Intro
Every product we use depends on businesses coordinating behind the scenes. A shipment moves because someone calls a carrier, confirms an appointment, checks inventory, or follows up on an email. Those small interactions add up to an enormous amount of work.
I sat down with Harish Abbott, Cofounder and CEO of Augment. He previously cofounded Deliverr, which Shopify acquired for $2.5 billion, and spent part of his early career at Amazon. He is now building AI teammates for the people who keep goods moving.
One detail from our conversation stayed with me: Harish and his cofounder spent their first 60 days on the road, shadowing customers, before writing a single line of code. Understanding an operator’s day, the interruptions, relationships, and problems that follow them home, shaped what they chose to build.
We discuss the opportunity for AI in logistics and what it takes to earn a place inside a customer’s business. We also get into fundraising, the Shopify acquisition, storytelling, and why Harish puts so much weight on curiosity and a willingness to act when hiring.
What we cover:
The coordination tax: why moving everyday goods requires so many calls, emails, and decisions and where AI can help.
AI as a teammate: how humans and software share information, divide responsibilities, and build trust.
Learning the customer’s world: why Harish starts with observation and a single painful task before expanding.
From customers to capital: building before fundraising, explaining your business through customer stories, and the path to Deliverr’s acquisition.
Building a team that keeps improving: rewarding impact, learning quickly from failure, and adapting Amazon’s bar raiser approach.
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Harish Abbott on X: @habbott
Suffiyan Malik on X: @suffiyanmalikk
We The Builders on X: @WeThe_Builders
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Timestamps
00:00 Intro
01:21 The hidden supply chain behind everyday goods
04:49 How wholesalers and distributors work
09:26 Why trucking is harder than ordering an Uber
14:47 How AI reduces the coordination tax
20:29 Why logistics is a multiplayer problem
24:19 Getting humans and AI to work in sync
29:00 AI coding and the verification bottleneck
32:42 Relationships, trust, and selling outcomes
37:40 Shadowing customers before writing code
40:42 Earning operators’ trust, one task at a time
45:22 How founders build culture in difficult moments
48:49 Build before you raise: advice for founders
54:08 Why attention is scarcer than capital
59:19 Storytelling and the customer who inspired Augie
1:03:30 How Shopify came to acquire Deliverr
1:07:31 Expanding into B2B distribution
1:10:10 Rewarding impact and learning from failure
1:12:49 Hiring for curiosity and a bias for action
1:15:40 Bringing Amazon’s bar raiser approach to hiring
1:19:11 Books, history, and influences
1:23:09 Why logistics shapes wars and civilizations
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