Startup Dad

Dan Beck is the Co-Founder & CEO of 401GO, a company making retirement benefits more accessible to small businesses across America. He built the company alongside his brother and co-founder Nate, making entrepreneurship quite literally a family affair and continuing a working relationship that has spanned multiple businesses.

He’s also a newly remarried dad of five biological kids and four “bonus” kids, navigating a blended family with kids ranging from seven to 23. Between building a fast-growing company, co-parenting, remarriage, and bringing two families together, Dan has had to rethink what success, presence, and leadership look like at home. We discussed:

• Why the founder (growth) mindset can fail at home: How conviction, speed, and problem-solving can become liabilities when your family needs patience and presence instead.
• Building a blended family with nine kids: What Dan is learning about remarriage, bonus kids, two households, and letting relationships develop at their own pace.
• Building a company with his brother: Why trust, vulnerability, and low ego let Dan and Nate disagree intensely without damaging their relationship.
• Watching his son become an entrepreneur: How Dan’s 17-year-old son took over a declining business and showed how much kids absorb by growing up around entrepreneurship.
• Being a provider versus being present: How financial success forced Dan to question whether providing had become an excuse for spending more time building businesses.
• Creating productive struggle for kids: Why Dan believes parents should help kids become capable of engineering their own lives instead of engineering every outcome.

Where to find Dan Beck

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielgbeck/
  
  

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Dan Beck, Co-Founder & CEO of 401GO

(02:28) Navigating a blended family with nine kids

(04:27) Bringing two families together at Lake Powell

(07:13) Building a company with his brother Nate

(10:52) Why trust and low ego make founder relationships work

(15:59) Watching his 17-year-old son revive a struggling business

(19:46) Why the founder mindset doesn’t always work in marriage

(23:43) Learning to listen instead of trying to fix everything

(25:21) Bringing family values into startup culture

(29:15) Letting go of the family story he thought he was building

(35:46) Finding his role as a dad to four bonus kids

(45:58) When being a provider becomes an excuse for being unavailable

(51:09) Raising kids to engineer their own lives

(53:37) Using productive struggle to build capable kids

(01:02:28) Lightning round: minivans, race car driving, and dad stereotypes

Resources From This Episode:

401GO: https://401go.com/ 

ChatGPT (Software): https://chatgpt.com/ 

Forseti Cutlery: https://forseticutlery.com/ 

Leadership & Self-Deception (Book): https://arbinger.com/bookstore/leadership-and-self-deception 

The Anatomy Of Peace (Book): https://arbinger.com/anatomy-of-peace 

Autodesk Fusion (Software): https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/ 

—

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For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com

Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan is a Professor of Psychology at The Ohio State University and Director of the Children and Parents Lab. For nearly two decades, she has studied how couples become parents, how fathers develop confidence, and the subtle dynamics that can push one parent into the role of expert while the other becomes the backup.

She’s also the lead researcher behind the New Parents Project, a longitudinal study that began with nearly 200 first-time parents during pregnancy and has followed their families into their children’s late teens. We talked about maternal gatekeeping, why even couples who want an equal partnership can fall into unequal roles, and what dads can do to become more confident and involved parents. We discussed:

• Understanding maternal gatekeeping: How parents can either close or open the gate, and why the dynamic is more complicated than moms simply shutting dads out.
• Breaking the expert and backup parent cycle: How one confident parent and one less confident parent can create a self-reinforcing imbalance at home.
• Building confidence as a dad: What Sarah learned from expectant parents using a faceless doll and why dads can grow into the role with practice.
• Why parenting gets less equal after kids: What time diary research revealed about childcare, housework, paid work, and leisure after becoming parents.
• Making parental leave work for dads: Why paid leave, workplace culture, and senior leaders modeling leave all matter.
• Getting out of the backup parent role: Why dads need to communicate, take ownership, and make their desire to be involved clear.

Where to find Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjschoppesullivan/ 
• X: https://x.com/schoppesullivan
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahjayneus/ 

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, Professor at The Ohio State University

(02:54) What a faceless doll revealed about expecting parents

(06:03) Why intuitive parenting looks different for dads

(07:35) What predicts how involved dads become

(14:18) The two sides of maternal gatekeeping

(22:32) What actually predicts gateclosing

(27:06) What 18 studies reveal about maternal gatekeeping

(32:20) Why dads are half of the gatekeeping equation

(37:07) How masculinity shapes father involvement

(40:51) What time diaries reveal about the parenting workload

(46:52) Why weekends make the parenting gap even bigger

(51:30) How parental leave can set dads up for involvement

(55:30) How jealousy can shape the co-parenting relationship

(01:15:04) How new dads can get out of the backup parent role

(01:18:54) Lightning round: spelling bees, cat names, and station wagons

Resources From This Episode:

The Ohio State University: https://www.osu.edu/ 

New Parents Project: https://u.osu.edu/schoppesullivan/new-parents-project/ 

Allison Daminger’s Startup Dad episode: https://youtu.be/Bm0OVELl_yU 

American Time Use Survey: https://www.bls.gov/tus/ 

Darby Saxbe’s Research: https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/33/7/4156/6691667 

Richard Pett’s Research: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jomf.12476 

Co-Parents Behaving Badly: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42441646/ 

Atari 2600 (Gaming Console): https://atari.com/collections/atari-2600-plus 

The Sound of Music (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/ 

The Wizard of Oz (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/ 

—

Support Startup Dad

For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]
For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com

Peter Yang is the creator of Behind the Craft, a 100k+ subscriber YouTube channel and 150k+ subscriber newsletter focused on product, AI, and building. Previously a product leader at Roblox, Peter spent years climbing the traditional career ladder before walking away from a seven figure tech career to bet on himself and build his creator business full-time. And he did it all so he could spend time on what mattered most… his family.

He’s the dad of two daughters, ages eight and four, and his wife is an engineer at Microsoft. They’re figuring out how to raise curious, resilient kids while navigating careers, technology, and a rapidly changing, AI-fueled world. We discussed:

• Walking away from a seven figure tech career: Why Peter left Roblox to bet on himself, and how trying to juggle a demanding job with his creator business was hurting both.
• Being more present with his daughters: How walking his eight-year-old to school and putting his phone away helped Peter create more focused, meaningful time with his kids.
• Breaking out of the traditional career script: How Peter’s immigrant upbringing, Ivy League path, and years in consulting, banking, and tech shaped a definition of success he eventually started to question.
• Teaching kids to build with AI: How Peter’s eight-year-old used Codex and voice commands to build her own game from scratch, and what that taught him about creativity, communication, and the future of learning.
• Raising kids with agency and resilience: Why Peter wants his daughters to learn how to build, sell, fail, communicate clearly, and pursue the things they genuinely enjoy.
• Remembering that family matters more than the career ladder: Why Peter is spending more time with his aging parents, preserving their stories for his daughters, and rethinking what kind of legacy actually matters.

Where to find Peter Yang

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petergyang/ 
• X: https://x.com/petergyang
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PeterYangYT
  
  

Where to find Adam Fishman

• 
  FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Peter Yang, creator of Behind The Craft

(02:58) Why Peter walked away from Roblox

(04:13) What Peter learned from walking his daughter to school

(09:53) Breaking free from the Ivy League success script

(11:46) Overcoming a scarcity mindset and redefining security

(14:37) Peter’s principles for betting on yourself

(17:49) How product management theater pushed Peter to make a change

(22:16) Teaching his daughter to build with Codex

(27:00) How AI is changing the way kids learn

(34:10) Helping your kids find their zone of genius

(37:10) Preparing kids for a world without a traditional career ladder

(38:56) Creating vs. consuming and Peter’s rules for screen time

(47:28) Why Peter only publishes things he’d want his kids to see

(48:43) Raising kids while your parents are getting older

(56:59) Lightning round and Peter’s parenting hacks

Resources From This Episode:

Behind The Craft: https://www.behindthecraft.com/ 

Behind The Craft (Substack): https://creatoreconomy.so/ 

Behind The Craft (Youtube): https://www.youtube.com/@PeterYangYT

Peter Yang on Github: https://github.com/petergyang 

No AI Slop (Github): https://github.com/petergyang/no-ai-slop 

Human Review (Github): https://github.com/petergyang/human-review 

Roblox (Video Game): https://www.roblox.com/ 

Being Mortal (Book by Atul Gawande): https://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/ 

Wait But Why’s The Tail End (Article): https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.html
Open AI Codex: https://openai.com/codex/ 

ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ 

Claude: https://claude.ai/
Claude Code: https://claude.com/product/claude-code 

Granola: https://www.granola.ai/ 

Linear: https://linear.app/ 

Blend: https://blend.com/ 

Magna-Tiles (Toy): https://www.magnatiles.com/ 

Lululemon (Apparel): https://shop.lululemon.com/ 

Ten Thousand (Apparel): https://www.tenthousand.cc/ 

StarCraft (Video Game): https://starcraft.blizzard.com/ 

Harry Potter (Book Series): https://www.goodreads.com/series/45175-harry-potter 

The Iron Giant (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129167/ 

Toy Story 3 (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435761/ 

Kiki’s Delivery Service (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097814/ 

My Neighbor Totoro (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096283/ 

Rocky (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075148/ 

Toyota Highlander (Car): https://www.toyota.com/highlander/ 

—

Support Startup Dad

For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]
For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com

Aakash Gupta is a creator, product advisor, author, and the host of one of the most popular newsletters, podcasts, and social accounts for product managers and AI builders. He built a following of over 350,000 people on LinkedIn through six years of daily posting and now uses AI to create leverage across his work and family life.

He’s also a dad of two who stepped away from a VP of Product role to build a career with more flexibility and be more present with his kids. Aakash joins Startup Dad to share how he built a Parent OS using Claude Code, AI agents, and automations to manage the invisible workload of parenting. We discussed:

• Building a Parent OS with AI: How Aakash created a personal operating system that combines context libraries, AI skills, and automations to manage family logistics, reminders, and everyday parenting tasks.
• Using AI to become a more present parent: Why Aakash believes AI’s biggest benefit is not more screen time, but reducing the amount of time parents spend on their phones handling tasks in front of their kids.
• Creating personalized AI storytelling: How Aakash built a storytelling system that remembers his kids’ preferences, previous stories, and family values to create better experiences for his children.
• Automating the invisible work of family life: How AI helps manage school applications, activity registrations, subscriptions, travel planning, and reminders that usually fall on parents to track manually.
• Turning AI into a family coordination system: How Aakash uses AI as a shared operating layer between him and his wife to keep everyone aligned without constant communication.
• Why parents should start building with AI now: Why Aakash believes every parent should learn how to use AI effectively, not just for productivity, but to prepare their families for a future where AI becomes part of everyday life.

Aakash’s Open Source Parent OS

https://github.com/aakashg/parenting-os

Where to find Aakash Gupta

• Website: https://www.aakashg.com/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagupta/ 
• Newsletter: https://www.news.aakashg.com/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@growproduct
  
  

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Aakash Gupta, author and podcast host

(04:55) Why Claude is the most powerful software ever built

(07:11) Why AI is underused by families

(10:42) Being a father first, creator second

(12:29) Leaving a VP of Product role for his family

(15:16) Advice for dads considering the creator path

(17:44) Calendar non-negotiables and daily time blocking

(21:51) Building AI-powered storytelling for his kids

(26:22) Inside the Parent OS: a live demo

(37:48) The automations his family uses most

(43:39) Where AI automation fell short

(46:39) How to build your own Parent OS from scratch

(52:37) How AI scored a free museum day in Poland

(1:01:19) Advice for builders about to become parents

Resources From This Episode:

Parent OS: https://github.com/aakashg/parenting-os

Product Growth: https://www.news.aakashg.com/ 

The Growth Podcast: https://www.news.aakashg.com/s/product-growth-podcast 

Claude: https://claude.ai/
Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code
Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/
Cursor: https://cursor.com/
Whisper Flow: https://whisperflow.ai/
MCP (Model Context Protocol): https://modelcontextprotocol.io/
GitHub: https://github.com/
Notion: https://www.notion.com/
Slack: https://slack.com/
Canva: https://www.canva.com/
Figma: https://www.figma.com/
Typefully: https://typefully.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/
Claude Opus: https://claude.ai/
ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/
OpenAI: https://openai.com/
Codex: https://openai.com/codex/
Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/
Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/
Google Flights: https://www.google.com/travel/flights
Air Zoo: https://www.airzoo.org/
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library: https://imaginationlibrary.com/
Alien (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/
Inside Out (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/ 

Kia Telluride (Car): https://www.kia.com/us/en/telluride
Hyundai Palisade (Car): https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/vehicles/palisade

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Support Startup Dad

For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]
For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com

Ankit Gupta is the Founder of Bicycle Health, a company he built and led for nearly nine years before handing over the CEO role and becoming a stay-at-home dad. Before Bicycle, Ankit co-founded Pulse while at Stanford, a news app that caught the attention of Steve Jobs, was famously pulled from the App Store later that same day, and was eventually acquired by LinkedIn.

He’s also a dad of one, with a two-year-old son, and the husband of a transplant nephrologist in the middle of a demanding fellowship. After years of being pulled toward building companies, Ankit found that pull shifting toward his family. He joins Startup Dad to talk about the 18-month process of stepping away from Bicycle, the turbulence and FOMO that came with trading founder life for full-time parenting, and why he believes some of the best things parents can give their kids are simply time, love, and room to be bored. We discussed:

• Choosing fatherhood over founder life: How Ankit spent 18 months deciding to step away from Bicycle Health and follow a new pull toward being more present with his son.
• The transition from CEO to stay-at-home dad: Why leaving startup life created unexpected challenges, from losing daily feedback loops to adjusting to a completely different pace.
• Why time and love matter most: How Ankit believes parents can get caught optimizing everything, when simply being present is what matters most.
• Rethinking modern parenting pressure: Why Ankit pushes back on overscheduling kids and the constant pursuit of efficiency, and what boredom can teach children.
• Using AI to understand parenting: How Ankit used Claude and ChatGPT to research parenting philosophies, map different approaches, and build his own framework.
• Building with AI for yourself: How a personal parenting experiment became a public tool and showed what is now possible with AI-powered creation.

Where to find Ankit Gupta

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankitgupta00/ 
• X: https://x.com/gankit

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Ankit Gupta, founder of Bicycle Health

(02:50) The untold story behind stepping back from Bicycle Health

(05:14) Becoming a full-time dad so his wife could focus on her fellowship

(09:38) Preschool shuts down and Ankit becomes a solo dad

(12:29) The "dopamine desert" of trading founder life for fatherhood

(14:15) Why "time and love" is a contrarian parenting philosophy

(17:49) Comparing overscheduled American childhoods to growing up in India

(21:31) Addressing privilege and financial independence

(26:55) Why parenting is tiring

(32:02) Using Claude to map every parenting philosophy

(42:54) Redesigning the home and moving the bed to the floor

(46:17) Going screen-free and Montessori-inspired play

(52:15) The Steve Jobs Pulse story: best and worst day

(1:04:11) Why entrepreneurship pairs well with parenting

Resources From This Episode:

Bicycle Health: https://www.bicyclehealth.com/
Pulse: https://www.linkedin.com/ (acquired by LinkedIn)

Fellow Parent: https://fellowparent.org/
Good Inside by Dr. Becky: https://www.goodinside.com/
Claude: https://claude.ai/
ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/
Montessori Education: https://amshq.org/
Nanit Camera: https://www.nanit.com/
Inside Out (Film): https://www.pixar.com/inside-out
The Lion King (Film): https://www.disney.com/movies/the-lion-king
Pikler Triangle: https://www.piklertriangle.com/

Costco Car Seats: https://www.costco.com/car-seats-boosters.html 

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Support Startup Dad

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For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com

Brad Harrington is the former Executive Director of the Boston College Center for Work & Family and spent nearly two decades at Hewlett-Packard, earning his PhD along the way.

He walked away from corporate America and took a  75% pay cut to become one of the leading researchers on fatherhood, caregiving, and work-family integration. Now retired, Brad is a happily married dad of three who has spent the last quarter-century studying why men struggle to escape work-family conflict. We discussed:

• The 3 Archetypes of Modern Fatherhood: Breaking down traditional, egalitarian, and conflicted fathers - and why the "conflicted" bucket is consistently the largest group.
• The Caregiving Gap: Why 70% of fathers report wanting a 50/50 caregiving split, yet only 35% actually live it.
• The Financial & Organizational Traps: The economic pressures and workplace cultures that keep men locked into primary breadwinner roles even when they want out.
• The Power of Early Paternity Leave: Why taking dedicated time off in the first few weeks of a child's life sets the trajectory for a dad's hands-on caregiving identity for decades.
• The Dual-Career Lifecycle: How couples navigate moving through stages from allies and acrobats to adversaries and accommodators.
• The Danger of Over-Scheduling Kids: Why competitive youth sports and hyper-structured childhoods are stripping kids of independence and unstructured play.
• Why Parenting Never Ends: Lessons from raising three adult children through career shifts, health struggles, and navigating relationship dynamics across decades.

Where to find Brad Harrington

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradharrington/ 

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Brad Harrington, former Executive Director of the Boston College Center for Work and Family

(02:26) Commuting 3,000 miles every other week while balancing family

(06:00) Walking away from corporate America and taking a 75% pay cut

(08:16) From personal conflict to a quarter-century of research

(10:41) The three archetypes of fatherhood: traditional, egalitarian, and conflicted

(16:16) Why conflicted fathers are the least satisfied men at work and home

(24:32) Don't argue about who does more—focus on who does what

(28:15) The mental load and the mindset of a partner versus an employee

(32:26) Four reasons men stay locked in the breadwinner role

(36:30) Paternity leave and the "train leaving the station" in those first few months

(43:32) The four stages of couples: allies, acrobats, adversaries, and accommodators

(48:19) Advice for startup founders on building parental leave policies

(52:07) The stay-at-home dad study and societal double standards

(57:52) The overscheduled child and the loss of unstructured play

(1:04:36) Parenting never ends: navigating adulthood, health struggles, and advice

(1:11:56) Lightning round: Minivans, pre-iPad travel, family chat, and dishwasher loading

Resources From This Episode:

Brad Harrington’s Profile at Boston College: https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/offices/office-of-university-communications/for-the-media/z_archive/brad-harrington.html 

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise: https://www.hpe.com/

Dr. Linda Haas: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Linda-Haas 

The Wizard of Oz (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032138/

The Sound of Music (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059742/

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Support Startup Dad

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For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com

Adam Grenier is the Founder of AI Matey, a growth and product advisor, longtime startup operator, and the creator of DadBench, an AI evaluation system built around one deceptively difficult challenge, teaching a model to write a good dad joke.

He’s also a dad of three and one of the very first guests to appear on Startup Dad (#2 in fact!). Three years later, Adam is back to talk about what has changed in his family and how getting laid off from Eventbrite sent him deep into AI experimentation, model training, and reinforcement learning. We discussed:

• Advocating for neurodivergent kids at school: How Adam navigated two very different advocacy journeys, fighting for more support for his daughter with ADHD while deciding whether his autistic son was ready for less.
• Learning AI by actually building with it: Why Adam believes hands-on experimentation with new models and research can teach you things that traditional coursework might take years to reach.
• Training AI to tell dad jokes: How a funny side project became a crash course in reinforcement learning, model evaluation, reward design, and what actually makes a dad joke work.
• Getting reward hacked by your own AI: How Adam’s model learned to game his scoring system by cramming in more puns, and what Goodhart’s law teaches us about optimizing for the wrong metrics.
• Why getting to the point matters: How word economy became the strongest predictor of a better dad joke, and why teaching AI to commit to one idea proved more valuable than teaching it to be funny.
• Making model training accessible to product teams: Why Adam thinks reinforcement learning will move beyond AI researchers and into the hands of product managers and marketers who understand customers best.

Where to find Adam Grenier

• Website: https://www.adamgrenier.com/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akgrenier/ 
• Twitter: https://x.com/AKGrenier
  
  

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Adam Grenier, Founder of AI Matey

(02:09) What changed in three years of parenting and startups

(04:27) Advocating for two neurodivergent kids with different needs

(08:45) How AI Matey led to training AI on dad jokes

(13:33) Learning AI with goat screams and school photos

(24:11) How anyone can start training AI models

(29:17) What training on dad jokes actually taught the model

(32:02) What actually makes a great dad joke

(36:52) Putting the biggest AI models to the dad joke test

(47:09) Getting reward hacked by your own AI model

(51:05) Why the best dad jokes get straight to the point

(53:41) Bringing humans and kids into the judging process

(55:24) Why Adam fired an AI judge for being too slow

(57:13) What dad jokes can teach us about building better AI

(01:05:04) Can you actually teach a sense of humor?

Resources From This Episode:

AI Matey: https://aimatey.co/ 

DadBench: https://aimatey.co/dadbench/ 

GoatScreams: https://www.goatscreams.com/waitlist 

SmilePlease: https://smileplease.app/
ElevenLabs: https://elevenlabs.io/ 

Thinking Machines Labs: https://thinkingmachines.ai/ 

Inkling: https://thinkingmachines.ai/inkling/ 

Tinker: https://thinkingmachines.ai/tinker/ 

Prime Intellect: https://www.primeintellect.ai/ 

Unsloth: https://unsloth.ai/ 

DeepSeek: https://www.deepseek.com/ 

Gemma: https://deepmind.google/models/gemma/ 

Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/app 

GLM: https://chat.z.ai/ 

Grok: https://grok.com/ 

Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/ 

OpenAI: https://openai.com/ 

Claude: https://claude.ai/ 

The Book of Mormon (Musical): https://bookofmormonbroadway.com/ 

—

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For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]
For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com

Jackie Nesi, PhD is a clinical psychologist, researcher, and associate professor at Brown University. She is also the creator of Techno Sapiens, a weekly Substack newsletter with over 50,000 subscribers dedicated to translating the latest research on kids, technology, and mental health into practical advice for parents.

Beyond her academic work and her testimony before the U.S. Senate on social media safety, Jackie is a grounded voice in the parenting space who navigates the day-to-day balance of screen time in her own household. She is a mom of three young kids, married to a tech entrepreneur, and works to bridge the gap between complex psychological research and the practical demands of modern parenting. We discussed:

• The disconnect between screen time panic and actual research: Why the "all screen time is bad" narrative isn't supported by science, and how parents can let go of perfectionist guilt.
• The Transformation Framework: How specific features of social media (asynchrony, public reach, image focus, and permanency) fundamentally alter childhood friendships.
• Dialectics in parenting: Practicing dialectical thinking to hold two seemingly contradictory truths at once (e.g., deeply loving your child while feeling completely overwhelmed).
• Smart device staging: How to evaluate when a child is ready for a phone, running "tech experiments," and layering access from smartwatches and dumb phones up to full smartphones.
• School phone bans and Yondr pouches: What the latest research actually shows regarding school phone policies, distraction, test scores, and student mental health.
• AI as the next frontier: What parents and educators need to know right now to help kids navigate AI tools safely and responsibly.

Where to find Jackie Nesi

• Website: https://www.jacquelinenesi.com/ 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacqueline-nesi-phd-b070595b 
• Substack: https://technosapiens.substack.com/
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/jacqueline_nesi/
  
  

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Jacqueline Nesi, Associate Professor at Brown University and Techno Sapiens author

(04:01) What teens in psychiatric care reveal about online safety

(08:00) How social media transforms kids’ friendships

(13:49) Why two opposite truths can coexist in parenting

(19:20) Why screen time is about more than counting minutes

(23:31) Treating new devices and screen rules as experiments

(27:12) How to let go of screen time guilt

(29:45) How to know when your child is ready for a phone

(33:28) How to stage phones, smart devices, and social media

(39:23) What school phone bans can and cannot solve

(45:11) Why managing screens can be harder for neurodivergent kids

(47:34) Where The Anxious Generation gets the research right and wrong

(50:33) Having regular tech talks and putting people first

(53:24) How to avoid repeating social media mistakes with AI

(59:49) Lightning round: Toy baskets, existential nursery rhymes, and minivan temptation 

Resources From This Episode:

Techno Sapiens: https://technosapiens.substack.com/ 

How to Let Go of Screen Time Guilt: https://technosapiens.substack.com/p/how-to-let-go-of-screen-time-guilt

It Takes Two (PlayStation Game): https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/it-takes-two/ 

Lego Star Wars (PlayStation Game): https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/lego-star-wars-the-skywalker-saga/

The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt (Book): https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book 

The Emperor’s New Groove (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120917/

Will Ferrell (Actor): https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002071/

—

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Harry Roegiers is the founder of Stuntpony; a live call coach for B2B salespeople. He’s spent the last decade working in sales performance, growth, and revenue strategy, helping teams improve how they sell and scale.

He’s also a father of three whose journey into parenthood started with a surprise. Just days after proposing to his wife Hannelore in Paris, they found out they were expecting their first child. That unexpected start helped shape his approach to parenting, staying adaptable when life doesn’t go according to plan. We discussed:

• Turning off founder mode at home: Why the instinct to analyze and fix problems works at a startup but can backfire when your partner or kids simply need you to listen.

• Breaking generational patterns: Why Harry wants his kids to talk openly about emotions while preserving something his own parents got right, giving kids the freedom to make mistakes.

• Thinking like a good ancestor: How fatherhood shifted Harry from quarter-to-quarter thinking toward decisions that could benefit his kids and future generations decades from now.

• Navigating neurodiversity without rushing to label: How Harry and Hannelore are learning to focus less on finding an answer and more on understanding what their daughter needs from them.

• Treating joy as an obligation: Why Harry believes bringing joy to others will become even more valuable in an AI-driven world, and how he practices it at home.

• Raising builders in the age of AI: How Harry’s eight-year-old built an app for turning leftovers into recipes, and why he wants his kids creating with AI instead of passively consuming it.

Where to find Harry Roegiers

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haroldroegiers/ 

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Harry Roegiers, Founder/Investor

(03:39) A Paris proposal and surprise pregnancy

(06:58) What tinnitus taught Harry about the mind-body connection

(09:34) Why founder mode doesn’t work at home

(13:59) Breaking generational patterns around emotions

(19:40) Thinking like a good ancestor

(24:08) Losing his mom and thinking about legacy

(28:15) What his wife’s work taught him about real impact

(30:39) Contrarian parenting rules around swearing

(36:21) Noticing when your child may be wired differently

(37:56) Supporting your child without rushing to find a label

(41:14) Learning each kid’s different love language

(44:53) Why sharing joy is an obligation

(48:10) Vibe coding an app with his eight-year-old son

(57:19) Lightning round: training wheels, dad jokes, IKEA, and minivans

Resources From This Episode:

The Good Ancestor (Book): https://www.romankrznaric.com/good-ancestor 

Lovable (Website): https://lovable.dev/ 

Gong (Website): https://www.gong.io/ 

Chorus (Website): https://chorus.com/ 

Car back seat organizer: https://a.co/d/0fKOLA0L
Balance Bike: https://a.co/d/0gfvf8Bb 

Up (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10494

Dirk Doebler is the Founder and CEO at Parento Leave, a company dedicated to helping organizations build better parental leave programs. He lives with his wife and 3-year-old son.

Dirk and his wife spent serious time before becoming parents asking a fundamental question: Do we even want kids? And if so, how would we raise them without giving up our own dreams and lives? What emerged from that process is a 3-year-old raised with one of the most intentional, free-range, and contrarian parenting philosophies around. We discussed:

• The case for free-range parenting: Why hovering at the playground harms your child’s development, and why Dirk lets his three-year-old problem-solve on his own.

• Joining our life, not revolving around his: How Dirk and Kate built their parenting philosophy from scratch, choosing to bring their son along on their journey rather than putting their own dreams on hold.

• Navigating pediatric feeding disorders: The surprisingly underdiagnosed world of toddler anorexia and sensory feeding challenges, and what their family has learned on the journey.

• World traveling with a toddler: How taking 30 flights to 10 different countries by age three taught their son to embrace boredom, entertain himself, and love adventure.

• Intentional tech and zero screens: Why Dirk casts videos to the TV instead of handing over a phone, avoids fast-paced cartoons, and views AI as a lazy substitute for authentic parenting.

• Taking two paternity leaves: Why Dirk took a second, full-time parental leave when his son was 10 months old, and why showing up daily matters far more than just "banking" quality weekends.

Where to find Dirk Doebler

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ddoebler/ 

Where to find Adam Fishman

• FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ 
• X: https://x.com/fishmanaf
  
  

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Welcoming Dirk Doebler, Founder & CEO at Parento Leave

(03:06) What most parents get wrong: hovering and screens

(05:19) Deciding if we wanted kids and building a parenting philosophy

(08:05) Raising a child who joins your life instead of running it

(09:16) Understanding pediatric feeding disorders in toddlers

(14:12) Dividing household load and the "no quid pro quo" rule

(19:45) Free-range parenting: building confidence and independence

(24:45) Flying with a toddler: 30 flights and 10 countries by age three

(34:06) Tech boundaries: Jitterbugs, window-style TV, and no phones

(38:38) Why using AI for parenting is a lazy substitute

(42:12) Taking two paternity leaves and showing up every single day

(50:47) Lightning round: pilot dads, AI video fails, and minivans

Resources From This Episode:

Parento Leave: https://www.parentoleave.com/

Doona: https://www.doona.com/

Medicine Pacifier: https://frida.com/products/medifrida

The Confident Parent: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/28953434-the-confident-parent

Free Range Parenting: https://www.freerangekids.com/

Lilo & Stitch (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0275847/

The Emperor’s New Groove (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120917/

—

Support Startup Dad

For sponsorship inquiries, email: [email protected]
For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com