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The Startup Ideas Podcast

The Startup Ideas Podcast

By: Greg Isenberg
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 Get your creative juices flowing with The Startup Ideas Podcast. Published twice a week, we bring you free startup ideas to inspire your next venture. Hosted by Greg Isenberg, CEO of Late Checkout and former advisor to Reddit and TikTok. Subscribe so you don't miss out. For more startup ideas, we created a database of 30+ startup ideas you can take at https://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas© The Startup Ideas Podcast Economics Leadership Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • How to win with AI Agents in 2026

    How to win with AI Agents in 2026
    Apr 29 2026
    Limited BONUS: First 1,000 builders get $1,000. Claim yours while supplies lasts.: https://startup-ideas-pod.link/hyperagent I sit down with Howie Liu, co-founder and CEO of Airtable, to talk about the agent economy and the launch of HyperAgent. We walk through Sequoia's charts on AI agent deployment, the economics of token-based work versus human labor, and why frontier agents have crossed a threshold that changes how companies get built. Howie then does a live show-and-tell of HyperAgent, including a custom "Greg Isenberg contrarian AI" skill he spins up in real time. This one is for anyone building a solopreneur business, operating a fleet of agents, or trying to figure out where to place their bet in the agent ecosystem Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 02:22 – Sequoia's AI agent deployment chart reaction 04:41 – Copilot vs Autopilot territory and the $1T+ opportunity 08:13 – Agent economics vs human labor costs 11:12 – Fastest enterprise adoption curve in history 14:48 – The agent command center and fleet of 20 agents 18:03 – What is HyperAgent? 19:43 – Live demo: hyperlocal real estate market reports 22:38 – HyperAgent as the founder, not just the developer 23:21 – Street View, Zillow redesigns, and visual tool power 24:15 – Command center view across a fleet of agents 25:48 – Skills as the key primitive for frontier agents 26:30 – Building the Greg Isenberg contrarian AI skill live 32:31 – HyperAgent vs Perplexity Computer, Manus, OpenClaw, Codex 34:52 – Reviewing writing skill 36:55 – The arbitrage of persistence 41:31 – Confidence milestones: first dollar, $10K/month 35:27 – Reviewing contrarian tweet drafts live 45:05 – Giving the agent feedback and building rubrics 50:15 – Connectors, OAuth, and building custom API skills 53:03 – How to get started with HyperAgent 01:01:54 – Credit giveaway for listeners 01:03:31 – Closing Thoughts Key Points Frontier agents have crossed a threshold in the last 4–5 months where they function as true autonomous coworkers, not just chat assistants. Reframe agent cost by value delivered: a $150 token spend for a board memo beats hours of human time, so anchor on opportunity cost. The real arbitrage is persistence: 99% of people quit after one shot, while daily practice for 30/60/90 days produces top 1% operators. Skills are the most important primitive in frontier agents, turning generally intelligent models into domain experts through playbooks. HyperAgent's differentiation is a low floor plus a high ceiling, with rubrics, LLM-as-judge evals, and fleet-wide observability for scaling. Aim for $100B companies with under 5 employees, built on fleets of always-on agents mapped to human job roles. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND HOWIE ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/howietl Hyperagent: https://www.hyperagent.com Airtable: https://www.airtable.com-
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    1 hr and 27 mins
  • Codex clearly explained (and how to use it)

    Codex clearly explained (and how to use it)
    Apr 27 2026
    I sit down with Riley Brown to get a hands-on tour of OpenAI's Codex, which he argues is the most powerful single interface for using AI agents today. Riley walks me through how Codex unifies vibe coding, knowledge work, browser use, computer use, and automations into one app, all running on GPT 5.5. I come in as a complete Codex skeptic who has spent most of my time in Claude Code, and Riley shows me skills, plugins, projects, Remotion, Chronicle, and the in-app browser to make his case. By the end, the question becomes whether the era of separate tools for documents, decks, code, and research is collapsing into a single super app. 00:00 – Intro 03:23 – What is Codex 06:46 – Why a GUI beats the terminal for most users 10:13 – Codex: the all in one platform 12:48 – Atlas browser inside Codex 14:21 – Remotion explained and motion graphics workflows 19:28 – Computer use and Chronicle 22:26 – Plugins, skills, MCPs, and integrations 31:57 – Evals, examples, and good outpu 38:43 – Hard questions: who Codex is built for 40:44 – Browser use plays itself in chess 43:20 – Running Claude Code inside Codex 45:58 – GPT 5.5 cost and effort settings 48:50 – GPT Images 2.0 54:09 – Why most people feel overwhelmed by AI tools 57:09 – Three projects to start with on day one and Closing thoughts Key Points Codex is positioned as a super app where coding, documents, decks, research, and automations live in one interface, with GPT 5.5 as the underlying model. The trend across Codex, Cursor, and the Claude Code desktop app is the same GUI pattern: chats on the left, agent in the middle, output on the right. Plugins offer official integrations like Slack, Notion, Sheets, Remotion, and Canva, while skills are user-created instructions stored as a SKILL.md file. Computer use and browser use have crossed a speed threshold; the chess demo runs at near-human pace, a leap from earlier "dial-up" feeling agents. Running Claude Code inside the Codex terminal lets you stack both subscriptions and use each model where it shines. The biggest unlock for companies is collecting good examples of finished work so agents can match the bar. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND RILEY ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://x.com/rileybrown Vibe Code App: https://www.vibecodeapp.com Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@rileybrownai/videos
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    1 hr and 26 mins
  • ChatGPT Images 2.0 Is Here. I Tested Everything.

    ChatGPT Images 2.0 Is Here. I Tested Everything.
    Apr 22 2026
    In this solo episode, I walk through ChatGPT Images 2.0 and show exactly how to use it to build creative assets that move a business forward, from brand visual directions to UI mockups to apparel mockups and editorial illustrations. I share the AI tool that surprised me this week (Noscroll), hand over a startup idea I want someone to steal (a learn-to-draw app with AI feedback on every sketch), and give you a five-step framework for finding and building a vertical AI business. I end with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that fired me up and a reminder to go conquer the day. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 01:21 – What's New in ChatGPT Images 2.0 03:14 – Best Use Cases for Images 2.0 15:15 – Top Tips for Asset Generation 17:10 – Tool of the Week: Noscroll 20:17 – Startup Idea: Learn-to-Draw App with AI Feedback 24:58 – Framework: How to Find a Vertical AI Business to Build 29:45 – Closing Thoughts and Emerson Quote Key Points ChatGPT Images 2.0 delivers 2K resolution, eight images per prompt, thinking mode with web search, and dramatically better text rendering across languages. Specificity is the whole game with 2.0: dialed-in aesthetic, camera, lighting, palette, subjects, and output dimensions separate cinematic results from stock-looking ones. Every business has four creative bottlenecks: marketing content, internal decks and training, visual explanation, and testing before building. No Scroll is a glimpse into the future of AI agents: small, focused products that read the internet for you and text only what matters. Vertical AI beats horizontal AI for reaching seven and eight figures in ARR because niche workflows plus proprietary data equal defensibility. The Emerson mindset: own the day, finish it, forget the blunders, and begin tomorrow serenely. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ The Vibe Marketer - Resources for people into vibe marketing/marketing with AI: https://www.thevibemarketer.com/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/
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    32 mins
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