Eddie Kim is the co-founder and CTO of Gusto — the $10B payroll and HR platform that millions of small businesses run on.

Gusto just launched Gusto Cofounder — an AI teammate for small businesses: payroll, compliance, and daily ops handled before they become problems.

Learn more about cofounder here -> https://gusto.com/cofounder?idgm=2mm6b6i2  

We covered:

• The two levels of using AI in a business, and why almost everyone is still stuck on the first one
• How Gusto's AI found $70M in tax credits owners had no idea they qualified for, including one pool company now collecting $50K a year
• How to hand off the "work before the work" so payroll runs itself two days early and all you do is tap approve
• How to run your whole back office from a text message, with your Notion and spreadsheets plugged straight in

How to stay ahead of tens of thousands of changing tax rules without reading a single one

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#GustoPartner

In 5 years the most valuable companies will run as a closed AI loop — every call, email, and content metric feeding back into one system that acts faster than any human team. In this video I walk through the 5 levels we're building inside my own company, from the foundation layer to the part most founders skip. If you're a founder, creator, or operator trying to make this real in your own business, this is the playbook.

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📌 Head to https://granola.ai/marina and enter the code MARINA for 3 months off.Chris Pedregal built a $1.5 billion AI app in 3 years, in a category where Zoom and Google already had similar features before he launched.

In this conversation he hands over the exact playbook for breaking out of a crowded market with a tiny team and a small marketing budget — a playbook anyone can use to win in the AI era.

We cover:

• Why Chris kept Granola in closed beta for a full year before launching — and how 150 users taught him more than any public launch would
• The 2x2 matrix he uses to decide if a startup idea can survive in a market with big competitors
• How Granola grew virally with zero built-in growth loops — no automated emails, no forced sharing
• The dot plot: the early-stage retention tool that replaced usage graphs for Chris's team
• Why he doesn't use AI for product decisions — and what he uses it for instead
• How to turn 2,500 meeting recordings into a virtual chief of staff
• The one thing small teams can do that Google and Zoom structurally can't

Links:

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Howie Liu co-founded Airtable in 2012, the no-code app builder used by over 80% of Fortune 100 companies. After scaling Airtable into one of the biggest software businesses on the planet, he's now building HyperAgent: a platform where anyone can deploy AI agents into their team chats, email, and calendar without writing code.

In this conversation, Howie asked me a question I couldn't answer: if you could hire as many people as you wanted for almost zero cost, what roles would you fill first? That's the question agents force you to answer in 2026.

We covered:

• The two skills that separate the people who become almost superhuman from everyone else
• How to build a virtual twin of yourself so you stop being the bottleneck in your own company
• Why builders win the next few years and what the "tinker mindset" actually means
• How to choose between Claude, ChatGPT, and HyperAgent (Howie maps the full landscape)
• A live demo of his real productivity setup, including an agent that watches X 24/7 and only pings him when something actually matters

He also walked me through a billboard campaign his agents ran end-to-end (sourcing locations, cross-referencing Google Street View, generating mockups with NanoBanana), and shared his three steps for anyone who's been reading about agents but hasn't deployed one yet.

If you've ever felt like the bottleneck in your own work, this one's for you.

Links:

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Thibault Sottiaux is the head of ChatGPT and Codex at OpenAI.

He told me that in a few months, people who don't use AI at all will get the same benefits as those who've spent two years figuring it out.

So what's actually going to be your edge in a market this competitive?

Thibault opened up and shared a few of his secrets — he showed me how his own agents work and how anyone can set them up. We covered the must-have files everyone should create, the one file you should never write yourself, and the new skill that replaces prompting entirely.

If you work with a computer for a living, this is the one to watch this week.

Links:

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Josh Woodward runs Google Labs, AI Studio, and the Gemini app — basically every AI product Google ships. Google just launched Gemini Spark, the AI agent that works for you 24/7 in the background.

In this episode, Marina sits down with Josh during Google I/O to talk about:

— Why we're moving from "doing" to "directing"— Why human judgment and taste are becoming more valuable, not less— Why voice is about to become the dominant way we interact with AI— How his small teams ship viral products in two weekends— What Google actually shipped at I/O 2026: Gemini Spark, 3.5 Flash, Ask YouTube, smart Gemini glasses with Gentle Monster, and Docs Live— Whether Google is really losing the AI race

Topics: Google Gemini, AI agents, future of work, voice AI, Notebook LM, AGI, Josh Woodward, Google Labs, Silicon Valley

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Newsletter:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=spotify&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=futureproof-sub&utm_content=guest-name&utm_term=⁠Josh Woodward

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Aaron Levie built Box into a $4 billion company used by 64% of the Fortune 500. Now he says we're at the best moment to build an AI company in 15 years — and the window is 3 years.

In this episode, Marina sits down with Aaron to talk about what's actually happening inside enterprise AI, why younger founders have a surprising advantage right now, and which jobs are genuinely at risk vs. which ones AI will make more valuable.

Aaron shares why AI agents still need humans at the beginning and end of every process, why the real new constraint isn't code — it's sales and marketing, and what he'd do if he were 19 and starting over in 2026.

If you're building, thinking about building, or trying to figure out your next career move in an AI world — this one is for you.

Topics: AI startups, entrepreneurship, future of work, enterprise AI, career advice, business building, AI agents, Aaron Levie, Box, Silicon Valley

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📌 My Companies & Products: ⁠⁠https://Marinamogilko.co⁠

MacKenzie Price built Alpha — an AI-first school where kids do academics for 2 hours a day, score in the top 1% nationally across every grade, and learn from AI tutors instead of teachers.

She also has a prediction. In the next 6 months, our friends, the people we work with, maybe even ourselves — will start losing jobs to AI. Which is why she's so urgent about this. The school we grew up in was built to raise factory workers. The world our kids are walking into is something else entirely.

I came into this conversation skeptical. I went to school in Russia, my parents and grandparents went through the same system, and a part of me still thinks it's the version that works. But MacKenzie's results are hard to argue with — kids in the 25th percentile growing exponentially, kids in the 95th still gaining 80–90%. Not because the technology is magical. Because for the first time, every kid gets the kind of one-to-one mastery learning that used to cost a private tutor.

In this episode, MacKenzie breaks down how the model actually works, why Alpha doesn't use chatbots in classrooms, what kids do for the rest of the day when academics only take 2 hours, the teenage student MacKenzie says is on track to be published in Nature, the 6-year-old who made $1,600 selling cookies, and how to replicate parts of Alpha at home if you can't pay $40K–$75K in tuition.

MacKenzie is co-founder of Alpha School and the 2 Hour Learning system. One of the few educators saying out loud what most schools are still pretending isn't happening.

Topics: AI education, future of school, AI tutors, mastery learning, homeschool, parenting in the AI era, career replacement, Alpha School, 2 Hour Learning, Silicon Valley Girl

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📌 My Companies & Products: ⁠https://Marinamogilko.co⁠

In this episode, Marina breaks down 6 AI business models you can actually start in 2026 — from the easiest (zero tech skills required) to the most scalable (think: automated SaaS with 50% margins). No fluff, no theory. Just specific ideas with action steps you can take this week.

You'll hear directly from:

• Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn founder, legendary investor) on how to double your income right now
• Mati Staniszewski (CEO of 11Labs, the biggest voice AI company in the world) on where the biggest gap is
• Robbie Stein (VP of Product, Google Search) on what actually gets you found by AI
• Alex Mashrabov (founder of Higgsfield, $200M/year) on the agency model that exploded in 2024
• Daniel Priestley (UK Entrepreneur of the Year) on why "GPT wrapper" is actually a real business

Whether you're a recent grad, a career switcher, or just someone who keeps saying "I should start something" — this episode gives you the clearest roadmap out there.Links: 📩 Follow my Newsletter: https://siliconvalleygirl.beehiiv.com/subscribe?utm_source=spotify&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=futureproof-sub&utm_content=compilation_6aibusiness_ideas🔗 My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconvalleygirl/ 📌 My Companies & Products: https://Marinamogilko.co

What 6 AI tools are the smartest people in the room actually using every day? 

I asked the same question to dozens of founders, investors, and AI leaders this year — which AI tool changed your income the most? Six tools kept coming up.In this compilation, Mo Gawdat (former Chief Business Officer at Google X), Allie K. Miller (former Global Head of ML at AWS), and Gary Vaynerchuk (CEO of VaynerMedia) share the exact stack they use to earn more, work faster, and stay ahead — and how to start using each one this week. 

Silicon Valley Girl is a weekly AI and technology podcast hosted by Marina Mogilko. 

📌 Launch your dream business with the best designs the world has to offer — Design.com: https://go.design.com/cd5msoz

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Topics: AI tools, AI business, AI for founders, future of work, AI productivity, Mo Gawdat, Allie Miller, Gary Vee, AI stack, AI tools 2026, double your income with AI