Introduction
Dmitry Shevelenko is the Chief Business Officer at Perplexity AI which has raised $165 million in funding and is valued at over $1 billion. Its investors include big names like Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Databricks and others. Previously, Dmitri served as a co-founder and President at Tortoise. He gained experience by working at various leading mobility and future of work companies: Uber, LinkedIn and Meta.
Topics to discuss
✅ Perplexity's success in being ranked #1 by The Wall Street Journal.
✅ Insights into Perplexity's rapid growth post-Series B funding.
✅ Factors driving Perplexity's valuation to double to $1 billion.
✅ Attracting high-profile investors like Jeff Bezos and Nvidia.
✅ Expanding access to 32.5 million new users in Korea.
✅ Scenarios where Perplexity AI outperforms ChatGPT.
Potential questions
1. You posted on your LinkedIn yesterday:
“Perplexity ranked #1 in The Wall Street Journal's review of leading AI chatbots. Just getting started!”
What do you think made Perplexity stand out and grab the #1 spot in The Wall Street Journal's review?
2. From the latest Blog article on Perplexity:
"Since announcing our Series B funding in January 2024, Perplexity has continued to grow rapidly, now serving 169 million queries per month and cementing our position as the AI-native answer engine of choice."
Can you share some insights into what it's like to experience such rapid growth? What challenges have you faced?
3. The Wall Street Journal wrote about Perplexity:
"AI Search Startup Perplexity Set to Double Valuation to $1 Billion."
Congratulations on the exciting news! What factors do you think are driving Perplexity’s valuation to double to $1 billion?
4. According to Peplexitity’s Wikipedia:
"Additional Perplexity's investors include Jeff Bezos, Nvidia, Databricks, Bessemer Venture Partners, Susan Wojcicki, Jeff Dean, Yann LeCun, Andrej Karpathy, Nat Friedman, Garry Tan and others."
That's an impressive list of investors! How did you attract such high-profile backers like Jeff Bezos and Nvidia?
5. Cack Wilhelm, General Partner, IVP, who led the funding round, and joined Perplexity’s Board of Directors, said:
"Perplexity is intensely building a product capable of bringing the power of AI to billions. The team possesses the unique ability to uphold a grand, long-term vision while shipping product relentlessly, requirements to tackle a problem as important and fundamental as search.”
Could you tell me more about the grand, long-term vision that Perplexity is aiming for in the AI and search technology space?
6. Jonathan Cohen, VP of Applied Research at NVIDIA and investor in Perplexity AI, said:
“AI is transforming the way consumers access information. Perplexity’s world-class team is building a trusted AI-powered search platform that will help push this transformation forward.”
What makes Perplexity’s team "world-class" in your view, and how do their skills contribute to the development of your search platform?
7. You say on the Danny in the Valley podcast:
"Perplexity is an AI answer engine, and the way you can think about it is it's the marriage of a search engine with a large language model chat interface."
Can you walk us through how Perplexity processes and responds to a user query?
8. The Perplexity's Blog from February says:
"We’re teaming up with the global telecommunications company and largest mobile network in Korea to expand access to 32.5 million new users."
What excites you most about expanding access to 32.5 million new users in Korea?
9. From your interview on Mission.org:
"I think where a lot of startups get it wrong is first building a company and then building products. From my vantage point, you don’t get the right to have a company until you have something that people want.”
What do you think are the biggest pitfalls of building a company before building products?
10. You say in the interview on OttOmate.news:
"I think it's sales 101: finding a champion inside these large organizations, having empathy for that person, knowing who their stakeholders are, and just arming them with everything they could possibly need to push it through internally."
Your approach to sales sounds very people-focused. Can you share a success story where finding a champion made a big difference?
11. The main website of Perplexity says:
"Perplexity AI offers a more structured and information-centric interaction style, useful for in-depth research and complex question answering, whereas ChatGPT mimics human dialogue for a more engaging user experience."
Can you share some examples of scenarios where Perplexity AI outperforms ChatGPT?
Please note
Our podcast is similar to the live discussion, so there may be more questions depending on the answers.
How RELAYTO promotes Experience-focused Leaders podcast
Other Experience-focused Leaders episodes
🎞 "Where You Go for Software: Reach Your Peak with G2's CEO Godard Abel"
🎞 "Turning Your Customers Into Your Biggest Champions with Alteryx's Dean Stoecker"
Author
RELAYTO Content Experience
The fastest way to build digital experiences. We empower businesses to convert PDFs, presentations and other content into interactive experiences & webpages with instant branding, analytics & more.