When (now) two-year-old startup Zenefits was banned in Utah because it offered its HR management software for free, CEO and co-founder Parker Conrad felt upset, anxious, and scared. Especially because it was a B2B company with a much smaller supporter base: "If you're Uber or Lyft, then you have this built-in constituency using the service and millions of people to complain and go to the mat for you... But man, we make HR software. That's totally unsexy. No one's even going to pay attention to this,” he says. In this episode of the a16z Podcast, Conrad shares how Zenefits went from being banned to the state reversing the ban. As the state governor stated, "Utah is open for business... There are always going to be innovators and disruptors as technology accelerates business growth and we believe government needs to be able to work with these innovators to ensure strong and efficient economic policies and an open marketplace.” Of course, this is just the beginning...
In this episode of How to Build the Future, Garry sits down with Parker Conrad, Co-founder & CEO of Rippling, the all in one HR, Finance and IT software company that’s valued at $13.5 billion. Conrad is the co-founder of two unicorns and has one of the more dramatic startup journeys in recent years. In this interview Conrad discusses his origin story, the lessons learned from his first two startups, how AI is changing the game and why he thinks the future will be defined by "compound" software startups. Apply to Y Combinator: https://ycombinator.com/apply Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme-yc) - 00:00 - Intro 02:19 - Childhood 04:17 - Entrepreneurship 07:29 - Challenges 10:10 - When startups die 12:46 - Why YC? 15:24 - Zenefits 17:47 - PMF 20:50 - Transition 25:13 - Second startup 30:35 - Compounding 36:26 - Enterprise AI 40:27 - Founder mode 43:07 - Future?