Do you remember what life was like before the cloud? Before this AI revolution? Prukalpa Sankar, the co-founder and CEO of Atlan sat down with the team at Found to chat about the evolution of data management.
She knows firsthand how things have changed. She and her co-founder launched SocialCops, where they did much work building India’s national data platform and the United Nations. “We were the data team for our customers, and we were trying to solve these big world problems,” she said, listing healthcare and education as examples.
But then, something happened that led Sankar to launch the product that eventually became Atlan, a workplace that allows for better collaboration between businesses, analysts, and engineers. “I felt two years of trust evaporate on that call,” she said of the moment everything changed. But, she and the team were able to pick themselves back up.
Today, Atlan has raised more than $200 million at a $750 million valuation. The company comes right on time, too, as a new AI revolution sweeps the world. Sankar broke down how Atlan helps its clients become AI-ready and AI-adaptable. When asked about bias and AI she reiterated that humans will still play a very important role in the development and management of AI. And yes AI is in a bubble right now… kinda.
“Will everything that we know about the world change pretty drastically in the next few years, five, seven years? Yeah, that’s probably true,” she said. “There’s lots of it that are hype and it’s going to take cycles before all of this plays out.”
Elsewhere in the interview, she talks about the importance of empathy, why the company hit a wall while scaling, and of course, about that Taylor Swift music video announcing her fundraiser. The video was called “The Tortured Data Department,” a cheeky play on Swift’s last album “The Tortured Poets Department.” As for what “Era” Sankar loves best, well, you are going to have to listen to find out (and hint, it’s not TTPD).
