Journalists, Founders and Executives Gather at CRV for a Future of Work Discussion
By Team CRV
Since CRV was founded in 1970, we’ve invested in over 500 companies. This month our firm, which specializes in backing early-stage seed and Series A startups, brought together founders and senior level executives from four of our powerhouse companies (which employ well over two thousand people) under one roof to discuss an important topic, the future of work, with two prominent journalists.
With Iterable unveiling a brand new San Francisco office location at 201 Spear, companies like Zoom making waves by calling its employees back into the office as well as the era of AI and automation being in full swing, now felt like the perfect time for CRV to bring together a panel of experts to chat about the way our professional lives have evolved.
Our speakers included:
- Cribl’s Senior Vice President of People — Lisa Nielsen
- Cribl makes open observability a reality for today’s tech professionals and currently 24 of the Fortune 100 companies are Cribl customers.
-CRV joined Cribl’s board and led Cribl’s Seed round in 2019. CRV also led Cribl’s Series A in 2020. CRV also backed Cribl during Cribl’s B, C and D rounds. - Insider’s Senior Correspondent — Aki Ito
- Iterable’s CEO and Co-Founder — Andrew Boni
-Iterable is the top-rated AI-powered cross-channel customer communication platform that enables brands like DoorDash, Calm, Black and Decker, and Zoopla to deliver joyful experiences with harmonized, individualized and dynamic communications at scale.
- CRV first partnered with Iterable back in 2015, when CRV joined the board and led Iterable’s Series A. CRV backed Iterable during its B, C, D, E and its E-1 rounds as well. - Mercury’s CEO and Co-Founder — Immad Akhund
-Mercury is a financial technology company that offers banking and credit cards engineered for the startup journey and is used by more than 100,000 startups.
-CRV partnered with Mercury in 2019, when CRV led Mercury’s Series A and joined Mercury’s board. CRV also participated in Mercury’s Series B. - San Francisco Examiner’s Senior Technology Reporter — Ben Pimentel
- Vercel’s CEO and Founder — Guillermo Rauch
- Vercel is the frontend cloud platform for developers and high profile companies like Adobe, eBay and The Washington Post, providing them with the speed and reliability their innovators need to create at the moment of inspiration.
- CRV is also a member of Vercel’s board and led Vercel’s Series A round. CRV also backed Vercel’s B, C and D rounds.
We began the session by asking our journalist guests which trends and topics they’re paying attention to. Insider’s Aki Ito said there are two main themes she’s focused on:
“One is definitely the push to get employees back into the office. I think that’s been especially noticeable in tech, because I think it was in tech that a lot of notable CEOs were very enthusiastic about it at first. Now, not so much anymore.” — Aki Ito, Insider’s Senior Correspondent
She also noted that none of the CRV backed companies in the room have mandatory in office policies which is something she stated, “set them apart,” from a lot of the big tech companies she often covers over at Insider.
“Another thing is definitely AI. I just wrote a story about how some employees are secretly using ChatGPT, even if they’re not allowed to use it at their companies or you know, maybe they’re doing it secretly, because they’re not sure if they’re allowed to. I think it’s disrupting work in really interesting ways. With probably both good and bad consequences down the line.” — Aki Ito, Insider’s Senior Correspondent
At that point one of our founders chimed in with another way our CRV backed hyper growth startups differ from other companies:
“I’m trying to get everyone to use it (ChatGPT). More productivity!” — Immad Akhund, Mercury’s CEO and Co-Founder
For Ben Pimentel, the senior technology reporter over at San Francisco Examiner, big companies’ (like Apple, Google and Meta’s) efforts to get employees back in office is a huge area of focus for him and something he’s paying close attention to.
“It’s puzzling that they (big tech companies) would do that because there are other tech companies, like Microsoft in the Bay Area and SAP, who are taking on a different approach which is much more flexible, much more based on the needs of employees and their business.” — Ben Pimentel, San Francisco Examiner’s Senior Technology Reporter
The four companies all outlined the size of their current workforces and their workplace policies for their employees:
- Cribl — Remote First — In 2020, at the heart of the pandemic, Cribl was 40 people. Will end the quarter at 575 employees and plans to close out the year with 633 employees. Cribl has employees in all 50 states.
- Iterable — Flexible First — Iterable just celebrated its ten year anniversary and has about 670 employees. Iterable has employees in 40 states across the U.S.
- Mercury — Remote First — Before the pandemic Mercury had about 30 employees and now they have about 520 employees. Mercury has thoughtfully developed a remote culture.
- Vercel — Remote First — Also experienced hypergrowth during the pandemic given the way e-commerce and online collaboration was embraced. Vercel skyrocketed from just 40 employees to where it sits today… with over 450 employees.
“I was talking to someone, and they were like, ‘How did you do it (build a remote first company)?’ I was like, ‘We just did it.’” — Immad Akhund, Mercury’s CEO and Co-Founder
Being flexible and incorporating remote policies into their companies has enabled many of these execs to nab top talent which was something Aki Ito, from Insider, and Ben Pimentel, from the San Francisco Examiner, both dug into. Both journalists asked if the execs around the table were actually benefiting from big tech companies forcing their employees back into the office.
“We have certainly benefited from people moving out of FAANG, wanting to come to a company like ours. The risk of a startup is sort of mitigated by the attraction of the freedom.” — Lisa Nielsen, Cribl’s Senior Vice President of People
Encountering the bureaucracy of much larger behemoths is something that also makes starting your own company or joining a hyper growth startup more alluring.
“Post pandemic a lot of people are leaving (FAANG companies) to start companies, especially in AI.” — Guillermo Rauch, Vercel’s CEO and Founder
This was a topic that Iterable’s leader was able to address given that he left a FAANG company, Google (where he worked from 2010 to 2013), to start Iterable:
“I felt like Google, it’s this massive company. It’s very safe. It will always be there. Why not take a risk? I could be joining a startup or, in my case, founding a company. Take that risk.” — Andrew Boni, Iterable’s CEO and Co-Founder
“Our CTO was at Google for 11 years and he left to join Vercel. The thing that he talks about all the time is that he comes to the office like two or three times a week, that he feels more productive. He ships more. He tells all the Googlers, he’s very vocal about this…” — Guillermo Rauch, Vercel’s CEO and Founder
Remote policies also freed these founders up to hire top talent across the globe, including places as far flung as Mauritius. Vercel just recently hired a high profile engineer from the East African nation.
“…because we provide such a global service, we embrace this idea of, we’re going to hire from a broad set of countries. From the outset, because we’re also open source based, our collaboration techniques have always been rooted in this global community of developers.” — Guillermo Rauch, Vercel’s CEO and Founder
A number of the execs in the room also talked about the importance of having alignment, drive, compassion and a sense personality attached to their culture (“irreverent, but serious” and “goats” are both important parts of life at Cribl for instance).
“When we hire a new employee, it’s like, ‘Welcome to the herd.’” — Lisa Nielsen, Cribl’s Senior Vice President of People
“We need to have great leaders who can both set clear goals and be aligned with their leadership team, so that we’re not sending people off in different directions, but also be able to manage people individually with the empathy, with the understanding of where your strengths are.” — Lisa Nielsen, Cribl’s Senior Vice President of People
The importance of periodically bringing teammates together was another topic that was addressed.
“I think there’s something about putting people in an office, especially leaders, that drives a lot of alignment. My priority right now is that everyone in my executive team is singing the same tune, singing the same song and whenever we go back to our teams, many of which are distributed around the world, that we’re consistent and focused.” — Guillermo Rauch, Vercel’s CEO and Founder
While the draw of an only in-office culture may no longer be as alluring as it once was, it hasn’t dulled the shine of the city by the bay:
“…because of the hub of entrepreneurs and inventors being here (in San Francisco) I’m spending like half my dinners going to AI dinners, AI retreats or meeting with other entrepreneurs. So I think the focus on a SF first for founders, entrepreneurs and leaders as it relates to building out ecosystems extremely strong, maybe even stronger now than before the pandemic in some ways because of the AI movement.” — Guillermo Rauch, Vercel’s CEO and Founder
Team CRV enjoyed having such high caliber speakers join us at CRV SF and look forward to hosting more visionaries in our offices for important discussions in the future. If you’re an entrepreneur building an incredible startup in this new world of work, meet our team and reach out to our investors. We love leading Seed and Series A rounds just as much as we enjoy sharing success stories of the iconic companies we’ve backed over the years and meeting with founders who are actively noodling and working through tough challenges.
