The $700 Billion AI Bet and What It Means for Founders Building Right Now | Cort Johnson on Into the Gnar EP.4

Not sure if your team is actually ready for AI? We built a free 2-minute assessment that gives you a straight answer → ai-assessment.thegnar.com Everyone is talking about AI. Most companies aren't actually using it well. This week we brought in Cort Johnson, founder of Terrible Labs and a Boston tech operator who has spent the last few years going deeper on AI than just about any non-engineer we know. We skipped the hype and went straight to what actually matters when you're trying to build something. We get into the $700 billion wave of capex flooding into AI infrastructure and what it means if you're a founder shipping today. The chip wars, AMD's run at Nvidia, and whether any of that matters when your job is just to get product out the door. But the real conversation is about how building has changed. Your engineers aren't writing code anymore, and offshore development is losing the cost advantage it used to have. The founders winning right now are the ones who figured out how to use AI as a force multiplier before everyone else did. Cort also walks us through his personal stack (Claude, Obsidian, Gemini, Notion) and how he used Gemini to write a pop song that gets his kids ready for bed and loving him at the same time. We're not joking. He sings it to them. They sing it back. Here's what we got into: The $700B AI capex wave and what it means for startup founders in 2026 AMD vs. Nvidia: is the AI chip monopoly ending? The one question Cort asks before every AI decision (and most founders forget to ask) Why your developers stopped writing code and got promoted in the process Why offshore development is losing its cost advantage to AI tools Claude vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini for non-technical founders How Cort uses Obsidian to build a personal AI knowledge base that sounds like him The Gemini-generated bedtime song that made his kids love him more If you're a founder trying to figure out how to actually build with AI right now, this is the episode to start with. What's in your AI stack? Drop it in the comments. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - The $700B AI Capex Wave: What It Means for Startup Founders in 2026  07:35 - AMD vs. Nvidia: Is the AI Chip Monopoly Finally Ending?  11:49 - From Consulting Shop to Autodesk Acquisition: The Terrible Labs Story  21:17 - How to Use AI to Build and Operate a Startup in 2026  32:52 - Claude, Obsidian, Gemini, and Notion: A Non-Technical Founder's AI Stack  38:32 - Rapid Fire: The One AI Tool You Can't Run Your Business Without