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.
He runs a free startup house and takes no equity. Here is why.
Host Alex Bledsoe interviews Nikky Kho, founder of AI Startup House, about his unique equity-free incubator and the practical levels of AI adoption for founders.
17 Aug 2026
He Wrote The Copy Behind 9 Figures. He Learned To Code Last Year
Host Mike Bledsoe interviews Pedro Jerez, a nine-figure copywriter and AI software builder, about his journey from marketing to coding and his innovative approach to product development.
10 Aug 2026
He Sold $70K Websites. Then He Killed The Model Himself
Dmitriy Kozlov, founder of Influex, shares how he dismantled his $70K website model to rebuild his business around AI, revealing strategies for adaptation and innovation.
4 Aug 2026
12 Months of Work in 12 Hours (and Why That Broke My Business Model)
Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton interview Nathaniel Solace, a business systems strategist, about his AI-native agency's command center architecture and the efficiency gains that disrupted his business model.
4 Aug 2026
AI Psychosis Is Real. "You're Absolutely Right, Karen.
Host Mike Bledsoe and Ted interview AI expert Kevin Orosz about the dangers of "AI psychosis" and how to build a robust AI strategy.
4 Aug 2026
The Lazy Coders Are Winning the AI Game
Host Mike Bledsoe and guest Ted Phaeton explore how "lazy coders" are winning the AI game by leveraging new tools and principles for efficient development.
5 Jul 2026
Two People. One Billion Dollars. The Org Chart Is Dying.
Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton explore how agentic AI is dismantling traditional organizational structures, enabling smaller teams to outperform larger competitors.
2 Jul 2026
Do You Need People, Or Do You Need Leverage?
Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton interview each other, revealing eight practical AI plays founders implement this week to boost profits and leverage.
10 Jun 2026
$343 a Month for a Family of 5: The Health Insurance Play Founders Don't Know
Michael Caz, founder of ShareWise, reveals to Mike Bledsoe and Ted how founders can slash health insurance costs to $343 monthly for a family of five.
6 Jun 2026
Local AI Agent Architecture for Executive Leverage (The Sovereign Folder Protocol)
Host Mike Bledsoe and guest Ted Phaeton discuss building sovereign local AI agents to automate business operations and reclaim executive time.
5 Jun 2026
Why Your AI Dashboard is a "Ferrari Without an Engine" (The Output of Success)
Most founders are running 7-figure output on "bloated" code and hollow dashboards. You've seen the "Jarvis" setups and the high-end interfaces, but if your AI isn't connected to the functional mechanics of your business, you just have a Ferrari idling in the driveway.
In this episode, Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton break down the massive market gap in AI adoption and why most leaders are burning their most valuable resource, time, on systems that look good but don't move.
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro Hook: The Ferrari in the Driveway
0:52 - Insights from Austin's Claude Code Day
8:26 - Why Your Dashboard is Lying to You
15:04 - Dashboard vs. Mission Control: Actually Flying the Plane
20:50 - The Token Economy: Why You're Running Out of Gas
26:30 - The 200-Line Rule: Architecting Niche AI Skills
34:55 - Scaling through Delegation: The CMO Agent Model
40:30 - How to Use Handoff Docs to Avoid System "Compaction"
53:47 - The Maintenance Tax: Why AI is Not "Set and Forget."
1:01:48 - The Future of Compute: Will GPU Prices Kill Your ROI?
1:09:18 - Full Stack Recap: Building for Sovereignty
Where does this fit in the Stack?
This episode focuses on OUTPUT and HARDWARE. To learn how to integrate these systems into your daily leadership practice and unlearn the rules of the "hustle" economy, take our free training "See The Game" inside the Full Stack community: www.skool.com (https://www.skool.com/the-mission-after-2227/about?ref=12e63552edce482b85cc08369565c495)
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
#FullStackLeadership #AIBusiness #MissionControl #Sovereignty #CEO #Scaling #EstablishedFounders #HumanOperatingSystem
5 Jun 2026
The AI Operating System for 9-Figure Scale: How to Build a $1.8B Company with 2 People (The MedVee Protocol)
Most founders are running 9-figure output on broken, legacy hardware. You are hiring more people to solve a problem that only requires a better "Software" installation. In this deep dive, Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton deconstruct the shift from "Prompting" to "Architecting," explaining how to build a sovereign business that scales without the biological cost of a massive team.
We explore the "MedVi Model": How Matthew Gallagher used AI "Skills" to build a 2-person company projecting $1.8 billion in revenue, outperforming legacy giants like Hims & Hers with 1,200x fewer employees. This isn't about AI hacks; it's about the architecture of Sovereignty.
Learn how to install your own AI Executive Board, including an AI CFO trained on "Profit First" and an AI Sales Coach that generates repeatable scripts from your raw call data. We are moving toward a world where "the cows have wings"—where technology decentralizes power back to the individual operator.
Chapters:
00:00 — Introduction: Why Skills are the New Custom GPTs
03:40 — The Process Rule: If you do it twice, automate it
08:01 — The Voice Skill: Training Claude to write in your DNA
14:32 — Stacking Skills: Mapping the context for Email, Blogs, and Social
17:58 — The Opus Advisor: How to optimize AI reasoning costs
20:39 — The GoHighLevel Skill: Automating CRM Complexity
27:05 — The AI Sales Coach: Turning transcripts into winning scripts
32:02 — Meta-Skills: Building frameworks based on Alex Hormozi
39:01 — The AI CFO: Scaling your budget with "Profit First" logic
45:30 — Diagnostics: How to run an AI audit on any company
56:13 — Case Study: 2 Employees, $1.8B Revenue (The MedVee Protocol)
01:05:11 — The Sovereign Individual: Taking power back from the 1%
01:07:21 — The Choice: Amish or Integrated? (The Path to 2026)
Where does this fit in the Stack? This episode focuses on SOFTWARE and OUTPUT. To learn how to integrate this into your daily leadership practice, 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
23 May 2026
The AI Briefing Protocol: 7 Patterns to Obsolete Your Business (The Output of Success)
Most founders are attempting to run 8-figure output on broken hardware. If you are still "prompting" AI like a vending machine, you are already 90 days behind.
In this episode, Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton reveal the Obsolescence Directive: the strategic framework to fire yourself from the day-to-day and rebuild your business as a high-fidelity system before the market does it for you.
The Insight:
We move beyond "hustle hacks" into Architectural Depth. Learn why 90% of entrepreneurs are stuck at Level 1 (Copy/Paste) and how to install Level 3 (Total Business Analysis) using the 7 Patterns of AI Integration.
The Stack Breakdown (Updated Timestamps):
0:00 - The Obsolescence Directive: Why you must fire yourself today
04:02 - The $3M Founder Trap: Escaping the administrative burden
13:18 - The 3 Levels of AI: Are you a Level 1 or Level 3 Operator?
21:58 - Pattern 1: Briefing vs. Prompting (Treating AI like an Executive)
34:42 - Pattern 2: Thinking Systems, Not Outputs
41:48 - Pattern 3: Bringing the "Messy Human Context" to AI
46:18 - Pattern 4: How to Challenge and Pressure Test AI's Reasoning
53:25 - Pattern 5: Building Persistent Context (The Claude.md Protocol)
1:07:22 - Pattern 6: Refinement via Reaction (The North Star Method)
1:10:01 - Pattern 7: Using AI as a Strategic Thinking Partner
Where does this fit in the Stack?
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
#FullStack #BusinessArchitecture #AIforCEOs #Sovereignty #HighTicket #ClaudeAI #SystemsOverHustle
16 May 2026
AI Strategy Expert: Stop Buying AI Certificates! It's Making You Less Successful.
Most founders are running 9-figure output on broken hardware. They treat AI as a faster wrench, when it's actually a new engine. In this session, systems architect Mike Bledsoe breaks down the neuro-cognitive shift required to move from "tinkering" with AI to "engineering" a business that runs itself.
The difference between a $300k and a $3M business isn't more "hustle"—it's the architecture of your Human Operating System. Mike and Ted explore why 95% of AI implementations fail and how to use Claude as a "Board of Directors" to analyze your business from 12 different perspectives simultaneously. Learn the exact "Claude Protocol" that allows Mike to build $100k systems in 30 days and why the transition from "Coder" to "Engineer" is the ultimate act of founder sovereignty.
Key Takeaways:
The Certificate Scam: Why elite operators value contact with reality over "pieces of paper."
The Automation Trap: Why viewing AI as "automation on steroids" is a fatal system bug.
The Claude Protocol: How to hold 70+ data points in a single reasoning loop.
Coder vs. Engineer: Using Product Requirements Documents (PRDs) to code websites in 10 minutes.
Conducting the Orchestra: Shifting your identity from "playing the instrument" to "conducting the music."
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - The $100k Breakthrough
00:41 - Cinematic Intro: Upgrading your Human Operating System
01:59 - The "Certificate Scam": Why credentials are for employees, not founders
05:16 - Contact with Reality: Results vs. Pieces of Paper
16:45 - The Fatal Error: Why AI is NOT "Automation on Steroids"
20:43 - Uniformity in the Stack: The Claude Skill SOP for Teams
31:59 - The "Board of Directors" Approach: Using Generative Reasoning
38:41 - The 12-Perspective Dashboard: Predicting fires before they start
55:03 - Coder vs. Engineer: The power of the PRD (Product Requirements Document)
58:45 - Scaling at Speed: Building an empire without dying inside
01:07:09 - The Creativity OS: Why AI doesn't kill human genius
01:14:34 - Outro: Conducting the Orchestra of Success
Where does this fit in the Stack?
This episode focuses on OUTPUT. To learn how to integrate this into your daily leadership practice, take our free training "See The Game" inside the Full Stack community:https://www.skool.com/the-mission-after-2227/about?ref=12e63552edce482b85cc08369565c495
Follow Ted:
Website: https://www.themodernmanpodcast.com/
X: https: //x.com/TheModernMan8
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnyA3-wtyv7xVqUbPyB0eOg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themodernmanpodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheModernManShow
Follow Mike:
Website: https://bledsoe.life/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeBledsoe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mike_bledsoe/
16 May 2026
The No. 1 AI Strategy: Install a "Agent Harness" for 9-Figure Focus (The Output of Success)
Most founders are running 9-figure output on "broken hardware" and fragmented software. You aren't falling behind because you lack AI tools; you're falling behind because you're addicted to "Feature Chasing," the constant distraction of the next "cool" prompt that never actually moves the needle on your P&L.
In this episode, Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton conduct an architectural inquiry into the Human Operating System. We move beyond the hype to discuss the mechanics of First Principles Thinking and the specific "Agent Harness" protocols that allow high-level operators to manage multiple businesses without dying inside.
Key Takeaways:
🎯 The "Squirrel" Trap: Identifying the line between productive AI usage and the "distraction loops" of new features.
🤖 The Agent Harness: Why Mike Bledsoe is living inside Claude Cowork to manage a multi-business architecture.
🧠 First Principles: Using Elon Musk's "Rocket Logic" to scrap old business assumptions and rebuild for scale.
📈 Bottleneck IQ: Why 95% of AI implementations fail and how to diagnose the real pain points in your organization.
📧 The Attention Audit: Questioning legacy systems like email and banking to reclaim cognitive bandwidth.
🔄 Iterative Systems: How to set up AI to "teach itself" your specific business workflows (The GoHighLevel Case Study).
Chapters :
00:00 - Introduction: The AI Rabbit Hole
01:14 - Feature Chasing vs. Business Productivity
04:34 - Tool Loyalty: Moving from ChatGPT to Claude Cowork
08:39 - The Ethics of AI: Anthropic vs. OpenAI
11:32 - Building an Agile Tech Stack for 2026
19:11 - First Principles Thinking: Solving the "What," Not the "How"
23:27 - Scrapping the "Dashboard": Why Data is Often a Distraction
28:33 - The 95% Failure Rate of AI Implementation
31:26 - The Email Audit: Reclaiming Fragmented Attention
37:23 - The Value of the Novice: Why "Expert Eyes" Block Growth
45:00 - The Future of Discovery: How to be Found by AI (AI SEO)
51:34 - The Friday Ritual: Tracking Your Workflow for Sovereignty
57:16 - The FTP Injection: Teaching AI to Problem-Solve Locally
01:05:24 - Treating Your Business Like It's Brand New
Where does this fit in the Stack? This episode focuses on OUTPUT. To learn how to integrate this agent-driven architecture into your daily leadership practice, take our free training "See The Game" inside the Full Stack community: https://www.skool.com/the-mission-after-2227/about?ref=12e63552edce482b85cc08369565c495
Follow Ted:
Website: https://www.themodernmanpodcast.com/
X: https: //x.com/TheModernMan8
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnyA3-wtyv7xVqUbPyB0eOg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themodernmanpodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheModernManShow
Follow Mike:
Website: https://bledsoe.life/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeBledsoe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mike_bledsoe/
#FullStackLeadership #AISystems #FirstPrinciples #FounderProductivity #ClaudeAI #BusinessSovereignty #OperatingSystem
16 May 2026
One AI Agent Replaced My $50,000 Team: The Architecture of Sovereign Scaling
Most founders are running 9-figure output on broken human hardware. They are overworking 60+ hours a week to manage teams, when the reality is that 90% of execution can now be automated. In this episode, Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton deconstruct the shift from "Fragmented Operator" to "Sovereign Business DJ." If you are a founder stuck in the "Theory Trap" of AI, this architectural deep dive shows you how to ship in 3 weeks what used to cost $50,000 and 3 months.
Key Points:
☑️ The Dot-Com Wave 2.0: Why we are in a historical window of individual leverage.
☑️ Agentic SEO & AEO: How to structure your business for the era of AI search.
☑️ The Parallel Build: Mike's framework for rebuilding a business from scratch while it's still running.
☑️ Prompt Engineering for Sovereignty: Why the quality of your results is limited by the quality of your questions.
☑️ The Business DJ Framework: Moving from managing people to orchestrating agents.
Chapters:
00:00 – The Sovereign Shift (Intro Sequence)
00:44 – Why Politics is a Software Bug for Founders
05:15 – Replacing a $50,000 Team with Agentic AI
09:20 – Riding the Wave: Why Now is 1999 All Over Again
14:30 – Why 99% of Businesses Experimenting with AI are Failing
21:10 – The "Business DJ" Identity: Orchestrating Leverage
28:45 – The Parallel Build Strategy: Deleting Your Old Workflow
36:12 – Masterclass: Deep Research using Gemini and NotebookLM
42:30 – The Full Stack Stack: Claude Opus, Grok, and Manus
48:50 – Homework: Installing your Human Operating System
Follow Ted:
Website: https://www.themodernmanpodcast.com/
X: https: //x.com/TheModernMan8
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnyA3-wtyv7xVqUbPyB0eOg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themodernmanpodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheModernManShow
Follow Mike:
Website: https://bledsoe.life/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeBledsoe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mike_bledsoe/
16 May 2026
The Biology of Belief: Dismantling Mental Models for Sovereign
Most founders are trying to scale a 9-figure business on "Human Operating System" software that hasn't been updated since childhood. If you find yourself trapped in constant debates, feeling the "weight of the world" on your shoulders, or craving validation from your peers, you aren't playing the game—the game is playing you.
In this episode, Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton deconstruct the technical and psychological stacks required for sovereign leadership. We begin with the "Hardware" of modern AI—comparing Gemini, Claude, and the autonomous power of Manus AI—before diving into the "Software" deprogramming necessary to move from reaction to 100% ownership.
Key Takeaways:
AI Agency: How to use Manus AI as an "Action Engine" for wide research and Claude for humanizing output.
The Matrix Reset: Why everything you believe is a mental model, not reality, and how to use that fluidity to your advantage.
Identity Death: The specific biological mechanism that makes growth feel like a threat to your survival.
Ownership vs. Responsibility: Why the word "responsible" creates a physical burden in leaders and how "ownership" unlocks capacity.
The Power Leak: Why the need to feel understood is the ultimate bottleneck for high-performing operators.
Chapters:
00:00 — The 2026 AI Stack: Gemini, Claude, and Manus AI
03:16 — The Reality Glitch: Why Your Beliefs are Illusions
09:25 — Objective vs. Subjective Truth: The Harari Framework
12:40 — The Growth Ultimatum: Why You Must Be Willing to Die
24:18 — Nihilism vs. Meaningful Action: Lessons from Financial Success
29:15 — Responsibility vs. Ownership: Debugging the Burden of Leadership
34:48 — Breaking Codependence: How to be a "Regulator" in Conflict
42:31 — Freedom: The Art of Not Needing to Be Understood
51:08 — 100% Ownership: The Ultimate Perspective for Founders
Where does this fit in the Stack? This episode focuses on SOFTWARE. To learn how to integrate this into your daily leadership practice, take our free training "See The Game" inside the Full Stack community:https://www.skool.com/the-mission-after-2227/about?ref=12e63552edce482b85cc08369565c495
Follow Ted:
Website: https://www.themodernmanpodcast.com/
X: https: //x.com/TheModernMan8
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnyA3-wtyv7xVqUbPyB0eOg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themodernmanpodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheModernManShow
Follow Mike:
Website: https://bledsoe.life/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeBledsoe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mike_bledsoe/
16 May 2026
Why Your "Hard Work" Is A Software Bug: The Protocol For 14-Day Mastery In The AI Era
99.9% of founders are running a deprecated operating system. While the world moves toward the most significant technological disruption in history, most 7-figure operators are frozen by a "Software" bug: the belief that they must trade hard work for worthiness.
In this episode, Mike Bledsoe (The Architect) and Ted Phaëton (The Proxy) debug the psychological resistance to AI and install the Sovereignty Protocol. We move beyond the surface-level "hustle" and look at the actual mechanics of Agency—how one founder went from zero coding knowledge to building complex AI voice automations in just 14 days.
If you've ever looked back at Bitcoin or the early internet and said, "I wish I would have known," this is your diagnostic. We explore why your nervous system views efficiency as a threat to your self-worth and how to rewire your "Hardware" for the AI era.
Key Takeaways:
☑️ Agency vs. Sovereignty: Why being "in control" is the low-level version of being the creator of your reality.
☑️ The 14-Day Mastery Protocol: How to collapse the 2-year skill gap and out-build engineers without learning to code.
☑️ Learning is Behavior Change: The brutal truth about why your books and podcasts aren't saving you.
☑️ The "Hard Work" Virus: Debugging the identity loop that makes you reject automation to "feel" worthy.
☑️ Raw Dogging Reality: Ted's protocol for handling 9-figure pressure without stimulants or pacifiers.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 Intro
00:28 Why 99.9% of founders will regret the next 5 years
02:27 Agency vs. Sovereignty: The Architect's Perspective
08:05 Why your nervous system resists automation (The Sincerity Bug)
09:43 Case Study: How to build an AI business in 14 days
17:18 Why "Learning" is actually behavior change
34:46 The "Hard Work" Virus: Is your identity a bottleneck?
43:25 The "Raw Dogging" Protocol: Scaling under 9-figure pressure
54:44 Wisdom vs. Experience: Paying attention over time
58:18 The Sovereignty Choice: How to start now
Where does this fit in the Stack? This episode focuses on SOFTWARE and OUTPUT.
To learn how to install this operating system and move from a fragmented operator to a sovereign architect, take our free training "See The Game" inside the Full Stack community: https://www.skool.com/fullstack/about.
Follow Ted:
Website: https://www.themodernmanpodcast.com/
X: https: //x.com/TheModernMan8
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnyA3-wtyv7xVqUbPyB0eOg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themodernmanpodcast/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheModernManShow
Follow Mike:
Website: https://bledsoe.life/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MikeBledsoe
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mike_bledsoe/
#FullStackPodcast #AISovereignty #HumanOperatingSystem #ExecutivePerformance #MikeBledsoe #TedPhaeton #Sovereignty #BusinessArchitecture #AIStrategy
Who has been a guest on Full Stack Founders
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Nikky Kho
Pedro Jerez
Dmitriy "Dima" Kozlov
Nathaniel Solace
Kevin Orosz
Contact Full Stack Founders
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Questions about Full Stack Founders
Who hosts Full Stack Founders?
Mike Bledsoe and Ted Phaeton and Mike and Ted host the show. Published by Mike Bledsoe & Ted Phaeton.
How often do new episodes come out?
The show publishes weekly, based on its RSS feed.
Does Full Stack Founders take guests?
Yes. Guests have been identified in episode analyses.
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