When I joined @clay as one of its earliest employees, I felt defeated. Instead of betting on my cultural journalism, I was joining a 10-person B2B data company to write about cold email. I thought I'd quit in a month.
Over the last three years, everything changed. Clay went from a small spreadsheet tool to a 5B AI company. I went from writing sales guides on Notion to defining a career path (GTM engineering!), building a video journalism arm, and having the most fun of my career.
It happened because Clay saw, trusted, and rewarded me in ways most companies never would've risked.
For years, I did finance, product, or growth jobs because they had the most impact, pay, and freedom. @kareemamin and @vxanand broke that math. They paid me like a PM for a content role, let me stay an IC when managing felt draining, and encouraged me to reinvent my job over and over. Now as the company's Head of Narrative, I've leaned into my strengths and we made category-defining work out of it.
The talent philosophy is simple: create the conditions where someone can be fully themselves, and you get irreplicable work. Your company gets more self-actualized, your team does too, and people on the outside see it happening and want in.
I wrote a 5000 word behind-the-scenes look at my Clay journey to debut @firstround's new series, Firsthand. I think it's the most personal piece that exists about our company.
Besides my reflection finding talent-company fit, you'll find stories about Varunโs ambushes, Kareem's zen, road trip caravans, promotions, demotions, crying in bathrooms, laughing with goobers, and much more. A few readers wondered if I was being too honest โ always a good sign ;) Enjoy <3 https://review.firstround.com/firsthand-clay/
