Shows / Topline
Topline
The #1 podcast for founders, operators, and investors in B2B tech. Tune in every week to hear Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman discuss and debate the trends, news, and developments impacting the B2B tech world. Enjoy the hot takes, strong opinions, and dry humor.
Episodes
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: Solving SaaS Pricing Challenges with Pricing I/O Founder Marcos Rivera | Marcos Rivera, Founder and CEO @ Pricing I/O
Marcos Rivera, Founder and CEO of Pricing I/O, has grown his solo consultancy into a team of pricing experts serving B2B SaaS companies. But building a…
ToplineThe Man Who Led 100+ CROs (Even OpenAI's) | John McMahon - 5x Post-IPO CRO / The GOAT
John McMahon, a five-time public company CRO whose team at PTC created MEDDIC, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman on building enterprise sales teams…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: Untangling Tech Debt and Finding Product-Market Fit with Russ Mikowski of SurePeople | Russel Mikowski, CEO @ SurePeople
Russ Mikowski, CEO of SurePeople and longtime revenue leader in tech, never planned to become a CEO. Recruited to lead a 10-year-old company into its next…
Topline$682M Public CEO: "The Magic of 80% Gross Margin" | CEO @ Yext, Michael Walrath
Michael Walrath, CEO of Yext, is back on Topline to explain how Yext went from breakeven to 31% EBITDA margins on an 80% gross margin business, after halving…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: How Rick Smolen Built Confidence Leading Outside of Sales | Rick Smolen, CRO @ ShipHero
When Rick Smolen stepped into the CRO role at ShipHero, he took on responsibility for the entire customer lifecycle, from marketing and partnerships to…
ToplineAI Revenue Is Real. But Will It Last? | Amy Konary, Founder & Chair, Subscribed Institute @ Zuora
Amy Konary, Founder & Chair of The Subscribed Institute at Zuora, coined the term SaaS as an IDC analyst around 2000, when her first forecast sized the whole…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: How CEO Sam Jacobs Is Redefining Pavilion's Identity | Sam Jacobs, Founder & CEO @ Pavilion
When Sam Jacobs founded Pavilion, formerly Revenue Collective, he set out to build a private community for operators in a startup world that traditionally…
ToplineTurning AI Tokens Into ROI (That You Can Measure) | CEO @ Paid, Manny Medina
Manny Medina, Co-Founder and CEO of Paid, the monetization platform for AI agents, and the founder who took Outreach from nothing, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: The Problem With Your CRM Nobody Talks About | Ramin Heydari, CEO & President @ XYZies
You have the CRM. You have the data. You have the sales team. You have the AI tools. So why does everything still feel broken? Ramin Heydari, CEO & President…
ToplineIf the AI Money Dries Up, Which Companies Burn?
Harvey's gross margin fell from roughly positive 50% at the start of 2026 to negative 50% by June, so every $1 of revenue cost $1.50 to deliver. Sam Jacobs…
ToplineCRM As A Business World Model: The Future For GTM Teams? | Keith Peiris, CEO @ Lightfield
Keith Peiris, Co-Founder and CEO of Lightfield, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman to talk about building an agentic CRM that launched in November…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: What It Takes to Step into the CEO Role | Eric Anderson, CEO @ Walnut
What happens when a seasoned GTM leader becomes CEO for the first time and steps into a founder-led company with a global team? In this episode, Eric Anderson…
ToplineRevOps for Hypergrowth (Fireworks AI, Perplexity, Exa & More) | CEO @ Go Nimbly, Jen Igartua
Jen Igartua, CEO at Go Nimbly, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman. Her client roster is wild: Fireworks AI, Perplexity, Exa, and Wispr Flow, plus some…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: Skipping the SMB Trap and Building for Big Brands | Matt Allison, CEO & Founder @ Handraise
Matt Allison, CEO and Founder of Handraise, joins us to share why he's skipping the SMB trap and building an AI-powered media intelligence platform for…
ToplineForget Growth. Your Valuation Depends On Your AI Story | Tomasz Tunguz, GP @ Theory Ventures
Forget Growth. Your Valuation Depends On Your AI Story | Tomasz Tunguz, GP @ Theory Ventures Tomasz Tunguz, General Partner at Theory Ventures, joins Sam…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: Surviving the Inbox Apocalypse | Evan Huck, CEO & Co-Founder @ UserEvidence
Evan Huck, CEO and co-founder of UserEvidence, opens up about the hard decision to shift from a tried-and-true outbound sales playbook to a long-term…
ToplineHow To Make Your ARR 20% More Valuable To Investors | Keenan, CEO @ A Sales Growth Company
Keenan, founder and CEO of A Sales Growth Company and the bestselling author of Gap Selling, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman to make the case that…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: AI Isn't Just Faster Translation, It's a $40B Tug-of-War for Global Attention. | Bryan Murphy, CEO @ Smartling
Bryan Murphy, CEO of Smartling, confronts a $40 billion industry stuck in the slow lane—the world of translation. Most companies still handle translations like…
ToplineThe Unwritten Rules of CRO Survival | Rick Smolen, CRO @ ShipHero
The Unwritten Rules of CRO Survival | Rick Smolen, CRO @ ShipHero Rick Smolen, CRO of ShipHero and sales advisor to Riverwood Capital's portfolio of more than…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: He Missed Quota 5 Times in 25 Years. Here's the System Behind That.| Mike Carpenter, CEO & Co-Founder @ Xfactor
Mike Carpenter — CEO of Xfactor.io, former President of Global Sales at CrowdStrike — didn't win VP of the Year seven out of eight times by outworking…
ToplineSales Millionaires Are Back… Wasn't AI Supposed to Destroy This Job?!
Enterprise account executives are now signing for $200,000 salaries, $200,000 variable comp plans, and up to half a million dollars in equity at sign-on…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: He Said No to Bad-Fit Customers. Growth Got Better. | Snehal Nimje, CEO & Co-Founder @ Outdoo
In this episode of Topline Spotlight, Sam Jacobs sits down with Snehal Nimje, co-founder and CEO of Outdoo, to talk about one of the hardest calls an…
ToplineThe (Painful) Pivot To AI-Native: What They Don't Tell You | CEO @ Mutiny, Jaleh Rezaei
Jaleh Rezaei, Co-founder and CEO of Mutiny, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman to explain how she deprecated a thriving 8-figure SaaS business in…
ToplineMeet The World's Most Advanced AI Sales Team | Amanda Kahlow, Founder & CEO @ 1mind
Amanda Kahlow, Founder & CEO of 1mind, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman to break down how an AI-powered solutions engineer named Nigel took 33% of…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: AI Is Making Sales Reps 60% Faster to Revenue | Justin Shriber, CEO & Co-Founder @ Terret AI
AI isn't just changing sales. It's completely rewriting how revenue teams operate. In this episode of Topline Spotlight, Sam Jacobs sits down with Justin…
ToplineWorld's #1 Banking CMO: How AI Is Changing Billion Dollar Banks Today | Tim Rutten, CMO @ Backbase
Tim Rutten, CMO of Backbase, the €2.5 billion Amsterdam tech company whose AI-native Banking OS powers 120+ banks worldwide, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: Why 80% of B2B Buying Happens Without You | Alexander Kesler, CEO @ INFUSE
Buyers stopped picking up the phone. They research on their own, ask their peers, and now they ask AI which vendors to consider before a single salesperson…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: The AI category GTM teams are about to converge on | Adam Liska, CEO & Co-Founder @ airspeed
A rep says "follow up on that" on a call, then buries it under five more calls and a late-night inbox. Three days later the deal's gone cold, but the CRM still…
ToplineAI Marketing Master: The 'AI CMO' is a Beautiful Lie | Marc Ferrentino, CEO @ Quotient
Marc Ferrentino, Co-Founder and CEO of Quotient and former chief technical architect at Salesforce, joins Sam Jacobs and Asad Zaman to separate AI-marketing…
ToplineSPOTLIGHT: Why High Performers Underperform Under Pressure | Kevin Bailey, Co-Founder & CEO @ Dreamfuel
A CEO walks into a board meeting knowing exactly what to say then freezes. A sales rep doomscrolls between calls and shows up to the next one flat. A founder…
Topline$300M Operator: "70% Of The Executive Playbook Is Obsolete" | Katie Bullard, Board Member & Strategic Advisor
Katie Bullard helped take DiscoverOrg from $30 million to $300 million in revenue, then served as president of A Cloud Guru and Red Canary through exits to…
ToplineWhat It's Really Like To Scale To $1 Billion | CRO @ Replit, Ghazi Masood
Ghazi Masood, Chief Revenue Officer at Replit, joins Sam Jacobs and Asad Zaman to break down the company scaled from $2 million towards a North Star of $1…
ToplineThe Godfather of Modern GTM: This Is How To Measure AI Impact | Mark Roberge, Co-Founder @ Stage 2 Capital
Mark Roberge, founding CRO at HubSpot and co-founder of Stage 2 Capital, joins Sam Jacobs and AJ Bruno to tackle the question every board is asking in 2026…
ToplineThe $1M Employee Is Here: Why ClickUp Replaced 22% Of Its Team With AI | Gaurav Agarwal, COO @ ClickUp
Gaurav Agarwal, COO of ClickUp, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman after ClickUp, a company north of $300 million in ARR, parted ways with 22% of its…
Topline"Dead AI Startups Keep Landing On My Desk!" | CEO @ Clari + Salesloft, Steve Cox
Steve Cox, CEO of Clari + Salesloft, joins Sam Jacobs and Asad Zaman to argue that SaaS is far from dead. Steve took the CEO role in December 2025 to merge two…
Topline$100M+ Profit. Stock Down 72%. CEO Explains Why | Michael Walrath, Chairman & CEO @ Yext
Michael Walrath, Chairman and CEO of Yext, returns to break down why the market has left a profitable, $400 million mid-cap public software company trading at…
ToplineBuild The World Class Team That Anthropic Won't Steal | Craig Rosenberg, CPO @Scale Venture Partners
Craig Rosenberg, Chief Platform Officer at Scale Venture Partners and co-founder of Topo, joins AJ Bruno and Asad Zaman to take on the question every founder…
ToplineAI Marketing Has A Disease. Can The Cure Be Bought, Taught, or Caught? | Kyle Lacy, CMO @ Docebo
Kyle Lacy, CMO at Docebo (previously Lessonly, Seismic, Jellyfish), joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman to push back on AI-era "efficiency" gospel in…
ToplinePlaybook: AI-Era Customer Success For Hyper Growth | Sam Slevin, Global SVP CS @ AlphaSense
Sam Slevin, Global SVP of Customer Success at AlphaSense, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman on the AI-era customer success playbook. Topics include…
ToplineAI Cyber Exec: Vibecoding Is A Security Time Bomb | Ryan Burke, VP Worldwide Sales @ Crogl
Ryan Burke, VP of Worldwide Sales at Crogl, joins Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman on the new economics of enterprise cyber risk. Topics include…
ToplineTop Investor: AI Killed Most Moats. These 4 Still Work | Liz Christo, Partner @ Stage 2 Capital
Stage 2 Capital General Partner Liz Christo joins the show to discuss the disconnect between venture expectations and reality in the software market. The…
ToplineVC Whisperer: There Will Be No Exits For... | Peter Walker, Head of Insights @ Carta
Peter Walker brings Carta's proprietary private market data from 60,000 startups and 85% of US unicorns to expose the brutal realities of today's tech…
ToplineThe #1 GTM Engineer In The World | Jordan Crawford, Founder @ Blueprint GTM
In this episode, Jordan Crawford outlines how revenue leaders can build an autonomous pipeline generation engine and transition away from static playbooks. The…
ToplineHow Top VCs Pick Winners In 2026 | Cassie Young, General Partner @ Primary Venture Partners
Cassie Young, Partner at Primary Venture Partners, joins the show to break down their contrarian $625 million seed fund and the reality of the coming gross…
ToplineWhat World-Class AI in GTM Looks Like | Kyle Norton, CRO @ Owner.com
Kyle Norton's AI-enabled revenue team at Owner.com has completely rewritten the economics of what's possible in sales. Kyle joins the show to share why…
ToplineIs This The End of Sales As We Know It? (CEO @ 1mind, Amanda Kahlow)
Amanda Kahlow raised $30 million to build AI sales agents that improve the buying experience. As the founder of 1mind and previously 6sense, she sits at the…
ToplineWhy Intercom Destroyed Its Predictable SaaS Revenue
Intercom gave up $60 million in contracted seat-based ARR to bet the entire company on an AI agent named Fin. The result? They passed $400 million in total…
ToplineDo SaaS Teams ACTUALLY Need AI?
Sam Jacobs (CEO, Pavilion), AJ Bruno (CEO, QuotaPath), and Asad Zaman (CEO, Sales Talent Agency) debate exactly how to handle team members resisting AI…
ToplineThis is How Tech Executives Will Get Hired in 2026
Is your traditional SaaS experience becoming obsolete? In this new 20-minute rapid-fire format, Sam Jacobs, AJ Bruno, and Asad Zaman tackle a specific listener…
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Citrini Needs to Chill (but SaaS DOES Need to Change)
Citrini Research claims AI agents will replace white-collar jobs by 2028, triggering a massive economic crash (and repricing of SaaS stocks). Sam Jacobs, AJ…
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SPOTLIGHT: Raising $55M When You're Not "AI-Native" | Nick Turner, CEO @ Dreamdata
Nick Turner, CEO of Dreamdata, joins Sam in this special episode of Topline Spotlight. They unpack a challenge many B2B leaders are facing right now: how do…
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"SaaS is Dead!" - So What Do We Do Now?
Over the course of a few days, $300 billion in market cap was wiped out from public SaaS companies. Looking at the ten most notable US publicly traded SaaS…
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The Business Case for Robot Overlords (Or At Least Robots That Unload Trucks) | CEO AJ Meyer
AJ Meyer, CEO of Pickle Robot, isn't betting on general-purpose humanoid robots. Instead, he's a believer in robots and Physical AI which solve specific…
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Mark Roberge (Ex-HubSpot CRO): "AI Startups Will See the Highest Failure Rate in History"
Mark Roberge is calling it now: we are about to witness the highest failure rate for a single cohort of startups in the history of tech. As author of Science…
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AI Talent Wars: OpenAI, Thinking Machines & Meta Fighting For Breakthroughs
The AI arms race is getting ugly. With top talent bouncing between Thinking Machines and OpenAI, the guys debate a critical question for every leader: Is…
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The Job Market Just Completely Flipped (Nobody's Talking About It)
AJ and Asad talk about one of the most insane job markets we've ever seen, the rise of AI agents, and the future of AI's talent wars. Thanks for tuning in!…
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These Charts Explain 2026
Sam, Asad, and AJ are back to debate the hard numbers shaping the GTM landscape in 2026. The consensus? The freeze is thawing, but the rules have changed. Sam…
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The 13 AI Agents Inside a $90 Billion Machine
MIT reports that 95% of AI initiatives are failing to show ROI. Pablo Dominguez, Operating Partner at Insight Partners, joins the show to explain how to escape…
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He Built a SaaS Monster with $1 Million (And Refused to Raise More)
Wade Foster (CEO) built Zapier into a profitable powerhouse without traditional VC funding—just $1M post-YC, then profitable ever since. On this episode, the…
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$50k vs $500K vs $50M Sales People - How to WIN In Modern Sales
We are multi-million-dollar CEOs specializing in sales and go to market teams in tech. We've met more millionaire sales people than you can count. This is…