Luminate with Lan Anh Vu

Today’s guest is Eric Becker. Eric is the founder and co-chairman at Cresset , an award-winning multi-family office with more than $250 billion in assets under management and advisement. Prior to launching Cresset, Eric co-founded Sterling Partners, a value-added, growth private equity firm that raised eight funds with over $5.7 billion of capital. Eric is the bestselling author of The Long Game ,...

Today’s guest is Steve Blank, an Adjunct Professor at Stanford University. Steve is widely regarded as the father of modern entrepreneurship. Prior to academia, Steve’s career spanned eight different startups.   Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement and the curriculums for the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps and Hacking for Defense and Diplomacy, he’s changed how sta...

Today’s guest is Jessica Rolph, cofounder and CEO of  Lovevery , a subscription brand that sells early-childhood development play kits and solutions. To date, Jessica has raised over $132 million for Lovevery from top-tier investors, including, TCG, Google Ventures, Collaborative Fund, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Lovevery has 350,000+ active subscribers. It has been named one of Fast Compa...

Today’s guest is Brian Lee, a rock-star serial entrepreneur. Brian has cofounded several companies worth over a billion dollars each, such as  Legalzoom  with Robert Shapiro,  The Honest Company  with Jessica Alba,  ShoeDazzle  with Kim Kardashian and  Arena Club  with baseball legend Derek Jeter. Brian is also the cofounder and managing partner of  BAM Ventures , an early-stage VC firm. Brian wro...

Today’s guest is Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler , one of the world’s largest day zero investor. Antler’s pre-seed strategy canvasses 27 countries, more than 1000+ portfolio companies, 8,000+ founders, and over 100,000 annual applications. Magnus previously co-founded Zalora , Southeast Asia’s largest fashion e-commerce company. It was later acquired by Global Fashion Group (GFG), wher...

Today’s guest is Emily Hikade, founder and CEO of the luxury sleepwear brand  Petite Plume . Emily launched Petite Plume in 2015 and it has been profitable since its first year. The company has also doubled its revenue every year since launch, and it has reached almost $100 million in revenue. Petite Plume pajamas are coveted by the Royal Family, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anderson Cooper, Miranda Kerr, and...

Today's guest is Emmanuel Straschnov, founder and co-CEO of  Bubble , a platform that empowers users to create powerful web apps without writing code. To date, Emmanuel has raised over $106 million for the company from the likes of Insight Partners, SignalFire, and Box Group, to name a few. In this episode, we dive into: How Emmanuel started Bubble with Josh What makes a great cofounder relationsh...

Today’s guest is Larry Gadea, founder and CEO of Envoy . Envoy is a workplace platform that helps companies welcome visitors, keep employees safe, book desks and conference rooms, and manage deliveries in over 16,000 locations around the globe. To date, Larry has raised over $170 million for Envoy from a16z, Menlo Ventures, Brookfield Growth, Marc Benioff, Elad Gil to name a few. Prior to Envoy, L...

Today's guest is Daniel Goleman , one of the world’s leading experts on the science of emotion. Daniel is the author of Emotional Intelligence , a blockbuster book that sold more than 5 million copies in about 40 languages.  Apart from his writing on emotional intelligence, Daniel has written books on topics including self-deception, creativity, transparency, meditation, social and emotional learn...

Today’s guest is Liz Elting , cofounder and former CEO of TransPerfect , the world’s largest language solutions company, with over $1.1 billion in revenue and offices in more than 100 cities worldwide. In 2018, Liz left TransPerfect after being there for 26 years and now she’s running Elizabeth Elting Foundation , which advances economic social and political equality for women and marginalized peo...

Today’s guest is Isabelle Freidheim , founder and managing partner of Athena Capital , a technology fund that focuses on bringing high-performing, mission-driven companies to the market. Isabelle is the youngest female chairman of a publicly traded company in the U.S. Under her leadership, Athena has raised more than $1.2 billion. Before founding Athena Capital, Isabelle co-founded and acted as CE...

Today’s guest is Doug Conant , an internationally respected business leader. Doug served as the President of Nabisco from 1999-2001, served a decade as President and CEO of The Campbell Soup Company and then spent three years as Chairman of Avon Products . In 2011 he founded ConantLeadership, a consulting company focused on championing leadership that works in the 21st century. Doug is the only fo...

Today’s guest is Hristo Borisov, cofounder and CEO at  Payhawk , a financial system that combines credit cards, payments, expenses, and cash into one integrated experience. Hristo has raised over $236 million with Payhawk from Lightspeed Ventures, Greenoaks, QED investors, and many more. Today, Payhawk is valued at US$1 billion, making it the first Bulgarian startup to achieve Unicorn status. Prio...

Today’s guest is Hap Klopp, founder and former CEO of  The North Face , one  of the  world's biggest apparel companies. Hap was CEO of The North Face for 20 years. During that time The North Face was honored with many awards for being the best managed company in its industry, including being lauded by Business Week Magazine for providing one of the highest quality products of any company in the Un...

Today's guest is Gary Klein , a cognitive psychologist and one of the world’s leading experts on human decision making. He has spent the last 50 years studying how and why people make the decisions they do. He is the author of six books, including the popular  Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights ; Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions. His latest book "Snapshots of...

Today’s guest is Rahul Vohra, founder and CEO of Superhuman , the startup that has rebuilt the inbox from the ground up creating the fastest email experience ever made.  To date, Rahul has raised over $108 million from some of the best in the business including a16z, IVP, First Round, Tiger Global Management and from celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher, Will Smith and Arianna Huffington. Rahul prev...

Today’s guest is Yoni Assia , cofounder and CEO of eToro , the world’s largest social investment network. Yoni has raised over $412 million with eToro from ION group, SoftBank, Velvet Sea Ventures, Spark Capital and many more. Prior to founding eToro, Yoni was the cofounder of CDRIDE, an on-ride video technology company that was acquired by Kodak in 2006. Yoni was included by Financial News in its...

Today’s guest is Bill George , one of the world’s best-known experts on leadership. Bill was the chairman and CEO of the world’s largest medical technology company Medtronic, which grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion in market cap, under Bill’s leadership. After working 13 years at Medtronic, he then became a professor at Harvard Business School, where he taught Leadership for over 19 years. Bil...

Today’s guest is Jason Fried, one of the pioneers in software as a service (SaaS). Jason is the Co-Founder and CEO at 37signals , makers of Basecamp and HEY . He’s also the author of the hugely bestselling book “ Rework ”. In this episode, Jason talks about his journey through building 37Signals, scaling a company without external funding and the number one thing he looks for when recruiting and h...

Today’s guest is Luca Ferrari, cofounder and CEO of Bending Spoons , one of the world's largest mobile app developers. The company’s apps are currently being used by more than 100 million people every month, with over 500 million app downloads to date. Its apps include popular video editing tool Splice , AI based photo editor Remini and the prominent note-taking app Evernote . Luca has raised over...

Today’s guest is Hubert Palan, who is the founder and CEO of Productboard , a product management system that enables teams to get the right products to market faster. Since 2015, Productboard has raised over $262 million from Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, Index to name a few. Today, ProductBoard is valued at US$1.725 billion, making it the second Czech startup to achieve Unicorn status. Hubert was pre...

Today’s guest is John Kim , who is the co-founder and CEO of Sendbird , the number 1 in app chat API. Sendbird latest funding round priced the company at $1.05 billion and to date, John has raised over $220 million with Sendbird from ICONIQ, Tiger Global, SoftBank and many more. Prior to founding Sendbird, John was the founder of Paprika Lab, a social gaming company that was acquired by Japanese g...

Today’s guest is BJ Fogg , one of the world’s most renowned experts in forming new habits. BJ is a behavior scientist who founded and directs the Behavior Design Lab at Stanford University . On today's episode, BJ shares his breakthrough method that will help you design your habits and make them stick. Whether you want to de-stress, or be more productive - you can apply the Tiny Habits framework t...

Today’s guest is Michael Gronager, who is the co-founder and CEO of Chainalysis, a blockchain data platform. Chainalysis latest funding round priced the company at a reported $8.6 billion in May 2022 and to date, Michael has raised over $537 million for the company from the likes of Accel, Addition, Benchmark, GIC and more. Prior to founding Chainalysis, Michael was the co-founder and COO of Krake...

Today’s guest is Ivan Misner, who is the Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of BNI, the world’s largest business networking organization. Ivan is also known as the “Godfather of Networking” and is considered one of the top networking experts in the world. Ivan is also a New York Times best-selling author who has written 27 books. Among his many awards, he has been named “Humanitarian of the Year”...