This Week in Startups - Audio
By ThisWeekInStartups.com
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Description
Jason Calacanis and a rotating group of guest experts bring you this weekly take on the best, worst, most outrageous and interesting stories from the world of Web companies. Calacanis, a podcasting pioneer, gives you an insider's look at what's happening in the tech industry with his trademark blunt style and good humor. Looking to start your own company? Need strategies for improving your business or motivating your team? Just want to catch up on what's happening in Silicon Valley and beyond? Your journey begins here.
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E736: Robinhood uses free stock trading to open access to the entire American financial system; co-founder Vlad Tenev talks mis | We are pleased to have one of Jason’s investments as our guest today, Robinhood co-founder Vlad Tenev. Tenev went to Stanford in 2004 looking to become an academic, first studying physics and later math. During this time, he met and became good friends with his co-founder Baiju Bhatt. Together, they started a bootstrapped and profitable software company called Chronos Research, which was formed to respond to the increased influence of algorithmic trading in the financial industry. This inspired them to build something bigger than just software that helps hedge funds and banks optimize their trading. Robinhood is a no-fee stock trading app with a mission to open up access to the American financial system. So, whereas other discount brokerages charge $7-$10 for every trade and have account minimums of $500-$2,000, with Robinhood, there are no minimums and no trading commissions, thus tapping into an underserved part of the market. Join us to learn how Robinhood went from a clever idea to a billion dollar valuation. | 5/30/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E735: All #AskJason: Failing after product-market fit, consumer app VC & monetization, the (un)necessity of patents, (un)fundab | Most days at startups, you have more problems than you have solutions, and more bad days than good days. As an angel investor, as a founder, and as host of 700+ episodes of TWiST, Jason constantly receives questions from founders and superfans about startups. Today, he offers timeless advice — from why most startups fail after product market fit has been achieved, to his thoughts on the state of VC in consumer apps, from patent protection, to fundamental ways to transition into a long-term thinking company. Plus, find out what lesson Jason learned the hard way. | 5/26/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E734: Live Crowdfunding Startup Showcase: product pitches & investor inquiries w/Swiftmile, Lendsnap, Kylie.ai, LEAF, NowRX & L | LAUNCH Festival 2017 kicked off with a unique twist. Live equity crowdfunding was offered for a handful of companies that were simultaneously listed on the SeedInvest platform, which connects venture capital, angel investors and accredited investors. These companies each delivered a 3 minute explanatory pitch to a host of judges.Today, Jason and Clipisode CEO Brian Alvey share 6 companies that pitched at this year’s Festival. The first company is Swiftmile, a solar-powered electric bike sharing system for corporate commuters. Next is Lendsnap, which powers mortgage lending with unparalleled financial data access for lenders and their borrowers. Then Kylie.ai pitches autonomous A.I. that clones personalities to automate communication. Next is LEAF, which is smartphone “plug and plant” app to help you grow marijuana (and more). Then NowRX pitches their mobile app that offers same day free delivery for prescriptions. The final company is Laugh.ly, which is a streaming radio app dedicated to comedy. | 5/23/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E733: News Roundtable! Molly Wood (Marketplace) & Ben Parr (Octane AI): future of net neutrality, Google Lens & iPhone-less pre | News Roundtable! Molly Wood of Marketplace and Ben Parr of Octane AI are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: the relevance of net neutrality for the startup economy, what lies ahead for Google Lens, Uber Freight connecting truck drivers with shipments, Biz Stone's return to Twitter, Elon Musk's new underground tunnel project, drone skydiving, and more. | 5/19/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E732: “The Syndicate”: 7 top startups across 7 verticals pitch to 20 world-class investors, w/Cafe X, Connected Signals, Bl | Today’s TWiST introduces a new format called “The Syndicate,” where 7 top startups across 7 verticals pitch to 20 world-class investors in Silicon Valley every 6 weeks. These top startups are selected based on feedback of the angel investors: who has the most traction, the most viable product, who could be the most meaningful in the future. Each company presents for 3 minutes, followed by 6 minutes of feedback. Join us to learn how effectively to present your company and answer hard questions. And if you’re thinking about becoming an investor, this is a great primer at how to look at a company and the right questions to ask. Featured startups: - Cafe X: The world's first robot barista - Connected Signals: Bridges the gap between autonomous vehicles and crucial capabilities - Blokable: Ship homes that are modular, stackable, and smart - Tueo Health: Transforms the way we care for asthma - Interviewed: Combines structured job assessments and employee testing to identify the strongest job candidates accurately and easily - PowerScout: AI Enabled Marketplace for Smart Home Improvement - Underground Cellar: Online wine deals w/o bastardizing brands | 5/12/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E731: Inside LAUNCH Incubator, PT2: Ready: Cross-platform programming for personal robotics; Keepster: Curating messages to kee | It’s Part 2 of Inside LAUNCH Incubator. In this hour, we will meet 4 more innovative startups that have gone through the Incubator, learn about their products, give and receive candid feedback about the highly competitive Incubator, key takeaways, struggles, the funding process, and more. The first founder is David Bennahum and his startup Ready, which is a cross-platform programming environment for personal robotics that makes robotics accessible to all of us. Next is founder Jennifer Simchowitz of Keepster, which is a toolkit to curate your text messages and keep what matters most by turning them into books and cards. Then co-founder Jesse Lakes pitches Genius Link, which solves the geo-fragmentation challenge in a world of global e-commerce. The final founder is Dan Grueter and his startup Poppins, which is an invitation-based childcare service that uses a care algorithm to source the best caretaker in the Poppins network based on a family’s specific needs. | 5/9/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E730: Inside LAUNCH Incubator, PT1: Transported: Virtual Reality Tours for Real Estate & FitBod: Personalized strength-training | Today Jason and Brian Alvey talk with LAUNCH Incubator founders about their products, give and receive candid feedback about the highly competitive Incubator, key takeaways, struggles, the funding process, and more. The first founder is Tyson Woeste and his startup Transported, which offers virtual reality tours for real estate. One of the great things about VR is that it’s not tethered to reality, so instead of wandering through a home, you can jump in anywhere — you can zoom in on the sink, you can see if the floor is actually as good as it looks, you can look at the ceiling, etc. There is a level of detail that you wouldn’t get from photos. Next is co-founder Allen Chen & FitBod, which offers personalized strength-training powered by machine learning. Everyone thinks that apps are over, and that the fitness space is too crowded, yet FitBod found a way to come out on top. | 5/5/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E729: Founder Richard Craib shares his A.I. hedge fund Numerai, built with an anonymous network of 15,000 (& counting) data sci | There’s a new way to make stock market predictions. Numerai, a hedge fund based in San Francisco, has gained a following as the first hedge fund that gives stock market data to machine learning data scientists using structure-preserving encryption to prevent them from mimicking the fund’s trades themselves. Several thousand anonymous data scientists compete to create the best trading algorithms—and win bitcoin for their efforts. At the same time, the company carefully organizes this encrypted data in a way that allows the data scientists to build models that are potentially able to make better trades. Founder Richard Craib believes that Numerai can become even more successful if it can align the incentives of everyone involved. His hope is that his new kind of currency, Numeraire, will turn online competition into a collaboration—and turn Wall Street on its head in the process. | 5/2/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E728: “Angel” Sneak Peek + Startup Tune-up: Founder Institute students get first-look at Jason’s upcoming book on angel i | Jason’s passion is to create things in the world that make a difference, and that’s really at core of what entrepreneurs are. They are the people who decide that they’re not just going to have an idea, but that they will take that idea and have it manifest itself in a product, service or company. Jason has the unique perspective of being on both sides of the table - as an entrepreneur and now as an angel investor for the last 6 years in 150+ companies, and as such, he has started to think about what it means to invest in a company. Join us as he shares insights into what angel investors should do and how they should approach the work. Plus, he shares excerpts from his upcoming book, “Angel,” and answers questions from the audience about pitch meetings, how to behave in them, how to craft an email to an investor, and much more. | 4/28/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E727: Future of Food: ROBOTS! w/Alex Garden (Zume Pizza), Henry Hu (Cafe X), Deepak Sekar (Chowbotics); bonus: Hotel Tonight’ | Filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2017, Jason sits down with Alex Garden of Zume Pizza, Henry Hu of Cafe X, and Deepak Sekar of Chowbotics to have a candid discussion about the future of robotics in the food industry—the inspiration for their companies, successes, regulation challenges, and the great debate around automation of labor. And then Amanda Richardson of HotelTonight shares her experiences of being a small company in a crowded industry, getting attacked by one of their largest competitors, and how her team went from 2-3 bookings a day to now doing tens of thousands of room nights a day, with 20m downloads, in 37 different countries. She challenges us to focus on the “superpower” of being a small company, to know your users, and to think about your differentiation in the industry. | 4/25/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E726: Investor Outlook with Hunter Walk (Homebrew), Megan Quinn (Spark Capital), & Jalak Jobanputra (FuturePerfect VC); bonus: | Just because you write the check doesn’t mean that you’re the important person in the equation. In fact, the check is not important in the equation either. It’s the people who get up everyday and do the hard work, and that kind of humility, work ethic, and dedication is what set Hunter Walk of Homebrew, Megan Quinn of Spark Capital, and Jalak Jobanputra of FuturePerfect VC apart. Filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2017, Jason sits down with this all-star panel of builders-turned-investors to discuss lessons learned, equity crowdfunding, VR predictions, and much more. And then Rishi Garg of Mayfield helps us understand the M&A process, how to be proactive, and how to get the right help. Previously, Rishi ran corporate development and strategy teams at 3 public companies, most recently at Twitter, where he was VP of Corporate Development, as well as at Square and MTV Networks. Along the way, he also started and sold a venture-backed company and worked for a couple other venture firms, so M&A is a topic that he cares deeply about, and has seen from many angles. | 4/21/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E725: 500 Startups’ Dave McClure shares strategies as SV’s most prolific investor, common early-stage startup mistakes & ad | 500 Startups is a global venture capital seed fund with a network of startup programs headquartered in Silicon Valley, with investments in more than 1,800 technology startups all over the world since its inception in 2010. Jason sits down with Founding Partner Dave McClure to talk about early mistakes, lessons and insights learned, his investment approach, and advice to founders in 2017. Then, Sarah Tavel of Greylock Partners reflects on her early days at Pinterest as she watched the company grow from 30,000 registered users to 100m monthly active users, and distills 10 lessons from her experience there. | 4/18/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E724: Investor Outlook with Gil Penchina (Flight.vc), Cyan Banister (Founders Fund), Ryan Feit (SeedInvest); Jed Katz of Javeli | There are two things that startups need: money and growth. Money is the fuel, and growth happens typically through investments, and through making better products and technique. Filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2017, Jason interviews an all-star panel of investor thought leaders. Gil Penchina is a super angel of super angels that has dominated the syndicate space. Cyan Banister started as an angel investor and has moved upstream to be a venture capitalist at Founders Fund. SeedInvest CEO and co-founder Ryan Feit is making a huge bet on the equity crowdfunding revolution. | 4/14/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E723: Stripe CEO Patrick Collison on building his online payment powerhouse, creating Atlas to incorporate the world’s entrep | Filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2017, Jason sits down with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison to explore his journey to solving one of the toughest barriers to a global e-commerce economy: payments. About a decade ago, companies were mostly working with legacy players like banks, gateways and processors, and they were essentially looking to buy a technology service from them. These financial institutions were huge, but focused on particular markets, which provided an opportunity for Stripe. Today, Stripe works with companies in 124 countries and handles billions of dollars of aggregate revenue every year. Join us as Patrick shares an inspiring story of his early days at Y Combinator, mistakes and triumphs, opening the Atlas program to US-based startups, and his views on public/private markets. | 4/11/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E722: Bill Gurley of Benchmark, SV leader & legendary investor (Uber, Twitter, Snapchat) at LAUNCH Festival April 6 2017 | -- | 4/7/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E721: News Roundtable! Iain Thomson (The Register) & Austin Smith (Inside): ISP privacy shattered, Palmer Luckey leaves, FB rip | -- | 3/31/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E720: Capital Factory founder Josh Baer on making Austin a startup hub & beacon for talent, investing hits & spectacular failur | Filmed at Cisco Spark Haus, SXSW 2017, Jason sits down with Capital Factory Mentor founder of Josh Baer, who helps people quit their jobs and become entrepreneurs. Josh is a tireless supporter of startups, but more specifically, has made Austin a center of gravity for entrepreneurs. Capital Factory Mentor boasts a mentor network of 100+ experts from diverse backgrounds and uses it to grow startups. Josh discusses his investment successes, failures & greatest misses, the thriving entrepreneurial scene in Austin and growing venture community, and why bridge loans are usually a bad deal for both entrepreneurs and VCs. He then takes questions from the audience about crowd-funding, why it’s only easier to be a founder in today’s times, and the importance of setting the stage for international entrepreneurs. | 3/28/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E719: Pear.vc Managing Partner Mar Hershenson on Clinching the Series A: Creating & executing your Ops plan, success metrics, c | This week’s LAUNCH Incubator features Pear.vc partner Mar Hershenson as she gives an instructive talk about turning seed companies into series A companies. There is a lot of confusion among seed founders as to the right approach. Depending on what vertical you’re in, whether it’s e-commerce, consumer, SaaS, or marketplace, there is different knowledge that people have as to what you need to hit to be a series A company. She explains the importance of planning, executing and iterating an Ops plan, which metrics are predictors of success, and why it’s effective to communicate with data. Mar wraps up her talk by answering questions from the class about lessons learned from mistakes she has made as an angel investor, social distribution, and women in entrepreneurship. | 3/24/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E718: NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson on building to $1b run rate, early days at Oracle, McAfee & Sun, pioneering enterprise, prioriti | Zach Nelson is one of Silicon Valley's most experienced business leaders. After roles at Oracle, Sun, and McAfee, he became the CEO of cloud provider NetSuite in 2002. NetSuite started with less than $1m in revenue and Zach ran it up to a billion dollar run rate, with a recent acquisition by Oracle for $9.3b. Join us for an insightful interview with Zach as he shares unique CEO insights around the founding story of NetSuite, how he transformed the enterprise resource planning (ERP) space, keeping a team motivated, what makes a great product launch, and more. | 3/21/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E717: News Roundtable! Rolfe Winkler (WSJ) & Tess Townsend (Recode): Google, voice-assistant wars & fax-sending bots, political | News Roundtable! Rolfe Winkler of the Wall Street Journal and Tess Townsend of Recode are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: Google Allo and the future of personal assistants, a bot that turns your texts into faxes to elected officials, the pros and the cons of Trump's Twitter use and the future of Twitter, Parker Conrad’s new startup Rippling, and more. | 3/17/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E716: People & Product: Intercom co-founder Des Traynor on importance of alignment, building a product-first co., hiring by val | Intercom co-founder Des Traynor returns to the LAUNCH Incubator with another powerhouse talk. There are 3 ingredients to a company: people, product and profit. Today, Des focuses on people and product by extracting key principles from his experience at Intercom. He explains the importance of alignment and how it touches every aspect of running a company – from how a company behaves, to the hiring process, to how you speak to customers. Then, he shares 6 principles on building a product first company. Des wraps up his talk by answering questions from the class about lessons learned from Intercom’s early days, net negative churn, and ways to avoid the massive churn problem. | 3/14/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E715: News Roundtable! Liz Gannes and Ben Parr talk Snap IPO & predictions, Trump tweets & H1B, FB & fake news, Uber seeks no. | News Roundtable! Liz Gannes of 60dB and Ben Parr of Octane AI are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: Snap's IPO timing, Uber moving forward, the Trump factor, Bitcoin, drone-bearing cars & 3D-printed houses & more. | 3/7/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E714: SeedInvest co-founder Ryan Feit on the equity crowdfunding revolution, giving new access to startups & non-accredited inv | Aside from having an idea and a product, there are two things that every startup needs: money and growth. We are starting to open up the aperture of who can invest in a company. There is a global competition for ideas that requires entrepreneurs, and those entrepreneurs require capital to grow their companies. In today’s episode, Jason talks to SeedInvest CEO and co-founder Ryan Feit about his equity crowdfunding platform and the revolution that’s happening in that landscape. Also joining us today is Wolf3D CEO Timmu Tõke, a 3D scanning startup that launched a business initiative on SeedInvest. Insights are shared from Timmu’s entrepreneurial perspective on why he chose equity crowdfunding for his business, and from Ryan’s investment perspective on the process of accepting a company like Wolf3D. Jason explores questions about accredited vs. non-accredited investors, doubling down on startups, risks and market potential, and much more. | 3/3/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E713: All #AskJason, PT2: How to break into VC, building social networks, disrupting housing & transportation, taking risks, & | In this Part 2 episode, Jason continues to answer questions from founders and superfans -- from convincing an angel investor that being a solo founder is good to starting a social network, from advice around risk-taking to the future of transportation and housing. Plus, find out what he is passionate about outside of angel investing and how he defines success. | 2/28/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E712: All #AskJason, PT1: VC ethics, investing strategies, picking winners, patents & NDAs, women in entrepreneurship, bootstra | As an angel investor, as a founder, and as host of 700+ episodes of TWiST, Jason constantly receives questions from founders and superfans. Today, he answers 15 -- from how to passively support viable startups if you have a day job to best fundraising advice, from how much confidentiality founders should expect, to tips for female entrepreneurs to successfully navigate the tricky waters of owning and running a company in a male-dominated landscape. Plus, find out some of Jason’s investment strategies to choosing winners to invest in. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more. | 2/24/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E711: IFTTT co-founder & CEO Linden Tibbets on building his leading IoT connector of services & 3rd-party devices, essential ap | Linden Tibbets is the co-founder & CEO of IFTTT, one of the leading IoT solution platforms that automates simple tasks and controls a variety of devices. Linden comes from the world of programming, and worked as an engineer connecting API’s together at the world renowned design firm, IDEO. He had the original insight of getting services like Twitter, DropBox, and Instagram working together, and the vision of a platform that is the standard for information access. The simplest way to describe IFTTT is as a personal automation platform. Users create simple "Applets" that can execute simple "If This Then That" statements. Currently, IFTTT has about 10 million users, 50m+ applets, and 400 partners. From FitBit to Philips Hue, from finding your phone with Alexa to turning on your TV, IFTTT is paving the way to an automated lifestyle that can save you time and make the technology you use every day a seamless part of your life. | 2/21/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E710: REstore founder Jan-Willem Rombouts solves the electrical grid & balances renewable energy with virtual power stations; B | One of the biggest problems that we face in the world today, specifically here in the U.S. and in Europe, is the electrical grid. The energy market is going through a rapid transition - increased penetration of renewable energy. The energy market is evolving into a more sustainable market, but with that comes challenges for the electricity grid. Essentially, because renewable energy is intermittent in nature, there are sometimes misforecasts that create imbalances on the grid. REstore wants to help solve that problem through technology that can analyze, predict and adjust power-using devices to balance out those minute-by-minute or hour-by-hour fluctuations. Then, Greylock Partner Josh Elman shares his insights around virality. Every entrepreneur wants their startup’s product to go viral, but many fail to understand how virality actually works. All virality has one common element: inception and motivation. Join us as Josh explores some of the ways that products can go viral. | 2/17/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E709: VC Outlook w/Jeff Clavier (SoftTech), Omar Hamoui (Sequoia), Patricia Nakache (Trinity) & Aydin Senkut (Felicis): lesson | Filmed at the Upfront Summit 2017, Jason interviews a panel of VC thought leaders that all share the common theme of incredible portfolios and tremendous success. Patricia Nakache (Trinity Ventures), Aydin Senkut (Felicis Ventures), Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC), Omar Hamoui (Sequoia Capital) convene to discuss trends and the future of venture capital, their biggest misses and lessons learned, “FOMO” in the investing landscape, how to avoid fraudulent situations, and much more. | 2/14/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E708: Filmed at Upfront Summit 2017! Vinod Khosla on his journey from entrepreneur to VC, early days at Sun Microsystems, chang | Filmed at the Upfront Summit 2017, Jason sits down with legendary entrepreneur-turned-investor, Vinod Khosla. In 1980, Vinod co-founded Daisy Systems, the first significant computer-aided design system for electrical engineers. In 1982, he made his early fortune as one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, and in 1987, he switched gears to join the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he gained huge recognition and appreciation as a venture capitalist. He is also widely known for launching Juniper Networks, a company which is believed to be the next Cisco. Currently, he is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a firm focused on assisting entrepreneurs to build impactful new energy and technology companies. Join us as Vinod Khosla shares his inspiring story of mistakes, lessons learned, and advice for entrepreneurs building technology-based businesses. | 2/10/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E707: Jam Session! Startup founders, growth & marketing experts share best practices for communication: use landing pages to ca | Jason “jams out” a number of marketing and growth tips with founders in this special “Jam Session” episode of This Week in Startups. Casey Winters is a growth advisor and was previously Growth Product Lead at Pinterest and GrubHub. He explains how to use landing pages to capture all of the free search traffic that you may be missing out on. Sue Kwon, Head of Communications at Honor, draws parallels from her experience of working in a tv newsroom to what founders go through having to quickly tell their story with little money and time. Then, David McIntosh, CEO and co-founder at Tenor, talks about growth, specifically about making decisions that compound exponentially instead of slow linear growth. | 2/7/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E706: Part 2: Sam Harris, “Waking Up” host, philosopher & neuroscientist on Trump’s asymmetric warfare, Muslim ban, the J | In this Part 2 episode, Jason and Sam continue their exploration of the Trump Phenomenon, social media and fake news, and the benefits and threats of A.I. The thematic question to ask ourselves is: what sort of society do we want to live in? As technology becomes more powerful, and as more jobs become obviated by intelligent machines, Sam highlights that we need to figure out how to redistribute wealth to the better part of humanity. He reminds us though, that it’s not all depressing, and that with the right approach, we are living in the first moment of human history where we can plausibly imagine virtually everything changing. | 2/3/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E705: Sam Harris, “Waking Up” host, author, philosopher & neuroscientist, on dawn of A.I. & the uncanny valley of robotics, | Today’s guest is Sam Harris, philosopher, neuroscientist and best-selling author of books including “Waking Up,” “The End of Faith,” “Letter to a Christian Nation,” and “The Moral Landscape.” Jason and Sam explore a wide range of topics, including the ethics of robots, the value of meditation, Trump’s lies, and his most recent obsession AI, which stemmed from an initial conversation with Elon Musk. Sam argues that the threat of uncontrolled AI is one of the most pressing issues of our time and poses the question: Can we build AI without losing control over it? The two then discuss why meditation is so important for entrepreneurs and business people. Sam has built his brand and fan base around radical honesty and authenticity, so the conversation naturally segues to Trump and his lies. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more. | 1/31/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E704: Napster co-founder Jordan Ritter & his new Atlas Informatics are redefining search to solve digital chaos in the age of c | Jordan Ritter is an accomplished serial entrepreneur perhaps best known for co-founding Napster, the controversial file-sharing company that fundamentally changed the music industry. He shares about the inspiration behind the music-streaming site, the key role he played in helping it scale, the pivotal moment that lingers in his memory during the craze, and the most important lesson he learned there. Currently, he is the CEO of Atlas Informatics, a startup in Seattle with an audacious goal to redefine search as we know it. Atlas Recall, the company's first product, gives you a searchable photographic memory that helps you find everything you have seen across all of your devices, apps and cloud services, and the context surrounding them: when you looked at them, what order you did so in, what other windows and apps you had open at the same time, where you were when you accessed it, and sharing history. Join us as Jason and Jordan discuss this meaningful paradigm shift towards real contextual awareness and machine learning. | 1/27/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E703: News Roundtable! Katie Benner (NYT) and Amir Efrati (The Information): self-driving, Trump & tech, SV apocalypse preppers | News Roundtable! Katie Benner of The New York Times and Amir Efrati of The Information are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: SnapChat cleaning up Discover and readying for IPO, Tesla cleared in accident investigation and a new era of safety in cars, the future of net neutrality under President Trump, and more. | 1/24/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E702: Stellar startups at CES ‘17 PART 2: wearable interactive lightshow, Raspberry Pi bests, smart garbage that shops, hack- | In this Part 2 episode, Jason and Dave Mathews continue looking at the latest technology showcased at CES 2017, featuring interviews with: - Betsy McHugh, Founder and CEO of Hurdl - Alexander Kaay, CEO of s7.io - Rob Griffin, Co-Founder of GeniCan - Shai Goitein, CEO of PowerUp Toys - SmartGurlz - Kenny Dodge, Community Manager of xCraft Enterprises - Ethan Woods, Founder of Grillbot LLC - Einaras von Gravrock, CEO of CUJO - Dulcie Madden, Co-Founder & CEO of Mimo - Nick Smoot, Entrepreneur of Innovation Collective | 1/20/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E701: PART 1: The best of future tech & stellar startups at CES with Dave Mathews (NewAer): Alexa everywhere, drones rising, au | Filmed at CES 2017, the theme of today’s show is the future of transportation. Jason and tech inventor Dave Mathews sit down at the Ring booth to talk about new automotive trends & innovations from Mercedes and Audi, the big story of Amazon Alexa, and predictions in tech for 2017. Next, ChargePoint President & CEO Pasquale Romano joins the show to talk about his mission to get everyone behind the wheel of an electric vehicle, and provide them a place to charge wherever they go. Then, CEO Gregory Ducongé reveals how VULOG Carsharing is leading a new generation of carsharing technologies. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more. | 1/17/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E700: Ring CEO & Chief Inventor James Siminoff on reinventing home security with 1st wi-fi-enabled video doorbell, reducing nei | Filmed at CES 2017, Jason sits down with James Siminoff, a dogged entrepreneur driven by the idea of winning no matter how tough the challenge. James was one of three people inside a garage workshop, tinkering away on projects. Answering the doorbell from the garage was a pain, and after realizing that the market did not offer a solution to this problem, James took on building a front door monitoring system himself. Today, this game-changing doorbell is called Ring, and the company’s mission is to reduce crime in neighborhoods. Join us as Jason and Jamie explore the breakthrough features of the product, lessons learned in the rollercoaster life of a tech entrepreneur, and the future of home automation in the playing field. | 1/13/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E699: Mighty Networks founder & CEO Gina Bianchini builds smarter social networks for business and lasting online communities, | Gina Bianchini is an expert in community building. Many know her as the co-founder and former CEO of Ning, an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks. Her latest venture is with a social software startup called Mighty Networks, which reinvents groups online by helping companies and organizations power discussions among professionals. Gina fundamentally believes in the power of new connections and that the answer to today’s flood of social networks is a morphing and progression of these networks. Mighty Networks addresses the need to connect relevant members, break the ice, and drive people to meet up and to learn from each other. | 1/10/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E698: Best of SCALE! SaaStr Founder Jason Lemkin on getting from $1m to $10m in ARR; Calm Founder Alex Tew demos how to land 10 | Today’s TWiST features the two highest-rated speakers at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, sharing their best strategies for building startups. First, Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, shares tips and common mistakes to getting from $1m to $10m in ARR. Then, Alex Tew, shares some of his learnings from The Million Dollar Homepage and Calm.com, and dives into the key ingredients to creatively acquiring 100,000 users before you launch. | 1/3/2017 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E697: Sunflower Labs co-founder Alex Pachikov on modernizing home security with world’s first smart sensor & drone technology | Home security systems haven't meaningfully evolved in decades. Current monitoring systems can have false alarm rates ranging between 95%-99%, giving homeowners no more of a sense of security than having no system at all. Sunflower Labs CEO & co-founder Alex Pachikov is modernizing the home security market with the introduction of the Sunflower Home Awareness System, which combines terrestrial feedback and aerial observations to create an entirely new awareness-based approach. Backed by $2.1M in funding from General Catalyst and others, Sunflower Labs is disrupting the home security market at this exciting intersection of new technology and the smart home. Then, Homebrew General Partner Satya Patel shares a framework for understanding how to get from seed stage to series A. Why is this relevant today? About 20% of companies that have raised seeds in the past few years are now going to be able to raise series A’s, but that number is decreasing, so the battle for the A dollar is becoming more brutal. In Homebrew’s first round of raising funds, they had a 92% success rate of helping companies raise A rounds vs. seed rounds that they lead. Join us and learn tips on how to get money in your bank. | 12/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E696: The Distracted Mind’s Adam Gazzaley on our mental degradation, designing products for health, safety & performance, & h | We have a primal desire to fill our brains with information, as animals forage for food. But with the constant and exponential barrage of technology, we are at a near-constant state of interruptions and distractions. "Multi-tasking" is a myth, it's brain switching .... and we can't keep up. And everything suffers as result: our sleep, relationships, mood, attention -- and performance. How can we break out of the cycle and rescue our brains from high-tech addiction? And how about companies like Facebook -- don't they have a responsibility to design healthier products? Adam Gazzaley, author of "The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World," is with Jason today, and has answers. We also learn more about Dr. Gazzaley's fascinating neuroscience experiments and research, and where we're headed with the brain and the taking back of control of our attention -- and futures. | 12/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E695: News Roundtable! Dave Mathews (NewAer) & Iain Thomson (The Register) on 2016 best & 2017 bets: Apple follies, drones risi | News Roundtable! Dave Mathews (NewAer) and Iain Thomson (The Register) join Jason to tackle 2016's biggest stories and 2017's best bets. The trio starts by dissecting Apple and its disastrous decisions, stepping into high gear with the rise of the Drones, the latest major hack(s) in an especially hackalicious year (thanks Yahoo), not to mention Russia and possibly Putin himself hacking into the U.S. election, the steps up and back for self-driving autos (with sushi bets, naturally), Trump's surreal summit with tech illuminati, Facebook fake news destroying the world, and more. | 12/16/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E694: Leade.rs Founder Loic Le Meur on building Europe’s tech with LeWeb, investing in SV powerhouses LinkedIn & Evernote, an | Loic Le Meur is a serial entrepreneur based in San Francisco. He co-founded one of the largest European tech events, LeWeb. Loic is an active business angel and was an early investor in LinkedIn, Evernote and Lending Club, among many others. In this episode, he shares insights around his new startup, Leade.rs, a speakers-events marketplace that enables you to discover the top people doing amazing things in their field right now—the Nobel Prize, the Forbes top 30 under 30,, the Young Global Leaders, LinkedIn Influencers, and TED speakers. Currently, the process to book keynote speakers for events is broken. Most events aim to maximize revenue, but compromise engaging topics. Leade.rs wants to answer questions such as, “Who makes VR?” “Who are best people in VR in Asia?” “In Latin America?”, and connect those speakers with event planners. Join us as Loic shares his vision to create transparent optionality in discovering speakers and the sustainable revenue experiment paired with it. | 12/9/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E693: Founder Tom Patterson on growing Tommy John 2.5x YOY in a $41b industry; Future of Fundraising with Paul Judge (Luma), Ch | Filmed at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, Tom Patterson sits down with Jason and shares his wisdom around his massively successful high-end men's underwear brand, and how he went from being a medical device salesman to leading Tommy John to exceed $100M in sales by 2018. Then, Jason interviews a panel of investor thought leaders. Paul Judge (Luma), Christine Tsai (500 Startups), Ryan Feit (SeedInvest) convene to discuss the future of fundraising, what this means in relation to the election, and the differences between accredited and non-accredited investors. | 12/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E692: CEO David Sacks on scaling Z2, the next generation of Zenefits; Founders Fund Partner Cyan Banister shares 10 strategies | Filmed at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, David Sacks of Zenefits and Cyan Banister of Founders Fund sit down with Jason to hash out the trials and successes in scaling culture. David Sacks talks openly about the transformation of culture at Zenefits--how he fixed the company's problems and helped to rapidly scale the business. Then, Cyan Banister shares tips on how to create and preserve company culture as you scale. She then takes questions from the audience about how to handle subcultures and 1099 employees, stay present from a distance, and maintain culture when a company is growing rapidly. | 11/29/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E691: LAUNCH SCALE: Yossi Vardi shares insights from 85 investments & 26 exits: execution over ideas, mastering persistence, an | With over 85 investments and 26 high-profile exits under his belt, technology- and investment guru Yossi Vardi sits down with Jason and imparts his advice for hopeful startups. Yossi then takes questions from the audience about raising money or staying bootstrapped, defining the grey line between chasing a bad idea and staying persistent through tough times, and how to get over the hump of trying to convince investors of a good idea. Join us in a candid conversation with Yossi as he reveals the secrets of his success. | 11/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E690: Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on reinventing & revitalizing real estate for the consumer; Pear Founding Partner Pejman Nozad on | Filmed at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, Glenn Kelman of Redfin and Pejman Nozad of Pear.vc sit down with Jason and share how their stories of staying obsessively focused and persistent led them to building great companies. Glenn Kelman demonstrates how Redfin is reinventing real estate in the consumer’s favor, with the goal of restoring honor to the otherwise underappreciated profession. Then, Pejman Nozad takes us on his 20-year journey that started when he got a job at a car wash in San Jose while living in an attic above a yogurt shop, to then selling rugs, closing sales — $8 million worth of rugs in his best year — and starting a tech venture fund. | 11/18/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E689: News Roundtable! Molly Wood (Marketplace) & Eric Newcomer (Bloomberg) on Trump’s triumph, tech, Thiel, the flaws of pol | News Roundtable! Molly Wood (Marketplace) & Eric Newcomer (Bloomberg) on Trump's triumph, tech, Thiel, the flaws of polling & data journalism, the future of jobs, & the fate of Silicon Valley | 11/11/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E688: R/GA Ventures’ Nick Coronges & Richard Ting help startups scale and build enduring brands, forge founder partnerships w | New York is an important ecosystem that combines the art scene, media companies, Wall Street, the advertising industry, and news organizations. What it didn’t have in the early days was any kind of infrastructure--angel investors, incubators--which meant that if you were an entrepreneur, you were on your own. Now, there is a lot more infrastructure, including startup incubators. Joining Jason today are the two leaders of R/GA Ventures Incubator, Richard Ting and Nick Coronges. R/GA supports companies that are looking to build their brand, while partnering them with their client base of major players, including Nike, Verizon Wireless, Johnson & Johnson, Samsung and Google. Join us as Nick and Richard reveal what startups need the most help with, which young companies have the most demonstrable success, and how R/GA is playing an integral role in supporting the community and helping entrepreneurs. | 11/4/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E687: Harry’s co-founder & co-CEO Andy Katz-Mayfield shares e-commerce expertise and the science of customer acquisition, ver | E-commerce is growing, and direct-to-consumer e-commerce is becoming a trend. Andy Katz-Mayfield is the co-founder and co-CEO of the men's razor subscription company Harry's, along with Jeff Raider, one of the co-founders of Warby-Parker. The shaving startup rethinks how grooming products could be sold by focusing on higher-quality razors at lower prices than its much larger competitors. The science of customer acquisition has changed with the introduction of Facebook, custom audiences and re-targeting. Andy explains that being vertically integrated has allowed them to move quickly and commit to their millions of customers. Teaming up with Target, taking on established giant Gillette, thoughts on Dollar Shave Club’s acquisition by Unilever — all this and much more. | 11/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E686: Douglas Rushkoff on “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity,” exposing the downs | Media theorist and author Douglas Rushkoff joins Jason to discuss the current economic environment. The two talk about Douglas’ latest thought-provoking book, “Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became the Enemy of Prosperity," the digital economy, the growth trap, and solutions to create sustainable marketplaces for the future. Douglas presents the problem that digital companies extract value without distributing wealth. They're taking money and value away from us and storing it in share price. He argues that you should make everyone in your ecosystem wealthy--your customers/vendors/suppliers--then you can circulate money, rather than just extract it. | 10/28/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E685: CEO John Shahidi on evolving Shots Studios from selfie app to mega-talent content creator, making videos with Justin Bieb | When John Shahidi, co-founder and CEO of Shots Studios, was building an app that finds the next big digital stars, he looked to the behaviors of his users—10 million users who were mostly 15 years old. What he found out was, less than 9% of shots users watch TV, but over 60% of them would watch a video on YouTube. Shots Studios started as a “teen selfie app” and recently turned its focus to online comedy videos, with Floyd Mayweather as their first investor and Justin Bieber as a partner. Content creation has become a growing business, and Shots Studios has taken stars who built their fame in Instagrams, Vine and Snapchat, and helped them shoot high-production four-minute YouTube videos. What people want more than anything else is discoverability—more than a connection with celebrities or content with celebrities. John looked at what and why people were watching particular content, and enhanced that experience. He reveals how he did this, stays relevant and caters towards a younger audience, and more. | 10/25/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E684: Jam Session! Startup founders & growth experts share best strategies to become an influencer, build a channel sales progr | Jason “jams out” a number of marketing and growth tips with founders in this special “Jam Session” episode of This Week in Startups. Scott Abel, CEO of The Content Wrangler, shares 10 lessons to creating your own influencer campaign. Arjun Moorthy is currently the CEO of CivikOwl, and previously spent 5 years at HubSpot as the VP of Business Development and then as the Head of Channel Program. He shares lessons learned from HubSpot, and talks about how to widen your sales by paying resellers to become a channel for your product. Then, founder of Credo, John Doherty, explains why startup founders should do less content, but do it much better. | 10/21/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E683: Founder Nancy Lublin (DoSomething.org, Dress for Success) takes on suicide prevention with Crisis Text Line, partnering t | A recurring theme in our society and in the technology industry is suicide, depression, people in crisis. Nancy Lublin is a social entrepreneur, author and philanthropist that previously founded Dress for Success, the organization that helps women transition from welfare to work, and DoSomething.org, a non-profit organization with the goal of motivating young people to take action around social changes through national campaigns and grants for projects that make an impact. Her latest venture, Crisis Text Line, is the nation’s first free, 24/7 text line for people in emotional crisis. Teenagers love to text, and Crisis Text Line turns this into a way to help them through their hardest times: family issues, stress or suicidal thoughts. Trained counselors text back and forth with advice and resources—and, in the process, collect anonymous data that ultimately helps save lives. As a social entrepreneur, Nancy has observed people debating this issue, but not collaborating to solve the problem, and her vision is to inspire young people to take action to make an impact. | 10/18/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E682: Unity co-founder David Helgason on creating world’s leading 2D & 3D game-making platform, gaming industry trends & chal | David Helgason is an entrepreneur and co-founder of Unity 3D, a platform creating 2D and 3D games. In 2003, he had the crazy idea of revolutionizing the gaming industry and his pioneering days started in a garage during a time when VR and AR were still only speculative. In the last 10 years on this adventure, the future caught up with David, and things like AR, Pokemon Go, and other video games needed to create a 3D world. Unity 3D is like a stage where you put digital assets all together, make it interactive, compile it with one button, and then deploy it to all platforms. Unity 3D has received funding from the likes of Sequoia Capital, WestSummit Capital, and iGlobe Partners. David shares his challenges as well as his predictions for VR/AR and the future of mobile games. | 10/14/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E681: Tala founder Shivani Siroya on transforming microfinance & loans in emerging markets, using untraditional data & behavior | Shivani Siroya is the CEO and founder of Tala, a company is tackling a massive problem: there are 3 billion people around the world that are currently underserved from financial services—they don’t have bank accounts, access to formal credit options, traditional loan products, small business loans, or insurance products. Tala makes micro-loans in Kenya, Tanzania and the Philippines by using a person’s smartphone, transactions, and app usage to figure out if they are creditworthy. To evaluate creditworthiness, Tala built an Android app that scores would-be borrowers in 20 seconds by using data on their phone. In addition, they make a credit decision to lend money in that 20 second timeframe and acts as the lender. Tala dynamically prices between 5%-11% for the term, which is dramatically lower than the average APR in these markets, which is 350%. In this episode, Siroya describes how she pioneered this new form of micro-lending. | 10/11/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E680: Farmers Business Network co-founder & CEO Amol Deshpande on using data to empower farmers, how food supply actually works | There will be 11 billion people on the planet by the end of this century, and the challenge will be to sustainably and efficiently feed them. Food is becoming a big business, and big agriculture is taking over the Monsanto’s of the world with strong interests in profits. Amol Deshpande, CEO and co-founder of the Farmers Business Network, has raised $50M for the network and created a tool that uses data to help farmers thrive and maintain the family businesses they’ve had for generations. FBN takes an unconventional and disruptive approach by asking: “What good is the data if you can’t take action on it and do better for yourself?” Amol demos his product and bridges the divide in understanding in how our food supply actually works. Jason and Amol explore the world of GMOs and organics, and the future of feeding humanity. | 10/7/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E679: Internet Harassment & Free Speech: Quinn Norton & Kevin Marks join Jason to debate how trolling, human rights, and anonym | The emergence of social media connecting millions worldwide (& via Facebook, that's a cool billion) has thrown the problem of online harassment into the forefront of everyday life. What can we do about it? What's at stake? How does it affect real life, including human rights, freedom of speech, & law enforcement? Does online anonymity enable trolling, or is it irrelevant? What motivates trolls, anyway? Joining Jason today are writers Quinn Norton & Kevin Marks who have examined these questions in-depth and lend their debating skills to this Harassment on the Internet & Free Speech Roundtable. | 10/4/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E678: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes on his book “Door to Door,” the world of transportation, the tech behi | Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Edward Humes joins Jason to discuss one of humankind's greatest innovations and persistent problems: transportation. The two talk about Edward's latest book, "Door to Door: The Magnificent, Maddening, Mysterious World of Transportation," the technology behind the "have it now" economy, industry's revolution in the form of containerization (& its hidden costs, e.g. carbon emissions), the transportation juggernaut that is Dominoes Pizza, how to bully the Google car, security on planes & cargo ships, the future of autonomous cars & drones, best options for sustainable fuel, China as our greatest frenemy, and much more. Join us! | 9/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E677: Chris Sacca & Matt Mazzeo, Part 2: Shark Tank, investing in diversity, Lowercase Alpha, eSports, voting, & the privilege | It's Part 2 of Chris Sacca and Matt Mazzeo of Lowercase Capital. In this hour, the conversation turns to the patriotic duty of voting, Chris's experience on "Shark Tank" & the illustration of social mobility, the tremendous eSports market, drug testing, new products at Lowercase Alpha & the power of SMS, the great responsibility of being a VC and spending other people's money, Chris's favorite portfolio company,Tala.co, which extends credit in emerging markets, investing in diversity, raising daughters in the princess industrial complex, and more. | 9/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E676: Chris Sacca & Matt Mazzeo, Lowercase Capital, Part1: Universal principles of building startups, investing with integrity, | Chris Sacca & Matt Mazzeo of Lowercase Capital join Jason in L.A. for a rollicking two-parter. In between the ribbing, Part 1 finds the three catching up on the universal principles of building companies, what Chris & Matt can bring to the table, why Twitter isn't growing & its best buyer prospects, why Snapchat is genius but hard (for Chris & Jason but not Matt, the native swiper), the lost art of storytelling in product development, investing with integrity, Chris's tips for avoiding meetings -- and much more. (Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!) | 9/23/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E675: Chain CEO & Co-founder Adam Ludwin on creating the tool helping the top financial firms deploy blockchain, history & futu | Entrepreneurs are driving all of the innovation today, and this episode's guest is no exception. Adam Ludwin, CEO & Co-founder of Chain created a tool that's helping top financial firms (NASDAQ, CapitalOne, Citi, Fidelity, Visa & more) deploy the blockchain. Adam demos his technology, and offers a fascinating and super clear explanation of how/why bitcoin & the blockchain were developed, how it works, common misperceptions, how the DAO hack happened & long-term effects, and how he got that insanely amazing domain name. Jason and Adam venture deep into other tech & culture territory, including whither Apple, who will buy Twitter, Snapchat v. Instagram, religion, oppressed societies, Hamilton (The Musical), and the hardest part of a startup (hint: it's not the starting up). | 9/20/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E674: Upfront Ventures’ Mark Suster shares secrets from both sides of the table: advice for pitching to VCs, best founder qua | On location at Upfront Ventures, Mark Suster joins Jason to share the lessons he's learned from both sides of the table, as an entrepreneur and investor. Mark lends insight into the hottest topics in the investing world: why VCs are obsessed with ownership, who are the best founders and why?, what does it really take to make it, the questionable value of demo day, how do you wow a VC during your pitch, handling zombie companies, coming to terms with a massive miss (hint: Uber), being bullish on Andreessen-Horowitz and on IPOs, and much more. | 9/16/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E673: News Roundtable! Cade Metz of Wired & Ellen Huet of Bloomberg talk Apple event, a16z & WSJ haggle over returns, Theranos, | News Roundtable! Cade Metz of Wired and Ellen Huet of Bloomberg are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: the Apple event and what was relevant (anything?), the Andreessen Horowitz and The Wall Street Journal kerfuffle over a16z's returns, the never-ending train wreck that is Theranos, startups such as Hotel Tonight cutting back and tightening belts, drone-bearing burritos, Burning Man, Airbnb's new anti-discrimination policy, and more. | 9/9/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E672: SumoMe & AppSumo Founder Noah Kagan on being Facebook emp #30, getting fired & losing $185m in co. shares, why email mark | Noah Kagan, founder of SumoMe & AppSumo, started his career as employee #30 at Facebook, before getting fired and losing $185m in company shares. Lessons learned showed Noah what he truly he excels at -- building small businesses and helping them grow. As Director of Marketing at Mint.com he built that startup’s first 100k customers, and ultimately created the Sumo Group (SumoMe, AppSumo, KingSumo), which now has ~1m subscribers and generates 8 figures in revenue -- completely bootstrapped, with no venture capital. Noah talks about all this and more -- including his best email marketing tips and other tricks of the trade to build your site’s traffic, lists, and audience. | 9/6/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E671: All #AskJason: Wooing investors after failure, advice for introverts, approach to pricing, tackling growth, B2B vs. B2C & | After years of angel investing, Jason constantly gets questions. Today, he answers 11 common questions for 2016, some that are timeless, others about the moment -- from advice for introverts to self-promote to approaches to tackling growth, from how do you get intelligence about your competitor’s pricing to the secret to finding a technical co-founder if you are a non technical founder. Plus, find out what Jason thinks is most valuable to focus on: product, market, growth, team, prototype? All this and much more. | 9/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E670: Munchery CEO & Co-founder Tri Tran on escaping Vietnam and pioneering a food movement in America with his healthy dinner- | Should we have open or closed borders? Should we build walls or bridges? Today on the program is CEO and co-founder of Munchery, Tri Tran, who fought his way into the U.S. from Vietnam and built a company that employs hundreds of people and that is changing the way we think about food. Especially in this time of heated debate around immigration, Tri’s story reminds us to look at the details of how we want to run our country -- which in a way is like running a company -- and ask: do we let the greatest entrepreneurs in, or force them to go elsewhere? Tri walks us through how Munchery redefines dinner — early inspirations, scaling his business, brand design, delivery efficiency, and more. | 8/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E669: Moon Express’ Bob Richards on being 1st private co. to get permission to go beyond earth’s orbit, plans for moon mini | Ten or twenty years ago, if you were told that startups were going to try to build a business that is going to space, you would have laughed, because the only players in the space game were NASA, Russia, Japan, and China. But ten years ago, Elon Musk decided to start SpaceX. And now, we are starting to see a lot of people investing in space. Bob Richards is the co-founder and CEO of Moon Express, the first commercial, private sector company to get permission to leave Earth’s atmosphere. Bob wants to open up our understanding of how incredible the moon is. The long term vision of Moon Express is to show that a private sector company can go to the moon, unlock the resources there, and bring it back to earth to sell. Bob takes us on his odyssey starting with building a spacecraft in a garage, competing in the Google Lunar X PRIZE, and how VC’s and investors responded to his vision. Potential business cases, predictions on the future of space exploration and humanity, and more. | 8/26/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E668: News Roundtable! Jeff Bercovici (Inc.) & Olivia Zaleski (Bloomberg): Hampton Creek controversy & SEC inquiry, Peter Thiel | News Roundtable! Joining Jason is @jeffbercovici of @Inc and @OliviaZaleski of @bloomberg. The tech industry is moving at high speed; we are in the age of advancement. Companies are getting bigger, M&A and investment are going crazy -- but this leads to a lot of odd behavior in Silicon Valley. A riveting discussion that kicks off with the Hampton Creek controversy, while Jeff notes that the balance of power has become tilted between investors and founders. The conversation then segways to Peter Tiel executing greatest revenge in history by bankrupting Gawker, lending to the broader theme about fear of the power of wealthy people to go after publications they dislike. A debate over good journalism ensues, and the discussion ends with the group speculating about the future of robots and AI. | 8/23/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E667: Redpoint VC & analyst Tomasz Tunguz on his new book “Winning with Data,” advice for startups, using data to transform | Something has changed in the way we build companies in the past decade, and that major change was data-driven product design. Storage and bandwidth became essentially free and unlimited, changing the way companies stored data. “Should we store this data?” was the big issue back in the day. What really matters now is how you study that data and what strategies you deploy based on that data. Venture capitalist, blogger and author Tomasz Tunguz joins Jason to discuss the data wave and how his experiences inspired his brand new book, “Winning with Data: Transform Your Culture, Empower Your People, and Shape the Future.” We learn about Tomasz’s path from his early days with the Google AdSense team, his three investment outlook predictions, and his advice for startups to leverage and execute data. | 8/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E666: PT2-Ed Catmull, President Pixar-Disney & author “Creativity, Inc.” on Disney merge, the art of good filmmaking, build | Pixar-Disney Co-founder & President, Ed Catmull, and author of “Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration,” is one of the greatest startup founders in the history of Silicon Valley. In this Part 2 episode, his conversation with Jason on This Week in Startups continues as he talks about his existential crisis after Toy Story’s explosive success, the unique struggles for each Pixar film, and building a creative culture at Pixar and Disney. His story is one of dogged resilience, filled with risks, mistakes and lessons learned, and it will inspire entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs alike. | 8/16/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E665: PT1-Ed Catmull, Pixar-Disney President & “Creativity, Inc.” author on his early days as a pioneer in computer animati | Pixar-Disney Co-founder & President Ed Catmull, and author of “Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration,” is one of the greatest startup founders in the history of Silicon Valley. Today he joins Jason on This Week in Startups to share his own personal story, perhaps the best that has come out of Pixar. We learn about Ed’s journey from his early days as a pioneer of computer animation, being hired by George Lucas to run the computer division at Lucasfilm, working with Steve Jobs to form Pixar (ultimately Pixar-Disney) and leading it to meteoric success and, over time, developing creative & sustainable management philosophies to share with the world. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more! | 8/12/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E664: News Roundtable! Ari Levy (CNBC) & Rolfe Winkler (WSJ): Walmart snags Jet.com – Google, gov’t & anti-trust – U.S. d | Ari Levy of CNBC and Rolfe Winkler of The Wall Street Journal joined Jason for a must-see News Roundtable on This Week in Startups. An amazing discussion that kicked off with big deal of the week, Walmart snapping up Jet.com for $3b, that crackled on to Google, the government, anti-trust, the entire U.S. debt problem, the Chinese Market, the very future of energy (featuring, naturally, Elon), and the latest in startup CEOs behaving badly. And more. | 8/9/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E663: “Godfather of SaaS” Jason Lemkin shares the early indicators of hyper-growth SaaS & his investment strategies with LA | There are few people in the industry who really do the work, and take the work seriously. Many investors don’t take the work as seriously as the founders take their work. Being an investor is a great privilege, especially if you started off as a founder first. There are very few examples of investors working harder or as hard as the founders that they invest in, but SaaStr founder, Jason Lemkin, is one of those rare exceptions of the people who take the investing seriously. In this episode, Jason gives an update to the presentation he gave at the Angel Summit. | 8/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E662: Jam Session! Startup founders share best practices for e-commerce: Leveraging data, optimizing paid & offline acquisition | Jason “jams out” a number of growth tips and e-commerce tips with founders in this special “Jam Session” episode of This Week in Startups. Melody McCloskey of StyleSeat talks about leveraging data to drive growth and engagement, while Edgar Blazona of BenchMade Modern shares tips on optimizing paid acquisition via segmentation and landing pages. Then, David Temple of Hello Scout explains how to use offline acquisition to create trust. At the end, Jason asks one of the most candid questions a founder can ask, “Tell me about a near death experience, the worst moment in running your business.” | 7/29/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E661: George Hotz, founder of Comma.ai, on the vision & technology behind his Tesla rival, autonomous driving startup | George Hotz is known for unlocking the iPhone and PlayStation, but most recently, as being the founder of Comma.ai, an autonomous driving startup. He and his team built a driver assistant system that will get increasingly more sophisticated, also known as Level 3. George deconstructs the core components of his technology, and explains how it can compensate for human error in driving. And paired with the up-and-coming phone app called Chffr, soon, they will have technology where you can compare data and optimize your commute. His success has much to do with his philosophy of staying open--to build prototypes, to get it out there, and to move the world forward. | 7/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E660: Antonio Garcia Martinez shares insights from his bestselling ”Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Sili | The world of startups is a dog-eat-dog world, and Antonio Garcia Martinez shares all in his brutally candid book “Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley." Antonio shares his journey starting as a Wall Street Goldman Sachs Strat and witnessing the market crash, pursuing and enduring the trials and tribulations of startup life (complete with hefty legal and fundraising battles), negotiating a tricky twin Twitter acquisition deal that alienated his co-founders, landing as an esteemed Product Manager at Facebook during its heady crazy pre-IPO days, seeing his hard work in Ads come to a crushing, brutal end … only to be hired at Twitter. Trade secrets of tech giants, back-door deals, SV culture, personal hijinx -- all this and, believe it or not, much more. | 7/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E659: Founder Institute CEO Adeo Ressi shares lessons from running his global startup powerhouse, characteristics of successful | Spanning 135 cities across the globe, and producing around 2000 companies per year, the Founder Institute has become one of the biggest, most impactful programs for early stage companies in the world. In this episode, Jason sits down with the Adeo Ressi, Founder and CEO of the Founder Institute, to find out what makes Adeo’s entrepreneurship program different from the host of other incubators and accelerators out there. Adeo gives some background and lessons learned as a founding member of TheFunded.com, and shares his process of detecting successful founders as well as predicting which entrepreneurs will fail. As the owner of the LAUNCH Incubator, Jason is in his element comparing and contrasting the structure and practice of the Founder Institute with his guest. | 7/12/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E658: #AskJason at The Last Mile tech accelerator & training program at San Quentin State Prison | Today Jason is at San Quentin State Prison talking to prisoners participating in The Last Mile (TLM), a tech accelerator & training program to help prepare incarcerated individuals for successful reentry. Jason gives candid feedback on the products they’ve developed in their studies here. We see demos of Jason Jones’ GPA (Getting Parents Attention) that monitors and incentivizes good grades for student athletes, “Big Az” Ford’s f8, a connected fire prevention system, and Chris Schuhmacher’s Fitness Monkey, a platform to help users recover from addiction through health and fitness. Jason also answers tough questions about entrepreneurship, and the importance of making mistakes, overcoming obstacles, and staying true to oneself and one’s goals. | 7/8/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E657: SeedInvest Co-founder Ryan Feit on his role in passing JOBS Act, spearheading Title III & the equity crowdfunding revolut | Jason connects with equity crowdfunding pioneer Ryan Feit to discuss the groundbreaking Title III law, giving way to a brand new form of startup fundraising. The fight to end “80-year-old laws” regulating investment freedom has come to an end under the new section of the JOBS Act. As the CEO and Co-Founder of SeedInvest, as well as being an integral player in the movement to pass legislation to allow civilians the right to invest in startups, Ryan’s expertise in this new era of fundraising is unparalleled. | 7/5/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E656: News Roundtable! Robert Scoble (Upload VR) & Iain Thomson (The Register); Tesla’s fatal crash, useless jetpacks, VR cra | Esteemed reporter Iain Thomson of The Register and seasoned entrepreneur Robert Scoble of Upload VR join Jason for a gripping News Roundtable on this episode of This Week in Startups. Robert starts off the discussion with some juicy background on some of the cutting edge tech in virtual reality, while Iain explains why nobody should be worried about Tesla’s autopilot feature following the fatal accident. The group then rips apart some of the more fantastical ventures, such as a new military beta-tested jetpack, and Larry Page’s investments in flying cars. Finally, with the world on the edge after Brexit, this news roundtable takes a natural turn into both global and domestic political issues, including terrorism, gun control, and national security. | 7/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E655: Journalist Virginia Heffernan on her new book, “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art,” the web’s earliest days, Twit | “The internet is the great masterpiece of human civilization.” The world wide web has shaped the modern world in ways that the greatest creative minds of the past could never have imagined. Author, journalist, columnist and critic Virginia Heffernan joins Jason to discuss the impact of the internet and how that impact inspired her journey through the creation of her brand new book, “Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art.” With an unprecedented writing background ranging from Staff Writer at The New York Times to national correspondent at Yahoo News, Virginia has been long overdue for publishing her first book. | 6/28/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E654: Producer David Gluck brings JOBS Act Title III to life with his immersive “The Speakeasy,” the first equity crowdfund | Immersive theater has been around for some time now, but “The Speakeasy” is turning heads -- since JOBS Act Title III took effect, it's the 1st crowdfunding theater project in the U.S. to offer equity. Jason sits down with David Gluck, the producer and general manager of the interactive 1920’s-themed theater experience “The Speakeasy,” to find out the process, pros and cons, and progress involved in the quest to opening day. Check out the show's Wefunder campaign here: https://wefunder.com/the.speakeasy. | 6/24/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E653: #AskJason @ Microsoft Global Startup Roadshow: global economic engagement, universal CEO challenges, China’s B2C market | Episode 653 of This Week in Startups is a special “Ask Jason” session filmed live at the Microsoft Reactor in front of an audience of up-and-coming entrepreneurs as a part of the Microsoft Global Startup Roadshow. From London, to Tel Aviv, to Beijing, founders from all over the world converge at Microsoft for this intimate Q&A session with Jason. One by one, Jason candidly answers questions on fundraising, mentorship & achieving product market fit as well as giving feedback on product pitches. | 6/21/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E652: News Roundtable! Katie Benner, NYT & Eric Newcomer, Bloomberg: More Gawker-Thiel, 1st amendment, FB moral obligations, Mi | News Roundtable! Occupying the table with Jason are two distinguished tech journalists, Katie Benner of NYT Technology & Eric Newcomer of Bloomberg. There’s almost not enough time to cover all the biggest news in tech over the last few days. Between Gawker declaring bankruptcy, Microsoft’s LinkedIn acquisition and Walgreens ending its partnership with Theranos there is certainly no shortage of content today! | 6/17/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E651: Trello CEO Michael Pryor on scaling internationally to 1.1m daily users, benefits to hiring remote devs, and the future o | Trello CEO Michael Pryor sits down with Jason to talk about the business model that drove his company to such healthy and steady growth in Episode 651 of This Week in Startups. Grown to over 1.1 million users in just five years Trello has cemented itself in the world of enterprise software. Jason digs in deep to learn the secrets and hacks behind this young company’s success. | 6/14/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E650: Jam Session! Startup founders share best practices for customer management, satisfaction & success | -- | 6/10/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E649: News Roundtable! Jessica Lessin (The Information) & Nellie Bowles (The Guardian) talk Thiel v. Gawker, the Trump effect o | Episode 649 of This Week in Startups is a News Roundtable featuring Jessica Lessin, founder and editor-in-chief of The Information, and Nellie Bowles, staff writer for The Guardian. Jason riffs with the distinguished journalists on the polarizing and ongoing dispute between Peter Thiel and Gawker. Then, the discussion turns to include everything from the Trump campaign, to journalistic politics, and moral responsibility in the tech industry. | 6/7/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E648: All #AskJason: cannabis, education, diversity, real estate, funding & more at #TWiSTlive, Microsoft Reactor | In episode 648 of This Week in Startups, Jason opens up his office hours to an audience of investors and entrepreneurs at the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco to answer questions and analyze pitches. One by one, founders take the stage to pitch their products or simply to pick Jason’s brain. J.P. Martin of GrowX, Katherine Webster of Vets in Tech, and Keenan Williams of REZI, are just a few of the hard working entrepreneurs who stand up to hear Jason’s candid feedback on their ideas. | 6/3/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E647: IBM SmartCamp 2015 showcase: Winner Jessika Lora’s CarForce connects customers & dealers; finalists Mike Holt of Singap | In episode 647 of This Week in Startups, Jason interviews the top three finalists of the 2015 IBM SmartCamp. First, he sits down with Jessika Lora, CEO & founder of the SmartCamp overall winner, CarForce. Then Mike Holt of Gridcomm, one of the finalists, explains how his company will save huge energy costs by implementing a network of smart street lamps. Finally, founder Yoly Avalos demonstrates why Bquate is disrupting the music industry by placing distribution in the hands of the artists. ****Interested in applying for SmartCamp in 2016? Leave your e-mail at smartcamp2015.com and we'll notify you when applications come out.**** | 5/31/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E646: TWiST Live at Microsoft Reactor! Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup” & upcoming “The Leader’s Guide,” on th | Filmed live at the Microsoft Reactor in San Francisco, Jason takes the stage with seasoned entrepreneur and author of “The Lean Startup,” Eric Ries. Jason and Eric dive right into the meaty processes lined out in the bestselling book. They analyze real examples of the business experiments that Jason has personally tried out using tips and techniques pulled directly from Eric’s scientific method for achieving startup success. Get an inside look at where “The Lean Startup” revolution began. | 5/27/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E645: David Bennahum, Alpha Venture advisor & Founding Maker of Ready, shares his new coding education program for kids & the u | There was literally no program available to teach computational learning to kids past the age of ten…that is, until Ready was brought to market in February 2016. Jason sits down with Alpha Venture advisor and Ready Founding Maker David Bennahum in Episode 645 of This Week in Startups. David discusses the challenges of teaching coding to kids and shows off his software creator Ready, which aims to revolutionize the face of computational learning and education. | 5/24/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E644: Accelerator panel with Dave McClure (500 Startups), Emily Kirsch (Powerhouse), Cameron Teitelman (StartX); Joel Spolsky o | Accelerator programs have become an invaluable force in the world of startups. In episode 644 of This Week in Startups, Jason interviews a panel of accelerator thought leaders on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival. Dave McClure of 500 Startups, Emily Kirsch of Powerhouse, and Cameron Teitelman of StartX convene to discuss the benefits of enrolling in an incubator, and the differences between the major accelerators available today. Then, Joel Spolsky sits down with Jason to talk about his massively successful Q&A website, Stack Overflow. | 5/17/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E643: Vicarious co-founder Scott Phoenix on innovating in AI & the race to unlock the human brain to create artificial general | True artificial intelligence is arguably the ultimate technology. To create machines that not only learn, but teach themselves, is sure to unlock new realms of technological possibilities that we haven’t even considered. This is exactly what Vicarious aims to accomplish, and exactly why distinguished investors such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerburg, and Peter Thiel are pouring funding into this revolutionary company. In episode 643 of This Week in Startups, Scott Phoenix, co-founder of Vicarious, sits down with Jason for an in-depth interview on the inner workings within his groundbreaking AI company. | 5/13/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E642: News Roundtable! Veronica Belmont & Dave Mathews talk Bots galore, best VR, Twitter security v. privacy, Facebook curatio | Episode 642 of This Week in Startups is a News Roundtable featuring Dave Mathews, Founder and CEO of NewAer, and Veronica Belmont, writer and host of the extremely popular tech podcast The Sword & Laser. Jason leads the discussion on topics ranging from the reinvention of chat bots to the cutting edge of the 4D experience in AR/VR. With an off-the-cuff ‘Dueling Banjos’ segment on Alexa vs. Siri, this episode is a must see. | 5/10/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E641: Tony Xu, DoorDash Co-founder & CEO, on building a thriving business in the difficult on-demand market | Can the On Demand space stay afloat? Tony Xu, CEO and Co-founder of DoorDash, sits down with Jason for an in depth interview on This Week in Startups to explain how his company has scaled in the On Demand economy. The discussion ranges from growth and sustainability to the difficulties of the restaurant business in general. With the minimum wage increasing and the market consistently fluctuating, On Demand is one of the most difficult areas for entrepreneurs to break into. So getting insights from a founder who is thriving in that space is a truly educational experience. | 5/3/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E640: AOL co-founder Steve Case on the internet revolution & innovation roadmap in his new book, “The Third Wave: An Entrepre | Steve Case’s new book The Third Wave is the centerpiece for this special episode of This Week in Startups, and who better to discuss the content of the book than the author, Steve Case himself! Jason sits down with the legendary internet pioneer and founder of AOL to discuss the early days of the company, the intermediate years of the internet, and the future of innovation. The book focuses around the first two ‘Waves’ of the internet, and then delves into what Steve forecasts as the coming “Third Wave.” Steve’s vision for technology in the coming years is captivating, and this in depth interview helps explain the reasons he is listed among the great tech innovators of our time. | 4/29/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E639: All-star angel investors Gil Penchina (FlightVC), Paige Craig (ArenaVC) & Jenny Fielding (Techstars); FanDuel’s Nigel E | What do syndicates, Kickstarter campaigns, and AngelList all have in common? An all-star panel of angel Investors convenes to connect all of those dots and more in episode 639 of This Week in Startups. Gil Penchina of Flight.vc, Paige Craig of Arena Ventures, and Jenny Fielding of Techstars converge on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival to hash out the trials and successes in the young and exciting field of Angel syndicates. Then, Nigel Eccles, CEO of FanDuel, uses real data to explain why daily fantasy leagues are gaining so much popularity. He also clears up the differences between gambling and fantasy sports. | 4/26/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E638: Blake Scholl, CEO & Founder of Boom Technology, resurrects the dream of fast flight with his supersonic passenger airplan | After the retirement of the Concorde in 2003, the supersonic passenger jet has become long overdue for re-entering the market. In episode 638 of This Week in Startups, Boom CEO Blake Scholl sits down with Jason to explain how his company is resurrecting the dream of supersonic passenger flight, and why their new jet will be superior to the failed Concorde design. “The Concorde was 1950’s technology. Today we’ve got better aerodynamics, we’ve got software optimized aerodynamics, we’ve got better engines, better materials…” The list goes on as Blake explains not only the feasibility, but the reality of this exciting new venture! | 4/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E637: Foursquare CEO Jeff Glueck on using data to map the global economy, bridging digital with physical; Houzz CEO & Co-founde | Have you ever wondered what it takes to build a truly scalable business from the ground up? Filmed on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival, episode 637 of This Week in Startups features two very successful entrepreneurs who share some insights into how they have managed to scale their companies. First, Jeff Glueck, CEO of Foursquare, chats with Jason about the company’s decision to split into two separate apps, and how that decision has affected the growth of the business. Then, Adi Tatarko, CEO of Houzz, gives an in-depth look at the company, where they started, and how they reached a monthly user base of over 35 million worldwide. | 4/12/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E636: Pioneers of space tech & 3D printing: Planet Lab’s Will Marshall & Carbon3D’s Joe DeSimone at LAUNCH Festival | Filmed on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival, Joe DeSimone of Carbon3D and Will Marshall of Planet Labs demonstrate why their companies go beyond the cutting edge in their respective industries. First, Will Marshall brings in one of Planet Labs’ ultra compact satellites, which, having deployed over 150 into orbit, are creating a hyper-efficient Earth imaging system with virtually endless application possibilities. Then, Jason sits down with Joe DeSimone to find out what Carbon3D brings to the market, and how their innovative new approach to 3D printing is creating stronger, more sustainable products from higher quality materials. | 4/8/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E635: VCs Hunter Walk (Homebrew), Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures), Jed Katz (Javelin Venture Partners) on the state of investing; | It’s no secret that entrepreneurs everywhere are feeling the effects of the constricting tunnel of capital flow. Filmed on the LAUNCH Stage at the 2016 LAUNCH Festival, Episode 635 of This Week in Startups features an all-star VC panel with Jed Katz of Javelin Venture Partners, Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures, and Hunter Walk of Homebrew. Jason doesn’t shy away from asking the tough questions to get a glimpse into the minds of these seasoned VCs, find out what they’re looking for, and where they’re placing their bets. Then Kirt McMaster of Cyanogen, the largest distribution of Android on Earth, joins Jason for a fireside chat on the LAUNCH Stage. Kirt gives an in-depth look at his groundbreaking company and the future post-app ecosystem with CyanogenMod. | 4/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E634: Hadley Wickham, RStudio Chief Scientist & open source pioneer, on breakthroughs in data science, visualization, statistic | The world has become flooded with data over the past 10 to 20 years. Hadley Wickham, Professor of Statistics at Rice University and Chief Scientist at RStudio, explains the most efficient ways to sort through the oceans of useless data and find what you’re looking for. Hadley became a rockstar in the world of data science by creating a package called ggplot2, which turns data into visualisations. Jason and Hadley also discuss the process of “open writing” in modern technical journals. Then, Jason shares his desire to make predictions, and hopes that Hadley can share some advice on how to utilize statistics to make accurate predictions as an investor. But the conversation pivots towards the big philosophical questions… “Is God in the data?” | 3/30/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E633: News Roundtable! Ben Parr & Lon Harris dissect A.I. gone bad, robots taking over, Hulk Hogan, free speech, political scan | Are Millennials too entitled? Is Artificial Intelligence going to destroy the workforce? What if you had to choose between two presidential candidates you don’t like … ? (Hypothetically, of course.) On today’s News Roundtable, Episode 633 of This Week in Startups, Jason discusses all of these and much more with Ben Parr, author of Captivology: The Science of Capturing People’s Attention, and Lon Harris, Producer and Writer at Inside.com. With topics ranging from the boundaries of free speech and privacy to Jason’s plans for a transportation overhaul as the future mayor of San Francisco, this is an episode you won’t want to miss! | 3/25/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E632: Parker Thompson, a.k.a. @StartupLJackson, shares insights from creating his wildly popular Twitter persona & turns full f | In episode 632 of This Week in Startups, Jason sits down with Parker Thompson, creator of popular parody Twitter account @StartupLJackson, current partner at AngelList, and previous partner at 500 Startups. Topics of conversation range from the inspiration behind Startup L. Jackson to having ‘sharp elbows’ on the internet, from diversity in entrepreneurship and investment to how AngelList syndicates and equity crowdfunding rules are changing the venture capital landscape. | 3/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E631: Sebastian Thrun (Udacity, fmr GoogleX) & George Zachary (CRV) on democratizing higher ed & the future of jobs; bonus: Lud | If you’ve ever experienced frustration in the face of the U.S. higher education system and mounting student debt, you’re not alone. In episode 631 of This Week in Startups, filmed at LAUNCH Festival 2016, Jason guides a fireside chat with Sebastian Thrun, CEO and co-founder of Udacity, and George Zachary, general partner at CRV and heavy investor in Udacity. They discuss the broken system for higher education, MOOCs, and how Udacity continues to help workers adjust and succeed in a rapidly shifting job market. Then, at the LAUNCH Angel Summit, Jonathon Triest from Ludlow Ventures provides inspiration and examples on how authenticity is crucial to success. | 3/18/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E630: Keith Rabois on his home-buying disruptor Opendoor, the political storm, advice for founders & the rules of innovation; b | Keith Rabois on his home-buying disruptor Opendoor, the political storm, advice for founders, & the rules of innovation; bonus: Cyan Banister on investing with purpose | 3/15/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E629: Hyperloop Tech co-founders Shervin Pishevar & Brogan BamBrogan are making the dream of high-speed travel a reality, chang | Today, Jason is joined on the LAUNCH Festival stage by Shervin Pishevar and Brogan Bambrogan, Co-founders of Hyperloop Technologies. The Hyperloop is happening and we learn all about it! How it works, costs, location, government support (here and abroad), infrastructure, potential affects of the current Presidential race, the nature of ‘new cities’ and all the incredible innovation surrounding it. | 3/11/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E628: SocialCapital’s Chamath Palihapitiya on the state of the tech industry, politics, diversity, four keys to picking inves | At 2016 LAUNCH Festival, Jason sits down with Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and CEO of Social Capital. It's classic, candid Chamath sharing his insights on the changing morality in America (for better and worse), the insanity of Donald Trump, the critical importance of diversity in venture capital, income inequality, why we should hope that Theranos' Elizabeth Holmes will prevail, the four things you should look for when choosing your investors, predictions on self-driving cars, which will be the next $300b company -- and much more. You don't want to miss this! | 3/8/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E627: Pinterest product growth lead Casey Winters gives a crash course in growing a startup (or, WTF is growth?) | Casey Winters, Pinterest, gives a crash course in growing a startup (or, WTF is growth?) | 3/4/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E626: Zapier CEO & Co-Founder Wade Foster on creating the ultimate app connector, & the future of automation and integration | In episode 626 of This Week in Startups, Jason sits down with Zapier CEO and co-founder Wade Foster. Through the lens both of their experiences with Zapier – Jason as a user and Wade as a founder – they discuss the origins of Zapier, how Wade and his fellow co-founders have navigated the tricky waters of incubators and raising capital in the past five years, and the future of the company. They also spend time talking about the power of automation, the future of work, and managing distributed teams. Read below for some of the highlights from the episode. | 3/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E625: Jonah Greenberger’s Bright brings affordable solar energy, and new career opportunities, to Mexico; Jennie Ripps shakes | Jason talks to founders of two very different, emerging markets: solar energy and artisanal mixers. His first guest is Jonah Greenberger, whose company Bright is bringing affordable solar power installation to developing countries. It’s a great conversation about the state of solar, both in the US and abroad, and the power of brand ambassadors and providing an entirely new career opportunity to hundreds of students in Mexico. Next up is Jennie Ripps, the creator of the first tea cocktail mixer, Owl’s Brew. | 2/26/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E624: Thinking through the funnel: Des Traynor, Intercom founder, teaches the LAUNCH Incubator how to acquire & retain customer | In episode 624 of This Week in Startups, Intercom cofounder Des Traynor returns to the LAUNCH Incubator with another powerhouse talk. “Thinking Through the Funnel,” Des leads founders through different issues they should consider when trying to acquire users. Des lays a foundation by saying that most companies have no difficulty getting their first hundred, thousand, or sometimes even million users; it’s keeping those users that is the truly challenging task for companies. Read on for a quick walkthrough of the four main steps of getting — and keeping — users. | 2/23/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E623: Dennis Mortensen’s startup, x.ai, is an AI assistant that sets up meetings like a human, and that’s only the beginnin | Scheduling a simple coffee meeting can take days and countless emails to complete, but Dennis Mortensen wants to change all that -- and more. In episode 623 of “This Week in Startups,” the founder of x.ai show us his AI assistant, which sets meetings for you like an actual human. He also shares his thoughts on Siri, Echo, the Danish tax system, his vision for x.ai’s AI assistants conquering other tasks, and the future of artificial intelligence. | 2/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E622: Alec Ross, Sen. Advisor for Innovation during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Sec. of State, discusses his new book & the | In episode 622 of This Week in Startups, Jason sits down with Alec Ross, author of The Industries of the Future to discuss technology, employment, and the future of the United States economy (as well as the world). Their conversation ranges from Alec's experiences working as Senior Advisor for Innovation for Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State, to how unemployment rates in the U.S. differ from elsewhere, to robots and technology replacing jobs in the future. | 2/16/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E621: Science rules! Rowbots transforms agriculture with robotic farming & Experiment.com crowdfunds cutting-edge research | Science rules! Rowbots transforms agriculture with robotic farming & Experiment.com crowdfunds cutting-edge research | 2/12/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E620: Sprig co-founder & CEO Gagan Biyani scales sustainable, on-demand healthy food up to the next level | Sprig co-founder & CEO Gagan Biyani scales sustainable, on-demand healthy food up to the next level | 2/9/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E619: News Roundtable! Marketplace’s Molly Wood & The Guardian’s Nellie Bowles: Theranos, LinkedIn, Yahoo!, what’s up w/Y | On episode 619 of This Week in Startups, Jason sits down for another News Roundtable, with Molly Wood from Marketplace, and Nellie Bowles from The Guardian. Through the course of conversation, they touch on some of the hottest issues in startups and Silicon Valley news: ongoing developments from Theranos, the competitiveness of incubators like Y Combinator, room for improvement at both LinkedIn and Yahoo, and how San Francisco is faring as the Super Bowl approaches. Here are some of the highlights from their conversation. | 2/5/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E618: Brock Pierce (Blockchain Capital Partner & Bitcoin Foundation Chair), breaks down blockchain protocol, bitcoin mining & s | Today Jason sits down with Brock Pierce, Managing Partner at Blockchain Capital and Chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation. Together, they discuss blockchain protocol, bitcoin mining and scalability, innovative use cases, and the future of cryptocurrency. Throughout the episode, Jason asks Brock important questions about the technology and future of Bitcoin and blockchain; these answers provide insight into the cryptocurrency industry as a whole, and the huge potential it will have to change the world. | 2/2/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E617: WSJ’s John Carreyrou shares his investigative reporting on Theranos, including latest & breaking: CMS declares the co. | Wall Street Journal's John Carreyrou began reporting on Theranos nearly a year ago, since uncovering many troubling facts about the fast-rising startup, amid a firestorm of controversy. In October 2015, John informed the public about the co's struggles with its blood-testing tech. This week, it's the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) findings that Theranos lab poses an immediate danger to patient health. And today, in an exclusive interview, John breaks the news that Walgreens is suspending use of a CA Theranos lab and closing its Wellness Center, effective immediately. Jason and John dive into the details of the story, starting from John's initial tip about something amiss through today's stunning developments. We learn exactly why CMS considers Theranos to be a public health threat; how Theranos Chief Scientific Officer Ian Gibbons, before he took his own life, told his wife that nothing at the company was working; John being repeatedly ignored on requests to interview Founder Elizabeth Holmes; insights on John's reporting, his sources, and the WSJ vetting process; the grave risks of bringing a healthcare product too soon to market; when, if ever, this story will end -- and much more. | 1/28/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E616: Change.org Founder & CEO Ben Rattray launches mobile platform, Change Politics, and shares insights from 9yrs leading onl | Today Jason sits down with Ben Rattray, founder and CEO of Change.org. It’s the launch of their mobile platform, Change Politics, where citizens can vote on issues and submit questions directly to candidates (so far, to Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Chris Christie, and counting!). Ben shares his insights from the pivots he’s experienced over the last 9 years, and also stories on how his platform became the change agent for many important issues, from school bullying to suicide, to the Boy Scouts finally allowing gay members, and more. A fascinating discussion about politics, society, and the power of the people. | 1/26/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E615: News Roundtable! Mattermark’s Danielle Morrill & NYT’s Katie Benner dig into the state of the markets, funding & IPO | It’s the News Roundtable with Danielle Morrill, CEO and Founder of Mattermark, and Katie Benner, reporter at the NY Times. Each brings their expertise of deep data and reporting to shed light on the state of the market and projects for 2016. Among the many questions tackled: are we going to have a crash, or just a correction? (and what's the difference?); will there be IPOs in 2016 … and should there be??; what would be the ripple effect of Chinese stock market crash? is this a scary landscape, or exciting? (i.e., time to bail … or buy?) The three also discuss the Apple’s latest forays into A.I. and VR, the on-demand market, the unit economics of Uber, their favorite apps and guilty pleasures. And a heated debate about the ethics of publishing data on companies perceived to be going south … Don’t miss this! | 1/22/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E614: Co-founder & CEO Emily Kirsch leads the charge with Powerhouse, the world’s 1st incubator/accelerator dedicated to sola | As Co-founder and CEO of Powerhouse, the world’s first solar-focused incubator and accelerator, Emily Kirsch thinks about energy a lot. On today’s This Week in Startups, Jason and Emily sit down to talk all things solar, including the current state of the solar industry and where it’s headed in the next 20 years. Hear Emily’s predictions about the future of solar energy (looking bright), the nuts and bolts of how she runs her incubator and accelerator (and the difference between the two), and a great number of wide-ranging and in-depth discussions from oil in the Middle East to the Tesla Powerwall. | 1/19/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E613: Andy Artz (SocialCapital) shares major keys to mobile growth success; Cheshire.tech, the winners of Jason’s “Request | Andy Artz, Partner at Social Capital, shares the major keys to mobile growth success with the LAUNCH Incubator. But first, brothers Kirill & Oleg Zdornyy, the winners of Jason's "Request For Startup" (RFS) stop by the studio to demonstrate Cheshire.tech. | 1/15/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E612: All #AskJason: scaling strategies, pitching tips, video trends, traction tactics, cautionary hiring, valuable practices a | It’s an All #AskJason to jumpstart your 2016! Jason answers 14 fan questions, from selling ideas to successful startups to the top 5 things you should consider when pitching to investors, from business processes that have been surprisingly valuable to Jason to whether he would hire someone with a felony conviction. Also on tap: video trends you can capitalize on, ways to innovate with government, and Jason’s favorite question: is it better to focus on number of users or revenue stream?? All this and much more -- don’t miss it! | 1/12/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E611: Jed Katz of Javelin Venture Partners shares his 52-pt Series A checklist at LAUNCH Incubator; bonus: HomeHero’s Kyle Hi | Today's two-parter begins with a 52-point Series A checklist from Jed Katz, Managing Director of Javelin Venture Partners. Speaking to the LAUNCH Incubator, Jed lays it all out, from how to present yourself to investors, to how much money to raise, to which VCs to target. Then a bonus segment, and one of the most popular talks from LAUNCH Scale 2015: Kyle Hill, founder of HomeHero, Kyle reveals the seven values that guide his company culture. | 1/8/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E610: Chris Impey on “Beyond: Our Future in Space” & the great entrepreneurial opportunities awaiting us there | Space is the topic today, where out there exists incredible business opportunities. From mining asteroids to low-orbit internet satellites, the entrepreneurial space race is on! Jason's guest is Chris Impey, astronomy professor and author of "Beyond: Our Future in Space," and they dive into everything from our "exploration gene" to Mars colonization and the Mars tsars, the amazing range of opportunities for startups wanting to break into the outer limits, why we haven't found evidence of intelligent life and, inevitably, sex in outer space. And much more! A fascinating, mind-expanding discussion about the frontier that is closer than you think. As Jason says: "You don't have to watch science fiction anymore, you can watch startups." | 1/5/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E609: Scott Croyle on his vision for Nextbit & Robin, Future of the Kitchen, Matt Galligan shares lessons from Circa at LAUNCH | From LAUNCH Mobile Wearables IoT, Jason and Peter Rojas (Engadget, Gizmodo) meet the entrepreneurs on the cutting edge of these industries. First, a fireside chat discussing mobile tech with Scott Croyle from Nextbit; second, it's the Kitchen of the Future with Timothy Chen from Sereneti Kitchen, Brielle Pettinelli from ROOT, and Stephen Svajian from Anova Culinary; third, Matt Galligan from Circa takes the stage to share his lessons and wisdom about startup success and failures. Don't miss this! LAUNCH Mobile Wearables IoT was presented by our friends at Pivotal. | 1/1/2016 | Free | View in iTunes |
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#AskJason: Rachel Proffitt & Todd Carpenter of WSGR tackle tough startup legal questions | It's a special #AskJason, featuring Rachel Proffitt and Todd Carpenter from WSGR, answering your startup legal questions. On today's docket: learn the absolute legal must-haves when bootstrapping a startup (and what can wait...), the convertible note versus series seed stock conundrum, the tricky business of firing your co-founder, determining the valuation of your company, and more! | 12/30/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E608: News Roundtable: Best of 2015! The spectacular (and sometimes dangerous) year in drones, space, self-driving cars, Twitte | It's the News Roundtable: Best of 2015! Jason recaps the biggest stories of the year with Ari Levy, Senior Tech Reporter at CNBC, and Dave Mathews, inventor and founder of Newaer. The trio reviews 2015 and predicts 2016 across many areas, such as drone technology, self-driving cars, how Jack will run Twitter, the hottest space race (between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos?), why Elon is Entrepreneur of the Year (maybe Decade), and Amazon’s dominance in an increasing number of markets. Also in the mix is a Quirky post-mortem, speculation on low IPOs, a message from Jason directly to Theranos employees and what this story represents about journalism, a sushi bet on when 100 driverless commercial vehicles will operate within a city’s limits -- and much more. | 12/28/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E607: The Ecommerce Episode! BenchMade Modern, CloudPeeps, and Bento innovate in on-demand customized furniture, human resource | Today, a special ecommerce episode! Jason sits down with three startup founders innovating in this exciting space. First is Edgar Blazona of BenchMade Modern, an on-demand furniture service that builds personalized sofas, to-the-inch, in 24 hours; second is Kate Kendall from CloudPeeps, a marketplace that connects businesses with the top freelance marketing, content, and community professionals; third is Jason Demant from Bento, an on-demand food delivery app that allows users to customize their meal with Asian-inspired dishes. Thank you to Braintree for sponsoring these three great conversations exploring ecommerce trends, challenges, and opportunities in 2016 and beyond. | 12/25/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E606: Tim Draper (DFJ) & Troy Carter (AtomFactory) on the state of investing: what’s broken, what’s coming, the virtues of | In today's episode, Jason sits down for an investors fireside with leaders Tim Draper (DFJ and Draper Associates) and Troy Carter (Atom Factory) at the Draper Venture Network CEO Summit. Tim uses his extensive experience to analyze the current startup landscape and predict the future of investing. Troy's unique background in the music industry allows him to draw parallels between unicorn CEOs and former clients like Lady Gaga. Tim and Troy offer their unique perspectives on a wide variety of topics, including launching incubators, what the sheer volume of startups means for the ecosystem, the biggest challenges looking for angel investing, characteristics budding founders need to be better entrepreneurs, the importance of transparency, needing both courage and paranoia to succeed -- and much more. | 12/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E605: Jared Fliesler of Matrix Partners & Erik Moore of Base Ventures with rapper Too Short, share rock-star strategies on mark | Two of the top-rated speakers from LAUNCH Scale 2015! First is Jared Fliesler, General Partner at Matrix Partners and former growth & product guru at Square, Google, and Slide. Jared shares his best strategies on product marketing, focusing on one thing as a startup, and developing clear, concise and compelling messaging. Second is Erik Moore, Founder of Base Ventures, who offers rock star tips on seeking VC capital and the importance of hustle. And Erik has an awesome surprise ... he invites Bay Area rapper Too Short to the stage, who tells us how he employed entrepreneurial hustle to build his business. | 12/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E604: News Roundtable: Yahoo! (Yikes!), low IPOs, Zuck’s philanthropy, Alibaba buys media, Bitcoin plot thickens, fundraising | News Roundtable! Joining Jason today are Ryan Block (AOL, Engadget) and Brian Alvey (Weblogs Inc., Recurrency), both seasoned and savvy entrepreneurs who are now helming early-stage companies. The trio tackle the latest news, including Yahoo! mess (Yikes!) and Marissa predictions, the interesting 2015 IPO situation (meaning, the lowest # of IPO since 2009), all about Zuckerberg's philanthropy (only on the Internet can you be criticized for giving away $45b), is the Bitcoin-creator mystery solved or what?, Alibaba buying China's largest paper and reflections on our own content landscape, the state of fundraising now and what's to come, Ryan reveals the name of his new company on-air for the first time! -- and much more. | 12/15/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E603: Chris Sacca is back! The legendary investor hears pitches & talks Shark Tank, Twitter, education, climate change, politic | Legendary angel investor and "Shark Tank" star Chris Sacca returns to TWiST! Chris and Jason sit down to discuss everything from investing in relationships to Jack Dorsey as Twitter's CEO (now and early on). He talks about what he looks for in an investment, how he met Matt Mazzeo, those early years with Twitter and selling people on the business, and how his dream job involved "a lot of being on the phone, a lot of yelling at people... high risk, high reward." Chris shares his experiences on "Shark Tank," how fun it is to bust the chops (he uses a different term...) of Mark Cuban and Kevin O'Leary, and how TV could be part of the next chapter of Chris' life. Chris also listens to pitches from three companies that came out of Jason's LAUNCH Incubator - Requested, LeadIQ and Benchmade Modern - offering feedback to each of the three founders about their businesses and how to move forward. | 12/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E602: Roger Dickey scores $10m Series A from Andreessen Horowitz for his on-demand software dev platform, Gigster; bonus LAUNCH | Today’s guest is Roger Dickey, Founder of Gigster, an on-demand software development platform that just raised $10m in Series A funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. Roger showcases to Jason how Gigster works, using a sample “Uber for Pizza” project to illustrate how quickly a quote is offered and why it’s so important to qualify the customer. We learn about “the central brain of Gigster” (the AI that puts together the quote so quickly), what it will take to make Gigster a billion-dollar business, the fastest path from an idea to a finished product, why startups should outsource their development and why technical teams can get too attached to their prototypes. Roger also reflects on his time at Zynga (where he founded Mafia Wars and served as a GM), why the company isn’t doing as well as it used to (hint: a tough mobile shift...), and the differences between dominating social gaming on Facebook and dominating in on mobile. ALSO! A bonus segment from LAUNCH Scale, featuring Sue Khim, Founder of Brilliant.org, sharing her growth tactics: specifically, how focusing on triggers, not users, got Brilliant into the "2 comma club." | 12/8/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E601: All Shark Tank / Ask Jason at TWiST Live! | All Shark Tank / Ask Jason at TWiST Live! Join in as Jason hears a plethora of startup pitches and serves up his trademark searing feedback. Among the companies we meet: a data platform dairy farmers, an app that helps parents create healthy menus for their kids, the world's smallest GPS pet tracker, tools to instantly find information you need, a direct link between man and machine, doctors on demand -- and much more! Thank you to our partner, Samsung Global Innovation Center, and to Silicon Valley Bank at WeWork Golden Gate. | 12/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E600: TWiST Live! Eric Ries on The Lean Startup, the law of sustainable growth, lessons learned, and looking ahead | It’s a special TWiST Live for Ep600! Jason sits down with Eric Ries, author of “The Lean Startup” and the upcoming, Kickstarter-backed, “The Leader’s Guide.” Eric and Jason discuss in depth The Lean Startup methodology, what it means today with so many startups out there, and his plans for future publications and resources for supporting entrepreneurship. We hear Eric’s own lessons learned as an entrepreneur (i.e., don’t refuse customers who want to try your product), his insights into the law of sustainable growth and what it means, and secrets on how to measure exponential growth before the point of critical mass. Eric also takes questions from the live audience, answering questions about iterating a new product on a strict timeline, raising money, what makes a great VC, and what he would change if he had to write “The Lean Startup” again (hint: a lot). Join us! | 12/1/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E599: Building a marketplace & taking it to the streets: Marco Zappacosta of Thumbtack & Sonny Mayugba of Requested share super | LAUNCH Scale 2015 featured 50+ speakers sharing their best growth strategies. And today’s episode features two of these amazing talks. First is Marco Zappacosta, Founder of the unicorn Thumbtack, who talks about his epic success and explains how he built his billion-dollar marketplace. Next is Sonny Mayugba, Founder of Requested, who gave the highest-rated talk of the conference with his presentation on how to grow your startup using street teams. | 11/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E598: Babak Hodjat, Sentient.ai Co-Founder & Chief Scientist (& main inventor of tech behind Siri), is creating artificial inte | Babak Hodjat is Co-founder and Chief Scientist of Sentient, the most-funded artificial intelligence startup in the world, which emerged from stealth in 2014 after raising more than $100m Series C (the largest round ever by an AI startup). Though already going strong in financial trading (with 1.5+ CTUs globally), last week they launched Sentient Aware for E-commerce, which is already being used by the Canadian shoes.com and which Babak demonstrates for us. Babak is also the main inventor of the tech behind Siri, and he and Jason discuss the actual intelligence level of Siri, along with many other fascinating aspects of AI, including the ethics behind it, where it falls on the “worry” scale between simple memory chips and nuclear weapons, its potential impact on warfare, gambling, and self-driving cars, and the inevitable 20-year sushi bet! AI is capable of improving ourselves (in the case of health), knowing what we want before it even exists (in the case of e-commerce), but will it be capable of destroying humanity? | 11/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E597: The “Godfather of SaaS” Jason Lemkin shares his Saastr community, criteria for investing, analysis of SaaS startups & | Jason sits down with the "Godfather of Saas," Jason Lemkin, to discuss everything from the SaaS (software as a service) industry to angel investing criteria, from Lemkin's current venture Saastr, to what the field has in store. We learn about the history of SaaS, why we owe a huge debt to Salesforce, and why so few enterprise customers “try before they buy.” The two Jasons further discuss Microsoft’s foray into SaaS, why “lockin” is a myth, the successes of -- and differences -- between Slack and HipChat, Lemkin’s SaaS investments (including Talkdesk, Algolia), why founders don’t make great VCs, Lemkin’s criteria for an investment (hint: the founder has to be better than him) and Lemkin’s advice on lifetime value to budding SaaS startups. Finally, the Jasons posit what would happen if Google or Microsoft came out with a free Slack competitor (protip: do not get arrogant about your engineers), the hurdles in monetizing a free product, why an acquisition might cost nothing for a big tech company, the mistake many companies made in 2008 and 2009, why choosing the celebrity investor isn’t always the best idea, the sheer volume of startups today -- and much more. | 11/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E596: Matthew Markus’ Pembient is creating synthetic rhino horns to disrupt an illegal $750m trade and halt the acceleration | Today Jason explores the world of synthetic biology with Matthew Markus, Co-founder and CEO of Pembient, a startup creating synthetic rhinoceros horns to disrupt the $750m illegal rhino trade and stop the poaching and farming of this increasingly endangered animal. Matthew explains why the horns are so valued in East Asia (medicinal and luxury uses), how this overwhelming demand threatens the current rhino population, and his solution to end this problem. We see how Matthew’s startup actually creates and 3D prints the horn and how close biologically the synthetic are to actual horns (very close, and working to get closer every day). Jason and Matthew also discuss the synbio industry, the technology involved, some of the great things happening with food and synthetic biology (imagine steak created in a lab with no beef in it), and the future of synthetic biology and how these scientific advances could apply to humans, society, and bioterrorism. | 11/17/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E595: SF 49ers CEO Jed York on building the world’s most connected stadium; the Future of Wellness at LAUNCH Mobile Wearables | From LAUNCH Mobile Wearables & IoT: Jason and Sundeep Madra (VP Strategy and Corporate Development at Pivotal) talk to Jed York, CEO of the San Francisco 49ers, who built the most connected stadium in the world. Jed, Jason, and Sunny discuss the stadium’s high-end Wi-Fi infrastructure, interactive mobile app, augmented reality museum, and the future of sports. Next, Jason and Peter Rojas (co-founder Engadget and Gizmodo) explore the Future of Wellness with Spire, 6SensorLabs and Fisher Wallace Laboratories. 6SensorLabs’ mobile device Nima tests foods for gluten; Spire helps users remain calm by tracking breathing; Fisher Wallace Laboratories is the first to have a device that's FDA approved to treat depression, anxiety, and insomnia. | 11/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E594: Future of the Smartwatch with Pebble Founder & CEO Eric Migicovsky; the Futures of Transportation & On-Demand at LAUNCH M | It’s the Futures of the Smartwatch, Transportation, and On-Demand from LAUNCH Mobile, Wearables & IoT! First, Eric Migicovsky, founder and CEO of Pebble, shows us his latest in timeround and talks with Jason and Peter Rojas (co-founder of Engadget and Gizmodo) about how apps are becoming more integrated into smartwatches and where the technology is headed. Second, Jason, Peter, and Janice Fraser (Director, Innovation Practice at Pivotal) explore the Future of Transportation with Skully, a motorcycle helmet with a heads-up display that provides information like speed, upcoming traffic, weather, and maps to keep the driver's eyes on the road, and Automatic, a device that connects to the car, allowing users to access all of the car's data and become better drivers. Third, they look at the Future of On Demand and apps as a service with with Luxe (valet parking), Scout (personal travel concierge), and Wrapify (make money while you drive). LAUNCH Mobile, Wearables & Iot was presented by our friends at Pivotal. | 11/10/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E593: News Roundtable! Twitter hearts, PropF fails, Google-Android antics, IPO dangers, unicorn obsession, smartwatch stalls, s | Amir Efrati of The Information and Eric Newcomer of Bloomberg join Jason today to break down the latest tech news. Twitter's new heart and its meaning; Prop F failure, Airbnb dominance, and San Francisco's housing crisis; Google's solution to its fragmentation; Android antics; smartwatches and why the Apple Watch hasn't taken off with consumers; Square's IPO and the dangers of filing for an IPO too late; why journalists are obsessed with unicorn companies; how self-driving cars will impact companies like Uber, how long we have to wait until mass adoption, how Uber will handle growing in China and India; Jason's 2019 mayoral campaign -- and much more. | 11/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E592: Miles Beckett, “lonelygirl15” creator, returns to healthcare and builds Silversheet, a verification platform and comm | Miles Beckett, creator of the first web series "lonelygirl15," joins Jason today to discuss his latest adventure. Returning to his M.D. roots, Miles founded Silversheet, a verification platform for doctors and nurses and a certification platform for surgery centers. A fascinating conversation about the rise of technology (and optimism) in healthcare, the importance of network effect and its role in Silversheet's development, future field developments including telemedicine and occupational outlook for professionals, why med schools are losing money, current system challenges (hint: if you have kids, don't go to Urgent Care ... go to the ER!) -- branding, how "lonelygirl15" came about, the history of YouTube, and much more. | 11/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E591: Roelof Botha, Partner at Sequoia with David Rusenko, Founder of Weebly; Leah Busque, Founder of TaskRabbit at LAUNCH Scal | At LAUNCH Scale 2015, Jason sits down with Roelof Botha, Parter at Sequoia and David Rusenko, Founder/CEO of Weebly; and with Leah Busque, Founder/CEO of TaskRabbit. | 10/30/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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#AskJason: Mobile, Wearables & Internet of Things! Part 3, with Janice Fraser, Pivotal | Today, it’s a special #AskJason: mobile, wearables & Internet of Things (IoT) edition, with special guest Janice Fraser, the Director of Innovation Practice at Pivotal. Jason and Janice lend insights to fans’ pressing questions on m/w/IoT, including why IoT is so important, the states of virtual and augmented reality, what the Apple watch really needs to succeed, whither mobile in emerging, global markets -- and will we still be driving cars in 5-10 years? | 10/28/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E590: TheTake & Minbox: two LAUNCH festival alums take great risks to innovate and succeed — and become leaders in very diffe | Today’s guests for this two-parter: Tyler Cooper, Founder & CEO of TheTake, a platform for identifying people and places in movies, and Alexander Mimran, Founder & CEO of Minbox, a cloud file-sharing and storage software. Both are graduates of the LAUNCH Festival, and Jason sits down with each to hear about their company’s progress since debuting. | 10/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E589: News Roundtable with Quentin Hardy, NYTimes & Jeff Bercovici, Inc.: Q3 earnings stunner, Theranos mess, Slack dominance, | News Roundtable with Quentin Hardy, NYTimes & Jeff Bercovici, Inc.: Q3 earnings stunner, Theranos mess, Slack dominance, RedYouTube, journalism's shifting landscape. | 10/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E588: Tony Hsieh, Zappos & Joel Simkhai, Grindr on mission, growth, and leadership at LAUNCH Scale | At LAUNCH Scale 2015, Jason sits down with Tony Hsieh of Zappos and Joel Simkhai of Grindr. | 10/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E587: David Sacks (PayPal, Yammer, Zenefits); Troy Carter (Atom Factory) w/Nalden (WeTransfer) at LAUNCH Scale | At LAUNCH Scale 2015, Jason sits down with David Sacks of three-unicorn PayPal, Yammer, and Zenefits fame, Troy Carter of Atom Factory, and Nalden Hans of WeTransfer. | 10/16/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E586: Nami Zarringhalam’s unicorn Truecaller surges past 150m users worldwide; bonus panel on the Future of Finance at #STHLM | At#STHLMtech Jason sits down with Truecaller Cofounder Nami Zarringhalam; bonus panel on the Future of Finance. | 10/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E585: Jason takes a global look at The Future of Investing with Accel, 500Startups, & Telia at #STHLMTech | At #STHLMTech Fest, Jason takes a global look at The Future of Investing with Accel, 500Startups, & Telia. | 10/9/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E584: Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor at Stanford Business School, on the toxic “Leadership B.S.” that plagues companies and sti | Today's guest is Jeffrey Pfeffer, Professor at Stanford Business School, whose new book "Leadership B.S.: Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time" tackles the leadership crisis plaguing companies and stifling true innovation. | 10/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E583: Niklas Zennstrom, Founder of Skype and Atomico, and Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Founder of Klarna, with Jason at #STHLMtech | At STHLM TECH FEST Jason sits down with Skype and Atomico Founder Niklas Zennstrom and Klarna Founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski. An amazing conversation spanning: Stockholm v. Silicon Valley breakdown as the best place to start your company, how Niklas came to invest in now-unicorn Klarna, how Sebastian got the #1 VC (Mike Moritz) to not only invest but also join the Board, Niklas' experiences being sued for billions by the music labels over his co. Kazaa in the early 2000’s, how the idea for creating Skype came about, why Niklas decided to sell Skype for $8.5b to Microsoft (and if he regrets selling), how Niklas’s $450m VC fund Atomico provides more value than just money (hint: international growth), how the Stockholm startup ecosystem is booming and has the most unicorns of anywhere in the world per capita, the increasingly urgent topic of immigration -- and much more. | 10/2/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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#AskJason: Mobile, Wearables & Internet of Things! Part 2 | Today, it’s a special #AskJason: mobile, wearables & Internet of Things (IoT) edition! Jason lends insights to fans’ pressing questions on m/w/IoT, including the best wearable safety tech for bicyclists, Apple watch and glanceables, how to coach clients over mobile, whether podcasting and smartphones will take over terrestrial radio, and more. | 10/1/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E582: News Roundtable: Ryan Hoover (ProductHunt) & Carmel DeAmicis (Re/code) answer ad blocks, iPhone, Twitter polls, Uber, Sla | News Roundtable! Today's guests are Ryan Hoover, Founder of Product Hunt, and Carmel DeAmicis, Reporter at Re/code, with a highly spirited take on tech's latest. Ryan and Carmel talk ad-block mania, iPhone fever, Twitter polls, expanding Uber, Slack's morphing into social, SV work culture -- and they take Jason's Definitive Millennial Quiz. | 9/29/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E581: The Future of Transportation with Uber, Tesla & Delivery Hero: how they became global leaders, keeping the vision, challe | Today’s episode is an incredible two-parter from STHLM TECH FEST. First, a fascinating discussion on the “Future of Transportation” with three companies leading the charge. Jason and Tyler Crowley talk with Uber European General Manager Jo Bertram, Tesla Chief Product Officer Peter Carlsson, and Delivery Hero CEO and Co-founder Niklas Ostberg (online food-ordering service in 34 countries), and Kees Koolen, Founding Partner at EQT Ventures. Among many gems, we learn how leading up to Model S release Tesla was burning $100m per quarter, how the car industry thought they would only sell 3,000 vehicles over their lifecycle (and they now sell 1,200 per week...and are thinking about the future of autonomous cars….); how Uber has legalized ride-sharing in most US cities and is one of the safest transportation options in every city they operate in, but still has a fight ahead in Europe; how Delivery Hero has raised $1b and what their path to profitability looks like (scale!) and why they might start making and delivering its own food. Next up we get a visit from the Prince of Sweden Daniel Westling and hear two pitches in the transportation space from Shipwallet (no-click shipping) and Fidesmo (a connected card). | 9/25/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E580: Daniel Ek, Founder & CEO of Spotify, on the state of streaming, tenacity, transparency, competition, inspiration — and | Daniel Ek started Spotify in 2006 with a vision to revitalize the music industry, by giving consumers unprecedented access to tracks and creating a novel, sustainable business model. Now music-streaming is the norm, every player is in the game — and pioneer Spotify is sitting on top of the world with 20m+ paid subscribers. On stage with Jason at the STHLM TECH FEST, Daniel shares his journey, from starting his first company at 14, to bootstrapping Spotify with his own money, to dealing with competitors, to what’s next for the industry leader. It’s a fascinating discussion on music (and the joy and pain of innovating in this most challenging space), Spotify’s early dark days and hard lessons, startup transparency, thoughts on the Google Apple YouTube Tidal Taylor Swift potpourri, Daniel’s strategy for handling competition (hint: making Spotify better), Europe’s awesome and crazy cheap bandwidth (get with the program, America), breaking the music biz stranglehold, the future of streaming -- and much more. | 9/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E579: Founder Bryan Johnson sold Braintree to build an extraordinary world with OS Fund and next-level synthetic biology, A.I., | When Founder Bryan Johnson sold Braintree to eBay in 2013, he decided to build something extraordinary to make the world a better place. So he founded OS Fund to invest in early-stage science companies working on solutions to our planet's biggest problems, in the fields of synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, space tools, transportation. What's more, Bryan just created an open-source playbook for others to do the same -- one that demystifies investing in science so that more needed dollars can find these important companies. Bryan and Jason have an amazing conversation that spans science discoveries, religion, ideology, investment challenges and opportunities, our greatest societal threats, the latest in life extension, what's really going on in A.I., paying it forward, striving for peaceful co-existence, nuclear weapons, and (naturally) a sushi bet involving manned drones. Don't miss this! | 9/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E578: Tim O’Reilly’s WTF Economy takes on how tech is transforming the workforce, creating a new narrative for the future o | Today's special guest is Tim O'Reilly, media pioneer, publisher extraordinaire, a hero of Jason and inspiration for many. The Founder of O'Reilly Media stops by the studio to talk about WTF Economy (that's ... What's the Future?) -- specifically, how technology is transforming the workplace, the challenges and opportunities we face as a result, and our best ways to move forward. | 9/15/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E577: Bryn Mooser’s RYOT.org is using VR to transform journalism and bring us a deeper, visceral understanding of the most im | Today's guest is Bryn Mooser, Co-Founder of RYOT.org. RYOT is a breaking news site with embedded calls-to-action -- and it's now transforming journalism by using VR to tell the most powerful stories from around the world. Bryn stops by the studio with RYOT's VR gear & camera, and Jason dons the goggles (w/an audience look-see as well) to virtually experience the bombed-out city of Aleppo Syria, post-earthquake Nepal, the Sierras and more. It's an exciting conversation about the latest innovations in VR and why it works to create empathy, filming in war zones and areas in crisis, the importance of media calls to action, celebrity philanthropy, viewer engagement, what countries are most at-risk in the world, and much more. | 9/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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#AskJason: Mobile, Wearables & Internet of Things! Part 1 | Today, it’s a special #AskJason: mobile, wearables & Internet of Things (IoT) edition! Jason lends insights to fans’ pressing questions on m/w/IoT, including mobile-first strategies for new startups, the security of IoT (everything is connected: where is too much?!), is mobile taking over design and content?, opportunities in the massive smartphone penetration in emerging markets, and the challenges of growing mobile hardware using lean startup methods. This is the first in a series of special #AskJasons presented by Pivotal Labs. LAUNCH & Pivotal are teaming up to host Mobile, Wearables & IoT at Fort Mason in San Francisco, October 15-16. More info at: launchmw.com. Join us! | 9/10/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E576: LAUNCH Incubator 2: Matt Epstein, VP Marketing of Zenefits, opens his playbook & shares how he led the SaaS powerhouse to | After figuring out your product-market fit, there is nothing else your startup should be doing other than making sure you are getting that hockey stick growth. Matt Epstein, VP Marketing at Zenefits, dropped by the LAUNCH Incubator to tell us exactly how it's done. Matt was the first employee hired at Zenefits and has been leading the charge on their monumental growth over the last 3 years (from 3 to 1,200 employees and $0 to $21 million in annual recurring revenue!). Matt opens up the “Zenefits playbook” for how they achieved this massive growth, which consists of: finding product / market fit, scaling with machines, scaling with people, and then doing everything else you can to get growth. Matt teaches why finding your “secret sauce” is so important because it gives you data on what the best way to sell your product is, how to scale with machines in search of repeatable SaaS metrics, what to look for in scaling with people (and what types of people you need to hire right away), what three essential questions you need to ask when hiring your first VP Marketing, VP Marketing Operations, and Sales Development Reps, what the five biggest screw ups they had at Zenefits were and how you can avoid them (i.e. 10x your goals!). Don't miss this! | 9/8/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E575: Greg Sommer, Founder & CEO of Sandstone Diagnostics Inc., brings male fertility testing & tools to the at-home health dia | Joining Jason today is Greg Sommers, CEO & Founder of Sandstone Diagnostics, Inc., a consumer wellness company that creates gadgets and develops resources to help people monitor health. Greg's latest is dontcookyourballs.com, dedicated to male fertility testing and education -- specifically, bringing it to the privacy and convenience of your home. It's a fascinating discussion about the future of healthcare and home diagnostics, how Greg developed the project, working with the FDA, the cost of innovating in this space, how the consumer is taking control of his/her health and all that implies, Jason's day at a fertility clinic -- and much more. | 9/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E574: Investing legend & technology pioneer Ann Winblad shares decades of insights on funding software unicorns, finding breakt | Hummer Winblad Venture Partners was founded in 1989 as the first VC fund to invest exclusively in software companies. Today Jason sits down Ann Winblad, technology investing legend and the firm’s Co-founder and Managing Director. Jason and Ann discuss Ann’s journey as an entrepreneur and a wide range of riveting topics: how Ann started her first company Open Systems in 1976 and sold it for $16m in cash in 1983 (an enormous sum then!), how there was only $350m invested in software in 1990 versus $23b in 2014, their unicorn-filled first fund w/ 8 of 16 investments going public, companies Ann wished they invested in, qualities she looks for in entrepreneurs, why companies go under, why A-round investing is so much fun but so few do it, why enterprise software is not in a bubble, why Bill Gates was the most impressive entrepreneur in the 1980’s (and what it was like dating him), her experiences as a woman in venture capital, being optimistic about the world’s future while concerned about America’s, and much more! | 9/1/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E573: News Roundtable! Google’s Alphabet, Amazon heat, Ashley Madison scorched earth, WTF Stock Market, ethics of watching re | News Roundtable! Joining Jason today is Cade Metz, Senior Writer at Wired, and Jeff Bercovici, SF Bureau Chief for Inc. It's been an eventful couple weeks to say the least, and our panelists get right into. Kicking off is all things Google & Alphabet, which Cade covered extensively, into the Amazon controversy and work culture debate, next WTF is up with the Stock Market!? including, naturally, the latest on are we in a bubble-or-what, Ashley Madison hack scandal continues to drop jaws and erode any remaining illusions of online privacy, and the ethics of watching violent, terrorist-generated content online. | 8/28/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E572: Ben Nader, CEO/Founder of Butterfleye, launches Indiegogo today with his home security camera that is smart, wireless, po | Joining Jason today is Ben Nader, CEO/Founder of Butterfleye, a smart, wireless, portable, activity-based home security camera that Jason has dubbed "the love child of GoPro and Dropcam." Ben is in the studio to announce his Indiegogo campaign launching 8/25/15 (at the time of this writing: TODAY!), and it's a special, unique one at that: the product is actually here, works beautifully, and is ready to ship. Ben shares his inspiration for the product, his experiences as a technical founder, hearing "no" 74 times before meeting Jason (who is an investor), the challenges and opportunities of innovating in hardware, why he went with Indiegogo, what's happening in security, how many full-time employees it takes to create a product -- and much more! [ Campaign at getbutterfleye.com ] | 8/25/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E571: Larry Lessig launches exploratory campaign to run as the “Referendum President,” fix the corrupt campaign system & re | Jason's guest today is Larry Lessig (Harvard law professor, co-founder Creative Commons, and political activist) who just launched his latest incredible endeavor: an exploratory campaign to run as the Referendum President in 2016, to fix our nation's corrupt campaign and restore representative democracy. If Larry raises $1m by Labor Day, he will officially run. (Check out his crowdfunding campaign at lessigforpresident.com!) Larry stops by the studio during his campaign tour to talk with Jason about why his wants to run for the country's highest office and his bold vision for implementing change -- including his intention to serve only one day as President, just long enough to sign campaign reform into law and then turn the reigns of power over to his VP. It's an amazing conversation about corrupt government, what we should expect from a democracy, how far we've fallen, the solutions to turn it around (and the time is NOW), economic elitism, an unforgiving criminal justice system, progress in changing copyright laws, Larry's shortlist for VP (a very important choice considering his plan!) -- and MUCH more. You don't want to miss this. | 8/21/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E570: Carrie Southworth, Co-Founder of Twigtale, created a platform for personalized children’s books, bringing kids joy & he | Today’s guest, Carrie Southworth, is the Cofounder of Twigtale, a platform to create personalized children's books to help them through transitions (i.e., going to a new school, moving to a new home, new siblings, etc.). Jason and Carrie discuss how her having children inspired this idea, the brain science behind why stories are so effective in connecting with children, how experts have been recommending this teaching method forever but no one had modernized it until Twigtale, how the product is incredibly easy to use from desktop or the app, what it was like participating in the Disney accelerator (leading to a partnership with Disney), how Twigtale is trying to help parents raise integrated adults, how they raised a $1m SEED round from Larry Page, Ivanka Trump, and others, how they’ve employed only word-of-mouth marketing up to this point (which will change soon!), Carrie’s experiences acting in “Buffy: the Vampire Slayer” and “General Hospital” earlier in her career -- and much more! | 8/18/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E569: All #AskJason: Zirtual lessons, product launch tips, VCs & copycats behaving badly, crowdfunding v. raising, remote devs, | Today: All #AskJason! Jason fires off answers to 10 super fan questions in his classic razor-sharp and information-packed style. Kicking off with a timely query about Zirtual and lessons for entrepreneurs, Jason shares his opinions on what happened, what could have gone better, and how to avoid similar situations. The insights keep rolling from there, with tactical advice on crushing your product launch, whether to crowdfund or raise first, breaking into SV from across the world, side-project etiquette, location-aware mobile apps, blogging and self-publishing, and an anonymous question from a startup who fears their product is being copycatted & shopped around (w/ complicit VCs...) | 8/14/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E568: Jalak Jobanputra, Founder of FuturePerfect Ventures, delivers comprehensive breakdown of startup funding options, clearin | VC Jalak Jobanputra, Founder of FuturePerfect Ventures, brings her 20yrs investment experience to the LAUNCH Incubator 2 class and delivers a comprehensive breakdown of funding options for startups in 2015. The landscape is slippery and ever-shifting, but Jalak's pointed analysis of players in this "investor soup" -- including the pros/cons/consequences of aligning with each and essential questions founders need to ask of investors and of themselves -- gives us sure, solid footing. (Know your goals. Do not simply follow what everyone else is doing.) A must-listen. | 8/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E567: Maren Kate Donovan’s Zirtual connects high-quality, remote EAs with entrepreneurs, breaking wide open new opportunities | Today Jason sits down with an incredible entrepreneur, Maren Kate Donovan, Founder and CEO of Zirtual. Maren’s startup provides remote EAs (called ZAs) for entrepreneurs, small teams, and professionals. Zirtual connects high quality professionals with companies desperate for help but not necessarily in a position to hire full-time, on-site staff. Jason and Maren discuss how the idea for Zirtual was born, what it was like moving 400 Zirtual Assistants from independent contracts to employees (and incurring 20%-30% more costs because of this), how most Zirtual Assistants have a “helper” personality type (helping others provides a lot of personal fulfillment), how the recent launch of Zirtual for Teams will be the product that 10x’s this business, how they have an $11 million run-rate after just $4 million in investment and four years operating, an upcoming beta test offering the 3-5 most specialized service requests soon (i.e. PowerPoint, etc.), what it was like to get Tony Hsieh as their first investor, what challenges Maren has faced as a female founder, and much more! | 8/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E566: News Roundtable! Twitter turbulence, Facebook-YouTube video wars, prez hopefuls courting/alienating Silicon Valley, cyber | News Roundtable! Today joining Jason is Ben Parr (investor @dominatefund, author @captivology, ex- @mashable @cnet) & Declan McCullagh (founder, recent.io, ex- @CBS, @CNET, @Wired, @Time). The latest in Twitter lows & highs. Stocks in trouble and a leadership vacuum but ... cool new news tab! (For selected users.) A shot across the bow for all news apps? What's next for this enigmatic company that we're all addicted to? Also, content creation and the state/future of media, including Hank Green's recent Facebook slam which raised a million questions about Facebook vs. YouTube video. (And we answer most of them here.) Also: Declan's upcoming @recentapp, a thorough (and dishy) dissection of presidential candidates alternately courting and alienating Silicon Valley, Jason's tweet-chat with Jeb Bush, hacking & protesting in China, whither smart gun tech, cyber-attacks, should the U.S. government concern itself with building supercomputers, Jason's intentions both to run for president and write a book (you heard it here first!), and much more! | 8/4/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E565: Ahryun Moon, founder of EtchApp & the return of “Ask Jason”! | A special two-parter for you today. First up is Ahryun Moon, founder of EtchApp, a company that crushed this year's LAUNCH Hackathon and went onto product success, with their recent launch -- and feature -- in the Apple store. EtchApp is a multi-tasking replacement keyboard for devices so you can send messages & access services without switching -- and just might be, as Jason predicts, THE killer Watch app. We see the product in action, hear what inspired its creation (hint: learning Chinese), learn about what it's like innovate in this vertical, comparisons to U.S. and Korean markets, and how the LAUNCH Hackathon started it all...... THEN! It's the return of #AskJason! Jason takes questions from fans. Brace yourself! | 7/31/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE564: Julie Fredrickson, CEO & Co-founder of Stowaway Cosmetics, is a direct-to-consumer innovator taking on a $60b industry | Direct-to-consumer is one of the hottest trends in our industry. No retail, no malls, straight to the customer, and please pass the savings. Today Jason talks to direct-to-consumer entrepreneur Julie Fredrickson, who is innovating in a $60b market ripe for disruption: cosmetics. Stowaway creates make-up in small sizes that you can carry and finish, thereby reducing the inefficiency and waste that characterizes an industry which is 70% controlled by 10 conglomerates. Stowaway, co-founded by Julie and Chelsa Crowley, is also one of Jason's investments, so it's a great conversation about how he became involved, his thoughts on the space, Julie's experiences as a female founder, the power of a simple message for your product, the importance of a good referral program, what it's like to take on a backwards but powerful industry, and much more. | 7/28/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E563: Ali Vahabzadeh, founder of Chariot, hopes to change the way we move around cities with the first-ever crowdsourced shuttl | Today Jason talks with Ali Vahabzadeh, Founder of Chariot, an entrepreneur hoping to change the way we move around cities. Despite recent innovations in private transportation options, mass transit remains mostly a mess. Even in cities where public transpo exists, there are always inaccessible routes and neighborhoods. Ali's Chariot offers an alternative with a commuter shuttle service, that has learned lessons from where other shuttles have failed and reinventing the model. Cost-effective, reliable, scalable and -- here's a first -- crowdsourced. Once a certain city route gets enough votes, service is launched there, guaranteeing riders. Jason and Ali discuss the nature of cities and transportation, the current broken system, we see the Chariots in action on the site (during rush hour), why it's important that Chariot drivers are W-2, the differences between operating in a drive-first city versus a transit-first city, Ali's upcoming plans to introduce social features -- and more. This is the second episode of our Tumml 2fer, featuring two founders who graduated from the Tumml accelerator & are tackling tough urban problems. (Interestingly, both went on to YC, as well.) | 7/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E562: Chuck Johnson, blogger & founder of gotnews.com, on being permanently banned from Twitter & his controversial journalism | Jason wrote a blog post on "Trading Open Standards for Corporate Ones," in which he referred to the upward trend of corporate agents controlling what we read, especially on Twitter and Facebook. An example he used was Twitter permanently banning all of the accounts of blogger Chuck C. Johnson. Chuck reached out to Jason, who in turn invited Chuck into the studio to talk about censorship. What transpired is a conversation that takes many turns into the territories of aggressive journalistic tactics and controversial human beliefs. We'd love to hear what you think. Tweet @jason and be part of the conversation. | 7/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E561: Christine Boyle, founder of Valor Water Analytics, developed tools to fix our broken, archaic water system & recoup losse | Today we have a great episode on an important topic: water. It's one of the biggest problems we face as a society, especially with many regions experiencing drought. Joining Jason is Christine Boyle, founder of Valor Water Analytics, who tracks and finds the biggest culprit of our broken system -- waste. Poor data, faulty pipes, leaks and loss run amok! Christine explains the tools she's developed, with a 60%-2000% ROI, that focus on conservation and process efficiency rather than drastic, unrealistic measures. She and Jason talk data, bad water behavior, worst offenders, desalinization, evapotranspiration (say it fast!), William Shatner's wild ideas, where is that breaking point (for real), how San Francisco is more efficient than Los Angeles, is it necessary to flush urinals, and so much more! This is the first episode of our Tumml 2fer, featuring two founders who graduated from the Tumml accelerator & are tackling tough urban problems. (Interestingly, both went on to YC, as well.) | 7/21/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E560: Brian Hoffman’s OpenBazaar.org, a decentralized marketplace to buy/sell anything online with bitcoin, is a Big Idea wit | On today's show is Brian Hoffman, lead developer of OpenBazaar.org, a decentralized P2P open marketplace to buy and sell anything using bitcoin. Parallels to Silk Road abound, and Jason and Brian explore these in-depth, as well as discuss how this previously-believed unfundable idea secured $1m funding from heavyweights Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, dive into the marketplace itself so we see how exactly it works, how sites like reddit and other technologies might decentralize and what that means, how Brian went from being a security consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton to creator of this radical marketplace for trading freedom online and becoming CEO at OB1, its umbrella startup -- and much more. It's a fascinating and slightly scary discussion you don't want to miss! | 7/17/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E559: Andy Weir, author of NYT bestseller “The Martian” (soon to be Ridley Scott/Matt Damon movie) on writing the year’s | Today’s guest is Andy Weir, author of “The Martian,” NYT bestseller and soon to be a major motion picture directed by Ridley Scott & starring Matt Damon. For nearly 20 years, Andy has been a prolific writer, following his science fiction passion when not at his full-time computer engineering job. “The Martian,” which started as a serialized book on his website for a small loyal audience, was eventually discovered by Random House and the rest is history. Jason and Andy have a fascinating conversation about “The Martian” (the book & movie), science fiction, writing, creativity, and inspiration. The story, about an astronaut who has to survive for years on Mars after being accidentally left behind, is an intelligent and exciting exploration of how people use resources in unexpected ways to solve unexpected problems. Andy shares how his research was as scientifically accurate as possible (NASA is happy), why now is the best time in history to be a writer because there are no more gatekeepers, what it was like to find out Ridley Scott and Matt Damon would be doing the movie (but why he never popped any champagne), the differences between tours at NASA vs. SpaceX (hint: SpaceX is a rocket factory & they don’t have time to mess around!), why the key to space travel is driving the price down to where middle class demand can reach it, why he is an optimist about energy and our planet, we learn Jason and Andy’s favorite Ridley Scott movies, and much much more! | 7/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E558: News Roundtable! Reddit’s game of thrones, tech outages seemingly everywhere, hackers gone wild, sex scandals, equity c | **apologies: audio low in spots during first 10 min** News Roundtable! Today joining Jason is Nellie Bowles of Re/code and Dave Mathews of NewAer. All the happenings at Reddit this week, plus predictions!! (Amazingly, some are proved right and some wrong -- not 5 minutes after this show ended!) What's up with those tech outages at NYSE, United, and WSJ this week -- glitches, hackers, end of days? (Dave has a definitive answer.) The first non-accredited investor, equity crowdfunding deal since the Title IV of Jobs Act, in the form of a sweet, 3-wheeled, 2 passenger vehicle. (But would any our panelists drive it?) Meerkat integrates Facebook, luxury pot on demand is FINALLY here, colorful (related) stories involving Nelle's Greek grandma, 23andMe becoming a unicorn, hackers gone wild, sex scandals and advertising at Cannes Lions, Tinder, Grindr -- you name it and our panelists cover it this week! | 7/11/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E557: LAUNCH Incubator 2: Pinterest product Jason Shellen (formerly Google, AOL & founder of Boxer) on why people love stories | LAUNCH Incubator 2: Pinterest product Jason Shellen (formerly Google, AOL & founder of Boxer, Hike Labs) talks to the class about decks done right and why effective storytelling about your product and company is critically important to getting the right attention and excitement from investors. (Hint: people love stories, not decks.) From his successes in raising money for his companies, Jason shares essential deck do’s and dont’s, candid advice from investors on what they want to see in presentations, using your struggles, pain, and adversity to make your story better, what to do in the face of inevitable conflicting VC advice, when to send a deck (don’t), and much more. FOR MORE INFO/RESOURCES: check out Jason Shellen’s blog post about speaking to the Incubator class: https://medium.com/@shellen/7ba0f87429f8 | 7/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E556: NYT bestselling author Steven Kotler (Tomorrowland, The Rise of Superman, Bold, Abundance) on science fictions turned fac | Joining Jason today is Steven Kotler, NYT bestselling author of "Tomorrowland" & "The Rise of Superman," co-author (w/Peter Diamandis) of "Bold" & "Abundance," and co-founder of the Flow Genome Project. Jason and Steven dive deep into entrepreneurs' unique opportunities now to change the world, the science fictions that have already become science fact (hello, bionics!), the gathering steam (and storm) of exponential technologies, which world issues are currently terrifying scientists & which attract needless worry, the triggers & (amazing) benefits of the flow state, what ONE thing drives most successful people, and much more -- all while trying to outdo each other in "Blade Runner" quotes. Join us! | 7/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E555: A.J. Daulerio, Ratter.com founder & former Deadspin & Gawker EIC, talks about the battles, triumphs, opportunities & the | Content businesses are incredibly hard, but that isn’t stopping today’s guest entrepreneur. Jason sits down with former Deadspin and Gawker Editor-In-Chief A.J. Daulerio, who has now launched Ratter.com, a network of a local tabloids & national news. Jason and A.J. discuss what it was like battling in the content business in the early 2000’s, how A.J. first got started at the failed gambling blog OddJack (and was eventually fired by Lockhart Steele), why A.J. and Nick Denton thought the local tabloid idea for Ratter would work even though the similar Patch.com had just failed, how A.J. plans to do stories that blow the doors off of everything else on the web (and how he plans to monetize it), why investigative journalism is so unique today with Twitter and live-video, why Twitter is more important than mainstream media (and why mainstream media should be paying people on Twitter), what made A.J.’s story covering Texas Rangers Josh Hamilton his first big hit, why Hulk Hogan is suing A.J. and Gawker for $100 million over a sex scandal story (which might bankrupt both of them), whether it is a good idea for journalists to pay for stories or not (hint: if it is absolutely crucial to a story and you do it infrequently -- yes), and so much more! | 6/30/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E554: TWiST/Inside Drones, Part 3! At Skycatch w/CEO Christian Sanz & the premiere of PixiePath w/CEO Bryan Elliot | In this next installment of This Week in Startups/Inside Drones, we've got an exciting two-parter. First, Jason is on location at Skycatch, the first fully-autonomous, intelligent & scalable data retrieval/aerial robotics platform. Jason gets a chat and demo with CEO Christian Sanz and Senior Mechanical Engineer Fran Wang. Second, it's a product premiere!! In our studios is Bryan Elliot, CEO/Founder of PixiePath, who shows us his awesome new system of orchestrating drone fleets remotely. Bryan talks about his inspiration for developing this platform, his entrepreneurial journey, the latest in FAA regulations, and where we're headed! Join us!! | 6/26/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E553: LAUNCH Incubator 2 – Josh Elman, Greylock Partner & longtime product manager (Twitter, FB Connect, LinkedIn, RealPlayer | At the LAUNCH Incubator 2, Josh Elman, Partner at Greylock and longtime product manager (Twitter, Facebook Connect, LinkedIn, RealPlayer), breaks down the 4 key factors you need to understand about your company and product: (1) problem: what do people want?, (2) inception: how do we make them aware?, (3) adoption: how can we get them going?, and (4) retention: how does it become a habit? Don't miss this tactical and inspiring talk from a product pioneer! | 6/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E552: Tech innovator Rowan Trollope debuts Cisco Spark, at long last bringing simple, affordable, supreme quality video confere | Today Jason sits down with Rowan Trollope, tech pioneer and SVP/GM of the Collaboration Technology Group at Cisco. Despite incredible tech innovations in every aspect of our lives, video conferencing continues to be clunky, with only 5% of conference rooms equipped with a setup that works. Rowan's new, beautiful, and affordable product, Cisco Spark, aims to solve this problem once and for all, and get us to 100% video connected. Rowan shows us Cisco Spark in action. It's simple (you don’t need IT) and affordable (less than $2K) with no numbers or codes to dial and no pairing needed. We learn how Cisco is using an open community of startups on top of this platform to usher those companies into the enterprise, how Rowan introduced startup innovation into a big company by acquiring three startups (which then made up the Innovation Team on Cisco Spark), why most acquisitions fail (and why that doesn’t matter), how the most requested Slack feature is integration with real-time video, why agility (not efficiency) is what matters in an exponential world -- and how collaboration is essential for agility, why innovation needs to spread beyond Silicon Valley, how the on-demand economy is completely changing society, and so much more! | 6/19/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E551: News Roundtable w/Benedict Evans & Molly Wood: U.S. tech funding dissected, Apple plays for music & news, Twitter’s sha | Powerhouse News Roundtable! Joining Jason today for a roaring good time is Benedict Evans, Partner Andreessen Horowitz/top tech analyst & Molly Wood, Host/Senior Tech Correspondent, APM's Marketplace. You'll want to listen a couple times to keep up with this epic, jam-packed, crackling convo. Learn exactly what is going on in tech funding (what year are we in, anyway? hint: not 1999), what's behind Apple's latest attempts to get into the game (of news & music), Twitter's catch-22 and all its puzzles wrapped in an enigmatic business model, Microsoft's biggest opportunities, THE most burning virtual reality questions, among them: are investors ready?, what will reign supreme: games, education, or porn?, will Molly ever finish watching that first-person VR horror movie she was too scared to finish?, and will Benedict finally commit to a 1-10 rating for Mad Max? (I mean, how many times does Jason have to ask?) And MUCH MORE. | 6/16/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E550: 3D Robotics CEO/Founder Chris Anderson on his hottest new drones, the evolution of the hardware renaissance, why he creat | It's our second show for Drone Week & the launch of the "Inside Drones" podcast! Chris Anderson, former "Wired" Editor-in-Chief turned CEO/Founder of 3DRobotics (3DR) invites Jason to Berkeley, CA, to talk & fly the hottest drones. It's an amazing conversation where Chris explains his journey from "Wired" to becoming obsessed with drones after building one out of legos with his kids, to starting an open source drone community, to building 3DR -- the biggest drone maker in America. Jason and Chris dive into the history of how this incredible technology came to be, exactly how drones are bound (or not bound) by the laws of physics and/or government, and what we can expect (dream!) for the future. We see some of Chris's greatest hits, upcoming releases ... and watch Jason and Chris fly them on his roof deck! Join us! | 6/12/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E549: Helen Greiner, Founder/CEO CyPhyWorks (prev. iRobot Founder & Roomba inventor), sweeps Kickstarter & takes to the sky wit | It’s Drones Week and the official launch of This Week in Startups / Inside Drones podcast! Drones are becoming ready for primetime. They are safe, easy to fly, and are now able to do actual commerce in the world because regulations are becoming reasonable. Our first drones guest expert this week is Helen Greiner, Founder & CEO of CyPhyWorks (a drone robotics company), also Cofounder of iRobot and inventor of the Roomba vacuuming machine. Tune in as Jason and Helen have an exciting drone demo & discussion about what makes hexacopters far superior to quadcopters and helicopters, how CyPhyWorks was able to blow their Kickstarter campaign goal out of the water and raised more than $500,000 for their first hexacopter (which will retail for under $600!), how seeing R2-D2 in Star Wars for the first time is when Helen knew she wanted to build machines that were more than machines, why real-time social sharing is important with drone flying, how there has FINALLY been a proposed set of FAA commercial drone regulations that will make commerce possible, and how Helen wants her company to be the drones delivering packages to your home. Jason also gets a chance to live demo the CyPhyWorks LVL 1 drone! Join us! | 6/9/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E548: Jared Fliesler (Matrix Partners, prev. Square, Slide) on 3 important steps towards growth | LAUNCH Incubator 2 | At the LAUNCH Incubator 2, Jared Fleisler of Matrix Partners (previously Square, Slide) takes us through 3 important steps toward growth. First, how do you BUILD your product? Begin by identifying focus, market size, status quo, experience, and timing. Second, make sure you understand MESSAGING versus marketing. Craft your message - and test it! Gain your customers trust. And third, know your MARKET. And much more! Do NOT miss this jam-packed, inspiring, and highly tactical talk from one of the industry's greatest growth gurus. | 6/5/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E547: Jeff Dachis, former CEO/Founder Razorfish, is changing the way people manage diabetes with OneDrop | On today's show is entrepreneur extraordinaire Jeff Dachis, former CEO/Founder of Razorfish & current CEO/Founder of OneDrop.today, an incredible management & social platform for people with diabetes that won Best Design at LAUNCH Festival 2015. Soon after Jeff learned that he had diabetes in 2013, he discovered the complete lack of tools available to manage it -- and decided to invent them. OneDrop, a Waze for diabetes, pulls together data that is normally siloed, and gives users all the information they need, in one place: tracking glucose levels, meals consumed, exercise & activity information, and much more. OneDrop also connects users, letting them share their data & support each other's endeavors. Jeff walks us through an awesome demo of his product, including sneak previews of features & new monitors coming soon. It's a rich conversation in which Jason and Jeff also discuss the need for more prevention-based healthcare solutions in our problem-based system, health care versus self care, disease management as a market, the differences between diabetes types 1 and 2 (and the future/hope for each...), what Jeff has learned on his entrepreneurial journey since web 1.0 (hint: talent is everything) -- and more. Join us!! | 6/2/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E546: #TWiSTLive at Samsung Global Innovation Center: All “Ask Jason”/Shark Tank | All "Ask Jason"/Shark Tank is back! Today’s show, hosted at the Samsung Global Innovation Center, features companies asking for Jason’s honest advice on their fledging startups, and entrepreneurs asking Jason their most burning questions. And the ideas sparkle & fly! We meet a music event startup, a virtual reality startup, a live video journalism app (reverse Periscope), an on-demand personal assistant app, an idea network, and more. Jason covers the importance of conducting user interviews, the importance of solving a singular problem really well, why the metaverse (a 3D version of the web) will not be productized, how working on virtual reality now feels like working on the internet right before broadband (a 5-10 year journey), why crowdsourcing live video for journalism is a GREAT idea, how it can be better to focus on getting one high-profile partnership than growing organically, the main criterion for Jason typically to invest (contrary to most investors!), execution > money, the huge advantage of working in a wide open space -- and so much more! | 5/29/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E545: #TWiSTLive at Samsung Global Innovation Center: Virtual reality demo & fireside chat with Amir Rubin, industry pioneer & | #TWiSTLive!! Virtual reality is an exciting & hotly debated space. Its potential is massive, but will it ever really "arrive"? In today's live show, recorded at Samsung Global Innovation Center, Jason answers this question with a resounding YES, as he demos the latest & greatest VR and hosts a riveting fireside chat with Amir Rubin, VR pioneer & CEO of Sixense, a premiere virtual reality platform. After a lively demo of Sixense's cutting-edge, award-winning products, Jason talks with Amir about his inspirations, the state of the field, and what's coming. We learn why VR is not just about gaming but about every industry (esp. healthcare, education), why motion sickness is no longer an issue, how technologies like 3D printing help VR immensely, how developers are building amazing applications on the Sixense platform, how every phone going forward will be VR ready, why VR is so effective in training for high-risk jobs like welders & pilots, why service providers will give VR headsets away for free, how VR is going to be a new way for creative people to monetize their skills, how movie studios can use VR for you to actually experience being the super hero, why the biggest challenge facing VR is educating consumers -- and much much more! | 5/26/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E544: News Roundtable – Secret’s bank heist, Google as Game of Thrones, Apple TV’s fate, Facebook’s about-face in reven | It's News Roundtable Friday! Joining Jason today is Jessica Lessin, Founder & Editor-in-Chief of The Information and Ari Levy, Senior Technology Reporter at CNBC. The three tackle the latest, greatest, juiciest stories of late in this epic episode. Nothing is left off the table. Secret's bank heist, how Google is like Game of Thrones, is Android poised for world domination?, the combustible combination of venture + journalism, and several of the greatest existential questions of our time: what is the future of advertising on mobile, what happens when you give nerds $20m, and when will Amazon start delivering weed?? And, oh, so much more. | 5/22/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E534: Salesforce Founder & CEO Marc Benioff on the importance of philanthropy | From the 2015 LAUNCH Festival! An inspiring fireside chat with Marc Benioff, CEO/Founder of Salesforce and one of the great leaders of our time. Talking to Adam Lashinsky of Fortune, Marc focuses on the incredible importance of philanthropy and why companies need to give back to their communities and improve the state of the world. Marc shares his personal journey in philanthropy, starting when Colin Powell invited him to the 1997 America's Promise conference, to creating Salesforce & its 1-1-1 policy: dedicating 1% equity, 1% profit, and 1% employee time to giving back. Marc's key advice to entrepreneurs: the intentions you set for your companies right now are going to result is what your company becomes; clarity and vision are key, right from the start. Join us! | 4/17/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E533: Inventor entrepreneur Michael Robertson (DAR.fm, MP3.com) debuts 6 Seconds, a free mobile search engine | On the show today: a debut! Michael Robertson, inventor, entrepreneur, and CEO/founder of DAR.fm and MP3.com, is in the studio to launch his brand-new product. 6 Seconds is a free, mobile, powerful search engine that plays songs from any radio station, at any time, in any country around the globe. Michael walks us through his innovation, explaining its advantages over all existing music services (hint: unlimited number of skips & selection) and bold vision. Jason and Michael dive into a rich conversation dissecting the major listening platforms, both broadcast and interactive (look out Pandora, Spotify, and TIDAL), the cross-pollination of politics and technology, Google and the difference between monopoly and market share dominance, why one day smart kids will stop going to college, the inevitability of taxing robots, the unsolvable riddle of the minimum wage, the Walking Dead, drug wars, how creativity is torpedoed in the music biz, are we in a bubble or what? -- and much more. | 4/14/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E532: Two legends, skateboarder Tony Hawk & investor Chris Sacca, on their long-time friendship, taking huge risks, hustling to | Today’s episode features two superstars in their respective fields. Tony Hawk is the masterful professional skateboarder who catapulted his sport into the national spotlight, and Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital is a legendary angel investor (Twitter, Uber, Instagram, Kickstarter). Tony and Chris have been long-time friends and both talk in-depth with Jason at the LAUNCH Festival 2015. It's an awesome, dynamic conversation about their friendship, how each took massive risks to reach the top of their profession (eating ramen for years... borrowing money from assistants...), how Tony’s video game was a tipping point for skateboarding and why he he shows up unannounced to random parks to skate with kids, the amount of hustle it takes to be great, how moving outside of Silicon Valley actually helped Chris’s business, how Tony and Chris think about their legacies, what they are each looking forward to in the future, and how Tony uses Twitter for a worldwide treasure hunt, and how Chris is looking forward to another crash in tech so the pretenders clear out. Join us! | 4/10/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E531: News Roundtable! Ellen Pao vs. Kleiner Perkins: notes & lessons from the courtroom, gender bias in SV & VC culture, viva | It's the News Roundtable! Today Jason hosts Liz Gannes, Senior Editor of Re/code, and Matt Mazzeo, VC at Lowercase Capital. Liz covered the trial of Ellen Pao vs. Kleiner Perkins and shares her courtroom insights and analysis about the case and its ramifications. The trio then dives deep into a discussion of gender discrimination and unconscious bias in Silicon Valley and VC culture (including a revealing look into how the venture capital system actually functions), and emerges with key takeaways and thoughts on facilitating dialogue and forward progress. And it's off to the races with the latest in mobile live video and all the ways Periscope & Meerkat are creating content, forging new communities, and changing the social game ... forever? (At the very least, you should follow @mazzeo to catch his daily Morning Coffee streaming sessions!) Stay to the end to see Jason wager a bet with Matt over the upcoming Presidential election (will this be a Nixon/Kennedy moment?), a lively debate over Jay Z's new music service Tidal, and further reflections and reactions from Liz on the jury's verdict at the Pao trial. | 4/7/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E530: Periscope’s CEO/Cofounder Kayvon Beykpour on selling to Twitter, going supernova, and leading the future of live video | Live-video streaming is shaking the tech world and today Jason talks to major player Kayvon Beykpour, CEO & Cofounder of the recently Twitter-acquired Periscope. Jason periscopes this rollicking conversation (see those hearts fly!), as Kayvon (@kayvz) shares his views on the perceived dogfight with Meerkat, why Periscope sold to Twitter before launching, his current & future product strategy, and why the time is now for live-video streaming. They also dive into Periscope's lessons from early adopters, Kayvon's inspiration for the product idea, where exactly monetization sits on his radar, how Kayvon's Iranian-born parents sparked his entrepreneurial spirit, and much more. Tune in! | 4/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E529: Tumml CEO Clara Brenner, Highway1 CEO Brady Forrest & RockHealth CEO Halle Tecco share mission, strategy, diversity & wha | Tumml, Highway1, and RockHealth are three of the leading startup accelerators/incubators in the country, each focusing on different verticals: urban problems, hardware, and healthcare, respectively. At LAUNCH Festival 2015 Tumml CEO Clara Brenner, Highway1 CEO Brady Forrest, and RockHealth CEO Halle Tecco all joined Jason for a fascinating panel discussion on their mission, strategy, industry trends, and the funding landscape. Among the many topics discussed: what it takes to be accepted into their accelerators, diversity in tech, is incubator-hopping good or bad?, the dangers of attending a predatory accelerator, why RockHealth is actually a seed fund, whether companies really need prototypes, having domain expertise versus fresh eyes, thoughts on co-investing with large venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz -- and much more. | 3/31/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E528: Pebble smashes Kickstarter record for the 2nd time as Founder/CEO Eric Migicovsky goes back to fans and comes up $20m | The Pebble watch made crowdfunding history in 2012 when it raised $10m from 69,000 backers on Kickstarter -- and now they've smashed the record again, with $20m+ from 77,000 backers for their 3.0 Pebble Time. On the last day of his historic campaign, Pebble Founder & CEO Eric Migicovsky sits down with Jason to talk about his inspiration for creating the watch, why he went back to Kickstarter, Pebble's amazing fan base, and his vision for its future (alongside the mighty Apple). It's a fascinating discussion covering the signature developments in the new watch (hello, color!), lessons learned over each iteration of the watch, how app developers can use and optimize the platform and the massive opportunities in the Pebble Timeline API, what about Apple?!, including what Eric thinks of the Apple watch and why he hasn't changed his strategy in its specter, the two metrics Eric cares most about, the company's sustainability, profitability, future, community, and much more. | 3/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E527: LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner on the 5 markers of great product and what’s next for the premiere professional platform | Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn since 2008, has grown 32m members to 347m, $78m in revenue to $2.2b, and 338 employees to 6k. Prior to LinkedIn, Jeff lead various product teams at Yahoo for more than seven years, most recently as EVP of Yahoo's Network Division where he led a team of 3,000+ employees and managed products reaching 500m+ consumers. Jeff sits down with Jason at the Launch Festival 2015 and reveals the biggest driver of LinkedIn’s revenue (along with the other area that has been the fastest growing product in the company’s history), how members can use the publishing platform to increase personal opportunities, why Jeff took over the product function, what five attributes make a great product, what it was like working at Yahoo, why he doesn’t want to buy The Wall Street Journal, and what the future holds for this powerhouse company. | 3/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E526: Glenn Beck, Founder & Host of TheBlaze on the intersections of tech, mainstream America & national interests | Glenn Beck is an entrepreneur, libertarian, television personality, radio host, author, producer, and filmmaker. Previously on CNN and Fox News, Glenn and his company reach 50m people per month through his radio and television shows and TheBlaze, an independent TV network and website he founded in 2011. Jason sits down with Glenn at the LAUNCH Festival 2015 for this fascinating discussion about the intersection of technology, mainstream America, and national interests. Glenn speaks candidly with Jason on the similarities of his audience and Silicon Valley, how radio is changing, CNN and Fox’s biggest competitors (hint: a 16-year-old with something authentic to say!), why Glenn trusts corporations more than government, how tech can help solve national problems, why Glenn is addicted to Facebook, how the US needs national principles, why his 10-year-old son will not go to college (most likely), & much more. Don't miss it! | 3/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E525: Peter Thiel (Founders Fund, PayPal, Palantir, Facebook) on being a contrarian & right investor, AI pros & cons, overrated | Peter Thiel is one of the most considered, intelligent, and successful minds we have in this generation of Silicon Valley. Peter is a serial company founder (PayPal, Palantir), billionaire investor (first outside investor in Facebook and 100+ others), and author of "Zero to One." Peter’s first startup was PayPal, which he co-founded in 1998 and led to a $1.5 billion acquisition by eBay in 2002. He is now the Managing Partner at Founder’s Fund, a venture capital fund with $2 billion in assets. At LAUNCH festival 2015, Peter sat down with Jason and opened up about investing (as a contrarian and being right), monopolies and governments, why trends are overrated, how Elon Musk pulled off Tesla and SpaceX at the same time, whether we should be scared of Artificial Intelligence or not, should marijuana be legal, and what you should do if you hear the words “big data” and “cloud computing” during a pitch (hint: run!). You aren’t going to want to miss this one! | 3/16/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E524: Kickstarter CEO & Cofounder Yancey Strickler on preserving creative & financial integrity and promoting a global vision | Kickstarter, the premiere global crowdfunding powerhouse, is easily one of the five most important companies of our time. Made by creators for creators, with 80,000+ successful campaigns, 8m backers, and $1.5b moving through its platform in just six years. At LAUNCH festival 2015, Jason sits down with Cofounder and CEO Yancey Strickler to talk about the site's past, present, and future. A former professional rock 'n roll critic and record label entrepreneur, Yancey candidly shares Kickstarter's origin, early days, and breakthroughs, biggest Kickstarter successes (spoiler alert: Pebble Time!), when the movie business will start funding through the platform, Yancey's "written in stone" rules to keep integrity and honesty in the system, how they were able to raise venture capital money while publicly stating they will NEVER sell or go public, what they are working on for the future, and why he's having the most fun he's ever had. Join us! | 3/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E523: Renowned VC Fred Wilson shares insights on his stars (Twitter, Kickstarter, Tumblr), our economy, the future, & his own p | Today's episode kicks off our 2015 LAUNCH Festival series in style! Jason sits down with Fred Wilson, Cofounder & Managing Partner of Union Square Ventures and one of the most renowned venture capitalists and bloggers in the country. A VC since 1986, Fred and Union Square Ventures have invested in countless stellar startups, such as Zynga, Etsy, Tumblr, Twitter, and Kickstarter. During his candid fireside chat with Jason, Fred reveals the common characteristics of good founders and good VCs (hint: care more about the company than the investment), why he still owns stock in Zynga, what makes Kickstarter special, why Tumblr sold to Yahoo!, USV’s current investment focus, startup ecosystems, the best entrepreneur on the planet, his own strengths & weaknesses, what he's learned from his kids, and so much more. | 3/10/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E522: Innovative health apps: KurboHealth fights childhood obesity & HealthIQ increases health literacy | We are tackling two extremely important topics in todays episode: childhood obesity (40% of all kids in the United States are overweight or obese) and health literacy (the first step to increasing your overall health is increasing your health literacy). This is a two-part episode from the Rock Health Summit: first with Joanna Strober, Co-founder and CEO of Kurbo Health, which is a platform to help fight and prevent childhood obesity using video and text-based one-on-one coaching. Previously, Joanna was a venture capitalist, and she has been featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for her work with many well-known and successful companies including Blue Nile and BabyCenter. Part two is Munjal Shah, Founder and CEO of Health IQ, which measures not how healthy someone is, but rather how health conscious they are using a Q&A app with 10,000+ questions across 300+ topics. Prior to Health IQ, Munjal was Co-founder & CEO of Like.com (computer vision/machine learning company sold to Google) & Co-founder & CEO of Andale (eventually sold to Alibaba). He is also an investor in numerous companies like Taskrabbit and Swell. This episode is jam packed with knowledge including: are parents to blame for their child’s weight problem, how much doctor’s actually know about losing weight, weight psychology, does health literacy keep you out of the hospital -- and much more! | 3/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E521: Anne Wojcicki, CoFounder 23andMe, helps us access, understand & benefit from our DNA | It's another awesome interview from the Rock Health CEO Summit, with Jason sitting down with Anne Wojcicki, CoFounder of 23andMe. 23andMe helps people access, understand, and benefit from the human genome by giving us our own DNA information, which in turn can be used to help prevent disease. They have been working on this for nearly 10 years by offering saliva-based genetics test kits for $99 directly to consumers. Jason and Anne discuss 23andMe’s business, customer success stories from sequencing DNA, how FDA regulation has impacted the company (and all healthcare startups), what the future of healthcare should look like, how big of an opportunity healthcare is for startups, security of healthcare data, and much more. | 3/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E520: John Doerr, legendary VC & industry leader, on advising Obama, what’s broken in healthcare & how entrepreneurs can fix | The healthcare industry is the largest and most broken part of the American economy with $3 trillion spent annually and $1 trillion of that wasted each year. Today’s guest, the legendary John Doerr Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, discusses why this is the case and the biggest challenges facing the healthcare system today. John also advises how entrepreneurs can think about trying to solve those challenges (hint: start with the data). John Doerr has been a Partner at Kleiner Perkins since 1980, and has directed venture capital funding to some of the most successful technology companies in the world including Compaq, Netscape, Symantec, Sun Microsystems, Twitter, Amazon, Intuit, and Google. In 2009, John was also appointed a member of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board to provide the President and his administration with advice and counsel in trying to fix America's economic downturn. During this episode, John even shared what President Obama told him were his three primary concerns when they last spoke. Tune in to find out what those were, how entrepreneurs can solve healthcare industry problems, what the most important thing in business is, venture capital investing, and much more! | 2/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E519: CEO/Cofounder Jaron Gilinsky & Storyhunter give unprecedented benefits to video journalists & critical press coverage to | Jason's guest today is Jaron Gilinsky, Cofounder & CEO of Storyhunter.tv, which matches freelance video journalists/filmmakers with publishers. After many years as a foreign correspondent for the NY Times, Time, Inc. and others, often risking his life in regions of conflict, Jaron built this incredible platform that not only gives freelancers new access to job opportunities but also to personal insurance and essential workflow management. Moreover, oppressed and/or dangerous regions that don't have press on the ground are now finding journalists through Storyhunter, getting coverage they desperately need. Don't miss this amazing, action-packed show, peppered with harrowing footage of Jaron and a blisteringly close rocket attack, riveting conversations about the state of journalism, the dedication and sacrifices of foreign correspondents, how we tell stories, the power of software, and much more -- hosted by a slightly loopy Jason on back pain meds! | 2/24/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E518: Cameron Teitelman, Founder & CEO of StartX, breaks the mold by building a powerhouse nonprofit accelerator | Today guest is Cameron Teitelman, Founder & CEO of StartX, a non-profit accelerator affiliated with Stanford University whose mission is to fuel the development of Stanford's top entrepreneurs through experiential education. The StartX accelerator is a 10-week program that has no fees and takes zero equity. To date, 220 companies have gone through the program, which have gone on to raise more than $700 million dollars. Jason and Cameron cover StartX’s innovative accelerator model, who should apply to StartX (and who gets in), how to evaluate founder skills, what makes a good mentor, benefits of the lean startup model, successful StartX companies, diversity ... and Cameron's career as a Broadway star in Les Miserables! | 2/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E517: Elizabeth Iorns & ScienceExchange are revitalizing discovery by giving scientists new avenues for experiments & bringing | Today's show is one of Jason's favorites. He talks with the brilliant Elizabeth Iorns, part-time Partner at YCombinator and CEO/Cofounder of Science Exchange, an online marketplace matching researchers with labs. We learn exactly how ScienceExchange is revitalizing discovery by providing scientists with new tools for experiments while also bringing new revenue to the labs conducting them. It's a fascinating discussion covering what we know and don't know about cancer, what's surging in science research and what's holding it back (looking at you, paywalls), where in the world are the most exciting experiments, how YCombinator is supporting science initiatives, what the field will look like in 10-20 years, our next great seismic jumps in knowledge -- and much more. | 2/17/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E516: LAUNCH Incubator – Nir Eyal (author, “Hooked”) & Sahil Jain (CEO/Cofounder, AdStage) on how to get users in the doo | Today’s show is our 7th episode from the Launch Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Our first guest speaker is Nir Eyal, consultant and author of “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.” Nir teaches us “The Hook Model,” which is an experience designed to connect the user’s problem with your solution so that using your product becomes a habit. Nir walks us through the four parts of “The Hook”: Trigger, Action, Reward, and Investment. Second is Sahil Jain, CEO & Cofounder of AdStage, who covers how they grew to 10,000 business-to-business sign-ups using a combination of content marketing and low-cost paid advertising. Sahil explains the types and benefits of each, and gives detailed examples of how to implement each within your company. If you want more users, and have them engage with your product habitually, you need to listen to this episode! | 2/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E515: Seth Goldstein, angel & CEO/Cofounder Crossfader.fm (formerly turntable.fm) talks two decades of innovating in music, soc | On the show today is Seth Goldstein, angel investor, former Cofounder of turntable.fm, and current CEO & Cofounder of Crossfader.fm, the app that lets you DJ on your iPhone, record new mixes, and share them with the world. Seth and Jason go way back to the web 1.0 state of the 1990s, and they talk about what's been learned, gained, and lost. Seth shares his journey from coding html to being an active investor to his entrepreneurship in music ... forming the wildly popular & influential turntable.fm to his current successful venture. You don't want to miss seeing crossfader in action, plus a great discussion about what it really takes to crush it in tech, the changes & innovations in music, social & sharing, some secrets to raising money (hint: check out Seth's book, "The Secret of Raising Money") ... and watch as a Seth super fan calls him in the middle of the show to say he's quit his job to dedicate himself to Crossfader.fm! | 2/10/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E514: News Roundtable: Product Hunt & Mattermark founders on what’s cool in content, Oculus rising, Glassless Google, Twitter | It's a "Young Guns" News Roundtable, with dream team Ryan Hoover, Founder of Product Hunt & Danielle Morrill, CEO & Cofounder of Mattermark. With Jason, the three take on the best stories of late, including the coolest new content platforms (hello, Snapchat Discover), wish lists for Google now that Glass is gone, predictions for Oculus's first KILLER app, trolling on Twitter, the important work at internet.org, the latest in cannabis commerce, and how -- seriously -- both Product Hunt and Mattermark are totally crushing it. In addition we get some gossip from the Crunchies (where Ryan took home best new startup ... congrats!), take little tours of both Danielle and Ryan's smartphones to see exactly what they're into these days, and watch Danielle record her first native Twitter video! And much MUCH (trust me, much) more. | 2/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E513: Legendary journalist, investor & thought-leader Esther Dyson takes on health, science, space, A.I. & our world’s greate | On today's program Jason talks to Esther Dyson: legendary journalist, angel investor, and thought-leader. Esther's deep expertise in the technology field includes 100s of successful investments and mission-based entrepreneurship, all focused on tackling society's greatest problems. It's an amazing conversation in which Esther shares her latest health initiatives promoting community & global wellness, while Jason and Esther dive into science & the wonderment of discovery, whither A.I., opportunities and challenges for human health & mental illness, how we need to change our thinking and how we can use technology to solve the world's most persistent & perplexing puzzles. | 2/3/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E512: LAUNCH Incubator: Josh Williams (Cofounder @lastguide, prev Gowalla & FB product guru) on building bridges & tearing dow | It's the six show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. On deck today is Josh Williams, former CEO/Cofounder of Gowalla & product guru at Facebook and current CEO/Cofounder of @lastguide. Josh walks the class through the two most important jobs you'll have as a founder: building bridges to create new relationships and influence others, and tearing down the walls that are barriers to communication and progress. It's a riveting, practical how-to for developing your product, including rock solid advice on messaging, feature development, doing one thing really well, staying loyal to your fan base, what's okay to outsource and what you better own yourself, and a lot more. Join us! | 1/30/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E511: CEO/Cofounder Stu Wall created Signpost to help local businesses find new customers, nurture existing ones & become world | Jason's guest today is Stu Wall, CEO & Cofounder of Signpost, a cloud-based marketing software that gives local businesses the power to build and manage customer relationships. Stu walks us through his product's innovative features and shares Signpost's strategies for empowering its clients (and their clients). What follows is a great discussion, including Jason's earliest impressions of Stu as a quality founder, Stu going door to door to find his first customers (hello, Stu's barber!), how he guided the company through a tough pivot to its current tremendous success, how as a founder one stays grounded while scaling up, Stu's ingenious hack in figuring out which cities to expand into (hint: go where the talent is...!), how investors with operating experience are incredibly helpful, the work ethic of millennials -- and much more. | 1/27/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E510: LAUNCH Incubator: Co-founder, Intercom & “Product Whisperer” Des Traynor on managing growth & delivering magic | It's the fifth show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Today we feature Des Traynor, Co-Founder & VP of Customer Success, Intercom. Des, who was the highest rated speaker from our LAUNCH Scale conference, today is teaching the incubator how to manage a product as it grows: from understanding its origins (why is a product even created?!), to navigating scale, scope & creep, to delivering the magic. You won't want to miss this master class from the "Product Whisperer"! | 1/23/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E509: CEO & Cofounder Greg Galant (Sawhorse Media, Shorty Awards) created Muckrack so you can find the best journalists to cove | How should you interact with journalists in order to get great press for your product? And where do you even find the right journalists, the ones who will really care about what you're doing? On the program today is an entrepreneur with the answer. Greg Galant, CEO & Cofounder of Sawhorse Media, created Muckrack, a site that matches individuals, startups & PR companies with the best of the press. Armed with research from his site and decades in the biz (including creating and exec producing The Shorty Awards), Greg shares all the Dos & Don'ts of researching, cultivating & maintaining relationships with journalists. (Hint: don't be a spammer! and yes there IS a right time of day to email.) Jason and Greg also dive into a fascinating discussion of media trends past present & future, the ever moving target of truth in journalism, press releases are dead (long live press releases), and of course, the riddle of the startup sphinx: to hire or not to hire PR professionals. (No spoilers -- but if you're the CEO? Always be promoting.) It's a riveting, information-packed talk, capped by an excerpt of the incomparable Will Ferrell accepting his Shorty Award. Join us! | 1/20/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E508: LAUNCH Incubator: Sam Shank, CEO & Cofounder of Hotel Tonight, breaks down how he created & grew the world’s most loved | It's the fourth show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Today leading the class is Sam Shank, CEO & Cofounder of the wildly successful Hotel Tonight, the world's leading hotel booking app. Sam walks us through all of his steps in creating and growing this phenomenal product, from whiteboards & mockups to pilot launch goals & early results, to figuring out their supernova growth strategies. An extremely valuable, tactical TWIST you don't want to miss. | 1/16/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E507: News Roundtable: SONY hacked, the state & future of security, changing of CEO guard(s), challenges for the big co’s, & | It's the first News Roundtable of 2015! Joining Jason in the studio are power panelists, Adam Nash, CEO & President of Wealthfront, and David Ulevitch, Founder & CEO of OpenDNS. The three go deep into the timeliest topics of our new year, starting with the SONY hack, its security implications industry-wide, and how they tackle this critical issue as CEOs in sensitive verticals. Jason, Adam, and David also tackle the changing of certain CEO guards and their personal experiences in these transitions, what's working and what's not at Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook & Google, the great unbundling in media, finance and in other sectors, and Jason shares how a lot of people got cable in Brooklyn in the old days (hint: not through proper channels...!) This and much more. Join us! | 1/13/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE506: LAUNCH incubator: Gil Penchina (largest AngelList syndicate) & Steve Huffman (reddit, Hipmunk) get down to brass tacks fr | The third show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Heading the class today are two special guests, each with phenomenal expertise on both sides of the entrepreneur/investor table. First is Gil Penchina who runs the largest AngelList Syndicate & multitude of investments. Gil's brass tacks on financing are as valuable as they are colorful; among many gems, he shares the gory ins and outs of taking angel versus VC money, the (ir)relevance of boards & how best to communicate with them, the importance of showing trend lines & merciless persistence, greatest "wow" pitches & investments, his tendency to overshare, why he would never send a deck as an entrepreneur but requires one as an investor, and why he doesn't pay any bill until he gets the red letter. Second is Steve Huffman, Co-founder of reddit and Hipmunk, and an investor, who reveals how the funding landscape for startups has changed over the years, his top tactical challenges today, what he looks for in funders before investing, and much more. | 1/9/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E534: LAUNCH incubator: Josh Elman, partner Greylock & product master (ex- Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook) shares secrets to succe | The second show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Leading the charge today is Josh Elman, current partner at Greylock & former product master at Twitter, Facebook Connect, Zazzle, LinkedIn, and RealPlayer. Josh shares the secrets for a successful growth cycle, including detailed & tactical advice on answering key questions, such as: what's the great problem people are experiencing, how you convey that your product is solving that problem, how you get people to use your product, and how to get users to make your product a habit. Learn the tricks to SEO and going viral, the importance of "learn flow" in teaching new users about your product, best practices in converting customers, and many other amazing tips on how to make it awesome, become iconic, and create FOMO. | 1/6/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E505: LAUNCH incubator: Josh Elman, partner Greylock & product master (ex- Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook) shares secrets to succe | The second show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Leading the charge today is Josh Elman, current partner at Greylock & former product master at Twitter, Facebook Connect, Zazzle, LinkedIn, and RealPlayer. Josh shares the secrets for a successful growth cycle, including detailed & tactical advice on answering key questions, such as: what's the great problem people are experiencing, how you convey that your product is solving that problem, how you get people to use your product, and how to get users to make your product a habit. Learn the tricks to SEO and going viral, the importance of "learn flow" in teaching new users about your product, best practices in converting customers, and many other amazing tips on how to make it awesome, become iconic, and create FOMO. | 1/5/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E504: Niccolo de Masi, Glu Mobile CEO & creator of “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood,” on building an industry phenomenon and the | "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" was one of the biggest tech stories of 2014, topping many "Best of" lists for apps, games & record-breaking revenue. Today Jason talks to the person responsible for making it all happen: Glu Mobile CEO & gaming industry expert, Niccolo de Masi. Niccolo reveals his inspiration for creating the game, his strategy for getting Kim on board, Kim's savvy & creative input, and how she has become the first successful transmedia brand. Beyond that, Jason and Niccolo dive into broader and deeper industry talk, tackling major shifts in mobile and gaming trends since 2001 (when Glu first starting making cell phone games), who is going to win the living rooms of the next billion households, international entrepreneurship and what's crushing in China, Japan, Korea, and Russia, the nuts & bolts of running a private versus public company, the continued relevance of consoles, being bullish on smart watches, the second oldest profession, what's Moore's Law got to do with it? -- and so much more than that. | 1/2/2015 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: When should I sell or shut down my company? | It can be the most emotional and difficult decision you make as a founder. You've worked so hard to get here -- but things change. Whether it's going gangbusters and purchase offers are piling up or it's spiraling downward and you're facing a shut down, preparation is key. Recognize the signs and exit gracefully. In this Startup Basics, Jason breaks it down: "When should I sell or shut down my company?" | 12/31/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E503: LAUNCH Incubator: Jared Fliesler, Matrix Partners VC & growth guru (ex- Square, Slide & Google) leads a master class on g | The first show from our LAUNCH Incubator series! Over 12 weeks, 7 companies are learning how to make game-changing startups under the guidance of the best in the business. Today Jared Fliesler, Matrix Partners VC & growth guru (ex- Square, Slide & Google), leads a master class on how to grow your product. Among the many mysteries Jared unpacks: the three essential steps in growing your product, the critical characteristics of growth gurus, buckets of growth and how you measure them (is money more valuable than content? etc.), perfecting your core product loop, organic versus paid marketing, avoiding others' mistakes while stealing their great ideas, the specific brands he's learned the most from -- and much, much more. You do not want to miss this! | 12/30/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E502: Tristan Walker on the role of culture in tech, the importance of authenticity, and bringing NY hustle to Silicon Valley | In the studio today is Tristan Walker, Founder & CEO of Walker & Company Brands, a startup dynamo creating health & beauty products specifically for people of color. Tristan dazzles Jason with his Bevel razor, as well as with stories from his entrepreneurial journey: from growing up in Queens, to biz dev at Foursquare, to being an E.I.R. at Andreessen Horowitz, to now crushing it as a founder. It's a fascinating discussion on the enormous potential of the health & beauty market, the role of African-American culture in U.S. & global technology, applying New York hustle to Silicon Valley, celebrity investors, gaining perspective on what money represents, Tristan's work at CODE2040 expanding opportunities in tech for Black and Latino/a students, and how converting influential consumers into the influencers themselves is smart business. | 12/26/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E501: “No holds barred” Part 2: Jason tells all & makes bold predictions for 2015 | It's the Jason "no holds barred" interview, Part 2! Our celebration of Episode #500 continues into Episode #501 as Brian Alvey, Jason's lifelong friend (and very first TWIST guest) commandeers the host's seat and puts Jason in the hot seat. Tune in to hear Jason's unfiltered answers to Brian's and fans' questions about his legacy, regrets, triumphs with LAUNCH, the Uber controversy, race relations, the plummeting trust in journalism, the two essential qualities in a founder, why he's going supernova in 2015 -- and much, much more. Thank you friends for joining us on this incredible journey, and welcome to our new fans. We'll see you all for the next 500! | 12/23/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E500: The “No holds barred” interview with Jason in the hot seat (PART 1) | To celebrate Episode #500 we're turning the tables on Jason. Brian Alvey, Jason's lifelong friend (and very first TWIST guest!) commandeers the host's seat and puts Jason in the hot seat for a riveting "no holds barred" interview. Tune in to hear Jason's unfiltered answers to Brian's and fans' questions about his legacy, triumphs with LAUNCH, troubles with Mahalo, the Uber controversy, the plummeting quality of journalism, his favorite TWIST episodes, essential qualities in a founder, what he's got to prove, why he's going supernova in 2015 -- and much, much more. Thank you to all of our amazing fans for joining us on this incredible journey! | 12/19/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: How to save money running your startup ? | One of the toughest realities you'll face as an entrepreneur is the cost of business. You need to prove you can deploy resources intelligently to gain the trust of valuable investors and employees. It's just like the Zombie Apocalypse ... you can't waste bullets! In this "Startup Basics" Jason spells out the cold hard facts and gives up the red hot tips. So listen and learn: How to save money running your startup. | 12/18/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E499: OkCupid’s Christian Rudder & his master work “Dataclysm” reveal our uncensored, secret beliefs about race, gender & | Christian Rudder, the Founder of dating site OKCupid, is on the show today to share secrets from his master work, "Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One's Looking)." The book, newly gracing many "Best of 2014" lists (including NPR's and Brain Pickings'), is an absolute revelation, and the first of its kind. Mining data from tens of millions of users & interactions on OKCupid, and on other sites as well, Christian has uncovered a treasure trove of the secret beliefs, sweeping patterns, and surprising preferences around critical topics of our time: race, gender, beauty, sexuality, language, geography, and culture...and more. Jason and Christian dive deep into the data, debate its controversial conclusions and, after a brief "Dungeons & Dragons" detour, unpack the book's most unflattering findings about how we think and behave -- especially when we think no one is looking. | 12/16/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E498: ScootNetworks’ shared, smartphone-activated scooters are tearing up the electric transportation market | Jason's guest today is Michael Keating, CEO & Founder of ScootNetworks. The shared, electric, and smartphone-activated scooters launched at the 2012 LAUNCH festival -- and have been tearing up the market and down the streets of San Francisco ever since. Jason and Michael cover a lot of ground, including the company's tremendous growth in the last year, the tricky economics of raising money & running a business in the green/clean tech space, whether Americans are taking to scooting like they took to espresso, and ScootNetworks' vision to dominate the electric transportation market, nationwide. | 12/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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BONUS TWIST!: Jason joins Edelman panel on the future of journalism | This BONUS TWIST features Jason on an Edelman panel of distinguished colleagues discussing the future of journalism. Is journalism being compromised by technology and the drive for click-through rates? Or is technology actually opening up new opportunities and areas for quality journalism? Tune in to find out! Joining Jason on the panel: Amir Efrati (The Information), Pui-Wing Tam (Bloomberg), Dave Callaway (USA Today), and Evan Hansen (Medium). | 12/11/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E497: Year One startups excelling on campus: CampusJob employs college students & BlueLight protects them | Today Jason invites two Year One startups into the studio, both innovating in essential services on campus. First is CampusJob, with Cofounders Liz Wessel and JJ Fliegelman. If you run a startup, campuses might be your perfect target market; it's where Facebook, Tinder, and even Apple all caught fire. CampusJob finds you the right student reps & also matches students with part-time employment in all types of companies. Next is BlueLight CEO & Founder Preet Anand, whose security app routes alerts to the nearest emergency responder, often campus police, thus getting students help faster than 911. (iOS version coming in January 2015.) Tune in! | 12/9/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E496: Tilt’s social crowdfunding platform lets you create & completely own your campaign, micro to macro | Crowdfunding has radically transformed the world of entrepreneurship, and today Jason sits down with one of its top players, CEO & Cofounder James Beshara of Tilt.com. Tilt's versatile, customizable software with a social-networking edge lets individuals & groups create their own campaign platforms, from students raising money among friends for a BBQ night, to a high-crime neighborhood pooling funds to hire a patrol car (result: 46% robbery reduction), to Snoop Dog promoting album merchandize, to actress Robin Wright's selling PJs to support women in the Congo. Jason and James talk pros/cons of competitors Kickstarter & Indiegogo, cautionary tales about delivering products as promised, crowdfunding's meteoric rise & evolution, why it's THE best way to launch a product today, and perhaps ad infinitum ... and watch us create a Tilt campaign to send Jason to Alaska! | 12/5/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: What should investors and founders expect from each other? | Investors and founders begin their relationship with the best intentions, to build something meaningful in the world. But the road can get rocky, and miscommunications abound. So be straight from the very start. In this "Startup Basics" Jason lays it out: What should investors and founders expect from each other? | 12/4/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E495: DFJ Summit: Jeff Lawson (CEO, Twilio) & Harper Reed (CTO, Obama’s reelection campaign) share lessons from technology’ | Today's episode features Jason's fireside chats at the DFJ Summit with two amazing entrepreneurs. First up is Jeff Lawson, CEO & Cofounder of Twilio, who defied naysayers by developing a killer API to enable communications on a global scale. Jeff shares lessons from Amazon & the great Bezos, why not loving your product is a recipe for disaster, and life at the forefront of the greatest change in telecommunications in 150 yrs. Second is Harper Reed, currently CEO of Modest, Inc. & former CTO of Obama's reelection campaign. Harper reveals how he utilized technology for the president's victory and also talks with Jason about the biggest challenges & opportunities in technology today, including security, hacking, Anonymous, democratization, and diversity. | 12/2/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E494: Naithan Jones’ AgLocal aims to fix our broken food chain by delivering responsibly-raised meat straight to your door | For our Thanksgiving show, we're serving the timeliest of topics: meat! In the studio is Naithan Jones, CEO & Founder of AgLocal, an online marketplace that brings locally-farmed, responsibly-raised meat right to your doorstep. Nait and Jason's rich conversation covers a great many issues, including the dynamics & dysfunction of our food chain, whether it's possible to innovate and profit in agriculture, the renaissance in culinary preparation, and how millennials are commandeering cultural consumption. They also dive into the diversity gap in technology as Nait candidly describes his journey as an entrepreneur of color, the amazing support of Andreessen Horowitz, and why & how he believes Silicon Valley can play a critical role in bridging the racial divide. | 11/28/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E493: Better bridges critical healthcare gaps by providing Personal Health Assistants to advocate, coordinate & optimize your c | In the latest installment of our Revolutionary App series, Jason features one of his top 5 favorites. Better (getbetter.com) provides you a highly-trained Personal Health Assistant (PHA) to advocate, coordinate, demystify, and optimize your healthcare. In the studio is CEO & Co-founder Geoff Clapp, who explains & shows exactly how Better bridges the doctor-patient-insurance gaps to improve the system for everyone. Jason and Geoff also dive into best practices in product design (hint: remove the clutter!), how you scale in a new space, the respective graces of the Mayo Clinic, the Rock Health incubator, & Chamath, and the extraordinary challenges and opportunities of innovating in health care. | 11/25/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E492: News Roundtable: The great Uber debate, ethics in business & journalism, virtual reality boggles, Firefox favors Yahoo! | For today's news roundtable, Jason and Molly Wood (NYT) candidly debate Uber's recent controversy and go deep into the many issues surrounding it. Among many points, they hit chronology of events, ethics in business & journalism, merits & demerits of aggressive tactics, importance of business-to-consumer communication, and the dire need for conversations without polarization. Also on tap!: Amazon Kindle pushes WaPo, virtual reality boggles the mind, Firefox snubs Google for Yahoo! (and why!). | 11/21/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E491: Jimmy Chamberlin, Grammy-winning founding drummer of The Smashing Pumpkins & now CEO of LiveOne, on innovation & an incre | It’s a TWIST for the ages, as Jason sits down with Jimmy Chamberlin, original drummer of The Smashing Pumpkins & musical phenom, now CEO of LiveOne, Inc., an immersive and social live-streaming platform. What follows is an amazing conversation that crisscrosses the intersections of music, art, entrepreneurship, and technology. Jimmy talks candidly about his meteoric rise to success, the dangers of fortune and fame, and why he eventually turned his great talents to the tech world (hint: partly thanks to a bright young intern at their music studio ... one Andrew Mason, future Groupon CEO). Jason and Jimmy dive deep into the roots of creative inspiration, how building songs is like building companies, the many traits shared by successful musicians and tech entrepreneurs, the “in” drugs of the 1990s, how we listen to music then & now, the Spotify/streaming brouhaha, how the rock stars of yesteryear are the tech stars of today -- and Taylor Swift, Willie Nelson, Bono, Bowie, and much much more. Join us! | 11/18/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E490: Legendary entrepreneur Reid Hoffman on his best strategies, valuable lessons, the PayPal mafia, and creating one of the f | Today on TWIST: Reid Hoffman! In this riveting 90 minutes, Jason sits down at LinkedIn with its legendary founder, entrepreneur, product strategist, investor, and author. Get ready to take notes -- and watch & listen at least twice -- as Reid shares a treasure trove of insights and lessons. You'll hear his early inspirations, origins of the "PayPal mafia," secrets to his successes, greatest mistakes, sharp advice to entrepreneurs, smartest investment strategies, his impressions of fellow Silicon Valley luminaries (hints: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel....), why he holds himself to a high standard, his insights into our biggest problems today and what even defines a human society -- and much MUCH more. | 11/14/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E489: “Young Guns” News Roundtable! Startup scoops, data heat, IPO optimism & dangerous stunts for charity | This week Jason hosts GenY duo Danielle Morrill, CEO & Cofounder of Mattermark, and Eric ("Harvard Eric") Newcomer, Reporter at The Information, for the Young Guns news roundtable! Each serves a breaking scoop: Danielle's blog post about the recent rash of hot IPOs (sign o' good times or trouble ahead?), and Eric's stunning revelations from The Information's first-ever subscriber viewpoint survey. (Find out exactly which companies are seen optimistically ... and which are on the outs ...) The trio talk startup valuations, stampeding baby elephants, journalistic ethics, water conservation, the dangers of founder eccentricity, how much liquid courage Danielle needed to first email Marc Andreessen, for how much charity money would the panelists let themselves be tased ... and Jason schools Eric on how to get information from a source. Also BING Launch of the Week! Who will win? Eva - the world's first smart shower; Pavlok - the habit changing device that shocks you, or Drivebot: a fitbit for your car? Tune in to find out! | 11/11/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E488: Charlie O’Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures on NYC investing, the qualities of a great founder, and how to make entre | Today's TWIST features Charlie O'Donnell of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures. Like Jason, Charlie is both an investor and a founder, and the two have an amazing conversation sharing their collective insights on these essential and interrelated roles. Among the many discussions they delve into: what founder qualities and "tells" they look for before investing; once turned down, how an entrepreneur can turn it around; and the differences among the NYC, Silicon Valley and L.A. investor landscapes, now and "back in the day." In addition, Charlie shows us some of his star companies, explains why entrepreneurship should be a constant practice, and reveals how founders can avoid critical product pitfalls. | 11/7/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: How to protect your intellectual property | In this "Startup Basics," Jason sits down with special guests, WSGR attorneys Rachel Proffitt and Todd Carpenter, who give us in-depth advice on the legal aspects of getting your startup off the ground. In this episode Todd and Rachel explain THE essential issue in protecting your ideas: Intellectual Property. What is IP, what is its purpose, and how do you safeguard your startup's secrets? Tune in to find out! | 11/6/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E487: LAUNCH SCALE Keynote: Co-founder Steve Huffman shares secrets, lessons learned on building reddit & hipmunk | On October 23-24 2014 in San Francisco, Jason & the LAUNCH team hosted the first-ever SCALE conference for early startup founders to learn lessons and best practices from successful entrepreneurs. In this keynote, Jason talks with Steve Huffman, Co-founder of reddit and hipmunk, about Steve's journey and the secrets behind creating and scaling these companies. They discuss reddit's early days "fake" content, what finally made the community soar, the dirt on the dark days, and the skinny on censorship, hoaxes, Anonymous, and why if you give people freedom of expression they are overwhelmingly good. Steve also shares key insights on issues essential to every startup, such as how to reach people who are not clones of yourself, and the many advantages smaller and nimbler companies have over the big guns. Join us! | 11/4/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E486: News Roundtable! Rounding up the giants (of tech): big announcements, mobile pay, pipeline products, troubling turnovers | For today's roundtable, Ryan Block of AOL and Amir Efrati of The Information join Jason to tackle this week's biggest news. On tap: the Giants. Yes, the World Series victors (whose parade is happening right outside our studio) DO get a mention or two, but it's really about the titans of tech: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo et al all get a turn at bat. Big announcements, products in the pipeline, troubling turnovers, what letter grade would you give Tim Cook?, will the FBI break phone encryption?, what will Microsoft surprise us with next?, how the $&*! was Jason's voicemail hacked by an overzealous founder? -- and much more. Plus BING Launch of the Week! Who will be the judges favorite: Hendo Hoverboards: the world's first REAL hoverboard; B4RM4N: be a cocktail hero; or AMPY: power your devices from your motion? | 10/31/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E485: Expanding diversity in tech: NewME Accelerator is helping underrepresented entrepreneurs and launching future influencers | In this episode, Jason sits down with Angela Benton, CEO & Founder of the NewME Accelerator, for a candid talk on race, diversity, and startups. They discuss how to expand opportunities in technology for young people of color, the current barriers to gaining entry and getting equal resources, the impact of Black Twitter on social media and in communities, how African-American women are the fastest rising group of entrepreneurs in the U.S., Silicon Valley's overemphasis on technical founders, "The Business of Jay-Z," and more. We also meet three founders and NewME graduates to hear about their companies: Tamar Lucien of CanUStart, Rudiger Ellis of Joicaster, and Brian Brackeen of Kairos. Join us! | 10/28/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E484: TWIST Live! Tim Ferriss on what inspires him to write daily, invest mindfully, and push his body to the limits | In this special TWIST, Jason hosts author, angel investor, and entrepreneur extraordinaire Tim Ferriss for a fireside chat in front of a live audience at Pivotal Labs! In this epic, in-depth conversation Tim reveals select secrets to his successes, including: Who he was before becoming THE Tim Ferriss; What crazy experiments on his own body has shocked even ER doctors; Where he and Jason enjoyed their bromance last summer; When he will close what he believes is the largest syndicate round the angel list has ever seen; Why "The Princess Bride" is his favorite screenplay -- and why he's writing his own; and How being both careful and impulsive serves his investment decisions so well. You can't miss this!! | 10/24/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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Bluesmart connects you with your carry-on for smart, smooth, and sane travels | Finally! An innovation we've been eagerly anticipating launches TODAY. Bluesmart, the world's first smart, connected carry-on, is now on Indiegogo and poised to crush the market, absolutely. Jason hosts Cofounder Brian Chen in the studio to dig into product's nuts and bolts, the finer and courser points of crowdfunding, and how Bluesmart's responsibilities are divided among its 5 Cofounders. ALSO! Stay tuned for a special Startup Basics, where Jason, investor-turned-coach Jerry Colonna, and VC Mark Suster address the burning question: DO you need a cofounder?? | 10/20/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E482: News Roundtable: Boon times for media streaming, cord cutters, and on-demand addicts | It's the Double Ryan Roundtable! Ryan Sarver of Redpoint Ventures & Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt join Jason this week to chew on the latest. The three talk Apple, unpack HBO's unbundling, confess the on-demand services to which they're addicted absolutely, reveal insights on what makes a good investor, and dish some extra spice involving Tinder, medical marijuana, thin-crust pizza -- and what horrible fate will befall anyone taking a picture with an iPad near Jason at a Knicks game. Also BING Launch of the Week! Will the winner be SmartMat: the world'd first intelligent yoga mat, FeverSmart: the smart patch fever thermometer for kids, or PlexiDrone: making aerial photography a breeze!? | 10/16/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E481: Mark Kawano’s Storehouse & 2014 Apple Design Winner lets you share stories in bright, living color | In the second show of our Revolutionary App series, Jason hosts Mark Kawano, seasoned Apple product designer turned CEO/Co-Founder of Storehouse, a beautiful photo- and video-blogging platform and 2014 Apple Design Award Winner. In between sharing stories of Apple and Steve Jobs, Mark and Jason examine how and why we tell stories, dissect past and present publishing, debate the future of iPad, and skewer deceptive advertising practices. | 10/14/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE480: Jason & Chamath Palihapitiya at Hack the North: money, markets, motivation & mercenaries | This week Jason sits down with Chamath Palihapitiya, Founder and Managing Partner of The Social+Capital Partnership, at Hack the North, Canada's Largest International Hackathon at University of Waterloo. Chamath shoots straight from the heart & hip on a number of topics, including the mercenary culture in Silicon Valley, why the best companies don't come out of incubators, the great opportunities in health care, education, and finance, and why passion is king (hint: you'll fail if you do anything only for the money). Join us! | 10/10/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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BONUS TWIST!: Jason hosts Singularity University for lively Q&A | In a special bonus TWIST, Jason hosts students from Singularity University for a lively Q&A! The young entrepreneurs ask burning questions, and Jason shares his thoughts on angel investing, radical employment, international timidity, Occupy Wall Street, 3D-printed chocolate Nutella, and what he will do when he is President of the World. | 10/9/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E479: PulsePoint is saving lives by getting CPR-trained individuals to nearby emergencies faster than ambulances | For every minute you don't have oxygen your chances of survival without brain damage decrease by 10%. In the first episode of our Revolutionary Apps series, we feature PulsePoint, a simple and brilliant app saving lives by connecting CPR-trained individuals to emergencies in the vicinity, thereby reducing this critical response time. Jason talks with President Rich Price, retired Fire Chief and career firefighter, who got the idea for PulsePoint after a fatal incident, when he realized that he could have prevented the tragedy had he known the man in need was right across the street from where he was dining. You don’t want to miss this! | 10/7/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E478: News Roundtable: Ello explosion, Apple angst, Ebay-PayPal splitsville, and deconstructing employment | It's a rollicking News Roundtable this week with Jason and guests Ben Parr (DominateFund) and Jessica Lessin (TheInformation). The trio tackles the sudden Ello explosion, Apple angst, splitsville for Ebay & Paypal, and an in-depth discourse on an issue Silicon Valley doesn't know how to talk about -- how are the innovations developed here affecting employment for everyone else in the country? Also BING Launch of the Week! What cool new device will win over the judges? GripSnap, a magnetic holder for smartphones to capture the perfect selfie; Jibo, the world's first family robot; or Unpocket, the untrackable & unhackable pocket for the surveillance phobic? | 10/3/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E477: inDinero is an elegant & expert one-stop shop for your company’s accounting & tax services | It's another "Welcome back" episode! This week Jason talks with Jessica Mah, who appeared on TWIST in 2010 as the youngest YC female founder in history and brand-new CEO & Founder of inDinero. After weathering a goodly share of slings and arrows, inDinero is now a very successful accounting & tax "one-stop shop" service for businesses. Jason and Jessica discuss inDinero's roller coaster ride, debate the merits of fast- versus moderate-growth businesses, and dissect the nature of commerce here and abroad. | 9/30/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E476: Mattermark is a crushing B2B search engine that illuminates companies’ growth metrics | “Welcome back!” It’s the first episode in a series of inviting back TWIST alumnae to update us on their entrepreneurial adventures, from the ridiculous to the sublime. Today we feature success story Danielle Morrill, CEO & Cofounder of Mattermark, an innovative, sophisticated B2B search engine that provides deep data on companies across multiple growth areas. Join us as Danielle shares the trials and tribulations of shutting down her first startup (Refer.ly), her lessons learned along the way, and exactly how she got the idea for Mattermark (hint: a “Gossip Girl” character). And watch as Jason tirelessly negotiates his way into her next funding round! | 9/26/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E475: Max Ventilla’s AltSchool, a marriage of mission & startup tech savvy, is reimagining & revitalizing education | In 2013, entrepreneur Max Ventilla decided to design a new school that would provide the kind of education he wanted for his own kids: a school that would not follow the usual "one size fits all" model but one that prioritized individualized study, infused with technology, to empower teachers and maximize the potential of each child. In just one year, the demand for such high quality learning has catapulted AltSchool's expansion from one to ten classrooms, and from early childhood to middle-school grades. This week Jason sits down with CEO and Founder Max Ventilla to talk about the state of education, the advantages of becoming a "B Corp" (benefit corporation), and lessons learned from this marriage of mission and startup tech savvy. | 9/23/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E474: Navdy lets you drive & control your apps without your eyes ever leaving the road | In the second show of our safety arc, Jason talks with Doug Simpson, CEO/Founder of Navdy, a "head-up" in-car display that allows you to use your apps while driving without taking your eyes off the road. Greater connectivity, better navigation, zero distractions. Doug is in the studio to show Jason the Navdy prototype, share his experiences at Highway 1 accelerator, and explain how he got the idea for the device (hint: one too many "oh, &%#!" moments while driving). | 9/19/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: Knowing when to pivot | This episode of Startup Basics will handle one of the most difficult decisions you'll make as an entrepreneur. At some point the going will most definitely get tough -- but when do you persevere and when do you pivot?? Jason shows us some surefire signals and red flags. | 9/18/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E473: Yardarm & ShotSpotter: Tracking guns & gunshots to make our streets safer | Today Jason tackles street safety with two companies taking different, albeit critical and complementary, approaches. First up is Yardarm that tracks the geolocation of officers’ firearms in real time and alerts central command if a weapon has been un-holstered and where it is pointing. Second is ShotSpotter, used in over 80 cities around the world, whose sensors monitor and analyze gunshots. SpotShotter examines thousands of explosive incidents per day, and recently verified the shots from a recording in Ferguson, MO, that occurred when Michael Brown died. Jim Schaff from Yardarm and James Beldock from ShotSpotter walk Jason through demos of their incredible systems and discuss the challenges and opportunities of implementing technology for community safety. | 9/16/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E472: News Roundtable: Apple deep dive & taking a bite out of crime | Jason and guests Josh Williams (Founder, @Lastguide) & Eric Newcomer (Tech reporter @TheInformation) take a bite out of Apple. They dish in-depth on Watch, Pay & iPhone 6 (+plus!) and debate which of these products is the most groundbreaking, really. But wait -- there's (a lot) more! In this old school 90-minute episode, the riveting discussion captures venture capital, homelessness, citizen arrests, Y Combinator, BING Launch of the Week, and why clean hands are a good thing. | 9/12/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E471: Bitty Foods’ cricket cookies & Katapult’s super chips are the sweet & savory futures of sustainable food | This week Jason talks to two pioneers in the future of food. First up is Megan Miller, CEO and Founder of Bitty Foods, who bakes mouthwatering cookies from cricket flour. In the studio and at her kitchen, Megan shows us how insects, the most efficient forms of protein on earth, could very well be the key to global food sustainability. Second is Sterling Tougas, CEO and Founder of Katapult, who feeds Jason his delicious energy chips made from super foods, and talks about his journey as an entrepreneur in this critical culinary space. | 9/8/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E470: HomeHero finds quality, affordable home care for your elderly loved ones | Finding home care for your elderly loved ones is a challenging, time-consuming, and often heart-wrenching process. Agencies can be prohibitively expensive, and yet you're rolling the dice with high stakes indeed if you rely on Craigslist. Finally, there's a solution. HomeHero is an online marketplace that closely vets caregivers, matches them with clients, and then manages their relationships with ongoing support. CEO and Co-Founder Kyle Hill sits down with Jason to share his thoughts on the home care conundrum, his vision for the product, and his advice to young entrepreneurs of color. | 9/5/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: How to negotiate a term sheet | In this "Startup Basics," Jason sits down with special guests, WSGR attorneys Rachel Proffitt and Todd Carpenter, who give us in-depth advice on the legal aspects of getting your startup off the ground. In this episode Todd and Rachel address the following critical question: How do I negotiate a term sheet? Tune in to find out! | 9/4/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E469: Austen Heinz, Part 2: DNA laser printing demo & exploration of the dark side | It's Part 2 of Jason's far out, mind-bending conversation with Austen Heinz, inventor of a DNA laser printer and scientist extraordinaire. On location at Cambrian Genomics, we see the laser printer in action, and Jason and Austen go deep into the dark sides of this technology. The ability to create creatures is fast becoming available and affordable, which begs the question -- what could possibly go wrong?? | 9/2/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E468: Austen Heinz invented a DNA laser printer for you to create new creatures, Part 1 | Austen Heinz invented a DNA laser printer, and now our wildest science fantasies are a reality. With this incredible technology, the creation of brand-new creatures is not only possible, but affordable. On location at Cambrian Genomics, sitting between plants glowing with firefly DNA, Jason and Austen discuss this brave new world. Stay tuned next week for Part 2! | 8/29/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E467: News Roundtable: Amazon takes Twitch, Twitter brings Ferguson to the world, Secret is banned, and Uber is everywhere | After a summer hiatus, our News Roundtable is back! For this special Tuesday edition, Ryan Block (AOL) and Declan McCullagh (Recent.io) sit down with Jason to tackle today's timeliest topics. On deck: Amazon's purchase of Twitch, the banning and hacking of Secret, how Twitter affected and enhanced the events in Ferguson, MI, all things Uber -- and much more. Plus BING Launch of the Week, featuring three recent Y Combinator alums: Edyn (the connected garden), LocalLift (crowdsourcing for local businesses), and Gingko Bioworks (engineering new organisms). | 8/27/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E466: Catapult is an athlete analytics powerhouse changing the game(s) of sports worldwide | Catapult Sports is an athlete analytics powerhouse, combining cutting-edge hardware & SaaS platform to promote peak player performance and drastically reduce injuries. Based in Australia, Catapult partners with over 500 professional sports teams around the world, with business growing exponentially in the U.S. (Just ask Florida State football coach, Jimbo Fisher, who directly credits Catapult for his team's championship win last year.) This week Jason sits down with Catapult Executive Chairman, Adir Shiffman. | 8/22/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: Should I incorporate as an LLC, S-, or C-corp? | In this "Startup Basics," Jason sits down with special guests, WSGR attorneys Rachel Proffitt and Todd Carpenter, who give us in-depth advice on the legal aspects of getting your startup off the ground. In this episode Todd and Rachel address the following critical question: If I'm starting a tech company, what type of corporation should I make -- an LLC, S-, or C-corp? Tune in to find out! | 8/21/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E465: FutureAdvisor & FirstDerm: two innovators maximizing affordability & accessibility | This week Jason sits down with two successful entrepreneurs innovating in challenging areas: finance and health care. First up is Bo Lu, CEO & Co-founder of FutureAdvisor, which automates portfolio management, making it affordable and accessible to the wider population. Next is Alexander Borve, CEO & Founder of iDoc24, whose app FirstDerm allows users anonymously to text photos and receive quick but comprehensive consultations from dermatologists. Tune in to hear about their great products and progress. | 8/19/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E464: DogeTipBot is the cryptocurrency tipping tool taking reddit by storm | This week, Jason talks to a pioneer in the Wild West of cryptocurrency. Eight months ago Josh Mohland created DogeTipBot, a tool for tipping with dogecoin on the internet. Since then, 70k users (and climbing) have gone to town gifting -- to each other for fun in fractions of pennies, and en masse for charity, building wells in Africa and sending the Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics for $25k. You don't want to miss this conversation! | 8/15/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E463: Connect syncs and strengthens your contacts across social networks and around the globe | Where are your friends right this minute? Whether you're looking to surf a couch in Europe or kill some time at your neighborhood cafe, Connect will hook you up. The platform syncs your contacts from Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, iPhone, and Foursquare, maps them around the globe, and lets you communicate in real time. Jason talks to Ryan Allis, CEO and Co-founder of Connect -- and also the winner of LAUNCH Festival 2014. | 8/13/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E462: Introducing Iota: the nation’s first free wireless IoT network & the world’s smallest GPS tracking device | Keeping track of your kids, pets, bikes, and other essential tangibles is about to become a lot easier -- and a lot less expensive. Iotera is introducing the Iota, the nation's first free, crowdsourced Internet-of-Things wireless network in tandem with the world's smallest GPS tracking device. Jason sits down with Founder & CEO Ben Wild to discuss this cyber-breaking product and what it's like to launch via Kickstarter. (Campaign ends 8/13! Check it out: http://getiota.com) | 8/8/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E461: Not just a stylish wearable, the Basis watch tracks, analyzes & improves your health | The Basis watch is one of the most advanced health trackers on the market. It not only logs your movements, heart rate, sweat, and sleep, but the band also analyzes these stats and suggests exactly how to improve your data -- and your health. CEO Jef Holove is in the studio with Jason, your host and dedicated daily user of the stylish device. They show us the watch's wonders, discuss where wearables are going, and decode Jason's perspiration patterns. | 8/6/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE460: Wistia hosts your video but you control the content | If you are creating video for your business (and who isn't these days?), your content should serve the needs of your company, not the needs of the video hosting platform. The simple and elegant solution? Wistia. We use it here at TWIST, and absolutely love it. And this week, Jason sits down with CEO Chris Savage who reveals how he steered his company through early struggles to smashing success. (Hint: Listen to your customers!) | 8/1/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E459: Cruise’s autopilot is speeding us into the future of autonomous cars, everywhere | What if your car could control steering, braking, and acceleration, all while staying perfectly in lane and stopping at exactly the right time, eliminating fender benders forever? And yes, we do mean YOUR car -- not a futuristic, expensive one you'll need to wait 10 years to buy. In just six months, Cruise Automation developed an add-on autopilot for your auto, and today CEO Kyle Vogt sits down with Jason to discuss its nuts and bolts, along with the charms and challenges of autonomous cars. | 7/29/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: How to get press | You want press for your product, right? It makes you feel good. It can bring customers and drive investment. But you must navigate these waters carefully, for email blasts and spam services will get you exactly nowhere. You need a goal, a plan, | 7/25/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E458: LitMotors’ C-1: a new class of vehicle part car, motorcycle & spacecraft | What happens when you build a vehicle that is part car, part motorcycle, and part spacecraft? You get convenience, safety, and 100% cool. Introducing the C-1, an electric two-wheeler that is all-weather, entirely enclosed, and totally untippable. This week Jason talks with Lit Motors Founder & CEO Daniel Kim about his incredible invention, what it's like to create a new class of vehicle -- and what he's got waiting in the wings. | 7/21/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E457: Thumbtack & MakeSpace: Two startups using the cloud to optimize your home | How can the cloud optimize your home? At Launch Beacon Jason sits down with two entrepreneurs offering innovative cloud solutions to common household challenges. First up is Marco Zappacosta with Thumbtack, a product that flips exhaustive searches for services by bringing the professionals to you. Next is Sam Rosen with MakeSpace, providing storage of physical items in the cloud, with easy deposit and redelivery on demand. | 7/18/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E456: The Muse gives job seekers behind-the-scenes access to companies and their cultures | So you're interested in a job at Uber. How do you know what it's REALLY like to work there? (Or at Zappos? Or at the Chicago Cubs?) Or maybe you're hiring: how can you show the world your awesomeness and attract the very best candidates? The Muse offers a solution in both scenarios, with a library of career resources for job seekers that includes behind-the-scenes content at 100+ companies and video interviews with current employees. Jason sits down with CEO Kathryn Minshew to discuss a variety of topics important to today's workforce, including how organizations can attract & retain millennials, what are realistic expectations in the workplace, and Kathryn's experiences as a female founder and entrepreneur. | 7/15/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: How to demo your product | You created a product that you believe is awesome. Your next big hurdle? Convincing everyone else. Crushing your product demo is both an art and a science, and Jason breaks it all down for you here, step by step. Never miss an episode! | 7/11/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE455: DataSift harnesses the power of data to give companies the edge | What if every single social media comment, story, blog, forum, and news article about your product could be tracked and analyzed through one platform? Data is King, and making sense of it all could be the key to your success. Jason talks with DataSift CEO Rob Bailey about how his company processes and delivers data that not only can reveal the whole picture now, but also predict what's coming next. | 7/8/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE454: Product Hunt founder on his cool new site & what’s hot in tech | Want to learn about the coolest start-ups? Discover an awesome app and eager to tell the world? Product Hunt's got you covered as the hot new place to find and share products and companies. Jason sits down with Ryan Hoover, PH's Founder (and die-hard TWIST fan!) to chat about what's buzzing in tech, the key to making a great product, and what it's like when your site goes viral. | 7/3/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E453: Boosted Boards & Hitch: two start-ups looking to revolutionize your commute | TWIST is on the move! In this transpo-themed two-parter, Jason first talks with Sanjay Dastoor of Boosted Boards about his new electric longboard, and then with Snir Kodesh, whose company Hitch provides to riders a social carpooling service. Both of these start-ups want to revolutionize our commutes so that the future is fast, cheap, and cool. | 7/1/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E452: Lord & Taylor SVP on how we shop and the future of brick & mortar | Brick & mortar retail dead? Not so fast! At LAUNCH Beacon, Ryan Craver of Lord & Taylor sits down with Jason to show us how we shop -- "are you brick or are you click?" -- and predicts how technology will enhance our purchasing power and rock the in-store experience. | 6/27/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE451: CircleUp connects retailers with investors and investors with equity | In the last two years, CircleUp has helped 40 companies raise $40m. The hook? A crowdsourcing platform that matches investors with retailers. Backers don't get a product, app, or software. They get actual equity in the business -- and a significant return on investment. Founder Ryan Caldbeck sat down with Jason at LAUNCH Beacon, a summit on the future of retail. | 6/24/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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E450: BRD’s slick electric motorcycles | Think electric motorcycles don't sound badass? Definitely don't tell Harley-Davidson; they're testing one. And definitely don't watch the video of BRD Motorcycles street racer in action. Founder Marc Fenigstein won't tell us what the company name stands for, but it's clearly all about speed, maneuverability and performance. Yes, electric vehicles are getting sexy. | 6/20/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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WSGR Startup Basics: How to fire someone | It's never easy, but sometimes you have to fire people. The key is to be calm, keep emotion out of it, and recognize that you probably made a mistake in hiring if it's come to this point. | 6/19/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE449: Former HuffPo CEO Eric Hippeau on the future of media | Eric Hippeau comes from a long line of journalists. He sounds French, loves America, and cut his teeth as an editor at an English-language paper in Brazil. But you may know him better as one of the few who has found a way to deliver popular content online and make money doing it. He sits on the board of the Huffington Post and served as its CEO leading into its acquisition by AOL. These days, he spends his time in the venture capital world in New York. Eric sat down with Jason at the Code Conference in Southern California. If you care at all about the future of media and journalism, do not miss this interview. | 6/17/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE448: Sleek Faraday Bikes reinvent urban cycling | If I say electric bike, you probably imagine a noisy, hideous beast of a thing that weighs a ton. That's decidedly not what Adam Vollmer has designed. Faraday Bikes has morphed from a design competition concept, to a Kickstarter, and now is accepting preorders for its next run. This is possibly the prettiest city bike you've ever seen. Clean lines, quiet, battery power helps to power up hills. Adam honed his engineering and design background at the top design firm IDEO, known for its work with Apple and transparent "design thinking" process. In this interview, he tells Jason about an even bigger challenge than bikes -- working to redesign the tampon. | 6/13/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE447: Angel investor Gil Penchina breaks into deals, scares VCs | Gil Penchina arrived in Silicon Valley in the late '90s with few contacts and a general interest in investing in startups. How did he become one of the top angels in tech? First, he attended 2 networking events a night, nearly every night, for a year. He was in early on PayPal, LinkedIn, and now is leveraging his influence through AngelList syndicates. He and Jason reveal how their growing influence with founders is making venture capitalists nervous, throwing elbows. This is a can't-miss interview for would-be angels and startups looking to get into the heads of their would-be investors. | 6/10/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE446: Why Godfather of Israeli tech Yossi Vardi passed on Waze | Israel is exploding with startups and an entrepreneurial culture. Why? It's the Jewish mother, Yossi Vardi told Jason when they sat down at the Code Conference. And it's not about religion, but rather the guilt that pushes young people to meet their parents' sky-high expectations. Vardi backed ICQ, which was the largest internet acquisition to date when AOL bought it 1998 for over $400m. Plus, his "spray-and-pray" investment philosophy and why he passed on Waze. | 6/6/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
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ExplicitE445: Wealthfront automatically manages your money for you | Do you have a financial advisor? If you're under 40, the answer is probably no. That's exactly who Wealthfront hopes to reach. First, users pick their risk tolerance through a free, no-sign-up quiz. If they decide to move money over, they can sit back and let the internal engines take over. Wealthfront CEO Adam Nash sat down with Jason at the Code Conference and insists: individual investors and financial advisors will never beat the market. Younger users want to know their money is being looked after day and night. Now with over $1b being managed in the system, Wealthfront is betting those users will come to them first. Plus, Adam shares tales of his first job out of college at Apple, and what happened when he bounded up to Steve Jobs in the cafeteria. | 6/4/2014 | Free | View in iTunes |
| 300 Items |
Customer Reviews
Greatest ideas for startups...PERIOD!
I don't know about Getonthebus, but I'm saying this is hands down the best resource for any entrepreneur out there.
Sure, Jason gets off topic on occasion, but it's his show! Get over it!
The information is priceless. You get to hear insights about everything from how to plan a successful venture, get funding, find help, what will and won't work; and it's all in a "No BS" fashion, which is what we all need.
The guests are great and contribute so much from the 'trenches' of entrepreneurship. Listen to it all, and you'll get plenty of ideas on how to run a solid business. Even if you get just one good idea, isn't it worth what you paid? Oh wait....
Just sit down, shut up, listen, and learn.
Great stuff, lots of actionable information
The thing I love about what Jason has done with the podcast is that it not only throws out lots of information, but it also provides a ton of practical, actionable stuff. If you want to start your own company or just get a better understanding of what separates the great entrepreneurs from everyone else, this is a great place to start (and get a weekly dose of inspiration).
Smart host, annoying show
I wanted to like it. I really, really did. But I just tried listening to my 3rd TWIST show. I just don't. Jason is great, has excellent business acumen and vision, and is someone who says things worth listening to, but this show doesn't do it for me. Lacks polish, always starts late, and always starts with banter that is Jasoncentric. It's his show, and while I appreciate his success and interested in his guests, the self stroking gets a little old. There are nuggets of wisdom that I am really interested in, but I just can't get through a full show without being annoyed.
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