BILLIONS

Is the traditional "per-seat" SaaS model officially obsolete? In 2016, Ron Gabrisko joined a startup with less than $1M in ARR. It was a company of 50 engineers and a product beloved by developers who had never even spoken to a sales rep. Ten years later, Databricks is a $134B giant doing $5.4B in ARR and they are still growing at a staggering 65% year-over-year.No CRO in history has built a revenue engine this fast, from this early a starting point. Ron didn't do it by following the standard Silicon Valley playbook; he did it by pioneering Consumption-Based Pricing and leveraging Open Source as the ultimate top-of-funnel engine. In this masterclass, we break down: Consumption vs. Seats: Why Databricks tied its pricing to the "most basic unit of value" and how it fueled a $100B+ valuation.The Open Source Funnel: How to monetize a community without "locking them in".Building Trust with Engineers: Why Ron hires "really technical sales folks" to add value rather than just pitching.Scaling through Innovation: Why Databricks didn't stop at one product, but built a sticky ecosystem (Spark, Delta, MLflow).The GenAI Future: Why owning and protecting your data is the "secret sauce" for the next decade of AI.Timeline : 00:00 – The $5.4B Machine: Intro01:20 – Joining Databricks at sub-$1M ARR with 7 PhD founders04:12 – Selling to engineers: hiring "really technical sales folks"06:29 – Killing the SaaS Seat: consumption and the "most basic unit of value"09:22 – Net retention 130%: the multi-product open source strategy14:53 – Planning 65% YoY: the science of forecasting19:03 – Structuring 5,000+ sellers: verticalization and outcome-based selling29:11 – "Don't give your data to us": the data ownership philosophy33:54 – Usage-based vs value-based: why pricing is public on the website

Today on BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with Larry Aschebrook, the guy who invented a market that Wall Street didn't think existed.Larry started personally buying shares in Twitter and Uber on the side and he realized: there are thousands of employees sitting on life-changing paper gains, with zero liquidity, waiting for companies that might never IPO.So in 2011, he quit his safe university job and launched G Squared, a fund to solve that problem. Nobody took him seriously. The secondary market was "taboo." Companies thought selling shares meant you were failing.Today, he manages $5 billion. He turned a $150M Spotify bet into $1 billion. He made $800M on Coursera. And the market he built is now worth $140 billion a year.Larry, welcome to BILLIONS.TIMELINE : 00:00 : The psychology of the secondary market pioneer. 01:13 : Quitting a decade-long career for a "ghost" market. 03:23 : The Hustle: Cold-calling alumni for early Twitter and Uber shares. 05:41 : The $150 million Spotify bet and the $9M personal risk with zero collateral. 11:19 : Data Arbitrage: How Larry knew record labels were secretly buying Spotify. 15:43 : Scaling G Squared: From a $35 million pool to $7 billion AUM. 20:05 : Why DPI (Cash Back) is the only metric that matters, and why paper gains are a lie. 25:09 : The Scars: Learning from the "quick commerce" collapse and other losses. 37:09 : The Future: OpenAI, SpaceX, and the evolution of private liquidity. 53:12 : Advice for Founders: Why you must hire "grinders," not just pedigree.REFERENCES : Daniel Ek Spencer McLeodMitchell GreenJim SimonsElon Musk Spotify Twitter Uber Palantir Coursera Anthropic OpenAI SpaceX Stripe Wiz Toast NetflixApple Music Instacart Postmates Meituan Alibaba Turo GetaroundKlarna Revolut Databricks 23andMe Gorillas Pagaya⁠

On this episode of BILLIONS, I’m sitting down with Ben Cera, the man who helped Travis Kalanick (Uber Founder) build CloudKitchens, and who is now building the "God Mode" for startups: Polsia.Polsia is an AI that builds and runs companies autonomously. No employees, no meetings, just 24/7 execution. Ben is currently at a $6M annual run rate with a 30% week-on-week growth and he plans to hit $100M ARR in just 3 months. If you want to understand how AI agents are replacing the traditional SaaS model and how "Product-Market Fit" has become a search problem, this is your masterclass.In this episode, we break down:The CloudKitchens Era: Lessons learned from building a global giant with Travis Kalanick.The Autonomous Blueprint: How Pulsia builds companies from scratch without human intervention.$100M ARR in 90 Days: The aggressive growth strategy behind the AI revolution.The "SaaS-pocalypse": Why the software you use today is about to be replaced by agents.The "Taste" Economy: Why humans are moving from "builders" to "orchestrators."TIMELINE : 00:00 "Click a button, get a company": The vision for Polsia01:12 Building with Travis Kalanick: The CloudKitchens masterclass04:45 The $100M ARR Plan: How to scale an AI company in 90 days09:30 Why Product-Market Fit is just a "Search Problem"15:10 The SaaS-pocalypse: Replacing legacy software with AI agents22:40 How Polsia finds demand and builds products autonomously31:15 The Meta Ads Strategy: Scaling from $10/day to millions38:50 Why "Taste" is the only human skill left in the AI era45:10 Influencer-led distribution: The new "Billion-dollar" funnel53:05 Ben’s advice for founders: Stop building for others, build for yourselfREFERENCESTravis Kalanick (X/Twitter) Rick Rubin CloudKitchensFuture FoodsPolsiaChatGPT ClaudeSora 2 Uber Meta Ads ShopifyStripeUniversal PaperclipsWikipedia / Craigslist / Amazon HubSpot DoorDash

Lazar Jovanovic is the world's first official "Vibe Coding Engineer." Working at Lovable (the AI startup that hit $100M ARR in just 8 months) Lazar is proving that the future of software engineering isn't about syntax; it's about taste and intent.In this episode, we dive into how Lazar ships production-grade apps for a $6.6B unicorn without writing a single line of manual code. We discuss the "SaaS-pocalypse," why ignorance is a superpower in the AI era, and how you can transition from a traditional role to a Vibe Coder.TIMELINE : 00:00 - Meet the world's first "vibe coding" engineer01:06 - Why "not knowing how to code" is your new superpower04:43 - Is software maintenance dead in the age of AI?09:15 - The Lovable story: hitting $100M ARR in 8 months15:42 - The end of bootstrapping? Vibe coding vs. the old way24:16 - SaaS-pocalypse: the future of software interfaces29:47 - Beyond code: the only metrics that matter for AI products37:01 - Will enterprises ever adopt AI-generated code?44:35 - The "Aladdin & Genie" trick for mastering AI prompts56:05 - How to become a vibe coder (no permission required)REFERENCES : Warren MasonKurt Cobain Pieter Levels.Marc LouVictor Wembanyama Elena VernaJony IveLovable Claude OpenAIShopify Stripe TechCrunch Salesforce HubSpot 28 Days of LovableShe BuildsAladdin and the Genie

Today on BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with Wilfried Juncker.He's the Managing Director for Odoo's Americas a Belgian software unicorn that just hit a €8 billion valuation.Under Wilfried's watch, Odoo's Americas operation exploded from 35 people in 2016 to over 950 in America only.In this episode, we're digging into how Wilfried built Odoo's American war machine, what it takes to conquer a new market from scratch, and how he's fighting high SMB churn while scaling at breakneck speed.While SAP and Oracle charge millions for ERP, Odoo's open-source model is democratizing enterprise software and Wilfried built the Americas war machine that's making it happen.Wilfried, thanks a lot for being here!TIMELINE : 00:00:00 - 00:01:05 : Odoo's explosive growth from 70 to 2,000 employees00:01:05 - 00:02:30 : The early days and Wilfried's journey at Odoo00:02:30 - 00:05:25 : Entering the US market with channel partners strategy00:05:25 - 00:09:25 : Open source model and freemium conversion tactics00:09:25 - 00:14:20 : Building the partner ecosystem and revenue sharing00:14:20 - 00:18:07 : Scaling partner relationships and management approach00:18:07 - 00:24:12 : Hiring and retention philosophy - promote from within only00:24:12 - 00:27:14 : Industry specialization vs size-based team structure00:27:14 - 00:34:32 : Managing SMB churn while maintaining growth00:34:32 - 00:42:17 : Demo-first culture and bottom-up sales approach00:42:17 - 00:48:20 : Resource allocation and offline marketing strategy00:48:20 - 00:52:27 : Unconventional customer acquisition tactics00:52:27 - 00:54:29 : Building local ecosystems and final thoughtsREFERENCES :- Oracle NetSuite- Microsoft Dynamics- SAP- Acumatica- Sage- Epicor- Infor- QuickBooks- HubSpot- GitHub- Lemlist- Clay- Lucia- NPR- NASA

Today on BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with the man who had the hardest sales job in Silicon Valley history: Zack Kass.Before ChatGPT was a household name, it was just a research lab. Zack was Head of Go-To-Market. He joined when OpenAI was around a hundred people doing two million in revenue. His job? Sell human-level intelligence to Fortune 500 executives who didn't even know what a token was.He built the playbook for Microsoft. For Coca-Cola. He turned a nonprofit lab into an eighty billion dollar superpower. Then he walked away.Zack, thanks a lot for being here!TIMELINE00:00:00 - 00:06:34 : Joining OpenAI as the first sales person00:06:34 - 00:09:47 : The early GPT-3 wrapper ecosystem00:09:47 - 00:11:03 : Strategy behind ChatGPT's development00:11:03 - 00:16:45 : The chat interface decision and market response00:16:45 - 00:21:04 : ChatGPT's explosive growth and company atmosphere00:21:04 - 00:26:45 : Lessons from viral growth and Microsoft partnership00:26:45 - 00:30:21 : Scaling challenges and the "bigger boat" moment00:30:21 - 00:33:44 : Personal burnout and health crisis00:33:44 - 00:37:29 : AI as humanity's last invention00:37:29 - 00:45:21 : Technology, inequality, and policy failures00:45:21 - 00:48:35 : Global AI competition and geopolitics00:48:35 - 00:50:18 : AI's potential to solve major problems00:50:18 - 00:54:33 : The next renaissance and education transformationREFERENCES- Sam Altman- Brad Lightcap- Lukas Biewald- Chris Van Pelt - John Maynard Keynes- Elon Musk- Jeff Bezos- Koch brothers- "The Next Renaissance: AI and the Expansion of Human Potential" by Zach Cass- "Attention Is All You Need" - Figure Eight- Lilt- Weights & Biases - Scale AI - Jasper - Harvey - Bain & Company- Waymo- Prenuvo- DeepSeek- OpenAI- RLHF- CRISPR - Jevons paradox - Jaws

Today on BILLIONS, I'm sitting down with Ross Andrew Paquette, the CEO who broke every Silicon Valley rule: he bought OUT his investors before buidling a 1.7 billion dollar empire. He founded Maropost in 2011, and by 2016, it ranked #7 on the PROFIT 500 as one of Canada's fastest-growing companies.Ross, thanks a lot for being here!TIMELINE : 00:00:00 - 00:01:12 : From lifestyle business to a $1.7 billion empire00:01:12 - 00:03:32 : The 75% ebitda secret and why growth at all costs is a trap00:03:32 - 00:05:37 : Founder mode and signing clients every single day00:05:37 - 00:08:18 : Why "experienced" executives fail and the return to young and hungry teams00:08:18 - 00:12:14 : The $37 million wire transfer to buy out investors00:12:14 - 00:16:18 : Why advisory boards beat professional investor boards every time00:16:18 - 00:26:48 : The contrarian ipo strategy for australia and canada00:26:48 - 00:33:08 : Why you should never take vc money if you want to keep your drive00:33:08 - 00:51:56 : The brutal reality of m&a and culture integration00:51:56 - 01:00:48 : Two metrics that actually matter: revenue and profitREFERENCES :- Adam Robinson - Larry Ellison - Patrick Campbell - Elephant & Highland Europe - Summit, Insight, TA - Shopify Plus- Atlassian - Oracle - Attentive & Klaviyo .- Groq - Neto & Retail Express - Australian companies acquired by Maropost - Findify - Swedish search/merchandising company acquired by Maropost- ProfitWell & Baremetrics- Stripe

Today on BILLIONS, I’m sitting down with Noah Kagan — the guy who got fired from Facebook before it was worth a trillion… and turned that loss into the biggest comeback story in online business.He went from losing a fortune on paper to building AppSumo, a $100 million-a-year bootstrapped empire - all without raising a single dollar of VC money.Noah, thanks a lot for being here!TIMELINE00:00:00 - 00:02:10 : The trillion-dollar miss at Facebook00:02:10 - 00:06:43 : Leadership lessons from Mark Zuckerberg's billion-dollar rejection00:06:43 - 00:12:13 : The lifetime deal dilemma destroying software value00:12:13 - 00:19:40 : Why most entrepreneurs never take action00:19:40 - 00:26:49 : Building discipline through small daily choices00:26:49 - 00:33:10 : The scary reality of AppSumo's uncertain future00:33:10 - 00:42:09 : Community quality crisis in the AI era00:42:09 - 00:48:58 : Testing new models before it's too late00:48:58 - 00:57:07 : Hiring secrets for bootstrap businesses00:57:07 - 01:04:29 : Finding contentment beyond the billion-dollar dreamREFERENCES- Mark Zuckerberg - Peter Thiel - Marc Andreessen- Sean Parker- Dustin Moskovitz- Soleio - Bill Gates - Steve Jobs - Moody- Christine Rogers- Jesse Mecham – - Ayman Al-Abdullah- Reid Hoffman- Million Dollar Weekend by Noah Kagan- AppSumo - TidyCal - Airbnb - Asana - Lemlist - Reclaim- Bolt- Hostinger- Emergent- Pika - YNAB- Vercel- Tabby - YC

Today on BILLIONS, I’m sitting down with Arthur Waller, one of the sharpest French founders of his generation.He sold his first company to Booking.com in his twenties — and instead of retiring, he came back to build Pennylane, a fintech that turned accountants from enemies into growth partners and became one of europe fastest-growing unicorn.In this episode, we will discuss how six co-founders actually share power, what founders get wrong about fundraising terms and dilution, and what Arthur thinks about secondaries, freedom, and building a company that lasts twenty years.If you want to understand what it really takes to scale, cash-out without selling out, and keep your ambition alive after success - then this episode is for you!TIMELINE : 00:00:00 - 00:03:37 : First exit to Booking.com at 25 - the $80M deal structure00:03:37 - 00:08:08 : Why the earn-out worked and 3.5 years at Booking00:08:08 - 00:13:58 : Coming back stronger - choosing accounting as the next battlefield00:13:58 - 00:18:12 : Seven co-founders sharing power and equity splits00:18:12 - 00:24:01 : Fundraising strategy - diluting less than 10% early rounds00:24:01 - 00:30:34 : Making accountants allies instead of enemies00:30:34 - 00:36:08 : European expansion vs US market strategy00:36:08 - 00:41:56 : Secondary transactions - $30M for employees, $70M for founders00:41:56 - 00:46:38 : Staying private vs going public - the Stripe model00:46:38 - 00:48:43 : The one advice for young foundersREFERENCES : - Booking.com - Felix Blossier- Tancrède Besnard - Alexandre Roquoplo- Charles-Philippe Letellier- Brian Halligan- Partech- PayFit- Alan- Qonto- Indy- QuickBooks- NetSuite- Salesloft- Outreach- Sequoia Capital- Carta- Cegid- Shine- Stripe- Revolut- Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)

Today on BILLIONS, I’m sitting down with Harry Stebbings — the guy who turned a microphone in his bedroom into a $400 million venture fund.He started The Twenty Minute VC as a teenager, and it became the place where the smartest founders of unicorns, and the world’s best investors all lined up to talk.In this episode, Harry opens up about the deals he missed, the unicorns he caught early like Linktree and Tripledot, and how he turned content into capital.If you’ve ever wondered how storytelling can build an empire, this is the playbook.TIMELINE : 00:00:00 - 00:03:36 : Turning content into deal flow: The 20VC playbook 00:03:36 - 00:06:26 : From obsession to insight: How Harry predicted the future of VC 00:06:26 - 00:09:03 : Why most VCs suck at content—and how to stand out 00:09:03 - 00:12:48 : $400M facepalms: Inside Harry’s biggest investment regrets 00:12:48 - 00:17:35 : What separates great founders from everyone else 00:17:35 - 00:27:50 : Building the fund: Raising $8M from a podcast mic to $400M 00:27:50 - 00:36:22 : The underrated VC weapon: High-impact content as revenue driver 00:36:22 - 00:44:52 : Going public vs staying private: Who really wins? 00:44:52 - 00:58:52 : Charisma, crisis, and credibility: The raw truth about founder DNA 00:58:52 - 01:04:23 : Bullish on Europe: Beating Silicon Valley at its own gameREFERENCES : - Peter Thiel- Michael Moritz- Alex Bouaziz (Deel)- Christina Cacioppo (Vanta)- Peter Fenton- Daniel Ek- Nick Storonsky - Marc Benioff- Guy Kawasaki- Steve Ballmer- Thibault Elziere - Torsten Reil- Mati Staniszewski- 20VC- Project Europe- a16z

Most marketers dream of having Gong’s billion dollar brand. But few realize that behind every courageous campaign, there’s an even more courageous marketer. In today’s episode of BILLIONS I have the pleasure to interview Udi Ledegor, chief evangelist and former CMO at Gong.I’ve known Udi for a few years now, and not only I’ve always been super impressed by how Gong’s brand is so unique but also by how great of a piano player Udi is!Udi thanks a lot for joining me today!Timeline :00:00:00 - 00:01:00 : How gong became a billion-dollar brand (before the revenue)00:01:00 - 00:04:38 : Punching above your weight: gong’s billboard strategy playbook00:04:38 - 00:07:26 : The viral formula: what makes content spread like fire00:07:26 - 00:11:26 : Gong labs content series: 1.5 people, zero excuses, maximum impact00:11:26 - 00:14:20 : Why content > distribution: rethinking roi the gong way00:14:20 - 00:17:19 : Turning content into pipeline: metrics, gating, and reciprocity00:17:19 - 00:21:44 : From free to unstoppable: scaling organic marketing and thought leadership00:21:44 - 00:27:04 : Super bowl ad on a startup budget: the story behind gong’s boldest move00:27:04 - 00:35:21 : Going enterprise: how gong landed fortune 10 clients (and what changed)00:35:21 - 00:49:38 : Retention, equity, and billion-dollar thinking as a non-founder execReferences :Courageous Marketing: The B2B Marketer's Playbook for Career Success by Udi LedergorKyle Lacy - CMO at DoceboMoneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael LewCrossing the Chasm by Geoffrey Moore - Classic business book about bridging early adopters to early majorityMade to Stick by Dan Heath and Keith Heath - About principles of viral content and what makes things memorableThe Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell - About what becomes a trend and viral phenomenaInfluence, New and Expanded: The Essential Guide to the Psychology of Influence and Persuasion in Everyday Life by Robert Cialdini - Psychology book about persuasion, specifically reciprocity effect