Saurabh Lahoti

29% of startups YC funded my first stint at YC (2011 to 2015) still running are default alive and profitable. Block/mute the clout farmers. They truly know nothing about making something people want.

@sama Wow !

We have added more than $1B of ARR in the last month just from our API business. People think of us mostly as ChatGPT, but the API team is doing amazing work!

@svembu I believe education will have change to this reality. Education will be very industry focussed and young engineers will spend more on floors than on class rooms…?

AI makes senior architects more productive and reduces the need for junior engineers. The architect needs to understand the requirements as well as the technology stack well, to be able to guide the AI and fine tune its output. But if we don't have junior engineers, we don't get to train the next generation of architects - after all how does someone become a software architect without being a junior engineer first? I am still thinking through how this gets resolved.

@MohapatraHemant It’s interesting because at one end we say with AI you don’t need engineers to build stuff and anyone can build products, and on other end we need engineers everywhere. I guess being an engineer is part of everyone JD now.

The next 10 years in AI are going to be very, very engineer-led. To get the right ROI from AI, engineers will have to do EVERYTHING. In one of our pre IPO cos, engineers write the code using AI, but engineers are also sitting in support calls & "agentifying" it. Engineers are plugging into marketing & sales functions and injecting AI into it. Same for product, design, etc. Frankly this has been the only way AI (1) has delivered ROI (2) led to sticky adoption within functional teams (3) in a short time frame. There is a new concept of what I call "internally deployed engineers" that is really necessary to take these magical but brittle tools and fit it to specific purposes for an enterprise. The value and importance of an engineer has never been higher, but the value of a creative, high empathy engineer is at the absolute peak right now because they can be very effective change agents within the orgs and be the strategic secret tool that puts the company ahead of all others. If you have these engineers, do everything you can to keep them around.

@mtrajan Or if you have inbound interest, at least for M&A?

In VC or M&A negotiations You get a better offer when you have another offer.

@snagrawal11 @Venkatnott2 @GireendraK CC: @pentathlon_vc and @GTMDialogues

Valuable insights and learnings shared by @Venkatnott2 this evening! Glad I was part of it. Thank you, @lahoti & @GireendraK, for organising and inviting! #b2b #saas #gtm #partnership #ecommerce #enablers lnkd.in/ds_SfzwM

Collaboration at its finest! Our portfolio companies came together for our #PentathlonDay to exchange insights and experiences. Proud of our entrepreneurs' accomplishments and their willingness to learn from each other. Stay tuned for more insights! #DNAofScale #StartupCommunity

Thank you to everyone who made @GTMDialogues, Pune, a success! Special mention to Vardhan Phadnis of Graas who delivered an inspiring keynote speech, also to Pritesh Baviskar, Abhishek Agrawal, & Tanmay Ratnaparkhe. @HeadstartPune | @ScaleItRight_In | @HSBC| @IndieFolio

Source: Rex Woodbury

Midjourney’s output to the same prompt—“Barack Obama and Donald Trump playing basketball”—from 12 months ago vs. today. Rapid pace of AI development is an heavy understatement !

Pune SaaS folks, pls join us :) gtmdialogues.substack.com/p/pune-meetup-… @GTMDialogues @IndieFolio @Scaleitright_ @pentathlon_vc @Headstarters

Ready for an exciting career in venture capital? We're expanding our investment team in Bengaluru, and we're looking for a talented and passionate individual to join us. Send in your resumes to hello@pentathlon.vc with the subject line #InvestmentAnalyst. #NowHiring #DNAofScale

GTMDialogues™ -- Gurugram Meetup: Navigating global markets gtmdialogues.substack.com/p/gurugram-mee…

Thanks so much Avi ! Its new to us. Its great to have community going overboard to support our initiative. CC: @pentathlon_vc | @lahoti

In the elimination game of the 1997 NBA Semifinals, Kobe Bryant shot 4 airballs late in the game. His team lost 98-93. He was asked about how he handled this humiliating season-ending performance:

Are we in a recession? Doesn't matter, because... Your customers THINK they're in one. Here's data from 18.3k customers showing how buyer behavior changed almost instantly. READ: You should be changing your landing pages and email copy immediately. 🧵

Great summary 👍

Here's how much it costs me to run a $1M/year online business:

GTMDialogues™ -- Pune Meetup: customer retention as a growth strategy gtmdialogues.substack.com/p/pune-meetup-…