EPISODE 76

JJ Zhuang, co-founder and CEO of Pretty Good AI, returns to Founder Mode to answer for the predictions he made on the show over a year ago. Kevin and Jason had Claude grade all ten, and JJ defends his record on hiring generalists over specialists, how much code AI is really writing, why taste is the one thing you can't train into a model, and why slide decks are dead when you can just build the thing. He finishes 6.5 for 10, which beats the weatherman, and points to the release of Opus 4.6 as the moment things that used to not work suddenly started working. In the second half, JJ looks ahead: why Pretty Good AI is skipping the "sell the same widget a thousand times" playbook to become the AI team for healthcare practices, how to build guardrails around AI that's confidently wrong, why the human work that's left will be 100% hard work, how the team keeps protected patient data away from AI agents, and how a lean team can win a crowded healthcare AI market.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Cold Open: Why Not Just Solve All Your Problems?

00:31 – JJ Returns: Grading 10 Predictions One Year Later

01:58 – Generalists vs. Specialists: Who Should You Hire?

04:39 – Is AI Really Writing Half of All Code?

07:28 – Taste, Comprehension, and the Human Edge

09:58 – Instant Prototypes, Fast Software, and the Death of Slide Decks

12:39 – Directing AI and the Most Overhyped Buzzword

14:32 – Overhyped or Underestimated? The Opus 4.6 Moment

17:09 – The Scorecard: 6.5 for 10

18:00 – Pretty Good AI's Big Bet: Solve Every Problem

20:02 – What Success Looks Like: Becoming Your Customers' AI Team

20:39 – Designing Around AI That's Confidently Wrong

22:20 – Where the Line Between AI and Humans Moves Next

24:09 – Building on Models That Change Every Few Months

25:58 – Compliance When Your Team Is Agents

28:23 – What Patients Notice First

30:17 – How a Lean Team Wins a Crowded Market

LINKS

Connect with JJ Zhuang

Pretty Good AI • LinkedIn • X/Twitter

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Connect with Kevin

LinkedIn • X/Twitter

Connect with Jason

LinkedIn • X/Twitter