The rise of the Co-CEO

Why AI is turning one impossible job into two

Author

Eddie Yoon
October 01, 2025 • Read time: 10 minutes

👋 Good morning or evening, wherever you are. It’s Wednesday.

Spotify just split the top job between two CEOs after Daniel Ek stepped down.

Oracle, Comcast, and Netflix have done the same. This is not coincidence.

The role of the CEO has become unmanageable. Running the core business, satisfying regulators, and delivering quarterly results now collides with reinventing the company through AI, data, and new digital infrastructure. Those are different skill sets and different time horizons.

Co-CEOs are one way to handle the strain. AI has raised the stakes, making the job more complex, but it also makes dual leadership more practical, since one leader can protect continuity while the other drives transformation.

Another point to remember is that AI is already acting as a silent third executive, guiding how leadership balances continuity with transformation.

OK let’s keep going ↓

🔥 Creative pulse

Go back and rewatch these two videos. They’re 7-figure opportunities disguised as mini-films.

  1. AI shows are the revival of Saturday morning cartoons. (Lion El Aton)

  2. AI shorts are the new Pixar-style experiments. (Thomas Frenk, Eduardo Maluf de Campos, and Yan Dotta)

Eventually, we’ll stop saying “AI shows” or “AI shorts.” They’ll just be shows and shorts.

(The same way we don’t say “digital music” anymore, it’s just music.)

There’s 4 levels to this game:

  1. Treat AI as a tool, and you’ll exist but never matter.

  2. Make AI invisible, and you’ll compete but remain replaceable.

  3. Race to invent new formats too early, and you’ll collapse under your own ambition.

  4. Build with AI as the third founder, and you’ll win.

P.S. If you’re passionate about AI creative, join the club. The people inside will pull you higher than you could go alone.

Inside you’ll find filmmakers and festival-recognized directors, Cannes Lions jurors, studio veterans, award-winning creatives from film, gaming, music, and ads, plus early builders of the AI tools shaping the industry.

It’s global, it’s full of ambitious creators, and it’s where the next wave of breakthroughs is happening.

One insight or connection inside could change your life. Join now.

💡 Here’s what you should know

💰 The numbers

  • Nscale, a UK AI data center startup, raised $433M just days after closing a $1.1B round, showing strong ongoing investor appetite for infrastructure.

  • Empower Semiconductor reportedly raised $140M in Series D to develop power-management tech for AI processors.

  • Eve raised $103M Series B at a $1B+ valuation, joining the unicorn club; its legal AI platform now supports 450+ plaintiff law firms managing 200,000+ cases a year.

  • Einride, the autonomous trucking startup, raised $100M to scale its self-driving freight business.

  • Assort Health raised $76M Series B (total funding now $102M) to expand its agentic AI platform Assort OS, which automates patient calls for scheduling, prescriptions, referrals, and lab tests.

  • Phaidra raised $50M+ to grow its AI agents that run industrial plants, basically “AI factories” managing themselves.

  • Love Finance secured £45M (~$55M) debt financing to scale direct SME lending in the UK after already issuing £300M (~$365M) in loans to 7,000+ businesses.

  • Apiphani raised $25M Series A to power AI + automation in mission-critical application management (energy, utilities, telecom).

  • AudioShake pulled in $14M to make audio stems editable, letting producers separate vocals and instruments cleanly.

  • Aydi landed $7.5M to launch Orth, an AI farming assistant that helps boost yields and cut costs for growers.

  • Returnalyze raised $6M to help retailers reduce costly product returns with predictive AI.

  • Dashmote closed $6M to expand its analytics tools that show brands what consumers are doing across digital platforms.

  • AAA C(H+A)RM pulled in $4M seed funding for its autonomous AI agents / “digital twin” orchestration platform.

🧠 Thought starters

AI is generating millions of new materials, and the implications go well beyond science.

Google, Microsoft, and Meta have each unveiled breakthroughs in materials discovery, from vast libraries of predicted crystals to automated synthesis pipelines and potential climate applications.

Most of these results will never be practical, but the signal is unmistakable. AI has made imagination infinite, and the true constraint is validation, the discipline of proving which ideas can survive in the physical world and deliver value.

The same pattern is emerging everywhere: an overwhelming abundance of options, with only a fraction that can withstand real-world constraints.

The edge will belong to leaders who turn validation into a core capability, building fast and disciplined systems that stress-test ideas and surface the few worth scaling.

😂 Meme of the day

Yes, AI-powered robot lawn mowers are a thing.

Thanks for reading,

Eddie

Join the AI Creative Club (you’ll find me there). It’s not only for artists and filmmakers…it’s for anyone who recognizes this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn as much as you can about AI to multiply your impact...to become superhuman. Remember, creativity is just intelligence having fun. This club is for ultra curious people, and if you’ve made it this far…you’re pretty damn curious and probably the smartest one in your circle of friends. It would be my honor to have you in there.

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