The $18 Billion Backdoor: How One Aussie Founder Plans to Eat LinkedIn Alive

AI for Founders with Ryan Estes · Jun 8, 2026 · 58m

The inbox is dead, and the people who keep emailing it the hardest are the ones killing it fastest.

David Connors has watched this happen up close. He sold his recruiting automation startup, Automately, to Sequoia Capital, spent two years inside the firm building tools so its investors and founders could answer one maddening question, "who do we actually know at company X," and walked out with a conviction that turned into a company. That company is The Swarm, the relationship intelligence platform he now runs as Co-Founder and CEO, and this is his second time on the show. In the twelve…