E2: Art Papas tells Bullhorn Founding Story to Almost $500M in ARR, VC vs. PE & Startup Profitably

(0:00) Intros

(1:50) Growing up in a family of doctors

(5:13) Getting his first software job at Thompson Financial during the original internet boom

(7:26) Writing software to automate himself and all the interns out of a job

(11:40) Building and launching one of the first SaaS products in 1997

(16:09) Making a mistake leaving his first job for more money

(18:33) Quitting after 2 weeks without any planning

(19:40) New startup job and a painful lesson on listening to the customer

(23:00) Starting Bullhorn

(32:05) Market collapse and raising a really painful series A

(39:47) Burning the boats and becoming completely unemployable to make Bullhorn work

(42:02) Deciding to build a profitable company that didn't need anymore venture capital

(45:31) Switching from VC to PE backing

(50:19) Should tech startups be profitable?

(56:39) Right now is the best time to startup a business

(57:04) Art loves private equity - why he thinks it's so great

(1:00:21) Despite 25 years in the same company Art is still having fun at Bullhorn

(1:06:12) AI impact on staffing industry