01:12:44 · Varun Badhwar, Siddhartha Ahluwalia
[01:12:44] S0: Yes. [01:12:46] S1: In your opinion, because you acquired nine companies for Palo Alto, right? What makes Palo Alto so successful? [01:12:55] S0: I think all the mistakes that I said most companies make, they don't make those mistakes. They keep the units as closely together. If you listen to a lot of Nikesh's public wisdom on MA, he says the same thing. Usually the founder of the business, the CEO, or the founder specifically, will get to lead this business inside of Palo Alto Networks. They will keep the unit as closely intact as together as they can. I think it's really the mindset. The mindset's not, hey, we're the bigger guys, we know what we're doing. It's like we bought you because you're doing something right that we couldn't do. And we want you to show us how it can be done even better at a bigger scale here. And we'll give you the resources. Like, think of it as you got a growth stage investor with a blank checkbook that's going to allow you to do everything you can with a long-term play in mind. [01:13:47] S1: But but then uh every founder that Palo Alto acquires would stay for an infinite period of time. Because if their incentives are aligned, they're getting infinite capital. Why would they then go out?
01:13:47 · Siddhartha Ahluwalia, Varun Badhwar
[01:13:47] S1: But but then uh every founder that Palo Alto acquires would stay for an infinite period of time. Because if their incentives are aligned, they're getting infinite capital. Why would they then go out? [01:14:00] S0: Because remember, I told you at some point, it's unsustainable for Palo Alto to can't run 25, 30, whatever acquisitions they've done as 25 business units. Some point these things at their natural point come together. And look, that period of time is usually finite, two to three years. Um I will say though, a lot of founders there have stayed on. I stayed beyond my retention period and golden handcuffs period. Others I know have stayed beyond. So I will say Palo Alto is probably, by the track record, most successful at keeping founders around and motivated and excited to do what we do. It's one thing to be on payroll and just be there. It's another thing to be adding value and making a dent. And I think a lot of people are very motivated, Palo Alto, to I think they've had the highest success rate in terms of odds of acquisitions that have done well. [01:14:54] S1: So let's say if you start at some point of time acquiring companies at Endor, you would follow some of these principles. [01:15:02] S0: Yeah, I think so. Totally. [01:15:06] S1: Now, you know, one liner's question on rapid fire. What's one thing about AI you have changed your mind this year? [01:15:16] S0: Um it's more real and more impactful than you know the pessimist side of me wanted to believe. [01:15:26] S1: Three AI tools that you are using right now.
01:15:26 · Siddhartha Ahluwalia, Varun Badhwar
[01:15:26] S1: Three AI tools that you are using right now. [01:15:30] S0: Um Claude Code, of course. Um also codecs. And um we have a new tool we use in marketing that is showing very promising results, which is called AirOps. [01:15:49] S1: One interesting GTM hack that we never discussed during the podcast. [01:15:54] S0: I think I think it's just as a founder, you never get away from being the best sales development rep in the company. [01:16:01] S1: Uh founder, slash operator or slash investor, you wish that could be part of your team. [01:16:06] S0: I think Nikesh is phenomenal, as I said, right? Like I think his instincts on some things are incredible. [01:16:12] S1: God. A book that you would recommend for every founder? [01:16:16] S0: Uh I'm not a big book by book guy. [01:16:18] S1: Or a podcast or anything. [01:16:22] S0: I think in the AI world right now, I'm I was very skeptical about the all in podcast. And I think now and now recently there's just more insightful things coming out of there about just as a business, as regulation, as macro to think about. So all in podcast is kind of back on the top of my list again. [01:16:39] S1: Well, thank you so much, Varun. I enjoyed a lot this conversation with you. I learned a lot. [01:16:43] S0: Thank you so much for having me. [01:16:45] S1: It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. [01:16:47] S0: Awesome.