Future Optimist

Viraj Mane is the co-founder & Chief Scientific Officer at Lactiga, an award-winning, venture-backed biotherapeutics company treating and prevent infections using an unusual but genius method…human milk. That’s right, Lactiga uses human breast milk to battle even the world’s most dangerous pathogens. It turns out, some people would benefit tremendously from what’s found in the breast milk of other...

Guanhao Wu is the Co-Founder and CEO of Exovolar, a company making personal flying jetpacks (finally!). Exovolar aims to augment our main mobility tool, the legs, to make flying as simple as walking. The combination of jet engines, exoskeleton, and their patented thrust vector nozzle design allows the legs to fulfill their destined duty – to support and move our body – like a certain heavily trade...

Amber Rivas is the President and CEO at Aviva Family & Children's Services in Los Angeles. She’s dedicated her life to solving the complex housing issues facing major metropolitan areas like LA. Amber has worked for non-profits her entire career, helping women, children, and local communities with mental health and crisis intervention. She’s engaged with the most vulnerable parts of society—tackli...

Have you ever gone from just a few dollars in your bank account to a thriving business? Or maybe you have less than you’d like in the bank right now, and you’re feeling lost, hopeless, or unsure if there’s any way out for you. Well today’s guest Candice Smith was there, just three short years ago. Today? She has a thriving PR business, and she’s been featured in Glamour, Good Morning America, Forb...

Morgan Mercer is the CEO of Vantage Point, a VR product that’s being used by big companies like Ikea and Hyundai to teach soft skills and also to offer Diversity, Equity and Inclusion as well as Sexual Harassment training. It turns out, Morgan’s major insight is that VR is an unprecedented tool for “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes”, which means that it’s an ingenious way to teach empathy. S...

Martin Schichtel is the CEO of Kraftblock, an energy storage system that is able to decarbonize industries like steel, glass or ceramics. Martin leveraged unique industry insight to build a business that captures the enormous amount of waste that so many industries blast out without giving it a second thought. He patented energy-storing blocks that can store 1.2MWh of thermal energy at a temperatu...

Johnny Palmer is a tech entrepreneur, the founder/co-founder of companies, and activist in the UK who has accomplished an incredible amount in both business and activism. He’s built a virtuous cycle with his businesses and greater mission, proving that money and resources used well can be the path towards building a better, more sustainable future for us all. His career is at the intersection of m...

Khatantuul Zorig is an Investor at Innospark investing in AI/Robotics companies. She led/co-led investments in Neurable, Javelin, Encora, and she’s been an MIT-backed CEO/founder herself, all as a 1st generation Mongolian immigrant. In short, Khat is one of the coolest, most inspiring people I’ve ever met. She’s actively shaping neurotech, AR/VR, and even fashion, by merging her native Mongolian c...

Pablo Navarro is the co-founder of a $26 million VC fund in Colombia, and his latest project is cocora.io. Pablo's life story is remarkable, coming from a humble beginning to being heavily involved in the start-up scenes of both the US and South America. In this interview, we discuss Pablo's strategy for investing in LatAm startups, his advice for young entrepreneurs, and more. Today he is buildin...

Joining us today is Mike McFall, the Co-Founder/Co-CEO of BIGGBY Coffee. Mike’s story is truly fascinating: in 1995, he and his friend decided to make a coffee chain, and their simple agreement has blossomed into one of America’s largest coffee chains, a franchise operation with over 350 locations. It’s clear that Mike is an “entrepreneur’s entrepreneur”, and in this episode, he tells me something...

John Walsh is the Founder & CEO of Endera, a company pioneering a sector of the electric vehicle market you probably haven’t thought much about: shuttles and buses. No, they’re not JUST for pub crawls, although it is Friday, so why not green up your booze tonight? Rather, it’s a sector with profound implications anywhere short-distance travel is needed. Their EVs have exceptional performance and r...

Jhillika Kumar is the Founder & CEO at Mentra, a neurodivergent-friendly talent platform that intelligently matches neurodiverse individuals with employers that value their strengths. Traditional talent and employment platforms tend to prioritize a certain kind of candidate, which can leave many highly-capable people without meaningful work. As our world changes, we have to realize that neurodiver...

Alison Hirukawa, PhD is the Co-founder and CEO of DropGenie. DropGenie is a groundbreaking start-up in the tech bio space making gene editing cheaper and lowering the amount of donor cells required. They’ve made a little plastic tray not much larger than the size of a playing card that makes molecular surgery affordable and scalable. The card itself looks like a maze, where a single droplet can be...

Sharon Kan is the CEO & Co-Founder at Pepperlane, a start-up that helped mothers transform their ideas, skills, and passions into businesses that fit into their busy lives. They raised millions with her brilliant concept. Alas, like so many others, COVID had a massive negative impact on her business, and she had to make the difficult decision to shut it down earlier this year. In my conversations,...

Adam Molnar is the Co-Founder and Head of Partnerships at Neurable, the beautiful office in historic downtown Boston where we filmed this episode live. Neurable was gracious enough to lend me one of their conference rooms to meet inspiring local founders & entrepreneurs, and I got a first-hand look at their upcoming tech. Neurable makes brain-control interfaces or BCIs, and their tech is so discre...

Welcome to the Boston Series of Beat the Often Path! I got the chance to meet some of the most innovative and inspiring people in Boston’s robust start-up series, and I have to tell you, I absolutely loved my time there. Joining us on location at the Neurable offices in downtown Boston, Sridhar Iyengar is the Chief Innovation Officer of Elemental Machines and the former founder and director of Mis...

Bolis Ibrahim is the president of Cence Power, a start-up that aims to stop energy waste when AC power is converted to DC. The power coming into your house or office is AC, or alternating current. However, the vast majority of the devices and lights you use are DC, or direct current. Currently (har har), each individual device does its own AC/DC conversion, and if you’ve ever felt a hot laptop cha...

Maeve Wang is a Harvard graduate and the CEO of IAMBIC, a company that uses AI to make truly customized shoes that are tailored to your exact foot.   Finding shoes that fit, it turns out, is a big problem for 27% of the population and it affects a considerably larger percentage. It’s not just about comfort and fashion, it’s about health and fundamental wellbeing. Beyond that, Maeve has a remarkabl...

Is the "green rush" over? Are NFTs still a thing? Was it wrong of me to put my life savings into AMC stock? Michael Johnson is the CEO of Metrc, a company that makes supply chain software for the cannabis industry. If talking about cannabis bothers you, I suggest you skip this episode… This is one of those businesses that makes sense when you learn about it, but seems so out of left field for an u...

Jo Norris is a climate scientist, materials engineer, and artist, combining all three in the climate tech startup space. She’s the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Reform, a start-up that’s built a device that removes carbon from the air and safely stores it into sustainable building materials, while improving indoor air quality and reducing HVAC costs by up to 40%. It’s one of those wild, too-good-to...

Joining us today is Nicholas Grundish, who earned a Ph. D. in Materials Science and studied under a Nobel Prize recipient. Now he’s putting his battery tech to use for EnergyX, a company that’s secured tens of millions in funding with GM leading their Series B with 50 million. What does this mean for you and me? Batteries in our cars and everyday devices will soon charge faster, be more safe, and...

Valorant Health was founded in 2018 after Founder and CEO, Ahmed Qureshi experienced the impact that lack of access had on communities from his early years in Pakistan. Through extensive global travel, Ahmed realized that large portions of our population lack the access to healthcare that others of us expect. He saw enormous inefficiencies in outdated systems that led to incredible waste (nearly $...

Phnam Bagley designs the future of everything on and off planet Earth. She co-founded Nonfiction, a design firm that turns science fiction into reality for a better future. She's a TED speaker who has designed new food systems for astronauts and who really sees the bigger picture in everything that she does. Her company closely parallels the vision that I have for myself, for my own future and for...

Audrey Wisch is a powerhouse, a juggernaut, a wunderkind … Or maybe she’s just a cool person with a great idea. Audrey is the Stanford “stop-out” co-founder of Curious Cardinals, a company that’s redefining mentorship for K-12 students. They’ve raised millions in funding, and they did an astonishing $750k of sales in their first year in business, essentially linking passionate college mentors with...

Today’s guest changed the trajectory of my life forever. When I was just 11 years old, I heard the song Xpander by Sasha for the first time. That EP opened me up to the world of electronic dance music which would change my career and my life for the next sixteen years and beyond. From that moment forward nobody ever saw me without wearing a pair of headphones, without my trusty little Sony Walkman...