YouSaid · the spoken record

Amit Bendov

lines on the record: 90
first: 2025-09-12
most recent: 2025-09-12
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“The question is, I will not get into the internal discussions, but how fast there's like things that are extremely aggressive and still aggressive, but a little less.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We are now working on a plan. How quickly can we cross the billion in ARR? And they're like different bets, but they're not, we think, within a few years we can get there. But the most important thing is that our vision is to become the revenue AI operating system for companies, right? That's the central system that we move from like a data entry world to a system of intelligence that runs the entire organization. And we wanted to be used by a more diverse set of companies. So we're expanding the industries that we're in and we want every company to be benefit from AI. So selling becomes easy. You just need to compete on having the best product.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, now I'm going to get in trouble. I don't know. It's like, you know, sometimes it's like little things. And if you have like enough of them over time, things can tend to pick up volume because it's a little irritation. So there's nothing major right now. I feel I'm compromising. We've been together together, like not in certain marriage, like almost 30 years now. So it's working really well”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Most important decision in your life like who do you choose as a partner? This is like more important than the VCs or employees. Oh my God, yeah. Yeah, by far. So choose well. Think of it really as a partnership, right? That's like there's a bit of like helping each other give and take compromises, but choosing well is like super important.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because the business would outgrow, right? So, yeah, they're using AI like everybody like vibe coding. Okay, that says like, you know, today like maybe like 10, 15% productivity improvement, but the business is growing at a much faster pace. So I would need more if I can seize the opportunity.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I mean, we're not a foundation AI company. We're an AI application. Gong uses AI. I want like every engineer at Gong to become excellent in AI.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know if I need or not. I just don't sleep a lot. I come, I wake up with a lot of energy, and I guess my body needs very little sleep.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Check my email first thing in the morning when I get out of bed. I try to be disciplined not to do it all the time, but sometimes I just can't resist.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ability to look at things sometimes from the sidelines. Sometimes there are problems or something great going on. And I think for leaders in general, the ability to almost like have like an outer body experience, like just retach yourself emotionally. It's like, what is going on here? Understand kind of what's the deeper issue and then like fix it and improve.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, I love the question. All right. You know, how's like 250? My bows quite comfort herephones. I spend like half of my life on airplanes, and it makes such a huge difference. I come out of the airplane so fresh that just noise cancelling is unbelievable. It makes like, I don't go anywhere without them.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Also, Microsoft is also a great partner. They have some revenue intelligence capabilities with their own. So they're a good partner. They're integrating Gong as part of co-pilot, but they have in a CRM. So everybody in CRM is both a partner. Salesforce is a partner. Microsoft a partner. HubSpot is a partner. But they also have their features that are competitive with Gong.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is a call recording. You know what the funny story? Before I started, I had call recording. We were like recording. And I hate listening to recordings. I wanted to, a solution that will use AI so I don't need to listen to conversations, right? It's the insights that's generated from the data that is the real value. Now the action automation.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, not at all. Because, like, the difference is how much time. If you believe that the company has trillions of dollars of potential market value, then it could take like a year, two year, five years, or 10 years. But at some point, the question, do you see it becoming like one day, does it have potential to become like a hundred billion dollar company? Then all of a sudden, it doesn't matter. Just take high enough altitude and we're not pricing the company right now. We're not doing it.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it's actually like a pretty good option. There are companies, not a lot, but that are growing fast. So you go public for either you need cash, you want the brand recognition to come in. And it does come with more brand recognition and some liquidity. Many companies don't need the cash they have enough and they're generating cash. So that's like one. Second, liquidity is a good option with secondary. Now the market is actually evolving. And the brand, okay, like it's real. But let's say, you know, if you think about the cost of being a public company, take that money and buy Super Bowl ads. So there's alternative ways to get the publicity that don't come under restrictions. But secondary, yeah, don't go crazy with valuation. Sometimes it's a little bit of like an ego thing, right? And you want to think about the next round so you don't, because otherwise it can create like problems for employees down the road.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“This is not something that is like a personal desire. I mean, it makes sense for Gong to become public like one day. People invest in a company and need to see a return. But I don't think it's like, you know, some people see it as their mission in life. Certainly, it comes with a lot of like, sure, the IPO is kind of cool. And some people get paid, but there also comes with a lot of restrictions on what the company can do and the flexibility and where your attention goes. Do I end up the next generation of AI or like focus on, you know, 3% EPS, like on this quarter? I mean, listen, you have experience.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Listen, if someone comes like, oh, like here's like a trillion dollars, everything is something we would consider, I'm not naive, but you can't have it like even as a plan, right? I believe in controlling your own destiny. We have like a great company. We're really in the early innings and we're growing, we're generating cash. Like we don't need anything. Do you want to be a”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Want to like comment on them specifically, but I think if a company isn't growing or isn't growing fast and doesn't have like plenty of cash that could go like 20 years, I don't know what their cash position, they can't IPO and somehow people need to get paid, right? Whatever the investor, so a P might make sense for. There are quite a few companies like that.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think 2023 was like a very painful moment because I was able to actually use the technology to understand what is going on. It was like a breakout conversation, right? Said, listen, we absolutely love gong. We have no choice. It's like we choose you or the other guys because they provide like three products and our CFO just wouldn't listen. Companies didn't have a choice. It was like, you know, customers like super happy and you're still losing them. And so that was like very painful. But the good news, a lot of them are coming back now. So we have a lot of like boomerang employees and boomerang customers.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I told you about the event that we went to in April 2016, and one of the customers that I met was the senior buyer from ADP. So it's a big payroll in HR company globally, but mostly in the US, and he was impressed with AI technology by the Tom, you know, I don't think we're ready for you, which he actually was pretty impressed because not a lot of people would say that. But we met the following year and then they bought, which is incredible. They're using some other things that didn't work well. So they already had a budget and they bought gong. LinkedIn was our first customer, first large customer, like early on before we even thought that we will sell. We said one day we're going to sell to bigger companies, but there was never an idea. They evaluated us and evaluated like a course at the time. And for those who remember, and they said, okay, we decided to go with Gong and they're, you know, they're.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. No, I didn't say that, but I said, like, listen, it is what it is. I hope let me connect you with a sales team and see. I take a look, right? So I respond to any customers and I'll get if a seller asks me, again, there's got to be a reason, like not bring me that, you know, we fail to articulate value now will save the day by with this charm or whatever. You got to do your work, right? But I get on calls with customers like almost any size.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Any customer can call me, like, even if it's a $10,000 account, like people reach out to me, I respond. Literally, I had like someone reach out to me on LinkedIn, hey, like I'm a startup from YC. I just need two seats. Gong is like I can't afford it. Like, can you talk to me? I respond to them.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Customer, they want the vision of the company and they want access to the person that can decide. So if we're doing like a large like seven or eight figure deals, the customer want to know, listen, I'm making an investment. I want to know when something goes wrong, I can call me it like in the middle of the night. That's the role that leaders are usually doing in those deals. Plus, sometimes I can mix things outside of the ordinary.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I haven't spent a ton of time thinking about it, but I think there'll be fewer sellers. They could make like a lot more money because they're generating a lot more.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. I mean, I haven't worked there, so I know this is so unique. I think that eventually every company has competition, right? People think, oh, you're just taking orders, but you want to be at a company that is not like, I hope that people don't think I'm picking up on Salesforce. Salesforce is a great company. But again, like there, it's already very structured and a known brain and all of that. So you want to sell to an underdog on one hand, but not something that will not take off. I mean, that's the right tricky, right? If some product is just hard to sell because it's not good, right? Or it's not competitive in the market, right? You don't want to be there.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Join like one of the best teams out there. The company is doing really well in a good culture. And then you learn, doesn't matter what the role is, just a learning experience is way more important at whatever you, you know, even if it's like an extreme, like for free, even if they don't pay well, just what you learn is a hundred times more valuable than what they're paying you and have fun and pride and make sure obviously it has to be like an ethical company.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a good question. I think it's a very useful skill. I mean, they're doing things that are as interesting and not more in other ways. But sales is a very, very useful skill in life. And again, it's not like selling a phone. You sell ideas. You ask me, how can a young founder bring like a hot shot CRO, right? You sell the dream. Why do you want to ditch their successful company because it's not exciting and come to your company that you said is like shitty right now? You want to sell to investors. You want to sell to your kids sometimes like an idea. You want to promote ideas. So it is a very useful skill and it takes”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think you can't suck at resource allocation, right? I mean, it has to be reasonable. The most important thing for the company is the strategy. So I think if the execution is like 80% okay and a good strategy, you will still win. Yeah, you could do better or worse. There are two things that matter, right? The team, which is basically execution and the market, the market is the most important thing. And this is the strategy. The strategy, like what do you sell to whom and what's your unique positioning, unique value that you're creating nobody else? That's the most important thing for the company. And I've seen companies that are doing extremely well. And I know the team, they're okay. I mean, they're not bad. They're not phenomenal. And I've seen smarter people that fail. The most important thing is the strategy of the company.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Things that you need to do technically, you know, the customer has a problem, right? You need to take care of it now, realize our customers need more stability with the system. Is this a mission critical right now?”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not China, but sometimes decent, there's real. You know where you want to get, and there are some things that are real that aren't a straight line to where you want to get. And you take a little detour because you need to do it. Building an engagement product, kind of like took him from Sales Love and Outreach. We had like other plans that are like even like bigger potentials, but 2023 came and said, if we don't develop it now, I don't know that we'll get a chance because once the country gets like really bruised, like it's very difficult to get over. So we said, okay, like forget the strategic plans. Let's develop this right now, like really fast. So we crossed this hurdle. And then from a power position, a position of strength, we can continue with our more strategic plans. So this was like a little detour. Again, it's not a waste and it's created a ton of revenue and strengthened the market leadership position, but it's always like a judgment call between us in kind of the long-term vision of the company and some.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It doesn't make me happy that my competitors are failing. And again, I never saw them as like our ultimate competitor. I'm extremely competitive type. Competition like fires me up, but I'm not obsessed with the competitors, right? Because remember the opportunity we're looking at. We're looking at $7 trillion being sold with human labor and sweat that doesn't make sense. Why would even like worry about a little forecasting for some mid-market enterprise companies? This is not like the big prize and you should keep your eyes on the prize where you're going and not on the other companies. This is like what we're building.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First, I always like the company. I like the people. They're a good partner for us until we became like a competitor. And even after that, I've not lost my reason.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Listen, gong, like within a year added a thousand engagement customers. Most of them had like either outreach or sales law or groove, right? So think about the pace, like a thousand companies moved to Gong. And we have close to 800 customers on forecasting like within a year. Most of them probably using nothing or Clari or like there are a few other smaller companies. So yeah.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes. We have one sales team and we have subject matter experts, so people that are kind of product experts because some of the products are very technical, like forecasting, for example, is like extremely nuanced and detailed and a lot of minutia.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, we don't because we have the benefit that we sell to the same buyer. It all goes largely to the CRO and sales operations. If we had other products, let's say maybe like a CHRO or whatever,”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's probably the most impactful thing. So it took us a year to get something out there that was not even fully mature, and now it's mature. And we also, I think the very important thing for us, I think the biggest benefit that we learned how to scale from like one product to three and now we're rating like four and five and six products, right? So to become a big company, we need like a bigger solution, which is a skill that the company needs to learn. It's not just like developing the product. How we train the sales team to position it is something that they don't know all of a sudden.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Good ones. Listen, there is a bell curve of companies, and some are top deciphes, I'm the bottom decil. So not everybody. So you need to understand what makes sense for your own business. Gong is fairly efficient as a business and it's growing fast.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. We have value engineering. This is what they do. And their job is to prove to a CFO, we imagine the most like cold-hearted cynical person out there and prove to them why this is the best investment that they can't do without it.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, Spartan if it was us. First, we didn't have the products. People want it, so we had to develop them. Second, we really improved how we support customers, like that we measure our usage, engagement. Do they see strategic value? So we moved to outcomes.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A little bit lean. I'll leave it like 3%, and then like 5% and 10%, and you know, 20% and 30% and higher. So the company is accelerating.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, absolutely not. I think it's important. Like, it's not the first time. So I've experienced like 2000, 2008 COVID. So this is the first time. You know the cycles like our thing second. I know listen, we have like plenty of cash. When you have enough experience, you know, like a crisis in a crisis, there are like plenty of opportunity. Just look around. Keep your head up. And we knew, listen, we have cash. Our competitors are going to struggle. We're going to step on an R&D gas pedal and develop like crazy. First, we need to, right, to expand the platform, and they're not going to be able to do it. So this is a great opinion. This is what we're seeing right now. I knew that we're going to win. It's going to take a while. I didn't know like how long or how fast, but I was very transparent with the team. No doubt this team is going to win. I don't know how long it's going to take. And we saw, like, first there was like, no growth. There was like, you know.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We just caught in bad timing. We're like hyper growth, like in a lot of like license people bought and didn't get to use because of what happened with the economy. We're planning to expand the platform, but this is like, okay, it's happening now and we're not ready. And I still remember like the all hands call the company was like really tough. And people were not used to that. Gong is like a rocket ship. What? Like we slowed down. Like this is like inconceivable.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I told about the hustle like when we were like three people at the company, but all of a sudden people just bought so our game like we just gave them licenses and moved on to the next thing. The way we supported customer was not as tight as you need to. But all of a sudden, you know, CFO shows, ask you like, show me the RRI. Why should I spin on you? So we had to learn things. And the third thing, we had like one product. We had the conversation intelligence product. Our customers were looking to consolidate on one platform and said, oh, like we absolutely love Gong, but Outreach is giving us both the engagement and the CI or sales law. So we're like behind. We had the deepest AI technology, but not the breadth of the platform. And Company just couldn't care. I mean, we lost something. The CRO that bought Gong was out of a job.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was a high multiple, definitely the multiples are different today, but still, I don't think it's something like we're thinking like such a big company. If you take like a 20 year view, then yeah, still think like the potential is far greater. It was a number of things. First, time got tough. We had like a lot of concentration, a lot of like companies in technology businesses were hurt by interest rate. So money wasn't cheap. So a lot of our customers, what happened like in 2022, they would buy, let's say that they bought, they had like 100 people and the sales are gong. So, okay, like, you know, how much are you growing instead of 50%? Okay, I'll throw like 50 more licenses. So they bought like 150 seats, right? Comes the renewal. Now, not only do they don't have the 50, now they have like 70. So really high downgrade and churn. So we lost a lot of seats that were not real because company didn't have the growth. So that's number one. And it was painful. Second, I think we lost some of our muscle tissue, like when we...”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that was like early 2023. Absolutely. These are like dark times. We're like, even we're not growing even like slightly shrinking. So we had, it was a combination of things. First, like people bought like crazy in 2022 in the post COVID word.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We said 77%. I don't know if we can reach the full potential because always be some addition plus there's a limit like to how much people can actually absorb. I throw food at you, right? Like unlimited, you can't eat all that much. So there is a limit to how many customers people can help. So most companies, they have quota capacity, right? If you build a plan, let's say your plan for the year, you need to generate like $80 million, right? So you want to make sure your quotas add up to, let's say, $100 million. Because you know, not everybody's going to hit it, so you build some buffer, right? And then most companies hit like 66% or whatever, 70% or 70 people hitting 70%. And Gong were like at 130 of capacity. We perform like well over 100. I don't know if it's like exactly 120, 130, well above our capacity. So that shows the power of AI to make people more productive and more effective.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, maybe sellers should be able to support customers as customer success. So I think we'll see a blend of these roles, like in a one person, almost like a one-person band that is doing multiple roles at the same time because they have the tools to do it, right? They use agents,”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes. I think, well, it could be like, I don't know what the communication means going to be, but the idea is like reaching out to someone. Yeah, definitely like, you know, you reach to a stranger or create an introduction. Absolutely. I think that'll stay like one way or another. So they know how to create their own pipeline. They get a lot of, I call like abuse, right? People and develop the resilience. They know how to position the product. People say, oh, we already use this, but they build so much strength and resilience. It's unbelievable, right? And they go into sales. It's almost like they have the hard part behind them. Now it becomes the easier part. I do believe that it's a great school, especially for people that did not come from tech. But now there are companies that aren't growing. Why do you need something that's optimized for hypergrowth and have like SDRs and move it? I think we'll have like fewer roles that are more able to do multiple jobs.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First, like to create your own pipeline. People don't like cold calling. It's an unnatural work for most of us. The fear rejection, so they get really good.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Experience people want to know what does gong do or what does the Figma do? And then if it goes through a series of interviews.”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We know, I think that first, not necessarily us. Gong is growing at an incredible pace. So for us, it does make sense. But if companies SDRs did not exist like 25 years ago, the whole idea sellers used to do their own prospecting. Remember, like, you know, Glenray, Glenn Ross, like, you know, here are your leads? That's how it started. But when companies started to scale, like in the early 2000, an incredible pace, people said, okay, you know what? We can't hire sellers fast enough and train them. Let's break the role and do two. We'll have people doing the upstream, the top of the funnel, and people like monetizing, right? The sellers, that's a new invention that actually did not take off like all industries. It's a tech industry thing for hyper growth. Now, it does come with a lot of benefits because you do get like very focused team that knows how to generate appointments and qualified leads and pipeline, but it creates a fragmented”
2025-09-12 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source