It was a guy with a turtleneck that came into
our office and it was in a room with no windows,
no access to anybody. I was the only one with
a key. He had chained the device to a table that
couldn't move and I wasn't supposed to show what
I was working on to anyone, not even to talk
about it with my husband. And about a few weeks
after I finished it, it turns out that... That's
the app that got keynoted by Steve Jobs on stage.
And all of a sudden, Thomson Reuters got 30 million
new users because they've decided to pre -install
the app on iPads. Welcome to Under Embargo, the
podcast that says the quiet part out loud about
PR, communications and the chaos in between.
hosted by two of LinkedIn's most connected comms
pros, Becca Chambers, a no BS corporate comms
exec with raging ADHD, and Pari Hedrick, founder
of tech PR firm Crackle PR. This show brings
it all. Real talk, sharp insights, and the kind
of industry truths they don't put in press releases.
No fluff, no filters, no f***s given. This is
Under Embargo. Let's get into it. Welcome to...
the Under Embargo podcast. I am your host, Becca
Chambers. I'm the CMO of Scale Venture Partners.
My co -host, Perry Hedrick, who you will notice
is absent today. So I'm doing this solo for the
first time. ever, although I have an excellent,
I guess we can call Alina my co -host today,
although she is also my guest. So no judgment
of me trying to host the show alone, but I am
super excited for today's guest. She has one
of the most compelling founder journeys that
I've heard, and I've actually heard a lot of
founder journeys. So Alina Vandenberg is the
co -founder and co -CEO of Chili Piper and her
path to building a very respected, one of the
most respected names in revenue tech is pretty
amazing. So I will dig into some of her background
in the podcast. So no spoilers now. But Alina
has been hustling since she was eight years old.
She's an immigrant with a master's in computer
science, and she's had her apps featured. by
the likes of Steve Jobs himself. And she's founded
a company with her husband. And they are now
reimagining how B2B revenue teams are operating
and solving really complicated business problems.
And if you've been on LinkedIn for any amount
of time, you're sure to have seen Alina there
because she's building a super authentic brand
that I love. And that's how I found her and started
following her. So I'm really happy to have her
here. Welcome to Under Embargo. Thank you, Becca.
It feels a privilege for a nerd like me to be
invited on a communication podcast. No, it's
my privilege. I'm so happy to have you here.
Well, let me just, can I just have you kind of
introduce yourself and Chili Piper and, you know,
maybe just a little bit about your journey? As
you said, I started working ever since I can
remember. I didn't know that I wanted to become
an entrepreneur, but I started working because
I had to. And I thought my dream would be to
climb the ladder in corporate America, which
I did. I started working as an intern at Thomson
Reuters and I worked for Bloomberg and some other
publicly traded company. And I realized that
what I really love is building things. And I
wanted to see if I can start a company where
I can just do that. So it's an ongoing experiment.
What was the first thing that you built? When
I started my first job here in America at Thomson
Reuters, it was an application for news for Thomson
Reuters on the iPad. It was before the iPad was
launched. There was a guy with a turtleneck that
came into our office. It was in a room with no
windows, no access to anybody. I was the only
one with a key. He had chained the device to
a table that couldn't move. And I wasn't supposed
to show what I was working on to anyone, not
even to talk about it with my husband. And about
a few weeks after I finished it, it turns out
that that's the app that got keynoted by Steve
Jobs on stage. And all of a sudden, Thomson Reuters
got 30 new... million new users because they've
decided to pre -install the app on iPads. That
is amazing. Okay, so I need to know more about
this. So you were building it for the iPad, but
you didn't really know that you were building
it for the iPad. You just knew you were building
it for this kind of secret thing. Did you know
it was going to... Sorry, go ahead. It was like
in a metal chain, so I could see the device,
but we didn't know the name of it. We didn't
know what's going to happen to it. It was under,
yeah. Well, as Apple always is, right? Everything
is like super secretive. Did you, so you had
just kind of like working specs that you needed
to work like with, right? To be able to create
a thing. Well, it was the beginning, right? So
they didn't really have like guidelines for it.
They didn't. quite know what precisely the apps
on it would look like. But we did have the iPhone
as an example. And so it was somewhat easier
imagining how to take that to a larger screen.
But still, it was a lot of fun to kind of develop
without much distraction. Yeah, that's super
cool. And did you have any idea it was going
to be on the stage? Or was that a surprise? No
idea. No, no idea. That's so cool. I was definitely
surprised. What was your reaction when that happened?
Oh my gosh, I thought that I made it to America.
I was interviewed by the New York Times. We were
in Times Square. The app was everywhere. I even
have a picture of it. I couldn't believe my luck.
I could barely speak English, but here I was
in New York Times. Totally. Did that have a profound
impact on your career? Just that moment, kind
of? Did that help launch you? It gave me a lot
of confidence for sure. If I could do this fast,
what else did I have in me? Totally. What a cool
moment. So you are from Romania. How did you
make your way here? My husband imported me. That's
the short answer. Where's your husband from?
He's French, but he was living here for a long
time and he had the American citizenship. Nice.
Did you meet him here? No, I met him in Romania.
Oh, okay. All right. Very nice. And did you guys
found your company in the US or in Romania? So
the company we started together in 2016 and he
was a serial entrepreneur. So he started many
companies. Some of them went bankrupt. Some of
them did well. And he said, you know, with this
talent that you have in product, you should start
a company. You should try to start a company
with me. And he kept insisting and insisting
and insisting. And eventually I said, fine, I'll
do it, but only if I'm the CEO. Nice. So how
did Chili Pfeiffer come to be? Like, why that
business? I didn't quite know what we will do.
I didn't have a master plan like most entrepreneurs.
I just knew that I loved building things and
especially my brain works best when the complexities
of the software are hard to crack. In this case,
enterprise software is really, really complicated
to figure it out. And I was seeing, at the time
I was working with Oracle, I was working with
Salesforce and I felt, you know, And B2B software
is usually boring. I don't want to build boring
software, but I want to see if I can use my B2C
kind of talent and apply it to the boring software.
And I was just curious. I really was just curious
to see what can be done and if I can use my talent
there. And what do you think the biggest kind
of like technical challenges have you helped?
overcome in that space using your B2C minded
brain? I literally went and I applied principles
from B2C buying experience into the B2B world
and made sure that, you know, when we want something
as consumers, we press the button on Amazon Prime
in three seconds is at our door. And B2B is a
lot more complicated. You go to somebody's website,
you have to figure out who you're supposed to
talk to, you have to wait for them. On the seller
side, there's a buying group, which is harder
to wrangle and then move towards the right parts
of the funnel. So it's a lot more complicated.
And I figured that there's a way to improve that
buying experience. And there are still a lot
of things that can be improved. nine years into
it, I still think that there are a million ways
to improve it. For sure. I mean, I have an example
just from this week. I am evaluating some vendors
for some software that I want. And one of the
vendors, I was able to get a demo immediately.
Great. The other one, I just want a demo. You
know, I just want to see it so that I can evaluate.
And I haven't been able to get an email back.
And it's like, I just want to see the... the
damn product. You know, I don't want to wait.
I don't want to talk. I don't even want to talk
to somebody. I just want to play with it myself,
you know? And instead I have to wait. Am I going
to be able to talk to somebody? I don't know.
It's like, I'm going to end up abandoning even
like seeing that product just because it's this
whole long process and dance and whatever. And
I just want to maybe buy the product, but no,
it's a whole thing. I totally agree. I'll have
to call them after our conversation to make sure
that they buy Tilly Piper. Seriously. I know.
I'm going to be like, hey, I've got somebody
for you. Maybe improve your buying process. But
I feel the same way actually about marketing
in B2B. Like I think the way that people market
B2B products is this like very stiff, whatever.
And it doesn't need to be. We can do consumer
marketing. We can take principles from consumer
marketing and use that in B2B marketing. You
know, we can have a more human centric marketing.
I don't know what the word I'm looking for is,
but the way that we talk to people doesn't need
to be this very like business stuffy thing that
we've always done. I don't know the enterprise
voice that we're used to. I'm so over it. And
I wish that. more enterprises would take a lesson
from the consumer brands that are just having
more fun with their marketing, you know? I think
we could all agree. I 100 % agree with you. So
you have described yourself as a miserable employee.
What are red flags that told you that you needed
to build your own thing? A couple of things.
One is I love traveling and I couldn't stand
being stuck in one location under a neon light
without any access to nature or any of those
things. I think that when you're more of a creative
type and you get your ideas when you walk or
when you're changing environment, it's a lot
more conducive to better work. The second one.
was related to decision making in large corporations.
You get to climb the ladder if you really get
good at politics. And I started getting good
at that, but I didn't like that that was the
case. I felt that there has to be a better way
where talent is the one that gets at the top.
And that's what I'm aiming to do at Chili Piper
as well, where all decisions are transparent.
Everyone can make a decision that changes the
business. Anyone can contribute. It doesn't matter
where you are in the ladder and everything is
transparent. So everybody sees everything. And
it's one big experiment, but I do believe that
it's a lot more, it's a better system in which
everybody feels like they're contributing as
opposed to just people who are louder or who
are more astute from a political standpoint.
For sure. I mean, oftentimes the quiet, thoughtful
people are the ones who don't have their voices
heard, but are the ones who have like super important
perspectives. But how are you fostering that
culture and making sure that those quieter voices
are having their voices heard as part of this?
We have actually documented it in an OceanDoc
because all my CEO friends ask me about how we
make decisions because it's very unusual. And
we have this thing, we call it a decision memo.
So it's a Google Doc. And we have thousands of
thousands of such documents. And everyone can
create a decision about anything. Could be our
pricing, could be who we're going after. So our
segments, our ICP, could be what's the right
org structure for their particular team. So they
start with a problem statement and then they
start why they need to fix that problem now and
then potential options on how to solve that problem.
And those documents, nobody in the company can
make a decision without starting such a document.
And those documents are open to anyone. Anyone
can contribute with options and thoughts. For
each one of these decisions, we have what's called
a consensus caller. Not it's a vote, but everybody
gets input back into the decision. And then there's
a consensus that needs to happen. So if you have
voices that are completely against the solution,
then you have to make sure that their view is
respected and that you include their data, et
cetera, so that the decision can move in the
best direction. And we have deadlines because
otherwise the decision can stall forever. And
you can put like a two hour deadline or 30 minutes
deadline, like a few minutes, a few days deadline.
And we've got used to documenting everything,
rationalizing everything and seeing more options
than maybe it's possible at the first glance.
That's super interesting. When you bring new
employees on, how do you like onboard them into
this system? At the beginning, it's very overwhelming
because you have all sorts of decisions kind
of flying everywhere all the time. And you feel
like things are moving very fast. But after a
while, they get used to it and they contribute
and they can start their own decision making.
And it's very empowering because usually you
join a company and you feel like you're just
a cog in the machine. And at Chili Piper, everybody
takes ownership over things. Not everybody survives.
Not everybody survives. But those that do are
very resilient and action -oriented. How large
is Chili Piper? How many people? So we're in
38 countries. And so that's why the decision
-making process has to be written. We're in different
time zones and with very different culturally.
And that's kind of the beauty of it. Right now,
we have 140 employees that are human and then
thousands of AI agents. Yeah, I like that you
couched it like that, that you have the human
employees and then you have your agents as well.
And do you have humans running the agents? We
have agents running the humans. It's all included.
Where do you have the AI? What parts of your
business do you have AI most? Where are the agents
most automating, I guess, right now? What part
of the business? It's a lot on the GTM functions.
I actually wrote another Notion doc exactly with
examples of all the agents that we've built.
Really? Can you share it? Is it shareable? I
can share both Notions. No, no, no. I would love
to see it. Keep updating them, yeah. We have
Slack channels where everybody can build agents.
And it's actually part of the promotion process.
If you want to get promoted at Chili Piper, you
have to show that you've built pages, that you're
innovative, that you're thinking about how to
improve your activities. And anybody can volunteer.
Anybody can volunteer for ideas. And yeah, it's
very organic and a little bit chaotic, but it's
also fun. I love that, though, because, you know,
if you work somewhere that... AI is just not
in the DNA of the company. And you'd start like,
if I were to start building agents or a team
at a company were to start building agents and
you were to start saying, this is how people
are getting promoted or this is a way that is,
this is a path towards promotion. It really does
create, I don't know. It gives people something
that they can tangibly do that's adding value
to the business that they can go do and learn
on their own. That isn't something they don't
have to go take a class. Right. They don't have
to go take a leadership course or they don't
have to hope that that their boss is going to
give them a promotion because they've hit some,
you know, maybe they hit a goal that is. potentially
tangible or intangible. It's like there are some
real things that you're saying, these are value
adds to the business and all of the people are
going and doing it. And like you said, it creates
this kind of organic movement of people adding
value for each other and everybody's learning
from it. It's not just like, oh, I did one thing
that's creating a better process. Like everybody
is learning how to be better at their jobs and
then they'll be better at their jobs in their
next job too, right? Because they're all learning
how to. build a better plane, I guess, for lack
of a better analogy. And we will learn a lot
better by doing than by reading about it, you
know, so it's a lot more actionable. Totally.
I'm particularly, I would love to see all of
the ways that you're using AI in your go -to
-market. Can you share a couple examples? Like
what are some interesting or like maybe some
recent examples of automation that you've done
in your go -to -market motions? So we have something
unusual in that we push all our data from our
sales force, from our marketing automation, and
from our product all in one place. We use Noflake.
And as a result, we can make a lot of inherences
around what makes for a great customer, what
makes for a great customer that sticks, what
are the characteristics. And we always feed that
back to the top of the funnel, to the accounts
that we target. So there are a lot of data components
that we gather with AI agents to make sure that
the scoring is correct. It keeps evolving with
the right kind of accounts. And right now, something
that I'm working on is making sure that we have
a lot of partners. So we work with a lot of agencies
and we work with a lot of product partners as
well. Whenever in our ecosystem there are new
prospects or new customers, make sure that they
are nurtured, like the right buyer in the right
company is nurtured with them understanding how
Chili Piper and Gong work together or Chili Piper
and G2 work together. And that also happens with
AI agents because we identify which persona could
be best suited for a nurture campaign. And we
automate the process like with evergreen automatic
campaigns as well on that front. That's something
that I'm working on myself right now. That's
very cool. Yeah, I really want to see your notion.
I'm particularly interested right now. It just
feels like every day I see some new go -to -market
use case that somebody's doing. CMO is coming
up with an interesting way of automating a different
part of go -to -market. And so I love that people
are starting to create lists of this and I'm
eager to start taking, I don't know, smart people
classes because I'm not nearly as smart as other
people that are figuring this out. We're all
trying to figure it out, Becca. We're all trying
to figure it out. But I actually think that's
the beauty of right now is I see people online
who are like... take my course. I'm an expert.
And I'm like, you're a liar. Nobody's an expert
right now. Literally nobody. And that's why it's
so beautiful right now, because nobody knows
what they're doing and everyone is just trying
to figure it out. And in two years, we're going
to look back and be like, wow, we had no idea
what we were doing, but like the people who are
playing with it right now are going to be the
ones who are experts in five years, just because.
tinkering right we're trying to figure it out
we're like getting into the weeds and starting
to learn how the pieces fit together and i don't
know i think it's as a as a like i'm not nearly
as big of like a tech nerd as you are but like
i like getting into the like how does it work
part of it not just into the put an input in
get an input out piece of it because It helps
me, I guess, with my process. So I love this
space. So let me ask you, since I found you on
LinkedIn, I will pivot there a little bit. How
did you start LinkedIn -ing and building your
LinkedIn presence? And was that just kind of
an organic thing? Like you just like it? Or was
that a business decision? Tell me about that.
I very much like three years or four years ago,
I was your typical tech founder that would avoid
eye contact and would not want to be in front
of press or in front of journalists or anything.
Very much so. Very much so. I was terrified of
any kind of being on stages or anything like
that. First, I felt like my English was awkward.
Second, I felt like the words that I was using
were limited. I just didn't feel like I had anything
to say, really. So as a result, I was just terrified
of social media. Until I decided that I'm just
going to force myself. I'm going to force myself
and just feel comfortable with pressing the publish
button until just that felt less terrifying.
And I learned a lot more by just posting every
day and feeling uncomfortable than I did from
reading any other books on communication on social
media. The courage, but it took about 12 months
or so. Everyday posting. I feel like I want to
just like clip that clip right there because
that is like the perfect, like, I don't know,
30, 60 seconds of everyone I ever try to convince
to start posting on LinkedIn. They give me the
whole like, yeah, but like, you're still comfortable
writing or showing up on camera or whatever.
And I'm like, no. No, like I was I'm a I'm a
comms lady. I'm a behind the scenes comms lady.
Like I don't like being on camera. I don't like
doing podcasts like I don't I never liked doing
this stuff. I think LinkedIn is cringy, too,
or I used to think it is cringy. But like your
point, you just have to start right. Like there
is a reason to do it. We all know that there
is a benefit being out there and doing it. So
once you start doing it, it becomes a little
bit easier. and it becomes a little bit easier
and you get positive back in like right people
start to reflect back to you that there is um
there is people are getting something out of
it when you are putting something out there and
when you start to hear from them oh i'm getting
value out of what you're putting out there that's
giving you the courage to do more of that and
then you start to realize i don't have to be
some polished perfect whatever they like the
flawed version or they like the you know I have
I am they like the immigrant story right or they
like the tech founder story or they like whatever
version of you you were worried to share in the
first place and I just think that people need
to get past the worry about cringe and just start
doing it because after 12 months there you are
suddenly you are you are full of courage and
full of new communication skills and poised in
a way that you never thought you would be. And
I never would have guessed that you were not
comfortable doing this because you seem like
such a natural and like a content creator at
heart online to me. I thought you were like all
in on all of that. Seriously. No, no, no. Just
posting every day was the best writing course.
And right now I do find joy in it. Right now
I actually enjoy it. But I was completely terrified
and now it's more automatic. One thing that helped
me a lot at the beginning was, and I don't know
how I came up with it. I don't think I read it
anywhere. I came up with it and it helped me
a lot, was to imagine myself a few years back.
and just write to myself. And I knew myself pretty
well. And I would know that I don't like to read
fluffy things, egocentric things, more things
that would have been helpful to me in that stage
of my life. And that made it a lot easier. I
felt like I was writing letters to myself. That
is such good advice. And I also tell people like
when I write, pick one person to write to, like
you said, like you're writing to your former
self. I would write to somebody on my team, right?
Like if I'm writing to somebody who needs advice
from a leader, there you go. That's a person,
not to the entire world. Do you write all of
your own content? Yes, I've never had anybody
editing or help me with content. I don't know
if it was a good idea or not. No, it's totally
authentic. That's why, I mean, that's why it
works, really, truly. But, you know, I always
ask CEOs, I've spent my career writing content
for CEOs. So I'm always curious when CEOs do
their own content. I think it's such an interesting,
you know, it takes time, right? Content is a
labor of love. Do you use AI to create content?
So here's my process is very, very strange. Every
evening when I put my kids to sleep around eight
o 'clock. I sometimes fall asleep with them and
I don't have any content. Or if I don't fall
asleep, then I just think about something that
has happened in that day and write it in my Apple
Notes. And then in the morning, I reread because
I have like an ongoing set of notes, which one
feels more alive in me that particular morning.
And I just take my notes and I post it. Your
process is almost exactly the same as mine. Almost
exactly the same. I have an ongoing Apple note
that is just like full of random ideas. I call
them my shower thoughts because it's like they
come at the most inopportune times when I can't
write a whole post. So I'll just like throw some
of my thoughts in there and then I'll go scroll
through them and be like, which one can I build
out the rest of the ideas around right now? And
then I'll post it. So that's funny. I love that.
How old are your kids? They're six and four.
Okay. Yeah. I have a 10 and eight year old, so
I'm just ahead of you, but six and four, you're
still in the, in the young, young era. Fun. I
don't know how you do it as a, as a CEO. I'm
hanging on. I don't know either. It's just chaos
at all times. That's how, that's how you, it's
just chaos at all times, all the time. Well,
OK, so that actually brings me to another question.
Like as a founder and your husband, also a founder
and CEO, co -CEO, is there ever like moments
where you're just like, this isn't going to work?
Like what are we like? We can't do this. You
know, like what have we gotten ourselves into?
Do you ever feel like that? In my case, it's
a little bit different because unlike other,
I think that I talked to a lot of founders and.
In our case, because we had a beautiful exit
cash -wise, I don't feel like the pressure of
finances or anything like that. And I just focus
on the joy of building. And he loves it a lot
as well. We can't imagine doing anything else.
So I think I'm going to do this until I'm 150
years old, which I know sounds weird, but I really,
really like it. um that is the that's the dream
right is like finding the thing that you love
to do so much that you just want to do it forever
that it doesn't sound weird that sounds ideal
so good on you congratulations for finding that
thing in life i'm happy i found what brings me
the joy for real though especially especially
when you are grinding in it but you still love
it right like I think that's when you know that
you found the thing that you love is when you
can when you have to grind sometimes to the point
that you're like exhausted and are giving up
things in your life that you also love but you're
still doing it because you love to do it that's
and that's the joy I do I do want to caution
because I don't want to sound like not in touch
with reality. It's hard. Like I have roller coasters
every day and they're like hard things happening
every day that take me down and make me doubt
on my capacity to handle it all. But even when
those hard moments come, I just know that it's
a signal that I'm learning something new and
it's a painful moment, but I'm learning something.
So I approach it with curiosity. It is a roller
coaster with emotional ups and downs. But I still
lean in with curiosity even when it's hard. Well,
yeah. And it's worth it for you. Right. Because
like, like you said, like it brings you joy and
it's fulfilling. So again, it's like at the end
of the day, that's what matters. So what is the
future of Chili Piper? You know, if you had your
magic eight ball, like what's the, what's the
next five years? So as I was telling you, for
me, it's one big experiment. I wonder if we can
make this company work where everybody's thriving
and everybody has as much fun as me and my co
-founder in it. And we try to get the employees
that find that where they love working remote
on hard problems and it's their passion that
they're working on and that they're growing and
thriving. That's like my main priority. And then,
of course, on the revenue front, we want to in
five years, probably like 400 million in AR or
so and employ as many happy employees as we can
doing cool things in the agent orchestration
space. Right now we're focusing on marketing
and it's a lot of fun. That's so cool. Well,
okay. So this is a communications podcast and
what you're doing internally with your culture,
this experiment that you talk about is like an
internal communications case study in the making.
Like this is an amazing thing that you're doing.
So my first question is, do you have an internal
communications person at your company who is
helping you manage all of this or who is doing
internal communications? Does that come from
you? It's very funny, but I have a notion doc.
The notion doc is your internal communications
person. No, I have a notion doc that explains
how we do this kind of stuff as well, because
our culture is very unusual. We're very flat.
So there's no need for an executive to communicate
something because we're all kind of working together.
And we kind of, our roles are quite fluid as
well. So our alignment is fluid. And I wrote
about it in a culture doc, in an ocean culture
doc on how we kind of make it work because it's
kind of, it's unusual. We spend tons of training,
tons of time on training because of... on communication
specifically, because we believe that, very much
so, we believe that the reasons why companies
break is because of lack of communication and
also because there's conflict. And when conflict
is uncomfortable, most people choose not to go
and have a different opinion or butt heads. And
we kind of eliminated that because we do the
decision memos, but there are still people that
have a very strong... opposing voice and you
still want to make sure that they feel heard
and that everybody's understood and everybody
kind of understand the different points of view.
So we do tons of training on it, tons of it.
What does that training look like? It is based
off of a book. So you've probably heard of it.
Marshall Rosenberg wrote a book that's called
Nonviolent Communication. It's one of the best
selling. And he left behind him a nonprofit that
also helps with nonviolent communication. Not
that we're all violent in our words, but more
helping with conflict of opinion, difference
of opinions. And we have their coaches that are
part of that foundation kind of coming with us
and helping us with the systems, helping us with
the groups. Even though we're remote, we do these
trainings in person. We find that it's a lot
more productive and quarterly we get together
and train our team on trust building, on connection,
conflict management and all of those things.
I love this. I mean, I really do. You know, I've
talked to a lot of companies and I've seen a
lot of cultures and I've seen I could not agree
with you more that the breakdown of culture comes
from communication breakdown, lack of trust,
lack of lack of psychological safety, lack of
empowerment. And you are. Head on addressing
those specific issues before people even get
into their roles. You are literally like, hi,
day one. Welcome to the company. We're going
to train you on how to mitigate these problems.
Oh, and also we're going to empower you with
this decision making process that we have. Oh,
and by the way, we're a flat organization. So
your opinion matters. And, you know, if you need
to. you know, talk to the people you need to
talk to, you're able to talk to them like this
is a it's an important, I think, experiment that
you're running. And frankly, I think I would
be very interested to see the results in a couple
of years to see, you know, as you scale, as you
become a 500 person company, thousand person
company, 5000 person company. um how these processes
start to you know how they stretch how they start
to change or evolve as more people come into
the mix do you think you know does that scare
you does that excite you like what what do you
think about that the scaling question is a very
one that's on my mind a lot because i'm building
out of agents and i just don't know what they're
like how far the AI agents can go on what a human
can do. And I actually wrote, I did, I was invited
at Oracle two days ago to do a speech around
AI agents in the org chart because mid -journey
is at 300 million with 60 employees. Cursor has
30 employees and they're also, I don't know,
like 60 million now in AR. And like companies
need less and less headcount. And on one side,
that's terrifying because what does that even
look like? Like where are humans kind of playing
in that ecosystem? On the other side, I think
there are a lot of exciting outcomes from it.
I think that the companies will get smaller,
but we will have more companies in the ecosystem.
So I think that a lot more people will start
their own companies. They will not have to be
bogged down with like... overhead with having
100 people to work for them and they will just
like administer the orchestration of agents and
so forth. It's just so hard to predict what the
world is going to look like with this kind of
new structure in place. And I think a lot about
how I would very much not want to be like a 22
year old straight out of college right now, because
like. On the one hand, yeah, it's exciting. Everything's
new and you have an opportunity to kind of shape
the next trend. But at the, on the other hand,
it's like, how do you even decide what to do
knowing that all of the skills that you've just
acquired over the last four years might be completely
meaningless in two years? I don't know. It's
such a weird, weird place to be in the world
right now. Like at least with us, like we have
years of experience, work experience that. matters
right like the experience counts for something
new grads are like they don't have experience
and the future I don't know it's such a weird
such a weird time like you said we can't predict
what's coming and I don't even know it's it's
definitely it's definitely on my mind for my
kiddos to prepare them for real life and it's
it's hard to pick the type of things we put emphasis
on but I still get back to teaching them how
to build trust and how to learn to create their
own compass of wisdom that allows them to kind
of pivot and adapt. Because the only thing that's
certain is that everything will be uncertain
ahead of them. Totally. I've decided that the
only thing that matters is being a good person
and being adaptable. So those are the things
in life that we can control, right? Okay, well,
I'm going to go to our rapid fire questions since
we're getting close to time. So let me pull these
up. Okay. All right. So first rapid fire question.
What is a myth or misconception about marketing
or communications that drives you crazy? Well,
when I started working in large corporations,
I thought that I would only get good at communication
if I read a lot of books on it. and I learned
to use fancy words. Turns out the opposite was
true. I don't need to use any fancy words, and
all I have to do is keep practicing. So, yeah.
Very true. I actually think people who use fancy
words tend to sound like they're just trying
to overcompensate for not really being great
communicators. So, yeah, that's funny. Not saying
much, yeah. Yeah. Okay, you get to erase one
corporate buzzword from existence. What is it?
So it's not a word, but it's a structure that
I see a lot and I hate it, hate it. And it says,
in today's fast -paced world, that's something
that I hate. Well, it's the AI speak, right?
It's like the beginning of every AI sentence.
In today's blah, blah, blah. In today's evolving
blah, blah. Yeah, totally agree. And every time
I see it now, I'll just immediately ignore whatever
comes after it. Dismiss it. Totally. Okay. You're
about to give a presentation in front of 50 ,000
people, and maybe you've actually done this before.
What is your walkout song? They never ask me
what walkout song I want. I do speak a lot, but
I would love to have the, she's got it, baby,
she's got it. Oh, that's a good one. I'm your
Venus. Yeah, that one. Yeah, that's the one.
Nice. I like that one. And they don't ask you
what song you want? They don't put the song.
I don't know why. And I've spoke so many times
and I never get the song. Well, if you're ever
at one of my conferences, you can pick your walkout
song. There you go. And you can pick your walk
off song too. So really you could have two songs.
Okay. Speaking of speaking. If you had to do
a TED Talk on anything but marketing or communications,
what would your topic be? Well, I think I'm going
to do a TED Talk soon. And my topic for sure,
it would be around rebranding happiness. How
a mom who built a billion dollar company hacks
joy at scale. Talk a little bit more about that.
I want to hear more. So I'm writing now my biography
and my book and that's kind of been my theme
throughout is how to find joy in everything that
I do and in the worst possible circumstances.
I've had a super weird upbringing and how that
lift me up from what I was told that I can do
or can't do. So it's a topic that's dear to my
heart. Okay. Nobody tells you that a woman with
two kids can run a company, a tech company, and
nobody tells you that a kid that had nothing
to eat as a child can come to us and do all these
crazy things. So I just don't believe in limitations.
I believe in finding joy. So what's one tip you
would give to somebody to help them find joy
in everyday moments? It's complicated because
I'm writing an entire book around it. But if
I were just to sum it up to one thing, it would
be to find self -compassion. A lot more self
-love and self -compassion. I could not agree
more. I always talk about how like my biggest
gift to myself was giving myself more grace to
just like. be, right? Like we are humans and
self -compassion is such an important part of
who we are. If we don't have compassion for ourselves,
why would we expect other people to have compassion
for us? So I love that. And I can't wait to read
your biography. So what's the timing on that?
When are you planning to finish writing it? I
wrote it, but I'm just afraid to publish it.
And I think that my fear on publishing comes
from the fact that I've never written a book
I've never written anything I've only started
writing two years ago and I wonder if I let it
maturate for one more year can I make it better
so that's I would be happy to read a draft if
you want somebody to give you an opinion seriously
you don't have to insist I would love to but
if you want an unfiltered opinion I have no filter
and I would be happy to share my thoughts so
Just putting that out there. That's the best
type of communication. The one where you don't
hold anything back. I do not have the ability
to hold things back. Unfortunately, that is both
a flaw and a good thing about me, I guess. I
don't know what that looks like. I have the same
problem, so I know. My mom used to joke that
like if you wanted to find out, you know, if
the neighbors have something going on, it's like
just send Becca in. She'll find out all of the
information because I have no filter and I will
ask all of the inappropriate questions. But,
you know, it's a good thing. OK, two more questions.
You get to use one emoji for the rest of your
life. Which one? It's the thinking one. That's
what I use all the time because I'm always in
deep thought. Yeah. I feel like there's two thinking
ones. There's that one and then there's like
the monocle. No, there's like a... The monocle.
The monocle one. It's the monocle. Okay. Yep.
I like the thinking. I like the thinking one.
I use that one frequently. Okay. But I think
we can't use emojis anymore because then people
will think that we wrote it with AI. So I don't
think we can use emojis. I use them all the time.
And em dashes and Oxford commas. Everyone be
damned. I refuse to let AI ruin my writing. AI
has stolen my writing style, not the other way
around. I think that's the case, yeah. That is
totally the case. I take offense by everybody
mocking the AI. Actually, I wrote about this
today. What it really comes down to is people
who have pattern recognition can recognize AI
writing because of the patterns. It's not the
em dashes or the emojis. It's the cadence of
the writing. It's the cadence. People who don't
recognize patterns in the same way need to have
the tells, right? They need to know it's the
em dashes. It's the emojis. It's the commas.
But really, it's not those things. It's the cadence
and the pattern. The whole thing, yeah. Wax on
about this all day, but I will not. I will ask
you Perry's unhinged question in the absence
of Perry, because this is the question that we
ask everybody at the end of our show. But I will
caveat this with this Perry's unhinged question,
which is. You can either have hiccups 24 -7 for
three months. So while you're sleeping, while
you're eating, while you're trying to work, hiccuping
nonstop. Or you can chop off your own pinky.
Either pinky, your choice. So the hiccuping is
super pleasant. But it goes away. And it kind
of reminds me from when I was pregnant and I
was always awake at all times because I felt
like all sorts of things were happening inside
of my body. So I lived through it. I know I can
do it. It depends. Then I keep my fingers. Perry
would be so happy that you said that. He would
be like, see, I told you, Becca. See, Alita's
not crazy. Because I would cut off my pinky.
There you go. I'm the... unhinged, nuts one who
would cut off my pinky. And I will say it's because
I have had hiccups for multiple days at a time
and it really hurts and I cannot sleep and I
would lose my mind after three months of having
hiccups and I would have jumped off a bridge
at that point. And so by that point, who needs
a pinky if you've already jumped off a bridge?
So there you go. That's true. That's true. Okay.
Before we sign off, I would... Love to give you
an opportunity. Is there anything that you would
like to share, pitch, whatever, send people to
before we log off for the day? I don't have any
pitches, but I do have a deep desire to help
with all my crazy experiments because whenever
I share the type of things that I'm working on,
someone always gives me feedback on what's...
working and I was not working. And that's my
best way of learning. So I do have a notion docs
around all the things that I've spoken about
and also around how we do our strategy for social
media and deeper into my process for writing.
And I can share all of that with you and we can
put it in the description and maybe it helps
someone. I would love that. So yes, please share
with me and audience. I will add the links into
the show notes so that you can go see Alina's.
jillions of notions because she is apparently
the notion queen. And I am super excited to dig
into these myself because I think we all have
a lot to learn here. Thank you so much for coming
on the show. Sorry. Thank you, Becca. And for
those that are listening and do not see like
in YouTube, if you come find me on LinkedIn,
I have it on the, at the top of my profile, it
says visit my website and it goes deep into my
notions as well. So if you're listening and you
don't have to link, there's that option as well.
There you go. Thank you so much. It's been great
having you. Thank you Becca. It was a pleasure.