How Perplexity's founder thinks about AI, growth, and the future of work

Silicon Valley Girl September 26, 2025

• 1% daily improvement compounds to 3,700% growth annually.
• AI agents now work for users, not advertisers — a structural shift.
• Obsession beats strategy: build what you care about more than anyone.

Outbound Sync hits $500k ARR: lessons from a bootstrapped SaaS journey

Startups For the Rest of Us September 25, 2025

• A few early directional bets explained most of the growth.
• Skipped a funding round — organic revenue beat investor capital.
• Invite-only laser tag event replaced the boring conference happy hour.

This app replaced my 9-5 ($150K/year)

Starter Story September 24, 2025

How Bill Gates built Microsoft through obsession, frugality, and relentless competition

Founders September 24, 2025

• Gates minted his 36-hour work style at age 13 and never changed.
• He kept a one-year cash buffer and never needed venture capital.
• Believed software should be paid for when the entire industry disagreed.

How Poppi went from farmers market vinegar drink to a $2B Pepsi acquisition

How I Built This with Guy Raz September 22, 2025

• Calling a health drink 'soda' when soda was a dirty word.
• A viral TikTok story post drove $100K in overnight Amazon sales.
• Shark Tank investor forced a full rebrand — and was right.

How Mercor became the fastest-growing company in history by matching experts with AI labs

Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth September 18, 2025

• Evals are the PRD for AI — every capability gap needs expert-defined success criteria.
• Mercor hit $400M run rate in 16 months by replacing crowdsourced labor with domain experts.
• Jobs with elastic demand — software, PM, consulting — will grow, not shrink, with AI.

How to find a mentor: lessons from Janice Omadeke's journey

Masters of Scale September 18, 2025

• Treat mentor outreach like a pipeline — map, sequence, and target deliberately.
• Ask for 15 minutes as a learner, not a seller; never pitch too early.
• Don't build emotional dependency — mentors guide, they don't replace your judgment.

Outbound Sync hits breakeven and weighs its next funding move

Startups For the Rest of Us September 18, 2025

• 75% MRR growth in three months by saying no to almost everything
• Raising a small SAFE round vs. chasing non-dilutive partnership capital
• Cutting your own pay for a sales coach: what not to do

Bobbi Brown on scaling without losing what makes you special

How I Built This with Guy Raz September 18, 2025

• Starting over at 62: why Bobbi launched a second brand from scratch
• The trap of going viral — and why steady growth beats rocket ships
• Finding your tribe first is how niche products build lasting brands

He Quit YouTube at 1M Subs and Built a $250K/Month SaaS

Starter Story September 17, 2025

• Sebastian Ghiorghiu walked away from a nearly 1M-subscriber YouTube channel to build a SaaS without his personal brand.
• He wanted to prove product-market fit in the open market, not just sell to loyal fans — and reached $250K MRR in nine months.
• Growth came from seeding in Discord, partnering with YouTube creators, short-form content, and paid ads forming a flywheel.

Nextdoor: building a neighborhood network from scratch

How I Built This with Guy Raz September 15, 2025

• No major platform has won local — and why that's the opportunity
• Postcards and Sharpies: why unscalable tactics built real community
• Founder ousted, stock down 85%, now back to finish the job

14 brutal lessons every first-time SaaS founder will face

TK Kader September 14, 2025

• Every catastrophe you fear will probably happen — and you'll survive it.
• Hiding from customers is the single fastest way to kill product-market fit.
• Belief times discipline beats perfection; the veteran just keeps steering forward.

Stephen Colbert and Reid Hoffman on AI, creativity, and human connection

Masters of Scale September 13, 2025

• AI connection may strip out the micronutrients that make human bonds real.
• Discovery beats personalized invention — AI reflects you back, not the unknown.
• Access changes everything: inferior AI therapy beats zero therapy for billions.

How a solo founder built a $40K/month waitlist app competing with giants

Starter Story September 13, 2025

• Flat $100/month undercuts OpenTable and Yelp's per-cover fees
• COVID retail demand 10x'd revenue overnight — niche products adapt fast
• 700 paying customers acquired without investors or a team

Investors don't make your product better: lessons from building AssemblyAI

EO September 13, 2025

• Raising capital changes nothing — you still make everything happen.
• Ask customers what they hate about your product, not what they like.
• Narrow focus beats general-purpose: win by optimising for specific use cases.