At FutureSight, we co-found and fund vertical B2B AI ventures from the ground up, pairing experienced CEOs with exceptional technical talent to build companies from day zero. The most important partnership in that equation is the one between the CEO and the technical cofounder.
I sat down with Johnny Tong, our VP of Product & Technology, to get his unfiltered take on the ideal cofounding CTO and what separates the builders who thrive building from day zero from those who don’t.
Q: Who is the ideal technical cofounder for a FutureSight venture?
Johnny: Because we’re building AI business applications from the ground up, we want someone who has already built from zero to one. When I say zero to one, I mean: there’s nothing to start with. No requirements document, no business analyst handing you a spec. You have to go talk to customers and industry experts and create the first version of the product yourself.
That takes someone who can deal with a high level of ambiguity and find the signal in a lot of noise. And someone with real-world industry experience, because without it, it’s very hard to interview customers effectively.
The word that gets thrown around a lot in the AI world is “taste.” We’re looking for someone with good taste, a clear perspective on how AI will enable new possibilities that weren’t possible before, and strong opinions about how to get there. Loosely held, but strong.
Q: What does “building from scratch” actually require, especially for someone coming from a larger company?
Johnny: At a later-stage company, a lot of the direction is already in motion. You’re often optimizing a smaller piece of the puzzle rather than creating a new one. The early stage is completely different: you’re constantly discovering, iterating, and throwing things away. That requires a real mental shift.
We’ve talked to people who’ve been very successful at established companies but miss those earlier days when they could move fast. Those are the people who tend to thrive at FutureSight. On the flip side, if someone is the expert on a very well-defined, narrow piece, that’s going to be a difficult transition. There’s nothing yet to optimize.
Q: How do you distinguish someone who’s genuinely AI-first from someone who just talks about it?
Johnny: We’re seeing new models, techniques, and tools every single week. So the question I’m always asking is: are they getting their hands dirty? Are they experimenting? Are they constantly trying new things?
There’s a joke in our circle: people are losing sleep because the moment their AI agent isn’t doing work for them, they feel like they’re falling behind. That experimentation mindset is what we need.
But beyond hustle, I want to know: do they have a unique perspective on how AI can be leveraged? What does AI make obsolete? What does AI accelerate? That judgment, their point of view on AI’s impact, is what separates a genuine builder from someone who’s following the hype.
Q: Walk me through how FutureSight actually assesses CTOs.
Johnny: We love building, so our process reflects that. We start with virtual coffees, conversations with our partners and team to understand someone’s mindset: what they’ve built, what excites them, how they think through problems, and their perspective on AI.
Then we build a small project together and look at the work. There’s nothing that beats seeing someone’s actual output to understand their approach. We’re looking for perspective and craft.
We also do whiteboard exercises, virtually, two-way conversations where we give a prospective co-founding CTO a problem on the spot to see how they think in real time.
Q: What should someone ask themselves when considering a Technical co-founder opportunity with FutureSight?
Johnny: Are you genuinely excited about AI? Not “it’s another useful technology.” We think this moment is as significant as the invention of electricity. Imagine electricity didn’t exist, and now it does. What are you going to do with the next seven to ten years? Watch from the sidelines, or be part of building what comes next?
If you want to be in it at the ground level, co-founding something that matters, solving real problems in an industry you care about, that’s the conversation to have. And if you haven’t gone deep on AI yet because you’ve been too busy, I’d genuinely encourage you to dive in. If you have the technical foundation, the analytical mindset, and the appetite for hard problems, this is the moment.
Q: What does the partnership look like for a technical cofounder at FutureSight?
Johnny: We want this to be a real partnership from day one, and that means making it viable from the start. Equity for a technical cofounder can range from 10% to 30% depending on the venture, the co-founder’s expertise, and the role and responsibilities; this is a genuine founding stake. And because we know that betting on a zero-to-one venture is a real financial commitment, co-founders also have the option to draw a stipend of $4,000 to $5,000 per month from the start of the partnership.
Ready to explore co-founding with FutureSight? We’re actively looking for technical co-founders who are excited about the future of AI, and we’d love to fill our calendars with those conversations.
— Anu Joshi, Head of Talent | FutureSight
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