{"podcast":{"title":"START","slug":"start-7171926","podcast_index_feed_id":7171926,"rss_url":"https://feeds.transistor.fm/startup-growth-podcast","website_url":"https://www.tryfondo.com/","image_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/_piHi4M4ohHZpDkziNHWWksxxbatgWrUdPwb5S4zcyo/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS80NzVj/MDEzNjkxNjU1N2Uy/NDFhMDQ3M2ZhNWI3/NWY0MS5wbmc.jpg","author":"Fondo","episode_count":97,"summary":"Fondo is an all-in-one accounting platform for startups. Get your books closed, taxes filed, and cash back from the IRS.","last_synced_at":"2026-08-01T06:21:07.655766+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/start-7171926"},"episode":{"title":"START: Tarun Vedula & Alex Blackwell, Co-founders, Zatanna: “Turning all software into agent-first APIs”","slug":"start-tarun-vedula-alex-blackwell-co-founders-zatanna-turning-all-software-into-agent-first-apis","published_at":"2026-07-14T23:16:37+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/start-7171926/start-tarun-vedula-alex-blackwell-co-founders-zatanna-turning-all-software-into-agent-first-apis","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/start-7171926","url":"https://share.transistor.fm/s/1326a659","audio_url":"https://media.transistor.fm/1326a659/6372872a.mp3","summary":"Right now most AI agents interact with software the way humans do They open a browser, look at a screenshot, and try to figure out what to click That's like ripping the LIDAR off a Waymo and handing it a camera Tarun & Alex kept running into this problem. They were building an AI receptionist for dentists, and at conference after conference people asked the same thing: do you integrate with X or Y platform? Seven other people were doing the same thing. None of them could integrate. Alex and Tarun could, because they knew how to reverse engineer network requests That's when they stopped digging for gold and started selling shovels Zatanna turns legacy software into APIs by working at the network layer. No browsers. No screenshots. Just requests 10x faster on the workflows they benchmarked. Near-zero browser costs. Reliability goes from 70% to nearly 100%. Computers shouldn't navigate the web like humans do. Humans use screens. Computers use requests \"No browser bots to babysit\" ‍ 🎙️ Tarun Vedula & Alex Blackwell , Co-founders, Zatanna on Fondo START ‍ 00:57 From jury research to API infrastructure 02:04 The \"sell the shovels\" realization 03:18 Why browser agents break at scale 04:42 Turning legacy systems into APIs 05:47 Why repetitive workflows shouldn't use browsers 06:37 Teaching AI agents to navigate like computers 08:34 Founder-market fit and knowing when to pivot 10:20 From sneaker bots to reverse engineering anti-bots 12:23 The future of AI vs anti-bot warfare 13:37 Why companies are still stuck at 70% reliability Check out www.zatanna.ai to learn more.","meta_description":"Right now most AI agents interact with software the way humans do They open a browser, look at a screenshot, and try to figure out what to click That's li…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":993,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/start-7171926/episodes/start-tarun-vedula-alex-blackwell-co-founders-zatanna-turning-all-software-into-agent-first-apis/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/start-7171926/start-tarun-vedula-alex-blackwell-co-founders-zatanna-turning-all-software-into-agent-first-apis.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}