Liftoff with Keith: Conversations with Super Founders and Growth Experts sharing useful insights

The AI boom isn't over but the first wave is. In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, Keith sits down with Clint Chao, Co-Founder & General Partner at Moment Ventures, to discuss where AI is really headed, why enterprise software is entering a new phase, and what founders should focus on as the hype settles. They explore venture capital, AI adoption, enterprise transformation, startup execu...

What separates unforgettable brands from businesses that constantly fight for attention? In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, branding expert Bill Harper, Founder of Brand Boss HQ and one of the world's Top 20 Branding Experts, shares why branding—not just marketing—is the ultimate competitive advantage. Bill explains why most companies spend too much time optimizing ads and too little time...

Most businesses don't fail because they lack ideas. They fail because they struggle to execute, communicate their value clearly, and connect with the right customers. In this episode of Liftoff, Keith Newman sits down with Stephen Cozzolongo, Partner & CMO at Digital Position, to discuss growth marketing, customer acquisition, AI, business scaling, leadership, and the mindset required to b...

Healthcare costs continue to rise, employees have fewer choices than ever, and many employers are stuck navigating a system that feels increasingly unsustainable. In this episode of Liftoff, Keith Newman sits down with Brandy Thompson, Founder & CEO of BenefitBay, to discuss the future of healthcare benefits, employee choice, leadership, entrepreneurship, and building a fast-growing company in...

In this episode, Keith sits down with an AI infrastructure leader to unpack what is really happening behind the current AI boom. While most conversations focus on models and hype, this discussion goes deeper into the engineering realities of building reliable AI systems at scale. The conversation explores why observability, telemetry, debugging, and system architecture are becoming critical as ent...

AI infrastructure is breaking the old data center model. In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, I sit down with Lukas Gentele, CEO & Co-Founder of vCluster Labs, to unpack what it really takes to operate GPU infrastructure at scale in 2026. As AI workloads explode and neoclouds race to meet demand, Lukas and his team are building the operational backbone for modern AI clouds — from managed Kub...

Welcome back to Liftoff with Keith, the show where we sit down with the founders, operators, and industry leaders building the future in real time. Today’s guest is one of the most respected voices in digital infrastructure — Dean Nelson. Dean has spent nearly four decades at the center of the internet economy, helping build more than $10 billion in digital infrastructure across four continents fo...

In this episode, Keith speaks with Anthony Vinci, CEO of VICO, about how AI is changing decision-making for founders, investors, governments, and financial institutions. Anthony’s background spans intelligence, national security, investing, and artificial intelligence. Before founding VICO, he worked at Cerberus Capital Management, Bridgewater Associates, and served as the first Chief Technology O...

Steven Pivnik scaled his company to 200+ employees across 12 countries before executing a strategic acquisition to a $4B competitor. Along the way, he completed 17 IRONMAN triathlons and climbed at extreme altitude — including Everest. In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, we break down: The difference between growth and disciplined growth Why founders should design their exit years in advance Ho...

In this episode, Keith sat down with Michael Fors, inventor and owner of the Liquid Jazz Experience, to explore how a simple ritual turned into a patented product. What started as a weekly wine night with friends evolved into something much bigger. Over time, Michael began to notice a small but consistent problem. Great wine often needed time to open up, but real moments do not wait. That observat...

In this episode, we sit down with Gal, Founder of Borenstein Group, to unpack what it really takes to be visible in an AI driven world. Most founders still think visibility is about content or marketing channels. Gal takes a different view. He explains why visibility today is about building a system that AI can understand, trust and reference. We talk about what he calls a “minimum viable visibili...

In this episode, Keith sat down with Ari Gootnick, Founder at Lume, to unpack one of the most overlooked challenges in entrepreneurship—founder performance and burnout. Ari shares his personal journey from burnout and depression while working in a high-growth tech environment to building Lume, a performance lab designed to help founders operate at their peak—mentally, physically, and emotionally....

In this episode, Keith sat down with Jimi Gibson, Vice President of Brand Communication at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency, to unpack how visibility is changing in an AI-driven world. Before working with CEOs and founders, Jimi spent years as a professional magician—learning how to capture attention, build curiosity, and create unforgettable moments. Today, he applies those same principles to hel...

In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, we sit down with Anthony Blatner, Founder of Speedwork Social and a leading expert in LinkedIn B2B growth. Anthony shares a practical crawl-walk-run framework for companies looking to turn LinkedIn into a scalable demand generation channel. From founder-led content and employee advocacy to high-performing Thought Leader Ads, he explains how modern B2B compani...

In this special Liftoff Unicorn Conversation, Keith sits down with Henry Schuck, Founder & CEO of ZoomInfo, to explore the journey of building one of the most influential B2B data platforms in the world. Henry shares the story behind founding ZoomInfo in 2007, scaling through multiple growth stages, navigating the company’s IPO during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how ZoomInfo is now adapting to...

AI is rewriting the rules of SaaS — but not everyone is building it the right way. In this episode of Liftoff, Sreedhar Peddineni, CEO & Co-Founder of GTM Buddy, shares lessons from: Scaling through the dot-com crash Co-founding Gainsight and pioneering customer success- Now building an AI-native revenue activation platform We explore: Why sales teams don’t have a content problem — they have a...

What if the biggest innovation opportunity today isn’t in tech — but in education? In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, Keith sat down with Houlie Duque, Founder & CEO of HomeschoolToGo, to explore how personalized, project-based learning is reshaping the future of education. With over a decade of experience in Montessori and Cambridge systems, Houlie shares why traditional schooling — desig...

In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, Keith sat down with Devon Ferreira, CEO of CruTrade, to explore how technology is transforming the fine wine industry. Devon explains why the secondary wine market is broken—plagued by access issues, counterfeit risks, and bottle spoilage—and how CruTrade solves this through blockchain-verified provenance, RFID tracking, and tokenized wine trading that allows...

Most AI companies are racing to build bigger models. Pat Condo is building something different: AI you can actually trust. In this episode of Liftoff, Keith sat down with Pat Condo, Founder & CEO of Seekr Technologies — a seven-time founder with three decades at the intersection of search, defence, enterprise software, and national security. Pat shares why most enterprise AI projects fail — an...

Scaling is not about working harder — it’s about thinking differently. In this episode, Keith sat down with Casey Woo, former operator at WeWork, OpenAI, Flexport, and Zappos, founder of Operators Guild, and Managing Partner at FOG Ventures, to break down what it really takes to scale a company. Casey introduces the concept of the “Scaler” — the operator who thrives in complexity, builds systems t...

In this episode of Liftoff, Keith sits down with Amos Bar-Joseph, Co-Founder and CEO of Swan AI, to explore a radical shift in how modern companies scale. Amos shares why the traditional belief that growth equals headcount is breaking down—and how AI is enabling a new model: the autonomous business. At Swan, scale is no longer about adding people—it’s about increasing ARR per employee by embedding...

In this episode of Liftoff, Keith sat down with Arshavir Blackwell, PhD, AI researcher, founder, and author of The Creative Agency’s Guide to AI, to unpack what’s really happening behind today’s AI boom. With decades of experience building neural networks—from Ask Jeeves to enterprise AI—Arshavir explains why most so-called “AI agents” still don’t have real agency, why vertical focus is the only w...

Cold email isn’t dead — but doing it the old way is. In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, we sit down with AJ Cassata, Co-Founder of Revenue Boost, to break down what’s actually working in outbound lead generation today. AJ has helped 440+ startups, agencies, and SaaS companies build predictable revenue pipelines without relying on paid ads, social media algorithms, or massive budgets. We dive i...

2025 has officially become the year of AI — and the pace isn’t slowing down. In this episode of Liftoff, we sit down with Michael Palmer, CEO & Chief Scientist of Taos Research Corporation and author of the new book Agentify: The Art, Science, and Engineering of Successful AI Agents. Michael brings decades of experience spanning Silicon Valley startups, venture capital at Kleiner Perkins, and...

Chronic back pain affects more people than heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined — yet treatment hasn’t meaningfully changed in decades. In this episode of Liftoff, Keith talks with Dr. Steven M. Falowski, MD, FAANS — Director of Functional Neurosurgery and Strategic Advisor at SynerFuse, the company pioneering a transformational approach to spinal surgery. SynerFuse’s patented e-TLIF proce...