About this episode

Guillermo Rauch discusses pivots, ethics, and the future of work in a live Q&A session.

Guillermo Rauch is the co-founder and CEO of Vercel, the company behind Next.js, and previously created the widely-used Socket.io library. In this special episode, recorded live in front of an audience, Guillermo joins Immad Akhund and Raj Suri for an open Q&A covering pivots, ethics, investors, and the future of work in the age of AI. What you'll learn: The difference between a "lowercase p" pivot (refining focus) and an "uppercase P" pivot (starting over) — and how to know which one you need How to build an ethical framework for operating in an industry full of shortcuts and noise How to extract real signal from investors without letting them drive your roadmap Real pivot stories from Presto (restaurant tablets to voice AI), Lyft (carpooling to peer-to-peer ride-hailing), and Mercury's early product-market-fit signal Why blaming distribution is often easier than blaming the product — and why that's a trap How founders can get their teams to think about prioritization the way they do How Mercury created early demand by deliberately recruiting a broad, vocal set of seed investors What "the future of work" looks like when your team's job shifts from producing outcomes directly…

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