Running Stuff, a Peterson Partners podcast

At our recent LP Conference, Illana Stern sat down with a group of Peterson Venture portfolio CEOs to discuss how they are using AI in their businesses today. You’ll hear from Caleb Hicks, CEO of SchoolAI, Stephanie Grayson, co-CEO of Cambio, Josh Wilson, CEO of Particl, Kyle Roche, CEO of Griptape, and Loren Larsen, CEO of Videra Health. Note: No compensation was provided to the portfolio company...

Ben Capell is joined by Co-founder and CEO of Rose Park Advisors, Matt Christensen, to discuss applying the theory of disruptive innovation. Matt co-founded Rose Park with his father, Clay Christensen, who coined the term and the concept of disruptive innovation. This concept has been applied by both early stage companies looking to disrupt incumbents, and Fortune 500 companies looking to avoid be...

Solidcore CEO Bryan Myers joins Brett Stohlton to discuss how to plan and execute a successful leadership transition from founder to next-generation CEO. Additionally, we explore leadership in the midst of crisis and learn about Bryan’s inspiring background and vision for Solidcore.

Erica Brescia, Managing Director at Repoint Ventures, joins Taylor Jones to discuss a wide range of topics including her career as an operator, founder and investor as well as her unique perspective on AI. Prior to Redpoint, Erica was the co-founder and COO of Bitnami and also served as the COO of GitHub. We hope you enjoy this episode. 

Founder and CEO of SaxeCap Amrit Saxena joins Dan Hanks. SaxeCap is an AI transformation and investing holding company that partners with PE funds to buy out and transform companies with AI and automation technology. Amrit is a Stanford-educated artificial intelligence entrepreneur, has sold two enterprise AI companies before founding SaxeCap, and has invested in 200-plus technology startups over...

Our guests are John Erck and James Van Erck, founders of Rebuy, a personalization platform that enables e-commerce brands to deploy intelligent shopping experiences for consumers. We discuss how they were able to bootstrap Rebuy to meaningful revenue, why they decided to raise venture capital, and how they continued to scale revenue efficiently while burning very little capital. We hope you enjoy...

Our topic in this episode is focused on inflation and the US economy, with special guest John Cochran, an economist and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Previously, John was a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. John writes occasional op-eds for the Wall Street Journal and blogs as the Grumpy Economist at johncochrane.com , and...

Our guest is Jorge Mazal, former Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, the most downloaded education app in the world. Jorge has also been a product manager at iconic internet companies Zynga and MyFitnessPal. We discuss his lessons from each company, how he built and scaled his product at Duolingo, and his insights into the craft of product management. We hope you enjoy this episode. 

Our guest today is David Lockwood, author of Fooled by the Winners. David has three decades of experience as a senior executive on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley. He has served on more than 20 public and private company boards and led several large companies as CEO and chairman. In this episode, David and Clint Peterson discuss turnarounds and the theme of his latest book, survivorship bias. Da...

Our topic in this episode is, “The Future of Education,” and our guest is Factor CEO and Founder, Caleb Hicks. Factor helps teens explore potential career paths and allows them to begin professional experiences while still in high school. Caleb is the former co-founder at Lambda School and pioneered the innovative income share agreement. Recorded from a recent Peterson Ventures event, Caleb and Ta...

In today’s episode, we speak with John A. List, Chief Economist at WalMart and author of  “The Voltage Effect.”  In this episode we talk about how to make good ideas great, and great ideas scale. John digs in to the common set of attributes that scalable ideas share and provides examples on scaling incentives and culture. This episode was from a conversation previously recorded with many Peterson-...

At a recent Peterson Ventures event, Taylor Jones sat down with Brian Pugh, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Lucid Software, and Loren Larsen, CEO and founder at Videra Health to discuss early stage product development. Both Brian and Loren have scaled product teams from just a handful of developers, all the way to managing hundreds of engineers. In our conversation, we discuss the process...

In this episode, our guest is General Stanley A. McChrystal. After graduating from West Point, Stan became an Army Ranger and eventually commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment. Over a 30-year military career, including a fellowship at Harvard and too many posts to mention, he wrapped up his illustrious career as head of Joint Special Operations Command, Commander of NATO Force, and Commander of NAT...

Our guest today is Charly Kevers, Chief Financial Officer at Carta.  Founded in 2012, Carta is the leading provider of cap table software, enabling companies and investors to manage their cap tables, equity plans and ownership. We discuss Charly’s role as CFO of a rapidly scaling startup, Carta’s unique culture, how the macroeconomic environment is affecting private markets, and Carta’s long-term...

Our topic today is “Building a Value-Based Marketing Engine,” and our guests are Mike Steele and Jake Young, CEO and COO at Pupford. Pupford is a direct-to-consumer dog brand that provides training resources and nutrition products for pet parents. In this episode we do a deep dive on early-stage growth strategies and discuss the “top of funnel” marketing systems that have helped Pupford become an...

Our topic in this episode is: "Utah - The Start-up State," and our guest is Utah Governor Spencer Cox. We discuss how Governor Cox went from being a small business owner from Fairview, Utah to becoming the 18th governor of Utah. A few months ago Governor Cox invited several venture capital investors to the Governors Mansion to specifically talk about how the state can help to cultivate a...

Our topic in this episode is "The Entrepreneurial Leap of Faith," and our guest is Trevor McKendrick, CEO and Co-founder of Seis, a neo-bank for the 44 million native Spanish speakers living in the United States. Trevor talks about his first start-up’s successful exit, what he learned as Chief of Staff for Lambda School, and what made him decide to become a founder again, this time in fi...

Taylor Jones, Principal at Peterson Ventures discusses early-stage demand gen with Rachel Hofstetter, Chief Marketing Officer at Genesis Block and former CMO at Chatbooks, and Sterling Snow, Chief Revenue Office at Divvy.  Both Rachel and Sterling were critical to igniting top-of-funnel demand in the earliest days at both Chatbooks and Divvy, and since then they both have scaled marketing and grow...

Taylor Jones, Principal at Peterson Ventures recently sat down with Dave Grow, President and Chief Operating Officer at Lucid Software, at a Peterson Ventures event to discuss early-stage growth tactics. Dave joined Lucid as employee number four back in 2010.  Lucid now has over 750 employees and Dave and his team have developed a product-led growth engine that has over 30 million registered users...

Our topic today is “Discovering the Why,” with guest Chris Klomp, CEO of Collective Medical. Collective Medical is a platform that coordinates care across providers to help the most vulnerable find the care they need. Over a third of US hospitals today are on the platform, which serves nearly 100 million Americans. Prior to Collective Medical, Chris worked for Bain Capital. He earned an MBA at Sta...

Our topic is building tech startups in healthcare and the power behind a business with a strong social mission. Our guest is Dallen Allred, CEO of Tava Health. Tava is on a mission to make therapy normal by providing easier access to high-quality therapy. The company believes that working with a mental health professional should be as routine as going to the dentist, a simple and necessary form of...

Our topic is “Brand Building and Entrepreneurship” and our guest is Davis Smith,  Founder and CEO of Cotopaxi, an outdoor gear and active lifestyle brand with a social mission at its core. Cotopaxi creates innovative products and experiences that fund sustainable poverty alleviation and is among the first companies to incorporate from inception as a B-Corp and raise venture capital. Prior to Cotop...

Our topic is “Building in the Shopify ecosystem” and our guest is Jonathan Poma, CEO of Loop. Loop has redefined the return process in retail by creating an experience that makes both brands and customers happy. To date, Loop has processed over $2B of returns for customers and recently raised a $65M Series B led by CRV with participation from Shopify.  Jonathan has operated in the Shopify ecosyste...

Our topic in this episode is identifying entrepreneurial opportunities and our guest is Mark Newman. Mark is a multiple-time entrepreneur.  He was the co-founder and former CEO of HireVue and is currently the co-founder and CEO of Nomi Health as well as the Co-founder and board member at Videra Health. Mark has the ability to identify opportunities where others only see problems and continually fi...

Our topic is "Growth Through Adversity" and our guest is Hamid Moghadam, Chairman and CEO of Prologis. Hamid leads one of the world's 200 largest companies by market cap, a $90-billion REIT. He is widely considered to be one of the most respected real estate CEOs in the world. Born in Iran, Hamid became the youngest graduate from MIT when he was just 16-years-old. Hamid foresaw the...