Rebooting Intercom: Eoghan McCabe on Defying Silicon Valley Orthodoxy

Eoghan McCabe is the CEO and cofounder at Intercom, an AI customer service platform. Intercom has raised over $240M, and was last valued at $1.3B in 2018. After spending 9 years building the company, Eoghan left Intercom in 2020, but he’s since returned, reshaping Intercom and pioneering its pivot to an AI-first service. This episode highlights his unabashed takes on leaning into your intuition as a founder, and his perspectives on the critical junctures in company building.

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In today’s episode, we also discuss:

• Eoghan's reflections since leaving Intercom
• The value of intuition and first-principles thinking
• The changes Eoghan made upon returning to Intercom
• How Eoghan increased Intercom's productivity by 41%
• Tactical advice on hiring top talent
• Why you can't make small improvements in big categories
• Crafting a culture of ruthless honesty and transparency
• Why software branding is in crisis

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Referenced:

• 37signals: https://37signals.com
• Basecamp: https://basecamp.com
• Brian Halligan (HubSpot): https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianhalligan
• David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals, Basecamp): https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-heinemeier-hansson-374b18221
• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com
• Jason Fried (37signals, Basecamp): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-fried
• Salesforce: https://www.salesforce.com
• Marc Benioff (Salesforce): https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcbenioff
• Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com

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Where to find Eoghan:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe/
• Twitter/X: https://x.com/eoghan

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Where to find Brett Berson:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/
• Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson

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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

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Timestamps

0:00:00 - Founder intuition vs. standard practice

0:25:00 - Silicon Valley knowledge loops

0:28:13 - Building an executive team

0:36:38 - Eoghan’s return to Intercom

0:42:02 - Transparent and honest leadership

0:46:42 - Changing Intercom’s strategy

0:54:22 - AI and category disruption

1:03:17 - How Intercom thinks about brand

1:10:40 - Eoghan’s inspirations