I’m fairly certain that Jordan is a human, but I’m not sure. He has traveled to 32 countries, lived in China for 18 months, trains Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, is a private pilot, SCUBA dives, and speaks Mandarin Chinese. He’s also founded Debt Maven, a platform for middle market borrowers, lenders, and service providers to transact with each other for debt capital financings. Jordan previously spent six years in cross-border investment banking advising global corporates and private equity firms on M&am...
Oct 16, 2017•34 min
The world is a funny place. Every once in awhile, you run into someone cut from the same cloth as you. Whenever you find someone like that, i recommend recording a podcast together! My guest, Li Jiang is a venture capital specialist, angel investor, and a co-owner of the San Francisco Flamethrowers. After leaving investment banking, he moved to Silicon Valley and has amassed a portfolio of angel investments and a family of entrepreneurs to support. As a student, Li founded a student storage and ...
Oct 10, 2017•33 min
Newspapers and other forms of old media are struggling to adapt to to this new world of digital media. In their stead, pioneering creators like Foo Conner are rising to report, document, and move our collective conscious. In this interview, we cover Foo’s activism, how he’s gone about growing his massive social following (2 million readers a month, 115k Twitter followers, 500k YouTube subscribers, and more than 50k email subscribers), and his commitment to supporting cultural drivers like Thriva...
Oct 09, 2017•37 min
Amazon's HQ search, Reaction Videos on YouTube, and more. Attend the GOING DEEP SUMMIT this January. Meet Pittsburgh influencers like Zak Slayback , Ed Latimore , Leah Lizarondo , Adam Haritan , and Dan Bull....
Oct 05, 2017•17 min
Iba Masood founded her first startup at 22 as a fresh college graduate in the United Arab Emirates. The initial goal was to connect recent grads in the Middle East to employers. Now, she and her team have evolved TARA into an Artificial Intelligence platform for recruitment and project management. Iba was part of the Y Combinator Winter 2015 class and is a past winner of the MIT Global Business Plan competition, a finalist of MassChallenge and recipient of the Arabian Business “Young Achiever of...
Oct 02, 2017•30 min
Joe Bender , Decentralization Engineer - ConsenSys Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Joseph Bender is a decentralization engineer, solidity developer, blockchain evangelist, Ethereum aficionado, and all-around CryptoNerd. After graduating, he moved to New York to follow his passion for blockchain and began employment at ConsenSys. ConsenSys is a venture production studio building decentralized applications (dApps) and various developer and end-user tools for blockchain ecosystems, primarily focused...
Sep 28, 2017•47 min
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has used data from the internet -- particularly Google searches -- to get new insights into the human psyche. Seth has used Google searches to measure racism, self-induced abortion, depression, child abuse, hateful mobs, the science of humor, sexual preference, anxiety, son preference, and sexual insecurity, among many other topics. His book, Everybody Lies , describes his research and argues for social scientists to make greater use of internet data. It was a New York T...
Sep 25, 2017•21 min
Scot MacTaggart is the creator and host of The Pitchwerks Podcast. Having logged more than 20 years in sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship, Scot has built a diverse portfolio of experiences helping businesses of all sizes to get to the next level. If you're in sales, biz dev, marketing, product management or politics, The Pitchwerks Podcast is a fast, easy way to sharpen your tools each week. Attend my one-day conference January 27th in Pittsburgh . Learn more here . Scot’s Challenges; 1. Fin...
Sep 21, 2017•52 min
Joe Calloway has no time for BS real estate gurus standing in front of Ferraris. Instead, he’d prefer to offer his perspective. He’s built a $40,000,000 real estate portfolio through hard work, persistence, and patience. Being raised by a single parent in a two bedroom, low income apartment in Mt. Oliver doesn’t usually breed success, but Joe Calloway’s story is anything but usual. Joe went from those unfortunate circumstances to being the largest single family home buyer in Pittsburgh. With lit...
Sep 18, 2017•33 min
When you are on a mobile device that does not use blockers against ads and trackers, YOU ARE PAYING $23 per month just to load the tracking and targeting scripts for ads. It’s a payday for both advertisers and your telecommunications provider. This was part two. Don't miss part one! Attend my one-day conference January 27th in Pittsburgh . Learn more here . Brendan’s Two Challenges; 1. Adopt an good ad blocker like uBlock or Disconnect Me . 2. Read a real physical book in the sunlight. Resources...
Sep 12, 2017•22 min
This interview has been split into two parts to make it more digestible. Brendan Eich is an American technologist and creator of the JavaScript programming language. He is currently the CEO of Brave software, the next generation web browser. Brave loads major news sites 2 to 8 times faster than Chrome and Safari on mobile and is 2 times faster than Chrome on desktop. If you liked this interview, check out the rest of my interviews with leaders in the blockchain and crypto space and my interview ...
Sep 11, 2017•33 min
Mark Leslie was the founding Chairman and CEO of Veritas Software. During his tenure as CEO, the company went from 12 employees to 5,500 employees deployed globally, and from a revenue base of $95,000 per year to $1,500,000,000 per year. In 2000, Veritas was the 10th largest independent software company by revenue, third largest by market capitalization, and achieved the distinction of becoming a Fortune 1000 company. From 1980 until 1990 he served as president and chief executive officer of two...
Sep 06, 2017•31 min
Darrin Grove, Truefit’s Founder and CEO, is a native Pittsburgher with a passion for innovation, technology, and values-based leadership. Since its bootstrap beginnings in 1997, Truefit’s experience with new, disruptive technologies has positioned the company as a leader in helping entrepreneurs and organizations bring new software products to market quickly. Using their proprietary Idea Launch™ process, Darrin and the Truefit team guide clients through a proven path to create new and next gener...
Aug 30, 2017•39 min
“If the rust belt has come to define the hollowed out industries of the Midwest, in the next ten years the paper belt will come to define the paper-based industries from Washington DC to Boston. In DC, they print money, visas, and laws on paper. In Delaware, companies incorporate on paper. In NYC, they print media on paper. And in Boston Harvard and MIT print diplomas on paper. I am dedicated to lighting the paper belt on fire.” That’s straight from Michael’s profile. Before co-founding 1517 Fun...
Aug 28, 2017•44 min
Kenny Chen serves as the Program Director of Ascender, where he focuses his attention on curating and delivering innovation programs and building collaborative relationships with people and organizations throughout Pittsburgh, as well as nationally and internationally. This culminates each year with the Thrival Innovation + Music Festival, which brings together local and international influencers for multiple days of innovation-focused programs followed by a two-day outdoor music experience. On ...
Aug 23, 2017•33 min
Erik Voorhees, CEO of leading digital asset exchange ShapeShift.io, is among the top-recognized serial Bitcoin advocates and entrepreneurs, understanding Bitcoin as one of the most important inventions ever created by humanity. Erik's former project, the groundbreaking gaming phenomenon SatoshiDICE, was, at its peak, responsible for more than half of all Bitcoin transactions on Earth and popularized the concept of "provable fairness." You should attend my one-day conference January 27th in Pitts...
Aug 21, 2017•32 min
Check this out for more info http://www.goingdeepwithaaron.com/event.html
Aug 16, 2017•6 min
Mark joined WebKite in the summer of 2016 out of his excitement for the advertising technology space and the powerful products WebKite has developed to date. Machine learning and language technologies can do so much still to connect consumers to the products they need, and WebKite will continue to be a major player in that work. When not at work, Mark can be found serving as his neighborhood’s borough councilman, an advisor to small and family-owned businesses, a sous chef for his lovely wife’s ...
Aug 14, 2017•35 min
Barry Rabkin has over a decade of success founding, growing, and selling technology companies. An operational and strategic business leader, Barry's experience ranges from high growth, venture backed startups to Fortune 500 companies. He has also contributed to the development of over 100 successful physical and digital products. Barry is proud to serve as Chief Marketing Officer of Identified Technologies , President of Hackers & Founders - PGH Chapter , Board Director of Jewish Family &...
Aug 09, 2017•34 min
Today’s episode is a conversation about Truth and Love. Both are often missing from our daily interactions, and Kim Scott wants to fix that. Here NYT and WSJ bestselling book Radical Candor covers the leadership and communication lessons she learned while working for Sheryl Sandberg & Sergey Brin and Google and with Steve Jobs at Apple. Whether you are a leader, consultant, or employee, you will benefit from injecting more radical candor into your meetings and discussion. Kim’s Challenge; Fo...
Aug 07, 2017•35 min
Risk is a word with numerous definitions. Riskalyze helps investors negotiate the risks they face. Aaron Klein is the quintessential entrepreneur, spending his entire career working with entrepreneurial businesses at the intersection of finance and technology. He’s led companies or teams working on business operations software, payments technology for political candidates and causes, and mobile strategies for trading tools. He co-founded Riskalyze in 2011 and has led the company through the buil...
Aug 02, 2017•34 min
Ka Sundance is a location independent father of 6, YouTuber, and CEO of a $1 million heart-centered online business. Together with his wife Katie, he works to show aspiring business owners, coaches, and artists how to transform their lives and manifest more purpose, abundance, and freedom. Today, Ka and Katie have impacted millions of people on social media, and have helped and inspired thousands of people to go from $0 to six figures in revenue by using principles they teach in their flagship p...
Jul 31, 2017•42 min
Christian Simmons is a hustler and a visionary. His company, Pennsylvania Libations, connects distillers, small businesses, and individuals, to one another with the intent of growing, experiencing, and preserving Pennsylvania spirits. He operates a one-of-a-kind retail store located in the heart of Pittsburgh. In this discussion, we cover Christian’s long background in alcohol retail, how he has navigated regulatory hurdles, and his vision for the future. Learn more about the realities of living...
Jul 26, 2017•39 min
Andy Rachleff is Wealthfront's co-founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer. He serves as a member of the board of trustees and vice chairman of the endowment investment committee for the University of Pennsylvania and as a member of the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business, where he teaches courses on technology entrepreneurship. Prior to Wealthfront, Andy co-founded and was a general partner at Benchmark Capital, where he was responsible for investing in a number of successful...
Jul 24, 2017•30 min
This post is inspired by Scott Young’s The Essential Education: If You Had Ten Years to Learn Anything, What Would You Do? In his post, Scott outlines his Ideal Ten-Year Self-Education Quest. The fundamental premise is decoupling education from economic preparedness. If you had 10 years to learn whatever you wanted, purely for the sake of learning what would you study?. What broad-based education plan would excite and challenge you? Think of this as the educational equivalent to the what-would-y...
Jul 19, 2017•16 min
In the fall of 2013, Bryce Conway started a website teaching people how to save money while traveling the world. He learned the ins and outs of the credit card industry and the bonuses that landed him reward points and frequent flyer miles. During our interview, he shares useful tips like signing up for Starwood and Hyatt hotel’s cards and avoiding Hilton and Delta. We also discuss how he has built his business and served thousands of people through building his site. Bryce’s Challenges Google t...
Jul 17, 2017•27 min
Molly Keyser has created two successful businesses, overcoming a common problem for entrepreneurs along the way. Beginning her entrepreneurial journey at 19 with just $0.81 to her name, Molly Marie first grew her boudoir photography business to six figures and became the envy of startup photographers everywhere. Not long after you get over the hurdle of bringing in enough business to survive as an entrepreneur, she ran into a new roadblock—how do you scale your business in a way that allows you ...
Jul 12, 2017•30 min
Jack du Rose is a former jewelry and diamond artist, current blockchain nerd and co-founder of Colony.io & Ownage.io. He is phenomenally excited by the power shift our decentralised future brings. When not making $100m diamond skulls, or paradigm changing social platforms, Jack enjoys a nice cup of tea and a sit-down. Dr. Aron Fischer received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the City University of New York in 2015. His specialization was in Algebraic Topology and Homotopy theory. Since his gra...
Jul 10, 2017•36 min
Ed Latimore is a man of diverse talents and interests. When he is not training for a fight or challenging your sensibilities on Twitter, he is thinking deeply about culture and philosophy. Latimore is also a patriot, having served as a radio technician specialist in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and an AmeriCorps volunteer. He is currently working to complete a degree in Physics and Electrical Engineering at Duquesne University. When he is not strengthening his body for boxing, Latimore e...
Jul 05, 2017•51 min
Thomas Mulliez is the visionary entrepreneur behind iTREKKERS. Tom founded the company in 2014 after realizing that bringing together vetted professional captains and guides on one platform would help guarantee everyone a better experience in the outdoors. iTREKKERS is a combination of Tom’s desires to share his love of nature and to simplify the process of booking guided outdoor activities. His mission is threefold: to get people to experience the outdoors through iTREKKERS; to help people get ...
Jul 03, 2017•32 min
