The General Podcast

Claire Hughes Johnson, former COO at Stripe and author of 'Scaling People', joins Gretchen Howard, former COO at Robinhood, for an insightful conversation on navigating the complexities of the COO role. They discuss taking calculated risks in joining high-growth startups and the vital importance of building trust with founders. The duo delves into the 'unglamorous' challenges of operations, cultural integration, and the strategic function of people in scaling businesses, proving that real leadership is about both hard decisions and fostering strong cultures.

Dan Shipper is the co-founder and CEO of Every, a media company built around writing, software, and AI. With a tiny team, they put out a daily newsletter, build products, and run a consulting arm, all while staying weird and experimental. Dan’s one of the most thoughtful writers on how AI is reshaping creativity, business, and what it means to build.Alex Konrad is the founder of Upstarts, a newsletter about the next breakout companies before they break out. He spent over a decade at Forbes, where he wrote 15+ cover stories, co-created the Cloud 100 list, and led Midas List coverage of the top VCs in the world. Together, they discuss and debate building sustainable media businesses today, using AI to amplify creativity, and why legacy playbooks no longer apply.In this conversation, you’ll learn:1. Why being weird is often a competitive advantage2. How thinking like a product person (and not just a writer) shapes everything they publish3. The surprisingly tactical ways they protect time for original thinking4. Why Upstarts and Every both resisted the pressure to “build the platform” too soon5. How Every runs multiple AI products and a daily newsletter with only 15 people6. Why they both believe your business model is a creative decision7. Their thinking around independent journalism as a “tech-enabled service,” not content8. How AI tools like Claude, Cora, and ChatGPT actually fit into their creative process9. How to avoid burnout when your business is also your identity10. How to stay joyful and experimental when everyone else is optimizingWhere to find Dan:Newsletter: every.toX: @danshipperWhere to find Alex:Newsletter: https://www.upstartsmedia.comX: @alexrkonradWhere to find TheGP:Newsletter:  https://thegeneralpartnership.substack.com/X: @thegpReferenced in this episode:MrBeast: https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeastThe Pragmatic Engineer: https://www.pragmaticengineer.comStratechery by Ben Thompson: https://stratechery.com/Lenny’s Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/Tom Brady quote: “Winners focus on winning. Losers focus on winners.”Acquired Podcast: https://www.acquired.fm/Claude: https://claude.aiChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com War and Peace by Leo TolstoyThe writer Maggie NelsonSpiral by Every: https://spiral.computerCora by Every: https://cora.computerThink Week (Bill Gates’s famous retreat)Documentary: WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn 

Christina Farr, longtime healthtech journalist and now advisor, investor, and editor-in-chief of Second Opinion Media, sits down with Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of "The Emperor of All Maladies," oncologist, and founder of Manas AI.In this expansive conversation, they explore the current and future role of AI in medicine. Sid offers a typology for how LLMs are showing up in clinical practice and scientific discovery, while Chrissy pushes on what AI can’t yet replicate: intuition, empathy and institutional memory. They discuss whether AI will replace the “intelligentsia,” what it gets right and wrong about diagnostics and drug discovery, and how clinicians can stay relevant by staying creative. This is a thoughtful, urgent discussion between two people who are both deeply familiar with the systems of medicine. In this conversation, you’ll learn:1. A six-part framework for how AI is transforming healthcare and science2. How ambient scribes, LLMs, and generative chemistry are reshaping workflows3. The difference between simulated empathy and real human care4. What LLMs still miss: texture, taste, and tacit knowledge5. How AI might (or might not) generate revolutionary scientific insights6. Why the future belongs to clinicians who generate new knowledge, not just apply itWhere to find Chrissy:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinafarr/X: https://x.com/chrissyfarSubstack: https://secondopinion.media/Where to find Sid:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddhartha-mukherjee-19b6b8126/The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/siddhartha-mukherjeeBooks: The Emperor of All Maladies, The Gene, The Song of the CellWhere to find TheGP: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-general-partnershipX: https://x.com/thegpSubstack: https://thegeneralpartnership.substack.com/Referenced in this episode: • Manas AI: https://www.manasai.co• Richard Feynman’s “Cargo Cult Science” lecture: https://calteches.library.caltech.edu/51/2/CargoCult.htm• Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Scientific-Revolutions-50th-Anniversary-ebook/dp/B007USH7J2/• Karl Popper’s theory of falsifiability: https://www.simplypsychology.org/karl-popper.html• Stephen Jay Gould’s “The Median Isn’t the Message”: https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/median-isnt-message/2013-01• David Fajgenbaum’s Chasing My Cure: https://chasingmycure.com/

In this lively chat, Katie Dill, Head of Design at Stripe, and Randy Hunt, Head of Design at Notion, share their insights on the value of beautifully crafted products, especially in an AI-driven world. They discuss the importance of fostering creativity and taste within design teams, while advocating for 'fewer memos, more demos.' The duo creatively uses an ice cream analogy for decision-making and emphasizes the enduring power of strong design leadership, rituals, and collaboration in scaling organizations.

What is The General Podcast?