CIENCE ranked #14 on Fortune's Best Workplaces for Millennials: with 97% of employees calling it a great place to work, nearly double the 57% U.S. average: and then rebuilt the entire model those employees helped create. Great Place to Work analyzed over 413,000 millennial survey responses to select this list. Out of thousands of eligible companies, CIENCE earned a top-fifteen spot on its first attempt. So why did we dismantle what was working and start over?
Last Refreshed: March 2026: Updated with graph8 transformation narrative and current FDE delivery model.
From Thomas Cornelius, Founder & CEO, graph8: "Building a great culture wasn't the problem: the problem was building a great culture inside a labor-arbitrage model. When AI can do in seconds what talented humans spend hours on, the ethical move is to give those humans better work to do, not ask them to compete with the machine."
What the Fortune Award Taught Us
The employee satisfaction numbers were genuinely remarkable. Among CIENCE team members, 99% said they were treated fairly regardless of sexual orientation, 98% regardless of gender, 98% regardless of age, and 97% regardless of race. Those aren't vanity metrics: Great Place to Work is the only company culture award that selects winners based on how fairly employees report being treated.
But here's what those numbers also revealed: we had built an exceptional team inside a model with a structural ceiling. Our millennials were doing extraordinary work in sales development: researching prospects, writing personalized sequences, managing multichannel campaigns: and they were doing it better than almost anyone in the industry. The problem wasn't the people. The problem was asking talented humans to do work that AI could do faster, at higher quality, and at a fraction of the cost.
Our 668% three-year revenue growth proved the team was exceptional. The Fortune award proved the culture was exceptional. But the model was asking those exceptional people to scale linearly when the market demanded exponential.
Does This Sound Familiar?
If you're managing a sales development team, you've felt this tension. Your SDRs are talented: maybe the best you've ever had: but they're drowning in manual work. They spend hours researching accounts that AI-powered tools could identify in seconds. They craft email sequences that get lost in crowded inboxes because deliverability has collapsed under market-wide volume.
Your cost per meeting keeps rising. Your best people burn out and leave. You hire replacements who take months to ramp. The pipeline math doesn't work anymore, but nobody can articulate why: because the team is doing everything right within a model that's fundamentally broken.
"They definitely supersede our internal capabilities.": Candice Long, Marketing Director, Learning Ally
If your best SDRs are doing great work but your pipeline economics keep getting worse, the problem isn't the people: it's what you're asking them to do.
From People to Platform
The millennials who helped CIENCE earn Fortune's recognition also helped design what came next. When CIENCE became a graph8 company, we didn't just swap out the technology stack: we reimagined what the people do.
The model we built is borrowed from Palantir's playbook: Forward Deployed Engineers. At Palantir, FDEs embed directly into client organizations, combining proprietary technology with deep domain expertise to solve problems that off-the-shelf tools can't touch. Graph8 applies that same model to go-to-market.
Instead of hiring SDR teams to grind through volume, our Forward Deployed Engineers deploy graph8's AI platform against 300M+ validated lead records. They build multichannel campaigns across email, LinkedIn, phone, and programmatic advertising: and they optimize in real time based on conversion data, not guesswork.
The people who built CIENCE's award-winning culture didn't disappear. They evolved. The same collaborative mindset and drive for client outcomes that earned a 97% satisfaction rate now powers a fundamentally different delivery model: one where talented humans work alongside AI instead of competing against it.
Cost-per-meeting drops 40-60% in the first two quarters. Not because graph8 cut the team: but because it changed what the team does.
"Thanks to CIENCE Technologies' efforts, the client has seen a 500% monthly increase in their new sales appointments.": Bryce Garoutte, Sr. VP, Silicon Valley Insight
Why This Matters Now
In 2026, the B2B sales development market is splitting in two. On one side, companies are still hiring SDR armies and watching their unit economics deteriorate. On the other, companies are treating go-to-market like an engineering discipline: deploying AI, data infrastructure, and embedded experts instead of headcount.
CIENCE, as a graph8 company, sits firmly on the engineering side. We've served 2,500+ clients across 250+ industries, maintained the #1 position on Clutch's lead generation list for three consecutive years, and hold a 4.6/5 rating on Capterra. But the delivery model behind those results has been completely rebuilt.
Engagements start at $5K one-time setup + $2,499/mo managed + $499/mo graph8 platform. You get a Forward Deployed Engineer, not a pod of junior reps. And graph8's AI platform gets smarter with every campaign: because great culture and great technology compound differently than headcount.
Get a Free GTM Diagnostic
When you reach out, our Forward Deployed Engineers run a full diagnostic on your current targeting, channel mix, and conversion rates. No pitch deck: just a clear-eyed look at your pipeline math. They'll show you your true cost-per-meeting, where your funnel is leaking, and how graph8's platform would change the economics.
Whether or not you work with us, you'll walk away with a clear picture of your pipeline math.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was CIENCE's ranking on the Fortune Best Workplaces for Millennials list?
CIENCE ranked #14 on Fortune's Best Workplaces for Millennials list, with 97% of employees saying the company is a great place to work: compared to the 57% average at a typical U.S. company. The ranking was determined by Great Place to Work's analysis of over 413,000 millennial survey responses.
How did CIENCE's workplace culture influence the graph8 transformation?
The same team culture that earned Fortune recognition: collaborative, outcomes-driven, and meritocratic: became the foundation for graph8's Forward Deployed Engineer model. Instead of scaling headcount, graph8 supports engineers to deploy AI-powered sales development campaigns using 300M+ validated lead records and multichannel orchestration.
What does a CIENCE engagement look like today?
Today's CIENCE engagement starts at $5K one-time setup + $2,499/mo managed + $499/mo graph8 platform. You work with a Forward Deployed Engineer who uses graph8's AI platform, data infrastructure, and multichannel tools: including digital advertising: to build and optimize your pipeline. Clients typically see cost-per-meeting drop 40-60% in the first two quarters.
The recognition still matters, but it is not the endpoint. It proved the culture. The rebuilt model changes the work: graph8 runs the system, CIENCE delivers the outcome, and the people operate the pipeline machine instead of carrying every manual task.