AGI by 2030? Vladyslav Podoliako on What Founders Must Do Now

 Welcome to Market Movers: Building Brands and Links with Linkifi!
Your go-to podcast for transforming your business into an unforgettable brand where branding meets SEO and link-building. I’m Chris Panteli, Co-Founder and CEO of Linkifi, and I’m joined by my co-host and Co-Founder, Nick Biggs.

 

In this episode we welcome Vlad Podoliako, Founder & CEO of Belkins and Folderly. Over the last decade he’s grown Belkins into a 300-person B2B acquisition agency serving mid-market and enterprise brands across the U.S., reinvesting profits to launch ~15 companies across SalesTech and MarTech. Vlad advises and invests widely in GTM, email deliverability, and revenue operations.

 

Key Talking Points

✅ Belkins Playbook — Orchestrating email, cold calls, ads, content, LinkedIn/X and more to drive B2B pipeline at scale
✅ AI ≠ Job Killer — How AI became a force multiplier (call analysis, follow-ups, scoring, ops automation) vs. a replacement
✅ Personalization is Baseline — Why single-channel personalization is table stakes and omnichannel (email + LinkedIn + phone + ads + events) wins
✅ The New Role: GTM Engineer — Part PM, part SDR/BDR, part marketing ops, and part AI wrangler who stitches channels and models together
✅ Deliverability Matters — Tightening mailbox rules created the email deliverability engineer and made marketing more technical than ever
✅ Voice Agents Reality Check — Great for B2C receptions/admin, not for enterprise sales (legality, trust, uncanny valley)
✅ AGI Timeline & Compute Limits — Why the hype is early; practical advances likely over 5–10 years, not months
✅ Model Mix Over Model Monogamy — Use Claude for coding/prototyping, Gemini for decks/knowledge work, ChatGPT for general tasks; don’t rely on one
✅ Search Habit Shift — Buyers increasingly ask LLMs over clicking “10 blue links”; ads will follow attention into AI surfaces

 

Quotes from Vlad Podoliako 

📢 “AI didn’t replace our teams—it made them more effective and cost-efficient.”
📢 “Personalization is default now. The edge is omnichannel orchestration, not a clever one-off email.”
📢 “Enterprise sales won’t be closed by bots anytime soon. People buy from people.”
📢 “The future GTM hire is a Go-To-Market Engineer—someone who can connect channels, data, and AI models into one motion.”

 

Actionable Insights for Revenue Teams

🧩 Hire for Orchestration
– Add a GTM Engineer who understands SDR workflows, marketing ops, deliverability, data, and AI tools (Claude/Gemini/ChatGPT) to bind channels into one playbook.

🎯 Personalize Omnichannel
– Pair account-level insights with AI-assisted drafts, then human-edit for tone. Mirror the same narrative across email, LinkedIn, phone, ads, and field.

📬 Fortify Deliverability
– Invest in domain/mailer hygiene, warmup, authentication, and reputation management. Treat deliverability engineering as core GTM infrastructure.

🤖 Automate the Right Jobs
– Use AI for call analysis, scoring, follow-ups, voicemail triage, receptionist flows. Keep human sellers for discovery, objection handling, and complex deals.

🧠 Go Multi-Model
– Standardize when to use Claude vs. Gemini vs. ChatGPT. Document prompts, approvals, and handoffs so AI augments, not derails, your motion.

📈 Measure Across the Journey
– Track influence across channels (opens, replies, call connects, meeting show rate, stage conversion, pipeline $$). Optimize sequence + channel mix, not just emails.

 

About Vlad Podoliako 

Vlad Podoliako is Founder & CEO of Belkins (B2B acquisition agency) and Folderly. Over 10 years he’s grown Belkins to 300 employees worldwide, serving the U.S. mid-market and enterprise with full-funnel outbound and multi-channel demand. He has incubated ~15 companies across SalesTech and MarTech, and actively advises and invests in the space.

📬 Connect with Vlad: LinkedIn · https://www.vladsnewsletter.com/ 

 

🚀 Build Your Brand with Real Links

 

At Linkifi, we help ambitious brands scale organic visibility through digital PR, brand storytelling, and SEO strategy. Book your FREE strategy session today:
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👋 Connect with your hosts:
👉 Chris Panteli on LinkedIn
👉 Nick Biggs on LinkedIn

 

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