01:24:43 · Jordi Hays, Eric Glyman, Luca Ferrari
[01:24:43] S1: How how do you how are you thinking about head headcount planning over the next few years? We don't have to zoom out to, like, ten years. I think it gets extremely Yeah. Extremely fuzzy. But I'm curious if you care about, you know, every every once in a while, these sort of like revenue per employee or or sort of like net income per employee, like statistics start floating around. I'm curious if you if you if you think about that at all. And and obviously, professor, you know, running running ramp as, you know, one of the most efficient companies in the world is really good marketing for the products. It's probably the best marketing that you can do. But I'm curious how you think about about those things. [01:25:26] S7: It's exactly the right question. Because I I I think look. When we kind of think about our operating model every year, we try to increase the ratio of whether it's revenue, contribution profit, margin per employee. It's it's all to say, like, we we anticipate revenue is gonna grow very, very rapidly. And while employee headcount is gonna grow, it's gonna grow a little bit slower. And so the effect is you you start to see this widening. It gives you more margin to, invest in, whether it's, use of AI itself that you can drive into the product, more marketing, all those types of things to reach more customers. I I think more abstractly, though, if you kinda step back, you know, most businesses in The US run are actually profitable. You might forget that in the Valley, but have [01:26:13] S5: an 8% profit margin.
01:26:13 · Luca Ferrari, Eric Glyman
[01:26:13] S5: an 8% profit margin. [01:26:16] S7: And What are costs? We'll talk about this. But, you know, it's like, if you make a company more efficient by, like, 1%, it's equivalent to, like, an increase of you know, $1 in savings is equivalent to $12 more in revenue at an 8% margin just mathematically. And if you can do this repeatedly, I actually think that there's you know, a, you have a lot more businesses that are good, but but don't have this automation and and and and skill sets to grow much larger. I think a lot more companies will get bigger. And I also think that if it's just easier to run a business, I think more great businesses will get started. I think there's a lot of creative people out there, who would be running organizations who, I think, as the tools to build get easier, you see a more interesting world. And and so, you know, I I I actually think it's it's a pretty important and really profound thing to knock out inefficiency to allow, smaller companies to succeed. I mean, even you guys are a perfect example. TPPN is a small team that's changed the media landscape and captivated the world. And, like, I think that there are probably a lot of people where if you make the tools better, like, they will come.
01:27:25 · John Coogan, Eric Glyman, Luca Ferrari
[01:27:25] S0: How do you, how do you feel like CFOs are ranking, like, AI enabled software on their list of priorities when they're making a decision in this category? Is it because it feels like there is some great stuff. There's some stuff that's commoditized, some stuff that you've built that's differentiated. But are are CFOs as a class sort of like, okay. I've checked the box. I'm exhausted with the narrative, or I'm just ramping up, and I feel like I'm just starting to get value and I actually understand it? Or are they just learning what AI is for the first time tomorrow or today? [01:28:04] S7: This is this is a fun one. So I I would say there's a few different types. I mean Sure. I would say small and mid midsize businesses just as like, look. I wanna run, you know, same business for less. I I wanna grow, meet my goals, be more profitable. And I think for us, it's just, hey. It's an easier to use expense report. Or or or, like, you won't need to do expensive more. Your card will do it for you. [01:28:24] S5: Sure.
01:28:24 · Luca Ferrari, Eric Glyman, Jordi Hays, John Coogan
[01:28:24] S5: Sure. [01:28:25] S7: You don't need five tools to pay bills, run procurements, earn yield on your treasury. Yeah. Ramp will simplify that. But I think that for large customers, look, I I think it's, like, 80% plus of the earnings calls of of the S and P 500 mentioned AI about six months ago. I think it was 95 over the most recent quarter. It is a 100% on the mind of CEOs and CFOs. What they're wrestling with is, you know, there's a great study at MIT in the fall that went fairly viral where 95% of enterprise deployments are not creating return on investment. And I think part of why CFOs have been so enamored with RAMP is, you know, we can demonstrate very, very clearly, a, for most customers, it's it's a product that pays you to use it in the form of a cashback. B, it helps reduce your spend. And c, when you have all this time back for your Salesforce to go and sell and not do low value tasks, it's a very easy business case. And so I I think this this ultimately, like, our focus is on saving people money, and that ROI focus makes it easy for them to buy. I think it's it's it's very important. [01:29:36] S1: That MIT study, how does that track with what you guys have seen from various AI pilots? Because I think if [01:29:43] S0: ramp you're doesn't even count on either side. I I wouldn't think of, like, bringing a ramp into a company as, like, an AI pilot. I would see it as, like, a completely different thing. But are you the five percent that's successful, or are you just not even counting?
01:29:43 · John Coogan, Jordi Hays, Stacy Rasgon, Eric Glyman
[01:29:43] S0: ramp you're doesn't even count on either side. I I wouldn't think of, like, bringing a ramp into a company as, like, an AI pilot. I would see it as, like, a completely different thing. But are you the five percent that's successful, or are you just not even counting? [01:29:56] S1: If you were looking if you were talking with the team Yeah. And the team's like, 95% of our pilots haven't panned out, you'd probably be like, what were you guys doing? [01:30:04] S6: Yeah. Yeah. [01:30:05] S7: Yeah. It it it is you nailed it. So one, I think that a lot of you hit this first phase of people who were, like, told they need to buy AI. They're like, fine. I'll give you some external budget. You're good to have people tried a bunch of stuff. And I think you end up and and I think this speaks to the importance of design where you'd end up with, like, disconnected tools. Totally. Like, thoughtful chat like, great chatbot here. [01:30:26] S0: Yep.
01:30:26 · John Coogan, Eric Glyman
[01:30:26] S0: Yep. [01:30:26] S7: This thing that kinda plugged into some of your code base and others. And if you look at I think part of what's made ramps so effective is, you know, it's just a smarter card that happens to use AI. It's not telling you, hey. This is an LLM that categorized your transaction. This is an LLM that's read this 30 page invoice, detected it was fraud, told you not to pay for this. This is an LLM that detected you could be earning higher yield and moved it for you. It's just part of how it works. And I think this next phase and the AI native companies that are working very, very well have these deeply integrated products where it's not like some, you know, AI tool. It's just how it works. And so I think that's the distinction. And you're right. For a lot of CFOs, it's, hey. We have this tool. It's gonna help help us cut out waste and pay us cash back. Should we use it or not? And it's a pretty easy decision. So yeah. [01:31:20] S0: Yeah. Yeah. It might not even be in the category, but it's still delivering AI properly. And I just love that that's I I like there's something very valuable about just using every possible tool, AI or not, or linear regression, if that's the best tool for the job, behind the scenes, and then just delivering the actual value to the customer, solving the problem. Because customers, they don't necessarily want technologies. They want solutions. Right? Yeah.