My First Million x Dharmesh Shah (HubSpot)

Dharmesh (founder of Hubspot) went on My First Million to talk about AI Agents.

Prajwal J
January 21, 2025

Podcast NOTES: (if you don’t have 1 hour to listen, just read these)

Dharmesh (founder of Hubspot) went on My First Million to talk about AI Agents.

#1. AI is the new Shopify.

Shopify made it so that anyone (with no coding skills) can create an online shop.
AI is making it so that anyone (with no coding skills) can create software.
My example: I have an shopify store that’s done > $50M. But I don’t know anything about manufacturing or coding. I just use alibaba + shopify.
Today, there are ~200M developers in the world. All software comes from them. If AI changes that, then 2B people (10X) will be able to make software. That’s a big shift.

#2 - “SaaS is dead, it’s all about RaaS now.”

You know the saying: “never ask a man a question that his salary depends on” – well, D is still running a $37B SaaS company, so for him to be saying SaaS is old news, that’s a big deal.
What is RaaS? It means “Results as a Service” (example below)
- Old way: You buy software (eg. Zendesk), pay $30k/year for the tool. Then hire employees to use the tool (pay for people + software)
- New way: You pick an AI agent - and say “answer these support tickets”. The agent solves the tickets for you (no tool, no employees) and you just pay the AI agent 1 cent per ticket solved
- “People don’t want drills, they want 1 inch holes” (they don’t want the tool, they want the result)

#3 - career advice: “we spend the 1st half of life trading time→money (job), then the 2nd half desperately trying to trade back money for time”

#4 - career advice: “Don’t be overhead”

His resume is hilarious:
- Applied for job at pizza hut. Rejected!
- Applied for job at big lots. Rejected!
- Gets a job as a computer programmer at a steel manufactuer. He wants a raise, the boss tells him “if you’re not making steel, you’re overhead” – lesson learned. Don’t be ‘overhead’ in your company.

#5 - “You only need 1”

So he switches to being a programmer at a software company (now he’s not overhead). Salary jumps from $40k/yr → $200k(ish) a year. He wants to be rich.

Asks for more. Boss says “do you really think there are 100 companies out there that will pay you more than $200k??” his response: “no, but I don’t need 100 to do it. I just need 1. And I think there’s 1.”

This idea of “you only need 1” is true in other areas of life too: Finding someone to marry. Getting wealthy by starting a successful business. Etc..

— my personal notes:

9 outta 10 episode
Love his energy.
He’s a perfect example of what PG calls “Fierce Nerds” – he got so competitive, he told us he wants to be the #1 most viewed episode. So he studied all our top episodes for patterns, and spent 10-20 hours prepping for the podcast. Nobody else does that.

He’s the only fortune 500 founder who’s still pulling all nighters regularly for his hobby projects