Varun Anand cold-emailed his way into jobs with Hillary Clinton, Google, and eventually his co-founder at Clay. That persistence paid off—Clay just raised $100M at a $3.1B valuation and serves over 10,000 customers.

In this conversation, we explore how Clay reimagined the GTM stack by aggregating 100+ data providers, why LinkedIn's data remains massively underutilized, and how AI is fundamentally changing what sales and marketing teams look like. Varun shares tactical insights on data quality, the logistics of employee tender offers, and why Clay hires people who've never done their jobs before.

The most surprising part? Varun argues that early-stage companies aren't constrained by time—they're constrained by insight. That single idea explains much of Clay's unconventional approach to hiring, growth, and product development. If you're building in the GTM space or thinking about how AI transforms business operations, this episode delivers great actionable frameworks you can use immediately.

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You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Varun Anand on X at @vxanand