
Lev, the PSL spinout building an ‘AI co-founder’ for startups, names tech vet Jay Bartot as CTO
THE SO WHAT
An experienced startup operator like Jay Bartot joining Lev to build an “AI co-founder” is a bet that early-stage company-building itself is becoming a product surface for AI. Founders should assume LPs and accelerators will push these tools into the stack — decide now which decisions you’re comfortable offloading to an agent and which stay firmly human.
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