Karim Atiyeh - Building Ramp

My guest today is Karim Atiyeh. Karim is the co-founder and CTO of Ramp, the fastest-growing finance automation platform in history, reaching over $1 billion in revenue in just over five years. Ramp is, of course, also our presenting sponsor, so I’m obviously very biased in how highly I think about Ramp and about Karim. But, this interview was not part of that sponsorship, I simply view Karim as one of the best operators active today. Ramp is building what Karim calls "self-driving finance"—using AI agents to automate everything from expense policy enforcement to invoice processing, eliminating the bureaucratic waste that plagues modern businesses. Karim shares his framework for moving from using AI as a productivity tool to programming AI as your actual product, with policy agents that understand context better than humans and improve continuously. Our discussion captures the relentless iteration speed and technical depth required to build generational companies in the age of AI. We explore his systematic approach to building consumer-grade experiences for business software, the psychology behind his "divinely discontent" management style, and why he believes technical founders will dominate this era because they can see possibilities others miss. Please enjoy my conversation with Karim Atiyeh. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ???????????????here????????.???????? ----- This episode is brought to you by???????????????? Ramp????????????????. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to???????????????? Ramp.com/invest???????????????? to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. – This episode is brought to you by?????????????????? Ridgeline??????????????????. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Head to?????????????????? ridgelineapps.com?????????????????? to learn more abou