In this timely episode, Daniel Carpio, Co-Founder of Veri, shares how AI has collapsed the old barriers so you can now scale yourself as the new unit of growth instead of relying on one employer. If you struggle with feeling locked into a single job for income, identity, and security while sensing the game has changed, you won’t want to miss it.
You will discover:
– What nondelegable risks you must own yourself once traditional employment no longer absorbs them for you
– How to start with radical self-assessment of your real skills, assets, and constraints before building anything
– Why tight feedback loops across every time horizon are now the only way to avoid compounding the wrong bets
Episode Transcript
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome once again to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a founder. I’m your host Scott Ritzheimer, and there’s a challenge that I believe virtually every single employee faces, and that is that your income, your benefits, your network, your identity all seem to sit with one employer, and historically we would call that safe, but now I think more than ever that’s really a concentration risk, and I also believe that never has it been more risky and less necessary than it is today.
Here to help us explore this further is our guest Danny Carpio, who is an organizational architect, systems builder, entrepreneur, and author of the upcoming book The Unfirm: The New Unit of Scale is You. Over the past 13 years, he’s helped build organizations that raised more than $25 million in capital and achieved nine-figure valuations. Danny specializes in organizational design, AI-native operating systems and helping founders and small teams achieve self-scale by creating smarter systems instead of relying on traditional organizational growth. Danny, welcome to the show. Glad to have you here. I’m excited about this conversation, in particular because a lot has changed recently. But before we dive into what all of that is necessarily, what change that specifically led you to write your new book?
Daniel Carpio
Hey, Scott, thank you so much for that intro and for the your thoughtful preparation here. I’m really excited to have this conversation, so so I appreciate it. Like you said, everything has just changed so fast, even from from when I first started writing the book, I’ll tell you that I never really wanted to like work in the system that existed, and so I it was always just harder for me. But I ended up I was always a network builder, and so I I found that the most satisfying way to independently build in a de-risked manner was by having positive some relationships with other people who were aligned, and so I ended up absorbing other people’s scale in a networked way and helping them win and set up stuff. And so as I helped people over a long time, you know that builds a lot of trust, and so it ended up being difficult and like harder than what it would have been if I had just kind of gone into a more traditional work environment, but way more fulfilling. And I learned a ton of other stuff.
And then right before the book, I thought that this is now more possible. Now, is this better? Like, is this the better way now to compete because of what technology can now do for us? That was a I call them fever dreams, right? And that was like just I was like oh like I’ve been doing it this way, but now you know ChatGPT came out, you know back in the day, and and and then I started I’ve always been a fan of AI, but you know it seems so far, and now it was just close, and so it started off. And it’s funny how just things go. You know, God is good, and like we, it everything came into place as I was writing it. It was such a, it was very thesis driven and theoretical, and I was trying to put to pieces like what did I actually do, and what does that actually mean, and how does that help people? Because I work in a very unique way, and it’s very custom now for each of us. And so, as as I got closer to the the book launch, everything just accelerated, you know, and it’s still happening. And so, what changed was AI just became way more capable, way more cheap. The thesis bore out in a lot of ways, and so the the first part of the book is very much we have to relook again. I have to explain my thesis. I was like, “Hey, do we agree that this is what’s happening right now?”
You know, I think because if if you we agree, or at the very least you think it’s possible, like let’s let’s keep reading because there’s a lot of new risks, and now there’s a brand new way to approach things that are optimal. And this is a I think this will help you think through it, even if you don’t agree that that’s the right way. And so, as we started moving forward, I started seeing that these enterprises started making these organizational changes. They started just collapsing down, and and it started happening. The thesis started happening live, and now we’re seeing that to this day, like Muse is now, I think we consumer AI agents is now in everyone’s pocket, and so we just had a brand new accelerant. And so, what’s changed is that things are changing much faster than they ever have, and the thesis is just born out more.
Scott Ritzheimer
So let’s let’s talk about the thesis because when folks look at AI, there’s just this whole like, what is it? What does it mean for me? That’s really what everyone’s asking, and a lot of what makes the news is you know the rich get richer and you know the layoffs and and there’s there’s a lot of negative consequences in one respect and and I think all of those are are true and important, but you kind of approach. This to some extent from another another direction. That there’s there’s also an opportunity in this, especially for folks that are struggling, you know, as employees somewhere, or even a small business owner. What’s the what’s the opportunity that’s available in all of this, especially for the individual?
Daniel Carpio
Yeah, I think it’s massive. You know, look at the end of the day, the thesis can be alarming, and so I never meant to alarm people because at the end of the day, I do view it as a mass democratization event. Like what is actually happening is that you no longer need all those things around you to execute your visions and to express value societally that can drive economic value for yourself too, and others, and so all of the components that would have been barriers to entry, and they were very real, very systemic, and that’s why the old structures worked. Those are gone, but like new things are hard, and so it’s not like the end. Like doing stuff is not easy now, but doing those things that were barriers to entry are easy and cheap. So what does that mean? What does that mean now for for markets and for what people are willing to pay for, for where complexity is, for for the value of labor and of your time, and for how you’ve managed your risk? And so I think I think I like to say scale is now relevant to everyone.
It wasn’t relevant to you because there was a a labor employment relationship that was systemic in nature, and in that you traded away the benefits of scale, but also the risks that was required to bear it to other people, and they carried the upside. And their goal was to drive operating leverage with inputs of scale, and we were one of those, you know, through that structure. But now that dependent side no longer needs that for their units of scale, in fact, it’s if they don’t change, they die, right? As an institution, and so that there’s systemic risk now in that labor trade that didn’t exist, and so that so that’s one component. But what does that mean for you? Is that this is designed for for smaller units to be able to scale, and so now you can go compete and go bring value to market in a way that you have never been able to do before. And I know that that sounds these are like abstractions. And my wife always clowns on me because she’s like, Danny, no one understands what you’re saying.
So like, so I like examples because you know my I want the most important thing is that people understand and feel empowered. As far you know, I don’t want to just talk to South, you know, with big words. I want people to like internalize this, and I love examples. Thinking, I’m thinking, I think about it in two ways. One is the four minute mile, right? For for most of human history, it was impossible. It was going to kill you if you ran four minute miles. The doctors would tell everyone believed that to be true. That was the truth, and then someone just did it, and then like a bunch of people have done it since, and like someone just broke another record three minutes and like like 42 seconds, whatever that is. It’s no longer possible, and so once that breaks down, what happens? You know, and then another like adjacent example that helps, I think, is how Elon Musk and SpaceX did their reusable rocket. How they collapsed the cost of space travel so much that they made their own market. Everyone had to come do it. That’s what’s happening now with the ability to scale. Is it’s collapsed down. We have a reusable rocket, but now we have to put it together for ourselves and go use it. So now everyone can do it, and that’s very exciting. But that has other challenges like market saturation. We can go into those, but I think that those two examples, I think are are instrumental for like breaking down the perception that you can’t do stuff. A lot of like barriers that aren’t just aren’t there anymore. A lot of brand new risks that kind of should propel us towards revisiting our assumptions, and then a lot of tools that can go launch us off.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So let’s let’s kind of zoomed down to the individual level here because now there’s an opportunity. Like there’s a whole lot that you can do. It almost feel feels like you know the the saying we’ve used all along. You can do anything. It’s like you can do anything if you set AI to it. Is kind of what what it feels like now. How do we know what we should do? One of the things I really liked about the book was it wasn’t just you can do anything, do anything. It was a much more structured approach to leveraging the power that you have as an individual, especially with the technology available today. So my question for you is: When we can do so many things, and we arguably more than ever should do something different, at least from the way we’ve done it, how do we know what to do,
Daniel Carpio
Scott? That’s that is the million dollar question, the billion dollar question. That is the risk. The new when I say that new things are hard, what you just identified is potentially the hardest part. I find myself struggling with it daily. Should I have? Should I be doing this? It’s so easy to just be like look at you know spin it up do it I systematize this this is cool look at me I’m doing AI and then something like what did I actually do I have so many dead things that just died because I just never used them but you learn stuff and and all that but feedback loops what the the biggest risk is that you continually do and compound the. Wrong things, and there’s an opportunity cost there, and so you’re missing the compounding that other people are getting. And even if you get it right, that doesn’t mean you’re right next because market cycles are collapsing and they’re learning, and so people can can just take what you did and go do it themselves. And so in in a lot of ways, we I that’s why the feedback loop is the master thing as far as I’m concerned, because what we’re doing is we’re exploring a brand new operating environment, and the predictive value of old knowledge and systems is lower than it’s ever been.
If it’s even valuable, to be honest, I think we have to go in like with an explorer’s mindset, and we have to, I think, probe our operating reality and get proper, adequate feedback for what in fact works and what we can, what is not possible, and it’s got to be tight, and we have to be able to update it, and our foundation has to be able to absorb that so that we can function. And part of that is, what did I just do? Like you can take an action, get feedback, incorporate it, and then go do that at every unit of your time. You know the time architecture component of the book is is what really sort of unlocks that. Is that there’s a fractal component to your approach of time that is very much is operating reality what I think it is? Am I good at what I think I am? Am I bad at what I think I am? Is that constraint? Do I need capital right now?
The answer is probably no. More most of the time, right now, where it would have been yes, and so there’s a lot of probing, exploring, getting feedback, and then updating. I think because we have to have an explorer’s mindset because our perspectives and old assumptions that are baked in, they’re all kind of gone. And so I think that the value of feedback to solve what you just said-that risk is critical infrastructure. We have to be able to go in with tight feedback loops at every unit of time over in in like a fractal manner. So day, week, month, year, multi-year macro of what we’re doing, and we have to always update that DMO cycle that we talk about in the book. Right? Is is there’s no other way. Otherwise, you’re gonna go fly blind doing stuff, thinking it’s good, and then before you know it, you’re gonna be cooked, and it’s gonna be really hard to undo that and get that time back.
Scott Ritzheimer
For someone at the front end of this journey, right? Really recognizing, yes, the game has changed, and and I have to start thinking differently about it. What’s one practical step from the book that you think you know anyone listening or watching today could take.
Daniel Carpio
This sounds go do something, and I know that that sounds like I don’t I I literally I mean like go go do go do go do something that you think you can’t and and go have an idea and go go try to execute, but but in order to do that, you have to you have to start with what we call radical self assessment. You got to know what you’re cooking with, and you can’t copy paste someone’s someone’s strategy. You know the idea that you’re going to go run my playbook or your scott, or and you will fail. You can’t. It has to be custom to what is actually at your disposal. You have a toolkit. You are good at stuff. You’re smart. People come to you for stuff, right? If your buddies come to you for X, Y, Z, what is that? Like, what are the things that people come to you for? What are things that you go to other people?
What are your constraints? Identifying what you are capable of and what tools you have at your disposal is the number one thing you can do is is really just take a look at it and understand what do I wield in this new environment? Like what is not right? And then once you have done that, that is a constraint based design thing that makes sure that what you design you’re not creating barriers for yourself, right? Because if you design a strategy with things that you’re either not good at or that you need like $100,000 for, like you’re just you setting yourself up for failure, and so number one is you have to radically assess yourself and your assets not from like a like ephemeral emotional like from like a practical datafication of what you have at your disposal to go wield in the environment to go create and capture value economically because that’s what we’re talking about here, right? And so once once you do that, then you just keep updating it. You go probe your reality and you update that.
You get more skills. You fill stuff in and you go execute strategy. Some of them work, some of them don’t. And so it’s challenging. And the book I I had to push back on on my publishing partner because they were like, this is hard to read, and it got harder. And and as I was writing, I was like, it just is hard. This is not easy. And so it is hard. It’s meant to be reread and re reapplied because it it’s not like snake oil. It’s just it’s it’s a framework. No one can do it for you. You can’t delegate this. You are the only one who can do this. And if you don’t adequately understand yourself, your assets, and what you’re not good at, and every constraint possible, and go go to work, you’re going to fail because you’re building someone else’s strategy onto onto your own, and and that’s not going to work for you.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s very true. There’s a question, Danny, that I ask all my guests. I’m interested to see what you’d have to. Especially in the context of this conversation in your book, what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn’t a secret at all? What’s that one thing you wish every founder or leader watching or listening today knew?
Daniel Carpio
I think I’ll call it a something we know, but that we have to always remind ourselves as We go, and and that is that you can’t delegate away your responsibilities at certain certain responsibilities. I call them non delegable duties because I have legal training, but there are just things that we can’t delegate away, and those are largely risk based at things that create critical risk for yourself. And I think people, and I say this because I think most people are used to delegating away certain risks into an old labor trade that doesn’t work, and I think that this is probably one of the biggest hurdles that most people will face: is that that stability is not there for you anymore. There is urgency and opportunity, and that if you don’t properly reassess what is your main responsibility, which is what you are accountable for.
You have to be accountable for what can you not delegate those critical risks. You have to take that seriously. It’s hard. It will always be hard. The other when scale is relevant to you, life is hard. It just is. You know, I’ve won a lot. I’ve lost more than I’ve won. But I’m out here trying to do it again. There’s no guarantee I’m going to do it. So I’m grinding. I’m working my tail off, right? And so that’s what it is. The other side, when scale is relevant to you, it’s an opportunity like you’ve never had at global scale. But it’s incredibly hard, and and most people don’t have the skill set or the perspective to go do that. And the book is a challenge to for them to think about what that means for them, not a demand that they agree with me, and so that is whether that’s a secret. I think that is something that we is easy to forget, and it’s easy to fall into a comfort bias. And I and I have to challenge myself to that, and I think everyone does too.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, Danny. For folks who who want to explore this further, who’d love to hear more from you, tell us where can they get a copy of the book, and how can they reach out or connect with you for more information?
Daniel Carpio
Yeah, absolutely. The book is available anywhere you can buy books online as a eBook, a soft cover, and a hardcover. If you’re a professional or you’re serious about this, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn, Danny Carpio, and on Twitter we we post content through the handle Augmented Things, and so that is where we we distribute, and we’re we’re we’re building a lot of stuff right now that we’re about to go go live with on that side, as far as how we are doing this and the teams around us. What is the infrastructure for people who want to go pursue self scale? Yeah,
Scott Ritzheimer
Fantastic, fantastic, very very interesting time. Very, very interesting book, and I think it’s gonna be really helpful for a lot of folks. So I’d highly recommend that you check it out. Danny, thanks so much for being on, being with us here today. It was a real privilege and honor having you here. And for those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know, I did, and I cannot wait to see you next time. Take care.
Scott Ritzheimer
Hey everyone, Scott Ritzheimer here. Thank you so much for listening to the Start Scale and Succeed podcast. I hope this episode gave you exactly what you need for the level you’re in right now. If you want to discover what level you’re in? Take our 10-question Founders Evolution Quiz for free at foundersquiz.com. That’s foundersquiz.com. It’ll pinpoint exactly where you are and give you tailored tips to move forward and reach that next level in your journey as a founder. If you got something out of today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, or review. It helps us reach more founders like you, and let’s be honest, it means a ton to me, my team, and all our incredible guests. So keep starting, scaling, and succeeding, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
Contact Guest Name
Daniel “Danny” Carpio is an organizational architect, systems builder, entrepreneur, and author of the upcoming book The Unfirm: The New Unit of Scale Is You. Over the past 13 years, he has helped build organizations that raised more than $25 million in capital and achieved nine-figure valuations. Danny specializes in organizational design, AI-native operating systems, and helping founders and small teams achieve self-scale by creating smarter systems instead of relying on traditional organizational growth.
Want to learn more about Daniel Carpio’s work at Veri? Check out his website at https://joinveri.co/
Connect with Daniel Carpio through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-carpio-9703a043/
Check out Daniel Carpio’s Twitter at https://x.com/augmentedthings
Get a copy of Daniel Carpio’s book The Unfirm: The New Unit of Scale is You at https://www.amazon.com/Unfirm-New-Unit-Scale-You-ebook/dp/B0GZF9FLCR