Partner Path
Partner Path is a podcast exploring the venture capital and startup ecosystem through a younger perspective. We feature candid conversations with early-stage founders, operators, and emerging investors—offering insight into everything from sourcing and investment strategies to product execution and go-to-market lessons. Whether you’re an aspiring investor, founder, or just curious about VC, tune in for an inside look at the industry.
Partner Path
E54: The Infrastructure of Trust for Agents with Daniel Mason (Anon)
This week, we are chatting with Daniel Mason, Co-Founder and CEO of Anon. Anon is an integration platform that aims to become the go-to infrastructure layer for the AI-powered internet.
Daniel shares his journey from joining a startup straight out of college to building Anon, highlighting why distribution is often the biggest unlock when building a company. We dive into the evolving and often contradictory landscape of digital identity, how authentication is now split between defensive and offensive strategies, and why the user experience layer is critical for agent-native workflows.
We also explore the tradeoffs between building internal tooling versus using existing systems, and why today’s most successful AI use cases might be limited in number but are incredibly deep. Daniel reflects on how relevant past infrastructure is in a world increasingly shaped by agents
Episode Chapters:
- Journey to entrepreneurship - 2:00
- Starting Spring Labs - 5:03
- Building in a post AI world - 7:27
- Auth for agents - 10:50
- Adding integrations - 14:51
- Controlling how agents work - 18:28
- Learning from the market - 21:35
- Deterministic workflows - 25:01
- How to price - 27:32
- Perplexity v. Google - 31:42
- Quick fire round - 32:20
As always, feel free to contact us at partnerpathpodcast@gmail.com. We would love to hear ideas for content, guests, and overall feedback.
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