Grit Podcast

Fifteen years in, it can still feel like “we’re just getting started.” Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder of Cloudflare, returns to Grit with Joubin Mirzadegan to share how Cloudflare secures the internet for millions, with a vision built to last generations. She also shares why staying close to reality and to customers becomes harder as success compounds, and how Cloudflare is helping content creators regain control in an AI driven internet. Guest: Michelle Zatlyn, co-founder and President of Cloudflare

How do companies like Salesforce and Dell scale intelligence across every cloud? Aidan Gomez, co-founder and CEO of Cohere, explains how they’re building AI that works across all enterprise systems and deploys anywhere, giving companies true flexibility and security. The co-author behind the revolutionary "Attention Is All You Need" paper joins Joubin Mirzadegan for a wide-ranging conversation on why synthetic data went from dismissed to indispensable, and how the race among AI labs is really unfolding. Guest: Aidan Gomez, co-founder and CEO of Cohere

The hardest company to build is the one you start after you’ve already succeeded. After scaling Yext into a platform powering millions of businesses, Howard Lerman chose to start over with Roam, the “Office of the Future,” where humans and AI work side by side from anywhere. On Grit, he joins Joubin Mirzadegan to talk about the solitude of leadership and what happens when you stop building for Wall Street. Guest: Howard Lerman, co-founder and former CEO of Yext, and founder and CEO of Roam

The hardest part of transformation is knowing what to let go of. Dan O’Connell, now leading Front as CEO and formerly on the board at Dialpad, joins Joubin Mirzadegan to explore the delicate balance between legacy and innovation as he leads a decade old company through the AI revolution. He also reflects on why courage and control can coexist in leadership, and what it means to “make decisions that give you energy.” Guest: Dan O’Connell, CEO of Front

Before AI became a buzzword, a few true believers were already building. Since early 2022, Mati Staniszewski and his team at ElevenLabs have been among them, working to create voices that “actually represent emotions.” He shares with Joubin Mirzadegan how voice AI is transforming diverse fields, from delivering personalized healthcare for different age groups to amplifying creativity in filmmaking.

What’s product-market fit like when you give people the power to do what they never thought was possible? On this rerun of Grit from April 2024, Victor Riparbelli, co-founder and CEO of Synthesia, shares how his platform gave billions a new way to create video without cameras, and explores a future where video and audio replace text as the primary way to share knowledge and content. Guests: Victor Riparbelli, CEO and co-founder of Synthesia and Josh Coyne, Partner at Kleiner Perkins

Make your product irresistible, and everything else will follow. That’s the philosophy of Grant Lee, co-founder and CEO of Gamma, an AI design platform with an 'anti-PowerPoint approach', used by over 50M people. This week on Grit, he also shares why enduring businesses aren’t one person shows, and how their deliberate hiring process shapes and strengthens company culture.

Chris Degnan and Denise Persson share insights from their book 'Make It Snow' about scaling Snowflake's global business through aligned sales and marketing teams. They discuss building Snowflake's go-to-market engine, fostering a customer-first culture, and managing teams through hypergrowth to serve over 12,000 customers.