Harness co-founder Jyoti Bansal highlights a growing issue in software development: while AI tools help generate more code, they often create bottlenecks further along the pipeline, especially in testing, deployment, and compliance. Since its 2017 launch, Harness has aimed to streamline these stages using AI and machine learning. With the rise of large language models (LLMs), the company shifted toward agentic AI, introducing a library of specialized agents—like DevOps, SRE, AppSec, and FinOps agents—that operate behind a unified interface called Harness AI. These agents assist in building production pipelines, not deploying code directly, ensuring human oversight remains critical for compliance and security.
Bansal emphasizes that AI in development isn't replacing people but accelerating workflows to meet tighter timelines. He also notes strong enterprise adoption, with even large, traditionally slower-moving organizations embracing AI integration. On the topic of an AI bubble, Bansal sees it as a natural part of innovation, akin to the Dotcom era, where market excitement can still lead to meaningful long-term transformation despite short-term volatility.
Learn more from The New Stack about the latest in Harness' AI approach to software development:
Harness AI Tackles Software Development’s Real Bottleneck
Harnessing AI To Elevate Automated Software Testing
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Jyoti is a cofounder and CEO of Harness, a software delivery platform meant to modernize your DevOps tooling and take the friction out of CI/CD.
Devs can get started with the developer portal.
In addition to Harness, Jyoti is a cofounder and entrepreneur partner at Unusual Ventures, which specializes in working with early-stage startups (pre-seed to Series A).
Connect with Jyoti on LinkedIn.
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Guest: Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Harness
Cisco bought Jyoti Bansal’s first company AppDynamics for $3.7 billion, making him a very wealthy man. But after two African safaris, a week of Michelin-starred meals in Tokyo, and more adventures all around the world, he realized that spending his money didn’t truly make him happy. After some soul-searching, he realized what he really enjoyed: “I liked to build companies. That is my craft ... If someone enjoys playing gold for six hours, I would enjoy working on a startup for six hours.”
In this episode, Jyoti and Joubin discuss the evolution of Grit, Carlos Delatorre, Tom Mendoza, Glean, growing up in India, traveling the world, three-star restaurants, soul-searching, automating gruntwork, paying for nice hotels, red-eye flights, product-market fit, Jeff Bezos, the “three-layered cake,” Frank Slootman, raising the bar for distribution, technical debt, structural efficiency, and taking pride in your work.
In this episode, we cover:
(00:59) - Top-tier CROs
(04:18) - The video game levels of startups
(07:24) - Selling AppDynamics to Cisco
(09:16) - Keeping up with high-growth companies
(12:10) - The chip on Jyoti’s shoulder
(16:15) - How he thinks about money
(18:02) - Do what you enjoy every day
(22:32) - “What would make me happy?”
(24:56) - Starting BIG Labs and Harness
(29:16) - Adjusting to a new reality
(34:13) - Work-life balance
(36:30) - What gets easier — and harder — over time
(41:44) - Product vs. distribution
(46:46) - Paying it forward
(48:29) - The next level
(50:24) - The four lists
(53:45) - Assigning clear responsibilities
(56:06) - Jyoti’s favorite interview question
(57:41) - Who Harness is hiring
Links:
Connect with JyotiLinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
SaaStr 730: How to Price and Package AI SaaS Products with Sandhya Hegde, General Partner at Unusual Ventures
With everything in AI moving so rapidly, what's the best way to price Artificial Intelligence products or SaaS tools with custom AI features and integrations? Should it be subscriptions, usage, solutions, or something entirely different? While companies are scrambling to roll out these new tools, they also want reliability and predictability in the value they're getting from your products, which can make pricing extremely difficult.
So we asked the expert, Sandhya Hegde, General Partner at Unusual Ventures to share her best practices and trends for pricing and packaging AI products. Sandhya has been in the startup ecosystem for about 15 years, with the last two years heavily focused on investing in AI-native startups, primarily on the application and Enterprise software side. Over the past year, people have started to recognize how challenging pricing and packaging are for AI products, as well as the competitive pressure. Why is pricing so tricky?
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SaaStr Europa: June 5-6 in London. We'll be hosting the 5th SaaStr Europa in London for two days of content and networking. Join 3,000 SaaS and Cloud leaders. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on Europa tickets here: https://www.saastreuropa2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave200
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Andy Johns is a former tech exec and VC who had a successful run at several startups—including Facebook, Twitter, Wealthfront, and Quora—but left it all behind a few years ago to take a new direction in life. Now a mental health advocate, he aids military veterans with PTSD, guides burnt-out high achievers to new paths, and shares his healing journey from childhood trauma and mental illness through his newsletter, Clues Dot Life. In this episode, we discuss:
• Why Andy left his seven-figure VC career behind
• The four-step process of deep personal transformation
• When suffering is necessary vs. unnecessary
• Tips for finding a good therapist
• How a writing practice can help you heal
• When you’re in need of radical transformation
—
Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/when-enough-is-enough-andy-johns
—
Where to find Andy Johns:
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/cluesdotlife
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjohns/
• Website: https://www.clues.life/
• Newsletter: https://andyjohns.substack.com/
—
Where to find Lenny:
• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/lennysan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/
—
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Andy’s background
(04:45) His personal burnout story
(12:55) The high incidence of mental health struggles in tech
(14:41) Why Andy walked away from a seven-figure VC job
(20:29) His work in mental health advocacy
(23:32) The four-step process of deep personal transformation
(31:40) The ego’s involvement
(33:23) Necessary vs. unnecessary suffering
(37:01) First steps in understanding your suffering
(38:59) Advice on finding a therapist
(42:11) How a writing practice can help you heal
(43:47) Two methods for writing to gain self-understanding
(47:47) Signs you’re dealing with more than just typical job stress
(52:22) How to move into a place of self-compassion
(57:16) The unpredictable timeline of healing
(59:59) How to develop compassion for others
(1:02:19) Why not everyone needs a radical transformation
(1:04:10) The story of Pema Chodron’s transformation
(1:06:06) What holds people back from making changes
(1:13:29) Finding your own unique path to healing
(1:17:32) Andy’s closing message to anyone feeling pulled toward a new chapter
(1:18:59) How Andy is doing now
—
Referenced:
• How to know when to stop: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-know-when-to-stop
• Heroic Hearts Project: https://heroicheartsproject.org/
• Panic attacks and panic disorder: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/4451-panic-attack-panic-disorder
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma: https://www.amazon.com/Body-Keeps-Score-Healing-Trauma/dp/0143127748
• Vipassana meditation: https://www.dhamma.org/en/index
• The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808
• Moby Dick: https://www.amazon.com/Moby-Dick-Herman-Melville/dp/1503280780
• When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times: https://www.amazon.com/When-Things-Fall-Apart-Difficult/dp/1611803438
—
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.
—
Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe
Jyoti Bonsal was the founder and CEO of AppDynamics, which sold in 2017 to Cisco for $3.7 billion right before it went public. We talk about that sale as well as Jody now running two separate businesses. He's the CEO of Harness. Which not coincidentally, was most recently valued at $3.7 billion, as well as the CEO of Traceable ai, which was recently valued at $450 million.
In this conversation, Jody and I talk about a bunch of different things related to operating and his different frameworks for making decisions for finding product market fit, hiring executives, firing executives, as well as the saddest day he had running AppDynamics, which was the day he actually sold the business to Cisco. A really interesting conversation, one of the more thoughtful and tactical leaders that exist in the world of startups.
(0:00) Intro
(1:40) Welcome Jyoti Bansal
(2:51) Time management
(8:43) Finding product market fit
(19:05) Product development cycle
(23:12) Startups within startups
(29:14) AppDynamics
(34:14) Lessons for young founders
(43:16) Hiring someone who's "been there, done that"
(51:02) Process of fundraising
(56:04) Reach the highest tier of VC firm
(59:45) Finding investors that believe in you and your company
(1:07:20) Founding AppD
(1:13:47) Ending up a solo founder
(1:20:42) Selling to Cisco
(1:27:33) Current state of the markets
(1:31:09) Jyoti's thoughts on AI
Mixed and edited: Justin Hrabovsky
Produced: Rashad Assir
Executive Producer: Josh Machiz
Music: Griff Lawson
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.
Executive Producer: Rashad Assir
Producer: Leah Clapper
Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky
Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA
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About the Show
Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode of The Logan Bartlett Show, we sit down with the people behind today’s most important startups and extract the tactics, lessons, and frameworks they’ve learned the hard way. Conversations span hiring to GTM, product, growth, fundraising and everything in between - collectively forming the ultimate playbook to make you a better CEO, investor or board member.
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In this episode from February 2019, Jyoti Bansal, founding CEO of AppDynamics and co-founder of Unusual Ventures, joins a16z general partner Peter Levine, a16z partner Sateesh Talluri, and host Sonal Choksi to discuss how product and sales evolve together for enterprise go-to-market, including key milestones for both product development and marketing, frameworks for how to think about pre- to post-product market fit, the role of additional levers like services or pricing, and more.
For the show transcript, you can go here.
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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Casey Winters is the Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite where he leads the PM, product design, research, and growth marketing teams. Prior to Eventbrite, Casey spent close to 3 years at Pinterest where he led the growth product team.
Andy Johns is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. Andy's career started in growth at Facebook when the company scaled from 100M-500M active users. Since he has worked in some of the leading growth orgs at companies like Twitter, Quora and more recently at Wealthfront as Head of Growth and President.
Bangaly Kaba is the Head of Platform Growth @ Popshop Live, a live streaming mobile marketplace that combines commerce, entertainment, and social. Prior to Popshop, Bangaly led the product growth and consumer product orgs at Instacart and before Instacart was Head of Growth @ Instagram, where he built and led the product team that helped grow Instagram from 440M to > 1B monthly actives in 2.5yrs.
Elena Verna is a master when it comes to all things starting and scaling growth organizations. Previously, Elena spent over 7 years as SVP Growth @ SurveyMonkey where she ran product, growth marketing, and data teams. Post SurveyMonkey, Elena worked with the rocket ship that is Miro both as Interim CMO and as an advisor.
Ed Baker is an angel investor and growth advisor to various startups including Lime, Zwift, Whoop, Crimson Education, GoPeer, and Playbook. Ed was the VP of Product and Growth at Uber from 2013-2017. Prior to Uber, Ed was the Head of International Growth at Facebook.
Rob Schutz is Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder at Ro, the healthcare technology company building a patient-centric healthcare system. Under Rob's growth leadership, Ro has become one of the fastest-growing companies in the country. Prior to Ro, Rob was VP of Growth at Bark, the makers of BarkBox, and helped scale revenue from zero to $100 million.
In Today's Episode with Ed Baker You Will Learn:
1.) Casey Winters:
How does Casey define "growth"? How does it differ from product?
How do the best growth leaders decide between art vs science when making growth decisions?
2.) Andy Johns:
What is Andy's biggest advice to founders looking to build their first growth team?
What unexpected choice did Andy decide to make at Twitter that moved the needle for new user acquisition?
3.) Bangaly Kaba:
What were some of Bangaly's biggest takeaways from scaling Instagram from 440M users to 1BN?
What decisions did Bangaly make without data? How did they go? What did he learn?
4.) Ed Baker:
What are Ed's biggest takeaways from facebook around structuring growth teams?
What are Ed's biggest pieces of advice for startyups looking to grow internationally?
What were some of Ed's biggest learnings from working with Travis @ Uber?
5.) Elena Verna:
What is the difference between a good vs great growth model?
When does one need to change or amend their growth model? How does one know when it is working?
6.) Rob Schutz:
Why does Rob believe that startups should not diversify their customer acquisition channels too quickly?
How does Rob assess resouirce allocation and spend on new channels? How did this process look when partnering with the MLB for Ro?
Andy Johns is one of the pre-eminent growth leaders of the last decade. Andy's career started in growth at Facebook when the company scaled from 100M-500M active users. Since he has worked in some of the leading growth orgs at companies like Twitter, Quora and more recently at Wealthfront as Head of Growth and President. Andy is also an active angel investor and advisor with companies such as Poshmark, Robinhood, Webflow, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Opendoor. If that was not enough, Andy is currently a Venture Partner @ Unusual Ventures where he focuses on consumer social and network-driven startups.
In Today's Episode with Andy Johns You Will Learn:
1.) How Andy made his way into the world of startups and growth with his joining the Facebook growth team? What were the biggest takeaways from his time with Facebook, Twitter and Quora? How did that impact his mindset today?
2.) How does Andy define "VP and Head of Growth"? When is the right time to start hiring for your growth team? How should founders determine whether they need a growth leader or growth engineers in the early days? What is the core question founders need to ask on network effects to answer this question? Should the growth team be incorporated into the product team?
3.) How does Andy structure the hiring process for growth hires? What does the structure of the interviews look like? How does Andy test for real depth with candidates? What case studies does he do to really understand their quality? Where do many go wrong with the interview process? What are Andy's biggest suggestions for how to optimise the process?
4.) What does the optimal onboarding process for new hires look like? What takes and processes should they complete in their first month? What are early signs of a poor candidate? How long should one give them if they are not performing? How does Andy approach structure post-mortems within the team? What is the ideal relationship between CEO and Head of Growth?
Serial entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal founded AppDynamics, a company sold to Cisco in 2017 for $3.7 billion but didn't stop there. He went on to launch Harness which gained Unicorn status this year. Hear from Jyoti about the lessons he's learned from building not one but two unicorn companies.
Full video: https://youtu.be/LMAxG-ddDkU
Episode notes: https://www.saastr.com/harness-founder-jyoti-bansal-on-building-a-second-unicorn/
John Vrionis is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Unusual Ventures, the firm that is redefining seed investing and raising the bar for what entrepreneurs should expect from a seed investment firm. Prior to founding Unusual, John spent 11 years as a Partner @ Lightspeed where his investments included Mulesoft, AppDynamics, Nimble Storage and Heptio to name a few. Before Lightspeed John spent time in product management and sales @ Determina and Freedom Financial Network.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How did John make his way into the world of venture and come to be a Partner @ Lightspeed? How did that lead to his founding Unusual? How did his father's MS diagnosis change his mentality towards both investing and how he views the world? What were John's biggest takeaways from his 12 years with the Lightspeed partnership?
2.) Where does John feel the bar needs to be raised in venture? What does the current product not offer? What do seed-stage founders fundamentally need? How have Unusual structured the firm to provide this? How was the fundraise for John? What does John know post-closing that he wishes he had known at the beginning? What advice would John give to aspiring emerging managers? Why is LP diversity so important to John?
3.) Why does John believe taking multi-stage money at seed is not in the best interests of the founder? How does John explain this logically to founders? Does John agree with Semil Shah, "founders are voting with their feet and choosing multi-stage funds"? Why does John believe to be truly best in class, you have to specialise? Does this not go against the data of Benchmark, Sequoia, Founders Fund, all generalist funds, having the best returns?
4.) How does John think about being company vs being founder first? What does one do when alignment erodes between the interest of the firm and the interest of the founder? How does John look to build a relationship of trust and honesty with his founders? What works? What does not work? How does John feel about VCs being friends with their founders?
5.) What is the most challenging element of John's role today with Unusual? Who is the best board member John has ever sat on a board with? Why and what did he learn? What would John most like to change about the world of venture today? What would he like to remain the same?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
John's Fave Book: Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of NIKE, Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success
John's Most Recent Investment: Shujinko
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and John on Twitter here!
with Jyoti Bansal (@jyotibansalsf), Peter Levine, Satish Talluri (@satishtalluri), and Sonal Chokshi (@smc90)
One of the toughest challenges for founders -- and especially technical founders who are used to focusing so much on product features over sales -- is striking "product-market fit". The concept can be defined many ways, but the simple definition shared in this episode is: it's when you understand the business value of your product.
And that comes down to users, which is where the concept of "product-market-sales fit" comes in, observes Jyoti Bansal, founding CEO of AppDynamics (which was acquired by Cisco for $3.7B the night before it was to IPO). Bansal shares this and other key milestones and frameworks for company building in conversation with a16z general partner Peter Levine; enterprise deal team partner Satish Talluri (who was a director of product and growth operations there); and Sonal Chokshi.
So in that shift from product-market fit to product-market-SALES fit, how much should you optimize your go-to-market for product... and even the other way around? What does this mean for product design and product management? When should companies offer services? As for pricing, how do you know you're not leaving value on the table? Again, it comes down to product-market fit: If your business case is strong, you will not be leaving money on the table, argues Bansal in this special podcast series on founder stories and lessons learned in enterprise go-to-market.
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Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg
Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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Jyoti Bansal is the former Founder & CEO of AppDynamics, backed to the tune of over $350m in VC funding from the likes of Lightspeed, Greylock and Kleiner Perkins, just to name a few, before it's ultimate acquisition by Cisco for $3.7Bn. Today, Jyoti is the Founder and CEO of BIG Labs, essentially a laboratory for creating, developing, and launching innovative ideas. The first of these ideas being turned into companies being, Harness.io the industry's first continuous delivery as a service platform, where Jyoti is the Founder & CEO. As a result of his tremendous success, Jyoti has been a recipient of many leadership awards including, "Best Cloud Computing CEO to Work For," "Best CEO" by San Francisco Business Times.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Jyoti made his way from selling farm machinery with his father in India to founding and selling AppDynamics for $3.7Bn?
2.) How does Jyoti look to build world class teams around him? What are the core characteristics and profiles and seed success into an organisation? How does Jyoti look to optimise each individual function in the organisation?
3.) What did the sale process of AppDynamics look like? Did Jyoti and the team run a dual process of acquisition & IPO? How did the deal come about? What were the negotiations like? Why did Jyoti turn down the first two offers? What was critical to the successful deal?
4.) Jyoti has said before, "there are 3 simple things VCs look for". What are those 3 things? How did the fundraising of AppDynamics go in the early days? What was it about the first 20 pitches that made VCs say no? What does Jyoti most look for now when choosing the VCs to work with?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Jyoti's Fave Book: Crime and Punishment
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Jyoti on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Namely is the all-in-one HR, payroll, and benefits platform your employees will love to use. It's as intuitive as social media, but powerful enough to support the complexity of today's workforce. Namely's mission is to help mid-sized companies build a better workplace. See how Namely can transform your workplace at www.Namely.com.
Eero is the world's best-reviewed wifi. A system of eero and eero Beacons wirelessly connects to blanket your home in fast, reliable WiFi, so despite the increased number of devices with Christmas coming, you'll still be able to get powerful mesh WiFi in every nook and cranny of your home, backyard included. No more dead spots, slow spots, drop-offs, or buffering — right out of the box. Eero is only available in the US and Canada and you can check it out here!
Jyoti Bansal is the former Founder & CEO @ AppDynamics, backed by the likes of Lightspeed, Greylock and Kleiner Perkins just to name a few before it's ultimate acquisition by Cisco for $3.7Bn. Today, Jyoti is the Founder and CEO @ BIG Labs essentially a laboratory for creating, developing and launching innovative ideas. The first of these ideas being turned into companies being, Harness.io the industry's first continuous delivery as a service platform, where Jyoti is the Founder & CEO. As a result of his tremendous success, Jyoti has been a recipient of many leadership awards including, "Best Cloud Computing CEO to Work For", "Best CEO" by San Francisco Business Times.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
How Jyoti made his way from selling agricultural machinery with his father in India to creating one of the fastest growing enterprise companies with AppDynamics?
$0-3m ARR: What is the key goal and objective for startups scaling through this phase? How can startups look to accurately determine what their North Star in this stage? To what extent should the founder involve the customer in product roadmap and development?
$10-15m ARR: What are the core objectives for the business in this stage of the cycle? How should founders view competition through this phase? What does Jyoti mean when he says about "go-to-market strategy fit"? How can this be determined most accurately?
$60-80m: What should be front and centre of the mind of the entrepreneur at this stage? Why does Jyoti believe it is here that it is crucial to get sales execution right? WHere are the breaking points that occur in the team scaling at this phase? How does the role CEO change here?
Pre-IPO: Why is operational efficiency so crucial in this stage of the business? What did AppDynamics do best at this stage of the business? Where would Jyoti say AppDynamics could have done better in the progression through this stage?
60 Second SaaStr
What does Jyoti know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of Appdynamics?
What is Jyoti's must read SaaS material?
Payback period is the most important metric?
If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:
Jason Lemkin
Harry Stebbings
SaaStr
Jyoti Bansal