Pablo Palafox (Happy Robot CEO): The FDE Playbook That Took Us from $0 to Millions in 2 Years скачать в хорошем качестве

Pablo Palafox (Happy Robot CEO): The FDE Playbook That Took Us from $0 to Millions in 2 Years

The forward deployed engineer model took Happy Robot from zero to millions in revenue in under 2 years. In this episode, Pablo Palafox reveals exactly how to implement Palantir's FDE motion at a startup - including when to use it, who to hire, and the costly mistakes to avoid. Learn why embedding engineers directly with customers beats traditional sales approaches for complex AI products. Pablo Palafox is the co-founder and CEO of Happy Robot, the AI-native operating system for supply chain and logistics. Prior to Happy Robot, Pablo completed his PhD in computer science and deep learning. Happy Robot has raised over $60M from investors including a16z, YC, and Base10, and serves enterprise customers like DHL. In Today's Episode We Discuss: 01:39 - When the CEO realizes they're actually the company's first FDE 05:09 - Why embedding with customers beats having a sales pitch 09:13 - Stop trying to copy Palantir - build your own FDE playbook 13:37 - The critical difference between FDEs and deployment strategists 17:31 - How Discord servers led to billion-dollar freight broker clients 21:45 - FDEs must become industry insiders, not just tech experts 25:58 - When NOT to use the forward deployed engineer model 31:07 - The FDE hiring secret: Look for "nerds who can sell" 36:47 - Why FDEs need 1-2% equity vs 0.1-0.5% for regular engineers 42:01 - An FDE's day: 80% building, 20% with customers onsite 47:10 - The $30K to $3M expansion playbook for FDE accounts 52:22 - Building FDE "pods" for vertical specialization 56:39 - Why waiting to verticalize FDEs was their biggest mistake 59:31 - The 10X deployment accelerator most startups forget 62:13 - Why FDEs will soon build entire vertical products autonomously 65:10 - When to transition from "things that don't scale" to scale 67:24 - The one place every vertical AI founder must go immediately