Elias Torres, Co-Founder and CEO @ Agency: What No One Tells You About Selling Your Company

Core Business Philosophy & Personal Evolution

• Elias declares his previous company, Drift, "the biggest failure in my life" because it lacked sustainability and enduring value, though it was sold to Vista Private Equity for $1.2–$1.3 billion.
• He attributes Drift's inability to reach a public company status to an over-reliance on "carrots" (candy bars, trophies) rather than building a culture capable of enduring his personal ego.
• His philosophy centers on a paradox: he pretends to be a nihilist ("I don't care") to cope with the reality that he "cares way too much," using this detachment to manage the high rejection and failure rates inherent in entrepreneurship.
• Elias believes financial success (having "fuck your money") eliminates 30% of life's problems, allowing him to ignore trivial stressors like car repairs or canceled trips, but he maintains that this does not remove the need for deep purpose.
• He advises founders that "things aren't as hard as they seem," citing his own history of growing up homeless during the Nicaraguan revolution as proof that Western problems are manageable compared to survival scenarios.
• Elias argues that "complacency is the secret to happiness," countering the narrative that fear drives success; he suggests that knowing "it will be okay" allows entrepreneurs to take necessary risks without being paralyzed by the outcome.

The Future of Enterprise, AI, and "Elephants Dancing"

• Elias asserts that "elephants cannot dance," maintaining that large incumbents like Google and Salesforce are merely "talking" and "singing" but cannot move with the speed or agility of startups, despite public claims.
• He cites Google's failure to capitalize on its own Transformers paper and the poor adoption of its Notebook LM as evidence that incumbents are "dropping the ball" in the AI race.
• He distinguishes Microsoft as a potential exception, praising Satya Nadella's early investment in OpenAI as "genius" and noting that while Microsoft Copilot has distribution advantages, it suffers from low product usage and trust issues.
• Elias predicts the future of software will shift from "operator-based" (requiring human intervention like driving a car) to "agentic" (fully autonomous workflows like driverless cars), arguing that current tools like ChatGPT still require the human to be the operator.
• He believes the primary blocker to AI adoption is not technology but "the number of humans," noting that large organizations are paralyzed by internal politics, promotion-seeking, and approval layers that prevent rapid decision-making.
• He forecasts a structural shift toward smaller, more efficient companies (15–50 people generating billions in revenue) fueled by AI replacing customer support, sales, and engineering roles, which will disrupt the traditional VC model of burning equity on large headcounts.
• Elias predicts that as companies transition from tool-based budgets to labor-based budgets (AI compute), they will increasingly prefer debt financing over equity dilution, as smaller teams require less capital to scale.
• He identifies the current "bubble" in the tech sector as a result of companies misapplying the "Zerpa" growth-at-all-costs model to AI, warning that many SaaS companies will fail to secure funding if they cannot demonstrate profitability or immediate, high-efficiency customer value.
• He argues that "bounces" on resumes (frequent job hopping) and stagnant career progression are red flags, while "boring" candidates who demonstrate grit and code execution often prove to be the best hires.

Hiring, Management, and Organizational Structure

• Elias's hiring criteria prioritize "high agency, IQ, grit, and execution speed," requiring candidates to be "obsessed" and willing to engage in intense, high-pressure interviews.
• He employs a "hire slow, fire fast" methodology, advocating for contract-to-hire periods where candidates can be dismissed within a week if they do not demonstrate immediate output, contrasting this with the years-long termination processes common in legacy enterprises.
• He rejects the utility of job titles, viewing them as "ego-driven" artifacts that distract from actual value creation, and suggests future compensation should rely on profit-sharing, revenue-sharing, or high equity rather than hierarchical status.
• Elias manages his small team (15 people) with a single daily standup meeting where employees report on their previous day's work and current plans, eliminating traditional one-on-ones which he views as "bullshit" and unproductive.
• He admits that his intense, "in-your-face" interview style is designed to test a candidate's ability to handle pressure, serving as a filter for those who cannot thrive in his high-velocity environment.
• He advises founders to stop making big promises during hiring and to be blunt about the reality of the work, stating, "I promise you a lot of work and me yelling."
• Elias highlights that "boring" candidates who appear quiet in interviews often possess the most grit and execution capability, noting that he frequently overrides panel rejections to hire individuals who display quiet competence and code proficiency.

Personal History, Family, and Life Choices

• Elias was forced to become an immigrant at age three when the Nicaraguan revolution caused his family to lose their home, leading to a period of homelessness before his grandmother secured a U.S. green card.
• His exposure to technology began at age 15–16 in Los Angeles, where his father introduced him to an IBM computer, allowing him to type homework and use Lotus 1-2-3, planting the seed for his future career.
• He worked at IBM in the late 1990s on the team that built IBM.com, building browser-based applications with HTML and JavaScript, which taught him the limitations of large corporate structures compared to the agility of startups.
• Elias advocates for having children young, citing his own experience of starting a family at 27 as enabling him to balance entrepreneurship with parenting, though he admits the period was "horrible" due to exhaustion and lack of sleep.
• He advises against "manufacturing adversity" for children born into wealth, instead suggesting parents "free" their children from his own pressures, allowing them to choose their own paths without the burden of his success.
• His marriage advice is succinct: "She's always right," emphasizing the need for a leader to be less self-centered at home than in business to maintain a healthy relationship.
• He identifies his biggest regret as the inability to spend enough quality time with his children due to the demands of running high-growth companies, acknowledging that he often let his family down while trying to build his legacy.

Investment Strategy & Forward-Looking Statements

• Elias launched "Agency," a venture-backed AI consulting firm, after generating approximately $2 million in six months by helping clients implement OpenAI solutions, betting that the "services" layer will outsize the technology layer in the next 5–10 years.
• He predicts a 5–10 year transition period for AI adoption rather than a 12–24 month explosion, arguing that the world's GDP growth will be incremental (10% over a decade) rather than hyperbolic due to the slowness of cultural and institutional adaptation.
• He holds a bullish long-term view on NVIDIA, stating he would buy and hold the stock for 10 years due to the insatiable demand for "compute," despite his general skepticism of public market giants.
• Elias expresses a bearish short position on Salesforce, echoing a sentiment shared by other industry leaders that the company is overvalued and struggling to adapt to the new AI landscape.
• He is personally excited about the potential for AI to accelerate drug discovery for his mother's Multiple Sclerosis and the possibility of AI helping to restore cultural craftsmanship and better customer relationships in business.
• He believes the "American Dream" is still viable but requires a shift in mindset where "smaller is better," and that the future belongs to companies that can generate billions in revenue with minimal headcount using AI agents.
• Elias advises that the most effective way to "educate" the world is to help more people understand the potential of these tools, noting that his biggest desire is to see the next generation of entrepreneurs apply these technologies to solve human problems in non-tech sectors like farming and art.