Cody Candee

Lots of folks are talking about the new Stanford Digital Economy Lab study from Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar, and Ruyu Chen that uses ADP payroll data to confirm something many of us already knew (or suspected): a 13% relative employment decline for 22–25-year-olds in the most AI-exposed jobs, with software engineering and customer service taking the biggest hit. One finding from the study that isn’t getting as much attention (but should): marketing and sales roles seem to be faring slightly better. Early-career headcount is still down, but by smaller amounts — with an upward trend over the past two years clawing back much of the post-ChatGPT dip. What’s going on? There are many factors, but it likely lines up with a principal finding of the study: entry-level employment declines when AI automates work, with muted effects when AI augments it. In GTM today, AI often augments. It spins one idea into dozens of testable variants, compiles account research into briefs, surfaces the right moment or quote from hundreds of call transcripts and pulls the right chart from an ocean of creative assets. AI speeds experimentation without deciding the message or the deal. Because feedback loops are immediate (CTR, replies, meetings booked) and the blast radius is small, humans stay pivotal. The pattern points to a future where the best roles go to the most leveraged — people who combine AI with domain expertise, customer understanding, and creative judgment. What these positions will be and how we handle structural changes impacting young workers, though, remain important open questions that demand serious study and attention (and more than just “universal basic income will fix it”). Expect more thoughtful takes from us as we mull on it and talk to entrepreneurs and folks in academia; would love to hear what you think!

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There’s been so much chatter about how to build a $1B company with one person. But I believe this is the wrong discourse. As the most valuable resource known to humanity - intelligence - is getting cheaper, we are about to enter a new era: the Decade of Centicorns, where scaling to $100B will be the new normal. Like electricity, when intelligence becomes cheap and abundant, we won’t use less of it. We’ll find exponentially more and new things to do with it. The Jevons paradox has come for AI. The right team, using AI, won’t just settle for a billion-dollar company; it will aim for $100B. The limiting factor is no longer human hours; it’s vision and execution. AI will accelerate ambition—fueling bigger ideas, faster growth, and new market categories we couldn’t previously attempt. How we build companies is about to fundamentally change. Startups are primed for this shift because they can optimize from the jump. Think: converging roles. Leaner teams. A changing role for human intelligence. How to harness this? Design your org chart around AI-first assumptions. Hire polymaths and architects. Build for tomorrow’s costs. Get used to thinking in decades, not years or quarters. Does this resonate with you? Ping Leo Lu and I Foundation Capital to brainstorm https://lnkd.in/gU6r3jqb

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PSA to seed and early-stage founders: stop worrying about competition. I’ve spoken to hundreds of late-stage founders, and they all say the same thing. The biggest mistake they see at the early stage is founders obsessing over who else is in their space. When you are pre-PMF, comparing yourself to other buzzy AI startups is a distraction. They already have a defined GTM motion, some level of product-market fit, and a playbook to execute. Their “big new feature” might just be about expanding revenue or building parity. You’re still trying to land your first 10 paying customers. Here’s the truth: 1. Worry about competitors only when you actively lose a deal to them. THESE ARE THE COMPETITORS TO WORRY ABOUT. 2. When a customer chooses someone else, they will usually tell you why. Nine times out of ten it’s not the reason you think. It’s rarely a missing feature. More often it’s pricing, brand trust, or timing. 3. Competitors often move in completely different directions. OpenAI went after consumers, while Anthropic leaned into enterprise and APIs. Playbooks diverge fast. 4. The only real roadmap at the early stage is customer pain. Every conversation, every demo, every user insight. Talk to as many customers as possible. If you spend your time trying to copy what competitors are doing, you will always be a step behind. If you spend your time talking to users, you’ll know exactly what to build next. The path to PMF isn’t found on Twitter threads about “AI competitors.” It’s found in the feedback from the 5 people actually using your product every single day.

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📈 Some recent headlines from July '25 in Boston's venture backed world... -We've got acquisitions -We've got fundraisings -We've got announcements & releases -We've got content from around The Hub -Coin Metrics is acquired by Talos for (reported) $100M+. Congrats to their team! -Snyk acquired Invariant Labs (undisclosed $$) -Insurtech Ledgebrook raises $65M Series C for excess & surplus insurance -Remark raises $16M to build out human-powered expert models for e-commerce -AllSpice.io raises $15M Series A to launch AI agents -H2Ok Innovations rasies $12.5M Series A to modernize process manufacturing. Congrats Annie L., David Lu & team! -LogicFlo AI raises $2.7M to arm every life sciences expert with their own AI workforce -HelloPrenup announces new investment from The Legal Tech Fund -Alexander Ng and Rebecca Patterson launch JoyFi to help couples with their finances -Clasp passes $100M in employer backed student loan support for healthcare -David Chang leaves Hunt Club / Ari Fine Glantz is stepping down from NEVCA after 10 years. It's not goodbye...it's see ya later -Eric Paley from Founder Collective is appointed MA's next Secretary of Economic Development. Your success is now our success! -Jellyfish releases their 2025 State of Engineering Report - 90% of teams using AI / GitHub Co-Pilot top tool -Cimulate AI announces CommerceGPT and Cimulate MCP Server -Realm.Security, Inc releases industry-first AI-Native Security Data Pipeline Platform -Lila Sciences and Liquid AI were recently highlighted by MGMT Boston -The Summer Working Chronicles Episode 1-6 are live from Downtown > Kendall > Back Bay. Check them out! -Rho is expanding their team into Boston. If you're looking for a new standard in business banking, check them out! -Tess Michaels from Clasp, Karen Kelly 🌈 and Stephan Smith from Launch by Lunch 🍕, Jonathan Chang from Markit AI, Emily Knight and Benjamin Downing from The Engine (+others) joined 🔥 The Lantern 🔥 to talk about what they're working on, have learned, and are seeing in the market! More on the MGMT Boston news feed. Follow along!

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🚨 🇺🇸 Introducing the American Labor Utilization Rate (ALUR) 🚨🇺🇸 For too long, we've relied on outdated ways of measuring if Americans are working. Policymakers and economists have clung to the unemployment rate — a number that is outdated by the time it’s published— because there weren't any better options. But these traditional labor metrics miss the mark. They rely on outdated surveys that leave out large segments of the workforce. Measures like those from ADP only capture conventional 9-to-5 jobs. Today’s labor market is far more dynamic. People are working, earning, and contributing in ways these old tools can’t track. WorkWhile is changing that. We think Unemployment is Dead.  We’re launching our own American Labor Utilization Rate (ALUR), a continuous, real-time measure of how effectively America is putting its workforce to work. It measures not just who has a job, but who is actively earning and contributing, reflecting the fluidity and adaptability of today’s workforce. A rising ALUR means an engaged and economically empowered workforce, and as of today, September 2, 2025, the ALUR is 99.3%.  Learn more → workwhile.ai/alur

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Driving to Venture Atlanta Conference, here’s how I make conferences count Most founders waste conferences. Not because they don’t meet people, but because they meet everyone. Here’s how to focus where it matters 1. Skip the business cards. They get lost. You don’t. Lead investors straight to your Capwave profile so they can see real-time engagement, traction, and know if you’re a fit. It also helps you track who’s showing real interest and who’s just being polite. Quick "how-to" here: https://lnkd.in/eANKnixj 2. Prioritize depth over volume. You don’t need 100 new contacts. You need 5 right investors who actually write checks for your stage and sector. Do the homework before you land, if they don’t fit your raise, skip the pitch. 3. Follow up fast. Within 24 hours, send: Your deck or Capwave link and a clear next step (“Would love to explore fit / investor alignment”) 4. Protect your energy. Conference mode burns people out. Hydrate. Sleep. Take 15-minute resets. 5. Keep momentum after. The real work starts after the event. Track your investor convos, send updates, and keep “too early” investors in the loop, they often convert later. At Capwave AI, we built tools for exactly this: finding the right investors, tracking engagement, and automating your follow-ups, so you can spend less time chasing and more time closing. Heading to Venture Atlanta? Let's meet :) Staying in SF? I'll see you at TC Disrupt.

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Grindr is an 18+ app, and keeping minors off our platform is a top priority for our users, for our team, and for me -- both as our CEO and as a dad. I believe that protecting kids from age-inappropriate experiences online is one of the most urgent challenges we face as a society. Globally, we're seeing different approaches to this challenge. Policymakers from Texas to Utah to Singapore have recently required app stores to do their part to prevent minors from accessing 18+ apps. Unfortunately others, including the UK, are moving down a troubling path, requiring users to separately verify their age when using any app that may contain content inappropriate for minors, even if that means sharing highly sensitive personal information with dozens or hundreds of separate apps. This creates major privacy and safety risks and prevents many adult users, particularly those who have heightened privacy concerns, from participating and finding community online. California’s bipartisan Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043) takes a smart approach. Recognizing that keeping minors off of 18+ apps is a shared responsibility among device makers, app stores, app developers, and parents, the bill requires devices and app stores to have parents confirm a user’s age at account setup. That enables 18+ apps to ensure minors can't use their platforms, and it requires confirming age just once. This is better for users, better for innovation and privacy, and safer for kids. We are grateful for California’s leadership on this issue and strongly encourage Governor Gavin Newsom to sign AB 1043 into law. We hope the legislative approaches of California, Texas, and Utah will serve as a model nationwide and globally. Thank you to Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and all the advocates, industry leaders, and parents who have pushed to make this possible.

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I had the privilege to speak at the 2025 Khosla Ventures CEO Summit - right after Sam Altman (a tough act to follow). My talk: Growth Lessons that Matter. I shared four critical lessons on building durable, compounding growth, which I’ve seen separate good companies from consequential ones: [1] Fixing weak brand positioning so the story compounds as fast as the product. [2] Measuring product-market fit with retention and PMF scoring, not vanity metrics. [3] Building a multichannel growth engine that scales with time. [4] Recruiting growth leaders who understand system design, not just channels. Grateful to everyone who joined and for the conversations sparked afterward. I'm excited to keep learning (and unlearning) alongside this community of builders. 🎥Full talk + write-up here 👉 https://lnkd.in/ez7xZ_9D

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Founder Tip #2: You have to spend time to make time. Hiring, re-organizing, calendar clean up (across the team), preparation for meetings (internal and external), etc. Half my day is available for whatever I find important - because the other half is spent freeing up time.

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