The AI Hype Meter Is Redlining

Scroll through LinkedIn. Try to find five posts that do not mention artificial intelligence (AI). You cannot do it. The noise is deafening. Every vendor claims to solve world hunger. Every board is demanding an AI strategy. But the data tells a different story.  

MIT reports a 95% failure rate for AI projects. NTT puts that number between 70% and 85%. Most companies are failing. Investors are being told a narrative of "cost-cutting success," but the reality is often failed implementation.  

We sat down with Noel Goggin, multi-time CEO, to cut through the noise. The consensus is clear: Stop delegating. It is time to enter "Founder Mode". 

1. Kill the "AI Czar" Mentality

The pressure to "do AI" creates toxic behavior. Executives are scrambling for airtime while everyone wants to be the "AI Czar". They want to be seen on the board slides. They want the credit. This is not innovation—it’s self-promotion. When you mobilize an organization without structure, you generate insecurity. People fake progress to protect their turf.

What leadership needs to do: 

• Ignore the hype cycle
  Stop rewarding activity. Reward outcomes. Activity without direction is just noise.
• Spot the fake
  Amplify your radar for the nonsense. Delineate between real product transformation and people just trying to get noticed.
• Centralize the mandate  
  Do not let every department run a rogue experiment. Focus is the only way to win. 

2. Stop Paving Cow Paths

Most organizations are using AI to speed up bad processes. AI is excellent at scaling competency. It is also excellent at scaling incompetence. If you automate a broken workflow, you just get to the wrong result faster.  

Internal optimization such as summarizing emails or faster data entry, is the easy path. It creates capacity. But capacity is useless if you do not reinvest it. The real leverage is in product transformation. 

What leadership needs to do: 

• • Rethink the product
    Do not just add a "Copilot" button. Reimagine the value proposition entirely.
  • Challenge engineering
    Engineering teams are often ideological. They resist change. You must push past the cultural resistance to reinvent the offering.
  • Focus on the "Hard Stuff"
    Internal optimization is a commodity. Product transformation is where you build a moat.
    

3. Democracy Doesn't Work, Enter "Founder Mode" 

We tried to democratize AI. We tried to bring everyone along for the journey. It failed. The consensus approach requires too many calories. Sales teams worry about their compensation models. Services teams refuse to touch products that are not fully baked. 

By the time you get buy-in, you are obsolete. Noel’s advice is clear: Go back to Founder Mode. 

What leadership needs to do: 

• Build a "Skunkworks" team
  Create a dedicated, cross-functional team. Give them a strict mandate to build, sell, and deploy.
• Accept the friction
  You will upset people. The broader organization will feel left out. That is the price of speed.
• Bypass the "Committee"
  Do not wait for the sales team to learn how to sell it. Have the product team sell it directly to the first 20 customers.

4. The SaaS Business Model is Dying

We have been spoiled by the seat license. SaaS provided predictability and gave us long-term contracts and high margins. Then, AI breaks this model.  

Tasks that used to take three weeks now take eight minutes. If you charge by the hour, you lose revenue. If you charge by the seat, you are irrelevant because agents do not sit in chairs. Contracts are shrinking and tech leaders are switching tools in nine months and signing monthly agreements. 

What leadership needs to do:

• Shift to consumption
  Move your pricing model to outcomes or usage. The "per user, per month" model is ending.
• Shorten the leash
  Value must be proven in days, not months. You do not have a year to prove ROI.
• Forecast for agents
  CFOs do not know how to model the cost of AI agents. Figure this out now.
  

🎧 Listen to the Full Conversation 

Michael Hoffman and Noel Goggin go deep on why 85% of AI projects fail, how to shift into Founder Mode, and why the SaaS business model is obsolete.  

Final Word

The 85% failure rate is not a technology problem, it is a leadership vacancy. You cannot outsource existential threats. You cannot delegate business reinvention to a mid-level manager.  

Clear the calendar, get into the fine details, and answer the question of how AI could kill your business. Then, build the team to stop it.