Customer discovery

Jul 10, 2026

The AI-Native Startup Playbook (Ep. 1008 with Jon Krohn)

Anthropic's Founder's Playbook redefines startup building in the AI era, emphasizing that AI has removed traditional bottlenecks, making execution cheap and judgment the scarce resource. The playbook outlines four stages—Idea, MVP, Launch, and Scale—providing practical guidance on sharpening problem statements, using AI as a devil's advocate, combating agentic technical debt, achieving true product-market fit, and building defensible moats against incumbents. The overarching message: prioritize strategic sense-making over effortless building.

Jun 17, 2026

How To Pick A Startup Idea

Jon Xu, a YC General Partner, argues against the "perfect idea" trap and juggling multiple startup concepts. He advocates for founders to commit deeply to a single idea, immersing themselves in customer problems to the point of understanding their business intimately. This approach, especially vital in the AI era, involves building at the frontier of technology, verticalizing to own outcomes, and aiming for the most ambitious version of a solution, ultimately yielding invaluable insights and potential for pivot, even if the initial idea doesn't succeed.