Dear ThoughtSpot Community,
I couldn't be more thrilled to announce that we're welcoming our new CEO to the ThoughtSpot family: Ketan Karkhanis. This marks a significant milestone in our journey, and I wanted to share why this is such an exciting development for all of us.
A Time of Rapid Growth and Unprecedented Opportunity
From day one, we have been focused on our mission—to make the world more fact-driven. It's a challenging yet inspiring goal, and we've approached it honestly (no shortcuts), relentlessly (no pauses), and innovatively (constantly pushing the boundaries). With this approach, ThoughtSpot has been on an incredible trajectory as our team's innovation and hard work have positioned us as a leader in the analytics and AI-driven insights industry. Enterprises around the world are betting on ThoughtSpot to transform massive amounts of data into actionable intelligence.
We are fortunate to have an enviable customer base that’s growing rapidly; among our 1000+ customers, we count three of the Fortune 5, six of the top ten healthcare and life sciences companies, six of the top ten technology companies, and three of the top five banks as our customers. For example, Capital One is democratizing data by enabling all users of different skill sets within the organization to make faster, smarter decisions. Roche is using ThoughtSpot to efficiently manage their global procurement. EasyJet is using ThoughtSpot to provide customers with delightful holidays and to ensure rapid operational recovery when there are flight delays. With ThoughtSpot Embedded, we are also rapidly adding tech startups and enterprises in our portfolio as they bring our search and AI-driven analytics capabilities into their SaaS apps and other business applications. We are also about to launch our new AI capabilities in a few weeks that will demonstrate the industry-leading innovation that the ThoughtSpot team continuously delivers to our customers, enabling them to stay ahead of their competitors.
These close partnerships with our customers showcase not just our robust technology but also the trust that industry leaders place in us. Our customer base isn't just a list of companies; it's a community of innovators pushing the boundaries of what's possible with data.
Building on a Strong Foundation Poised for the GenAI Era
To democratize data, the ThoughtSpot team pioneered search and AI-powered analytics in 2014 by building a novel architecture for structured data from the ground up. Over the years, there were many attempts by our competitors, both large and small, to replicate this by using off-the-shelf search technology that was built for unstructured data but they failed for one and only one reason: people need to trust their numbers. Search and AI technologies that are built primarily for textual data do not have this requirement. When repurposed for analytics, these solutions may look appealing in a demo but in the real world, they fail to deliver trustworthy results. It is our fundamental architectural differentiation that enables us to deliver natural language search with accuracy and transparency to our extensive customer base.
With the advent of Generative AI (GenAI), business leaders in every organization are demanding the style of self-service that ThoughtSpot delivers for their data. The possibilities for businesses to harness data are expanding exponentially. However, with off-the-shelf LLMs that are primarily trained on unstructured text, it’s hard to get the trustworthy results necessary for critical business decisions. By combining the power of LLMs with our foundational capabilities for structured data, ThoughtSpot is uniquely positioned to lead in this new era, and bringing Ketan on board is a strategic move to accelerate our growth.
Why Ketan is the Right Leader for Our Next Phase
To scale ThoughtSpot into a large, independent company, we knew we needed a CEO who brings a unique blend of experience and vision. Here's why Ketan is the perfect fit:
- Experience of Seeing Scale
Ketan was most recently the GM and EVP of Sales Cloud at Salesforce, a $7 billion SaaS business. Standalone, Sales Cloud would be one of the largest SaaS companies globally. His experience in overseeing such a massive operation gives him invaluable insights into leading a business and all functions at scale. - Experience of Building Scale
Managing large-scale operations is hard in itself, but it is not the same as building them from the ground up. For example, managing the Golden Gate Bridge for its reliable operation is not easy, but building it from scratch is a different ballgame. Before leading Sales Cloud, Ketan grew Salesforce Einstein Analytics from launch to over $300 million. He led all aspects of scaling an analytics business, from market strategy to product development to sales and marketing. As many will tell you, scaling is hard, and it's rare to find someone who has both seen and built scale like Ketan has. - Deep Roots in the Analytics Industry and AI
We were fortunate to find someone who already understands the nuances of our industry. Ketan is well-versed in the ecosystem of partners, customer organizations, and user personas that define our space. His last project at Salesforce was launching the full suite of AI capabilities for Sales Cloud, giving him a front-row seat to how customers are integrating AI into their business workflows. - Customer-Centric Approach
Analytics implementations are some of the most valuable and high-exposure projects in any organization as they drive critical business decisions at all levels. Given ThoughtSpot's leadership—especially among enterprises like Capital One, Comcast, Electronic Arts, and Unilever —it's critical that we maintain the deep engagements we have with our customers as our business grows. Coming from Salesforce, Ketan's appreciation for the customer lifecycle of business-facing SaaS products, and his commitment to customer success align perfectly with our values. - Commitment to Our Mission and Team
It's the team that makes a company, and it’s the mission that inspires the team. Throughout the recruiting process, it was clear that Ketan has a genuine passion for our mission and respect for our industry-leading innovation in search and AI. He understands that our success is built on the collective efforts of our incredible team and is a leader who sees his success through the success of his team.
An Exciting Future for All Our Stakeholders
For our customers, Ketan's leadership means we're doubling down on innovation, especially in the realm of GenAI. We're committed to providing you with cutting-edge tools that will unlock new possibilities for your business.
For our tech partners such as Snowflake, Databricks, Google, and AWS, and for our services partners, this is an opportunity to deepen our collaboration and jointly deliver even more value to our mutual customers. Ketan's extensive experience with partner ecosystems means we'll be able to forge stronger alliances and explore new avenues for growth together.
For those considering joining the ThoughtSpot team, there's never been a more exciting time. We're a company that's not just talking about the future—we're building it. If you're passionate about making a real impact, ThoughtSpot is the place to be.
To our current team members, I want to express my deepest gratitude. Your hard work and dedication have brought us to this pivotal moment. With Ketan's vision and your continued commitment, there's no limit to what we can achieve together.
Looking Ahead
With Ketan at the helm, we're entering an exciting new chapter. The rise of GenAI presents unprecedented opportunities, and under his leadership, we're confident that ThoughtSpot will continue to innovate and lead the industry.
I want to thank all of our customers, partners, investors, team members, and everyone who's been part of our journey so far. Your trust and support have been instrumental in our success, and together with Ketan, we're poised to reach even greater heights.
As I always say, we are just 2% done!
Please join me in giving a warm welcome to Ketan Karkhanis as the new CEO of ThoughtSpot.
Ajeet Singh
Co-founder and Executive Chair
