20VC: The Memo: Keith Rabois and Ramp's Eric Glyman on Behind The Scenes at The Best Run Private Company on the Planet; The Tools, Tips, Secrets and Process That Drive Efficiency

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4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2024

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Eric Glyman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ramp, America's fastest growing corporate card and finance automation platform. Under Eric’s leadership, Ramp has raised more than $1 billion in financing, with a valuation of $8.1 billion. Prior to Ramp, Eric co-founded Paribus, a price-tracking app to help consumers save money (acquired by Capital One). Ramp recently raised another $150 million series D round co-led by Founders Fund and Khosla ventures, with a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion.

Keith Rabois is a Managing Director @ Khosla Ventures and one of the most respected venture investors of the last decade. Keith has led investments in Stripe, Faire, Ramp, Affirm and many more. Prior to Khosla Ventures, Keith was General Partner at Founders Fund, where he led investments for Ramp, Trade Republic, and Aven.

In Today’s Episode with Eric Glyman and Keith Rabois We Discuss:

Behind Ramp’s Partnership with Founders Fund & Khosla Ventures

How did the first Founders Fund deal come to be? How was the first meeting?
What does Keith mean when he says Ramp has the “secret sauce” to be successful?
What are 1-2 things Keith thinks Eric is world-class at? What are 1-2 things Eric thinks Keith is world-class at?
How did the latest Khosla deal come to happen?

Ramp: The Fastest Executing Company on the Planet.

How is Eric so good at executing at Ramp? What is his biggest advice to founders on speed of execution?
What are Eric’s biggest challenges in the next 12 months at Ramp?
Why does Keith believe momentum is crucial for early stage startups? What are some easy ways founders can build momentum?
How does Eric think AI will accelerate Ramp and the world of finance?

Leadership Lessons From the Best Founders

What are Keith’s biggest lessons from Brian Chesky @ Airbnb?
What did Keith learn from Jack Dorsey @ Square about leadership?
What does Eric think founders today should build? What should they not build?
What did Eric learn from Keith on how founders should measure time & progress?

Hiring & Team Management

How did Ramp build a solid talent team? What did they do differently?
Does Keith & Eric believe it is better to hire externally or promote internally? What is the right balance?
Does Keith agree founders should hire & get out the way or micromanage?
How many direct reports does Keith think is enough?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Second framework that Jack Dorsey taught me is editing writing metaphor. And you want to be editing
0:05.6	people's work as the CEO. You don't want to be writing. And if you feel like you're using a lot of
0:10.6	red lines consistently in the same area of a company, that's a really bad signal. And if you're
0:16.3	simplifying, that could be a good thing. But if you're constantly asking clarifying questions and
0:20.2	not really getting, you know, to the root, that's a problem. If you're systematically doing it in the same places as the organization. This is 20VC The Memo with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, 20VC, The Memo, is the monthly show where we deep dive on a specific company. Today, we're focusing on Ramp, and I'm thrilled to welcome Keith Roboy at Kossler and
0:38.8	Eric Gleiman, co-founder and CEO at Ramp. The company has scaled to a $7.6 billion valuation
0:45.3	in just a few years, often hailed as the best run company in the world. They famously have a
0:51.3	day count, where they count the number of days that they have been in
0:55.3	existence to drive operational velocity. They are execution machines. And today we deep dive
1:02.1	into the specific tools, processes, tips and secrets that enable ramp to be the execution machine
1:08.5	that it is. But before we dive into the show today, Merge is the leading product integration platform
1:14.0	offering a suite of unified APIs across key software categories from HRIAS to CRM.
1:20.2	That allows organisations to offer hundreds of customer-facing integrations.
1:24.5	Merge also handles the full integration life cycle from an easy initial build
1:29.0	to handheld end user onboarding to maintenance support and management tooling for all your
1:34.3	integrations. Thousands of customers like Ram, Gong, Semgreb and Sendoso, use Merge to power
1:41.4	their integrations. Check it out now by visiting merge.dev forward slash
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	...

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