His journey started when he started building products & wrote blogs for different companies - he was in New Zealand. He was the first writer for Mashable. All of this while he was just 14!

After sometime, he joined Teachable as a founding engineer. He grew in his role all the way to VP of product & with teachable doing reasonably well - he thought about why he origionally moved to the US.

Despite having his family in US, he took some hard decisions to leave the job & freelance for Gumroad to bootstrap. We also talk about raising the first $1M & getting an offer from Tiger Global for their Series A which they couldn't refuse.

This was such a fun podcast - going into a founder's life with every tiny detail. I had so much fun chatting with Sid, I'm sure you'll enjoy listening too! :) 

I recorded this episode in Delhi - what a time to record! We started with the impact of AQI on lifespan & talk about the impact of pincode on your lifespan. Longevity feels like a field where you need to spend a ton of time in research but Alex shared his views on how we can get started with a lot less.

It was interesting to get his thoughts on how young people are approaching the field & the progress we've already made. The contribution of Age1 has been quite phenomenal in the field & their dedication to help more people get started.

I've a lot of homework to do in the field & I find it quite exciting. I hope this episode can convince you to get started as well. Here's a good place to start reading in case you're curious: https://www.timeinitiative.org/resources

Leena Nair is the first female, first Asian and youngest ever CHRO of Unilever and member of the Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE).

Under her leadership Unilever has achieved a 50/50 gender balance across global leadership, led the design and implementation of progressive new working practices and models. She has continued to lead a pioneering agenda, playing an instrumental role in launching Unilever’s new social commitments, including a commitment to pay living wage across its whole supply chain.

Leena bears overall responsibility for the 150,000-strong human capital of Unilever, which operates across multiple regulatory and labour environments spread over 190 countries. Her expertise has driven continued growth for Unilever leading to the 50 billion euro business it is today. 

Leena began her Unilever career in Hindustan Unilever, where she became the first woman in the Management Committee in 90 years, heading HR. She was also appointed the first woman on the Unilever South Asia Leadership team and was responsible for Unilever’s growth in five markets with a business size of around 6 billion Euros.

She has continued to redefine how big business can contribute to the environment and society and has a reputation for putting the people at the heart of the business, driving growth and taking risks to create better business and a better society.

Recognised by HRH Queen Elizabeth II as one of the accomplished Indian Business Leaders in the UK, Leena is a trustee for the Leverhulme Trust. Her purpose is to “ignite the human spark for a better business and better world”.

(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

Today we have a conversation with Eoghan McCabe, Co-Founder & CEO of one of the worlds largest customer engagement platforms, Intercom. 

Eoghan previously founded an award-winning software design consultancy called Contrast, and co-founded Exceptional, a developer tool startup acquired in 2011 by Rackspace. He moved from Ireland to San Francisco that same year to start Intercom. Intercom has really become a fundamentally new way for internet businesses to communicate with customers, personally, at scale. The company has raised $116M from 500 startups, bessemer ventures, iconiq capital, biz stone and several more inidivudal and insttutional investors. Intercom now has over 10k happy paying customers around the world including Startup Grind! 

Lets listen into Eoghan McCabe the co-founder and CEO of intercom interviewed by yours truly in San francisco earlier this month. 

Today we have a panel discussion between 3 Venture Capitalists from the VC corner stage at Startup Grind’s 2016 global conference held annually each February in Silicon Valley.

Rachel Chalmers is a principle at Ignition partners, prior to ignition Rachel led research into enterprise computing infrastructure for the 451 Group. 

Nick Sturiale, is the managing partner at Ignition Partners, prior to becoming MP at Ignition Nick spent 15 years in venture helping over 100 startups including Reputation.com, Bill.com and Delphix. As an operator Nick was the founding CEO of Timbre Technologies which sold to Tokyo electron for 138 million dollars in 2001. 

Sandeep Bhadra is a partner with Menlo Ventures where he actively focuses on enterprise investments including AppDome, Platform9, and Signifyd. Sandeep had a Phd from the university of Texas and an MBA from INSEAD. 

Let’s listen into this interesting discussion with Rachel, Nick, and Sandeep at Startup Grind’s Global Conference. 

Nir Eyal moderated by tech author and TechCrunch writer Andrew Keen. This content was brought to us in partnership with Futurecast which is a thought leadership series, produced in collaboration between the ATT foundry and Ericsson.  

Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. The M.I.T. Technology Review dubbed Nir, “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.” Nir founded two tech companies since 2003 and has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. He is the author of the bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. Nir is also an advisor to several Bay Area start-ups, venture capitalists, and incubators. In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir is a contributing writer for TechCrunch, Inc. and Psychology Today. Nir attended The Stanford Graduate School of Business and Emory University.

In the following conversation with Andrew plus some audience participation, Nir dives deep into the psychology, marketing and creation of the technology that accessorizes our daily lives.

Let’s listen into Nir Eyal & Andrew Keen speaking at the Futurecast series hosted in Palo Alto. 

Author Daniel Pink. Daniel Pink is the author of 5 disruptive books including 3 long-running New York Times best sellers including A Whole New Mind, Drive, and To Sell is Human. 

Dan’s books have been translated into 34 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. Dan’s TED talk on the science of motivation is one of the 10 most-watched TED talks of all time, with more than 19 million views. He received a BA from Northwestern University and a JD from Yale Law School. Dan lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and three children. 

He drops some serious keys to success in this conversation including how to pitch, how to hire salespeople, and how to think about the problems you’re solving. The conversation started trending on twitter in Washington DC. 

Lets listen into Daniel Pink in Washington DC interviewed by Director Brian Park 

Gagan Biyani, the CEO and co-founder of Sprig, whose mission it is to make eating well simple.  

Open your phone when you're hungry, tap a button and get a healthy meal delivered in 15 minutes. Sprig has raised $57M from Greylock Partners and Social Capital Partnership and is available in San Francisco, Chicago and Palo Alto.

Prior to founding Sprig, he was a Growth Advisor for Lyft where he led supply and demand acquisition for their launch in Los Angeles. Gagan previously was co-founder and President of the education marketplace, Udemy, which has raised $113M and has over 7 million students worldwide. __

 Gagan is interviewed by Greylock Partner, Simon Rothman.

Simon invests in entrepreneurs building consumer networks and platforms, and he leads Greylock’s $100 million commitment to marketplace investments. His area of focus includes network effects businesses and transaction-based startups with a specialty around marketplaces. He has served as an advisor to many marketplaces and networks including Lyft, Tango, Taskrabbit, Poshmark, and others. Simon also leads Greylock’s $100 million commitment to marketplace investments.

Today we have a conversation with former professional footballer or professional soccer player if you’re tuning in from the US turned entrepreneur Varun Chandran. 

Varun is the founder & CEO of Corporate360. Corporate360 is a BigData software company that helps B2B marketers discover sales leads, ideal buyer profiles & competitive intelligence. Corporate360 was founded in 2012, in Singapore and now has offices in USA, India, Ireland and Philippines. In 2015, ProspectR, Corporate360's marketing data software won the best new product award at the prestigious Stevie Awards for sales & customer service.

Prior to founding Corporate360, Varun worked as a Sales & Marketing manager for companies like SAP, Oracle, NetApp and others. 

Varun is a graduate of the Berkeley Haas School of Business. 

Lets listen into Varun Chandran interviewed at our Startup Grind Trivandrum india chapter. 

Alex Austin founder & CEO of branch metrics who is joined by founders fund partner and former spacex engineer scott nolan. 

alex received an MS in Electrical Engineering & an MBA from stanford. In between degrees, he spent five years building a solar panel manufacturing facility from scratch in Santa Clara. While at stanford business school Alex also built an SDK for Android and iOS that is now live on over seven million phones world wide.

Alex is now the CEO of Branch Metrics, taking the lessons he learned as a mobile app developer to building a mobile linking platform that helps apps grow and give their users better experiences.

Scott Nolan is a Partner at Founders Fund, where he focuses on investments in technology-driven companies across sectors including energy, biotechnology, aerospace, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. 

Prior to Founders Fund, Scott was an early employee at SPACEX.  There, he helped develop the propulsion systems used on the Falcon 1, Falcon 9 and Dragon vehicles and was responsible for the Dragon capsule’s thermal and environmental control subsystems.

Lets listen into Alex and Scott’s conversation from our Silicon Valley chapter

Today we have a great conversation with the founder and CEO of Change.org. Change.org is the worlds largest platform for social change with more than 100 million users. 

Named one of Time's 100 most influential people in the world, Fortune's 40 Under 40 rising young business leaders, and Fast Company's most creative people in business, Ben is a prominent thought leader on the intersection of technology, innovation, and social change. 

He has received the Commonwealth Club's 21st Century Visionary Award, keynoted South by Southwest and Web Summit, and has been profiled in dozens of news outlets including the New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, and CNN. 

Ben is a graduate of Stanford University and the London School of Economics, and Change.org is backed by investors such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, and the founders of Linkedin, eBay, Twitter, and Yahoo! 

Let’s listen into Ben Rattray interviewed in Washington D.C. by chapter director Brian Park. 

Today we have a conversation with entrepreneur & investor and co founder of software development company Gigster Roger Dickey. 

Prior to founding Gigster, Roger led game studios at Zynga after joining when the company had just 30 employees after selling his first company Curiosoft to zynga. Roger oversaw MafiaWar’s explosive growth to over 100million users and 1billion dollars in revenue. 

Roger also as an international product team advisor for Zynga helping the company grow their games in India, Japan and China. 

Alongside his work at Zynga, Roger began advising & investing in bay-area startups in 2010. His investments include Docker, Addepar, iCracked, OpenGov, ClassDojo, and Wanelo. Advisory roles include Formation 8, Nest, OpenDoor, and The Thiel Fellowship.

Lets listen into Roger Dickey interviewed at our san Francisco chapter by startup grind editor in chief Michael Gasiorek. 

John Harthorne is the Founder and CEO of MassChallenge, the most startup-friendly accelerator on the planet. 

No equity and not-for-profit, MassChallenge is obsessed with helping entrepreneurs across any industry. 

They also reward the highest-impact startups through a competition to win a portion of several million dollars in equity-free cash awards. 

Through MassChallenge’s global network of accelerators in Boston, London, Jerusalem, Geneva, and Mexico City, and unrivalled access to corporate partners, entrepreneurs can have a massive impact - driving growth and creating value the world over. To date, 835 MassChallenge alumni have raised over $1.1 billion and created over 6,500 jobs. 

John earned his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management in 2007. While at school, John won Grand Prize in the 2007 MIT $100K Business Plan Competition and received the 2007 Patrick J. McGovern Award for impact on quality and visibility of entrepreneurship at MIT. 

The World Economic Forum also elected John as one of the 2013 Young Global Leaders alongside Chelsea Clinton and Tony Hsieh. 

John is a life-long Massachusetts resident and an avid Red Sox fan. He currently lives in Newton with his wife, Natalia, their 9-year old son Max and their 5-year old girl Yulia.

Lets Listen into John Harthorne interviewed at our Startup Grind Boston chapter by Director Carlos Cardenas. 

Phil Libin is the Founder and CEO at mmhmm, the app that allows you to level up your remote presentations, making high-quality video content in minutes. To date, Phil has raised over $30M for the company from an incredible investor base including Sequoia, Kevin & Julia Hartz, Tony Fadell, Instagram’s Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger and Brianne Kimmel. Prior to mmhmm, Phil was a Managing Director @ General Catalyst and prior to his time in venture, Phil most famously founded Evernote, where he led the business with phenomenal success, as CEO for over 8 years.

Libin is the latest high-profile executive to leave San Francisco. He now says remote working will be a "massive and profound" change.

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Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind

(Interviewed by Startup Grind's Chris Joannou).
 

Rod Drury who is the founder of the popular accounting software Xero. 

Rod is a well known technology entrepreneur, CEO and co-founder of the online accounting software company Xero. He has been recognised as New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013, Business Leader of the Year in 2012, member of the New Zealand Hi-Tech Hall of Fame, NZ Hi-Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006 and 2007, World Class New Zealander for ICT in 2008 and an Honorary Fellow of the NZ Computer Society. Xero has also recently been ranked No #1 by Forbes in its list of the World’s 100 Most Innovative Growth Companies.

Xero was also recently valued at close to 2 billion dollars. 

Lets listen into Rod Drury, interviewed by Startup Grind Melbourne Chapter Director Chris Jounnou. 

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

Let’s listen into Amit Kapur interviewed by Startup Grind Los Angeles Chapter Director Joe Famalette. 

Today we are doing something a bit different and feature content from the Futurecast thought leadership series which is a collaboration between the ATT foundry & Ericsson. The featured guest of the event is young guru who is an esteemed 

audio engineer, DJ, and producer on more than 10 of jay-z’s albums including his hit track “empire state of mind” 

Young guru takes the audience on an exploration of technology, content creation, and the democratization of content. Andrew keen is the moderator of the discussion and executive director of the future cast series. Author of popular books like the cult of the amateur & the internet is not the answer, keen was named 1 of GQ’s 100 most connected men in 2015. 

Directly prior to the discussion you are about to hear, several music industry related products were demoed to the audience. We’ll hear a bit about those products from their founders starting around halfway into the interview. 

Running an hour and 20 minutes this episode is a bit longer than our normal ones but it is definitely worth it. It’s a true deep dive into the music industry and how new disruptive digital technologies are shaping it for better or for worse. 

Lets listen into Young Guru interviewed in February by moderator Andrew Keen at the ATT foundry in Palo Alto. 

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

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

Lets listen into Amish Shah interviewed by Startup Grind Director Jeremy Berman in Charleston. 

Gerard Adams the Co-Founder of Elite Daily.  Elite Daily, quickly became the No.1 news platform for Generation Y. Gerard is an experienced angel investor, millennial thought leader and social entrepreneur who overcame early adversity to become a self-made millionaire by the age of 24. Now 30, he has built, backed or invested in nine businesses and trades across multiple industries that have all delivered over seven-figure profits.

In December 2011, Gerard co-founded and invested in his fastest-growing business idea: Elite Daily. Known as the “Voice of “Generation Y,” the website quickly grew to become the No. 1 platform for news geared toward millennials and was acquired by The Daily Mail in 2015.

Passionate about giving back to his community, Gerard helped develop affordable housing for communities in Newark, NJ, where his father and family grew up. He lives in Manhattan with his dog, a dachshund named GiGi. 

Lets listen into Gerard adams interviewed at our New York City Chapter. 

Selcuk Atli, a serial entrepreneur and current entrepreneur in residence at 500 startups. He’s a YCombinator alumnus, an Endeavor Entrepreneur and a Fulbright Scholar. He's founded Boostable, Manifest and the non-profit Nomadic Mentors. 

Selcuk most recently founded Boostable an advertising platform based in San Francisco and raised over 4 million dollars from silicon valley investors like YCombinator, 500 Startups and SVAngel. Boostable graduated from YCombinator's Winter 2014 class as one of the top companies featured by Techcrunch and Business Insider. 

Boostable helps online marketplaces like eBay offer digital advertising as a service to their sellers.

Lets listen into Selcuk interviewed at our startup grind Toronto chapter by Director Murray McKercher. 

Co-founder and CEO of the 3D printing company Formlabs, Maxim lobovsky. 

Maxim’s time as a student at the MIT Media Lab allowed him to experience the power of rapid prototyping and 3D printing technologies to produce custom designs for his work. Seeing an enormous opportunity, in 2011 Maxim Lobovsky and two other colleagues from MIT founded Formlabs, a startup developing an affordable high-resolution 3D printer enabling designers, engineers, and makers to easily realize their dreams in beautiful physical form. 

After a highly successful crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter and additional rounds of funding, Formlabs announced the Form 1, their fist prosumer model, and on September 2015 launched the Form 2, a new model with larger capacity, upgraded features and simpler usability. 

Maxim holds an MS on Media Arts and Sciences program at MIT, and a BS in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University.

Lets listen into Maxim Lobosky interviewed at our Startup grind Boston Chapter by Director Carlos Cardenas. 

Manish Chandra the founder and ceo of the poplar fashion community app Poshmark. Poshmark is the largest community marketplace for fashion where millions of women come to buy, sell and share their personal style. 

Manish has always been passionate about building communities and founded the first social shopping company, Kaboodle, which was acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 2007. With Poshmark, Manish has applied his understanding of technology to change the way women think about shopping, building a passionate community based around people’s love for fashion and each other. Manish received a Bachlors in Technology from  IIT Kanpur, and a Masters of Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and an the MBA from Haas School of Business. 

New York Times best selling author Brant Cooper at our San Diego Chapter. Brant is the author of "the Lean Entrepreneur" and the entrepreneurs guide to the lean brand. 

Brant’s startup career includes Tumbleweed, Timestamp, WildPackets, inCode, and many others. Brant previously authored The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, the first purpose-written book to discuss Lean Startup and Customer Development concepts. 

He has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs across the globe. Brant is the Co-Founder of Moves the Needle Group, which has advised the innovation practices of such leading companies as General Electric, Intuit, Capital One, ADP, and Transamerica. He is Founder of StartupSandiego.co, Organizer for SD Tech Founders. 

Lets listen into Brant Cooper interview in San Diego 

Stefano is a project management practitioner and an academic with 20 years of experience, and the designer of the Team Alignment Map.

He has been leading digital projects for Swiss-based companies Rothschild and Pictet; advising cross-functional leaders and teams for Richemont, the World Economic Forum, Applied Materials and HSBC; teaching and doing research in project management at the University of Lausanne and at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne in partnership with Doctors Without Borders, Migros LeShop and Rolex.

He has also co-authored an A-ranking publication in JMIS (Journal of Management Informa

tion Systems), New York; published at ECIS 2014 (The European Conference on Information Systems). Awarded Best Paper Nominee, Best Research in Progress Runner-Up Award with Swiss researchers at the International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2015). He holds a PhD and a Master's Degree in Organisation and Business Information Systems (MBI), all obtained from the University of Lausanne.

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Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind

(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

2011 interview with VentureBeat & TechCrunch writer, and current Google Ventures partner MG Siegler. MG has been deeply involved in the startup space since 2005, first as a web developer, then as a writer, and most recently as an investor and advisor.

Before joining Google Ventures in 2013, M.G. was a founding partner of CrunchFund, an early-stage investment fund. Prior to that, he reported on the startup world as a writer for both TechCrunch and VentureBeat. M.G. still writes a column for TechCrunch on top of writing on his own sites and from time-to-time doing movie reviews in haiku.

Originally from Ohio, M.G. graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor before moving out west to work in Hollywood. One day, he hopes to write a killer screenplay.

Today we have a special interview with the Founder and CEO of Fiverr.com Micha Kauffman interviewed by director Ram Yonish in Tel Aviv earlier this year. Fiverr is the world's most transacted marketplace for services, creating economic opportunities for the entrepreneurs of the gig economy. Fiverr was founded by Shai Wininger and Micha Kaufman in 2009 and currently lists more than three million services on the site that range between $5 and $500. Fiverr.com has been ranked among the top 100 most popular sites in the U.S. and top 150 in the world since the beginning of 2013.

During August 2014, Fiverr announced that it has raised $30 million in a Series C round of funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel and other investors. The round brings their total funding to date to $50 million.

Micha is also an active angel investor

Jean Oelwang is the CEO of Virgin Unite, the entrepreneurial foundation of the Virgin Group and a Partner in the Virgin Group focused on People Innovation. In 2003, Jean left her post as joint CEO of Virgin Mobile Australia to begin working with Richard Branson and the Virgin staff from around the world to create Virgin Unite. Over the last 10 years, Jean has worked with partners to create new approaches to social and environmental issues, such as the Branson Centres of Entrepreneurship and a global platform to support budding entrepreneurs. She has built collaborations to incubate a number of global leadership initiatives such as The Elders, the Carbon War Room and The B Team. In addition, Jean has been instrumental in working with over 25 Virgin businesses across 15 industries to put the wellbeing of people and planet at their core.

In her previous life, Jean lived and worked on five continents helping to lead successful mobile phone start-ups in South Africa, Colombia, Bulgaria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the US.

Jean has long explored the overlap of the business and not-for-profit sectors and has been involved in both, having worked for the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife in Australia, and in numerous volunteer roles, including a stint as a VISTA volunteer where she worked with – and learned from – homeless teens in Chicago.

She sits on the Advisory Council for The Elders and the Boards of the Carbon War Room, the B Team, the Ocean Elders and Just Capital.

Anthony Soohoo is Co-Founder & CEO of Dot & Bo, a uniquely curated shopping experience that makes modern design accessible and inspires people to create their dream homes. Drawing upon his background in media and technology, he launched Dot & Bo in 2013 to solve for the often-frustrating experience of shopping for furniture, in which design advice is traditionally expensive and customer service is extremely limited.

Prior to starting Dot & Bo, Anthony was the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Entertainment Division at CBS Interactive which included CBS.com, CBS Audience Network, TV.com, The Insider.com, Chow, Chowhound, UrbanBaby, and CBS Interactive Web Original Studio. During his tenure, Soohoo helped grow the CBS Interactive Entertainment Division to become one of the leading entertainment networks on the web. He joined CBS in 2007 with its acquisition of Dotspotter, one of the fastest growing community-powered entertainment properties on the Internet where he served as Co-Founder and CEO. Prior to Dotspotter, Soohoo held product and leadership roles at Yahoo!, Inktomi and Apple.

Soohoo earned his bachelor's degree from the University of California, Davis and an MBA from Harvard Business School. He was selected in TechCrunch's “40 Over 40” list and The Hollywood Reporter's Digital Power List as one of the top 50 executives leading the charge in new media. He is an advisor/investor to a number of consumer startups.

Bill Bryant is a partner at DFJ (formerly Draper Fisher Jurvetson), focused on early- and growth-stage investments in enterprise, consumer and disruptive technologies. Bill has had early and instrumental involvement in more than 25 leading software, mobile, and digital media companies, as a founder, senior executive, investor, and board member. 

He has had founding roles with Visio (now part of Microsoft), Netbot (acquired by Excite), Qpass (acquired by Amdocs), Medio (Nokia), Mixxer, and Airworks. 

Bill represents DFJ on the boards of Bright Computing, Chef, Ping Identity, Z2Live, Remitly, and The Clymb.  In addition to his DFJ investments, he is an active angel investor with investments in Winshuttle, LiquidPlanner, Bonanza, and Socrata.

Lets listen into Bill Bryant interview at our Seattle Chapter by director Mike Grabham. 

Daniel Klausssen, Senior Director within the Innovation Strategy Department at Marriott International. Prior to joining Marriott, Daniel led the complete re-development of the Public Broadcasting Systems digital strategy including all of their mobile apps, streaming tools, and architecture. Prior to that he was a stay at home dad while consulting for startups after a career at legendary silicon valley companies like Netscape, Borland, and Collabra. Daniel grew up in Squaw Valley California and received a degree in physics from the university of colorado at boulder. 

Lets listen into Daniel Klaussen interviewed by Tom Denison at our Chicago Startup Grind Chapter. 

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Jon Steinberg who at the time was the President and COO of Buzzfeed. Following Buzzfeed he became CEO of the US version of the Daily Mail Online and a Board Member of Bustle. He is an Ex-Googler previously as a Strategic Partner Development Manager on Google’s SMB Partnerships team. Prior to Google, Jon was the Director of Business Development at Majestic Research and the founder of iBuilding, a commercial real estate software company backed by Tishman Speyer Properties, Benchmark Capital, and 12 Entrepreneuring. He is a graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and holds an MBA from Columbia University.

Lets listen into Jon Steinberg interviewed at our Startup Grind NYC Chapter in 2013.

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

Startup Grind is Brought to You By: 

Soylent: Easy, sustained energy that goes where you go. Learn more at Soylent.com

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

Lets listen into Jim Bankoff interviewed by  Brian Park in Washington DC . 

Startup Grind is Brought to You By: 

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Jennifer Dulski President & COO of the social advocacy platform Change.org. An early Yahoo! employee, Jennifer led one of the company's 6 Business units, serving as group VP and general manager of local and commerce. In 2007, Jennifer left Yahoo! to become co-founder and CEO of The Dealmap, a location-based deals site that Google acquired in 2011. She served as a senior executive at Google for two years before joining Change.org in January 2013. Jennifer's first job out of college was founding and running the Pittsburgh site of the Breakthrough Collaborative, a non-profit organization helping underserved students get on a path to college. She currently chairs the board of the Silicon Valley site of the Breakthrough Collaborative and serves on the board of Little Passports. 

Lets listen into Jennifer Dulski interviewed in San Francisco by Archive.ly founder Perri Gorman. 

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As the CEO of Skillshare, Matt Cooper believes that learning is transformative — individually, socially, economically. Skillshare's mission is to connect life-long learners everywhere and build a more creative and prosperous world.

Before joining Skillshare, he was the CEO of Visually, an online marketplace for creative work that was acquired by ScribbleLive in January 2016. Prior to Visually, he was the VP of Operations, Enterprise and International for oDesk (now Upwork), the world's largest marketplace for online work.

He is a father of four amazing girls. In his rare moments of free time, he enjoys surfing, fishing, running and anything outdoors.

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Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind

(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

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Tony Wheeler. When Tony and his wife arrived in Sydney in 1972 after a six month trip through Asia from Europe toward Australia, they decided to start Lonely Planet Publications to publish the story of their journey - Across Asia on the Cheap. From those humble beginnings, Lonely Planet Publications has grown to become the world’s largest independent guidebook publisher with more than 500 titles in print and over 400 staff around the world. In 2011, Tony completed the sale of Lonely Planet, and though he doesn’t have a formal role in the company, he still keeps busy writing books such as Tony Wheeler’s Dark Lands. 

Lets listen into Tony wheeler interviewed by our Startup Grind Melbourne Chapter Director. 

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

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

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

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

Juan Diego Calle the Founder of the .CO domain business. Prior to founding .CO which was  by Neustar, Inc. in April of 2014, while at the university of Miami, Juan Diego launched and ran TeRespondo.com, a performance-based advertising network, which he sold to Yahoo in 2005. 

Juan Diego also currently serves as the chairman of STRAAT, a company builder software based in Miami, Florida. Juan Diego also co-founded Building.co,  a collaborative work space for growing tech companies, Classic.com, a classic car restoration business, POP.co,  a platform designed to help entrepreneurs and businesses get online, and BoutiqueHotels.com a hand-curated list of boutique hotels around the world.  He’s an alumni of the Harvard Business School OPM program.  lets listen into Juan Diego Calle interviewed by our Bogota Colombia Chapter director. 

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

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

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

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

William received a Bachelor of Science in Physics from the University of Virginia, and a PhD. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Chris Do is an Emmy award winning designer, founder and CEO of Blind, Inc., where he oversees the creative and strategic direction of the company. He is also the founder of The Futur—an online education platform with the mission of teaching 1 billion people how to make a living doing what they love.

Mr. Do currently serves on the board and is an advisor for organizations including: AIGA/LA, Emmys Motion & Title Design Peer Group, Otis Board of Governors, Saleshood, Santa Monica College and Woodbury University.

He received his BFA from Art Center College of Design in Graphics/Packaging, where he has taught Sequential Design for over a decade. He’s lectured at: California Institute of the Arts, LA Art Institute, Siggraph, Otis College of Design, MGLA, Cal State Los Angeles/Northridge and San Diego City College.

Prior to forming Blind, Mr. Do worked at Cole & Weber, Seattle as an Art Director, Epitaph Records as a designer and freelance designer at broadcast design firm, Novocom and R/GA LA under Kyle Cooper on main titles such as The Island of Dr. Moreau, Celtic Pride and Eraser.

Mr. Do has given talks and conducted workshops on: Sales, Negotiations, Value Based Pricing, Mindset, Branding, Graphic & Motion Design, Social Media Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Business Management, and Client Relations.

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Render Capital wants you to apply for their 2021 Render Competition! The Render Competition invests $100,000 into eight early-stage startups each year to help them scale their solution and attract future investment. Learn more about the Render Competition and apply today at render.capital/competition/startupgrind

(Interviewed by StartupGrind's Chris Joannou).

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

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

Mike has a BS/MS in Aerospace Engineering from MIT and graduated from the Harvard Business School.

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