In this bold and thought-provoking episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, UK-based serial entrepreneur and investor Steve Endacott joins the show to discuss the intersection of AI, entrepreneurship, and legacy. From backing disruptive startups to launching Neural Voice, a conversational AI platform for the travel industry, and Life’s Echo, a digital legacy tool that lets people speak at their own funerals—Steve is turning ambitious ideas into impactful ventures.

You’ll hear why Steve believes AI is still at the “engine” stage, why implementation is the real frontier, and how his AI incubator is matching technical founders with seasoned business leaders to accelerate market-ready innovation.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• Why AI startups need real business models, not just tech

• The danger of overestimating big tech’s dominance in AI

• Why UK founders struggle to scale—and how Dubai is emerging as an alternative funding hub

• How AI can preserve human stories through voice and memory

• The funding death zone: why early UK startups thrive but Series A remains elusive

• Why failure is embraced in the US—but still taboo in the UK

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🎓 What You’ll Learn

• How to build scalable AI startups with B2B2C models

• What it means to “build a car, not just the AI engine”

• How to make your startup fundable through SEIS and EIS

• Real examples of AI products in travel, legacy tech, and politics

• Why founders need to surround themselves with “gray hair” and business realism

👤 About the Guest: Steve Endacott

STEVE ENDACOTT (AI-STEVE)

NON-EXEC CHAIRMAN NEURAL RIVER (AI), NEURAL VOICE (AI) AND TRAVEL SOLUTIONS NETWORK AND FOUNDER OF ECO–ELECTRIC CAR ORGANISATION.

He had an extensive business career before Steve created the SmarterUK party and exploded into political work by standing as AI Steve to become the UK's first AI Member of Parliament in Brighton Pavilion.

Steve has the unusual distinction of having successful careers within both corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Steve is now “Semi-Retired”, having sold Holiday Taxis Ltd (Jan 2019) and Rock Insurance Ltd in multimillion-pound deals. He, however, continues to invest in startup businesses and has recently launched a range of new companies.

⏱ Episode Highlights (Timestamps)

00:00 – Intro and Steve’s entrepreneurial background

03:00 – The “AI car” metaphor: why implementation is everything

06:00 – Neural Voice: building travel-focused conversational AI

10:00 – Running for office as AI Steve

14:00 – Politics vs AI: fear of disruption

17:00 – The UK startup environment: good for early-stage, hard for scaling

20:00 – Why Steve is looking to Dubai for follow-on funding

22:00 – Life’s Echo: creating digital legacies and posthumous storytelling

27:00 – Public reactions: love, hate, and death threats

32:00 – Startup building lessons: team balance, sweat equity, and valuation realism

38:00 – Global-first thinking: building 25-language, 24/7 AI products

42:00 – Final advice: move fast, go global, and build meaningful businesses

In this episode, I’m joined by two tech veterans, Garrett Rice (former Apple) and Philippe Cailloux (former Head of Product Design at Adobe), co-founders of Callings.ai—a platform that’s rethinking how we search for jobs in the AI era. We dive into how the traditional job-hunting process is broken, what’s wrong with the resume as we know it, and how AI can help job seekers know themselves better, stand out, and land more meaningful work.

💡 Key Takeaways:

• Why resumes and job portals are built for companies, not candidates—and how that’s failing job seekers.

• The origin story of Callings.ai and how Garrett & Philippe used their own job hunt frustration to build a new solution.

• How AI can help users reflect, self-brand, and generate tailored applications at scale.

• The importance of personal intention and identity in an increasingly automated hiring world.

• The philosophical and practical shift from “spray and pray” to focused, purposeful job searching.

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🎓 What You’ll Learn:

• How AI is changing the job search process

• The flaws of applicant tracking systems (ATS)

• How to use personal branding to stand out

• Why self-awareness matters more than ever

• The role of LLMs in reimagining career platforms

👤 About the Guests:

Garrett Rice is a former Apple executive and startup operator with deep expertise in technology, product, and business building. Garrett is a

leader with a 25-year record of shipping innovative products, developing meaningful partnerships, designing effective processes and leading dynamic teams. Experience with startups, medium and large companies. Love building things and solving problems to make customers happy and companies better.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrettrice/

Philippe Cailloux has 20+ Years of Experience, he engaged in emerging technology product strategy and design, leading teams to develop products appreciated by a global user base (hundreds of millions).

He has led product design at Adobe and several other companies, and brings a unique lens to merging user-centric design with cutting-edge AI.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cailloux/

Together, they co-founded Callings.ai, a platform focused on empowering job seekers—not employers—with AI-driven tools to navigate the modern hiring landscape.

https://callings.ai/

Episode Highlights:

⏱️ [00:04:20] – Why traditional job search tools ignore the candidate’s experience

⏱️ [00:08:40] – Building tools out of frustration: the founding story of Callings.ai

⏱️ [00:16:00] – Resume ≠ identity: how AI helps uncover the real value behind your past roles

⏱️ [00:27:30] – The “My Insights” feature and how AI personalizes the career journey

⏱️ [00:34:50] – LLMs as enablers: using tech to accelerate self-discovery, not replace it

⏱️ [00:45:00] – The role of purpose, personal branding, and the future of work

⏱️ [01:03:00] – Will AI lead to one-person unicorns? The myth, the reality, and the nuance

In this inspiring episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, I sit down with Ahmed Mahmoud (Founder & CEO) and Ahmed Elshahawy (CTO) of DXwand, a MENA-born AI startup reshaping how businesses unlock growth with generative AI, knowledge mining, and document intelligence.

The conversation takes you through their courageous leap from successful corporate careers (Microsoft, IBM, EY) into the startup trenches, the reality of building a tech company in emerging markets, the transformative impact of generative AI, and their ambitious expansion from the MENA region to global markets like the U.S. and U.K.

If you’re passionate about startups, AI innovation, or scaling tech businesses across borders, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Key Takeaways:

• Why pivoting early is critical for startup survival (and success)

• How the MENA region’s linguistic and cultural diversity shapes AI development

• The real-world business challenges generative AI can (and cannot) solve

• Building AI solutions that balance innovation, hallucination control, and data privacy

• Why document intelligence and knowledge mining are the new frontier

• Lessons on leading tech teams and driving innovation beyond the buzz

• How DXwand cracked the formula to serve SMBs with advanced AI

• The mindset required to jump from corporate life into true entrepreneurship

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What You Will Learn:

• How GenAI unlocked new growth opportunities in enterprise and SMB sectors

• Why combining structured and unstructured data is reshaping data analysis

• Practical insights into deploying AI in highly regulated industries

• Why agent tech is exciting — but not a silver bullet for every problem

• The power of resilience, grit, and passion in startup success stories from emerging markets

About the Guests:

Ahmed Mahmoud is the Founder and CEO of DXwand. With over two decades of experience in technology and enterprise sales, including leadership roles at Microsoft, Ahmed transitioned from a successful corporate career to build one of the region’s leading AI companies. He is passionate about using AI to empower businesses of all sizes and believes in creating meaningful, lasting impact through technology.

Ahmed Elshahawy is the CTO of DXwand. An experienced technology leader, Ahmed has a rich background in solution architecture, delivery management, and data analytics, having worked at global organizations like IBM, EY, and various startups across Egypt and Malaysia. At DXwand, he leads the technical strategy, focusing on generative AI, knowledge mining, and enterprise AI adoption, driving innovation in emerging markets and beyond.

https://dxwand.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ahmedmmohammed/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashahawy/

Episode Highlights:

[00:02:00] - Founders’ backstory: From Microsoft and IBM to DXwand

[00:05:00] - Identifying a major gap: Arabic language and regional AI support

[00:08:00] - Pivoting into generative AI and knowledge mining

[00:13:00] - Early business wins: Serving financial services and trading platforms

[00:19:00] - Moving beyond chatbots: Document intelligence and compliance solutions

[00:22:00] - Tackling multilingual and multi-dialect challenges

[00:25:00] - How GenAI changed data analysis forever

[00:30:00] - Addressing hallucination, security, and enterprise adoption

[00:37:00] - Real talk on agent tech: Separating hype from real-world value

[00:40:00] - DXwand’s global expansion strategy and new mid-market offerings

[00:43:00] - Honest reflections on entrepreneurship: Courage, risk, and fulfillment

What happens when the very platforms meant to connect us instead manipulate us?

In this eye-opening conversation, Tim O’Hearn — former black-hat growth engineer, bestselling author of Framed: A Villain’s Perspective on Social Media — joins Mehmet to expose the hidden mechanisms behind social media addiction, fake engagement, and the dark psychology driving today’s online behavior.

Whether you’re a startup founder, tech leader, marketer, or a concerned user, this episode will shift the way you think about algorithms, content, and influence.

Key Takeaways

• Why all social platforms eventually get gamed — and why they let it happen at first.

• How social proof, dopamine loops, and algorithmic feedback traps rewire our behavior.

• The blurry line between black-hat marketing and everyday online tactics.

• How social media evolved from community to manipulation machine.

• Realistic strategies to protect yourself and your mental health online.

⸻

What You Will Learn

✅ How black-hat tactics exposed deep weaknesses in major platforms

✅ Why being controversial now beats being authentic in the algorithm game

✅ How kids and adults alike are losing control to tech-designed addiction

✅ Why the future of the internet might feel “dead” unless something changes

✅ Practical tips for healthier digital habits

About Tim O’Hearn

Tim O'Hearn is a software engineer who created some of the most pesky and effective bots to ever be unleashed on social media. Between 2017 and 2022, his agency gained millions of followers for its clients while generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue.

His February 2025 debut, Framed: A Villain's Perspective on Social Media, was a #1 New Release in "Social Aspects of the Internet" on Amazon. Framed is Tim's confrontation with the Internet Age delivered by a video game cheater who outgrew gaming but never stopped breaking the rules.

Tim has spent his career working in quantitative trading and has freelanced as a sports journalist.

The book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DW2X8YSK

Tim’s Website:

https://www.tjohearn.com/links

Episode Highlights & Timestamps

00:00 — Intro: Welcome and overview of today’s discussion

01:00 — Tim O’Hearn’s journey: from black-hat engineer to bestselling author

04:00 — Building bots that beat the system: Early vulnerabilities of Instagram

08:00 — The psychology of fake followers, likes, and social proof

11:00 — How AI is changing (and worsening) manipulation dynamics

14:00 — Growth hacks vs black-hat: where’s the line today?

18:00 — Is the algorithm pushing creators toward extremes?

22:00 — How the algorithm manipulates our emotions and behavior

27:00 — Who’s really to blame: us, the platforms, or someone else?

32:00 — Are kids the biggest victims of addictive tech?

36:00 — The lost magic of early internet communities

40:00 — Dead Internet Theory and the rise of AI-generated everything

45:00 — If we could redesign social media from scratch: what Tim would change

48:00 — Final thoughts: How to regain control in a hyper-digital world

In this episode of The CTO Show with Mehmet, we dive into the unique intersection of venture capital, healthcare innovation, and frontier tech with Cameron Sabet, a Georgetown medical student and Principal at Multifaceted Capital. Cameron shares his unconventional path from academia to venture capital, and how he evaluates startups through both a clinical and investor lens.

From AI-powered health tools to biotech innovation in space, this episode explores what it takes to build and back the next wave of MedTech startups.

💡 Key Takeaways

• Why domain expertise is critical in healthcare startups

• Cameron’s 3 red flags that kill MedTech deals before they start

• The rise of AI-driven patient intake systems

• Why the future of medicine might be built… in space

• How founders can get VC attention—with or without early revenue

⸻

🎓 What You’ll Learn

• How Cameron balances being a med student and VC investor

• How to assess healthtech traction when clinical trials take years

• The strategic importance of your board composition

• How grants, institutional backing, and timing can replace seed funding

👤 About the Guest

Cameron Sabet is a U.S.-based medical student, VC investor, angel backer of Y Combinator startups, and advisor to early-stage healthtech ventures. At Multifaceted Capital, he backs high-potential founders with a bias toward deep domain understanding and global scalability.

https://www.cameronsabet.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-sabet-178079250/

⏱️ Episode Highlights

00:00 – Intro and Cameron’s background

03:00 – From Georgetown to VC: Why Cameron got into investing

07:00 – What defines a good healthtech investment thesis

10:30 – The 3 biggest red flags in early-stage MedTech

15:00 – How founders should pitch health investors

17:00 – Moats, speed, and defensibility in an AI-driven world

21:00 – Can AI close the healthcare knowledge gap?

25:00 – Cancer care in Africa and AI in low-resource settings

27:00 – Why space is the next frontier in biotech

30:00 – Regrets, missed startups, and lessons learned

33:00 – What traction really looks like in healthcare

36:00 – Non-traditional paths to early-stage MedTech funding

40:00 – Final advice for aspiring entrepreneurs in healthcare

In this deeply reflective episode, Mehmet welcomes futurist, bestselling author, and technologist Sam Rad to explore how we navigate—and thrive—in a world reshaped by exponential tech. From AI and quantum computing to deepfakes and biotech, this conversation is less about predicting the future and more about reclaiming what it means to be human.

🔑 Key Takeaways

• Why acceleration, not just change, defines this tech era

• How to surf the wave of AI, quantum, and biotech without losing your sense of self

• The importance of deprogramming from outdated operating systems

• What “post-human” really means—and why reconnection is the key

• Sam’s own experience with building a deepfake of herself

• A powerful reminder: Purpose is your protection in uncertain times

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📘 What You’ll Learn

• What’s driving the current “age of acceleration”

• How to build mental and emotional resilience as a founder or leader

• The role of spirituality and introspection in shaping your path

• How emerging technologies may force a radical rethink of work, identity, and meaning

• Whether Universal Basic Income is a solution or a patch

👤 About Sam Rad

Sam Rad (Samantha Radocchia) is a lifelong student of humanity—futurist, anthropologist, and creative technologist—a four-time technology entrepreneur, and the founder of the

meta-media storytelling studio Radical Next. Sam has shared stories of radical change with global audiences on stages across five continents—empowering individuals, leaders,

and organizations not only to survive but to thrive amid radical and accelerating change.

Her work has led to advisory roles with the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and the Federal Reserve, among others.

She has served in multiple founding executive roles across the C-Suite, including co-founder of NYOUM, a London-based generative AI communication platform, and Chronicled, a San Francisco-based blockchain company bringing trust to global commerce. Prior to Chronicled, Sam founded two companies leveraging AI to map personal aesthetics and taste.

She holds a dual bachelor’s degree in Anthropology, English Literature, and Linguistics from Colgate University, a master’s degree from New York University in Game Design and Social Analysis of Technology, and several patents linking the physical and digital worlds. She is considered a pioneer in extended reality (XR), simulation design, applied cryptography, blockchain systems, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing.

Sam’s work has been featured in Newsweek, Fast Company, and Forbes, where she previously wrote as a contributor. She was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for Enterprise Technology and is also the author of the bestselling book: Bitcoin Pizza: The No-Bullshit Guide to Blockchain.



Sam is a citizen of the world and is most often found people-watching somewhere between a Brooklyn coffee shop, South American rainforest, London’s West End, or some undisclosed off-grid location.

https://sam-rad.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/samantharadocchia/

⏱️ Episode Chapters

00:00 – Intro & Sam’s background

03:00 – Living on the edge of emerging tech

06:00 – The Age of Acceleration explained

09:00 – Deepfakes, cognition, and digital identity

14:00 – Are we ready for what’s coming?

17:00 – Learning to surf change

22:00 – The post-human dilemma

28:00 – Reprogramming vs. resisting

33:00 – Future of work, economics & Universal Basic Income

39:00 – Spirituality, purpose & thriving in the now

49:00 – What “radical” really means

52:00 – Final thoughts & optimism

In this thought-provoking episode, Mehmet sits down with Joel Quintela, a business psychologist and former computer systems engineer, to break down the biggest hiring blind spots—and how to fix them. Joel shares how psychology, structured assessments, and poker strategies can help founders and leaders hire better, retain top talent, and create winning teams.

You’ll learn how to go beyond gut feel and “culture fit” into something more predictive—and scalable.

🎯 Key Takeaways

• Why bad hires hurt startups more than big companies

• How to identify and avoid founder blind spots when hiring

• The difference between person-job fit and person-environment fit

• The P.O.K.E.R. framework to align perception with reality

• Why most roleplays and interviews fail to predict success

• The hidden cost of complexity in HR tech and candidate experience

• Why founders often think they’re good at hiring—but aren’t

⸻

🧠 What You’ll Learn

• How structured job profiling can reduce attrition

• How to assess motivation fit in early interviews

• What data-driven hiring looks like at scale

• Why simplicity and clarity matter more than AI in talent tech

• The link between self-awareness and high performance

👤 About Joel Quintela

Joel Quintela is the founder and CEO of Quintela Group LLC, a minority-owned business enterprise specializing in HR technology solutions. With over 25 years of experience in HR assessment technology and 15 years as an entrepreneur, Joel has worked with numerous Fortune 500 clients to improve their hiring processes.

https://quintela.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelquintela/

🕒 Episode Highlights (Timestamps)

00:00 – Intro & Joel’s background

03:45 – Why gut feeling fails in hiring

07:00 – The impact of a bad hire on startups

10:20 – Common founder blind spots

13:45 – Job profiling: the missing step in hiring

16:50 – Role plays, assessments, and triangulation

22:10 – Culture fit vs real environmental fit

28:00 – Complexity kills: The UI/UX trap in HR tech

34:30 – The P.O.K.E.R. Framework: From perception to reality

47:00 – Final thoughts on performance, mindset, and human behavior

🔍 Episode Overview

In this episode, Mehmet sits down with Lucas Lovell, VP of Product at Paddle, to unpack the powerful yet often overlooked role of payments in SaaS growth. From navigating tax compliance and pricing localization to optimizing for global expansion, Lucas shares product leadership insights and the future of billing in an AI-powered world.

Whether you’re a founder scaling globally or a product leader aiming to boost efficiency, this episode delivers practical frameworks and forward-thinking strategies.

📌 Key Takeaways

• What the Merchant of Record model really is—and why it matters

• How Paddle handles tax, compliance, and fraud so SaaS companies can scale

• Why localized pricing and payment methods impact conversion

• The power of web-first flows for mobile apps to bypass app store fees

• Using your payments platform as a strategic GTM and growth tool

• How AI will shape the future of subscription billing and product design

• What founders should prepare before an exit or fundraising round

⸻

🎧 What You’ll Learn

• How to enter new markets without spinning up new entities

• Tactical ways to increase revenue through smarter payment setups

• Why usage-based pricing is gaining momentum across SaaS

• How Paddle supports product teams through compliance shifts and AI tools

• Real trends from global SaaS markets—from MENA to India and Southeast Asia

👤 About Lucas Lovell

Lucas Lovell is currently VP of Product a Paddle, a payments infrastructure company for digital software companies. Prior to that, Lucas was Founder of an early stage SaaS startup in the travel & hospitality space, that he launched in Australia out of Law School. He was a laureate of the French Tech Ticket Program, and grew the startup in Paris & across Europe before joining Paddle in 2021.

His experience in technology is firmly at the intersection of SaaS & fintech, which is the primary problem space he explores day-in day-out at Paddle. Outside of work, Lucas is a keen runner & skier, and loves both the outdoors & exploring his now home city of London.

https://www.paddle.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucaslovell/

🕒 Episode Highlights (Timestamps)

00:00 – Intro and Lucas’s journey from law to SaaS founder to VP Product

04:00 – Explaining the Merchant of Record model

07:00 – How Paddle enables localized payment methods

09:30 – Product complexity at the intersection of tax, compliance, and UX

14:30 – Pricing localization strategies and regional purchasing power

21:00 – Web-first flows vs. App Store dependency

26:00 – How payments impact exit valuations and due diligence

31:00 – AI’s role in billing, usage-based models, and future product trends

36:00 – Emerging SaaS GTM playbooks and community-led growth

40:00 – Regional SaaS trends: India, Singapore, and beyond

42:00 – Where to connect with Lucas and learn more about Paddle