Full Stack Founders

Two-year-old company, two people, $1.4 billion in revenue. Hims & Hers took 10 years and 2,000 employees to reach $2 billion in revenue. The math has changed.

Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton open with the story of Sam Zemurray — the immigrant banana seller who took down United Fruit Company by playing one card: speed. Then they map the same play onto 2026. Why agentic AI is killing the org chart, what Mike found when he scraped one client's project management data (more than 40 hours a week in pure coordination), why ClickUp's CEO just paid his top 10% of engineers $1M a year salaries, and the difference between operators who use AI and operators who say they do.

Plus: why most founders' AI "gets lazy" (and the real diagnosis — they're not memory architects), the $10K designer who got fired in three days, why the employee who automates their own job KEEPS it, and the engineer who wired his daughters' iPads to lock until they unload the dishwasher.

If you're an operator-founder running $500K to $5M and you can feel the shift but can't name it — this one's for you.

Key insights from this episode:

  • From hierarchy to intelligence: why the org chart is dying in 2026
  • The 40-hour-per-week coordination cost Mike scraped out of one client's data
  • ClickUp's CEO cuts 22% of the team and pays the top 10% $1M a year
  • "If you want your team to use AI, you have to be using it yourself"
  • Why your AI isn't lazy — you're a bad memory architect
  • Why business owners have agency that most employees don't
  • The 2026 reality: 2-person companies sweeping 1,000-employee competitors
  • The wealthy get everything first — and the founder plays for spotting the gap

Chapters:

00:00 The MedV vs Hims & Hers comp

01:00 Welcome to Full Stack Founders

02:37 From hierarchy to intelligence

04:24 The 40-hour-per-week coordination cost

05:35 Agentic teams without a boss

07:23 Why org charts are about to die 1

0:55 The ClickUp CEO restructure

13:50 If you want your team to use AI, you have to be using it

14:52 The soccer-ball analogy

17:07 Spec the build 10x more than you build

19:40 Why subject knowledge still matters (the ACL rehab story)

21:15 "I'm getting a college degree every week"

22:00 Why your AI isn't lazy — you're a bad memory architect

25:48 Building skills the right way (PT books example)

28:30 The $10K designer fired in 3 days

30:48 Business owners have agency. Employees usually don't.

31:36 The 100x organization

32:55 The employee who automates their job KEEPS their job

34:29 False bottlenecks and the agency play

37:15 Two-person companies sweeping the 1,000-employee giants

37:36 MedV vs Hims & Hers ($1.4B in 2 years vs $2B in 10)

40:00 Agents talking to agents (the calendar coordination flow)

42:45 The 100x organization spreading to other industries

43:30 The trash-pickup SEO arbitrage ($20M/year)

46:53 The engineer who wired his daughters' iPads to the dishwasher

48:48 Industries about to be made WITH AI

51:37 New businesses that never existed before

53:29 The wardrobe-that-meets-you-at-your-hotel play

55:34 The "wealthy get everything first" framework (Uber, Waymo)

57:42 Embrace the disruption (and the legal fights)

1:00:33 Recap: hierarchy, coordination, memory architect, agency

1:03:00 Outro

This episode focuses on OUTPUT (Business & Leadership). To learn how to integrate this into your daily leadership practice and reclaim your time, take our free training "See The Game" inside the Full Stack community: www.skool.com

Follow Ted:

Website: www.themodernmanpodcast.com

X: TheModernMan8

YouTube: The Modern Man Podcast

Instagram: themodernmanpodcast

Facebook: TheModernManShow

Follow Mike:

Website: bledsoe.life

YouTube: @MikeBledsoe

Instagram: @mike_bledsoe

#fullstackpodcast #fullstackfounders #aiforbusiness #operatorfounder #aiforfounders #orgchart #100xorganization #mikebledsoe #tedphaeton #aiagents #leverage #claudecode

What is Full Stack Founders?

For operator-founders building for the AI era.

Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton host. Mike's been an entrepreneur for 19 years: Navy veteran, built CrossFit gyms, Barbell Shrugged, a SaaS product for operators, and now consults operators rebuilding their businesses around AI. Ted's earlier on the path. Part of the show is Mike mentoring him through the conversation in public. The rest is keeping the audience up to speed on what AI is actually doing to the game in real time.

When there are guests, they're operators worth having in the room. When there aren't, Ted drives the questions. Usually the ones most operators won't ask out loud. They walk through the work together.

Most business podcasts are entertainment for operators pretending to build something. This one is for the ones actually building.

No guru energy. No performance. Two operators thinking out loud about what ownership actually requires now.

New episodes every Monday.