Hi — Asad here!
Remember those $100M packages for AI researchers? Well, here’s the thing: When comp moves for the builders, it doesn’t take long to move for the sellers, too. So, now we’ve got $100M packages for CROs and enterprise reps clearing $10M a year. I even know a company that hired an SDR fresh out of school at $125K. How raised are those eyebrows right now?
None of this is the norm. Neither were those $100M AI packages. But what happens at the edge of the ecosystem has a way of working its way to the center.
See, if Anthropic and OpenAI have ICs pulling $10M a year and they still can’t hire sellers fast enough, everyone hunting that same talent has to pay up to keep up. The top drags up the average. So your A+ enterprise sellers are now commanding $400K OTEs with 2–3x the equity they would have seen a year ago.
The implications are huge. Scaling gets pricier — especially at the enterprise level — and good people get harder to keep. That leaves everyone with one choice: eat the lower margins, or get creative. Most don’t have the growth to justify lower margins, so creativity is the only option on the table.
What does creativity actually look like? That’s exactly what we workshopped with GTM legend Craig Rosenberg. If there’s such a thing as compulsory listening in GTM, this is it.
Also, featuring Topline co-host and GTM operator extraordinaire, AJ Bruno, who brings us one of the most personal editorials about founder life to date, below.
Enjoy!
A Wake-Up Call at the Rainforest Cafe
Three years ago, on our family “vacation” (I was still very much working), we were seated at the Rainforest Cafe in Atlantic City when my heart started racing like I’d just run the fastest 400 meters of my life.
It wasn’t like I was exercising at that moment; we were literally waiting for our appetizers to show up, when an ominous red warning flashed on my watch face: “Apple has detected that your heart rate may be in Atrial Fibrillation.”
Atrial Fibrillation?! What the hell is that? I thought.
It felt like a sailfish was flapping around in my chest — that dropping feeling you get at the top of a roller coaster. Only it wouldn’t stop, and I had no idea what was causing it.
I called a friend who’s a doctor. Given my complex health history, he said I should go straight to the ER. Once there, they confirmed: my first episode of atrial fibrillation (a.k.a., AFib) at the ripe old age of 37.
Lessons Learned Late
AFib isn’t life-threatening on its own, though it can cause blood clots if not medicated with blood thinners. Unfortunately, when you’re experiencing it, it feels like the world is ending all at once, and there’s no way to get away from that doom-and-gloom feeling until you’re out of it.
That was the first thing I learned that day. The second — and the part that took longer to make peace with — is that none of it was random.
Remember that “complex health history”? Well, I was born with one working lung. Found out at 12, when a Boy Scout camp nurse caught what they thought was a heart murmur during a physical and an X-ray showed the truth. I’ve spent my life healthy around it, and it’s never held me back: I fly planes (I own one). I ran a half-marathon last year. Pilot, plane, one lung is a good two-truths-and-a-lie.
The AFib comes from the same anatomy — a quirk in how I’m built — and there’s nothing I can do to change the wiring. Stress is what sets it off.
And 2023 Was Nothing But Stress
It was a brutal year for QuotaPath. For all of SaaS, really. RIFs became a common term in our vocabulary; rising interest rates meant funding fell off a cliff, and SVB went into full meltdown mode. (But hey, it’s also the reason Topline exists — silver linings!)
Back in that ER, I made a decision I’ve told almost no one. I thought: I’ve already done this. I built TrendKite. I built this. I don’t have to be the founder-CEO anymore.
So, I went looking for someone to replace me — six months of interviewing candidates and finding myself. Only my management team knew, and Asad Zaman, my cohost in crime, who sat with me through a lot of lonely journaling. Some of you can probably relate.
Word leaked, the way it does. Suddenly, I had a target on my back and competitors whispering that our CEO wasn’t well.
Health is personal, and that was a cheap thing to do.
Because we ultimately never found the right person for the role. And while I was looking, the numbers started turning, and I realized I didn’t want to do anything else. The fear hadn’t gone anywhere, but I learned to dance with it instead of letting it run the room. And my stress came down with it.
Marc Andreessen wrote “It’s Time to Build” in 2020. Sitting there, in 2023, healthier in body and business, that phrase was on repeat in my mind.
Building Through It
Here we are, three years later, and I’m still learning. The strangest thing about this job is the conflict that nobody warns you about: The same stretch that nearly broke me is also the most exciting moment I’ve ever operated in. In the same week — sometimes the same hour — you can be raw and scared about your own body and genuinely thrilled about what you get to build.
These days, the 3 a.m. thoughts have moved away from concerns about my heart and onto the questions that keep every founder up at night: Is everyone just going to vibe-code their own commissions? Is Claude Code going to swallow what we do?
You wake up running it. It’s a lonely place — there’s almost no one you can say it to. You have your co-founders, you have a coach if you’re lucky, and past that, it’s hard for anyone to really be in it with you.
So, you build through it. You ship something real — never something half-baked — because the second you put your customers’ trust at risk, you’re done.
Then again, if you wait for certainty, someone else will ship first, and you’re also done.
You Live on That Edge on Purpose
We’ve hit 11 of our last 12 quarterly targets, and most of that comes down to one thing: we didn’t wait.
I’m hands-on keyboard, building product right now.
Comp Plan Grader went out this week as part of Atlas, which launched on June 1st. It’s a product I’m so proud to put the QuotaPath name behind. It’s exactly what I dreamed of building back in 2018 when we started the company — and I came so close to giving up before I got to build it.
Three years ago, I was trying to hand this away. Now, I can’t imagine it in anyone else’s hands.
Set the Vision, Hire Great People, and Don’t Run Out of Money
That’s the CEO’s job, in a nutshell. Most days, it really is that simple, and the second one is what saves you.
It’s the people who stay the course — in my case, my team and the investors who saw the vision and stuck with me — that will ground you in your journey. You owe it to them to move as fast as possible without anyone getting hurt.
So, while we’re AI-first at QuotaPath, we do follow some basic principles that mean we’re not moving so fast as to be careless:
The test under all six: would you put your name on it without the AI caveat? If not, do another pass.
We’re All Wired Differently. Keep Going Anyway.
A month ago, I had a procedure called a “pulsed field ablation”: A catheter was run up through my thigh to my heart, where brief, high-energy electrical pulses were used to eliminate the specific cells that have been causing my erratic heart rhythms.
Modern medicine is a miracle.
Though it hasn’t necessarily changed me — the quirk in my wiring is still there and always will be — the part that kept setting off the alarm is calmer now.
If you’re struggling, I get it. I’ve been there. I challenge you to connect yourself to your work in different, meaningful ways. In my case, it was to get my hands dirty in the product itself and get as clear a focus as I could. What will it be for you?
What’s most important is that I’m still here. Hands on keyboard. Building through it.
AJ Bruno is the co-founder and CEO of QuotaPath, a sales compensation platform that simplifies commission tracking for revenue teams. As a second-time founder, AJ has built and led GTM strategy for sales, lead generation, and account management teams, scaling from $0 to $25M in ARR and overseeing organizations with over 100 employees. AJ is also an active startup advisor and investor, and a co-host of the Topline podcast.
