Lighthouse or Landgrab: Choosing Your AI Sales Strategy In this conversation, a16z's Joe Schmidt, Andy McCall, and Elena Burger sit down to discuss the lighthouse and landgrab playbooks for selling enterprise AI: win marquee logos so proof travels, or win budgets that already exist. They cover: - How companies like Harvey and Applied Intuition run the lighthouse playbook, while Stuut, Decagon, and Pylon use the landgrab strategy - How Andy built Meraki's sales org and then took Samsara from single-digit millions to >$1B ARR as CRO - Why you should spend 1% of your time on sales strategy and 99% on execution - How to hire the right sales org based on your strategy 00:00 Intro 00:58 Lighthouse or Landgrab? 02:36 Buyer exposure and proof that travels 06:31 Samsara's ELD landgrab 09:58 Sell to whoever will buy 13:26 Examples like Stuut and Harvey 16:28 Pylon & climbing the ACV ladder 18:21 Meraki's free-access-point playbook 21:39 Your proof of concept shouldn't be a science project 26:46 Why most companies need both playbooks 29:53 Hiring for lighthouse vs. landgrab 33:54 The return of big software 37:32 1% strategy, 99% execution 38:58 Advice for sales careers @joeschmidtiv @VirtualElena