In this episode of Mostly Growth, CJ Gustafson, Kyle Poyar, and Ben Hillman dive into the question on everyone’s mind: are we in an AI bubble? What starts as a lighthearted riff on the U.S. Postal Service launching a podcast quickly spirals into a sharp, funny breakdown of today’s AI hype cycle — from Nvidia, OpenAI, and AMD trading money and GPUs in a trillion-dollar feedback loop, to startups burning cash chasing “AI-powered” everything. The trio share real examples of when AI helps and when it backfires (including one newsletter that totally tanked), debate whether companies are over-optimizing for automation, and laugh through the absurdity of the hype while grounding it in practical insights on product, finance, and growth.
Timestamps:
00:00 Preview and Intro
00:14 Are We in an AI Bubble?
00:44 The AI Money Loop: Nvidia, OpenAI, AMD
01:00 Perplexity, We Caught You
02:18 The Postal Service Launches a Podcast
04:24 How the Team Uses AI (and When It Fails)
06:07 CJ’s DIY Dunning Disaster
08:38 What AI Is Good At — and Where It Breaks
10:49 Perplexity Tries to Gaslight Kyle
13:27 AI vs. AI: Hacking Resume Screeners
16:09 How Recruiters View AI-Generated Resumes
17:17 CJ’s Chief of Staff Hiring Story
19:15 The Data: Is AI Adoption Already Slowing?
22:42 Crossing the Chasm: Early Adopters to Early Majority
26:22 The Streaming Analogy and Forced AI Bundles
28:49 The Circular AI Economy (Everyone Funding Everyone)
31:15 Betting It All on AGI and Data Centers
34:09 The Margin: AI Erotica and the Peak of the Bubble
35:23 Business Blunders: OpenAI’s Token Leaderboard
41:43 What Kyle Tried This Week: Building an AI Agent
44:52 Wrap-Up and Outro
Episodes Referenced:
5,762 Job Applications. Zero Offers.
Why Only 2% of Startups Make It
The War for Talent is just getting started | Joe Floyd
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