From catching the first internet boom out of Princeton, to taking a company public early in his career, to founding and exiting a venture-backed business acquired by Blackstone, Trevor Sumner has lived nearly every chapter of the startup journey.

Now he’s doing something rare: stepping in as a professional-grade CEO at an early-stage company that already had world-class domain founders and real enterprise traction.

In this conversation, Josh Linkner sits down with Trevor Sumner to unpack what it really takes to scale in an emerging AI category: the operator + domain legend partnership dynamic, how to run an elite fundraising process without becoming a hype merchant, and Trevor’s Plan Z to make i-Genie’s oversubscribed Series A, 28% quarter over quarter growth and 180% net revenue retention the new standard in a $35B market.

In this episode, we discuss:

1. How to “de-risk” a CEO transition and make the partnership a force multiplier.

What it takes for an operator-grade CEO to partner with legendary domain founders and turn tension into trust, speed, and momentum

2. Surveys Are Broken. Consumer Reality Isn’t.

Why surveys are slow, biased, and increasingly gamed—and how i-Genie turns real-world signals into decision-grade insight

3. Fundraising Is a Process, not a Prayer.

Practical tactics to create momentum, generate FOMO, and turn your “gaps” into strengths without becoming a hype merchant.

4. Alignment Creates Speed — And Speed Needs Time.

The counterintuitive truth: speed requires alignment — and alignment takes time. Trevor shares what he pushed too hard, too early, and how he recalibrated.

5. Plan Z Thinking: Win the Category, Then Rewrite the Rules.

A blueprint for what happens when everything goes right: win the enterprise, set a new industry standard, and use an agentic layer to scale distribution into a machine.

Meet Our Host

Josh Linkner is a rare blend of business, art, and science.

He's the New York Times bestselling author of four books, and widely regarded as one of the world's foremost innovation and leadership experts. On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million.

He’s also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners — an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the

last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion of investor returns.

While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. He’s been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years and has performed nearly 2,000 concerts around the world.

Meet Mudita

Website: muditavp.com

Escape Velocity: muditavp.com/escapevelocity

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/muditavp
YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MuditaVenturePartners

Matthew’s path to building Mav wasn’t linear — and that’s exactly why it worked. From early tech obsession to hard lessons learned the hard way, he shares how failure sharpened his instincts and fueled the creation of Mav, an AI insurance agent replacing traditional call centers through friendly, always-on texting.

In this conversation, Matthew breaks down what actually drives growth: customer obsession, clean metrics, and vertical focus and why staying ahead in AI means learning faster than the market. He also opens up about decision-making under pressure, work-life integration (not balance), and why experience isn’t baggage in entrepreneurship, it’s leverage.

In this episode, we jam on:

1. Failure as a training ground.

Early losses forged the perseverance that ultimately powered Mav’s breakout.

2. How cost opens the door, but experience wins the room.

AI savings matter but Mav’s real edge is a better, faster, always-on customer experience.

3. Go deep or get left behind.

Vertical mastery in insurance beat horizontal shortcuts and helped Mav outperform human call centers.

4. The next threat isn’t human.

Winning in AI means staying ahead of new, AI-native competitors before the rules harden.

5. Focus on who you serve. The score will take care of itself.

Clear service, clean habits, and non-negotiables drive both business growth and personal sustainability.

Meet Our Guest

Matthew Black is a tech entrepreneur with nearly 20 years of experience scaling products across Martech and AI. He began his career building early social networking platforms for MTV and Viacom, then worked on advertising and identity technology at DoubleClick (later acquired by Google).

He is now the Founder and CEO of Mav, building AI-powered call center infrastructure for insurance agencies and carriers. Mav powers nearly half a million conversations across the U.S. every month, making hyper-efficient growth accessible to every agency.

Meet Our Host

Josh Linkner is a rare blend of business, art, and science.

He's the New York Times bestselling author of four books, and widely regarded as one of the world's foremost innovation and leadership experts. On the business front, he’s been the founder and CEO of five tech companies, which created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million.

He’s also the co-founder and Managing Partner of Muditā Venture Partners — an early-stage venture capital firm investing in groundbreaking technologies. Over the

last 30 years, he’s helped over 100 startups launch and scale, creating over $1 billion of investor returns.

While proud of his business success, his roots are in the dangerous world of jazz music. He’s been playing guitar in smoky jazz clubs for 40 years and has performed nearly 2,000 concerts around the world.

Meet Mudita

Website: muditavp.com

Escape Velocity: muditavp.com/escapevelocity

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/muditavp

YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MuditaVenturePartners