Most people treat networking like a volume game: more DMs, more intros, more meetings.

Andrew D’Souza (Boardy, ex‑Clearco) argues it’s actually a trust + memory game—and AI finally makes a true “trust bridge” possible.

In this episode, Amar Varma (Mantle) and Andrew D’Souza (Boardy) break down:

• Why paid referrals can kill trust (even when the intro is great)
• What product-market fit feels like in real life (“stumbling in the desert” → inflection)
• The CEO moment nobody talks about: knowing when you’re not the right operator
• Why Boardy exists: perfect memory + growing imagination + a principled network
• 2026 go-to-market: what AI makes possible that humans never could (or never would)If you’re building something ambitious and want better opportunities to find you, listen to Andrew’s framework and then get on Boardy’s radar by telling your “why you, why now.”

Subscribe for more founder/operator conversations on Mantle Mondays.

Take a call with Boardy: www.boardy.ai

Create your cap table with Mantle: www.withmantle.com

In this episode of Mantle Mondays, Amar Varma sits down with Mark Gilbert, co-founder and CEO of Zocks, to talk about what it really takes to build a product people can’t live without.

Mark's journey is anything but linear: from programming at Canada Post as a teenager, to interning at Elon Musk's first company Zip2, to building global infrastructure at Microsoft and scaling Twilio through COVID, Mark brings a rare combination of deep technical credibility and hard-won founder instincts.

Learn more about Zocks: zocks.io

Learn more about Mantle: withmantle.com

For decades, if you wanted to build a world-class tech company, you had to move to Silicon Valley. AI just changed that. When SF deploys new AI infrastructure today, the entire world gets access within 24 hours. For the first time in tech history, a founder in Belgrade has the same tools on day one as a founder in San Francisco.Tiho Bajic lived this shift firsthand. He went from war refugee at age 9 to first engineer at Rypple (acquired by Salesforce) to founding CTO at Nitro to building the Long-Term Stock Exchange with Eric Ries. Now, as GP at Fifth Quarter Ventures, he's investing in overlooked geographies, particularly the Balkans. In this conversation, we cover his "first follower" philosophy, the distribution hacks that actually scaled Nitro, what pre-seed/seed means in 2026, and why geography still matters—just differently. Silicon Valley still has speed and capital density, but it lost its monopoly on technology. The opportunity now is understanding what each geography uniquely offers.