Liftoff with Keith: Conversations with Super Founders and Growth Experts sharing useful insights

Luis Derechin is the CEO or NirYu and is the first Mexican citizen to get US venture capital for his startup and was actually successful selling it, a serial founder now leading Nir-Yu a nearshoring business based in Mexico and focused on staffing services from teams across Latin America but Not Just Staffing—A New Way to Build Remote Teams and Save 70%, - Learn what the acronym: REMOTE stands for...

Meet Anya Cheng, founder and CEO of Taelor AI — a Silicon Valley startup that’s changing how busy men dress. With a background leading product at Meta, eBay, McDonald’s, and Target, Anya now applies AI to help customers look sharp without the hassle of shopping or laundry. Taelor AI uses artificial intelligence to select outfits that fit your lifestyle, size, and goals — helping you look your best...

Did you know nearly half of online reviews are suspicious, with fake reviews projected to influence $787 billion in consumer spending by 2025? In this episode, Shane Barker — CEO and founder of TraceFuse, the first Amazon TOS-compliant negative review removal system — explains the scale of the problem and how his solution is helping sellers fight back. Shane shares:- Why fake reviews damage brands...

🎙️ New Episode Alert! I had an incredible conversation with Kelli Rivers, a former high-tech sales leader who made a powerful pivot into the world of leadership development. Kelli works with high-level leaders to help them reset their identity, expand their capacity, and lead with absolute clarity. In our discussion, she shared how leaders can build trust in their skills, create safe spaces to gro...

Raj shares his remarkable path from building companies like Snapfish, Fitmob, and Lyft to co-founding Climactic, a venture fund tackling the climate crisis. In this conversation, he reveals lessons on entrepreneurship, pivots, investing in AI & robotics for climate solutions, and coaching founders to lead with resilience. A must-watch for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone passionate about t...

In this episode, host Keith Newman welcomes Carine Schneider , founding partner at Compass Strategic Advisors and longtime advocate for broader access to private markets. Carine shares her journey from PwC to leading cap table companies and advising global firms, and why she believes the time is right to rethink private market access. She discusses the updates to her book The Democratization of Pr...

What 25 years in venture capital teaches you about building billion-dollar startups that founders wish they knew earlier... David Hornik, founding partner at Lobby Capital and former August Capital partner, breaks down the real dynamics between VCs and founders that most entrepreneurs completely misunderstand. From his $50M+ exits including Splunk, GitLab, and Bill.com, David shares why venture ca...

AI is overheating data centers, and air cooling just can’t keep up. In this eye-opening conversation, Cosimo Pecchioli and Darren Burgess from BP’s Castrol Immersion Division pull back the curtain on the future of thermal management—and why liquid cooling is no longer optional. From AI workloads to hyperscalers, learn how industry giants are quietly deploying immersion cooling at scale, what it re...

What’s the point of making millions, if you don’t get to keep it? In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, we’re joined by Neil Jesani, a trusted CPA and entrepreneur who has leveraged 25 years of experience in tax and finance to become one of the top advisors that Founders go to when they need to scale their businesses from $20M to $100M+ without losing millions to preventable tax mistakes. From IP...

Is your company’s AI strategy opening you up to massive security risks? In this powerful conversation, Claudionor Coelho, Chief AI Officer at Zscaler, reveals the hidden dangers of agentic AI—and how Fortune 500 companies are unintentionally exposing sensitive data through generative AI tools. Claudionor shares real-world examples of AI vulnerabilities, how attackers can exploit agent systems to e...

What does it take to build a $75M fashion brand in just 3 years - with zero industry experience? In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, Justin Baer, Founder and CEO of Collars & Co., shares how he went from a complete fashion outsider to leading one of the hottest menswear brands on the market. From viral shirts to a Shark Tank pitch that turned his business into a top 5% performer among all c...

Is AI finally ready for the enterprise? In this AI Infra Summit 2025 interview, Luke Norris, CEO of Kamawaza, reveals how Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies are moving beyond AI experiments to real-world, production-level deployments—saving millions and reshaping industries. Luke shares insights from Kamawaza’s groundbreaking work with over 20 Fortune 500 clients, including a live demo with the...

How do you build a billion-dollar AI business with Product-Led Growth? Discover the secrets behind Fireflies.ai’s unicorn success. In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, Krish Ramineni, Co-founder & CEO of Fireflies.ai, reveals how he scaled the market’s leading AI notetaker into a unicorn over a decade-long journey packed with lessons in innovation, product-led growth, and resilience. Once a...

Can AI manage AI? Rapt AI CTO Anil shares how agentic AI management will transform data centers, reduce costs, and unlock exponential compute at scale. Anil reveals: ▫️ The hidden cost of 5% GPU under-utilization ▫️ Why current AI models are outpacing infrastructure ▫️ The future of agentic AI for data centers ▫️ The battle between chip-level vs. evolutionary innovation ▫️ How Rapt AI is helping c...

Scaling AI is more than just stacking GPUs, it's about making every dollar and watt count. Chris Sosa, Director of Engineering at AMD, reveals how they’re pushing the limits of AI hardware efficiency. Chris shares: ▫️ The biggest bottleneck in scaling AI workloads today ▫️ Why idle GPUs drain your budget ▫️ The struggle between training vs. inference at scale ▫️ How AMD’s ROCm stack is changing AI...

Most people think building AI infrastructure is all about software. But the real bottlenecks? Power, cooling, and optimizing hardware. Vik Malyala, Managing Director at Supermicro, reveals the surprising struggles in building data centers to meet the AI demand. He explains: ▫️ Why most data centers aren’t ready for the AI boom ▫️ How Supermicro optimizes hardware for maximum efficiency ▫️ Why 200...

AI is evolving fast, but the economics are breaking down. RK Anand, co-founder of Recogni, reveals the hidden crisis inside AI's explosive growth. RK has spent his career building technology to power AI systems. From tokens to compute, he exposes the challenges in scaling AI profitably, and what it takes to fix the system. In this episode, RK shares: ▫️ Why AI’s "token economy" no lo...

We’re racing to build AI, but who’s thinking about the why? Ashley Tarver, Microsoft’s Evangelist of Data and AI, explores the AI paradox: We expect AI to solve human problems, yet we don’t know what a perfect world looks like. Ashley shares: ▫️ The AI paradox: why humans and AI don’t speak the same language ▫️ How companies should approach ethics, bias, and safety in AI▫️ The role of Centers of E...

What does it take to build a multi-million dollar AI startup from scratch, without raising a cent? In this episode of Liftoff, we sit down with Ricardo Ghekiere, the founder of BetterPic, the viral AI platform creating professional headshots in minutes. Bootstrapped from $0 to $4 million in just 15 months, Ricardo shares the real story behind BetterPic’s explosive growth from Belgium to the global...

Robots are no longer science fiction. Sviat, Chief Strategy Officer at Bright Machines, reveals why the future of AI isn't just about text and images, but building the real world, brick by brick, chip by chip. Sviat explains: ▫️ Why AI in robotics is the real AI revolution ▫️ The challenges of powering and cooling next-gen data centers ▫️ How supply chain shocks are fueling US manufacturing ▫️...

What does it really take to build a SaaS powerhouse like BetterCloud from scratch? In this episode of Liftoff with Keith, serial entrepreneur David Politis shares his extraordinary journey, from learning business at his father’s side as a kid, to leading multiple successful companies, to building BetterCloud into a $100M ARR SaaS juggernaut. 💡 In This Deep-Dive Interview, You'll Learn: - The...

From the streets to the boardroom, Ken Miller’s story is nothing short of extraordinary. In this powerful interview, Ken shares how he transformed from a homeless, three-time felon battling addiction to a multi-business owner, author, and mentor making a difference in countless lives. In this episode: - Ken’s inspiring journey of overcoming addiction and incarceration - Life lessons from the penit...

How does a top AI company scale massive clusters and build AI for the enterprise? In this episode of The Liftoff with Keith, we talk to Ted Shelton, COO of Inflection AI, from the AI Infra Summit 2025. Ted shares how their team pivoted from consumers to enterprise after their Microsoft deal, why seamless infrastructure is key, and what it takes to build AI models that run on NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel...

Rishad is the author of Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data and “Rethinking Work” both published by HarperCollins. He was the Global Strategist and Chief Growth Officer of the 100,000+ person marketing and business transformation Publicis Groupe and has been named by BusinessWeek as one of the top business leaders for his pioneering innovation and TIME magazine dubbed...

In the Age of AI-American Idol -Spotify-TikTok and all things music, we decided to check in on that happenings in the music industry and what we should do with our turntable and vinyl collection  - so we dialed up Grammy Award winning A&R and Talent Management exec @Tom Sarig, who shares his views and also updates us on his exciting new business >    https://www.antifragilemusic.com/ Tom Sa...