In this episode of Mostly Growth, CJ Gustafson, Kyle Poyar, and Ben Hillman dive into the question on everyone’s mind: are we in an AI bubble? What starts as a lighthearted riff on the U.S. Postal Service launching a podcast quickly spirals into a sharp, funny breakdown of today’s AI hype cycle — from Nvidia, OpenAI, and AMD trading money and GPUs in a trillion-dollar feedback loop, to startups burning cash chasing “AI-powered” everything. The trio share real examples of when AI helps and when it backfires (including one newsletter that totally tanked), debate whether companies are over-optimizing for automation, and laugh through the absurdity of the hype while grounding it in practical insights on product, finance, and growth.

Timestamps:

00:00 Preview and Intro

00:14 Are We in an AI Bubble?

00:44 The AI Money Loop: Nvidia, OpenAI, AMD

01:00 Perplexity, We Caught You

02:18 The Postal Service Launches a Podcast

04:24 How the Team Uses AI (and When It Fails)

06:07 CJ’s DIY Dunning Disaster

08:38 What AI Is Good At — and Where It Breaks

10:49 Perplexity Tries to Gaslight Kyle

13:27 AI vs. AI: Hacking Resume Screeners

16:09 How Recruiters View AI-Generated Resumes

17:17 CJ’s Chief of Staff Hiring Story

19:15 The Data: Is AI Adoption Already Slowing?

22:42 Crossing the Chasm: Early Adopters to Early Majority

26:22 The Streaming Analogy and Forced AI Bundles

28:49 The Circular AI Economy (Everyone Funding Everyone)

31:15 Betting It All on AGI and Data Centers

34:09 The Margin: AI Erotica and the Peak of the Bubble

35:23 Business Blunders: OpenAI’s Token Leaderboard

41:43 What Kyle Tried This Week: Building an AI Agent

44:52 Wrap-Up and Outro

Episodes Referenced:

5,762 Job Applications. Zero Offers.

Why Only 2% of Startups Make It

The War for Talent is just getting started | Joe Floyd

Links:

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https://substack.com/home/post/p-175615945

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https://x.com/TrungTPhan/status/1922669292929024017/photo/1

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https://fortune.com/2024/11/13/red-lobster-ceo-damola-adamolekun-says-endless-shrimp-is-never-coming-back/#

https://www.relay.app/

The $1 Trillion AI Bubble: Nvidia, OpenAI, and the Feedback Loop

Mostly Growth