Spark of Ages
Spark of Ages
Rajiv Parikh
The Spark of Ages podcast is about the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence through a marketing lens.  We are living in the middle of the most important "spark for the ages".   Our episodes are either about looking back to teach us what we can learn for this moment, or looking forward for where the next spark might be.We highlight the stories from business leaders at the intersection of marketing, technology and innovation.
The AI With 160,000 Friends That Networks For You/Andrew D'Souza - Boardy.ai, Cold Start, Team ~ Spark of Ages Ep 69
Rajiv Parikh talks with Andrew D’Souza about building Boardy, an AI superconnector that scales warm introductions while protecting its own reputation and the network’s goodwill. We dig into why Boardy rejects SaaS norms, how the team trains an autonomous AI to say no, and what it takes to hire imaginative builders for an AI-native company. Boardy.ai: https://www.boardy.ai/ • why reputation-weighted introductions beat open messaging • how Boardy works through phone calls, WhatsApp, and email...
Aug 7
42 min
How the Air Force Is Cracking Silicon Valley/Jason Hansberger, John Alora - Ukraine, Drones, Computer Vision ~ Spark of Ages Ep 68
Cheap drones and bounded autonomy are rewriting the economics of warfare and forcing the US military and DefenseTech startups to rethink how we buy, build, and field capability at speed. Our host, Rajiv Parikh, is joined by Jason Hansberger and John Alora, the director and co-director at the Department of the Air Force Stanford AI Studio, who talk through what they're learning by bridging operators, academics, and founders, and what it will take to compete in GPS-denied, production-cons...
Jul 24
1 hr 9 min
The Career Move That Survives AI/Geoff McQueen - Vibecoding, Revealed Preference, Coaches ~ Spark of Ages Ep 67
Rajiv Parikh talks with four-time founder Geoff McQueen about how AI is inverting the business pyramid and forcing everyone, not just executives, to act more entrepreneurially. We dig into why demos are easier than trust, how revealed preference drives better pivots than surveys, and what AI-first operations look like when context beats dashboards. • AI flipping high-cognitive work and raising the bar for every role • Why entrepreneurship matters more than traditional management • Speedy vib...
Jul 10
1 hr 2 min
Why Buyers Say Yes/Dr. Christophe Morin - Neuromarketing, Psychedelics, Hawaii ~ Spark of Ages Ep 66
Rajiv Parikh talks with Dr. Christophe Morin about why AI can be deceptively convincing, how to use custom GPT guardrails to make it safer, and what synthetic consciousness might actually mean. We also explore neurospirituality and neuroplasticity as practical tools for founders who want to scale without letting stress, anxiety, or savior patterns run their lives. • AI as a persuasive mirror that can hallucinate and mislead • Synthetic consciousness versus consciousness claims • Custom GPTs ...
Jun 26
1 hr 1 min
The Real Reason Your Revenue Team Is Failing/Bridget Winston - Metrics, Cheetahs, B2B+B2C ~ Spark of Ages Ep 65
We sit down with Bridget Winston to unpack what separates a real Chief Revenue Officer from a bookings-focused sales leader, and why the org chart tells you the truth faster than the job title. We get practical about SaaS metrics, AI-driven go-to-market, and the leadership habits that keep teams performing as the playbook keeps changing. • Evaluating a CRO remit by reporting lines and revenue accountability • Using GRR and NRR to diagnose product-market fit and ICP clarity • Treating revenue...
Jun 5
1 hr 1 min
Eric Ries (Incorruptible) on Why Good Companies Go Bad (And How to Stop It) ~ Spark of Ages Ep 64
We sit down with Eric Ries, author of "The Lean Startup" to discuss his new book "Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad... and How Great Companies Stay Great" (which launches later this week on May 26) to name the force that pulls great companies off mission and to map concrete ways to build businesses that stay great as they scale. We also get into AI agents, vibe coding risks, and why trust, empathy, and stories can outperform metrics when the stakes are real. • corporations as superorg...
May 22
50 min
How AI is Actually Melting the Org Chart/Mike Ni - Burnout, Context, Outcomes~ Spark of Ages Ep 63
Rajiv talks with Mike Ni (Constellation Research) about why AI makes old go-to-market playbooks less useful and why experience, judgment, and outcome thinking become the real edge. We break down enterprise-grade context, closed-loop learning, and what changes when humans start managing both people and AI agents. • LLMs commoditizing expertise while elevating experience and question quality • Aligning go-to-market work to outcomes as roles converge across marketing and sales • Humans becoming...
May 8
34 min
Future of Work: How Humans & Agents Will Coexist/Neil Shepherd, Amit Malhotra - Tasks, Tyrants, Org Charts ~ Spark of Ages Ep 62
Rajiv sits down with Neil Sheperd (formerly Cohere, Scale AI, BCG, McKinsey) and Amit Malhotra (formerly buybuy Baby, 1-800-Contacts) to get brutally specific about how humans and Agentic AI will coexist in the future workplace. They discuss how AI changes tasks first and why the shock may hit high-skill jobs sooner than most people expect. We debate agent guardrails, attention economics in B2B marketing, and the leadership skills that still matter when execution gets automated. • AI r...
Apr 25
1 hr 1 min
Brand & Demand: The Marketing-Sales Marriage/Randi Barshack, Nicole Fuselier - Alignment, MQLs, Creativity ~ Spark of Ages Ep 61
We break down what great B2B marketing looks like when creative storytelling meets revenue discipline and tighter sales alignment. Randi Barshack (CMO at Dusty Robotics)and Nicole Fuselier (VP of Demand and Growth at SambNova Systems) share how they measure what matters, build trust across teams, and use AI without giving up human judgment. • creativity plus process as the core of great marketing • “vitamin vs painkiller” framing for product market fit • sales and marketing alignment built o...
Apr 13
56 min
From API Economy to Agent Economy/Oren Michels - Barndoor AI, OpenClaw, Agentic Governance ~ Spark of Ages Ep 60
Rajiv talks with Oren Michels about why enterprise AI ROI stalls when tools live in chat and stay stuck in read-only mode. We break down how a control plane for AI agents enables safe write access across SaaS and internal systems while keeping governance tight. • chat interfaces working for developers but not for most business roles • connectivity and trust as the core blockers to enterprise AI adoption • one control plane to manage many AI models and agent tools • task-level guardrails that...
Mar 30
51 min
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