#58: Greg Isenberg on AI Co-Founders, the Multi-Preneur, and Why Anyone Can Build a Startup Now

**Greg Isenberg** (0:00)
So, I believe that this builder-distributor combo is probably the most lethal type of person in the AI age, because they understand distribution, they understand how to capture attention and how to convert that attention into revenue, but they also understand how they can drive value from a product perspective. The product has to be good, and the bar for good products is increasing and increasing, especially when it comes to digital products.

**Derek Andersen** (0:40)
Divot.

**Greg Isenberg** (0:42)
This episode is brought to you by Google for Startups.

**Derek Andersen** (0:46)
Today, we're in Aventura, Florida with Greg Isenberg, one of the sharpest voices helping builders understand the next great shift in startups, AI, and the Internet.
Greg's career has been built on one rare skill, seeing where the Internet is moving before the market catches up. He created FiveBuy, which was acquired by StumbleUpon, and he built Islands, which was acquired by WeWork. That pattern recognition took him from founder to trusted advisor, where he's met with some of the biggest and best companies in the world, helping them on their strategies around AI. Today, he leads Late Checkout, portfolio of AI native businesses powered by agents and Internet communities. Through Idea Browser, Greg's Letter, and the Startup Idea Podcast, he's shared over 2,000 startup ideas and built an audience of millions of followers. Hope you enjoy our conversation. We're in July, 2026
What are the biggest shifts you're seeing in AI right now at this moment?

**Greg Isenberg** (1:43)
I couldn't be more excited with what's happening right now, so I just spent all morning playing with Grok 4.5.
And I sort of dismissed Grok. I was just like, okay, it's an open AI, anthropic Google world. Like, I've never even thought about Grok. But I started playing with this model. I connected it to my Hermes agent, which, I mean, we can talk about this sorts of stuff, but I had this basically, I gave it to my personal assistant, and I had it basically running 24-7. I said, here's a startup idea. I want you to go and build features for it, optimize based on analytics, do SEO, and do all these things, and run while I was sleeping, basically, and in the morning, this morning, and seeing how capable it was and how good it was, I mean, it's incredible. Like, I'm sitting here. We're at the 38th floor looking at the ocean, and I have a essentially AI co-founder that's working. I'm paying it like the equivalent of like $2 an hour or something, and it's super intelligent, and it's creating a startup for me while we're hanging out.
I mean, it's hard not to be extremely excited about building companies right now with AI.

**Derek Andersen** (3:14)
If I'm trying to get started, a lot of people talk about the idea, and then there's also going after a business model that's already working. Where do you like to start or where do you advise people to start? Do I start with coming up with the right idea, or should I look at the world and see what business models are working and try to iterate off of something that's already out there?

**Greg Isenberg** (3:34)
I mean, I'm a big trend guy, so I like to see how things are changing in the world. Based on that, go and create something to feed that problem. The beauty about the world we live in today is all the trend data is out there. You can see what people are tweeting about. You can see what posts are going viral. You can see what the search volume is. You can see what people are putting in the ChatGPT and what the LLM visibility is. If you're able to harness that data and basically have your agents tell you, hey, there's an opportunity to go and build a software company for South Florida dentists and it probably looks like this and it has these features, then I'm going to go and do that because I've got a validated startup idea.
When I was younger, I would like how I came up with startup ideas would be like, I don't know, you have a glass of wine, you go for a walk on the beach and then you wait for a perfect moment and you're like, oh my God, I have this idea and you write it down and you tell all your friends and you fall in love with the startup idea. As I've gotten older, I've realized that the businesses that have worked the best for me have been once have been validated based on data. I'm validated based on how I was feeling at 6:32 PM, the wine was hitting me at a particular time, the sun was hitting me at a particular time and just something hit like that. No, that's one way to do it, but if your goal is to create a startup with the highest probability of success in the age of AI, I think the way to do it is to look at the trend data.