20VC: From $6.2BN Market Cap to $2.8BN: What Is Not Translating About Navan's Public Story | Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? | Why Navan Built It's Own Customer Service AI and What it Could Mean For Customer Service AI with Ariel Cohen

This is 20 VC with me, Harry Sebbings, and what a show we have in store for you today. So last month, Navan went public. They went public with an IPO price or a market cap of over $6,200,000,000. Today, the market cap is $2,800,000,000. It has been a rough ride, but Ariel, the founder, is one of the greatest founders of the last decade. The company is an incredible business. So today, we discuss why go public when he did, is he happy that they did, a review of the process itself, and how AI impacts the company and its prospects moving forwards. This was such fun to do, and Ariel's been a friend for many, many years now, close to a decade, and is one of the great CEOs of our time. But before we dive into the show today, this episode is brought to you by Perk, the intelligent platform for travel and spend. Every successful founder remembers their breakthroughs. Those moments in the journey that changed their trajectory, whether it was going from burning cash to building leverage or from headcount growth to operational scale. Breakthroughs don't come from spending hours buried in spreadsheets, booking and rebooking travel, or chasing their teams for last quarter's coffee receipts. That's shadow work, and that's what Perk was built for. One recent study, That's shadow work, and that's what Perk was built for. One recent study found shadow work cost companies over 1,700,000,000,000.0 every year as employees waste hour after hour on manual, time consuming work instead of the jobs they were hired to do. Perk's AI is purpose built to automate shadow work so teams can focus on real work with real impact. Don't let anything get in the way of your next breakthrough. Leave the travel and spend to Perk. Visit perk.com/20vc today. Perk, powering real work. While Perk helps you launch and manage perks that keeps teams happy, Airwallex helps you pay and move money globally. Founders, let's get real about the growth tax. You've raised VC funding and you're scaling globally, and it's no longer about shipping product. It's about orchestrating operations across continents. But suddenly, your payments and finance stack is choking your growth. You're logging into lots of different banking portals, waiting days for transfers, and reporting across entities. It's operational drag, and it's at your scale. It's costing millions. That's why I'm so excited to partner with Airwallex. Airwallex are more than just a banking alternative to HSBC or Citi. Airwallex brings you an intelligent financial operating system that powers how global businesses operate and grow, allowing you to manage and automate banking, treasury, payments, and spend. The most exciting part for me, they're heavily investing in agentic finance. If you're scaling globally, you need a a banking and finance platform that's borderless, real time, and intelligent. Check out Airwallex today and see how they're helping thousands of businesses like Canva, McLaren, and Deal scale at airwallex.com forward /20bc. Terms and conditions …