Due to My Role

Stephen Ellsworth, co-founder of Poppi, joins Due To My Role to break down what actually goes into building — and exiting — a modern consumer brand. Poppi started as a scrappy apple-cider-vinegar drink sold at farmers markets, became a breakout Shark Tank success story, and ultimately sold to Pepsi for $1.95 billion. But the real story isn’t the TV moment — it’s the decade-long grind between launc...

Billy McFarland joins Due To My Role to walk through his most aggressive idea yet... a live-streamed jet-ski expedition from Utila, Honduras to Venezuela, departing shortly after the Super Bowl and expected to take 17 days coast-to-coast. The plan is simple and insane: beat Wall Street to Margarita Island by jet ski, acquire beachfront land before institutional capital arrives, host a high-profile...

Wonton Don didn’t follow a plan — he followed curiosity. In Episode 008 of Due To My Role, Johnny Hilbrant sits down with Barstool Sports’ Foreign Correspondent, Wonton Don, to break down how 8 years living in China, a willingness to lean into weird ideas, and zero interest in a traditional career turned into one of the most durable roles in modern media. They unpack how Barstool actually works be...

What happens when the narrative is dead, and the press isn’t? In this episode of Due To My Role, Johnny Hilbrant (PE Guy) sits down with Anna Delvey for a conversation most interviews refuse to have—not about the past everyone already litigated, but about control, silence, and why refusing to perform remorse can actually be leverage. Anna breaks down what it’s like to exist as a public figure, peo...

Johnny Hilbrant (aka PE Guy) sits down with Heather McMahan for a conversation that starts funny, gets real fast, and ends somewhere most business or comedy interviews never go. What begins as a conversation about comedy quickly becomes a look at how Heather actually runs her career — treating stand-up, touring, podcasting, and specials as a real operating system, not just creative output. She tal...

In Episode 005 of Due To My Role, Johnny Hilbrant (aka PE Guy) sits down with Joe Fenti — Boston comedian and former consulting / M&A guy — to talk about the reality of leaving a “serious” corporate career to build a comedy business from scratch. Joe breaks down what it actually looks like to go full-time comedy: writing every day, turning jokes into sketches, touring the country (35 cities),...

Johnny Hilbrant (aka PE Guy) sits down with Jim Acosta, former CNN Chief White House Correspondent, to unpack what power actually looks like when permission is no longer required. Jim reflects on his career inside legacy media, covering two presidential administrations, and the moment that put press freedom, access, and authority at the center of the national conversation. From there, the discussi...

In Episode 003 of Due To My Role, Johnny Hilbrant (aka PE Guy) sits down with former professional tennis players John Isner and Sam Querrey to talk about what actually happens after elite sports — when the career ends, the prime earning window closes, and identity has to be rebuilt from scratch. They break down John’s historic 11-hour Wimbledon match that changed the rules of tennis forever, Sam’s...

In Episode 2 of Due To My Role, Johnny Hilbrant (aka PE Guy) sits down with Brady Perrigo, CEO and designer of Del  Toro Shoes, to break down how he took a struggling luxury footwear brand and rebuilt it into an 8-figure business worn by NBA players, Wall Street operators, and celebrities — without paying for placements. Brady walks through how a decade in banking and private equity prepared him f...

Johnny Hilbrant (aka PE Guy) sits down with Mark Sisson, founder of Primal Kitchen, to unpack one of the most influential exits in the natural food space. From elite endurance athlete to bestselling author to building a clean-ingredient brand that sold to Kraft Heinz for nearly $200M, Mark breaks down the real story behind the brand, the exit, and what it takes to scale a mission-driven business....