EPISODE 60

In this Best Of compilation, Kevin and Jason revisit the standout moments from the last 20 or so episodes of Founder Mode and surface a clear pattern: the founders breaking through aren't chasing the shiny new thing, they're doubling down on fundamentals like trust, services, and picking up the phone, then using AI to do more of it. From Jay reframing how ketamine works in modern mental health care, to Jason Fried's 26-year run of profitability without a board seat, to Jose building a business by cold-calling his Carnegie Mellon alumni network, to Brent calling the next 12 months a land grab on LLM-driven discovery, to Eric Ries naming the force he spent his career fighting in Incorruptible, this batch of conversations makes the case that AI didn't replace the work, it just made it harder for the people doing it to hide. If you've been feeling like the playbook flipped upside down this year, this episode is the reset.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Welcome Back and Why This Best Of Hits Different

00:29 – Mental Health, Ketamine, and the Window of Opportunity

02:18 – Jason Fried on 26 Years of Profitability Without a Board

05:41 – Vertical AI for Couples and Where Generic AI Fails

07:05 – Bring Back Blackberry and Validating With a Landing Page

08:23 – Where Engineering Knowledge Actually Lives

11:28 – Treat AI Like an Intern, Not an Employee

14:04 – Building an Orchestrated Team of AI Agents

15:45 – Co-Pilot vs. Autopilot and the Trust Line

18:20 – The 90-Day Myth and the Chocolate Milk Signal

20:08 – How Jose Got His First 10 Customers

21:39 – The LLM and Reddit Land Grab

23:05 – Eric Ries on Incorruptible

24:11 – Why Services Revenue Is a Positive Signal

25:40 – The Pattern Across 20 Episodes

LINKS

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