Spark of Ages

The Hidden Job Market for Executives in 2026/Andy Mowat - Builders, Whispered, AI Resumes ~ Spark of Ages Ep 54

• Rajiv Parikh • Season 1 • Episode 54

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Why are management layers thinning?  How does AI change hiring signals? And how can senior leaders break into the hidden market for unposted executive roles? Andy Mowat shares practical playbooks for proof-of-work interviews, CEO diligence, and building a data-first GTM engine that actually ships.

• management ranks thinning and the rise of builders
• proof-of-work interviews and AI used well
• unposted VP and C-level roles and network strategy
• clarity of story over keyword stuffing
• being a high-impact number two under great leaders
• data foundations over tool sprawl in go-to-market
• CEO diligence and avoiding toxic cultures
• career 2.0, brand resets, and paying it forward

Want the truth about senior hiring in an AI-soaked market? Andy Mowat, four-time unicorn operator and founder of Whispered, pulls back the curtain on how VP and C-level roles really get filled, why management layers are thinning, and what it takes to stand out when every résumé looks flawless. We unpack the tactics that actually move the needle: proof-of-work case studies, hands-on demos that beat shiny decks, and a singular narrative that tells a CEO exactly what problem you solve.

We dive into the hidden job market for executives—where most roles never get posted—and map practical paths to get in the door without setting off alarms at your current company. Andy lays out a quiet-search playbook built on targeted lists, recruiter and talent partner relationships, and a community-powered network effect that shares live intel on companies, leaders, and backstories. If your experience includes a bump or two, we talk about owning it clearly and moving forward, rather than trying to bury the lead with keyword stuffing that pleases algorithms but confuses humans.

On go-to-market, Andy tackles the “GTM engineer” trend and explains why data foundations and real implementation beat tool sprawl and clever slides every time. Think operationalizing product events, smarter routing, and lifecycle triggers that create pipeline—versus busywork alerts that fade in Slack. We also explore why being a high-impact number two under a world-class leader can be a better career accelerator than chasing the top seat at the wrong company, and how to vet CEOs for transparency, delegation, and decision-making.

If you’re aiming at a senior move in 2026, this conversation will sharpen your approach: build with AI, don’t hide behind it; ship artifacts that prove your value; pick the right leader and stage; and pay it forward to compound your network.

Andy Mowat: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amowat/

Andy Mowat, a four-time unicorn executive, is the Founder and CEO of Whispered, a specialized talent network and platform dedicated to helping senior executives find and land high-level roles before they are publicly posted. Andy's extensive executive background includes serving as the Vice President of RevOps at Carta, where he oversaw GTM systems, data, strategy, and enablement for a business exceeding $400 million in ARR. Prior to that, he was instrumental in scaling both Upwork and Culture Amp from approximately $10 million to over $100 million in ARR. Andy is also the host of the How I Hire podcast and an alumnus of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business.

Whispered: https://www.whispered.com/

Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/

Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/

Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/

Email us with any feedback for the show: sparkofages.podcast@position2.com

Andy Mowat:

I think management ranks will get thinned out. And so if you're later or mid in your career and you're sitting there saying, I'm looking to hire a bunch of directors and kind of just manage and not get my hands dirty, you're going to struggle. You need to keep thinking, how do you push the bounds? Right. You assume that everyone else is using AI as well, too. And so you feel smarter, you're like, wow, I got this great thing. But you really have to be constantly pushing the bounds of how you use AI if you're going to excel in this job market. Like I was wrapping up a startup and I was like, dude, I don't know where to focus. I don't know which companies to target. I don't know. My network is stale. I don't know how the game is played. Roles aren't posted. Like I'm gonna spend six months just next figuring out like where these roles are and it's lonely.

Rajiv Parikh:

It's always great when you talk to someone that has gone from being a go-to-market executive who's found a different way to still stay in the subject, but then help a lot of other folks. And that's what Andy's done with starting his company, Whispered. He's an entrepreneur, he knows about go-to-market, but he's also solving a big problem for folks, and that's helping them find a job and taking advantage of networks that are out there. And he's built a company designed to do that. The idea of Whispered and how it is designed to help folks find those job postings before they're posted. And of course, one of the things he said is folks don't really want to do job descriptions, formal job descriptions as much. They just have a sense of what they want to fill, and he's helping them address that market. So I deeply appreciate how he went through his honest story about how he was in a VP position and he felt it felt lonely when you're looking for the next gig. And from that, he started this particular business. Other insights I was really excited about or interested in hearing was that we won't necessarily have a weak talent pipeline because companies today are hiring many earlier stage junior folks into their companies. It's just at the mid-level to senior level, there's a lot of gaps, and you can get a lot of benefit from taking a position where you're working with a great company, a great leader in a good situation, getting the right brand name on your resume and growing rather than saying, I must own the top spot and report to the CEO. And then further, as a person, I appreciated his thought about paying it forward and then building a business around paying it forward. And the fact that he was appreciative about seeing the world at a young age and now being less concerned about that as he raises his kids and probably now being able to expose the best of it to his kids. So great way to meet a very interesting person who's making a difference in the world. Today we're talking about everyone's favorite subject. We're going to talk about jobs. Welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast. Today we're joined by Andy Mowat, a four-time unicorn executive and highly respected operational leader who has spent his career building go-to-market engines for top companies. He's uniquely positioned to discuss the job landscape of 2026, serving today as the founder and CEO of Whispered, a specialized talent network and platform dedicated to helping senior executives find and land high-level roles before they're publicly posted. Andy's extensive executive background includes serving as the vice president of RevOps at Carta, where he oversaw go-to-market systems, data, strategy, and enablement for a business exceeding $400 million in ARR. That's annual recurring revenue. Prior to that, he was instrumental in scaling both Upwork and Culture Amp from approximately $10 million to over $100 million in ARR. Andy is also the host of the How I Hire podcast and an alumnus of the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Some of the key takeaways you can expect from this episode, the current employment landscape and technology, practical advice for senior execs looking for a career move, and finally, how Andy and Whispered are approaching their use of AI. Andy, welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast.

Andy Mowat:

Thank you. Great to be here.

Rajiv Parikh:

Yeah, great to have you. I think you and I originally met each other. I was looking through my LinkedIn 2015.

Andy Mowat:

That's a long time ago, oh man. Since we've crossed paths a couple of times, it's fun to see you.

Rajiv Parikh:

Multiple times in the go to market space. Probably a lot to do with my friend AJ and a friend of the show with this Go to Market Leader Society. So I think we bumped into each other in a lot of places. So I'm glad to have you here. And I think you've taken a really cool and interesting turn in your career. So just a lot of great stuff to talk about. And right now everyone's freaked out about jobs, especially with all that's going on in AI. So let me ask you the first question more about today's employment landscape and technology. And so if AI agents are currently displacing junior roles, are we unknowingly manufacturing a massive executive talent shortage five to 10 years from now, effectively cutting the roots of the future VP pipeline?

Andy Mowat:

I think maybe, but I think people are, you know, it's like people don't stop hustling no matter what. I think yes, if it's a little harder to break into jobs, there's still ways to do it, even at the junior level. Like I do talk to a lot of friends that have recent college grads, they're getting a lot of pains, but there's the studies out there that show how many companies are trying AI and failing. I talk to COs every day that are it's not as effective as what it's going to be. I mean, yes, we're all using it all the time, but there's so many areas where you still need a person, you still need a body. So I I don't see that wave happening. I think the economy is very heavily weighted towards certain areas right now. And it's, you know, it's a nervous time for people in careers, both at the early stage and then at the late stages. Ironically, at that kind of like experienced junior level is rocking right now. I talked to a lot of recruiters that are like, I've never been busier. At the very senior level, I think people are going through a lot of pain.

Rajiv Parikh:

Okay, so that's a unique insight. I appreciate that. And you've noticed before another podcast that you did earlier this year that the modern hiring managers droughting in applications that are all going to be perfectly written or perfectly customized by AI, right? So given this flood of flawless AI polished candidates, how are you advising executives whose value traditionally lay in systems and data fluency to intentionally demonstrate non-AI automatable soft skills? Things like, you know, empathy, creativity, leadership. It's what you need to penetrate the inner whispered network of highly selective roles in 2026.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah, if companies are trying to hire builders, right? Like even at the senior levels, I think the idea of you can be a senior manager, I think management ranks will get thinned out. And so if you're later or mid in your career and you're sitting there saying, I'm looking to hire a bunch of directors and kind of just manage and not get my hands dirty, you're gonna struggle. Every week we get all our whispered members on to kind of a huddle and we bring in a guest. Last week we brought in one of our members who had absolutely rocked the case study, right? And I was like, okay, yeah, cool. You know, it's we all hate these things, they take a lot of time. But this woman was really impressive. Like, so there's like using AI to do your case study. By the way, what's the case study? Uh case study. Like you're in an interview process. People say, Hey, great, we're gonna give you this project that you need to work on and present this thing to us, and we'll decide if you move further in the interview process, right? And so a lot of people curse them. They're like, I don't want to give away free work, or they said only do two hours, but I did 30 hours and then I never heard back, right? And so we spent a lot of time thinking, like, how do you handle that part of the process in the interview? A lot of good tactics. But I think what she just blew me away, like I literally was so impressed, which is most people will take the case study, feed it into AI, do some thoughts, iterate on it, and then like they'll make a nice deck. Maybe they'll use gamma. She took another step further, which is she used Reflet to build a dashboard that was interactive, make up her own data set. And so you can imagine the whole issue of this person's too senior, they're not hustling enough, they're not a builder, they're not willing to get their hands dirty, boom, out the window. And then people are sharing that link in the company. Hey, did you see what this woman did? Oh my goodness. And um, you know, she got the aucker. I think a lot of our whispered members are like, wow, like you need to keep thinking, how do you push the bounds? Right. You assume that everyone else is using AI as well, too. And so you feel smarter, you're like, wow, I got this great thing. But you really have to be constantly pushing the bounds of how you use AI if you're gonna excel in this job market.

Rajiv Parikh:

As an executive, like you're saying, a lot of executives come in and say, look, I'll bring a great team together for you. So are you saying that a lot of this now is that person actually getting hands-on, putting something together, like you say in Repli or Cloud Code or something like that, and then actually developing something interesting as part of that interview process or that hiring process?

Andy Mowat:

If you want to stand out from everyone else that's using Chat GPT to take the prompt, put it in, roll it a couple of times, and then create a tech, yeah. You I mean, the job here is you always need to blow people away, especially in a market like this.

Rajiv Parikh:

That's amazing. So, like, let's go into the next question. With the looming expectation that tech IPO candidates must meet higher revenue thresholds, right? Usually nowadays a tech IPO is not 50, 60 million, it's 200 million dollars in ARR, demonstrated sales efficiency metrics, et cetera. How is the tightening public market fundamentally raising the bar for the quality maturity of the executive bench that's required for a successful IPO filing in 2026 beyond operational expertise just needed for private financing rounds? What I mean by executive bench could be CROs, CFOs, RevOps, CMOs, et cetera.

Andy Mowat:

The IPO bench, the IPO market has been mucked up for a long time, right? Like look at Stripe, you look at RAMP, you look at all these other companies that are legitimately like super valuable public markets, and they've all decided they don't want to be public. I think there's a bigger problem here, which is the benefits of being public and the cost of capital is such that a lot of CEOs are just deciding it's not worth it. I think you're probably gonna see, I know that OpenAI and Anthropic are racing to get public because it's the next big bucket of money that they need to tap and potentially do that. I think there's a lot of thrash there. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about what's the exact bench needed to go public. I think about, you know, just like there are lots of interesting stages, right? And you've got to pick the right stage that makes the most sense for your career. And then I think I guess I haven't, we've been interviewing a lot of people on our podcast talking about how they hire, how they build leadership teams. We've actually focused a lot more. I mean, the it's a higher bar to go public, and more companies don't want to go public. And so I think we spend a lot of time with investor-backed B, C, D, E companies than we do with like public companies.

Rajiv Parikh:

So you're spending your time more with the early stage companies or mid-stage companies, taking them up. We know that companies, like you said, Stripe, Brex, the only way to get access to them is through secondary funds now before they someday go public. And so the game changes in terms of what you need. So I guess there's more range in terms of those types of folks that you would be helping them build to get to these, you know, through these stages before that next step.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, you can go to a public company, you don't have to be a number one, right? Like a lot of people, like I have to be ahead of, I have to be senior. I had Nick Beta on the podcast yesterday. He had the greatest quote. He's like, Can we stop saying I need a seat at the table? He's like, that's not how it works. And so, like, I see a lot of people, and talking to another person today, actually, I gotta get the quote, but he's like, I've done enough art films. I now need to do like a blockbuster, right? And so it's like if you work for these small little rinky-dinky companies that no one's ever heard of. If you keep going ahead of in like a 50 person company, eventually you're gonna struggle. And so we've got a fun playbook around like, should you go for a one or a two? And it's okay sometimes to go for twos. I don't worry about like if you're smart, intelligent, and communicative, like you could take a step down to go there. I've seen a lot of people take serious steps down in level to go to some of these big hot companies, but it opens up things in other ways.

Rajiv Parikh:

It resets their brand, it resets who they're working for. They get to say, I'm part of a great big winner, and many of them have so much capital, they're kind of like a much later stage company where you may not have been number one, but in the earlier stage, you would have been number one.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah. Who you work for matters a lot. If you are the top person in your function, call it head of revenue, head of marketing, you know, C level of those people. You report to a CEO that has a lot of other stuff, you're not going to get any support, any coaching, or any air cover. If you are a number two, you know, like a really strong VP of demand gen, great second-line sales leader, you can work for an incredibly supportive CMO, CRO, get a ton of air cover, ton of support. Yeah, maybe you don't have the seat at the table, but you know, as Nick said yesterday, it's not about that. That's not it, it is a CEO perspective and all his friends, like that's not the way it works. You know, you may have somebody three levels down that's articulate, close to data, and be able to pull you through. And so I think way too many people would sess over, and you and I could buy him a fun shot about this. Like the number of marketers I say that I have to report to CEO.

Rajiv Parikh:

That's tough. Yeah. There's only so many.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah, right. It's it's not necessary, right? Like I think what I care more about is am I reporting to somebody that's making the right decisions? Either what I care about is GTM decision making, if I'm looking at a company, who I report to and what's how are decisions made. And I think there's a lot of people that have been very fulfilled without having to have a seat at the table. That's interesting.

Rajiv Parikh:

And so does that also raise the bar for startups in terms of the types of people they bring in as well?

Andy Mowat:

I mean, everyone's always got the bar raised, right? You hear the one of my least favorite terms is talent density. I don't understand, I mean, I understand what it means, but I think it's kind of overused.

Rajiv Parikh:

First explain what talent density is.

Andy Mowat:

At a fundamental level, it's going to mean having as many high-quality people as possible in your company, right? So it's it's another way of saying we only hire A players. Like, of course, yes. One fun one is, you know, unemployment is five percent. So by definition, the fifth percentile is working somewhere at some company, right? We heard from a venture capitalist the other day. I was like, hey, we got an amazing group of A players who are like, can we see the Bs? I was like, well, we got a couple of them. And they're like, well, we have some B companies too, right? So there's a company for everyone. You just got to figure it out. That's right.

Rajiv Parikh:

Yeah. Less than 5% unemployment, which is usually the natural rate of replacement. In the tech industry, it's two to three percent, right? So it's greater than that. So you would think talent has greater leverage. Are you actually seeing that though? Because I have friends who've been around the block and and some of them are high quality folks that don't have jobs.

Andy Mowat:

Whispered focuses on VP and C level roles in unposted roles. So I'm not talking about like director and down, but there are high quality VP and C level folks sitting on the sidelines in a way that they weren't three years ago, right? Like you felt like a rock star in 2021 or late 2020. And it's like we all were like, wow, it's great. You know, it's like people are buying everything. I think in certain verticals, it's happening, right? Like if you look at the AI support market or AI legal market, every one of those companies is basically their entire TAM is in market this year. And so it's gonna look like Peloton looked in 2020, right? Like Peloton was going to the moon. They were building out a healthcare vertical and all of this stuff, and like, no, it didn't continue. So I think we're gonna see some major pain in some of these hot AI high flyers as some of the TAM is no longer in market.

Rajiv Parikh:

Okay. That's a that's a great insight. So, like, this is getting to senior execs who are looking at for a career move, right? So given that you believe that 98% of sea level roles are unposted, how can a senior executive successfully vet and sell themselves for a whispered sea level role that inherently lacks a precise, publicly defined scope without putting their career at risk?

Andy Mowat:

Ah, there's lots of questions there. I think there's one question, which is how do you search when you're in a role? We could go deep down that one alone. We've got a whole playbook on like searching within one. And I've seen people not whispered members so far. I've never seen a whispered member blown up searching. I think whispered actually helps you search a little bit quieter. There's a whole nother set of like, how do you go about finding those roles, knowing where they're at, connecting to them, getting in the door, and then doing it if you are in a role in a quiet way? Like I could go deep down any one of those ones. Awesome.

Rajiv Parikh:

Do you have like a couple points just to think about in that? How would a CEO sell themselves in one of those roles that are not listed? They're looking around and they want to go find it. A couple of insights from your playbook.

Andy Mowat:

It's a lot about networks and connections, right? Like we look at it as first you need to know where the roles are. And so there's a bunch of strategies. You can work with talent partners, you can work with recruiters, you can do drafting, which is like finding other people that have your role and doing that. We've got a whole playbook on like what are the top eight to 10 strategies to search. They're gonna depend upon your circumstances, not ours. You can't do all eight, you know, having company lists, doing all that. So that's kind of one. Obviously, Whispered helps because we have the deepest database of unpost-to-down market roles. Then I think there's like, okay, cool. I'm aware that those roles are active. Now I got to get door. It's the classic working your network, right? There, I think we can help because we have deep networks with recruiters, talent partners. And then we've built this really cool thing within Whispered where all members are sharing their LinkedIn and email graphs and can help each other out. If you're popping your head up and you're aware of a role, it's hard to like send an email to somebody be like, hey, I'm looking. So that's really challenging. I don't think you're ever selling yourself. If you're selling yourself, you're coming across as desperate. When I interview a candidate for me to hire them, I will set up on my piece of paper kind of a T and I'll have a notes at the top and a minus and a plus. When I go into interview, I do the exact same. I am not selling myself. I am evaluating if it's a good fit. I think we spend our time really only with call it B plus to A plus candidates, right? And so I've observed that A candidates search very differently than C candidates. And so, like for me, you can smell desperation in somebody, right? And so, I mean, I want somebody that's asking me the first question you often ask in interview is like, tell me any questions you've got. I start off every interview I have with, hey, I'm willing to spend the next 30 minutes on your questions, like legitimately, like whatever you want. And I'm gonna know if somebody's trying to break down the role, how to understand it, what's working, what's trying to see what the fit looks like.

Rajiv Parikh:

Can I play in your world rather than selling me into your role?

Andy Mowat:

If you're selling yourself, I think you're already out of the game.

Rajiv Parikh:

That's the hardest part.

Andy Mowat:

The other thing we've kind of realized that we've added to it too is community support is critical. Like this is a lonely process, especially there's a big difference, and I always say this at some points, everyone will get punched in the face on their career. And by that, what I mean is you can't sit in a company in a role and respond on your timeline. You are out of a role and you have to accelerate that timeline for cash flow, or you don't want to have a big hole in the resume. And so you have to move faster than that timeline will work. That's a very humbling process when it happens. And so having support is really important. And then I think the final thing is picking the right company is something that people don't realize. But when everyone goes and interviews at companies, they learn a lot and they throw that away before Whispered. Now they give it to us. And so, you know, we every day, every week, we have stories where one Whispered member is going to interview at a company where another one worked or knew or something like that, and they can help them be a lot smarter on that.

Rajiv Parikh:

That's great. So you mentioned previously on the importance of gathering information on the backstories of CEOs and companies. As you talked about, you can help candidates avoid toxic environments. Company may look amazing, but the place is awful once you actually get in. So, what's the single most consistent red flag you look for in a founding CEO's historical narrative that suggests that this high-performing executive will fail there? By the way, I just came off of an interview where the super successful CEO talked about how he got rid of the first two CMOs and ended up promoting one of his engineers to run marketing and actually did pretty well of it. So, anyways, go ahead.

Andy Mowat:

We've got kind of a playbook on eight ways to diligence the CEO. There's not one red flag, right? But I think a lot plus from the CEO, like understanding the culture, especially if you're interviewing for BP or C level roles, right? Like you need to understand how that CEO ticks because they are going to drive a lot of the culture. They probably will have a heavy hand in decision making on go to market. And so understanding if it's the type of CEO you want to work for is a critical component. I bucket them into who do you work for? Who is the CEO? What is the product market and channel market fit for that company? And if you have those three things right, I don't care what the title is, I don't care what the comp is. I care that I'm working at a company that's like going the right direction with great leadership and working for a great person. That's my personal eval. I think different people have different things, but you know, you'll see people with like a list of nine things, and I don't think it's too many. And you've got to be able to really sort that through. So red flag? Oh, like one red flag?

Rajiv Parikh:

Give me a red flag. I would look for.

Andy Mowat:

I'll just drop our note in the chat. Like I've got eight different things on that. How transparent is the CEO? How do they treat others? Do they have the ability to delegate? We've got questions on every single one of those things that you can ask, right? So it's not like one red flag that's not like a single red flag.

Rajiv Parikh:

It's a bunch of things. Yeah.

Andy Mowat:

Oh, God.

Rajiv Parikh:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of things to get educated on. You're advising executives. They may have a couple bad swings on their resume. What's a single skill learned from an earlier professional setback that's most valuable in convincing a new hiring CEO to take a chance on them?

Andy Mowat:

One was like if you got a bumpy background, how do you do that? We've written a whole playbook on everything around LinkedIn, right? I think a lot of people will try to hide it. They'll try to do it, they'll try to like manipulate their story in some way. And then what you end up with is like you get 10 seconds for somebody to look at your LinkedIn and they're gonna go zoom down it and they're gonna come to a judgment and be like, Rajiv is X. And then move on. If you have a non-digestible story or an unclear story, that's one. If you're trying to be like, well, I could be marketing or product, I might what's the problem you solve for that CEO? And be clear on that. And so I think the number of people that aren't clear on it and don't have a singular message, they're never going to get to the interview to do that stuff. They're going to get screwed up.

Rajiv Parikh:

They're going to have a tough time getting there. But now, say you have this candidate. They're part of the whispered network. They're really good, but they've got a couple warts on the resume. They took some chances, didn't work out for whatever reason. By the way, I've had this conversation with some people and they're like, hey, you know, I know they're good. They've had a couple things that maybe the most recent one wasn't as much of a win as they wanted to have. But you know they're really good and you want to persuade the CEO on the other side that this is a good one. What's a good way to think about it? How can you either persuade the CEO and then persuade the person to change their story?

Andy Mowat:

Like Andy Price had a good quote, and I'll missnail it, but he said something of like, if you've had one bump, you know, you're okay. If you've had three or four, like, I can't help you. You're gonna have to go in the wilderness and fight the hard fight to get back on the horse, right? And so we're not unfortunately able to take those people that have had like multiple bumps to that. If you've had one, like I literally love when people just put it at the top of the LinkedIn, like company didn't work out for X reason, right? And just own it and move on versus in the interview process, you'd be like, Oh, yeah, you know, why didn't this work out? And if it's a long-winded weaving answer, you're like, I just own it and have a little story and just move on. But if it's four or five in a row, then you're making bad decisions. And that's on you, not on the company, right? I think what we try to do is help people make good decisions and not get stuck in those situations. That's great.

Rajiv Parikh:

Okay, so let's talk about whispered and you're thinking about AI in your own operations, right? So you're using AI agents for rapid candidate assessment. The future demands leaner AI-enabled teams. Will the next generation of successful executives be judged less by their ability to manage large headcounts and more by their verifiable track record of achieving hypergrowth with a much smaller operational footprint?

Andy Mowat:

Yeah, I mean, you're looking for both, right? The ability to lead and be a senior person, be strategic, and be able to also be a builder. Our podcast coming out tomorrow or Wednesday. We interviewed Jessica Chu at Canva, right? Like she's really thoughtful around like we want builders. And so we're people want builders, they don't want leaders anymore. So that's a reality. Your kind of point on the AI side is yes, we're using, we've fine-tuned AI to kind of give us a rough score. Like she had a woman that I was spending time with yesterday, and she's like, the AI says I have a 10-year gap. It's not true. And I'm like, I opened it up and she like merged two companies into one. She had two other things that were there, and they were playing, you know, like trying to tell a story that was the story that was there. And so I was like, no, the the AI is right, like based upon what we wired it for, like it sees that, right? So I think there's optimizing for two things. There's optimizing for the algorithm. I think everyone tries to see that they put all the keywords and they put all the stuff at the top, but nobody's optimizing for at the senior levels with your network and with the network whispered and with everything else. You should be able to get in front of people. And so if you've optimized for the algorithm, but your resume doesn't have a singular story, you're gonna struggle. And so I think what we're trying to do is help people understand a little bit of both, right? Like how would the algo maybe see you?

Rajiv Parikh:

But then when someone actually reads it, how are they gonna see you, right? So you have to kind of optimize for both. And it's just like anything else. It's like if you're gonna go to market, you should know how to do a website, right? I gotta write my website for the Google search engine, I gotta write it for AI answer engine, and I gotta write it for human that's gonna read it.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah, I personally think everyone right now is optimizing for the algo. I would tack the other way. Think about this way like if say you're networking for your next job and you're pinging five friends and they can't quite figure out like what's your superpower and how to position you. And what did they say about you receive when you're not in the room? Right. And so if somebody has to do like seven minutes of work to come up with that, they're not gonna do it.

Rajiv Parikh:

Not gonna waste their time.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah. So I think our guidance is really like you can put in all the keywords, you can put on a little skill. I mean, when somebody has like executive leadership, LinkedIn skill, you're like, come on, like either you were an executive leader and you have it, or you don't, but I don't really need it there. So those are ticky tech things, and there's opinions both ways on stuff like that. But I tend to try to optimize for get a clear niche, get a value you deliver for a CEO and make that story incredibly clear. That's great.

Rajiv Parikh:

Okay, Andy, we're gonna go talk about your go-to-market background. You've headed multiple go-to-market teams, especially Revoffs. So, with Forrester predicting that over half of large B2B purchases they will transition to self-service digital channels in 2025. This is something that we're definitely seeing. Should go-to-market leadership teams entering 2026 prioritize hiring technically fluent go-to-market engineers to orchestrate complex agentic workflows over traditional lead-focused demand gen specialists?

Andy Mowat:

GTM engineer is a sexy title grid to justify a complex tool. I think you absolutely need the right data foundation. It depends, right? Like there is no one size fits all answer for go-to-market. I know you probably deal with that a lot too, where people I ask these questions, like, okay, but the answer depends. I mean, I talked to a company selling multi-million dollar deals. I don't think you need GTM engineers. You need a little bit of data behind the scenes to equip your salespeople and your good. Now, you know, you see other people that are like Clay's a great example, right? Like they are selling lots of things to lots of small people. Actually, they started off selling to agencies, right? Yeah, yeah. They were really, really smart at that, right? But they need a data foundation to be able to do all that stuff. The ability to nurture people, you know, the Spotify week and review. Clay did a version of that. It's powered by one of my favorite companies out there. You probably know too, inflection.io. They're building really cool like ability to operationalize product data. If you are a company that is PLG, SMB selling, and you do not have your product data operationalized, that's critically important. And I think people are like, okay, cool. So I've got like this field writing to this field and this thing. I'm like, no, no, you need to be able to consume an event stream, understand it, and then utilize that data to communicate things in the right way, right? Like Clay's week in review, I heard it had like doubled the pipeline created off of it just by turning that thing on. Brilliant, super smart, right? And so I think a lot of people are like, I've heard people be like, I need to hire a GTM engineer because I heard the buzzword out there, right? Like I and most of my peer group, I think you can give a GTM engineer a couple tools and they can look really smart really quick, but like they're not rewiring the foundation, getting the data model right, getting the GTM systems right, getting it all plugged in. So I personally hate when GTM engineers, it's like BizOps with more tooling capability, right? And so I would much prefer that you take GTM engineer, you look at the RevOps function, you say, Listen, I'm gonna give you one more head count. This person's gonna have no run-the-business responsibility, but their job is to drive change. Like right when I was leaving Carter, we were pretty close to getting that type of hire, right? Like I get excited about that. But every time you go anywhere, BizOps is like, hey, so there's cool stuff, and we've done this deck, and now we're gonna do stuff, but they don't actually like it.

Rajiv Parikh:

Are you saying they're not digging into the data, the data model as much? So you're saying, hey, there's a bunch of folks that are describing the business, they're understanding the business, they're guiding the business, and then there's folks that should be more data model oriented. They may know less about the business, but they know how to get clean data, structured data, get it to the right systems. Is that what you're talking about?

Andy Mowat:

Think about lead routing, right? Like, take that as an example. That is a highly complex thing. And so to have a GTM engineer, they could pull up clay, they could pull a bunch of data, they could be like, hey, I've done a little model, here's a spreadsheet, here's how it should work. Oh, we're good. Like, wow, it's amazing. You can see how like all of it's balanced. I'm like, okay, cool. Did you operationalize that? Is it wired everywhere? Is it working? Like, is it working with the data model and the systems? And is the routing and the experience of the person and doing all this stuff? You see it all the time. Do you remember troops they got bought by Salesforce? You could like take Slack and Salesforce data and trigger stuff. Like you look like a genius at first. But over time, it was just like firing more slacks and everyone was overloaded. And it was just like, okay, but did you really think about what the problem you were trying to solve was and solve it? Or you more like, I should something, it was cool. Slap me on the back, move me on, right? And so, like, if you don't think about how your GTM engineering function is set up and aligned with the organization, it's going to look like the smartest person in the room, but it's not actually going to drive real change in the business.

Rajiv Parikh:

Yeah. So you're saying it's not just the data foundation and data architecture and connecting systems together, but actually making it happen. It's actually going to the different groups and actually putting those together, presenting it, getting it to be operationalized is what matters.

Andy Mowat:

I mean, how many times do you hop on a call, or like how many times has my sales team hopped on a call, but like, that's the coolest tool ever? I'm like, cool, but like, what's the problem you're trying to solve? And have we thought about how we do it here versus I think what you're going to see is a lot of companies are going to have a lot of like rando AI tools that was the pet project of somebody, but it's not implemented, working, and whatever. Like you got to get these things in, right? Like when I joined Carta, there were multiple tools that had been bought and hadn't been implemented, right? Now, how do you get that timeline down?

Rajiv Parikh:

It's like software dust on the deck, right? So you just have a whole bunch of stuff sitting there. It looks really good in a slide when you present your markitecture, right? Your tech stack, but you don't actually use any of it. I mean, we see this all the time in my firm. We're ending up helping our partners actually implement their software in the client environment to prevent churn and actually get the client to get the benefits of it. So I mean, it's a huge thing. And this is that whole agent sprawl thing, right? It's lots of agent sprawl, potentially. You got to make it useful. I don't know about you, but I see a lot of output from AI engines that are just too much when you were talking about Slack everywhere. Just too much. You got to make it simple and useful. And so I always ask the question is this actionable? Is this readable? Is this actionable? And if it's too long and it's all kinds of recommendations that I can't do anything with, let's now present that to the client.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah. I think it's like the CEO's answer to drive faster AI is not go find somebody that like is an opsy person to drive change, put a GTM engineer hat on. I'm like, it's to like think about how you hold the right function accountable to do that versus create more streams that are like whacking away at things.

Rajiv Parikh:

I love it. All right, Andy, we're gonna have some fun now. This is the part that you should have good answers to. This is the Spark Tank, and we are gonna do the Keanu filter trivia challenge.

Andy Mowat:

Oh boy. Okay, I'm ready. All right, here we go. There's one Keanu set of movies I haven't watched, but otherwise, that should be pretty good. If you give me a meme, I can tell you what movie it's on.

Rajiv Parikh:

So we're gonna have some fun. We'll see how we do. And I'm just messing with you about you should do well in this because I love Keanu and I couldn't answer a lot of these questions. So welcome to the Spark Tank. Today we're thrilled to have Andy Mollat joining us. Andy, your operational career is fundamentally defined by cutting through the noise. You developed a legendary high-stakes system to do it. It's called the Keanu filter. You are such a huge fan that you advise that as a test of effort and attention and cold outreach, that it is thoughtful to use a Keanu reference, a creative nod that signals they actually did their homework. You even own the domain name Keanu.actor. Today we're putting your dedication to the ultimate test with the Keanu Filter Trivia Challenge. We're going deep into the Keanu verse, from the dojo to the desert, from the red pill to the relentless, beautiful humanity he brings to every role. Andy, are you ready to prove your focus on authenticity is as sharp as in Neo's world?

Andy Mowat:

I'll give it a shot.

Rajiv Parikh:

All right, let's get started. Here we go. In which TV series did Keanu make his first professional on-screen appearance in 1984? A Degrassi Junior High. B Night Heat. Or C Hanging In.

Andy Mowat:

Hanging In.

Rajiv Parikh:

And you sound very certain about it.

Andy Mowat:

Not 100%, but I don't think it's one of the other two.

Rajiv Parikh:

So all right. You are correct. Great start, Andy. Reeves' first professional appearance was in the 1984 episode of the Canadian comedy series Hanging In. Degrassi Junior High and Night Heat are Canadian shows from the same era, but Reeves does not appear in them. There we go. Question number two, one for one. Before fully committing to acting, which sport did Keanu Reeves seriously pursue in high school? Earning the nickname The Wall? Ice Hockey. Well, A was curling, B was ice hockey, C was volleyball. So you obviously got it right. Ice hockey. Keanu's notes that he has been a keen ice hockey goalie in high school. The goalkeeper role he's known for is in ice hockey, not soccer or basketball. All right, two for two. In the late 1980s, Reeves appeared in an Oscar-nominated period drama directed by Stephen Freers. Which film was it? A Dangerous Liaisons, B, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, C, My Left Foot.

Andy Mowat:

Dangerous Liaison.

Rajiv Parikh:

All right, I love it. You are correct again. Reeves played Le Chevalier, Raphael Danceni, in Dangerous Liaisons, which is in 1988, which was directed by Steven Freers and received multiple Oscar nominations. Kianu Reeves' first name comes from the Hawaiian language. What does Keanu roughly mean? A gentle rain at sunset. B a cool breeze over the mountains. C Lone Star in the Night Sky.

Andy Mowat:

I believe it is gentle rain.

Rajiv Parikh:

It's actually B cool breeze over the mountains. So multiple biographical sources note that Keanu in Hawaiian means cool breeze over the mountains. So we got you on one. We had to get you on one, Andy. So you've been so good with the others. Okay, here's question number five. Approximately how many feature films has Keanu Reeves appeared in? These are only acting roles. They exclude shorts and cameos as of 2025. A around 40. B, 55, C around 70.

Andy Mowat:

Feature films. I I'll go with the middle one on this one, B.

Rajiv Parikh:

Sure. Give it a shot. All right. His filmography actually lists 70 feature-length films with acting credits through 2025, including early Canadian features, studio films, and of course recent projects like John Wick, Chapter 4, Ballerina, and Good Fortune. So Andy, you got three out of five.

Andy Mowat:

Not bad.

Rajiv Parikh:

I think you would have gotten four out of five had you really thought about it. So kudos to you. And now apparently, if they've listened to this podcast and they reach out to you, they'll have some really good Keanu ways of reaching you.

Andy Mowat:

Yes, yes, absolutely.

Rajiv Parikh:

What are your three favorite Keanu films? I'm just asking that off the top of my head.

Andy Mowat:

Point break? Matrix John Wick.

Rajiv Parikh:

I would definitely say I wrote down Bill and Ted, John Wick, and Matrix.

Andy Mowat:

You can't have Keanu without point break. Point break was awesome, though.

Rajiv Parikh:

It's just I don't identify it as much with that one. Other ones I really liked was like Speed, 47 Ronin, Lake House, anyways, a whole bunch of great ones. I named my Tesla Neo for the longest time. All right, let's talk about what sparks you, Andy. Did you always know you wanted to work in technology? Was there a specific moment or project that sparked your passion? How'd you discover that passion? What sparked you?

Andy Mowat:

Tim Ferris' Four-Hour Work Week. I was working for a wealthy family in 2007, 2008. And I wasn't in tech. And I read that book and I dropped what I was doing and figured out how to get in.

Rajiv Parikh:

What was it about his book, Tim Ferris's Four Hour Work Week?

Andy Mowat:

Well, I basically was like, I want to go work at Elan Cero Desk because he thought about like how do you leverage freelance talent and how do you approach the world differently and how do you do stuff like that? And so for me, I think it was funny. I heard a deep one with him the other day where he's talking about how much that book has impacted so many different people. And so for me, I think I just started to understand that I was like tech was going to change the world. And if I was gonna live in Silita Valley and this is where I grew up, I might as well get in tech.

Rajiv Parikh:

Was there like an efficiency hack in the book that you tried that either failed or had to be fundamentally adapted? The book's been so long.

Andy Mowat:

I haven't reread it since. But uh no, I mean I'm always refining my own efficiency hacks. I don't really think of them as hacks. It's just like the way I run what I do.

Rajiv Parikh:

Well, it sounds like you've done that with your playbooks and AI agents in your current firm.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah, I'm a big fan of writing. I think and writing can open up a lot of people's careers. And so I write and I share. And you know, it's like you give a lot of advice and you try to share. Hey, rather than just like, hey, here's some generic advice. You're like, here's a piece I've written, here's something I've written. So I think that's very powerful.

Rajiv Parikh:

Yeah, I think it really helps build out your thinking more fundamentally when you're writing out like that. A lot of folks want to just jump to speaking. So, as a Forex unicorn executive, how did your experience of achieving IPO scaling success fundamentally alter your perception of professional identity? And then after you get to that, how do you recommend executives re-anchor their sense of purpose when they're no longer defined by a massive corporate type?

Andy Mowat:

I think a lot about that. I think about career 2.0. I've written extensively on like you will reach a point in in tech, it's probably younger than it is in other industries where you know they want to hire the 30-year-old instead of the 40-year-old. And I think a lot of our peer group is going through that career 2.0. Like you've built your firm and you control it and it's there, but you're not working for somebody else. My approach is find what you're passionate on and keep scratching the itch. I think a lot of people, and I've had some good mentors in this, a lot of people will be like, hey, I've got this PowerPoint deck, but they'll never put into practice, right? Like now you can, you know, with Lovable, with Replit, with Zapier, with all these different tools, you can put this stuff into practice.

Rajiv Parikh:

That's pretty awesome what you can do now with all these tools and what you can build. I had the guy who runs our digital transformation effort put together a client information system. So one of the things that drive me up the wall is when I go to our systems, I can't tell what's going on with a particular client. So he basically went in and looked at the emails that we write back and forth, looked at the projects we're doing and weekly updates and looks at the original agreements and came out with a like literally a little mini website that has here's how the client's doing, here's the sentiment, here's where we are with them, here's what we recommend we should do next based on our practices. And it's one guy putting that together. It's really, really amazing. So, yes, you're right. There's amazing things you could do now. So we always ask guests to name a historical event or person or movement that inspires you. And you answered the Mayflower. So, what in particular lights you up about?

Andy Mowat:

I don't know. I was just reading the story, Squanto, with my little song the other day. I think it's a neat story where people go across a continent to try to find a new life. They come into a country that welcomes them to some degree, right? They they don't murder the other people and they build collaboration. So I thought it was a really nice story.

Rajiv Parikh:

Come in and find a way to work with them as opposed to coming and kill them.

Andy Mowat:

Yeah, exactly. And build barriers to coming into different countries as well, too.

Rajiv Parikh:

Yeah, that's beautiful. What's a piece of conventional wisdom that everyone around you accepts, but you secretly think might be wrong?

Andy Mowat:

I mean, I guess maybe what we're building whispered around, which is the concept of posting roles is going to go away. I think we all intellectually want to post roles, but it doesn't really work that way in a lot of cases. And so I think the ability to create a market, we're not trying to build a marketplace, but a place where people can go and they can get connected with the things that fit best for them and understand them better is something that I'm really working hard to build. That's really cool.

Rajiv Parikh:

And I like how you're building it from the ground up. If you could add one subject to high school curricula that wasn't there when you attended, what would it be and why?

Andy Mowat:

High school AI. I'm sure it already is added. I don't think I would add it any earlier. Why not any earlier? I think you need to learn how to think first before you use the crutches, right? Like, would you really spend the time to get really good at five paragraph essays and structured thinking, or would you just throw some stuff in there and say, write me a five-paragraph essay?

Rajiv Parikh:

You'd get too lazy at what you get out and you'd be too willing to trust when it says.

Andy Mowat:

Kind of like the pod, you know, the the calculator. You got to understand math and be able to do the math before you do that stuff. That's right.

Rajiv Parikh:

What's a rule or boundary you've set for yourself that other people think is weird, but you're convinced makes your life better?

Andy Mowat:

I start every meeting five minutes after.

Rajiv Parikh:

Oh, okay. Why is that?

Andy Mowat:

If you're talking to somebody great, you don't want to be the one jumping off. You can never stop a meeting five minutes early, but you can always start it five minutes later.

Rajiv Parikh:

All right. If you could instantly know the truth about one conspiracy theory or unsolved mystery, what would you choose?

Andy Mowat:

Oh, there's so much gaslighting from the current administration. I would love to just pick whatever one that they're lying about and show us the video on the boats.

Rajiv Parikh:

Actually, I want to understand the psychological basis for how they do that and how they think about it. Because there must be a framework for how they think about it. It just can't be coming out of their butts.

Andy Mowat:

Oh, you follow the leadership example. So yeah, it's coming out of their butts.

Rajiv Parikh:

All right. Do you have a favorite life motto that you come back to and share with friends either at work or life?

Andy Mowat:

Pay it forward. I love it. How do you do that? That's forward building with whispered, right? Like it's not about, hey, I just need my search. It's like, cool, great. But like, what jobs aren't you chasing? What did you learn about? How do you make introductions for other people? How do you give before? It's the fundamental foundation of networking. If I show up and I'm like, Rajiv, can you introduce me to this person? Or it's like, hey man, how you doing? What's going on? Anything I can do to help you? Hey, I got this one question for you. It's just such a different way to do things.

Rajiv Parikh:

What inspired you to start it? You've been working for these companies for quite a while, and then you decided to go start your own gig.

Andy Mowat:

It's scary out there when you when you're a VP plus and you pop your head up, right? Like I was wrapping up a startup and I was like, dude, I don't know where to focus. I don't know which companies to target. I don't know. My network is stale. I don't know how the game is played. Roles aren't posted. Like I'm gonna spend six months just next figuring out like where these roles are and it's lonely, right? So How do you help people do that process?

Rajiv Parikh:

Was there something that just clicked when you met someone or talked to someone or I just keep iterating on it?

Andy Mowat:

You know, it's like I like the idea. I built it around my search. Then I started calling people and I kept asking the same questions. Like, what do you do with all those insights on companies when you interview them? And I got thrown away. And what do you do when you get a job that doesn't fit for you? And it's like, I don't know. And so I just kept scratching the itch.

Rajiv Parikh:

That's pray. What's something you're grateful for that your younger self did or didn't do that's paying off now?

Andy Mowat:

I saw the world. I traveled, I had a lot of fun just exploring. And now I get to spend my time with family. And you know, I've seen the world. I've trundled through China in the 90s. I've explored all Eastern Europe. Like I've been to some real I've been to Cuba. I've been to all these interesting countries. And you know, I've seen everything in Latin America. And so okay, spending time with family now.

Rajiv Parikh:

That's great. What's your personal moonshot? I'm done mostly. That's awesome. Well, Andy, thank you so much for joining us today. That was a great discussion. You're inspirational. You you had a chance to see so many things, and now you're bringing it forward for so many other people. You're getting to help people and building that as a business. So I really appreciate it. Thank you for sharing all your insights today. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, all right, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the podcast, please take a moment to rate it and comment. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere podcasts can be found. This show is produced by Anand Shah and edited by Laura Ballant. I'm your host, Rajiv Parik from Position Squared, a leading growth marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Come visit us at PositionSquared.com. This has been an effing funny production. One person I forgot to thank, thanks to Taryn Talley for bringing Andy to my attention. He's been part of our network, and I really appreciate when she finds someone really great and points them out to me and then we can bring them in. And of course, we'll catch you next time. And remember, folks, be ever curious.

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