AI didn't take your job. It froze the hiring line. Here's what that means.

There is a certain kind of founder who, after building and exiting a company, does not slow down. They just get quieter about it. Colin McIntosh is that founder. He sold Sheets and Giggles, the irreverently named sustainable bedding brand he bootstrapped into a multi-million dollar e-commerce operation, and then he did what most founders say they will do and almost never do: he kept building, but only the things he actually cared about.This conversation covers the real state of the 2026 job market, the counterintuitive content strategy that put SheetsResume.com at the top of Google without a single AI-generated word, and the framework Colin uses to decide which ideas are worth his time. Along the way, it takes a detour through Babylonian flood myths, float tanks, and a giraffe-shaped carafe business that may or may not be a real thing.WHY THE JOBS REPORT ISN'T TELLING THE WHOLE STORYColin breaks down the 2025 labor market with the clarity of someone who has seen thousands of resumes and placed hundreds of executives. The headline numbers look stable, but the underlying picture is messier.The US lost jobs in 2025 outside of healthcare, with healthcare accounting for roughly 90% of all new job creationMonthly job creation averaged a fraction of 2024's pace, with 2024 sitting around 149,000 jobs added per monthAI is manifesting primarily as a payroll freeze, not mass layoffs, as companies wait to understand what they can automate before committing to new headcountGeopolitical instability, on-again-off-again tariffs affecting retail and its roughly $7 to $8 trillion slice of the US economy, a 40% drop in international tourism, and 300,000 government workers flooding the private job market are all compounding the pressureThe people suffering most are those laid off in 2025 who cannot find work after six, twelve, or eighteen months of searchinghttps://sheetsresume.com/https://readynda.com/https://www.rivierapartners.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/colindmcintosh/⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/estesryan/⁠⁠https://aiforfounders.co⁠⁠⁠https://kitcaster.com/application ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ryanestes.info⁠⁠