Alex Lieberman
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Morning Brew. On 7 shows, 216 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutivehostinvestor@businessbarista ↗LinkedIn ↗alexlieberman.com ↗
Alex Lieberman is best known for co-founding Morning Brew and serving as its CEO until selling a majority stake to Insider in 2020. He currently leads the AI services firm Tenex and hosts the Founder's Journal podcast.
7shows
216appearances
1,267statements
269resolved
209supported
11contradicted
78%fully supported
33said about them ↓ Everything Alex Lieberman said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Creating wealth for employees delivers more social justice than DEI hiring initiatives
“Good people don't want to be hired because they fit a demographic. We made a lot of money for our people, and we delivered more social justice this way than we ever could have pursuing other people's ideas of that.”
Lieberman asserts corporate claims that AI will not eliminate jobs are false
“Well, I mean, my, one thing I would say just specifically to the truism you just said, is I really just think it is, like, Bullshit. And like, basically every executive is like on one hand being like, how can I use AI in my company? On the other hand is saying…”
Lieberman: Software and Agency Valuation Multiples Will Converge in AI Era
“And also, why do I think that software and agency multiples will converge? Short answer is I believe the business is The agency business will look a lot better in the age of AI.”
AI makes expecting more output with fewer employees entirely realistic
“This question would have come off as unreasonable for Toby to ask pre-AI, but with AI, the expectation of your team to get more work done with no more or even fewer people is all of a sudden totally realistic.”
Rippling sues competitor Deel alleging a corporate espionage scheme
“Parker Conrad, the CEO of Rippling, the HR software platform, tweeted on March 17th that Rippling was suing its competitor deal for running a corporate espionage scheme and stealing trade secrets from Rippling for months.”
Rippling caught a Deel insider using a honeypot Slack channel
“Rippling's general counsel sent a legal letter to three Deal executives mentioning a fake Slack channel called D Defectors that had supposed reputationally damaging information about Deal. Prior to general counsel sending this letter, the channel did not exist…”
Product Quality Is Not A Long-Term Competitive Advantage
“The best product doesn't always win, and product is not a long-term competitive advantage.”
B players destroy companies because their mediocrity is tolerated, unlike C players
“Organizations are not getting killed by their C players. Everybody knows who they are, and performance eventually is addressed. The people who kill organizations are your B players. It's the scourge of the enterprise, because there are many, and they are gener…”
Modern companies coddle employees and prioritize internal satisfaction scores over customer success
“Performance-centric thinking like this doesn't trend well with prevailing attitudes. Companies have become more fixated on their employees' MPS scores than their customers. They coddle their people. They get caught up in things that have nothing to do with the…”
Lieberman: Founders Lie and Embellish Necessarily to Launch Businesses
“Founders do lie, and founders do embellish, and they do it necessarily to get their business off the ground.”
Chesky: Companies should have zero pure people managers without domain expertise
“I think that every leader should be an expert in what they're leading. There should be no people managers in the entire company. And when I say people managers, meaning your only responsibility is people, not the work or not the domain, because you can't manag…”
Lieberman: Stripe avoids official layoffs by forcing managers into a rating system
“Stripe, they're not doing layoffs. It's not called layoffs. It's what's known as backdoor layoffs, where basically they're requiring their managers to do a rating system of they're, they have to answer a question, would you hire this direct report if you knew …”
Lieberman: Hourly billing perversely penalizes workers who use AI faster
“And also you're perversely incentivized because you leveraging AI in your work as you operating faster, but your incentive, just like a lawyer or just like any hour pay based knowledge worker is to rack up as many hours as possible.”
Lieberman says Tenex's top output-based engineer will make $1M next year
“Our clients pay us based on output, and our engineers are paid on output as well. And the reason that is so valuable is we can hire truly the best engineers I've ever worked with, because just as an example, like our best engineer will make a million bucks in …”
Lieberman: Software Recurring Revenue Quality Will Decline
“And so I think what was typically considered to be a more quality recurring revenue stream in software products is going to be less true than it's ever been.”
Lieberman: AI consultancy Tenex can reach $100M in annual agency revenue
“I think Tenex just as a, an agency business can be a hundred million dollar a year business because I view the opportunity for AI transformation to basically be the GDP of the United States.”
Khosla partner Nikunj Kothari calls seedstrapping limits extremely short-sighted
“He basically said businesses that should be venture backed will always have an incentive to raise more and grow faster. He said, my hot take is that all of these amount raised and team size proclamations are extremely short sighted.”
Lieberman: An audience's greatest value for startups is hiring, not customer acquisition
“And I think the obvious benefit that companies get from partnering with a creator or someone who has audience is getting more customers. But I would actually argue that is like the least exciting thing about having an audience, When I think about the value tha…”
Competing In A VC-Funded Space Without Capital Is Foolish
“If you're in a competitive VC-funded space, it is foolish to compete without raising money.”
There Is No Moat In Productivity Software; Founders Should Avoid It
“There is no moat in productivity. Avoid it if you can.”
Good Product With Great Marketing Beats Amazing Product Without Marketing
“Good product with great marketing beats amazing product with no marketing.”
Employee pushback indicates leadership is raising performance standards sufficiently
“The shock to the system will be profound, or you are perhaps not taking it far enough. People may squeal, but consider that a sign you are bringing it on.”
The balanced scorecard management framework is academia's worst idea
“They were convinced a grown-up company had to have a balanced scorecard, arguably the worst idea to ever come out of academia.”
Lieberman: Sycophancy curdles founder confidence into a con
“Success begets acolytes who tell you you're right when you're wrong. Worse, you start believing them. This leads down a dangerous path where vision breaks from reality and, likely aided by a fear of failure, Curdles your confidence into a con.”
The other half of the tape: Alex Lieberman's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 25 times in 16 episodes across the shows. 8 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Andrew Warner 7Greg Isenberg 5Kyle Hagee 3Austin Rief 2Sam Parr 1Sahil Bloom 1Jesse Pujji 1Jason Yanowitz 1
Statements about Alex Lieberman, by other people (8)
Rabois: If a founder's mother lacks early examples, they aren't top 1%
“If you're the most tenacious person in the world, if you talk to that person's mother, they can probably give you examples from the time that that person was five years old. And if they can't, it's probably not top 10 basis points. Or if you're the smartest pe…”
Rabois: Outlier talent traits manifest early in life without professional experience
“Most of these traits show up early in life. Like you don't have to have a professional experience. You can illustrate through high school experiences, college experiences. Like if you're, you know, better than everybody else in a particular trait, it will show…”
Pujji: The Plunge could be a $10M business generating $2M annual profit
“Cause I think it, I still believe what I've said to you every time, which is, is this going to be a hundred million dollar business? I don't know, but do I think it could be a ten million dollar business that made one to two million dollars a year? A hundred p…”
Sanchez: $10k angel checks will not yield material financial outcomes
“I would probably say like, you need to get a little bit more in the deals because none of them will have a material outcome. I mean, you'll have to have a thousand X and even then, you know, it'll be really interesting, but that's like unlikely.”
Damocourt: The Phrase 'I Told Myself' Reveals Fear-Driven Founder Thinking
“When you tell a story and you say, I told myself, that's the fear talking.”
Isenberg: Creators will launch more businesses and run fewer ads
“I think creators are going to be creating a lot of new businesses and, you know, but there's one thing I think he's missing, which is there's going to be less ads from creators.”
Codie Sanchez: Buy existing industry expertise when entering a new business sector
“I always try to steal these, the 10,000 hours instead of earn them myself if I can on a new sector.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
the Startup Ideas Podcast 12
Mixergy 7
My First Million 3
Founder's Journal 3
2026 7 mentions in 4 episodes 2 per episode
2025 3 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2024 5 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
2023 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
2022 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2021 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Alex's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FOUNDER'S JOURNALLEDGER | Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Morning Brewhost | 210 | 1,221 | 78% 208/266 | full record on Founder's Journal → |
 STARTER STORYLEDGER | Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Morning Brew | 1 | 13 | 0% 0/1 | full record on Starter Story → |
| STARTUP IDEASLEDGER | Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Morning Brew | 1 | 11 | 0% 0/1 | full record on the Startup Ideas Podcast → |
| MIXERGYLEDGER | Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Morning Brew | 1 | 9 | 100% 1/1 | full record on Mixergy → |
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Morning Brew | 1 | 6 | — | full record on How I Built This → |
| MY FIRST MILLIONLEDGER | Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Morning Brew | 1 | 5 | — | full record on My First Million → |
 LATENT SPACELEDGER | Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Morning Brew | 1 | 2 | — | full record on Latent Space → |