Okta’s CRO: From $850M in Losses to $760M Profit (The AI Agent Bet) | Jon Addison

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Okta’s CRO Jon Addison joins GTMnow host Sophie to break down the full story behind Okta’s remarkable revenue turnaround, the launch of Okta for AI Agents, and the go-to-market playbook that’s carrying them from $3B toward a $5B ARR target.

From nearly $850M in operating losses to over $760M in operating income, Okta’s transformation is one of the most significant turnaround stories in enterprise SaaS. In this episode, Jon pulls back the curtain on exactly how it happened.

Discussed in this episode

Why 91% of enterprises are already deploying AI agents but only 10% have a security strategy for them
How Okta’s “AI governance gap” insight became the foundation for their biggest product launch in years: Okta for AI Agents
The GTM restructure around specialization that unlocked productivity and drove 40% higher average contract value on new product deals
How Okta became a partner-first company: 95% of their top 100 deals in the last fiscal year were partner-led, and what operationally made that possible
Why the first discovery call no longer exists, and how sellers need to show up differently in the AI era
Jon’s new internal sales methodology, APEX, built on Command of the Message for the AI era
How Okta is using AI internally to transform their own go-to-market motion, from conversational intelligence to pre-sales assistants
What the path to $5B ARR actually looks like: enterprise expansion, international growth, public sector, and the massive new TAM unlocked by non-human identity
Jon’s leadership philosophy: why human-centric selling is becoming more critical as AI takes over the repetitive work

Episode highlights

1:19 – Welcome + Jon’s background: from London to Silicon Valley

1:52 – How Jon got into software and identity management

4:08 – Okta for AI Agents launch announcement

5:04 – 90% of customers live with agents, only 10% confident in securing them

6:31 – What’s driving the governance gap in the market

7:53 – Speed of agent innovation must be matched by security and governance

8:36 – 40% higher ACV on deals that include new products

9:43 – Why consolidation around a single identity platform is resonating

11:45 – How AI agents unlock a massive new TAM for Okta

13:05 – Okta’s turnaround: from $850M operating losses to $760M operating income

13:36 – Key decision 1: GTM specialization drove productivity

15:02 – Key decision 2: becoming a partner-first company

16:14 – What cracking the partner-led model actually looks like

19:08 – How long it takes to see ROI from a partner-led pivot

20:12 – The path from $3B to $5B: enterprise, international, public sector

21:49 – Using AI internally: launching “Apex,” the AI-era sales methodology

23:04 – What the Apex sales methodology entails

24:25 – Buyers now show up with strong opinions before the first call

25:44 – How discovery is changing: human-centric selling in the AI era

27:33 – Headcount and AI: what skills matter in the future

29:31 – Why relationships are Okta’s core competitive advantage

30:36 – The role of experiences: F1, events, and the 7-touchpoint rule

31:47 – Broad GTM surface area: ABM, ecosystem, brand

33:47 – The future of identity: SaaS disruption, consolidation cycles, and Okta’s position

37:06 – Jon’s leadership style: coaching reps and unlocking potential

39:01 – Positive vs. negative leadership and the 1-to-10 touch points framework

Key takeaways

1. The AI governance gap is the biggest GTM opportunity in enterprise security right now: 91% of companies are already live with AI agents in production. Only 10% have any real confidence in their strategy to secure them. That gap is not theoretical, it is happening inside Okta’s own customer base of 20,000 companies, and it is the core insight behind the Okta for AI Agents launch. The companies that move fast to own this category will define the next decade of identity security.

2. New products are the single biggest ACV lever hiding inside most SaaS companies: Deals that included Okta’s new products in Q4 had 40% higher average contract value than deals that didn’t. 30% of all Q4 revenue came from new products. The lesson is not just about product breadth, it is about how you message, position, and sell those products. Specialization in the GTM motion was the operational change that unlocked this, not the products alone.

3. Partner-led is not a strategy, it is a multi-year cultural commitment: 95% of Okta’s top 100 deals last fiscal year were partner-led. But Jon is clear: that did not happen because of a program. It happened because of three years of consistent direction-setting, incentive alignment, friction removal, and genuine investment in partner practices. Most companies treat partner-led as a channel motion. Okta treats it as the primary growth engine and builds everything around it accordingly.

4. The discovery call is dead. Sellers need a completely different value proposition now: Buyers are arriving at the first call already informed, already with strong opinions about your product and your competitors. The nature of selling has fundamentally shifted from discovery to validation. Jon’s argument is that the sellers who win in the AI era will not be the ones who ask the best questions. They will be the ones who show up with the most differentiated and human point of view, who build genuine relationships, and who bring empathy and contextual awareness that AI simply cannot replicate.

5. AI inside the GTM org is about freeing up humans for higher-yield work, not replacing them: Jon is explicit that the goal of embedding AI into Okta’s sales motion through APEX, conversational intelligence, quoting agents, and pre-sales assistants is not headcount reduction. It is focus. Automate the repetitive, knowledge-base, administrative layer so that sellers can spend more time on the relationships and conversations that are genuinely mission-critical. For a company where customers are making multi-year, generational bets, trust and depth of relationship are the actual product. AI is what clears the path to more of that.

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GTM 188 Episode Transcript

00:00 – 00:03
Jon: I think that there is a significant amount of disruption still to happen.

00:03 – 00:14
Sophie: It was only a few years ago, I believe, that Octo is nearly 850 million, and operating losses. And now sitting here, you know, you’re over 760 million and operating income.

00:14 – 00:23
Jon: What we know here at Octa is like relationships matter. We are mission critical. We have to show up with consistency. We have to shop with expertise. We want to be the identity expert.

00:23 – 00:26
Sophie: John Addison. He’s the chief revenue officer of Octa.

00:26 – 00:34
Jon: The speed of innovation around agents needs to be coupled with really accelerated speed around governance and security.

00:34 – 00:40
Sophie: What are been the 2 to 3 kind of key decisions that have helped Octa to actually have that incredible turnaround story?

00:40 – 00:56
Jon: It has been around for 17 years. We’ve been securing technology for many businesses in all verticals, all sizes, public, private sector. We all carry a number. I know it’s stressful, but it also can be a lot of fun. And I want readers to really believe that OC is a place where you can have fun and be successful.

00:56 – 01:19
Sophie: Yes. What do you see as the future around identity now that readers have identities also? What should people be aware?

01:19 – 01:36
Sophie: We are here in doctor’s office in San Francisco, sitting down with John S and he, the chief revenue officer of, and he’s going to be taking off for the big launch off of for AI agents. All of the go to market changes intended for big meet along the way to have this incredible writing around and where they’re doubling down.

01:36 – 01:52
Sophie: Not moving forward here in 2026. John, we’re here in doctor’s office, a global identity security company. You grew up in Oxford. How did you how did you get to be here? Running revenue?

01:52 – 02:12
Jon: Well, I kind of. I grew up in London. I went to university there. When I came out, everyone wanted to work in banking in London. It was kind of like the cool thing to do. I don’t think I was, like, cut out for the banking industry. So I was kind of looking around to see what was available.

02:12 – 02:30
Jon: And my dad had worked in Silicon Valley for a while. He said, you should try this thing called software. He was actually in hardware, and he was like, the next big horizon of innovation is going to be the software industry. I knew nothing about it. I did geography at university, so I needed to go somewhere who could explain to me what software was.

02:30 – 02:48
Jon: And I went into a consultancy firm, Capgemini. So I started up being a technical consultant. Then went into different forms of product marketing and product management and he kind of always thought that it was a good idea to go and learn about software, learn how to build it, learn what it was before you went and sold it.

02:48 – 03:06
Jon: But he was a sales person. My mum was a sales person, so I was going to end up in sales somehow, inevitably. And so I did that in London. You know, I got into Oracle, which is cool. I did a lot of identity management, sales back then. That’s over 20 years ago. Then I actually ended up selling software to the banking industry.

03:06 – 03:27
Jon: So it was kind of cool to learn about how banks use software. A lot of that was about data and infrastructure, but also security. So, you know, identity management was a really critical part of that. And, then I kind of went into the social media, industry, which is great. Learn a lot about scale product led growth.

03:28 – 03:53
Jon: But here I am back in identity and it’s so cool to see that many of the business challenges are the same. But identity, because really a consequence of the cloud and and a process and, you know, just the nature of how identity is a critical risk factor, but also a great force multiplier for how you engage and connect with customers and employees.

03:53 – 04:08
Jon: It’s been great to come back to the industry, and now it’s just such a massive, you know, a massive part of how companies use software and secure themselves. It’s great to see just how big and horizontal this opportunity is. So that’s kind of my story and how I got into identity.

04:08 – 04:18
Sophie: Very cool. John, welcome to GTM now. Super excited to be sitting here today. And we got big news. We’ve got, Okta for AI agents launching very little bit about it.

04:18 – 05:04
Jon: So, as you may or may not know, ox has been around for 17 years. We’ve been securing technology for many businesses in all verticals, all sizes, public private sector. And, what we’ve been preparing for is a really big and meaningful launch, not just for us, but for the whole industry. And that’s really how we are going to be securing AI agents in the future, not only for our 20,000 customers, but obviously for many new logos and new prospects who are really grappling with a fundamental issue that they’ve got right now, which is they’re deploying AI agents, at pace, but that is creating a quite significant governance gap for them.

05:04 – 05:24
Jon: And so, you know, we we survey a lot of our customers. And, 90 plus percent of them are already live with agents and only about 10% of them have actually got confidence in that strategy to secure them. So just in the sort of period when, you know, really octa came to market in a world where businesses were pivoting to the cloud.

05:24 – 05:50
Jon: Yeah. You know, we’re seeing a very similar phenomenon right now as customers are pivoting to the use of agents software. And we believe as a consequence of just the reality of the management of agents in production being very relevant to how companies think about managing human and non-human identities. They need policies to manage them. They need to be able to be detected and they need to be able to governed.

05:50 – 06:08
Jon: That for us is a massive opportunity because as an industry leader in identity management and because we have a neutral and independent platform, we’re top of mind as prospects and customers think about, you know, security in the agent, an AI era. So we’re very excited about that.

06:09 – 06:31
Sophie: Very exciting. Well, super happy for you guys for going GA now. And, I’m sure that’ll be an incredible attraction around it. What you mentioned a couple areas around the market where you’re seeing and just the necessity to actually secure both agents and humans. Can you talk a little bit more about what you’re seeing just in the market overall that has spurred the necessity for this, but also really amplified?

06:31 – 07:00
Jon: I think what’s been amazing to see is just the pace at which this is all happening. Yeah. I mean, if we go back probably 6 to 12 months, there was a lot of theoretical conversation with customers about the potential for agents. And I think that’s really changed just in that period of time. And what we are now seeing is businesses of all shapes and sizes, you know, explaining to us that they’re now live with agents.

07:00 – 07:28
Jon: But they’re materially seeing, friction in the speed of deployment because a lot of the work to deploy agents and to get the value from AI is being about a bottom up motion. Right. And so, that obviously comes with the risk, of shadow it being created quite fast. And so in spite of the fact that companies are seeing the benefits, maybe it’s around efficiency for internal use cases.

07:28 – 07:53
Jon: They’re considering how to compete with agents in the way that they’re interacting and competing. When you think about consumers, but the pace that that’s happening is really driving this governance got where they’re immediately reaching for policies and governance to really manage the risk associated with these rapid deployments. So I think it’s just the reality for companies now.

07:53 – 08:15
Jon: The the speed of innovation around agents needs to be coupled by with, with really accelerated speed around governance and security. And so I think the pace at which companies have come and invested in our solutions, the number of customer conversations we have that a material and feel like those companies are catching up with the speed of innovation.

08:15 – 08:36
Jon: That’s been super surprising. It’s very positive for us. But we’ve got to scale very fast. And it’s also, I think, redefining how we message our value to customers. It’s redefining how we’re showing up with our partners, and it’s redefining the playbooks that we need to be successful as we keep up with our customers need for governance and security.

08:36 – 08:58
Sophie: And you said you were surprised by that piece. And I think you can kind of see it in your Q4 numbers. But deals overall that had new products and had an increase in about 40% of average contract value versus deals, didn’t. So I’m curious like what you’ve seen there and then also how you are positioning and messaging new products, because this is something that a lot of companies are aspiring to do and, and really have this kind of traction.

08:58 – 09:19
Sophie: So what kind of positioning and messaging around these new products is really resonating and creating this 40% increase in ACD? At GTM fund, we invest at the very early stages of the startups journey, and one critical and surprisingly complicated decision could be naming your startup. Founders often spend weeks chasing the perfect dotcom domain, only to overpay or settle for a name that doesn’t quite click.

09:19 – 09:42
Sophie: And also potentially pivot names down the line before you spend a time securing a domain, I recommend checking out tech domains tells the world, your customers, your investors, anyone googling you that you’re building in technology. It’s very simple. So if you’re building a tech startup, this is a great option for you. You can secure your tech domain today from any registrar of your choice.

09:43 – 10:10
Jon: I think there’s a few things that. So for many quarters now, we’ve seen, momentum around the adoption of our new products. And, you know, a number of those new products, like, highly relevant to customers as they look to, you know, secure their enterprises but also consolidate around a single identity platform that’s independent to neutral and cloud borne.

10:10 – 10:43
Jon: And so, you know, for many quarters now, like we’ve seen that trend, particularly in and around AI governance product, our security products and and our privileged access management product. Why is that the case? Well, for many years, identity, something that has been solved in the enterprise by investing in point solutions. And a lot of those point solutions, in spite of the fact that they’re specialists, they also create vulnerabilities when you have to integrate them.

10:44 – 11:14
Jon: And a lot of companies have created over years, you know, really a patchwork of point solutions to manage something that is a very broad, very wide and creates vulnerabilities in many different environments for them. And so, it’s been, you know, it’s been many years now where they’ve seen the potential of consolidation around a single platform for all identity use cases where highly relevant, when they think about, their long term strategy and the need to have choice.

11:14 – 11:45
Jon: And they’re committed to multi-cloud because if they have those things playing in their strategy, then it’s very obvious. If they understand the importance and criticality of identity, to want to do it with an independent and neutral provider that has completeness of use case, and we’ve squarely fit into that category. So that’s been a phenomenon, a trend for some time with the AI solutions like that creates a massive new target addressable market for us.

11:45 – 12:13
Jon: It’s a complete unlock for us. It’s an unlock for us, as I talked about, because companies are moving really fast to deploy agents into production. And many are looking at the security requirements of those agents independently. If companies and we have 20,000 customers who are broadly using Octo for many use cases, and many of those companies will see the relevance of managing agents just as they’re managing human and launching human identities with Okta.

12:14 – 12:36
Jon: But equally, companies who’ve got a legacy, they’re looking at the agent, a genetic security opportunity as a means to modernize. And so that’s a great opportunity for them to reevaluate their strategy that may be locked in to a Hyperscaler it may be, like I said, a patchwork of point solutions and really think about how they might modernize that infrastructure to support all identity types.

12:37 – 12:57
Jon: So we see it as being a massive unlock for us in a new term, also as being something that’s highly relevant to our install base of 20,000 customers. So for us, that’s super exciting. And I think that’s it’s obviously driving a phenomenon around consolidation and new product, unlock for us. But we equally see in new customer conversations.

12:57 – 13:05
Jon: New prospect conversations is a really force accelerator for top of funnel for companies who aren’t existing octo customers yet.

13:05 – 13:29
Sophie: Incredible. And I mean on the back of all of this momentum after has a little bit of a turnaround story also. It was only a few years ago, I believe, that Octo was over or nearly 850 million in operating losses. And now sitting here, you know, you’re over 760 million in operating income and millions and hundreds of millions in free cash flow now.

13:29 – 13:36
Sophie: So I’m curious, what have been the 2 to 3 kind of key decisions that have helped Octa to actually have that incredible turnaround story?

13:36 – 14:01
Jon: Well, I think when we’ve touched on, which has been the incredible pace of innovation and the potential that I customers see in, in, you know, in investing in a single strategic platform provider for all identity use cases. When I look at go to market, it’s also been a really critical decision for us to accept the fact that we have a very broad offering that is very specific.

14:01 – 14:34
Jon: It is technically oriented, but it has massive business resonance and incredible like value potential for many different types of stakeholder in the enterprise. And so we’ve had to accept the fact that we do need specialist skills to be able to be successful as we go to market, whether that’s alignment to our install base, alignment to the new logo, motion alignment to our zero platform, which is very specific for consumer groups and B2C use cases, or whether it’s in the very broad nature of relevance for the Octa platform.

14:34 – 15:01
Jon: And so we spent a lot of time restructuring the go to market, organization here around specialization, and that’s generated a lot of productivity and efficiency. The second piece is like we’re a partner first company now. Correct. And we’ve had to work very hard to build a culture, where, you know, we have a lot of, like, increasing trust from our partner ecosystem that we are highly committed to that.

15:02 – 15:30
Jon: And we’ve had to reorient how, you know, field organizations think about, you know, partner led sales. A lot of that is about removing friction, making sure that we have incentives that are aligned, investing in marketing and enablement for our partner ecosystem, and making sure that, you know, when we think about how we invest in their services businesses, that there’s no friction and that we invest and support them because ultimately customers are making very significant generational multi-year bets.

15:30 – 15:52
Jon: Now, with Okta and O0 and the services, associated with your implementations of Okta, unlike their, oh, now a very significant. So we need to continue to invest in our partners as they start to really generate successful outcomes for our customers over the long term. So that’s been a massive, that’s been a massive part of how we’ve been able to scale to wrap on the ecosystem.

15:52 – 16:14
Sophie: And can I ask you around the partner segment? That’s fascinating. And I believe about 95% of your top 100 deals in last fiscal year were actually partner led. Yes. Which is incredible. Incredible. So if we think about kind of cracking the partner lead and go to market success equation, what have been a few kind of factors that have helped you lean in and really see success from this partner led model?

16:14 – 16:38
Jon: Well, the first thing I think is consistency. And so we’ve, I think we redefined three years ago our partner program. It’s not perfect. And we’re continuing to iterate on it. And, refine it. But I think the, the way that we’ve just been consistent about our intention to be a partner, that company has been helpful. It creates a true north, everybody in the company to get behind that strategy.

16:38 – 17:16
Jon: And so when you think about, designing incentive programs for everybody who’s working with our customers to ensure that they’re motivated to think partner first when they’re thinking about successful customer outcomes, I that’s a major part of the operational notion that I built as a crow. But also, you work with other leaders on here in the company that the other part of it is, you know, as we were growing up, we try to take away friction in terms of, you know, how we went to customers and we, you know, figured out routes to market for our customers to transact with us that relied on partners as we’ve increased, like the breadth of our value

17:16 – 17:42
Jon: proposition and the newer products, which are much stickier, they become much more highly dependent on long term implementation programs that can relate to, like the business dynamics of our customers, how that impacted by regulatory change, how they think about M&A and competing, you’re, with their competitors. So a lot of that is highly relevant to a partner’s deep understanding of that customer’s business.

17:43 – 18:08
Jon: Like we want to be identity specialist. We need our partners to be specialists in our customer’s business. So they have that long term strategic imperatives at mind so that they can see an implementation of Okta alongside other, you know, security tools as something that helps their customers be successful. That’s a very different way of thinking about success outcomes for our mutual customers.

18:08 – 18:32
Jon: And so investing in our customers practices so that they deeply understand our products, that’s on us. But also making sure that we show up with other vendors, you know, we show up with, you know, our own specialist requirement to be subject matter experts in our products as it relates to our roadmaps, that really helps our customers practices, you know, gain traction and be more relevant.

18:32 – 18:58
Jon: They read very, very important commitments to us that are beyond just helping our customers be successful. It’s like helping our partners be successful first, so that we know their impact in a broad range of customers and prospects over the long term completely changes our ability to scale. And that’s been a directional shift, and we’ve spent a lot of time focused, you know, on that with our solution engineering team, our professional services team, and indeed our product management teams.

18:58 – 19:08
Sophie: How long did it take to make that pivot and really see the the fruits of the labor of all this positioning around partner led within Okta to the actual revenue outcomes of it.

19:08 – 19:38
Jon: It’s huge commitment over time. I mean, I think a lot of it’s about direction, directional setting, commitment, strategy. But, you know, we’re still just getting going here. Wow. You know, we we we have a very broad partner ecosystem we’re working with. You know, systems integrators, global systems integrators, you know, specialists, specialist identity practitioners and boutiques, you know, resellers, distributors, hyperscalers, ISV ecosystem, partners.

19:38 – 20:01
Jon: And so we have a very broad ecosystem, as many companies do. But we’re highly committed to every part of that ecosystem. If those companies are really interested in the relevance of identity to our customers and prospects. And so we’ve seen an incredible amount of traction and investment in, in our partner ecosystem to the program. But I really think we’re just getting going, you know, we’re at 3 billion now.

20:01 – 20:12
Jon: And, a massive part of our story to get to 5 billion and beyond is going to be around the health and vitality of our ecosystem. So I’m super committed to that over the long term.

20:12 – 20:19
Sophie: And on that kind of mission to get to 5 billion, are there other areas that you think will be key levers you out there other than the partner?

20:19 – 20:41
Jon: Let me show, of course. I mean, succeeding in the biggest enterprises in the world is a really important part of our strategy. And how we do that in highly, highly regulated industries is a very significant commitment to. So making sure we’ve got, the right product market fit, the right localization, that localization that we need, data sovereignty and all the partnerships that surround those companies.

20:41 – 21:07
Jon: That’s a massive commitment. International expansion is a huge part of that, too. So how we segment our international territories really go deep in our table markets and then think about tier two and tier three and getting economies of scale for our. So our partner ecosystem and channels, and a massive part of our commitment to is around public sector and how we’re investing in the regulated environments that we need to in, in public sector.

21:07 – 21:30
Jon: So there are three really important things. Another critical thing that underpins everything is our own security posture. And we’ve spent millions of hours securing, you know, our service and generating the right points of year around best practices around how our customers can, you know, use octa for their own security posture successfully and really influence the market.

21:30 – 21:48
Jon: And our ecosystem around best practices around zero trust and, the octa secure identity commitment, as we call it. So there really, you know, significant parts of our go to market and our own internal strategy to be successful. The last that I mention, you know, we have to be successful selling AI solutions.

21:48 – 21:49
Sophie: Yes.

21:49 – 22:12
Jon: But we have a very significant commitment to optimizing the efficiency of our own company by our own utilization of AI. And how I’m doing that in the field is a really big part of my commitment. This year. We’re taking all to the power of AI, but how we’re fueling go to market with AI innovation right now is a really exciting, a big part of the transformation effort that I’ve got going on in the field organization.

22:12 – 22:23
Sophie: I bet, I bet, and how and even in such a large organization, do you feel like has been most most helpful for empowering people to actually use AI and implement AI in the day to day?

22:23 – 22:41
Jon: Well, I think our own use of AI and, our own story that mirrors probably quite a lot of what we’re seeing in the market. There’s been a massive bottom up effort, to get, you know, the field organization to use AI tools and get the benefit and value of those as they prepare and show up with customers.

22:42 – 23:03
Jon: But right now, what we’re trying to do is obviously like industrialize a lot of that and play some bets. That’s going to require some top down thinking and some strategic decision making and, some investment and some governance. And one of the big things that we’ve done in that area this year is I’ve actually like launched a new sales methodology for the AI era for the Ox to field this year.

23:03 – 00:00
Jon: What does.

23:04 – 23:04
Sophie: That entail?

23:04 – 23:29
Jon: Oh, we’ve we’ve invested in a third party, around a kind of tried and tested, sales methodology for the cybersecurity industry. We’ve used it in the past, but we’ve engaged the game force management to help us consider command of the message in the AI era. And a lot of that is alongside the AI tooling that we’re putting in place and introducing best practices into the flow of work for all.

23:29 – 24:01
Jon: Go to market teams as you, you’re, get the benefit of value frameworks from command of the message. And we infuse those the ones that are relative to, you’re, just the the OC, the value proposition for human identity, but also the new frameworks that we’ve put in place for AI products. And so, you’re, how we use our for that, how we create gems, how we using things like conversational intelligence, how we’re introducing things like sales and pre-sale assistance into the flow of work.

24:01 – 24:25
Jon: And there’s a lot of operational efficiency gains to just with things like quoting that benefit from agents and our assistants. So we’ve got a bunch of programs of work and, you’re, ongoing deployments right now of really supporting, go to market teams with AI capability that’s really built on this sales methodology and framework that we’re calling Apex, and that has built on command of the message.

24:25 – 24:48
Jon: That’s super exciting, very exciting. And I think part of that is the realization that the kind of world of the cell is changing around there, you’re, around them very fast. And so our customers and prospects and the stakeholders that we engage with, you’re, they’re more fueled with their own points of view about what Octa is and what octa does than ever before.

24:48 – 24:54
Jon: They’re already showing up with very strong opinions and points of view about us and our competitive differentiation.

24:54 – 25:19
Sophie: And right. The first call is no longer discovery. Now it’s like a validation call, almost a quick pause. If you run go to market, you will recognize us all too well. Sales, relying on manual work, stitching together Frankenstein stacks, and jumping between a dozen tabs just to log a single call. But Revo is breaking that model. It’s a vertically integrated AI native revenue operating system that replaces the fragmented maze into one workspace.

25:19 – 25:43
Sophie: It captures 100% of your first party data, from emails to meeting recordings to help reps find high intent buyers and automate admin work and generate outreach that actually sounds human in this AI world. No more wasting time on data. Enter your disconnected tools, just one unified engine for the entire revenue cycle. So go starless and revolt AI that’s Rev oh, I will be in the show notes.

25:43 – 25:44
Sophie: Back to the episode.

25:44 – 26:25
Jon: The nature of discovery is going to. It is changing very fast. And so the sellers got a ton up with a very unique and differentiated point of view about their value in the decision making process for customers. You’re, some of it’s about like the value frameworks that we built that are very specific. And, you’re, the way that we ask discovery questions, the way that we build a mantra, the way that, you’re, we use, our own unique intellectual property to create a point of view that really extends the impact of, you’re, what Octa can be for the AI era.

26:25 – 26:48
Jon: Yeah. To different budget holders, different stakeholders. That’s a really significant part of how we’re leveraging command of the message right now. But I think a realization to the the human centric aspects of selling are becoming increasingly relevant. Again, it’s not going to be okay to just kind of regurgitate information about your solutions, right? That time is passed. Yeah.

26:48 – 27:17
Jon: So how do you think about showing up with empathy in terms of the challenges and demands of stakeholders to be successful as they’re making decisions and deploying software? How do you build relationships in the AI era? What types of relationships are relevant and how can you how can you as a seller have increasing awareness of what we’ve done to be successful in companies that are relevant to your prospect and really build and bridge those stories in a human centric way?

27:17 – 27:33
Jon: I think those are super relevant parts of what a modern seller is going to be in the AI era, so we’re building the right tools to support that. But I think it’s important that sellers have the awareness, the the value that they’re going to bring to customers is changing super fast. And they got to think about that and adapt.

27:33 – 27:50
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you mentioned how we’re becoming much more human with the sales process. And sellers need to lean into that human side. What are you seeing from an overall headcount perspective? Have you seen any kind of reductions around headcount just with the advent of AI or or not?

27:50 – 28:15
Jon: Well, I call companies. We’re thinking about efficiency. You’re, we are like many companies, like thinking about the relationship between this awesome innovative technology and how we think about the productivity that we could benefit in the field. You’re, there will be at some point the potential for significant unlock there if we get these projects right.

28:15 – 28:40
Jon: But I think where I think about it is what are the skills that we need to be successful in the future to unlock more potential and growth? You’re, as the chief revenue officer, it’s very clear, like my North Star is growth. And so I’ve got to think about as companies think about really tough decisions, as they start to think about consolidation, they start to think about budget constraints.

28:40 – 28:56
Jon: They start to think about hard trade off decisions, about the solutions they’re going to be long term enduring for them, and then things that they want to move away from as they think about, you’re, what their teams need and how we show up and help them be successful. It’s going to require new types of skills for us.

28:56 – 29:31
Jon: So we’ve got to define those. We’ve got to train and coach sellers to be able to like, augment what they’re doing with those skills and develop their own capabilities in those directions. And as we do that, what are we leaving behind that can be automated? So those repetitive tasks, our knowledge base activity, a lot of which can be shortcut now through the use of quality AI tooling and agents that I think is going to unlock massive potential for us to focus on much higher yield activities, more meaningful conversations, and deepening relationships over the long term.

29:31 – 29:56
Jon: What we know here at doctor is like like relationships matter. We’re mission critical. We have to show up with consistency. We have to show up with expertise. We want to be the identity experts, but, champions, EBS, they’re betting on us over the long term. And a lot of them are building their careers around us, too. So, like, these are meaningful relationships, and we need everybody in the field to accept that and rise to that challenge.

29:56 – 30:07
Jon: And I think I actually think AI is a great facilitator of us focusing on that. Because I think that we need to operate in a world where our customers deeply trust us. And I think that’s going to help with that.

30:07 – 30:30
Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. And we can remove such a big bottleneck of a lot of the administrative things and really focus on fostering these relationships. And I know that you do in such a variety of different ways, whether it’s through 1 to 1, through your sellers and different kind of, initiatives that you have. And then you do fund kind of initiatives like F1 and bring in a lot of your customers to these kind of experiences.

30:30 – 30:36
Sophie: What role do you think experiences plays in this next era?

30:36 – 31:10
Jon: Well, the way I think about it is the surface area that we need to surround our customers with, like our customers need multiple touchpoints to start to like, really understand the value that we can bring and build deep, meaningful trust. And so, you’re, we understand that like meaningful enterprise, cyber security, decision making, like customers will often like engage with like seven plus partners.

31:10 – 31:47
Jon: Yeah. To orient themselves around the decision of that like significance. So the amount of touchpoints that they need before they make decisions is like super, super interesting, like so it is an ecosystem play. Yeah. And so when I think about experiences like that’s why I partner program is so critical because for a customer to trust us, like we need seven partners to surround that customer who also trust us to and can advise that customer, bet on Okta or zero is a good bet for them.

31:47 – 31:47
Sophie: Yes.

31:47 – 32:15
Jon: So the experiences that we need to invest in, they have massive surface area. So when we when we think about our brand, when we think about, events, programs, you’re, we’re here at all like a week, right? You’re, we’ve got to think about the fact that we’re trying to influence a market, and ultimately, it’s our customers who who invest in, have to trust in us.

32:15 – 32:39
Jon: But in order to continue that for meaningful growth, which is going to help us be successful and complete our vision and complete the goals and objectives that we have for the company, we really have to understand that they experiences need to be very broad and wide and accepting of the fact that we’ve got ecosystem constituents around us. They’re quite different in the role that they play.

32:39 – 33:06
Jon: In the completion of the vision that we have, which is for our customers and prospects to trust us with every identity use case, whether it’s for human, non-human or agent. So that’s a massive part of the like, decision making process that we go through. So when you think about something like F1, which you’re, is, is is the most broadly watched, you’re, sport globally, we invest in something like that because we accept the fact that we’re globally relevant.

33:06 – 33:29
Jon: Right. We need that brand to be elevated in that way. But we’re also going very deep in programs like account based marketing and how we’re investing in our global systems integrators. And, yeah, those, experiences to where, you’re, we accept the fact that how our ecosystem shows up is very broad and wide and varying, and it requires long term commitments and investments.

33:30 – 33:30
Jon:.

33:30 – 33:47
Sophie: Always play the long game. And you mentioned a really interesting point there around identity for humans and agents. What do you see as the future around identity now that agents have identities? Also, what should people be aware of?

33:47 – 34:29
Jon: Well, firstly, I think that there is a significant amount of disruption still to happen. Yes. And I know there’s a lot of kind of talk about SAS Pocalypse. The markets like making judgments about the future of enterprise SAS. My point of view is that there’s obviously going to be disruption for some time. But when I look at pivotal changes like this and I’m old enough to remember the impact of the internet and then the impact of the cloud, when I started my life, like as a technical consultant, then I moved into kind of product marketing and management, and I’ve seen the impact of this on the software industry over years and,

34:29 – 34:56
Jon: and indeed the hardware and infrastructure, industry, and these big waves, they create energy that drives disruption and complexity. Then there is consolidation and then you come out of it and, you’re, enterprises still need to like, build their businesses and be agile and prepare themselves for growth by giving the responsibility of like delivery of the software.

34:56 – 35:29
Jon: They need to be successful to third parties. That’s not going to go away. And so the nature of how SAS companies use AI to deliver differentiate to value to customers, that that’s going to change a lot. And you’re, like we are obviously like building products with AI at the heart of them. We’re building software products so that companies can use agents and are effectively we are ourselves implementing solutions internally so that we get efficiency and growth through AI adoption.

35:29 – 36:03
Jon: These are all things that are happening in our customer base. So typically with the disruption comes complexity. Then there is periods where there’ll be regulations created, there’ll be consolidation, there’ll be strategic decisions made, then there’ll be governance, then there’ll be smoothing of operations, and then there’ll be growth. But typically it’s a cycle. And so I think that there are going to be companies that come through without successfully, I personally feel very strong about Okta’s potential there.

36:03 – 36:30
Jon: We’ve got 20,000 customers. Complexity is where we thrive. We’re independent, neutral. We have very complete platforms that deal with all identity use cases, whether that a genetic or human and non-human. So I personally think this is a massive opportunity for us. We have a huge unlocked, targeted market with agents. But we have to move fast, right? The pace of demand is very significant.

36:30 – 36:48
Jon: We need to mirror and match that with the pace of innovation. And so, yeah, I think it’s going to be a period of a huge amount of excitement, a huge amount of disruption. And coming out of it, there’s going to be you’re, significant growth potential for companies like us.

36:48 – 37:06
Sophie: Well, very exciting times ahead. And, John, the revenue growth has just been incredible. You talk a little bit about what you’re doing on the go to market side. What about the sale sign and your overall leadership style? I’m curious to hear a little bit more around how you like to operate.

37:06 – 37:40
Jon: Well, one of the things that I personally always benefited from when I was an I was getting great coaching and advice from, you’re, people who’d been doing sales for a little bit longer than me as to, you’re, what they did to unlock their potential in their role and grow their careers. And, you’re, I’ve got to accept the fact that now in leadership, yeah, people kind of look up to the leaders in the sales organization to really just understand the difference between success and failure.

37:40 – 37:59
Jon: And, you’re, as leaders, we kind of carry a long shadow in that way. So one of the things I love about sales leadership, and I genuinely believe I’m not going to do anything else in my career, is just seeing like the potential of reps get unlocked because it’s such an incredible job. It can really change people’s lives.

38:00 – 38:30
Jon: And so I want to like, bring people on to the team who really see the potential in their careers growing in Octo. Yeah, but leaders who really understand the burden of responsibility to coach and invest in anybody who’s coming into the organization on an individual contributor level, because the potential for them as individuals is huge here. But if we unlock that potential to growth in the company, like is really infinite as a consequence of them, you’re, finding the keys to success.

38:30 – 38:49
Jon: So how do we invest in them, how we give them the tools, the methods to be successful, supporting them with, you’re, great technology and great coaching and advice. That’s a really critical part of the career journeys I want to create here, and why I fundamentally believe it’s a great opportunity for anybody wanting to build a South Korea to do it here at Octa.

38:49 – 39:01
Sophie: Incredible. And you received some, some great advice just around positive influence and negative influence. And and you’ve spoken about and we spoke a little about I’d love to hear a little bit more about that 1 to 10 touch points.

39:01 – 39:31
Jon: Yeah. I mean I think when you think about leadership, I think about it just as a consequence of some of the advice I got in the past about positive leadership and what it means, how you build culture, how you show up, you’re, talking about this long shadow, how you show up and you really understand the difference between investing in people at a human level, right, and carrying that responsibility, you’re, versus just showing up with like, strategy and policies and priorities like, yeah, that’s table stakes.

39:31 – 39:53
Jon: You got to do all that. But the difference I see in the leaders that I think that can really build in the bond and culture, in the sales organization is really getting those two things right and parallel, which is connecting with the business at a strategic level, but also connecting with the sales organization at a human level and really focusing on like their efforts on how we make our customers successful.

39:53 – 40:17
Jon: So just showing up in that way, I think, is a great example of how we as sales leaders can really like show the organization that we lead. The difference between positive leadership and also like operating differently in times of stress. We all carry a number. I know it’s stressful, but it also can be a lot of fun. And I want leaders to really believe that Act is a place where you can have fun and be successful.

40:17 – 40:17
Jon: Yes.

Sophie Buonassisi

Sophie Buonassisi is the SVP of Marketing at media company GTMnow and its venture firm, GTMfund. She oversees all aspects of media, marketing, and community engagement. Sophie leads the GTMnow editorial team, producing content exploring the behind the scenes on the go-to-market strategies responsible for companies’ growth. GTMnow highlights the strategies, along with the stories from the top 1% of GTM executives, VCs, and founders behind the strategies and companies.