It’s Giving… Founder Energy

What My Intern Said That Sent Me Into a Two-Week Spiral of Self-Reflection

Last Thursday, during lunch, our intern Mia looked up from her salad and said:

“You always look like you’re about to pitch something. Even when you’re just asking for the WiFi password.”

Everyone laughed. So did I.
But inside?
I was shattered.

What did she mean? Do I give off pitch energy at all times? Am I accidentally trying to raise a Series B every time I enter a room? Is that why my barista started calling me “boss man”?

I went home and stared at myself in the mirror.
Grey hoodie. Black jeans. Slightly unblinking eyes.

Oh no. She’s right.
I’ve internalized the deck.
I am the MVP.
I do pivot in casual conversation.

That night, I dreamed I was pitching my own dreams to investors.
This morning, I deleted my Calendly link from my email signature. Baby steps.

Mia didn’t mean it as criticism. But it was. The best kind: accidental, accurate, and delivered with complete innocence.

So here's my takeaway: Sometimes the truest feedback is a joke you weren’t ready to hear.

#FounderLife #FeedbackIsEverywhere #UnintentionalTruths #MVPOfSelfAwareness #SeedRoundTherapy

Intern Chronicles, Entry #28

“You always look like you’re about to pitch something.”

That’s what I said. As a joke. Over lunch. Because he asked if the kale salad “had scalable flavor.”
I didn’t know I was saying the incantation that would trigger a full identity crisis.

Next thing I knew, he removed his Calendly link from Slack, deleted three pitch decks, and said he was going “heads down for a week to rediscover who he was outside of velocity.” The man was broken.

Then he made me come with him.
Said I was “part of the insight catalyst team now.”

I’m his intern. My job is supposed to be logging analytics tags, not co-authoring a deck called The Ego Detox Sprint: A Founder’s Framework for Returning to First Principles.

We spent four days at a co-working yurt in Sausalito. No Wi-Fi. No structure. Just kombucha on tap and a whiteboard labeled “soul metrics.”

My “duties” included:

• Holding space while he journaled about his “pre-startup self” (he used scented markers)

• Helping him burn his Patagonia vest and his Allbirds. Then going to REI and buying him new ones. Put me out of my misery, please.

• Taking a candid photo of him “emotionally unplugging” from his whiteboard. He cried. Then he posted it on LinkedIn with the caption “Sometimes the hardest thing to erase is who we used to be.”

Anyway, I’m still not getting paid. But I did get a free tote bag that says “Let Go To Level Up™.” I use it to carry my regrets. And also his back-up Allbirds