Spark of Ages

We sit down with Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" to discuss his new book "Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great" (which launches later this week on May 26) to name the force that pulls great companies off mission and to map concrete ways to build businesses that stay great as they scale. We also get into AI agents, vibe coding risks, and why trust, empathy, and st...

Rajiv talks with Mike Ni (Constellation Research) about why AI makes old go-to-market playbooks less useful and why experience, judgment, and outcome thinking become the real edge. We break down enterprise-grade context, closed-loop learning, and what changes when humans start managing both people and AI agents.

• LLMs commoditizing expertise while elevating experience and question quality
• Aligning go-to-market work ...

Rajiv sits down with Neil Sheperd (formerly Cohere, Scale AI, BCG, McKinsey) and Amit Malhotra (formerly buybuy Baby, 1-800-Contacts) to get brutally specific about how humans and Agentic AI will coexist in the future workplace.  They discuss how AI changes tasks first and why the shock may hit high-skill jobs sooner than most people expect. We debate agent guardrails, attention economics in B2B marketing, and the leadership skills...

We break down what great B2B marketing looks like when creative storytelling meets revenue discipline and tighter sales alignment. Randi Barshack (CMO at Dusty Robotics)and Nicole Fuselier (VP of Demand and Growth at SambNova Systems) share how they measure what matters, build trust across teams, and use AI without giving up human judgment.

• creativity plus process as the core of great marketing
• “vitamin vs painkill...

Rajiv talks with Oren Michels about why enterprise AI ROI stalls when tools live in chat and stay stuck in read-only mode. We break down how a control plane for AI agents enables safe write access across SaaS and internal systems while keeping governance tight.

• chat interfaces working for developers but not for most business roles
• connectivity and trust as the core blockers to enterprise AI adoption
• one contr...

We unpack why the “SaaS-Pocalypse” is less about software dying and more about buyers finally right sizing cloud and marketplace deals with better data. We dig into AI unit economics, token driven cost volatility, and how procurement, FinOps, and venture capital are being rewritten in real time.

• Flywl as a cloud meta marketplace across AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud
• Buyer pain and buyer empathy as the product desig...

We chart how AI leapt from chat to code, why product is now the leverage point, and how startups can market to algorithms without losing trust. David Yakobovitch shares hard-won views on moats, data, defense tech, and the immigrant energy powering American dynamism.

• leaders and market share across Google, OpenAI, Anthropic
• vibe coding benefits, code quality risks, review loops
• prompt libraries, agent swarms, ...

We explore how real decisions start in the primal brain and how neuromarketing turns that insight into practical steps to capture, convince, and close. Patrick Rénvoisé shares the six stimuli, the Neuromap method, and how to sell with contrast, proof, and story in a world shaped by AI and deepfakes.

• defining neuromarketing and the brain’s buy button
• six stimuli that drive attention and action
• the four steps: ...

We explore how intelligent gifting breaks through AI-filtered inboxes, using psychology, data, and timing to earn real conversations and long-term loyalty. Kris Rudeegraap of Sendoso shares playbooks for stage-based sends, retention strategies, and staying human in an agentic future.

• reciprocity, curiosity and tangible novelty driving attention
• AI-assisted personalization for interests, timing and delivery channel<...

Why are management layers thinning?  How does AI change hiring signals? And how can senior leaders break into the hidden market for unposted executive roles? Andy Mowat shares practical playbooks for proof-of-work interviews, CEO diligence, and building a data-first GTM engine that actually ships.

• management ranks thinning and the rise of builders
• proof-of-work interviews and AI used well
• unposted VP and C-le...

We explore how removing immigration friction and backing immigrant founders at day zero can produce outsized innovation, through the lens of a VC platform and a biotech founder reprogramming tumors with mRNA and AI. The conversation blends policy, venture economics, and a bold oncology thesis with practical advice and personal stories.

• immigrant advantage as resilience, clarity, and risk appetite
• Unshackled’s Day Z...

We confront the collision between AI’s soaring compute needs and a grid unready for 50% peak expansions, then map a practical path to build clean, firm power fast without losing sight of affordability. Dan shares candid insights on markets, permitting, contracts, and how 3Degrees tackles Scope 3 at scale.

• AI demand growth outpacing efficiency gains
• Wartime mobilization mindset for energy buildout
• All-the-abov...

We weigh the promise and peril of the AI agent economy, pressing into how overprovisioned non-human identities, shadow AI, and SaaS integrations expand risk while go-to-market teams push for speed. A CMO and a CFO align on governance-first pilots, PLG trials, buyer groups, and the adoption metrics that sustain value beyond the sale.

• AI adoption surge matched by adversary AI
• Overprovisioned agents and shadow AI in S...

Australia needs control over its intelligence layer, not just its data. We explore SCX’s sovereign AI cloud, Project Magpie’s cultural reasoning, and why inference economics and time-to-market beat hype-driven buildouts.

• sovereign AI as control and context, not just security
• SCX’s inference cloud and partnership with SambaNova
• Project Magpie fine-tuning the reasoning layer for Australia
• training vs infe...

We sit down with Jeff Perry, CRO at Carta, to explore how growth leaders redefine success when capital tightens, buyers get smarter, and AI reshapes cost structures.  We unpack how growth has changed, why IPO-ready now means post-IPO durable, and how Carta scaled from a cap table tool to an ERP-like platform for private capital while staying efficient and customer-first. Jeff shares concrete tactics for moving upmarket, using AI wi...

We map the data, policy, and funding failures that created the women’s health gap and lay out a California-led plan to fix it with research built for women, agile AI governance, and voter-backed capital. The goal: better outcomes, lower costs, and a template to repair healthcare at large.

• two percent venture funding and underpowered trials
• AI amplifying bias without sex-specific datasets
• misdiagnosis, adverse...

The B2B SaaS market is experiencing a significant slowdown with growth rates dropping, while traditional marketing channels deliver diminishing returns in an increasingly saturated landscape.

• Marketing benchmarks show companies growing faster than 20% spend 10-15% of revenue on marketing, while slower-growing firms spend only 7-9%
• Digital channels like SEO (search engine optimization), PPC (pay per click), and emai...

We explore the monumental shift from SEO to GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) as AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity become the new front doors to the internet, fundamentally changing how customers discover businesses online.

• Traffic patterns are transforming as users get answers directly from AI without clicking through to websites
• Content optimized for AI interpretation requires different approaches than ...