<![CDATA[Thinking Straight]]>Thinking Straight is a podcast for business leaders, product builders, and entrepreneurs who want to think rigorously about AI.

Featuring interviews with founders, builders, investors, and operators, the show brings an honest perspective to an AI narrative that is too often dominated by either breathless optimism or doomsday prophecies.

We cover: The tools, models, and breakthroughs actually worth your attention, what AI adoption actually looks like inside real organizations, and the hard questions facing our society as we navigate this transformation.

Examining the technology from multiple angles, the show aims to help listeners build a clear and grounded understanding of AI and its implications.

]]>clearcreek.aiRiverside.fm (https://riverside.com)Fri, 11 Sep 2026 08:13:47 GMTThu, 27 Aug 2026 23:06:45 GMT60Jason Griffing<p>Thinking Straight is a podcast for business leaders, product builders, and entrepreneurs who want to think rigorously about AI.</p><p></p><p>Featuring interviews with founders, builders, investors, and operators, the show brings an honest perspective to an AI narrative that is too often dominated by either breathless optimism or doomsday prophecies.</p><p></p><p>We cover: The tools, models, and breakthroughs actually worth your attention, what AI adoption actually looks like inside real organizations, and the hard questions facing our society as we navigate this transformation.</p><p></p><p>Examining the technology from multiple angles, the show aims to help listeners build a clear and grounded understanding of AI and its implications.</p>episodicJason Griffingjasongriffing@gmail.comno<![CDATA[Grok Bot, Robotics, Cybersecurity, and AI Infrastructure, w/ Rob Carpenter ]]>Rob Carpenter is the managing member of Frost River Capital, where he's actively acquiring and growing a portfolio of residential service businesses. Before that, he founded and led Valyant AI, a conversational AI platform for the drive-thru food industry that was acquired in 2024. He holds five patents in conversational AI and has been featured by Fox Business, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the BBC, and TechCrunch.

We cover: Grok Bot, cybersecurity in the age of AI, robotics, and AI Infrastructure

🔖 Chapters:
00:09 Grok Bot
00:29 Intro
02:07 The Age of the Agent
06:47 Grok Bot
18:09 Context Windows
21:33 Security and Computer Control
27:03 Grok Bot & Image Creation
28:36 Is Grok Bot the Real Deal?
34:58 The Broader Cybersecurity Landscape
40:26 Robotics
44:59 Infrastructure Build-Out
49:31 How Optimistic Are You?
52:00 Getting in Touch

]]>4aebc7d4-c6c7-49e7-b0f8-8a4137630b03Sun, 30 Aug 2026 19:10:09 GMT<p>Rob Carpenter is the managing member of Frost River Capital, where he's actively acquiring and growing a portfolio of residential service businesses. Before that, he founded and led Valyant AI, a conversational AI platform for the drive-thru food industry that was acquired in 2024. He holds five patents in conversational AI and has been featured by Fox Business, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the BBC, and TechCrunch.<br /><br />We cover: Grok Bot, cybersecurity in the age of AI, robotics, and AI Infrastructure<br /></p><p><b>🔖 Chapters: </b><br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=9s">00:09</a> Grok Bot<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=29s">00:29</a> Intro<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=127s">02:07</a> The Age of the Agent<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=407s">06:47</a> Grok Bot<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=1089s">18:09</a> Context Windows<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=1293s">21:33</a> Security and Computer Control<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=1623s">27:03</a> Grok Bot &amp; Image Creation<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=1716s">28:36</a> Is Grok Bot the Real Deal?<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=2098s">34:58</a> The Broader Cybersecurity Landscape<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=2426s">40:26</a> Robotics<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=2699s">44:59</a> Infrastructure Build-Out<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=2971s">49:31</a> How Optimistic Are You?<br /><a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VuTRFxQXWw&amp;t=3120s">52:00</a> Getting in Touch</p>no00:52:30Grok Bot, Robotics, Cybersecurity, and AI Infrastructure, w/ Rob Carpenter full<![CDATA[Keeping Your Mind in the Age of AI, with Erika Lenz]]>Is AI making everyone in the room dumber, one polished answer at a time?

In this episode of Thinking Straight, we talk with Erika Lenz, founder of KeepYourMind.ai and Kinetic Change, about the human side of AI adoption: the messy, cognitive, and organizational work that most companies skip on their way to "just go use AI."

We explore what "human-centered AI" actually means in practice, why 95% of AI adoptions are failing to deliver expected ROI, and why the real bottleneck in software isn't engineering anymore; it's distribution, customer attention, and the humans still stuck in every workflow.

We dig into the theory of constraints, the danger of frameworks that automate an entire product lifecycle while skipping the ends that matter, and why senior judgment and taste are becoming more valuable, not less, even as AI writes the code.

We also get into AI critical literacy: the discipline of asking not just how to use AI, but whether and when to use it at all. That includes the sycophancy baked into these tools, the practice of demanding the "bull and bear case" before trusting an output, the real research on cognitive de-skilling, and simple habits like journaling decisions, drafting without AI once a month, and capturing a first take before handing it to the model, for keeping your own thinking sharp.

]]>31543f54-7164-4cbe-ab4c-9a275f6ffd74Thu, 27 Aug 2026 23:10:47 GMT<p>Is AI making everyone in the room dumber, one polished answer at a time?<br /><br />In this episode of Thinking Straight, we talk with Erika Lenz, founder of <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="http://KeepYourMind.ai" target="_blank">KeepYourMind.ai</a> and Kinetic Change, about the human side of AI adoption: the messy, cognitive, and organizational work that most companies skip on their way to "just go use AI."<br /><br />We explore what "human-centered AI" actually means in practice, why 95% of AI adoptions are failing to deliver expected ROI, and why the real bottleneck in software isn't engineering anymore; it's distribution, customer attention, and the humans still stuck in every workflow. <br /><br />We dig into the theory of constraints, the danger of frameworks that automate an entire product lifecycle while skipping the ends that matter, and why senior judgment and taste are becoming more valuable, not less, even as AI writes the code.<br /><br />We also get into AI critical literacy: the discipline of asking not just how to use AI, but whether and when to use it at all. That includes the sycophancy baked into these tools, the practice of demanding the "bull and bear case" before trusting an output, the real research on cognitive de-skilling, and simple habits like journaling decisions, drafting without AI once a month, and capturing a first take before handing it to the model, for keeping your own thinking sharp.</p>no00:51:06Keeping Your Mind in the Age of AI, with Erika Lenzfull