Wade Foster, Zapier co-founder and CEO, discusses the journey from intern to $5B unicorn

We've had amazing unicorn CEOs recently on this podcast but today's a first. Wade Foster, CEO and co-founder of Zapier grew his company to a $5B valuation in 2021 on a $1.3M raise in 2012. Let that sink in. The power of product-market fit and listening to your customers is impossible to overstate.

Wade and his co-founders Bryan and Mike launched Zapier in 2012 as part of the YC S12 batch.

The company has grown to more 800 employees in 40 countries and the product is used by 2.2M businesses and integrates more than 5,000 apps that have been used to create more than 25 million zaps, or automated workflows.

Listen and learn...

1. Wade's humble path from an internship in Columbia, MO... to a $5B unicorn
2. A simple problem: the Zapier origin story
3. The Zap that started it all...
4. Voice-first Zaps? Maybe!
5. The future of the "citizen developer"... no-code interfaces + enterprise security
6. Why all the new GenAI apps will create more need for Zaps
7. The Zapier LLM architecture
8. How to find product-market fit... from an expert
9. Creating a company that's a verb: how "Zapier" got its name
10. Wade reflects on his success and the entrepreneurial journey
11. What's ahead for Wade and Zapier

References in this episode...

1. Vijay Tella, Workato CEO, on AI and the Future of Work
2. Amr Awadallah, Vectara CEO, on AI and the Future of Work
3. ChatGPT for the enterprise: what's included