Kyle officially joins the solopreneur ranks — and immediately finds out that freedom comes with invoices, admin, and double LLC fees. CJ welcomes him to the chaos before breaking down Wealthfront’s IPO, a masterclass in efficiency with 46% EBITDA margins and a Rule of 71. From there, the crew dives into take-private season in SaaS, unpacking why companies like Couchbase and PagerDuty are retreating from the public markets. Then it’s onto LinkedIn chaos — the algorithm, the pitch-slaps, and the mystery of why everyone’s engagement tanked. They close with a tangent only this show could pull off: a Japanese man’s world record sprint on all fours, the surprising Guinness origins, and a lightning round on Waymo’s taxi empire and trying out Stripe.

00:00 – Intro

04:40 – Kyle Goes Solopreneur: What Could Go Wrong?

10:16 – The Wealthfront IPO Breakdown

22:33 – Take-Private Season

27:27 – Private Equity: Efficiency or Exploitation?

32:27 – Are You Bad at LinkedIn, or Is the Algorithm?

43:17 – The LinkedIn Pitch Slap

46:33 – Obscure World Records

48:01 – Lightning Round: Waymo & Stripe

Links

https://www.growthunhinged.com/p/a-new-chapter

https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/wealthfront-ipo-s1-breakdown

https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/netskope-ipo-s1-breakdown

https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/navan-ipo-s1-breakdown

https://mercury.com/

https://www.lookingforleverage.com/p/take-private-szn

https://www.mostlymetrics.com/p/what-a-soviet-era-pole-vaulter-can-teach-us-about-beating-and-raising

https://tuck.dartmouth.edu/news/articles/where-did-all-the-public-companies-go

https://www.axios.com/2024/05/31/vista-equity-pluralsight

https://www.amazon.com/Plunder-Private-Equitys-Pillage-America/dp/1541702107

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/business/youth-sports-private-equity.html

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/kkr-buy-varsity-brands-bain-capital-475-billion-sources-say-2024-07-03/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cj-gustafson-13140948/recent-activity/all/

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2025/9/japanese-man-runs-100-m-on-all-fours-in-blistering-time-after-studying-way-animals-move

https://x.com/Patticus/status/1456266281833746445

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_World_Records#History

https://web.archive.org/web/20120225172648/http://guinness.book-of-records.info/history.html

https://www.stumbeanos.com/wpress/the-story-of-gus-comstock-worlds-coffee-drinking-champion/