Jorge Soto | Reinventing a 12-Year-Old Company From Scratch With AI

The audio and video are in Spanish. These notes are a translation.

Today I spoke with Jorge Soto, CEO and founder of Alegra, one of the largest accounting software platforms in Latin America, with more than 80,000 clients in 25 countries. Jorge tells us how he has completely reinvented his company with artificial intelligence, how he maintains a culture of entrepreneurial optimism, and why he believes we are facing a moment as transformative as the arrival of the internet.

0:40 - Artificial Intelligence as a Reset Point

For Jorge, artificial intelligence represents a unique opportunity, not only to optimize processes, but to reinvent the entire company from scratch.

Why did he compare the arrival of artificial intelligence with the arrival of the internet?
How did he convince his team to adopt artificial intelligence in a business that had been running for more than 10 years?

5:00 - Entrepreneurial DNA from Medellín

From a young age, Jorge was clear that he wanted to start a company.

How did growing up in an entrepreneurial family influence him?
Why did he never consider working at a traditional company?

6:55 - Mazapanes, Contracts with the Metro, and Lessons in Scale

One of his first businesses was selling personalized mazapanes.

How did he manage to sell to the Medellín metro?
What did he learn about the difficulty of scaling traditional businesses?

13:20 - Earlier Failures and the Art of Choosing Sectors

Before Alegra, Jorge founded six other companies, many of which did not work.

What did he learn about choosing the right sector?
What is the balance between being stubborn and being flexible?

18:00 - Discovering the SaaS Model by Intuition

Long before it was common in the region, Jorge bet on SaaS.

What attracted him to the recurring revenue model?
How did the scalability of selling over the internet convince him?

24:00 - Obsession with Artificial Intelligence: The “All or Nothing” Moment

Jorge decided that his team would see only artificial intelligence for months.

What event triggered this obsession?
What lessons came out of being immersed in that “bubble”?

27:00 - Internal Hackathon: The Electric Shock

To convince the whole company, they organized a hackathon with more than 30 teams.

What surprising results came out in only 8 days?
How did the culture of the company change after that experience?

33:00 - From Resistance to Total Conviction

The biggest challenge was not technical, but cultural.

What role did Jorge play in “evangelizing” artificial intelligence inside Alegra?
How did they make sure that every team used artificial intelligence effectively?

41:00 - Advantages of Being Young in a Post-ChatGPT World

Jorge bets on young talent that is curious and self-taught.

Why is technological curiosity more important than experience?
How does his team use artificial intelligence as a “24/7 mentor” to learn faster?

44:00 - Reorganization and Radical Expectations

Although they did not restructure the teams, they did change the expectations.

What does it mean to produce five times more content or code?
What impact does this have on performance reviews?

46:30 - The CEO as Hacker: Jorge Against His Own Team

Jorge bet that he could build a site with 100 articles in less than a week.

What did he learn by showing that it really was possible?
How does he use artificial intelligence today to prototype, to learn, and to lead?