Startups for Good

Sander Daniels is passionate about ensuring we have good jobs for people in the future as technology accelerates. He spends his time doing what he can to create, connect, and train people into new jobs. Sander is a founder of Thumbtack, the modern home management platform. Millions of households in the U.S. use the Thumbtack platform to manage their home, and Thumbtack helps hundreds of thousands...

Jimmy Chen is the Founder and CEO of Propel, creators of the Providers app, which is used by over 5 million Americans to manage their SNAP benefits and banking. Propel was founded through a fellowship at the Robin Hood Foundation, and has raised over $80m in venture capital funding from investors including the Financial Health Network, Andreessen Horowitz, Kevin Durant, and Serena Williams. In add...

Chukwudi N. Kanu is a Nigerian-American entrepreneur and investor, laser-focused on leveraging technology to solve today's systemic problems while creating a more equitable & inclusive future. He is the Cofounder & CEO of Humblebrag, a tool for investors to find overlooked pre-seed founders in emerging tech hubs while giving scouts interest on the investment.  In addition to that, Chukwudi...

Jonny leads the fundraising team at Wefunder, a platform that lets startup founders raise capital from their customers and community, as well as rich people. Before joining Wefunder, Jonny founded the U.S. team at the non-profit Kiva.org . He is from the UK where he studied history at the University of Cambridge, and is the proud dad of Felicity, Carlyle and Margot. I've invested with the Wefunder...

Shalen is a recovering banker who worked at Deloitte, BNP and SMBC, primarily in M&A and Leveraged Finance. During this time, he co-founded Global Clinic as a volunteer to deliver free cataract and cleft surgeries and primary eye and dental care around remote parts of Asia, which led him to quit banking and dedicate his career to healthcare. Shalen holds math, finance, and public health degree...

Ali Tamaseb is a partner at DCVC, a Silicon Valley VC fund with over $2 billion under management. The investments Tamaseb led on behalf of DCVC has generated an enterprise value of over $6 billion and the companies he sits on as a board director employ over 3,000 people. Tamaseb studied Electrical Engineering at University of Tehran, Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London, and general m...

Dr. Jasmin Hume is the Founder and CEO of Shiru, a biotechnology company addressing a critical need in the food industry by providing access to more sustainable and healthy ingredients. Jasmin is an expert in proteins, leveraging deep biochemistry, materials science, and food science knowledge to bring transformative, sustainable foods from concept to reality. In addition to her work as CEO and Fo...

Will Sealy is the co-founder and CEO of Summer, a B Corp that's helping student loan borrowers navigate the repayment process to maximize their savings. Prior to Summer, Will worked at SoFi on business strategy and operations, and, prior to that, served as one of the first student loan policy experts at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Will was a special assistant and policy adviso...

Muriel Clauson is the co-founder of Anthill, HR solutions for employees who don't sit at a desk or computer. Anthill is focused on helping workers in manufacturing and supply chain roles have the same support in their careers as their desked peers.  Muriel has been an active researcher and advisor on the future of work and artificial intelligence. She has authored scientific publications, was a sc...

Arjan is a trusted and experienced venture investor and founder of Core Innovation Capital, a leading venture capital fund investing in financial services companies that democratize prosperity. He is a passionate advocate for market-based financial access and empowerment. His investments include Ripple, NerdWallet, Bestow, and Oportun. He is a Senior Advisor to the Financial Health Network (former...

David Helene is the founder and CEO of Edquity ( www.edquity.co ), a provider of equitable and effective cash transfer administration technology for institutional and government partners.   Under his leadership, Edquity has worked with over 30 innovative partners in postsecondary education to process over $85 million in emergency grants to over 90,000 students, 40% of whom have been student parent...

Ronnie Kwesi Coleman is the CEO and Co-Founder of Meaningful Gigs, a tech-enabled marketplace connecting skilled African designers with companies seeking high quality digital design. After dropping out of college at 20 to support his family in Ghana, Ronnie got a job at a tech startup in Washington, DC. Soon after, he helped launch the VC-backed startup StayNTouch, which grew to 100+ employees and...

Alex Mooradian, founder and CEO of Resolve, is a private equity investor turned entrepreneur. He is the Founder and CEO of Resolve, a company which combines caring human experts with powerful technology to provide people with affordable and transparent debt relief solutions.  Prior to founding Resolve, Alex was Entrepreneur In Residence at Expa and the founder of Readyforce, a company that helps p...

Damola Ogundipe is the CEO of Civic Eagle, a public policy data and software company helping build a limitless world with intelligent and useful public policy data. Damola was born in Nigeria and grew up in Minnesota where he attended the University of Minnesota and later on founded Civic Eagle.  I’ve been an investor in the company since 2018, they've been a remote only company, which we talked a...

Matt Spettel is the co-founder and CEO of CoPilot, a Pittsburgh-based remote personal training startup. With an engineering background from Carnegie Mellon University, Matt specializes in designing and building innovation consumer products and experienced. Since its founding in 2019, CoPilot has raised $10M, grown to 50 full-time employees, and impacted thousands of lives across the globe.  Matt j...

Paul is an economist and entrepreneur working to accelerate the end of extreme poverty. He is an associate professor of economics at UC San Diego. His research examines the design, implementation, and impact of anti-poverty programs at large scales. He is co-founder, former president, and current director at GiveDirectly, the leading international NGO specialized in digital cash transfers and cons...

Charlie Olson is the co-founder and CEO of Pando. Pando was founded after Charlie and his co-founder, Eric Lax, graduated from Stanford's Graduate School of Business in 2017. Since inception Pando has signed hundreds of professional athletes and entrepreneurs into income pools and has raised a Series A from top fintech investors. Prior to his time at Stanford, Charlie worked with Bob Grady at Chey...

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Jeff is a serial entrepreneur who brings a wealth of experience in the climate tech industry and has served in multiple executive roles in clean energy, waste repurposing, and venture capital. He also serves as an advisory board member to a Bay Area biotech company. Jeff completed his master’s thesis on economics in PHA production, and is the co-inventor of Full Cycle technology. His zeal for tack...

David is the CEO of On Deck, a network of communities dedicated to unlocking human potential — helping founders start up and raise early capital, top talent connect with opportunities and explore "what's next" in their careers.  David joins me today to discuss the Silicon Valley ecosystem and what is stands for. We discuss if a founder needs to have experienced the problem being solved as a requir...

At the age of 15 Jason Wang was given a 12-year sentence at a maximum security prison in Texas. Upon release he earned two master’s degrees and was still unable to find a job due to his criminal history. Jason decided to become an agent for change. He started FreeWorld. FreeWorld empowers people who have been in prison with educational support and technical skills to enter into high wage, high dem...

Amanda DoAmaral is an educator, activist, and co-founder of Fiveable - a social learning network for students. She spent a half a decade teaching high school history in Oakland, CA, where her passion for creating equitable educational opportunities was ignited. Amanda has been a vocal advocate for inclusive history curriculum and is active within the Milwaukee tech community. Amanda joins me today...

Andrew Yang is an American businessman, lawyer, book author and philanthropist, as well as a former 2020 Democratic US presidential and New York City mayoral candidate. He is the founder of Venture for America which connects young professionals to innovative companies in economically challenged cities.  As the first repeat guest on Startups for Good, Andrew joins me to discuss his new book Forward...

Paul Gross is the co-founder and CEO at Remora. While at Yale, he conducted experimental research that uncovered solutions to collective action problems like political polarization and the climate crisis. Remora got started when he read a dissertation on mobile carbon capture written by his co-founder, Christina, and convinced her to quit her job as a scientist at the EPA. Then, he recruited his c...

Ethan Davidoff founded Atlas in 2017 and serves as CEO. Prior to Atlas, Ethan was a founding member of RiskIQ, where he took on a variety of individual contributor and management responsibilities resulting in exponential revenue growth and ultimately an acquisition by Microsoft. Prior to RiskIQ, Ethan owned and operated a software development firm that built smartphone applications for fortune 500...