Not Another Podcast

Most startup founders don't make it past year three. Bo Jiang is entering year twelve. As the CEO and co-founder of Lithic, Bo has lived what feels like two completely different startup journeys in one company. He launched Privacy.com in 2014 as a consumer app helping people create virtual credit cards for safer online shopping. After issuing over 10 million cards, he hit a wall… legacy paymen...

Nathan Stoll helped build the modern internet. Literally. He was an early product manager at Google before the IPO. He worked on the systems that powered Google’s ad revenue. He helped scale Google News globally. He even launched Google Suggest: the autocomplete feature billions of people use every day. And yet… this conversation wasn’t really about tech. Nathan has built and sold two companies (t...

After 12 years at Forbes, Alex Konrad walked away from one of the most prestigious seats in tech journalism. He ran the Midas List. Co-created the Cloud 100. Wrote cover stories on the biggest names in tech. And then he left… to build his own media company from scratch. In this episode, Alex joins me to talk about what happens when you go from covering founders to being one . We get honest about e...

Most founders spend years asking the wrong questions. “How fast can this grow? How big could this be? What’s the smartest next move?” But the questions that actually shape your life usually come much later… often after you’re already exhausted, anxious, or stuck on a path that doesn’t feel right anymore. In this episode of Not Another Podcast , Brennan sits down with Evan Walden , CEO and co-found...

Most of the AI world is obsessed with chatbots, agents, and software abstractions. Anto Patrex thinks that’s a distraction. Anto is the founder and CEO of CosmicBrain AI, a former NASA robotics engineer, and an early member of Elon Musk’s xAI team where he helped build Grok. In this episode of Not Another Podcast , Anto makes the case that the real AI revolution won’t live on your screen. It will...

Startup culture loves extremes. Grind harder. Sleep less. Push through. Don’t complain. And if you’re struggling, the assumption is simple: you’re not cut out for it. In this solo Q&A episode of Not Another Podcast, Brennan Pothetes flips that narrative on its head. After months of thoughtful DMs from founders, operators, and investors, Brennan sits down to answer the questions people usually...

Dane Atkinson has lived just about every version of the founder story. He started his first company at 18. He’s been the CEO of Squarespace in its early years. He’s founded and exited multiple companies, including SumAll. He’s raised roughly $750 million across his career. He’s built businesses that employed thousands of people and created billions in equity value. And about half of his companies...

While other fintechs raised huge rounds, hired armies, and announced half-baked features, Brandon Arvanaghi built Meow into a billion-dollar business with ~12 people, no hype cycles, no vanity metrics, and a culture so high-ownership that one wrong hire can collapse the whole org. This is not another “sort of intense” founder interview. This is a blueprint for anyone who actually wants to build a...

Dave Blakely is one of the most quietly influential operators in Silicon Valley. He’s the kind of operator that founders don’t realize they’re learning from because his fingerprints are on so many iconic products, teams, and innovation programs. For decades he helped lead IDEO , the most legendary design and innovation firm on the planet. His work there shaped billions of dollars in enterprise val...

Jess Mah has one of the wildest founder journeys in Silicon Valley. She taught herself to code at 10. Launched her first company at 11. Got into Berkeley at 16. Joined Y Combinator at 19. Landed magazine covers. Raised money. Built a company people said would “change everything.” And then it all collapsed. Jess ran out of money. Laid off her entire team. Fell into a long, brutal burnout that force...

Everyone in tech talks about raising. Almost no one talks about owning. In this episode of Not Another Podcast , Brennan Pothetes sits down with Alex Matjanec, a serial founder who built and sold multiple companies without a dollar of venture funding, to unpack what it really takes to build wealth, freedom, and meaning in a world addicted to speed. Alex built his first startup during the 2008 fina...

Everyone’s obsessed with AI. Almost no one understands the war that’s already being fought. In this episode of Not Another Podcast , Brennan Pothetes sits down with Nicole Maffeo, a former Bridgewater investor, ex-Google AI leader, and co-founder of Gambit Robotics, to unpack who’s really winning the global AI race . From China’s surveillance-driven data advantage to the U.S.’s bureaucratic slowdo...

What if the very traits that make you successful… are also the ones slowly breaking you? In this episode of Not Another Podcast , Brennan Pothetes sits down with Alex Song, former Goldman Sachs and Pershing Square investor turned founder & CEO of Proxima, to explore the brutal, hidden side of building. Alex has lived every founder archetype: Finance prodigy. Serial entrepreneur. Operator of a...

Most founders talk about growth, not intimacy. But here’s the truth: how you show up in your relationships is how you show up as a leader. In this episode of Not Another Podcast , Brennan Pothetes sits down with Natassia Miller (sexologist, entrepreneur, and founder of Wanderlust Intimacy) to explore how vulnerability, communication, and connection at home translate into better leadership in busin...

Most founders build for optics: flashy raises, big valuations, and investor approval. But what happens when you build for ownership instead? In the first episode of Not Another Podcast , Brennan Pothetes sits down with Francis Pedraza , founder of Invisible Technologies , to explore what it really means to control your company’s destiny. Francis built one of the world’s leading AI operations compa...