co-founder at The Network
San Francisco, CA
Joined October 2024
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there’s no justification for entertaining standoffish people or playing intellectual superiority games.
the people impressed by this will be nightmares to work with in the long term, even if short term successful. and the best people in business are very friendly and turned off by this behavior. being kind and open is more fun and will take you further
the sunset over San Francisco today, and the Farallon Islands in the distance – at San Francisco, CA
great time to bring this back up
annualreport.gallery/ – at San Francisco, CA
Ally Bell retweeted
Charlie Songhurst on why "boring and complex" companies may offer the best returns
My second conversation with Christina Cacioppo (@christinacaci), Vanta's cofounder and CEO.
Charlie Songhurst says the best returns come from companies that are highly boring and highly complex, because fewer founders want to build them.
Vanta is one of those companies.
When we first talked five years ago, Christina told me about building the first version of Vanta in Excel.
Since then she has turned it into the category leader in security compliance. Now she is rebuilding it around AI.
We discuss:
- Why great software businesses got cheap
- Why Vanta eats the cost of AI instead of marking it up
- Why comp for top people is up 10X in five years
- What is over/under hyped in AI
- How AI attackers are changing security
- Vanta marketing + billboards
- Building trust in an era of low trust
Enjoy!
TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Intro
4:17 Surviving the SaaSpocalypse
9:40 The AI Pricing Trap
16:17 Rebuilding Software for AI
22:43 Silicon Valley's Talent Wars
31:57 What's Overhyped in AI
38:39 Security at Machine Speed
47:16 Reinventing Software
55:37 The Billboard War
60:38 Rebuilding Trust in Technology
Here are my favorite examples of constraints creating lasting aesthetics
1. Zoning laws in NYC required buildings to step back higher up to let light down to the street, creating tiered art deco skyscrapers New York
Still thinking about this post. Human creative innovation is not spontaneous but is actually a byproduct of solving problems. Art deco (for example) was not some randomly-inspired force of will to create beauty; it happened because metallurgy became just advanced enough to create everything out of metal, and because zoning laws required skyscrapers to have a stepped shape at the top.
This is why top-down efforts at changing our civilizational aesthetic (like those guys building the giant Greek statues) don’t work. They don’t change the “problem” we’re solving as a civilization, which is the actual source of the bleak & dreary surroundings we find ourselves in
4. Necessary garment reinforcement and repair in Japan evolving into Sashiko
5. Seven segment displays producing a whole family of fonts and styles
and cc friction @majamediaco
