Patrick OShaughnessy(@patrick_oshag):Christina on why Vanta pays its top people 10x what it did five years ago "Should I adjust the pitch and be like 'Inevitably the baseline here is Vanta's 50 billion. The real question you should be considering is if you join, can you take us on a journey to 250 billion?’ Should I start saying that? Probably not. But the answer is not definitely not. Because that is the pitch that people who work at Vanta are getting from other companies. The market now is saying that so much, you do seem unambitious. Total comp, it's probably like a factor of 10. I think it actually should be higher. My general comp philosophy is you never pay the top people enough. Patrick: What those top people are doing that's so valuable typically. High agency, get shit done. That sounds so milquetoast and that's worth millions of dollars, but yes, actually it is. A high-context person who understands the company and the customers and the domain, making generally reasonable decisions and sometimes bad ones, and then iterating on their bad ones and just moving is so valuable."

2026.10.20 17:16

Christina on why Vanta pays its top people 10x what it did five years ago "Should I adjust the pitch and be like 'Inevitably the baseline here is Vanta's 50 billion. The real question you should be considering is if you join, can you take us on a journey to 250 billion?’ Should I start saying that? Probably not. But the answer is not definitely not. Because that is the pitch that people who work at Vanta are getting from other companies. The market now is saying that so much, you do seem unambitious. Total comp, it's probably like a factor of 10. I think it actually should be higher. My general comp philosophy is you never pay the top people enough. Patrick: What those top people are doing that's so valuable typically. High agency, get shit done. That sounds so milquetoast and that's worth millions of dollars, but yes, actually it is. A high-context person who understands the company and the customers and the domain, making generally reasonable decisions and sometimes bad ones, and then iterating on their bad ones and just moving is so valuable."

Patrick OShaughnessy@patrick_oshag

2026.10.20 12:00

My second conversation with Christina Cacioppo (@christinacaci), Vanta's cofounder and CEO. Charlie Songhurst says the best returns come from companies that are highly boring and highly complex, because fewer founders want to build them. Vanta is one of those companies. When we first talked five years ago, Christina told me about building the first version of Vanta in Excel. Since then she has turned it into the category leader in security compliance. Now she is rebuilding it around AI. We discuss: - Why great software businesses got cheap - Why Vanta eats the cost of AI instead of marking it up - Why comp for top people is up 10X in five years - What is over/under hyped in AI - How AI attackers are changing security - Vanta marketing + billboards - Building trust in an era of low trust Enjoy! TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 4:17 Surviving the SaaSpocalypse 9:40 The AI Pricing Trap 16:17 Rebuilding Software for AI 22:43 Silicon Valley's Talent Wars 31:57 What's Overhyped in AI 38:39 Security at Machine Speed 47:16 Reinventing Software 55:37 The Billboard War 60:38 Rebuilding Trust in Technology

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