Episodes

Founders are told that if they work hard, build the right product and hire well, the outcome will follow. It's motivating. It's clean. And according to today's guest, it's mostly wrong. Mike Grossman has been CEO of six venture-backed Silicon Valley companies. Across them, he tried 18 different business models. Twelve failed. Five required layoffs. Three lived in persistent existential crisis. And yet all six were eventually acquired. Mike's story is one that far more founders actually live, but...

The Startup Podcast is back for its 300th episode – and it’s an absolute doozy. In today’s Reacts, hosts Chris Saad and Yaniv Bernstein break down how Anthropic became the new industry leader in AI, and why betting on coding as the 'meta domain' of AI turned out to be one of the most consequential product decisions of the decade. They also dig into Mythos and the newly released Claude Fable: what makes Fable different, whether it has something approaching genuine intelligence, and what the Anthr...

Every founder gets a version of the same advice: don't pick a fight with an entrenched industry. The incumbents have the relationships, the regulatory cover, the deep pockets - you'll bleed out trying. But some of the most interesting companies of the last decade were built ignoring that advice, winning over markets that were nearly impenetrable. In this episode, Yaniv Bernstein is joined by Brandon Weber - co-founder and CEO of Nava Benefits, a Series C-funded AI-powered health benefits brokera...

What if writing software became as easy as taking a selfie? This episode, Yaniv Bernstein sits down with Gary Lo - founder of OpenBA and one of the sharpest AI-and-startups thinkers Yaniv knows - to discuss the concept of 'selfie software': disposable, hyper-personal, AI-generated tools that anyone can create for themselves, with no hand-written code. AI-generated tools like these are changing the startup landscape. While founders now have more tools at their disposal, it's now necessary than ev...

Most founders set out to build something that matters: a company that’s aligned with their mission, now and forever. But what if the very systems we use to build ‘real’ companies are the thing that corrupts them? In this episode, Yaniv Bernstein is joined by Silicon Valley legend Eric Ries author of the era-defining 'The Lean Startup', founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, and now the author of a provocative new book, 'Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Grea...

This is a bonus feed drop from Dan Blumberg's podcast 'Future Around and Find Out' (FAFO), winner of the 2026 Webby Award for Best Technology Podcast. If you like what you hear, check out FAFO at https://www.futurearound.com/ Original description: Henrik Werdelin is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. He’s founded and incubated several unicorns, most notably BARK, the dog happiness company. Henrik himself is a pretty happy guy — an optimistic guy who likes to ask what could go right? — and on the ...

Most founders treat 'scale' like a switch you flip after raising a round: hire 14 reps, 10x the ad spend, and pray. About half scale too early and burn the runway, while the other half scale too late and get caught by a more aggressive competitor. Almost nobody can tell you, in measurable terms, when they're actually ready. In this episode, Yaniv Bernstein is joined by Mark Roberge - founding CRO at HubSpot (where he scaled the company from $0 to $100M ARR), senior lecturer at Harvard Business S...

In 2026, startups age like milk. Josh Foreman's solution is a radical one - step down as CEO, go back to basics, and refound the whole company. Yaniv Bernstein discusses this decision with Josh, founder and (for now) CEO of InDebted - the AI-native debt resolution business he scaled to an $80M revenue run rate, a Series C raise, and operations across 8 markets. Just days before recording, Josh publicly announced he's hiring a new CEO so he can step back into the business as a hands-on operator a...

Many AI startups funded in the last 18 months won't last three years - so what makes a business durable today? Yaniv Bernstein is joined by Marlon Nichols, co-founder and managing general partner of MaC Venture Capital - one of the most active seed-stage AI investors in the market, having scaled MaC to over $600M AUM across three funds in just four years. Marlon's portfolio includes Pipe, Stoke Space, Thrive Market, Chef Robotics, and exits like Wonder Dynamics to Autodesk and Gimlet Media to Sp...

Being a founder has always meant dreaming big while keeping a close eye on potential trip-ups, and in the age of AI, finding and maintaining that balance is more important than ever. Today, Yaniv Bernstein talks about the importance of getting that balance right. Using deep insight and decades of industry experience, he discusses why now is the time for founders to be more ambitious than ever before - while identifying threats to success and keeping a keen, near-paranoid eye on them. In this epi...

Between AI shaking up the industry, geopolitical upheaval, and unpredictable capital, being a founder has never been more confusing. So what advice, if any, is still relevant? In this episode, Yaniv Bernstein is joined by Amir Shevat (Silicon Valley developer platform veteran and now General Partner at Darkmode Ventures) to answer exactly that. Focusing on what isn't changing rather than what is, Amir walks through seven truths of startup building that have become more important in the age of AI...

Will AI kill your startup? For a lot of startups, probably yes. But which ones? And more importantly, how do you make sure yours isn't one of them? Yaniv Bernstein is joined by returning guest Scotty Allen (bootstrapper, founder of The Product Bus, and startup strategist extraordinaire) to reason through one of the most pressing questions of 2026: how do you build a startup to survive the SaaSpocalypse? They discuss why this AI wave is more of a threat to tech startups than Google and Facebook e...

You may have spent years (or even decades) building your expertise. But is any of it still relevant? And how much of it is an active detriment to your startup? In this special solo episode, Yaniv Bernstein delivers a no-guest monologue on the most critical skill any founder can develop right now: ‘unlearning’. Drawing on Morgan Housel's ‘Same as Ever’; real-world examples from his own startup, Vera; and frameworks for rebuilding beliefs from the ground up, Yaniv makes the case that obsolete know...

(This is Part 2 of a conversation with Dr. Matthew Jones about co-founder relationships. You can find Part 1 here: https://www.tsp.show/how-to-identify-red-flags-early-in-your-cofounder-relationship-w-dr-matthew-jones/ ) Co-founder conflict is tough to deal with, but it also has ripple effects through your entire organization. When a tough relationship is left to fester, it can erode your team culture, spike turnover, and eventually turn into a full-blown crisis. Continuing last week's conversat...

Your co-founder relationship is the single most important variable in your startup's success, and one of the most likely things to destroy it. Today, Yaniv Bernstein sits down with Dr. Matthew Jones, author of ‘The Cofounder Effect’ and founder of Co-Founder Clarity, to dig into the psychology of co-founder relationships: why they break down and what the warning signs look like. Matt brings a rare combination of clinical depth and startup-world pragmatism to the topic - an essential skillset to ...

In a deeply regulated industry such as healthcare, building an AI-native app poses a host of unique challenges, particularly when it comes to navigating customer privacy and industry red tape. How do you create an industry-leading resource and stay on the cutting edge of tech, while managing these constraints? Keoki Alexander-Chang can help you there. He's the founder and CEO of Minikai, a Melbourne-based startup using AI agents to slash the administrative burden on disability and aged care prov...

Has your hiring process kept up with the industry’s AI leaps, or are you still interviewing like it's 2022? Today’s AI-driven landscape means the skill gap between a good engineer and a great one widens every day, and the great ones can be difficult to find. But how do you choose – and hire – the best in the business? How do you find those elusive engineers who can skilfully handle multi-agent workflows, ship in hours what used to take weeks, and add an AI-focused competitive edge to your startu...

The agentic AI revolution is finally escaping the coding bubble. What does that mean for startup founders? Just 13 days after recording his first conversation with Yaniv, Gary Lo called to re-record. The reason? OpenClaw and Claude Cowork dropped some huge AI agent updates, and it shifted Gary's perspective enough to change the whole conversation. In this episode, Yaniv Bernstein sits down again with Gary Lo – founder of OpenBA, one of Australia's most compelling pre-seed AI startups – to unpack...

Founders and investors like to tell themselves they're on the same team, and they can be – but it takes work. In this episode, Yaniv Bernstein sits down with Liz Zalman, a veteran founder with over 20 years of startup experience, for an in-depth chat about the real dynamics of the founder-investor relationship. Liz is also co-author (alongside VC Jerry Neumann) of 'Founder Vs Investor: The Honest Truth About Venture Capital from Startup to IPO’, one of Yaniv's favorite books on startups. From re...

2026 is set to be a huge year in tech, and founders are feeling the pressure to perform well. But what do you need to focus on to give your startup the best chance of surviving the year? And with the AI landscape set to become more complex, how can you navigate it effectively? In this episode, Yaniv is joined by Jess Mah, founder of inDinero and Mahway, to unpack what founders actually need to build durable companies. They explore lessons from scaling a startup young, navigating failure, and wha...

Self-determination throughout your team: it sounds simple, but implementing it effectively could give your startup a razor-sharp competitive edge. In this episode, Chris and Yaniv unpack the 'Recursive Principle of Self-Determination', a framework for designing autonomous startups that maximize agency at every layer of the business. They explore how high-agency decisions shape product strategy, engineering, go-to-market, fundraising, teams, and culture, and why AI is accelerating the shift towar...