The autonomous company

Francois de Fitte | Pancake
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Technology
  • Updated Biweekly

Companies of tomorrow will have more AI agents than humans running the show. Hosted by François, founder of Pancake, The Autonomous Company sits down with the top 1% of YC founders in San Francisco - the ones already living in the future, with agents doing most of their work. How they build, what they automate, and the playbooks behind it. From Pancake (getpancake.ai), the platform to stack expert agents that run your business with you. Welcome to the age of high leverage.

Episodes

  1. 4d ago

    It's time your company got a brain | Conor Brennan-Burke (Founder, Hyperspell, YC F25)

    Conor Brennan-Burke sells a company brain to five-person startups and Fortune 500s. His first warning is about the thing everyone tries first: connect an AI agent to everything. The agent finds a document, assumes it is true, and people make decisions on it. In his words, "giving access does not give understanding". You are just wrong faster. Conor is the founder and CEO of Hyperspell (YC Fall 2025), the memory and context layer for AI agents. Before Hyperspell he was a product manager, led a $30M ARR API business at Checkr, and spent years at BCG advising Fortune 500 executives. He grew up in a town of 2,000 people in Western New York, left school at 12, started college at 13, and got into YC after several rejections and a stretch sleeping in a closet in a hacker house. We discuss: 1. Why "connect your agent to everything" is the worst thing you can do, and what a company brain does instead 2. Why the most valuable context in a young company comes from its agents 3. API keys, credit card numbers and medical records in Slack: why permissions have to follow the content 4. One brain, many views: conflicting documents, the permissions layer, and a wiki with one answer to "what is our ICP?" 5. Is RAG dead? Project Nightingale, garbled British accents, and when you still need semantic search 6. Why hire humans at all? Spiky people only: a doctor as chief of staff, a lawyer as one of his best engineers 7. Dropping out at 12, college at 13, BCG, and "you look too good, it's freaking people out" 8. The worst advice a founder can get: "you need a great idea to start" 9. Why more code is slop, and what stays human: taste, judgment, and someone to call when it breaks Where to find Conor Brennan-Burke: - X: https://x.com/contextconor - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorbrennanburke/ - Hyperspell: https://www.hyperspell.com Where to find Guillaume Marquis: - X: https://x.com/will_marq - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marquis-guillaume/ - Pancake: https://getpancake.ai In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Cold open (00:46) Welcome to the show (01:05) What Hyperspell is: a self-improving company brain (01:30) Human context and agent context: why your agents know more than your docs (02:29) Five-person startups to Fortune 500: how context changes with company age (03:47) 20 years of documents: is it V2.2, V2.3, VF or VFF? (04:26) "Giving access does not give understanding": why you end up wrong faster (05:33) The knowledge in people's heads: Flash Boys and getting closer to the brain (06:34) Record everything? Note-takers built into the office (07:00) Board meetings, layoff plans and API keys in Slack: permissions that follow the content (09:29) The use cases: coordination, and one understanding of the customer (10:51) Agents as spies: who is actually doing the work (11:47) Update the source of truth once and every agent follows (12:47) One brain, many views: the permissions layer and the self-updating wiki (14:29) Is RAG dead? (16:12) Why hire humans at all? Spiky people vs the median (17:42) A lawyer who became an engineer, a doctor who became chief of staff (19:09) "Do you think you are a spike?" Dropping out at 12, college at 13 (20:21) New York vs Silicon Valley: BCG, first-class flights, and a closet in a hacker house (22:04) Is consulting a good school? "You look too good, it's freaking people out" (24:03) Getting into YC: a co-founder rejected since 2012, and not gaming the application (26:08) Hype and Spell: the seller, the builder, and a fax to Anguilla for a .ai domain (28:37) Revenue in the first hour: how the co-founders met at On Deck (29:24) The worst advice a founder can get: "you need a great idea to start" (31:47) The vision: a brain at the center of every organization, and why more code is slop (33:55) What stays human: trust, relationships, and the future of work

  2. Trailer

    Trailer: It's time your company got a brain (Conor Brennan-Burke, Hyperspell)

    Why are we hiring humans at all? Conor Brennan-Burke's answer: because they are spiky. If all you need is the median engineer, you are better off with a model. Conor is the founder and CEO of Hyperspell (YC Fall 2025), the memory and context layer for AI agents. He left school at 12, started college at 13, led a $30M ARR API business at Checkr, and now says the worst thing you can do is plug an agent into everything: pick the wrong document and you are wrong faster. Episode 3 of The Autonomous Company, hosted by Guillaume Marquis (co-founder, Pancake), drops Monday 8am PT. Follow the show so you don't miss it.

  3. Jul 29

    Middle managers won't survive AI | Liam Boogar-Azoulay (Waypoint AI)

    Liam Boogar-Azoulay was running a 16-person org in Paris — 32 hours of weekly meetings — when ChatGPT came out. His conclusion: for the same output, he didn't need 75% of the team. Because AI doesn't become your manager. It deletes the need for one. Liam is the co-founder of Waypoint AI, the managed agentic automation platform working with Volvo, ClickHouse and Kpler, backed by a $3.1M pre-seed led by 42CAP with Berkeley SkyDeck. Before that, he founded the Rude Baguette (France's startup blog), built brand at Algolia, and was Chief Revenue Officer at Scaleway. He grew up in Menlo Park, spent 15 years in France, and just moved back to the Bay. We discuss: 1. "What the hell is the job of a director?" — why AI makes middle management unnecessary 2. Above the API or below the API — and now: are you above the AI or below the AI? 3. AI coaches instead of managers, and why you can't lie to an LLM 4. Why Volvo, Peugeot and Siemens can't vibe-code their way into AI 5. The 20x mantra: why one AE should now carry twice the pipeline 6. Insight as currency: "$1M in ARR bought us three months of market edge" 7. The final boss isn't agents — it's Androids ($350 humanoids) 8. Contrarian corner: AI as a short-term economic destroyer, the SpaceX take, and why France ends up owning 15-30% of Mistral 9. The $6M Volvo board slide — they asked if he could save them $6M; he said no; they flew him to Sweden anyway — Where to find Liam: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamboogar - Waypoint AI: https://mywaypoint.ai — Where to find François de Fitte: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francoisdefitte/ - Pancake: https://getpancake.ai — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Cold open (01:33) What Waypoint AI does: agentic automation for Volvo and ClickHouse (02:56) Why Volvo, Peugeot and Siemens can't vibe-code their way into AI (04:16) Does n8n have a future? SF as the multiverse of futures (07:26) The directly responsible individual: you still need someone to fire (08:38) The 20x mantra, entry-level jobs and the coming polarization (11:03) Above the AI or below the AI? (11:41) "What the hell is the job of a director?" (13:34) 16 direct reports, 32 hours of weeklies — then ChatGPT (15:27) AI coaches, not managers: "you can't lie to an LLM" (19:26) The best time to be a founder — "you're first for an hour" (20:51) Insight is the currency: losing the Rude Baguette, knowing who wins (24:26) SkyDeck, landing Volvo, and moving back to the Bay (28:30) A family business: his dad, the 70-year-old GTM engineer (29:29) His ChatGPT moment at Scaleway (31:41) The final boss is an Android, not an agent (36:43) Contrarian corner: net destroyer short-term, SpaceX, Mistral (44:16) The $6M Volvo slide: empathy as go-to-market (45:58) Outro — New episode every week. Follow the show so you don't miss the next one.

  4. Season 1, Episode 2 Trailer

    Trailer — Middle managers won't survive AI (Liam Boogar-Azoulay, Waypoint AI)

    "For the amount of output we're getting today, I don't need 75% of the people." Liam Boogar-Azoulay was running a 16-person org — 32 hours of weekly meetings — when ChatGPT came out. Then he did the math. Episode 2 of The Autonomous Company: Liam, co-founder of Waypoint AI (Volvo and ClickHouse as customers), on why AI deletes middle management, the $6M Volvo board slide, and his on-the-record SpaceX take. Full episode drops [demain / date]. Follow the show so you don't miss it.

  5. Jul 14

    You'll never have to receive an email again | Adi Singh (Co-founder, AgentMail, YC S25)

    Adi Singh is the co-founder of AgentMail (YC S25), the first email provider built for AI agents instead of humans, backed by a $6M seed led by General Catalyst. Before AgentMail, he worked in venture at Accel — until a failed get-rich-quick scheme revealed the missing primitive of the agent economy: identity. His customers went from asking for one inbox to asking for a million, and his claim is simple: you'll never have to receive an email again. We discuss: 1. Why agents need identity before they need more intelligence — and why email is the wedge 2. The failed Shopify automation scheme that accidentally became AgentMail 3. "We don't want one inbox. We want a million" — the customer request that changed the company 4. People are buying SaaS seats for their agents, and why software gets richer, not poorer 5. How Adi's Codex agent runs his email — and his dinner reservations 6. Credit scores, insurance, and bank accounts for AI agents: the internet rebuilt for its new citizens 7. The one-person $100B company, and why humans stay at the center 8. AgentMail's hiring rule: spikes, not gap-fillers — Where to find Adi Singh: - X: https://x.com/adisingh - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adivirsingh13/ - AgentMail: https://agentmail.to — Where to find François de Fitte: - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francoisdefitte/ - X: https://x.com/francoisdefitte - Pancake: https://getpancake.ai — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Cold open (00:23) Welcome to the show (00:49) Email for your AI, not AI for your email (01:29) The get-rich-quick idea that became AgentMail (03:05) Agents as employees: identity is the unlock (04:52) The use case nobody expected: paid SaaS seats for agents (05:31) "You never have to receive an email again" (07:19) My Codex has its own inbox (and books restaurants) (08:11) Captchas, Web MCP and the agent-first internet (10:27) Adi's ChatGPT moment: the Harvard essay (13:43) From chatbots to coworkers: the real unlock (15:10) The one-person $100B company (17:56) "AI employees are already here" (19:37) An org chart for AI agents (20:42) What sounds insane today, normal in 6 months (22:15) Agents are the new internet citizens (23:47) What nobody sees: use cases beat hype (25:34) Inside AgentMail: 6-day weeks, hiring for spikes (27:00) How Pancake × AgentMail happened (31:10) Will email still exist in 2040? — Referenced: - AgentMail (YC S25): https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/agentmail - OpenClaw, Poke, Codex, BabyAGI, AutoGPT — New episode every week. Follow the show so you don't miss the next one.

Trailers

About

Companies of tomorrow will have more AI agents than humans running the show. Hosted by François, founder of Pancake, The Autonomous Company sits down with the top 1% of YC founders in San Francisco - the ones already living in the future, with agents doing most of their work. How they build, what they automate, and the playbooks behind it. From Pancake (getpancake.ai), the platform to stack expert agents that run your business with you. Welcome to the age of high leverage.

Information

  • Creator
    Francois de Fitte | Pancake
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    5
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Francois de Fitte | Pancake
  • Show Website
    The autonomous company