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Startup Dad

Startup Dad

By: Adam Fishman
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Adam Fishman (author of a top business newsletter on Substack with 11K+ subscribers) interviews executives, entrepreneurs, and company leaders in technology companies who are also fathers. They discuss the tough aspects of work, parenting, family, the mistakes made and lessons learned along the way. All episodes at www.startupdadpod.com.Adam Fishman Parenting & Families Relationships
Episodes
  • I Quit My 7-Figure Job To Take Back My Time | Peter Yang (Dad of 2, Behind The Craft)

    I Quit My 7-Figure Job To Take Back My Time | Peter Yang (Dad of 2, Behind The Craft)
    Oct 22 2026
    Peter Yang is the creator of Behind the Craft, a 100k+ subscriber YouTube channel and 150k+ subscriber newsletter focused on product, AI, and building. Previously a product leader at Roblox, Peter spent years climbing the traditional career ladder before walking away from a seven figure tech career to bet on himself and build his creator business full-time. And he did it all so he could spend time on what mattered most… his family.He’s the dad of two daughters, ages eight and four, and his wife is an engineer at Microsoft. They’re figuring out how to raise curious, resilient kids while navigating careers, technology, and a rapidly changing, AI-fueled world. We discussed:Walking away from a seven figure tech career: Why Peter left Roblox to bet on himself, and how trying to juggle a demanding job with his creator business was hurting both.Being more present with his daughters: How walking his eight-year-old to school and putting his phone away helped Peter create more focused, meaningful time with his kids.Breaking out of the traditional career script: How Peter’s immigrant upbringing, Ivy League path, and years in consulting, banking, and tech shaped a definition of success he eventually started to question.Teaching kids to build with AI: How Peter’s eight-year-old used Codex and voice commands to build her own game from scratch, and what that taught him about creativity, communication, and the future of learning.Raising kids with agency and resilience: Why Peter wants his daughters to learn how to build, sell, fail, communicate clearly, and pursue the things they genuinely enjoy.Remembering that family matters more than the career ladder: Why Peter is spending more time with his aging parents, preserving their stories for his daughters, and rethinking what kind of legacy actually matters.Where to find Peter YangLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petergyang/ X: https://x.com/petergyangYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PeterYangYTWhere to find Adam FishmanFishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ X: https://x.com/fishmanafIn this episode, we cover:(00:00) Welcoming Peter Yang, creator of Behind The Craft(02:58) Why Peter walked away from Roblox(04:13) What Peter learned from walking his daughter to school(09:53) Breaking free from the Ivy League success script(11:46) Overcoming a scarcity mindset and redefining security(14:37) Peter’s principles for betting on yourself(17:49) How product management theater pushed Peter to make a change(22:16) Teaching his daughter to build with Codex(27:00) How AI is changing the way kids learn(34:10) Helping your kids find their zone of genius(37:10) Preparing kids for a world without a traditional career ladder(38:56) Creating vs. consuming and Peter’s rules for screen time(47:28) Why Peter only publishes things he’d want his kids to see(48:43) Raising kids while your parents are getting older(56:59) Lightning round and Peter’s parenting hacksResources From This Episode:Behind The Craft: https://www.behindthecraft.com/ Behind The Craft (Substack): https://creatoreconomy.so/ Behind The Craft (Youtube): https://www.youtube.com/@PeterYangYTPeter Yang on Github: https://github.com/petergyang No AI Slop (Github): https://github.com/petergyang/no-ai-slop Human Review (Github): https://github.com/petergyang/human-review Roblox (Video Game): https://www.roblox.com/ Being Mortal (Book by Atul Gawande): https://atulgawande.com/book/being-mortal/ Wait But Why’s The Tail End (Article): https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/12/the-tail-end.htmlOpen AI Codex: https://openai.com/codex/ ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ Claude: https://claude.ai/ Claude Code: https://claude.com/product/claude-code Granola: https://www.granola.ai/ Linear: https://linear.app/ Blend: https://blend.com/ Magna-Tiles (Toy): https://www.magnatiles.com/ Lululemon (Apparel): https://shop.lululemon.com/ Ten Thousand (Apparel): https://www.tenthousand.cc/ StarCraft (Video Game): https://starcraft.blizzard.com/ Harry Potter (Book Series): https://www.goodreads.com/series/45175-harry-potter The Iron Giant (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129167/ Toy Story 3 (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435761/ Kiki’s Delivery Service (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097814/ My Neighbor Totoro (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096283/ Rocky (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075148/ Toyota Highlander (Car): https://www.toyota.com/highlander/ —Support Startup DadFor sponsorship inquiries, email: podcast@fishmana.comFor Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com
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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • Build an AI-Powered Parent OS | Aakash Gupta (Dad of 2, Author/Podcast Host)

    Build an AI-Powered Parent OS | Aakash Gupta (Dad of 2, Author/Podcast Host)
    Oct 15 2026
    Aakash Gupta is a creator, product advisor, author, and the host of one of the most popular newsletters, podcasts, and social accounts for product managers and AI builders. He built a following of over 350,000 people on LinkedIn through six years of daily posting and now uses AI to create leverage across his work and family life.He’s also a dad of two who stepped away from a VP of Product role to build a career with more flexibility and be more present with his kids. Aakash joins Startup Dad to share how he built a Parent OS using Claude Code, AI agents, and automations to manage the invisible workload of parenting. We discussed:Building a Parent OS with AI: How Aakash created a personal operating system that combines context libraries, AI skills, and automations to manage family logistics, reminders, and everyday parenting tasks.Using AI to become a more present parent: Why Aakash believes AI’s biggest benefit is not more screen time, but reducing the amount of time parents spend on their phones handling tasks in front of their kids.Creating personalized AI storytelling: How Aakash built a storytelling system that remembers his kids’ preferences, previous stories, and family values to create better experiences for his children.Automating the invisible work of family life: How AI helps manage school applications, activity registrations, subscriptions, travel planning, and reminders that usually fall on parents to track manually.Turning AI into a family coordination system: How Aakash uses AI as a shared operating layer between him and his wife to keep everyone aligned without constant communication.Why parents should start building with AI now: Why Aakash believes every parent should learn how to use AI effectively, not just for productivity, but to prepare their families for a future where AI becomes part of everyday life.Aakash’s Open Source Parent OShttps://github.com/aakashg/parenting-osWhere to find Aakash GuptaWebsite: https://www.aakashg.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagupta/ Newsletter: https://www.news.aakashg.com/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@growproductWhere to find Adam FishmanFishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ X: https://x.com/fishmanafIn this episode, we cover:(00:00) Welcoming Aakash Gupta, author and podcast host(04:55) Why Claude is the most powerful software ever built(07:11) Why AI is underused by families(10:42) Being a father first, creator second(12:29) Leaving a VP of Product role for his family(15:16) Advice for dads considering the creator path(17:44) Calendar non-negotiables and daily time blocking(21:51) Building AI-powered storytelling for his kids(26:22) Inside the Parent OS: a live demo(37:48) The automations his family uses most(43:39) Where AI automation fell short(46:39) How to build your own Parent OS from scratch(52:37) How AI scored a free museum day in Poland(1:01:19) Advice for builders about to become parentsResources From This Episode:Parent OS: https://github.com/aakashg/parenting-osProduct Growth: https://www.news.aakashg.com/ The Growth Podcast: https://www.news.aakashg.com/s/product-growth-podcast Claude: https://claude.ai/Claude Code: https://www.anthropic.com/claude-codeAnthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/Cursor: https://cursor.com/Whisper Flow: https://whisperflow.ai/MCP (Model Context Protocol): https://modelcontextprotocol.io/GitHub: https://github.com/Notion: https://www.notion.com/Slack: https://slack.com/Canva: https://www.canva.com/Figma: https://www.figma.com/Typefully: https://typefully.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/Claude Opus: https://claude.ai/ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/OpenAI: https://openai.com/Codex: https://openai.com/codex/Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/Google Flights: https://www.google.com/travel/flightsAir Zoo: https://www.airzoo.org/Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library: https://imaginationlibrary.com/Alien (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/ Inside Out (Film): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/ Kia Telluride (Car): https://www.kia.com/us/en/tellurideHyundai Palisade (Car): https://www.hyundaiusa.com/us/en/vehicles/palisade—Support Startup DadFor sponsorship inquiries, email: podcast@fishmana.comFor Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Why I Stepped Down to Spend More Time With My Son | Ankit Gupta (Dad of 1, Founder of Bicycle Health)

    Why I Stepped Down to Spend More Time With My Son | Ankit Gupta (Dad of 1, Founder of Bicycle Health)
    Oct 8 2026
    Ankit Gupta is the Founder of Bicycle Health, a company he built and led for nearly nine years before handing over the CEO role and becoming a stay-at-home dad. Before Bicycle, Ankit co-founded Pulse while at Stanford, a news app that caught the attention of Steve Jobs, was famously pulled from the App Store later that same day, and was eventually acquired by LinkedIn.He’s also a dad of one, with a two-year-old son, and the husband of a transplant nephrologist in the middle of a demanding fellowship. After years of being pulled toward building companies, Ankit found that pull shifting toward his family. He joins Startup Dad to talk about the 18-month process of stepping away from Bicycle, the turbulence and FOMO that came with trading founder life for full-time parenting, and why he believes some of the best things parents can give their kids are simply time, love, and room to be bored. We discussed:Choosing fatherhood over founder life: How Ankit spent 18 months deciding to step away from Bicycle Health and follow a new pull toward being more present with his son.The transition from CEO to stay-at-home dad: Why leaving startup life created unexpected challenges, from losing daily feedback loops to adjusting to a completely different pace.Why time and love matter most: How Ankit believes parents can get caught optimizing everything, when simply being present is what matters most.Rethinking modern parenting pressure: Why Ankit pushes back on overscheduling kids and the constant pursuit of efficiency, and what boredom can teach children.Using AI to understand parenting: How Ankit used Claude and ChatGPT to research parenting philosophies, map different approaches, and build his own framework.Building with AI for yourself: How a personal parenting experiment became a public tool and showed what is now possible with AI-powered creation.Where to find Ankit GuptaLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankitgupta00/ X: https://x.com/gankitWhere to find Adam FishmanFishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ X: https://x.com/fishmanafIn this episode, we cover:(00:00) Welcoming Ankit Gupta, founder of Bicycle Health(02:50) The untold story behind stepping back from Bicycle Health(05:14) Becoming a full-time dad so his wife could focus on her fellowship(09:38) Preschool shuts down and Ankit becomes a solo dad(12:29) The "dopamine desert" of trading founder life for fatherhood(14:15) Why "time and love" is a contrarian parenting philosophy(17:49) Comparing overscheduled American childhoods to growing up in India(21:31) Addressing privilege and financial independence(26:55) Why parenting is tiring(32:02) Using Claude to map every parenting philosophy(42:54) Redesigning the home and moving the bed to the floor(46:17) Going screen-free and Montessori-inspired play(52:15) The Steve Jobs Pulse story: best and worst day(1:04:11) Why entrepreneurship pairs well with parentingResources From This Episode:Bicycle Health: https://www.bicyclehealth.com/Pulse: https://www.linkedin.com/ (acquired by LinkedIn)Fellow Parent: https://fellowparent.org/ Good Inside by Dr. Becky: https://www.goodinside.com/Claude: https://claude.ai/ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/Montessori Education: https://amshq.org/Nanit Camera: https://www.nanit.com/Inside Out (Film): https://www.pixar.com/inside-outThe Lion King (Film): https://www.disney.com/movies/the-lion-king Pikler Triangle: https://www.piklertriangle.com/Costco Car Seats: https://www.costco.com/car-seats-boosters.html —Support Startup DadFor sponsorship inquiries, email: podcast@fishmana.comFor Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com
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    1 hr and 21 mins
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