AI Amplifies Competence, It Doesn’t Replace It | Steve Lamb, Kyckr CEO

Steve Lamb runs Kyckr, and he would rather make money than take money — hiring, in his words, is an absolute last resort. He argues the industry has automated its go-to-market in exactly the wrong order, and points at the AI labs themselves: the ones preaching full automation are busy hiring salespeople. Also: why verifying a business is still manual when verifying a person is nearly solved, and how few company registries worldwide actually work properly.

• Why hiring is "an absolute last resort" at Kyckr, and what they do instead as demand grows
• What the AI labs' own hiring tells you about automating go-to-market
• Why verifying a business is still manual when verifying a person is nearly a solved problem
• The order of operations most teams get wrong when they automate sales communication
• How many company registries worldwide actually work like Companies House (not many)
• What a "competence amplifier" is genuinely good at — and what it is not

• 00:00 — Cold open
• 00:47 — Sponsor — FTT Fintech Festival & Future Identity Festival
• 01:31 — Every job under the sun: which function is Steve?
• 03:21 — What Kyckr actually does
• 08:39 — Fully remote — and why they're reopening in London
• 11:34 — The AI labs preach automation and hire salespeople
• 16:35 — Hiring is a last resort
• 19:23 — Growth at all costs is back
• 23:12 — Why business verification is still manual
• 26:50 — NVIDIA, Intel and the chip nobody can name
• 30:55 — Registries like Companies House: count them on one hand
• 36:48 — How Steve actually uses AI — and the hidden-employee rule
• 45:26 — Automating the thing that should have gone last
• 47:02 — One piece of advice for a first-time CEO

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This series is sponsored by VC Innovations — the FTT Fintech Festival and the Future Identity Festival. Find out more.

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