Niles Lawrence

I love building high impact products by solving complex customer problems | Building AI agents @SierraPlatform | Previously @Dune, @PalantirTech, @Vurudotco

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

https://t.co/Vk78EpaTql

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

Everyone is talking about AI replacing people. I’m more excited about a future where AI becomes the Iron Man suit for the best operators.

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

🚀 🚀 🚀

[Bret Taylor @btaylor]

Sierra just hit $200M in ARR. It took seven quarters to get to $100M, and only two more quarters to add our next $100M. Proud of the team and very grateful to our customers and partners.

[Bret Taylor @btaylor]

Sierra is raising $950 million from new and existing investors, led by Tiger Global and GV, at a valuation of over $15 billion. We now have more than $1 billion to invest in becoming the global standard for companies wanting to transform their customer experiences with AI. 

We’ve never had such conviction in the opportunity for Sierra and our customers. Just a couple of years ago, we had four design partners. Now, Sierra is serving over 40% of the Fortune 50, and agents built on our platform are powering billions of customer interactions — everything from refinancing homes to processing insurance claims, returning orders, and helping people raise millions in fundraisers.

We’re deeply grateful to our customers for helping show what’s possible. If you’re not yet using Sierra, we’d love to partner with you. https://t.co/tT4tBSeSoR

[Bret Taylor @btaylor]

Today, Sierra is releasing Ghostwriter, our agent for building agents. With Ghostwriter, you can create an AI agent for your customer experience — one that can chat, pick up the phone, speak dozens of languages, take action on your systems of record, and be protected with industry-leading guardrails — simply by having a conversation. No clicking, no forms, no menus.

Codex and Claude Code have transformed how we build software, making it possible for software engineers to orchestrate and review the work rather than doing all the work themselves. We think the same transformation will happen for all software. Rather than every enterprise app having a web app for humans and an API for automation, every software platform’s UI will be an agent that can do the work on your behalf.

I recorded a demo of my building and optimizing an agent with Ghostwriter so you can see how powerful and easy it is to use. It’s completely changed the way our early adopters build agents, and it’s changed the way I think about the software industry. Let me know what you think, and, if you’re interested in trying it out at your business, please reach out directly.

[John Collison @collision]

.@btaylor is a Silicon Valley legend and currently runs Sierra, which helps companies deploy AI starting with customer service. I was eager to figure out with him how AI productivity will actually be realised: how organisations will roll out the changes, which roles benefit most, and how to keep up with model advances.

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

@scottbelsky Love the analogy

[Gokul Rajaram @gokulr]

THE ESSENCE OF GOOD STRATEGY

This is one of the crispest strategy articulations I've seen. After reading it, it's crystal clear what the company's aspirations and goals are, what they're trying to accomplish, and what the associated key initiatives are.

Most startup strategy docs fail because they list everything the team could do rather than the few things that must work. Coinbase's strategic clarity comes from having made hard choices about what winning means, who to serve, and where to compete (and what to forego!)

Startup CEOs: If your strategy requires more than one page to explain, or if smart people finish reading it still confused about your priorities or what winning means or who you serve, you need to go back to the drawing board.

[Will Lawrence @will_lawrenceTO]

We just raised a $75M Series B to *finally* automate AML/KYC with AI agents.

KYC/AML software has been around for a long time. @brettonai is different:

- Autonomous browsing: agents hop between multiple tools to complete reviews without the need for a massive engineering lift for the bank

- Long Horizon Agents: our agents complete iterative, complex reviews that take humans hours to complete

- Bank-grade model risk management: built for regulators, internal audit and third-party reviews

It's why companies like Robinhood, Lead Bank and Gusto use us to scale efficiently and deliver great customer experiences.

Our Series B is led by @rajeevdham and @SapphireVC , with participation from Greylock, Y Combinator, Thomson Reuters Ventures, Canvas Ventures and TIAA Ventures.

3 years ago, this company was just a dream. Now I get to work with 40 of the smartest, hardest working poeple I’ve ever met to solve big problems at the heart of finance. I'm pumped for the future!

Now back to building.

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

@Hadley 💯

[David Perell @david_perell]

Talk to a top-tier creative and chances are, you’ll be blown away by how prolific they are in their consumption: The musician who listens to 10 albums a week, the designer who’s visited antique stores in 57 countries, the architect who’s living room is stacked with piles of reference guides, the writer who’s read 1,000 novels, the filmmaker who watches 400 movies per year. The method varies, but the core pattern stays the same… it’s constant consumption, day after day.

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

I often get asked: "Isn't Forward Deployed Engineering just professional services?"

The answer is no. And the distinction is critical for enterprise AI adoption. @OpenAI , @AnthropicAI , and even @salesforce are aggressively hiring FDEs.

Here is why:
https://t.co/db5m8nJ2Kx

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

This resonates with my experience at Palantir.

FDEs embedded with customers to understand how their best people operate and make decisions. We would then capture these learnings (aka context) to build outcome oriented products.

I'm excited to see this play out with AI agents.

[Jaya Gupta @JayaGup10]

https://t.co/uPXcTUEsnc

[Alexandr Wang @alexandr_wang]

Excited to announce that @ManusAI has joined Meta to help us build amazing AI products!

The Manus team in Singapore are world class at exploring the capability overhang of today’s models to scaffold powerful agents.

Looking forward to working with you, @Red_Xiao_!

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

4 reasons to join @SierraPlatform

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

4 factors to consider when making a career decision (none of which involve compensation):

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

💯

[Bret Taylor @btaylor]

Sierra just hit $100M in ARR, just seven quarters since we launched in February 2024. @claybavor and I are very grateful to our customers and proud of the Sierra team, who has redefined the meaning of intensity and craftsmanship. I have never had this much fun in my career. (Photo is Clay signing the contract that crossed the $100M mark) https://t.co/RxPdSH7Olp

[Niles Lawrence @NilesLawrence]

Such an obvious play. Called this back in August: https://t.co/WRY1d3RUOr

[The Kobeissi Letter @KobeissiLetter]

BREAKING: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway announces it has purchased a $4.3 billion stake in Alphabet, $GOOGL.

[qw @QwQiao]

closing section of buffett's final letter:

"One perhaps self-serving observation. I’m happy to say I feel better about the second half of my life than the first. My advice: Don’t beat yourself up over past mistakes – learn at least a little from them and move on. It is never too late to improve. Get the right heroes and copy them. You can start with Tom Murphy; he was the best.

Remember Alfred Nobel, later of Nobel Prize fame, who – reportedly – read his own obituary that was mistakenly printed when his brother died and a newspaper got mixed up. He was horrified at what he read and realized he should change his behavior.

Don’t count on a newsroom mix-up: Decide what you would like your obituary to say and live the life to deserve it.

Greatness does not come about through accumulating great amounts of money, great amounts of publicity or great power in government. When you help someone in any of thousands of ways, you help the world. Kindness is costless but also priceless. Whether you are religious or not, it’s hard to beat The Golden Rule as a guide to behavior.

I write this as one who has been thoughtless countless times and made many mistakes but also became very lucky in learning from some wonderful friends how to behave better (still a long way from perfect, however). Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman."

[Sierra @SierraPlatform]

At Sierra, we are honored to help the great companies of the world show up at their best. ♥️