Shows / AI for Founders with Ryan Estes
AI for Founders with Ryan Estes
AI for Founders is where 47,000+ founders learn to build and scale with AI. Hosted by Ryan Estes, a Denver investor, creator, and founder, the show breaks down real strategies from top operators and AI visionaries. AI-ready data, zero-dependency workflows, founder-led distribution, and the tools driving revenue for today’s fastest-growing companies. If you’re a technical or non-technical founder who wants to work smarter, scale faster, and stay competitive, this podcast is your weekly unfair…
Episodes
AI for Founders with Ryan Estes"We Don't Use AI" Will Be the Flex of 2026
Two fifteen-year-old rock climbing buddies from Long Island made a pact in a surf lineup: build one-of-a-kind experiences for causes they cared about. That…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe Physicist Building a Compiler for the Real World | Hugo Nordell, Encube
Some of the smartest engineers alive are designing the physical world with software older than their interns. Brake discs, axles, medical devices, aircraft…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesWhy Posting on LinkedIn Is Dead (And What Top Founders Do Instead)
That is the dirty secret of LinkedIn for most founders. You scroll, you cringe at the textbook-perfect ChatGPT posts, you maybe drop a like, and you log off…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesAI Just Closed 40% of Your Tickets Without You
Your IT team is drowning. Every "how do I get access to..." Slack message you fire off is making it worse. And while everyone in 2026 is busy debating whether…
AI for Founders with Ryan Estes$1.6 Billion of Equity On-Chain. Here Is Why.
Picture St. Louis, 1849. Two men with a bottle of champagne and a brutal choice: go north for beaver pelts, or go south chasing gold in California. Joris…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesTiny Brands Are Outranking Billion-Dollar Companies. Here Is the Hack.
Everything you know about getting found online is about to be obsolete. For two decades, founders chased one algorithm. Backlinks, page speed, keyword…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe Founder Is the Bottleneck. Here's How to Clone Your Judgment.
You are the smartest person in your company. That is exactly the problem. Every founder hits the same wall. The strategy lives in your head. The taste lives in…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesYour Face, Voice, and Data Are Fakeable. Here's What Isn't.
Everything you trust online is about to break, and André Ferraz built a company to catch the people breaking it. Picture a 12-year-old kid riding his bike…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesData agents you can trust in production. | Pradnesh Patil from Altimate AI
Pradnesh Patil spent years as a product leader at Fortune 500 companies bringing in millions in revenue, and every single quarter the same thing kept…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesYour Vibe Code Just Handed Hackers Your Database - Punit Bhatia, Founder of Fit4Privacy
When Punit Bhatia walks into a founder's office, the building is usually already on fire. Someone configured the CRM, blasted thousands of cold emails, scaled…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe AI EA Flex
Will Ruben spent more than a decade at the companies that taught the internet what attention looks like. He led ranking and recommendations across Instagram…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesJazz Fusion in the Agentic Era
When Tim Freestone first logged into ChatGPT on November 23, 2022, he turned to his wife and said, "Okay, this is a thing." Two and a half years later, he's…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesOne Problem, Forever
The Stealth Decade That Built a Category Most founders ship in six weeks and pivot in six months. Sameet Gupte and his four co-founders did the opposite. They…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesQuit Code to Grow Lettuce
In a market obsessed with AI multiples and overnight unicorn exits, Bryce Nagels is making a different bet. The CEO and co-founder of Planteva Farms is…
AI for Founders with Ryan Estes"Your Code Is Worthless" A Top VC Just Told Us Why | The Trillion-Dollar Founder Personality Type Nobody Talks About
Jim Ferry has spent his career on the investor side of the table at Volition Capital, a Boston-based growth equity fund that writes Series A and B checks into…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesHealthcare's AI Operating System | AI Won't Replace Your Doctor. Here's What It Will Do Instead.
In 2017, while most founders were still debating whether chatbots had a future, Punit Singh Soni was studying speech models with the patience of someone who'd…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesIs AI Slop Killing SEO? | From Zero to Indexed in Two Weeks: The Real SEO Timeline
Most founders treat SEO like a slot machine. Pull the lever, publish a blog, pray to the algorithm gods. Kaelan Donadio, co-founder of Nina (trynina.co)…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesYour Next Co-Founder Should Be AI
Most founders are still asking how to use AI. Dave Sifry is asking something stranger: what if the org chart itself is the product? Nine companies in, Dave is…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesStop Doing Your Own HR
Most founders don't think about HR until HR thinks about them. And by then, it's a letter on the desk demanding $38,000 and a lien notice attached for good…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesSynthetic Relationships, FTW
Rebecca Liao spent her career advising the most powerful people in the world. Clinton's campaign. Biden's transition. The Pentagon's policy halls. And then one…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe Real IP Is How You Think
Most founders are racing to build on top of the foundation models. Dan Pratl is doing something stranger and more interesting: he's betting against them. Or…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe Asset Class Quietly Making Millionaires
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Anti-AI Asset: How Nathan Jameson Builds Fortress Wealth in a Market Obsessed With Hype Nathan Jameson sits outside Philadelphia with a human skull…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe Searchable Life: When Memories Get a Database
Bob Matteson grew up around a father who quietly carried a piece of history with him for decades. The dad attended Game 6 of the 1945 Cubs vs. Tigers World…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe Truth About Lying to Your Doctor
Stephen Rouse didn't set out to pick a fight with Google, OpenAI, Amazon, and Microsoft. He just noticed something broken. Every founder in his orbit was…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesFix the Thing 70% of Americans Are Ignoring
The Will You Don't Have Is Already Costing You Most people think estate planning is something you do when you're old, wealthy, or both. David Rosati spent 15…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesLegal AI: Why Lawyers Are Finally Free to Think
Devansh walked into the legal tech market and saw a graveyard of point solutions. Word doc plugins. Document hosting tools. Niche contract reviewers. Each one…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesNeuro Spiritual Sovereignty - 10 Years and Zero Shortcuts
Most founders obsess over the wrong leverage point. Not the funnel. Not the product. Not the team. The voice in your head running all three. Dr. Dhruva Gulur…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesPodcast DJ: The Cliff Notes for Your Podcast Queue
Most founders aren't short on information. They're short on signal. Kevin, founder and CEO of Snipd, has been quietly solving the problem that every…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesPeptides, and the Future of Human Performance
Dr. Ian Ellis, Founder of voafit.com | Precision Dosing, Peptides, and the Future of Human Performance The story starts in an emergency room. Dr. Ian Ellis…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesIRL Events Are the New Moat
★★★★★ You can automate your outreach. You can spin up agents overnight. But you cannot automate the moment someone walks into a room and feels seen. Virginia…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe Behavioral Health Crisis Is a Data Problem
The average patient gets seen and disappears. No signal, no follow-up, no data trail. Just a receipt and a co-pay. Lauren Larson, CEO of Videra Health, knows…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe AI Analyst That Never Sleeps: Burak Karakan of Bruin
Say Hello to Your AI Data Analyst: How Bruin Is Replacing Headcount, Not Just Dashboards There is a question Burak Karakan wants every founder to ask…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesDelightful Procurement: The CFO That Never Sleeps - Alex Yakubovich from Levelpath
Procurement Is Not Boring. It's Just Broken. There is a word that kills deals before they start. A word that makes investors yawn, makes journalists skip the…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesYour API Keys Are Killing Your Productivity: Mitchell Jones of Lava.so
Mitchell Jones did not set out to build a payments company. He set out to solve a problem he could not stop running into: brilliant people paralyzed by…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe New SEO Is Happening Without You
The theme of Q1 2026 is "I feel behind." Every founder, from the scrappy solo operator to the venture-backed exec, is feeling the same anxiety. Site traffic is…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesEnterprise AI for $20 a Month
The dream of AI that actually knows your business has been haunted by two enemies since day one: hallucinations and speed. Everyone building on top of large…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe B2G Playbook Nobody Talks About (And It's Printing Money)
Most founders spend their careers chasing customers who are already convinced. Nick Lopez spent his learning to find customers who don't even know they need…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesDo you know where your AI agents are?
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ There is a moment every founder hits. You have spun up agents, handed them access to your systems, pointed them at your data, and watched them go. It…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesAI booked 650 meetings, and almost got a date
There is a moment in every founder's journey where they realize the bottleneck in their pipeline is not their product, not their pricing, and not their pitch…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesBuilt a $50M+ AI Support Empire by Owning the Edges
Guest: David Karandish, CEO and Co-Founder of Capacity.com In December 2016, the top-selling product on Amazon was not a toy, a book, or a video game. It was…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesFrom idea to iPhone app
There is a moment in every founder's journey where they realize the map they were given was wrong. The old map said: have an idea, find a developer, wait…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesWhen IQ becomes a commodity
Jesse Marble did not set out to build a typical VC firm. Growing up steeped in Colorado culture, watching people chase outdoor adventure, physical health, and…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe soft skill crisis costing healthcare billions
There's a moment in every founder's journey where the market stops being theoretical and becomes deeply personal. For Lucas Consoli, co-founder of EmpathEQ…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesMedical tourism is a $100B industry
When the Market Is a WhatsApp Group, That's Your Opportunity Some of the best startup ideas don't come from pitch decks. They come from watching thousands of…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesAI didn't take your job. It froze the hiring line. Here's what that means.
There is a certain kind of founder who, after building and exiting a company, does not slow down. They just get quieter about it. Colin McIntosh is that…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesWill VC destroy your startup?
There's a place in Denver, inside a buzzing AI builder clubhouse, where the future gets stress-tested out loud every Wednesday night. That's where this…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesSearchable personal memory, now
Josh Gilmer on AI video journaling, founder self-awareness, searchable memory, and the future of personal growth Most founders say they want self-awareness…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesSpeed is killing AI startups
This conversation starts with a blunt idea: most AI companies are moving fast enough to impress people, but not carefully enough to survive themselves. What…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe uncanny valley is real
Ryan opens with a founder gut check. Scale sounds sexy, but control is the real addiction. Then Marcin walks in with a real world mirror, because warehouses do…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesSocial media is killing your memories
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: social media isn’t preserving your memories. It’s strip-mining their meaning. We built trillion-dollar machines so strangers…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesCongrats on the revenue. Sorry about your money.
Most founders are accidentally running a casino. Not a company. They’re bragging about ROAS, celebrating revenue spikes, and somehow… still bleeding cash…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesShe exited in 18 months, then walked away to find stillness
If stillness is the source of your best decisions, why is your calendar built like it is trying to kill it? Be honest. When was the last time your biggest…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesAI is quietly stealing your life’s work
What if the most valuable asset in your company isn’t your tech stack, your team, or even your brand What if it’s the quiet archive sitting on your laptop In…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesStop building. Do this first.
Your startup idea is probably garbage. Not because you are dumb. Because you are in love. And love makes you build… a product nobody wants. Here’s the…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesMost founders pick the wrong tools
Most founders don’t have a software problem… they have a decision problem. We spend weeks “researching” tools, comparing top 10 lists, reading reviews written…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesThe Algorithm lied to you about music
AI music companies are treating creativity like disposable garbage, and they’re about to hit a wall so hard it sparks the next artistic renaissance.Hot take…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesAre you building a team of AI passengers coasting toward irrelevance?
"Stop hiring AI passengers, they're dead weight. If your team says 'this is what AI thinks,' fire them. Here's why..."Two billion people use AI every day, but…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesEveryone is building AI wrong
The best AI companies won't use LLMs. Here's why most founders are building the wrong thing... Everyone's chasing ChatGPT wrappers while the real money is…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesAI music to heal relationships
Hot take: AI isn’t killing creativity, it’s exposing how emotionally lazy founders have become. Because most people use AI to move faster, not to feel deeper…
AI for Founders with Ryan EstesHe built a $1M SaaS alone
College didn’t get expensive. It got unnecessary for anyone who wants to make real money in the next 10 years.Because the future isn’t “learn more.” It’s learn…