{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Twitter's Ex-CEO: The Web Was Built for Humans \u2014 Let's Make it Work for AI Agents","description":"What happens when AI agents \u2014 not humans \u2014 become your primary customer? That's not a hypothetical. It's already happening, and the founders who recognize it earliest are rebuilding their entire infrastructure stacks from scratch. In this live episode of Founded &amp;amp; Funded from our IA Summit in Seattle, Madrona Venture Partner Jon Turow sits down with Parag Agrawal, former CEO of Twitter and founder of Parallel Web Systems, and Nikita Shamgunov, who led Neon through a rapid AI pivot before its acquisition by Databricks. What they cover:  Why Parag is building a new search index from the ground up \u2014 and why existing ones weren't designed for AI agents The moment Nikita realized Replit agents were spinning up databases 4x faster than all human developers combined \u2014 and what that forced him to do How to pivot an established company in weeks, not months, when your customer base suddenly changes The &quot;pagers vs. iPhones&quot; framework for knowing when to lean into disruption vs. protect what you have Parag's two-person hiring rubric for teams operating in deep uncertainty Why Nikita added the head of product for ChatGPT to Neon's board \u2014 and what that signaled to the market The &quot;two-way door&quot; model for giving agents real autonomy without catastrophic downside  Whether you're building infrastructure, running an AI-native startup, or trying to figure out where your product fits in an agent-first world \u2014 this conversation will sharpen your thinking. Full Transcript: https:\/\/www.madrona.com\/twitter-ex-ceo-web-built-for-humans-make-it-work-for-ai-agents-nikita-Shamgunov-parag-agrawal Chapters (00:00) \u2013 Introduction (01:52) \u2013 Parag Agrawal: Why Parallel Was Built for AI Agents From Day One (03:22) \u2013 Why Existing Search Indexes Don't Work for AI Agents (05:08) \u2013 Nikita Shamgunov: How Replit Agents Outpaced the Entire World on Neon (08:27) \u2013 The Pager-to-iPhone Decision: Lean Into Disruption or Get Left Behind (11:13) \u2013 How Neon Built an AI Team in Two Weeks and Launched MCP Before Anyone Else (13:41) \u2013 Firing Bullets: Why a 4-Out-of-9 Batting Average Was Good Enough (15:37) \u2013 Parag on the Two Types of People You Need to Take Concentrated Risk (21:08) \u2013 Building Trust in Agents: Evals, Confidence Scores, and Read-Only Infrastructure (23:32) \u2013 Nikita's Two-Way Door Framework for Agent Autonomy (25:35) \u2013 Parallel Execution: Fork Environments and Let Agents Compete ","author_name":"Founded &amp; Funded","author_url":"https:\/\/www.madrona.com\/","html":"<iframe title=\"Libsyn Player\" style=\"border: none\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/40514555\/height\/90\/theme\/custom\/thumbnail\/yes\/direction\/forward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/88AA3C\/\" height=\"90\" width=\"600\" scrolling=\"no\"  allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen><\/iframe>","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/assets.libsyn.com\/secure\/item\/40514555"}