Founders {Uncensored}
Long-form, candid conversations with founders building AI-first companies. Every episode reconstructs a real company-building decision — the bets made, what broke, what it cost, and what they'd never do again.
Featured episode
Why This Founder Keeps Going Back Into the Fire
Kris Beevers sold one company and immediately started another. Kris Beevers is the co-founder and CEO of NetBox Labs, previously co-founder of NS1 (acquired by IBM in 2023), and he's started four companies total, including a failed wood products business. He explains why he'd rather kill a company than lose a friendship, why he built in New York instead of San Francisco, and why he never moved past "I don't know what I'm doing" even after multiple exits.
How Knowing When to Pivot Built a Better Company
Fire your paying customers to escape a false-signal startup, with Caitlin Leksana, Fazeshift.
Why Founder Conviction Beats Funding
A competitor raised 25 times more capital and still isn't winning. Steve Ancheta, Founder and CEO of Zig.ai, spent 16 years carrying quota before betting on a sales execution platform built to close the gaps that burn reps out. He explains why he benchmarks his messaging against AI labs instead of competitors, why the first customer signed on a working but ugly prototype over a polished one, and the five-minute whiteboard reset an early investor forced on him after funding closed.
The Founder Lessons Tom Chavez Learned Building Four Companies
Peter Day sits down with four-time founder and super{set} General Partner Tom Chavez to unpack the hard lessons of building companies and evolving from founder to CEO.