Episode 171 of Open Tech Talks brings a powerful conversation with Marc Pickren, the turnaround CEO behind multiple successful SaaS revivals and now the driving force at Springbot. Host Kashif Manzoor explores how today’s businesses can stay resilient, profitable, and human-centered amid the rapid evolution of AI and automation.

Marc has spent the last decade reviving software companies between $5 million and $50 million in revenue, mastering the art of building “unkillable companies.” In 2025, he decided to take the leap from corporate turnarounds to entrepreneurship, rolling up multiple firms into the Springbot ecosystem. The result: a capital-efficient, profitable SaaS company thriving amid uncertainty.

Their conversation goes deep into how AI is reshaping sales and marketing, not through hype but through measurable, real-world practices. Marc explains why most marketing dashboards lie, why pop-ups destroy conversion trust, and how AI-powered automation can help teams focus on what truly matters: genuine human conversations that drive revenue. He also shares how his team uses demo-video workflows to replace the traditional “demo call,” reducing friction and turning qualified interest into business faster.

Kashif brings a personal perspective to the discussion, connecting Marc’s approach with his own journey advising AI-first startups and building AI Tech Circle’s Generative AI Maturity Framework. He recalls how curiosity, something Marc calls “the new survival skill”, became the foundation for building his own AI-driven playbooks and newsletters that reach global professionals every weekend.

Episode # 171

Marc Pickren, CEO and entrepreneur at Springbot.com, has achieved a 3X founder exit, has raised $50M in capital, was nominated for CEO of the Year in Austin, and was named Top CEO for Women in 2019.

• Website: MarcPickren

What Listeners Will Learn:

• Design AI-enabled growth systems that prioritize efficiency and profit over vanity metrics
• Replace outdated funnels with conversation-centric sales frameworks
• Integrate AI automation and intelligent business agents without losing the human touch
• Identify go-to-market data priorities and build accurate ideal-customer profiles
• Avoid subscription clutter and AI-wrapper product fatigue while keeping focus on tangible outcomes
• Foster curiosity and adaptability as the most critical leadership mindset in 2025
• Pivot continuously and let customers shape your product, not vanity feature roadmaps

• MarcPickren

In this episode of Open Tech Talks, host Kashif Manzoor sits down with Emily McSherry, founder and CEO of Advise. This career development platform helps university students discover real-world careers through authentic video interviews. Emily shares her journey from recruitment and sales training to launching Advise, a platform now used by leading universities to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-life career paths.

Listeners will learn how Advise uses AI-powered recommendation systems to connect students with the right content while preserving authenticity through authentic human voices. Emily discusses what makes today’s students struggle with career choices, how Gen Z approaches work differently, and how universities are adapting to the rise of Generative AI in education.

The conversation explores practical lessons for founders and learners alike, from building an MVP and winning the first paying clients to maintaining emotional resilience as a startup leader. Emily also shares actionable career advice for students, including resume best practices, interview preparation, and using AI tools responsibly.

This episode offers a unique blend of entrepreneurship, education technology, and human-centered AI, making it ideal for educators, students, and tech professionals who are shaping the future of learning and work.

Episode # 170

She had developed Advize, a career platform that has already helped thousands of students discover and navigate their career paths for free. They partner with universities and corporations to democratize access to practical career guidance and support.

• Website: Advizehub

What Listeners Will Learn:

• How to build a scalable tech platform around a simple, authentic human insight.
• The real-world process of validating a startup idea and securing institutional clients.
• Why is authenticity in content becoming more valuable as AI-generated material floods the market?
• Practical strategies for students navigating AI-driven career tools and resume builders.
• How emotional resilience and mindset determine a founder’s long-term success more than early traction.
• The Evolving Relationship between Gen AI, Universities, and the Future of Student Employability.

• Advizehub

In this episode of Open Tech Talks, host Kashif Manzoor speaks with Cristian Sibbles, founder of Autograph AI, a groundbreaking platform that transforms personal memories into digital legacies using Generative AI and Voice AI. Cristian shares how Autograph’s virtual interviewer “Walter” calls users weekly to record their life stories, transforming them into searchable biographies and AI-powered avatars that preserve family wisdom for future generations.

From his roots in Paraguay to studying Artificial Intelligence at Stanford and working at Google, Cristian’s journey reveals how technology, storytelling, and emotion can converge to build products that outlive trends. The discussion invovlved into AI-driven memory preservation, the technical architecture of voice-based agents, and Cristian’s rapid MVP-to-market strategy, which went viral across nine countries.

Listeners will learn practical insights on building AI startups with emotional purpose, designing AI-first workflows, mastering iteration velocity, and leveraging Generative AI tools to solve real human problems. This episode is a must-listen for founders, engineers, and innovators exploring how AI can amplify human stories rather than replace them.

Episode # 169

Cristian Cibils Bernardes is the founder and CEO of Autograph, the company behind Walter, the world's first AI Historian. Walter functions as a journal, prompting users to document their life stories once a week. Cristian studied Symbolic Systems with a focus on Artificial Intelligence at Stanford, worked as a Software Engineer at Google, and was a Partner at Cibersons.

• Website: Autograph

What Listeners Will Learn:

• Cristian’s personal story of growing up in a tech-driven family, studying AI at Stanford, and transitioning from Google engineer to founder.
• How Autograph integrates telephony, scheduling, and generative models to facilitate lifelike conversations.
• Insights on MVP development speed from idea to working prototype in one week, and to live beta in under four months.
• The importance of iteration velocity, AI-first thinking, and design thinking in modern product building.
• The emerging market for AI-driven memory preservation addresses the issues of loneliness and social connection in an aging population.
• Key lessons for GenAI founders, identifying human-centric problems, staying ahead of AI commoditization, and building products that last beyond technological hype.
• Why unstructured, emotional data, not structured enterprise data, may define the next generation of AI experiences.

• Autograph