HubSpot CEO on the Future of SaaS, AI, & Leading Through Change

27:19The jobs that we all did as a marketeer, as a salesperson, as a support person is now completely getting rewritten and we can do more. And that is what is so exciting about this. While there are some parallels in terms of the ethos of like how crazy people are growing and all the conversations that are happening, this is fundamentally exciting because you can do better things with your time and you can reimagine amount of work that can be done. And it is no longer about software helping you do tasks. it is about software doing tasks to help you that then maximizes the results and the outcomes that you can achieve in the time that you spend.

28:03I totally agree. I mean, when I was starting out in my career, like I was probably making a hundred cold calls a day and writing literally four to 500 emails a day and copy and pasting them. And we're investors in a company called Nooks. It's just going to do it all. It just does it all. It literally just does all of that work. I didn't need to be doing that work. What a waste of time. I still needed a job. There was a job for me to be done there, but it was not that job. And think about this. The job to be done for you as that sales rep, and this is how I started my career as well, is to close deals and is to win business, right?

28:42Is to be in front of customers, is to understand your customer's pain point and to win them as a customer. That was the job to be done. In order to do that job, you researched companies, you called, cold called, you wrote a bunch of emails, you followed everything up. And then you did all of that to get a sliver of time in front of the customer. And that was like the paradigm then. And look, I've been in sales and go to market for a very long time. You know, the really incredible statistic for 20 years, I've been tracking this, which is what's the time a salesperson spends in front of a customer?

29:21And this has not moved. It's like 25%. And if you got your act together and you have great operations, you have amazing data, you have great systems, it's 27%. So you literally have like a 2 % improvement if you get everything right in terms of the time in front of customer. And everything else is the prep that you're talking about. It's the research. And then, you know, when I first moved on to operations, I would like literally beg the sales team to be like, can you please complete your notes in the system? Because the next person, the next person needs a better handoff. So that is changing.

29:57And it's so cool. It's so exciting to see what, you know, companies are doing. You know, HubSpot is completely there. And that's what we're trying to imagine for our customers. Like, I agree. I think this is a real thing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But like at the time of crypto or at the time of COVID, everybody also thought it was a very real thing. Yeah. And in the, you know, the days of everyone being remote and it's going to last forever. and this digital demand is going to sustain for decades to come. The problem is, which is similar to now, whether it's true or false, if you're wrong, if it's true and you're wrong and you didn't make the right investments at that point, you're screwed.

30:45Meaning like if you're growing 100 % at a billion dollar base and you're just like, oh no, this isn't going to last. And you're like, and it does last. You just left like hundreds of millions of dollars on the table. Exactly. Right. Or like even these big tech companies now like Meta and Google and Microsoft, the investments that they're making in infrastructure are insane. Like insane. It's insane. Like we've never seen dollars spent like this. Exactly. But like, what are they going to do? Like, what if they're wrong? What if like, what if this is maybe not even enough investment? Yeah. And Microsoft decided not to do it.

31:25And Meta and Amazon did. Like they missed the whole thing. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so - This is why it's hard. This is so hard. So I think like, you know, one of the things I feel is there's a lot of hot takes and hype and all of these. And every cycle, whether it turns out to be real or not, has like hot takes and every day, like some crypto this and Web3 that, and now AI this, right? It really comes down to customer value. And you got to go back to, it doesn't matter what all this technology talk does. You got to go back to who's your customer? What is their job to be done? And can you improve that and add value?

32:10That's how we look at it. We have like a North Star, which is all for the customer, SFTC. We talk about this all the time. And then it comes back to great, all the hype and forget all the cool technology. Can we take a neat feature of AI and make it a necessary feature in AI? If we can prove to ourselves with customer usage and repeat value that we deliver, then there's something in the cycle. If it's not, if it's the cool thing that you do today and then next week it's like churned and everybody is left, then there is no value. So I think you've got to like ground yourself in customer value and truth.

32:50And if you do that, then you can sift through it. But, you know, at the beginning of the cycle, you just have to like, you know, use some kind of pattern recognition to say, is this going to work or not and make a bet. And you cannot be wrong. And, you know, that's that's what happens. Like I would say that, you know, SAP, I used to work at SAP. And, you know, back in those days, there was a lot of question of, is cloud real? You know, will on-premise ever go away and is cloud real? And would, you know, CIOs ever trust data that's not in their data center and is in some kind of public cloud? And these were real debates there.

33:27Now it's not the same thing. I think all of us, you know, who've been established for a while, or if it's a startup, we know and see the value of AI. And we're kind of like really focused on what is that value for customers. If Siebel had had deep belief in conviction that SaaS was actually going to be the thing that ultimately upended their business and enabled Salesforce to become a big company, they probably would have done that. Yes. They just didn't. That's right. And then they got cannibalized. That's right. And I think that's about to happen all over again to many of these SaaS companies.

33:59Yeah. And that's the thing, right? Like if you're one of these traditional SaaS companies, traditional as in like you were born in the last 20 years. Yes. And you're not leveraging this technology. Yeah. Like you're probably going to die. You're probably actually probably going to get completely upended. I have like two thoughts here. First of all, everybody, every one of us running tech companies now, we've got the memo. We read Innovator's Dilemma. We looked at Blockbuster. We looked at BlackBerry. We lived through Seaball. We lived through all of this. We've got the memo, right? And there is no hesitation in kind of looking at what is happening within the tech industry to say, this is big.

34:41We're going, right? I mean, I think you're absolutely right. The second thing is that I think about this like disruption conversation slightly differently, where, you know, if you think about the way to define disruption is that you have a certain market. There is a new startup that comes into that market and they eat your, you know, TAM and they reset your ability to grow. That is the disruption. I think what is happening right now is that there is a software market, but that market actually now got 10x bigger because it's now software and work market. What you talked about paralegal is work.

35:20Typically, software never did that. And it might have provided some help, but it didn't actually translate work. So the overall addressable market went from software to software plus labor, which is 10 times bigger. which means your job is not, you know, sitting there thinking about disruption and is my market going to get smaller? Your job is to kind of define what you are going to do to get a bigger percentage of this 10x market. That's right. That is different. And I think like that's why the incumbents or the ones that have been around, they're moving faster and they are redefining kind of like what this looks like within the market.

36:00And it's exciting. I agree. And I think like taking that even a step further, like think about, let's just say the customer support use case. Yes. Okay. Yes. You are 100 % not going to need as many customer support people. Yes. That's the truth. Truth. You are going to replace or not hire future customer support people that you otherwise would. True. Those are whatever salary they are. You're just getting rid of those salaries or reallocating what you would be otherwise hiring in those salaries towards something else. Reallocating it. A 20 to 50 % clip or more. That's like very different than charging a license or a seat-based fee for some service that you're offering.

36:43It's very different. Absolutely. The incumbent question is one that I'm really fascinated by though, because we don't want to go up against... Ideally, it is a non-tech savvy incumbent that we are cannibalizing. not necessarily HubSpot, okay? Thank you for saying that. So like, I'll give you an example that comes to mind right now. There's a company called Axon. You've probably never heard of it, okay? They're a$60 billion public company, okay? And they do tasers. They have a 99 % market share of all tasers in the country. Interesting. They sell the police stations, whatever, okay? Interesting.

37:28Product number two was body cams for police officers. OK, yeah. I think on Amazon or Microsoft's public cloud, they are their footprint is larger than Netflix and Snapchat combined or something with how much data they're sending to the public cloud to give you a sense of their scale. OK, what they're doing is they have built a co-pilot for police officers because after a police officer does a traffic stop. OK, they then have to go back to the office and transcribe all the things that happen. Right. Right. Now they can just dictate it as it's happening. Yes. And it automatically transcribes that in a way that's saving them literally hours a day.

38:10Yes. That's like half their job. That's right. Like, do we think we should make a bet in the police in the police copilot? Probably not in that respect, because they have all the data. Yeah. They have all the data. Yeah. So like, That part gives me pause, right? Now, for like doctors, I think there's a pretty obvious use case there. You know what I mean? Absolutely. So there's maybe like a difference here, you know? Yes. Maybe one point and then I want to hear what you think. First of all, I love that you're thinking because this is the, you know, have a thesis of where, you know, AI can add the most value and then build a hypothesis and then like invest.

38:56And I think that's fantastic. Yeah, I think like,

39:03the weird thing is that the current state of the market is that we are paying rent for somebody else to use our data. Like if you're like, this is the thing that I haven't quite wrapped my arms around yet. Let's take Salesforce. Right. Okay. that's not salesforce's data it's the customer's data it's the customer's data yeah that's different than like the police use case yeah do you know what i mean oh yeah i don't know how that unfolds yeah because i like i think that they have a huge data advantage but like i think you have a huge data advantage yeah but like how you use that data yeah and what tools can you offer?

39:51I don't know the answer to that. I just don't know how that's going to play out. I think you're exactly right. Like there are certain things where you can very clearly see who owns the data and who gets the value out of it. I'll tell you the ability to bring together the data and give it to the customer who is responsible and who owns the data is actually valuable. What I mean by this is this. So there's one of the reasons why customers like HubSpot, is we help them get all their structured data about the company, the contact, the notes, all of that in one place, and it's super easy. Now, we are bringing together all of this unstructured data, the conversations, the emails, the slacks, the Zoom meetings, the phone calls you have, the transcripts from all of that, because AI can do more with that unstructured data.

40:43We've always had access to unstructured data. You can just do more with it. The way we think about it is that we have a natural advantage of bringing the structured data, unstructured data, and even external data from 10-Ks, 10-Qs, transcripts, communities, like any of that together to give that back to the customer. We don't even need it for training. Like if we say, hey, your salesperson is having this conversation. And if I look at the 10 unstructured conversations, these two are best in class. These other eight have to learn. So I can actually expose what the top two reps are doing and make it better for the other reps.

41:25That's the value. And the ability to bring data together, to drive real-time insights from a larger volume of data to help customers get value is the advantage, right? Now, whether how it plays out, you know, who can get access to that data, how those use cases transform, you know, the work that we are talking about, that remains to be seen. But I do think that there is a advantage in bringing the data together, even if you're not owning that data. I totally agree with you. The other thing that I wonder how you think about it is like going back to my AI engineer comment, okay? Like if you want to go build the products and services that you think your customers need in this new world, you're going to go have to hire the best of the best.

42:12Yeah. Okay. Yes. Those best of the best often, like if like they'll look at a company like Harvey. Yeah. And they'll be like, wow. Yeah. That's the new shiny thing. Yeah. That's who you're competing against for that talent. Yeah. And so if talent is the enablement function to get you from where you are to where you want to go, like that often, I imagine that's tricky. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think it has always been tricky, right? And part of it is the risk profile of the person and what they're trying to learn. I think in the case of HubSpot, we act like a startup within a startup. There are so many innovation bets and so many innovation teams that - Which you always have, by the way.

42:54Which we have, right? Like your history is there. Yeah, we've put these bets and like now we're actually accelerating the pace of that product and innovation bets that we're putting. And so, you know, a lot of times will have conversation of like, okay, you want to do something? Why don't you do it here? And here's how we'll enable it. And by the way, we'll give you the resources and there's a higher chance of you being successful. And ultimately it comes down to the risk profile of that individual. You know, of course they can go work for startups and, you know, knowing that not every one of these companies are going to become successful or they can work in an innovation bet within, you know, a company like HubSpot.

43:35It really comes down to what the risk profile is. And I think that if you continue to do interesting, you know, problems and you do it in a way that people learn, then you will be able to attract the right talent for your organization. and this is the period that we're all going to look back and say, oh my God, how much did we learn in that period, right? Like there are times, points in times of my career where I'm like, oh my God, maximum learning. And that's what excites me. And that's right now. I tell our teams all the time, I'm like, you're going to look back at these three years where I know we're working super hard and we're going even faster, but you're going to look back and say, that is when I learned the most.

44:22And that is when it was like exciting. Does it keep you up at night? Like, you know, everyone now sees basically every category up for grabs. Yeah. The race is reset. And of course, like you're in one of the mothers of all markets. Yeah. It is reset. There are like 20 companies, maybe a hundred all looking at CRM. Absolutely. I mean, it does, you know, Jubin, I wake up excited and scared at the same time. It's like this, you know, I'm like, okay, today we feel really good. And there's so much excitement. And we, you know, last week we had this whole, you know, we brought the leadership team with our top GMs in product as well as engineers.

45:10And we had like two days of brainstorming and we had like so many ideas and we're so excited. And then you like look at some other tweet from someone else and you're like, oh my God. So I think it's both. And you're going to have to like really distill it down to what do you need to do now? What do you need to do in the next three months? And what's the hypothesis of the world that you have over the next year? Because I think anything over that period, who knows? You know, three years, five years from now, AGA comes in, who knows what the world is going to look like? We can only plan for the next year in very, very, you know, short increments of time.

45:47We run a group of CIOs here at Kleiner Perkins and there's about 30 of them. And we met yesterday and I was putting together a deck to give like kind of a state of AI, state of the valley, all this stuff. I gave the same presentation two months ago. I basically had to redo the entire deck. Two months ago. Basically had to redo the entire deck. I was like, what is happening? Isn't that exciting though? It's incredibly exciting. John Chambers used to say that every five years, he felt like he would have to reinvent himself as a company and reinvent Cisco. Reinvent Cisco and reinvent himself as a leader.

46:29Every five years. That was like about his clip. And he was like, that was hard. Right now, these early stage startups are reinventing themselves literally every six months. Yes. Every six months. I mean, we're a much bigger company. Every year I've been as a CEO, I've had to like reinvent what I'm doing and my mental constructs. And every year there's something completely different that we are like trying to drive at HubSpot. So yeah, it's no longer five years. It's like probably six months, maybe even three months. You're trying to like run really, really fast. Well, and it's even crazier for you because you have all of these new people that are popping up trying to take your throne.

47:06Yes. Okay. You have these foundational models that are dropping 10X in price every year. Yeah. 10X. Yeah. And then they're improving, I don't know what, but like a lot, like crazy fast every year. So it's like all of these things at once. And you're like, oh my gosh. Exciting. It's insane. It's exciting. Can I revisit? So COVID happens. You're the chief customer officer. Then at what point did you become the CEO? What point in time? Yeah. So March, 2021. Do you know the story? Like what happened? So what happened was this. So I joined and first year we're like running super hard. At the end of year one, Brian texts me and, you know, he says.

47:55Brian's the CEO. Yeah. Brian, our co-founder and CEO for 15 years. He texts me on the eve of Christmas and he's like, hey, you'll be my successor and you're a part of my succession plan. And then I texted him back saying, everything is going to be fine. You're going to be doing this for another 10 years. And then we had like one conversation about it. And that was it. And then March comes along. And unfortunately, Brian had a snowmobile accident. And he broke a lot of bones. Thankfully, he's now completely fine. But he needed to go and take care of himself. So he actually texts me again and says, remember, I told you about this.

48:37if I ever get hit by a bus, you have to run it. I need you to run it. And this was March, 2021. This is like from the hospital. Yeah. He's sending you this. And this is like 15 months after I joined the company. And we were like, okay, you take the time because he needed to recover. He needed time for surgeries and all of that stuff. And we said, okay, you can do that. We'll take care of it. And this was March, 2021. This was the time the company is like growing like crazy. And we're trying to, you know, grow fast enough to make sure that we are capturing all of the growth. And yeah. And I said, so what do you want me doing?

49:17He said, you know, don't screw it up. He actually said that? He used a different word, but I won't say it. And did he actually, he actually said that? You're like, oh, great. And was it, was it an interim CEO or was it the CEO? No, that was an interim CEO. Because he was like, I'm coming back. Yeah. He was like, well. And you always thought Brian's going to be here forever. I think so. We didn't even have the conversation. He was like, run it, you know, don't mess it up, you know, and keep going. And I, I for sure thought that he is going to come back and run. And so I had this list of when Brian comes back, he needs to fix these things.

49:53And it was a very long list. In six months, it had grown to like multiple pages. I need to talk to him about this and this and this. And so he comes back. And by the way, he's completely fine now. But he comes back in like, I think it was July or August. And three, four months later, four months, he was not fully recovered. And we were thinking that he's going to, you know, be back in like six months. And he goes, no, you're doing it and keep doing it. The board and I think that you're doing a great job and we want you to become, you know, the CEO. So in August, 2021, I moved from what I was doing as an interim CEO to kind of taking on the CEO.

50:28And it was crazy times, right? Because that It was the year we were growing like crazy. We'd done some of these transitions. It was tough for the leadership team to kind of like take the company, make sure that we had this whole internal challenge of running the company when the founder was out taking care of himself. And then we had to like make sure that we're making the right decisions to grow. So crazy times. Yes. And then basically within a year from that point, interest rates go up and you're like growth rate gets cut in half and you're like, well, welcome to the show. Like, here we go. Well, it was not even that.

51:05Like October 2021 was the peak of the market. So I had like two months, you know, October 2021 was the peak of the market. And then obviously things started going down. By the time we came into 2022, April 2022, customers were clearly pulling back and high interest rates, high inflation. Now we can look back and say that combination of pumping a lot of money into the economy and letting the interest rates go flying and driving inflation, this is just not a good combination. But I think the impact of it was by April 2022, we started seeing the pullback and then we're like, OK, turn the whole ship around.

51:46We got to slow down hiring. We got to slow down where we're going to grow and we have to recalibrate all of the plan. So yeah, it's been a roller coaster. When you became a CEO, how'd you feel? Like, what did you actually think?

52:04Look, I think my life kind of flashed in front of me and people say that, but look, I grew up in a super small town. When I was growing up, we didn't have a high school in my town. So my mom moved to a different city to get my high school education completed. And then I had this dream of coming to the U.S. and came here with honestly$300 in my pocket after I spent, you know, the first semester fees and, you know, renting a house. So God, like it was just absolutely crazy. And I still remember like coming down from the conversation with Brian, my kids and my my parents were you know downstairs and I was crying and my son looks at me and he says mom did you get fired and he was like what happened did you get fired and I was like no I got you know Brian wants me to run the company and I was like literally in tears super emotional Why?

53:10Again, like never in my life did I think that I was going to be in a public company in a C-suite role, first of all, and certainly not in a public company running it. And that was not part of my vision for myself. I wanted to come to this country. I wanted to learn. I wanted to get a good education. I wanted to have a job. I wanted to be economically independent. And I had the fire in my belly to be good at what I whatever job I did. I wanted to be the best at it. And it was always about learning and growing and seeing people around me and getting inspired. And it was never about getting to a certain level.

53:54And, you know, it was like people talk about the American dream like this is more than my dream. Like I did not dream that big. And it was just super emotional to to kind of, you know, see that Brian and the board had the confidence that I could do something like this. So, you know, I I consider it my biggest honor and privilege to be leading HubSpot. What changed what surprised you the most in how your day to day changed from chief customer officer to CEO? The number of stakeholders that you now have to manage and the almost impossible task in getting everybody's approval at any given time. When you are in go-to-market roles, very, very clear, you're focused on customers.

54:47Customers, number one. Partner, maybe number two. And then your team and employees, number three. And you really are focused on these three stakeholders. And, you know, my framework had always been if you can maximize the value for the customer and you can maximize the value for the company and you can line it up for, you know, what an individual rep in your organization, you know, wanted to do. If you can line it up, then you can actually maximize outcomes from all. And my mental framework was, how do you do that? How do you maximize customer value? Line it up with company value. Line it up with rep value.

55:26And any system I put in place or any product we were trying to sell or any incentive change we're making, it was, you know, customer, company, rep. That was what I, you know, would base my decisions on. And now you're in this world where it's certainly customers. It's certainly partners. It's certainly employees. And then you have shareholders. You know, your ultimate boss is like your investor and shareholder base. And then you have board and managing the board. And then you have founders who are trying to figure out what their life is going to be like after being a CEO for such a long time. And then you have a lot more constituents.

56:05And I think what I've recognized that is that it's really hard to get it right across all of them. You know, you may be able to get it right for many of them. But if you did something for, you know, that is really for customers, you might have to delay the impact that it has on your company that then shows up with investors. You can't like maximize for all. It's a very, very difficult, you know, set of constraints that are there. And so, yeah, it's, you know, and then for me, part of it was also while I started my career as an engineer, I have been in go to market for a better part of like two decades.

56:49And so the initial question was like, how is she going to drive product? drive product. And, you know, I, I've always had this like sense of being behind, right. You know, I grew up in a small town, which meant that I would look at my cousins and family in bigger cities that had opportunities behind. I came to the U S I was behind, like, you know, I, it took me a while to kind of like get used to a new country with a new system, with the new, you know, ways of communicating. I was behind. And then I was like an engineer behind, you know, know, trying to become a salesperson. And then I was a go to market person behind trying to like help with product.

57:27And so, you know, there's this thing of like, okay, if you're behind, what is it that you can do to drive the right outcomes and the results? And maybe that's what is, you know, it gives, those are points in time when I feel like I'm behind, which most of my life, I feel like I've been behind. It gives me the drive to learn and to grow and to take that as a challenge and to say, great, you know, I understand that doubt or I understand that sentiment. I'm going to crack it and I'm going to like figure out how I can put my time energy into getting better. So I never take it as a question on me personally.

58:09I take it as a question on my experience and all of those times it was right. And so I think like, you know, it's been, it's been this journey of trying to learn and trying to remain very resilient, you know, when you find yourself behind. Isn't it funny that like, I always feel behind too. I always feel like I'm not doing enough. I'm not trying hard enough. I'm, I'm not producing enough good work. Right. And I always tell myself, if I just push a little bit harder, then I will be enough. And in some ways, like I I am chasing this like imaginary dragon of getting over the hill of not enough. Yes.

58:44But the thing that maybe is pushing me in the same way is the feeling that it's not enough. Like it's like this, like it's really, so there's no. It actually, you know, now this feeling in my stomach of being, you know, behind or getting up in the morning and looking at how much needs to happen. I've like embraced it. I've embraced it and made my peace with it Because if I look back, those are the times in my life where I've grown the most. When, you know, I was an engineer, I then went to business school and got into my first sales job. I was like, I have no idea. I'm an engineer from India. And now I have a quota.

59:28What am I going to do in this role? And how am I going to be successful? And, you know, I am an introvert. I don't play sports. You know, I don't banter. I was not particularly great at building relationships. Maybe now over the years, I've gotten a little bit better, but I have all of the inherent disadvantages of not being successful in sales. And that kept me awake. I was like, I'm going to crack this thing. And what I found is that I was not good in the first five minutes of a sales call, but I was actually very good in the next 25 minutes of the sales call because I used almost an engineer's approach to breaking down the problems and figuring out, you know, challenges.

1:00:14I would read 10 case, I would read 10 cues, I would listen to, you know, company management speak. And then I would ask them a question 10 minutes in, and they'd be like, that is the biggest challenge that we have. And then we'll be like, let's go into the challenge. Why have you had that challenge? And then, you know, be present and like repeat back to them why that was a challenge. And then And I was like, you know what? I really suck at that first five minutes, but then I know how to crack the next 25 minutes. Let me just do that. And then that made me better as a sales professional in front of customers.

1:00:49And that was hard work. But after like 10 years, I was like, I think I've learned so much. I've learned not only the art of selling, I learned the actual buying process and the buyer's like approach to, you know, thinking about investments. And that has helped me in my career. And so I look at periods where I feel like I'm behind and that's when I learned the most. And so now I have embraced that discomfort. I've embraced that just feeling behind, you know, thing that you wake up every morning with. then that's helped. So you look back at your life and your career and there are things that serve you well and then things that don't serve you well.

1:01:39And things that serve you well, even if they make you feel uncomfortable, it's okay. Like you embrace it and you kind of go. So I, you know, I've learned to live with that. On the stakeholder management thing. Yeah. Do you think that the reason why so many CEOs say that it's really lonely and then nobody really believes them until they get into the CEO job and then they realize it's really lonely is because, again, I don't know, but you tell me, is it because you feel like across all of these stakeholders, there's just somebody you're always letting down? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And here's the thing.

1:02:17You cannot talk about it, right? Like when - You can't talk about it to your team. No, I can't talk about it to your board. No. You can't talk about it to another CEO because they don't have enough context on your business. Yeah. I mean, it is very, very lonely. Now, I've been fortunate where, you know, as we were doing all of this around COVID, we created like a CEO group and a network of CEOs because we were all at home. We were all trying to navigate, you know, COVID, the pandemic, and, you know, every possible, you know, twist and turn. And I have a good network. But you're right. Like, even within that CEO network, they're not going through exactly what you're going through.

1:02:53And I think in almost every other role, you have a set of peers that are going through exactly what you're going through and you can have a conversation with them. But, you know, I love my team. I work with them every single day. But if there is a challenge with, I don't know, a member of the board or, you know, something else, I'm not going to go and like talk to them about it. So you're dealing with that. And at the end of the day, you know, You have to empower your teams and delegate work and they have to do it. But if something doesn't go well, you are accountable. You're 100 % accountable.

1:03:28And there are times where I've said to the board that this is on me. Something didn't go well, a bet didn't go well, or a change that we made didn't go well. I know who did it and I'm giving them coaching. I'm giving them guidance. I'm giving them performance reviews, but it is on me, the accountability is on me. So it is very lonely. You cannot talk about it. Like, can you talk to Brian? Like, even like, but like, let me, let me like, but like, let me just, let me, let me ask you, like, he's been the CEO for 15 years. He founded the company. Yeah. There, between him and his co-founder. Yeah. There's nobody that has more context on the business.

1:04:03Absolutely. But like, doesn't deep down part of you say like, I want him to view me as an independent and competent leader. Like, like, doesn't there, isn't there some part of you that's like, this is my thing now. Like I need to put my flavor on it. I can't show him all of my deepest and darkest insecurities because, you know, like I want him to feel like it's in good hands. Yes. I mean, and it's not even my, you know, like it has been phenomenal to have Brian and Dharmesh on, you know, during this whole part. Right. And we do have these conversations and sometimes Brian will be like, yeah, that's a problem.

1:04:40I've had I had that problem for 15 years. So I'm like, OK, and he'll go, I don't have an answer, but you should know that I had the same problem. I'm like, OK, thank you. That that is validating and that's helpful. And then there are other times where he will say that he was like a startup to scale up CEO. And I'm trying to do scale up the grown up company. Right. And so my decisions might look very different than some of the decisions that he's made. And I need I would need for him to like trust me in making those decisions. And that comes with, you know, time. And so I think like it's lonely.

1:05:18It's the most challenging job I have ever done. And I would call it more than a job. I, you know, it's like, it's my life now. It's just, it consumes everything you have in your life and you got to give it your 200%. There's no other way to do that. That makes sense. Is there a stakeholder that you feel like you let down the most? Like, is there a stakeholder that you felt like All right. I took my lumps on this one. I'm going to get better as a result. I didn't expect that. I actually think that it would be employees. Right. And I would say this because, you know, we've been fantastic in terms of like growth.

1:05:56But then we talked about the challenges of 22. And then we talked about challenges of like what happens when you pull forward demand, you know, for many years to come into like a couple of years. Like you grow, you don't have the systems. I think employees were like, we can't get work done because there's so much pull forward demand. And they didn't articulate it that way. They said, it's becoming harder to get work done at HubSpot. And true enough, of course it is, because we haven't built the company for the scale that we are now seeing as a company. And then, you know, we had to do a layoff.

1:06:30We've done one layoff. We did it in January, 2023. And you had to do it. I had to do it. And it was, look, I think, you know, looking back, we pulled the lever to slow down hiring in June 2022. And the earliest indicator that things were going down were April 2022. So from a reaction time standpoint, it was quick, but it was not hard enough. And we'd already hired all these people in 2021. And so I think it was a super hard decision to make. and I think, you know, maybe rightfully so, I lost credibility as a leader to, you know, having taken that decision. It was, of course, everybody agreed. The board agreed with me.

1:07:11Brian Dermesh agreed with me, but it was my decision and it, you know - You think you lost credibility in the eyes of the employees? Absolutely. Because you made a commitment to them. This is a great place for them, their families, their careers. Yeah. And you couldn't meet that commitment? Absolutely, absolutely. And some skittishness with everybody else, like, oh, geez, like new CEO, here we go. Yeah, and absolutely. lost credibility with employees. And I've explained it to them. I think that I've given the context and I've showed that, look, everybody else is doing it like every year and we've not.

1:07:43And we really try to kind of maintain, you know, I always have this saying where I say like, make new mistakes. You know, if you make a mistake, learn deeply from it and try not to ever do that mistake They can make new mistakes. And so I think that's part of the learning, but absolutely lost credibility with employees and still trying to make that up. And it's also the context of, it's easy when everybody is winning. It's not so easy when you're going through downturns as we have gone through in the last couple of years. And on top of that, let's pivot to AI. Let's make a whole roadmap change and let's figure out how we're going to do work from home and trying to get the productivity up.

1:08:25And so it's been, you know, fairly tumultuous. And so I do think that we've doubled down on customers. We've kept that going. But yes, it's very hard to balance all of that given the circumstances. Is sitting still difficult for you? Oh, absolutely. Yes, yes. Like, can you like veg out on a couch? No. No, I have not been able to. veg out on a couch. Why not?

1:09:00You know, for me, do you feel like you're wasting time? Yeah. The better part of like 20 years has been in sometimes on the couch, but reading, looking at like, feeling like you're being productive. Yeah. Like always, you know, I don't think I have sat on the couch without my laptop in 20 years. Come on. I have not. I have not. Like, I think that my kids will now say, like my son who's going off to college and he's like, mom, I have four months with you. And this is like at 11 o 'clock in the night and be like, can you just shut down the computer for five minutes and talk to me? And I'm like, yes, yes, I will.

1:09:41And I do. I try to do it, but it's at 11 at night and, you know, whole evening. I'm sitting on the couch. He's probably doing something there. And I can't do it. Like it's, you know, again, it's one, so exciting. The industry has always been like this. Like I tell people, don't join tech if you don't want change. If you want like a nine to five job in a status quo industry where your skills are kind of like improving 1 % a year, don't join this because this is like a vibrant industry. You're making changes all the time. You're constantly learning. And for me, if I'm not learning, you know, I already have this like mental anxiety of I'm behind from where I came up.

1:10:22So I'm always like, if I'm not learning, I'm behind. Yeah. So you feel like if you're not learning, you're just like you're completely wasting. You're just wasting your time. Yeah. But what happens if you want to like, how do you slow down? Like, is there such thing? I think, of course, there is such things. I think that for me, do you feel the need to slow down? Meaning like, do you need a break from something that gives you so much energy and excitement? Look, I think that - Honestly. I do. So I'll say that my Saturdays are precious to me because it is really a time. My husband and I like go for a long walk.

1:10:58I do yoga, I do meditation. So those days are good. And then we take vacations, right? And we go on vacations. And the first three, four days, I'm like, okay. Totally. I can't like, what's going on in the world? And then the next seven days, I actually get into it. And whether it is, you know, going somewhere or going on a retreat, whatever it is, I sink into that moment. And then the last three days, I'm like, let me get back. Do you, on a Saturday, do you not feel, is that urge to check your email? It's gone? No, it is gone because I will tell you what, the alternate, when I did not do that, when I didn't take breaks, whether it was a vacation or, you know, my Saturday, I got burnt out pretty quickly, right?

1:11:44Like I would get into this place where I was like burning out by June, July in a year, I'd be like, I'm so exhausted. I can't like function. And I also think that creativity actually slows down if you don't get some break. And for me, you know, every evening I take like an hour, either I am doing yoga or doing some kind of like workout or walking or listening to music, that is a break. My studies are break. So I have like inbuilt breaks and then I'll take like longer vacations. And, but even in the, in the vacations, my idea of a good time is reading like a great book. And it's, that is my idea of a good time.

1:12:25So yeah, I'll put down the, you know, my laptop, but I'm reading like, you know, some, I'm mostly, I read like four books at a time because I don't have the patience to finish a book. Are you serious? I can't ever finish a book. So when you travel, you bring four books with you? And they're all physical. Like this is my old schoolness. You can't, of course, you can't use a Kindle. I mean, Kindle doesn't mean - I don't like it either. I don't know. I've never, I read a lot, you know, of magazines and articles online. But I think like for me, a book is like a physical book and I sit there and it, to me - So you actually pack four books with you?

1:12:58Oh yeah. And then you read them concurrently? Yeah. Like you'll read a chapter, you'll be like, all right, I'm done with this for now. You go to another book, you read a different - I parallel read. Are you serious? I know. But don't you think that some of these business books, you read two chapters and then you're kind of like, I got it. And then the next eight chapters are like proving two points from the first two chapters. That's fair. And are they all business books? No, like some of them are business books. Some of them are like super dense. Like I've been trying to read Godel Escherbach.

1:13:32Have you read this? No, but even just the name makes me think I'm probably not qualified. No, I myself, I'm not qualified. So this book, I can maybe read 10 pages at a time. It is math, it's architecture and music and the commonality across all of this. And it's beautifully written, but very intense. And I can only read 10 pages at a time. And then I'm reading Sapiens, you know, And I'm on like probably chapter five now of that. And I can only read one chapter at a time. No. Yeah. No. Yeah, me neither. I used to. I tried. I tried, but no, I can't. I used to feel like I had to finish books just like out of like a commitment.

1:14:15You know, like I started a book, I got to finish it. I would love that, yeah. And it was Naval. I don't know Naval. I just heard him on a podcast talking about how he's like, I never finish books. Like I never feel pressure to finish books. I go back to books. They come. I highlight books. I go. He's like, but if I don't feel like I want to finish a book, I move on to the next one because he's like, that's when you stop reading is when you feel like you have to finish a book. It's sitting on your bedside table and you're like, don't give yourself permission to go to the next book because you know, I got to finish this book.

1:14:43Then you just stop reading because you'd rather just not read the shitty book you're reading. And this is why I've given the permission. And, and, you know, I just love, love, love books. In fact, like when I was growing up, I was in this, you know, small town and I still remember the librarian in my town saying, your daughter, and I would not even go to the library. I'd ask my mom to bring these, like I'd write down titles and my mom would bring it and I'd be reading it. And this was my introverted self back then. And the librarian once said, your daughter has read every book in this library.

1:15:14Please don't come here. And my mom was like, she said that you've read every book in the library. Like this was my window into the world. This is like what cost me like, you know, all of the curiosity about the world. And so for me, the best idea of a Saturday is like a long walk, a little bit of like yoga and a book and one chapter of the book, not more. That is awesome. I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you. I really do. You're wonderful. Thank you. Are you hiring? Yes, absolutely. Any key roles, any? R &D, sales. Okay. We want to build product. We want to sell product. Okay. Yes, absolutely.

1:15:52We are continuing to hire them. And when you hear the word grit, what do you think of?

1:15:59I think of the intentional choices I have made and the resilience to follow through with those intentional choices. You know, coming to America was an intentional choice. Being an engineer, you know, back in the 80s, 90s in India was an intentional choice. Going to sales and trying to make it in sales was an intentional choice. And so I think for me, it is making intentional choices that might not always be conventional wisdom and having the resilience to see it through. Everything that we do in life, there will be good days and bad days. There will be great highs and low lows. And everything has to start with having the resilience to see what you want to accomplish in that.

1:16:43And so that's what, you know, grit has been. I can't wait to see what choices you make, what choices you make next. Thank you, Jobin. Thank you. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure to connect with you. That's it for now. If you liked the episode, please leave us a review or go back into the archives where we've done more than 200 episodes with some fantastic folks. This podcast is a Kleiner Perkins production, and I'm Juven. Thanks for listening.