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Peter Rojas has built new things at almost every scale there is, and he planted the seed for this show years ago in an email to Michael.

In this episode, Peter and Michael discuss:

• How building new products inside a big company differs from a startup, and why you have to invest ahead of traction
• Why corporate product development is a harder numbers game than a venture portfolio
• AI, vibe coding, and the Mozilla Pioneers program for widening the top of the funnel
• Why incumbents keep losing the next technology wave
• Why coordination breaks down at scale, and the clarity that fixes it

About Peter: Peter Rojas co-founded Gizmodo and Engadget, two publications that changed how people understand technology. He has been an operator and investor across AOL, Meta, and BetaWorks, where he was a founder and VC. Today he leads new product development at Mozilla and runs Mozilla Pioneers.

00:00 Cold open

01:46 The email that started the show

03:33 Startup vs building inside a company

06:57 The corporate product numbers game

11:03 Vibe coding and Mozilla Pioneers

15:13 When a trusted brand is the advantage

18:04 Why incumbents lose the next wave

21:58 Meta's metaverse bet vs AI

25:44 If I were running Meta

29:02 Was the VR bet a failure

30:27 Why coordination breaks at scale

35:07 Fear, focus, and the CEO filter

38:56 How Mozilla runs on KPIs

40:30 The founder who hid his idea

46:33 Where to find Peter

Resources mentioned:

• Mozilla Pioneers: https://newproducts.mozilla.org/mozilla-pioneers/
• WordPress: https://wordpress.org
• Lovable: https://lovable.dev
• Replit: https://replit.com
• Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code
• Rec Room: https://recroom.com

Connect with Peter:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterrojas/

Connect with Michael:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-koenig514
• Building Helm: https://helmapp.ai

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• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2NjVgGm6mqLPEbJUvHnHEH
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• Watch on YouTube.