Adrian Aoun is the founder and CEO of Forward, an AI-based healthcare system combining world-class private doctors with new technology to enable proactive, data-driven primary care. Most recently, he was the head of Special Projects for the CEO of Google/Alphabet, where he founded one of the Alphabet companies Sidewalk Labs. Adrian arrived at Google upon the acquisition of his AI startup Wavii and spent his first year at Google helping to create and build their AI division. Additionally, Adrian ...
Jul 19, 2022•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 224
Seth Goldman is the co-founder and former CEO of Honest Tea, a bottled organic tea company he started with his college professor, Barry Nalebuff, in 1998. After selling the company to Coca-Cola, he stepped down from his role as CEO in 2015 and became the executive chair of Beyond Meat. In February 2020, he co-founded Eat the Change (along with PLNT Burger) which is on a mission to create chef-crafted and nutrient-dense snacks that are kind to the planet. In May 2022, Coca-Cola announced they wou...
Jul 12, 2022•1 hr•Ep. 223
Kenneth Cole is an American fashion clothing designer, entrepreneur, and founder of the eponymous company and brand. He founded Kenneth Cole Productions in 1982, which designs men’s and women’s footwear, clothing, and accessories, and has been running the company ever since. Aside from his business, he has been openly involved in publicly supporting AIDS awareness and research throughout his career. In 2020, he launched The Mental Health Coalition to end the devastating stigma surrounding today’...
Jun 21, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 222
T.K. Pillan is the founder and chairman of Veggie Grill, the largest 100% plant-based restaurant company in the United States. Founded in 2006, Veggie Grill’s mission is to change American food culture for the better. T.K. is also a founding partner of PowerPlant Partners, a growth equity fund investing in emerging consumer food, beverage, and food service companies. Prior to Veggie Grill, T.K. was co-founder of Guidance Solutions, one of L.A’s first end-to-end web development and e-commerce sys...
Jun 14, 2022•58 min•Ep. 221
Ross Mackay is the co-founder and CEO of Daring Foods. Founded in Los Angeles in 2018, Daring Foods produces plant-based chicken aimed to provide a healthy food alternative. The company's products include vegan meat products that are dairy and egg-free as well as contain no palm oil, genetically modified organisms, hormones, or antibiotics, thereby creating a sustainable, delicious and nutritious plant-based option for an audience that consumes chicken multiple times a week. The company has rais...
May 17, 2022•52 min•Ep. 220
Toni Ko is the founder of NYX Cosmetics, a cosmetics brand offering a wide range of vegan-friendly products which are sold in over 70 countries at thousands of retailers. Toni immigrated from South Korea to Los Angeles in 1986 and in 1999, founded the company that was later acquired by L’Oréal (in 2014) for a reported $500 million. Following the acquisition and five-year non-compete agreement with L’Oréal, Toni founded Bespoke Beauty Brands, a cosmetics-focused company that helps launch brands i...
May 10, 2022•1 hr 13 min•Ep. 219
Rich Antoniello is the founder and former CEO of Complex Networks, a media and entertainment company for youth culture that reports on popular and emerging trends in style, sneakers, food, music, sports, and pop culture. Complex was originally started as a bi-monthly magazine by fashion designer Marc Eckō. Rich joined forces with Marc several years in and helped transform the company into a multi-media conglomerate of brands which includes First We Feast, ComplexCon, Pigeons & Planes, and So...
Apr 19, 2022•1 hr 43 min•Ep. 218
Matteo Franceschetti is the co-founder and CEO of Eight Sleep, the first sleep fitness company. Eight leverages innovation, technology and personal biometrics to restore individuals to their peak energy levels each morning. Backed by leading Silicon Valley investors including Khosla Ventures and Y Combinator, it was named by Fast Company in 2018 as one of the Most Innovative Companies in Consumer Electronics. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED > http://bit.ly/tfh-newsletter FOLLOW...
Apr 12, 2022•42 min•Ep. 217
Ben Goodwin is the co-founder and CEO of OLIPOP, a company on a mission to provide an affordable, delicious alternative to soda that delivers leading-edge health benefits to mainstream consumers. The company has received significant investment from celebrities such as Camila Cabello, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, The Jonas Brothers, Mindy Kaling, Logic, Gwyneth Paltrow, and more, and recently raised a $30 million Series B round at a $200 million valuation. Prior to OLIPOP, Ben founded Obi Probiotic Sod...
Apr 05, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 216
Brad Hargreaves is the founder and CEO of Common, the nation’s leading residential brand and operating platform that designs, leases, and manages multifamily properties that appeal to today's renters. Before Common, he co-founded General Assembly, a global educational institution empowering individuals to find work they love. General Assembly was acquired by the Adecco Group in 2018 for $412 million. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED > http://bit.ly/tfh-newsletter FOLLOW TFH ON I...
Mar 08, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 215
Mark Gainey is the co-founder and executive chairman of Strava, an app for mostly runners and cyclists to track their physical activity and engage with others on its social network. We spoke about Mark’s upbringing and early career all the way up to what inspired him to start the company and his vision for the future of the space. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED > http://bit.ly/tfh-newsletter FOLLOW TFH ON INSTAGRAM > http://www.instagram.com/thefounderhour FOLLOW TFH ON TWI...
Feb 15, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 214
Gordon Segal is co-founder and former chairman and CEO of Crate & Barrel, an internationally recognized, multichannel home furnishings retail chain. He led the company as CEO from 1962 until his retirement in 2008. Today, he is managing director of Prairie Management Group, a private investment firm. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED > http://bit.ly/tfh-newsletter FOLLOW TFH ON INSTAGRAM > http://www.instagram.com/thefounderhour FOLLOW TFH ON TWITTER > http://www.twitte...
Jan 25, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 213
Akash Nigam is the co-founder and CEO of Genies and General Partner of Humans. Genies is an avatar technology company that is building the future of digital identities. We had a super interesting conversation with Akash all about his background, what inspired him to start Genies, his thoughts on Web 3.0 and the metaverse, and more. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED > http://bit.ly/tfh-newsletter FOLLOW TFH ON INSTAGRAM > http://www.instagram.com/thefounderhour FOLLOW TFH ON TW...
Dec 14, 2021•51 min•Ep. 212
Björn Öste is the co-founder of Oatly, a Swedish food company that produces alternatives to dairy products from oats. He’s also the founder of Good Idea Drinks. He started Oatly in 1994 along with his brother, Rickard Öste, a food scientist and the inventor of oat milk. In 2021, the company IPOed at a $10 billion valuation. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED > http://bit.ly/tfh-newsletter FOLLOW TFH ON INSTAGRAM > http://www.instagram.com/thefounderhour FOLLOW TFH ON TWITTER &g...
Nov 23, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 211
Jim McCann is the founder and chairman of 1-800-Flowers, one of the first companies to pioneer and popularize the use of both toll-free telephone numbers and Web sites in the early days of the Internet to sell goods and services directly to consumers. What started as a flower shop on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 1976 has since grown into a publicly-traded company worth over $2 billion with thousands of employees. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED > http://bit.ly/tfh-newsle...
Nov 16, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 210
Alex Wilcox is the co-founder and CEO of JSX, formerly known as JetSuiteX, an independent air carrier based in the United States that describes itself as a “hop-on jet service” offering short-haul flights between and within Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. Before JSX, Alex founded JetSuite (not to be confused with JetSuiteX). He also worked at several different airlines and was a founding executive of JetBlue Airways. We spoke with Alex all about his upbringing, the various...
Nov 09, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 209
Emily Schuman is a blogger, author, designer, and founder of Cupcakes and Cashmere, the premier destination for fashion, food, and lifestyle inspiration. What started out as a blog in 2008 as a way for Emily to document the things she loved has since grown into a brand that also carries hand-selected jewelry, accessories, gifts, and more. We spoke with Emily all about her upbringing and early career in advertising, why and how she launched her first blog, what ultimately led to it taking off, he...
Oct 26, 2021•59 min•Ep. 208
If you’ve been on Twitter or read any news about the world of crypto in the last 6 months, you’ve probably heard of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. At a basic level, an NFT is a digital asset that links ownership to unique physical or digital items, such as works of art, real estate, in-game items, music, or videos. Some of the most popular NFT projects include CryptoPunks, Art Blocks, Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoKitties, with more and more launching every day. In this episode, we sit down with...
Oct 19, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 207
Gagan Biyani is the co-founder and CEO of Maven, an online platform where top creators teach cohort-based courses. Prior to Maven, Gagan founded Sprig, a food delivery startup, and also co-founded Udemy, the world’s largest marketplace for teaching and learning with over 155,000 courses and 40 million students worldwide. We spoke with Gagan all about his upbringing, his early career and founding Udemy, why he ended up getting fired from the company, his thoughts on the higher education system in...
Oct 12, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 206
Anthony Katz is the founder and President of Hyperice , a holistic high-performance wellness brand with a mission to help everyone on Earth move and live better. For more than a decade, Hyperice has led a global movement at the confluence of recovery and wellness, specializing in percussion (Hypervolt line), dynamic air compression (Normatec line), vibration (Vyper and Hypersphere lines), thermal technology (Venom line), mind technology (Core by Hyperice) and contrast therapy (Hyperice X). Hyper...
Oct 05, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 205
Jennifer Bandier is the founder of BANDIER, a women’s luxury activewear boutique that she started in 2014. With pretty much just a vision and virtually no fitness or fashion experience, Jennifer launched her first store in Southampton, NY after spending most of her career as a music industry executive managing artists and groups such as the R&B trio TLC. We spoke with Jennifer all about her upbringing and how she caught the entrepreneurship bug, her learnings from the music industry, the ear...
Sep 28, 2021•55 min•Ep. 204
Rob Dyrdek is an entrepreneur, actor, producer, reality TV personality, and former skateboarder. You might recognize him from the hit reality TV shows Rob & Big, Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, and Ridiculousness. He’s currently the founder and CEO of Dyrdek Machine, a venture creation studio that fuses art, science, and magic to create meaningful businesses that stand the test of time and impact the world. We had a blast chatting with Rob and getting to know more about him and his personal st...
Sep 21, 2021•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 203
Jeff Fluhr is the co-founder and former CEO of StubHub, the world’s largest online ticket marketplace for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events. He’s also a General Partner at Craft Ventures, investing in marketplace and ecommerce companies such as Twilio, Warby Parker, and ZocDoc. Jeff began his career working for the Blackstone Group in New York. While at Stanford Graduate School of Business, he entered the annual business plan competition with the idea of creating a tr...
Sep 14, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 202
Ryan Smith is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Qualtrics, a cloud-based subscription software platform for experience management, which he dropped out of college to launch in 2002 with his father and brother. In 2018, it was announced that Qualtrics would be acquired by SAP for a reported $8 billion, and in 2021, Qualtrics was listed publicly on the Nasdaq. Along with being a successful tech entrepreneur, Ryan Smith is also the majority owner of the NBA franchise, the Utah Jazz, which he...
Jul 27, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 201
For our 200th episode (!!!), we sat down Tracy DiNunzio. Tracy is the founder and CEO of Tradesy, the largest online resale marketplace for buying and selling luxury designer fashion. Their mission is to make the world’s most-wanted fashion brands accessible and sustainable. We spoke with Tracy all about her upbringing and early career, how she came up with the idea for Tradesy, her thoughts on the future of the fashion industry and sustainability, and much more. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER &...
Jul 20, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 200
Justin McLeod is the founder and CEO of Hinge, one of the most popular dating apps in America with a focus towards long-term relationships rather than just hookups. We spoke with Justin all about his upbringing and early career, battling with addiction, his personal love story with his wife Kate, how he got the idea for Hinge and the early days of building the company, his thoughts on the current landscape of dating and the future, and much more. SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER & STAY UPDATED &g...
Jul 13, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 199
Wolfgang Puck is a world-famous chef, restaurateur, actor, and a name that’s become synonymous with the best of restaurant hospitality and the ultimate in all aspects of the culinary arts. Over the last 40 years, he’s built a brand that encompasses three companies: Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group which includes his flagship restaurant Spago, Wolfgang Puck Catering, and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc. In this episode, we cover a ton of topics including his childhood growing up in Austria, how he bu...
Jul 06, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 198
Alberto Perlman is the co-founder and CEO of Zumba, an exercise fitness program that was created by Columbian dancer and choreographer Beto Perez with whom he started the business. After discovering Beto’s fitness class in Miami, they got together and created what would become an internationally renowned program with over 14 million students across 185 countries. We spoke to Alberto all about his tough upbringing growing up in Bogota, Colombia, immigrating to America for college, his early caree...
Jun 21, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 197
Dennis Crowley is the co-founder and former CEO of Foursquare, a technology company he founded in 2008 that rose to prominence with the launch of its namesake local search-and-discovery mobile app which popularized the concept of real-time location-sharing and checking-in. What started off as his thesis in his grad school program eventually became a company growing at 1 million users per month. Prior to Foursquare, he founded another company called Dodgeball which was acquired by Google in 2005....
Jun 07, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 196
Alli Webb is an entrepreneur, NYT best-selling author, podcast host, and the co-founder of Drybar, a chain of salons that solely provides a hair styling service known as blowouts. She’s also a founder of multiple other companies such as Squeeze and, most recently, Becket + Quill. In 2010, Alli opened the first Drybar in Brentwood, CA. Over a decade later and 150+ locations across the country, Drybar has exploded into a nationally recognized and highly sought-after brand. We spoke with Alli about...
Jun 01, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 195
