Ben Gilbert: preference

Transcript context

…I remember when starting Veeva, the first time I started a company, I asked a friend who had started some other companies because I realized about three months in, God, this is really hard work. I'm working really hard every day, every hour. So I asked my friend, is there any way to do this without working that hard? And he very quickly said, no. There's not. Isn't that true, Eric? I do not think that's work because we all enjoy that. This is a part of life. Otherwise, what can you do? Are you going to play golf? No. There's no shortcut. Exactly, no shortcut. All right, we got to wrap, but there's a quick way that we end every Acquired episode, which is with grading. For companies that are in the middle of their journey like both of yours, we like to ask it as a little bit of an open-ended question. What makes the future of Zoom and Veeva an A+? What's the scenario where it goes incredibly well? Paint that for us. And what's the failure case? I don't have any time to think about the failure case, honestly. I'm just not wired that way. A+ is we really help automate this big industry. It's a $2 trillion industry. If we can help to automate it and be that trusted partner that is essential to that industry and using that word very specifically—essential—and appreciated. There's not been anything like that before where you're automating a whole industry in a meaningful way. Essential. You're going to be a life sciences company, you got to use Veeva. Man, you'll like that. That would be a big success. Then we have a bit of a social mission too to prove that you can be a good company, profitable, et cetera, but also be a good contributor to society and the employees. That would be a success.…

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