My conversation this week was with Max Leisten, founder and CEO of Protopia, and someone I have known since my days at Longwood. I later spent a couple of years working alongside him inside Protopia, so this one was a genuine pleasure. Ten years ago Max walked away from a career in software product management because he wanted the work to matter more.
He started helping people with their resumes by hand, passing them around his own network and asking, do you have five minutes to help this person. And people did not just say yes. They came back asking for another one. “It feels amazing to make a difference in someone’s life,” he told me, and that discovery became the whole company. He turned to his partner and said he did not know how he would make money, but this was all he wanted to do. A decade later he still sounds like that.
Watch the full-length version on YouTube (52 mins)
That origin explains why Protopia is built the way it is. AI does the matching in the background so a connection that once took thirty minutes now takes three, but the technology stays out of the way, because the conversation itself is the point. Max is careful about what should never be automated, and his design reflects it.
Big Themes This Week
AI belongs in the background as a scaling mechanism, not out front as the selling point.
The smallest act of kindness is often enough. Ask for five minutes, not an hour.
Design so no one feels guilty and no one feels rejected. No just means not right now.
Team Discussion Questions
Where are we asking alumni for more than they can give, when five minutes would do?
Are we using technology to widen the door to connection, or to replace it?
What in our process quietly makes people feel bad for saying no?
