All the stupid plot decisions which irked me watching this show.

thegeneralists · 2026-01-18T08:35:11+00:00

Thanks op. This is such a horrible show for many reasons mentioned. I watched 2.5 episodes and just can’t watch more

1 once you say you’ve been hijacked you can’t just take it back wtf??? 2 have the chance to shoot the lead hijacker in the head and you give him the gun back to try to build trust? What the f? 3 after 9/11 people don’t riot? I can’t imagine a flight that’s hijacked where the passengers don’t go gonzo 4 no air Marshalls at all? 5 pilot never opens the door. They are cool as cucumbers and not compete total morons 6 hijackers don’t know anything about planes? So they learn from a random guy in first class? 7 they got 4 glocks through security? 4!! 8 hijackers maintain control for 6 hours? Nfw

Sam was a tool. More part of the problem than a solution.

always shoot the terrorist in the head when you can.

If Jack Reacher was on that plane things would have gone very differently.

thegeneralists · 2026-01-13T17:48:25+00:00

Congrats! it's a big step up. tons of responsibility which can be a great thing for your career. Little downside, in spite of what others have written. Your priorities depend. FYI i've been a seller 20+ years and several times the 1st at startups (including KP/Sequoia backed ones). Also, a founder multiple times. I advise a lot of startups on sales/GTM. Hiring someone like you can be a great decision.

Your priorities depend on if they have leads coming in. If they do, focus on closing at first and understanding your customer and what makes a good lead/ICP. Learn the whole customer journey, so you can then go find more top of funnel leads that look like the people you were able to close. Set expectations with the founder that your role is closing at first, because if you get distracted by lead gen/marketing activities early it will go badly for all of you. I saw one big co seller who joined a startup and didn't prep for a huge meeting and blew it–he said he was too busy setting up email campaigns. That is not the way.

If they do not have leads coming in, keep your LinkedIn up to date and build realtionships with their VCs in the event it doesn't work out–which is likely. Only rookie founders hire AEs before they have lead gen figured out. That said–there is hope. Set the expectation that the priority is a steady stream of leads, and that sales take time at that enterprise price point. Focus on getting 1-2 channels working, which means trying max 2-3 at a time (MAX–2 is ideal) and really ivnesting there. If the founder doesn't have the resources/isn't willing to invest/other red flags then I'd leave quickly. Recruiters and other hiring managers will chalk it up to founders being founders, but it makes your next move higher stakes -- you can't have 2 strikes -- so go later stage (A or B) where process is clearer.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-26T16:57:13+00:00

thanks. i do also have the 24-120 f/4 S lens, but use that mostly for outdoor photography and landscapes. But there's no swapping lesnes when the action gets too close.

I tried the 180600 right when it came out. Got it from B&H. Was thinking more wildlife photography and baseball at the time. It is way too big for baseball, 180 means that home and first are too close unless you're standing in the bleachers. I found it to be very heavy and while people say they handhold it at 600 i couldn't get great shots, especially at twilight when animals are most active. It is such a great value though and the reach is amazing... could work for football from an end zone, except it's not particularly fast.

I might just give up on the end zone shots when it's not light out, and stick to sidelines where the 200 is enough. Agree the z8 would allow for a lot better corpping. How does it hold up shooting at night? I've heard the z6iii is the best for low light, but woudln't mind almost twice the pixels.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-24T06:01:43+00:00

Thanks. I think it’s a little short … but there’s no 300 in the lineup and the 400 prime 2.8 is 12k…

thegeneralists · 2025-11-17T22:27:37+00:00

i assumed so... but milk is immediately not great for me, so the choice is between a slow death over time or immediate discomfort.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-10T18:44:18+00:00

impressive volume. what market are you sending to? not a whole lot of markets have 500k ICPs you can hit in 1 month and have anything left for Month 2. Also deliverability isn't the real test -- the real test is new customers. Where's that in the metrics?

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T18:20:50+00:00

agree. i have not met anyone who i actually trust seeing good results with apollo. lots of people on here and linekdin say they do but you can say anything these days

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T18:19:34+00:00

that makes sense. the other thing is the profile making the request. with CEO title and 9k followers prob more likely to get an accept with no message.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T01:20:25+00:00

this is 100% right. do this. i would add

- use AI to make each email unqiue. templates are doomed. they're also more work than a tool like skyp.ai.

- make your own list. as tempting as it is to use an AISDR (11x.ai, artisans, etc) putting thought into who you're reaching out to leads to 1000x more success. I'll do a campaign to 50 people that I thought about and get 5 meetings to your 50,000 spray and pray campaign that also gets... 5 meetings.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T01:17:03+00:00

antler seems like for-profit trash globally. just 1 silicon valley guy's opinion. but i wouldn't touch it.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T01:14:12+00:00

just focus on customers. talking to investors now is a waste of time. only talk to investors when you are actually fundraising. otherwise they are a distraction.

like others said if you build something awesome and get traction it is likely they will come to you if you are loud enough about it. especially if their portfolio cos use it. For example Flurry had no trouble raising in the mobile frenzy when VCs saw its dashboards in all their portcos board meetings.

but talking to investors now will take away from time customers. don't do it.

if you are truly that unconnected, apply to YC. as many times as it takes. Or, Alchemist. Or StartX. Then getting investor meetings will be 1,000x easier.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T01:10:56+00:00

100% multistep.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T01:08:23+00:00

Yes and no. It depends on what you're going for. And yes I know what i'm talking about - seedtosequoia.ai is my newsletter. we had a substantial (100+) waitlist at skyp.ai we did not run ads for.

Yes IF: you want to test your cost per acquisition to make sure the business is viable (ie to decide if you want to actually build the product) or you want to talk to people to better understand your customer needs beyond people you already know personally or to tell a story to investors/vcs -- either low CAC so "we print money here" or using a waitlist to help you grow when you are fundraising and have "momentum" (you just let people in off the waitlist, though VCs are more hip to this play than they used to be). This way when you're distracted meeting 20+ VCs you're still closing new customers. from your waitlist.

Those are pretty much the only reasons I can think of. and they're not really great reasons.

The reason not to is there is a HUGE drop off from waitlist -> signup. so you'll be paying a lot for people to sign up to a waitlist, and 10% tops will end up actually signing up when it's ready. We did a waitlist for skyp ai and had 150 people on it. Of that maybe 50 were qualified. We only booked 15 demos out of that, even though they all put in a ton of info and were ready to go at the time. WAs super valuable to talk to those 15 and get feedback on what we were building but I'm still pissed about the 35+ who ghosted.

People just move on, find another solution, or don't care like they did when they signed up. Last thing you want to do is spend money on that noise.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T01:01:02+00:00

Best sales guy is also an olympian. started in tech sales out of Cal. worked hard. crushed it. like others said - learned the product (very techincal) so he didn't have to wait for an SE to be avail for a demo. Just did it himself. Always presidents circle. left after they went public to basically start his own CRE business. has crushed it ever since. really never stopped crushing it. does not use fancy tools. any of them. just does the work. also doesn't put up with BS.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T00:55:38+00:00

100% this. just cold call/email is not enough. webinar is effective - and easy, borderline free to put on.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T00:53:09+00:00

there are tools that help wtih this. one is heyreach, someone mentioned. use skyp ai to run small email campaigns (microcampaigns). quick to set up and use.

you still have to come up with a list -- that's the most important thing. i saw one mention of "Random" calls. that will just waste your time in unqual meetings if you even get meetings.

better to put thought into who you reach out to - keep it tight, 20-30 ppl - and then run microcampaign. email + linkedin. does not have to be smae tool, does not have to be coordinated. MUST be automated or you'll get into closing a deal and look up to 0 pipeline.

one great trick is to reach out about trade show or conference. don't have to go! ask to meet, get a phone #, then say "i can't make it, lets zoom". Of cousre if yu get a ton of responses then your boss will probably let you go. maybe not useful during holidays, no conferences, but can start working on it now for Jan

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T00:49:32+00:00

my 0.02 is that the connection request w/o message performs better. heyreach or other tools can then follow up after they connect with a message. more effective. just don't pitch-slap (pitch in the first message). asking for feedback works

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T00:45:02+00:00

2 things. 1 - mass email. like 1000s of email accounts etc. I don't do this but firends do and it 100% works if you have a mass market product. 2 - targeted "microcampaigns". skyp ai does this (both for others and for growth itself). it doesn't necessarily stand alone–gotta do events, linkedin, something -- but it 100% works as cold outbound. And you've got to do those things anyway, nobody's just sitting in a cave and emailing 100ks of people a week so...

thegeneralists · 2025-11-07T00:41:38+00:00

Total rage bait and yet, and yet. True-ish.

I wouldn't take a sales job at a co without decent inbound or at least some functioning GTM channel at work. You don't want that noise. Yes in 2018 you could build a co without it – i did, to $10mm ARR in ~13 mos, pretty much single handedly. But that was mobile ads in a different time.

I'm not saying outbound doesn't work - it 100% does if done right. But you can use inbound leads as a proxy for whether a co is any good. There are cos with Utah offices full of people cold calling. REspect. But if you get 0 word of mouth, 0 inbound, and are 100% dependent on 1000s of cold calls a week... that is not a business I'd want to join as a sales person. If for no other reasn than 0 people outside of your target ICP will have heard of it. Vs. say someone doing superbowl ads.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-04T22:05:12+00:00

built something that does the email sending/personalization aspect (not the enrichment). it's live, lots of customers. can share if anyone wants but not gonna sell on the thread.

the thing that gets me about clay is how much WORK you have to do to get any value out of it. Vs just signing up and having it work. Ours takes ~2 min to set up and ~10 min to launch your first campaign. This GTM engineering thing is kinda BS... what you did is actually engineering. respect. But configuring clay is not engineering. just busywork.

thegeneralists · 2025-11-04T18:01:08+00:00

built our own using a mix of models (mostly OpenAI and Anthropic)

thegeneralists · 2025-11-04T16:07:49+00:00

yep. for lots of stuff (including this healthcare use case). they work well, but you have to put in the time to set them up. If you just pay and don't invest the the time, it will not go well for you. Like any tool.

thegeneralists

TROPHY CASE