Krithika Shankaraman

Marketing executive and advisor, known for being the first marketing hire at Stripe and OpenAI.

Claims

As speaker

Mentioned in

Key positions and views

In the age of AI, 'taste' and craftsmanship will become a primary competitive differentiator as AI generates a large volume of low-quality content.

Competing on price is not a durable strategy for AI companies because the underlying models are becoming cheaper and more capable, leading to commoditization.

For products with high awareness but unclear application, like ChatGPT, the central marketing challenge is to create 'use case epiphanies' that show users what the product can do for them.

Marketing materials should be treated as an extension of the product itself, held to the same high standard of quality and craftsmanship, particularly in engineering-led cultures.

Deep customer empathy is a non-negotiable foundation for marketing, best built through direct exposure to customer problems, such as having all employees participate in support rotations.

Podcast consensus on Shankaraman

Points of consensus

▶Krithika Shankaraman has a distinct track record as the 'first marketing hire' at major tech companies, including both Stripe and OpenAI, where she built the marketing function from the ground up.Apr 2026

▶A core tenet of her marketing philosophy is deep customer empathy, exemplified by her implementation of all-hands customer support rotations at Stripe and using support insights to drive content strategy.Apr 2026

▶She consistently emphasizes the importance of extremely high-quality, crafted marketing materials, viewing them as an extension of the product itself, a principle she applied at Stripe.Apr 2026

▶Shankaraman has repeatedly tackled the challenge of marketing highly technical products to specific audiences, from developers at Stripe and Retool to enterprise users at OpenAI.Apr 2026

Points of debate

▶At Retool, she navigated the strategic tension between sales-led and product-led growth by making a previously sales-gated product self-serve, which decreased overall lead volume but increased the quality and value of remaining leads.Apr 2026

▶She highlights the challenge at OpenAI where massive brand awareness for ChatGPT did not automatically translate to user adoption, creating a strategic need to focus on demonstrating specific use cases.Apr 2026

▶Shankaraman discusses the failure of Stripe Relay, attributing it to poor market timing and platform complexity, illustrating the internal conflict between ambitious product launches and market readiness.Apr 2026

▶She describes a strategic pivot at Stripe away from a purely engineering-driven 'code complete' mindset toward a customer-centric launch process that ensured users were aware of new features.Apr 2026

Key themes

▶Zero-to-One Marketing LeadershipApr 2026

Shankaraman specializes in establishing the marketing function at high-growth, product-centric technology companies. As the first marketing hire at both Stripe and OpenAI, her approach involves building foundational strategies that align with a strong engineering culture, focusing on authentic communication and establishing a high bar for quality from the outset.

Investors should view her involvement as a signal that a technically-focused company is beginning to seriously invest in a scalable go-to-market motion and brand narrative.

▶Customer-Centric Growth EngineApr 2026

A recurring theme is the use of direct customer interaction as a primary source for marketing strategy. At Stripe, this meant all new hires doing customer support and using common questions to build a backlog of educational content. At Retool, it involved focusing on customer storytelling to leverage their high-quality user base as a key differentiator.

This theme suggests that Shankaraman prioritizes sustainable, organic growth strategies over purely paid acquisition, focusing on building a strong user community and educational resources.

▶Navigating Product-Led Growth (PLG) Transitions

Shankaraman has direct experience managing the complexities of PLG. At Retool, she championed making a sales-gated product self-serve, a controversial move that refined the sales pipeline. At OpenAI, she faced the challenge of converting massive, broad awareness into targeted, specific use-case adoption for enterprise customers.

Her experience indicates a sophisticated understanding of how to balance self-serve funnels with high-touch sales, a critical capability for modern enterprise software companies.

▶Marketing in the Age of AI

Shankaraman offers a clear perspective on how AI will reshape business strategy. She argues that as AI commoditizes content creation, differentiators will shift to 'taste' and craftsmanship. She also points out the unsustainability of price-based competition and the current struggles companies face in finding appropriate pricing models for AI-generated value.

Analysts should note her focus on brand and quality as durable competitive advantages in an AI market where technical capabilities may quickly reach parity.

Source episodes

Sentiment over time

Not enough data for timeline

Changes over time

Early Career

Worked in marketing at Google on the Android team and at Dropbox.

c. 2011-2014+

Joined Stripe as the first marketing hire and was the sole marketing person for three years. Established a developer-focused marketing ethos centered on quality, customer support insights, and authentic communication. Experienced the failure of the Stripe Relay product (launched 2014).

Pre-OpenAI

Served as an early marketing leader at Retool. Focused on customer storytelling to combat a lack of awareness and led a strategic shift to make the self-hosted product self-serve, refining the sales pipeline.

c. 2022-2023

Joined OpenAI as the first marketing hire and VP of Marketing. Oversaw marketing during the explosive growth of ChatGPT, launching ChatGPT Enterprise and experiencing a 40x overnight increase in lead volume. Focused strategy on creating 'use case epiphanies' for users.

Present

Serves as an Executive in Residence at Thrive Capital, where she advises portfolio companies on marketing strategy.

Suggested prompts

How did Krithika Shankaraman adapt her marketing playbook from a developer-first B2B company like Stripe to a broad consumer and enterprise product like ChatGPT? &nearr;What are the common principles Shankaraman applies when building a marketing function from zero, as evidenced by her experiences at both Stripe and OpenAI? &nearr;Analyze the risks and rewards of Retool's decision to make its self-hosted product self-serve, based on Shankaraman's account of its impact on the sales pipeline. &nearr;How does Shankaraman's concept of 'taste' and 'craftsmanship' as a key differentiator in the AI era challenge traditional performance marketing metrics and strategies? &nearr;

Key concepts

Stripe Marketing Strategy 9 ep OpenAI Marketing Strategy 7 ep Retool Marketing Strategy 6 ep Customer Centricity 5 ep Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy 5 ep Product-Led Growth (PLG) 4 ep Early-Stage Marketing 4 ep AI Business Models 3 ep Developer Marketing 3 ep

Notable quotes

“our lead volume 40x'd overnight. It was unanticipated, even beyond our wildest expectations.”

Krithika Shankaraman · Growth tactics from OpenAI and Stripe’s first marketer | Krithika Shankarraman

“we decided to do something quite controversial, which is to take the thing that our sales team was gated on, a self-hosted version of Retool, and made that available self-serve to anybody who wanted it.”

Krithika Shankaraman · Growth tactics from OpenAI and Stripe’s first marketer | Krithika Shankarraman

“The primary marketing challenge for ChatGPT was to create "use case epiphanies" to show users the product's capabilities.”

Krithika Shankaraman · Growth tactics from OpenAI and Stripe’s first marketer | Krithika Shankarraman

“The first lead qualification and scoring model used in production at OpenAI for ChatGPT Enterprise was a Python script coded with the help of ChatGPT itself.”

Krithika Shankaraman · Growth tactics from OpenAI and Stripe’s first marketer | Krithika Shankarraman

Report last updated: Apr 21, 2026

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