{"podcast":{"title":"In Depth","slug":"in-depth-1318680","podcast_index_feed_id":1318680,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/FRCH6787238462","website_url":"https://firstround.com/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/9426cbf8-25fe-11ec-a0b4-fb6861cc1eaf/image/f27cea2953ad25c68029f33bc99ba58b.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"First Round","episode_count":178,"summary":"Welcome to In Depth, a podcast from The First Round Review that’s dedicated to surfacing the tactical advice founders and startup leaders need to grow their teams, their companies and themselves. Hosted by Brett Berson, a partner at First Round, In Depth will cover a lot of ground and a wide range of topics, from hiring executives and becoming a better manager, to the importance of storytelling inside of your organization. But every interview will hit the level of tactical depth where the very best advice is found. We hope you’ll join us. Subscribe to “In Depth” now and learn more at firstround.com","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680"},"episode":{"title":"Why 90% of CROs will fall behind in the next 2 years | Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta)","slug":"why-90-of-cros-will-fall-behind-in-the-next-2-years-stevie-case-cro-vanta","published_at":"2026-02-19T12:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680/why-90-of-cros-will-fall-behind-in-the-next-2-years-stevie-case-cro-vanta","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FRCH2134104457.mp3","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/FRCH2134104457.mp3","summary":"Stevie Case is the CRO of Vanta, the trust management platform serving everyone from founders to Fortune 100 CISOs. A former pro-video gamer who stumbled into sales through a mentor's bet, Stevie has built one of the most unconventional paths to the C-suite in tech. In this episode, she unpacks why early revenue hires fail, what separates a true CRO from a VP of Sales, and why she believes fewer than 10% of current CROs will thrive by 2028. In today's episode, we discuss: Why early revenue hires fail What a top 1% CRO actually does The scaling mistake Stevie made by copying Twilio's playbook at Vanta Why Vanta remains 100% sales-led at every segment AI vs. humans in go-to-market References: Cursor: https://cursor.sh/ Gong: https://www.gong.io/ Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com/ Twilio: https://www.twilio.com/ Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/ Where to find Stevie: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steviecase/ Where to find Brett: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Timestamps: 00:00 Why early revenue hires fail 02:23 Who to hire at $5M in revenue 04:16 Coin-operated sellers vs. long-term builders 05:57 What excellence looks like in the CRO role 07:44 Metrics, confidence, and velocity 12:04 Should CROs lead sales? 14:39 From shy seller to revenue leader 16:36 Learning to scale at Twilio 17:44 \"There is no CRO playbook\" 19:58 Stevie's scaling mistake at Vanta 22:16 Why Vanta stays 100% sales-led 23:16 The value of planning…","meta_description":"Stevie Case is the CRO of Vanta, the trust management platform serving everyone from founders to Fortune 100 CISOs. A former pro-video gamer who stumbled…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":4275,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/in-depth-1318680/episodes/why-90-of-cros-will-fall-behind-in-the-next-2-years-stevie-case-cro-vanta/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/in-depth-1318680/why-90-of-cros-will-fall-behind-in-the-next-2-years-stevie-case-cro-vanta.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}