Founder Habits You Need To Drop To Be A Great CEO

Spenser Skates has spent more than a decade building Amplitude from a YC startup into a public company, and in that time, he's had to reinvent himself just as much as the product. Joining the Lightcone pod, he talks through the shift from founder to large-company CEO, the skepticism his team initially had toward AI, and the moment they realized the next wave of analytics would require a full reset. He walks through the hard reorgs, the bottom-up experiments, and the mindset changes that let Amplitude move fast again—and shares what it really takes for a big company to adapt when the ground under the industry moves. 00:00 Intro 03:40 Embracing AI at Amplitude 11:00 Product roadmap, AI native priorities 15:32 Org changes & hierarchy 18:40 “AI killing SaaS”, changing the Amplitude roadmap 23:30 The “features, not companies” debate, advantages for incumbents 32:14 Finding good mentors, hyper focus 38:09 The difference between being a founder vs a big company executive 41:52 Outro Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs