His journey started when he started building products & wrote blogs for different companies - he was in New Zealand. He was the first writer for Mashable. All of this while he was just 14!After sometime, he joined Teachable as a founding engineer. He grew in his role all the way to VP of product & with teachable doing reasonably well - he thought about why he origionally moved to the US.Despite having his family in US, he took some hard decisions to leave the job & freelance for Gumroad to bootstrap. We also talk about raising the first $1M & getting an offer from Tiger Global for their Series A which they couldn't refuse.This was such a fun podcast - going into a founder's life with every tiny detail. I had so much fun chatting with Sid, I'm sure you'll enjoy listening too! :) 

I recorded this episode in Delhi - what a time to record! We started with the impact of AQI on lifespan & talk about the impact of pincode on your lifespan. Longevity feels like a field where you need to spend a ton of time in research but Alex shared his views on how we can get started with a lot less. It was interesting to get his thoughts on how young people are approaching the field & the progress we've already made. The contribution of Age1 has been quite phenomenal in the field & their dedication to help more people get started. I've a lot of homework to do in the field & I find it quite exciting. I hope this episode can convince you to get started as well. Here's a good place to start reading in case you're curious: https://www.timeinitiative.org/resources

We talk about the myths around remote work, how do we build the right culture at the company & deep dive into tons of challenges that becomes excuses for many to call their employees back to office. Some of the points we discussed include:Building the right cultureGrowing the team remotelyOffsites or no offsitedCross team collaborationGlobal complianceAsynchronous workI first met Job years ago during his time at Gitlab - it's one of the OG remote work companies, probably one of the first few who scaled to more than 1000+ employees all remote. Job has been building remote companies for a while now & I enjoyed every bit of our conversation - I'm sure you will too!

We talk about the myths around remote work, how do we build the right culture at the company & deep dive into tons of challenges that becomes excuses for many to call their employees back to office. Some of the points we discussed include:Building the right cultureGrowing the team remotelyOffsites or no offsitedCross team collaborationGlobal complianceAsynchronous workI first met Job years ago during his time at Gitlab - it's one of the OG remote work companies, probably one of the first few who scaled to more than 1000+ employees all remote. Job has been building remote companies for a while now & I enjoyed every bit of our conversation - I'm sure you will too!

Following his remarkable success with the $780M acquisition of his startup, Vungle, by private equity giant Blackstone in 2019, Zain founded Zain Ventures, a family office with a diverse portfolio spanning various asset classes. Zain's investment philosophy is straightforward: strategically allocate capital to the right fund managers and partner with visionary industry leaders.He leveraged his expertise to revolutionize the real estate investment sector, recognizing the need for advanced analytical tools. After orchestrating the impressive $780 million acquisition of his startup, Vungle, Zain founded Zain Ventures. This family office boasts a diverse asset portfolio, offering strategic capital allocation and visionary partnerships. Join us for a captivating conversation with Zain, where we delve into his remarkable journey and entrepreneurial insights.

Sid Mofya, a Kauffman Fellow, is the COO of the Draper Venture Network and has one of the most interesting roles in venture capital: helping his team coordinate the alliance of member funds and providing post-investment support for their collective portfolio of over 900 companies. Sid’s journey into the venture capital world is fairly non-traditional. Sid was born in Zambia and studied in the UK as a chemical engineer. After college, he went to work for Shell as a chemical engineer at an oil refinery. Sid yearned to move back to Africa and make an impact on the local communities there, so he left Shell for business school and eventually moved to Tanzania to work for a healthcare organization doing medical research that focused on diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and influenza. It was around this time Sid started looking into venture capital and entrepreneurship with a greater focus. Sid eventually got in touch with the Draper Venture Network, which was searching for someone to help build a support platform for their global investments. He has been helping the Network grow since.Today, DVN consists of over 20 member funds and supports a full-time Services team based in Silicon Valley. The Network currently has member funds across Asia, Australia, Middle East, Europe and North, and South America. The funds are currently deploying over $2B in assets and are invested in almost 1000 active portfolio companies.(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Elad Gil — most recently co-founder of Color Genomics, previously co-founder and CEO of Mixer Labs, which was acquired by Twitter. He was a  VP at Twitter focusing on scaling the company from 90 to 1500 people. Previously at Google he started their mobile team, and worked on AdSense. He is also flat out one of the best angel investors/advisors in the startup community. His portfolio includes Airbnb, Airtable, Anduril, Brex, Checkr, Coinbase, Flexport, Gitlab, Gusto, Instacart, Opendoor, PagerDuty, Pinterest, Samsara, Square, Stripe, and Wish.He has a kind of sight that makes the nonobvious appear obvious. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou). 

Vlad Magdalin is the Founder & CEO at Webflow. the startup that allows you to build better business websites, faster, without coding. To date, Vlad has raised over $73m with Webflow from some dear friends of the show including Accel, Ron @ Rainfall, Brianne @ Work Life, Benjamin Ling and Y Combinator to name a few. Prior to founding Webflow, Vlad was a Senior Software Engineer @ Intuit. Before Intuit, Vlad co-founded Chatterfox, a web application allowing people to stay in touch with groups offriends, family, or co-workers. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Thai Son has spent the last 15 years building a world-class eCommerce service provider, through SmartOSC, the business he co-founded with his childhood friend. Under his leadership, the business scaled from zero to more than 600 people, achieving a constant 50%+ YoY growth. Today, as the global CEO, he's responsible for driving expansion, innovation and setting the vision for the business. The company's portfolio includes 500+ clients globally including Johnson & Johnson, Unilever, ASUS, Sony, PayPal, Ricoh, etc., with a presence across 9 offices in 6 countries, and is recognized as one of APAC’s most prestigious eCommerce agencies. The company also built its own startup incubator and actively invests in solutions within fintech, digital, automation, and data. Thai Son currently lives in Hanoi with his wife and 2 lovely kids.

Henry Ward is the CEO and co-founder of Carta, a company that continues to revolutionize the way founders, investors, and employees manage equity and ownership. Since founding Carta in 2012, Carta has grown to manage hundreds of billions of dollars in equity. Companies including Intercom, Samsara, and Flexport trust Carta to provide things like fund administration, 409A valuations, cap table management and scenario modeling. Carta has been included on the Forbes “World’s Best Cloud Companies”, Fast Company's Most Innovative list, and Inc.’s Fastest Growing Private Companies.Prior to Carta, Henry was founder and CEO of Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. He also held leadership positions at software companies including Reddwerks Inc. and BetweenMarkets. Henry graduated from University of Michigan with a BGS in Mathematics and Computer Science and holds a MSC in Market Finance from EDHEC Business School.Carta helps private companies and investors manage their cap tables, valuations, investments, and equity plans. Its platform offers portfolio insights and dashboards, scenario modeling, board management, fund administrators, LP management, and other services. Private companies use Carta to streamline how they manage equity from their founding phase to their IPO. Investors use the firm’s services to efficiently manage their portfolios and streamline their back office activities including valuations, fund administration and scenario modeling. CartaX is its new offering - a vertically integrated market ecosystem that offers private equity investors the ability to sell their equity to other investors.Carta has been included on the Forbes “World’s Best Cloud Companies”, Fast Company's Most Innovative list, and Inc.’s Fastest Growing Private Companies. (Interviewed by Alexa von Tobel the co-founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital).

Steve Hoffman (Captain Hoff) is the Captain & CEO of Founders Space, one of the world’s leading startup accelerators. Founders Space was ranked the #1 incubator for overseas startups by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazines.Hoffman is also a venture investor, serial entrepreneur, and author of several award-winning books. These include “Make Elephants Fly” (published by Hachette), “Surviving a Startup” (published by HarperCollins), and “The Five Forces” (published by BenBella).Hoffman was founder and Chairman of the Producers Guild Silicon Valley Chapter, served on the Board of Governors of the New Media Council, and was a founding member of the Academy of Television’s Interactive Media Group.While in Hollywood, Hoffman worked as a TV development executive at Fries Entertainment, known for producing over a hundred TV shows, acquired by MGM. He went on to pioneer interactive television with his venture-funded startup Spiderdance, which produced interactive TV shows with NBC, MTV, Turner, Warner Brothers, History Channel, Game Show Network, and others.In Silicon Valley, Hoffman founded two more venture-backed startups, in the areas of games and entertainment, and worked as Mobile Studio Head for Infospace, with such hit mobile games as Tetris, Wheel of Fortune, Tomb Raider, Thief, Hitman, Skee-Ball, and X-Files.Hoffman went on to launch Founders Space, with the mission to educate and accelerate entrepreneurs. Founders Space has become one of the top startup accelerators in the world. Hoffman has trained hundreds of startup founders and corporate executives in the art of innovation and provided consulting to many of the world’s largest corporations, including Qualcomm, Huawei, Bosch, Intel, Disney, Warner Brothers, NBC, Gulf Oil, Siemens, and Viacom.Hoffman earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of California and a master’s degree in film and television from the University of Southern California. He currently resides in San Francisco but spends most of his time in the air, visiting startups, investors, and innovators all over the world. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Leena Nair is the first female, first Asian and youngest ever CHRO of Unilever and member of the Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE).Under her leadership Unilever has achieved a 50/50 gender balance across global leadership, led the design and implementation of progressive new working practices and models. She has continued to lead a pioneering agenda, playing an instrumental role in launching Unilever’s new social commitments, including a commitment to pay living wage across its whole supply chain.Leena bears overall responsibility for the 150,000-strong human capital of Unilever, which operates across multiple regulatory and labour environments spread over 190 countries. Her expertise has driven continued growth for Unilever leading to the 50 billion euro business it is today. Leena began her Unilever career in Hindustan Unilever, where she became the first woman in the Management Committee in 90 years, heading HR. She was also appointed the first woman on the Unilever South Asia Leadership team and was responsible for Unilever’s growth in five markets with a business size of around 6 billion Euros.She has continued to redefine how big business can contribute to the environment and society and has a reputation for putting the people at the heart of the business, driving growth and taking risks to create better business and a better society.Recognised by HRH Queen Elizabeth II as one of the accomplished Indian Business Leaders in the UK, Leena is a trustee for the Leverhulme Trust. Her purpose is to “ignite the human spark for a better business and better world”. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Phil Libin is the Founder and CEO at mmhmm, the app that allows you to level up your remote presentations, making high-quality video content in minutes. To date, Phil has raised over $30M for the company from an incredible investor base including Sequoia, Kevin & Julia Hartz, Tony Fadell, Instagram’s Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and Brianne Kimmel. Prior to mmhmm, Phil was a Managing Director @ General Catalyst and prior to his time in venture, Phil most famously founded Evernote, where he led the business with phenomenal success, as CEO for over 8 years.Libin is the latest high-profile executive to leave San Francisco. He now says remote working will be a "massive and profound" change.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by Startup Grind's Chris Joannou). 

Stefano is a project management practitioner and an academic with 20 years of experience, and the designer of the Team Alignment Map.He has been leading digital projects for Swiss-based companies Rothschild and Pictet; advising cross-functional leaders and teams for Richemont, the World Economic Forum, Applied Materials and HSBC; teaching and doing research in project management at the University of Lausanne and at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in partnership with Doctors Without Borders, Migros LeShop and Rolex.He has also co-authored an A-ranking publication in JMIS (Journal of Management Information Systems), New York; published at ECIS 2014 (The European Conference on Information Systems). Awarded Best Paper Nominee, Best Research in Progress Runner-Up Award with Swiss researchers at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2015). He holds a PhD and a Master's Degree in Organisation and Business Information Systems (MBI), all obtained from the University of Lausanne.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou). 

As the CEO of Skillshare, Matt Cooper believes that learning is transformative — individually, socially, economically. Skillshare's mission is to connect life-long learners everywhere and build a more creative and prosperous world.Before joining Skillshare, he was the CEO of Visually, an online marketplace for creative work that was acquired by ScribbleLive in January 2016. Prior to Visually, he was the VP of Operations, Enterprise and International for oDesk (now Upwork), the world's largest marketplace for online work.He is a father of four amazing girls. In his rare moments of free time, he enjoys surfing, fishing, running and anything outdoors.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).1 

Chris Do is an Emmy award winning designer, founder and CEO of Blind, Inc., where he oversees the creative and strategic direction of the company. He is also the founder of The Futur—an online education platform with the mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.Mr. Do currently serves on the board and is an advisor for organizations including: AIGA/LA, Emmys Motion & Title Design Peer Group, Otis Board of Governors, Saleshood, Santa Monica College and Woodbury University.He received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Graphics/Packaging, where he has taught Sequential Design for over a decade. He’s lectured at: California Institute of the Arts, LA Art Institute, Siggraph, Otis College of Design, MGLA, Cal State Los Angeles/Northridge and San Diego City College.Prior to forming Blind, Mr. Do worked at Cole & Weber, Seattle as an Art Director, Epitaph Records as a designer and freelance designer at broadcast design firm, Novocom and R/GA LA under Kyle Cooper on main titles such as The Island of Dr. Moreau, Celtic Pride and Eraser.Mr. Do has given talks and conducted workshops on: Sales, Negotiations, Value Based Pricing, Mindset, Branding, Graphic & Motion Design, Social Media Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business Management, and Client Relations.----Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Misha de Sterke is partner at Innoleaps, managing the corporate innovation activities for Fortune 500 companies globally. Keynote speaker, nominated entrepreneur and lecturer at Universities.He is a corporate innovation and startup expert and has extensive experience. In the corporate world as an interim manager and staff advisor on digital transformation, and as an entrepreneur building different tech-driven startups.He advises C-level executives on how to build the 10X Growth Machine and he coaches startups on turning ideas into profitable businesses. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Fenton created the online social hospitality network, the Couchsurfing Project which he began working on in 1999. Couchsurfing currently has over 15 million members worldwide. Fenton served as executive director of Couchsurfing until 2012 and the founding chairman of the board. Since exiting his position as CEO of Couchsurfing, he has also been a part of multiple startups including Sovolve (Wonder App) and Upstock.Fenton was looking for ways to motivate his team at Couchsurfing & discovered major challenges with traditional equity systems.He shares that while using stock option based equity, he actually saw productivity decline. Believing that every team should have access to tools that unite & build successful companies, he set out on a quest to repair the broken equity model. Thus Upstock was born. A digital, top-shelf legal equity system that combines performance equity with a visual dashboard. Now workers can watch their equity grow in real-time.

Finland-based Puro.earth is a marketplace for carbon removal that’s aiming to accelerate the development of emerging carbon net-negative companies by verifying the net negative impact of these companies, and connecting them with corporations seeking to reach Net Zero targets.Through its marketplace, Puro.earth is aiming to build a self-sustaining global market for carbon removal worth as much as $300bn, potentially removing 10 Gigatons of CO2 a year by 2050; the aim is to transform carbon from a climate problem to a green economy solution.Puro.earth has already generated interest from several corporates – customers include insurer Swiss Re and e-commerce company Shopify, both of which have publicly announced carbon removal via Puro.earth as a key part of their climate change strategies.In less than a year, there has been a threefold increase in the number of companies committing to Net Zero. For many businesses, carbon removal is a key pillar of their Net Zero strategies – and it’s well documented that to get to NetZero by 2050 we urgently need to scale up carbon removal (not just reduce emissions). According to a recent IEA report, up to $160 billion needs to be invested in CCUS technology by 2030, a ten-fold increase from the previous decade.  (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Kendrick Nguyen has a wealth of experience in finance and law, but his heart lies in cryptocurrency. He barely talks about his personal life, but he revealed that his past is what led to him being interested in the world of entrepreneurship. So far, his dream of helping private companies raise funds has continued to be fulfilled since in the last two years Republic has facilitated the launch of at least 40 companies. However, that is just the beginning since Kendrick has a far much bigger vision for his company. Let’s  know his experiences and how he has managed to be a successful entrepreneur. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

SC Moatti is a technology visionary, venture capital investor, and bestselling author of Mobilized, an insider’s guide to the business and future of connected technology. While working at Facebook, Trulia and Nokia, SC has built mobile products that are used today by billions of people -one of them received an Emmy nomination. Andrew Chen, one of Uber's executives, called SC “a genius at making mobile products people love.” Moatti frequently gives keynotes on business and technology, and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and on NPR. She lectures at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she earned her MBA and has a Master of Science in electrical engineering.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Oliver Percovich first skated in an empty pool at the age of six, while growing up in Papua New Guinea. In 1995 he competed in the Mystic Cup, an international skateboarding contest in Prague. Prior to a life-changing move to Kabul, Oliver worked at the Centre for Risk and Community Safety on emergency management projects for various Australian government departments. In 2007 Oliver moved to Afghanistan from Australia when his girlfriend took a job in Kabul. Bored, he would skate the beleaguered city, and became a sort of pied half-piper, attracting street kids who would follow him around and ask for rides. Shortly after, Oliver founded Skateistan, a grassroots 'Sport for Development' project on the streets of Kabul. Today, Skateistan has more than 50 employees worldwide and is an award-winning international organization with projects in Afghanistan, Cambodia and South Africa. The organization is the first international development initiative to combine skateboarding with educational outcomes. Skateistan is non-political, independent, and inclusive of all ethnicities, religions and social backgrounds, offering both skating and general education classes for over 1000 boys and girls each week. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Ben Branson is the Founder of Seedlip and Æcorn Aperitifs, the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirits and aperitifs. He gained inspiration from his family’s 300 years of North Lincolnshire farming heritage, and grew up alongside his two younger brothers, eights dogs, horses, rabbits and guinea pigs. Stoically a country boy, Ben now lives with his girlfriend and two dogs in a 15th Century cottage in the Chilterns, bringing his heritage with nature to the forefront of his new business venture.With offices in the Chilterns, Los Angeles, and Sydney, Seedlip is now available in over 35x countries and served in many of the world’s most awarded bars, restaurants and hotels including 350x Michelin * Restaurants & 9/10 of the world’s best cocktail bars. In just 5 years they have become a leader in the drinks industry, keeping the environment and nature at the heart of what they do. In January 2018, Seedlip announced plans for the launch of a new Non Alcoholic brand to complement the existing portfolio, and to help further grow the category of Non Alcoholic drinks. In December 2019, Æcorn Aperitifs was announced as the sister brand to Seedlip. Æcorn Aperitifs will be a stand-alone brand that occupies its own distinctive place within the landscape.  Ben was named as one of the Top 50 most influential people in food and drink by The Telegraph and awarded Young Achiever of The Year by The Drinks Business. He continues to pioneer the non-alcoholic category forward with the launch of Æcorn Aperitifs in Selfridges and The Savoy in May 2019. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Brad Feld lives in Boulder, Colorado and Homer, Alaska with his wife and is on a quest to run a marathon in every state in the US.Brad has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars. In addition to his investing efforts, Brad has been active with several non-profit organizations and currently is chair of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, co-chair of Startup Colorado, and on the board of UP Global. Brad is a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship and writes the widely read blogs Feld Thoughts, Startup Revolution, and Ask the VC. Brad holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Brad is also an avid art collector and long-distance runner. He has completed 23 marathons as part of his mission to finish a marathon in each of the 50 states. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

From supercomputers to innovating at incredible speed, Alex Dreiling’s work at  Clipchamp may sound like something from a Douglas Adams novel, but his successful startup began with an everyday idea and a down-to-earth attitude.He shares that they created something no one else was doing, and managed to take it from an idea they had over lunch – to running software that’s been solving problems for millions around the world since they launched in 2014. It’s been an exciting – sometimes nail-biting – journey so far and the team has plenty of ideas of where they’ll go next.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Eric originally hails from Lawrenceville, Georgia. While he’s moved around the country a bit, Atlanta has always pulled him back. He currently lives with his wife, Shirley, and their dog, Maize, in Atlanta, Georgia. The Co-founder and COO at Flatfile, whose mission is to remove barriers between humans and their data. Hundreds of enterprises use Flatfile products to aggregate, import, and normalize data from disparate and variant sources. Previously, Eric was the first product lead at Envoy, whose workplace products help thousands of companies create delightful and welcoming office experiences. Other prior work experiences include RentPath, FullStory, RelateIQ, ProsumerGrid, Crimson Hexagon, and Epic. Eric attended college at Emory University and received his MBA from Georgia Tech in 2015.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Alex Gorden).

Maximilian Tayenthal is co-founder and CFO of N26. Together with his business partner and friend Valentin Stalf, he has built one of the fastest-growing mobile banks in the world. Their vision is to create a bank that 100 million people around the world love to use, giving people the power to live and bank their way. Previously, Max worked in a variety of consulting and financial roles at leading professional services firms, including CMS and Booz & Company. Max holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics and business administration from the University of Vienna. He also has a master’s degree in economics from the Community of European Management Schools, as well as a law degree from the University of Vienna. Max is a CFA charter holder. While Max is based in Berlin he enjoys skiing in the mountains of Austria and Switzerland. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

After growing up in Cairo, Egypt, she earned a PhD in Cambridge University, and then joined the MIT Media Lab as a research scientist, where she spearheaded the application of emotion recognition technology in a variety of fields, including mental health and autism. She left MIT to co-found Affectiva and is a passionate advocate for humanizing technology, ethics in AI, women in technology and diversity. Rana has been recognized on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list, Forbes' Top 50 Women in Tech, Inc.’s Female Founders 100 list, and named one of the three Global Business pioneers by Bloomberg in 2017. Rana is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a Young Presidents' Organization member, and co-hosted a PBS NOVA series on AI.Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Amy is Co-founder, former President, and a current board member of Medallia, a public enterprise SaaS company that pioneered Experience Management and is the leader in helping organizations capture and act on customer feedback.  At Medallia, Amy built and ran many key functions from Marketing and Sales to HR and Talent Acquisition. Since its founding, Medallia has grown to 1,500 employees and over $400M in annual revenue, and trades on the Nasdaq exchange (MDLA).Prior to founding Medallia, Amy served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras, an Aide on Capitol Hill, a consultant for BCG, and an Associate at Goldman Sachs. She holds an undergraduate degree in History from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by John Rampton, CEO of Calendar.com  ).

Howie Liu is co-founder and CEO of Airtable, the platform democratizing software creation. Over 60,000 organizations, including half of the Fortune 1000, currently use Airtable to power their most ambitious operations. Launched in 2015, Airtable has raised over $70M in venture funding, and was recently added to Forbes’ “Cloud 100” list of the private companies leading cloud computing in 2018.  Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Alexa von Tobel, CFP® is the Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital ).

Morgan DeBaun, Founder & CEO of Blavity. Fresh out of college, she headed to Silicon Valley to learn from the best and brightest about Product Management and Design. The St. Louis native became a growth hacker and small business advisor to aspiring entrepreneurs. In 2014, she launched Blavity - the largest media startup and lifestyle brand for black millennials. Under her leadership, Blavity has successfully acquired 2 companies, raised over 9 million in venture funding, and reaches millions of people a day online. Today, Morgan manages a team of over 65 employees and 100 contractors with offices in LA, ATL, SF and NYC.Morgan is one of the first 15 American women to raise one million in venture funding. Her list of accolades includes: The Root Top 100 Most Influential Black Americans, Ebony 100, Black Enterprise Founder of the Year, Forbes 30 under 30, Silicon Valley Top Women in Tech, and has been profiled in Inc Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine, WSJ, Forbes, and many more. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Marlon Nichols, Managing Partner at Cross Culture VC.). 

Ryan Smith co-founded Qualtrics in 2002 with the goal of making sophisticated research simple. As CEO, he has grown the company from a basement startup to one of the fastest-growing technology companies in the world. Qualtrics has more than 8,500 enterprise customers including over 75% of the Fortune 100, 1,800 colleges and universities worldwide, and 99 of the top 100 U.S. business schools. Qualtrics has received $400M in investment from Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Insight Venture Partners. Ryan was named to Fortune’s 2016 40 Under 40, a list of the most powerful, influential, and successful young people in business, and was listed as one of Forbes’ “America’s Most Promising CEOs Under 35” in 2013. He is a frequent contributor to Fortune Magazine and has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Inc., The New York Times, TechCrunch and USA Today, and has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV and FOX Business. Ryan is a graduate of Brigham Young University and is a frequent guest lecturer at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business and Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.  Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Startup Grind's founder + CEO, Derek Andersen). 

Scott Belsky is an executive, entrepreneur, author, and investor (and all-around product obsessive). He currently serves as Adobe's Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President, Creative Cloud. Scott's passion is to make the creative world more productive, connected, and adaptive to new technologies. Scott co-founded Behance in 2006, and served as CEO until Adobe acquired Behance in 2012. Millions of people use Behance to display their portfolios, as well as track and find top talent across the creative industries. After Behance's acquisition, Scott helped reboot Adobe's mobile product strategy and led Behance until 2016, when he spent a few years as an investor and advisor to multiple businesses.Alongside his role at Adobe, Scott actively advises and invests in businesses that cross the intersection of technology and design - and help empower people. He works closely with a number of venture capital firms including Benchmark and Homebrew, and is an early advisor and investor in Pinterest, Uber, sweetgreen, Carta, Cheddar, Flexport, Airtable, and Periscope (now part of Twitter) as well as several others in the early stages.Over the years, Scott has pursued other projects to help organize and empower the careers of creative people. These include 99U, Behance's think tank and annual conference devoted to execution in the creative world; and a popular line of organizational paper products that help organize creative people and teams.Scott is also the author of the international bestselling books  Making Ideas Happen (Portfolio Imprint, Penguin Books, Apr, 2010), and The Messy Middle (Portfolio Imprint, Penguin Books, Oct, 2018).Scott is an advocate for technology and community initiatives that empower creative people and help businesses leverage the creative potential of their people. In 2010, Scott was also included in Fast Company's list of "100 Most Creative People in Business."Prior to founding Behance in 2006, Scott helped grow the Pine Street Leadership Development Initiative at Goldman, Sachs & Co. Scott was especially focused on organizational improvement and strengthening relationships with clients. Scott serves on the Advisory Board of Cornell University's Entrepreneurship Program and the Board of Trustees for the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He attended Cornell University as an undergraduate and received his MBA from Harvard Business School. Scott and his family live in New York City and San Francisco.  Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Startup Grind's founder Derek Andersen).

Chris Saad – Former Head of Product, Uber Development Platform.Chris is an Australian living and working across Brisbane and San Francisco. Formerly the Head of Product at Uber Development Platform, this highly driven entrepreneur is also a strategic advisor, product developer, author and pod-caster.The self-proclaimed serial entrepreneur received accolades from Anthill when he was featured in 30 Under 30. Chris was described as, ‘one of Australia’s most impressive young web entrepreneurs”. His idealization and dedication to web standards was touted as having a, “profound impact on the evolution of media in the digital age”. He was applauded for his contribution to the industry when he was named in the Advance 50 for the Future list which honours Australians that have generously given back in supporting growing companies.His 14 years across the startup ecosystem saw him build several companies including Echo (Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer), Faraday Media (Co-Founder and Director), RedShift (Founder/CEO) and Radioactive (Founder). Adding to his list of achievements was when he co-founded the DataPortability  Project and his co-authoring of Backplane Protocol.He is also the writer of an amazing book series " Leadership lens", which  he describes as The playbook for being an intentional and impactful leader. In his conversation he explains how The Leadership Lens helps you see the world the way leaders do. And that this book will provide concise, pragmatic insights into how leaders think and act - their lens - from the ground up; and give you actionable advice on how to implement their strategies in your own daily life. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Sage Group plc. is the UK’s largest tech firm with 12,000 employees serving over three million customers across 23 countries worldwide.Debbie Wall is the EVP of the Sage Foundation, one of the largest corporate foundations globally. It is the corporate philanthropic division of Sage . It is the corporate philanthropic division of Sage Group.Debbie"s approach called ‘action philanthropy’ is a model based not only on corporate financial giving but focused on making a more meaningful impact through employee time and expertise. As part of this approach, Debbie introduced the UK’s largest corporate volunteering scheme, offering every Sage employee up to 5 days of paid time to volunteer in their local communities. In 2020 alone, they have given 14,000 volunteering days from colleagues around the world. Debbie would be happy to talk about some of the programmes introduced and executed by the Sage Foundation to help local communities worldwide. These are based on maximising the tech skills of their employees to help rollout solutions including A Place To Call Home - helping tackle the root causes of youth homelessness and rAInbow - an AI-powered tool supporting victims of domestic violence. Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Lucy established her industry credentials as an investment consultant at the China International Capital Corp (CICC), China's first joint venture investment bank. Her competitive edge and organisational skills won her the trust of the most prestigious investors and corporate clients in Asia.She co-founded Airwallex in 2015 , which provides foreign-exchange transactions at a lower cost than traditional banks to help internet companies, as well as small and mid-size enterprises, to collect and settle payments when conducting business overseas.Airwallex's recent valuation is $1.8 billion and the total capital raised is more than $360 million. The cross-border payment startup joined the unicorn club after crossing the $1 billion valuation mark a year ago.Airwallex's headquarters are in Melbourne, Australia. It has opened new offices in Tokyo and Bangalore, while exploring the Middle East market. While Asia-Pacific continues to play a crucial role in the company's growth plans, it also will accelerate growth in Europe and the U.S.Airwallex is also preparing to launch its first payment card for businesses in partnership with Visa in key markets, including Hong Kong and the U.K., later this year. It will allow Airwallex account holders to pay overseas suppliers in various currencies in almost real time. At Airwallex, Lucy is responsible for overseeing ongoing business operations and client relationships.Lucy has won a series of awards for her outstanding entrepreneurial achievements including Ernst & Young “Top 22 Entrepreneurial Winning Women in APAC” (2019), Ernst & Young “Australian Entrepreneur of the Year” (2018) and Forbes “30 Young Entrepreneurs in Asia” (2017).Learn more about Oracle for Startups(Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Dr. Alexander (Alex) Osterwalder is one of the world’s most influential innovation experts, a leading author, entrepreneur and in-demand speaker whose work has changed the way established companies do business and how new ventures get started. Ranked No. 4​ of the top 50 management thinkers worldwide, Osterwalder is known for​       simplifying the strategy development process and turning complex concepts into digestible visual models. He invented the Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Canvas, and Business Portfolio Map – practical tools that are trusted by millions of business practitioners from leading global companies. Strategyzer, Osterwalder’s company, provides online courses, applications, and technology-enabled services to help organizations effectively and systematically manage strategy, growth and transformation. His books include the international bestseller ​Business Model Generation​, ​Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want,​ ​Testing Business Ideas​ and The Invincible Company​, to publish in spring 2020. (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Pete Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond.  BMNT is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington DC, Boston and London. He holds holds a BS from Kansas State University, an MS from the US Army Command & General Staff College, an MS from the National Defense University and advanced certificates from the MIT Sloan School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is  also a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program taught at 22+ universities.In addition, Pete is a Board Member for Solace Power, a wireless power technology company; and Hacking for Defense Incorporated, the 501c3 non-profit responsible for extending Hacking for Defense® academic programming to universities across the United States. Prior to joining BMNT, Pete served as the Director of the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF).  Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield. From 2010 to 2013 Pete led the REF in the investment of over $1.4B in efforts designed to counter the effects of improvised explosive devices, reduce small units exposure to suicide bombers and rocket attacks and to reduce their reliance on long resupply chains.  He was responsible for the Army’s first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs as well as the use of smart phones merged with tactical radio networks. Pete retired from the US Army as a Colonel in 2013. .He is an Army Ranger who has received numerous awards to include the Silver Star and Presidential Unit Citation.  (Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Jennifer received her BA from Harvard University cum laude and MBA from Harvard Business School and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughters Aurora and Selene.She co-founded Rent the Runway in 2009 with Jennifer Fleiss, and has since raised over $525 million in capital, growing the business to over 11 million members and a valuation of $1 billion. In her role, she sets the strategic priorities of the business and leads the company in growing all areas of the business, including marketing, technology, product and analytics. Under Hyman’s leadership, Rent the Runway’s offerings have expanded to over 600 labels, including Proenza Schouler , Marni and Victoria Beckham . Brands work with Rent the Runway via wholesale relationships, revenue share arrangements on the Rent the Runway platform, as well as co-manufacturing of designer collections exclusive to the Rent the Runway ecosystem.Hyman has been honoured with recognitions like the “TIME 100” most influential people in the world, Forbes “12 Most Disruptive Names in Business”, Fortune’s “Most Powerful Female Entrepreneurs”, “Trailblazers”, “40 under 40”, Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business” and the Tribeca Film Festival’s “Disruptive Innovation” award. Under her leadership, Rent the Runway has been named to CNBC’s “Disruptor 50” and Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list multiple times. Serving as Rent the Runway’s spokesperson, Jennifer is a frequent guest on television and a regular lecturer at universities and business schools nationwide.Hyman serves on the Board of Directors of The Estée Lauder Companies, on the Women.nyc Advisory Board and is a Founding Member of the NYSE Board Advisory Council which champions increased board diversity.(Interviewed by Aileen Lee).

 Since 2004, Mike has served as Business Manager for the multi-platinum hip-hop artist Nelly. Through restructuring Nelly’s apparel line Apple Bottoms from from a production firm to a licensing entity, Mike was able to grow the business from $2M in revenue in 2004 to over $100M in 2008. In early 2015, Michael Chaffin and Mark Cuban co-launched the THREE COMMAS apparel line, a concept derived by Mark Cuban based on the fact that there are 3 commas in a billion dollars.  The line is the first developed for the aspiring entrepreneur.While Three Commas came from the fact that there are three commas in a billion, the money is not what it is about. It is about the entrepreneur - from the place where the dream began, to where the dream becomes a reality. Three Commas is about the journey and seeks to encourage people to achieve their goals, pursuing the American Dream. There is no other place that gives everyone this great opportunity to succeed. It's not about having a billion dollars, but the daily reward of hard work, passion, and dedication that brings the true meaning of success. Three Commas is the brand for the driven entrepreneur. Mike is active in the startup community serving as a judge and mentor for Stadia Ventures sports accelerator.  He has served on the Governing Board of Make-A-Wish Missouri which he is now an alumni of and has also formerly served on the Board of Directors for Covenant House, an international charity that focuses on homeless teenagers.  (Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou)

Kate founded One Young World 10 years ago whilst Global President and UK Group Chairman of Havas Worldwide, in response to what she saw as a growing leadership vacuum in business, politics and civil society. Its goal is to identify, promote and connect the world’s most impactful activists to create a better world, with more responsible and effective leadership.During her time at Havas,Kate was the world’s most senior woman in advertising. Taking inspiration from her mother, the first woman in South Africa to become a Board member, she has always fought for young voices to be heard – and her policy of inviting under 30-year-old’s to join the Havas Board was a first of its kind.From its work in peacebuilding with the European Commission, to creating the world’s largest ever investment in youth-led SDGs initiatives, One Young World has become the definitive voice on young leaders – with a community of over 10,000 under-35-year-old activists from over 190 countries.  As a result, it has garnered the support of some of the world’s greatest activists – from Bob Geldof, to the late Kofi Annan, Emma Watson, Meghan Markle and Paul Polman, amongst many other global figures.Last October, One Young World returned to its London home to celebrate its tenth anniversary – in what was the city’s most international event since the 2012 Olympics. The annual Summit gathered 2,000 leading young activists from over 190 countries – with notable guests including HRH the Duchess of Sussex and JK Rowling.Kate’s experience led her to co-author a recent book on how to successfully make a difference in today’s society. ‘How to Make a Difference’ is a guidebook that captures the experience of those she has worked closely with, including the young people at the forefront of movements from the Hong Kong protests to Black Lives Matter.(Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

Jennifer Tejada, who is rare in the world of enterprise startups because of her gender, but whose marketing background makes her even more of an anomaly — and an asset. She is a veteran software industry executive and business leader with over 25 years of experience, spanning mass consumer products to disruptive cloud and software solutions. She has a successful track record in product innovation, optimizing operations and scaling public and private enterprise technology companies. She led PagerDuty through a strong IPO in April 2019.In a world that’s going digital fast, Tejada knows PagerDuty can appeal to a far wider array of customers by selling them a product they can understand.PagerDuty is  helping its clients become proactive. The idea, she says, is that “if you see traffic spiking on a website, you can orchestrate a team of content marketers or growth hackers and get them in that traffic stream right then, instead of reading about it in a demand-gen report a week later, where you’re, like, ‘Great, we totally missed that opportunity.’”PagerDuty provides real-time operations platform, ensures less downtime and fewer outages, meaning happier customers and more productive teams.

Leymah Gbowee (pronounced LAY–mah, BEAU-wee)  2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker and women’s rights advocate. Ms. Gbowee’s leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace – which brought together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that played a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s civil war – is chronicled in her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and in the award-winning documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell. After winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Ms. Gbowee established the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa. Ms. Gbowee also serves as the Executive Director of the Women, Peace and Security Program at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Ms. Gbowee advises numerous organizations working for peace, women’s rights, youth, and sustainable development, and she travels internationally to advocate for human rights and peace and security.She has been named as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Gender Policy by Apolitical and one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine. Ms. Gbowee is the proud mother of eight children. She lives between Monrovia and New York – and the many airports in between!

Patrick Lee was born in the states—born in LA—grew up in Maryland,  went to school out in UC Berkeley.It took him nearly 10 years to graduate from college because he was too busy building companies on the side and the traumatizing years of his company.Patrick is the co-founder of Hobo Labs, a mobile gaming company. But he’s best known for being one of the founders of Rotten Tomatoes. He’s a very seasoned, serial entrepreneur. He’s been through multiple market bubbles, crashes, and company exits.The co-founder and the former CEO of Rotten Tomatoes (rottentomatoes.com), a leading entertainment website focused on movie reviews and news and one of the top 700 most trafficked sites in the world. As a serial entrepreneur, he founded six startups across three countries (US, China, Hong Kong), with four in the intersection of technology & entertainment. For the last decade, Patrick has been mentoring tech founders and been involved in various arts & humanitarian projects.   Holly Liu studied at the UC Berkely and at the University of California, LOS Angeles.Liu is the co-founded mobile gaming company KABAM in 2006; maker of the games: Kingdoms of Camelot The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth and Marvel Contest of Champions.In January 2017, the majority of KABAM’s assets were acquired by Netmarble, South Korea’s largest mobile gaming company. Following her exit from Kabam, Liu took on a role as a visiting partner at Y Combinator, an accelerator providing seeded funding to nearly 2,000 startups with a combined value of over $80 billion.She has been named one of Fortune’s “10 Most Powerful Women in Gaming”, Forbes’ “12 Women in Gaming to Watch.” and Forbes - "10 Women Entrepreneurs to Watch from Google Ventures' Portfolio Companies".She was also named by Inc as a Top 10 female founder unicorn.In 2018, she received the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Technology Entrepreneurship Award and she was featured among "America's Top 50 Women In Tech" by Forbes.  Bart Decrem  is a Belgian-born, Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur. He was SVP of mobile games at Disney until January, and cofounded mobile-game developer Tapulous. He was the head of marketing at the Mozilla Foundation until the launch of Firefox in 2004.In 2003-2004, Decrem headed marketing and business affairs for the Mozilla Foundation. He coordinated Firefox marketing activities, including branding, the Firefox 1.0 launch and the creation of Spread Firefox, the community marketing effort for Firefox. He also headed up partnerships with Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Mozilla.From July 2010 until June 2013 he was SVP and General Manager for Disney Mobile Games, the group behind the smartphone hits Where’s My Water, Temple Run: Oz and Where’s My Mickey.Decrem was recognized as one of the fifty most creative people in business in 2009 by Fast Company and one of the 10 most creative people in the Music Biz by Fast Company. He has also been featured in Advertising Age's "2010 Creativity 50" by Creativity.  

Roy Mann is a career entrepreneur who became a coding expert at the university. He studied at Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya in Israel graduating with a degree in computer science. Besides studying at this university, he has also completed a computer-related course at Lehigh University and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev located in the United States of America and Israel respectively. In Ben-Gurion University, he majored in Electrical engineering.Before becoming the CEO of Monday.com, Roy Mann started as a web-developer for Finjan Holdings in 1996. Later on, in May 2010, he became the Chief Technology Officer at Wix.com. it was here at wix.com that he discovered his true calling as an entrepreneur. He would, later on, venture out as the co-founder of Dapulse in 2012. This decision was based on the massive success that he alongside Eran was realizing in the development of web-based platforms.Monday.com was arrived upon to give this business a more global perspective – Monday being the start of work-week. To date, Monday.com has grown immensely. Based in Israel, Monday.com now has got 130 employees who work tirelessly to ensure the success of this company. Alongside his co-founder Eran Zinman, this company has significantly doubled the revenue that to date it boasts of having a valuation of almost 1.9 billion dollars. Despite the huge achievements that he has achieved as an entrepreneur, little is known about Roy Mann.

David Gurle is a French entrepreneur and engineer, credited as one of the pioneers of IP Communications. He is currently the CEO of Symphony Communication Services, LLC.Author, inventor and visionary, David’s ideas have influenced the major trends in consumer and enterprise communications and most recently secure collaboration technologies over the past two decades. He founded and ran Microsoft’s unified communications products (Skype for Business) and as Global head of collaboration services at Thomson Reuters, introduced the first consumer-to-business federated communications to the financial services industry. After the sale of Skype to Microsoft where he was the GM of Skype’s Enterprise Business, David founded and sold Perzo before founding Symphony. David sits on the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s International Technology Advisory Panel, is regularly featured on global broadcast (CNBC, BFM, Fox News) and print media (TechCrunch, Le Monde, Wall Street Journal) and is a sought-after keynote speaker on the future of the digital workplace, collaboration technologies, workplace diversity and all matters related to privacy and information security. In January 2020, he received the Légion d’Honneur, the highest French order of merit for military and civil service.

Elio Leoni Sceti is founder of The Craftory, a new $375M global investment fund exclusively focused on purpose driven FMCG brands.The Craftory is a first mover at a time when the investment world is now recognising the need to look beyond profits alone. It is the first investor to focus solely on consumer brands that positively impact society and the planet. These include an $18m investment in food technology brand NotCo, who are using AI to transform the plant-based replacements for dairy products, and a further $18m in TomboyX, who are creating an innovative non-binary range of underwear.  Elio’s ambition for The Craftory is to demonstrate once and for all that you can do good by doing well as an investor. He brings a wealth of retail experience to The Craftory, having spent 20 years heading up some of the world’s biggest FMCG brands. He is the former CEO of frozen-food giant Iglo, where he radically transformed the group’s fortunes while helping turn the business into a force for good – turning Captain Birdseye into an environmental campaigner in the process.Prior to this, he was CEO of record label EMI and Executive VP at RB, the leading consumer health and hygiene company including brands such as Air Wick, Calgon, Dettol, Nurofen, Finish and Vanish. Elio is a board member of AB InBev – the world’s largest brewer – and Barry Callebaut, the world’s largest cocoa manufacturers. Interviewed by Chris Joannou @StartupGrind @DreamPushers

Leaders can change lives. Check out The Valuable 500 Hosted by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS.

Entrepreneur-turned-educator, Steve Blank is the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement, he’s changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught; how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate. Steve is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, The Startup Owner’s Manual - and his May 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story defined the Lean Startup movement. He teaches at Stanford, Columbia, Berkeley and NYU; and created the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps -- now the standard for science commercialization in the U.S. His Hacking for Defense class at Stanford is revolutionizing how the U.S. defense and intelligence community can deploy innovation with speed and urgency, and its sister class, Hacking for Diplomacy, is doing the same for foreign affairs challenges managed by the U.S. State Department. 

https://draperstartuphouse.com/The inspiration for Tribe Theory was born when Vikram spent two years backpacking around the world, where he traveled to over 50 countries in six continents and stayed in amazing hostels around the world. Vikram's vision is to build a global hostel brand which provides affordable yet soulful accommodation for young startups and entrepreneurs. Tribe Theory rebranded to Draper Startup House and became part of the Draper Startup Ecosystem in 2020.Prior to building Tribe Theory, Vikram was the head of venture capital investments at REAPRA where he made investments in early stage ventures across Asia. Prior to that, Vikram was a banker at J.P. Morgan where he was an early member of several new ventures. Vikram grew up in Los Angeles where he did his undergraduate studies at the University of California, Riverside and his MBA at the University of Southern California.

Check out:Startupgrind.comTheHustle.coTrends.co 

Chad West is Director of Marketing & Comms at Revolut, a UK financial technology company that offers banking services. He previously held the same position at Rocket Internet.Alex Rodriguez Bacardit, Founder & CEO at MarsBased, a high-end development consultancy from Barcelona specialised in web and mobile applications developed with Ruby on Rails, Node.js, Angular, React and other Javascript frameworks. He is in charge of the growth of the company doing business development.He is also Director of Startup Grind in Barcelona & Andorra. For three years, he helped the expansion of the Startup Grind brand in Southwestern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Malta, Andorra, Gibraltar) as Regional Director, leading the Barcelona chapter, awarded Best Chapter of the Year in 2016. 

Since starting at Booking.com in 2002, Gillian has risen to CEO in 2016 and now ranks 37th on the Most Powerful International Women List according to Forbes. Booking.com is owned by Priceline Group (PCLN), who will change to Booking Holdings (BKNG) on February 27th, This reflects Booking.com’s importance to the umbrella company since their acquisition in 2005.

Justin Kan is an internet entrepreneur. He is best known for founding Kiko, the first AJAX web calendar; Justin.tv, a live video streaming platform; Socialcam, a mobile video sharing app (acquired for $60mm by Autodesk in 2012); Twitch, a video game streaming platform (acquired by Amazon for $970mm); and Exec, an on demand maid service (acquired by Handybook in 2014). He is currently a partner at the seed fund Y Combinator. He graduated from Yale University with a degree in Physics and Philosophy.

Payal is the Executive Chairman & Founder of ClassPass and the Artistic Director of The Sa Dance Company. Payal has been a “dancetrepreneur” since the age of 3 when she started training in Indian classical and folk styles of dance. It was her passion for dance, entrepreneurship, and making the world a more active, happy place that led to the founding of Classpass. ClassPass is a membership program for fitness classes across multiple gyms and studios, making working out more engaging, accessible, and affordable. Mollie Glick is a book agent at Creative Artists Agency. Glick works in the New York office and represents many top authors and thought leaders.  

As the founder CEO of BGF since it was set up in 2011, Stephen is responsible for the overall management and strategic direction of the company. BGF has grown from 1 to 14 offices across the UK and Ireland, with nearly £2bn invested and a team of 170, becoming in the process the most active growth capital investor in the UK. Stephen has extensive experience as an investor. Prior to BGF, he was one of the founding partners of the global private equity firm CCMP Capital (formerly JP Morgan Partners), and before that, Managing Director of Barclays Private Equity and Henderson Ventures, which he also co-founded. In 2013, Stephen was appointed an advisor to the UK Government regarding the establishment of the British Business Bank and in 2017, served as a member of the Industry Panel advising HM Treasury on the Patient Capital Review. In 2018, Stephen was appointed a member of the first Council of Innovate UK, which forms an integral part of UK Research and Innovation. Stephen has served as an independent director on a broad range of companies over many years, both in the UK and internationally, most recently joining the board of FTSE 250 Intermediate Capital Group plc as a Non-Executive Director in September 2017. Stephen started his career in banking, has a law degree from Durham University and is a qualified Barrister-at-Law.

After studying journalism Ruud Hendriks (1959) started his career as a DJ on board legendary pirate station Radio Caroline. At the age of 20 he got his first opportunity as a TV-reporter and with public broadcaster Veronica. During a 9-year period Ruud anchored many Dutch TV programs mainly on news, current-affairs and sports.He initiated the first non-stop Newsradio format in the Netherlands and several innovative TV formats.In the late eighties Ruud became a co-founder of Sky Radio and Radio 10. In 1989 he wrote the business plans for TV stations RTL4 and RTL5 and became their first program director. Under his tenure RTL became the market leading TV broadcaster in the Netherlands.In 1992 Ruud became President of NBC Europe in London and transformed Superchannel into NBC Superchannel and finally into CNBC Europe.Back in the Netherlands where he became an executive member of TV-production company Endemol Entertainment. When Ruud joined in 1994 the company operated in 3 countries, when he left in 2001 Endemol had subsidiaries in 21 countries. Market value grew from 135 million Euros’ to 5.3 Billion.During his stint at Endemol he was responsible for all its online activities, international expansion and distribution. Amongst others he developed the online business model for “Big Brother” making Endemol the most profitable online company of the Netherlands in the late nineties. He played a key role in Endemol’s I.P.O, the start of failed sports channel Sport 7, and the 2000 take over of the company by Telefonica from Spain.After Endemol Ruud accepted several supervisory board positions at Eyeworks TV, Dutch bank Theodoor Gilissen and a member of the advisory boards of BSUR (ad agency), MAS Services, AIMgen (neuromarketing) and Mobitto (mobile sales).Ruud is a regular speaker about innovation and media at seminars and host of two weekly current-affairs programs at BNR Newsradio.Ruud is a co-founder of Startupbootcamp Amsterdam and Startupbootcamp Global.

Alex and Anthony Zaccaria, are the Founders of Linktree, the Australian tech platform giving users the ability to connect followers to their entire online ecosystem — not just one feed. Founded in 2016 and the first tool in market of its kind, Linktree helps users to share more, sell more, curate more and grow more. It’s become the front door to the online world of more than 3 million users worldwide (including the likes of Alicia Keys, Jamie Oliver and Chelsea Handler) and an invaluable tool for brands, influencers and celebrities online.Just like Stripe and Slack before them, Linktree created a tool that many people didn’t know they even needed, and subsequently a new industry off the back of that.The Melbournian Zaccaria brothers, Alex and Anthony originally set out to solve a pain point for the music industry - Instagram only allows one link in a user’s profile.What started as a fix for #linkinbio, has grown into a multi-platform tool for connecting followers beyond a single social media channel – it links to a user’s entire online ecosystem.

Sara Mauskopf is the CEO and co-founder of Winnie, a platform for modern parents. Moms & dads use the website or mobile apps to browse fun activities nearby, find quality childcare, or get advice in real-time on any parenting topic. Winnie is growing fast with over 1M users in 10K cities across the United States. International Best-Selling Author Lisa Q. Fetterman is the founder and CEO of Nomiku, the first home sous vide immersion circulator machine on the market. Lisa has been featured in Wired, MAKE, and Forbes, and was named on Forbes, Inc, and Zagat Survey’s 30 Under 30 lists for her pioneering work in the food space. Lisa has worked at some of the top restaurants in the country including Babbo and Jean-Georges in New York and Saison in San Francisco. She lives in San Francisco where she and her husband-cofounder have brought manufacturing back to the states with their new Wifi-Nomiku device.  

Startup Grind Global Conference 2019 About the Speaker: Pedro Franceschi is Co-Founder of Brex — the first of its kind corporate card for startups. A Brazilian entrepreneur, Pedro built Pagar.me — the Stripe of Brazil — along with his co-founder Henrique Dubugras. At Pagar.me, Pedro was responsible for all technology and operations, scaling the company to over 100 people and establishing it as a leader in the Brazilian payments ecosystem. 

Chris Dixon is an American internet entrepreneur and investor. He is a general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, where he's spent the past five years as an active seed and previously worked at eBay. He is also a venture-stage investor. Previously, Chris was the co-founder and former CEO of two startups, SiteAdvisor and Hunch. Chris has been a website prolific seed investor, cofounding Founder Collective, a seed venture fund, and making a number of personal angel investments in various technology companies. Sonal Chokshi is Editor in Chief at Andreessen Horowitz, aka "a16z", which she joined in early 2014. Among other things, this includes building and showrunning the popular a16z Podcast, which she grew in listenership more than 10X; assigning and editing pieces such as "When One App Rules Them All" on the case study of WeChat and China, which was selected in the New York Times' Sidney Awards 2015 as one of the best long-form essays; leading production of the a16z Crypto Canon; and many more.

Ulf Gunnar Ekberg (born 6 December 1970), also known as Buddha, is a Swedish singer-songwriter, musician, businessman and television and film producer, best known as a founding member of the pop group Ace of Base, along with siblings Jonas Berggren, Linn Berggren and Jenny Berggren.

A respected technologist and business leader, Steven Sinofsky is an investor, adviser, as well as a Board Partner at the Andreessen Horowitz venture capital firm. He began his career at Microsoft in 1989. He started as a software design engineer in development tools. Working in product management, he grew to be one of the company's senior executives on Microsoft Office overseeing six major releases of the full range of Office apps and creation of Office servers. Most recently he served as President of the Windows division through 2012, delivering two major releases of Windows as well as the creation of Microsoft Surface, and Windows Services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive and Identity. Sinofsky frequently comments on products, development and management at his blog, https://medium.learningbyshipping.com, and on twitter, @stevesi. He earned a BA in both computer science and chemistry from Cornell and an MS from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Aaron Levie is the Co-founder of cloud-based content management and collaboration platform.

Maggie Zhou was appointed Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand in March 2016 for Alibaba Group. As one of the key veterans of the company, Maggie has witnessed major company developments as the company has expanded its businesses outside of China and as well as the progression and development of Mainland China’s e-commerce market. In her current role, as part of the company’s globalisation strategy, she is responsible for establishing a local presence for Alibaba in Australia and New Zealand to further develop infrastructure and help local merchants enter the vast China consumer market.Prior to this role, Maggie worked closely with the Australia and New Zealand business development team on Tmall Global, a cross-border B2C business platform for Tmall, and was in charge of overall government and public affairs for the platform. In Maggie’s earlier days with Alibaba, she helped the Group establish Taobao Marketplace in 2003 as one of the nine founders of the C2C platform, and served as Executive Assistant to Jack Ma, the founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba, for almost five years. Maggie joined Alibaba in early 2000 as one of the veteran employees of the company.

Prior to founding Zoom, Eric was Corporate Vice President of Engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco's collaboration software development. As one of the founding engineers and Vice President of Engineering at WebEx, Eric was the heart and soul of the WebEx product from 1997 to 2011. Eric proudly grew the WebEx team from 10 engineers to more than 800 worldwide, and contributed to revenue growth from $0 to more than $800M. Eric is a named inventor on 11 issued and 20 pending patents in real time collaboration.Eric is a graduate of the Stanford University Executive Program.Jim has achieved 5 ‘unicorn’-level successes over the past 20 years as a founder, executive, and investor. His top performers include Zoom ($1B valuation), Cruise ($1B sale to GM), Bebo ($850M sale to AOL), Tango ($1B+ valuation), and NBCi ($6B IPO), plus several other exits including the recent acquisition of Check by Intuit for $360M. Jim is one of the leading growth experts in Silicon Valley, a TED speaker, and a frequent presenter and judge at many startup conferences and events. Jim has a BS in Neuropsychology from Duke University and earned a JD at the University of California Davis School of Law. Jim has startup in his blood. He’s been a serial entrepreneur dating back to his high school and college days.

Anjelika Temple is the Chief Creative Officer + Founding Partner at Brit + Co where she is responsible for the visual identity of the brand across the company. As Brit + Co's first hire, Anjelika created the company’s distinct aesthetic and currently oversees the creative, editorial, and video teams to scale her vision.Lindsey Quinn is a writer in the Bay Area focused on the intersection of tech, business, and culture. Formerly, she was Managing Editor of The Hustle, a business newsletter and blog with over 1 million daily subscribers.

Melanie Perkins is an Australian technology entrepreneur. She is known as the CEO and co-founder of Canva, an online design and publishing tool which makes graphic design simple for everyone.Melanie is one of the youngest female CEO to be leading a tech start-up valued at over a billion dollars. Melanie has raised more than $166 million from investors including Google Maps co-founder Lars Rasmussen, Yahoo! CFO Ken Goldman, and funds such as Bond, General Catalyst, Felicis Ventures and Blackbird. 

As Google’s Chief Marketing Officer, Lorraine manages a global team responsible for telling the evolving story of Google’s brand, driving revenue growth, and bringing Google’s products to life for billions of users every day. Her teams focus on Google’s core products, including Search, Maps, Photos and the Google Assistant; Google’s Platforms, such as Android, Chrome, Play and YouTube, and support the company's new Hardware division. Lorraine was responsible for driving Google’s social impact focus on education, economic opportunity and inclusion, and for the company crisis response strategy. Previously, Lorraine led Marketing for Google in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Lorraine graduated from Dublin City University with a joint honors degree in International Marketing and Languages. She has been named Adweek’s Grand Brand Genius, Business Insider's Most Innovative CMO, one of the world’s 50 Most Powerful Moms, and most recently Cannes Creative Marketer of the Year. A native of Ireland, Lorraine lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children. Bridgette is the co-founder of the Google for Startups team (previously Google for Entrepreneurs). Today, she leads the Programs and Operations team globally that helping startups grow with the best of Google in 125 countries. In addition, Bridgette is part of the core team behind Google for Startups Campus: physical hubs where entrepreneurs can learn, connect, and build companies that will change the world. Along with her team, she develops the programs that provide startups unparalleled access to mentorship, connections and trainings to support the growth of their startup. Today, there are 6 Campuses in London, Seoul, Tel Aviv, Madrid, Sao Paulo and Warsaw serving over 300,000 member entrepreneurs. Startup Grind Global Conference 2019

Tony and Maureen Wheeler’s six-month trip along the ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1972 led to Across Asia on the Cheap, the very first Lonely Planet guidebook. The company grew to become the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher and today has close to 150 million books in print in English as well as digital versions and a busy website. Despite the completion of the sale of the company in 2011 Tony still contributes to their publications, most recently Epic Drives and the new edition of The Cities Book. The Planet Wheeler Foundation, with more than 50 health and education projects in the developing world, the Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing & Ideas in Melbourne and his position on the board of the California-based archaeological organization Global Heritage Fund also keep him busy. Recent travels have included visits to the rising-sea-level-threatened Pacific nation of Kiribati, Reactor 4 at Chernobyl 30 years after its meltdown and a reprise of his Hippie Trail adventures along the Silk Road, now part of China’s major One Belt One Road development.

Mathilde Collin is the co-founder and CEO of Front, the first shared inbox for teams. Front serves more than 4,000 companies around the world and has raised $79 million in venture funding from investors such as Sequoia Capital, DFJ, and Uncork Capital.Mathilde was recognized in 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Enterprise Tech list and 2018 Inc’s 30 Under 30 Rising Star list. She is based in San Francisco and originally from Paris, and earned her Masters in Entrepreneurship from the HEC School of Management in 2012.Bryan Schreier is a Partner at Sequoia, where he works with consumer and enterprise companies. He is a Director of Clever, Domino Data, Dropbox, Front, Hearsay Systems, Qualtrics, Thumbtack, TuneIn, and Zūm, among others.Startup Grind Global Conference 2019

Startup Grind Global Conference 2019About the speakers:John, and his brother Patrick Collison, started Stripe, the global technology company building the economic infrastructure for the internet, in 2010 while John was studying physics at Harvard. Their goal was to make accepting payments online simpler and more inclusive, after learning firsthand how difficult it was. Today, the 1200-person (and growing) Stripe team powers online businesses around the world. Prior to Stripe, John co-founded Auctomatic, which was acquired by Live Current Media in March 2008. Originally from Limerick, Ireland, John lives in San Francisco, California, where Stripe is based.Ashlee Vance is a reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek magazine. He's written dozens of cover and feature stories and hosts the Emmy-nominated TV show "Hello World." Vance is also an author and wrote the recent best-selling biography on Elon Musk.GLOBAL CONFERENCE: https://www.startupgrind.com/conference/READ THE BLOG: https://medium.com/startup-grindTWITTER: https://twitter.com/StartupGrindFACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/StartupGrind/INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/startup/

Adora Cheung was co-founder and CEO of Homejoy, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2010. Before that, she ran product at Slide. She has a bachelor's in computer science from Clemson University and is an economics PhD dropout at the University of Rochester.Holly is a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator. Prior to this she founded and exited the billion-dollar mobile gaming company Kabam - building games for IP such as The Hobbit and Marvel. She led design for their flagship game, and moved into growing culture and talent to over 1500 people.

About the speakers: Joe Gebbia is the co-founder and CPO of Airbnb, serving on the Board of Directors and Executive staff, while leading Samara, Airbnb’s in-house design and innovation studio. He is involved in crafting the company culture, shaping the design aesthetic, and innovating future growth opportunities. Alfred Lin is a Partner at Sequoia Capital and works with inspiring founders focused on disrupting the mobile, marketplace, commerce, consumer services, and online-to-offline sectors. He currently represents Sequoia on the Boards of Airbnb, Cobalt Robotics, Dia & Co., DoorDash, Houzz, Stella & Dot, and Zipline and was previously on the Board of Achievers (HAWK), FutureAdvisor (BLK), Humble Bundle (JCOM), and Shopular (Ebates/Rakuten). GLOBAL CONFERENCE: https://www.startupgrind.com/conference/ READ THE BLOG: https://medium.com/startup-grind TWITTER: https://twitter.com/StartupGrind FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/StartupGrind/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/startup/

Freddy Vega is CEO and co-founder of Platzi, a fast-growing e-learning platform with an impressive 70% completion rate by students who take the company's courses. At the age of 16, he created a community called Cristalab, which, six years later, became the largest community of developers in Latin America. At this point, he merged his community with that of his co-founder, Christian Van Der Henst, and created Mejorando.la, a community with an educational offering. With this growing community a new technology platform for streaming live classes with tools for engaging the audience, Freddy co-founded Platzi in 2013. After graduating from the Winter 2015 class of YCombinator and continuing it's growth track, the company is setting it's sights on a global marketplace. Startup Grind Bogota features incredible talks with entrepreneurs from Startup Grind’s world wide network. Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. We host monthly events in more than 100 cities and 40 countries featuring successful local founders, innovators, educators and investors who share personal stories and lessons learned on the road to building great companies. Our monthly fireside chat interviews, startup mixers and annual conferences provide ample opportunities to connect with amazing startups and the people behind them, tap into a strong support network, form meaningful connections and gain inspiration for the startup journey ahead. Subscribe to Startup Grind Local: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHoM... Startup Grind on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/StartupG... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StartupGrind Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StartupGrind Find a Startup Grind event in your area: www.startupgrind.com

Emily Chang is the San Francisco-based anchor and executive producer of “Bloomberg Technology,” Bloomberg Television’s weekday technology program. She is the author of ""Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley,” which was published by Portfolio Books in February 2018. Arlan Hamilton built a venture capital fund from the ground up, while homeless. She is the Founder and Managing Partner of Backstage Capital, a fund that is dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in tech by investing in high-potential founders who are of color, women, and/or LGBT. GLOBAL CONFERENCE: https://www.startupgrind.com/conference/ READ THE BLOG: https://medium.com/startup-grind TWITTER: https://twitter.com/StartupGrind FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/StartupGrind/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/startup/

Guy Kawasaki Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, a graphics-design online service, and an executive fellow at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. Formerly, he was an advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google and chief evangelist of Apple. He is also the author of APE, What the Plus!, Enchantment, and many other books. Guy has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College. Interviewed by: Jule Lund After 15 years hosting some of the biggest TV and Radio shows in the country, Jules Lund has now taken the audacious step of founding his own tech company, TRIBE. Launched in Nov 2015, TRIBE is a digital marketplace that connects social media influencers with leading brands to transform word of mouth recommendations. Celebrity and everyday influencers who have built audiences around a particular passion or expertise, can now submit and get paid for posts featuring products they already use and love. In 2013, Jules quickly became obsessed with social media as he led ‘The Fifi & Jules’ Facebook Page to become the most engaged brand-page in the entire country. Jules’ social insights have since made him a unique asset, being invited around the country to present to Australia’s biggest agencies on the power of Social Influencer Marketing. Hosted by Chris Joannou Startup Grind APAC Conference Join us in Melbourne Dec 9-10th 2019. https://www.startupgrind.com/events/details/startup-grind-melbourne-presents-startup-grind-apac-conference/

Welcome to the Startup Grind podcast! We're back after a short break. This time from Hong Kong with the one and only Gary Vaynerchuk. We're talking about all things entrepreneurship, social media, China and self-awareness.  If you don't know Gary, here is a short intro: Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of VaynerMedia, a full-service digital agency servicing Fortune 500 clients across the company’s 4 locations. Gary appears with Gwyneth Paltrow, Jessica Alba and Will.i.am on Apple’s first original series “Planet of the Apps” out now! (Click Here to Learn More!) Gary rose to prominence in the late 90’s after establishing one of the first ecommerce wine sites, WineLibrary helping his father grow the family business from 4 to 60MM in sales. Gary is also one of the most sought after public speakers alive today. He is a venture capitalist, 4-time New York Times bestselling author, and an early investor in companies such as Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo and Uber. Gary has been named to bothCrain’s and Fortune’s 40 Under 40 lists. Gary is currently the subject of DailyVee, an online documentary series highlighting what it’s like to be a CEO and public figure in today’s digital world. He is also the host of #AskGaryVee, a business and advice Q&A show online. Gary recently launched his podcast, The Gary Vaynerchuk Audio Experience. Enjoy the episode and let us know what you think! You can also reach out to us on Instagram (DM) @startup or Twitter @StartupGrind. If you're a founder looking to meet other amazing entrepreneurs, check out our Global Conference and globally community! #keepgrinding

Hey there and welcome to Monday’s episode the Startup Grind Podcast. Today we have a conversation with the CEO & Co-founder of Deliveroo, William Shu from our first regional conference, Startup Grind Europe in June of this year. Will is really on a mission to transform the way the world thinks about takeaway food. He founded Deliveroo in August 2013 after becoming fed up with London's poor quality and slow food delivery options. Prior to starting the company, he worked in banking at Morgan Stanley, ESO Capital and SAC Capita. Deliveroo is now in over 50 cities across the world and has attracted $200m worth of investment from some of the world's leading investors, including Index Ventures, Accel and DST Global. Let’s listen into Wiliam Shu on-stage at Startup Grind Europe in June of this year. 

Noah Everett, founder of the popular Twitpic photo sharing service and most recently the messaging platform Pingly.  Everett, a Carolina native is widely known as a pioneer of photo sharing on mobile phones and social media. Newly launched Pingly is a direct messaging platform that also works over email and SMS. His goal is to transform messaging into a simplistic and cohesive process that speaks across networks. Before launching Pingly, Noah was most recently Founder and CEO of TwitPic. What started as a side project quickly turned into one of the largest photo sharing apps of its time, gaining over 30 million users which included many celebrities and politicians. In 2009 the young entrepreneur moved to Charleston, South Carolina just as his site began growing exponentially. TwitPic became one of the largest photo-sharing services on Twitter and was acquired by Twitter in late 2014. Lets listen into Noah Everett interviewed in South Carolina by Director Jeremy Berman. 

Today we have a special interview from our Global Conference with Sebastian Thrun co-founder & CEO of Udacity and former head of Google X.      Sebastian Thrun is also a former Google Fellow and VP, and a Research Professor at Stanford University.    He has published over 370 scientific papers and 11 books, and he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Sebastian works on revolutionizing all of transportation, education, homes, and medical care.    Fast Company named Thrun the fifth most creative person in business, and Foreign Policy touted him Global Thinker #4.  At Stanford, Sebastian led the Thrun Lab in creating Google Streetview. Then, at Google, Sebastian founded Google X. He leveraged X to launch projects like the self-driving cars, Google Glass, indoor navigation, Google Brain, Project Wing and Project Loon.    At Udacity, his vision is to democratize higher education. Udacity stands for "we are audacious, for you, the student". His team created the notion of "nanodegrees" which empower people from all traits and ages to find employent in the tech industry.  Let’s listen into this remarkable thinker interviewed by legendary investor George Zachary at Startup Grind’s Global Conference.    This podcast is brought to you by HBX ­ Harvard Business School’s digital learning initiative. Introducing “Disruptive Strategy with Clayton Christensen,” an engaging and interactive online learning experience from Harvard Business School’s HBX. Learn to create winning strategies to position your organization for long­term success by applying proven disruption and innovation theories from world renowned strategist Clay Christensen. Disruptive Strategy encourages active learning and peer collaboration, and requires a commitment of approximately thirty hours over six weeks. Applications are being accepted for upcoming cohorts in August and October. To learn more, visit disruptivestrategy.org

Hey there and welcome to Monday’s episode of the startup grind podcast. Today we have a great conversation with Joy Randels CEO of New Market Partners and 11 time serial entrepreneur. She also happens to be the director of one of Startup Grind’s best chapters, Tampa Bay. Joy is a highly energetic presenter and frequent speaker on entrepreneurship, security, mobile and cloud technology. Joy co-founded New Market Partners in 2003 to assist emerging technology companies in taking their ideas from concept to a successful business. She also co-founded the Nurturism Media Group, Digital Collective and Applied G2. Joy is also an active angel investor with success most recently through the acquisition of several startup ventures, including Velocitude, a mobile technology company acquired by Akamai Technologies. Let’s listen into Joy Randels live from Startup Grind’s Global Conference Earlier this year. 

Aaron Levie, CEO of Box at Startup Grind’s Global Conference earlier this year. Aaron has been CEO since co-founding the cloud storage company in 2005. Aaron served as the company’s product and platform strategy visionary. His plan incorporated traditional content management with elements of social business software. Aaron is also an advisor at 8 Partners and used to serve as an intern at Paramount Pictures. Aaron studied Business at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.  Lets listen into Aaron Levie live at Startup Grind’s Global Conference Earlier This Year Interviewed by Fortune’s Michal Lev-Ram:   This podcast is brought to you by HBX ­ Harvard Business School’s digital learning initiative. Introducing “Disruptive Strategy with Clayton Christensen,” an engaging and interactive online learning experience from Harvard Business School’s HBX. Learn to create winning strategies to position your organization for long­term success by applying proven disruption and innovation theories from world renowned strategist Clay Christensen. Disruptive Strategy encourages active learning and peer collaboration, and requires a commitment of approximately thirty hours over six weeks. Applications are being accepted for upcoming cohorts in August and October. To learn more, visit disruptivestrategy.org

Hey there and welcome to Monday’s episode of the startup grind podcast. Today we have a great interview with Tina Seelig, acclaimed stanford professor and bestselling author brought to us in Partnership with the Futurecast series a collaboration between the ATT Foundry & Ericsson. Tina Seelig is the Professor of Practice in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. She is also a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, the entrepreneurship center at Stanford University's School of Engineering.  She teaches courses on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship. Tina also teaches and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. Tina earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University School of Medicine where she studied neuroplasticity.  She has worked as a management consultant for Booz, Allen, Hamilton, as a multimedia producer at Company Computer Corporation, and was the founder of a multimedia company called BookBrowser. She has also written 17 books and educational games. Lets listen into Tina Seelig interviewed in Palo Alto at the ATT Foundry by Andrew Keen with some additional audience participation.

Today we have a great conversation with Des Traynor the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-founder of Intercom. Intercom has raised over $66 million dollars to fundamentally change how businesses communicate with customers. A lot of businesses seem to agree as Intercom has over 10,000 paying customers so far. Des’s main focus is on the product side and he has written extensively about managing product builds and iterations through Intercom’s series of books. Des studied computer science in college, and is a designer by trade. His favorite and only hobby is soccer.  Lets listen into Des Traynor speaking live from Startup Grind’s Global Conference earlier this year. 

Eric Schmidt, the now chairman of Alphabet and former CEO of Google from 2001 until 2011 speaks on stage with Startup Grind’s Founder Derek Andersen. Eric’s credentials’ and biography expectedly take a long time to describe, so here is an excerpt:    In addition to his well documented role at Google, Eric is a founding partner at innovation endeavors, founder of tomorrow ventures, chairman of the new america foundation. He is on the board at the economist group, the US foundation for inspiration and recognition of Science & Tech, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute for Advanced Study.    Eric has been the CEO of Micro Focus, CTO of Sun Microsystems, CEO of Sun Technology Enterprises, and a Principle at Bell Laboratories.    Eric has also served on the board of Apple & Siebel Systems. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, and his Graduate and Doctorate degrees from UC Berkeley.    Let’s listen into an illuminating conversation with one of the worlds richest and most powerful people on stage live in London: 

  Today we have a conversation from our 2016 global conference with SoftTech VC Partner & Principal Stephanie Palmeri. Stephanie has over a decade of experience working at the intersection of marketing and technology. Stephanie joined at SoftTech in 2011 and served as its a Senior Associate. Previously, she served as an Associate at NYC Seed and launched the NYC SeedStart incubator.    She also worked at Lot18, Accenture, and Estee Lauder and has built SaaS applications for SAP AG, JP Morgan, and Diageo. Her early experiences include Accenture's market data practice working with investment banking clients like JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.    Stephanie represents SoftTech VC as a board member for Niche, Ubooly, Chariot, Envoy Commerce Corp., Educents, Fatherly, and Spoon Media Inc. Stephanie holds an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School and graduated magna cum laude from Villanova University with joint degrees in Marketing and Management Information Systems.   Lets listen into Stephanie Palmeri live from Startup Grind’s Global Conference in silicon valley this past february. 

Joanne Wilson a prominent angel investor in New York City. Joanne has had several careers on her way as an investor. She started as a buyer at Macy’s, went on to run a company in the rag trade, and eventually ended up spearheading sales for a start-up magazine/events company called Silicon Alley Reporter. She has sat on a number of profit and non-profit boards and has been involved with a variety of big real estate transactions from beginning to end. Joanne has been blogging since 1994 under the name Gotham Gal and has been involved with the start-up community as an angel investor and adviser ever since.   Many of the companies she works with are owned or started by women. Companies like Food52, Dailyworth, The Sweeten, Windowfarms, Scoot, Blue Bottle Coffee, Lover.ly, littleBits, Nest.io, Le Tote, Curbed (Eater/Racked) as well as Ricks Picks, several restaurants and The Moon Group. She is the Chairperson of Hot Bread Kitchen and sits on the board of the Highline.   Lets listen into Joanne Wilson interviewed in NYC by director Peter Crysdale

Archana Vemulapalli, the Chief technology officer for the Mayor’s office for the district of columbia. The office manages over 10,000 employees overseeing 21 Departments, 33 independent agencies, roughly 69 legislatively mandated offices and 5 regional bodies.  These include all city services, public property, police and fire protection, District of Columbia Public Schools, The University of the District of Columbia and the UDC-Community College. The mayor's office oversees an annual city budget of roughly $8.8 billion. Prior to serving as DC's CTO, Archana served as the CTO for Pristine Environments with over 1,000 employees and as the CEO of Intelleva. Ms. Vemulapalli was selected to participate in Leadership Greater Washington's Class of 2015 and the Women in Technology’s Leadership Foundry Class of 2014. Ms. Vemulapalli serves on the Trustees Council of Penn Women at the University of Pennsylvania. She is a NACD Board Governance Fellow.   Archana has a MBA from Georgetown University, a masters from UPenn, and an engineering degree from the University of Madras IIT.  Lets listen into Archana interviewed in Washington DC by Director Brian Park. 

Today we have a conversation with Sarah Bird, CEO of SEOmoz.inc better known as just Moz which has really become the number 1 source for SEO content and tools. Sarah has overseen the growth of Moz from a few hundred to over 23,000 passionate customers from all over the world. She serves on the board of the Washington Technology Industry Association. She regularly speaks about culture, entrepreneurship, search marketing, and business models. Her credits include the University of Washington, Fledge, Startup Weekend, the Microsoft Accelerator Program, Seattle Tech Meetup, the White House Summit on Working families, Seattle Interactive Conference, and Defrag. She was named a Top 100 Women in Tech by the Puget Sound Business Journal.    Lets listen into Sarah Bird interviewed in Seattle by Director Mike Grabham. 

Today we have a great conversation with Silicon Valley Legend Vinod Khosla, co-founder of sun Microsystems and subsequently Khosla Ventures.    Vinod has run Khosla ventures since 2004, prior to that Vinod spent time at the VC firm Kleiner Perkins. Vinod studied engineering in India and at age 20 failed to start a soy milk company. After receiving degrees from in Electrical Engineering from IIT New Delhi, Biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon, and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business Vinod started Sun Microsystems in 1982 which eventually sold to Oracle for over $7 Billion.    Lets listen into Vinod Khosla interviewed in Silicon Valley by Startup Grind’s founder Derek Andersen. 

Today we have a conversation with Jessica Herrin the co-founder of WeddingChannel.com and subsequently the stella & dot family of brands which does over $300M in annual revenue and empowers over 50,000 independent business owners.    Jessica has been recognized for her entrepreneurial accomplishments and her passion on Oprah, in Fortune Magazine, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Glamour Magazine and more. In May , Jessica released her first book: “Find Your Extraordinary: How to Dream Bigger, Live Happier, and Achieve Success on Your Own Terms By Embracing the Entrepreneur In You”. She thrives on the mission of revolutionizing flexible opportunities for women with home parties that are hip. Jessica Graduated from Stanford University.    lets listen into Jessica herrin interviewed by her wedding channel.com co-founder and freestyle capital partner jenny lefcourt. 

CEO and the founder of America Online, Steve Case in Silicon Valley. Steve recently released his first book, The Third Wave, on what the next era of the american startup ecosystem will look like for entrepreneurs. Steve is now the founding partner of the investment firm, Revolution partners which bets on tech entrepreneurs outside of Silicon Valley. So far they’ve backed startups like LivingSocial, Sweetgreen, Bigcommerce, and Handy. Steve became CEO of AOL in 1991 and led the company until the Merger with Time Warner in 2001 in a $164 billion deal that was eventually deemed one of the worst mergers in history. Case attended the prestigious Punahou School, where Barack Obama also went to high school. In 2011 the president appointed him to lead the Startup America Partnership, a nonprofit aimed at spurring the growth of new companies. His Case Foundation is devoted to employing the Internet for more effective and efficient philanthropy. Steve attended Williams College where he received a Bachelor’s degree.  Lets listen into the Founder of the company that got america online, Steve Case interviewed in Silicon Valley Last month.    Quick question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred? A thousand? Twenty thousand?  If your email is anything like mine used to be, the answer is too many. But here’s the thing—even though I knew I wanted to do something about it, I didn’t know how. I knew I’d miss something important if I just deleted them all, and there were too many emails to go through one at a time.  Thankfully I found SaneBox, and I can’t recommend it enough. SaneBox sorts through your email and moves all of the trivial stuff into a different folder so the only messages in your inbox are the ones you actually want to see.  There's also this amazing thing called BlackHole. Move an email into that folder and you’ll never hear from that sender again. It’s so rewarding.  Visit sanebox.com/startupgrind today and get an extra $20 credit on top of the already free two-week trial.   Check it out today and let me know if you love reaching inbox zero as easily as I do nowadays.  Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X.com/startupgrind

Today we have a conversation with Peng T. Ong, one of the most successful entrepreneurs to come out of Singapore. Peng is the founder and CEO of Interwoven, which went public on the NASDAQ. Prior to Interwoven, Peng was co-founder of Match.com which was acquired by IAC. After Interwoven, Peng founded Encentuate, the leader in the enterprise identity management. The three businesses he started now generate annual revenues that total more than $1 billion.  Peng earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas and a Masters in Computer Science from the University of Illinois. Peng is also a passionate music lover and digital hifi fanatic.  Lets listen into Peng Ong interviewed by our Singapore Chapter director earlier this year.  Toptal is an amazing company. They've got over 2,500 developers and designers in their network.  They've screened them extensively so that you get to work with only the top 3%. So basically you just let Toptal know what you're looking for, they understand your business and technical requirements and they search for the right person for the job.  You don't have to do all the screening and interviews that you normally would and they make it really easy for you. You can even do part time hires that are a few hours a week or full time hires too.  You can get an amazing no risk free trial for up to 2 weeksl Get started with Toptal by emailing [email protected].  the best part is that you can work with the developer or designer, and if you're not satisfied by the end of the trial, you don't pay anything.  Toptal pays the talent.  So to get started with this trial, email L a u r a @startupgrind.com

Today we have a great interview with Ben Einstein, general partner and co-founder of Bolt, an early stage venture capital fund that invests and the intersection of hardware and software. Prior to starting bolt, Ben ran Brainstream Design, a product design and development consultancy in Massachusetts. Ben has been directly responsible for bringing a long list of products to market covering diverse sectors including consumer electronics, high-performance audio, sporting goods and green energy. Ben developed his engineering skill sets at MIT.  Lets listen into Ben Einstein interviewed by our Startup Grind Boston Chapter director Carlos Cardenas.  Toptal is an amazing company. They've got over 2,500 developers and designers in their network.  They've screened them extensively so that you get to work with only the top 3%. So basically you just let Toptal know what you're looking for, they understand your business and technical requirements and they search for the right person for the job.  You don't have to do all the screening and interviews that you normally would and they make it really easy for you. You can even do part time hires that are a few hours a week or full time hires too.  You can get an amazing no risk free trial for up to 2 weeksl Get started with Toptal by emailing [email protected].  the best part is that you can work with the developer or designer, and if you're not satisfied by the end of the trial, you don't pay anything.  Toptal pays the talent.  So to get started with this trial, email L a u r a @startupgrind.com

Owner and General Manager of the Seattle Sounders, Adrian Hanauer.  Prior to becoming the owner of the Sounders, Adrian was a seed stage investor in aQuantive Inc. and an early investor in Amazon.com.  He is also the Director at the Cambridge United Football Club Limited and sits on the Board of Trustees for the Museum of History and the Industry Advisory Board at the of The University of Washington. Overall, Adrian has 15 years of business experience in a variety of industries and has invested in numerous early stage technology companies in gaming, advertising, infrastructure, and wireless communications. Adrain has earned an Intercollegiate Sports Master's degree.  Lets listen into Adrian Hanauer interviewed by Startup Grind Seattle Director, Mike Grabham.  Toptal is an amazing company. They've got over 2,500 developers and designers in their network.  They've screened them extensively so that you get to work with the top 3% of developers and designers. So basically what happens is that you let Toptal know what type of developer or designer you're looking for, they understand your business and technical requirements and they search for the right person for you. You don't have to do all the screening and interviews that you normally would and they make it really easy for you. You can even do part time hires that are a few hours a week or full time hires as well.  If you want to get connected to them, send me a note at  [email protected] and I can personally introduce you to my friend Nelson. He's a VP at Toptal who will make sure you get an amazing experience. 

Today we have a great panel discussion between Simon Rothman, Partner at Greylock VC, Andrei Hagiu of the Harvard Business School, and Al Roth Nobel prize winning economist.  Simon is a partner at Reid Hoffmans Greylock Venture Capital firm where he oversees their marketplace investments in companies like lyft and sprig. before greyloc simon built eBay motors from the ground up into a 14 billion a year global business.  Andrei Hagiu is a professor in the strategy group at the Harvard Business School and prinicipal at Market Platform Dynamics. Andrei received a PHD in economics from Princeton University.  Al Roth is the George Gund professor of economics and business administration at Harvard university. In 2012 he won the Nobel prize in economics for his work in matching doctors to hospitals, kidneys to patients and kids to high schools.  Lets listen into Andrei, Simon and Al at Startup Grind’s Global Conference.  Toptal is an amazing company. They've got over 2,500 developers and designers in their network.  They've screened them extensively so that you get to work with the top 3% of developers and designers. So basically what happens is that you let Toptal know what type of developer or designer you're looking for, they understand your business and technical requirements and they search for the right person for you. You don't have to do all the screening and interviews that you normally would and they make it really easy for you. You can even do part time hires that are a few hours a week or full time hires as well.  If you want to get connected to them, send me a note at  [email protected] and I can personally introduce you to my friend Nelson. He's a VP at Toptal who will make sure you get an amazing experience. 

Amy Banse, Managing Director of Comcast ventures. Comcast made news recently when it was announced that their NBCUniversal arm would be buying DreamWorks Animation for 3.8 Billion dollars. Prior to leading Comcast’s corporate venture arm, Amy spent more than 20 years as an in house attorney for Comcast responsible for programming acquisition including brands like E, the golf channel, versus, G4 and more. Amy received her BA from Harvard and her JD from the Temple university law school.  Toptal is an amazing company. They've got over 2,500 developers and designers in their network.  They've screened them extensively so that you get to work with the top 3% of developers and designers. So basically what happens is that you let Toptal know what type of developer or designer you're looking for, they understand your business and technical requirements and they search for the right person for you. You don't have to do all the screening and interviews that you normally would and they make it really easy for you. You can even do part time hires that are a few hours a week or full time hires as well.  If you want to get connected to them, send me a note at  [email protected] and I can personally introduce you to my friend Nelson. He's a VP at Toptal who will make sure you get an amazing experience.   

Today we have a presentation & Q&A with Christine Tsai from the VC stage at Startup Grind’s Global Conference earlier this year. Christine Tsai is a managing partner at 500 Startups, where she oversees the accelerator program and distribution growth team. Prior to 500 Startups, Tsai was in product marketing at Google and YouTube for many years. Before life in consumer internet, Tsai worked in international sales at OSIsoft and ChevronTexaco. Tsai earned a Batchelor's degree in Cognitive Science from the University of California Berkeley. Christine also has has a hobby of ballet dancing, which she has participated in for over 20 years. Lets listen into Christine Tsai from our Global Conference chapter earlier this year. Toptal is an amazing company. They've got over 2,500 developers and designers in their network.  They've screened them extensively so that you get to work with the top 3% of developers and designers. So basically what happens is that you let Toptal know what type of developer or designer you're looking for, they understand your business and technical requirements and they search for the right person for you. You don't have to do all the screening and interviews that you normally would and they make it really easy for you. You can even do part time hires that are a few hours a week or full time hires as well.  If you want to get connected to them, send me a note at  [email protected] and I can personally introduce you to my friend Nelson. He's a VP at Toptal who will make sure you get an amazing experience. 

Today we have a presentation from our 2016 Global conference with Johan Brenner, General Partner of the European based Venture Capital Fund Creandum.  Johan is one of Europe’s most experienced venture capital investors who has worked across a broad set of industries globally. He has built a number of successful businesses as an entrepreneur and has also been a Partner in several other  leading venture capital firms.  Before Creandum, Johan spent more than 4 years as a General Partner at Balderton Capital (previously called Benchmark Capital Europe) with investments in companies like MySQL, Rebtel, Zopa, Habbo Hotel and Wonga. Lets listen into Johan’s presentation on the European Startup Ecosystem at Startup Grind’s Global Conference earlier this year.    Toptal is an amazing company. They've got over 2,500 developers and designers in their network.  They've screened them extensively so that you get to work with the top 3% of developers and designers. So basically what happens is that you let Toptal know what type of developer or designer you're looking for, they understand your business and technical requirements and they search for the right person for you. You don't have to do all the screening and interviews that you normally would and they make it really easy for you. You can even do part time hires that are a few hours a week or full time hires as well.  If you want to get connected to them, send me a note at  [email protected] and I can personally introduce you to my friend Nelson. He's a VP at Toptal who will make sure you get an amazing experience. 

Iliana Montauk the co-founder and chief operating officer of Gaza Sky Geeks, the first startup accelerator in Palestine launched with support from Mercy Corps and Google in 2009. Before arriving to Gaza sky geeks, Iliana helped launch Wamda’s Research Lab. She has previously worked at Google, the Monitor Group, which is now part of Deloitte Consulting, a startup that failed, and a microfinance nonprofit. She graduated from Harvard in 2006 and claims to speak five languages.  Lets listen into Iliana Montauk talk about founding Gaza Sky Geeks from Startup Grind’s Global Conference earlier this year.  Quick question. How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? A hundred? A thousand? Twenty thousand?  If your email is anything like mine used to be, the answer is too many. But here’s the thing—even though I knew I wanted to do something about it, I didn’t know how. I knew I’d miss something important if I just deleted them all, and there were too many emails to go through one at a time.  Thankfully I found SaneBox, and I can’t recommend it enough. SaneBox sorts through your email and moves all of the trivial stuff into a different folder so the only messages in your inbox are the ones you actually want to see.  There's also this amazing thing called BlackHole. Move an email into that folder and you’ll never hear from that sender again. It’s so rewarding.  Visit sanebox.com/startupgrind today and get an extra $20 credit on top of the already free two-week trial.   Check it out today and let me know if you love reaching inbox zero as easily as I do nowadays.  Again, that’s S-A-N-E-B-O-X.com/startupgrind

Today we have a conversation from the VC corner stage at Startup Grind's Global Conference held each year in Silicon Valley. Joining us today is a presentation by Clara Brenner co-founder and CEO of the Tumml Urban Solutions Accelerator which has supported supported companies like HandUp, Chariot, and Popupsters solve problems specifics to cities and dense populations.    Prior to founding Tumml, she worked in real estate development – at a real estate tech startup called Fundrise, as well as at AECOM, GVA Advantis, and Monument Realty.    Clara earned her MBA from MIT Sloan and her BA from NYU. She is a member of the MIT Sloan Alumni Board. In January 2014, Forbes listed her as one of its “30 Under 30” for Social Entrepreneurship.   Lets listen into Clara Brenner live from the VC stage at Startup Grind’s Global Conference 

Today we have a conversation with Eoghan McCabe, Co-Founder & CEO of one of the worlds largest customer engagement platforms, Intercom.    Eoghan previously founded an award-winning software design consultancy called Contrast, and co-founded Exceptional, a developer tool startup acquired in 2011 by Rackspace. He moved from Ireland to San Francisco that same year to start Intercom. Intercom has really become a fundamentally new way for internet businesses to communicate with customers, personally, at scale. The company has raised $116M from 500 startups, bessemer ventures, iconiq capital, biz stone and several more inidivudal and insttutional investors. Intercom now has over 10k happy paying customers around the world including Startup Grind!    Lets listen into Eoghan McCabe the co-founder and CEO of intercom interviewed by yours truly in San francisco earlier this month. 

Today we have a panel discussion between 3 Venture Capitalists from the VC corner stage at Startup Grind’s 2016 global conference held annually each February in Silicon Valley. Rachel Chalmers is a principle at Ignition partners, prior to ignition Rachel led research into enterprise computing infrastructure for the 451 Group.  Nick Sturiale, is the managing partner at Ignition Partners, prior to becoming MP at Ignition Nick spent 15 years in venture helping over 100 startups including Reputation.com, Bill.com and Delphix. As an operator Nick was the founding CEO of Timbre Technologies which sold to Tokyo electron for 138 million dollars in 2001.  Sandeep Bhadra is a partner with Menlo Ventures where he actively focuses on enterprise investments including AppDome, Platform9, and Signifyd. Sandeep had a Phd from the university of Texas and an MBA from INSEAD.  Let’s listen into this interesting discussion with Rachel, Nick, and Sandeep at Startup Grind’s Global Conference. 

Nir Eyal moderated by tech author and TechCrunch writer Andrew Keen. This content was brought to us in partnership with Futurecast which is a thought leadership series, produced in collaboration between the ATT foundry and Ericsson.   Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. The M.I.T. Technology Review dubbed Nir, “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.” Nir founded two tech companies since 2003 and has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. He is the author of the bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Nir is also an advisor to several Bay Area start-ups, venture capitalists, and incubators. In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir is a contributing writer for TechCrunch, Inc. and Psychology Today. Nir attended The Stanford Graduate School of Business and Emory University. In the following conversation with Andrew plus some audience participation, Nir dives deep into the psychology, marketing and creation of the technology that accessorizes our daily lives. Let’s listen into Nir Eyal & Andrew Keen speaking at the Futurecast series hosted in Palo Alto. 

Author Daniel Pink. Daniel Pink is the author of 5 disruptive books including 3 long-running New York Times best sellers including A Whole New Mind, Drive, and To Sell is Human.    Dan’s books have been translated into 34 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. Dan’s TED talk on the science of motivation is one of the 10 most-watched TED talks of all time, with more than 19 million views. He received a BA from Northwestern University and a JD from Yale Law School. Dan lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and three children.    He drops some serious keys to success in this conversation including how to pitch, how to hire salespeople, and how to think about the problems you’re solving. The conversation started trending on twitter in Washington DC.    Lets listen into Daniel Pink in Washington DC interviewed by Director Brian Park 

Gagan Biyani, the CEO and co-founder of Sprig, whose mission it is to make eating well simple.   Open your phone when you're hungry, tap a button and get a healthy meal delivered in 15 minutes. Sprig has raised $57M from Greylock Partners and Social Capital Partnership and is available in San Francisco, Chicago and Palo Alto. Prior to founding Sprig, he was a Growth Advisor for Lyft where he led supply and demand acquisition for their launch in Los Angeles. Gagan previously was co-founder and President of the education marketplace, Udemy, which has raised $113M and has over 7 million students worldwide. __  Gagan is interviewed by Greylock Partner, Simon Rothman. Simon invests in entrepreneurs building consumer networks and platforms, and he leads Greylock’s $100 million commitment to marketplace investments. His area of focus includes network effects businesses and transaction-based startups with a specialty around marketplaces. He has served as an advisor to many marketplaces and networks including Lyft, Tango, Taskrabbit, Poshmark, and others. Simon also leads Greylock’s $100 million commitment to marketplace investments.

Today we have a conversation with former professional footballer or professional soccer player if you’re tuning in from the US turned entrepreneur Varun Chandran.  Varun is the founder & CEO of Corporate360. Corporate360 is a BigData software company that helps B2B marketers discover sales leads, ideal buyer profiles & competitive intelligence. Corporate360 was founded in 2012, in Singapore and now has offices in USA, India, Ireland and Philippines. In 2015, ProspectR, Corporate360's marketing data software won the best new product award at the prestigious Stevie Awards for sales & customer service. Prior to founding Corporate360, Varun worked as a Sales & Marketing manager for companies like SAP, Oracle, NetApp and others.  Varun is a graduate of the Berkeley Haas School of Business.  Lets listen into Varun Chandran interviewed at our Startup Grind Trivandrum india chapter. 

Alex Austin founder & CEO of branch metrics who is joined by founders fund partner and former spacex engineer scott nolan.    alex received an MS in Electrical Engineering & an MBA from stanford. In between degrees, he spent five years building a solar panel manufacturing facility from scratch in Santa Clara. While at stanford business school Alex also built an SDK for Android and iOS that is now live on over seven million phones world wide. Alex is now the CEO of Branch Metrics, taking the lessons he learned as a mobile app developer to building a mobile linking platform that helps apps grow and give their users better experiences.   Scott Nolan is a Partner at Founders Fund, where he focuses on investments in technology-driven companies across sectors including energy, biotechnology, aerospace, healthcare and advanced manufacturing.  Prior to Founders Fund, Scott was an early employee at SPACEX.  There, he helped develop the propulsion systems used on the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Dragon vehicles and was responsible for the Dragon capsule’s thermal and environmental control subsystems. Lets listen into Alex and Scott’s conversation from our Silicon Valley chapter

Today we have a great conversation with the founder and CEO of Change.org. Change.org is the worlds largest platform for social change with more than 100 million users.    Named one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world, Fortune's 40 Under 40 rising young business leaders, and Fast Company's most creative people in business, Ben is a prominent thought leader on the intersection of technology, innovation, and social change.    He has received the Commonwealth Club's 21st Century Visionary Award, keynoted South by Southwest and Web Summit, and has been profiled in dozens of news outlets including the New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, and CNN.    Ben is a graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics, and Change.org is backed by investors such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and the founders of Linkedin, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo!    Let’s listen into Ben Rattray interviewed in Washington D.C. by chapter director Brian Park.   

Today we have a conversation with entrepreneur & investor and co founder of software development company Gigster Roger Dickey.  Prior to founding Gigster, Roger led game studios at Zynga after joining when the company had just 30 employees after selling his first company Curiosoft to zynga. Roger oversaw MafiaWar’s explosive growth to over 100million users and 1billion dollars in revenue.  Roger also as an international product team advisor for Zynga helping the company grow their games in India, Japan and China.  Alongside his work at Zynga, Roger began advising & investing in bay-area startups in 2010. His investments include Docker, Addepar, iCracked, OpenGov, ClassDojo, and Wanelo. Advisory roles include Formation 8, Nest, OpenDoor, and The Thiel Fellowship. Lets listen into Roger Dickey interviewed at our san Francisco chapter by startup grind editor in chief Michael Gasiorek. 

John Harthorne is the Founder and CEO of MassChallenge, the most startup-friendly accelerator on the planet.    No equity and not-for-profit, MassChallenge is obsessed with helping entrepreneurs across any industry.    They also reward the highest-impact startups through a competition to win a portion of several million dollars in equity-free cash awards.    Through MassChallenge’s global network of accelerators in Boston, London, Jerusalem, Geneva, and Mexico City, and unrivalled access to corporate partners, entrepreneurs can have a massive impact - driving growth and creating value the world over. To date, 835 MassChallenge alumni have raised over $1.1 billion and created over 6,500 jobs.    John earned his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2007. While at school, John won Grand Prize in the 2007 MIT $100K Business Plan Competition and received the 2007 Patrick J. McGovern Award for impact on quality and visibility of entrepreneurship at MIT.    The World Economic Forum also elected John as one of the 2013 Young Global Leaders alongside Chelsea Clinton and Tony Hsieh.    John is a life-long Massachusetts resident and an avid Red Sox fan. He currently lives in Newton with his wife, Natalia, their 9-year old son Max and their 5-year old girl Yulia.   Lets Listen into John Harthorne interviewed at our Startup Grind Boston chapter by Director Carlos Cardenas. 

Rod Drury who is the founder of the popular accounting software Xero.  Rod is a well known technology entrepreneur, CEO and co-founder of the online accounting software company Xero. He has been recognised as New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013, Business Leader of the Year in 2012, member of the New Zealand Hi-Tech Hall of Fame, NZ Hi-Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006 and 2007, World Class New Zealander for ICT in 2008 and an Honorary Fellow of the NZ Computer Society. Xero has also recently been ranked No #1 by Forbes in its list of the World’s 100 Most Innovative Growth Companies. Xero was also recently valued at close to 2 billion dollars.  Lets listen into Rod Drury, interviewed by Startup Grind Melbourne Chapter Director Chris Jounnou. 

Amit Kapur who is the founder & managing partner at Dawn Patrol Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by AOL & Verizon. Amit loves building startups. He was the CEO of analytics company Gravity which was acquired by AOL for $90M. Prior to that he was the COO of Myspace, starting as a BD lead managing mobile and music efforts. MySpace was originally acquired by News Corp for $580M. Amit has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Stanford University.    Let’s listen into Amit Kapur interviewed by Startup Grind Los Angeles Chapter Director Joe Famalette. 

Today we are doing something a bit different and feature content from the Futurecast thought leadership series which is a collaboration between the ATT foundry & Ericsson. The featured guest of the event is young guru who is an esteemed  audio engineer, DJ, and producer on more than 10 of jay-z’s albums including his hit track “empire state of mind”  Young guru takes the audience on an exploration of technology, content creation, and the democratization of content. Andrew keen is the moderator of the discussion and executive director of the future cast series. Author of popular books like the cult of the amateur & the internet is not the answer, keen was named 1 of GQ’s 100 most connected men in 2015.  Directly prior to the discussion you are about to hear, several music industry related products were demoed to the audience. We’ll hear a bit about those products from their founders starting around halfway into the interview.  Running an hour and 20 minutes this episode is a bit longer than our normal ones but it is definitely worth it. It’s a true deep dive into the music industry and how new disruptive digital technologies are shaping it for better or for worse.  Lets listen into Young Guru interviewed in February by moderator Andrew Keen at the ATT foundry in Palo Alto. 

Julia Gillard was the first and, to date, only female Australian Prime Minister. As Prime Minister and in her previous role as Deputy Prime Minister, Gillard was central to the successful management of Australia’s economy during the Global Financial Crisis and as Australia positioned to seize the benefits of Asia’s rise.  Gillard developed Australia’s guiding policy paper, Australia in the Asian Century. She delivered nation- changing policies including reforming Australia education at every level from early childhood to university education, creating an emissions trading scheme, improving the provision and sustainability of health care, aged care and dental care, commencing the nation’s first ever national scheme to care for people with disabilities and restructuring the telecommunications sector as well as building a national broadband network.   In foreign policy, Gillard strengthened Australia’s alliance with the United States, secured stronger architecture for the relationship with China, upgraded Australia’s ties with India, and deepened ties with Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. Gillard has represented Australia at the G20, including winning Australia’s right to host the 2014 meeting, the East Asia Summit, APEC, NATO-ISAF and chaired CHOGM. Under Gillard’s leadership, Australia was elected to serve on the United Nations Security Council.   In 2014, Gillard was appointed chair of the Global Partnership for Education, a leading organization dedicated to expanding access and quality education worldwide.   In February 2015, Gillard was appointed Chancellor of Dūcere, Australia’s leading education provider for business and management courses from Diploma levels through to a world’s first MBA program. On her appointment Gillard said ‘the connection between higher education, industry and government is vital to the future success of academic institutions. So too are the links between academic underpinning and real world learning at all levels of education which is one of the main reasons for my involvement with Ducere’

Amish started his first company in 1998 when he was just 25. He has a proven track record in leadership, sales, marketing, strategy and recruiting. Venture Capital firms, C-level executives, and Founders of early and mid-stage startups from around the globe call on him directly for his consultation and advisement before making major decisions that will have an impact on their bottom line. Amish’s passion is contagious to the people around him, and his results oriented approach of getting things done paired with his success over the years have given him a keen eye for his firm SierraMaya360 when evaluating potential investments. He is also a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox News.   Lets listen into Amish Shah interviewed by Startup Grind Director Jeremy Berman in Charleston. 

Gerard Adams the Co-Founder of Elite Daily.  Elite Daily, quickly became the No.1 news platform for Generation Y. Gerard is an experienced angel investor, millennial thought leader and social entrepreneur who overcame early adversity to become a self-made millionaire by the age of 24. Now 30, he has built, backed or invested in nine businesses and trades across multiple industries that have all delivered over seven-figure profits. In December 2011, Gerard co-founded and invested in his fastest-growing business idea: Elite Daily. Known as the “Voice of “Generation Y,” the website quickly grew to become the No. 1 platform for news geared toward millennials and was acquired by The Daily Mail in 2015. Passionate about giving back to his community, Gerard helped develop affordable housing for communities in Newark, NJ, where his father and family grew up. He lives in Manhattan with his dog, a dachshund named GiGi.  Lets listen into Gerard adams interviewed at our New York City Chapter. 

Selcuk Atli, a serial entrepreneur and current entrepreneur in residence at 500 startups. He’s a YCombinator alumnus, an Endeavor Entrepreneur and a Fulbright Scholar. He's founded Boostable, Manifest and the non-profit Nomadic Mentors.      Selcuk most recently founded Boostable an advertising platform based in San Francisco and raised over 4 million dollars from silicon valley investors like YCombinator, 500 Startups and SVAngel. Boostable graduated from YCombinator's Winter 2014 class as one of the top companies featured by Techcrunch and Business Insider.    Boostable helps online marketplaces like eBay offer digital advertising as a service to their sellers.   Lets listen into Selcuk interviewed at our startup grind Toronto chapter by Director Murray McKercher. 

Co-founder and CEO of the 3D printing company Formlabs, Maxim lobovsky.    Maxim’s time as a student at the MIT Media Lab allowed him to experience the power of rapid prototyping and 3D printing technologies to produce custom designs for his work. Seeing an enormous opportunity, in 2011 Maxim Lobovsky and two other colleagues from MIT founded Formlabs, a startup developing an affordable high-resolution 3D printer enabling designers, engineers, and makers to easily realize their dreams in beautiful physical form.    After a highly successful crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter and additional rounds of funding, Formlabs announced the Form 1, their fist prosumer model, and on September 2015 launched the Form 2, a new model with larger capacity, upgraded features and simpler usability.    Maxim holds an MS on Media Arts and Sciences program at MIT, and a BS in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University.   Lets listen into Maxim Lobosky interviewed at our Startup grind Boston Chapter by Director Carlos Cardenas. 

Manish Chandra the founder and ceo of the poplar fashion community app Poshmark. Poshmark is the largest community marketplace for fashion where millions of women come to buy, sell and share their personal style.    Manish has always been passionate about building communities and founded the first social shopping company, Kaboodle, which was acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 2007. With Poshmark, Manish has applied his understanding of technology to change the way women think about shopping, building a passionate community based around people’s love for fashion and each other. Manish received a Bachlors in Technology from  IIT Kanpur, and a Masters of Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and an the MBA from Haas School of Business. 

New York Times best selling author Brant Cooper at our San Diego Chapter. Brant is the author of "the Lean Entrepreneur" and the entrepreneurs guide to the lean brand.    Brant’s startup career includes Tumbleweed, Timestamp, WildPackets, inCode, and many others. Brant previously authored The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, the first purpose-written book to discuss Lean Startup and Customer Development concepts.    He has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs across the globe. Brant is the Co-Founder of Moves the Needle Group, which has advised the innovation practices of such leading companies as General Electric, Intuit, Capital One, ADP, and Transamerica. He is Founder of StartupSandiego.co, Organizer for SD Tech Founders.    Lets listen into Brant Cooper interview in San Diego 

2011 interview with VentureBeat & TechCrunch writer, and current Google Ventures partner MG Siegler. MG has been deeply involved in the startup space since 2005, first as a web developer, then as a writer, and most recently as an investor and advisor. Before joining Google Ventures in 2013, M.G. was a founding partner of CrunchFund, an early-stage investment fund. Prior to that, he reported on the startup world as a writer for both TechCrunch and VentureBeat. M.G. still writes a column for TechCrunch on top of writing on his own sites and from time-to-time doing movie reviews in haiku. Originally from Ohio, M.G. graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor before moving out west to work in Hollywood. One day, he hopes to write a killer screenplay.

Today we have a special interview with the Founder and CEO of Fiverr.com Micha Kauffman interviewed by director Ram Yonish in Tel Aviv earlier this year. Fiverr is the world's most transacted marketplace for services, creating economic opportunities for the entrepreneurs of the gig economy. Fiverr was founded by Shai Wininger and Micha Kaufman in 2009 and currently lists more than three million services on the site that range between $5 and $500. Fiverr.com has been ranked among the top 100 most popular sites in the U.S. and top 150 in the world since the beginning of 2013.   During August 2014, Fiverr announced that it has raised $30 million in a Series C round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel and other investors. The round brings their total funding to date to $50 million.   Micha is also an active angel investor

Jean Oelwang is the CEO of Virgin Unite, the entrepreneurial foundation of the Virgin Group and a Partner in the Virgin Group focused on People Innovation. In 2003, Jean left her post as joint CEO of Virgin Mobile Australia to begin working with Richard Branson and the Virgin staff from around the world to create Virgin Unite. Over the last 10 years, Jean has worked with partners to create new approaches to social and environmental issues, such as the Branson Centres of Entrepreneurship and a global platform to support budding entrepreneurs. She has built collaborations to incubate a number of global leadership initiatives such as The Elders, the Carbon War Room and The B Team. In addition, Jean has been instrumental in working with over 25 Virgin businesses across 15 industries to put the wellbeing of people and planet at their core. In her previous life, Jean lived and worked on five continents helping to lead successful mobile phone start-ups in South Africa, Colombia, Bulgaria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the US. Jean has long explored the overlap of the business and not-for-profit sectors and has been involved in both, having worked for the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife in Australia, and in numerous volunteer roles, including a stint as a VISTA volunteer where she worked with – and learned from – homeless teens in Chicago. She sits on the Advisory Council for The Elders and the Boards of the Carbon War Room, the B Team, the Ocean Elders and Just Capital.

Anthony Soohoo is Co-Founder & CEO of Dot & Bo, a uniquely curated shopping experience that makes modern design accessible and inspires people to create their dream homes. Drawing upon his background in media and technology, he launched Dot & Bo in 2013 to solve for the often-frustrating experience of shopping for furniture, in which design advice is traditionally expensive and customer service is extremely limited. Prior to starting Dot & Bo, Anthony was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Entertainment Division at CBS Interactive which included CBS.com, CBS Audience Network, TV.com, The Insider.com, Chow, Chowhound, UrbanBaby, and CBS Interactive Web Original Studio. During his tenure, Soohoo helped grow the CBS Interactive Entertainment Division to become one of the leading entertainment networks on the web. He joined CBS in 2007 with its acquisition of Dotspotter, one of the fastest growing community-powered entertainment properties on the Internet where he served as Co-Founder and CEO. Prior to Dotspotter, Soohoo held product and leadership roles at Yahoo!, Inktomi and Apple. Soohoo earned his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He was selected in TechCrunch's “40 Over 40” list and The Hollywood Reporter's Digital Power List as one of the top 50 executives leading the charge in new media. He is an advisor/investor to a number of consumer startups.

Bill Bryant is a partner at DFJ (formerly Draper Fisher Jurvetson), focused on early- and growth-stage investments in enterprise, consumer and disruptive technologies. Bill has had early and instrumental involvement in more than 25 leading software, mobile, and digital media companies, as a founder, senior executive, investor, and board member.    He has had founding roles with Visio (now part of Microsoft), Netbot (acquired by Excite), Qpass (acquired by Amdocs), Medio (Nokia), Mixxer, and Airworks.    Bill represents DFJ on the boards of Bright Computing, Chef, Ping Identity, Z2Live, Remitly, and The Clymb.  In addition to his DFJ investments, he is an active angel investor with investments in Winshuttle, LiquidPlanner, Bonanza, and Socrata.   Lets listen into Bill Bryant interview at our Seattle Chapter by director Mike Grabham. 

Daniel Klausssen, Senior Director within the Innovation Strategy Department at Marriott International. Prior to joining Marriott, Daniel led the complete re-development of the Public Broadcasting Systems digital strategy including all of their mobile apps, streaming tools, and architecture. Prior to that he was a stay at home dad while consulting for startups after a career at legendary silicon valley companies like Netscape, Borland, and Collabra. Daniel grew up in Squaw Valley California and received a degree in physics from the university of colorado at boulder.    Lets listen into Daniel Klaussen interviewed by Tom Denison at our Chicago Startup Grind Chapter.    Startup Grind is Brought to You By:  Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

Jon Steinberg who at the time was the President and COO of Buzzfeed. Following Buzzfeed he became CEO of the US version of the Daily Mail Online and a Board Member of Bustle. He is an Ex-Googler previously as a Strategic Partner Development Manager on Google’s SMB Partnerships team. Prior to Google, Jon was the Director of Business Development at Majestic Research and the founder of iBuilding, a commercial real estate software company backed by Tishman Speyer Properties, Benchmark Capital, and 12 Entrepreneuring. He is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and holds an MBA from Columbia University.   Lets listen into Jon Steinberg interviewed at our Startup Grind NYC Chapter in 2013.   Startup Grind is Brought to You By:    Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

Nigel Morris, co-founder of the Capital One Financial Corporation. Nigel started Capital One with the simple idea of dropping annual fee’s for credit cards and instead target different credit cards to specific segments of the population. Now it's a publicly traded company with over $20 Billion in revenues headquartered in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. Nigel is now the managing partner of QED Investors, a direct investment fund focused on high-growth companies that leverage the power of data strategies. In addition, he serves on the board of numerous companies, including TransUnion, Red Ventures, Prosper, MediaMath, and Braintree. He has angel invested in Webs.com (acq by VistaPrint for $117M) and AddThis. Lets listen into Nigel Morris interviewed in Washington DC by chapter director Brian Park.    Startup Grind is Brought to You By:    Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

Jim Bankoff.  Jim is CEO and Chairman of Vox Media, a global internet media company that currently has three major editorial brands, SB Nation, The Verge, and Polygon, a video-gaming site. SB Nation, its sports brand, boasts over 30mm users per month across 300 individually branded, fan-centric sports communities, each covering a specific professional or college team, league or sport. In November 2011, Vox Media launched The Verge, which has quickly established itself as a category leader and the fastest growing site that covers technology. In October 2013, Vox launched Polygon, a site dedicated to news and community for fans of gaming, anchored by an all-star roster of writers. All Vox Media sites are built upon its world-class proprietary publishing platform. As the former Executive Vice President of Programming and Products at AOL, Bankoff has developed and led many notable websites including Aol.com, Mapquest, Moviefone, AOL Music, Netscape and AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) . He is also known for establishing websites TMZ, Fanhouse, BloggingStocks and Engadget. The company enjoys support from leading investors including Accel Partners, Comcast Interactive Capital and Khosla Ventures. He is also a Senior Advisor for Providence Equity Partners.   Lets listen into Jim Bankoff interviewed by  Brian Park in Washington DC .    Startup Grind is Brought to You By:    Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

Jennifer Dulski President & COO of the social advocacy platform Change.org. An early Yahoo! employee, Jennifer led one of the company's 6 Business units, serving as group VP and general manager of local and commerce. In 2007, Jennifer left Yahoo! to become co-founder and CEO of The Dealmap, a location-based deals site that Google acquired in 2011. She served as a senior executive at Google for two years before joining Change.org in January 2013. Jennifer's first job out of college was founding and running the Pittsburgh site of the Breakthrough Collaborative, a non-profit organization helping underserved students get on a path to college. She currently chairs the board of the Silicon Valley site of the Breakthrough Collaborative and serves on the board of Little Passports.    Lets listen into Jennifer Dulski interviewed in San Francisco by Archive.ly founder Perri Gorman.    Startup Grind is Brought to You By:  Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

Tony Wheeler. When Tony and his wife arrived in Sydney in 1972 after a six month trip through Asia from Europe toward Australia, they decided to start Lonely Planet Publications to publish the story of their journey - Across Asia on the Cheap. From those humble beginnings, Lonely Planet Publications has grown to become the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher with more than 500 titles in print and over 400 staff around the world. In 2011, Tony completed the sale of Lonely Planet, and though he doesn’t have a formal role in the company, he still keeps busy writing books such as Tony Wheeler’s Dark Lands.    Lets listen into Tony wheeler interviewed by our Startup Grind Melbourne Chapter Director.    Startup Grind is Brought to You By:    Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

United States Congresswoman Suzan DelBene. Prior to her election as the representative for Washington’s 1st congressional district in 2012, Suzan held various tech exec roles including as the Co-Founder and VP of Drugstore.com which sold to Walgreens for $409M. Suzan has also served as the CEO of Nimble Technology and as Microsofts VP of Mobile Communications. Earlier in her career at Microsoft, Suzan worked on the famed Windows 95 operating system. She has a degree in biology from Reed College and a MBA from the university of Washington.    Startup Grind is Brought to You By:    Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

Daehee Park & JT Marino. The two founded Tuft & Needle with the idea that it is possible to create high quality products and charge a fair price to customers.  Launched in 2012 by two software engineers, Tuft & Needle was the first vertically integrated ecommerce mattress company to focus on selling one perfect product: an unbeatable mattress at an unbeatable price. With a background in ecommerce and marketing, prior to Tuft & Needle Daehee Park served as a consultant at Acxiom Corporation. Daehee received his bachelor’s degree in Security & Risk Analysis at Penn State University. John-Thomas (“JT”) Marino leads product and software development. With a passion for thoughtfully designed customer experiences, JT started his career at Hashrocket helping startups build just that. With roots in Northeastern Pennsylvania, JT studied Computer Science at Penn State University.   Startup Grind is Brought to You By:    Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

Matt Barrie is an Australian technology entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Freelancer.com: the world's leading freelancing and crowd-sourcing marketplace and Eight-time Webby-award winner. Matt was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011 by BRW and in 2014 he was named the most influential person in technology in Australia by Smart Company.  After graduating at Stanford University Matt worked as a venture capitalist at Innovation Capital. Then he founded Sensory Networks that was acquired by Intel Corporation in 2013. In 2009 Matt foundedFreelancer.com and listed it on the ASX in 2013. It is today valued at over $600 million and grows at the rate of 40% per year. We will sit down for a fireside chat with Matt at Startup Grind London to talk about freelancing, crowd-sourcing, the future of work and building globally successful companies. 

Today we have a great episode with the co-founder of Genius, formerly rap genius Mahbod Moghadam whose current project is helping to run everipedia, the encyclopedia for people and more. in 2014 Genius had raised a total of 56.9 million from investors such as Andressen Horowitz. Moghadam and his co-founder came up with the idea for Rap Genius in the summer of 2009 when Lehman asked Moghadam about the meaning of a Cam'ron lyric. Moghadam was a Fulbright scholar to France and following Yale Undergrad, a graduate of Stanford Law School. After a departure from Genius in May 2014 he met Everipedia co-founder Sam Kazemian when he was giving a talk at UCLA, and immediately fell in love with Everipedia. He had planned on retiring because of traumatic brain surgery but Everipedia lured him out of retirement. Everipedia's mission is to make information on the internet more accessible by connecting individuals to their digital footprint.  

Juan Diego Calle the Founder of the .CO domain business. Prior to founding .CO which was  by Neustar, Inc. in April of 2014, while at the university of Miami, Juan Diego launched and ran TeRespondo.com, a performance-based advertising network, which he sold to Yahoo in 2005.    Juan Diego also currently serves as the chairman of STRAAT, a company builder software based in Miami, Florida. Juan Diego also co-founded Building.co,  a collaborative work space for growing tech companies, Classic.com, a classic car restoration business, POP.co,  a platform designed to help entrepreneurs and businesses get online, and BoutiqueHotels.com a hand-curated list of boutique hotels around the world.  He’s an alumni of the Harvard Business School OPM program.  lets listen into Juan Diego Calle interviewed by our Bogota Colombia Chapter director. 

Jason joined Maveron in 2007 and is now a partner focused on investing in education, e-commerce and web-enabled consumer businesses. He is involved with the firm's investments in General Assembly, Common, TrueFacet, Julep, Everlane, CourseHero, Dolls Kill and Lively.  Prior to joining Maveron, Jason served as senior director of strategic operations for Career Education Corp., where he co-founded and led admissions and marketing for IADT Online, a for-profit design school. He has also served as an associate at Spinnaker Ventures, an expansion-stage venture capital fund.  Jason graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in economics from the University of Michigan  and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Adam Nash, CEO of Wealth Front. As president and CEO of Wealthfront, Adam has built the company around a centralized mission to always put the client first and change the bad practices that plague the financial services industry. Adam joined Wealthfront from Greylock Partners, where he was an Executive-in-Residence. Prior to Greylock, he was VP of Product Management at LinkedIn, where he built the teams responsible for core product, user experience, platform and mobile. Adam held a number of leadership roles at eBay that included Director of eBay Express, as well as strategic and technical roles at Atlas Venture Preview Systems and Apple. Adam holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and BS and MS degrees in Computer Science from Stanford University.    

Tony Xu founded Door Dash as a local delivery service for Stanford students and participated in the Y Combinator incubator with his co founders while polishing the business model. Prior to co-founding Door Dash, tony worked in product at Square, led special projects for the CEO and CFO at eBay, and began his career at McKinsey and Company. He holds a B.S. with High Honors in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from UC Berkeley and a MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar. 

William Pence who is the CTO of AOL. As the CTO of AOL William leads all aspects of AOL’s global technology strategy, platform development, and external technology partnerships. He also plays a key leadership role in the overall strategy and direction of AOL.  Before joining AOL, William served as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of WebMD from 2007 to 2014 as well as Chief Operating Officer of WebMD from 2012 to 2014. Prior to WebMD, William served as Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President at Napster from 2003 to 2007. From 2001 to 2003, he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of pressplay, a Universal Music Group/Sony Music Entertainment joint venture, and from 2000 to 2001 he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Universal Music Group. Previously, William spent more than a decade at IBM.   William received a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Virginia, and a PhD. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Barry Nalebuff is the Milton Steinbach Professor of Economics and Management at the Yale School of Management. A graduate of MIT, a Rhodes Scholar and Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, Nalebuff earned his doctorate at Oxford University. In addition to founding Honest Tea, Professor Nalebuff also serves on the board of Nationwide Insurance. An expert on game theory, Barry has written extensively on its application to business strategy. His most recent book, Mission in a Bottle, is written with Honest Tea Co-Founder Seth Goldman. In graphic format, the book tells the story of Honest Tea and provides strategic advice for entrepreneurs. lets listen into Barry Nalebuff interviewed by our startup grind new haven chapter director Adam Muniz. 

Mike Cassidy who is currently a vice president at Google and Project leader on Google x’s project loon which is an attempt to blanket the globe in wireless connectivity using hot air balloons. Before joining google Mike was a serial entrepreneur founding companies like rubber, xfire, direct hit, and stylus innovation.  Mike has a BS/MS in Aerospace Engineering from MIT and graduated from the Harvard Business School.

Christine Tsai, the founding partner of 500 Startups, one of the worlds most active, well known, and internationally focused incubators. Tsai has invested in over 150 companies including Ipsy, Sprig, Bombfell, and Storefront, and also oversees the accelerator and distribution teams at 500. Prior to 500 Christine was in product marketing at Google and YouTube for many years. She worked on Developer Platforms and Google I/O, Google’s annual developer conference. She also worked on Google AdSense, Analytics and YouTube syndication. Before that, Christine held roles in international sales at OSIsoft and ChevronTexaco. Christine has a BA in Cognitive Science from the University of California at Berkeley. She is also a ballet dancer of 25 years. 

Sarah Wood the founder of the video ad tech startup Unruly. Sarah co-founded Unruly in 2010 and it was named the UK’s second fastest growing tech companies in 2012. Unruly’s core mission is to deliver the most awesome social video campaigns on the planet. They are currently the leading programmatic platform for social video advertising, powered by their proprietary supply side mobile distribution technology which make campaigns scalable in native formats. Prior to being named one of inc magazines top 15 women to watch in tech, Sarah was an academic and professor and currently still teaches as an associate lecturer at the university of Cambridge. Unruly was recently acquired by News Corp for 176 million dollars. 

Paul Singh who is a former partner at 500 Startups and currently the director of the 1776 incubator co-working space in Washington DC. previously Paul was the founder of Disruption Corporation which provided tools, research and advisory services to corporations, angel investors and venture capital firms. Paul is also an investor via the Crystal Tech Fund. Previously, he was a Partner at 500 Startups and has overseen the investments in 525+ companies across 35+ countries. He is currently serving as an Entrepreneur in Residence with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Let’s listen into Paul Singh interviewed by Oleg Yefymov our chapter director in Halifax, Canada. 

Steve is one of America’s best-known and most accomplished entrepreneurs and a pioneer in making the Internet part of everyday life. He currently serves as Chairman and CEO of Revolution LLC, a Washington, D.C.- based investment firm he co-founded in 2005, where he partners with visionary entrepreneurs to build significant “built to last” new businesses. The mission is to establish Revolution as the premier firm outside of Silicon Valley. Steve’s entrepreneurial career began in 1985 when he co-founded America Online (AOL). Under Steve’s leadership, AOL became the world’s largest and most valuable Internet company, driving the worldwide adoption of a medium that has transformed business and society. AOL was the first Internet company to go public and among the best performing stocks of the 1990s, delivering an 11,616% return to shareholders.  At its peak, nearly half of Internet users in the United States used AOL.  Steve’s passion for helping entrepreneurs remains his driving force. He was the founding chair of the Startup America Partnership—an effort launched at the White House to accelerate high-growth entrepreneurship throughout the nation.  Steve is a leading voice in shaping government policy on issues related to entrepreneurship and working across the aisle to advance public policies that expand access to capital and talent.

Gagan Biyani is CEO and co-founder of Sprig, whose mission it is to make eating well simple. Open your phone when you're hungry, tap a button and get a healthy meal delivered in 15 minutes. Sprig has raised $57M from Greylock Partners and Social Capital Partnership and is available in San Francisco, Chicago and Palo Alto. Prior to founding Sprig, he was a Growth Advisor for Lyft where he led supply and demand acquisition for their launch in Los Angeles. Gagan previously was co-founder and President of the education marketplace, Udemy, which has raised $113M and has over 7 million students worldwide. Gagan will be interviewed by Greylock Partner, Simon Rothman. Simon invests in entrepreneurs building consumer networks and platforms, and he leads Greylock’s $100 million commitment to marketplace investments. His area of focus includes network effects businesses and transaction-based startups with a specialty around marketplaces.

Bob is the co-author of the startup owners manual, a manual for starting up companies that aims at preventing many of the cardinal startup sins many founders make. together along with steve blank, the two spent 2 years conceiving, outlining, drafting, rewriting, and revising the global bestseller. A serial entrepreneur, bob left a lucrative broadcasting job at the age of 22 because the had a passion to start a company which he did 7 times over 3 decades. He describes his track record as 2 home runs, two base hits, and three great tax losses. Bob now teaches customer development and business modeling at columbia business school. he has also lead training session in mexico, russia, and other place around the world

Hey there and welcome to Monday’s episode of the startup grind podcast. Today we have an awesome chat with the legendary Guy Kawasaki. Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, trustee of the Wikimedia Foundation, and executive fellow at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. Formerly, he was an advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google and Chief evangelist of Apple. He is the author of The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media,Enchantment, and ten other books. Guy has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.    Guy is interviewed by startup grind’s founder Derek Andersen for a globally held google hangout. streamed live from google hq in mountain view california. Lets listen in. 

Hey there and welcome to wednesday’s episode of the startup grind podcast. Today we have a great chat with Adam Lashinsky, author of the wildly popular and revealing book "inside apple". Adam is the senior editor at large for fortune covering silicon valley and wall street. He’s been on the magazines staff since 2001. Prior to that he worked at the Street.com and the san jose mercury news. He is also a weekly panelist on foxes cavuto on business program. Adam  co-chairs fortunes annual technology conference Fortune Brainstorm Tech, and is a seasoned speaker and panel moderator. Lets listen into this great interview between adam and startup grind’s founder Derek Andersen recorded in 2013. 

Hey There and welcome to Monday's episode of the startup grind podcast. This week we have a truly awesome interview with one of Silicon Valley’s biggest personalities. Chamath Palihapitiya. Chamath is the founder and managing partner of the Social Capital Partnership, a venture capital fund based in Palo Alto, CA that incubates and invests in breakthrough companies in Healthcare, Education, Fincancial services, mobile, and enterprise software. Preceding his focus as an investor, Chamath was the longest tenured member of Facebooks senior executive team and helped drive its ascension to one of the most important companies in the world. Chamath is also an owner and director of the NBA’s golden state warriors. Chamath was born in Sri Lanka, grew up in canada, and graduated with a degreee in electrical engineering from the university of waterloo.  In this very honest and insightful interview chamath speaks with startup grind’s founder derek andersen in Palo Alto about his early life, time at Facebook, encounters with Steve jobs, and what he feels the valley should really be working on. Lets listen in. 

Today we have an episode with Bill Clerico the founder of WePay. WePay is a payment’s platform with a built in fraud analyzer that powers some of the worlds best known marketplaces including Care.com, Constant Contact, Freshbooks, GoFundMe and Meetup.  WePay protects its partners from risk and regulatory exposure, while supporting a great experience for their end-users. Prior to WePay, Bill was a technology investment banker and has a degree in computer science from Boston College. lets listen into Bill interview in Silicon Valley with Startup Grind’s own TD Lowe. 

Hey there and welcome’s to Monday's episode of the startup Grind podcast! Today we have the founder of the virally popular live streaming app Meerkat. Ben Rubin is the Israeli born founder of Life on Air whose primary product is Meerkat, a real time streaming application that grew to over 700k users in just 8 weeks after blowing up at the SXSW festival last year. Prior to founding Meerkat Ben was the founder of Yevvo an similar app that allowed users to tune into live on air video broadcasts. Life on Air has currently raised 18 million dollars to continue to create ephemeral and real time experiences. Ben is interviewed by Startup Grind’s founder Derek andersen at our Chapter in San Francisco. 

Today we have a chat with David Zhu the co-founder of Divide which is a mobile enterprise company that made it possible for employees to separate their work and personal life on 1 device. Prior to founding Divide with partners Andrew and Alexander, David was the 1 employee at smule the company responsible for #1 apps like Ocarina, sonic lighter, and I am T-Pain. After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in computer science David went on to work at companies like Morgan Stanley, Jarna, and HP.  Last year Divide was acquired by google and David went to become an engineering director on the android platform. Lets into this great interview with david interviewed by our Hong Kong chapter director where he talks mobile technology, what it’s like to be acquired by google, and even the chinese education system. 

Today we have a chat with one of the co-founders of the innovative sister led dating app Coffee Meets Bagel.    Dawoon Kang and her two sisters Arum and Soo, founded Coffee Meets Bagel as an answer to many of the prevailing male centric, image overloaded apps that weren’t addressing the unique ways in which women prefer to date. Dawoon and her sisters became famous last year for rejecting the largest offer ever made on the popular TV show Shark Tank after they turned down Mark Cuban's $30M offer for their company.    They then went on to raise $7.8M in Series A financing, and with that funding began their international expansion outside the US with Hong Kong as their first overseas market. Prior to CMB, Dawoon lived & worked in Korea, Japan, New York, India & Hong Kong, in a variety of roles that spanned from strategy & business development, marketing, research to investing/finance.    Lets listen into Dawoon interviewed by our Hong Kong chapter director Joshua Steimle. 

Hey there and welcome to wednesday’s episode of the startup grind podcast. today we have a chat with Paddy cosgrave co-founder of the Web Summit conference. Web Summit attracts thousands of attendees from dozens of countries to dublin ireland for its annual gathering of the technology industries greats. Paddy graduated from trinity college with a BA  in Political Science and economics and worked in a number of start-ups before founding the event which grew from a few hundred attendees to many thousands in just a few short years. Lets listen into the chat between paddy cosgrave and our london chapter director Marian Gazdik. 

Hey there and welcome to Monday’s episode of the startup grind podcast. Today we have something a bit different. our founder Derek andersen who is also our Silicon Valley chapter director is used to asking the questions at his events; is in this episode he is the featured guest at our chapter in phoenix Arizona. Director Christie Kerner goes over Derek’s early life, professional experience and the origin story of the worlds largest entrepreneurial community. Lets listen into this chat with Startup Grind’s Founder and CEO Derek Andersen: 

Today we have an amazing chat with the founder of 500 Startups Dave McClure, interviewed by our chapter director in Gaza Palestine. The audio quality is slightly reduced and the power goes out at 1 point during the interview but it is a great opportunity to hear advice from a silicon valley entrepreneur/venture capitalist given to the community in palestine.  Dave is the founding partner of 500 Startups, a venture capital firm and startup incubator in Silicon Valley with over $125M under management. He has been an investor in hundreds of companies around the world including Credit Karma, Twilio, MakerBot, Wildfire Interactive, Viki, Mashery, SendGrid, Mint.com, and SlideShare, among others. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty-five years as a developer, entrepreneur, blogger, investor, and internet marketing nerd. 

Today we have a great conversation with the co-founder and CEO of Distil networks Rami Essaid. Rami was born in syria to a family known for their engineering talent. He later moved the united states and started working in sales and business. After realizing what a challenge spam and malware bots were posing to corporations rami decided to create a product that would protect against attacks. Rami then took the plunge and founded his company Distil in 2001. After a lot of testing with the beta product Distil networks has now become to go to solution for protecting against bot nets and brute force login attacks. Distil Networks secured $38 million in total funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Foundry Group and TechStars' Bullet Time Ventures, ff Venture Capital, IDEA Fund Partners, and Militello Capital. Rami attended North Carolina State University where he majored in computer engineering.Lets listen into Rami interviewed by Startup Grind’s DC chapter director Brian Park. 

Today we have a great chat with the co-founder and CEO of Postmates. Bastian Lehmann. Bastian is originally from Munich and graduate of the AngelPad Accelerator in San Francisco. He originally founded Postmates in 2011 and has seen incredible growth fueled by revolutionary partnerships with companies like Chipotle, Starbucks. and 7-Eleven. Postmates now operates the largest on-demand delivery fleet with 13,000 Postmates in 28 metropolitan markets. Lets listen into this great interview with Bastian interviewed by Startup Grind’s founder Derek Andersen in San Francisco. 

  Today we have a chat between our seattle chapter director mike grabham and the CEO of RedFin Glenn Kelman. Glen started his career at the stanford technogloy group after graduating from UC berekely. STG was then acquired by IBM which spurred glenn to co-found his own company Plumtree. Plumb tree  then became a large publicly traded company in which glenn held various roles as an engineering lead, marketing lead, business development, and product management. Glen most recently Joined red fin as their CEO and is working to completely reinvent the real estate industry towards the consumers advantage. lets listen to this inspiring chat with a great founder. 

Today we have a chat with SoftLayer’s chief startup evangelist Joshua Krammes. As Softlayers startup evangelist Joshua creates awareness for soft layers efforts towards fostering innovation and investment in the global startup ecosystem. Specifically he serves as an advisor, mentor, friend and liaison for early stage startups.     He has partnered and mentored with several globally recognized startup organizations such as: Y Combinator, Founder’s Network, TechStars, 500 Startups, the Global Accelerator Network, and many more.      Joshua is interviewed in Detroit by our Startup grind chapter direct Anamarie Sabagh 

  Today we have a great chat between 5 different tech stars partners including co-founder david cohen. The guests include David Cohen, Ari Newman, Jason Seats, Mark Solon, Nicole Glaros. Tech stars is one the worlds top accelerators with locations in over a dozen cities. It also powers vertical focused programs with partners like Disney, Qualcomm, Mike, Ford, and many more. Lets listen into this great chat with 5 top partners in one 1 room at our startup grind chapter in Boise Idaho. The discussion is moderated by boise director jess whiting. Lets listen. 

Today we have an enlightening conversation with the Editor at Large of TechCrunch which is the biggest breaking news sites about the hottest tech companies.    Mike has been named one of the Top 50 most influential Britons in technology by The Daily Telegraph. As well as being a long-time Writer, Broadcaster and Editor Mike is also co-founder of TechHub (@TechHub), a project to merge a thriving community with office space for fast-moving startups. Mike has written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman.   Mike arned his B.A. degree in History and English Literature from Australian National University.

Today we have a conversation between Kevin Gibbon the co-founder of shyp and seed investor Hunter Walk. Kevin co-founded shyp in attempt to revolutionize the shipping industry by making shipping any item as easy as snapping a picture of it. They raised over 60 million dollars from firms like sherpa ventures, home-brew vc and, and Kleiner Perkins. With markets in a few cities in the us they are quickly expanding to help make shipping goods as easy as possible. Hunter walk is the co-founder of and partner at Homebrew VC. He lead product at YouTube for several years and interviews keyin at our chapter in San Francisco. Lets listen in.      A quick break from Kevin Gibbon of Shyp for some recent startup headlines. 

Today we have a great presentation from our 2015 Global Conference. Paul Ahlstrom is an entrepreneur and investor who has focused his carreer on understanding the inner workings of early stage startups. He’s founded multiple high-technology startups and investment funds in the United States and Mexico.    Paul’s current focus is opening up capital sources to Mexican entrepreneurs and supporting Mexico’s vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem.      In his presentation Paul discusses 3 ways to guarantee that your startup will fail. Lets listen in to this short but impactful talk. 

Today we have the Managing Director of the female centric crowdfunding site, Plum Alley. Plum Alley is a site specifically made for women consumers and women looking to crowdfund from other women. It further differentiates itself by offering expert help to crowdfunders which has created a funding success rate of near double kickstarter and quadruple that seen on indiegogo. Jan has also held high level positions at non-profits including the Girl Scouts, Teach For America, the Sierra Club and as the CFO of Planned Parenthood International. She then went on to found the 6 figures women network and her own client relations and brand management consultancy called Swig.      Jan is interviewed by our Tampa Bay Chapter director Joy Randels. Let’s Listen in. 

Today we have a chat with a canadian based founder Ethan Song. Ethan is the co-founder of the popular menswear club Frank & Oak. Frank & Oak is a mens lifestyle brand that makes it easy for men to receive the latest fashions and trends right to their door. They also have a few retail locations which Ethan touches on as a core element of their brand as it bridges the gap between online and offline experiences.      Ethan is interviewed at our Startup Grind Ottawa chapter by director Franco Varriano. Let’s listen in. 

Today we have a really interesting fireside chat with a great arizona based entrepreneur. Hamid Shojaee is the iranian born founder of axosoft which makes the successful live chat software pure chat. Hamid is an ASU graduate and former microsoft employee. He’s very passionate about supporting the entrepreneurial community in Arizona and started the website aztechbeat and even an arizona based incubator. Lets listen into this great chat with hamid interviewed by our phoenix chapter director christie kerner.    Before You Go I just wanted to let you know that 2 for 1 tickets to  our global event go on sale tomorrow. They are the cheapest tickets we have to offer and the event sold out early last year. Come and hear from key note speakers like the founders of the social + capital partnership, wanelo, thumbtack, cloud flare, joyous, Plus clayton christensen steve blank and the editor at large for the atlantic. Get tickets and more information at startup grind .com/conference. 

Today we have one of my favorite startup grind fireside chats. We recently had the honor of hosting Brad Feld of tech stars and the foundry group at our chapter in denver colorado.    Brad has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding the foundry group he co-founded mobius venture capital. Brad has been active with several nonprofit organizations and is currently chair of the national centre for women at information technology, and is on the board of up global.    He’s also completed 23 marathons as part of his mission to finish a marathon in each of the 50 states.     Lets listen into this great interview with the amazing brad feld 

Today we have bryan johnson the co-founder of braintree.  Braintree is an online and mobile payments provider that prides itself on allowing it’s merchants to accept more payment types than anyone else.  Bryan co-founded and helped Braintree work with some of the best customers in the world such as uber, github, opentable, airbnb, and opentable.  in this interview Bryan discusses his goal of retiring at the age of 30 in order to allow himself to help others for the rest of his life.    Our startup grind chapter director tom denison interviews bryan in chicago. Let’s listen in. 

Today we have the 2nd part of our podcast with the Co-founder of VaynerMedia and venture capitalist Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary's  first step as an entrepreneur was when he helped grow his family liquor store into a multimillion dollar enterprise and then launching winelibrary.com, one of America’s first wine e-commerce sites. After wine library, Gary founded VaynerMedia with his brother which today is one of the biggest digital shops focused on social media.Recently Gary launched VaynerRSE, a $25 million seed fund that will invest in and launch the next generation of world-changing technology companies.  In part two of the interview, Gary discusses the importance of staying in your lane and the danger of pretending to have expertise in area's you don't know enough about.     Gary is interviewed in LA by Startup Grind LA chapter director Joe Famalette.

Today we have Co-founder of VaynerMedia and venture capitalist Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary first step as an entrepreneur was when he helped grow his family liquor store into a multimillion dollar enterprise and launching winelibrary.com, one of America’s first wine e-commerce sites. Gary then went on to found VaynerMedia with his brother which today is one of the biggest social media focused digital shops aiding Fortune 500 brands in their marketing. Recently Gary launched VaynerRSE, a a $25 million seed fund that will invest in and launch the next generation of world-changing technology companies. Gary has written three New York Times bestselling books as well.   In the interview, Gary discusses the importance of as a VC sticking to your instincts on what you know will be a big hit and why certain investments are worth the risk when the gains are so high.     Gary is interviewed in LA by Startup Grind LA chapter director Joe Famalette.

Today we have the CEO and co-founder of OfferUp Nick Huzar. OfferUp is a platform that aims to create the simplest and safest marketplace to buy and sell locally. OfferUp has grown rapidly to become the largest peer to peer mobile marketplace in the country. Previously, Nick was co-founder and CTO of Konnects, Inc, an early social networking startup where he raised $6M in capital and scaled to over 1M users within 18months. Earlier in his Career Nick held positions at T-Mobile and Microsoft.As a new father with a pile of unwanted things, Nick Huzar realized that there was no easy way to buy and sell locally. With that motivation, OfferUp was born with one mission in mind: to make buying and selling locally as easy as taking a photo. In this interview Nick discusses the importance of company culture and how being a good leader involves hiring the right people and getting out of their way.Nick is interviewed in Seattle by Startup Grind's Seattle chapter director Mike Grabham

Today we have the CEO of Spirit Airlines Ben Baldanza. Spirit Airlines is the largest Ultra Low Cost Carrier in the western hemisphere. Prior to joining Spirit, Baldanza held executive positions at other airlines including US Airways, Continental Airlines and American Airlines. Baldanza earned his BA in economics from Syracuse and an MA in transportation and economics from Princeton. In the interview, Ben discusses the importance of knowing your product and marketing exactly the service you offer. Spirit airlines has been able to distinguish themselves by unbundling their services and offering only the essentials allowing them to provide significantly lower fares, thus they also transformed their branding to demonstrate to customers what makes them different.  Ben Baldanza is interviewed in Miami by Startup Grind's Miami chapter director Jason Ibarra.