Share

Backing Founders Shaping the Future

Kernel Camp is built on two ideas.

​First, the Middle East and North Africa region produces founders who can compete globally. And second, that world-class founders need to spend time building here in Silicon Valley.

I am seeing this connection firsthand as a way to bridge regions. First, with the scaleups program that I launched with SAP in the US, which aimed to connect the EU, MENA, and the Americas. Second, the ongoing Harvard HSIL hackathon is focused on sourcing and mentoring health startups globally. I am a Venture Advisor at the latter.

​The thoughtful events leading up to the half-day showcase and closing out demo day with the inaugural cohort were impressive.

These startups were selected from the top 3% of applicants from MENA, demoing what they built, shipped, and sold over 8 weeks.

​The founders are some of the sharpest people worth knowing who landed in SF only eight weeks ago, listened to the market signals, pivoted rapidly, and doubled down. They are working on robotics, cybersecurity, AI costs, activation layer for AI agents, and an intelligent operations platform for dynamic AI-guided workflows.

If you would like to connect with the founders and encourage anyone interested in joining the next cohort to sign up, click here.

Live pitches from the Kernel Camp startups 🚀

Also in the room was Mona Ahmad (Reevo), moderating a panel discussion on tech talent from the MENA region in SF-based startups, with Ahmed Rashad (Perle AI) and Ahmad Saeddedin (Corgea YC S23). I was hanging by the edge of the seats. Both founders stressed hiring talent willing to learn, buckle down, and in it to win it.

Sujude Dalieh (Replit) led a conversation with Waseem Alshikh, CTO and Co-Founder of Writer. This was one panel not to be missed. Later, Waseem sat down with the founders for an off-the-record chat.

The event continued with the cohort, guests, and the broader Kernel Camp and Propeller community socializing. We lingered on even after having to vacate the space. I had the opportunity to connect with the teams 1:1 to learn from their experiences and next steps.

I can also confirm that the founders are multifaceted and can extend their skills to different arenas.

​Propeller invests in Seed & Pre-A founders building horizontal AI infrastructure and AI-native applications, from silicon-adjacent to enterprise workflows.

I work with a small number of leaders at a time on focused 1:1 engagements. Not cookie-cutter frameworks or off-the-shelf playbooks. Just clear thinking, honest challenge, and a process built around where you are trying to go.

Reach out. Tell me what’s on your mind. Sometimes, the most valuable thing is simply having someone in your corner who will ask the question no one else is asking.

Future Proofing at Mentors Summit 2026

Every year we meet to take stock: of our portfolio, our thesis, our conviction. But this year feels different. This year, the ground itself has shifted.

Not gradually — but the way that earthquakes shift things. Fast, irreversible, and impossible to ignore.

We are living through the greatest technological inflection since the Internet.

Artificial intelligence is no longer a feature, a sector, or a trend. It is the operating system of the next economy. Every industry — healthcare, logistics, finance, education, media, manufacturing — is being rewritten from first principles.

The companies being founded right now will become the defining institutions of the next thirty years. And the companies that fail to adapt? Some of the largest names you know today won’t survive the decade.

The Mentors Fund Summit 2026, therefore, centered on an urgent theme: Future Proof. Not because we believe the future is certain — but because we believe the right entrepreneurs, with the right mindset, can build companies that thrive in any version of it.

Throughout the summit, our partners, entrepreneurs, and guests explored how we can safeguard our work and our lives in a world increasingly defined by AI. Yet, as we moved through firesides, panels, and pitches, I realized our gathering was future-proof in a much more fundamental way.

Share

Moving with Conviction

So what does it actually mean to be future-proof in the AI age?

It doesn’t mean predicting the future with precision. No one can. It means building in a way that doesn’t require you to be right about everything — and positions you to win regardless of which path the technology takes.

We think about it through the five pillars. Every company and every entrepreneur should be asking themselves the following questions —

1. AI-Augmented, Not AI-Dependent - Are you using AI to amplify human judgment — or building fragility by removing it entirely?

2. Proprietary Data Moats - When models commoditize, unique behavioral, relational, or operational data becomes the last durable advantage.

3. Adaptive Business Models - Your revenue model must evolve faster than the technology disrupts it. Build for iteration, not just launch.

4. Human-Centered Trust - As AI scales, trust becomes scarce. Companies that earn and protect it command pricing power no algorithm can replicate.

5. Speed as Core Discipline - The half-life of competitive advantage is shrinking. Learning and pivoting faster than rivals is now a survival skill.

The pace of change is relentless. The capital environment is demanding. The technology is advancing faster than any roadmap can accommodate.

But here’s what history tells us: the most important companies in the world were built during disruption, not despite it. Amazon was built in the rubble of the dot-com crash. Airbnb launched into a financial crisis. The greatest venture returns in history were seeded in chaos.

During the Summit, the audience heard from portfolio companies demonstrating exactly what future-proofing looks like in practice, from us on where we are placing our conviction, and had real-time opportunities to connect with the people in the room navigating similar terrain.

Mentors Fund is a community of funders and founders, yes — but more than that, we are a community with a shared bet on the future. A bet that great businesses, built with integrity and vision, still win in the long run.

Join us at the Mentors Summit 2027 next May.

Subscribe now

Venture capital investment in AI has reached unprecedented levels, with 2025 serving as a year of massive growth and Q1 2026 shattering all previous records in a single quarter.

The primary trend is extreme capital concentration, in which a handful of “foundation model” companies (such as OpenAI and Anthropic) are absorbing the majority of global venture capital dollars.

AI VC Funding Overview (2025–2026)

Total AI VC Funding in 2025, $211B – $258.7B

AI captured 61% of all global venture capital (OECD). In Q1 2026, a single quarter exceeded the entire funding total of 2025 (PitchBook), estimated at $255.5B.

2025: The Year of Dominance

According to the OECD and Crunchbase, AI became the undisputed engine of the venture market in 2025.

• Market Share: AI startups accounted for 61% of global VC investment value ($258.7 billion out of $427.1 billion).

• The “Mega Deal” Era: Roughly 73% of all AI investment value came from deals exceeding $100 million.

• Geographic Lead: The United States remained the primary hub, attracting roughly 75% ($194 billion) of global AI deal value.

• Top 2025 Deals: Massive rounds were closed by Anthropic ($13B), xAI ($10B), and Scale AI.

2024 vs. 2025 vs. 2026 (Q1)

The growth has been exponential, driven by the massive capital requirements for compute and infrastructure.

2024: The Foundation

AI funding reached approximately $114B, nearly doubling from the previous year as generative AI went mainstream.

2025: The Infrastructure Surge

Funding jumped to ~$254B. Investors shifted focus toward “compute-heavy” startups, with infrastructure and hosting alone attracting $109B (OECD).

2026: The Record-Breaker

In just three months of Q1 2026, AI startups raised $255.5B. This surge was driven by “Horizontal Platforms” (OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI), which accounted for $197B of the total.

2026: The Winner-Take-Most Market

As of June 2026, the market is characterized by massive, multi-billion-dollar “super-rounds” for established leaders.

Top AI Funding Rounds (Q1 2026)

1. OpenAI: Closed a record-breaking $122B round in March 2026, valuing the company at over $850B.

2. Anthropic: Raised $30.6B in February 2026.

3. xAI: Secured $20B before being acquired by SpaceX in a landmark $250B deal.

4. Waymo: Raised $16B (Series D) to lead the autonomous machines segment.

Emerging Sector Shifts

While horizontal frontier models (LLMs) take the most cash, specialized sectors are gaining traction:

• Defense AI: Reached an all-time record of $14.6B in early 2026, nearly doubling its 2025 total of $9.6B.

• Autonomous Machines: Generated $29B in Q1 2026, more than triple the value of the previous quarter.

• Vertical AI: Interestingly, while funding amounts are high, the number of deals in vertical applications (AI for specific industries like Law or Health) fell to its lowest level since 2018, signaling that investors are becoming much more selective.

Note on Sources: Data compiled from 2026 reports by PitchBook, OECD, Crunchbase, and KPMG Venture Pulse. Funding totals can vary slightly between providers based on their definition of “AI-related” companies.

I work with a small number of leaders at a time on focused 1:1 engagements. Not cookie-cutter frameworks or off-the-shelf playbooks. Just clear thinking, honest challenge, and a process built around where you are trying to go.

Reach out. Tell me what’s on your mind. Sometimes, the most valuable thing is simply having someone in your corner who will ask the question no one else is asking.

I had a difficult work situation because I decided to research, dig deep, ask questions, and start the initiative, the old way. The human brain needed time to absorb the new content, reach my own conclusions, and form the perspective that was asked of me.

It was too slow, I was told.

That gave me pause.

The expectation was AI slop at AI speed, without first doing any foundational diagnostic work, the opposite of change management 101. Act as a consultant, without the history and context, and produce standalone solutions. Why would this not work in my experience? Whether as an in-house expert or an external consultant, success came from learning the context - business model, challenges, culture, historical decisions, the motivation for change, and so on.

Here are some real conversations happening in my chats right now.

A good listen on why Continual Learning matters by a16z, covering in-context learning, reasoning, and retrieving from context frozen in time without updates from real experience. I like the framing that explains context and continual learning to leaders who don't grasp how AI models are trained and deployed. Baseline - in-context continual learning is critical, with humans in the loop

Telltale signs

To predict a situation such as the one I landed in, ask these questions:

1. Does leadership have a clear vision, and can articulate it?

2. Does leadership lay out the strategic plan in tangible terms and the steps that need to be taken?

3. Are leadership and team strategic, or do they manage projects?

4. What's the history, portfolio of work, and the tolerance for change?

5. What work has been delivered that is quantifiable and tracks impact?

6. What are the culture and communication trends versus what you are being told?

7. Does the team have psychological safety, and is there visible evidence?

8. What's the understanding and experience with AI?

Here's the brass tacks: many teams are inexperienced with AI tools and are jumping on the bandwagon without a reasonable amount of time to learn and do the work. It’s a combination of pressure from the top, not having the time, and not knowing where to start,

Maybe I should have cheated and produced AI slop. After all, the evidence for organizational tolerance was apparent.

Additional reading ICYMI -

I work with a small number of leaders at a time in focused 1:1 engagements. Not cookie-cutter frameworks or off-the-shelf playbooks. Just clear thinking, honest challenge, and a process built around where you are trying to go.

Reach out. Tell me what’s on your mind. Sometimes, the most valuable thing is simply having someone in your corner who will ask the question no one else is asking.

It felt like the right moment to revisit the key concepts from Leadership On The Line by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky, in which Technical Problems with clear-cut solutions are prioritized over the more arduous and complex Adaptive Challenges that require systemic change.

The framework has been taught for over four decades at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, with executive education and commissioned workshops. It is probably the toughest course you will ever take, requiring serious reflection and a disruptive method of teaching, by design.

Core Concepts of Adaptive Leadership

“Going Forth to Die” — The Nature of Leadership

• Leadership is inherently dangerous. It requires challenging the status quo and disrupting comfortable norms

• Those who lead change often become targets — historically and organizationally, leaders are “sacrificed” by the group when they push too hard

• The act of leadership is therefore an act of courage — knowing the risk and proceeding anyway

• The Authoritative vs. Authoritarian Distinction — Adaptive leaders use their authority to direct attention to the work, not to provide all the answers

Technical vs. Adaptive Problems — Technical problems have known solutions. Adaptive challenges require people to change their values, beliefs, or behaviors. Most leaders mistakenly apply technical fixes to adaptive problems

Loss — At the heart of all adaptive challenges is loss — people resist change not because they fear the future but because they fear what they must give up

Disequilibrium

• Change and growth require a period of productive disequilibrium — a deliberate destabilization of existing norms, habits, and comfort zones

• Too little disequilibrium = no change; too much = chaos and system breakdown

• The leader’s job is to regulate the heat, keeping it high enough to motivate change but not so high that the system collapses

• This is called managing the “Productive Zone of Disequilibrium.”

Ripeness — Some adaptive challenges can only be addressed when the group is “ripe” — when the pain of the status quo exceeds the fear of change

Factions

• Any organization or community contains competing factions, each with its own values, loyalties, and definitions of the problem

• Factions will often fight each other rather than confront the real adaptive challenge

• Leaders must identify factions, understand what each faction stands to lose, and broker across them

  

• Work Avoidance — Groups will consistently find ways to avoid the pain of adaptive work through scapegoating, denial, or displacement onto side issues

The Holding Environment — A safe enough container (trust, relationships, structures) that allows a group to tolerate the stress of adaptive work without flying apart

Loyalties

• People in authority have multiple, often conflicting loyalties — to constituents, to the organization, to their own values

• Adaptive leadership requires leaders to sometimes disappoint their own base or faction to serve the broader mission

• Loyalties can be weaponized by factions to neutralize a leader (”you have betrayed us”)

• Giving the Work Back — The leader’s role is to resist the temptation to solve problems for people, and instead return the adaptive challenge to those who must do the work

Assassination — Literal and Organizational

• Groups under stress will attempt to silence or remove leaders who threaten their equilibrium

• “Assassination” in organizational life takes many forms: marginalization, character attacks, distraction, seduction, or outright removal

• This is not personal — it is a systemic defense mechanism of the group resisting change

Staying Alive — The Survival Imperative

• “Getting off the dance floor and onto the balcony” — leaders must develop the ability to zoom out and observe the system they are part of, without losing presence within it

• Build a personal support network outside the organization that isn’t dependent on your role

• Distinguish between your role and your self — attacks on the role are not attacks on your person

• Pace yourself — adaptive work is a marathon, not a sprint

  ---

If any of this resonates with you, you have been, or are in a position where you have to lead the difficult work — I would like to have that conversation.

I work with a small number of leaders at a time on focused 1:1 engagements. Not cookie-cutter frameworks or off-the-shelf playbooks. Just clear thinking, honest challenge, and a process built around where you are trying to go.

Reach out. Tell me what’s on your mind. Sometimes, the most valuable thing is simply having someone in your corner who will ask the question no one else is asking.

I have seen this pattern up close twice now in an AI world in quick successions — and I suspect it’s more common than anyone wants to admit.

A senior leader or startup founder reaches out. They are sharp, experienced, and motivated. They want enterprise rigor. They want a strategic structure. They want someone to help them see around corners while implementing now.

But when we start talking, something becomes clear: there’s no plan. No defined audience. No articulated problem to solve. No hypothesis about which channels to test or which bets to make. There’s execution — often impressive execution, but it’s floating without an anchor.

In startups, this can survive for a while. The day-to-day momentum feels like progress. But even early-stage companies need a point of view. I often start here with a simple Jobs to Be Done exercise — not “what are we building?” but “what problem are we uniquely solving, and for whom?” That single shift in framing changes everything. Pair it with a Lean Canvas or Business Model Canvas, and suddenly you have a one-page view of your assumptions, your customer, your value proposition, and your revenue logic. It’s not a business plan. It’s an honest map of what you believe and what you still need to prove.

In large organizations, the problem looks different but runs just as deep. I have worked with companies that move like supertankers — massive, powerful, nearly impossible to turn. In those environments, program management gets mistaken for strategy. Roadmaps become to-do lists. Direction gets set not by vision, but by whoever is loudest in the room that week.

And here’s what that actually costs — because it’s rarely named out loud.

When organizations confuse program management with strategy, they don’t grind to a halt. That’s what makes it so dangerous. They look productive. Dashboards are green. Meetings are full. Teams are heads-down. But the investments being made — in people, in technology, in initiatives — are not anchored to a clear direction. Resources get poured into the wrong priorities. Budgets get committed to solutions before the problem is even validated. Weeks morph into months, sometimes years, of organizational energy spent executing confidently in the wrong direction. By the time the misalignment becomes visible, the cost is not just financial. It is credibility, morale, and market position.

The hardest part? Long-term thinking feels uncomfortable to leaders who have been rewarded for short-term delivery. Thinking three years out can feel abstract, even irresponsible, when there are quarterly targets and daily fires. I have seen brilliant operators genuinely struggle to hold a five-year horizon — not because they lack intelligence, but because their entire career has trained them to solve what’s in front of them. That instinct is valuable. It’s just incomplete.

Share

From Execution Mode to Strategic Vision: A Leader’s Wake-Up Call

When I dig in, I almost always find the same two gaps.

First, no one has done the work of OGSM — translating high-level ambition into Objectives, Goals, Strategies, and Measures that people can actually act on. Everyone is busy, but busy doing what, toward what end, measured how? Often metrics and KPIs are not defined.

Second, accountability is murky. A RACI exercise sounds basic, but in organizations where strategy has been replaced by reaction, it surfaces the fault lines fast — who is actually responsible, who needs to be consulted, and who has been making decisions in a vacuum.

This is where the Three Horizons Framework becomes essential. Horizon one is the core business — protect it, run it well. Horizon two is what’s emerging — the capabilities and markets you need to build now for relevance later. Horizon three is what most leaders ignore entirely — the disruptions and opportunities forming at the edge of your industry. Most organizations I encounter are living entirely in Horizon one, burning resources at full speed, and calling it strategy.

Here’s the distinction I use with every client:

Program managers do things. Strategists see things — ecosystems, inflection points, risks that haven’t arrived yet.

But seeing clearly isn’t enough. The best strategic work I have done has never been delivered from a mountaintop. It’s been built with the leader — iterating, questioning assumptions, adjusting as new information surfaces. I bring Design Thinking into this process deliberately: we start with deep diagnosis before jumping to solutions, we prototype strategic choices before committing to them, and we test assumptions against reality rather than defending them in a deck. Alongside that, I apply a Change Management lens from the start — because even the sharpest strategy fails if the people, culture, and communication aren’t moving with it.

A strategy that can’t flex isn’t a strategy. It’s a wish list.

That’s why the process matters as much as the output. We start with an honest diagnosis: what do you actually know, what are you assuming, and what are you avoiding? From there, we build a frame — not a rigid plan, but a directional foundation strong enough to make decisions against and loose enough to evolve. The goal isn’t a perfect document. It’s a leader who thinks differently about the road ahead.

That kind of thinking is a muscle. And most leaders I work with didn’t get where they are by being afraid to develop new ones.

Share The Fluid Identity with Ruma

If any of this is resonating — if you have been moving fast but suspect you have been moving without a real map — I would like to have that conversation.

I work with a small number of leaders at a time on focused 1:1 engagements. Not cookie-cutter frameworks or off-the-shelf playbooks. Just clear thinking, honest challenge, and a process built around where you are trying to go.

Reach out. Tell me what’s on your mind. Sometimes, the most valuable thing is simply having someone in your corner who will ask the question no one else is asking.

• The definition of AI slop and why it's spreading

• The illusion of productivity — busy teams using AI to shortcut thinking, not just writing

• Business debt — the hidden long-term cost of hollow work

• The real distinction — AI as amplifier vs. AI as substitute

• A leadership framing — positioning this as a structural or an incentive problem, not a tech problem

There is something quietly devastating happening in workplaces right now, and it has been occupying my thoughts far more than I would like to admit. It isn't a dramatic collapse or a headline-grabbing scandal. It's subtler — and in many ways, more corrosive for exactly that reason.

I am talking about the rise of AI slop: the wholesale outsourcing of meaningful work to generative AI tools, not to augment human thinking, but to replace the appearance of it entirely.

Subscribe now

Let's be honest about what AI slop actually is. It is content — documents, reports, strategies, communications — produced quickly and cheaply by AI, dressed up to look like considered professional output, and delivered to teams and audiences who, the creator hopes, won't notice the difference. It is the digital equivalent of a reheated meal served as if it were freshly cooked. And the tell-tale signs are everywhere once you know what to look for.

The Illusion of Productivity

Here's the uncomfortable truth: the people deploying AI slop are often not doing so out of traditional laziness. Many of them are genuinely busy. They are stretched thin across competing priorities, buried under a torrent of deliverables, and looking for any tool that lets them keep up. AI becomes a pressure valve. The problem isn't the tool — it's what happens when speed becomes the only metric that matters.

When AI is used to shortcut the thinking — not just the writing, but the actual strategic reasoning behind the work — something essential gets lost. The output may look complete. It may have all the right headings, bullet points, and confident-sounding language. But it is hollow at its core, untethered from the organization's real priorities, the nuances of the audience, or the institutional knowledge that takes years to accumulate. It is, in the truest sense, work with zero understanding of strategy and zero understanding of what actually matters.

Share

The Business Debt Nobody Is Counting

We talk a lot about technical debt in the software world — the cost of taking shortcuts today that you inevitably pay back, with interest, tomorrow. The same concept applies here, and I would argue the stakes are even higher because this debt is harder to see on a balance sheet.

When an organization produces AI-slop strategy documents, the immediate cost is low. The long-term cost is devastating. Teams build plans on foundations that were never solid. Decisions are made based on generated outputs, not on reasoning. Institutional priorities drift because no one took the time to think through what the organization needs. And all the while, the busy worker bees — the ones downstream of this slop — are doing their best to execute against something that was never fit for purpose.

This is business debt.

Not the kind you track in a spreadsheet, but the kind you feel when a strategy fails to land, when a team loses confidence in leadership, or when an audience — internal or external — quietly stops trusting the work being put in front of them.

People are not as easily fooled as we sometimes assume. They notice when something lacks substance. They may not call it out in a meeting, but they register it. And over time, that erosion of trust compounds.

A recent Pod Save America episode includes a segment where they discuss an autonomous AI experiment called Andon FM. In this benchmark experiment by Andon Labs, four independent AI models — Claude (Anthropic), Gemini (Google), ChatGPT (OpenAI), and Grok (xAI) — were each given a budget to independently run their own internet radio stations. AI decided to pair up music with the news. Pod Save America hosts Tommy Vietor and Jon Favreau discussing the aftermath of an AI experiment is a goldmine.

The Real Question Is About Craft

None of this is an argument against AI. Used thoughtfully, these tools are genuinely remarkable — they can accelerate research, sharpen editing, surface connections across large bodies of information, and free up cognitive bandwidth for the work that truly requires human judgment. The distinction matters enormously: AI as amplifier versus AI as substitute.

The workplaces that will come out ahead are not the ones that produced the most output the fastest. They are the ones who used every tool available — including AI — in the service of genuine thinking. Where humans stayed in the loop not as rubber stamps, but as the actual architects of strategy, meaning, and judgment. Where someone asked, before hitting publish: Does this actually reflect what we know, what we believe, and what we are trying to accomplish?

That question — simple as it sounds — is the difference between work that compounds in value over time and work that quietly accumulates as debt. It is the difference between a team that trusts its leadership and one that learns, slowly and painfully, not to.

The rise of AI slop is, at its heart, a leadership problem dressed up as a technology problem. The tools are not to blame. The incentive structures that reward the appearance of productivity over its substance — those are worth examining very carefully.

And the sooner organizations start asking harder questions about the quality of thinking behind their AI-assisted work, the less debt they'll be left paying down.

Mindboggling that we need to say this at all — but here we are.

If any of this is resonating — if you are noticing body of work being produced without real strategy or thoughtfulness or plan — I would like to have that conversation.

I work with a small number of leaders at a time on focused 1:1 engagements. Not cookie-cutter frameworks or off-the-shelf playbooks. Just clear thinking, honest challenge, and a process built around where you are trying to go.

Reach out. Tell me what’s on your mind. Sometimes, the most valuable thing is simply having someone in your corner who will ask the question no one else is asking.

The healthcare landscape has been and continues to rapidly evolve, driven by an aging population and the rise of chronic diseases. The 65+ population is projected to double to 1.6 billion by 2050 (UN), and the global cost of chronic diseases is estimated at $47 trillion by 2030.

• Evolving healthcare needs: Aging population, rising chronic diseases, increased demand.

• AI’s transformative potential: Drug discovery, improved outcomes, enhanced productivity.

• Critical considerations: Data security, ethical development, equitable access.

With a former stint at AARP, I wondered how my former colleagues were strategizing their roles with evolving healthcare needs and AI’s transformative potential in the world’s aging future.

Recap of Top themes from JPM 2025

Last year’s healthcare conference covered key issues, artificial intelligence, expansion strategies, and financial performance. The top 10 takeaways as outlined by Advisory Board:

1. Outpatient care is a key growth strategy

2. Large health systems have seen financial improvement

3. Health systems are engaging partners to run their non-core businesses

4. Digital health sector is focusing on M&A & Partnerships

5. Digital health companies feel the need to perform

6. Health systems are adopting AI tools and testing clinical AI

7. Small insurers are optimistic about MA growth

8. Cybersecurity isn’t getting much focus

9. Health systems are taking a consumer-focused approach to patient care

10. Medtech leaders are driving innovation in robotic surgery

The conference is expected to significantly boost the San Francisco economy, contributing $90 million. It’s wonderful to see downtown come alive!

This year, I am excited to join women’s health sessions and several led by top industry leaders.

Share

The women founders made up over 35% attendees

The remaining attendees were Partners and guests of the Mentors Fund.

With a sizable focus of the Mentors Fund portfolio on health startups, I organized an AI in healthcare event at J.P. Morgan’s 43rd annual healthcare conference last year, featuring three of the fund’s portfolio companies doing transformative work in the space.

In my brief time in the Bay Area, the noticeable lack of female founders and access to funding was unmistakable. I wrote to the founders of active health startups featured on accelerator websites, including YC. Personalized invites were sent to every female founder and cofounder in our portfolio. We secured a venue and allocated a small budget. All female founders responded, many accepted the invitation, and we were oversubscribed.

Our panel covered how AI can address clinical labor shortages, augment care delivery at scale, a robust debate on whether AI will make doctors and nurses obsolete, and the rise of Personalized Medicine and Wearables. See the LinkedIn post.

Five female founders were invited for one-minute impromptu pitches. This created a pitch opportunity through the launch of a femtech track, supported by three of my partners. One serious consideration for a startup that impressed us and met our investment thesis.

The panel was moderated by Adnan Lawai with panelists Nabeel Kaukab of Phamily, Michelle Wu of Nyquist AI, Naseem Amin CEO of Orphalan.

Mentors Fund is grateful to Yousuf Khan at Ridge Ventures for hosting us.

Share

2026 Themes from JPM 2026

We look forward to a week of rigorous discussion, breakthrough ideas, and new partnerships. The future of AI in healthcare is being built in San Francisco next week. After weeks of unseasonal rains, let’s hope the weather remains dry. We look forward to JPM 2026 next week.

1. AI in Drug Discovery and Development

2. AI in Diagnostics

3. AI for Operational Efficiency

4. AI in Remote and Virtual Healthcare

5. AI and Regulatory Compliance

6. AI Ethics and Data Privacy

Are you attending JPM 2026? I would love to hear which AI track you are most focused on. Let’s connect on the ground or reach out to schedule a meetup.

I did a remarkably uncomfortable thing.

I almost backed out of it.

Not one to talk about myself, I had to start with the story of self, to speak to a group that could be inspired. Without making it personal, it would come across as flat.

It was a call to action that required sharing my personal story and history, and what inspires me to do what I do.

I leaned into my family’s story and its influence on me, and reached out (doubtfully, of course) to a trusted friend. Suffice to say, he told me to use the Public Narrative architecture to tell my story.

Consider this a crash course on crafting your story, call to action as part of Public Narrative.

An Intro to Public Narrative

Public Narrative is the practice of translating values into action through story. It’s how leaders and organizers communicate why they are called to lead, what values they share with their community, and why that community must act now.

Most leaders rely heavily on strategy (facts, data, plans) but fail to ignite the motivation needed to execute it. Prof. Marshall Ganz, the framework's creator, has taught at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government for over three decades. He argues that strategy targets the head, but action is fueled by the heart.

It’s based on the idea that to mobilize others, you must engage both the head (strategy) and the heart (motivation). The stories draw on emotion, specifically hope and urgency, to help people overcome the inertia, fear, and self-doubt that inhibit action.

At the Kennedy School, I heard the stories of my friends - who were budding politicians, policymakers, and government officials - as they crafted their story for Prof. Ganz’s class. They were training for primetime.

The Public Narrative Framework

The framework is a linked progression of three distinct, yet interwoven, stories. It was essential to get it right, the vulnerable narrative of the origin story, often that one incident that sparked the light. A connection to a community, for a larger purpose, understanding the need, and values-driven action. Eventually connecting the two to the urgency and call to action.

This felt natural, except the story of self, this was change management 101 with a massive dose of values and storytelling.

I used this outline to open the session and decided to lean into the discomfort.

1. Story of Self (Me): Communicates the values that have called you to action. It establishes trust and empathy.

2. Story of Us (We): Communicates the shared values of the community or constituency. It builds solidarity and common purpose.

3. Story of Now (Action): Articulates an urgent challenge to the shared values, presenting a choice that demands action.

Together, the narrative essentially says: Here’s who I am (Self), this is what we have in common (Us), and this is what we’re going to do about it (Now).

Deconstructing the Framework’s Architecture

Each component of the public narrative is structured to achieve a specific emotional and strategic outcome. Did you notice it in Zohran Kwame Mamdani’s storytelling, his call to action, his authenticity, his ability to connect with pretty much everyone, and his masterful (not a public narrative tactic) deflection to stay focused on a topic?

For women, self-doubt can be both numbing and real. We are not conditioned to avoid taking up space. We are not one to toot our own horn. To tell our stories. We are facilitators, peacemakers, mediators, often laden with the expectation of providing emotional support and maintaining order.

I was aware of this voice.

In the past, I have leaned into causes bigger than myself to do work, lead, coach, and drive uncomfortable conversations. Never perfect, the goal was to call attention, to create, and to take up space.

1. The Story of Self (Why I Lead)

This is not a full biography but a focused personal story that reveals the specific values that call you to action, the source of your motivation.

Key Architecture (Plot Structure)

The Story of Self often uses a classic narrative structure centered on a Choice Point, which consists of:

• Challenge: A moment of adversity or conflict you faced where your values were threatened.

• Choice: The decision you made in response to that challenge, which required courage or hope.

• Outcome (Moral): What happened as a result, what you learned, and how it shaped your values.

The goal is to invite the audience to emotionally connect with you and recognize the shared humanity and values that led you to your present path. In my case, it was a focus on moving from me and I to a collective we, to uplift others, and to go beyond the desire to claim attention for ourselves.

2. The Story of Us (Why We are Called)

This component builds on the emotional connection established by the Story of Self to create a shared identity and purpose among the audience.

In change management, this is often the first step - the Vision - sans the shared values.

In the corporate world, it's the driver of investment and projects.

Key Architecture (Focus Points):

• Shared Values: It highlights values common to the speaker and the audience, often by retelling a founding moment, crisis, or victory the community experienced together.

• Shared Experience: It uses “choice points” from the collective experience (similar to the Story of Self) to articulate who “we” are and what “we” stand for.

• Solidarity: It shifts the focus from the individual leader to the collective identity, building hope by recognizing the community’s capacity for agency and action.

The Story of Us is the bridge that links the leader’s values to the community’s shared purpose.

3. The Story of Now (Why Act Now)

This is the call to action. It draws on the foundations of trust (Self) and solidarity (Us) to motivate the audience to take an urgent step together.

In change management, this is known as Creating a Sense of Urgency. To analyze the realities to prove why the status quo is dangerous, and change is necessary.

Key Architecture (The Tension):

• Urgent Challenge: It challenges the shared values established in the Story of Us, creating a sense of urgency and moral threat.

• Contrasting Outcomes: It contrasts two possible futures:

  1. The world if we fail to act (fear, loss of values).

  2. The world as it could be if we act (hope, affirmation of values).

• The Specific Choice: It presents a clear, concrete, and achievable action to take right now to bridge the gap between the possible and the probable future.

The Story of Now transforms values and emotions into a specific commitment to change.

The Outcome

Armed with the structure, a framework to focus on. I began the outline.

The final words were inked in the early hours. The lack of sleep dispelled doubt and nervousness. At 4 am, I decided to go for it.

With a timely social moment (Mamdani’s NY mayoral win), I had the perfect opening lined up to begin with humor.

The AV cue failed.

The room full of people got it. There was laughter.

The discomfort was easing.

Keep this repeatable pattern of the Public Narrative framework in mind, as we deconstruct the method.

• Here is why I care. (Vulnerability, Trust)

• Here is why we are in this together. (Solidarity, Identity)

• Here is what we must do immediately. (Urgency, Action)

Share The Fluid Identity with Ruma

The significance of this framework and why it’s important

The importance of the Public Narrative framework lies in its ability to solve a fundamental problem in leadership: how to move people from passivity to action.

Most leaders rely heavily on “strategy” (facts, data, plans) but fail to ignite the motivation needed to execute it. Marshall Ganz argues that strategy targets the Head, but action is fueled by the Heart.

The emotive response is necessary.

Also, a design thinking principle to foster creativity and action.

Here is why this framework is so critical and practical.

1. It Bridges the Head and the Heart

As noted earlier, data and policy can persuade people that a problem exists, but they rarely inspire them to take action.

• The Head (Strategy): Tells us how to act. It organizes resources.

• The Heart (Narrative): Tells us why we must act. It mobilizes resources.

The framework requires individuals and leaders to integrate their technical expertise with emotional intelligence, ensuring that their call to action resonates on a human rather than an intellectual level.

2. It Transforms Inhibiting Emotions into Motivating Emotions

This is perhaps the most profound psychological aspect of Ganz’s work. Public Narrative is designed to specifically counter the emotions that stop us from acting.

• Inertia (habit, doing nothing) is replaced by Urgency (Story of Now)

• Apathy (not caring) is replaced by Anger/Indignation (Shared Values violated)

• Fear (of risk or failure) is replaced by Hope (Story of Us / Self)

• Isolation (feeling alone) is replaced by Solidarity (Story of Us)

• YCMAD replaces Self-Doubt (I can’t do it) (You Can Make A Difference)

I grappled with the last one, manifesting as weeks of procrastination and culminating in last-minute prep and panic.

The framework is not just storytelling, it is an emotional intervention tool designed to break through the paralysis that keeps communities stagnant.

It uses emotion as a driving force to connect values and action.

3. It Democratizes Leadership

Traditional leadership often relies on authority, title, or wealth.

Public Narrative relies on values.

• It teaches that if you have a story that can move others, you have the capacity to lead.

• It empowers grassroots organizers, employees, and community members to claim agency by articulating their own Story of Self.

It shifts power dynamics. It enables rapid scaling (as in the 2008 Obama campaign, where Ganz was a key architect) because everyone is empowered to tell their own version of the story.

4. It Creates a Moral Resource

In battles where one side has more money or political power, the other side needs a different kind of fuel. Ganz calls narrative a “moral resource.”

• By clearly articulating shared values (Story of Us), a group can sustain itself through difficult times.

• It creates resilience. When the “strategy” fails or hits a roadblock, the “narrative” reminds the group why they started in the first place.

The Public Narrative framework treats emotion as a resource for leadership. It acknowledges that human beings are not just rational actors, we are emotional creatures who need to feel a sense of agency and solidarity before we are willing to take risks for a common goal.

Why is the Call to Action in the Story of Us significant

Based on Marshall Ganz’s framework, it is important first to clarify a common point of confusion:

The explicit Call to Action (the specific Hard Ask) technically lives in the Story of Now.

However, the Story of Us performs a critical function that, without it, the Call to Action will fail. The Story of Us contains the Call to Identity, whose significance lies in transforming a group of individuals into a collective capable of acting.

Here is why the Us component is significant for the ultimate Call to Action.

1. It Shifts the Dynamic from Me vs. You to ‘We’

Without a Story of Us, a Call to Action is just one person (the leader) asking many people (the audience) to do a favor. This is a transaction, not a movement.

• Significance: The Story of Us creates Solidarity. It proves that the audience shares the leader's values (Story of Self). This means that when the Call to Action comes, it isn’t “I need you to do this”, it becomes “We need to do this for ourselves.”

2. It Proves Collective Agency (We Can Act)

The Story of Us must recount a specific moment in the past where this community faced a challenge, made a choice, and achieved an outcome.

• Significance: This serves as “proof of concept.” It reminds the audience that they have power when they act together. It combats Cynicism (the belief that “we can’t change anything”) by showing evidence of past victories or endurance.

3. It Defines the Responsible Us

A Call to Action requires a specific target. If the audience doesn’t feel like a cohesive group, they will assume someone else will do the work (the bystander effect).

• Significance: The Story of Us delineates the group's boundaries and asserts, “These are our people, and this is our responsibility.” It creates a moral obligation to respond to the Call to Action.

Visualizing the Relationship

The Story of Us is the platform that supports the Call to Action.

Summary of the Choice in Story of Us

While the final CTA is in the “Now,” the Story of Us has its own internal “Choice point” (from the past).

• The Narrative Arc: Challenge → Choice (Collective Action) → Outcome.

• Why it matters: Retelling that past choice primes the audience to make the new choice presented in the Story of Now.

The Story of Us provides the relational power needed to execute the strategic action. It ensures the audience acts not because they were told to, but because they belong to a community that does things like this.

Copy of My Speech

I tried to depersonalize and remove the self in the copy.

In the end, I edited it brutally to fit within 3 minutes on the stage. To kick off a session on startup pitches, rather than on a collective call to action.

I focused on pacing and breathing.

The faces in the crowd, acknowledging the words, the ones I wrote with hesitation and self-doubt, almost distracted me.

I reverted to pacing to avoid losing track.

To my confidant, who sent voice notes and words of encouragement, thank you.

Even if you do not subscribe - though I certainly hope that you will - the structure above is enough detail to outline your story, your own call to action, and a personalized form of your public narrative.

Here is the recording from 0:50 to 4:30 minutes. I suggest listening at 1.25x speed.

The Script -

We are here—not by accident, but by choice.

Story of Self: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?”

My family’s journey through multiple immigrations shaped who I am. Each move required us to think creatively, build new networks from scratch, and ask: how can we improve the systems around us?

I witnessed the power of collective action through my family’s resourceful social network. Success was never measured individually. Business became our vehicle for mobility — a way to multiply resources and extend opportunities to those who came after us.

My story is not unique.

I have channeled this legacy into building networks at OPEN Chicago, Harvard, and beyond — creating systems designed to outlast us. Building for legacy isn’t just a professional strategy. It’s deeply personal.

Story of Us: “If I am only for myself, what am I?”

This shared space is our greatest strength.

We face tremendous challenges: unemployment, AI disruption, and political turbulence. These forces can fragment us, isolate us, push us into silos.

But challenge is our cue—our cue to build structures that last. To forge unshakable networks and create work that truly represents us.

We need to meet this moment with our most significant force.

If we want to do this together, we must commit to one another.

Centuries ago, a pioneering expedition of 2,000 boats marked the beginning of the American Muslim story — an adventure of epic proportions. Today, that story continues. We are writing the chapters that define what’s possible.

The choice is ours - Are We Reading Narratives and Stories That Someone Else Composed?

OR?

Are WE willing to commit in this moment, to write our next chapter, together?

It’s our responsibility to write what comes next.

Story of Now: “And if not now, when?”

Before we chase the next opportunity, let’s pause and ask:

Are we building for the next 5 years? Or for a 100-year impact — the kind that transforms, endures, and outlasts us?

What is the deepest commitment you can make today to empower the next generation?

Let’s make Quantum Leaps together - perhaps designed for 3 - 5 YEAR time bursts — but setting the foundation for the long-term 100-year Quantum Leaps.

My friends—

ASK not what this network can do for you.

ASK what WE WILL DO for EACH OTHER.

/end/

The Response

To be candid, I am not 100% certain of the impact. People in the audience nodded, and the silence was unmistakable. I wondered, are they actually listening?

A participant said that I was not supposed to spell out the section headings in my delivery: Story of Self, Story of Us, Story of Now. That was my design. I wanted the audience to be aware of how my three-minute talk was constructed. The why and the need for the call to action.

Several people came up to me, few parents with their kids. The kid was clearly uncomfortable talking to a random stranger that their parent thought was a good idea.

Note: This post was researched and edited with LLM support.

Brain rot, cognitive decline and discussion of AI is a being hotly debated among neuroscientists, psychologists, researchers and educators.

The premise is simple.

As physical muscles atrophy without use, our cognitive muscles—like critical thinking, memory, and creativity — can weaken if we rely too heavily on AI tools to perform our mental labor. The question is whether reliance on AI is turning our brains into couch potatoes?

"Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task" by MIT Media Lab Researchers is frequently cited in this debate. Lead author Dr. Nataliya Kos'myna used EEG to measure brain activity in students writing essays, read abstract. The group using an AI assistant for writing tasks exhibited the weakest neural connectivity and cognitive engagement compared to those using a search engine or no tools at all. The study suggests a cognitive debt from outsourcing mental effort, and interestingly caution against using the term "brain rot” as it's not a scientific term.

The debate, however, is not anti-AI. The consensus among experts is that the key to avoiding this decline is mindful and intentional use to augment and boost critical and creative thinking, not to outsource it.

Section I: Countering decline in critical cognitive functions

Author’s Note: This section is heavily summarized by AI.

Though not the first, I encountered the ‘AI brain rot’ discussion on Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO podcast. The episode titled ChatGPT Brain Rot Debate: The Fastest Way to Get Dementia, Watch This Before Using ChatGPT Again, Especially If Your Kids Use It! featured a discussion with a brain health expert and psychiatrist, Dr. Daniel Amen, and a computational neuroscientist, Dr. Terry Sejnowski.

The conversation highlights the human brain's natural tendency to seek efficiency and avoid mental discomfort. The experts argue that our brains, when presented with a powerful tool like ChatGPT that provides instant answers, will opt for the easy path, leading to a decline in critical cognitive functions.

There are several studies by researchers on the impact on the brain from the proliferation of AI tools. For this post, I am focused on the episode on The Diary of a CEO.

Cognitive Decline & Brain Health

• Brain Scans & Evidence: Dr. Amen, who has conducted hundreds of thousands of brain scans, discusses how he observes the physical effects of various behaviors and addictions on the brain. The episode suggests that chronic reliance on AI for problem-solving could lead to a physical "shrinking" or underutilization of certain brain regions, particularly those responsible for memory, critical thinking, and creativity.

• Reduced Cognitive Load: By outsourcing tasks like writing, research, and complex problem-solving to AI, we reduce the brain's cognitive load. While this can be efficient in the short term, the experts warn that it prevents the brain from building and strengthening the neural pathways necessary for these functions. They compare it to a muscle that atrophies without exercise.

The Impact on Creativity and Learning

• Creativity Drain: The podcast emphasizes that creativity is often born from the struggle to overcome obstacles. When AI provides a ready-made solution, the opportunity for creative thought is bypassed. The experts argue that this could lead to a generation of people with a diminished capacity for original thinking.

• Retention of Information: The discussion also touches on memory and learning. When we use ChatGPT to summarize information or answer questions, we don't engage in the process of active recall and synthesis, which is crucial for long-term memory formation. As a result, the information is not retained as effectively.

Section II: Key Discussion Takeaways

The conversation highlights a major concern: the human brain's natural tendency to seek efficiency and avoid mental discomfort. The experts argue that our brains, when presented with a powerful tool like ChatGPT that provides instant answers, will opt for the easy path, leading to a decline in critical cognitive functions. This phenomenon is referred to as "AI brain rot."

Cognitive Decline & Brain Health

• Brain Scans & Evidence: Dr. Amen, who has conducted hundreds of thousands of brain scans, discusses how he observes the physical effects of various behaviors and addictions on the brain. The episode suggests that chronic reliance on AI for problem-solving could lead to a physical "shrinking" or underutilization of certain brain regions, particularly those responsible for memory, critical thinking, and creativity.

• Reduced Cognitive Load: By outsourcing tasks like writing, research, and complex problem-solving to AI, we reduce the brain's cognitive load. While this can be efficient in the short term, the experts warn that it prevents the brain from building and strengthening the neural pathways necessary for these functions. They compare it to a muscle that atrophies without exercise.

The Impact on Creativity and Learning

• Creativity Drain: The podcast emphasizes that creativity is often born from the struggle to overcome obstacles. When AI provides a ready-made solution, the opportunity for creative thought is bypassed. The experts argue that this could lead to a generation of people with a diminished capacity for original thinking.

• Retention of Information: The discussion also touches on memory and learning. When we use ChatGPT to summarize information or answer questions, we don't engage in the process of active recall and synthesis, which is crucial for long-term memory formation. As a result, the information is not retained as effectively.

Section III: Solutions & Mitigation

The experts advocate for a mindful and strategic approach to using AI tools. The key is to leverage AI as an augmentation tool rather than a replacement for human intellect. They suggest several strategies to combat AI brain rot:

• Context Engineering: Instead of simply asking for a solution, users should engage with AI in a more Socratic manner. By prompting the AI to ask questions back and guide their thinking, users can still benefit from the tool while actively engaging their own brains. Also referenced below as AI Sparring for Brainstorming and Ideation.

• AI-Powered Quizzes & Flashcards: The episode suggests using AI to create personalized learning tools, such as flashcards or quizzes, that reinforce information and require users to recall it, thereby strengthening neural connections.

• The O3 Model: Or "Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act." Discussed in the episode, it's a framework for using AI as a partner in decision-making, where the human remains in control of the final decision and action, while using AI for observation and orientation (gathering information and analyzing options).

Section IV: Additional ways of using AI tools as a booster, rather than a replacement for cognitive abilities.

This section build upon the tools and strategies above, augmenting the discussion and solutions.

1. Do the heavy lifting (counter intellectual laziness)

TLDR: Don’t offload the heavy brain work, aka ideation, critical thinking, and analysis.

• AI Sparring for Brainstorming and Ideation: Before you open an AI tool, outline your thoughts, purpose, and initial ideas. Consider this your storyboard. Force your brain to engage in the heavy lifting of ideation. Use AI as a sparring partner to expand on initial thoughts, to identify potential blind spots, to test assumptions, and improve your work. Referenced above as Context Engineering.

• Critically Evaluate Each Output: Treat the AI-generated answer as a first draft that needs to be critically assessed. Most responses lack the human touch and critical thought. After all, AI is grabbing all available information on the subject, synthesizing it, and regurgitating it back to you. Question the information: "Where could this be wrong?" and "What assumptions is the AI making?" This forces you to engage in deeper critical analysis.

• Force Retrieval Recaps: After using an AI tool to summarize or create content, try to actively recall and explain the information yourself. This process of active retrieval and re-encoding is essential for long-term memory formation and comprehension. I do this by summarizing the content in my own words in writing.

2. Use AI to Augment, Not Offload

TLDR: Use AI tools to research, structure, analyze data but the final decision-making should be yours.

• Cognitive Scaffolding: This concept borrows from a teaching method, that operates within the learner's Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Cognitive Scaffolding provides structure and guidance that helps build a framework. For example, I ask the tool to create a detailed outline on a topic, a mind map on a complex topic, or a list of potential counterarguments. This provides a structure that reduces initial friction, with research and an outline, but still requires me to do the intellectual and written work.

• Use AI for Data Synthesis, Not Decision-Making: AI is excellent at processing vast amounts of data and identifying patterns. Leverage this strength to gather and organize information, but reserve the final decision-making and ethical judgment for yourself.

• Personalize Learning: See how to leverage AI's power to reinforce learning, rather than bypassing it in Section I: Solutions & Mitigation above.

We are not only combatting short attention spans with screens and digital overload, the proliferation of AI tools and over reliance on them, is pitting us in an endurance brain race against the domineering and ubiquitous artificial intelligence.

3. Deliberately Practice Your "Cognitive Muscles"

TLDR: Keep your creative muscles actively engaged and practice tech-free time.

• Engage in Analog Thinking: Intentionally plan screen and AI free slots. Engage in hands-on non-digital problem-solving activities. This can be writing by hand, solving puzzles, cooking, painting, all of which use different neural pathways of the brain. I carry notebook at all times and handwrite my initial thoughts.

• Cultivate Intellectual Friction: Expose yourself to opposing viewpoints and challenge your assumptions. The mental effort required to debate an idea, whether with a human or a digital partner or by critically analyzing a text, is an exercise in critical thinking. In design thinking we used to challenge the fundamental premise of initial ideas, to make them stronger.

• Acknowledge AI's Limitations: AI can hallucinate, make up studies and may not have access to the latest or most nuanced information. Recognizing limitations encourages you to rely on human judgment and to verify AI outputs with credible sources.

We are not only combatting short attention spans with screens and digital overload, the proliferation of AI tools and over reliance on them, is pitting us in an endurance brain race against the domineering and ubiquitous artificial intelligence.

How do you use the AI tools day to day and what strategies are you deploying to keep your brain sharp and keep those critical and creative muscles sharp?

I had fun with image generation. Curious which images did you like the most? Share in comments!

Resources:

• MIT Media Lab’s “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task” study - link

• Steven Bartlett's The Diary of a CEO podcast episode titled ChatGPT Brain Rot Debate: The Fastest Way to Get Dementia, Watch This Before Using ChatGPT Again, Especially If Your Kids Use It!

• Dr Daniel’s book, ‘Raising Mentally Strong Kids’

• Dr Terry’s book, ‘ChatGPT and the Future of AI: The Deep Language Revolution’

Not ready to commit to a paid subscription? That’s ok, the “Buy Me Coffee” virtual tip jar link is here:

Buy Me Coffee