The Hedonic Treadmill

11x, an AI sales development representatives (SDR) co is in the news for some potentially troubling action. We are not going to comment on the individual company, but instead we wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk about what the challenges of building in the world of software are. Hammad opens the floor by telling us more about what AI SDRs are, how they work, how the market is evolving, and why a story like this might pop up. Grant then asks Hammad to share his perspective on where long-term value accrual will actually happen, especially if a feature (or product) becomes a standard. Grant closes us out by sharing some thoughts about how business is a never-ending race where you have to keep running to stay in the hunt. Lastly, please send us any questions you’d like us to cover in our upcoming Q&A episode! LinkedIn or Twitter DM us. 🔗 Show Resource Links 11x Tech Crunch article a16z announcement post investing in 11x 🎙️ Podcast Links ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠ ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠ ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ 🌀 About Motion Blur Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is an investor at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts: Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠ Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠ If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes. Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠ Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes. A hedonic treadmill, courtesy of ChatGPT’s latest image model