Austin Next

How do you go from a cultural icon like the yellow wristbands to building AI products?  Livestrong’s CEO Suzanne Stone argues that the through line is a focus on survivorship, the life you live from diagnosis onward. This is the leap from story to community to software and back again.

Highlights

• 01:34 Mission: Survivorship Over Cures
• 06:18 The Wristband as Community Signal
• 12:39 Fertility Program and Real Cost of Cancer
• 14:34 Copycats and What Persists 
• 25:20 From Guidebook to Ellis, a Trusted Closed-Loop AI
• 38:56 Guardrails, Swim Lanes, and Safety
• 51:35 Revenue Engines and Scaling
• 01:02:40 What’s Next Austin? 

Guest Bio
Suzanne Stone is a Texas Christian University graduate and Louisiana native whose career began in television, earning a regional Emmy Award for her work in Dallas. In 1998, she transitioned from producing television to teaching it in the nonprofit sector, leading public access television initiatives in Naperville, Illinois, and later in upstate New York.

Beyond media, Suzanne spent four years as Head Coach of a New York Community college women’s basketball team while simultaneously managing a local TV station. Her passion for impact-driven work led her back to Texas, where she has since dedicated her career to leading nonprofit organizations across the state, including Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), Children’s Miracle Network, Lake Travis Education Foundation, and Susan G. Komen Greater Central and East Texas.

In 2019, she joined Livestrong to spearhead its mission initiatives, and in November 2023, she was named President & CEO. Today, she leads the organization in its commitment to ensuring that anyone affected by cancer has the resources and support they need to live the highest quality of life possible, regardless of the diagnosis.

Guest Links
Suzanne Stone: LinkedIn
Livestrong: Website, X, Ellis, Livestrong Challenge 2025

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Poppi is a fashion brand that happens to be soda. Stephen Ellsworth, Co-founder of Poppi, joins us to walk through the operating choices behind turning a vinegar problem into a modern soda badge. It’s how you build, scale, and exit a consumer brand. It’s another signal that Austin’s flywheel is real and accelerating. 

Highlights

• 01:48 Dark days, PMF before funding
• 08:05 Farmers market to Whole Foods
• 14:50 Rebrand beat Shark Tank awareness
• 24:58 Poppi as Fashion
• 33:46 Make healthy default via taste
• 38:54 AI palate mapping
• 46:48 Austin needs cross-sector collisions
• 51:40 What's Next Austin?

Guest Links
Stephen Ellsworth: Instagram, LinkedIn
Poppi: Website, X, Instagram
 

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Autonomy’s moment is now as the operating stack goes live across software, hardware, availability, and insurance. Outdoorsy Group CEO Jeff Cavins joins the show to unpack how RoboTaxis integrate with marketplaces, city systems, and the consumer experience. Austin’s talent, technology, and risk appetite are making it the Autonomy Capital.

Highlights

•  01:31 Why Outdoorsy Group is betting on RoboTaxis
•  05:44 Software must command the car
•  10:40 RoboTaxi as the default transpiration benchmark
•  15:30 FSD & the Airport
•  25:39 Coverholder status and dynamic underwriting
•  32:26 Austin’s autonomy flywheel
•  41:50 Safety is the X-factor
•  45:52 Cargo, errands, agentic ops
•  51:29 Autonomy in air and ground
•  58:44 What’s Next Austin?

Guest Bios
Jeff Cavins is a distinguished technology veteran with over 22 years of senior-level experience leading and transforming emerging growth technology, software, Internet, and digital media companies. His illustrious career has been marked by significant value creation, contributing to over $32 billion in total market capitalizations. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Outdoorsy Group, he steers a global leader in mobility and accommodations, encompassing Outdoorsy, the largest and most trusted peer-to-peer RV rental platform, and its pioneering insurtech arm, Roamly.

Jeff's leadership at Outdoorsy Group is rooted in a deep understanding of market dynamics and a relentless pursuit of innovation. This is exemplified by Roamly's recent achievement of Lloyd's Coverholder status, a testament to its specialized underwriting expertise in complex, niche markets. This strategic move positions Roamly to enable the future of shared mobility across RVs, campervans, carsharing, and even emerging transportation like cybercabs.

Before co-founding Outdoorsy in 2015, Jeff served as Chief Executive Officer of Fuze, a cloud communications company recognized by Inc. 500 as the 125th fastest-growing private company in America in 2013. His tenure at Fuze included overseeing the development of "Fuze for iPad," a product personally used by Steve Jobs and featured in Apple's 2011 "We Will Always" global iPad TV ad campaign.

Prior to Fuze, Jeff was President and CEO of CallWave (NASDAQ: CALL), a leading provider of internet and mobile-based unified communications solutions. He also served as CEO of Loudeye Corporation (NASDAQ: LOUD), a global leader in digital media distribution technology, which was subsequently acquired by Nokia. At Loudeye, he masterminded the company's global expansion and forged strategic partnerships with industry giants such as Apple, AT&T Wireless, Nokia, and Virgin, ultimately growing shareholder value by over 1700 percent.

Jeff's extensive experience also includes serving as a Venture Advisor at Azure Capital Partners in San Francisco, and as Senior Vice President for Exodus Communications, where he managed over $1.3 billion in revenue and 1,900 employees. There, he established crucial strategic partnerships with industry leaders like Google, Yahoo!, eBay, and MSN.

Earlier in his career, Jeff founded, presided over, and led CSI Digital, an advanced digital media technology software company specializing in visual effects for the TV and film industries. CSI Digital earned recognition from Inc. Magazine in 2007 as the 100th fastest-growing private company in America and was awarded first place in the inaugural Deloitte and Touche Fast-50 Program in the same year. He began his career with nearly a decade in the broadcast division of Sony Corporation, where he held sales management and engineering roles, and notably designed and developed the Instant Replay system for the NFL, leading its deployment across the league.

Guest Links
Jeff Cavins: LinkedIn
Outdoorsy Group: Website, LinkedIn, Instagram
Roamly: Website, LinkedIn, Instagram

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Rankings aren’t just a scoreboard. They’re a map. Dealroom’s Yoram Wijngaarde and StartupBlink’s Eli David Rokah join the show to unpack ecosystem momentum, enterprise-value growth, and the business-environment factors that move founders, corporates, and capital. We read the global rankings with Austin as a live case study, setting its momentum against incumbent hubs to find the signal in the noise.

 Highlights

• 00:59 Momentum as design choice in rankings 
• 03:22 Enterprise-value growth vs VC funding
• 07:30 Austin’s outlier growth among peers
• 11:15   Rankings: conversation starter, decision tool 
• 23:22 Policy mistakes become tailwinds
• 29:05 Clusters, super-regions, friction costs
• 37:15  Austin ranked 4th US, 5th global
• 42:47 AI shocks ecosystem volatility 
• 44:06 What's Next Austin?

Guest Bios
Yoram Wijngaard:  Founder of Dealroom.co which was launched in 2014 to provide intelligence about the world’s most promising startups and ecosystems. Before founding Dealroom, Yoram was an investment banker at Lehman Brothers, Nomura Securities and NOAH Advisors in New York and London. Yoram has a cum laude Master’s degree in Economics from the University of Amsterdam.

Eli David Rokah:  Founder and CEO of StartupBlink, advising governments and corporates worldwide and publishing the Global Startup Ecosystem Index.

Guest Links
Yoram Wijngaard: X, LinkedIn
Dealroom: Website, The Global Tech Ecosystem Index 2025

Eli David Rokah: X, LinkedIn
Startupblink: Website, The Global Startup Ecosystem Index Report 2025

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

How do 100X engineers, cheap development, and AI-everywhere workflows flip slow-moving industries and legacy business models? AffiniPay CEO Dru Armstrong joins to discuss how vertical fintech and generative AI reshape professional services, the evolution of a new small-business software stack, and Austin’s climb to a top five tech cities. 

Highlights

• 00:00 AffiniPay overview & mission
• 02:57 Why solo firms need vertical SaaS
• 05:45 Unified platform vs best-in-class tools
• 08:26 AI’s early impact on law and accounting
• 11:39 Billable-hour model under pressure
• 14:20 Where AI in services is heading next
• 17:03 Culture change: adopting AI at work
• 20:14 Automating routine legal workflows
• 30:19 Manufacturing Cost crashes & roles
• 31:40 Austin emerging as a FinTech frontier
• 34:54 Building a legal-payments platform locally
• 39:34 Generative AI’s effect on big-law practice
• 45:55 Faster product cycles with AI tools
• 48:35 How engineering roles are evolving
• 53:34 What's Next Austin" “I want Austin in the top five."

Guest Bio
Dru Armstrong is the Chief Executive Officer of AffiniPay, LLC, a leading financial technology software provider for professionals, since July 2021, where she has implemented and executed a new strategic direction for the business, including its transformative acquisition of MyCase. Prior to joining AffiniPay, Ms. Armstrong served as Chief Executive Officer of Grace Hill, LLC, a real estate technology and software provider, from June 2016 to July 2021, and as Chief Product Officer from September 2015 to May 2016. Ms. Armstrong received a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Chicago Law School, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Columbia University.

Episode Links
Dru Armstrong
Affinipay
Kaleidoscope September 2-4, 2025

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

We live in an age of unprecedented creative tools, from generative AI and design platforms to open access to code, capital, and talent. Joining this episode is John Roescher, Founder and CEO of Raw Materials, the design firm behind the public-facing strategies of Anduril, Saronic, and Meta, to explore why design should not be treated as decoration, but as a cultural and strategic function. Because in the end, with all this power, the outcome still comes down to a choice: Will we design with intention or default to slop?

Chapters

• 01:13 Design as Product
• 04:51 Outsourcing vs Partnering
• 08:04 The Creative Process and Why “I Like That” Isn’t Enough
• 11:30 AI, Craft, and Care: Tools vs Slop
• 16:52 Efficiency or Excellence
• 23:19 Unlocking Core Creativity Inside Companies
• 28:01 Design as Strategy
• 32:39 From Founders to Cities: Owning the Narrative
• 40:28 Intentionality vs Accident
• 45:04 What You Ship Says Everything
• 46:45 What’s Next Austin?

  John Roescher: X/Twitter, LinkedIn
  Raw Materials: Website, Instagram, X/Twitter, LinkedIn

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Mushrooms, coffee, and diapers. It’s not the start of weird joke, but the the innovation arc of Tero Isokauppila, one of the most uniquely disruptive founders at the convergence of bio and consumer goods. From building the $2B mushroom coffee category at Four Sigmatic to launching HIRO, the world’s first fungi-based diaper, Tero’s work reflects something deeper; how Austin’s convergence of culture, capital, and cross-sector energy is creating the next innovation frontier.

02:18 – From Farm Kid to Mushroom Category King
05:45 – The Biology of Fungi as Platform Tech
09:03 – Why America Is Mushroom-Illiterate
10:38 – Product Before Mission: Lessons from Tesla and HIRO
16:35 – CPG vs Biotech: Funding, Moats, and Returns
25:57 – Why Austin Became a CPG Powerhouse
31:39 – Tech and CPG: Still Separate Worlds in Austin
35:41 – Frontier Cities Need Cultural + Sector Convergence
1:01:15 – Manufacturing’s Real Bottlenecks (and Myths)
1:05:06 – “What’s Next Austin?”: Ego Death, Rebirth, and Maturity

Tero Isokauppila: LinkedIn, YouTube
Four Sigmatic
HIRO

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

What does it mean to build the future of Bio & Health at the frontier, and why is Austin the place to do it? Recorded live at Health Supernova, this episode explores the deep structural shifts underway in bio, health, and tech. From trillion-dollar ambitions to FDA bottlenecks, from digital-first hospitals to the rise of cowboy talent in Bio & Health, Austin is staking a claim not as a follower but as the system and stack that comes next. 

Episode Highlights

• Austin’s Bio & Health Frontier Thesis
• Can Austin build what healthcare won’t?
• FDA still runs on PDFs
• What would it take to build a trillion-dollar bio company?
• Frontier talent are cowboys
• Cost of the biotech winter
• Digital-first hospital as a living lab
• Why bio needs platforms, not just transformational assets
• Integration is the real bottleneck
• What's Next, Austin Bio & Health?
  • Steve Hahn: “The next major company that disrupts medicine and brings us 20, 30 years advanced over the next year.”
  • Charley Taylor: “Re-envisioning what healthcare, academic medicine can look like”
  • Micha Breakstone: “Make Austin into a real hub at the intersection of AI and biotech”

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Is Bitcoin just a financial instrument, or is it a wedge into the future of energy, policy, and power? Brian Morgenstern, head of public policy at Riot Platforms, lays out how mining is becoming critical infrastructure and why the US can’t afford to fall behind. From sovereign wealth strategies to regulatory fragmentation, this conversation unpacks how Bitcoin could reshape geopolitical leverage and why Texas may be at the center of it. 

Episode Highlights

• Mining as energy monetization
• Bitcoin as a strategic reserve
• The sovereign wealth fund question
• Tax policy throttles adoption
• Why stablecoins are infrastructure
• Bitcoin's edge over other crypto
• Fragmented and reactive regulation
• Nuclear’s resurgence via AI demand
• What’s Next Austin?
  • “Bitcoin miners, AI, energy, all getting married in Texas to make the US the leader of the world.”

Guest Links
Brian Morgenstern
Riot Platforms

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

Specificity isn’t just a design choice. It’s the differentiator when inches matter. Nick Tippmann, founding partner of TipTop VC, explains how vertical AI is rewriting the software industry by going deeper, not wider. From the transition beyond SaaS to the gray zone between foundational models and high-stakes applications, we explore how vertical AI can transform laggard industries and why Austin might lead the race. 

Episode Highlights

• What Vertical AI Really Means
• Specificity as the New Moat
• Founders, Not Just Models
• When General AI Fails
• Seed-Strapping Real or Not
• Rewriting Pricing Logic
• Vertical AI Talent Mix
• Redefining TAM in Niche Markets
• Scaling without Overspending
• What’s Next Austin?
  • "Austin becomes a global hub for vertical AI winners with the rich combo of the enterprise SaaS lineage, the critical industries that are based here, the talent from the previous winners, the emerging talent from the universities, and more and more experienced operators and founders moving here for their second act"

Nick Tippmann
TipTop VC

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack