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

The Look Back gets into product mode after chatting with Product Marketing Guru SC Moatti, a Partner @Mighty Capital and President of Products That Count and Managing Partner of Mighty Capital and Board Chair of Products That Count. SC touches on her views on opportunity in AI (Are we having a Netscape moment?), the fallacy of Product Market Fit and what true product-led growth is created. I hope...

Jenny is the Author of Future of Food is Female and Founder of the Vegan Women’s Summit and a passionate and compelling voice on changing the direction of food production and consumption to more environmentally conscious and secure. It's an important topic of conversation and one that The Look Back is happy to explore and promote. "I created VWS because I believe there is a better way to...

What it takes to be successful launching a software startup? How do you build a culture of innovation (and still have a personality)?

One of the top Game Studios is run by the amazing Christina. Give this interview a listen and see if you don't agree with my bias assessment.

The Dean of the Personal Technology product review was Walt Mossberg and now he joins The Look Back and reviews his early days in journalism to the transition into the most followed column @WallStreetJournal that instantly became a MUST READ for everyone in the PC industry.  Walt shares his approach to proper product reviews and also reflects on his work on All Things Digital and ReCode, home of t...

A real Ted Talk with the one and only Ted Schlein. Ted's excellent adventure was a 25 year roller coaster ride at Tier 1 VC firm Kleiner Perkins, by way of Symantec where he talked the company into entering the cybersecurity business. Now he turns full circle and has started Ballistic Ventures where he serves as Chairman and GP. Ted serves on the Board of Trustees and Board of Overseers of the...

The Fox in the Hen House > I just finished a great chat with former Apple and Cisco executive Keith Fox. Keith walks us thru his journey from the growth daze at both Co's and how that led him to a late career in philanthropy and mentorship. Great lessons shared and special attention to his new project - https://www.civiltalk.com - wow, love to see this get some support!

In this episode of The Look Back, we catch up with mover and shaker Robyn Cohen, CEO and Founder of the W Collective - a Utah based group focused on elevating women in entrepreneurship - and she summarizes her goal in a few key data points;  As of last year, 16% of GPs at VC firms with $50M+ in AUM are women. We need more women in VC and angel investors!  We need more WOC starting businesses and r...

Fred Davis is my guest on this latest episode of The Look Back. And what can I say about the former editor of a bunch of Ziff Davis mags (MacUser, A+, PC Mag) and my colleague at ZD during the amazing rollercoaster days. If you know, you know. The guy is an amazing font of knowledge and wisdom - in this episode he gives us his thoughts on everything from the impact of AI and VR on society to how w...

This episode puts the spotlight on @Dina Moskowitz, the Founder and CEO of Partner Optimizer, formerly SaasMax. It was great fun exploring with Dina the catalyst for ‘the big pivot’ from a B2B marketplace for SaaS vendors and IT channel partners to Partner Optimizer, and getting behind the Partner led Growth momentum in the IT market. Partner Optimizer has become recognized by leading analysts as...

Investing to maximize ROI is one thing, adding a social impact layer to your criteria is another and that's the Zecca Plan! Zeeca Lehn is the General Partner of Responsibly Ventures, based in California, backing U.S. PreSeed startups in both Social and Sustainable Tech—using multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a guidepost per investment. Over the past 15+ years, he has worked as an...

Thinking about starting a Co? Alex says this is the best time. Find out why by tapping into our discussion around the DNA of an entrepreneur, and get questions answered like: how do you build entrepreneurial muscle? Also, discover the differences between angel investors, venture capital investors, and accredited investors and learn what sets them apart. Don't miss out on this valuable knowledge! L...

I'm so mesmerized by what’s going on in robotics and industrial automation. Given that, I reached out to Mike O'Donnell to join us on The Look Back. From shrink-wrap software daze to Internet 1.0 to mega deals in the Enterprise Tech space into HealthTech specs, I catch up with the somewhat new CEO of blazing cool startup Relay Robotics. Give a listen (*and dont forget to like and SHARE).

A special Super Bowl episode of The Look Back with Thomas Turner, CEO & Founder of Relentless Beats! Turner is the producer of many major Super Bowl events with huge stars like @Ludacris @SnoopDogg @TimMcgraw and @Shaq. He manages the venue, the music, the video, the tech - everything and he talks about what makes a great event, how its managed and where the LIVE EVENT industry is headed.... L...

Ann Winblad has seen it all, except lately she can't find this little t-shirt her father the then high school basketball coach gave her, that brings her back to her pre-teen days when she would cheer and support the hoops team along with her 4 sisters and her brother. Oh well, no time to dwell. It turns out Ann actually was a high school basketball cheerleader (and as Ann points out the class vale...

Today’s Look Back Podcast Guest is Joshua March, the Co-founder and CEO of SCiFi Foods, a Bay Area food tech company focused on making transformational meat alternatives first by combining plant-based and cultivated meat to make burgers that are drastically closer in taste to the real versions. Bring your entrepreneurial appetite and curiosity to our latest episode!

Avram Miller was the strategic and creative leader at Intel who served at the side of Intel's famous CEO Andy Grove (only the paranoid survive) and provided counsel on endless strategic that expanded Intel's position in the market. He then served as a leader at Intel Capital to further grow Intel's market dominance (and bank account). Miller now consults in medical science and technology in Israel...

If you’re a budding entrepreneur,  venture capitalist or angel investor, you have to listen to this episode on The Look Back with the one and only Ben Narasin of TenacityVC (not to be confused with Tenacious D) who brings his secret recipes for investing and building successful startups. Ben’s a renowned entrepreneur with many amazing startups who went on to  connect with the venerable NEA before...

From his work with Steve Jobs in the early days of Apple and then NeXT ,  then a stint at Microsoft , Dan’l has been training for his eventual role has as head of Silicon Valley’s @Computer History Museum. And this is not just your regular, run of the mill Museum - as one would expect -  this is a Museum on a mission!  Now we have The Look Back on the early days to today and how the Museum seeks t...

Mike Cassidy, aka Rocket (Thruster) Man -  has been CEO and Co-Founder of 5 high tech companies and is currently the head of Apollo Fusion, a high performance maker of satellite thrusters. This is his project following his role as Project Leader for Google's Project Loon. He’s also sold another co (Xfire) to MTV and Direct Hit to Ask Jeeves. If that’s not wild enough he attended the Berklee School...

Gary Shapiro and CES! The two are seemingly inseparable as he’s been running the amazing trade show every January forever but underneath that linkage Gary is equally navigating innovation and fair trade. Technology and Sustainability and a host of geopolitical stuff. In short he’s seeking balance in a world out of whack and sharing it with the powerful industries he represents as CEO of CTA. In th...

In this new series, Founder Fables, we talk with Martin Mao, the co-founder and CEO of cloud monitoring firm @Chronosphere. Here we talk with startups who have interesting business that deserves watching as well as interesting thoughts on building a successful venture during this unique time.  Martin started the the business at the start of Covid and following engineering roles with @Uber, @AWS, @...

Great Look Back podcast interview with Founding Member of the legendary music group N.W.A (Straight Outta Compton): Arabian Prince. We cover off on the early days in musicland and his passion for tech and land on an exciting discussion around @ MdDAO.com where he is CEO and is trying to bring health and wellness to the #metaverse. He’s also exploring yet another NewCo for optimizing #EV’s - check...

Regis is a legend in the world of tech marketing and had a unique role of building a hugely successful business and wrote the book on high tech marketing. (The Regis Touch and Marketing is Everything were just two of the groundbreak tech marketing books he authored). Regis was coach and consultant at the PR/Marketing firm that bore his name and was coach and mentor to visionaries like Andy Grove a...

Todd is on a mission to train the next wave of tech workers and not just the developer/coding gigs (aka "geek" jobs) but HR, marketing and all of the other roles with an increasing tech focus. All of this effort to fuel the next level of growth in the IT industry as well as the growth of his leading non profit trade association, CompTIA, which he has been the CEO of for the last 17 years. Find out...