Alexandra Naomi Perez is Chief of Staff at Thrad AI, a startup building the infrastructure for advertising inside LLMs like ChatGPT. She went from studying politics and security at UCL to becoming one of the youngest operators in AI and in this episode, she breaks down exactly how she did it.

We talk about why Gen Z hates bad ads (not ads themselves), why Silicon Valley feels nothing like the UK startup scene, and how the next generation of founders can become "technical" without learning to code from scratch.

Alexandra also shares why startups should sacrifice hours, not relationships, why capable women in tech still battle imposter syndrome, and why your environment matters more than your talent. Plus: how AI tools, automations, and agentic workflows are reshaping startup operations, why founders should ditch the work-life balance debate and chase efficiency instead, and what it actually takes to be a great Chief of Staff at an early-stage company.

Also in this episode: moving from Geneva to London to San Francisco, cold-starting a career in AI without a traditional background, building startup systems with Claude and N8N, what founders get wrong about ambition and why building a company is still the coolest, funnest thing you can do.

In this episode, we cover:-

• Why Gen Z doesn't hate ads, they hate bad ads, and what Thrad AI is building to fix that
• What advertising inside LLMs like ChatGPT actually looks like and why it's the next frontier
• Her path from studying politics and security at UCL to becoming one of the youngest operators in AI
• How to cold-start a career in AI without a traditional technical background
• Why Silicon Valley feels completely different from the UK startup scene, and what moving from Geneva to London to San Francisco taught her
• How founders can become "technical" without learning to code from scratch
• Why startups should sacrifice hours, not relationships
• Why women in tech struggle with imposter syndrome even when they're more than capable
• Why your environment matters more than your talent
• How AI tools, automations, and agentic workflows (Claude, N8N) are changing how startups operate
• Why founders should stop obsessing over work-life balance and focus on efficiency instead
• What it actually means to be a great Chief of Staff at an early-stage company
• What founders get wrong about ambition, and why building a company is still the coolest and funnest thing you can do

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