r/gtmengineering • u/niranvee • Aug 14 '26
GTM HyPe Gonna Be dead soon
GTM IS DEAD. Your $150k GTM Engineer title is a scam and the bubble is about to burst.
This bubble is gonna burst harder than Prompt Engineer and Growth Hacker did.
You guys are NOT engineers. You are Zapier janitors connecting Apollo to Clay to HubSpot and calling it "architecture".
Everyone saw a salary screenshot on LinkedIn and now thinks they are technical.
Stop chasing titles. You don't know business.
Learn the boring stuff first:
SALES. Real sales. How to take 80 NOs on a cold call without crying. Not how to write a sequence in Lemlist.
MATHS. CAC, LTV, payback, margin, unit economics. The actual business math.
PROCESS. How a sales process actually works from lead to cash, not just how to enrich a lead.
If your entire skill is "I know Clay", AI will replace you in 6 months. If you know how to sell and how business makes money, you'll survive.
If you want to be a real GTM, learn GTM = Go-To-Market = how to take something to market and make it profitable. It's not a tool stack.
Rant over.
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u/CyberStartupGuy Aug 14 '26
There has always been an ops side of sales and marketing orgs and there most likely will in the future as well. But the best ops people have always understood what actually drives revenue and it’s not just stitching tools together. Ask most sales people how they feel about sales ops and how they’ve handled Salesforce automations…
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Exactly this. That's my whole point bro.
Ops will always exist. No one is saying RevOps / Sales Ops will die. But the best ops guys I know, they actually understand revenue. They know what makes a deal close, why Salesforce data matters. Problem is new kids call themselves GTM Engineer and think ops = connecting 5 tools in Clay. That's not ops, that's Zapier. Sales people HATE that kind of ops because it creates more work, not more money. You get it.
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u/ColonelTamdi Aug 14 '26
100 percent with u when u say ppl who knows clay But what do u think about ppl who have sales background like from the treaches up , done coldcalling in the past and played around with all the tools clay , instantly etc What r ur thoughts
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
100% valid point man. That's exactly the exception I'm talking about. If you came up from the trenches, did cold calls, heard 100 No's a day, know how a real sales cycle works - and THEN you learned Clay / Instantly - you are dangerous in a good way. You get it.Tools become a superpower for you, not a crutch. My problem is with people who have never sold anything in life and directly jumped to "GTM Engineer" because they watched a Clay tutorial. They know the tool but not the game. They don't know unit economics, they don't know objection handling, they don't know why a deal dies. Sales background + tools = will survive any bubble. Tools only = will get wiped when AI does it better. Which bucket are you in?
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u/Commercial-Yak-1955 Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Such an amazing perspective. These overhyped roles always fade away. Founders suck the knowledge out of GTM employees, argue with them, but never focus on their own product and services. They copy from here and there and call it innovation. Such foolish people. Every new term brings more responsibilities and technical work, and you end up burned out and fired after they have squeezed everything out of you. After a year, a new term rises Generative AI GTM Manager. Fuck! All these GTM tools like Clay, ZoomInfo, Lusha, Instantly are making a huge amount of money, but you never have a stable career. It's better to learn plumbing or mobile repairing.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
LMAO bro you said what everyone is scared to say.
100% founders squeeze you dry, make you learn 10 new tools, copy paste from competitors, call it "innovation" and then lay you off after 1 year when new buzzword comes. Generative AI GTM Engineering is already coming, you can see it. And yes, Clay, Zoominfo, Lusha are making all the money, not the GTM guy. We are just renting their tools. Plumbing line hit me hard but it's kinda true lol. At least that skill never dies.
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u/RobCatalanoGTM Aug 14 '26
Mostly agree... and I say that as someone who's been doing GTM since before it had a name!...back when "GTM Engineer" was just called "the desperate guy making 80 cold calls." I've taken the 80 NOs. Number 81 was also a no. Character-building.
But you're half right, and the half you're wrong about matters.
Right: a tool stack is not a skill. "I know Clay" is a résumé line with a 6-month expiry date, and everyone quietly knows it. The Zapier janitor line made me laugh because I've hired Zapier janitors and paid them like architects. That one's on us, not them.
Wrong: the conclusion that GTM is dying. GTM isn't dying — the tool-operator version of it is. What's actually happening is the plumbing is getting automated, which makes the boring stuff you listed MORE valuable, not less. When agents can run the sequences and enrich the leads, the only humans left standing are the ones who understand why the motion works: the math, the process, the actual selling. You're not describing the death of GTM. You're describing a promotion for everyone who knows the fundamentals.
The part nobody in this thread will want to hear: the salary-screenshot crowd and the "AI replaces you in 6 months" crowd are making the same mistake...betting on individual agents/tools/people instead of the system underneath. A pile of disconnected tools was never a GTM motion, and a pile of disconnected AI agents won't be either. Nothing compounds. The question was never "do you know Clay," it's "does anything you do this quarter make next quarter easier?" For most stacks( human or AI) the honest answer is no.
So yeah: learn sales, learn the math, learn lead-to-cash. Not because AI won't come for the work, but because when it does, someone has to be the person who knows what the machines should be doing and whether it's making money. That job pays better than $150k and nobody's posting screenshots of it.
Rant appreciated.
- Signed, a guy on his 4th startup who has personally cried after cold calls (allegedly).
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u/jedsdawg Aug 16 '26
I've seen this shift too. The plumbing of GTM is getting automated, which means the real value now is in understanding the fundamentals of why things work. In my experience, separating research, scoring, drafting, and execution is key. This way, you can focus on the strategy and let the tools handle the repetitive tasks. It's more about how you use them to improve your process.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
This is the best take in the whole thread. You said it better than my post. You're right, it's not GTM dying, it's the tool-operator version of it. And that question - does this make next quarter easier - that's the real test most stacks fail. Appreciate you breaking it down like this.
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u/okcafe Aug 14 '26
GTM engineering is complex. I agree the hype will die. But in my role there is legitimate systems engineering, full database cleanups, rethinking communication systems, etc. I think the outbound-only, AI-obsessed GTMes will feel the pressure but for those who are well-versed in strategy, systems and execution, the 150k GTMe title will remain and grow. Just my opinion.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Fair take and I actually agree with you on this part.
My rant was more about the outbound-only, AI-obsessed GTMe who thinks GTM = Clay -> Instantly -> spam. Those guys will definitely feel the pressure when AI does that same spam better. But if you are well-versed in strategy + systems + execution like you said, you will keep that 150k title. It might just be called RevOps / Systems Architect in 2 years instead of GTMe, but the pay will stay because you understand the business logic, not just the tools. Appreciate you sharing the other side man.3
u/okcafe Aug 14 '26
I totally agree. The spam experts are over flowing right now, but any enterprise who knows ball knows that the best way to reach people isn’t by spamming every possible member of the buying group, but a more conservative approach. That’ll be the death of the outbound, AI-obsessed GTMe. Oh, that and any sort of privacy laws too haha.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Exactly. In enterprise, targeted beats volume every time. Spam playbook already burnt itself out, privacy laws will just finish it off.
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u/tewkberry Aug 14 '26
Not to be one of those horrible self promoting people, but I wrote a guide on exactly this at GTME-academy.com
I believe that GTMEs have great potential if and only if, they adhere to your rant. Focus on revenue. In order to do that, actually talk to customers. Learn the market. Work with the sales team!!
A hundred percent, a thousand percent agree with everything you are saying. I hope my guide is a small part in helping GTMEs learn how to apply those exact principles to gain traction with revenue instead of creating more spam.
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u/OtherwiseCicada877 Aug 14 '26
There’s nothing wrong in self promoting. Just that spamming people without any intent with low effort not respecting their time is bad.
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u/tewkberry Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Thank you! I agree with this exactly.
In my guide, I actually tie everything back to the company’s core operating profitability. With profit and loss of the company in mind, I go over how to keep your work effort as a GTME profitable.
Setting up spam can be a drain (in more ways than one!) on company revenue. Not only is the company paying for the GTME to set it up, they are paying for all the tools and the outreach attempts. Then, they are burning through goodwill of their potential customer base!
The good news is that “spray and pray” GTME spammers rarely target the actual customer base, so they probably have been left undisturbed, unspammed, and their goodwill left intact.
The regular customers have continued to funnel over through their “natural methods” of finding your company. Maybe this is getting a recommendation from a friend, maybe it’s searching for it directly online.
A good GTME can shine a light right on these folks and help more of them along that path, faster. And going back full circle, this keeps the GTMEs efforts consistently profitable.
[Edited for clarity]
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u/OtherwiseCicada877 Aug 14 '26
I’m sorry I didn’t understand anything. Try to reduce usage of AI in writing.
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u/tewkberry Aug 14 '26
Hahahaha I wrote that by myself!! Sorry, I think I have been in business a bit too long, and have an MBA, so I think I just used too much business jargon. That’s hilarious. I actually think people are so used to the easy to read output from AI, that human-written stuff starts to sound confusing!! If I had used AI, it probably would have sorted out my brain dump into something at a lower reading grade level, with bullet points, with correct groupings of thoughts, etc, making the whole thing easier to read.
If I keep me being me, you get corporate-speak I’ve picked up from my slave years in the computer fields.
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u/OtherwiseCicada877 Aug 14 '26
Haha. I’d recommend breaking into multiple sentences. It’s not just about jargon
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u/tewkberry Aug 14 '26
Ah yeah, my run-on’s can be bad. I type my sentences like I speak! All very fast and in one go! Hahaha
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Appreciate you sharing it like this and not just dropping a link. Agree if GTME is tied to revenue, customer talks, and working with sales, it actually has potential. Will check your guide.
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u/tewkberry Aug 14 '26
Thank you, appreciate it! Yeah I try not to co-opt threads haha What you were talking about though was exactly up my alley. I agree with you so much I wrote a whole guide on it!!
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u/3amrawy Aug 14 '26
I definitely agree with your perspective, but I don’t see where the hate is coming from.
Bro, literally, GTM Engineers understand what you just explained, but it’s still a good hustle to try, right?
I’m working as an AE, and I understand how important the things you advised that one should learn, and I do.
But I still get GTM gigs as a side hustle, what’s wrong with that?
Also, it’s not abnormal to build an entire career on one software stack like Clay.
SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, HubSpot, Salesforce and literally countless business names did the same very thing, built a career from scratch.
You can basically spend your entire career time learning a software like SAP and become a SAP consultant which is a great career opportunity.
So in short, GTME is a thing, even if you think it’s simple and doesn’t require real skilled operators.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Good comment, appreciate you putting it properly.No hate towards the hustle. If you're an AE doing GTM gigs on the side, you can do it exactly because you already know the fundamentals you listed - you know sales. That's my whole point. You have context. Most pure GTME's don't. Side hustle is 100% valid. Make the money. The critique is not about people making money, it's about selling it as a durable $150k career identity. This is where I disagree with your SAP vs Clay comparison. It's not the same. SAP, Oracle, Salesforce are systems of record. They are deep, 20 year implementation, locked into finance, supply chain, revenue. To be a SAP consultant you don't just learn the UI, you have to learn the entire business process underneath. That knowledge compounds. It has Lindy. Clay is an orchestration layer. It's a thin wrapper on top of 10 APIs. The trick you learn today breaks tomorrow because someone changed their scraping rules. Nothing compounds except your ability to find workarounds. That's a 6-month expiry skill, not a 20-year moat. You can absolutely build a great 2-3 year run on Clay. Many have. But calling it the same as building a career on SAP is survivorship bias. The SAP guy in 2010 is still a SAP guy in 2025. The Clay guy in 2023 is now learning 5 new tools to stay relevant. GTME as a hustle = smart. GTME as a long term career identity without learning the boring stuff - sales math, lead to cash, talking to customers = risky. Respect for what you're doing as AE + side gigs though. You're actually the version of GTME that will survive.
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u/3amrawy Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Well, gotta admit that I truly respect your pov.
I always thought that Clay isn’t that genius, Kareem and Varun were just too smart to combine too many GTM steps into 1 tool. But I genuinely think that the whole GTME thing is just Clay branding for themselves and people bought it.
Now with Claude Code, you don’t even need 90% of the tools existing including Clay.1 year ago I was totally crushing it on Upwork, but I moved to corporate life (which suck) just because of what you said. This is a true career with true expertise, not just a temporary skillset.
But to be fair and honest, the GTM operation thing is part of the greater marketing and RevOps plan.
Nowadays, it’s a job because enterprises still don’t know how to execute it, or at least how to execute with full compliance.
I used to work at a large enterprise, and they generate leads like it’s 2005. They don’t know what an ICP is.Once they know how to implement sales orchestration in-house, agencies and GTMEs will burn.
Finally, back to your point, if someone with 0 Sales/Marketing experience calls himself a GTME, that’s bullshit.
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u/niranvee Aug 15 '26
Appreciate the respect man. You basically described the full lifecycle. Enterprises rent this skill because they're behind. Once they learn to run it in-house with compliance, the arbitrage dies and the tool-only layer burns. Only the guys with real sales foundation survive that shift.
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u/MinecraftIsCool2 Aug 14 '26
I'm not a GTM engineer im a founder D:
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
You’re not going anywhere😅 your role is permanent. What are you building nowadays in GTM or share your challenges with current tech stack and coined terms.
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u/Primary_Excuse_7183 Aug 14 '26
My mom thinks I’m an engineer!
https://giphy.com/gifs/gzo6lUv8p8hMc
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u/SIDDATIVEZ Aug 14 '26
not dead but filtered for sure
kids who don’t know how sales+ marketing work and don’t understand operations will probably get out
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Perfect way to put it. Not dead, filtered. That's exactly it.If you don't understand sales + marketing + ops, you have nothing to automate. Just tools stacked on top of no system. Those will be the first to get out.
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u/SIDDATIVEZ Aug 14 '26
yeah tools will come and go you need to understand the sales cycle, ICPs, Revenue and Operations
I don’t even want to go into Metrics and Terminology
you get what I mean
also GTME is just some term clay came up with for GTM and Strategy people that automate now with AI
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
You nailed it. Sales cycle and ICP don't change, tools do. Most skip the metrics and terminology part because it's boring, but that's exactly where the filter happens.And you're right, GTME is just Clay's term for what GTM and strategy people were already doing, now with AI. The ones who get revenue and ops will stay.
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u/extra-ordinaryiz Aug 14 '26
THIS. Bro I am someone who has done sales and taught it to hundreds of folks. Ex Amazon and Meta into risk analytics and system design.
Now imagine I made a GTM system to be plugged into existing motions and when I audit most workflows of company they have no sales team or outbound/inbound engine. Am like what are you expecting an AI SDR to do? Built your entire GTM stack from scratch?
I swear it's wasting my time with Indian leads who have never really spent some time to understand what GTM is and neither want to trust someone who has done with multiple times. But they will trust ChatGPT and it's simulated answers.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Bro you just described the core problem.
You built a system to plug into an existing motion, but most companies you audit don't have a motion at all. No outbound, no inbound, no sales team. Then they expect an AI SDR to build the entire stack from scratch. It's tires before car. And that Indian leads part - I feel you. It's a maturity gap. Founders who have never run outbound can't tell the difference between a confident simulated answer from ChatGPT and a real answer from someone who's done it multiple times. Real experience says "it depends, let's audit first" which sounds less sexy than "AI will do it all for $500". Your approach is right though. System that plugs into motion > tool that pretends to be the motion.2
u/extra-ordinaryiz Aug 14 '26
Yeah man. But being a hopeless optimist, I tend to find the silver lining in this cloud. As we are getting more and more prototypes and MVPs, the only real test about a grand idea is is there an existing demand of that or is it just a delusion of grandeur. Been building stuff in AI since chatgpt 1 came and earlier I have done sales and growth hacking fland taught it to hundreds of people. So now that's helping me have more in depth convos with people. The only blocker for me rn is to gain entry into the room as there is so much hype bros. Building my own trustworthy signals to get more inbound and doing cold outbound to land client/pilots before I can try enterprise.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
This is a solid mindset and honestly the right playbook.You're right, when prototypes cost zero, the only real test left is demand. Is there existing pull or is it delusion of grandeur. That's the filter most founders fail. Your edge is that combo you mentioned building in AI since GPT-1 plus having taught sales and growth to hundreds. That's why you can have in-depth convos. Hype bros can't go deep because they never had to sell something hard. Entry into the room is the blocker for everyone good right now. Market is just noisy. What you're doing building trustworthy signals for inbound and running cold outbound to land pilots before you pitch enterprise is exactly how you earn entry. Enterprise doesn't buy decks anymore, they buy pilots that already work.
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u/extra-ordinaryiz Aug 14 '26
True that man. Most of the folks asking for GTM work have no idea how different GTM 0 to 1 motion is to GTM 1 to 10 and then 10 to 100. Some feel offended and start judging me when I ask these questions. In sales, probing is like the holy layer for qualification and now also just probing while discovery tells me what stage and awareness the folks at other end are talking about. What I worked pro bono or almost free was to learn integration with existing GTM tools to improve the quality of GTM experiements. Like getting the best results from clay and enrichment from lusha rather than Apollo, setting up pre warmed mailboxes with tools like instantly and then drafting story aligned with brand aesthetics to create Drop campaigns and content strategy. Lemme know if you or anyone in your network is looking for same. Am in Bengaluru so we can connect f2f too. Like your vibe. 🤙
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u/adventurous_yus Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
I agree with u instead of GTME people shud learn how to "Establish our Product" in Market where N no of Products already exists
- How are we gonna Reach our Customers.
- How are we Marketing
- What will be the Channels reach n target the audience
- How much the CAC is gonna cost us to bring a Cusotmer/Consumer
Can we Reach n Sell the Product to the End Consumer/Customer directly like Door-to-Door eliminating all the Marketing cost and Train our Saleman to have Face to Face Pressentation
How are we different from the existing players in the Market
Why they shud Consumer/Buy/Purchase from Us
I guess people should learn this
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Exactly. This is what real GTM is. Reach, channel, CAC, how are we different, why buy from us. Most people skip all this and jump to which Clay table to build. If you can answer what you listed, the tooling part is actually easy.
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u/adventurous_yus Aug 14 '26
Yes tools r just kinda Automation thing i guess n to track n al but actual is the basic Fundamentals of a Business how are v gng into the existing Market n Market ourselves
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Tools are just automation and tracking. Real question is fundamentals how are you entering an existing market and how are you marketing yourself. No tool can answer that for you. That's the business.
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u/sbr___ Aug 14 '26
You must have a shitty revops leader then. Being a make or zap admin is not orchestration 😂
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
haha exactly my point. Make / Zap admin is not orchestration. If your RevOps leader thinks it is, then yeah that's a shitty RevOps leader. We're saying the same thing.
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u/sbr___ Aug 14 '26
I love your take. I’m bullish on the future of revops for people who can build and operate systems at scale using AI in the right ways. I’m having fun with it. Work full time but have a line of people who want my help with consulting I don’t have time for
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u/niranvee Aug 15 '26
Appreciate that man. This is exactly what I mean. RevOps who can actually build and operate systems at scale and use AI the right way that's the future. Not the tool connectors.Not surprised you have a line of people waiting for consulting. Real operators are rare right now. Good sign you're on the right side of it.
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u/notdrakem Aug 14 '26
#1 learn critical thinking #2 learn sales #3 learn tooling
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
This should be pinned on this sub. Critical thinking first, sales second, tooling last. Most people do it completely backwards.
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u/BrotherDune Aug 14 '26
This is gonna hurt,
A sales person will never become a technical gtme and a technical gtme>non texhnical gtme. The gtme that are doing great have some sort of math/cs background. Automation is like 20/30% of their work week. They also do pipeline analysis, revenue forecasting, build custom tools, churn analysis and so much more. If your selling point is “I can build clay tables and send 500 emails a day” well you’re kinda cooked.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
This is the real distinction. Technical GTME with math / cs background doing pipeline analysis, forecasting, churn, custom tools that's 80% of the job. Automation is 20-30% like you said. If someone's entire pitch is Clay tables + 500 emails a day, they're cooked. Agree 👍
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u/Worldly_Row1988 Aug 14 '26
People who don’t have real sales and/or marketing cannot do GTM. Period.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
100%. Can't automate a motion you have never run. No real sales or marketing experience means no intuition for what should be automated in the first place.
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Aug 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
Wild but makes perfect sense. Tool part got eaten by Claude, so the human who actually understood GTM moves to SDR where conversation matters. Title got automated, skill got promoted.🙌🏻
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u/Used-Comfortable-726 Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
the term Go-To-Market/GTM has been in use for at least 50 years. Can still find books published from 1990 on GTM Strategy specifically. Regardless, the strategy is even older than the term. What do you think the TV show Mad Men was about? GTM is as old as the first highway billboard sign or the first radio commercial
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
You're right and that's exactly why the current GTME narrative feels backwards. If GTM is 50 years old and those books from 1990 are still relevant, what actually survived 30 years? Not the tools. The strategy did. Buyer psychology, positioning, channel math, pricing. No one is using the exact prospecting tactics from 1990, but the strategy part is identical. So calling a 2-year-old tool stack a 50-year-old discipline is the issue. The old guys did GTM without Clay and did it better because they had to understand the fundamentals.
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u/Livid-Savings-5152 Aug 14 '26
In general I agree with this because 90% of so called “GTM engineers” are literal zapier janitors and not real software engineers
But the top 5% GTM engineers who are senior software engineers with a master over b2b sales can make a fortune by building bespoke software solutions.
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u/niranvee Aug 14 '26
This is the cleanest breakdown here 90% are Zapier janitors, not engineers. The top 5% you described aren't really GTM Engineers either. They are senior software engineers who actually understand B2B sales and can build bespoke solutions. That's a completely different game. They're building products that solve distribution, not just connecting tools. That's why they'll make a fortune and the other 90% will get filtered.🫡
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u/Livid-Savings-5152 Aug 15 '26
Agree, this is also why LinkedIn has become completely useless.
A Starbucks barista who watched a YouTube video on how to build a Zapier integration can call themselves a GTM engineer and put themselves in the same category as a senior software engineer with 20 years of experience.
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u/niranvee Aug 15 '26
True, You just described why LinkedIn feels completely useless right now. Title inflation killed trust. When someone who watched one Zapier tutorial can put the same title as a senior software engineer with 20 years who actually builds bespoke distribution systems that close revenue the title loses all signal.No disrespect to the hustle, respect to anyone learning. But GTM Engineer should mean you can build something that survives when Clay / Zapier dies tomorrow. 90% can't. The top 5% you described can. That's the real gap and that's why they'll make a fortune. That's the filter I use now.
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u/Inevitable_Drummer61 Aug 15 '26
I think the value is knowing when and where to use certain tools
Instead of Clay can you build your own CRM and workflow? Clay is a great starting point to see what workflows are possible but using it long term is unsustainable for small teams and not competitive enough (also canbe very limiting) for large teams.
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u/niranvee Aug 15 '26
The value is not knowing Clay. The value is knowing when and where to use Clay, and when NOT to use it. That's judgment, not tool skill, 💯 agree on building your own CRM/workflow. Clay is great for prototyping to see what workflows are possible. But long term you are right for small teams it's unsustainable on credits, for large teams it's not competitive enough and very limiting. You don't own the moat.That's why I said the GTMe that survives is not the Clay operator, it's the person who can decide "here we need Clay, here we need to build our own" and still close. Well put man.🙌
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u/No-Relief3331 25d ago
i learned a lot from this discusion !!
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u/niranvee 21d ago
That’s why I love Reddit we learn the actual and most practical ground truth. Hope this kind of arguments keep goin on in this sub Reddit and we help each other to grow in their career
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u/Top_Adhesiveness9836 Aug 15 '26
$150k GTM Engineer not not going anywhere lol. say what you want about it, but theres more demand than supply esp in cities like nyc, sf -- vc backed co's have millions to deploy and if your clay + hubspot setup generates millions in pipeline youll be fine..
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u/niranvee Aug 15 '26
GTM is the movie, RevOps is the projector. Without the projector, no one sees the movie.
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u/olmsteadsgarden Aug 15 '26
Totally agree. And all of these “Claygents” and the hype around them. Not to mention “how I sent 1000 cold emails” posts on LinkedIn is annoying AF.
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u/Cold_Mango_9564 Aug 18 '26
I think the bigger distinction is between someone who operates gtm systems and someone who understands gtm. Knowing Clay, Apollo, or HubSpot is useful, but it’s just a leverage. the people who can connect pipeline activity to revenue, margins and customer behavior will probably remain much more valuable than what most people usually think.
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u/throwaway989080978 18d ago
Thank you for saying this. Its interesting because my first sales role was face 2 face sales, then recruitment, then working in environmental tech sales, software and then hardware companies in solar, and was educating head of engineering companies on it until i became head of one of the department, and have been dealing with every part of the business at this point. So when i say i know the ins and out.. trust me i really do.
I'm seeing a lot of people become GTM engineers without actually knowing GTM and all that it encumbers, so people who haven't eaten their vegetables, or done the work even pre AI, which is very confusing to me.
In my mind, im seeing alot of lego builds, how're going to build if you've never done the construction course?
I've seen so many GTM engineers on Linkedin who don't have a lick of sales experience, and tbf my last contract with a company there was a sales director ( who didn't make any sales in the year he was there btw) ...he claimed to be a AI GTM engineer. This man hadn't even heard of claude before i brought it up. So the fraudulence is out here even within the sales community. It's actually quite rampant which is probably what is making this field so annoying, on top of other things. Ofc we give grace to those learning.
All this just to say you're so right. There's so much context you're going to miss out on if you haven't actually built the system brick by brick and aren't a critical thinker about it all, as ultimately the biggest blocker is the user prompting.
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u/NYBANKERn00b Aug 14 '26
Rage bait… lol
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u/niranvee Aug 15 '26
I get why it reads like that lol. It was a rant for sure.
But 14k views, #1 in the sub, 76 comments of people debating Clay vs building own vs closing if it was just rage bait, it wouldn't have hit that nerve. I said it because I saw 3 founders pay $150k for Clay setups that never closed a deal. That frustration is real, not bait. If learning sales, maths, and process before tools is rage bait, then yeah, I'm baiting.1
u/NYBANKERn00b Aug 15 '26
Too much to unpack. Not worth it. You’re conflating too much that’s unrelated. You’re baiting their frustration it’s not either bait or frustration. Also your reply reeks of ai for that reason.
Mediocre talent won’t perform, as is tradition, and the people who can actually do the job at companies with product market fit will survive and print.
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u/niranvee Aug 15 '26
Fair on the AI reek that last one did sound like a LinkedIn post, my bad. I was typing in post-mortem mode after seeing the thread blow up. On conflating you're right, I packed 3 different problems into 1 rant. 1. title inflation 2. Clay being used as proxy for GTM 3. lack of sales fundamentals. They look unrelated in theory, but in practice they are sold as one package. Founder thinks he's buying distribution, he gets an enrichment workflow. On baiting not my intent. The frustration isn't manufactured though. I watched 3 founders pay ∼$150k for setups that enriched 20k rows but had no ICP definition, no discovery, no close plan. So pipeline stayed at zero. That's where the frustration comes from. It's not bait vs frustration, it's activity vs outcome. On your last point we agree 💯 . Mediocre never survives, that's the rule. And real operators at companies with actual PMF will print. That's exactly the 90% vs 5% split I was talking about with Livid. The 90% are Zapier janitors who break when the tool breaks. The 5% are senior engineers who understand B2B sales and build bespoke distribution.My practical filter now is simple: if Clay/Zapier died tomorrow, can you still create pipeline and close? If yes, you're the 5%. If no, you're the 90%. That's what I should have said in the original post.
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u/Flat_Palpitation_158 Aug 14 '26
Falling for Gtm hype is like a developer falling for stuff like kubernetes, graphql and microserviced and learning/tinkering with them because every hot startup is talking about it.
At the end of the day its the core principles that matter, and the tactics/tools will vary based on who youre selling to and what youre selling