Cage or Release Your Agents? with Viktor Petersson & Alex Finn

EPISODE 77 Viktor Petersson and Alex Finn were two of Founder Mode's earliest guests, and they're back with opposite answers to the biggest question in AI right now: how much should you trust your agents? Viktor, founder of Sbomify and co-founder of Screenly, routes every agent through an identity proxy that gives it just enough access to do its job, and it took him a long time to let even his human assistant into his email. Alex, founder and CEO of Henry Intelligent Machines and creator of Creator Buddy, gave his agents access to everything and says it changed his life. They get into how each of them starts the day with AI, why Alex switches to a new favorite agent almost every week, whether anyone at OpenAI is actually reading your email, and why skills and context stores might be a short-term fix. Alex explains why he's holding back the Henry launch to beat churn, why always-on ambient AI will only be possible with local models, and why a 9 a.m. and a 2 p.m. meeting cooks his whole day, while Viktor makes the case that Apple could win the long game and that reviewing agent output is the new bottleneck. They close on why one raised money for distribution while the other stays bootstrapped to avoid getting locked into a roadmap, plus a lightning round on the most overrated thing in AI and the one thing they'll never hand to an agent. CHAPTERS 00:00 – Cold open: "What's your concern?" 01:51 – Cage the agents vs. release the agents 02:42 – How they start the day with AI 05:14 – A new favorite agent every week 07:28 – Would you give AI your email? 11:44 – Building a company with a tiny team 16:53 – Are skills and context stores a short-term fix? 18:54 – Why Alex isn't rushing to ship Henry 21:04 – Local models vs. frontier models 23:31 – Ambient AI and hacking your hardware 27:49 – Babysitting agents: the new bottleneck 30:02 – Context switching and the perfect week 31:17 – Raising money vs. bootstrapping 35:07 – Lightning round 39:28 – Founder Mode top five LINKS Connect with Viktor Petersson vpetersson.com • LinkedIn • X/Twitter • GitHub • Nerding Out with Viktor Podcast • Sbomify • Screenly • Little Snitch Meets 1Password for AI Agents Connect with Alex Finn YouTube • X/Twitter • Newsletter • Vibe Coding Academy Stay Connected with Founder Mode Subscribe to our newsletter Connect with Kevin LinkedIn • X/Twitter Connect with Jason LinkedIn • X/Twitter