EPISODE 64

In this guest-free Founder Mode episode, Kevin and Jason run through five stories from the last thirty days to answer one question: is AI actually making your company better, or just busier? They open on Anthropic's short-lived "Fable 5" model — released, jailbroken, and switched off within days — and use it to riff on why staying at the AI frontier matters. From there they get practical: how to use AI to make yourself smarter rather than drowning your team in unread 30-page docs, why "show me where I'm wrong" beats getting glazed by a model that always agrees with you, and where things stand in the AI layoff cycle now that a $200-a-month subscription can act like an employee. Jason lays out his four levels of AI adoption — from treating it like Google up to a swarm of agents working while you sleep — and predicts level five will split companies into two classes. They close with Jason's confession (an AI outbound campaign that booked meetings, recorded podcasts, and made zero dollars, while a warm referral closed in eight days), the case for consulting-as-SaaS, and the founder's real job: firing yourself from every role and figuring out which one you should actually be playing this week. The throughline — the best model doesn't win, the best-organized company does.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Intro: Better or Just Busier?

00:43 – The AI Anthropic Gave, Then Switched Off

02:56 – Using AI to Get Smarter, Not Just Busier

07:41 – The $200 Employee and the AI Layoff Cycle

12:02 – The Four Levels of AI Adoption

14:44 – Consulting as SaaS: Context Is the Unlock

17:38 – The Confession: Zero Dollars vs. a Referral in 8 Days

19:56 – Firing Yourself From Every Job

22:47 – Recap and the Founder Mode Top Five

LINKS

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