The Forge 🔥 of Unicorns - by Michele Brissoni

Philosophy shapes AI future through karmapreneurship and soft skills revealed by Craig Weiss (Patent Attorney turned Unicorn CEO turned Managing Partner Flagstaff Venture) on execution curiosity mentorship and AI human gap.

🎙️ Episode Highlights:

Craig Weiss shares his journey from patent attorney to building Enjoy (unicorn, $1B valuation) to venture capital investor, revealing why philosophy and karmapreneurship matter more than ever in the AI era.

The AI Human Gap:

- AI amplifies organizational DNA—excellence or chaos

- Soft skills becoming MORE important as AI replaces jobs

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Spitch.AI beats tech giants through customer-centric collaborative AI and cultural readiness. Pier Giorgio Vittori (CEO US division) reveals gradual adoption framework, employee satisfaction foundation, and ethical business practices that turn David into Goliath-killer in AI era.

🎙️ Episode Highlights:

Spitch.AI was founded in 2014, expanding from Switzerland to US, UK, and Italy. Instead of out-of-box solutions, they compete through deep customization matching customer needs and local regulations.

Core principles driving their success:

- Employee satisfaction = customer satisfaction (foundational law)

- Technology serves customer needs, not adoption for hype<...

Ever wonder how top tech leaders foster exceptional team environments? This Forge of Unicorns podcast episode dives deep into the secrets of high-performing teams and engineering excellence. Is leadership coaching the key to preventing burnout and cultivating a motivational workplace where innovative software solutions thrive? Or is the secret recipe of success the relentless pursuit of excellence? This is your #ai time life saver, don't miss it!

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In this episode of Forge 🔥 of Unicorns, Michele Brissoni sits down with Meir Rabkin, Founder & Managing Partner at Blue Vision Capital — the investor who backed 12 unicorns in just...

In this episode of Forge of Unicorns – In the Head of a CEO, the host Michele Brissoni sits down with Stéphan Donzé, Founder & CEO of AODocs, to unpack one of the most uncomfortable truths of our time: AI doesn’t save you. It multiplies what you already are.

Stéphan’s journey is unique — a brilliant software engineer who became a CEO, leading a SaaS company trusted in the most critical environments (data centers, aviation, energy). He knows both sides: writing production code and scaling enterprise software under unforgiving standards.

🚨 And together, we confronted...

Unicorns are going extinct. In 2015 there were 124 new unicorns. In the last 3 years? Barely 17.

At the same time, trillions of dollars have been poured into AI, sold as the golden age of innovation. But here’s the paradox: if AI is so transformative, why are unicorns disappearing?

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, Michele Brissoni sits down with Paul O’Brien — Startup Economist, venture capitalist, and founder of MediaTech Ventures — to expose why accelerators are failing, how capital allocation is broken, and why venture studios are the future of predictable, software-driven success...

Why is software still the Wild West—with no universal quality standards?

In this episode of Forge of Unicorns, 🎙️ Noël Bauza (CEO of Zei) reveals why organizations are running on systems with zero agreed measures of quality, and how the scientific method gives leaders the clarity to evolve with confidence.

🚨 Agile frameworks and AI buzzwords aren’t saving companies from failure.

Instead, CEOs are betting their futures on software with no safety net—flying blind on vanity metrics, customer reviews, or gut feelings.

Noël explains why this is dangerous, ho...

Unicorns are dying. Cockroaches creep us out. The future belongs to Camel Startups: resilient, human-centric, and engineered to survive.

In this episode of Forge of Unicorns, host Michele “Mike” Brissoni sits down with Umar Munshi, CEO of HasanVC, to explore how ethical investing, halal venture capital, and the venture studio model are reshaping the future of entrepreneurship.

🌍 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

✔️ Why 99% of Unicorns fail — and how Camels survive harsh conditions.

✔️ How ethical and halal investing principles (fairness, shared prosperity...

Listen to Tyler Robertson's inspiring entrepreneur story of building a $100 million business from the ground up. This motivational podcast episode covers everything from how to start a business to insights on heavy duty truck scanner and truck diagnostic tool. Hear how he achieved success through hard work and determination and his journey in entrepreneurship.

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What if a diesel mechanic just outbuilt your tech org?

This episode of Forge of Unicorns reveals how Tyler Robertson turned a simple customer obsession into a $100M software empire — with no VC, no Agile, and no...

The $30B Mistake: Why Startups Fail and Investors Sleepwalk Through It

💥 Massimiliano Sulpizi exposes what’s broken in **venture capital** and offers a cure: **Equity Match**, a platform blending **AI**, mentorship, and real founder support. Discover how he's teaching startups to build, not just pitch, in a world where 97.5% still fail.

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🧠 Executive Summary:

This world is sick.

Startups are collapsing. Founders are burning out. Investors are flying blind.

And no one is asking the question that actually matters:

Can this team rea...

Succession isn’t just an HBO drama.

It’s real. It’s messy. And when it happens inside a high-growth SaaS company, it can break everything.

In this raw, unfiltered episode of Forge of Unicorns, we sit down with 🇫🇷 Adrien Salvat, CEO of WebInterpret to launch our brand-new format:

🎙️ “𝗜𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝗖𝗘𝗢”

💥 What’s the story?

Adrien didn’t just survive a founder exit.

He rebuilt the company — culturally, structurally, and emotionally — without losing his people.

And he did it while staring down the biggest hype tsunami of the decade: GenAI.

“If you’re transparent with your peop...

💥 Your tech budget is burning—and hiring hype can kill your culture.

Here’s the brutal truth:

Boards are shelling out $1M+ to AI engineers—none of whom are scientists in the classical sense

Meta’s Superintelligence Lab just dangled $100M–$300M packages for top AI talent, while tens of thousands of good people got laid off

Worse: Investors are funding AI hires not to build software, but to create products that enable layoffs—fueling a toxic, nonsensical cycle

In this eye-opening episode, Michele Brissoni sits down with...

AI was supposed to help us build organizations faster.

Instead, it’s flooding the market with fragile MVPs and founders who lack the knowledge to scale.

Welcome to Episode 65 of Forge of Unicorns, where illusions shatter and the ugly truths of software engineering are exposed.

🎧 This week: Most Capital founders Kamila Michalkiewicz and Ágúst Berg Arnarsson join us to unpack the real risks behind AI-fueled hype in startups and web3 organizations.

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🔍 What You’ll Learn:

• Why most AI-generated MVPs are architectural...

🤔 Startups pitch AI like magic. But what happens when vibe-coded prototypes crash in production?

👉 Who’s inspecting the code, not just the pitch deck?

In this Forge of Unicorns episode, Dr. Jeremy Krell—Managing Partner at Revere Partners—reveals how real VCs assess risk in a post-hype market. With 40% of Revere’s portfolio in software, Jeremy’s team doesn’t just bet on the founder—they inspect the architecture, the codebase, and the clinical impact.

From the operating room to the terminal, Mike & Jeremy show us why engineering diligence is no longer optional.

🤔 Investors are pouring billions into AI. But what if this is dot-com bubble 2.0?

👉 Who will spot the real risks — hidden inside the code, and inside the culture?

In this Forge of Unicorns episode, Maria de la Puente, one of the most respected investor advisors, reveals why today’s boards must evolve fast — or risk flying blind.

From the boardroom to the engineering floor, Mike & Maria expose the trust gaps no spreadsheet can fix:

👉 Why trusted TECH advisors and NEDs are now critical to governance

👉 Why behavioral signals are the new fronti...

🤔 Why did Mining ⛏️, Formula 1 🏎️, and MotoGP 🏍️ evolve—and Software didn’t?

In this episode of Forge of Unicorns, Nicolás Bañados, Managing Partner at Galgo Capital, helps us uncover the behavioral system behind industries that evolved from danger to precision—while the software world is still fighting over frameworks and labels.

From mines to pitlanes, Mike draws the powerful parallel:

In all those environments, people arrive as apprentices—and evolve into high-performance professionals through structured mentorship, feedback loops, and mastery.

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🎧 Episode 62: The Common Secret Behind Mining, F1 & MotoGP Evolu...

Are you prepared for the real risks of CEO succession, or any other CXO hiring? In this episode of Forge of Unicorns, investor and behavioral screening expert Ron Ondechek reveals the hidden traps that boardrooms, PE/VC firms, and founders face every time a new CEO is chosen. Every time a new leader joins your organization. The risks connected with casual HR hiring by pedigree and resume.

🔑 What you’ll learn:

🕯️ The Torch 🔥 AI-First Leaders Dropped: Purpose

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Klarna. Babylon. Forward.

Three companies. Three massive AI-first bets.

All failed.

Why? They scaled tech. They injected the market hype: #AI

But, they forgot to align humans in their AI-driven organization!

In this episode of Forge of Unicorns, VC and unicorn builder Pedro Lopez Sela joins Mike to expose the deeper reason behind these collapses… and the blueprint that could have prevented them.

🚫 This isn’t about tools, frameworks, or automation.

🎯 It’s abo...

Agile is collapsing under its own market weight.

Drowned in certifications, fake agility coaches, and checkbox processes.

The purpose? Forgotten.

The manifesto? Commercialized.

The results? Burnout, silos, disengagement.

It’s not a transformation.

It’s a crime scene.

💥 But what if we could resurrect Agile from the wreckage?

Not with another framework.

Not with another Jira template.

But with OKRs — the real ones.

👉 Not dashboards.

👉 Not vanity metrics.

👉 But behavioral scaffol...

They think they’re doing software right. But they’ve never seen real excellence.

That’s the leadership trap and why companies stall, lose talent, and drift into mediocrity.

In this honest conversation with unicorn builder Alexander Steeb, we expose the hidden dysfunctions behind underperforming IT teams, blind leadership, and the cost of hype-driven decisions.

👉 Why most organizations don’t know what good looks like

👉 How “walking assets” leave silently when excellence is missing

👉 Why founders need coaching more than capital

👉 And what PE firms must fix before trying t...

Compliance isn’t excellence.

And in today’s IT world, that illusion is costing millions — and lives.

In this powerful episode, Michele Brissoni (Creator of the Unicorns’ Ecosystem and SW Craftsmanship Dojo®) is joined by Ute Mercker (Investment Director @IBB Ventures) to uncover a brutal but critical truth:

✅ In healthcare, regulations protect human lives.

👨🏻‍⚕️ But it’s doctors’ mastery, ethics, and relentless practice that actually save them.

✅ In IT and software-driven organizations, leadership often hides behind compliance.

🏥 But without behavioral excellence, they’re building risk — not resilience.

✅...

Most startups don’t die from bad code. They die from bad leadership.

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, I sit down with Bryony Cooper (VC, founder, and human-first investor) to unravel the silent killers of startup growth: vanity metrics, boardroom dysfunction, and uncoached leadership.

🚨 You’ll learn:

• Why professionalism becomes non-negotiable at Series A/B

• How bad behavior at the top spreads like wildfire

• Why burnout isn’t a founder failure—it’s a system failure

• How elite organizations scale people and systems together

• The...

🎧 EP55 – From Mediocracy to Mastery 🧭 Rewiring Leadership

🏷️ How to escape organization mediocracy!

Most teams aren’t broken — their leadership is underpowered.

In this pivotal episode, Calm Capital’s Marty Balkema and David Horne reveal what really fuels sustainable growth: stewardship, not transformation.

From owning vertical SaaS companies to rebuilding cultures from the boardroom down, Calm Capital shows us what happens when leadership gets the coaching, clarity, and support it actually needs.

🧠 Inside the episode:

When we say “mediocrity is a leadership choice,” we’re not just being dramatic. In this first face-off between researcher and investor, Mike challenges the venture capital mindset—and VC Oussama Glilah (@ Razor Capital) doesn’t just agree… he confirms it all.

💥 From the absence of engineering standards to the myth of plug-and-play talent, this episode dismantles the fantasy that unicorns are born from flashy ideas or frameworks.

🔧 They’re built—through behaviorally engineered environments, prompt design, and holistic-elite upskilling that replace cookie-cutter training in favor of more modern programs based on the latest neuroplasticity discov...

In this mind-blowing episode, I sit down with Andy Will, founder of Willpower Venture Capital, to reveal a bold new approach: behavioral engineering as the ultimate VC advantage.

Forget spreadsheets and cookie-cutter playbooks — Andy shares how he backs founders who build elite teams, set cultural standards from day one, and scale without the chaos.

🔥 Inside the episode:

• Why 0.9% of tech talent is all that matters — and how to find it

• How to detect and detox toxic cultures before they sink your startup

• The dark truth be...

🚀 The Quantum Shift Has Officially Begun… 🚀

This week on Forge of Unicorns, we sit down with Matthew Cimaglia, Tech Innovator | Multi-Time Founder | Managing Partner at Quantum Coast Capital, leading the charge in quantum technology investments.

With NVIDIA’s jaw-dropping Quantum Day announcement, the race just got real. Matthew unpacks:

✅ Why Quantum is the next AI moment — but way bigger

✅ How coding for Quantum today avoids tomorrow’s tech debt nightmare

✅ Why the security apocalypse is closer than you think — and crappy software is doomed

💣 “We either invest billions i...

💡 Most companies waste millions on digital transformation—and fail. What if, instead, you could engineer IT into a high-value asset that fuels exponential growth?

93% of digital transformations fail. Companies throw money at new tech, yet only 7% see real results. Why? Because transformation isn’t just about software—it’s about leadership, execution, and strategy.

🎙️ In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, Michele Brissoni sits down with Sam Palazzolo, Managing Director at Tip of the Spear Ventures, an elite business strategist who has helped companies scale from $10 million to $1 billion and beyond. With over 1,000 organ...

🎙️ Episode 50: The Unicorns’ Ecosystem—Flipping the Script on IT Investments 🚀

📰 Original blog post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ep-50-975-investments-doomed-heres-how-top-flipping-brissoni-np79f/

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💰 97.5% of IT investments NEVER reach unicorn status.

📉 Even those that do, 80% see their valuations crash—nearly 30% fall below the $1B mark.

🤯 Yet, most investors still rely on gut instinct instead of engineering high-performance companies from day one.

🚨 Why do so many IT investments fail? More importantly—how do we fix it?

In Episode 50 of The Forge of Unicorns, we pull back the curtain on the...

🎙️ Episode 49 - The Open-Source Playbook Investors Are Using to Engineer Unicorns 🚀

📰 Original Blog post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ep-49-want-engineer-unicorns-open-source-playbook-already-brissoni-8gpuf/

🛑 52% of Fortune 500 Companies Have Vanished Since 2000—Have We Really Learned Why They Failed?

👉 Some investors have—and they’re quietly engineering unicorns while others keep making the same mistakes.

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, we unveil the ultimate open-source playbook for Private Equity (PE) and Venture Capital (VC) investors looking to transform IT from a cost sink into a billion-dollar asset.

Most IT investments f...

🎙️ EP 48 – Fake Productivity: The Deadly Illusion of AI-Generated Code 💣

📰 Original blog post with all the bibliography: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ep48-fake-productivity-deadly-illusion-ai-generated-brissoni-rlp8c/

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AI-generated code is flooding development workflows faster than ever—but are we really moving forward, or are we just accelerating into chaos?

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, Michele Brissoni unpacks the hard-hitting data behind two years of GenAI-assisted coding and exposes the hidden costs that investors, engineering leaders, and dev teams can’t afford to ignore:

🚨 39.9% dro...

🎙️💣 Lost Millions in IT? Here’s the 300% Stock Surge Playbook Auditors Loved 😍 🎙️

📰 Original article - HERE.

Hey digital warriors! ⚔️

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, we dive deep into an incredible IT turnaround story—from hemorrhaging millions to a 300% stock surge, all thanks to behavioral engineering, OKRs, and rock-solid IT governance. 💥

What’s inside this episode?

✅ How a crumbling IT organization transformed into a high-performing powerhouse.

✅ The secret sauce: behaviorally engineered OKRs driving both strategic and tactical execution.

✅ The auditor-approved governance overhaul t...

🎙️ EP46 - Scaling Excellence: The OKR Lessons from a Bold CIO 🎙️

📰 Orignal Blog Post: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ep46-scaling-excellence-okr-lessons-from-bold-cio-michele-brissoni-cbhef/?trackingId=870B2EfrQOWfg2mHtoihuw%3D%3D

Are your OKRs driving true excellence, or are they just glorified KPIs enforcing compliance?

In this episode, we break down a real-world transformation where a bold CIO turned OKRs into a north star for technical mastery—scaling an IT organization from near-collapse to a model of software craftsmanship.

🚀 What’s inside this episode?

✅ How Strategic OKRs redefine engineering standards and reshape...

🎙️ Episode 45

📇 From Mediocracy to Mastery: How the Dojos’ Ecosystem Became the Engine of Evolution 🌱

In the AI-driven economy, software excellence isn’t a luxury—it’s a competitive necessity. The recent DeepSeek R1 launch sent shockwaves through the market, wiping over $1 trillion from the Nasdaq, proving that high-quality software beats brute-force infrastructure spending.

But how do you systematically engineer a culture of excellence in software organizations? 🤔

🔍 In this episode, we break it all down:

✅ How a disengaged, underperforming tech hub became an elite software powerhouse 🌍🔥

✅ The Dojos’ Ecosystem—a framew...

EP 44 - Behind the Curtain: The Digital Evolution That Redefined Excellence 🎭🚀

📰 Original Blog Post

🔊 IT was a liability. Deployments were slow. Teams were burned out. Leadership was flying blind. Sound familiar?

This episode pulls back the curtain on a real story from the trenches—where IT, once a black hole of inefficiency, was rewired into a $5B strategic goldmine.

📉 What went wrong?

•Legacy tech was strangling innovation.

•Feature releases crawled out quarterly (if they even made it).

•The team was drowning in manual processes and...

🎙️ Episode 43: From Chaos to Gold – How IT Can Rise Like a Phoenix

📰 Original Blog Post

In this episode, we tackle a hard truth: most IT departments are treated as cost centers, shackled by inefficiencies and shadow IT that drains profitability. Instead of driving innovation and enhancing product or service value, they’re stuck in mediocracy, operating in subpar ways that fail to contribute to organizational success.

🚨 With 93% of digital transformations failing and $2.5T wasted in 2024 alone, how can IT break free from this cycle of dysfunction?

🔦 We unveil the bluepri...

📰 Original Blog Post: HERE.

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns 🦄, we uncover the #1 reason most digital transformations crash and burn—and it’s not what you think. It’s not IT teams, tech budgets, or even unrealistic timelines. The real culprit?

👉 Leadership’s lack of engagement and alignment.

Join us as we:

💡 Explore why 70% of digital transformation failures start at the boardroom, backed by insights from McKinsey & Company.

📝 Reveal how boards can rewrite the narrative by aligning purpose, strategy, and behaviors across their organizations.

⛳️ Share a real-wo...

Episode 41 - From Desert 🌵 to Forest 🌳: Turning IT Into a Goldmine of Opportunity 💰

📰 Original Blog post

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, we take you on a transformative journey, exploring how IT can evolve from a costly liability into a profit-driving, strategic asset. The secret? Behavioral Markers—or Key Behavioral Indicators (KBIs)—that reveal whether your organization is thriving in a collaborative “Forest” 🌳 or stuck in a barren “Desert” 🌵.

Join Michele Brissoni as he unpacks how KBIs go beyond metrics like DORA or SPACE to address the why behind team behaviors. Drawing...

🎧 Podcast Description: Episode 40 – Scaling IT Excellence: From Transformation to Evolution 🎙️🚀

📰 Original blog post HERE

In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, we cut through the noise of buzzwords and hype to address the heart of IT’s most critical challenge: scaling excellence. 💡

The numbers don’t lie:

•91% of digital transformations fail (McKinsey, 2020).

•77% of employees are disengaged, costing billions in lost productivity (Gallup, 2024).

•And let’s not forget, 38% of professionals are burned out (Infinite Potential, 2024).

So, how do you escape the cycle of transformation doo...

🎧 Podcast Title: EP39 – A Year to Remember: Reflecting on 2024 and the Road Ahead 🌟

📰 Original Blog HERE

2024 was a year like no other for the IT world—marked by firsts, challenges, and transformative insights. In this episode, we take a deep dive into the highlights, lessons, and pivotal moments that shaped the year.

🎙️ What’s Inside?

•📈 The IT Inflation Era: How 2024 rewrote history with the first-ever IT inflation and its impact on budgets and priorities.

•🧠 Burnout and Engagement Stagnation: Unpacking Gallup’s 2024 report—23% engagement and 38% burnout—and what it means for the future of work...

🎙️ Episode 38: “The Rise of the Behavioral Engineer – How Data Fuels Transformation” 🚀

In this episode, we explore the cutting-edge field of behavioral engineering and its growing influence on the IT landscape. Behavioral engineering isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a data-driven approach that transforms how organizations evolve, innovate, and thrive in an ever-changing world. 🌍📊

Key takeaways include:

✅ What it means to be a Behavioral Engineer and why this role is critical for the future of IT.

✅ How data-driven insights unlock organizational transformation and measurable ROI.

✅ The foundational frameworks that empower leaders...

🎙️ EP37 - A Real Story of Socio-Technical Evolution 🌱 The Unicorns’ Touch

How do you turn chaos into cohesion? In this episode of The Forge of Unicorns, we share a real-world story of transformation—where a team on the brink of burnout and organizational dysfunction evolved into a high-performing unit delivering an industry-leading platform. 🚀

🔎 What You’ll Discover:

•The nitty gritty details of the Unicorns' Ecosystem in action!

•How socio-technical alignment 🌱 and behavioral engineering 🔧 turned daily firefighting into focused, meaningful work.

•The role of product thinking and OKRs in aligning teams from the board...