Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold
00:38:39 · Cameron Herold
[00:38:39] S3: So I think to be a really good chief of staff, you have to be very entrepreneurial, like kind of, you know, problem solve, think on your feet because nobody has the system for you. You need to be very good at project management, very good at time management, probably a quick start that you say yes and I'll figure it out as we go. Do you end up putting yourself out of a job over the next few years because as you said that it almost seems like it's kind of like a jack of all trades, master of none that you're just freaking good at everything but sooner or later you're going to have an expert running each domain area. Do you then migrate into a COO kind of role where you're leading all those people which you already are doing? Because you said something that was really intriguing which was it almost seems like a chief of staff is an early stage company role. And then as you get to a mid sized enterprise level, that role doesn't exist anymore because now you have functional heads. Is that accurate?
00:39:33 · Victoria Weller
[00:39:33] S1: That's a a really good question. I think for me, it's an early stage role because that's where ElevenLabs is at the moment. But I think even at the mid stage company, there are always, like, ad hoc projects or, like, almost as if you... A chief of staff is like a SWAT team. So Yeah. You can throw them at a specific thing that isn't going well, and they will figure it out. At Palantir before, I was functioning kind of as a chief of staff, and Palantir is at 3,000 people, but it's still possible, like, within the suborganizations to have a need for that type of role. But I do think that the growth path of someone that joins early as a chief of staff can be to a COO role? And and definitely for most of the things that I am setting up at the moment, the plan is to hire someone for finance, hire someone for talent, and hire someone for compliance.
00:40:22 · Cameron Herold, Victoria Weller
[00:40:22] S3: It's it's very similar to my days at one eight hundred GOT JUNK when I was the Chief Operating Officer. My my first two or three years, I was probably more Chief of Staff because none of the business areas even existed. I had to build out every single business area. I came in as employee number 14, I left with three thousand one hundred. And then by the time I was at that third, then I was COO but you know, it was a very different role than the early days. It's why it's super intriguing to me. So, alright, what was it like going from a big organization like a Palantir to an Eleven? Why did you make that jump? And what did the CEO see in you that made him realize that you weren't gonna be this corporate bureaucratic, you know, researcher? [00:41:04] S1: Yeah. The reason I wanted to leave Palantir is because I I wanted a faster pace. I think out of big tech corporations, Palantir is probably the fastest. But after being there for almost four years, I feel like I had figured out the system, and I kinda knew where the bar was and how to just slightly exceed it with limited... More limited speed. Yeah. [00:41:28] S3: Yep.
00:41:28 · Cameron Herold, Victoria Weller
[00:41:28] S3: Yep. [00:41:28] S1: And so I was looking for something that's quicker and maybe even higher pressure and still at a point in my life where I wanna put my career first rather than comfort first. And so I realized an early stage startup is where I can both operate faster, but also do this thing that I love where I get thrown at something that I have no idea about and then figure it out and operationalize it. And then it's it's fixed quickly. And then I found ElevenLabs because the CEO is actually also Palantirian. He had left almost a year before me to start ElevenLabs, so I knew about its inception from even be... Before it was incorporated. I knew Matti from Palantir days and had been following ElevenLabs. And then when ElevenLabs launched in February and it was a huge success, we caught up and spoke about the needs... The operational needs of the company at that moment. And I came with some ideas for for each of those, and we had a few conversations around that. And I think both that plus knowing many of the people that I worked with and speaking to them about it was what what convinced him that I'm not bureaucratic corporate worker. And I think that is proven successful as well. I think one of the best consequences of it is that there's a lot of trust between this... The CEO and me from knowing each other from the previous workplace as well or knowing each other outside of this role. And I think that is something that really helps or accelerated the ability for the two of us to work together productively from the very beginning.
00:43:08 · Cameron Herold, Victoria Weller, S0
[00:43:08] S3: That's incredible. Did I hear you right though that 11 only started in February? Was that February of this year or February of last year? [00:43:14] S1: February of this year, we launched the product publicly in beta Okay. But it was incorporated a year earlier. So the CTO and the CEO started it in 2022, and we're developing the model until it was released in February of this year and then launched super successfully and now has over millions of users on the b two c side. And we exited Bet in August of this year. [00:43:42] S3: Yeah. It's a ridiculously fast start. [00:43:44] S0: Yes. [00:43:44] S3: You've raised money. I think you raised 20,000,000 and a $100,000,000 valuation. When you're when you're raising 20, it doesn't even matter if that's pre or post money valuation. It's still... It's that's a hell of a raise. What did what did the investors see and and why... And how are you using the money? And then how did it change the company?
00:43:44 · Cameron Herold, Victoria Weller
[00:43:44] S3: You've raised money. I think you raised 20,000,000 and a $100,000,000 valuation. When you're when you're raising 20, it doesn't even matter if that's pre or post money valuation. It's still... It's that's a hell of a raise. What did what did the investors see and and why... And how are you using the money? And then how did it change the company? [00:44:03] S1: Yeah. And it did happen super fast. In fact, there was a pre seed round when they started the company and then skipped the seed round straight to series a of this year. And I think what the investors thought, really bluntly, they saw the numbers. They saw how much users were loving this and how much it it it could uptake in just a few months. Like, it was probably the fastest growing company in the world for a while of this year. And so that is already something that's convincing to to the investors. But I think there's also an atmosphere shift from when ElevenLabs was first incorporated and it maybe was a little bit harder to raise money in the pre seed round to the world we are in in 2023 where the potential upside of AI is so much more prevalent and something that investors are seeking out and realizing as well.