Lauren Stein joins David Nebinski to unpack how the Chief of Staff role is evolving in the AI era — from "executive engineer" to startups' earliest hire. They dig into why Founders now want a CoS sometimes before they even launch, what AI-native companies expect from the role, and Lauren's advice for anyone interviewing: find the founder, not the job.
Connect with Lauren Stein on LinkedIn!
Episode highlights:
- 00:30 Why the CoS press wave is happening now
- 01:00 “Every single job is becoming an engineer”
- 03:00 The role is arriving earlier and earlier at companies
- 07:00 Pitching yourself as a quasi-co-founder
- 10:30 The three levels of AI integration
- 13:45 The interview has changed: “Have you been a PM?”
- 15:30 Internal versus external roles
- 17:15 BizOps plus product: the builder, not just the operator
- 18:30 What this does to the COO role
- 21:00 “AI has made the role 100% more valuable”
- 37:00 “Find the founder, not the job”
Connect with Lauren on LinkedIn
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