New episode on the Crew Podcast - Bardia Shahali, VP of Sales @ Granola.
Also, shoutout to our sponsors for this episode, Centralize & Salesgraph.
If you work complex enterprise deals, the hard part isn't effort - it's visibility.
Who have we met on this account? Who's gone quiet? Who on my team can open a door we haven't knocked on? Centralize answers all three.
It builds a live stakeholder map for every deal - pulling from Salesforce, email, calls, and your team's networks - then tells you where to go next. A real-time picture of who matters and how to reach them.
Teams at LangChain, Decagon, Webflow, and Cognition run on it.
👉 Try it on a live deal → usecentralize.com
Enterprise deals slip when the technical gap doesn't get caught in time. A champion goes quiet, an objection lingers, procurement shows up late. That context lives in your calls, Slack threads, and top reps' heads, and it doesn't transfer when you hire.
Salesgraph pulls from your Salesforce, Gong, Granola, docs, and Slack, then writes the things that move deals forward: gap analyses, champion business cases, and pre-call briefs. A company-specific GTM brain.
YC-backed, built by founders who lived this at Mintlify.
👉 Get a free GTM audit → salesgraph.com/gtm-audit
See below for past and future guests:
Some of our previous guests:
Eleanor Dorfman, Head of Commercial Sales @ Anthropic, see here
Kyle Parrish, former VP of Sales @ Figma, see here
Pat Forquer, CRO @ Legora, see here
Liam Mulcahy, Head of Sales @ Parallel (former GTM Operating Partner @ Kleiner Perkins)
Tomer Chernia, VP of GTM @ Cursor
Ghazi Masood, CRO @ Replit
Kyle Norton, CRO @ Owner.com
Jason Gelman, GTM Operating Partner @ Primary Ventures
Evan Cassidy, VP of Sales @ Decagon
Jason Miller, VP of Sales @ Unify
Adam Ali, SVP of WW Revenue @ Rox
James White, VP of Sales @ Rogo
Mark Ebert, SVP of Revenue @ Profound
Rob Saliterman, VP of Sales @ Harvey
Some of our future guests:
Bardia Shahali, VP of Sales @ Granola (recorded, in edits now)
Graham Moreno, VP of GTM @ Parallel (recorded, in edits now)
Bryan Cox, VP of Sales @ Braintrust (recorded, in edits now)
Mark Goldberger, VP of Sales @ Metaview (recorded, in edits now)
Simran Duggal, VP of Sales @ Juicebox (recorded, in edits now)
Becca Lindquist, Head of Sales @ Clay
Stevie Case, CRO @ Vanta
Nick Bogaty, CRO @ Vercel
Darren Moffat, VP of Sales @ Langchain
Erica Anderson, CRO @ Notion
Hannah Willson, CRO @ Nooks
Lauren Rhode, VP of Sales @ Lovable
Kai Mak, CRO @ Together AI
Mark Roberge, former CRO @ Hubspot
Ken Lawshe, CRO @ Synthesia
Marcus Holm, CRO @ Exa
& many others in the pipeline
And many more in the pipeline - if you know any good leaders who fit this, shoot me a DM/reply/email ([email protected]). We’ll keep openings rolling and be super open to suggestions for similar guests.
We film in-person in SF & NYC at legit podcast studios and have retained a stellar post-production agency, so the quality will be high.
behind the scenes filming our episode with Graham Moreno, head of GTM @ Parallel
Links To Sections
Bardia’s Background
Bardia Shahali is the VP of Sales at Granola, one of the most beloved products in tech right now, where he's turning a product people are obsessed with into a real enterprise GTM motion.
He's spent his career betting early on the right companies. He learned to sell as an AE at BlackLine (which went public), moved to San Francisco for Intercom, then joined Teleport as its first sales hire at seed stage and helped take it from $0 to $20M ARR and a $1B valuation. In early 2024 he joined Fireworks at Series A and helped scale it, before landing at Granola.
Along the way, he's advised a number of 0-to-1 companies building their first go-to-market engine.
Interesting Takeaways
1. The "AI is killing entry-level sales" take is just wrong
Bardia is actively hiring SDRs at Granola. Every GTM leader he talks to is struggling to hire. The narrative is lazy: AI isn't killing the job, it's killing the busywork inside the job. The reason people aren't getting hired isn't AI, it's that they're not prepared for the role.
2. $100M ARR doesn't mean what it used to
In the old SaaS world, hitting $100M ARR signaled operational maturity. In AI, you can hit $100M ARR with a janky CRM, no real RevOps, and a tiny team still figuring it out. Hiring the exec who scaled $100M to $500M at a traditional SaaS company into that environment is one of the most expensive mistakes founders are making right now.
3. The "order taker" debate is lazy because quotas adjust
Reps at Cursor, Anthropic, and OpenAI aren't getting an easy ride. Their quotas are 10-20x OTE instead of the traditional 4-6x. Market pull doesn't make the job easier, it just makes the questions on the test harder. Anyone calling those reps order takers is missing how the comp math actually works.
4. Never join a company without a bottoms-up engine
Bardia won't take a role at a company without one. Every company he's been at that ripped had a bottoms-up engine. Every company that slowed down hit a pipeline wall. His advice: take the more junior role at the company with demand over the senior role at the company without it. Six months later, you'll get promoted at the first one and be job hunting from the second.
5. 90%+ of AI unicorns are in San Francisco - globally
Not in the US. Globally. Bardia sold his house in SoCal, packed up the family and two dogs, and moved back so he wouldn't miss the wave. If your number one priority is building a career in AI and you're not in SF, be honest that it's not actually your number one priority. That's going to piss off some New Yorkers, but the math doesn't care.
Discussed In This Episode
Why he won't join a company without a bottoms-up engine, and how it puts wind in your sails
Why AI isn't killing jobs, it's killing the busywork inside them
How Granola uses Claude Co-Work to delete the "coordination tax" from outbound
Why explosive revenue is no longer proof you've built a real company
The hiring mistake that wrecks fast-growing AI companies (stage misalignment)
Why your GTM org should mirror your sales cycle, not a headcount template
Why the steak dinner is dead for bottoms-up selling, and what replaces it
Founder-market fit: why founders who've lived the problem build durable companies
How he interviews for mindset over mechanics, and why he can't teach the rest
The candidate outreach that stood out (a two-minute Loom vs. a "just applied!" note)
Why 90%+ of AI unicorns are in San Francisco, and what that means for your career
How to choose the right company to bet your career on, and why hard mode doesn't pay
The "order taker" debate and why quotas scale with market pull (10–20x)
Timestamps
(00:00) Intro
(01:22) Welcome to the Crew Podcast + Sponsor
(02:47) Granola: One of the Most Beloved Products in Tech
(03:13) The Booth Rejection & Bardia's Career Arc
(06:18) Moving Back to SF for the AI Wave
(08:03) What Actually Makes Granola Special
(10:31) Is the Entry-Level Sales Role Dead?
(12:06) Killing the Busywork, Not the Job (Claude Co-Work)
(18:29) Build Your GTM Org Around Your Sales Cycle
(24:22) Why $100M ARR Doesn't Mean What It Used To
(26:42) The Hiring Mistake That Wrecks AI Companies
(32:38) The AI Tools Bardia Can't Live Without
(35:34) The Steak Dinner Is Dead
(40:13) How To Choose the Right Company in AI
(45:23) Founder-Market Fit, Market Pull & TAM
(48:10) Interviewing for Mindset Over Mechanics
(49:39) The Outreach That Stood Out
(52:10) The GTM Orgs Bardia Admires (Figma & Cursor)
(54:11) The "Order Taker" Debate
(57:27) Why 90% of AI Unicorns Are in SF
(01:00:56) Granola's Roadmap & What's Next
Thanks for tuning in!
If you enjoy it, please give us a rating, review, or follow on Spotify/YouTube/Apple Podcasts - it really helps us grow this.
For those who are new, my name is Chris Balestras, co-founder & head of talent, media, & brand @ Crew - a GTM recruiting, media, and investing firm, working with seed through series D AI-natives to help them grow.
Where to find Crew:
We work with many of the hottest AI-native startups in various capacities, and for those who are interested, shoot me an email at [email protected] or a DM on LinkedIn.
🫡 cheers,
Chris