Email as a Knowledge Graph: Micro CEO Brett on Rebuilding CRM at the Inbox

Tech on the Rocks

Summary

Brett — founder & CEO of Micro — joins Nitay and Kostas to share how he’s turning email into a knowledge graph and rebuilding CRM right inside the inbox. He traces a path from Google’s M&A and Allo product team to Clearbit and Launch House, then digs into why most “inbox zero” workflows fail, how interoperability and AI agents shift power to the interface, and what it takes to design an email experience people actually live in.

What you’ll learn

• Why email is a system of record—and how Micro converts threads into people, companies, attachments, tasks, and “updates”
• The wedge: founders’ real workflows (fundraising, hiring, sales) and why CRM belongs in the inbox
• Product & UX lessons: skeuomorphic first, flexible theming (consumer vs. enterprise), and copy-the-UI-before-evolving-it
• M&A realities from Google: talent vs. tech vs. business acquisitions, and why culture kills most deals
• Burnout and agency: why founders report less burnout than big-company roles
• The next phase: cross-app “updates” (email, LinkedIn DMs, etc.), Salesforce/HubSpot read–write, and agentic automation

Chapters

00:00 Brett's Journey: From Consulting to Tech Innovator

02:41 The Role of Strategy in Tech Companies

05:16 Understanding M&A: Successes and Failures

07:55 The Evolution of AI in Corporate Strategy

10:26 Transitioning to Product Management

13:19 Lessons from Clearbit: Culture and Growth

15:50 The Impact of Burnout on Career Choices

18:15 Finding Fulfillment in Entrepreneurship

21:09 Navigating the B2B Landscape

23:34 The Necessity of Products in a Crisis

33:24 The Unexpected Layoff and New Beginnings

34:39 The Launch House Experience

37:16 Transforming Reality into an Accelerator

39:17 The Evolution of Founders and Content Creation

41:52 Introducing Micro: A New Email Experience

47:02 Extracting Information for Better Workflows

53:49 Integrating with Existing Ecosystems

01:01:16 The Future of Email and AI