Reddit asked, Geoff answered: 5 insights from Ramp’s CPO on building for hypergrowth
- 1. Build trust in AI by narrowing the problem
- 2. Focus on keeping sales and product tightly aligned
- 3. Don’t just say you’re customer-first — live it
- 4. Rethink org design to meet the AI era
- 5. Build velocity through talent density and deep thinking
When Ramp’s Chief Product Officer Geoff Charles jumped into r/ramp for a live AMA, more than 20,000 finance professionals, tech enthusiasts, and others tuned in to ask about everything from AI agents and hypergrowth to how he maintains his admirable facial hair.
Geoff gave a rare behind-the-scenes look into how Ramp builds trustworthy AI, scales fast without losing focus, and stays relentlessly customer-first across 50-plus responses over two hours. Here are five big insights:
1. Build trust in AI by narrowing the problem
Ramp’s AI agents are narrow, context-rich systems that earn trust through structure, evaluation, and gradual autonomy. How does the product team build and then continuously improve them?
More from Geoff on Reddit:
u/Ramp_Geoff
“We have technical infrastructure for shared primitives across agents (standardizing model calls, library of tools available, access & permissions, audit logging)…
"We custom build narrow agents for specific tasks — and spend a ton of time refining the specific context and prompt to make sure they are powerful. For example, our AP agent has all the context on your previous bills, vendor history, purchase orders, communications with the vendor, etc.…
"We eval a ton (owned in collaboration between product/eng/design/data) + constantly reinforce with examples/feedback loops…
"We don't have any challenges with hallucinations given model improvements, guardrails we put in place, and the eval frameworks above.”
Takeaway
Ramp validates agent performance through shared evaluations and user feedback, graduating agents from recommendation mode to fully autonomous execution only when customers are comfortable with their performance.
2. Focus on keeping sales and product tightly aligned
Ramp’s sales and product teams work in lockstep, with a crystal-clear understanding of who they serve and what problems they solve. This approach keeps sales momentum aligned with long-term product vision.
More from Geoff on Reddit:
u/Ramp_Geoff
“Sales can also potentially distract you if you don't help them focus on:
- who are your core ICPs,
- what are the core problems you are solving,
- which problems do you solve extremely well.
"…Your product will not be able to solve everything for everyone. You need to be very opinionated as to who you actually want to serve and be willing to walk away from customers that might be lucrative but will take you in a different direction.
“Example for us is Expensify integration. Customers wanted it. Sales wanted it. I didn’t want to build it. Five years later look at their stock price vs ours… We have FDE teams that burn these down for high value customers to protect our teams.”
Takeaway
Ramp looks for ways to empower sales and protect product focus.
3. Don’t just say you’re customer-first — live it
From the SVB crisis to pressure to partner vs. build, Geoff’s stories show what “customer-first” really means inside Ramp.
More from Geoff on Reddit:
u/Ramp_Geoff
“During SVB we had a meaningful chunk of our customer accounts frozen… We could have decided to freeze all card payments to protect our business. Instead we spent the weekend reaching out to every single customer helping them get funds out, open up alternative accounts, and ensuring we had enough liquidity to extend their payment terms.
“Another large competitor wanted to partner with us on AP… We decided to build our own AP product — but to build conviction we tasked a team to build an MVP in three months that we can go to market with. They did. It’s now moving tens of billions of dollars a year. The competitor is worth less than Ramp today.”
Takeaway
Ramp puts its customers first and seeks to build products that create long-term value rather than settle for the easiest short-term fix.
4. Rethink org design to meet the AI era
Ramp’s structure aims to avoid traditional silos by blending engineering, marketing, and design into tightly connected teams. The result is a modern org built for experimentation, creativity, and data-driven decision-making.
More from Geoff on Reddit:
u/Ramp_Geoff
“We believe that marketing is fundamentally an engineering problem — the systems we need to build to effectively deploy $ (CAC) in exchange for adoption (LTV). So CTO makes sense.
"Product marketing reports into me… PMM and PM work extremely closely together — they are embedded in the same pods.
"Brand marketing — that also sits under the CTO but reports into our head of design… empowered to take creative action and be bold (e.g. Super Bowl campaign, Brian from The Office...).
"Key learning for me here is that traditional marketing is shifting in the age of AI — you can do a lot more with technology than you used to, and so technologists can be great marketers, if they are tied to the hip with very creative people.”
Takeaway
Ramp’s org design reflects how modern companies will need to operate in the AI era—where technology, storytelling, and creativity work in lockstep to drive growth.
5. Build velocity through talent density and deep thinking
Ramp’s leadership culture values deep thinking, disciplined execution, and high talent density. Geoff believes great products come from teams that think rigorously, write clearly, and hold an uncompromising bar for performance.
More from Geoff on Reddit:
u/Ramp_Geoff
“Reading makes you wiser but doesn’t make you smarter… Close your laptop. Write down the question you want to answer on a piece of paper. For the next hour, write as much as possible. Come up with a visual framework… Share it with people you admire.
“Talent is everything. It trumps any playbook/strategy/framework/process… Be obsessed about who you hire. Tell your highest performers that they are high performers and keep giving them more. Cut people quickly who do not meet the bar. And promote aggressively from within.”
Takeaway
Deep thinking + high talent density = sustainable velocity. Ramp invests in clarity, curiosity, and in people who constantly raise the bar.
For more insights and generally fun content, join the r/ramp subreddit.
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