This week on Notorious B2B, we break down one of the wildest SaaS origin stories out there.

Fireflies AI - It's in the name but there was no AI (at least in the beginning). Just the founder sitting in calls and taking notes by hand. The purest form of validation: do the work manually until you know people want it.

We also get into:

• Duolingo pulling the salary range on their social role and the internet noticing instantly

• Umault’s B2B horror short about marketing jargon (and the strange reuse of the same video months ago)

• LinkedIn’s algorithm reading posts for context and why the feed feels broken

• The debate over being called “buddy” and the words people hate being called

• Accent-erasing voice tech and whether it’s clarity or erasure

Closed Won (Our new segment celebrating those who won the internet this week)

• Renee Shaw (tl;dv) and the OpenAI C&D chaos

• Kieran Flanagan on comment-gating pain

• Replacement.ai’s elite parody work

 

Timestamps:

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 Connect with the hosts:

Tim Davidson – linkedin.com/in/tadavidson41

Tas Bober – linkedin.com/in/tasbober

 Subscribe for more no-BS breakdowns of the internet’s wildest B2B moments.

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Today's episode is brought to you by Exit Five. Thanks to Dave and the Exit Five team for being OG supporters of Notorious B2B.

Tim and Tas have both been members since the beginning and get a ton of value from being part of this community.

Join the top community of B2B marketers now at ExitFive.com and get access to one of the 30+ in-person events Exit Five is hosting in 2026.

Also, we heard Dave is super jacked, a millionaire, a great father, a speed reader, he’s run 300 marathons, and donates over $1M a year to very important charities.

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Also, special thanks to our friends at Vector — the only ad platform brave enough to say what we’re all thinking: native targeting is a scam.

Vector lets you build audiences by name. Not “job title at tech company.” Actual people who clicked your ad, visited your site, or creeped on your pricing page. (Also, the branding has cute ghosties. What more do you want?)

Check them out at vector.co and stop paying to show ads to your uncle’s dentist’s cousin.

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Finally, thanks to our friend Clay at SmokeLadder for being an OG supporter of the podcast. SmokeLadder is like your own researcher giving you a full brief of any brand's target persona, key competitors, differentiators, and category benchmark scores based on thousands of brands. It’ll even help you craft messaging that actually makes sense.

Analyze any brand and their competitors for free right now at: SmokeLadder.com