If you're a Y-combinator founder hitting Series A, you could be hearing one phrase that keeps stalling big enterprise deals.

We love your product, but we need to see your SOC2 report to make sure our customer data is protected.

Compliance becomes a bottleneck.

But there's a shortcut, AWS.

AWS already maintains SOC2 compliance across more than 100 services, from Cloud Trail to

Security Hub, meaning instead of building it from scratch, you can inherit it and focus on

scaling.

It's the same playbook startups like Supabase and Substack used to unlock enterprise customers

fast.

Turn compliance from a roadblock into a competitive

advantage. Get up to $100,000 in AWS credits and a free SOC2 consult at startups.AWS.

A brand is the sum of the promises we make and the experiences we deliver. I think crack a barrel

learned, hey, this is too core. We can't touch this. I give bravery and courage for saying, hey,

we messed up this, but they've got to evolve. As a brand, when you're using AI, you want to be

clear with your customers. And with J. Crew, because they're using AI, you want to be clear with your customers.

And with J.Crew, because they weren't transparent, they kind of got called out.

So trust was lost.

Trust is earned in drops, but it's lost in buckets.

That's Dara Treceter, Chief Marketing Officer of Autodesk, recorded live at the Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco on October 8th.

In today's episode, we've combined two fast-paced segments from the summit.

First, I talk with Dara about the highest profile branding topics of 2025, getting her unvarnished read on Sydney Sweeney, Cracker Barrel, Taylor

Swift, and more. Then in the second half of the episode, I talk with Flexport CEO Ryan Peterson

...