Silicon Valley Girl: AI, Tech and Career Growth

What would you build today if you had to start from zero? 
I asked 6 founders the same question: with just a laptop, AI, and no funding — what would get you to $10,000 a month in 90 days?

In this podcast they share how they'd build a business today from scratch: what to build, how to choose a niche, marketing advice, and how to get your first paying customer by day 30.
Gary Vee, Amjad Masad (Replit), Young Zhao (Opus Clip), Mati Staniszewski (ElevenLabs), Alex Mashrabov (Higgsfield), and Bill Gurley (investor) on what they'd actually build today. 

Silicon Valley Girl is a weekly AI and technology podcast hosted by Marina Mogilko.

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Topics: AI business, solopreneur, AI entrepreneur, future of work, AI startups, Gary Vee, Replit, ElevenLabs, Opus Clip, Higgsfield, Bill Gurley, $10K/month business, no-code business, AI tools 2026

Job postings with AI skills now pay $18,000 more per year (Lightcast, 2025). By 2030, 39% of today's skills will be outdated. These are the ones that won't. 

So I asked the people building these AI tools and working inside the biggest AI companies in the world — what skills will make you irreplaceable in the AI era? From every conversation, 7 skills kept coming up — the ones that actually keep you employable, valuable, and ahead of everyone else. 

I asked Amjad Masad (CEO, Replit) how to actually get good at prompting. 
Mike Krieger (Instagram co-founder, now CPO at Anthropic) showed me how solo founders run lean companies with AI workflows.
Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder) explained why creative thinking is the one thing AI still can't copy.
And Mustafa Suleyman (CEO, Microsoft AI) told me what he's teaching his kids that matters more than any app. 

Topics: AI skills 2026, high income skills, AI careers, Replit, Anthropic, Microsoft AI, LinkedIn, Amjad Masad, Mike Krieger, Reid Hoffman, Mustafa Suleyman, future of work, prompt engineering

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John Martinis won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery that made quantum computing possible. At 67, he retired from UC Santa Barbara to build Qolab, his quantum hardware startup. President Trump named him to the PCAST science council with Zuckerberg, Brin, and Huang — the only physicist in the room.
This is the uncut Davos conversation.
What we cover:— How quantum computing could replace rare earth elements with common materials— Why JPMorgan and Robinhood are already running quantum algorithms— What a Nobel physicist actually thinks about the multiverse— Why his biggest breakthroughs came from being pushed out
Topics: quantum computing, Nobel Prize Physics 2025, John Martinis, Qolab, quantum computer, superconducting qubits, AI vs quantum, deep tech, Davos, career in tech.

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Roman Yampolskiy has spent 15 years at the University of Louisville studying one question: can we control AI? His answer is no. And in 2026, the early evidence is showing up inside his own department — a 28% drop in co-op placements for CS students. Prediction markets for AGI have collapsed from 2045 down to 2028–2030. So I asked him the question everyone actually wants answered: if 99% of jobs really do get automated, which ones survive? He named five — and they're not the ones you'd expect. 

We also cover: 
— What to invest in when AI can replace most human labor
— Why he told his own 17-year-old to think twice about college 
— How to raise kids with agency in a world that automates thinking 
— And the answer he gave when I asked if we're living in a simulation If you've been using "AI" and "superintelligence" as the same word, this conversation will fix that. 

Topics: AI safety, Roman Yampolskiy, AGI 2030, jobs AI can't replace, future of work, AI superintelligence, investing in AI era, simulation theory, career advice 2026, AI risk

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If you lost everything tomorrow — your money, your network, your reputation — and had to rebuild from zero in 2026, what would you actually do? I asked the founders who've already done it.
In this episode, I talk to Samir Vasavada (CEO of Vise), Young Zhao (CEO of Opus Clip), Aravind Srinivas (CEO of Perplexity), Daniel Priestley, and Amjad Masad (CEO of Replit) about the exact strategies they'd use to start over today.
We cover:
How to find your real superpower — and why asking your friends is the fastest way
The 30-day framework for testing an idea before you commit
Why obsession beats strategy in the AI era
The "7-7-6 apprenticeship" — why your first move shouldn't be starting a company
How to build a moat when AI can copy anything in days
At the end, I share my own plan for starting from scratch in 2026 — the niche, the content system, the 30-day sprint, and what I'd focus on first.

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