Why Companies Force AI: Zapier’s CEO Wade Foster Explains | Belkins Podcast Episode #19

Michael Maximoff: At $100 million, you probably have the same set of problems. Right. But they never 100%. So the lack of marketing budget doesn't disappear at a 10 or at 100, right?

Wade Foster: Nope. Yeah, you're always, you know, there's always something.

Michael Maximoff: What's been the most, uh, disappointing aspect of LLMs this year for you?

Wade Foster: I think the market is still crazy bullish of what's possible with AI. Two fundamental architectural breakthroughs. We've had the transformer that came out in 2017, and we've been able to scale that up iteratively, and then we've had reasoning models, and that's been another mechanism we've been able to scale up reasonably well. But it does feel like the incremental gains of improving those two dimensions are just getting more and more expensive to get smaller and smaller returns. We need new ideas, we need new architectures, we need new ways of thinking about this. Yes, this is incredible technology, but it's not a. Panzia. It's not like we've invented God in a box yet.

Michael Maximoff: Um, have you ever have a, uh. Or bottled into imposter syndrome as the straw? Like, as the company scaled?

Wade Foster: I, uh, mean, yes, of course. There might be skill sets that I am missing that, what a higher CEO would be better at. They, you know, maybe they're better at, you know, finance or marketing or sales or engineering. Like, they have some skill set that's just better than. Unquestionably better than me. But the thing I have that no one else has is I was there at the beginning. I know the product, I know the customers. I know the culture. I know the space like the back of my hand. It's so familiar to me. The reward for solving a tough problem is more tough problems. The good, uh, news is that you have an organization that's good at handling more problems, right?

Michael Maximoff: Yes.

Wade Foster: But I've never felt like, oh, you're good. The masterpiece is complete. The machine works.

Michael Maximoff: We need an AI product for next week, guys.

Wade Foster: These are the types of workflows you would want to do with A.I. uh, it just felt pretty obvious, I think. Yeah, obviously. We saw the story of Twitter where he laid off, what, 80% of the staff? This is probably one of the areas where Elon is a little bit misunderstood. He will find what is truly necessary, but by cutting, uh, into the bone for those of us who are not willing to make that cut, we actually never know. Like, we're never. We never know for sure. Was it truly necessary? Like, the only way you will actually know is if you're willing to cut all the way into the bone. You actually have to feel the bone and go, oh yeah, it was necessary. Stuff actually started to break.

Michael Maximoff: Um, has Zapier considered training or find you in their own, um, model?

Wade Foster: Yeah, we'll have to stay tuned, right? Wade Foster is the co founder and CEO of Zapier, the leading automation platform that connects over 6,000 apps and powers workflows for more than 2.2 million businesses worldwide. Since launching Zapier in 2011, Wade has scaled the company from a weekend side project into a $5 billion bootstrapped giant, all without taking traditional venture capital. Under his leadership, Zapier became one of the first fully remote first companies growing

Michael Maximoff: to over 800 employees across 40 plus

Wade Foster: countries while maintaining profitability and a culture admired across the tech world. Wade is also a, uh, recognized thought leader on remote work productivity and scaling sustainable businesses. He also hosts a new podcast, Agents of Scale, about how executives are navigating the transformation risks and rewards of scaling AI across their organizations.

Michael Maximoff: So, uh, I wanted to kick off, just kind of really understand how does, you know, what does a day of the life of a CEO running a $5 billion company look like in 2025 with all the craziness happening everywhere?

Wade Foster: I review a, ah, ton of work. Like that's probably one of the biggest things, you know, product reviews, marketing reviews. Like there's just tons of just like reviewing and inspecting and making sure that I understand what's going on. It's up to standard, it's up to quality bar, um, so that's very common. I spend a lot of time with customers trying to understand what are their problems, what are the things they're trying to solve, how is Zapier working for them or not working for them where we can make it better? And then probably a third bucket is recruiting. Always trying to find great people to come into the company to help us achieve the goals that we're trying to achieve. So those are probably like the three most common things, um, that can kind of be bucket down but within those you can be spending time on all sorts of different stuff.

Michael Maximoff: Do you control your time, your calendar or um, you don't control it and your assistant in your company literally book.

Wade Foster: Ah, I. So I have a, I have like some guide, guide, uh, guidelines or guardrails on how I want my calendar to look. Uh, and I work with my assistant to make sure that we're designing my day, my week, etc. To give me to hit those goals. Um, and you know what that looks like is you know, my assistant has access to everything. Uh, and so we'll sit down at, you know, the beginning of the quarter, the beginning of the week, like at the beginning corner, I'm like, these are the big projects I need to get done. Like, these are the two or three most important things for the business. And so, you know, with her, I'm setting up that canvas to say I need enough space daily, weekly, monthly to chip away at these mega problems. Um, then on a week to week basis, we're reviewing all the inbound stuff that's coming in and saying yes to some things, saying no to some things, pushing some things out, and then all with that backdrop of making sure that there still is these big blocks of time. And I find it really helpful to do that with a thought partner because I know my personal default working style is I like to say yes to everything. I'm curious about everything. And so I'm just like, go, go, go, go, go. But if I left to my own devices, I'll not leave enough room for that focus. Time to go solve those bigger issues and those things will, will linger. And so, yeah, I work with her to make sure that there's a lot of space to go do those things.

Michael Maximoff: Um, with, with your schedule, um, can you manage work like eight, nine hours or it takes more time of your day?

Wade Foster: It's. I can't. I. I'm always thinking about work, like, even when I'm not at work, it's running through my head whether I like it to like it to be or not. Um, you know, I do have my schedule set up to where it's pretty regimented. And so I'm, you know, I'm usually starting at 8 in the morning. I'm usually logging off to go hang out with the family around 5:30. And then, you know, once the girls are down to bed, I'm usually back at it for another hour or two. Um, you know, pretty consistently every single day. Like, I think, you know, when you, when, especially when I started when I had kids, you just find that the, the routine is super valuable. Uh, and so we, we kind of just stick to that. Pretty much pretty consistently, yeah.

Michael Maximoff: Um, any there, any sacrifices that you're making right now just to fit in that, in that schedule?

Wade Foster: Uh, I don't view it as like sacrifices. You know, I think I have a set of priorities, which is my family and zapier and like, those are the two things that I care most about and I want to contribute as much time to it as possible. And so that's where I spend my time. You know, I think other people might look at it and say well you're sack, you're not doing this, you're not doing that, you're not getting to experience this in your life etc. And they might look at that as sacrifices. I'm looking as like no, I'm doing the things I want to do most. Uh, and sure those other things might be fun to somebody else, but for me these are the places I really enjoy spending my time. So I don't know that like it doesn't feel like a sacrifice I guess.

Michael Maximoff: Um, from my perspective, you mentioned that um, you spend a lot of time or your working time, uh, interviewing custom or like working with customers and interviewing kind of new people, new hires. Um, do you kind of um, have a specific level of uh, hires you interview so VP level, director level up or you're trying to get like what's your, you know, besides of your organization you have a specific role you or like all the product or how does it work for you guys?

Wade Foster: I, I interview everybody at the director level and above and then I am available to talk to anyone else. You know, I tell every hiring manager in the company if you need help closing the intern, I'm there like uh, yeah, I'll, I'll get on a 10 minute call, 15 minute call and you know, talk them through why we think they're a great fit for the company. Talk them through the opportunity, answer questions, um, tell them why they might not be a great fit. Like you know, hey, if you, if you want X, you know, A, B and C, but zapier is X, Y and Z. Like you shouldn't say yes to us, um, because you're not going to find it's a good time here. Uh, and so I make myself available for everyone who's um, interested in joining.

Michael Maximoff: Can you give me an example of the last meeting you declined that uh, you didn't want to attend some of the company wide meetings. Not the.

Wade Foster: Yeah, I mean uh, there was a particular technical decision that the team was working on that had gotten bubbled up to me and um, I had done my pre review on it and it was like, hey, I think this is an important thing to happen. Like we need to do this how we go do it. I don't have a particularly strong point of view on it. So you all have the discussion. Uh, it's clear there was multiple different paths that people thought were valuable. And so I said hey, I'm going to bow out on this one. If you find yourself In a situation where you just need a tiebreaker, then I'm happy to, like, come back in and help break a tie. But otherwise, like, yeah, I don't. I don't. I didn't have anything particularly novel to add. Yeah, And I think that's. That's part of the fun, too, as the company has grown, is that there's problems that just can be solved by other people that are like, hey, like, you're going to have a better perspective on this. Go, go tackle it. Um, and it frees up. Frees me up to go work on other areas.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, I bet you haven't been as good as you are right now. Uh, you know, um, when you started or as you are at what point in time in your, uh, in your kind of career ladder, it kind of clicked. In the time of the business growth, it clicked for you and you became better with, like, all of this.

Wade Foster: Well, I feel like I'm always getting better. Like, I don't. I'm not sure I've ever. I'm not. I'm not sure I've gotten to that point where I'm m. Like, oh, it's clicked. I know I'm great at this job. Like, that hasn't happened yet. Um, but I definitely can feel, you know, I can definitely look back and see spots where I'm like, oh, I think I would have handled that differently or better. Now, with the skill sets that I. I have, um, um, you know, if I look at the. The specific pivot points of improvement, I'd say they happen in a couple areas. One, it's, you know, that first. First layer of management you add in, there's like a whole set of learnings around that. Then there's. When you're adding a second layer of management, there's a whole set of learnings around that.

Michael Maximoff: Right.

Wade Foster: That second layer of management. You're also hiring your first exec team. And so when you're bringing in your first exec team, like, you're learning how to hire and work with a level of senior person that maybe you're not used to before. Uh, and so there's a whole set of learnings around that. Then, you know, your next pivot point is you realize, okay, you probably made some mistakes, and now you got to course correct some of those mistakes, and you're trying to figure out, like, well, did I. Did I make a mistake? Or is this just how it's supposed to be? Like, you know, you just don't know what you don't know. Uh, and so you Know, it probably takes too long, or at least in my case it took too long to sort of course correct some of those mistakes. Because you're not sure is it a mistake or is this just how it's supposed to be And I'm, I'm the idiot, uh, at the table. Uh, and yeah, I think once like the best unlock for me was building. Like it took amount of self reflection. Like I worked with a coach for years. You know, I'd done a lot of 360 feedback. I've gotten a lot of feedback. And so, uh, you know, at this point in time, like I kind of know what I'm good at as a CEO. I know what I'm not so good at. And there's sort of like a point where you realize I'm going to play to my strengths. These are the things I think make me uniquely qualified and special to do the job I'm in. And then there's some weaknesses I've got that are holding the company back. And I'm not going to try and solve those weaknesses, but rather what I'm going to try and do is actually assemble a team that kind of has my, my backside on these areas where I'm not as good and know that and, and, and be self aware enough to know those and communicate those, everyone so that everyone kind of knows the role on the team that they're playing. You know, you can think about it like a, you know, I don't know, like a, like a soccer team where it's like, hey, uh, I'm good at this position. You're here to play this position. And so I need you to play this position. In that first version, I was like, I didn't even know what the positions were. You're just sort of like, well, I need somebody who's in engineering and I need someone who's in finance, I need somebody who's in marketing. But there's uh, other roles besides just the functions on the team. It's like who's going to, who's going to push boldness, who's going to do risk management, who's going to drive on. Uh, so there's like these more behavioral or like adaptive things that you have to figure out. And it's not just the, it's not just the skill that they're bringing to the, their, their discipline they're bringing to the table. But it's like, how does the team dynamic work? And it's obvious to say that, but like, it takes so much to like really learn what that means. In practice, yeah.

Michael Maximoff: Imagine, uh, do you often, uh, wear, um, a fire firefighter hat still to this day?

Wade Foster: Uh, yeah. I mean, there's a whole host of things that get escalated to me or just sort of drop, drop CEO's hat. Um, and it's not because I'm like the best person in the company to solve that problem, or particularly, you know, well suited to even solve that problem. It's just that the way you design an org, the org is set up to catch certain things, and it's really good at catching the things that matter a lot. But then there's a bunch of things that don't fit cleanly into those systems that you've set up. And those things kind of just slide through the organization and they, you know, they slide to the bottom, and the bottom is me. And so you just kind of catch a bunch of stuff and then you're like, oh, what do I do with this stuff? Um, do I need to do something about it? Some of it's very important. Like, some of it's, you know, there was a customer support issue and we just dropped the ball on it. And it's like, oh, we got to go figure out how to make it right. So you got things like that where you're like, I have to go play the backstop, the goalie for those things. And then other opportunities where it's just, here's an opportunity that Zapier could pursue. Maybe it's interesting, maybe it's not. Nobody in the company sort of knew what to do with it. And so there's sort of this jump ball situation, and you kind of have to take a look at it and go, like, well, what do I want to do with that? Do I want to go say yes to that thing or try and get the company to say yes to this thing, or do I just keep the company focused on what I think is matters, uh, today? So you sort of have a whole wide variety of opportunities and problems that kind of flood into your world, and then you're trying to push them back out into the company to go execute on the things that matter.

Michael Maximoff: Do you notice there are less of those, um, you know, fires to put out? Ah, as the company grew or more or is the same amount like. Or just even the amount that you can handle, you can solve just from your kind of, you, uh, know, passing through perspective?

Wade Foster: You know, the reward for solving a tough problem is more tough problems. And so as you grow and you get better at solving tough problems for your customers and more customers, your reward for that Is you get more customers and you have more problems, and they're harder problems and they're tougher problems. Now the good news is that you have an organization that's good at handling more problems, right?

Michael Maximoff: Yes.

Wade Foster: But you still have more problems. Like, they just grow and grow and grow exponentially in scope. Yeah. And so it's not that it's. I've never, I've never felt like, oh, you know, good. The master. The masterpiece is complete. The machine works like, exactly as it was designed. Um, you know, you're constantly like, tuning, uh, like tending to the garden, so to speak.

Michael Maximoff: So I imagine that if I am at a, you know, 10 to 20 million, then, uh, you know, I never have, uh, budgets for marketing. Uh, I need to hire better people. There's no, you know, some people are turning, turning, turning, uh, over. You know, some customers are not happy. You know, at $100 million, you probably have the same sort of problems. Right. And just more of that, the same, but they never disappear. So the lack of marketing budget doesn't disappear at the, at a 10 or at a hundred, right?

Wade Foster: Nope. Yeah, you're always, there's always something. You know, I've never. The joke I have around, like, headcount internally is you'll, you'll often. I've never gone to a. I've never had a hiring manager come to me and say, uh, or an individual inside the company say, you know, I would be less stressed if I, if I didn't. If I, if, If you let me hire somebody else. Like, uh, everyone sort of just is, sort of universally agrees. If I had just one more person, I'd be less stressed. And that doesn't mean you should get one more person. Um, like, you gotta find a way to just solve the problems that are in front of you with the constraints you're facing every day. Um, that's, that's what makes it fun. That's what makes it challenging.

Michael Maximoff: Um, have you ever have a, uh. Or bottled into imposter syndrome as the sort of like, as the company scaled, like, wondering if someone else could run Zapier better than you are running it?

Wade Foster: Uh, I mean, yes, of course. Uh, I think we all have imposter syndrome. I mean, maybe some of us don't. Like, I don't know. Does Elon Musk have imposter syndrome? Like, he, he seems like, uh, you know, utmost confident in his, his abilities. But, you know, most of my peer group that I talk to, I think we all sort of are unsure that, like, hey, are we the best to to go about it. And, you know, like, the, the way I've sort of come to grips with this is, you know, as we've hired more and more executives, I've watched some of them thrive and be incredible at the company, but I've also watched some really struggle and ultimately fail. And when you look at their career arcs, pre Zapier and post Zapier, you often see folks that were successful in other areas. And so when you look at that, you have to be reflective to say, well, what was it that these individuals could seemingly be successful in areas before us and after us and not be successful here? Now, some of that could be, of course, hey, there was something about their skill set that didn't apply to Zapier, but there's also something about our, uh, company that makes it challenging to work here. And so when I, as I've watched that, like, one of the things I've thought through is, or that I've noticed is that there's this trend of folks who, you know, that, that often wind up in, like, leadership roles at companies where they're quite, quite successful. They've had long trajectories, but they've been there from very early on and they've had a chance to grow up and succeed with it. And so those individuals are awfully, uniquely suited to lead that company, that area of the business, etc. And then when they move to another company and they jump in at the top when the thing is already going, that's a really challenging situation. And so I've looked at that phenomenon, I've looked back at myself and I said, hm, that's interesting. And you start to go, well, who is the person out there that would hire me as a CEO? And if they were to hire me as a CEO, how would I go do that job? And when I start to think about it, I go, hm, hmm, that's interesting. I think it would be really difficult to be a hired CEO because I don't know all the context, I don't know all the history. I don't know the product, I don't know the customers, I don't know the culture. There's all these things that I don't know that I have to go figure out on the fly. And so when I think of it from that perspective, I start to go, oh, that's interesting. There might be skill sets that I am missing that would, a higher CEO would be better at. They, you know, maybe they're better at, uh, you know, finance or marketing or sales or engineering. Like they have some skill set that's just better than, unquestionably better than me. But the thing I have that no one else has is I was there at the beginning. I know the product, I know the customers, I know the culture. I know the space like the back of my hand. It's so familiar to me. And so that's when I, when I think, when I start to have those moments of imposter syndrome when I'm like, ah, maybe somebody could do better, I remember, I'm like, okay, that's true. They might be better at XYZ thing, but I have these things that are very rare too. Uh, and so you just kind of have to like, find those ways to like, yeah, uh, just see the bigger picture, put it into context, and then, you know, again, play to those strengths. Those are strengths that I have that no one else can bring to the table. And then there's these weaknesses that I'm like, okay, how do I build an executive team, a culture, an organization that can compensate for the places where I am insufficient as a CEO and as a leader?

Michael Maximoff: You know, I think you're in this kind of very unique and beneficial for yourself position, you know, running the business for 15 years and being on the ground with your boots every day, working with the customer. So now, like, you know, thinking about that, you know, other peers in your position who raised hundreds, millions of dollars or went ipo, and now their entire day is either talking to investors or with the kind of doing the whatever, other, uh, things that you've never done, right? But then they are not going to be doing the, you know, maybe the customer interviews or, you know, the product or, you know, the tickets or the other things. Right? Because they probably have been brought on to do something else which are different from maybe your day to day. You mentioned being uncertain. Um, have you been uncertain about AI or you've been always excited about it?

Wade Foster: Uh, I think we started to get pretty interested in this generative AI, the LLMs, this version. A few months before ChatGPT had launched, my two co founders had started dabbling and playing around with it. And so pretty early on, we got excited about what the possibilities were here. Um, and, you know, product launch after product launch, capability improvement after capability improvement, that excitement just continues to grow and grow and grow. That is mixed with uncertainty, though, because as the technology improves, as these capabilities emerge, you're always wondering, are we going to figure out how to use it for our customers? Are we going to solve the problems faster, better, et cetera, than the next guy? And that's where that uncertainty starts to seep in, where you're like, we, we gotta figure this stuff out now. Like, there's a sense of urgency, there's a sense of motivation to get to. To go be the company that, like, you know, our customers want us to be. Like, they've committed to Zapier. They love this product. They want to see it evolve and grow and do these things. I want to make sure that we are the ones that put those advancements in their hand and they don't feel like they have to go do big migrations and move somewhere else just because we were, you know, asleep at the wheel. And so there certainly is, like, the uncertainty about what happens next, but it's always been paired with. Yeah, I think the excitement has always sort of outpaced the uncertainty, where it's like, uh, what is possible here? You know, and if we go solve interesting problems, we're going to be fine.

Michael Maximoff: What's the kind of the ratio between the excitement and the pressure for the market and the pressure from just, you know, trying to innovate or incorporate that AI into the tech suite?

Wade Foster: Yeah, you know, uh, obviously, uh, like, there's a big, like, echo chamber where, you know, if you hang out on X or LinkedIn or, you know, just pay any attention to this stuff. Like, you hear the exuberance and excitement about what is possible with AI, you know, in terms of, like, the pressure. I don't know. For us, the pressure has always been internal. Like, I've never felt like there was somebody out there that could put more pressure on me than I was already putting on myself. And so I think that's kind of just helped manage the pressure a little bit, because it's like, you're not telling me anything that I haven't already thought of or, like, felt on my own. And so we're always pushing for what we think is best, uh, for the long haul. Now, we might draw different conclusions. Um, you know, like, we are. I think we're often looked upon differently because we haven't fundraised because we've done things differently. And in my mind, that's all because we've been playing a long game here. Like, we're trying to play this iterative game that is decades plus long. And, you know, I think sometimes that makes us look a little odd to external, um, observers. They're like, what do I make of Zapier? What are they doing over there?

Michael Maximoff: Yeah. What's been the most disappointing aspect of LLMs this year for you? Or has it all been all upside so far.

Wade Foster: Um, well, you know, I think, yeah, it definitely feels like, I don't know, for folks probably listen to the uh, Andrej Karpathy interview with Door Cash that came out last week. Um, and you know, I think he like, does a. It's a really good sort of State of the Union in terms of like where we're at with LLMs this year. And you know, I think effectively what we've seen is that we've had two fundamental architectural breakthroughs. We've had, um, the transformer that came out in 2017 and we've been able to scale that up iteratively and then we've had, um, you know, reasoning models and that's been another mechanism, have been able to scale up reasonably well. Um, but it does feel like the incremental gains of improving those two dimensions are, are just getting more and more expensive to get. Yeah, smaller and smaller returns. And so I think if there's a place where there's disappointment, it's like, okay, we, we need, we need new ideas, we need new architectures, we need new ways of thinking about this, um, if we're going to get that next step, function improvement. Uh, now that said reasoning models, transformers, there's a whole bunch of economically useful stuff we can do with this technology today. I think that's where we're spending a lot of time is how do we just put more guardrails on these tools, like make it easier for customers to adapt to them and use them. Um, because you can do impressive things if they're sort of harnessed well. And I think it requires more effort to harness them well than, um, the mainstream media would sort of have you think at this point in time.

Michael Maximoff: Um, I kind of caught myself thinking that, um, um, often, uh, B2B companies in our space, B2B tech companies in our space, they kind of jumped on AI as a certain, like a shortcut to growth in a way. Something, you know, like kind of fresh and new kind of, oh, we can grow our market or our share, our user base. And it's kind of maybe intuitive because it's. You can play with it, you can kind of, uh, you know, just kind of try trying to ride a wave in a way. But, um, when you really look at what the AI as the part of the functionality of that product really does, it's a very kind of, um, empty box in a way, if you know what I mean. Or sort of like not as beneficial in a way. So now with the progress, or with even ChatGPT slowing down. So now kind of with the ChatGPT 5, no one as excited as they were before, right? Everyone is like, oh, it's slower, it's stupider, it's other thing, yada yada. So everyone's like, more careful about the technology. I feel like now all these companies, they were like, hold on. So, okay, now we release the AI now it works, but the market is not as excited about what do we do next. Like, what's the playbook we still need to continue the growth, but it's, it's not there. Is there something that in, in this thought process that is correct or I'm way off and you disagree?

Wade Foster: I mean, I'm still, I think the market is still crazy bullish of what's possible with AI. Um, yeah, I think you see the amount of investment going into these areas and that just doesn't happen if people are not excited about the potential for the future here. Uh, and so, um, I do think what we're feeling is the practical realities that yes, this is incredible technology, but it's not pan. It's not like we've invented God in a box yet. There's still a lot of work to be done to harness the tools and make it useful. Uh, and so, you know, we're just kind of in that long slog period where there's got to be a lot of incremental effort alongside hopefully a handful of big step function improvements that really allow builders to go make some just incredible innovations for customers.

Michael Maximoff: Um, I've, uh, spoken with, uh, Goddard from G2 and uh, uh, he said that, you know, a lot of companies are, you know, pushing their AI product because there's a new AI catego. So you need to place your product in that AI category to win the market. If you don't do that, then you're just going to miss on the opportunities on that category. So everyone is just literally racing to just deploying and taking that AI part of the category. Um, um. Have you had a similar conversation? Have you had similar playbook and kind of similar way of doing this? We need to get into that AI category as soon as we can.

Wade Foster: I think for us it was, you know, they're definitely companies that are sort of doing AI for AI sake, where it's like, ah, we need an AI. Everybody's getting an AI story, we need an AI story. I think for us it was just a lot more obvious like how AI would be used in our product. And it's like we've got this incredible workflow automation tool, AI is like the next obvious step for how you make automation better for people. You can put AI inside of workflows. You know, we weren't in the situation where it was like, oh, we gotta bolt this odd thing on in a weird, you know, some contorted way. It was just very clear that like, oh, this product category benefits a lot for em, and there's some very natural ways to push it into the product surface area. Let's go do that.

Michael Maximoff: Right? So you didn't have a meeting where you came in and it's like, we need an AI product for next week, guys, let's bring some.

Wade Foster: Yeah, it wasn't like, m, how will we go do this? Like, it kind of was like, well, these are the types of workflows you would want to do with AI. It just felt pretty obvious, I think.

Michael Maximoff: Um, has Zapier considered training or fine tune their own, um, model? You guys are building your own.

Wade Foster: We've thought about it here and there and uh, ultimately decided not to. Especially since uh, the Frontier Labs are just doing such a great job of pushing on these areas. We've always felt like we could uh, build on top of those capabilities better than it would be to build our own model. Um, I don't know if that's always going to be the case, but to date that's how we made the decision.

Michael Maximoff: Have you made calculations? How much would it cost to build your own model with the amount of data you guys have? Or is it very expensive or it's affordable at your scale?

Wade Foster: It just depends on the type of model you're trying to go build out. Um, at the end of the day.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, it's just like we were very like me and co founder when I was preparing for the interview. We discussed what we can talk about with you today and uh, he's like, man, with the amount of data Zapier collects just from all the actions and from kind of customers, you guys could build a pretty damn, uh, good model we felt. But uh, it could be expensive or difficult, right, to do that. So we just kind of. Right, yeah, we'll have to stay tuned, right? Uh, we're not going to tell anyone, so no one's going to see this conversation. It's just between two of us. I have kind of candles here. There's no cameras, we're not recording them. Um, do you ever worry about, um, agentic AI, ah, taking over Zapier's kind of place or use case?

Wade Foster: I think you always have to be paranoid that uh, there's something out there some Technology shaft or some smart entrepreneur who has a better idea, a better approach, um, to building this, it's kind of the classic innovator's dilemma type stuff. And so, um, we've always been paying attention to technology shifts and new approaches to building automation and workflows. I think with LLMs AI, it's no different. Like, we're just as we're paying just as much attention to like how might this disrupt happier and um, but as much energy we put into that, like we're trying to put disproportionate amount into how do we use it to make product better? Because ultimately that's what serves customers is like, how do we actually make the product experience better with the technology? And if we do that ourselves, then we'll will be just fine. Like if we're thinking about that versus sort of looking over our shoulders, trying to figure out who's going to, who's doing it different, better, et cetera. It's like just pay attention to what customers need and how can we use the technology to deliver on those, um, desires.

Michael Maximoff: So in other words, playing more reactive game, just seeing where the market is and just, uh, trying to then kind of provide them what they're looking for instead of trying to figure out, like, all right, we're going to do this big thing that everyone would need and that going to substitute this other thing. That's right. Yeah.

Wade Foster: I mean, you, you know, you got to pay attention. There's some things that do require like, more substantive investment. And so you do have to make bets on certain things like that. Um, that said, you know, yeah, I think you're, you're ultimately, when you're sitting down and thinking about your product roadmap for the next six months, you're mostly looking at a combination of like, what are the problems that our customers are facing?

Michael Maximoff: Right.

Wade Foster: What is the technology capable of that's available to us today? And that part of the equation is more interesting than ever because the technology is advancing faster. And so you usually can come back to old problems and say, we have a better way to solve this every six months. And then trying to figure out, okay, what can we do to deliver on solving that problem for our customers and then next. Well, as fast as we can. Like, you know, we used to think about it like every six months or so, but nowadays, like, it's a lot easier and a lot faster to ship some of this stuff. And so, uh, you're often able to, to deliver even quicker.

Michael Maximoff: Uh, one last question on the AI topic and then I Got to move on. I don't want to bore you. Who, what inspired you to start an agents of scale podcast? You know, your podcast about AI transformation?

Wade Foster: Uh, yeah. You know, I think we had been spending a lot of time talking to our customers, particularly our enterprise customers, and seeing, you know, the things that were working for them, seeing the things that they were struggling with, and, you know, felt like a lot of the mainstream discourse was not actually doing a great job of surfacing use cases, talking about the boots on the ground problems, solutions that these organizations were facing, and felt like we were just sitting in an interesting spot to help sort of bubble up more of these stories to help people have a much more grounded understanding of what's working today, what's not working today, from real business leaders and practitioners trying, um, to tackle this stuff. So that's kind of what we were trying to just sort of add to, uh, the discourse. Um, I think oftentimes the discourse is more around the drama, you know, around these things. And it's, it's like, I mean, this stuff will be a movie someday. It's so great. Like, you know, you've got massive funding rounds, huge personalities, like crazy technology innovations. Like, all that stuff is the thing you like. You hear so much about that. And we were just like, well, let's just talk about, like, here's how an insurance company can do a better job. And like, we just wanted more of that. Like, very practical. Because that's what most of us are trying to figure out. Um, the drama's great and it's fun to watch, but most of us are just like, okay, how can I use this stuff?

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, at the end of the day, everyone, then when think about the AI, think about the ChatGpts of the world and say like, oh, I'll just use the ChatGPT for that. But there are some other use cases that you can deploy AI in a much more effective fashion. Right. If you do that. Just need to surface those. Um, and this is the first kind of full on show that you're hosting, right?

Wade Foster: Hey, I've never hosted a podcast before, so, uh, I'm learning how many episodes

Michael Maximoff: you guys did already. About 23.

Wade Foster: Uh, I think we're maybe around like a dozen or so released. I don't know, something like that.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, I saw you guys are doing like weekly or b weekly or something. You're trying to pop them out once a week.

Wade Foster: Yeah.

Michael Maximoff: So, uh, how are you feeling in the role of the host?

Wade Foster: Well, I'm still learning. I mean, how many interviews have you done? So far, um.

Michael Maximoff: Um, so I think I've done it around a hundred. Uh, but I, uh, am. Uh. It's my creative project, so I do whatever fuck I want. So it means that I post trying to regularly, but if I'm busy, I'm not, uh, getting the people I like. Uh, just doing creative work with, like, you know, putting so much money in the production, which is fine because, like, I just like it to be nice and creative, you know, and so on and so forth. So just kind of. So I'm enjoying it. So I'm doing this for, like, four years, but then I'm trying to put maybe 20, 30 episodes. Um, you know, 20 episodes a year, max. Like, I'm not changing the numbers.

Wade Foster: Do you feel. Do you feel like you got better at interviewing at some point in time?

Michael Maximoff: Um, I think it depends on the guest. Um, I think it's more like it's a tango thing, right? So, uh, you just kind of. If you hit it off and you just have a vibe and you spend enough, I think, like, again, just step back. It's about finding the format. I don't like the short ones. When you do, like, 30, 45 minutes, it just put me on edge. And when I'm just, um, you know, getting into it and we have a lot of time, it's just a better conversation. And I feel like I've learned more to play my tune and to get the cast more relaxed to my tempo, in a way. Um, you know. But, yeah, uh. But, yeah, it just depends on the guest for you. Are you more comfortable right now? After a dozen of the conversations?

Wade Foster: I'm getting more comfortable. Uh, it's not, um. It's a skill. Like, interviewing is clearly a skill. Like, I have a ton of respect. M. Like, I. You sort of always. It's kind of. It's. It's sort of. It's like this with a lot of things where, like, you. You can appreciate something from a distance, and then you start to go try and do that thing, and your appreciation grows, where you're like, okay, there's a, uh. There is clearly a skill here that I'm m. I'm capable of being an interviewer, but the degree of difficulty is maybe different than I thought it was. So that's where I'm still, like, trying to figure out, like, what's my style, what's my hook? You know, how do I get guests engaged, like, which guests are great guests, which ones, you're fine. But, you know, create more work for me. So, yeah, all that stuff, like, I'm learning as we go.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, that's great. Well, listen, I'm very excited for you. It's a, it's a, it's a, you know, in, in a way of like when you are uh, just focusing on strategic goals like every year, those milestones are not as exciting as having this kind of creative smaller project that you can drive yourself and just see the impact of it and it's fun.

Wade Foster: So, you know, I do think that part of it is nice. Like, you know, as the company gets bigger and bigger, like there's other people that own a project. Um, and yeah, this is one where it's like, oh, hey, like I look at like I got this cool guest, we had this cool discussion. Like, here's how many downloads it got. Here's like the feedback and it feels much more intimate than sometimes, you know, the machinery of the larger entity shipping and stuff, which also was fun, but just fun in a different way.

Michael Maximoff: It's a different way. Uh, yeah. Are you thinking about doing newsletter as well substack?

Wade Foster: I don't know, we'll see. Uh, yeah, I think uh, the producer I have working on it, she's been collecting like follow ups and things like that where I think she wants to turn it into a newsletter that sort of is like a behind the scenes bit behind it. So we might, we might give it a try.

Michael Maximoff: But it, it kind of makes sense even in terms of just writing down the use cases that you're discussing. Right. Because, um, you know, like for me personally, I'm more into writing and sort of like reading the writing text. So you know, even like following up on the podcast and you explain the, and put some graphics into the use case or you know, the example. I think the game plan is repackaging. I think we are not doing a lot of that repackaging. Just need to repackage more. So if you already have array, one isn't just moving another.

Wade Foster: Yep, 100%.

Michael Maximoff: Folks, if you're enjoying the interview so far, I would appreciate if you spend a second like comment or subscribe to Belkin's podcast on the platform where you're watching this. I'm trying to get my show listed in the best podcast and, and a couple of seconds of your time would really help me a lot to do that. Thank you so much. And let's get back to the interview. Unusual question or maybe did anyone ask you this already or not? But if you sold Zapier tomorrow, would that make you a billionaire?

Wade Foster: I guess it depends on how much it sold for yeah.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah. I mean, let's assume yes, I think, like, based on your valuation.

Wade Foster: Yeah, I haven't. I haven't done the math recently, so.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, but have you, um. Have you. Do you have an inspiration to move to the billionaire status or.

Wade Foster: No, no, no.

Michael Maximoff: It's too much, or it's just too much pressure or just you don't need it.

Wade Foster: You know, I think. I guess it just depends on, like, how you live your life. I. I have a pretty modest life. You know, we own our house. We live in a nice neighborhood. I can afford food at the grocery store. My girls have clothes on their backs. What else do I need? You know, like, I'm. I'm happy with the. The wealth I have. Um, you know, you add a zero to it. Like, I don't know that that changes much for me. So for me, the. The motivation, the energy comes from solving these problems for customers, for wanting to do something impactful. And if we do that successfully, yeah, I'm sure my wealth will grow. But that's not why I do it.

Michael Maximoff: Uh, do you have all the toys and the resources you need to kind of be excited about solving those problems? Uh, that, uh, having a billion dollar, uh, won't kind of add anything additional. I think, obviously, for Elon, uh, or Sam or anyone else, probably, like, billions are more like the resources and toys they have to kind of. Obviously, Elon won't be able to buy Twitter if you could be. Wouldn't be a billionaire or put money there and be just excited about the other spaces. Like, I was just wondering, um, are you more, like, focused and excited about kind of zapier or there are some other, uh, venues that you're excited about and you just don't want to work on, but then maybe later you, you know, focusing on. And that's why you would need that kind of billion dollar to spend.

Wade Foster: Yeah, I guess. I guess I just look at that different. Like, Lee, like, to me, you know, that that's like, the company's balance sheet. And, like, what are. How are we balancing our own balance sheet to be able to sort of go advance app's mission to go achieve the things we want to do, etc. Um, and I think of that less as, like, okay, how do we, like, you know, build Wade balance sheet so he can go, you know, have some other fun project on the side? Like. Yeah, I don't know. Like, I, uh. You look at Elon and, I mean, how many companies is he running right now? Like, three, four, five? It's like, one is enough. For me, like, I'm plenty occupied with one.

Michael Maximoff: Um, any other space that are different from where you are at that excites you that you might try one day.

Wade Foster: You know, before Zapier, I worked um, in like climate tech and so, you know, energy, climate, like, things like that. I think there's a whole bunch of problems there right now that are endlessly fascinating. Um, and I think they're even getting more exciting because AI is creating much more demand for energy. Right. Uh, and so that is opening up different types of investments that may have what will like just kind of were on the, on the shelves. Like, you know, at least in the United States, like nuclear was kind of, you know, a sideshow for a while and now it's actually like kind of back on the table and it's, I don't know, it's just, it's, it's interesting to see, you know, energy and clean energy, like playing a much bigger role these days.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah. I think it's going to be one of the biggest, um, fast growing industries soon. Right. With kind of AI and with chips. My, uh, co founder, he's very excited about energy by the way. He's always saying, like, hey, if, you know, when I exit, I'm going to put my money into my energy. For me it's more farming and food. You know, I kind of, I have problems with food. Like, you know, that's one of the reasons I live in Europe and I didn't like the food in the US and just generally, you know. Um. Yeah, so I just kind of feel like we need to feed more mouth. Right. And just get better at, even better at food production or the quality of the production because like what you're putting in your mouth. Right. Uh, but for me maybe probably be like a farm, you know, like a rancho type of thing. Just.

Wade Foster: There you go.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah. I don't know whether it's, it's, it's the right approach for it for, for a person in tech. Just thinking about the rancho, maybe I'm not doing something wrong with my life.

Wade Foster: You know, my grandpa was a farmer. Uh, well, I say farmer, uh, gardener is probably a better approach. You know, he, but, uh, you know, when I was growing up, I got, I go out to his garden, uh, and work with him. There's like a, I can see the appeal. Um, you know, there's a, there's sort of a good routine and a, a pleasantness and like a reward for your hard work that like.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah.

Wade Foster: You know, it scratches a particular itch.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah. You know, so for me, like I've spent last 10 years working digital. So you're in front of your laptop. Uh, you know, you can kind of build an application, you can promote the application, you can raise capital, you can do literally entire life in a laptop. But there's not as much feeling as you measured something with your hands and you like play in the dirt.

Wade Foster: Yeah, yeah. I was outside with my girls the other day and we uh, we. We brought in a, A big old bucket of like peppers and tomatoes and uh, you know, just a whole bunch of stuff and like it's like holding your hand. It's like I made this. It's not really like, you know, the rain and this, like the, the. The. The earth made this. But like, hey, I, you know, happened in my. Happen in my garden. Yeah.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah. So exciting. So on, on a kind of, On a, On a different topic, um, is Right. Do you have any kind of ritual or habit or uh, you know, that you consistently give yourself, um, um. You know, as a sort of like a biggest return for you to kind of stay on or stay focused or just, you know, be in the zone?

Wade Foster: Yeah. You know, as the. I. As zapier as we. As I've worked on zapier longer and longer, um, I ha. I do have sort of like a health and fitness routine that has been really important. Like one. It's a good night's sleep. I'm pretty, pretty much a seven, eight hours a night guy. And so like I'm pretty, pretty regimented about that. And the first thing in the morning, I'm usually getting a, you know, 30 to 60 minute workout in. Just gotta get that sweat going. And I think, you know, like being able to do those things too well. Like doing those things well just helps with stress management. It helps with. I just feel good after it. Like it's just uh. Yeah. I found that it's one of those things that my body needs, my brain needs, um, to operate at my best.

Michael Maximoff: Uh, you know, sport, uh, is important for longevity as well. Right. Like if you wanted to live on until 100, 150 plus.

Wade Foster: We'll see about that. I don't know if 100. Like 100 sounds great. 150. I mean that's. We're going to need some advances in science to get to that.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah.

Wade Foster: Um, maybe we'll see.

Michael Maximoff: You're not into kind of longevity thing and just thinking about how you would, you know, be immortal type of thing.

Wade Foster: I don't know about immortal, but like I want to be, I want to be healthy like I watched my Granddad lived at 98, and he walked three miles a day, uh, up until his very end. And I look at what he was able to do, and I think he had 98 healthy years. And then you look at other people who, yeah, you know, they might live to 98, but the last decade was pretty rough. And so to me, I'm like, I want to make sure that the life I've got is healthy life.

Michael Maximoff: Um, I recently picked up tennis just to. Because I know that you can play to a very old age. I know folks that are in 70s and 80s are just, you know, putting the ball in. And I'm like, all right, well, you know, I'm probably not going to be as excited about the gym or fitness when I'm at 70, because you're just doing that alone. Right. Uh, but, uh, in tennis, when you are playing with your peer, you know, grand people, whatever, it could be fun, right?

Wade Foster: Yeah. I think that's why pickleball has taken off so much. Yeah. Is it such a good sport for, um, you know, up into your 80s? You know, doesn't. Doesn't hurt your joints. It's a good social outing. Uh, I think it's why it's grown so much.

Michael Maximoff: Are you playing as well? You're playing?

Wade Foster: I played a ton of racquetball before I had kids in the pandemic, and so I'd gotten really good, and a lot of my racquetball friends moved to pick during the pandemic because it was outside. And so, uh, you know, I played a little, but, uh, I haven't. I don't have a routine going on since my girls were born like that. Yeah, I kind of like that. That, like, sport element shifted to family for me from a priority point of view.

Michael Maximoff: But then soon they would be able to play with you. Right. So you can go and we're getting there.

Wade Foster: Yeah. I mean, last night after dinner, we went outside and we kicked the soccer ball around. So my oldest is like, I want to be goalie. And so, like, you know, we're starting to have some fun with that.

Michael Maximoff: That's cool. Um, how many people, um, are at Zapier now?

Wade Foster: Seven, uh, hundred and 50, I think.

Michael Maximoff: 750. And what are the biggest departments in terms of the headcount?

Wade Foster: Uh, engineering, Product and engineering is like half the company. Um, sales success support. Like. Org is probably the other larger Org function.

Michael Maximoff: If you had to rebuild Zapier from scratch today, could you do it with 100 people?

Wade Foster: You know, It's hard to Say, um, one of the biggest things that Zapier benefited from was the timing in which we launched meant that we built out a developer platform and that developer platform attracted a lot of folks building our integrations. Now if you had to build Zapier today, you're also competing with Zapier, and those folks have already built Zapier integrations, so they're motivated to go build an integration for you. And so you're going to have to go figure out how to build out that long tail of integrations effectively. Now the flip side, it's easier to build them now, all the AI coding tools. It's not fully automated yet, um, but it is a lot easier. So, you know, do those two things cancel out? I'm not, I'm not quite sure. Uh, so I definitely think we could be more efficient. Um, we were already very efficient, but I think we could be even more efficient. Would it be less than 100? I don't know.

Michael Maximoff: Do you know Pavel Duro from Telegram?

Wade Foster: I know of him, love him. Yeah.

Michael Maximoff: You don't think he has a team of like 40 people or something like that? Like, it's incredible.

Wade Foster: Mhm.

Michael Maximoff: Right. To like 40 engineers. And, uh, they had like billion users. I was always kind of impressed with, like, how do you kind of build such a big product with like a very lean team? Um, and I was just wondering, like, you were one of the people that have a huge engineering team and lots of users, right? Um, do you imagine a world where, or in some future when the AI agents will be a little bit more advanced, where someone like you, with experience that you've got with Zapier, would be able to build a complex product like Zapier, just with a much smaller team? With everything that, you know, right now,

Wade Foster: I think you can build the product. The question is, can you get distribution and sell and that part of it as well? Uh, and yeah, I think that where I think this theory falls down is that if you are able to generate a big, like, healthy margin, then somebody else is going to look at that margin. This is the classic Jeff Bezos quote. You know, your margin is my opportunity. They're going to see that margin and say, well, what if I invested a little bit more? I will tolerate a narrower margin to take your market share. And so I think you kind of start to bump up against capitalism, where capitalism is going to compete to be able to deliver a better product to customers, um, and take profits out of the system and hand those back to customers at the end of the day. And so if you're just sitting there on your, like, lump of cash, um, and not actually innovating, not figuring out ways to help your customers. At the end of the day, someone else is going to go figure that out and they're going to deploy dollars to do that. And the dollars might go to, you know, AI compute, it's going to go to humans. It's going to go to whatever way in which, um, the smart entrepreneur can deploy that capital, um, with a positive return.

Michael Maximoff: Um, where is this sort of like, um, uh, the interdependency between the scale and efficiency, if you know what I mean. So it's like, are you measuring it, like, uh, you know, in terms of the bigger we get, how much more inefficient we become with our decision making, with, you know, shipping things with, with other, uh, you know, and parts to kind of running a, uh, leaner, faster, you know, maybe, um, just more innovative teamwork or, you know, smaller teams do

Wade Foster: tend to ship faster. They do tend to ship higher quality work. So to that end, you probably want to keep your team small. That said, your organization might benefit by having lots of small teams that can, you know, have some sort of, like, guiding principle or some sort of guiding North Star that they can loosely, collectively work towards together. And you'll achieve something bigger than the sum of its parts if you do that well. Um, it's a constant juggling act. Like, you feel the tension like you can feel in the company as you add people. There's times when the efficiency drops, but you also can feel areas where, when you're not adding capacity, you're holding the company back. And so you're trying to figure out, like, that formula where, you know, each new person you add gets more efficient than the one before it. And it's not always obvious, like, what's causing that. When you look at an engineering surface area, you might realize, like, oh, you know, there's. There's technical debt and there's other areas. That means that the next incremental engineer is going to be less efficient than the one before it. And so you might realize, oh, okay, like, we got to go make some foundational investments to make it such that the next incremental one can be more efficient than the one before it. I think this is true in sales and support as well, too. Um, and so you're constantly trying to, like, understand that equation. I don't know that we've nailed this at Tapper. It's a hard problem.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah. Um, did you try to kind of, sometimes kind of measure it in a way, or some people kind of put some data into it.

Wade Foster: I mean, we have some data that we use to measure it, et cetera. Um, but like I said, it's an unsolved problem for us.

Michael Maximoff: The reason I'm kind of curious about this personally is, uh, at some point we reached like 250 people, right? And we have a very slim margins and just so many roles, and we are in the SDR space. So probably you would expect the ratio of the SDR to customer will be one of the biggest one. But appeared that our ratio was one of the smallest in the industry. And we had so many other roles that are very important to deliver success to a customer. And we've kind of stayed with that because every time I talk to my C level is like, no, these roles and these departments are critical. If we optimize them, could be catastrophe in the company, right? Like your customers are turning and say, all right, fine, some point in time, we had to cut the fat off or cut, you know, and kind of just really kind of optimize because we've had a bad year. And to my surprise, and to my co founder's surprise, actually more like delivery didn't change, customer didn't start leaving us more or, you know, something. And. And we, uh. And then for me, it was like. And then those people that say, oh, it's so, so critical now they're saying, you know what? Yeah, it's fine. We are fine. We're just, you know, we're going there. So what I'm trying to understand is, and now we are like 850 people. So we literally kind of reduce at the size much, but now we're leaner. And I feel like we might be faster but might be mistaken in a way. So I was just, you know, trying to kind of, um, pick your brain.

Wade Foster: You probably aren't like. I mean, I do think that, yeah, this is probably one of the areas where Elon is a little bit misunderstood in the media. Um, yeah, obviously we saw the story of Twitter where, you know, he laid off, what, 80% of the staff. And the narrative was like, how's it going to stay up? How's it, you know, it's going to collapse under its weight. And hell, I never noticed really any downtime. Like, it kept working. And so clearly, like, at least from a technology perspective, all those engineers were not necessary to run a product like, um, Twitter. You know, you see this too. Like, when he comes into new companies, I think he's willing to do a thing that most of us struggle with which is he will find what is truly necessary by cutting into the bone. And I think he's so obsessed with doing that that he will cut. He's willing to make those cuts because if it, uh, for. For those of us who are not willing to make that cut, we actually never know. Like, we're never. We never know for sure was it truly necessary. And so you have those debates internally. You're like, uh, is this rule necessary? Is that not necessary? We don't know. Like, the only way you will actually know is if you're willing to cut all the way into the bone. You actually have to feel the bone and go, oh, yeah, it was necessary. Stuff actually started to break. But most of us aren't willing to go that far. Like, we'll cut some, um, you know, we'll try and drive efficiencies here and there, but we're not willing to intentionally break something so that we can know where the theoretical frontier is.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, I'm one of the people that didn't cut deep enough. And that, uh, created a domino effect of like, being always strapped for cash or for money to be able to kind of optimize it.

Wade Foster: So.

Michael Maximoff: And then at the end of the day, you're still going to. Deeper. You're going to cut by cut. You're still going to go deeper, but it's worse. And then just kind of getting yourself some leeway. Right? And, um, now do you think that it's. It's, you know, we all are CEOs, like you and me and others need to get to the point of, you know, of trying to take a risk to cut deep enough. Um, or it's just a more kind of a personality thing because, like, for me, it is a very difficult decision because, like, I have other people, like, I have a mystery, you know, managing director or my head of sales or my head of marketing, that, that's their call. And I'm kind of playing from, you know, uh, playing of them in a way, right? So if I coming in and say, no, we're cutting that. And I'm kind of not listening to their, you know, what they're telling me and how they think about solving their problem, then I'm literally, you know, taking that accountability from them to myself and then trying to kind of run all the. Wear all the hats at the same time, but pushing them too far. So again, the question is, um, have you thought about being more kind of a butcher to the bone type of, uh, CEO more often and just see how it goes?

Wade Foster: I think my approach has more been how do you free up people to go do bigger and better work. So rather than sort of, you know, butcher it, you might say, hey, I'm going to take this set of people and I'm put you on a new project. And so the old thing is like now leaner, slimmer, can move more efficiently, fast. But you've also now freed up these new folks to go attack a new area, a new surface area and so you can get more out of it on that side. Like that's how that's sort of always been my mental model. Um, I think that works if you're confident in the talent part in your company, like if you have exceptional folks that can solve, you know, problems, can move laterally across the organization, then you have the freedom and the ability to do that. But if you don't have that, like you hired specialists everywhere, where it's like, well the only job I can do is this job, then I think you are in a situation where you probably have to cut and then hire into the new thing instead. Um, that's where I kind of get excited about AI circling back to it is I do think the uh, upskilling is a lot faster these days. It's so much quicker to learn something and learn the basics of a thing. So in theory this like ability to be, move laterally across the different problems and solve different things, it should make all of us a lot more uh, uh, dynamic in terms of the problems we can go solve. And that that's one of the really exciting opportunities. I think with AI organizations that figure that out should be able to move into a lot more areas and shift um, staff and personnel more readily uh, into to other places because they have to sit, sit back and wait for oh, you know, the brand team has a two week backlog. So like, you know, we got to sit and wait for them to do the thing. It's like, well, if you can make your own commercials and your own, you know, creative, like, why don't you just go do that today? What's stopping you?

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, but then lots of people are going to come back to you and say, hey, you know, there are so many changes, there's so many things happening at the same time. You're asking us to do all of those other things. That is not part of the job. So uh, you know, we just create that additional chaos for us that, you know, because of that, the other part of the job is not there. Have you had those type of conversations?

Wade Foster: Well, this is where I think you know, we, we haven't as an industry I think started to really reckon with this shift, um, where you're going to see the de specialization of jobs where you know, it used to be you'd have, you know, a front end engineer, a uh, back end engineer, a designer, a product manager, infrastructure, you know, so on, so and so forth. You have all these different roles. I think you're just going to start to see them shrink and like, you know, more of those skill sets are going to be captured inside one person. You just can have this concept of a builder. But for organizations that have built, been built up in the sort of like old hierarchy, there is going to have to be a evolution of how the talent inside those organizations work. Um, yeah, this is where like change management and culture matter a ton. Like the companies that you know, inspire the team to make those shifts that put education opportunities in front of people, I think they're going to find that it is easier for them to make that shift versus the companies that approach this with more of a zero sum mindset that are like, hey, I am going to just like slash and burn and you know, we are going to sort of cut and rehire. Like I think if that's sort of your default approach, you inject fear into the company and then it makes it a lot more difficult to get people to where you ultimately want them to go.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, um, I would love if there are more people like you that are kind of more excited about the change and more excited about the exciting things. Um, but unfortunately there's so many people that are like status quo and the comfortable way of them they are, right. And uh, you kind of come in and you try to kind of put your energy and just like, okay, we can do all of that. It's like, yeah. And then the next meeting they go back to the square zero and just do the other thing. Right. Uh, I've personally like every time when I see that's happening in a sales team it kind of pisses me off because like I very work with the sales team very often and when I see like kind of marketing kind of pushing and integrating AI and doing other things and then the sales team cannot build a fucking spreadsheet, you know, because it's not pre built for them or something and you know, because that's not their job, I'm always like, oh my God guys, come on. Uh, you know, and this is just an example of a high intellectual individual who is great at closing deals, but besides that they're like, you know, just living in their own, you know, little bubble in a way. Right. And yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wade Foster: I mean that's where you like, you know, I think there's got to repeat yourself. You got to show the way you got to do it. And you know, as optimistic as I am, like I recognize that there are individuals who are stubborn and stuck in their ways. Yeah. And you know, I think the like guidance I have for those folks is like, hey, you know that you can, that can be the choice you have is to sort of lose like keep, keep doing the job as you've always done it. It's going to catch up to you. Yeah, it is. Like you're going to have to find a way to adapt because. And it may not be today, may not be tomorrow, may not be this year, but before you know it, your skill sets are going to be out of date and uh, it's going to be forced on you 100%. Why not? Why not figure it out now? And it's, and it actually is cool. That's the, that's the thing I don't understand is like this technology is so cool. You're just like, I can literally do things that were so hard to do, um, you know, a decade ago. So that's the part I struggle to understand where I'm like, what's to be fearful of? Like look at all this cool things that you are now individually capable of doing. Um, that's the part where I'm like, I don't see how people can't get excited by it.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah, I think it's a more like a problem solving type of um, thing. So like because you are, you know, your psychic works and the problem solves, you see something and you think, oh, it's a problem, I can solve that. And you just learn by default to be excited about that. You know, solving other problems and new stuff. And uh, I'm like very similar person and I have lots of people like that but when I meet someone that is not that default person. So any new problem is a very energy consuming for them. So needing to spend more time because they did not learn to do that because they have a playbook. Right. And um. Yeah, but uh, you're right. I think that just all of us should learn through that because we could be obsolete now. Talking about obsolete, like do you have, do you hire lots of Gen Z in your company?

Wade Foster: Remind me, what is Gen Z?

Michael Maximoff: I think it's like those that are born after like 2000, uh, yeah, 2005, uh, probably. Yeah. So like 20 if they're like 18, 19, 20 year old right now. Probably like something like that.

Wade Foster: Yeah, um, not too many. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if it's after 2005, they'd be 20 years old, I'd say. Yeah, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't know that we have that many Gen Z inside of zapier. Well folks in their 20s, but you know, early 20s, like you know, post college or pre college. Yeah, I guess college age probably not.

Michael Maximoff: Um, I don't have a lot of style and then I'm just kind of very curious about this market and see like oh, you know.

Wade Foster: Mhm.

Michael Maximoff: Would me working with, you know, with that generation are they are more open to change, more dynamic, they're learning more or opposite to that. So I thought that maybe you have some insights for me.

Wade Foster: No, you know, I don't. Uh, the only thing I would point uh to is I think there's always a tendency for every generation to look at the next generation and talk down on it. Be like, uh, uh, my day, you know, shucks, we did this, that and the other. And you know, I think generally, you know, they're smart, talented people who are building on the shoulders of giants every step of the way. And so I think probably the next generation is going to be capable of some incredible stuff that my generation wasn't capable of because we didn't have that foundation set for us. And so yeah, I think we'll probably see um, a bunch of incredible stuff built by that generation and then the generation after that. And if I'm lucky, maybe I get to see the generation after that.

Michael Maximoff: Um, how many years until we see a one person billion dollar company powered by kind of AI. Oh shoot.

Wade Foster: I think it's probably pretty soon, um, yeah, I think it's gonna, I think the way in which it happens is gonna be different than how people expect. Coming back to the Jeff Bezos quote, your margin is my opportunity. Right? So if there is a one person, one billion revenue generating company, um, obviously somebody's going to look at that and go how do I get access to that? So that makes me think that the way in which this happens probably has to have some exceptionally rare attributes to it. And the closest I can think of is probably, probably some amount of celebrity associated with it. Like you look at Taylor Swift, you know, Taylor Swift is a billionaire now. From what I understand, her team is very small, like less than 10 people. Um, so there's a question of like, you know, is there a like superstar, like personality, celebrity out there who can hone their Craft, whether it's music or sports or whatever, to like, you know, take their celebrity and then use AI to be able to do all the back office stuff that those folks generally need help with. You know, you see athletes who say, I need a business team. I don't, I don't know anything about this stuff. Um, but, uh, you know, are obviously capable of themselves generating that much economic value in the world. So I think there's going to be some, some, there has to be some interesting attributes to create it such that it's very difficult to compete without one person. Billion dollar revenue company.

Michael Maximoff: Right? Yeah. Or some kind of unique new, uh, industry or new ways. Like a thing with this kind of pop mart and that kind of, uh, lulu type of thing, which I didn't understand, like just going up, you know, and just like how it's never been done before. Right. All right, I have an interesting section. These are that section. So just uh, choose one and if you can give me context. All right. So as a first business, Bootstrapped or raise capital to go faster?

Wade Foster: First business.

Michael Maximoff: Yes.

Wade Foster: I think it is probably easier to bootstrap your first.

Michael Maximoff: Easier to bootstrap your first. A lot of bootstrap founders would tell you that it's not been easy for them.

Wade Foster: You know, I didn't say it was easier or uh, easy.

Michael Maximoff: Right. It was just a bit easier. You know, just the people who raised.

Wade Foster: Yeah, I think you learn a lot more bootstrapping.

Michael Maximoff: Yeah. All right. Um, shipping fast with some bugs or shipping perfect but slower.

Wade Foster: I think you have to do the first. The only way to ship bug free software is to not write any software. And so yeah, I think you just accept that like, well, if you're going to ship bugs, it's better to ship them faster and learn where they exist and then go fix them.

Michael Maximoff: Um, founder intuition or data driven decision.

Wade Foster: I think when you're starting something, it has to be from intuition. Like it has to be the founder's observations, uh, from the market. Um, I think as you have more customers then I think it becomes more of a mix of the two where you better be listening to the data, you better be paying attention to what they're saying. But then how you go apply that, that's where some of the intuition comes in.

Michael Maximoff: Hiring, um, externally or promoting internally?

Wade Foster: Uh, I think, I think internal is generally better. But you are going to benefit from like some external folks, new blood, fresh eyes from time to time.

Michael Maximoff: Do you have any specific kind of guideline or playbook for yourself? Like when you need to hire externally Opposed to promoting someone internally.

Wade Foster: Uh, you know, I think for, uh, our. At least for like, our executive roles, I generally would much prefer if. If there's somebody ready or even close to being ready, I would much prefer to promote with within. So generally when we're going externally, it's like, I just think it's a too big of a step up for the individual in a way that's going to set them up for failure and hold the company back.

Michael Maximoff: Right. Uh, being early to a market or being the last one standing.

Wade Foster: Well, last one standing sounds great. Like, is you're still standing. Yeah.

Michael Maximoff: All right. Building, um, a calm company or chasing hyper growth. I'm asking this to a person who is. Who Advise people doing 10% growth, um, week over week, which is like, for me is like 10% growth week or week is like, wow. What?

Wade Foster: Yeah, I think it kind of just depends on the market you're in. Like, there's some markets where you just have to go, like, winner take all, winner take most. And like, you gotta go, you gotta go climb the mountain. You gotta do it now. So go figure that out. Um, that said, like, growth solves a lot of problems, so I probably fall on the growth side side of the house. Um, more so than the calm, though. I feel like these don't have to be pitted against each other.

Michael Maximoff: Uh, last one. A quiet life in Missouri or 2x year to year growth in the next few years?

Wade Foster: Do I have to choose? Like, why can't I do both?

Michael Maximoff: That's the rules of the game. These are the rules.

Wade Foster: My family's in Missouri. I'm taking my family above everything.

Michael Maximoff: Awesome.

Wade Foster: Um, weasel my way out of these questions.

Michael Maximoff: Yes. Yes. All right, I have one last one for you, and I will let you go. What were some of the best learnings, um, for you over the years of building remote company and in terms of the culture development or just bringing people again? I moved remotely last year. It's been difficult, but I'm trying to. So whatever you can give me in terms of the learnings you've got over the years, you know, building to 750 people in the remote environment, I would kind of appreciate that.

Wade Foster: Yeah, just a small one for the end here. Um, uh, what are the lessons learned? I mean, one, the fact that you care about culture, that means you're gonna go a long way. I think. Two, you gotta be very intentional about it. You know, you don't get to expect, like, serendipity to just sort of like, manifest itself inside of a distributed company. You have to show up every day and will the culture into existence, will the camaraderie into existence, and, you know, make sure that you're being very intentional about, you know, who you hire, who you fire. Like, you know, the. The types of behaviors, own rituals you reward. You disincentivize, things like that. I think on, uh, the margins, you need strong communicators. In a remote company, you don't get to work with people who are bad communicators. They have to be crisp, they have to communicate early. They have to communicate often. They have to be strong in writing. Um, that's super important. Um, I think this is obvious, but distributed companies have an entire enormous talent pool that they can recruit from. So do not settle for mediocre talent. Like, go get great people. Um, I saw, like, a, um, interesting, like, bell curve of, like, you know who it was like, one of these studies that tries to, like, just say, do higher performers at remote. Are they, you know, in offices, et cetera. And it's a big old bell curve. And, you know, basically what it showed was you're sort of like, top 5% are better working remotely. And then you've got this big sort of, like, middle part of the bell curve where folks are generally, like, modestly more productive in an office. Uh, and then at the tail end, it gets pretty extreme where they're a lot more productive in an office. And so you sort of look at that and you go, oh, interesting. Most of us, if you take that at face value, which I'm not sure like, these studies are, it's hard to replicate them. Um, but if you take it at face value, it feels intuitively true. Most of us are probably a little bit better in an office. A little bit. Not much, but a little bit. And so your job is to be like, how do you find that top 5% who actually are better in a remote and who, like, have that insane, like, insatiable drive, insatiable curiosity, who care so much about the customer, they're just going to solve these problems no matter what. Like, that's the type of people you want in your company.

Michael Maximoff: Thanks, Wade. All right, well, it's, uh, a. It's a wrap. I appreciate you being part of Falcon's podcast, man.

Wade Foster: Yeah, thanks for having me, Michael. This was fun.