in business are often the most valuable ones to solve. In this episode, we explore what it actually takes to build a category-defining company in a space nobody wanted to touch — and why Eddie believes he just built the most important product of his career — Gusto Cofounder: The AI Teammate Built for Small Business [https://gusto.com/product/cofounder]. We also explore the blank canvas problem holding AI back from mainstream adoption, why the distinction between engineer and designer is disappearing, and how a team of five people went from zero code to full launch in eight weeks. Timestamps (0:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI]) Eddie Kim, Co-Founder at Gusto (5:40 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=340s]) Lessons from Y Combinator (9:30 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=570s]) 15+ years on co-founder relationships (15:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=900s]) How to give feedback to your co-founders (17:45 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=1065s]) The early days at Gusto(21:10 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=1270s]) Gusto’s new product: Gusto Cofounder (33:05 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=1985s]) How to launch new features (38:15 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=2295s]) The rise of solo entrepreneurs (41:25 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=2485s]) How to avoid distractions (45:20 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=2720s]) How Gusto would launch today from scratch(47:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6nnoojGpxI&t=2820s]) Lightning fire round Our notes from this conversation 1. Boring problems are the best problems — if you can stomach the grind In 2011, the hottest companies were chasing eyeballs. Mobile, social, local. Nobody wanted to work on payroll. Hiring was nearly impossible, and one of the category’s own pioneers told the Gusto founders to their faces: don’t do it. That discouragement was actually the signal. The problems everyone avoids are exactly the ones worth solving — because if you can crack them, the competitive field is almost empty. 2. The co-founder relationship is built over years, not conversations All three Gusto co-founders are still at the company 15 years later — a genuinely rare thing. What makes it work isn’t a communication framework or a weekly check-in cadence. It’s shared values, accumulated trust, and the quiet confidence that comes from having survived a hundred disagreements and come out the other side. Real directness — saying what you actually think — only becomes possible once you’ve built that foundation. You can’t shortcut it. 3. The blank canvas problem is AI’s biggest obstacle The reason most small business owners can’t harness AI isn’t capability — it’s context. Install Claude Code or open a frontier model and you’re staring at infinite possibility with no clear starting point. That’s paralyzing. The insight behind Gusto Co-Founder is that AI becomes transformative the moment it’s anchored to a specific domain, with real data and real problems already loaded in. Generic intelligence is a tool. Contextual intelligence is a co-founder. 4. Trust is infrastructure — and it takes 15 years to build Gusto couldn’t have launched its AI co-founder product on day one. The depth in payroll, benefits, compliance, and tax took over a decade to accumulate. That history — 500,000+ customers, millions of data points on what makes small businesses succeed or fail — is what makes the product genuinely useful rather than just technically impressive. The lesson: trust and data are compounding assets. The longer you stay focused on one problem, the harder your moat becomes to replicate. 5. The future of building is builders — not roles The team that built Gusto Co-Founder was five people: four engineers and a designer. No roadmaps, no sprint planning, no documentation. The designer wrote code. The engineers made design decisions. They ran a permanent Zoom call instead of meetings. In eight weeks, they went from zero to launch. That’s not a fluke — it’s a preview. AI is erasing the gaps between specialties. The builder mindset is the only identity that matters now. Links Subscribe to NEW ECONOMIES (‪‪@NEWECONOMIESPOD‬ [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD])Discover Gusto CoFounder (https://gusto.com/company-news/cofounder [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqa1R4MmxkcXVOMlhTVDJ4WUtqaHRvbXgxNjRxUXxBQ3Jtc0tuS1dPWVpIUDhDbG1yNjZFeno2MFNPbjExazVkTG1HeVNMQ1J2RGtuM21iWFctSThMUllFMU1tY0JoMXc2cmRPd2FMVnZ3eU03eXhNQmx6QTNFWXU2bm9Ic3Rxdk5IbG81eGpFdFNmVlNoNkdscUJodw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fgusto.com%2Fcompany-news%2Fcofounder&v=k6nnoojGpxI])Follow Ollie on X (https://x.com/ollieforsyth [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbGRwNDNqenRXanZPN2NtUVR0UXIySkxmUVdkUXxBQ3Jtc0tteERVbUlwNHlyN3hNSi1wN2JocTcwZWVpcWxsSUVNRWNZVERWd05UVHg1WGlnR0sydFQ3QzByU0tjOEVabzVTbUFkU1RDU1lEZkU2eHkxdl9DWWtmWjBweWE2emlmNElDdExxcDNpc09CUi15OHo1dw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Follieforsyth&v=k6nnoojGpxI]) Follow Eddie on X (https://x.com/edawerd [https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbXh3bk42OXpkUGY0cXNNZEVFWGNKbFU5NUZRZ3xBQ3Jtc0ttMUstX2k3aWREVVJrV2NPU1UzUlVHaUl1eXRrSjhGODRCNlNLY3d5bE5vMXdnWTZJVmtCRVRDYW5jUllhdFRvNWM5VjFkWWNrLUNJdE5yQzVkMjNobG1rMFpuS1pKaHJINUhmU1BtSnVqVWVSZ25SYw&q=https%3A%2F%2Fx.com%2Fedawerd&v=k6nnoojGpxI]) Our NEW MEDIA Community (new-media.co [http://new-media.co]) Related previous episodes If you enjoyed this episode, help sustain our work by clicking ❤️ and 🔄 at the top of this post. 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6. juni 202654 min

Why We Sold To Grammarly | Rahul Vohra

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