Ideas Worth Your Time

Michael Wellborn watched Pacific Palisades burn and started a company. Then he built the system that keeps it alive. The FireBrake co-founder on treating AI like a new employee, and why every problem is easier when it is small.

Jackye Clayton asked for the best pizza crust recipe, made it, and it was bad. What went wrong is the lesson she is bringing to Waco: the model will do exactly what you ask it to do, and that is the problem.

Chrissy McDannell had used ChatGPT for three years and still could not get started. The M&A advisor on the gap between talking about AI and doing AI, and the Sunday club she built to close it.

Jermaine Malcolm spent fifteen years building workforce programs by hand. The same work now takes him an afternoon. The Skills Gap Advocate founder on why the starting point is your own skill set, not what everyone else is building.

Somebody offered to produce The Waco Buzz's entire newsletter with AI in under five minutes. Sam Harper said show me, watched the demo, and turned it down. What he keeps his fingerprints on, and why he calls it the beautiful radical middle.

Kennisha Thornton spent almost 20 years telling authors to use their own words. Then an author walked in with a book AI had drafted. The Create & Blossom founder and KWTX producer on where the line actually sits, ahead of her YOU x AI session.

A one-day, hands-on AI conference in Waco, Texas on September 12, 2026. Nineteen practitioner speakers, three tracks, $99. Here's exactly what it is, who it's for, and what you leave with.

Most business owners think AI is the great equalizer. It's the opposite — a multiplier widens gaps rather than closing them. Here's what that means, and the three tracks at YOU × AI built around it.

We're building something different in Waco. Here's what YOU × AI is, why it exists, and why September 12, 2026 is a date worth clearing your calendar for.