Aug 27, 2026 · 30 min · 8 segments
This week listeners get the benefit of two guests joining us! Marc Winter and Laura Gordon are co-founders of Libra Collective, a New York based consultancy focused on how leadership and work should…
Laura GordonGuest
Marc WinterGuest
Claire HattonHost
Greta ThomasHost
And first of all, let's, let's sort of talk about what, what does AI native mean?
So I think this was actually sort of critical line in the sand that we had to draw when we were thinking about sort of how we define the AI maturity spectrum because the term AI native has been thrown about in many different contexts, and I think it's sort of subjective depending on who you speak to.
But as one of our collective members quipped the other day, like, it really is more of a mindset than it is a definition.
At some companies, they're all of that, depending on the function, depending, you know, the tenure and the sort of roles of people who are in, within each.
That's re- that's really interesting, and yeah, I, I can imagine that, that there's such a different level of maturity across organizations.
And, you know, this is a probably a big question, but what surprised you the most about what you learned from the AI native companies?
One is that, to be honest, they're asking themselves the same big questions that we all are.
They're using this technology meaningfully, and it's baked into their products.
But even as they're adopting it in their own ways of working, it's bringing up really existential questions for them of essentially, like, what is my role not just in the workplace, but what gives my life meaning if it's not the work that I do every day? So, you know, we were speaking to a chief product officer at an AI native cybersecurity company, and he basically said, you know, "The AI has gotten so good that I have to ask myself, am I going to be babysitting this thing, or is this actually gonna be representative of a sort of step change in my own skills?" And ultimately, I think the big concern is that there's some amount of cognitive rot or what we call kind of the, the dopamine deficit, where we as human beings get a lot out of problem-solving at work, and if we're working with tools that kind of take away that element of our day to day, what's left? That's one thing that we found super interesting.
But I will say that when you inhabit that space for so long, I, I feel like th-those founders enter a different paradigm.
It, it is more about what won't this thing not touch [laughs] as a thing, as a thing eventually.
So the way to think about shape a firm, for example, is like maybe it's just four of us who need to be running this, you know, $10 million business.
Eventually we'll automate that, and there'll just be a proliferation of other types of businesses that'll be wider, more efficient, et cetera.
And that to me is really interesting to it because I think when you spend enough time talking, building agents, talking to them, et cetera, it's hard not to be awed by its power, but also you take for granted some of that power itself.
We were speaking to an artist today, and he's like, "Yeah, you know to me it's just like a calculator." You know? And I found that really interesting 'cause when you see the, these agents as calculators, then it's like it's just a utility to go build the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.
And first of all, let's, let's sort of talk about what, what does AI native mean?
So I think this was actually sort of critical line in the sand that we had to draw when we were thinking about sort of how we define the AI maturity spectrum because the term AI native has been thrown about in many different contexts, and I think it's sort of subjective depending on who you speak to.
But as one of our collective members quipped the other day, like, it really is more of a mindset than it is a definition.
At some companies, they're all of that, depending on the function, depending, you know, the tenure and the sort of roles of people who are in, within each.
That's re- that's really interesting, and yeah, I, I can imagine that, that there's such a different level of maturity across organizations.
And, you know, this is a probably a big question, but what surprised you the most about what you learned from the AI native companies?
One is that, to be honest, they're asking themselves the same big questions that we all are.
They're using this technology meaningfully, and it's baked into their products.
But even as they're adopting it in their own ways of working, it's bringing up really existential questions for them of essentially, like, what is my role not just in the workplace, but what gives my life meaning if it's not the work that I do every day? So, you know, we were speaking to a chief product officer at an AI native cybersecurity company, and he basically said, you know, "The AI has gotten so good that I have to ask myself, am I going to be babysitting this thing, or is this actually gonna be representative of a sort of step change in my own skills?" And ultimately, I think the big concern is that there's some amount of cognitive rot or what we call kind of the, the dopamine deficit, where we as human beings get a lot out of problem-solving at work, and if we're working with tools that kind of take away that element of our day to day, what's left? That's one thing that we found super interesting.
But I will say that when you inhabit that space for so long, I, I feel like th-those founders enter a different paradigm.
It, it is more about what won't this thing not touch [laughs] as a thing, as a thing eventually.
So the way to think about shape a firm, for example, is like maybe it's just four of us who need to be running this, you know, $10 million business.
Eventually we'll automate that, and there'll just be a proliferation of other types of businesses that'll be wider, more efficient, et cetera.
And that to me is really interesting to it because I think when you spend enough time talking, building agents, talking to them, et cetera, it's hard not to be awed by its power, but also you take for granted some of that power itself.
We were speaking to an artist today, and he's like, "Yeah, you know to me it's just like a calculator." You know? And I found that really interesting 'cause when you see the, these agents as calculators, then it's like it's just a utility to go build the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.
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