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The Startup Epoch: Rethinking Company Building & Defensibility in an AI World w/ Craig McLuckie @ Stacklok
ABOUT CRAIG MCLUCKIE
Craig is the CEO and co-founder of Stacklok, where his team is working to tip AI code generation on its side, from vertical, closed solutions to horizontal, aligned systems. Craig was previously CEO and co-founder of Heptio, which was acquired by VMware in 2018; he has also led product and engineering teams at Google and Microsoft. Craig is a co-creator of Kubernetes and he bootstrapped and chaired the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
ABOUT STACKLOKStacklok is working to tip AI code generation on its side — transforming vertically integrated (and closed) solutions into horizontal, open systems. Their CodeGate.ai project is an important step in this direction; it's a bridge between AI assistants and LLMs that gives developers control of their privacy and delivers richer results.
Build AI Voice Agents with ElevenLabsElevenLabs is the leading Voice AI platform for developers with thousands of ultra-realistic, human-like voices across 32 languages.
Developers use ElevenLabs to build life-like, conversational AI voice agents to handle customer support queries, appointment scheduling, and even offer personalized 1-1 tutoring.
Get started for free at elevenlabs.io/elcSHOW NOTES:- Why this moment is “the epoch of the startup” (2:03)
- How AI shifts startup economics: from cost structures to value capture (4:18)
- Why incumbents struggle during disruption—and how startups can win (8:17)
- The origin story behind Stacklok & lessons from Craig’s pivot (11:04)
- Frameworks for identifying asymmetric advantages as a founder (14:48)
- How to map your unique asymmetric advantages to new opportunities and secure stakeholder buy-in (16:34)
- Rethinking defensibility & value capture in the AI era (16:29)
- How Craig applied cost, GTM & product perspectives to strategic pivots @ Stacklok (18:07)
- Building investment theses: Aligning cultural strengths & asymmetric advantages with evolving opportunities (20:05)
- Determining your startup’s investment themes (22:53)
- Structuring experiments & validating opportunities (24:15)
- Defensibility & building community-driven moats in early ideation phases (26:54)
- Signals of early community-product alignment (31:24)
- Conversation frameworks to assess asymmetric advantages (32:22)
- Societal implications of AI disruption & the “startup epoch” (35:14)
- Rapid fire questions (38:12)
Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host
Jerry Li - Co-Host
Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/
Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/
Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/
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By The Engineering Leadership Community (ELC)ABOUT CRAIG MCLUCKIE
Craig is the CEO and co-founder of Stacklok, where his team is working to tip AI code generation on its side, from vertical, closed solutions to horizontal, aligned systems. Craig was previously CEO and co-founder of Heptio, which was acquired by VMware in 2018; he has also led product and engineering teams at Google and Microsoft. Craig is a co-creator of Kubernetes and he bootstrapped and chaired the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
ABOUT STACKLOKStacklok is working to tip AI code generation on its side — transforming vertically integrated (and closed) solutions into horizontal, open systems. Their CodeGate.ai project is an important step in this direction; it's a bridge between AI assistants and LLMs that gives developers control of their privacy and delivers richer results.
Build AI Voice Agents with ElevenLabsElevenLabs is the leading Voice AI platform for developers with thousands of ultra-realistic, human-like voices across 32 languages.
Developers use ElevenLabs to build life-like, conversational AI voice agents to handle customer support queries, appointment scheduling, and even offer personalized 1-1 tutoring.
Get started for free at elevenlabs.io/elcSHOW NOTES:- Why this moment is “the epoch of the startup” (2:03)
- How AI shifts startup economics: from cost structures to value capture (4:18)
- Why incumbents struggle during disruption—and how startups can win (8:17)
- The origin story behind Stacklok & lessons from Craig’s pivot (11:04)
- Frameworks for identifying asymmetric advantages as a founder (14:48)
- How to map your unique asymmetric advantages to new opportunities and secure stakeholder buy-in (16:34)
- Rethinking defensibility & value capture in the AI era (16:29)
- How Craig applied cost, GTM & product perspectives to strategic pivots @ Stacklok (18:07)
- Building investment theses: Aligning cultural strengths & asymmetric advantages with evolving opportunities (20:05)
- Determining your startup’s investment themes (22:53)
- Structuring experiments & validating opportunities (24:15)
- Defensibility & building community-driven moats in early ideation phases (26:54)
- Signals of early community-product alignment (31:24)
- Conversation frameworks to assess asymmetric advantages (32:22)
- Societal implications of AI disruption & the “startup epoch” (35:14)
- Rapid fire questions (38:12)
Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host
Jerry Li - Co-Host
Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/
Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/
Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/