Vinay built Loom from a weekend prototype into 10 million users, then sold it to Atlassian for $950 million. But the money left him empty. Dharmesh Shah argues the best founders chase a mission, not a payout.
The founder of Loom is worth $100 million, but tweets this. Now, before you take out your world's smallest violin, let's go back to when Vinay knew what to do with his life. He met his 2 other founders, these guys, who had a thesis. What if hour-long meetings could just be minute-long meetings? And so they built the first version of Loom in a single weekend. But Loom was not a rocket ship. They had to fight through years of slow growth until COVID hits. Everyone's offices get shut down and meetings end up on— Loom! They grow to over 10 million users, and Vinay sells the company to Atlassian for $950 million, taking care of him financially but leaving him without a purpose. Because some of the best founders aren't in it to win, they're in it because they need a mission. And ironically, that's what makes them win.
Is SaaS really dead? Dharmesh Shah from HubSpot on AI, Vibe-Coding & the Future of Work
Agents, Metaprompting and Tech-powered Parenting with HubSpot CTO Dharmesh Shah
