She's evaluated hundreds of AI pitch decks — and she can spot a real agentic AI company from a wrapper in two sentences.

In Episode 24, I sit down with Sonia, Managing Partner at Zentara Ventures and founder of Dekode Health, to unpack what actually separates AI companies with real ROI from the ones wrapping a chatbot around a spreadsheet and calling it a platform.Sonia isn't theorizing from the sidelines. She's an engineer by training who moved through product and marketing before landing on the venture side — and she's personally built and launched her own AI healthcare product, now in private pilot. Four exits, one IPO, and more than half a billion dollars raised as a C-level executive — she's built a due-diligence lens most investors don't have.

⏱️ Chapters:0:00 Intro

0:32 Sonia's Path: Engineer to Product to Marketing to VC

2:37 What "AI-Powered" Really Buys You in a Pitch5:09 Real AI vs. Wrapper: The VC Due Diligence Test

6:12 Why She Went Deep Before Going Wide

8:23 The 91% Problem: Marketers Faking Agentic Work10:45 The Two-Sentence Test for Fake Agentic A

I13:06 Legal Exposure: Where Founders Overstate AI14:04 What Should Never Get Handed to an Agent

15:36 Agentic AI in Marketing: Why Humans Still Win

17:34 The Line Healthcare AI Should Never Cross

19:42 The ROI Paradox: 84% Positive vs. "It's All Hype"

22:10 AI Layoffs: Real Capability or Convenient Cover?

25:35 The Solopreneur Era (and Why You Still Need Humans)

27:04 Redefining Execution in 2026

29:42 What Changes by 2027

32:15 Where to Find Sonia + Dekode Health

"Founders who treat AI as a marketing layer instead of an infrastructure layer — wrapping a ChatGPT or Claude API around a spreadsheet and calling it a platform — that's not a company. It's a feature at best." — Sonia

🔗 Links:* Connect with Sonia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/soniahunt/

* Connect with Leena: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leenaagarwal/

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