Great Chat

Marina v. Mission (no horse in this race)

Catch the full episode: Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/55m6N0… Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dea… YouTube: youtu.be/JgIr31l0CiM?si…

Dear Graduates: we're sorry about the Schmidt speech. This week, we break down the nuance behind the boos, and grapple with the reality that no tech leader could have delivered a rousing AI speech in this moment. On the bright side, Schmidt sent us down a fun rabbit hole, reviewing some of the best commencement speeches in recent history (RIP Steve Jobs). 🎙️ @helen_min & @ashleymayer

Congrats to @Mercury, our favorite bank and longtime pod supporter 🙌

I legit didn't realize I had so many feelings about what it means to be a "mission-driven" startup in 2026 until our recent @greatchatpod hang. Tl;dr: today's startups missions are more adversarial, and generally oriented around winning (versus the softer and more idealistic missions of prior tech eras).

@helen_min Catch the full pod here: Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/3ffKRQ… Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wha… YouTube: youtu.be/dRceuhYla7A?si…

From @helen_min: Missions used to be the way startups competed with FAANG for talent.

What does it mean to be mission-driven in 2026 versus earlier tech eras? The group chat weighs in. 🎙️ @helen_min @ashleymayer & Angela Du

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Catch the full episode: Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gre… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/5aDcfE… YouTube: youtu.be/TOI9XG4p6kM?si…

In this era of hot takes loosely held, we reveal the hills we're ready to die on. @helen_min's: Ads are the perfect business model.

@loveLFM @david__booth Orthogonal, jevons paradox, overton window, legible to capital, first principles, durable, compounding, wedge, non-consensus, default alive, surface area, tension, collapse the stack, asymmetric, memetic, slope

@greatchatpod @david__booth My money’s on a redundant portmanteau that somehow includes “orthogonal”

I’ve become obsessed with the idea of “talent engineering” as the next big role recruiting today looks like sales/sales development 5 yrs ago… full of relationship-oriented people who define ICPs manually, build candidate pools from LinkedIn Recruiter, curate sprawling applicant tracking CRMs, write outreach and navigate mutuals to find warm intros. “Talent engineer” follows the same structural pattern as a GTM engineer, but applied to another critical lead funnel… they are a smart, agent building “growth-minded individuals, thinking systematically about: 1) discoverability (where does the right person exist in the world, what public and private signals can we consume, how?) 2) attraction (what signals make them open the email?) 3) assessment (what's the structured way to know if they're actually good?), and 4) close (what moves the needle, gets them to choose your company vs. someone else?)... When we announced the @a16z Growth Engineer Fellowship recently (applications close tomorrow, btw), we defined the landscape: “AI is enabling extreme personalization at scale. Hyper-targeted landing pages, demos, voice agent scripts, ads, influencer marketing campaigns, and more - tailored to each unique customer.” …. If you swap “customer” for “candidate” and you have another startup MVP hire, who everyone needs asap. Does this resonate?? I’ve been speaking with a handful of these people… eager to chat and learn, going to host a gathering in next few weeks, maybe build some agents together .. reply / tag someone / DM if you’re interested in joining 🙋‍♂️👇

@loveLFM @david__booth x.com/greatchatpod/s…

@david__booth if adding "engineering" to the title results in more respect for the role, have at it, but you legitimately just described "recruiter" / "talent" :)

Catch the full episode: Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dev… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/563GGn… YouTube: youtu.be/6mPqsjSXQw8?si…

If every role is getting a sexy AI rebrand (growth engineer, operations engineer, etc), what do we call the actual engineers? 🎙️ @helen_min, @ashleymayer & guest host @mattyp

@adelwu_ @mattyp Our ICP <3

@greatchatpod @mattyp omg the crossover i needed

When everyone is a potential builder, what does developer marketing even mean? @mattyp joins us this week to weigh in. When AI coding products don't know who their customer is "you get products that are for everyone and no one at the same time."

Making my debut as unemployed podcaster with the lovely @helen_min and @ashleymayer of @greatchatpod We had a fun conversation on the sf social scene, vibe coding, & developer marketing in 2026 Always great to chat (see what I did there) with these legends

@mattyp 🥰

@greatchatpod honored to be in such distinguished and beautiful company

🎙️ @helen_min, @ashleymayer & guest host @mattyp Catch the full episode: Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dev… Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/563GGn… YouTube: youtu.be/6mPqsjSXQw8?si…