
Agents of Scale Wade Foster’s Favorite AI Tool? How Granola’s CEO Built It To Think With You
4 snips
Oct 16, 2025 Chris Pedregal, Co-founder and CEO of Granola, shares insights from his journey as a serial entrepreneur and builder dedicated to enhancing human thinking with AI. He discusses how AI can reduce busywork while preserving human judgment, why now is the perfect time to innovate in technology, and the importance of context in the future of AI. Chris also delves into reinventing education for children, the cultural dynamics within Granola, and the unique roles emerging in teams as AI becomes integrated into daily workflows.
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Early Secure Email Startup
- Chris Pedregal built Scrambler Mail as an 18-year-old to solve secure email usability, learning security is mostly a human-interface problem.
- The startup failed but taught him that timing and naive persistence unlock ideas that previously failed.
Socratic's Tech Catch-Up
- Chris founded Socratic, sold it to Google, and saw once-dreamed AI capabilities arrive today via modern LLMs.
- That experience shaped his view that current tools make previously impossible learning experiences practical.
Augment Thinking, Don't Replace It
- Many AI meeting products create generic summaries but miss the user's unique thinking and judgment needs.
- Granola focuses on augmenting users' thinking rather than fully replacing their real-time note-taking role.




