Welcome back to our podcast: Tales from the Trenches. On today’s episode, Krishna chats with Ceres Imaging CEO Ramsey Masri about leading with empathy, staying calm under pressure, and the challenges and opportunities of running a mission-driven company.
Listen by clicking play above and/or read the transcript of the conversation.
Krishna: Great to be back, and I am very excited to have today the CEO of one of our companies: Ceres Imaging. We have Ramsey Masri on here today. I’ve gotten to know Ramsey quite well over the last couple of years since he joined our company as CEO. Ceres is a fantastic example of an interesting, vertically-applied AI business. It has built its business, its data set, its customer base in the agricultural space first and has now moved into the insurance market, which we’ll talk about later today. But as always, what we’re going to be focusing on this episode is the person and the struggle and the tales from the trenches.
So with that: thank you for being with us, Ramsey.
Ramsey: Krishna, thank you very much. It’s great to be on. Always nice to chat with you.
Krishna: Well you know, one of the things I’d love to start with is you know when I first met, it was in relation to this role at Ceres. And I think we had a really great connection from the beginning. And although we didn’t immediately start working together, it eventually came around. And so I’d love to understand from your perspective: what was it that attracted you about Ceres as an opportunity? And for you to want to join as CEO?
Ramsey: Thank you for that. And I do remember the conversations early on before I joined. And you know, what intrigued me was your description of the business itself. At that time, the company was about eight years old. It had market leadership with a keen focus on helping farmers deliver healthier foods without using as much water, chemical, and fertilizer. So I loved the mission.
But what you also unveiled was: inside this business was this completely untapped data set that had been forced from all these different crop types and was emerging in all these different regions, and all these different scientists were working in Ceres, and all these different collaborations with names like NASA and UC Davis and these really venerable institutions all contributing.
And I thought to myself: oh my goodness. There’s this gold mine here that is untapped around this data set. And it’s been under-monetized, under-utilized. So that was super appealing to me.
And from my own personal history, growing up: I grew up in South America, in Peru. We had a pretty decent sized farming operation, about 70,000 hectares. We grew corn, cotton, and potatoes, and we also had some small amount of citrus and things like that growing there.
Krishna: What brought your family to Peru and South America?
Ramsey: That’s a great question. So you know, in the 20s and 30s in Europe, as they looked around the world, always somewhat of an expansionist mentality, Latin America was one of those great green field opportunities, right? A world unspoiled. And so my grandfather left Switzerland with my then three-year-old mother, and they moved to Peru and set up life down there.
And even though my mom ended up going to college and marrying my dad here in the US, she inherited the properties and as such just thought it was such an amazing experience for herself that she wanted to share that with her kids as well.
So down there we went in the late 60s and lived there through the 70s as well. And it was such an amazing time for us. And it was really my first big awakening to living and being around ag. And it wasn’t just ag itself — these were very remote places, and the family took great consideration in the overall community. The community of workers, you know, we set up facilities for schools and medicine and things like that for the community, because it was truly a community effort to farm an operation of that size. So that was instilled and inculcated into me from an early age. I’ve always loved that aspect of ag.
Krishna: One of the reasons I invested in Ceres — when I looked at Ceres initially, I had been looking at the ag industry for quite some time. And what stood out to me about Ceres, obviously there was a proprietary technology and the data set, which was unique in the agtech industry, but what else stood out to me was the empathy for the customer. The founder, Ash, had spent a lot of time himself in Brazil and just really enjoyed spending time with farmers. And that’s not most people’s cup of tea in tech, but I actually think it’s a non-negotiable part of being successful in this industry.
And so I saw that with you too. And as I’ve gotten to know you over the past few years, I’d say you just have a general sense of empathy for all of your business partners, etc. And it’s something I’ve appreciated on a personal level, too.
Walk me through kind of how that has played a role in your success to date in your career, and especially during tough times. How do you stay empathetic when you’re in the trenches, when you’re facing down the barrel of complete disaster — which I’m sure you’ve seen across your career. How do you stay true and authentic to who you are?
Ramsey: Yeah, thank you, that’s a great question — it’s a very deep question. Yeah, look, I’ve been in my career for over 30 years and enjoyed every minute, both the ups and the downs. It’s the wind and the rain which chisels the rock and puts beautiful shapes on it, right?
One thing is true for me and just my sense of self and my friends is honesty and transparency, even when it’s hard news. And unlike fine wines, bad news typically does not age well. So the sooner you broach those things, the better.
And I think certainly during tough times with employees or peers or investors, bringing that bad news sometimes immediately — while it might be abrupt, and you might not like the reaction — it’s ultimately the best thing to do. Not only from a transparency standpoint, but I believe in the collective power of people. I believe in the collective intellectual horsepower of people coming together as a team. So when you broach a tough problem with a good group of people, they will then start helping you solve that problem together.
I really view business as a team sport. I grew up playing team sports, and I understand…
Krishna: Which sports did you play?
Ramsey: Growing up in South America, it’s soccer, or football down here. And then when I moved to the US, it became American football, which I love a lot. They’re still my friends today. So there’s a great bonding you get with a team. And as part of my interview process when I hire, I make sure there’s a good team dynamic, because I know how to leverage that team dynamic for the betterment of all and certainly for my own personal support and leaning on them in those critical times.
So how do we get through those tough things? The easy things are easy. It’s the tough things that really make the difference between success and failure, and it’s that transparency, the honesty, it’s the immediacy, and it’s the trust factor. And I really like to lead as first among equals less so than being in a very hierarchical structure. And having spent the first decade of my life at a great company where I learned a ton, at Oracle, it was very striated, there was a pecking order, certain people knew some things, others didn’t know other things, it just didn’t feel like it fit me personally. And that’s why I really enjoy these younger, more vibrant companies like the ones you start.
Krishna: You know, every leader that I’ve met or worked with has a different style when under pressure, when “in the trenches” when there’s warfare erupting all around you. I, for example, am very — and you know this by now — if I’ve got the energy, I’m flying around, I’m screaming, I’m yelling, I’m doing whatever, I’m pumping up the troops. What I find incredible about you, and very unrelatable in some ways but very remarkable, is that you are just completely cool as a cucumber. And I’ve seen you under some very tough and stressful situations. And I take a lot of…I calm down when I talk to you about those situations, because you just don’t flinch. And I have a positive attitude, but sometimes you really just need to stay calm.
Was that something that was part of your character from the beginning as a kid? How did that come about? Is that something you saw and observed in your parents? How has that helped you handle some very tough situations?
Ramsey: It’s interesting — if I were to emulate my parents, I might be a little bit more emotionally reactive. So maybe I did learn from them that that’s not always the best way to do things.
I also believe in — and first of all, thank you for the nice comments — but I also believe that level-headedness, channeling your energy into productive activity is good. This is a marathon, not a sprint: pace yourself accordingly. Things like that. Yes, as I’ve matured into my career and into my role, I’ve certainly been more conscious of my exterior behavior. Sort of like the swan on the pond: everything looks calm on the surface, but the legs are furiously moving beneath. Very much that way — because I know for myself, if there’s a sense of calmness and confidence in the room, that’s very settling — especially in these moments that can be, candidly, quite startling if you don’t handle it well.
I’ve seen some terrifying things in my life. I used to race motorcycles, and I like good, adventurous things that will scare the bejeezus out of you, so maybe that’s helped put things in perspective for me of what’s worth getting super excited about.
Actually, I like our dynamic, because you sort of catalyze me to take an action maybe sooner than I might have, but actually I think it’s quite a symbiotic relationship we have.
Krishna: I agree. One of the other things I think you do to stay calm is that you are a very active cycler, I mean generally you keep up a very solid cadence of physical activity, right? Walk me through that.
Ramsey: Yeah, I mean exercise and diet are seriously my two strongest pillars. And I know you believe that, and I think we share that a lot. We actually talked about that right up front — like, what do you do to kind of stay sane? And I have the good fortune to live by a really beautiful mountain, and I love to ride my mountain bike up and down it. And that is just a great place to crack hard problems, calm myself, free the mind, endorphins. Just a great work bench for thinking, it’s a great work bench for reconnecting my soul to the earth, which…my Berkeley education is showing there, but I definitely feel very grounded when I’m out there. And of course, managing diet. Because look: these are super stressful jobs. So really leveraging that airplane safety video — putting your mask on first before helping others. So if I’m not good, how can I be good for others? So being very conscious about making sure that I’m solid before embarking on bringing the team with me.
I think you’re that way — actually, I know you’re that way too, because we talk about it regularly.
Krishna: You also, I think, work with a lot of leaders directly or indirectly, maybe, as a mentor or as an investor or maybe all of the above. And so where do you find…what advice would you have for upcoming leaders and entrepreneurs? Where you have seen people struggle and fail? And to the other side — give me an example of a leader you admire deeply because of the way he or she has handled the trenches.
Ramsey: Yeah, it’s interesting. So the biggest benefit I’ve seen is from folks who are older, so I would say look for an older mentor: someone who’s got at least a decade ahead of you. Sort of like a fore caddy in golf: someone who can look over the hill and around the corner, who can say well head this way, I know it may seem unnatural, but that’s the way to go.
One of the biggest challenges is to get consumed with the immediate and the tactical and lose sight of the strategic. And get so wrapped up in right now that you forget about tomorrow or next week or next quarter. And before you know it, next week or next quarter are right there as well. So if you’re in constant motion of solving for the tactical, not solving for the strategic, you’ll never get out of that dog fight, and it’s exhausting and tends to lead to jinking your business left and right and not following a truer course.
I’m not saying stay inflexible and rigid and follow a single line. But you need to find a way to keep going forward against your long-term goals — the strategic goals — while simultaneously handling the tactical.
There are lots of good tricks about how you start your day. Do you start your day immediately on email? Or do you start your day over a cup of tea and 30 minutes of thinking or meditation and sort of planning your day? There’s that great example, what’s a more productive week: a 40-hour week, or a 39-plus-one, with that one being a very thoughtful and considerate hour of planning before you embark on something?
Early on in my career I had the privilege of working for a couple very successful guys: Tom Siebel, Ray Lane. Early on at Oracle while I was there we had a lot of exposure to Larry Ellis himself, who’s my executive sponsor on a few deals. Jeff Henley was the CFO as well. These were super seasoned and tenured people at the time, at least from my perspective, who were anticipating things as they were coming. So rather than reacting to the thing once it arrived, they were deliberately taking actions many quarters and many months beforehand. And that just serves so well, because by the time you arrived at that moment, you’d either thought about it or planned for it or organized or hired, or you’d done something proactive to meet that moment in a super positive way of being proactive and not reactive about it.
So I guess again the takeaway is find someone who’s definitely older than you who’s been down the road, because there are plenty of those people who are willing to come back and mentor. I think it’s a societal obligation. I take it on all the time, I love doing it. I think it’s kind of a requirement for the next generations to bring up the generations behind us.
Krishna: Well, to be honest, I’ve learned a lot from you myself. You know, building our business, I never have had a mentor, and I’ve probably made a whole bunch of mistakes that I could have avoided if I had had one. So I seek out every opportunity I can to learn from people who have been there and done that, and certainly you’re one of those who has seen more situations and been doing this for longer than I have.
Now, I want to come back to Tom Siebel. He’s obviously a legend. But it’s fascinating, because you talk about being proactive. He went down C3IOT and then saw AI coming before it took off. Renamed, rebranded everything to C3AI, and I think he’s reaping the benefits of that right now.
And so that ties into my next question. You talked about leaders being proactive and finding ways to still be strategic when you’re in the heat of the battle — you’re just trying to survive sometimes. And you know, AI is one of these topics that every CEO, every leader is being bombarded with. Either you’re an AI company, or why aren’t you an AI company, and what are you doing about AI.
What I find very interesting about us at Ceres is that we actually have been an AI company from the beginning, but our version of AI…we’ve been focused on computer vision, initially. And as this sort of wave of what I would say conversational AI and language model-driven AI — and it’s a separate debate as to whether it’s AI or not, but I won’t get into that here — but as that debate has unfolded, and you’ve heard this from me, like, “Ramsey, are we taking advantage of this wave?” And so, how have you been able to be strategic about integrating AI into the business? How do you separate — no pun intended — the wheat from the chaff?
Ramsey: Great question. I think this is one of the first things in our first conversations a couple years ago when we first came into the business, but you were already talking to me about it. Hey, here’s this data set, it’s native-born AI, machine learning, computer vision had been built into the architecture from day one a decade ago. And having come out of other companies that have leveraged that, because obviously the technology or the concept itself has been around for over 20 years, it’s not new, it’s gaining in speed and popularity, but yes, there’s a very deliberate and overt leverage of the technology for the betterment of the farmer, for keener and more accurate insights, all of the things we know it does happen here already. As we think about and as we incorporate greater AI capacity into the platform, we think about it from the end user’s perspective. How can they engage with us more independently and faster in a native way? So we’re definitely planning for different drops of it over the next couple quarters, how to bolster our AI and ML offerings so that the end user can access it more readily.
And also for internal tooling, how our own customer service people can run faster and more accurate queries in literally minutes versus hours or days, which is what they currently do.
But again: a lot of the product set has already incorporated that in its offering, so it’s really adding little layers of benefit on top of the existing platform.
But again, I think it was very thoughtfully done from day one. I can’t take any credit for that — that was all Ashwin and the team early on.
Krishna: Yeah. You know, I think the AI revolution — this one, this wave — has been very interesting to witness. Because it comes back a little bit to what you were saying earlier. It’s a topic we often don’t like to talk about. Sort of like the age gap, right?
So you’ve got people like yourselves who have been there and seen it and understand that this machine learning wave is not new. Even for me, the first investment we made in machine learning was in 2009. But that being said, you’ve got people who are 22 years old, well younger than both of us, saying well, this is a very different type of revolution. It’s a sort of transformational time.
It’s been interesting to me to watch those two sides come together, because you really do need to. Because on the one side, I would say all of this is a little over-hyped, and people think they can do a lot more than they probably can. And on the other side, there are people who don’t quite grasp how revolutionary this can be, and sort of watching this come together. And I think the best way this comes together is in real-world applications, like we see at Ceres.
I had a great time — as you know, I was in Barcelona a couple weeks ago — and I had a great time going on a walk with Leo, our friend. And actually one of the first things he told me, which was surprising to me, is that he had worked with you five times. And that to me alone was such an interesting data point, because God, you have to be doing something right if somebody chooses to work with you for five times.
And so I was like, ok, well maybe Ramsey is indeed a good guy. And he’s clearly inspiring confidence. But the other thing that Leo…we had a wide-ranging conversation, and one of the things he told me was that one of the customers we’re talking to out in Italy has a lot of data that is highly unstructured. And the example he gave me was in the 6,000 acre piece of land — which is not a lot — there were 5,000 PDFs governing the dataset that we would intake. And so there’s a clear opportunity there to structure that data, leverage that data, make it dynamic it instead of static, leveraging some of these new and modern tools that we have at our disposal.
And so: are you finding opportunities like that in real time and uncovering them? And then how are you saying, ok, here’s the opportunity, and here’s how I leverage the latest and greatest language models to sort of create value from that opportunity and close the loop and then go show something to my customer?
Ramsey: There was a lot in there, so let me sort of unpack that one a little bit. And by the way, I wanted to make a comment harkening back to one of your original questions.
Learnings for me: yes, I teach a lot to some of the younger staff, but I also learn a ton from them. It’s a very bidirectional, reciprocal relationship. And part of that, I’ve had the pleasure over the past many companies, of over the past 20 years being in small growth companies, of constantly interacting with younger generations. And that keeps me attuned to their behavior and also their thought patterns and stuff like that. And a young energetic mind unbridled by too much experience can actually come up with some amazing insights and thoughts.
Coming now to your comments about AI: yes, ag itself — this is the opportunity for the next decade, and there’s at least a decade of innovation available. This is one of the last great bastions of an all-analogue environment. It’s still pen and paper, there’s 5,000 PDFs, there’s umpteen numbers of scraps and notes scattered all over, and there’s a data fragmentation opportunity that we’re looking to help solve, there’s health and sustainability, there’s a variety of things we get to do over the next many years in ag alone.
The thing about ag is the rate of change is not as high as, like, a consumer app, because the rate of change and the ability for the sector itself to adopt that change isn’t as high. And some of that is cultural, some of it is a seasonal thing. I’ve spent time in the mobile marketing space and mobile games, where you introduce a feature or change and within weeks you know whether it’s working or not. In ag, you have to wait a growing season to see if what you’ve implemented has a positive result.
Now that gives us some really nice buffer of time to be very thoughtful about what aspects of AI we leverage and to what end. So we get to have a good thought process, good engagement with prospective buyers, with our prospects, partners, learned board members like yourself of what is the best way to actually leverage this technology for the total benefit of the end user customer as well as the company and its growth. Because obviously, introducing change all the time wreaks a lot of havoc on your engineering team, and you don’t have unlimited capacity or patience from them to constantly introduce change.
Krishna: Especially while trying to deliver an enterprise-grade product. And I think that’s what a lot of people sort of forget. I saw that firsthand also at Presto. It’s one of the things we do that separates us: you have to separate building a cool consumer app that people can just play around with, with building a product that actually integrates and works in an enterprise environment.
On that side, if you move engineers left and right, you end up getting nowhere.
Ramsey: That’s exactly right. It kind of comes down to staying the course. And staying the course is very comforting, right? We talked before about how do you maintain calm when you’re surrounded by chaos? It’s staying true to your path. And staying dedicated to what we’re going to do from a strategic standpoint, and surfing through the whitewater sometimes is scary, but as long as you know your board’s still going straight and you’re headed toward the beach ultimately, you’re going to get there. Just stay on your board, man!
Krishna: And look, that’s what the customers want to hear too, right? They want to hear a clear value proposition.
So let’s get to the industry for a second. So ag has been a very tough — to your point, it’s one of the last bastions of pen and paper ways of doing business and handshakes and all that kind of stuff. So how do you…and as a result, I would say, ag tech has had a very tough go of it over the last few years. At the same time, I can’t get away from the fact that it’s a massive industry, it’s a huge vertical, it ain’t going anywhere. And so how do you reconcile those two facts? And how do you look at, as the CEO of Ceres, and say look: with our direction in this industry, on the insurance side, the financial services side, but also with a basis in the ag business, why are we able to crack the code? Why does the industry look different 2-3 years from now? Why is this the inflection point for this pen and paper industry to look different over the next handful of years?
Ramsey: Those are great questions. And look, it’s not a surprise there was a huge rush to bolster the ag sector.
Krishna: Do we blame David Friedberg for that?
Ramsey: (Laughter) Possibly. Certainly one who’s made…hey, you can become a billionaire if you go into a market and you’re the only one there. But he was very thoughtful about it, because he originally started his business trying to be a bank and an insurance company and then sort of deviated more into economic insight.
But I’ve spent over 30 years in technology and I was growing grapes in California since 1999, and when I lived up in Napa because we wanted to raise our family there, it just seemed so obvious that the sector needed to be brought along. The 21st century was rushing pas them, and they were still doing things this way. So there’s no doubt there’s a need. And as a consequence, as capitalism is really good at doing, is they found a need, and technology found a need, and they came rushing in there. And I must say I’m so impressed with the founders and the leaders in all these companies that have been funded over the last 7-10 years. Absolutely amazing technology. And the leaders of these companies are some serious folks. They have doctorate degrees in chemistry and hydrology and plant biology, I mean they’re incredibly learned people who know deep science about things. And they’ve gone about bringing their very thoughtful product to market.
Krishna: But most of them have failed. So what have they done wrong that we’re doing right?
Ramsey: Well, I think the biggest difference is they have focused so much on the feature itself and what the feature itself does from the purity of its science, and they’ve ignored the commercial aspect…because they were never trained that way. They don’t have the same commercial DNA you and I have. And I think that’s the single biggest issue, is the fact that they’re not commercially minded. They can get up to one or two, maybe $3M in revenue because they’re passionate and they sell it to somebody, but it’s an unscalable model, because typically the founder is running it and there are a bunch of other scientists or PhDs helping along the way. They haven’t built in that commercial, scalable business. And nor do they recognize that selling up into those big scary enterprise looking things that look like banks and insurance companies…that’s not very sexy when all you care about is the farmer in the field.
So they’ve chosen just to double down in the dirt. It’s the pressure of this environment: yet another down cycle. I think this is my fourth economic downturn. They’re ultimately very healthy. I know it’s kind of Darwinian to say, but it kind of shakes out those who have real products and real business models, and I think it’s a necessary part of capitalism to sort of get those who are soaking up the extra money out of the way and let the pure play guys lead.
And we’re one of the few who’ve really chosen to go upstream. Go up where it’s hard, and where it takes a little bit longer to sell to. But the problem we’re solving is massive. It’s billions and billions of dollars every single year. $270B of ag loans and ag insurance gets renewed every single year, but they’re still using 20-year-old methods and procedures, and nobody’s helping them. And you can’t farm without a loan, and you can’t get a loan without insurance. And we’ve got to keep this thing going, man. We have almost 10B people to feed in the next 25-30 years, so it needs to be addressed.
So we feel good that our mission is sound, but also our business model is sound underneath it as well.
Krishna: You bring up mission, which I know that the foundation of Ceres has always been based on a mission. And I know Ash was very wedded to that mission. That mission has kept our company intact all these years and motivated. What role…I mean, is this the most mission-oriented company you’ve been part of? What role can mission play for leaders in the trenches? And can it be a distraction sometimes? How do you think about the pros and cons of being mission-driven as a company when you are deep in the trenches?
Ramsey: You know, I love the mission of the company. This is not my first mission-driven company, but this is probably the mission that I have identified with most at a personal level, just because of my family background and how I grew up, and how I can apply my professional career to my own family life. And having those two come together…it’s the best job I’ve ever had, truly.
And I do think mission galvanizes everybody toward a common thing. And again, when we talk about those times that are disruptive or it seems like we’re shifting course and going into these new markets, but if you can clarify the mission remains the same, that the woods we’e walking through now are different but the journey ahead remains the same, even though the path might be a little different, we’re still doing this. We still believe that farmers first forever is a really, really important mission statement. We still believe that helping farmers deliver those healthy and more sustainable crops, we’re staying true to that.
And Ash was very clear when we were going through the get to know process two years ago that it meant something deeply personal to him. And I took that on board. It was like, man, you believe it, and I owe you my commitment to this cause as well. And everybody here is a true believer. And as we go through these tough times together, they’re all still here for a reason: because they believe in the mission. So I think it’s really important that that mission statement is not only clearly set and clearly defined, but also regularly invoked on all-hands meetings or whatever reference when the company gets together that this is our mission.
And also, when you and I are talking to investors out there, we talk about that too. And I think they listen, they hear that. They’re like, oh man, these guys are invested in this. They’re not just talking about numbers and growth — they’re talking about their mission. And I think it adds not only a human side, but also a very purposeful side to the business beyond just making money.
Krishna: As an investor, when I am pitched by companies that lean into a mission, I’ll be honest — there’s a part of me that’s skeptical. Because it’s like, well, is this basically just a cover for not being commercial? Is this going to distract people?
Ramsey: Interesting.
Krishna: But then there’s a handful of companies where it really for me stands out as a reinforcing…a mission that has great positive externalities. And Ceres, from day one, was one of those. I always believed in the mission. I believe that without that mission, you can’t be successful in this industry, coming back to the empathy part. And I think that’s true in a handful of industries. Not every one, but I would say agriculture is one. Probably healthcare is another. And there’s a couple more like that, where you just can’t be successful if you are not to some degree woven together with a mission that is aligned with your business.
Ramsey: I agree, and having sold ERP, I guarantee it’s hard to really buy into the ERP mission.
Krishna: I was going to say, I’m not sure how mission-driven Tom Siebel is across his business.
Ramsey: It’s a different mission.
Krishna: It’s a different mission.
Ramsey: It’s a very, very different mission.
Krishna: Yeah. And so, that’s great. Look, Ramsey, this has been a fantastic conversation, as every one of our conversations is. So I appreciate you making the time, and hopefully this is going to be helpful for younger leaders who can take something away from you.
Ramsey: Absolutely and look — call me. Happy to chat anytime. And Krishna, always a pleasure man, thank you for having me on.
Krishna: Thank you. Take care.