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Founder Mode

Founder Mode is a weekly newsletter for builders—whether it’s startups, systems, or personal growth. It’s about finding your flow, balancing health, wealth, and productivity, and tackling challenges with focus and curiosity. Each week, you’ll gain actionable insights and fresh perspectives to help you think like a founder and build what matters most.

Learn why trust, customer focus, and smart AI use matter more than viral content in an internet increasingly filled with AI-generated noise.
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​Founder Mode Episode 70 - The Internet Isn't Dead

The Internet Isn't Dead Welcome back to Founder Mode! Jason and I covered a lot in this episode. We talked about AI-generated content, founder thought leadership, token usage, and why getting millions of views doesn't matter if the right customers never see you. The common thread was trust. As AI creates more content than ever before, founders have to work harder to build credibility instead of just producing more posts. One comment from the episode summed it up well: "The internet's not...

Think Week is Now Build Week Welcome back to Founder Mode! Every once in a while, Jason and I record an episode without a guest. Those conversations usually turn into some of my favorites because we get to share what's actually working right now. This episode covered everything from AI workflows and building software faster to fundraising, team management, and something we don't talk about enough: using leverage to create more freedom. One thing I said near the end really captures the point:...

Learn how hidden multipliers, customer interviews, and small product improvements create lasting business growth with insights from Jason Cohen.

The Profit Whale with Jason Cohen Welcome back to Founder Mode! Most founders think growth comes from working harder. But after talking with Jason Cohen, I came away with a different conclusion. The biggest gains usually come from finding the few things that create outsized results. Jason has spent decades building companies, investing in founders, and studying what separates businesses that grow from those that stall. His new book, Hidden Multipliers, is all about finding those overlooked...

Founder Anthony Ng Monica explains why health is a founder's biggest competitive advantage and how simple habits outperform burnout.

Stop Chasing Plan A with Anthony Ng Monica Welcome back to Founder Mode! Most founders think burnout is part of the job. I used to think that too. But after talking with Anthony Ng Monica, I kept coming back to one idea: Your business can only perform as well as the person building it. Anthony has built and exited a global company. Today, he helps founders improve their health without stepping away from their businesses. This wasn't a conversation about six-packs or biohacking. It was about...

AI isn't the moat anymore. Learn why systems, taste, and connecting AI to real business problems create the biggest advantage.

You Are The Bottleneck Welcome back to Founder Mode! AI is moving faster than ever. Every week there's a new model. Every month there's a new startup claiming it has the next breakthrough. But after recording this episode of Founder Mode, I came away with a different conclusion. The companies that win won't necessarily have the smartest AI. They'll have the best systems around it. As Jason and I talked through everything happening over the past week, one pattern kept showing up. The real...

AI isn't the moat anymore. Learn why founders should build the nervous system, not the brain, and where the real AI opportunity exists.

Default Alive Without VC Money Welcome back to Founder Mode! AI is moving so fast that it's easy to focus on the wrong thing. Every week there's a new model. A new benchmark. A new company claiming to have the smartest AI. But after this conversation, I don't think that's where the real opportunity is. The founders who are winning aren't building a better brain. They're building a better nervous system. They're connecting AI to real businesses, real workflows, and real customer problems....

AI isn't about better models. It's about better systems. Learn where the real opportunity is and how founders can build lasting advantages.

Better Or Just Busier? Welcome back to Founder Mode! Last Thursday, Jason and I skipped the guest list and talked about what we've actually been seeing inside companies that use AI every day. One conversation from the past week kept coming back to me. I asked several companies one simple question: "What's your stack?" Most couldn't answer it. Some said, "That's a question for our CTO." One company that claimed to be AI-powered turned out to be two outsourced call centers manually passing WAV...

AI isn't about building bigger models. It's about wiring intelligence into real businesses where it creates measurable value every day.

Fake AI vs Real AI Welcome back to Founder Mode! In this episode, Jason and I sat down without a guest to talk about what we've been seeing firsthand in AI. After attending an industry conference, one thing became obvious. A lot of companies say they're doing AI. Very few can explain how. When I started asking one simple question, "What's your stack?", the answers told me everything I needed to know. Some executives couldn't answer. Others admitted their "AI" was actually teams of people...

Founders don't win by avoiding failure. They win by surviving it. Learn why resilience beats hype with Sahib on Founder Mode.

Be A Cockroach, Not A Unicorn with Sahib Anandsongvit Pretty Good AI is hosting a live webinar next week that I think many of you will find useful. Most healthcare AI pilots fail. Industry estimates say only about 5% ever make it into full production. On Tuesday, June 30, at 12:00 PM PDT, we're sitting down with Jeannine Spagna and Sami Badra from Clearway Pain Solutions, a 100+ location specialty practice running athenaOne, to talk about how they successfully rolled out voice AI across their...

Joe Speiser shares lessons on arbitrage, building on rented land, community, AI adoption, and finding overlooked opportunities.

Don't Build On Rented Land with Joe Speiser Practices spend money generating leads, but lose patients because no one answers the phone, follows up fast enough, or handles intake after hours. We're doing a 45-minute session on how top healthcare practices are using voice AI to capture and convert more patients 24/7. Live Webinar: June 25, 2026, at 12:00 PM PDT You'll see: Where healthcare practices lose revenue after the lead is generated A live AI-powered patient intake and scheduling demo...