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Azeem Azhar's Exponential View
Azeem Azhar's Exponential View

Building a Multibillion-Dollar Company in 18 Months (with Hopin’s Johnny Boufarhat)

25 min•3 november 2021

Om avsnittet

Hopin is one of the fastest-growing startups in history. Founder and CEO Johnny Boufarhat joins Azeem Azhar to talk about how he grew the virtual events company from six employees in February 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, to more than eight hundred, and a valuation of almost $8 billion, a year and a half later.

Johnny explains how he seized the opportunity presented by the pandemic, what it was like learning to lead at one of the fastest-growing startups in history, and why he dreams of a future in which a founder’s location is no impediment to success.

They also discuss:

  • Hopin’s future, beyond the world of work.
  • The promise of the metaverse, and the limits of VR.
  • Barriers to entry for founders from developing countries, and how to lower them.

@Johnnyboufarhat

@Azeem

Further resources

Making Venture Capital Work for Entrepreneurs – Exponential View Podcast, 2020

‘Scaling Innovation’ (with Elad Gil) – Exponential View Podcast, 2018

‘The Challenging Political Economy of Silicon Valley’ (with Reid Hoffman) – Exponential View Podcast, 2018

Building Unicorns in Europe (with Reshma Sohoni) –  Exponential View Podcast, 2019 

‘Events scaleup Hopin raises at $7.75bn valuation’ – Sifted, August 2021

‘CEO Secrets: “My billion-pound company has no office”’ – BBC, June 2021

About Exponential View:
Welcome to Exponential View, where Azeem Azhar examines how exponential technologies such as AI are reshaping the future. Each week, Azeem shares his analysis or speaks with an expert guest to shed light on frontier shifts across technology, business and society.

To keep up with the Exponential transition, subscribe to this channel or the newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/
To keep up with our AI economy research, subscribe to https://www.investmentbrief.ai/

Where to find me:

Exponential View newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/
Website: https://www.azeemazhar.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azeem/
Twitter/X: https://x.com/azeem

Production by EPIIPLUS1.
Production and research: Baba Films, Marija Gavrilov.


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