Quick note before we dive in: we’re recruiting for Firework’s GTM team right now (BDR/AE/sales leaders in SF/NYC/some remote). If you want an intro, shoot me an email at [email protected] or reply to this email.
New episode on the Crew Podcast - Soumya Tulloss, SVP of Sales @ Fireworks, one of the fastest-growing players in the ultra-hot inference market right now.
Also, shoutout to our sponsors for this episode, Metaview & Attention. Been awesome working with both of these teams for recruiting, and now infusing as part of our media arm.
Both incredible products used by a bunch of the AI-natives we work with.
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Attention: Put a team of revenue agents on every deal. They capture all your customer interactions (without a bot), update your CRM, cleanly automate all reporting, score opportunities and reps against any framework, and forecast in a way you can actually trust. Fast-growing companies like Lovable, Avoca, Abridge, and hundreds of others rely on them. Try them today at attention.com
Some of our previous guests:
GTM Roundtable: The State of AI-Native Sales w/ Clay, Parallel, Avoca & Profound, see here
Eleanor Dorfman, Head of Commercial Sales @ Anthropic, see here
Pat Forquer, CRO @ Legora, see here
Graham Moreno, VP of GTM @ Parallel
Tomer Chernia, VP of GTM @ Cursor
Liam Mulcahy, Head of Sales @ Parallel (former GTM Operating Partner @ Kleiner Perkins)
Becca Lindquist, Head of Sales @ Clay
Nick Bogaty, CRO @ Vercel
Kyle Parrish, former VP of Sales @ Figma
Ghazi Masood, CRO @ Replit
Evan Cassidy, VP of Sales @ Decagon
James White, VP of Sales @ Rogo
Mark Ebert, SVP of Revenue @ Profound
Rob Saliterman, VP of Sales @ Harvey
Bardia Shahali, VP of Sales @ Granola
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.
Soumya’s Background
Soumya Tulloss is SVP of Sales at Fireworks AI, one of the fastest growing AI-native companies out there, fresh off a Series D at an $18B+ valuation. She joined earlier this year when the go-to-market team was about 20 people.
Before that she spent seven years at Twilio, joining when the company was around $89M in revenue and proud of having no sales team, then helping build the enterprise motion that took it from hundreds of millions to billions. She came up through finance at Deutsche Bank and biz ops before saying yes to sales, starting as an AE and never looking back.
Her take on the market right now: inference is the oxygen of the modern enterprise, and you can’t scale if you’re spending more on inference than you generate in revenue.
Discussed In This Episode
What inference actually is, explained simply, and where it sits in the AI stack
Why cost gets buyers in the door, but owning your AI stack is the deeper business driver
Specialized vs. general intelligence, and why a bank wants thousands of specialized agents
How to think about competing when OpenAI and Anthropic are in your space
Going from finance and biz ops to an AE seat at Twilio
Her three filters for choosing a company: massive TAM, an exceptional technical founding team, and room to have an impact
The FIRE way of selling, starting with “face in the place”
Why being first to production wins the deal, and earning the right to be part of a proof of value
What Fireworks tests for in technical sellers, and why “I taught myself this” lands in an interview
Selling AI as a CEO and board level issue
Why the frontier labs don’t pay variable comp
Role plays as the second step of every sales interview
The internal agents Fireworks runs on, from a hacked-together Deal Desk to voice role play enablement
Key Timestamps
(02:21) Why inference is the oxygen of the enterprise
(09:23) Competing with the frontier labs
(17:55) The FIRE way of selling
(24:34) What Fireworks looks for in technical sellers
(28:36) Selling AI at the CEO and board level
(32:13) Why the labs don’t pay variable comp
(35:03) Role plays and hiring lessons
(38:18) The agents running Fireworks’ GTM team
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
