Beyond the Hype: A Founder’s Guide to AI ROI, Open Source Tools, and Smart Automation I was recently invited to speak at a local startup community meetup where founders and tech leads were wrestling with the same questions: “Should we invest in AI?” “How do we protect our data?” “What tools should we actually use?” Instead of giving a traditional presentation, we had a candid conversation over coffee. What followed was two hours of real talkāno buzzwords, no vendor pitches, …