Mike Maples knows how AI startups can beat incumbents with billions of dollars.
Mike—who wrote early checks to Twitter, Twitch, Okta, and Lyft, and now invests through Floodgate, the fund he cofounded—told me it's not about the smartest model, or raising the most money.
Startups can win in AI with better strategy.
AI is changing the economics of startups—both how they’re started and how they’re funded. A new breed of companies is emerging, and I invited Mike on the show to talk about how they can best strategize. Last year, Mike co-authored a book called Pattern Breakers, which is essentially a guidebook to why there’s no guidebook to building companies. I really liked it, and my colleague Evan Armstrong reviewed it for Every, so I was glad to have him on. We talk about how shifts in technology create space for smaller players to compete—even with AI giants like OpenAI—and how to capitalize on them.
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Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Episode start
00:02:20 - Introduction
00:06:02 - Innovate the business model, not just the product
00:15:49 - How startups can compete against the likes of OpenAI
00:19:34 - Mike's take on DeepSeek
00:21:44 - Why the future has always belonged to the tinkerers
00:24:03 - How small teams today can make big money
00:28:55 - Find niches that incumbents can't or don't want to enter
00:45:50 - The qualities of the truly AI-native
00:52:28 - How AI changes the funding model for software companies
00:57:05 - Knowledge work is moving toward systems-level thinking
Links to resources mentioned:
Mike Maple: @m2jr
The fund Mike confounded, Floodgate: @floodgatefund
Evan’s piece reviewing Pattern Breakers: https://every.to/napkin-math/a-new-bo...
Dan’s piece on the allocation economy: https://every.to/chain-of-thought/the...
