Startup Soothsayers

The argument that Ramp is in the best position of any B2B company to capitalize on AI comes in three stages, from general to Ramp-specific: 

AI will drive extreme consolidation.

The companies that win will be in the sweet spot between owning workflows and building great products. Ramp is in the sweet spot. 

Of all of the workflows to own, finance is t... See more

Artificial intelligence will spur two fundamental changes in our relationship with technology. The first is that voice—already the most natural interface for human interaction—will become a dominant interface. Imagine latency reduced to less than half a second, a stark contrast to the sluggishness of touch-based devices. Even silent voice is on the... See more

No longer will we need to learn to navigate through apps like Uber or complex systems like those of SAP or Oracle. Thus far, we’ve always adapted to software—learning its intricacies, remembering layered menus and so forth to communicate with machines. “Training” to use complex apps is commonplace. Now, AI is enabling software to adapt to humans in... See more

It means that many startups have to justify their existence not by explaining why they’ll make the world better, but by actively showing they won’t make the world worse.

Assuming that everyone has equal access to the technology, you get what I call Syndrome Syndrome. Syndrome was the villain in Pixar’s 2004 movie The Incredibles whosesignature line was: “If everyone’s super, nobody is.” Syndrome Syndrome is what happens when everyone has access to the same technology at the same time. If everyone has an AI agent, n... See more

Given the pace we are working at, we look foremost for flexibility and initiative. The ability to build constructively in a limited-resource environment (potentially having to wear several hats) is the most important to us.

Artificial intelligence will spur two fundamental changes in our relationship with technology. The first is that voice—already the most natural interface for human interaction—will become a dominant interface. Imagine latency reduced to less than half a second, a stark contrast to the sluggishness of touch-based devices. Even silent voice is on the... See more

I submit that we have two big biases when we talk about technology. First, we think about it too much in terms of tools and recipes, when really we should think about it more in terms of process knowledge and technical experience. Second, most of us focus too much on the digital world and not enough on the industrial world. Our obsession with the d... See more

I once defined the job of a product manager as to “deliver business impact by marshaling the resources of your team to identify and solve the most impactful customer problems.” Essentially, to be the conductor/quarterback/glue of the team who pulls all the disparate pieces together to create great products and drive the business forward. I believe ... See more