Founding Mindset and Early Lessons

Jesse Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Decagon, the conversational AI platform for customer experience. As one of the fastest growing companies in the valley, they have raised over $230M at a last round price of $1.5BN. Prior to Decagon, Jesse founded Lowkey (acquired by Niantic), studied CS at Harvard, and worked at places like Google, HRT, Citadel, and Intel.

AGENDA:

00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Messages

03:43 Olympiad Mathematician to Startup Founder

05:34 Selling to Niantic and What I Did Differently the Second Time

07:16 Why 90% of Founders Build Companies the Wrong Way

12:19 Scaling to $50M ARR in 15 Months

31:31 Is the AI Talent War Out of Hand: How To Compete with Meta Pay Packets

32:38 Why Remote Work is Total BS

34:06 Competitors in AI Customer Experience: Sierra, Intercom and more

37:34 AI Market Predictions

44:56 Embracing Stress and Winning Culture

50:13 Quick Fire Questions: Most Underrated AI Founder, Biggest Changed Opinion