Bernard Aceituno (Stack AI): Lessons from YC, Pivots & Scaling

This week, we sat down with Bernard Aceituno, co-founder & CEO of Stack AI.

Originally from Venezuela, Bernard’s journey took him from a PhD at MIT to building Stack AI, fresh out of Y Combinator. We covered a lot, including:

✅ How Stack AI is revolutionizing AI agents—connecting data sources & tools securely

✅ The real value of YC beyond the hype (including how their first customers came from a YC WhatsApp group)

✅ The role of AI agents as a new software category—automating tasks, interacting with tools, and storing memory

✅ How operationally heavy industries (banks, logistics, healthcare) benefit most from AI automation

✅ Stack AI’s go-to-market strategy—leveraging content, inbound leads, and pilot projects to scale

✅ Why raising money is a distraction and shouldn't take more than two weeks

If you’re building in AI—or thinking about it—this one’s a must-listen.

Key moments:

Introduction (1m13)

YC / Start of the story (8m07)

Vision with Stack AI + AI agent definition + how they integrate into (18m50)

How companies figure out their best use cases with Stack AI, and managing data privacy (23m40)

Data privacy with StackAI (27m12)

Targeting industries - horizontal VS vertical and selling (29m55)

Mistakes made with StackAi (36m37)

Stack AI internal growth (40m35)

The future of the AI space among startups + raising money (44m55)

Resources Bernardo recommended: The hard things about hard things (Ben Horowitz)