Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
JakeCooper is co-founder and CEO of Grow Therapy, a technology platform that helps mental health providers launch and scale independent, insurance-accepted practices. Since starting the company in the middle of COVID, Jake and his co-founders have scaled Grow Therapy to around a million patient visits a month across 26,000 providers, surpassing $1 billion in annual revenue while operating profitably since year two.
Ben Casnocha sits down with Jake to trace Grow Therapy's founding story, from the friction he and his co-founders saw across patients, providers, and payers to the systems-level model that let them scale where others couldn't. They get into how Jake and his co-founders have divided responsibilities and built trust as the company has grown past 600 employees, his contrarian read on hiring and what most CEOs get wrong about spotting high-agency talent, and the deeply personal reason the mission matters to him. The conversation turns to AI, including where Grow Therapy is finding real leverage in matching and provider coaching tools, and Jake's frank take on whether human therapists still have a role as more people turn to LLMs for support between sessions. He also opens up about why he's deliberately stayed out of the public eye, and why that's starting to change.
[00:00] Cold open
[00:50] Welcome to the Village Global Podcast
[01:40] The origin story of Grow Therapy
[04:00] The business model insight behind Grow Therapy
[06:10] Grow Therapy's scale today: $1B+ revenue, 26,000 providers
[06:40] What a college cleaning business taught Jake about entrepreneurship
[08:30] Why the mission is personal to Jake
[10:10] Dividing responsibilities with his co-founders
[12:20] Building trust with his co-founders
[15:40] What Jake believes about hiring that most CEOs don't
[18:20] Communication and alignment across 600+ employees
[19:50] Manager effectiveness and the "cannon vs. cannonball" problem
[20:50] How Jake interviews for high-agency talent
[25:40] Where AI is actually helping inside Grow Therapy
[28:10] Will therapists still have jobs in 10 years?
[32:30] AI as a copilot for human therapists
[33:40] Entrepreneurs Jake admires
[36:20] Why Jake doesn't have an executive assistant
[38:00] Why Jake has stayed out of the public eye
[40:40] Audience Q&A: Grow Therapy's day-zero go-to-market
[42:10] Audience Q&A: how AI has shaped the mission
[45:50] Closing thoughts
JakeCooper is co-founder and CEO of Grow Therapy, a technology platform that helps mental health providers launch and scale independent, insurance-accepted practices. Since starting the company in the middle of COVID, Jake and his co-founders have scaled Grow Therapy to around a million patient visits a month across 26,000 providers, surpassing $1 billion in annual revenue while operating profitably since year two.
Ben Casnocha sits down with Jake to trace Grow Therapy's founding story, from the friction he and his co-founders saw across patients, providers, and payers to the systems-level model that let them scale where others couldn't. They get into how Jake and his co-founders have divided responsibilities and built trust as the company has grown past 600 employees, his contrarian read on hiring and what most CEOs get wrong about spotting high-agency talent, and the deeply personal reason the mission matters to him. The conversation turns to AI, including where Grow Therapy is finding real leverage in matching and provider coaching tools, and Jake's frank take on whether human therapists still have a role as more people turn to LLMs for support between sessions. He also opens up about why he's deliberately stayed out of the public eye, and why that's starting to change.
[00:00] Cold open
[00:50] Welcome to the Village Global Podcast
[01:40] The origin story of Grow Therapy
[04:00] The business model insight behind Grow Therapy
[06:10] Grow Therapy's scale today: $1B+ revenue, 26,000 providers
[06:40] What a college cleaning business taught Jake about entrepreneurship
[08:30] Why the mission is personal to Jake
[10:10] Dividing responsibilities with his co-founders
[12:20] Building trust with his co-founders
[15:40] What Jake believes about hiring that most CEOs don't
[18:20] Communication and alignment across 600+ employees
[19:50] Manager effectiveness and the "cannon vs. cannonball" problem
[20:50] How Jake interviews for high-agency talent
[25:40] Where AI is actually helping inside Grow Therapy
[28:10] Will therapists still have jobs in 10 years?
[32:30] AI as a copilot for human therapists
[33:40] Entrepreneurs Jake admires
[36:20] Why Jake doesn't have an executive assistant
[38:00] Why Jake has stayed out of the public eye
[40:40] Audience Q&A: Grow Therapy's day-zero go-to-market
[42:10] Audience Q&A: how AI has shaped the mission
[45:50] Closing thoughts
