Neeti Gupta: Mastering AI Partnerships in a Trillion-Dollar Tech World

[00:00:00] Neeti Gupta: And the technology's moving so fast that if you build for the wrong use case,

[00:00:05] Neeti Gupta: you've left a lot of money on the table.

[00:00:12] Neeti Gupta: Hey everyone, Chip Rodgers, with Inside Partnering. This is our first episode as we get started, and I am so excited to be joined by Neeti Gupta. Neeti , welcome. Thank you so much, Chip. Thanks for having me with you. So we are here at the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco, which is just a beautiful facility and there are a lot of shops down here, but we found a nice.

[00:00:38] Neeti Gupta: The architecture is amazing. We found a nice quiet spot here to have a little conversation. It's just a great place to be. Absolutely. I think you couldn't have picked a better spot Chip. So I am so excited. Like I said, to be joined by Neeti Gupta and Neeti Gupta is oh my gosh. Your background and history and [00:01:00] career is incredible.

[00:01:01] Neeti Gupta: I think starting with, IIT Bombay in your early days. And then you were accepted to MIT and got a degree master's degree from MIT and then 10 years at Microsoft. You've been every important technology company, AWS meta, and then GE Healthcare and and then VMware leading partnerships the whole time.

[00:01:26] Neeti Gupta: And now if that wasn't enough, you're studying and and a PhD candidate with Cambridge in London. Oh my gosh. What are you not doing Neeti? I have been very fortunate, Chip. That's how I would put it. And I'm very grateful for all these opportunities. I don't think I had a plan. I think the plan just unfolded and all these companies have done extremely well.

[00:01:51] Neeti Gupta: And I'm fortunate to be an insider. And having been able to learn how they operate, how they think how they're [00:02:00] formed and what kind of partnerships they're looking to build, especially with all the AI work that they're doing. Yeah, I've been very fortunate and I'm really excited to talk to you about what I've learned so far.

[00:02:14] Neeti Gupta: I am thrilled to to dive into that because now you have started an AI partnering consulting consultancy, which is really exciting. And that's your theme at with your PhD work as well. And you've been just prolific. You're writing research papers, you're speaking at conferences.

[00:02:32] Neeti Gupta: Tell us a little bit, let's dive in a little bit to that, to the work that you're doing with, for your PhD and for your consulting. Yeah. I think the focus really is in learning about what's happening because as AI is unfolding at the speed of light. And what's happening around partnerships has been a gap.

[00:02:52] Neeti Gupta: Not many people have been talking about it. And I realized that if we, if someone who has that experience in [00:03:00] partnerships, doesn't start looking at it critically, then we will miss the opportunity that's there. And two years back, I had this hunch when I was leading the Microsoft and VMware relationship and looking at what Microsoft was offering along with AWS and also Google Cloud.

[00:03:21] Neeti Gupta: There was an interesting theme around ai and that kind of, that it was going to be big. And once I realized that I realized that intersection of AI and partnerships is where I want to focus on. And since I, I was already primed with having worked in partnerships for 20 plus years with these big tech companies, I thought, why not me?

[00:03:45] Neeti Gupta: And why don't I go start not only learning more about what has already been written, so that was the academic side, but then also on the practitioner side. How do we advise companies who are just starting out or who are just building [00:04:00] their AI companies or a startup? How do you work with these giants?

[00:04:04] Neeti Gupta: These are now four, three to $4 trillion companies. And just navigating them will exhaust a CEO. So how do you go and figure out how do you work with this company? How do you think about working with these companies? Because you won't have the resources, you won't have the energy, and you definitely won't have the number of hours.

[00:04:27] Neeti Gupta: So you have to get strategic and smart about how do you work with them. And of course there are a lot of resources out there. But if you have been in ai. A startup, CEO and just trying to read up on those resources can be exhausting because that's not your day job. So I thought, someone who has that experience of being on the both sides of having worked at Microsoft at Amazon, at Meta, and then on the other side with partners like VMware and GE Healthcare, and then also, smaller companies.

[00:04:59] Neeti Gupta: How do you [00:05:00] go about navigating that? Resources, wealth to your advantage. And I think that intersection is where I play and I have found a good niche. I know a lot of my friends, including YouTube, always laugh at me like, oh, what are you going to do with it? And I think there is that important opportunity that has been untapped in there's an op opportunity for a lot of us.

[00:05:27] Neeti Gupta: And so going back into. I would say I'm still in this formation of that advisory. I have a lot of ideas in which we can implement and execute, and that's why I wanted to take time after spending 20 years in big tech to think about what is that service market fit. And I think that PhD is a good mechanism for me to reflect on not only the 20 years of work that I've done.

[00:05:55] Neeti Gupta: But also go and talk and learn from others who are doing this [00:06:00] work, and then be able to say, here are the frameworks that you can apply to not only navigate these big tech companies, but also to then provide business value to your own business. And accelerate in a time where technology is moving faster than you can actually build a value for your customer.

[00:06:25] Neeti Gupta: So that's the story thus far. And that's what I've been doing and I think it's been very exciting because I've been able to not only do the research piece, but also help some of the startups and midsize companies to figure out how they should think about and navigate these giants.

[00:06:47] Neeti Gupta: And it's it's a tough. It's a tough job because they are very big. In fact the paper that you published recently talks about that imbalance of power and how do you how do you mitigate the [00:07:00] potential challenges, right? Of, of that imbalance of power and any thoughts about about, about that?

[00:07:08] Neeti Gupta: And I think that's the fascinating part is if you are a partner working with Microsoft. Where they have the leverage because they own the infrastructure. And same for AWS and Google Cloud. How do you have the negotiating power to make sure that you have the equal footing with them. And I think the answer really is quite simple, but it took me a while to figure that out as well, is you have to have the customer relationship.

[00:07:40] Neeti Gupta: You have to have the customer insight. And I think what I'm finding as I have been talking to a lot of partners in the eco, these ecosystems is that they don't, they're not close to their own customers. They don't understand what their customers need. And if you're going to build technology for [00:08:00] technology's sake, again you won't have a competitive moat.

[00:08:04] Neeti Gupta: And I think you need that competitive edge because, aI technology and with the infrastructure that these companies are providing, anyone who's smart enough can build that, right? And you can now build any idea and use case in, matter of minutes and hours with lovable or bolt or what exactly.

[00:08:27] Neeti Gupta: And cursor and wrap it. How are you going to make sure that what you're building, it has value? For the customer. Yeah. And if you're not close to your customer, you're not going to build value. And I think that is where the joint value proposition with these partners will become important because they are interested in you building on their platform as their customer.

[00:08:50] Neeti Gupta: But if you truly want to be a partner, then it has to be of value to you as well. And I think that's where the power imbalance becomes, [00:09:00] is that if you don't have the resources. Then you're going to run out of those credits and you're going to keep burning and, helping all these infrastructure companies make more money.

[00:09:13] Neeti Gupta: But when are you going to start making money? I think you have to start thinking about that and I think that's important. Yeah. Okay. That was interesting. We had a little bit of a, we have a little change of venue, but that's what happens when you shoot in public places. That's right. You just, you never know. So we were we were, we're, we've been repositioned Yeah. A little bit farther down the hall and gosh, such, such a great conversation.

[00:09:38] Neeti Gupta: We've been having already so far. So Neeti Gupta, what are some of the, we have a lot of partner leaders that are that are, in the audience that are listening. What are some of the challenges that that they, that partner leaders that are specifically in the AI space, what are some of the challenges and risks that they may have [00:10:00] in, trying to build their business around partnership?

[00:10:04] Neeti Gupta: Yeah, if you talk to people who are already working on AI partnerships you're going to learn that they are multiple tensions. And I actually frame them as tensions because they're going to get pulled in different directions. If you're a partner, you always have to figure out if it's a hype or a reality.

[00:10:22] Neeti Gupta: If this feature or functionality that you're integrating with, is it already there? Or is it still in works and it's still, the private preview or the public preview. Where is it in that on the roadmap And it's not any different from what you had to do with your other products as well, but I think the hype sometimes is so much that you have to separate that vaporware to reality.

[00:10:47] Neeti Gupta: So that tension and the evaluation. Or where it is in the maturity of the technology is something that I would say keep in mind there are other tensions around data [00:11:00] privacy, security, governance now that you're jointly working on something that is going to be at play, so who's responsible if there's a data breach?

[00:11:11] Neeti Gupta: Who where is the security issues? When they become who's responsible. And it's not that you can contractually figure it out, of course you should do that if you haven't. But then also, how are you going to govern that? Who's responsible is the product team, right? And then how is marketing going to deal with it if that were to happen?

[00:11:32] Neeti Gupta: So I think those tensions are real and those are amplified. The quality of data, the tension on that. Where do you get the data? Is the data. That you are acquiring from, is it kosher and that there's a tension around that. So in when you're creating this joint product solutions, I know product teams had to worry about it, but I think partner leaders have to worry about that because you can't take risks on [00:12:00] that.

[00:12:00] Neeti Gupta: And so also how do you think about the contracts? 'cause some of the things are even around IP would be new. Like around the ownership of data on ownership of the transform data ownership of what is the AI going to create, how it's going to be engaging with your other products. So I think there is a lot of those pieces on the product side, especially if you have been a partner partnerships leader on the go to market side, you never probably had to think about because there was someone else in the organization handling that.

[00:12:37] Neeti Gupta: Now that tension is yours. And you will be in positions, in rooms to make those decisions. So how do you, who do you lean on to make those decisions? And so there are many of these tensions, which I talk about in my research. Which you'll have to deal with. And those are important tensions because you won't be able to build a robust, sustainable [00:13:00] partnership.

[00:13:00] Neeti Gupta: Which kind of brings in business value if you are not thinking about these tensions upfront. 'cause later when you have the partnerships you have, it's too late. It's too late. Exactly. So yeah, I think thinking about these tensions and also using the framework of these tensions and the polarity in these tensions is an important way.

[00:13:23] Neeti Gupta: To think about it because you are now doing polarity management within your organizations because again, partner managers and partner leaders wouldn't be surprised. You always have to deal with this because different parts of the organization will be arguing different parts of this tension of this polarity.

[00:13:43] Neeti Gupta: So how do you manage that? And that's a special skill. That is required, which requires you going beyond your existing muscle of being able to just do the agreements and then move on and throw it across the fence to other [00:14:00] functional leaders. I don't think moving forward you would be living, it's a different dream. You'll be living well and not only you articulated it really well, but not only the tensions and those different competing priorities and goals within the company, but then you also have those different priorities and organizational boundaries that with the partner as well.

[00:14:25] Neeti Gupta: So it's you're working a lot of different angles. Exactly. Exactly. And I think the product partnerships, because the technology is still early, those are becoming more and more important. Oftentimes the go-to market may not have been thought through. And a lot of pull is going to come from the product partnership side.

[00:14:44] Neeti Gupta: Again, if you have always been on the go-to market side, then that is a different muscle. So how do you scale up on that? How do you think about product in product partnerships? How do you talk about product led growth? So those are again, things, skills that are going to be more and more [00:15:00] important in the AI world, especially as the technology is new.

[00:15:04] Neeti Gupta: And I think as the tech, once the tech is built, you still have to think about the feedback loop, right? Because unlike in the past for on-prem or SaaS, some of that feedback loop was not that important. But in order for you to train your AI models, that feedback loop is becoming more and more important.

[00:15:25] Neeti Gupta: So how do you think about that in a partnerships context, right? Who owns that? Where is that data going to go? And so on and so forth. So we talked a little bit about that earlier, but I think it's, it is a different realm and also how you do partnerships is going to be different because it's still early in the technology and I do think that the customer piece becomes even more important.

[00:15:53] Neeti Gupta: Than in the past. Because if your product doesn't have the customer value, [00:16:00] then I think you are going to not get, not you won't get to the GTM phase at all 'cause it's just going to fizzle out. Or someone else would have be built a better solution for the same use case. So yeah, so that's what I would say.

[00:16:14] Neeti Gupta: Yeah. So Neeti Gupta let's talk a little bit about, because we're talking about product partnerships throughout your career you've had an, been managing partnerships and a lot of we've talked earlier about making sure that there are that the products are actually integrated, that they work together.

[00:16:32] Neeti Gupta: Talk about that. And in the context of ai, there's, a lot of technology, and again, the technology's changing so quickly. There's MCP, Google announced the P two P. There's different toolkits to be able to do integrations. What are some of the challenges from a, how much do the partner leaders need to be a part of that and drive that and what are some of the challenges there?

[00:16:57] Neeti Gupta: I do think that it goes back to the first [00:17:00] principles and the basics, right? You have to first figure out. Who do you partner with, right? And then what use cases are going to be important. And it's quite surprising that, in a lot of organizations still organizations are looking at the partner managers to figure out what those joint use cases are.

[00:17:19] Neeti Gupta: And I don't think I'm telling you anything that's surprising. If you've been doing this role for a while, you know that they are going to say so. What should we work on with this partner? And that means you'll have to figure out, so use the tools, right? I think a lot of people have talked about figuring out the joint use cases.

[00:17:36] Neeti Gupta: I know that Microsoft, Google, all these big tech companies are also publishing use cases by verticals, by different alignment with their product lines. And so there are some really good resources out there for you to start using that and including using the LLMs to figure out where the joint use cases are.

[00:17:54] Neeti Gupta: Of course, don't forget to go and talk to your product team to see if they're real or if AI is just [00:18:00] hallucinating and giving you some joint use cases. So I think that is fundamentals, like you have to know what you're going to build together, and then who is going to then orchestrating who's going to build that, how will that.

[00:18:11] Neeti Gupta: That come together. And I think the challenge in AI integrations is not just the technology, but also the compliance piece. And I think that's novel in many ways. The security risks, right? The privacy risks, the PI in the data itself, not being the data hygiene being poor, the quality of data, even if you're using synthetic data, you have to kinda make sure that the data.

[00:18:36] Neeti Gupta: That is being used in the joint product integration. And also the product development is clean, right? And so who takes that responsibility to go figure that out? And I'll tell you, in many organizations, they will look to you. So do you have the tools? And what about the ethics, right?[00:19:00]

[00:19:00] Neeti Gupta: Of using. Do doing some, working on some of the use cases that may not be ethical at all. So how do you think about that? Do you have the tools to think about AI ethics and is your organization ready to actually train you for that or are you going to go and figure that out yourself and how much of that you're going to learn?

[00:19:20] Neeti Gupta: 'cause right now you also have to keep up with all the innovation and ai. You have to make sure you can figure out the joint use cases. You have to make sure if you are. Organization didn't understand the customer, you have to also go do that customer research. So I think that expansion of the partner leader role is quite interesting.

[00:19:40] Neeti Gupta: And it's also novel because I don't think you'll be able to do your job well. I think you can still do your job, but you have to do it well. You need to figure out all these dimensions of getting that integration done. And then also resourcing that in the organization or getting it funded through the partnership.[00:20:00]

[00:20:00] Neeti Gupta: I, there are all these pieces which you think about from an end-to-end perspective. And I'm talking about all of this before you even go to market with your first customer. And I think there's some really good examples where organizations have said Our customers are going to be partners first. And I think that pivot back into your customers being your first partners.

[00:20:23] Neeti Gupta: I'm seeing more and more, I've seen Microsoft do that. And so then the line also blurs between the customer and the partner and who manages that in the organization. So if you're working with your customer as also the partner in code developing your, new AI solution, then are you responsible for managing it?

[00:20:42] Neeti Gupta: Or it should be the account manager and who's the person who's going to make sure. That, there is no conflict of that turf. So IU is the partner leader now, the new account manager is the question I would ask. And then what's your role? And [00:21:00] and where does that line, you draw the line?

[00:21:02] Neeti Gupta: So I think there are lots of interesting challenges that come and opportunities because I do think that if you can think end to end and you're thinking of the holistic picture. You have the opportunity to now also make the case for your role and for your teams to be the leader in making that happen.

[00:21:22] Neeti Gupta: But, with every responsibility and every power that comes a responsibility. And so are you ready to take on that responsibility? Is the question I would ask you is do you want to now also be the. Customer account manager, because that's your first partner for your organization, for AI products.

[00:21:41] Neeti Gupta: That's really interesting. And I can see that with because of the, you're in, you're really, because development happens so quickly and you're really looking for quick feedback that you're in a co-development relationship with the customer. So it really is a different motion today.[00:22:00]

[00:22:00] Neeti Gupta: Yeah. And then I think the other thing is that your investors are also starting to become your distribution partner. So are you picking the right investors to work with you? And then of course, there's a lot of conversation about your investors as a partner, they are investors.

[00:22:13] Neeti Gupta: They're looking for you to go in a certain direction. So I think that the word partner itself is getting broader and who you partner in the AI stack is also. Changing because the AI stack itself is a different technology stack than the technology stacks in the past, like mobile or SaaS or what have you.

[00:22:35] Neeti Gupta: So you have to have that, it's an interesting time. It's a renaissance man or woman, right? Because now you have to understand the nuances of the go to market. But now you also are a tech. You have to understand the technology and it's moving so fast. And you also have to understand how products are built and shaped and how to manage the customer expectation piece.

[00:22:56] Neeti Gupta: So that's a really a really broad role and [00:23:00] not every partner leader is trained to do tho those have the skillset to do that. So where do you lean in? I think you have to be constantly learning. You have to be constantly spend. Half a day, find that half a day to learn new things about what's happening in this technology space.

[00:23:20] Neeti Gupta: Talk to other peers on how they're resolving it. And also I think learn a new skill. Go have that learning mindset because if you don't have that, you would become a story of the past really quickly. And I think that's the new world we are in. So that's kinda my perspective on that.

[00:23:39] Neeti Gupta: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's good advice for everyone. Let's love to talk about an another topic that I think is really interesting, especially in the AI and partnering space which is around industries. You talked about use cases, and I think use cases always lead, lead you into thinking about how do these fit, how do these, these multiple use cases [00:24:00] fit within a, within an industry and.

[00:24:02] Neeti Gupta: There are so many new solutions coming out that are very industry specific. Talk a little bit about about that and how important industries are for partner leaders to understand it so that they can, speak the language of customers. Yeah. I think that shift is already happening and the reason Chip that shift is happening is because it's the industry is where the customers are cU customers are in healthcare, in retail customers are in these manufacturing. So who has that understanding of the, those use cases? It's going to be people who are closer to those industry areas. So that's the way I think about it. And those are the experts that are becoming valuable, right? So of course you'll see Microsoft hiring and Amazon hiring clinicians.

[00:24:53] Neeti Gupta: People with medical backgrounds, why are they hiring them or what is the, in the interest? Because they have technologists, they have [00:25:00] engineers and product teams who understand the technology, they understand the AI technology stack. What they need is experts who can actually, so it's that bringing those two components together of the technology and the expertise in that domain.

[00:25:17] Neeti Gupta: If you don't have that domain expertise, then you're not of value. That value that you add into the organization is limited. So if you are a partner leader and you've always worked in a horizontal technology, now is the time and you're thinking of your next move. Go work for a healthcare company or a manufacturing company, a retail company, or what have you, a life sciences company, so that you have the, you start getting.

[00:25:46] Neeti Gupta: That industry vertical experience through osmosis. 'cause you're not going to be a doctor or a, someone who has done an e-commerce business tomorrow. But if you don't have that insight, then it'll become harder for you to do the [00:26:00] job, or, you have to continue to make sure you go work in horizontal spaces where you can add value at the end of the day, whether it's for business or for yourself.

[00:26:10] Neeti Gupta: It's all about. How do you add value to wherever you are? And if you can't add value, then I don't, I think it'll be very hard for you to find your next role. I think so. Exactly. It's common sense, but you'll be surprised how many people don't think that way. And I think that's what, that's the connection.

[00:26:30] Neeti Gupta: Back to the question about industry. Why is it becoming important? And if you can boil the ocean, why is important is because that's where the customers play. Yeah. And customer, working back from the customer perspective is how you are going to create, value and capture value and deliver value.

[00:26:50] Neeti Gupta: And I think it's about that. And the challenges in each industry are completely different. They're just totally different. Correct. So if you're going to build like an agent AI [00:27:00] startup and I have had a lot of agent AI companies come and say, Hey. We know that you have this experience in healthcare space.

[00:27:07] Neeti Gupta: Can you help us figure out what the use cases are? Why are they asking these questions? They're asking these questions because they have the expertise to build the a, the technology, but they don't have the expertise to build for the right use case. And the technology's moving so fast that if you build for the wrong use case.

[00:27:29] Neeti Gupta: It's you've left a lot of money on the table. Yeah. 'cause you already burning and consuming a lot of these hyperscaler platforms at speed of light. And those startup credits will, go away really quickly and then you have to pay those bills and you rather have a good use case that you've built it.

[00:27:49] Neeti Gupta: And for that, you do your due diligence upfront and you have to have experts in the industry, verticals who can help you do that. Yeah. So yeah, that, that's kinda what I've learned, but I'm happy to [00:28:00] hear what others have to say around this topic as well. So I'm looking forward to who else you interview and learn about the industry verticals as well.

[00:28:08] Neeti Gupta: It's fantastic. Neeti Gupta, this has been just such a great conversation. I really appreciate you sharing all of the depth of in, of knowledge and research that you've been been working on. And I know you have. Maybe a couple of years still on your PhD adventure. But it's very exciting and and I wish you the best.

[00:28:30] Neeti Gupta: Thank you so much. Be, I do think that the PhD adventure is a ongoing learning adventure. And I think for those of you who are listening to this podcast, that Chip's hosting, I would really encourage you to find time to learn new things. Because the skills are shifting so fast and the what you had done is not going to get you to the next level.

[00:28:57] Neeti Gupta: And I do think that [00:29:00] learning is becoming the new skill that every partnership leader needs to have. And if you always learn by just talking to a bunch of people, then you'll have to go back to the drawing board on that, as I would say, and start learning new things and. And AI has become so much more approachable.

[00:29:19] Neeti Gupta: It's not oh, I'm gonna go and build a bunch of code. I don't have to learn programming. It's, I have to learn how to engage and interact with and understand what tools are out there to be able to, a advance and increase my own skills. Yeah, I think, go build a little app with rep or lovable, or whichever tool you love.

[00:29:38] Neeti Gupta: Just play with those tools, sign up for Clay and see what it does or, see what GLE is doing with. I think you just have to know that these companies that doing the scale, especially the scale ups, right? I'm not talking about go tryout every startup, because there are thousands of them out there.

[00:29:58] Neeti Gupta: But at least every [00:30:00] week try one new scale up that has, now the, their a RR is in hundreds. A million. I think it's worth knowing what they're doing. Yeah. And the only way you're going to learn is not talking to Chip and I, it's going to be by going and using and seeing where the seams are.

[00:30:18] Neeti Gupta: 'cause I think that's interesting. If you know where the seams are, now you're thinking like a product person. Now you're going to be able to articulate where I think you can add value through a partnership. I think that would be my. Last piece of thing that I would say to this audience learn new things.

[00:30:36] Neeti Gupta: Try, learn by doing. And I think it's a really exciting time in our lifetime and in the history of the world where, you seize that moment to skill up and to learn something and do something of value which has impact not only on your business. But on yourself and also for society at large.

[00:30:56] Neeti Gupta: Yeah. Fantastic. Neeti [00:31:00] Gupta, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And we'll just enjoy this beautiful Ferry building and and enjoy the rest of the afternoon. Thanks Neeti Gupta. Thank you, Chip. Thanks for having me. And thank you all for joining our first episode of inside Partnering and we'll see you next time.

[00:31:16] Neeti Gupta: Thanks everybody.

‍