Why 80% of the Fortune 100 Chose Qualtrics | Ryan Smith

**Ryan Smith** (0:00)
Every single time we raised money, we had the ability to go at least 40% higher. We sold at like 25x, we IPO two years later out of SAP at like 30x, we hit every single quarter for eight quarters. The growth that all these companies are talking about, we did what we were supposed to do, we did what we told everyone we were gonna do. They were loving the plan. We went down to $7 billion market cap from like 20 something. We didn't do anything wrong. Are you worth 20 something billion as a company? No. Are you worth seven? No.
It's probably somewhere in between, and you need your price, your rounds accordingly as well. And by the way, none of this is gonna matter for anyone if you kill it.

**Joubin** (0:57)
Welcome to Grit, I'm Joubin, partner at Kleiner Perkins, a show where we go beyond the highlight reel and explore the personal and professional challenges of building history-making companies.

**Ryan Smith** (1:10)
I think it's probably a broader discussion around AI right now is like most companies, the moat around why they're not bigger or better or scaling actually has as much to do with other stuff than it does technology once you've been in running. There comes a point of a scale of a business, especially if you're in business to business software. You've got to get more sales reps.
And then you've got to divide up the world and you've got to get your sellers to be more productive. Basically means like you either, if they're averaging 15 points a game, you've got to get them to average 30
Or you've got to give them new games to play, so they can average 15 across multiple games. And it's just math. And so if you look at the growth of sales force, it's been pretty straightforward. Like Benioff either acquires or something, or if he wants to grow at 20%, he's got to increase the sales reps 20%. Right? And either it comes from new heads or increasing their productivity. I think it's very hard in my 20-something years in tech to count on getting people who are doing 15 points a game to go to 30 points a game. You know, I just did a big LP meeting for our Halo Fund for the last two days. And, you know, obviously, you know, everyone's looking. So, Ryan, how are you feeling about Enterprise AI and everything that's going on?
You know, it's interesting. It'll be interesting to watch these processes of this process in your world of like, what's really happening? Because it's three or 400% growth on these companies. Like, okay, how does it actually play out on the field?

**Joubin** (3:00)
Well, you know, it's interesting. Like, let's take this 15 point to 30 point score metaphor. Okay, it was really hard to get someone from 15 to 30 Now, 15 to 30 is a lot, but let's just imagine you're getting somebody from 15 to 20 Okay, 15 to 20 points, that's a big jump. Even if you're getting them from 15 to 20 points a game.
Like, in engineering, we are getting people from 15 to like, 50 points a game with these tools. Maybe more, you know?

**Ryan Smith** (3:38)
I see it. I see it. It's all right.

**Joubin** (3:39)
I mean, I'm watching it. Yeah. And so, you know, like if you dream the dream, I think the power of these tools is quite profound in actually being able to raise the bar for other functions beyond engineering. And I think engineering is one of the first. I think you've seen it in legal. I think you've seen it in support. I think you're about to see it in sales.
I do think you're about to have the same level of profound impact that it has on productivity for them across some of these other domains.
It just hasn't happened yet.

**Ryan Smith** (4:15)
I just got done before this going to an exercise for our sports entities, right? Where we're literally looking out 2027, 2028, 2029, 3031, which is kind of a fascinating exercise if you look at media, TV rights, how everything's going, teams, playoffs, we got multiple teams going and how all of that plays out. Now, if you do the same thing right now and you're a $100 million revenue company, AI First, in the business to business world, where you actually have a sales process and a buying cycle, and you're asking yourself, okay, we're growing at 300 percent, we were 30 million last year, we're going to or 100 this year, and you actually start playing that out, the natural reaction is, hey, I just raised a $5 billion, what's there not to know? I'm 100 million revenue, I'm $5 billion, I've got a 50X multiple for looking.