Finding Founders

Somehow David has repeatedly found himself at the center of disaster. His most life changing trip through Asia was during the Asian financial crisis, his first big writing opportunity was during the 2008 financial crisis (which resulted in him losing his day job), this earthquake in Japan cemented that position as a writer, and now post covid the world needs the kind of community David is building...

Ayu Sudana bet everything on that first export of coffee beans; her family’s harvest, her personal savings, and years of hard work. This moment was the culmination of working her family coffee farm, of a shattered dream for higher education, of a desire to learn that took her around the world. From working as a receptionist at a five star hotel, to a waitress at a celebrity chef’s restaurant, to a...

The french-born Nora Gasparini has dedicated her life to the craft of perfumery and has found her calling in scent. But it wasn’t an easy road to get here. Before establishing her perfumery laboratory, Nora was struggling to find her independence and see the value in herself. She was often stuck at home with her mom while her dad and brother went out, explored and handled the family business. But...

Jamie was about to risk everything to create a travel towel company in Bali during covid. Maybe not the most opportune time but Jamie takes risks. From Ebay side hustles in his teens to transcontinental moves for new job opportunities, Jamie has learned that taking risks can forge new connections with people who were once strangers. Jamie’s learned that these new relationships have vastly changed...

This is my Grandpa. He’s 92 and despite the long list of supplements that accompany his breakfast, he’s still got an expansive knowledge of the stock market, most of his hearing, and a full head of hair. More importantly he’s the OTHER co-founder of my family. Previously we spoke to my Grandma about her childhood, her challenges, and the creation of the Donner Family as I know it today but, of cou...

A 7 page spread in National Geographic; that was the culmination of years of work, years of cold emailing publications, posting to small online forums, and hoping her photos would get noticed. This passion would take her love of nature from a childhood in Germany, to remote nordic villages, cliffside birds nests, and vulnerable populations in Mongolia. Today, Lana is a National Geographic Explorer...

Linda has experienced a lot. She’s traveled the world as an army brat, played piano and sung in Led Zeppelin's tour bus, explored drugs as an “X rated hippie”, and worked to understand her Latin American, Chicano, and Indigenous roots through her art. Through these various paintings, sculpture, and ceramic work Linda embraces her brownness and the world has taken notice. Her work has been shown gl...

Laser eye surgery, a seemingly inconsequential, almost routine surgery, that in an instant turned into a nightmare. Sumit Ajwani, who had built a career creating films as head of production for a global ad agency in Canada, discovered he could no longer see. He was a wunderkind. His career was moving fast. He had just been appointed head of the ad agency at 23 years old. But this wouldn’t be the e...

Jordan had a dream that he thought would take a lifetime, but as he invested all of his energy into making that dream a reality – that reality came more quickly than expected. The crazy thing is… this was just the beginning. Today, Jorden stands at upwards of 345K followers on Instagram, 1M subscribers on YouTube, and a whopping 3M followers on Tiktok – which he firmly believes “anyone can do.” Wi...

Kyukei Goto was saddled with massive responsibility from birth. He was the first born son to his father of 50, meaning Goto would have to carry the weight of a tradition going back 28 generations. He comes from a lineage that has perfected the art of Kamakura Buri which is a method of carving wood and then coating lacquer to make sculptures, plates, tea sets, cutlery and other household items. But...

As a photographer David’s eyes are his livelihood. His vision was everything, but somehow David shrugs it off, he takes it stoically, he has this lack of concern for any roadblocks. I mean David has always believed that he would achieve great things. I think that’s why after traveling around the world to 13 countries at 18, he decided to try and make it as a commercial photographer. He started tak...

10,000 subscribers overnight and soaring to 50 thousand a few days later, Rachel Southard was shocked to learn that her Youtube video documenting her first week of medical school was gaining attention so quickly. Growing up, Rachel wanted to try everything and after pushing through feelings of doubt in her early school years and seeing the incredible work doctors do, she began her journey to med s...

With 10,000 Chapters, 13 million referrals, and 21 billion dollars in business… just in the last 12 months, it’s safe to say that Ivan Misner has had world wide impact. Ivan jumped from law school, to a government job, to a fateful unrenewed manufacturing contract that would transform a small consulting network into a global organization. BNI now has different chapters spanning the globe, all work...

What had started as a fun business idea between college friends had spiraled out of control. Saddled with international shipping costs, low student funds, and no way to market their product, Olivier and Rick hit a logistical wall before they fully began. Luckily, that wasn’t the only idea these two twenty year olds had in their pocket. Now, Olivier Momma is the young cofounder of Ekster, the groun...

Utter silence. Dr. Franklin Chang-Diaz felt the pulse of his racing heart, the countdown from ground control, and the sense that he’s been here before. I mean he’s prepared his whole life for this moment, the moment of lifting off into space. He’s been preparing since he was a kid, from sitting in a cardboard spaceship all the way to launching into space more times than any human in history. But h...

After trying every avenue of corporate life, Michela stood at a crossroads. She could either stay at her steady job and work her way up the corporate ladder, or finally dive full-force into the social media world. Now, we know that Michela Allocca, also known by the handle of Break Your Budget, made the right decision. With over 700,000 followers on Tiktok and 125k instagram followers, a book deal...

 A few inches down and he would have been dead in the front seat of his mom’s Mitsubishi. Yet as Raul weaved in and out of traffic towards his future, untouched and laughing, it seemed like it was just another day in 1990s Los Angeles. Flash forward to the present and Raul Baltazar is still in LA, now an established painter and performance artist working to understand the experiences of Mestizo an...

You just heard from Heather Smith as she describes the moment where her exhibit built a bridge between past and present. In a heartbreaking instant, she realized that her invention, Storyfile, could really work. But what is Storyfile? This company specializes in conversational video and preserving individual memories, posing fascinating hypotheticals for the future of education. Like…what if we co...

It’s not every day Barbara Corcoran slides into your dms, but for Caleb Simpson this was suddenly the new normal. Now, if this name is sounding familiar at all, it’s because you’ve probably met Caleb before….on your For You page. Known for his casual house tours and the signature question “how much do you pay for rent,” Caleb has amassed over 7.1 million followers on TikTok and 2 million YouTube s...

You just heard from Jimmy Edgerton about a crucial time in his entrepreneurship career, a moment when it seemed like his new startup was going down in roasted chickpea flames. Luckily, these hard times didn’t last forever, since today I’m presenting a special episode, a podcast swap with seasoned entrepreneurs and business consultants Jimmy Edgerton and Julie Meyer from AugMentors. Before they tau...

Some say circumstance is everything. Yeva Hyusyan would disagree with that statement. Born and raised in Soviet era Armenia, Yeva prioritized education and her interest in STEM. After paving her own way in the technology field working for big names like USAID and Microsoft, she decided it was time to start her own educational coding business with an associate. In 2014, SoloLearn was born and works...

Kobe Earthquake 1995. At 5:46 in the morning, the city was struck by a 6.9 magnitude earthquake, leaving 6,000 casualties and 45,000 others homeless. Nobu Okada was only just out of college when he witnessed this scene of devastation and decided to turn his life towards a path of action and purpose. But what career would he turn to next? Now, we know Nobu as the founder of Astroscale, a company wo...

Rick Sanchez found himself at the center of a hot crime story…and not in the way he’d like. After rising to the top of Miami’s news networks, he had suddenly lost his job, audience, and reputation overnight. This might have been the end of any other reporter’s career, but Rick was not about to give up— not after how much work it took to get here. Twenty years later, we know Rick Sanchez as the fir...

Stuck inside during the pandemic, Monica Mannion casually posted a tik tok. The posting isn’t very unique, hundreds of thousands of others posted videos, but Monica’s had something special. After making one tres leches cake and recording some VO, Monica unexpectedly found herself with thirty million views, thousands of followers, and a dedicated fanbase waiting for her next video. This might seem...

In the span of a few weeks, Marina’s thriving study abroad program seemed to collapse alongside the Russian ruble. With the travel market disappearing overnight amidst the country’s political conflict, it seems like this might be the end of Linguatrip. But don’t tune out just yet. While this setback may have stopped another influencer, Marina Mogilko (Moh-gill-koh) is now a prominent entrepreneur...