Knuckle Up with Nakul · 4 min · Sep 9, 2026

Fast innovation makes product moats feel temporary

Arvind Jain · CEO, Glean

Arvind Jain says the pace of AI change has made stability and defensibility feel elusive, even at a successful company.

The episode’s best minutes

27:54 AI gives Jain strategic visibility he could not get before5 min
24:02 AI will raise customer expectations, not shrink company teamsPro pick 4 min
41:51Fast innovation makes product moats feel temporaryPro pick 4 min
5 more moments in the full episode

Up next · Modern WisdomA narrow AI goal led to an unintended cyberattack 6:30

“if you build a product if you are like 20 percent 20 percent slower somebody else will have a much much better product than you”

Arvind Jainat 43:16 · Knuckle Up with Nakul

Takeaways Pro pick

A product can fall behind if it is even 20% slower.
Code and other accumulated work can become liabilities.
Jain says current AI cannot yet replace a human worker.

About this segment

Arvind Jain says the pace of AI change has made stability and defensibility feel elusive, even at a successful company. A product that falls behind can quickly lose to a better one.

Arvind Jain is founder and CEO of Glean.

Founded Glean, the AI work assistant, after co-founding and leading R&D at Rubrik and a decade at Google.

Nakul Mandan, Host · Host, Knuckle Up with Nakul
General partner at Audacious Ventures; his show goes deep with founder CEOs on how they build.

From “$7B AI founder: "AI is not capable of replacing you right now" | Arvind Jain (CEO, Glean)”, Sep 9, 2026. Watch the full episode

Answers “Which jobs will AI replace, and which are safe?” See all 132 answers

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

41:57
What keeps you up at night about Glean today, product or organization? I mean, we are in a very fast-moving industry. In fact, you can say that there is no real foundation. The foundation itself keeps changing every day. so i think for us like the biggest things on my mind always is how do we communicate our vision our strategy effectively within the company how do we make sure that everybody is aligned and moving in the same direction so it's the execution you know that keeps me worried because and we have to be very very fast very very agile because it's a very high you know it's a very competitive space too you don't get that luxury like you know one of the things i was sharing in uh in a previous discussion with somebody is that you never feel this this feeling of hey you have arrived or okay a company has been built we have a stable business is completely
42:45
elusive right now for us do you think this is a new thing in silicon valley or this has always been true because i do sense a heightened sense of anxiety success or otherwise everybody is feeling more anxious feels like a now or never moment in silicon valley but do you feel it's always been true no it's not always been true I think I think we used to feel more stability before I've felt it personally like you know I built a company before I've been like you know and multiple times and so so I think we we had this feeling that once you know in the past you will get a customer and you had that relationship and you know it'll be a long lasting thing but today like you know it's very hard like you know if you build a product if you are like 20 percent 20 percent slower somebody else will have a much much better product than
43:28
you and there's no way for a customer to justify your product anymore compared to them because it's the pace of innovation that is actually making creating that feeling of anxiety when the world is innovating so quickly uh in fact everything that you build instead of you know it feeling like you know your moat or ip sometimes it feels like liability because you know you have to you have to actually quickly get rid of it so like in our company we have this i always talk about that hey if somebody deletes lines of code that's actually even more valuable than writing lines of code But that's, you know, that's the proof of that we are actually moving with times.
44:03
Do you think this is a permanent change in our world now? Like there will be just because the pace is not going to slow down ever. And so is it that we all will get used to this uncertainty around defensibility for every product that is even loved? Because that's what you're saying. The glean is loved, but you don't feel as assured as in the prior world with Rubrico. So do you think this is a permanent part of our world in Silicon Valley?
44:26
Like in the AI space, in AI companies, it feels like that to me that I don't see when it's going to actually change. Because I think our ceiling for what AI will be able to do for us, like, you know, people talk about AGI, people talk about that, hey, this is already so good, it can actually do, replace any human. But let's be clear, it's not ready to replace even a single human today, no matter what job they do today.
44:51
Even if you're in EA, even if you're chief of staff, AI is not capable of replacing you right now. but in the future, we're going to get close to that. So there's a lot like, you know, that, you know, AI needs to get significantly better. It needs to get significantly cheaper, more efficient. And so the pace of innovation is like, is going to continue, which means, you know, like, you know, companies will kind of feel that way.
45:13
How do we deal with this anxiety going forward? How do you deal with this anxiety? I need answers for this. I wish I actually had an answer. But yeah, like I'm trying to figure it out. I think ultimately, I think what saves you is the fact that there are 10 things that need to get done. And so, like, as you, through your day, as you're actually getting those things done, like, you know, takes your mind off of, you know, this more, you know, higher level question and that anxiety.
45:39
Last question for you. Somebody watching this, somebody young watching this wants your life.