Not Boring

By Packy McCormick

Business

What's Not Boring about?

Tech strategy and finance through the stories of companies big and small.

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

Not Boring Founders: Zach M...

05.17.2023

Zach Marks is the co-founder and CEO of Jia. Jia connects capital to small businesses in every corner of the world. Here's how Jia works: When business owners repay a loan, they drive value to lenders and the economy. They ...

Not Boring episodes:

05.17.2023 Not Boring Founders: Zach Marks, Jia Zach Marks is the co-founder and CEO of Jia. Jia connects capital to small businesses in every corner of the world. Here's how Jia works: When business owners repay a loan, they drive value to lenders and the economy. They ...
04.24.2023 The Unbearable Heaviness of Being Positioned LINK TO ESSAY: Google isn’t facing the Innovator’s Dilemma; it’s just so deeply Positioned in search that it’s been a sitting duck for the first superior technology or business model strong enough to take it on. Positioning is the flip ...
04.17.2023 Intelligence Superabundance LINK TO ESSAY Will AI steal our jobs, let us work less, or force us to do more, better? Induced demand, Jevons Paradox, the Marchetti constant, and consumer psychology 101 suggest that the increased supply of intelligence will create more ...
03.09.2023 Not Boring Founders: Trevor Bacon, Kellan Grenier, Jason Lewris (Parcl) Trevor Bacon, Kellan Grenier and Jason Lewris are the founders of Parcl. Parcl bridges traditional real estate investments with cutting-edge blockchain technology to provide data-driven solutions for modern investors. Parcl was built to revolutionize how users approach real estate as ...
03.02.2023 Not Boring Founders: Andrew Herr, Fount Andrew Herr is the founder and CEO of Fount. Fount is crafting the operating system for the human body. To start, it provides extremely high-touch personal health services to clients: blood tests, fitness plans, meal prep, supplements, and much more ...
02.16.2023 Not Boring Founders: Ryan Glasgow, Sprig Ryan Glasgow is the founder and CEO of Sprig. Sprig is the easiest way to collect product feedback, inform product decisions, and increase your speed of innovation. The world’s best product teams including the teams at Notion, Loom, and Robinhood ...
02.10.2023 Anton Teaches Packy AI \| E6 \| Stable Attribution Packy an Anton discuss Chroma's (Anton's company) launch of Stable Attribution. Stable Attribution is a tool that let's anyone find the humans behind AI generated images. Given any image generated by Stable Diffusion, Stable Attribution is able to identify the ...
02.02.2023 Not Boring Founders: Sam Levin, Melonfrost Sam Levin is the co-founder and CEO of Melonfrost. Melonfrost is using the power of evolution and machine learning to launch the next generation of microbes that will revolutionize the fields of therapeutics, biomaterials, food, and agriculture. You'll learn more ...
01.26.2023 Not Boring Founders: Andy Chatham, Dimo Andy Chatham is the CEO and co-founder of Dimo. Dimo's mission is to be the driving force behind the future of mobility: a future where data shapes infrastructure, emissions are lower, roads are safer, and life behind the wheel is—well, ...
01.19.2023 Not Boring Founders: Michael Kelly, Open Forest Protocol. Michael Kelly is the co-founder of Open Forest Protocol. Open Forest Protocol (OFP) is a scalable open platform that allows forest projects of any size, from around world, to Measure, Report, and Verify (MRV) their forestation data. Through OFP, individuals, ...
01.12.2023 Not Boring Founders: Nicholas Chadwick, Mission Zero Technologies Nicholas Chadwick is the founder and CEO of Mission Zero Technologies. MZT is developing direct air capture (DAC) technology that will recover high-purity CO2 from the air while incurring only a fraction of the costs and energy it takes to ...
12.20.2022 Not Boring Founders: Exponential Exponential makes it easy to discover, assess and invest in liquidity pools across chains. It wants to be the Coinbase of DeFi. We were joined by the companies three founders: Driss Benamour, Mehdi Lebbar, and Greg Jizmagian to discuss the ...
12.19.2022 Blank Page LINK to essay Every new year is a blank page, a chance to start fresh with new ideas and new sources and new energy. Of course, January 1st isn’t actually any more different from December 31st than December 31st was ...
12.05.2022 Four Seasons Total Tech Audio Essay: Four Seasons Total Tech Link to full essay: https://www.notboring.co/p/four-seasons-total-tech Packy analogizes the Gartner Hype Cycle to the four seasons, to explain why some technology winters feel so long and cold while all summers feel pretty much the same. ...
12.05.2022 Anton Teaches Packy AI \| E3 \| The First AI Winter Packy and Anton breakdown one of the early, foundational artifical intelligence papers, "A logical calculus of the ideas immanent in nervous activity," which was first published in 1943. The researchers, Warren S. McCulloch and Walter Pitts, were trying to understand ...
11.27.2022 Decentralization The idea is this: the world oscillates between centralization and decentralization, with progress sloping upward through the turns. We’re approaching an era of decentralization. This shift from centralization to decentralization is popping up everywhere I look: Energy: Fossil Fuels vs. ...
11.25.2022 Anton Teaches Packy AI \| Ep 2 \| Chinchilla We're back! In Episode 2, Anton Teaches Packy about Deepmind's March 2022 paper, Training Compute-Optimal Large Language Models, or as it's more commonly known, Chinchilla. Prior to Chinchilla, the best way to improve the performance of LLMs was thought to ...
11.07.2022 Anton Teaches Packy AI \| E1 Anton Teaches Packy AI is Not Boring's attempt at making AI more accessible to our audience. It's become increasingly obvious that we're in the Golden Age of AI, so we think it's important to demystify what's going on and how ...
11.01.2022 Not Boring Founders: Joe Connor, Odyssey Odyssey (formerly Agora) fully believes in the power of technology to provide families with opportunity to choose the educational environment and services that help them best meet their unique learning needs. In order to help parents do that, we have ...
10.31.2022 Capital & Taste Capital & Taste audio essay. Capital is banking built for founders. If that sounds like you, sign up for a Capital account today, whether you’re just raising your first million or doing millions in ARR. Capital expands Party Round’s offering ...
10.24.2022 Formic: Automating Abundance Formic delivers Robots by the Hour to manufacturers. It’s making small and medium American businesses stronger, fighting inflation, and creating abundance Link to full essay here. -------------------------- The goal is abundance. We want more and better things, more cheaply. We ...
10.20.2022 Not Boring Founders: John Andrew Entwistle John Andrew Entwistle is the founder and CEO of Wander. Wander is a fully-integrated platform for experiencing magnificent short-term rental homes. Wander owns the customer experience end-to-end: the homes, the booking platform, and the value-added services. Over 100,000 people have ...
10.10.2022 Social vs. Science Experiments Social vs. Science Experiments: We talk a lot about progress here in Not Boring. Progress can be difficult and messy and winding, and importantly, progress moves at different speeds and follows different paths for different kinds of products. Today’s essay ...
10.03.2022 How Do I Teach These Kids?! In "How Do I Teach These Kids?!" Packy confronts the challenge of how to properly educate his two young children in a rapidly evolving world. "Dev and Maya get a blank educational slate to start with. Puja and I are ...
09.29.2022 Tegus: The Outsiders Tegus is building the modern investment research platform for fundamental private and public market investors, starting with a novel twist on the classic expert call model, and expanding into adjacent opportunities by listening intently to customers. This audio essay covers: ...
09.27.2022 Not Boring Founders: Peter Johnston, Polywork Peter Johnston is the founder of Polywork. Polywork is a place to discover opportunities to collaborate with other professionals. Existing networks like LinkedIn focus on connecting us to 9-5 opportunities — but where do you go to find opportunities to ...
09.26.2022 The Enchanted Notebook The Enchanted Notebook: on the real and growing power of writing down the future you want to see exist. In the context of a recent Lex Fridman and Ray Kurzweil podcast conversation, Packy explores where we are with AI today ...
09.19.2022 Indistinguishable from Magic Monday Audio Essay: "Indistinguishable from Magic" Packy explores "magic" in tech and how it impacts the startup lifecycle: "It’s the Magical Startup Circle of Life. A startup, if it’s lucky, creates magic, turns that magic into dollars, and transitions to ...
08.16.2022 Not Boring Founders: Mike Saunders, Captain Mike Saunders is the co-founder and CEO of Captain. Captain powers restaurants and their communities through a mix of web2 and web3 technologies. Mike is an experienced food delivery entrepreneur, having previously started campusfood.com, which subsequently sold to Grub Hub ...
08.05.2022 Not Boring Founders: Eli Wachs & Alex Grinman, Footprint Eli Wachs & Alex Grinman are the co-founders of Footprint. Footprint's mission is to bring back trust on the internet. The company wants to put people in control of their identity while solving KYC, IDV, and PII storage problems for ...
07.26.2022 Not Boring Founders: Brandon Arvanaghi, Meow Brandon Arvanaghi is the co-founder and CEO of Meow. Meow is a startup that opens corporate treasurers up to crypto markets. This is Brandon's second time on the podcast -- and he's on to discuss raising Meow's Series A & ...
07.25.2022 Amplified Tribalism Amplified Tribalism: Over the past few months, I’ve noticed a vibe shift online: the conversation seems to be getting more negative, aggressive, and polarized. Today’s piece is an attempt to unpack why so many people are talking past each other, ...
07.21.2022 Circle & USDC: Building a Stable Platform Sponsored Deep Dive on Circle & USDC. In one of our longest essays yet, we tackle the following topics: What are stablecoins? How do stablecoin issuers generate revenue? Why are stablecoins a valuable primitive? How are USDC and Circle a ...
07.18.2022 Intertwining Threads Monday Essay -- "Intertwining Threads": Imagining the wild things that might happen when we mix and remix new technologies. Sponsored by Athletic Greens. Athletic Green's AG1 is foundational nutrition you can count on. Learn more at athleticgreens.com/notboring and when you ...
07.15.2022 Not Boring Founders: Thomas McLeod, Arkive Thomas McLeod is the Founder and Executive Director of Arkive. Arkive is redefining culture by building the first-ever decentralized physical museum. Its mission is to curate, own, and create culture. Its community helps shape the future, by curating the past ...
07.01.2022 Not Boring Founders: Alok Tayi, Vibe Bio Alok Tayi is the founder and CEO of Vibe Bio. Vibe Bio is a community of patients, scientists, and partners committed to identifying, funding and developing promising treatments to rare diseases and empowering patient communities with unprecedented ownership over the ...
06.28.2022 Not Boring Founders: Samiur Rahman, Heyday Samiur Rahman is the co-founder and CEO of Heyday. Heyday is a browser extension that automatically saves web pages you visit and pulls in content from your apps. It uses AI to resurface that content alongside Google search results, overlay ...
06.24.2022 Not Boring Founders: Alexa Grabell, Pocus (Pt. II) Alexa Grabell is the co-founder and CEO of Pocus. Pocus is a Product-Led Sales platform that helps go-to-market teams use data to improve customer acquisition, conversion, and expansion - without relying on engineers. This is Alexa's second time on Not ...
06.24.2022 Not Boring Founders: Alexa Grabell, Pocus (Pt II) Alexa Grabell is the co-founder and CEO of Pocus. Pocus is a Product-Led Sales platform that helps go-to-market teams use data to improve customer acquisition, conversion, and expansion - without relying on engineers. This is Alexa's second time on Not ...
06.22.2022 Not Boring Founders: Henry Ward, Carta Henry Ward is the co-founder and CEO of Carta. Carta helps companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Packy previously described Henry as a "Worldbuilder" - an entrepreneur who can see something non-obvious about the ...
06.17.2022 Not Boring Founders: Justin & J.P. Alanís Justin & J.P. Alanís are the co-founders of StoryDAO. Story DAO is a new kind of production studio where individuals have the opportunity to collaborate with established Hollywood writers and artists to create and co-own the next generation of culturally ...
06.14.2022 Not Boring Founders: Will Manidis, ScienceIO Will Manidis is the co-founder and CEO of ScienceIO. ScienceIO's mission is to make all healthcare data computable. It's products enable real-time transformation of unstructured healthcare data into structured data that can be used for search & analysis. If Will ...
06.10.2022 Not Boring Founders: Humberto Ayres Pereira Humberto Ayres Pereira is the co-founder and CEO of Rows. Rows is the spreadsheet with superpowers. With Rows, you can esily create and share powerful, interactive models with a passionate community of other spreadsheet users. It's taking on the likes ...
06.07.2022 Not Boring Founders: Paul Kromidas & Woods Buckley, Summer Paul Kromidas and Woods Buckley are the founders of Summer. Summer is re-imaging second home ownership -- with a unique rent-to-own model, members get the benefit of homeownership without the headache of the purchasing process, furnishing, and rental management. In ...
06.01.2022 Not Boring Founders: SAFA + Valet Jones, Tally Labs Tally Labs is a software-enabled web3 media business blurring the lines between community and creators. Packy is joined by its two pseudonymous founds, SAFA and Valet Jones. Tally Labs started as a media business built around the Bored Ape Yacht ...
05.27.2022 What's Your Problem x Not Boring Founders ft. Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX Today we're sharing an episode from a podcast we love that features a founder you are all familiar with. What's Your Problem? is a podcast from Pushkin, and hosted by Jacob Goldstein, where entrepreneurs and engineers talk about the future ...
05.25.2022 Not Boring Founders: Amjad Masad, Replit Amjad Masad is the co-founder and CEO of Replit. Replit's mission is to bring the next billion software creators online. The company believes that the ability to write code should be as ubiquitous as the ability to write essays -- ...
05.24.2022 Designing Token Economies Packy and writing collaborator, Tina He, break down token design and why now is the perfect time for tinkerers to build new economies. The piece also explores how protocols are similar to corporations and nations, and where those analogies fall ...
05.20.2022 Not Boring Founders: Sahil Mansuri, Bravado Sahil Mansuri is the founder and CEO of Bravado. Bravado is the largest network of sales professionals, with over 200,000 salespeople on the platform. The company is building a killer community and business around salespeople with the hopes of building ...
05.19.2022 The Founder's Letter: Mackenzie Burnett, Ambrook Introducing The Founder's Letter, a new series by Not Boring. Storytelling is core to Not Boring, but usually it's from Packy's perspective. With The Founder's Letter, founders tell their story directly to the audience, in their own words. Mackenzie Burnett ...

Older episodes

Not Boring

What's Not Boring about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Not Boring episodes:

Not Boring Founders: Zach Marks, Jia

The Unbearable Heaviness of Being Positioned

Intelligence Superabundance

Not Boring Founders: Trevor Bacon, Kellan Grenier, Jason Lewris (Parcl)

Not Boring Founders: Andrew Herr, Fount

Not Boring Founders: Ryan Glasgow, Sprig

Anton Teaches Packy AI | E6 | Stable Attribution

Not Boring Founders: Sam Levin, Melonfrost

Not Boring Founders: Andy Chatham, Dimo

Not Boring Founders: Michael Kelly, Open Forest Protocol.

Not Boring Founders: Nicholas Chadwick, Mission Zero Technologies

Not Boring Founders: Exponential

Blank Page

Four Seasons Total Tech

Anton Teaches Packy AI | E3 | The First AI Winter

Decentralization

Anton Teaches Packy AI | Ep 2 | Chinchilla

Anton Teaches Packy AI | E1

Not Boring Founders: Joe Connor, Odyssey

Capital & Taste

Formic: Automating Abundance

Not Boring Founders: John Andrew Entwistle

Social vs. Science Experiments

How Do I Teach These Kids?!

Tegus: The Outsiders

Not Boring Founders: Peter Johnston, Polywork

The Enchanted Notebook

Indistinguishable from Magic

Not Boring Founders: Mike Saunders, Captain

Not Boring Founders: Eli Wachs & Alex Grinman, Footprint

Not Boring Founders: Brandon Arvanaghi, Meow

Amplified Tribalism

Circle & USDC: Building a Stable Platform

Intertwining Threads

Not Boring Founders: Thomas McLeod, Arkive

Not Boring Founders: Alok Tayi, Vibe Bio

Not Boring Founders: Samiur Rahman, Heyday

Not Boring Founders: Alexa Grabell, Pocus (Pt. II)

Not Boring Founders: Alexa Grabell, Pocus (Pt II)

Not Boring Founders: Henry Ward, Carta

Not Boring Founders: Justin & J.P. Alanís

Not Boring Founders: Will Manidis, ScienceIO

Not Boring Founders: Humberto Ayres Pereira

Not Boring Founders: Paul Kromidas & Woods Buckley, Summer

Not Boring Founders: SAFA + Valet Jones, Tally Labs

What's Your Problem x Not Boring Founders ft. Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX

Not Boring Founders: Amjad Masad, Replit

Designing Token Economies

Not Boring Founders: Sahil Mansuri, Bravado

The Founder's Letter: Mackenzie Burnett, Ambrook