Many founders and investors talk about being mission-driven, but Eren Bali truly walks the walk. He's created two separate companies that have had a dramatic impact on increasing access to vital services. He co-founded and served as the CEO of Udemy, a $3B+ online education company, before creating Carbon Health. Carbon Health makes world-class healthcare personal and accessible by bringing technology into the workflow of digital and in-person primary care. Carbon Health just recently closed on ...
Dec 22, 2020•41 min
Ruben Harris wants you to succeed. Like other guests on The Operators, he left behind a successful career in finance to build a company that helps people. For Ruben, this came in the form of Career Karma , the #1 destination for career advice, and the easiest way to find a job training program. Bridging the gap between education programs that need candidates and prospective students that don't know where to start, Career Karma makes education accessible practically and effectively. Ruben is also...
Dec 17, 2020•30 min
On The Operators, we talk a lot about aligning passion and strategy. Alyson Friedensohn Watson embodies this alignment. Alyson knew that she cared deeply about de-stigmatizing mental health and increasing access to it, but she found a way to turn this passion into a multi-million dollar company: she founded Modern Health , which today announced their Series C funding of $51M dollars led by Battery Ventues with other investors including Felicis Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, and Founders Fund. By imp...
Dec 15, 2020•45 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Rohan Pavuluri isn't even 25, but he's a CEO, one of Forbes' "30 under 30" in Law & Policy, and the creator of a TIME 2020 "Top 100 Inventions of the Year." From his endearing start in local politics while in high school to developing his now-famous nonprofit during a summer off from Harvard, Rohan is a rising advocate for important societal change. He created Upsolve with a specific goal in mind: help low-income Americans navigate bankruptcy without the burden of hiring a lawyer. In its 4 y...
Nov 19, 2020•50 min•Season 2Ep. 7
One week before the presidential election, Expensify founder and CEO David Barrett made a decision that ultimately landed him in the headlines of Bloomberg, CBS News, Business Insider, etc. He sent an email urging all Expensify customers to vote for Joe Biden, stating directly that a vote against Biden is a 'vote against democracy.' Given that Expensify sells expense management software, it was a shock for customers and investors alike when 10 million people received emails with such ...
Nov 12, 2020•50 min
On this week's episode of The Operators, Neil sits down with Founder & CEO of Tempest Holly Whitaker. Holly never planned on starting her own company, but out of her battle with addiction came her calling to create Tempest. Breaking the typical rules of both entrepreneurship and sober living, Holly details her complex journey of raising almost $20M in venture capital for Tempest, ultimately helping so many in their battles with addiction.
Oct 29, 2020•40 min
Where would we be without Quizlet? If you've gone to school in the last ten years, this tool has probably saved your life. In this episode of The Operators, we hear how Andrew launched this iconic startup when he was just 15 years old, the early days of the company, and his passion for education reform. Take a listen to hear how one of only a handful of $1B+ educational technology startups has been built from the ground up. With the election coming up, we will be taking a break for the nex...
Oct 22, 2020•51 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Shivani Siroya built her first career as a strong performer in high-end finance job, but some part of her was craving a more impactful path. In an industry that errs on the side of caution - especially when it comes to lending to low-income borrowers - Shivani began asking, "how can we better extend trust to more people?" With almost half of the global population unable to participate in the formal financial system, Shivani realized that so many people were left behind simply because of wh...
Oct 15, 2020•50 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Adam Jackson has founded multiple successful companies, including Doctor On Demand with Jay McGraw (the Executive Producer and Creator of The Doctors) and Phil McGraw aka Dr. Phil. He's also a successful investor with investments like SuperHuman, Zenefits, and Bolt. Despite all his success and experience, Adam believes that how we work is broken. Current structures inhibit employees from having enough control over their own work. Adam shares with us his journeys through entrepreneurship an...
Oct 08, 2020•50 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Mondaire Jones is not your typical politician. Despite being raised in Section 8 housing and on food stamps by a single mother working multiple, Mondaire made it to Stanford for college and Harvard for law school before working for President Obama and the Legal Aid Society. Since then, he's decided to run for Congress, winning his party's nomination as a young, gay, black progressive in a mostly white and wealthy district in New York. As he heads toward the general election next month, Mondaire ...
Oct 01, 2020•44 min•Season 2Ep. 1
In this episode, you’ll hear from Sam Parr, the co-founder and CEO of The Hustle, one of the fastest-growing email newsletters, along with Rich Jaroslavsky, the Vice President of Content and Chief Journalist at SmartNews, a news aggregation startup that recently achieved a unicorn valuation. Our discussion touched on some of the most important questions in digital media: What opportunities are there for new media entrants How it is impossible to start a successful media company today with...
Feb 23, 2020•56 min•Season 1Ep. 10
In this episode, we’re talking about growth. Growth means different things at different companies, but correctly identifying avenues for sustainable and scalable growth is a priority for almost all companies. On this topic, we’ll cover: Defining growth and being good at it Managing growth without losing sight of the big picture How companies should approach growth To learn more, we spoke with two experts in the field of growth: Isaac Silverman began his career as an entrepreneur before joining t...
Nov 20, 2019•56 min•Season 1Ep. 9
In this episode, we’re talking about hiring and recruiting, including why people take the risk of working at early-stage startups, when and how to work with recruiters, and how to make your first hires. A company’s first hires are often the hardest. Money is usually too tight to pay competitive salaries. There’s no recognizable brand or reputation yet, and people more often want to work at a company that their friends and family have heard of before. There’s also fair presumption of risk a...
Nov 06, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 8
In this episode, we’re talking about the vast world of communications. Early on, most founders and investors focus on driving positive coverage in the press. If they’re unfortunate or mess up, mitigating negative coverage may end being a goal too. But communications also includes more broadly considering how and what information to share what inside and outside of the company. It touches on domains like management, recruiting, marketing, and business development. It’s basically everywhere. It’s ...
Sep 26, 2019•52 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Hear from two finance experts with experience from Calm, AdRoll, Morgan Stanley, Change.org, Zeus Living, and Duda as we unpack how to build a career in finance at a tech startup and how founders should be thinking about hiring and managing this function. Our guests for this episode are: Stephanie Hsiung is the CFO of Duda, a new and exciting enterprise website builder. Prior to taking the CFO role at Duda, Stephanie served as the VP of Finance at Calm, the leading meditation and mental we...
Aug 20, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 6
This week’s episode features AirBnB's Global Product Director of Customer and Community Support Platform Products, Andy Yasutake, and Carta's Head of Enterprise Relationship Management, Jared Thomas. AirBnB, one of the most valuable private tech companies in the world, has millions of hosts who trust strangers (guests) to come into their homes and hundreds of millions of guests who trust strangers (hosts) to provide a roof over their head. Carta, a $1 Billion+ company formerly known as eS...
Aug 08, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 5
This week’s edition features Christiana Rattazzi , Head of Technology Marketing at WeWork , the leading coworking company with a valuation of $47 Billion and a rumored impending IPO after almost $8 billion in financing. Also joining the show is Elenitsa Staykova , VP of Marketing at Brex , another fast growing unicorn that is the leading provider of credit cards to startups and tech companies. In this episode, Christiana and Elinitsa explain how marketing works, how to get into and succeed...
Jul 24, 2019•40 min•Season 1Ep. 4
This week’s edition features Gülay Birand , UX Lead and Product Design Manager at Facebook, and Tim Rechin , Head of Design at Edmodo, the leading education technology company. Gülay and Tim share their experiences and explain design, UI/UX, how to build a career in these fields, and how entrepreneurs should think about them. Gülay and Tim bring experience from other great companies beyond just Facebook and Edmodo, including the likes of Google, Amazon, Mint, and SAP. Having seen and grown in th...
Jul 11, 2019•40 min•Season 1Ep. 3
This week’s edition of The Operators features Lorilyn McCue , product manager at the recently publicly listed company Slack, the fastest growing enterprise software company ever, and Jamal Eason , a senior product manager at Google, known as a training ground for great product managers. Lorilyn and Jamal explain what product management is and isn't, how to get good at it, and how entrepreneurs should think about product management as a discipline. More at www.operators.co...
Jun 25, 2019•57 min•Season 1Ep. 2
This week’s edition of The Operators features Whitney Sales , a general partner at Acceleprise , the leading enterprise SaaS accelerator, and Russ Heddleston , founder and CEO of DocSend , a fast rising document management and sharing product. Whitney brings sales experience from Loopnet, Meltwater, SpringAhead/Tallie, and People Data Labs, before starting her own sales consultancy aptly named “The Sales Method.” Russ brings experience from founding and selling his first company to Faceboo...
Jun 17, 2019•1 hr•Season 1Ep. 1
