About this episode

This episode discusses the importance of credibility in technology and how founders are often evaluated on their ability to signal the worth of their technology rather than the technology itself.

A few weeks ago, I was in a room with 5,000 builders, enterprise leaders, and investors at Human+Tech Week in San Francisco. I went expecting to spend five days deep in conversations about AI, the future of work, and where technology is headed. And those conversations happened. But that’s not what I kept noticing. What I kept noticing — what nobody was naming out loud — was a live credibility audit happening in real time. Founders pitching. Leaders taking the stage. People walking into investor conversations and networking rooms full of people who could change the trajectory of their companies. And almost none of them realized they weren’t being evaluated on their technology. They were being evaluated on their ability to signal that their technology is worth betting on. Those are two very different things. Let’s fix that. The gap I watched play out in San Francisco isn’t a pitch problem or a product problem. It’s a credibility signal problem. And most founders won’t see it until a round takes longer than expected, a key hire chooses a competitor, or a category conversation happens in the press and their company isn’t mentioned. By then, the trust ledger has already been overdrawn…

People in this episode

Host: Shayna Davis

Topics covered

• credibility
• trust
• technology evaluation
• founders
• networking
• AI

Keywords

• credibility audit
• trust ledger
• founders
• investors
• technology
• networking
• AI

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Human+Tech Week

Places: San Francisco

More episodes of The Influence Economy Podcast with Shayna Davis

• How Investors Decide If You're Worth the Risk w/ Jason Kraus · July 15, 2026 · 27 min
• Why Tech Startups Lose to Competitors With Weaker Products · June 15, 2026 · 17 min

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