I am the first to admit it: I had Kareem, the CEO of Clay, all wrong. When Clay first crossed my radar, I thought he was too laid-back: no obvious chip on his shoulder, no external veneer of obsessive, rabid 'run through walls' CEO persona that we all look for. Kareem builds from what he calls "a place of wholeness" rather than lack - noting to prove, no revenge plan. It makes him sound almost too chill, but the operating instincts underneath are sharp. Crazy sharp. Clay has since exploded. $2M ➡️ $100M in two years. But let's not gloss over that he spent roughly five years wandering before Clay clicked, and his takeaway is that the hard part of building isn't working hard, it's the courage to commit to one idea and stop listening to everyone else, customers included. He flipped every assumption in his market: sell to technical "go-to-market engineers," charge for usage instead of seats, pick power over simplicity. We both created new types of roles for our categories, in completely opposite ways. I flogged "inbound marketing" with a book, a conference, and relentless content. Kareem coined "go-to-market engineering" and then refused to take credit, letting agencies own it because a category has to be bigger than you. We also get into his "momentum detective" theory of the CEO job, why he's deleting his standing one-on-ones, and why apologizing is one of his sharpest tools. There's no single way to run a company. Kareem is my proof. 👇 Full episode in the comments