It's Not Magic, a Sixth Street podcast

In the final episode of It's Not Magic's San Francisco Season, Tekedra Mawakana, Co-CEO of Waymo, joined Sixth Street Co-President David Stiepleman for a Waymo ride around San Francisco and a conversation at our office about the journey of bringing autonomous driving from an innovative project to a daily reality for hundreds of thousands of riders.   As a leader at the forefront of physical A...

Daniela Amodei, Co-Founder and President of Anthropic, joins us for episode four of It’s Not Magic’s San Francisco season. Founded in San Francisco in 2021 as a Public Benefit Corporation, Anthropic has emerged as a global leader in AI safety and research, known for its flagship model, Claude.   In this episode, Daniela discusses Anthropic's commitment to responsible scaling and how the compa...

Episode three of It’s Not Magic’s San Francisco Season features Ghazi, Founder and CEO of EMPIRE and Bay Area native. EMPIRE was founded and built in San Francisco and is now the largest independent record label, distributor, and publisher in the United States, working with artists including Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, and Shaboozey. Since launching EMPIRE in 2010, Ghazi has built a global pow...

The second episode of It’s Not Magic’s San Francisco Season features our hometown San Francisco Giants' very own Larry Baer, President and CEO, and Buster Posey, President of Baseball Operations.   In an exclusive conversation at Oracle Park, Sixth Street Co-Founder and Co-President David Stiepleman, Larry and Buster discuss the role of sports as a civic catalyst, highlighting...

The first episode of the San Francisco Season of It's Not Magic features a wide-ranging conversation between Sixth Street Co-President David Stiepleman and the 46th Mayor of San Francisco, Daniel Lurie. Recorded at Sixth Street's San Francisco headquarters, the conversation delves into Mayor Lurie's vision for the city's future, focusing on public safety and behavioral health, fostering innovation...

On this episode of It’s Not Magic, Sixth Street Co-Founder and Co-President, David Stiepleman sat down with Kwame Owusu-Kesse, CEO of Harlem Children's Zone (HCZ), for a conversation on transformative business leadership and operational standards. Kwame shares powerful insights into redefining HCZ as a "tax-exempt business" and emphasizes the importance of building a culture of excellence. From th...

What happens when you put two strangers from across the political divide together, not to talk about politics, but just to get to know each other as human beings? That’s what Dave Isay set out to answer. From twenty-plus years of running StoryCorps, Dave has shown time and again the importance of recognizing the value of humanity in everyone regardless of their politics, religion, or background, a...

During Westbound Equity Partners’ Annual Summit, Sixth Street Co-Founder and Co-President, David Stiepleman sat down with award-winning AI researcher and best-selling author Dr. Joy Buolamwini for a conversation about, in the words of her Algorithmic Justice League, getting the world to “remember that who codes matters, how we code matters, and that we can code a better future.”   On this epi...

Steve Kerr has won nine NBA championships as a member of three different dynasties: as Head Coach of the Golden State Warriors and as a player for the San Antonio Spurs and Chicago Bulls.    Earlier this month at the Sixth Street Offsite, he was gracious enough to spend time with our team and share what he’s learned about leadership and life over the course of his career.   His conv...

During Sixth Street’s annual MaSH CxO Summit, David Stiepleman recorded our latest episode with two longtime political experts who have run dozens of statewide and national campaigns for Republicans and Democrats. The conversation was in front of a live audience of CEOs and other leaders from across our growth equity portfolio, and we dove into current political, geopolitical, and macro trends in...

Sixth Street Co-founder and Partner Vijay Mohan sat down in our San Francisco office with two accomplished executives in the professional soccer world for a conversation about the power of accessibility in sports and how it can influence communities.   On this episode of It’s Not Magic, Vijay guest hosted a discussion with Ed Foster-Simeon, President & CEO of the U.S. Soccer Foundation, a...

During a time of unspeakable evil, there were very few, very brave people who risked their own lives to save others. Richard Hurowitz’s most recent book, In the Garden of the Righteous , brings forward 10 little-known stories of those who went above and beyond to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. An Italian Tour de France champion. A Portuguese diplomat. A circus ringmaster. Why did these people d...

Two seasoned dealmakers, business builders, and friends of over twenty-five years sit down to have a frank discussion about the evolution of business, law, culture, and management. David Stiepleman, Co-Founder and Co-President of global investment firm Sixth Street, and Michael Gerstenzang, Managing Partner of global law firm Cleary Gottlieb, discuss the art of commercialism, the best ways to get...

Our Sixth Street team plus friends from across our Dallas network came together for a night of conversation to discuss business leadership, culture, and connections. We were honored to be joined by our great friends United States Air Force Major General (ret.), Rod Lewis, True Ventures EIR and Investor Clarence Bethea, and Westbound Equity Partners co-founder Sean Mendy in a discussion led by Sixt...

The San Antonio Spurs have 5 NBA championships, but some of their biggest wins and longest-lasting contributions have come off the court. Dr. Kara C. Allen, the first NBA team executive dedicated exclusively to impact, joins to talk about the Spurs’ commitment to ensuring that the community always remains a priority in everything they do. We learn how values translate into action for a franchise t...

Bill Block, CEO of Miramax, joins us to share his approach to successfully running an award-winning film and television production company. Starting as a Hollywood superagent, Bill has gone on to produce hit films like Bad Moms, The Blair Witch Project, District 9, Halloween (2018) , Requiem for a Dream , and the more recent He’s All That starring Addison Rae of TikTok fame. Bill and David talk th...

Aly Wagner, lead analyst for Fox’s broadcast of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup and co-chair of Bay FC, joins us to talk about her career progression from winning gold medals for the U.S. Women’s National Team to announcing the games to co-founding a National Women’s Soccer League expansion franchise. We ask her about her trailblazing path as the first woman to announce a Men’s World Cup game, and...

Why shouldn’t paying rent on time help you build your credit score? We sit down with Wemimo Abbey, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Esusu, to discuss how he convinced credit ratings agencies, landlords, and renters to use Esusu to help build fuller credit profiles. Motivated by his family’s own experience when applying for a loan after immigrating to the U.S. from Nigeria, Wemimo developed a product that...

Recorded live at the Sixth Street offsite in Austin, Texas. Former Golden State Warriors President, NBA Hall of Famer, and Bay FC board member Rick Welts joins our host David Stiepleman to talk about pioneering moments in the history of the NBA, including the inception of the Slam Dunk Contest and All-Star Weekend. Rick and David also discuss the key trends driving the future of sports. &nbsp...

San Francisco has a powerful asset in its fight against its well-publicized civic challenges: its caring community of doers. Kanishka Cheng, founder and CEO of TogetherSF, is working to revitalize the city by reconnecting its residents with their government. She’s built an organization, with the backing of Sequoia’s Michael Moritz, that provides educational resources and spaces for open dialogue o...

Season 3 of INM opens with Frank Doyle, Dean of Harvard University’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Frank takes us inside Harvard’s efforts to cultivate interdisciplinary collaboration and to grow an engineering school within the “176-year-old startup.” With his inspiring vision for the future of problem solving, Frank challenges us to think bigger and bolder an...

The microchip powers everything we do — from our iPhones, to the cars we drive, to missile guidance systems. Do we take for granted how much the world depends on such a scarce resource? For our Season 2 finale, we are joined by Chris Miller, Professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University and author of the Financial Times 2022 Book of the Year, “Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critic...

Dr. Amy Abernethy is known for modernizing the FDA’s approach to big data. Now as President of Product Development and Chief Medical Officer of Alphabet’s Verily, and a member of Sixth Street’s Scientific Advisory Board, she’s exploring approaches to real-world data and developing tools to bring advanced therapeutics to patients. Amy joins our host, David Stiepleman, as well as Sixth Street’s Vice...

Join us as we explore the success of STAT – the fast-growing media company delivering trusted news on health, medicine, and the life sciences. After being the first to break the COVID-19 story in January 2020, STAT became a go-to source for information during the pandemic with over 26 million visitors in March 2020 alone. In this conversation, co-founder and executive editor Rick Berke reveals whe...

What’s it like running one of the fastest growing tech companies in France? Jonathan Cherki, founder and CEO of Contentsquare , joins us from New York to talk about how his company became a global leader in helping brands enhance their customers’ digital experience. We discuss why Jon left his family’s dry legume supply business to found a tech company, the strategy behind Contentsquare’s rapid gr...