Today’s guest is Simon Brading who works at App Agency Brightec and is the co-founder of Mentora Money which he started in 2022 with his wife, Anna – a financial education instructor. Their mission is simple but important - to create a platform to help as many people as possible learn basic financial principles so that they can make money, look after their money and reduce money stress. 

In this conversation, we discuss Simon’s strong faith and how that has guided him through his life and career especially around community building, we also talk about how Covid left him with depression and how he managed to get out of that dark hole and, we ponder on what a financially literate society might look like.

But, before we get into today’s episode, a quick word from our sponsor. Paddle - and this is especially for the all the mobile devs in my audience. Paddle has produced an invaluable web monetisation guide which you can download for FREE here. As they say, selling your app on the web isn't just about avoiding hefty app store fees, it actually gives you the freedom and opportunity to leverage a direct-to-consumer model where you can reach a bigger audience, enhance your marketing efforts, and experiment with different ways to monetize and grow your app. So, if you are interested in learning more, then do head to here to get your FREE web monetisation guide from Paddle.

Please enjoy my conversation with Simon Brading.

Today’s guest is the wonderful Doug Menuez – a documentary photographer, director and photojournalist whose incredible career has seen him cover the AIDS crisis, the Ethiopian famine, the birth of the digital revolution in the 1980s where he documented founders like Steve Jobs, Marc Andreessen, Bill Gates, the Adobe founders and more and that is how he came on my radar.

His book, Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000 which highlights just a snippet of the over two million images which he took of that time is a such an incredible homage to the people that built the future we live in now.

And in today’s episode, we talk about it and the people he shot in his career– from the three years he had exclusive access to Steve Jobs to the time he got kidnapped in Sudan. We also discuss the three most pivotal moments in Doug’s life which include meeting his wonderful wife Tereza and the moment she was diagnosed two years ago with Alzheimer's.

There are some incredible stories of hope in this episode and some heartwarming lessons on the importance of patience and persistence and the ability of founders to keep going, despite the odds stacked against them.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here is my conversation with Doug Meneuz.

Doug website / Instagram / Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

Image of Doug by Christopher Michel

Today’s guest is founder and VC Brett Martin who I first started following ten years ago when we were both in the mobile space.

Brett is currently Co-Founder of Kumospace and co-founder of Charge Ventures. Kumospace is a venture backed virtual office space platform that provides immersive and interactive virtual spaces for hosting team meetings, and social gatherings. Charge Ventures is a venture capital firm based in New York that invests in pre-seed to seed early stage tech startups.

In this episode of the podcast, we discuss Brett’s first taste of business as a kid, what lessons he learned about entrepreneurship from sailing 6,000 miles on a 50 year old, 30 foot sailboat which involved dodging water spouts, pirates and drug runners, what it felt like to shut down his first proper startup, and what he looks for in the founders he invests in.

Apologies that this is a shorter than normal episode but Brett and I spent some time catching up before we got started so I will have to get him back on the show another time.

But saying that, this was a fun episode with someone who has done it all, so please enjoy my conversation with Brett Martin.

Brett on Twitter / Charge VC / Kumospace

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship

Mentioned in this episode:

Sonar Post Mortem by Brett Martin

Scar Tissue by Brett Martin

On Giving Up by Adam Phillips

I am back! And I have an incredible lineup for Series 3 including Alvy Ray Smith, the co-founder of Pixar, Guy Kawasaki, Yodit Stanton, founder of OpenSensors, serial entrepreneur Clarence Wooten, who, among other roles, is currently Entrepreneur in Residence at X – Google Alphabet's Moonshot Factory - and Nicolas Cary, co-founder of Blockchain.com, among others.

As always, we will be digging deep into the lives of each founder and innovator – from the pivotal experiences in their childhoods through to their career journeys, highs and lows, and what the lessons they learned along the way.

These stories are a wonderful way to document history in one of the most exciting fields of our time but they are also TRULY inspirational. And I feel extremely lucky that I get to share these amazing stories with you. I know they will inspire you and hopefully help you on your own career journey.

The first episode will be with Pixar co-founder Dr Alvy Ray Smith where he will describe what he saw that others didn’t, how he helped pioneer the field of computer graphics and how Steve Jobs played the part of both saviour and tyrant in the Pixar story.

So don’t forget to hit the subscribe button to make sure you’re the first to hear each episode as it is published. I can't wait to share them with you.

Have you ever seen a picture of someone you've never met and wanted to know their story?

I first saw a picture of Donna Auguste in Doug Menuez's great book –Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985 - 2000 …and I had to know more about her. A black woman leading an engineering team at Apple – her photo stood out – for all the right reasons, among a sea of pictures of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, John Sculley et al.

Two years later, and I got the exclusive chance to sit down with Donna who shares her inspiring story for this podcast – from being the first African-American (man or woman) to enter the PhD program at Carnegie Mellon researching AI, to managing the Newton engineering team at Apple to selling her software business for $147 million. It’s all the more amazing when you learn the obstacles she had to overcome.

With a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Berkeley, Donna went on to research Artificial Intelligence at Carnegie Mellon where she spent the holidays interning at Xerox PARC in the early 80s before heading to IntelliCorp as a software engineer working on products which incorporated AI. She then went on to Apple before co-founding her own company - Freshwater Software.

This episode is one of my favourites – Donna’s story is one of grit, faith, determination, ignoring the naysayers and ultimately, a story of success.

As Donna says when discussing the VC’s reaction to her when fundraising, “They had a whole model of what they were looking for and I fit none of it.” Donna proved them wrong. And the lessons she shares shows that you can too, whoever…wherever you are.

As this is the final episode in Series 2, I wanted to thank you dear listeners for coming on this journey with me. I have so enjoyed speaking to my incredible guests: 

Dan Bricklin, Rana el Kaliouby, Nolan Bushnell, David Byttow, Avery Wang, Megan Smith, Ed Smith and of course, Donna Auguste.

I look forward to welcoming you back for Series 3.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Donna on Twitter / Auguste Research website

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Mentioned in this episode: Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985 - 2000 by Doug Menuez

Today’s guest is the incredible Ed Smith - one of only two known African American engineers who worked on the design of video games in the 1970s and the first African American to work in the design of a personal computer, and the only hybrid video game/personal computer ever released. 

In this episode, Ed talks me through his childhood, growing up in one of the toughest neighbourhoods in Brooklyn, New York and his desire to create a better life which he found through tech. A voracious reader and into electronics, Ed studied Computer Science before getting a job working on traffic control signals at Marbelite. Whilst there, Ed got the opportunity to go to Fairchild and learn early microprocessor-based circuit design which put his skills in high-demand. He soon landed at APF Electronics where he immediately starting work on the hardware design and built the prototypes, joystick and port design for the MP1000 video game – one of very few cartridge-based video game systems at the time. Two years later, Ed and the APF design team leveraged the processing power of the MP1000 and Ed’s hardware designs to create the Imagination Machine personal computer which was the first combined home video game console and personal computer.

This episode is inspiring and uplifting with many lessons from Ed on how to strive, thrive and find your role in tech.

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Mentioned in this interview:

Ed's book  Imagine That!: The story of one of the first African Americans to work in the design of video games and personal computers can be bought from Amazon UK here and Amazon US here.

Benj Edwards Fast Company interview with Ed Ed Smith And The Imagination Machine: The Untold Story Of A Black Video Game Pioneer

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Ed website / Twitter @slicer114

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Today’s guest is the incredible Megan Smith - award-winning entrepreneur, engineer, and tech evangelist. It would take me an hour to talk through Megan’s illustrious career but some of what we discuss in this episode includes working on multimedia products at Apple Japan, working on early smartphones at General Magic, 11 years at Google where she held a VP position, leading new business development including acquisitions of Google Earth, Maps, Picasa, she led Google.org, and later co-created Women Techmakers, and Solve for X before serving as the third U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to President Obama from 2014-2017, working on issues from AI, data science and open source, to inclusive economic growth, entrepreneurship, structural inequalities, government tech innovation capacity, STEM/STEAM engagement, workforce development, and criminal justice reform. 

Megan is currently founder and CEO of Shift7, a company working collaboratively on systemic social, environmental and economic problems -- finding opportunities to scout and scale promising solutions and solution makers and engage proven tech-forward, open, shareable practices to drive direct impact, together. 

Finally, Megan holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT where she is now a board member and Megan is also co-founder of the Malala Fund and UN Solutions Summit. She is also a board member of Vital Voices, LA Olympics 2028 and Think of Us, and is Algorithmic Justice League advisor and member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Academy of Engineering.

I told you she was impressive! But before we learn more about Megan’s story – a couple of quick notes. Firstly, we recorded this episode during the pandemic and so there are a few background noises we couldn’t eliminate. Secondly, I wanted to talk to you about sponsorship - if you want to sponsor this podcast, please do reach out and you can have your ad read by me, each week, at this point of the podcast and have your message reach over 120,000 founders and business leaders.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

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Mentioned in this Interview:
Megan talks about her time at General Magic - worth watching this documentary on the now-famous company

Listen here to my interview with General Magic co-founder Andy Hertzfeld 

Megan mentions Dr Sue Black and her work at Tech Mums

and Sherry Coutu and her work at Founders 4 Schools

Coded Bias documentary

The Hōkūleʻa story can be found here

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Megan on Twitter  @smithmegan

Shift 7 website / Twitter @shift7 / Instagram @shift7

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

My guest today is Avery Wang – co-founder and Chief Scientist at music recognition app Shazam and now Principal Research Scientist at Apple.

Almost ten years ago, I conducted my very first interview for my first book and it was with the Shazam founders. The story of Shazam is one of pure innovation, foresight, and friendship. In 1999,  Chris Barton dreamed of a seemingly impossible solution to ambient music recognition and created the team — including friend Dhiraj Mukherjee, classmate Philip Inghelbrecht and engineer Avery Wang — to make it a reality. Even after 20 years post launch, Shazam currently has over 200 MILLION monthly active users and was acquired by Apple in 2018.

For regular listeners of this show, you will know that I spoke to fellow co-founder Dhiraj Mukherjee back In Series 1 but in today’s episode, Avery Wang talks me through the invention process – going all the way back to how as a child, he fell in love with science and maths and how his parents encouraged him to experiment, up to how he managed to invent the Shazam algorithm which every "expert" had said was impossible.

I am so over the moon to share this interview with Avery – a first of its kind because Avery doesn’t do interviews. Everyone who knows him refers to him as a genius and it’s easy to see why. He holds over 150 US and international patents, has a Bachelor of Science degree and a Masters in Mathematics and a Masters and PhD in Electrical Engineering, all from Stanford. He also went to Germany as a Fulbright Scholar and studied Computational Neuroscience.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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Let me know what you think of this episode by rating, reviewing and sharing - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Today’s guest is David Byttow – a self-described engineer by trade and, very much an artist at heart. David is most famous for his role as co-founder of mobile app Secret which allowed people to share messages anonymously.

Whilst there was a lot of hype around Secret when it officially launched in 2014 - lauded by the press and tech industry, and with the company raising millions of dollars within just a few months – the company abruptly closed down a little over a year later. 

Some of the very public criticism David faced at the time was around the three million dollars that he and his co-founder each took off the table as part of their Series B deal. And, of course, there was the red Ferrari that David bought and which got a lot of column inches when things didn’t work out.

In this episode, we dig deep into the rise and fall of Secret and some of what David went through during that time from the exciting high - post launch - to the crushing low he felt in having to close the company down. We also discuss how he dealt with the backlash that came with Secret’s closure and how his pre and post Secret career has seen him work at many of the top tech companies from Google to Medium, Square and Snap.

I really appreciate David’s candour in this interview, he opens up about a lot of things which many founders would prefer to keep out of public conversation. And, in doing so, I believe David will enable others to do the same – to talk about the hard times which come with entrepreneurship. It also gives an insight into David – who he is as a person, not just a founder, and that’s exactly why I do these interviews. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Mentioned in this Interview:
David talks about Andy Hertzfeld who appears in Series 1 - listen here.

David's ABC: Always be Coding article can be found here. 

Jim McKelvey interview can be found here.

Tweet about creator economy can be found here.

Philip Rosedale interview can be found here.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

David on Twitter @davaidbyttow / YouTube  David Byttow

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Today’s guest is the legendary Nolan Bushnell – serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Atari and a pioneer of the video games industry.

After an early interest in Engineering, Nolan went on to study Electrical Engineering before setting up Atari with Ted Dabney and Al Alcorn (I interviewed in Series 1, EP 8 - listen here). Atari experienced huge success with Pong which was one of the first computer games ever created but whilst it was hugely popular, Atari was born at a time when venture capital didn’t really exist, IP could not be protected and so the journey to keeping the company going was much tougher than it is today and by the time Warner Communications made an offer for the company, Nolan was ready to sell.

In this interview, where we look back at gaming history, Nolan talks me through the highs and lows of building Atari, the traits he looks for when hiring, and why one of his biggest regrets was turning down an offer from Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to own a third of Apple.

Enjoy!

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Nolan Bushnell on Twitter @nolanbushnell

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Today’s guest is Rana el Kaliouby a pioneer in Emotion AI and, before I go any further, I wanted to say that this is one of the most honest, and authentic interviews I have ever conducted with a startup founder.

Rana is co-founder and CEO of Affectiva - a software company that builds artificial intelligence that understands human emotions, and cognitive states and activities by analyzing facial and vocal expressions. The company was spun out of the MIT Media Lab with Rana and Professor Rosalind Picard as co-founders.

A self-described nerd at heart who felt like a misfit growing up, Egyptian-born Rana also authored Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology. As I touch on in the interview, this book is very much Rana’s inspiring life story - from her middle-eastern upbringing to her startup journey, why it’s critical for your company to have core values and the toll her chosen path took on her personal life.

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If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a review? It doesn't take long and would mean the world to me. It also helps others to find the podcast too. Thank you.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Rana el Kaliouby on Twitter @kaliouby and Instagram @ranaelkaliouby 
Affectiva website 

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Welcome back to Series 2 of the Danielle Newnham Podcast. I am your host – Danielle Newnham and each week, I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human, stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

Today, I am thrilled to kick off Series 2 with Dan Bricklin – the man behind the very first electronic spreadsheet.

Dan received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from the MIT before coming up with the idea for VisiCalc whilst studying Business at Harvard Business School. Not only did VisiCalc form the basis of what we all know to be the spreadsheet today but at the time, Steve Jobs credited VisiCalc with helping drive Apple II’s success. 

In this episode, we explore Dan’s background, what got him excited about engineering as a kid and what it was like studying at MIT at the dawn of such an exciting age.

We also discuss the motivation behind creating VisiCalc and what it felt like to have someone so close to him essentially copy it – you’ll be surprised to hear there were no hard feelings!

Dan’s work has been critical to the innovation which followed and I am grateful that he shared his story with me.

I hope you enjoy it too.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Dan Bricklin on Twitter @danb / website / buy his book here.

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

And we're back! Great to have you here for more interviews with the tech founders and innovators behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

Listen in to hear who we have coming up on this Series as well as why the telling of these stories is so important.

This Series is hosted by Danielle Newnham and produced by Jolin Cheng.

If you would like to sponsor this or another Series, please get in touch with Danielle Newnham via Twitter or LinkedIn.

Today’s guest is June Angelides MBE – a former founder, turned VC. June grew up in Nigeria before coming to London to study Economics. She then joined Thomson Reuters working on the news desk, covering syndicated loans before she got a call to join Silicon Valley Bank  (SVB) who were just starting up here in London. She joined a small team there, working on both the Venture Debt Team and Early Stage Banking where she started forging connections with early stage startups and founders.

It wasn’t long before June wanted a taste of entrepreneurship herself so she started Mums in Tech - the first child-friendly coding school in the UK - which ultimately taught over 250 women to code in 3 years and earned June an MBE from the Queen.

After Mums in Tech closed down, June joined Samos Investments in 2018, where she remains today, investing in high growth European businesses. She has also founded an angel syndicate that invests into African Startups.

In this episode, June and I discuss her career journey from working in the early days at Silicon Valley Bank here in the UK, setting up and subsequently shutting down her business, becoming an investor and the traits she looks for in founders, the importance of storytelling when pitching, as well as how representation and role models matter.

I learned a lot talking to June about her founder investor journey and I think you will too. So here is my conversation with June Angelides.

Enjoy!

June website / Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship

Mentioned in this episode:

UK Government backed women-led high-growth enterprise taskforce report

In this episode, I speak to Al Alcorn – electrical engineer, Apple Fellow and the man who created Pong – one of the earliest arcade video games and one of the first video games to be commercially successful. Pong very much put Atari at the forefront of what became the gaming industry in the early 70s.

Al is a great storyteller and we dive into the early days of Atari from hiring an 18 year-old intern called Steve Jobs and watching him and Woz start Apple - to getting Pong into the hands of hundreds of thousands which launching an industry that is now worth billions. We also talk about the financial struggles Atari experienced, the copycats they had to deal with and what it meant for the company when Atari got sold and the suits came in to run it. 

We also talk about life post Atari for Al, as he continued to pioneer in the tech field, becoming an Apple Fellow.

It is rare that one gets to talk to someone who was at the dawn of an industry so I am grateful to Al for his time and hope you enjoy our conversation, as much as I did.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Al Alcorn on Twitter / LinkedIn

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive, limited offer, $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

In today’s episode, I speak to AI and Machine Learning Scientist and founder of Kingfisher Labs - Dr Catherine Breslin. Catherine spent several years in academic research before she joined the Amazon Alexa team during its infancy back in 2014. Whilst there, Catherine managed the Cambridge-based AI Alexa team which were working on inventing foundational Machine Learning tech to build intelligent conversational interfaces for a myriad of devices, apps, languages and environments. The team also worked on technology that enabled the automatic speech recognition and natural language understanding behind Amazon’s Alexa.

Catherine holds a First Class Honours degree in engineering and computer science from Oxford University, a Masters in the field of Speech, Text and Internet Technology from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Engineering and Automatic Speech Recognition, also from Cambridge.

In this fascinating conversation, we talk about how Catherine got into engineering and what led her to the field of speech recognition, what the early days of working on Alexa were like and what the wins and issues were when it first launched.

We also talk about the future of smart devices, what working on Alexa has taught her about human nature, how hard it is from a science perspective, to turn virtual assistants into true companions and how far out we are from achieving AGI - (artificial general intelligence).

I hope you enjoy it!

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Catherine on Twitter @catherinebuk / Website / Instagram @catherinebreslin

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

In today’s episode, I speak to Dhiraj Mukherjee, co-founder of Shazam – the music recognition app which was started in London in 1999, and acquired by Apple in 2018 for a reported $400 million.

The story of Shazam is one of pure innovation, foresight, and a twenty plus year friendship. In 1999, Chris Barton dreamed of a seemingly impossible solution to ambient music recognition and created the team — including friend Dhiraj Mukherjee, classmate Philip Inghelbrecht, and engineer Avery Wang — to make it a reality. Shazam has now been downloaded over 1 billion times and sees more than twenty million Shazams a day. 

I first met Dhiraj and Chris eight years ago when I interviewed the founders for my first book. Their story is so compelling that I wanted to bring them on to the podcast, as individuals, and learn more about each element of the business. So today, I am talking to Dhiraj about his background in India and traveling around the world as a child, meeting and starting a business with Chris Barton, the operational side of building Shazam in the early days from funding to how they physically got the music library together at a time when there were no smartphones, and also his role now as an investor and what he looks for in a founder. 

Shazam is the ultimate startup story - one of grit, foresight, perseverance and friendship – and I think you’re going to really enjoy it. 

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Dhiraj on Twitter / website / Shazam

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

In today’s episode, I speak to Jim McKelvey – serial entrepreneur and inventor, co-founder of Square and author of The Innovation Stack. Jim is also the co-founder of LaunchCode, a non-profit which helps people learn to code and get hired and founder and CEO of Invisibly which aims to give consumers control over how their personal data is monetised by advertisers. He also serves as an Independent Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Jim is someone who has always had a lot going on. In his early twenties, whilst contracting for IBM, Jim was also a  glassblowing instructor and had founded a CD cabinet manufacturing company but just before Christmas in 1989, everything changed for Jim when his mother died suddenly. The incident made Jim re-evaluate his life and priorities and he realised that he no longer wanted to do lots of things to a mediocre level. He wanted and needed to focus on the work that matters most to him.

Soon after, Jim set up Mira – a digital company which still exists today and where he first met and hired intern Jack Dorsey. After handing the reigns of that company over, Jim co-founded a glassblowing studio and gallery called Third Degree Glass Factory and it was here where the idea for Square would come.

In this interview, we dig deeper into Jim’s childhood and how his mother’s death affected his path, how Jack Dorsey went from intern to friend to co-founder and how they built Square into a business that empowers small businesses, whilst taking on Goliaths like Amazon and winning.

There are so many great lessons in this interview about entrepreneurship, innovation and beating the competition which I think you’ll really enjoy.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Jim on Twitter @2000F Instagram JimMcKelvey1
Jim website
LaunchCode
Square
Invisibly 
Third Degree Glass Factory

You can buy Jim's book, The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time here.

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

In today’s episode, I speak to Shellye Archambeau – esteemed Silicon Valley leader and tech CEO.

Shellye was one of Silicon Valley’s first African American female CEOs and pioneered a path in tech for others to follow. She started her career at IBM where she spent 15 years, ultimately leading its Asia-Pacific business for the public sector. 

Shellye later became the CEO of MetricStream in Palo Alto. She had joined tech company Zaplet which was going through some difficulties and was only months away from bankruptcy when she led it through an incredible business pivot, and merger with MetricStream. Shellye built the company into an award-winning global market leader with over 1200 employees serving customers around the world. 

Shellye is the author of two books, the most recent being Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms which came out last year and which we discuss in this interview. It’s a great book which  Fortune magazine named one of its top 10 business books of 2020.

In this episode, we discuss the many obstacles Shellye faced in her life (both personal and professional) and how she overcame them, as well as how she planned her career in tech. And planning is an important thread in Shellye’s book which we dig deeper into – how anyone anywhere can find the career and life they want with intentional planning. There are lots of great lessons in this episode and Shellye’s life story is incredibly inspiring. 

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Let me know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Shellye on Twitter @shelarchambeau and Instagram @shelarchambeau

Shellye website and book Shellye's book Unapologetically Ambitious can be bought here.

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

As a child, Philip Rosedale dreamed of creating a fully-fledged virtual society and that’s exactly what he did with Second Life. Despite it being conceived many years before, Second Life was launched in 2003. Almost two decades later, and with one million active users and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transactions, Second Life experienced a boom during the Covid-19 pandemic as the world went into lockdown and more of us spent more time online.

In this wonderfully wide-ranging conversation, Philip opens up about his early influences, his ability to see into the future and how he executes when the tech, not always the world, is ready.

He also tells me about his latest company – High Fidelity which specialises in spatial audio -  and where he envisions the field going, as well as the future of virtual reality, education, crypto, live music, how tech can and should be harnessed for good, and how closely he believes the link is between virtual reality and reality.
 

Mentioned in this episode:

Oxford Uni panel talk with Elon Musk and Baroness Susan Greenfield:  https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/silicon-valley-comes-oxford

Philip’s Writing/blog: https://www.highfidelity.com/blog/author/philip-rosedale

NB At 52:13, I asked Philip, “What do you wish your legacy to be? The words which are inaudible at 52:32 are “be together” so his answer was, “It’s what I am continuing to work on. I’d like to continue to use technology to build these places which allow people to be together.”

Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Philip on Twitter: @philiprosedale
High Fidelity https://www.highfidelity.com/
Second Life https://secondlife.com/

This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

Richard Browning has been dubbed the real-life Iron Man for his jet suit invention which allows him to fly like a Marvel superhero... but he is far more than that.

Richard is an inspiring inventor, founder, engineer, ex-Royal Marines Reservist and author who is changing the paradigm in human flight.

In this episode, we talk about Richard’s childhood and how his father’s premature death impacted Richard’s life and career trajectory. We also discuss how being in The Royal Marines made him a better entrepreneur, what it takes to innovate, the difference between innovation and gambling, why all experimentation should be recoverable, and how to build a sustainable business around your invention.

Richard rarely gives interviews so it was a real honour to have such an in-depth conversation with one of the most exciting inventors of our time, and he offers so many great lessons and insights in this episode.

I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did and if you do, it would mean the world to me if you were able to like, share and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts – it offers me feedback, as well as helps others to find the podcast too.

Mentioned in this interview:

Richard’s TED talk can be found here.

Richard’s book can be pre-ordered from Amazon here.

Richard on Instagram: @richardmbrowning @takeongravity

YouTube: Gravity Industries

Twitter: Take on Gravity

Danielle on Twitter: @daniellenewnham

on Instagram: @daniellenewnham

This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng.

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

In this episode, Andy Hertzfeld shares his inspiring story from childhood through to creating the Macintosh and on to General Magic including the highs and lows along the way.

We discuss his career and friendship with Steve Jobs and what it takes to hold a seemingly impossible vision, build a pioneering team capable of achieving it and, most importantly, when and how best to execute.

There are many great stories in this episode, and anecdotes of a pivotal time in tech history but, best of all, Andy shares the lessons he learned from the successes, and the failures.

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This episode was hosted by me, Danielle Newnham - a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years, and produced by Jolin Cheng. https://twitter.com/daniellenewnham

Andy Hertzfeld https://twitter.com/andyhertzfeld

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Notes

In this episode, Andy and I discuss:

"Marc" which is Marc Porat - the co-founder of General Magic with Andy and Bill Atkinson. In 1990, Marc wrote the following note to John Sculley, imagining a truly smart phone: "A tiny computer, a phone, a very personal object . . . It must be beautiful. It must offer the kind of personal satisfaction that a fine piece of jewellery brings. It will have a perceived value even when it's not being used... Once you use it you won't be able to live without it." NB Interview with Marc coming soon!

The General Magic documentary which can be found on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/general-magic/id1458835312

Andy's book - Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made - can be bought here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revolution-Valley-Paperback-Insanely-Great/dp/1449316247

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate.

In this Series 1 trailer, I will introduce to you the fantastic guests I have coming up on my show, as well as explain more about what got me excited about the tech industry and why I am passionate about sharing the human stories of the  inspiring founders and innovators behind the tech we use every day.

Today’s episode is a special one as it is my very first LIVE recording of the podcast which took place last month with the one and only Chris Anderson of TED.

Recorded at the stunning Kindred in London, it was such a special evening and a delight to have so many fans of the podcast and Chris in the audience.

In this episode, we discuss Chris’ childhood, growing up with missionary parents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the huge professional peaks and lows of running a publishing company through the dot com crash. We also discuss how he came to acquire TED and his new book Infectious Generosity – The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading?

The overriding question we try to answer is, Can we outweigh the overwhelming negativity online by making kindness go viral?

…But a quick word about today’s sponsor before we get into the conversation. This episode is sponsored by Youll - This platform revolutionises how you connect with your audience and secure recurring revenue, through a subscription-based app tailored just for you and your community.

If you use social media for work, you will know that this week, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn all went down for millions of users, which is a nightmare for anyone with a large community. That’s why I am looking at building a community on Youll – whether you’re a content creator, coach, trainer or entrepreneur, Youll makes it easy for you to build your all-in-one branded app, giving you direct access to your community and revenue via its subscription model.

Want to try it today? Sign up for a FREE demo here

--------------------------

Chris on Twitter / Instagram

Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading - buy here

Infectious Generosity site here

Kindred website

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship

Try Youll FREE today here

Today’s guest is Tamiko Thiel – lead product designer of The Connection Machine – a revolutionary massively parallel artificial intelligence supercomputer which was developed in the 1980s. Originally conceived by Danny Hillis from MIT’s artificial intelligence lab where he was studying under Marvin Minsky, Danny got an incredibly talented team together including Richard Feynman, Brewster Kale, Tamiko, and others to create what would become the fastest and most effective supercomputer of the time. And it’s this part of her career that we focus on today.

However, Tamiko went on to become a pioneering digital artist who has worked in the realm of virtual reality for the past thirty years, starting in 1994 when she worked with Steven Spielberg on the Starbright World project where they created an online interactive 3D virtual world for seriously ill children.

Tamiko also received a Bachelor of Science degree in Product Design Engineering, from Stanford University in 1979 and received a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1983, with a focus on human-machine design and computer graphics, as well as a diploma from the Academy of fine arts in Munich, Germany. 

In today’s conversation we dig deep into that special time in history when all the so-called experts said what Danny, Tamiko and co. were working on at Thinking Machines couldn’t be done and where… they proved them all wrong.

Enjoy!

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Image of Tamiko copyright Tamiko Thiel

Tamiko website / LinkedIn /  Instagram

I am not on social media this year but stay in touch via my Newsletter / YouTube

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Tamiko in London March 2024

The Travels of Mariko Horo interactive virtual reality installation
By Tamiko Thiel, 2006/2017, with original music by Ping Jin

In "GLoW: ILLUMINATING INNOVATION"
Bush House Arcade, King's College, Strand, London
Exhibition: 08 March - 20 April 2024

Panel and opening event: 07 March, 6:30pm
Location: Great Hall, King's Building, Strand, King's College London

The CM-1 t-shirt and Tamiko's Travels of Mariko Horo mesh top will be shown in the following, with information on how to order them (from my web shops: http://tamikothiel.com/cm/cm-tshirt.html)

Curiosity Cabinet, King's College
171 Strand/Corner of Surrey St., London
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/curiosity-cabinet-showcases-antiquities-and-oddities-on-the-strand

Today’s guest is the one and only Stephen Wolfram - a physicist, mathematician, computer scientist and entrepreneur He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha and Wolfram Language, The Wolfram Physics Project and the author of bestselling A New Kind of Science among many other books.

A visionary polymath, Stephen published his first scientific paper at age 15, received his PhD in theoretical physics soon after his 20th birthday and became the youngest recipient of the Macarthur Fellowship Genius grant at age 21.

Over the course of his career which spans more than four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking, and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions, and innovations in the fields of science and technology.

In this episode, we discuss his childhood, how he might reimagine education, the process of undertaking ambitious, long-term innovation projects, why he works in public and the surprising advice he would offer a younger Stephen.

I really enjoyed talking to Stephen and I think you will learn a lot from this episode. 

Enjoy!

Stephen Wolfram website / Twitter 

I am not on social media this year but stay in touch via my Newsletter / YouTube

Today’s guest is Riva Tez -  a philosopher, curious thinker, intellect, investor and one of my favourite people  on the internet. 

She studied Philosophy at UCL before digging deeper into technology and engineering and starting the Berlin Singularity.

She went on to co-found Permutation Ventures — an early stage VC fund which focused on AI startups and, she has also worked with Jim Keller at Intel as Senior Director for Strategic Technology Initiatives.

Whilst at university, Riva started a toy shop in Notting Hill where she encouraged her young clientele to become mini entrepreneurs and philosophers.

In this episode, Riva and I discuss how she got into crypto early, the link as she sees it, between mania and genius, cancel culture and what keeps her up at night. 

I really enjoyed talking to Riva and I think you will get a lot from this episode so here is my conversation with Riva Tez.

Enjoy!

Riva on Twitter / Instagram

I am not on social media this year but stay in touch via my Newsletter / YouTube

Mentioned in this episode:

The Madness of Genius

Riva essay on Pathogens here

Every Angel is Terrifying

Praxis

Balaji's Network State

My 2021 interview with Riva here

Today’s guest is Joe Macleod – designer, founder and author, former Head of Design at the award-winning digital product studio Ustwo, which brought the world the hit Monument Valley game.

At ustwo, Joe helped build a globally awarded team, working with the world’s favourite brands on the most pioneering of products but he now focuses his energy on product endings and improving that experience for consumers and has written two books on the subjects – Ends and Endineering which we discuss in today’s episode.

I have wanted to have Joe on the podcast for years now, after the first time I heard him talking about this concept of endings and how overlooked they are. In this conversation, we look at our rich history with endings starting with religion moving through to the plague, the industrial revolution, our over zealous consumerism and even cancel culture.

It seemed fitting to end 2023 with this episode for obvious reasons but I really enjoyed this conversation and think you will too. 

Joe on Twitter / LinkedIn / Ends site / Instagram / Endineering for Businesses website

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

---------------
Below are some links to Joe's courses and books including special 25% discount codes for Danielle Newnham Podcast listeners!

Course here Starts 30th Jan 2024
Discount Code: 25offendscohort

BOOKS

The Endineering book on Amazon

Endineering eBook
Discount code: RN25W

Ends book on Amazon
Ends eBook
Discount code: EB55V

Today’s episode is going to be a little bit different as it is actually a podcast episode where I appeared as a guest as opposed to a host and I am sharing it here because I think you will find it useful. 

The podcast is called Digital Europe: Now and Beyond which is about European tech entrepreneurship and innovation and is hosted by serial Spanish entrepreneur Pau Garcia-Mila. In the episode you’re about to listen Pau talks to myself and South American but Ireland-based founder Alejandro Gutierrez, co-founder and CEO of Defactor Labs, a blockchain-based credit marketplace that links financiers with investors seeking opportunities in DeFi, about what it’s like to start a startup in Europe vs the USA including access to funding and networks, as well as why I believe in founders seeking out communities and networks at the beginning of their startup journeys, why we should be highlighting more female founders, and what Europe has to offer founders today vs the landscape here just ten or even twenty years ago.

The episode has a lovely international flavour and isn’t focused on just silicon valley like many tech podcasts usually are and I think you will find some useful lessons in here so please do enjoy it.

This episode features host Pau Garcia-MilaPau Garcia-Mila and guest Alejandro Gutierrez.

Original episode and Digital Europe podcast can be found here.

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

With special thanks to Hauwei

Today’s guest is Nicki Sprinz, co-founder of Ada’s List  (A digital global network of over 150,000+ women and non-binary in tech) and Group Managing Director of ustwo’s studios – London, Malmö, New York, Tokyo and Lisbon. For those who don’t know, ustwo is a digital product studio with top name clients such Google, Meta, DeepMind, Samsung, and Peloton to name a few. Ustwo games also created the Apple award-winning Monument Valley game.

But do you know what is really unique about ustwo which was founded by best friends Mills and Sinx almost twenty years ago now? I will tell you – it is employee-owned and B Corp certified. A hugely successful global studio that is completely independent and owned by its employees and one that puts its core values front and centre.

In this episode, Nicki and I discuss what those ustwo values are, what makes the studio special and how they look after their staff with mental health first aiders and more. But we also discuss Nicki’s childhood from attending the very same convent I did where the nuns thought nothing of hitting you for getting advanced work wrong and what that taught her about how she wants to lead to the two serious illnesses which impacted her formative years.

This is a really human story of one woman who overcame the odds to lead one of the world’s leading studios.

So please enjoy my conversation with Nicki Sprinz.

Nicki Twitter /  Newsletter / ustwo / Ada's List

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

Image of Nicki by Alex Cameron

Today’s guest is Sean Dadashi, co-founder of Rosebud. Born to Iranian parents who emigrated to the US after the revolution in 1979, Sean grew up in Los Angeles and was on a path of studying mechanical engineering before he switched courses after a year to study Cognitive Science with a minor in Computer Science.

He then became a CTO before starting his own company - Somatic Studios in 2016 – where he used his passion for both tech and wellbeing to experiment with ideas including a web app that provided a health and wellness index for over 160 cities across 6 continents.

The studio also developed VR experiences to teach pain management patients mindfulness and somatic therapy techniques. After Somatic, Sean then joined up with Chrys Bader, who you may have heard of because he previously co-founded several startups including Treehouse and Secret. Together, Sean and Chris have created Rosebud – the number one AI-powered journal for mental health and personal growth and a product I highly recommend. Try it yourself for FREE here.

In this conversation, Sean and I discuss the loneliness epidemic, the importance of good mental health, his passion for helping others, and how he has always leaned towards the marriage of psychology and the human mind with technology and his passion for creating things, which ultimately led to Rosebud.

I really enjoyed this discussion and think you will too.

Sean Dadashi / Rosebud

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

What's coming up on Series 14 of the Danielle Newnham Podcast.

I have long toyed with the idea of branching out away from solely focusing on tech founders. I started the podcast 3 years ago now with the idea of interviewing people in the tech field because that’s what I knew – that was the field that I had been in and I believed that the human stories behind the game changing tech were important which I still do however, I really wanted to expand the scope of the podcast.

I guess, most importantly, I wanted to elevate the voices and stories you might not have heard before. If you listen to Series 9 of the podcast, you will see that’s when I started telling more of these stories and the response from you, my wonderful audience was amazing.

So, I think the time has come to focus on founders and innovators from all walks of life. I want to give my guests a safe space for them to tell their unabridged stories and I have some incredible guests lined up for Series 14.

So each episode of Series 14 will centre around the theme of hope as I ask each person – what were the top three most pivotal moments of their lives – how did they navigate and overcome them.

And there are some real tear-jerkers I can tell you. There are some unbelievably inspirational and uplifting stories which I can’t wait to share with you soon.

So do subscribe to Danielle Newnham Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from and you will hear more from me, and my guests, shortly.

Today, I wanted to close out Series 11 with a recap of the wonderful guests we have had on – from Mike Slade and James Vincent who both worked for many years with Steve Jobs, VC James Wise of Balderton Capital, Josh Dahn who set up a school with Elon Musk, pioneering tech entrepreneur Dame Stephanie Shirley, Kindred founder Anna Anderson, Google Developer Advocate Kelsey Hightower and Syreeta Challinger who taught us about the importance of storytelling and how to cope after trauma.

That’s something us founders don’t talk much about… how to cope better, whether it’s trauma, which drives so many of us, or the pain of simply building a startup with all the obstacles that comes with it.

One action I have found helpful is journaling – and I have just started using Rosebud which makes it easy for anyone to build and maintain an impactful journaling practice.

The number one AI-powered journaling app for mental health and personal growth, I have been using Rosebud for a week now and have already found clarity on some sticky situations, partly because instead of just writing my issues down in a physical journal, I am able to tell Rosebud what the issue is and then the app prompts me to go deeper which causes me to reflect more before offering some surprisingly good solutions which have helped me both in my personal and work life.

I now do this practice every day – setting my morning intention for the day and then an evening reflection, and I have found it has made me happier and more productive for four simple reasons. 1. I have to set my intentions by typing them into Rosebud at the beginning of the day which helps me to visualise my day – you’ll be surprised how useful that can be. 2. It forces me to set my priorities for the day and make them front and centre. 3. It urges me to note what obstacles I have to overcome that day which encourages me not to shy away from them and 4. Rosebud is able to take what I say are my priorities and my obstacles and then offer practical solutions with warm advice – like a friendly therapist guiding me through my day. In fact, due to the speed at which Rosebud responds to my issues with extremely wise and human-like advice, it’s hard to believe I don’t actually have a human therapist responding to me in real time!

Like I said, I am a big fan of Rosebud - I think it’s brilliant and I think you will like it too. So, if you want to try it out yourself, click the link here and try it for free.

Enjoy!

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter

Original Episodes:

Mike Slade

Dame Stephanie Shirley

James Wise

Anna Anderson

Josh Dahn

Syreeta Challinger

Kelsey Hightower

James Vincent

Today’s guest is James Wise – a Partner at Balderton Capital and author of Start-Up Century: Why we're all becoming entrepreneurs - and how we can make it work for everyone, which we will discuss in today’s episode.

James grew up in Manchester among a community of business owners and inspired by them has spent his career surrounded by, helping and investing in entrepreneurs. 

Balderton Capital, where James is Partner, is a venture capital firm in London was one of the first to focus on investing in European startups and to date has raised over $4.5 billion and invested in over 250 European startups, many of which have gone on to do extremely well.

James’ focus as an investor is on artificial intelligence, sustainability and health tech and he is a board member and observer on multiple portfolio companies, including Sophia Genetics (which is listed on the Nasdaq), Depop which was acquired by Etsy for $1.6 billion, and many other including some which went on to be sold to Amazon and Epic Games.

Prior to joining Balderton, James also helped to launch and run one of the UK’s first social venture funds and he is also a member of the UK Government’s Industrial Development Advisory Board.

In this episode, we learn more about James’ background, how his future path was unknown and why he believes in the rise of entrepreneurship as a power for good. We discuss what he looks for in a founder and why Balderton set up its Founder Wellbeing and Performance Platform - treating its founders like elite athletes who benefit from keeping an eye on health and wellness whilst undertaking an often gruelling entrepreneurial life.

We also talk about his book Start-Up Century and thanks to our friends at Bloomsbury Publishing, we have a special discount for listeners - you can buy the book at a discount here by adding discount code DANIELLE30 at checkout.

Enjoy!

James on Twitter / Start-Up Century / Balderton

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Today’s guest is Kelsey Hightower, a distinguished engineer and developer advocate at Google and speaker known for his work with Kubernetes, open source software and cloud computing.

As a curious and motivated self-learner, Kelsey dropped out of College and taught himself the skills required to start his career as an independent contractor for BellSouth – a telecoms company in Atlanta helping the community to get online. From there, Kelsey set up his own business – an electronics store before becoming involved in the open source world, working at New Relic, CoreOS, Puppet Labs, and most recently at Google.

A self-taught developer, Kelsey’s work on Kubernetes and at Google, from which he just retired, is well-known* so I wanted to focus our conversation on his life - how he got into tech, his love of learning, what drives him, what it means to be hopeful and the one piece of advice he would offer a younger Kelsey.

I know I am not meant to have favourites – these conversations are like children - but I have to say this is up there with one of my most loved conversations. I learned so much from Kelsey and I think you will too.

Enjoy!

Kelsey on Twitter

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Photo of Kelsey is part of the Faces of Open Source Project by Peter Adams

*If you want to learn more about Kelsey's work history, give this episode  from Ardan Labs a listen.

What does the future of education look like? This is a question I have pondered for the last ten years or so and today’s guest - Josh Dahn – has the answer. 

Eight years ago, Josh Dahn was teaching Elon Musk’s kids at Mirman – a private school for highly gifted children in LA when Elon approached him about rethinking the traditional education model. Josh jumped at the opportunity and in today’s episode, Josh talks me through that first meeting with Elon and how they worked together to found the Ad Astra school based at SpaceX. 

Based at the SpaceX site, it was a school where the children weren’t separated out by year group or grades as you say in the US, but instead, the education matched the aptitude of the children, and the education was focused around problem solving and teaching to the problem, as opposed teaching to the tools.

Josh went on to co-found Synthesis which is an innovative online school, helping students to prepare for the future by getting them engaged and excited about complexity and solving for the unknown. 

Josh is Founder and Executive Director of Astra Nova School (previously Ad Astra) in Los Angeles.

Enjoy!

NB This interview was recorded in August of last year and first appeared in Series 4 of the podcast.

Josh  Twitter 

Synthesis website / Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Episode edited by Jolin Cheng

Today’s guest is James Vincent who spent eleven years working directly with Steve Jobs to help build Apple’s narrative for some of its hugely ground-breaking products including the iPod, iPhone, iTunes, App Store and iPad.

He also founded and was CEO of Media Arts Lab which was a bespoke agency working exclusively for Apple and is host of Fast Company's Innovation in Leaders Podcast.

A master storyteller, James is now Founder and CEO of FNDR - an agency which works with game changing entrepreneurs such as Brian Chesky of Airbnb and Evan Spiegel of Snap to help them harness the immense power of an intentional narrative to bring voice to their vision. 

In this episode, James and I discuss what he was like growing up and how he felt like an outsider to getting the call to come and work with Steve and what was the greatest lesson he learned from him.

I found this to be a really insightful conversation and a first-hand glimpse into what it was like working at Apple with both Steve and legends like Jony Ive on campaigns for some of the most iconic products of recent times. I think you will really enjoy it too.

James Vincent on Twitter / FNDR / Leaders in Innovation Podcast 

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter
 

Mentioned in this episode:

Apple's Mother Nature ad

Apple's iPod Silhouette campaign

Leaders in Innovation Podcast 

Today’s guest is Anna Anderson, founder of Kindred – a co-working and events space in West London, beloved by founders and creatives alike.

Anna Anderson spent her career in social work before founding Kindred in 2019 to help forge human connection between founders. Her goal with Kindred is to create a space that feels inclusive and provides fellow founders and small businesses with the community they need to thrive.

In this conversation, we discuss all things community from how communities have evolved over time to what is needed in a post-pandemic world, how Kindred survived the pandemic and Anna also opens up about her childhood, religion and losing her sister tragically as well as how she sought joy following that grave loss. This is the post I mention in the episode from father Chris Anderson after Zoe's passing.

Anna believes very much in the power of community and is optimistic about our ability as founders to shape the future for the better and it’s this level of optimism and heart that we need right now.

So, please enjoy my conversation with Anna Anderson.

Kindred website / Instagram / Anna on LinkedIn

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter

Today, we’re doing things a little bit differently because I felt it was the right time to bring on Syreeta Challinger, a founder, a coach,  podcaster and an incredible human whom who I first interviewed five years ago when I had a company called F= which was all about empowering women and Syreeta had started MOSS – Moments of Sense and Style where she sold her beautiful products such as notebooks and candles, all heavily influenced by her story which she so graciously shares today.

Syreeta grew up in South East London and as a child of mixed heritage, experienced regular racism from people on the streets to teachers in the classroom. A creative and sensitive soul like so many of us, Syreeta went on to forge a career in design and product development before meeting the love of her life in Hong Kong.

However, this wonderful love story had a very difficult obstacle to overcome when her then-boyfriend Rob had a catastrophic brain haemorrhage and stroke in 2014 when he was just 37 and Syreeta was 32. It left him paralysed and unable to speak.

Rob and Syreeta’s story is one of hope and love and resilience and strength and I can’t think of a better time than now to release it. Because I think we could all do with a little bit of hope right now.

It’s an emotional conversation so I hope you will forgive me for choking up. But I think it’s a necessary one. Syreeta is a life coach now and when you hear her story, you will understand why this is the perfect role for her.

Syreeta website /  Instagram/ Podcast

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

Stephen Lawrence

BNP

Syreeta and Rob TED talk

Today’s guest is Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley - a hugely successful tech entrepreneur and now philanthropist as well as author of her memoir, Let It Go. I actually recorded this interview back in 2016 for my book Female Innovators at Work and you can find the full interview on my YouTube channel, thanks to my friends at Bullet Media who filmed it.

But now feels like a good time to release this episode on the podcast for several reasons, not least because Dame Stephanie turned 90 last month and it was Ada Lovelace day this week – which is a celebration of all the incredible achievements by women in STEM.

And Dame Stephanie is an incredible woman. Having escaped the Nazi regime as an unaccompanied five year old child on the Kindertransport, Dame Stephanie settled in the UK and went on to huge success as a technology and entrepreneurial pioneer when she founded an all-woman software company called F International that pioneered remote working and redefined the expectations and opportunities for working women at that time. It was ultimately valued at almost $3 billion and made 70 of her staff millionaires - but this was against many odds as she describes in this interview – from being a child refugee to dealing with sexism and knockbacks in the industry to the heartbreak of losing her beloved autistic son, Giles. 

Dame Stephanie Shirley is a huge inspiration to me and after you have listened to her story today, I know she will inspire you too.

So please do enjoy my conversation with the amazing Dame Stephanie Shirley.

Dame Stephanie Shirley website / book / Twitter

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

PS Another quick shout out to Wave coaching app - the sponsor of last week's episode. Check them out here

You can watch this interview on YouTube here

Image via TED 

Today's guest is Mike Slade of Second Avenue Partners – an investor, advisor and seasoned storyteller who worked with Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Steve Jobs.

Mike started his career at Microsoft in 1983 and spent seven years in a variety of product marketing roles launching hugely successful products including Excel, Works and Microsoft Office. He then went to work at NeXT as VP of Marketing, reporting directly to Steve Jobs.

Paul Allen (Microsoft co-founder) then hired Mike as CEO of Starwave which was his trailblazing venture into the Internet and multimedia space. While building Starwave, Mike launched ESPN.com, NBA.com, NFL.com, and many other huge sites. Following the company’s sale to Disney, Mike went back to Steve Jobs and joined Apple’s executive team, as Steve’s strategic advisor.

As I said before, Mike is an incredible storyteller so expect to hear some wonderfully funny, insightful and even touching stories about his time with these three innovators.

But before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you about today’s sponsor – Wave – the coaching app used by leaders at all the top tech companies from Google, to Amazon and Stripe. Check it out here. And for less than 20 euros a month, you too can access your very own executive coach and reach your work and life goals using the power of AI combined with actual human coaches.

It’s funny because we expect to see elite athletes using coaches but just imgagine what applying that same support could do to your life and work?

Whether you’re struggling with work challenges such as leadership, time management or problem solving, Wave is the app to use. I signed up last week and I am already looking forward to my first session next week.

I know lots of founders and CEOs who need and want outside help but don’t know where to go or don’t have the time or money to get that help. And whilst many current apps and methodologies for professional growth are outdated, I think Wave is doing something completely different and innovative and is one of THE most time and cost effective ways I have seen to help you set, measure and achieve your goals. 

So what are you waiting for? Hit the link here to try Wave for under 20 Euros a month. It’s a bargain!

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Mike Slade Twitter / Second Avenue 

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Episode image: Mike Slade

Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader by Brent Shlender and Rick Tetzeli

Today’s guest is Simon Peyton Jones – a hugely influential computer scientist who has spent his career researching the implementation and applications of functional programming languages, particularly lazy functional programming. After a stint in academia, he joined Microsoft Research Cambridge (1998-2022) where he spent more than 20 years before becoming an Engineering Fellow at Epic Games last year.

Simon’s main research interest is in functional programming languages, their implementation, and their application. He was a key contributor to the design of the now-standard functional language Haskell, and was the lead designer of the widely-used Glasgow Haskell Compiler.

He is also the Chair of Computing at School, the grass-roots organisation which helped lead to the reform in our English computing curriculum in 2014, now making the subject compulsory in all schools.

In this conversation, we discuss how he fell in love with programming, how he approaches complex problems, what Epic’s Tim Sweeny’s vision is for the metaverse and why he believes all kids should code.

Simon’s enthusiasm for the field of computer science is hugely infectious and whether you know of him already or not, I think you will really enjoy this episode.

Simon Peyton Jones Website / Twitter / GitHub / Computing at School

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Today’s guest before a little summer break is Yancey Strickler – previously co-founder and CEO of Kickstarter, currently co-founder of Metalabel. Yancey is also a writer and in 2019, his excellent first book was published - This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World. In the book and in this conversation, Yancey also discusses a useful decision making framework that he came up with called Bentoism

His second book which he put out on Metalabel is The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet which he co-wrote with some great collaborators.

And collaboration and community is core to Yancey’s career DNA. in this episode, we discuss both in great deal, as well as the highs and lows of running the innovative rocket ship which Kickstarter became and why he believes self acceptance is so importance.

I really enjoyed talking to Yancey and I think you will get a lot of great lessons from this episode so here is my episode with Yancey Strickler.

Yancey on Twitter /  Metalabel / This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

This is a REPLAY of last year's episode with Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen – serial entrepreneur, inventor, pioneer in VR, medical imaging and telepathic technology, former professor at MIT Media Lab and currently, founder of Openwater.

Mary Lou spent many of her childhood years unwell before she was finally diagnosed with a brain tumour in her twenties. And going through that had a huge impact on her life as you might expect. For the many years she was quite literally dying, she decided she only wanted to work on really interesting projects - as she says to me in this interview, “I never really thought I would live very long and so I wanted to find really interesting things to do with my life for however long I might live.”

Mary Lou became fascinated with holography and optics whilst at school and spent her career pioneering in VR and in the optics space as an engineering executive at Intuit, Google, Facebook, Oculus, and with her own four startups which included multi-billion dollar non-profit One Laptop Per Child.

She is now using her decades long experience in this space and her experience with a brain tumour to spearhead Openwater where the goal is to create the technology to be able to see deep into the body with the detail of a 3D camera. The implications of this technology will make critical diagnostics healthcare far more affordable and accessible for millions but it could also mean we achieve telepathy which is hugely exciting. 

Mary Lou website / Openwater / Twitter 

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

I Know What You're Thinking: Brain Imaging and Mental Privacy

Hello and welcome to the Danielle Newnham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human stories behind their work.

Today’s guest is Nir Eyal - best-selling author, entrepreneur, investor and business consultant teaching about the intersection of psychology, technology and business.

An American-Israeli immigrant, Nir co-founded and sold two tech companies before he started sharing the tricks of habit forming products that he had researched in his book, Hooked in 2013. Six years later and his second book - Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life became another bestseller.

Nir also previously taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford.

In this conversation, Nir and I discuss the fallacy that tech companies hold more agency over our habits than we do, how he learned to hack back his time and become indistractable and why school children have 10 times more restrictions placed on them than convicted felons in prison.

This is a truly fascinating episode with someone I have long-admired and which I think you will really enjoy.

Nir on Twitter / Instagram  / Website

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Mentioned in this episode:

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

 Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

Why The Social Dilemma Is Wrong by Danielle Newnham

Today’s guests is Dr Robert Langer – a chemical engineer, scientist, entrepreneur, inventor and the most cited engineer in history - specializing in the biotechnology fields of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering. He is also the co-founder of Moderna a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company that focuses on RNA therapeutics, primarily mRNA vaccines which was used globally for Covid-19.

Bob Langer has received over 200 major awards– one of just four individuals to have received both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He also received the 2002 Charles Stark Draper Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers, and the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, among many others

In this conversation, we discuss how he fell in love with science, what discoveries led to his pioneering work in tissue engineering and drug delivery, and what it takes to positively impact billions of lives. We also touch on anti-vaxxers, what it’s like for scientists when misinformation rules social media and how rejection is par for the course for a scientist.

I honestly think this is one of the most important conversations I have had on this podcast so please do enjoy.

Bob Langer at MIT

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Today’s guest is Sarah Hamburg – a cognitive neuroscientist and researcher currently working as a post-doctoral Neuromorphic AI Engineer in Developmental Robotics. Sarah is also a DeSci (decentralised science) advocate and organiser, heavily involved in the decentralised science (DeSci) space since early 2021. After working as a core member of an Open Science DAO, she published a letter in Nature to increase awareness of DeSci and was then commissioned to write a DeSci "explainer" article for a16z's Future magazine. In 2022 she cofounded a "web3" consultancy which worked with UK Aid on blockchain for International Development. 

In this conversation, Sarah and I discuss her work and research, what neuroscience and consciousness is, why neuromorphic computing is such an exciting field to be working in. We also bond over a shared suffering of a chronic pain condition called fibromyalgia and I open up about the time as a kid when I nearly drowned and what I saw during that near-death experience.

This interview is a little bit different from most of the other ones I do but it was thoroughly enjoyable and I am so grateful to Sarah for exploring these truly fascinating topics together.

I am sure you will enjoy it too!

Sarah on Twitter / Research

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Mentioned in this episode:

The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid The Truth From Our Eyes by Donald D. Hoffman

Reframing Fibromyalgia by Sarah Hamburg

Brain Activity Detected in Dying

A Guide to DeSci, The Latest Web3 Movement  in a16z Future magazine

Call to Join the DeSci Movement in Nature

Today, my guest is Sir Ian Livingstone – games pioneer, entrepreneur and the bestselling author of the Fighting Fantasy book series.

Widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the UK games industry, Ian co-founded Games Workshop in 1975 with Steve Jackson, launching Dungeons & Dragons in Europe, Warhammer, White Dwarf, Citadel Miniatures, and the Games Workshop retail chain. Whilst he exited the company in 1991, he soon embarked on a hugely successful career in the video games industry. In 1995, he co-led the merger which created video games publisher Eidos  where he served as Executive Chairman, launching blockbuster titles such as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Hitman.

In this conversation, we discuss his brilliant book Dice Men – The Origin Story of Games Workshop, how games like Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons came to be, the evolution of gaming and why he set up his own school – The Livingstone Academy.

Ian Livingstone was awarded a Knighthood (becoming a Sir) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to the online gaming industry.

I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Ian and I am sure you will enjoy it too.

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Sir Ian Livingstone Twitter / Fighting Fantasy / Games Workshop / Hiro Capital / Buy Dice Men here.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Today’s guest is Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli – a physician, programmer and founder of Patients Know Best.

In this conversation, we talk about Mohammad’s upbringing from his family being exiled from Bahrain in the 1970s, to his childhood spent in the Yemen desert, Syria and Beirut during a civil war.

On top of that, Mohammad suffers from a one a million genetic immune deficiency called Hyper IgM Syndrome which, had it not been for his mother’s astute diligence would have probably cost him his life.

A deep love of technology and medicine led Mohammad to study medicine in order to understand the complexity of our bodies but he was destined to start a company in the technology field where he could combine his experience and passion and have real impact.

With over 3 million registered users, an integration with the NHS apps and plans for more countries using the Patients Know Best system, Mohammad talks me through how and why we should all have more agency over our healthcare.

This is an extremely inspiring and informative episode which I am sure you will enjoy.

Mohammad on Twitter / LinkedIn / Patients Know Best

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Books mentioned in this episode:

Irrationality: The Enemy Within

Selling The Wheel: Choosing The Best Way To Sell For You, Your Company, Your Customers

Chaos: The Amazing Science of the Unpredictable

Also, if you are looking to become a B Corp, Mohammad is happy to answer any questions he can help with over on LinkedIn. 

Today’s guest is Matthew Stafford – an investor and co-founder of 9 Others, a global community for founders, where once a month, ten entrepreneurs come together over dinner and help each other by answering this one question, “What keeps you up at night?”

Matthew started 9 Others with Katie Lewis in 2011 and it’s now a global network of thousands of entrepreneurs in over 45+ cities around the world from London to Manchester, Karachi to Yemen.

Matthew also works with startups, venture capital and angel investors, governments, NGOs and large corporations. He has invested in twenty three startups, and had two exits so far and he has written a book - Find Your 9 Others.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss what Matthew looks for in founders, why 9 Others is so special, the importance of having a network and what is keeping him up at night.

Enjoy!

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Matthew on Twitter / 9 Others

Find Your 9 Others - buy the book here.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Books Matthew recommended on the show

The Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier

The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene

Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It by Richard Koch