Magic Minds

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Calvin “Cal” Fussman is a world famous interviewer, a New York Times bestselling author, public speaker, and the creator of the podcast called Big Questions. He was the Writer-at-Large of Esquire, interviewing everyone from Richard Branson to Muhammad Ali to Serena Williams to Robert De Niro....

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author “Attach, you lose, detach, you gain”. That simple phrase and along with the phrase “Yoga for the intellect” on a little pamphlet in a hotel in Southern California caught my eye. I was there with my wife for a weekend and got lured into a session with a guy that looked like one of those folks a...

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is another deep dive experiment into a topic that every founder dreads thinking about — fundraising. Similar to what we recently did regarding a deep dive on remote work, this episode goes deep (like super deep) into the weeds on fundraising strategies, tactics, and mistakes to...

"The most exciting new podcast in the startup world.” - Eric Ries, Founder and NYTimes bestselling author Today's episode is a deep dive — Something we're trying out where we go deep into certain topics that people have been asking about, and today is with an expert (maybe the expert?) on the subject of remote work (work that is distributed by many team-members in different geographical locations...

Today's episode is a really special one. It is with Dr. Peter Carnochan, a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, author, and executive coach. He quickly became one of the best executive coaches in Silicon Valley in the last few years with his deep understanding of the psychological journey of a founder. I was introduced to Peter years ago by Alexis Ohanian, one of the co-founders of Reddit, and ev...

Kelly Starrett is one of the most widely followed individuals in the health and fitness space. He is a NY Times bestselling author, a physical trainer, physical therapist, and mobility expert. That last thing I mentioned, mobility expertise, is one of the more fascinating parts of Kelly's work in the health and fitness world — where just about everyone is so focused on the results... the look, the...

BTL Hotline: 510-214-3717 In celebration of 40,000 downloads, we’re going to take a few calls and answer the questions from listeners directly. This episode covers some great questions from listeners as well as a note James wrote to himself while going through perhaps the toughest time in his career. Check it out and let us know what you think of this experiment at twitter.com/gobelowtheline — And...

fnnch is perhaps the most recognizable name in street art in San Francisco with his mega-size honey bears, pop-art lips, poppy flowers and poodles gracing our city in the unlikeliest of places. He wasn't always pursuing a passion in art, much less attempting a career in it. And he rarely speaks publicly about what it's like to be him. He is also known for being the only anonymous TED speaker to da...

Chris Powers is the only real estate mogul I know who has been selling real estate half his life. He began buying and fixing up homes when he was only 17 years old as a freshman in college, was a self-made millionaire by 23, then became a venture capitalist by 24. And today he is a real estate force helping define the future of the small-but-up-and-coming city of Fort Worth, Texas. We talk about h...

Dr. Emily Anhalt is a clinical psychologist that focuses specifically on entrepreneurs and what she calls emotional fitness. It is a bridge between psychology and business that helps with your personal productivity and your personal psychological approach each day.  In this episode, she will share with us her invaluable seven characteristics of emotional fitness that she has given workshops a...

Burt Blackarach is a Grammy-award winning composer, producer, DJ, and sound engineer. You may know his work in producing for iconic groups like Public Enemy. Born into a creative family, Burt got to see his father (legendary soul and rock keyboard player and songwriter William D. "Smitty" Smith) collaborate with everyone from Bob Dylan to Rick James to Fleetwood Mac — and it ignited his love of cr...

Kevin Rose is one of the most recognizable individuals in the startup world. As a founder, he and his team created the news aggregation site Digg, which became a household name, putting him on magazine covers around the world and creating an iconic brand in Silicon Valley — but it wasn’t a story that ended in champagne and ringing an IPO bell... As an investor, his list of angel investments is nex...

My favorite thing about being a founder is the ability to make your own decisions and have to live with them, and thus have to learn from them. I am constantly introspective about my thoughts: What am I thinking? Where did it come from?  The desire to be “liked” is probably the most selfish thing in the world. You want to be really mindful of the problems you are creating, when things that we...

Eric Ries, NY Times best-selling author, and startup sage comes back to the podcast for part 2 of our conversation we started in episode 3. We cover everything from sustainable productivity of teams, unleashing creativity, and about his (insanely) audacious company that is 8 years into their “beginning” with the Long Term Stock Exchange. It’s one of the most interesting companies out there — and f...

Alex Snodgrass, aka The Defined Dish, has built a social media following that would make any brand jealous, with over hundreds of thousands of followers engaging around her simple and incredibly tasty whole30 and paleo dish recipes every day. She has all the social media (and in real life) love that creates a pretty pristine Above the Line version of her business. But a simple ingredient that made...

Matt MacInnis is a founder and investor in Silicon Valley, and he’s widely seen as one of the best personal angel investors out there — combining his experience as a founder (and knowing what made his investors actually helpful and others unhelpful) with the insight into what spaces and products are on the rise. That’s his day job though. He is a profoundly deep thinker, an articulate leader, but...

Diana Chapman is a best-selling author — her book “the 15 commitments of conscious leadership” is one of my all-time favorites — She is also an advisor and executive coach who has worked with over 1,000 organizational leaders, as well as a founding partner of Concious Leadership Group. Her incredibly powerful book has a great subtitle — “A new paradigm for sustainable success”... with the key phra...

Sahil Lavingia is the CEO and Founder of Gumroad, a platform to help creators create more through simple e-commerce and audience tools. He is also known for insightful and refreshing points of view on Twitter and Medium. To round it out, he’s also a designer, painter in addition to being a technology CEO and writer. Sahil and I have had similar paths in creation, from tech to design to art, as wel...

 Ryan Hoover is the founder and CEO of ProductHunt — the most popular way to discover new products and services on the web. In 2016, ProductHunt was acquired by AngelList, the worlds’ most popular way to invest in startups. It was a match made in heaven, but it’s hard to say the path to that point wasn’t fraught with its share of challenges.  Ryan is one of the most popular voices when it comes to...

Peter Carnochan is my guest today. Peter is a psychologist, psychoanalyst, and executive coach here in San Francisco — he is also my executive coach. He was first introduced to me in 2014 by Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder or Reddit, who said I needed to meet his executive coach... and that I might benefit from chatting with him. 4 plus years later, I chat with Peter just about every other week, an...

Ryan Caldbeck and his co-founder Rory Eakin founded what has become one of the most innovative investment platforms I’ve ever seen with their award-winning company, CircleUp. In short, they use machine learning analysis to find and fund amazing companies in the consumer packaged goods space, companies like Halo Top, Rebbl, Smarty Pants vitamins — and we actually share some of those companies like...

Hannah Willson is an executive, a mom, and has made the jump from large public company to the world of fast-moving startups — and she’s one of my neighbors. This podcast is an exercise of going below the line with founders, leaders, creators of all kinds, and for any startups that make a dent in the universe, even employee 100 shoulders the weight of attempting to create something special.  H...

Corby Davidson is a radio personality from James’ hometown of Dallas, Texas. At age 23, Davidson knew he wanted to “do what Howard Stern does,” and eventually became the award-winning co-host of one of the country’s most-listened to radio station. Corby and James discuss what it’s been like to pursue this career type, the stories that have shaped him as an individual, and after thousands of interv...

Bill Gates refers to him as his “favorite economist” for the work he does with his organizaiton “Our World in Data” (www.ourworldindata.org). Today’s guest is Max Roser — and he and his team have influenced several best-selling books, countless news articles, and spurred some of the most important discussions in recent years with his simple premise for a website: what can the data of our world tel...

Kathryn McCarron is a San Francisco-based fashion designer and founder of her namesake ethical cashmere line, featured in stores from Bergdorf Goodman to Neiman Marcus to Lord & Taylor, from New York to South Korea... From being featured in New York Fashion Week at 25 to the cover of Cosmo, she is as humble as she is amazing, and I’m really excited to have the honor to chat with her today. Go to K...