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August 19, 2025 57 mins

Chris Bakke is a 3x founder whose latest startup, Laskie, was acquired by Elon Musk just 90 days after a viral tweet. He’s worked at the intersection of recruiting, SaaS, and media—and even helped build the X Hiring platform from inside Twitter. In this episode, Chris shares the full unfiltered story of building, selling, and walking away.

You’ll Learn:

  • How Chris Bakke shares how one viral tweet led to a DM from Elon Musk and the eventual acquisition of his company, Laskie.
  • The Behind the scenes of how he built a $5M ARR business with just 9 employees.
  • What it was like scaling X Hiring inside Twitter, including launching 1M+ job listings in under a year.
  • Chaos and culture clash: working with Tesla and SpaceX engineers inside Twitter HQ.
  • Why Chris ultimately walked away from Elon’s company to reclaim his time and freedom.
  • Tactical gems on startup exits, newsletters, deal-making, and audience building.
  • Lessons from selling 3 companies and why he says: “Most startups don’t need to raise money.”


Where to find Chris:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bakk3/

https://x.com/chrisjbakke?lang=en

https://intro.co/ChrisBakke?source=intro

https://www.chrisbakke.com/

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