Social Currency with Sammi Cohen

From the FIRE movement, to the rent versus buy debate and financial fibs, today Sammi is tackling the biggest money questions of the moment with Haley Sacks. Haley Sacks (Mrs. Dow Jones) has become one of the most influential voices in financial education, building a media empire around the idea that the secrets to wealth should be available to everyone. Haley joins Sammi to discuss the psychology...

What does building a billion-dollar company actually feel like? According to Ring founder Jamie Siminoff, it's far less glamorous than most founder stories make it seem. Jamie joins Sammi to unpack the journey from almost running out of money to building Ring into one of the biggest consumer tech acquisitions in history. He explains why entrepreneurship can be deeply traumatic, how close Ring came...

Peter Semple is CEO of Depop,  the fashion resale marketplace that became one of Gen Z's most influential shopping platforms and completely changed how a new generation thinks about secondhand fashion.  Peter joins Sammi to break down how Depop built a community-first brand, why the company made the surprising decision to eliminate seller fees, and what it takes to scale beyond Gen Z without losin...

Twenty years after uploading his first YouTube video, Gary Vaynerchuk is still obsessed with where attention is going next. Today, he joins Sammi to talk about his predictions and why it’s not too late to get started on social media. Gary explains why he believes social media has become “interest media,” how AI and authenticity are not mutually exclusive, and why quantity remains one of the bigges...

Matilda Djerf transformed a growing social media audience into Djerf Avenue: a global lifestyle brand and an aesthetic that has genuinely shaped internet culture from fashion to beauty to the now-iconic Matilda Djerf hair.  In this episode, Matilda joins Sammi to share the full story behind Djerf Avenue— from packing orders with friends and family in an empty warehouse to scaling through the pande...

Eugene Remm didn't set out to build a hospitality empire. He started as a bartender, worked in nightlife, and chased success through New York's club scene… until a major failure forced him to rethink everything. Today, Eugene is the co-founder of CATCH Hospitality Group, the company behind some of the most sought-after restaurants in America, including CATCH, The Corner Store, Or’esh, and The Eigh...

Rick Caruso has spent decades reshaping Los Angeles through projects like The Grove, Americana at Brand, and Palisades Village. In this conversation with Sammi, Rick talks through his entrepreneurial strategy with real estate and beyond. Rick explains how he built a billion-dollar real estate empire by studying people instead of the industry, why he intentionally ignored traditional mall design ru...

Harley Finkelstein believes we’re entering the most important shift in commerce since the invention of online shopping itself. As President of Shopify, Harley has helped build the infrastructure powering millions of businesses across more than 175 countries. Now, he says AI is about to fundamentally change not only how consumers discover and buy products online— but how “machine customers” might d...

Todd Kahn took over the commercial responsibility for Coach in March of 2020. Two weeks later, he closed all North America stores.  Today, Coach CEO Todd Kahn sits down with Sammi to break down the strategy behind one of fashion’s biggest brand turnarounds, and why Coach had to do the exact opposite of conventional growth advice to pull it off. He explains why trying to be “for everyone” almost de...

Rebecca Hessel Cohen didn’t set out to build a company, she just wanted better bridesmaid dresses. But that small idea turned into LoveShackFancy, a multi-generational, cult-favorite brand with dozens of stores, hundreds of retail partners, and a fiercely loyal community. Today, Rebecca joins Sammi to break down the unfiltered reality of building a fashion business from scratch. From leaving her d...

What if the future of work doesn’t look anything like the office jobs we were told to chase? Steven Schwartz started building businesses as a teenager and eventually turned that obsession into Whop, one of the fastest-growing marketplaces for internet businesses. Today, the company is valued at $1.6 billion and helps thousands of people earn income online. In this episode, Steven joins Sammi to br...

Suzy Welch has built a career helping people answer one deceptively simple question: What should I do with my life? She’s a bestselling author, professor at New York University Stern School of Business, former editor at Harvard Business Review, and creator of the “Becoming You” methodology. Today Sammi sits down with Suzy to unpack why getting fired can actually benefit your career, why so many pe...

If you’ve driven through Los Angeles, you’ve already met today’s guest. Jay Luchs is one of the most influential retail real estate brokers in LA; his “For Lease” signs are plastered across the city’s most valuable streets, from Rodeo Drive to Melrose. But behind those signs is a business built on relationships, taste, and a deep understanding of what actually makes a retail concept work. In this...

Shreya Murthy built one of the rare social apps people want to open—and then immediately close. It’s all going according to plan. Her company, Partiful, has quietly become the go-to way Gen Z and millennials plan parties, birthdays, dinners—and even weddings. But what’s more interesting is how it won: by rejecting everything Big Tech historically has optimized for. In this episode, Shreya sits dow...

Seth Goldman built one of the most iconic beverage brands of the last two decades… only to watch it get discontinued by Coca-Cola. In this episode, Seth tells Sammi the full story: bootstrapping Honest Tea in the late ’90s when the category didn’t exist, educating consumers one sample at a time, and eventually partnering with Coca-Cola to scale what he believed could become a billion-dollar brand....

 Everyone has a podcast. So, where is the whitespace and what does it really take to break through?  Sammi sits down with Nayeema Raza, host of Smart Girl Dumb Questions and former The New York Times journalist, for a conversation on the modern media landscape, the podcast boom, and what they tell people who are thinking about starting a podcast. Sammi and Nayeema break down what it really takes t...

This episode is a little different. Instead of a deep dive, Sammi turns the mic around and answers your questions—from career risks and leaving corporate to building a business, growing an audience, and figuring out what to keep private in a “build in public” world. She shares the unconventional bet that changed her career (starting on TikTok when people thought it was a “teen dancing app”), why s...

Reid Hoffman has spent decades shaping how we work, from building LinkedIn to investing in some of the most important tech companies of the last generation. Now, he’s focused on what might be the biggest shift yet: artificial intelligence. In this episode, Reid breaks down why most people are thinking about AI wrong. Instead of replacing humans, he argues that AI is a “humanity elevator”—a tool th...

e.l.f. Beauty started as the makeup brand retailers thought was too cheap to trust: one-dollar products, white-label formulas, and no major retail partner willing to take the bet. Today, it’s one of the most culturally agile companies in consumer products, and one of the few beauty brands that consistently moves at internet speed. Today, Sammi unpacks how e.l.f. built that machine: from landing ea...

When her father died of a heart attack, Julie Smolyansky became the youngest female CEO of a publicly traded company. Then, she helped turn kefir from a niche probiotic drink into a mainstream wellness product found in major retailers across the country. Today, Julie tells Sammi how she scaled an unfamiliar category by teaching consumers what kefir even was before they were ready to buy it, why fa...

Months into interviewing founders for this podcast, Sammi noticed something surprising: the most successful women were often practicing the same habits, but almost none of them were the things people usually talk about in founder profiles. Today, Sammi breaks down six patterns she has seen repeatedly across standout founders. The examples come directly from conversations with founders like Amy Liu...

Laura Meyer has spent nearly a decade helping brands navigate Amazon, TikTok Shop, retail media, and now the next major shift in commerce: AI-driven shopping. Today, Sammi is partnering with Laura’s strategic commerce agency Envision Horizons to help brands get— and keep— attention in the changing world of online shopping. Laura explains why consumers are facing what she calls an “invisible tax on...

Julian Reis has built businesses across hedge funds, beauty clinics, China e-commerce, creator monetization, and now TikTok Shop infrastructure, but the throughline is the same: spotting where consumer behavior is headed before most people do. In this episode, Julian tells Sammi how he went from trading at JPMorgan Chase to founding Skin Laundry, pricing mistakes that almost hurt the business, and...

Before TikTok Shop, before influencers sold products through livestreams, QVC had already perfected the live shopping formula: charismatic hosts, product storytelling, and frictionless buying through a screen. Today, Sammi unpacks how the company that built the category became trapped protecting the wrong business. QVC saw digital change coming, but instead of building for where consumer attention...

Doug Evans didn’t just build a juicer… he built one of Silicon Valley’s most debated startups. As the founder of Juicero, Doug raised more than $100 million to bring cold-pressed juice into people’s homes, only to watch the company crumble after a viral Bloomberg article questioned whether the machine was even necessary. In this episode, Doug tells Sammi his side of the story.  He shares what Juic...