The Innovative Revenue Leader

What if your entire sales team could be trained, certified, and ready for game time the same week a product update ships? On this episode of Innovative Revenue Leader, host Seth Marrs sits down with Varun Puri, CEO and Co-Founder of Yoodli and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, to explore how AI is fundamentally changing the way revenue organizations learn, practice, and perform.

Varun brings a rare combination of perspectives: early Alphabet employee who reported directly to Sergey Brin, moonshot project veteran, and now founder of an AI communications platform trusted by Google, Salesforce, Sandler, and ServiceNow. The conversation covers the collapse of quarterly training cycles, the architecture behind always-on enablement, and why communication skills are becoming more valuable, not less, as AI takes on more of the revenue workflow. If you lead a revenue organization and wonder why your training investments never seem to stick, this episode offers both a diagnosis and a path forward.


Takeaways:

  • Quarterly training cycles are already broken. By the time a large sales team finishes a training rollout, the product it covers has changed dozens of times. AI agents make it possible to train reps in real time, the moment anything ships.
  • Ever-boarding replaces onboarding as a mindset. The goal is no longer a one-time ramp. Revenue teams need a continuous loop of learning, practice, and application tied directly to what is actually changing in the business.
  • Passive learning does not create behavior change. Multiple choice quizzes, recorded videos, and PDF decks do not move the needle on rep performance. Interactive AI tutors that respond, adapt, and challenge reps produce retention that static content cannot.
  • Role play only works when it is connected to real selling situations. Isolated practice tools have limited impact. When role play is tied to actual call recordings, live deals, and company-specific methodology, it becomes a coaching system rather than a checkbox.
  • Communication is the most underleveraged skill in revenue organizations. The ability to show up, ask good questions, and build trust is the single biggest differentiator between reps who perform and those who plateau. AI can now make that kind of coaching accessible at scale.
  • Adoption requires a clear job to be done. Buying a tool and handing it to reps does not create change. Leaders who anchor rollouts around specific, familiar use cases before expanding build the habits that make the technology stick.
  • The opportunity is not just in sales. Manager conversations, QBRs, promotion discussions, and cross-functional communication are all coachable moments. The most forward-thinking organizations are treating AI-assisted learning as an enterprise-wide capability, not just a GTM function.

Quote of the Show:
  • “Training is no longer the bottleneck sandbag dragging everyone back.” -Varun Puri

Links:

Ways to Tune In:

Creators and Guests

Guest
Seth Marrs

What is The Innovative Revenue Leader?

This podcast explores the future of sales performance, giving Chief Revenue Officers and other growth leaders the insights, tools, and stories they need to lead with confidence. Through candid conversations with top executives, analysts, and tech innovators, we uncover how to harness data, optimize talent, and build tech-enabled sales teams that win. Listeners will walk away with actionable strategies to drive growth, outpace change, and future-proof their revenue engine.

IRL - Varun Puri
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Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Innovative Revenue Leader Podcast. I'm your host, Seth Mars. Join me as we deliver practical insights to help B2B CROs Find new and innovative ways to grow in this fast changing environment. The Innovative Revenue Leader is sponsored by Sandler, a triad company, empowering sales professionals and leaders to master the craft of selling at all levels.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Hello, everyone. This is a, a really special opportunity for us, um, to, to have the guest we have today. He's a, he's a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, TEDx speaker, Google, um, and an AI founder. He's the only person at Google reported-- that reported directly to Sergey Brin, running special projects across the entire Alphabet portfolio, including Waymo, Verily, Google X.

He then went and joined the Google X team, working Google's Moonshot factory as one of the earliest employees on Project Taara, which was deploying laser-based broadband internet across sub-Saharan [00:01:00] Africa. Then he went and created an AI communications coach now used by organizations like Google, Sandler, Salesforce, ServiceNow to, to really help people master the way that they speak and also you'll learn here the way that they learn.

So as CEO and Co-Founder of Udly, Varun, it's so great to have you on.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Seth, it is an honor to be here. Uh, I love working with the Sandler team and, uh, let's rock and roll

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah, really happy about having to have you on. So let's start out with the first thing. The, the, what's the most innovative thing that you're seeing in B2B right now?

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: my macro answer is speed. Just speed across the board enabled by gen AI, but, but speed in two ways. One, uh, speed for build teams in that they can ship infinitely faster using Cursor, Cloud Code, um, you know, all of the agents, et cetera. I'm most interested in is take-- translating that speed into a speed for revenue teams. So for instance, in the old world, training used to [00:02:00] happen quarterly. Um, now, God forbid, someone talks about our product at Udly using our May 2026 pitch. It's currently June, like the world has completely changed. We ship two times a week. So, um, using agents to instantly train your team the moment there's a new update in the product.

So, you know, every Monday morning, folks get a nudge saying, "Here are three changes in the product. do a role play." Boom, you're ready for game time. So getting, getting my field ready as soon as, uh, my build team ships anything, that's powerful.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: So can we double click? That's-- It, it's amazing, but it's also almost unfathomable, right? Because companies have been working at this slow pace, and I think when you talk about speed, I think most people feel that as pressure, more so than they do as an opportunity with AI. And like the way that you're talking about it, you're talking about it as an advantage for your company.

Like you're literally using it to win. Keeping that training element, I mean, can you talk a little bit more [00:03:00] around how... 'Cause you talked about a role play. I think you're doing-- We'll talk about some other stuff you're doing. But how do you make sure that you overcome all the standard training stuff that happens that you, if you had an LMS and every week it's kinda-- I don't want people to think that every week you're signing an LMS course that your team has to go in and do, but you're keeping people up to speed and working at the speed of your company by doing training differently, right?

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Yeah. May-maybe I'll do this by defining the before world and the after world. The before world, I'm Google Cloud. I need to train fifteen thousand reps and a hundred and fifty thousand partners on my new Gemini pitch. this would take me what? Six months, maybe a year. By the, by the time the fifteenth thousand rep would have been trained, in today's world, Gemini, the product, would have evolved about a hundred and fifty times, right?

So you don't-- have training be something that's at the end of the quarter, that's at the end of the month, that we come up with a curriculum and then send to the field. Your [00:04:00] engineers are no longer waiting for that. Nobody has patience for

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: So that's a problem. Um, it's also an opportunity because means you can ship and experiment and iterate super fast.

So every Monday, when a seller logs into Udly, for better or for worse, the platform has completely changed, right? They go in and they're like,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: God, this was not I... " And I love that. And we are not the only ones with this problem. I think, uh, large companies are facing that as well. The way we solve for that is with our ever-boarding agent. tactically, the way it works is as soon as I ship anything, our agent will pull from your knowledge sources. So it might be Jira, Slack, GitHub, whatever your developers pu- uh, push changes to. on that, the agent will be smart enough and say, "Okay, great. Here are the fifteen changes that happened.

Here are the five that are most important." Right? You change your positioning a bit, you launch this new functionality you need to talk about, and oh my God, you finally released this, uh, piece of code that will increase your competitive differentiation.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: [00:05:00] Yep

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: automatically create a training tutor. So this is, you know, a five-minute, uh, interactive role play, let's call it

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yep

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: AI. Every Monday morning at eight AM, my sellers will get a Slack message and a calendar invite saying, "Here's your five minutes of training for the week." Literally, that's it. They click on it. Seth AI is like, "Varun, welcome aboard. Here are the five things that changed last week." Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can skip around.

I can say, "I got it. I don't care about this." It's all interactive.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: It's not passive, multiple choice, read a PDF,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yep

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: video. I can be like, "I understand all five. I'm good to go." Then at the end, the AI's like, "Great, Varun. Here are three questions. You have this upcoming deal. How are we gonna talk about X, Y, and Z?" Boom, the seller is good to go. And then for me as a leader, every Wednesday, I get a report saying, "Ninety-five percent of your reps are ready for game time based on last week's changes." This is automatic. This is agentic. I think this

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Future of the world. Training is no

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: the bottleneck sandbag that's dragging everyone back.

It's [00:06:00] something where it's like it's going to the CTO and saying, "How fast can you go? We can go faster

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah. And it's-- And, and the way you're talking about it too, it's not about doing it. Like, it doesn't matter that you did it, it's do you understand it? So make sure you understand it, and if you do, skip through it. If you don't, listen further, but you gotta be able to answer the questions we know your customers are gonna ask at the end.

And if you can, we're good. Move on.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: I have reps, you know, the, the smart reps who are, who are just like, "I know this, I know this, I know this." They'll skip through everything, um, and they move forward. But we have reps who are like, "Oh crap, I didn't know this had shipped. Tell me more. Tell me why it's important to my deals." And they might go back and forth with the AI for 25 minutes. I don't care. That's up to the rep. They, they can learn in whatever way that's best for them. sure you answer the questions at the end, and this is not a trick question, which is like a true or false. It's literally you need to be like, "Here's what this means. Here's why this matters. Here's how I'm gonna talk to my customer about it."

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Got it. So let's talk a little bit about m- the, the vision of Yoodli, 'cause I, I remember sitting down with you in, in August last year and you kind of mapping it out, [00:07:00] and I think you were-- you, you, you had it in your head and you were kind of like stress testing it as we were going through. Where is it? You talked about the triangle, right?

And, and how you're going about it. Now, can you talk just a little bit about that vision and what you're trying to do? I, I think it's really interesting. I think visions in companies and startups matter in a really big way. So yeah, could you share a little bit more about yours?

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Um, and it's funny, people ask me this question because they say, "Well, y'all are doing sales enablement, but folks also use Yoodli for interview prep. How does that add up?" And folks also use you before, um, a high-stakes conversation and a manager salary negotiation

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah this all stems with our why, which is we wanted to build technology to help billions of people communicate with confidence. way you communicate is the single biggest determinant of your professional and personal success. We know people who've out on opportunities because they, quote-unquote, "don't play the game." been the person before a speech, a date, an interview, [00:08:00] a sales pitch, whatever, practicing in front of a mirror, a camera, a stopwatch.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: At the macro level, Udly is meant to help you with your high-stakes, uh, communication events. Um, that's why we started. Uh, I hope we can help billions of people. In that vein, we've expanded to AI role plays, where the idea is come and practice with this judgment-free coach. Um, it'll be two concepts. It'll help you reinforce them with hyperrealistic role plays, and you're good to go. And by the way, the way people are doing this is obviously Google, Salesforce, SAP, Databricks, Snowflake will use us for internal GTM enablement. They might use us

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yep

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: for partner enablement, for customer enablement, for onboarding, AE, SE handoff. Everything in the revenue enablement sphere is our bread and butter. But then people will use the same technology and, and use it for interview preparation or media training or manager coaching or,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: or, or in fact, you know, the government of El Salvador is using Udly to train doctors across the [00:09:00] country on, you know, how to have patient conversations. that's a life or death conversation.

If

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: tells you you have a diagnosis, and don't deliver it with empathy or using the equivalent of the doctor's framework, that can be really, you know, life-threatening.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: GTM enablement is very much our focus, but hopefully, you see the tool and you're like, "The opportunities are much bigger." The way we think about learning is there are three parts to it. You learn something, right? You consume some content, you practice something, and then you apply the actual skill.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yep

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: simple triangle. That's the loop. today's world, the way this happens, and this is for any skill. How do I use Claude?

To how do I be a better communicator? To how do I forecast my calls? To how do I do, um, you know, better in my manager conversations? The way I learn today, least in the old world, used to be through passive content. LMS, maybe read some

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: PDFs, watch some videos at 5X speed,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: back of the room in a webinar.

We've all done that. [00:10:00] The way I practice things are maybe quizzes, maybe back and forth live human role plays, maybe in front of my mirror. And then the way we apply things is on the live call, the live customer interaction, the live discussion. The issue is these three pieces have always been completely fragmented. the

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yep

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: layer, learning is restricted to my LMS, maybe my CMS if I'm in the sales world. Practicing is cobbled together things with enablement and a human in the loop, and doing is my actual call, Zoom, Gong, et cetera.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: vision at Yoodli is build a single platform that ties all three together in a really simple way. I come to Yoodli, my AI coach, let's call it Seth AI, explains concepts to me, right? So I'm onboarding at Google and Seth AI's like, "Varun, welcome to Google. Here are the five things you need to know. We call ourselves Nooglers. Here's our mission, here's our vision, here's a hero page

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: for what questions you have." The same way a manager would onboard me or teach me stuff, my Yoodli [00:11:00] coach is now doing. I'm learning with the AI. I can interrupt

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: fast-forward, it's interactive, I can go back to it. Then my coach is like, "Cool, Varun, it seems like you're ready for game time. Let's go practice." And then it

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: hyperrealistic simulations.

This can be multi-persona with a buying committee. This can be

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: my coach is on the call and saying, "No, no, no, Varun, you botched, uh, number two." It could be, um, a single role play where I've got to share my screen and do a demo certification. So learn with my AI coach, I practice with my AI role plays, and then I go and I apply the actual thing.

This could be anywhere, in person, on a call, et cetera. Yoodli closes the loop between all three things, so what I learn is tied to what I practice. Then based on what I actually do, let's call it my gong call, Yoodli will create custom coaching, custom role plays and say, "Hey, let's walk through that gong call with your AI coach."

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Like some random scorecard. My AI coach will share its screen and say, "Varun, let's scroll to minute forty-five and watch it together and cringe together. [00:12:00] What,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: what, like, what were you thinking when you handled that competitive o-objection?" The same way a human would. And then based on minute forty-five, it'll create custom training. Learn, practice, do. Learn, practice, do. Learn, practice, do. That's the loop that we're closing at Yoodli.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: And like coming from it, like I know that you guys are focusing on go-to-market, and we benefit greatly for the work that and the focus that you have there. The thing I think makes you stand out that's, is that learning focus at the end of the day. You're, you're building for a, a learner to make a learner better and to have them grasp the concept in whatever way possible.

And that really resonated me- with me back when we met and we were talking about this. And I think it's a superpower when we go into conversations around go-to-market, because I know the partner that I have on the role-play side isn't trying to just run a role play for a salesperson. You're trying to help people learn.

It doesn't really matter, and we've flexed that across different things as well, like when we do CSM work, when we [00:13:00] do other work with like marketing or... So it's, uh, having that, I think that foundation of I'm focused on learning is what I think we benefited greatly from that because you create things differently than anyone else would create if you were a quote unquote "role-play provider only."

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: No, thank you for saying that. A- and look, I think role plays alone is insufficient. People hate practice. People hate the sound of their own voice. They will only do something when

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Let's be very clear. However, if people see this as their companion that's here to help them through all of life's moments, then this truly becomes your coach. And

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: to us, we tied to the skill that the organization deems important. Can you use

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Can you write a LinkedIn post? Can you do effective discovery? Can you use a permission-based opener? So I, I think a lot of people are so, so, so focused on, "Can you just do my, you know, SDR cold call certification?" Of course, but that's level one, right?

So, so let's look at a company like ServiceNow or Google as an example. When [00:14:00] a rep joins a company, their AI coach will onboard them.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Mm-hmm.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Coach will help them, um, with their certification so that they're ready for game time. But then the next day they'll have their elevator pitch in front of their entire team saying, "Hi, I'm Varun, I just joined." They'll go practice that on Yoodli. they need to chat with their manager about their promotion, and then they'll use it. And then when they become a manager, they need to have a difficult conversation with their direct report who's not getting a promotion, and then they'll use it for that. And then they've got to do their QBR, and then they use Yoodli for that. And all of these things are not typically just GTM enablement. Some is media training, some is public speaking, some is manager training, some is personal self-improvement. But this is your companion through all of your learning, practice, and doing across the enterprise.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah. Fantastic. So let's take a... Like, let's, let's isolate this a little bit to role play. And, like, w- you've rolled-- you've done a ton of very big rollouts on role play. What do organizations get wrong when they're trying to make the most of it? Because, I [00:15:00] mean, just siloing role play alone is hugely valuable in the way that it's set up.

Like, some of the things that we're doing around it, like, one of the big questions we get from customers when we set it up, this up is, "Can I, can you customize it to my company?" And that's actually a really hard problem to solve for training. It creates a lot of work. We work with you guys, like, Lisa Ellis, our head of product, built it out, and all we do at the front end is say, "Tell us a little bit about your job, tell us a little bit about the company and the industry you work for," and it customizes the entire role play.

What are some of the things that people get wrong? Like, a-as they roll this out, if you can give a piece of advice on, "Hey, I'm about to roll this out to my whole company, do this to make sure that it's as effective as possible."

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: I- it's a great question. And by the way, we've got too many rollouts wrong as well. You know, we now have two million minutes of role-plays happening at, on Yoodli every month, so we're dealing with concurrency and SAP is using us across their partner network and whatnot. So I'll, I'll give you a few examples. first is if you give [00:16:00] Yoodli to your reps and you think, "Great, they're all gonna close their deal tomorrow, magic's gonna happen." as much as, as a founder, I would love to say that's a true, uh, truth, um, you have got to introduce this tool as you would any tool. The same vein you give your reps a Gemini or Outreach or Gong, they will not use it of their own accord initially. Make sure you show them a clear job to be done and guide them through that for the initial rollout. It's how you build a new category. It's how you create behavior change. Once they are in the tool, the magic happens. So number one, do not think this is something you're gonna buy and it's going to change behavior overnight.

You need to work on that. The second is a lot of people think very myopically, right? Um, have to do one rollout. I have my team in LATAM that is struggling, uh, with cold calling. Let me buy Yoodli for that. Of course, you should buy Yoodli for that. But just thinking of Yoodli for cold calls is like buying a [00:17:00] Mac to send emails or buying an iPhone to message. That's, just the tip of the spear. What we see organizations, I mean, Sandler is doing this at scale, is assessments are dead in their current form. Nobody's going to do like a rat, bat, mat, hat,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: 50 question survey. Great. That's a role play to teach you concepts. I need to train my AEs on how to do an AE-SE handoff.

Great. That's a role play. I need to train my reps on how to do demo certification and a read-the-room role play when they're in a fourth call meeting with an angry procurement buyer and their champion has changed. Great. play. The idea is rather than thinking of role plays as a way to solve just one problem, think of it as where in your life or in your organization's life cycle do you have high stakes communication that makes or breaks your revenue numbers?

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: I mean, and as a CRO, you know, we all have a gazillion pet peeves. Um, we have [00:18:00] reps who don't do so well because of how they show up. Great. Introduce Yoodli into that journey. The third is people only think that Yoodli, um, or role plays training my more junior folks. Uh, I, I don't think that's the case. Uh, where we've had our most successful rollouts, um, think of large exec, uh, search or exec coaching firms like a Korn Ferry, Spencer Stuart, who work with board-level members. Communication for those folks before investor relation events or before they-- You know,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Mm-hmm.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: A CEO is going on stage for a ten thousand person keynote is going to move the stock. How do you make sure you use that same tool in order to make sure the leader is ready? This helps in two ways. One, obviously it helps the leader, but two, the moment the leader sees the magic, they say, "Oh my gosh, I wish I had this when..." Or, "Here are fifty other people who also need it," um, in that vein. And I'll give you a last bonus one, um, which is just role plays for practice and reinforcement is insufficient.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: role plays to learn new concepts, be this [00:19:00] a new tool, a new skill, a new methodology, that's when you see the magic.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: So let's, let's dig into that a little bit because I think that's infor-- like a lot of people even in modern, right, in the modern world right now, you have LMS, which is like, "Hey, I'm gonna go train on this. I'm gonna go do a class on this." And then you have role play, which is, "I'm gonna go practice." But there's this in-between part that I don't think a lot of people talk about, which is how do I use technology to help me learn?

So talk through AI tutor with me, because I think that is this difference point that I-- most people have just said that's something that you do in coaching, but you've put it in, so now you're getting those three different layers that you're talking about that I think AI tutor is very different than the typical learning style, but also critical because all of us learn by dialoguing and kind of immersing ourselves in the data with, with a, in a, through a conversation or through back and forth.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: To share-- I mean, look at the, at the highest level, it's first, what is your job to be done, right? As an enablement [00:20:00] leader, my job to be done is not that someone reads a doc, does a quiz, or watches a video, and then they are certified. My job to be done is make sure they are proficient on a certain skill. What is the best way to train them on that skill? Forget AI. Ideally, that'd be a human that's, you know, their manager who's sat down with them, is explaining to them, "Here's why, this discovery framework really works, and here's why you need to unpack it, and let's do a couple of test runs and watch me do it in a way to see what good looks like."

Great. The problem is I can't scale that manager to everyone. That's what the AI tutor enables. You can make an AI digital twin of that manager. That manager will then onboard the rep and say, "Great, I'm gonna talk to you about discovery frameworks. I'm going to now give you all the information you need to know, not in a doc or a deck.

I'm gonna share my screen. I'm gonna show you, you know, what I know. Interrupt me anytime if you don't understand this, this section or that section." Okay, great. Now I'm gonna show you what good looks like. And [00:21:00] are learning together through this interactive back and forth. And then it's asking me, "Okay, great, Varun, now explain that back to me. Tell me what piece of this was really confusing. What was really compelling? Awesome. It seems like you've understood your concepts. Now let's go into the simulator room." And,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: AI tutor is basically like my, my AI manager, uh, that's by my side, teaching me concepts and getting me ready for game time.

It's taking what used to be passive learning and making that interactive and measurable

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah. And like, just to kinda like I- explain how we're using it at Sandler is, I mean, we're, we're basically, we're using-- Well, you talked about it a little earlier, is we're not scoring based on what you could do on a test from a knowledge standpoint. We're scoring your, you based on your ability to, to actually execute under the pressure of a, of a call.

Hugely valuable. We're now-- And that allows us to apply it in actual sales conversations, so we know when you apply Sandler in those conversations, I can track that to an [00:22:00] outcome and move the needle. So I can't do that if I'm just taking a quiz after a test. So it really is an enabler there. But when we take the skills that we're putting in, in place around that, that we're giving to you when you have training, we're also giving everybody a, a, a role play that they could do if they wanna practice that skill.

Applying an AI tutor that could go with it. And then if you want to do the course, you can do the course. So it's, it's really enabled us to provide a level of practice that even a year ago didn't, didn't even e-exist. So it's, it's, yeah, very, very

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: it's just more fun. As a learner, it, it is fun. I'm just like, "Oh wow, this is really cool. I want to learn more. I want to do more. I want to show this to my spouse.

I want to show it to my kid." I've never seen that happen with enterprise tech. And as an admin,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: mean, the sky's the view, not the limit. I can make learning journeys and teach my learners things within seconds, and it really depends on how far I can dream

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah. And so it's-- And the, the, the [00:23:00] reason it works better is 'cause they're learning the way they want to learn it. They're not learning through a tick box to say, "Did this-- Can I say this person learned it?" They're-- The outcome is the res- is the, and the retention is the positive result, not the tick box to say that I know you took the course.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Sure.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Okay, I wanna switch a little bit. Like, you, you, you kind of glazed over this a little bit, and I, I don't know if like... So out of college, you ended up taking a job as the, like, uh, running special projects, reporting directly to the CEO of, of Google. That, that's kind of a high-profile job coming out of college.

Like, how did you handle that? Like, like, what's-- You had to learn so much, but I mean, coming into that, it's a great opportunity, but also it comes with a lot that you've gotta be ready for right out of school.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Yeah, I mean, it was, um, an opportunity of a lifetime. So, um, Sundar CEO of, of Google. Google was started by Sergey and Larry. They just built Alphabet as a mother company. Uh, you know, [00:24:00] Larry was CEO of all of Alphabet and, um, Sergey was doing Sergey projects, which is, you know, let's build Waymo and let's figure out the next drug discovery piece and, uh, uh, it was incredible.

H-have you seen the show Silicon Valley?

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Okay. So you'll appreciate this, but, but for learners, uh, uh, for watcher- uh, listeners, there's basically this, uh, HBO show called Silicon Valley. It's a satire on life in the Valley. there's a character over there named Jared, and Jared's this dorky guy. You know, he, he's a chief of staff to one of the CEOs, so he teaches him how to, you know, fundraise, how to pitch, but also gets coffee, but also, you know, cracks jokes and takes out the trash and, and does everything. So when I met Sergey, uh, the way he described the role to me is he said, "I'm looking for my Jared from the show Silicon Valley." And to me, the founders of Google are demigods. The fact that I was even in a room with them at the age of, what, 20 was incredible, and my response was, "Sergey, I know nothing about nothing.

I'm [00:25:00] young, naive, and indestructible. Like, please take a bet on me. What can I do?"

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Um, the, the role was, and now looking back, you know, many, many years out, was to essentially give Sergey an honest take on what's going on at Alphabet. I think when you get to that level, everyone gives you, you know, the three bullet point deck, and a journalist will come to you and say, "Sergey, what's the future of AI?"

And an intern will come to you asking you for an autograph, and a CEO will come to you asking for more headcount. I, I see my role as just being the guy. Like, you know, every Monday, I would give Sergey and the Alphabet leadership team my state of the union of what was going on across Alphabet. So Google, Waymo,

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Uh-huh.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Verily, Calico, Waymo. And obviously I'm, I'm the little guy. What do I know about beta and large moon shots and whatnot? But my role was to just give them an honest take that the little guy was seeing across the company that they might find interesting. Or Sergey

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah[00:26:00]

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: had an idea, um, and he'd run it by me, and he'd say, "Varun, go implement it."

Some of these were, I mean, the craziest projects ever. But I knew so little about everything, and I w- I, I di- I, I didn't have best practices. I wasn't like, you know, management consultant. I didn't have frameworks to think through. He'd give me a problem. He's like, "I want X done." I'm like, "Okay." I would just go and do X. I think there's this naivety that comes with the role and the ability to just get stuff done without thinking

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: motivations or running it by my manager for review before it goes to Sergey. And, uh, so that was very much my role. I did it for two years, learnt a lot

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Wow. Yeah. So I mean, like, you, you did that and then you jump right from that into a startup role, right? Like we're... Now you're running a fast-growing startup. So you ha- you, you, you've run into very, very high pressure, complex situations. Take yourself back to right when you graduated, before you started that role, what advice would you give yourself [00:27:00] in, in this world, the kind of this whirlwind that you've been through so far?

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: to me it's just be human. And, and I'll tell you what I mean by this. You know, when I was doing the Survey job, everyone asked me, "Oh my God, you hung out with Sergey Brin, you hung out with these other guys who are in Fortune and Forbes and heads of state." I mean, they wear their pants one leg at a time and, you know, they also sneeze.

And I think so many people lose that plot. But my role was to see the authenticity in human beings. Fast-forward to now, I'm no Sergey. I'm a tiny startup founder trying to build my company. Um, just be human. I mean, Seth, a good example is you and I have had disagreements so many times. We've, we've through contracts, and you've given me hard feedback. To which my response is, "I don't know the answer. I've never done this before." um, "Seth, I'm sorry we messed up." The same thing with investors, right? They'd be like, "Paran, how much should your company be valued at?" And I'd throw out a ludicrous number, they'd ask me why. I was like, "Well, it sounded good and I read that on TechCrunch." And I think just showing up [00:28:00] as a human being and being willing to say, "I don't know, I'm sorry, I'm trying my best," goes a really long way. And seeing that in the Sergey role, uh, helped me understand this because I saw some of my biggest role models who are incredibly intelligent and successful and all of those things, but just, just people

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah. Yeah. That's great advice. So let's take a step further, even further back. As a kid, like, did you see yourself in this? Like, did you have dreams of being an entrepreneur or dreams of being in, in tech? Like, what was your... What, what were you thinking of when you were a kid?

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: I, I think I always knew I wanted to start something, and

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah I've always been very, very, very passionate about this problem. This idea that are kids in India who deserve to be on stage more than me, get this early job more than me, be on this podcast more than me, but they just don't play the game. back home we didn't learn public speaking and how you show up. We were so focused on math and science. And now that I'm in the US and I'm doing this whole corporate [00:29:00] America thing, I'm like, "This is the only thing that matters." Literally. I've

critical

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: so many people who just play the game. They may not be as bright as the kid in India, but that's how they got their opportunity. So when I was at Google, I saw this really, really come to a stepping stone. So like the top leaders would get access to the cool coaches and, and the sessions. What about the, the introvert engineer who's at level four? Who's up-leveling them, And

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: immigrants and introverts and people of color get talked over. And I in corporate America maybe be a little nervous. And, I became a de facto speech coach for a lot of folks. I'm, I'm not a speaking expert.

I did debate in college, so I know a few tricks, right?

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: have a hook at the end, have a call to action, whatever. Um, and I would just record these people before they had an important conversation, and I'd make them watch themselves back. And

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: do we just get more people to do that?" So at the core, forget all the AI behind Yoodli. Yoodli is a system

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: [00:30:00] that gets you to record yourself and watch yourself and cringe. You do that two more times, you're going to be better at whatever you're trying to do. Uh, so anyway, a long-winded way of saying I'm not sure if I always saw myself as a founder, but, I think I see myself as a guy who could make a dent in this problem, or at least I, I hope to, to advance it just a little.

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: Yeah, definitely making a dent. So if people wanna... I, I, I absolutely recommend that, that they get in touch or, or at least follow you in the... Because you do a ton of stuff on social. How should they, how should they contact or stay in touch with you if they wanna see the things you're saying? And then how do they learn more about Yoodli?

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Yeah, follow me on social. I am that guy. I'm loud, I'm obnoxious, I'm posting, you know, every couple days. My friends see my posts and make so much fun of me. I used to see these try-hardy people on LinkedIn, and now I've become one of them. So kinda connect with me there. Um, check out Yoodli. Uh, it's free.

It's at Y-O-O-D-L-I.ai. You can sign up, you know, upload a presentation, a speech, or come and practice any [00:31:00] conversation of substance and see the tool in action. And, you know, ideally, you look at it and you're like: "Oh, wow. Uh, what about being able to customize it around the Sandler methodology? And what about training my sales team?

And, uh, how do we get our CS team ready at scale?" And then call us, and, uh, we'll try to sell you our enterprise plan

seth-marrs_3_06-17-2026_133755: that's... Yeah, I like that plan. That's a g- that's a great idea. Varun, thanks so much for, for coming on. It was great having you.

varun-puri_1_06-17-2026_103755: Seth, such a pleasure as always. Thank you

Speaker: And that wraps up another episode. Thank you for joining. For show notes and other episodes, visit us@innovativerevenueleader.ai. The Innovative Revenue Leader is sponsored by Sandler, a Trilia company. Sandler provides top corporate sales and business development training while empowering sales professionals and leaders to master the graph of selling at all levels. [00:32:00] [00:33:00] [00:34:00]