Who they are
Longtime Silicon Valley product and engineering leader — co-created Google Maps, co-founded FriendFeed (acquired by Facebook, where he became CTO), co-founded Quip (acquired by Salesforce, where he became co-CEO), and co-founded Sierra in 2023 with Clay Bavor to build AI agents for customer experience. Also chair of the OpenAI board. Relevant to Karthik directly: Sierra is arguably the most well-funded competitor in the space SupportWire is entering, and Taylor's playbook — enterprise-first, agent-as-infrastructure — is the one to decode and outflank.
Core Ideas
- AI agents as the next enterprise software category
- Customer experience as the highest-value surface to agentize first
- Building companies out of small, senior teams
Related
- Sierra — his current company, a direct SupportWire competitor
- OpenAI — board chair