It's Everyone vs. Everyone: Navigating the New Strategic Arena - Unsolicited Feedback S3E5

AI’s crown jewels, you data, is under siege. Lawsuits, API throttles, and Cloudflare’s “default-off” move have publishers slamming the gate while AI titans keep battering it down. Brian Balfour (Reforge) and Fareed Mosavat break down who’s suing whom, why API chokeholds matter, and how these defense moves could hand even more power to the Googles and OpenAIs of the world. We then tackle Anthropic’s latest launch: Claude “artifacts.” These bite-sized AI mini-apps piggyback on the user’s own API quota, and spin up self-fueling growth loops to build a unique growth model. We unpack the model step-by-step, the constraints, and the upside for builders hunting leverage. Grab your coffee, hit play, and turn today’s hot takes into tomorrow’s unfair advantage.

Get ready for a crash course for you in the next great distribution shift. In this episode, Brian Balfour and Fareed Mosavat pull back the curtain on why AI’s real battleground isn’t the tech itself—it’s the fight to be the next distribution platform. Fareed and Brian dissect the playbooks and cycles that crowned Facebook, Google, Apple and LinkedIn as the winners of their categories and turned them from open platforms into toll booths. The key part is who is going to be next, and what you need to know to play the game. We cover: Brian's prediction on which LLM will create the platform first—and exactly how to ride that wave before the gates slam shut. How startups need to play the game differently vs larger companies A candid debate on platform moats, memory vs. action, and whether PLG just made a roaring comeback. If you build, invest, or obsess over AI products, this 45-minute sprint will hand you the hard truths and the hidden opportunities shaping the next couple of years. Plug in, level up—and learn how to play the game before the game plays you.

The AI Wild West just got wilder — and we’re riding straight into the melee.In this episode, Brian Balfour, Fareed Mosavat, and special guest Aaron White crack open the three questions every builder is secretly sweating right now: Can you actually differentiate when every launch feels like a land-grab? Is “move fast” still an edge — or just table-stakes? What happens when OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic hoover up all the context you thought was your moat? Expect hot takes on speed-as-a-moat, why Apple’s “slow and perfect” playbook suddenly looks brittle, and how vertical-niche founders can still carve out 10-to-100× markets hiding in plain sight. You’ll hear: The Great Land Grab – Why OpenAI’s next platform move could dwarf Facebook’s 2007 dev-platform blitz. Speed vs. Strategy – If “move fast” is merely table stakes, what actually sets winning teams apart? Moats in 2025 – From data loops to brand trust, which defenses still work—and which are illusions? Niche Power Plays – How vertical micro-SaaS and “taste-driven” products can survive the AI tidal wave. The Dark & Bright Futures – Privacy nightmares, device wars, and the unexpected upside for founders who master context. If you’re building, investing, or just trying to keep your head above the AI tidal wave, hit play. This convo will arm you with the mindset (and the memes) you need to survive the quicksand and still grab the crown. Strap in—let’s ride.

Last week we talked about Everyone-versus-Everyone. That hasn’t stopped. Before we could edit and publish the last episode, Google unleashed a “do-everything” AI bundle. Last week we talked about when everyone ships everything at once, how do you find the whitespace? This week we continue to discuss two more tectonic shifts: 1. The Great SEO Trade-Off ➜ The AI Answer Engine - Google’s new AI-mode could nuke the blue-link economy that’s powered the internet for 20+ years. If LLMs hoard the traffic, who keeps creating the content they need to stay smart? Expect hot takes on long-tail extinction, “answer-engine optimization,” and whether originality still pays. 2. Hiring Hangover Meets AI Reality - New-grad recruiting is down 50 %, senior talent is grumbling, and managers admit they’d rather spin up an LLM than onboard Gen Z. Brian and Fareed unpack why the entry-level pipeline collapsed, where the arbitrage is hiding, and how startups can weaponize AI-native rookies before incumbents wake up. We add a dash of labor-economics humor, a sprinkle of Shopify-meets-Stack-Overflow, and you’ve got an episode that will leave you rethinking your product, growth, and hiring strategy all at the same time.

In the last 30 days, Notion fired off three products, Figma morphed into a mini-Adobe, OpenAI gobbled Windsurf, and Loom, Atlassian, Anthropic, Cursor, and Granola pointed their AI cannons straight at one another. Welcome to ludicrous speed—a market where every launch feels like a direct hit on your roadmap and “competitive landscape” now means everyone vs. everyone.  In this episode Brian Balfour and Fareed Mosavat are joined by Ravi Mehta to talk about The Great Bundle Brawl, Granola's Escape Hatch, The AI Flywheel, and more.

The “AI memo” craze is officially here—and it’s more than executive theater. In this episode, Brian Balfour and Fareed Mosavat break down how leading CEOs (Shopify, Duolingo, Box, Meta) are using public AI manifestos to jolt their companies into a faster, smarter future—and what product leaders must do next to turn those words into shipping velocity. What we cover: - The 5-Layer AI Memo Framework—ownership, expectations, directives, accountability, constraints—so your decree actually drives behavior. - Experiment → Learn → Share Loops that turn scattered tinkering into org-wide best practices. - Concrete “forcing-function” constraints (team-size caps, prototype-only reviews, head-count ceilings) that accelerate adoption. - Why value creation beats cost cutting—and how to put AI on the roadmap, not just the balance sheet. - Meta’s new AI app: a real-time case study on distribution, context, and the missing zero-to-one spark. - Cultural fault lines—leaders, followers, laggards—and playbooks for bringing the middle 80 % over the line (before performance reviews do it for you). Whether you’re drafting your own AI memo or figuring out how to implement the one that just landed in your inbox, this conversation delivers the practical moves to convert manifesto hype into measurable product momentum.

In this episode, Brian Balfour and Fareed Mosavat dive into the widening gulf between companies embracing AI and those drowning in corporate red tape. While some organizations are rewriting job descriptions and preparing to ax 40-50% of employees who can't adapt, others are taking MONTHS just to process a basic AI tool agreement. Plus: Glean's existential threat as OpenAI and Anthropic invade the enterprise space, why speed trumps perfection in AI coding tools, and OpenAI's curious social media play. The tech landscape is splitting between the innovators and the bureaucracy-bound—and the clock is ticking faster than ever.

In this episode, Brian and Fareed discuss the challenges facing product managers in the AI era with Shaun Clowes, CPO at Confluent. Many product professionals are questioning their future as traditional PM workflows—documentation, basic prioritization, and coordination—become increasingly automated. Yet this technological shift isn't eliminating the product management function; rather, it's elevating what has always differentiated exceptional PMs from average ones. While low-value processes are being automated away, the core elements that create product success—strategic vision, judgment, taste, and leadership—are becoming dramatically more valuable.

The Unsolicited Feedback podcast is back for a season 3. We kicked off episode 1 with Casey Winters going deeper on Product Market Fit Collapse. In this episode we discuss: Unlike previous tech shifts (mobile, internet), AI is causing exponential rather than linear increases in customer expectations The speed of both capability advancement and consumer adoption is unprecedented Competition is coming from all directions simultaneously. Incumbents are heavily invested and moving quickly. New startups are emerging. Foundation model companies are expanding rapidly Infrastructure and tooling are evolving weekly, making it hard to pick the right stack And as a result of these things: Traditional "disruption playbooks" may not work - this isn't classic low-end disruption Companies need to consider more radical self-disruption rather than gradual evolution The error rate on predicting winners is extremely high, even among experts M&A strategies are shifting where companies are acquiring AI-native leadership (e.g., Grammarly/Coda, Snowflake/Neva). Focus on acquiring both capabilities and adjacent use cases. More product-capability acquisitions vs. pure talent acquisitions In the end, even successful companies with strong product-market fit are vulnerable of getting side swiped.Check out more from Unsolicited Feedback! https://www.unsolicitedfeedback.co/ Reforge Insight Analytics https://reforge.com/insight-analytics Product Strategy Courses https://www.reforge.com/courses/product-strategy/details https://www.reforge.com/courses/ai-strategy/details

AI Innovations & Growth Strategies with Andrew Chen | Unsolicited Feedback Live This is a special live episode of Unsolicited Feedback, as part of Reforge's ref:AI conference. Join Fareed Mosavat as he welcomes Andrew Chen from Andreessen Horowitz for an engaging discussion on AI's impact on product growth and innovation. This episode covers the significance of the S curve in technology adoption, the challenges and opportunities arising from rapid AI advancements, and what it means for startups and established companies alike. Andrew shares insights on how to differentiate in a competitive landscape, the evolving role of AI in various industries, and strategic approaches for maintaining relevance. Whether you're a product manager, designer, or tech enthusiast, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge to help you navigate the AI revolution. Check out a full summary of the takeaways and lessons from this conversation at https://www.reforge.com/blog/strategies-to-beat-the-ai-s-curve Check out more from Unsolicited Feedback! https://www.unsolicitedfeedback.co/  00:00 Welcome  04:13 Understanding the S Curve 08:35 The Novelty Phase of AI Products 12:26 Challenges and Strategies in AI Product Development 23:19 The Future of AI and Product Innovation 27:44 Platform Shifts and AI Paradigms Check out a full summary of the takeaways and lessons from this episode at ➡️ https://www.unsolicitedfeedback.co/