The Founder Hour

Alex Wilcox is the co-founder and CEO of JSX, formerly known as JetSuiteX, an independent air carrier based in the United States that describes itself as a “hop-on jet service” offering short-haul flights between and within Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. Before JSX, Alex founded JetSuite (not to be confused with JetSuiteX). He also worked at several different airlines and w...

Emily Schuman is a blogger, author, designer, and founder of Cupcakes and Cashmere, the premier destination for fashion, food, and lifestyle inspiration. What started out as a blog in 2008 as a way for Emily to document the things she loved has since grown into a brand that also carries hand-selected jewelry, accessories, gifts, and more. We spoke with Emily all about her upbringing and early care...

If you’ve been on Twitter or read any news about the world of crypto in the last 6 months, you’ve probably heard of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. At a basic level, an NFT is a digital asset that links ownership to unique physical or digital items, such as works of art, real estate, in-game items, music, or videos. Some of the most popular NFT projects include CryptoPunks, Art Blocks, Bored Ape Yac...

Gagan Biyani is the co-founder and CEO of Maven, an online platform where top creators teach cohort-based courses. Prior to Maven, Gagan founded Sprig, a food delivery startup, and also co-founded Udemy, the world’s largest marketplace for teaching and learning with over 155,000 courses and 40 million students worldwide. We spoke with Gagan all about his upbringing, his early career and founding U...

Anthony Katz is the founder and President of Hyperice , a holistic high-performance wellness brand with a mission to help everyone on Earth move and live better. For more than a decade, Hyperice has led a global movement at the confluence of recovery and wellness, specializing in percussion (Hypervolt line), dynamic air compression (Normatec line), vibration (Vyper and Hypersphere lines), thermal...

Jennifer Bandier is the founder of BANDIER, a women’s luxury activewear boutique that she started in 2014. With pretty much just a vision and virtually no fitness or fashion experience, Jennifer launched her first store in Southampton, NY after spending most of her career as a music industry executive managing artists and groups such as the R&B trio TLC. We spoke with Jennifer all about her upbrin...

Rob Dyrdek is an entrepreneur, actor, producer, reality TV personality, and former skateboarder. You might recognize him from the hit reality TV shows Rob & Big, Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, and Ridiculousness. He’s currently the founder and CEO of Dyrdek Machine, a venture creation studio that fuses art, science, and magic to create meaningful businesses that stand the test of time and impact th...

Jeff Fluhr is the co-founder and former CEO of StubHub, the world’s largest online ticket marketplace for sports, concerts, theater and other live entertainment events. He’s also a General Partner at Craft Ventures, investing in marketplace and ecommerce companies such as Twilio, Warby Parker, and ZocDoc. Jeff began his career working for the Blackstone Group in New York. While at Stanford Graduat...

Ryan Smith is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Qualtrics, a cloud-based subscription software platform for experience management, which he dropped out of college to launch in 2002 with his father and brother. In 2018, it was announced that Qualtrics would be acquired by SAP for a reported $8 billion, and in 2021, Qualtrics was listed publicly on the Nasdaq. Along with being a successful te...

For our 200th episode (!!!), we sat down Tracy DiNunzio. Tracy is the founder and CEO of Tradesy, the largest online resale marketplace for buying and selling luxury designer fashion. Their mission is to make the world’s most-wanted fashion brands accessible and sustainable. We spoke with Tracy all about her upbringing and early career, how she came up with the idea for Tradesy, her thoughts on th...

Justin McLeod is the founder and CEO of Hinge, one of the most popular dating apps in America with a focus towards long-term relationships rather than just hookups. We spoke with Justin all about his upbringing and early career, battling with addiction, his personal love story with his wife Kate, how he got the idea for Hinge and the early days of building the company, his thoughts on the current...

Wolfgang Puck is a world-famous chef, restaurateur, actor, and a name that’s become synonymous with the best of restaurant hospitality and the ultimate in all aspects of the culinary arts. Over the last 40 years, he’s built a brand that encompasses three companies: Wolfgang Puck Fine Dining Group which includes his flagship restaurant Spago, Wolfgang Puck Catering, and Wolfgang Puck Worldwide, Inc...

Alberto Perlman is the co-founder and CEO of Zumba, an exercise fitness program that was created by Columbian dancer and choreographer Beto Perez with whom he started the business. After discovering Beto’s fitness class in Miami, they got together and created what would become an internationally renowned program with over 14 million students across 185 countries. We spoke to Alberto all about his...

Dennis Crowley is the co-founder and former CEO of Foursquare, a technology company he founded in 2008 that rose to prominence with the launch of its namesake local search-and-discovery mobile app which popularized the concept of real-time location-sharing and checking-in. What started off as his thesis in his grad school program eventually became a company growing at 1 million users per month. Pr...

Alli Webb is an entrepreneur, NYT best-selling author, podcast host, and the co-founder of Drybar, a chain of salons that solely provides a hair styling service known as blowouts. She’s also a founder of multiple other companies such as Squeeze and, most recently, Becket + Quill. In 2010, Alli opened the first Drybar in Brentwood, CA. Over a decade later and 150+ locations across the country, Dryb...

Bobby Kim, also known as Bobby Hundreds, is a designer, writer, photographer, and co-founder of the iconic community-based streetwear brand, The Hundreds. In this episode, we go way back with Bobby to learn about his life growing up in the punk scene in Southern California, who and what his inspirations were, the struggles he faced as a closet artist who was forced down a path he wasn’t particular...

Justina Blakeney is a designer, artist, entrepreneur, speaker, and bestselling author. She’s the founder and creative director of home décor brand, Jungalow, and the author of The New Bohemians book series. We spoke with Justina about how her childhood experiences growing up in Berkeley, CA shaped her unique world view and purpose in life, her mindset and the principles that have guided her throug...

Michael Barlow is the co-founder and CEO of Fernish, a startup that offers consumers a way to rent upscale furniture and decor online. Prior to founding Fernish in 2017, Michael was a Vice President at Atom Tickets and an investment banker at J.P. Morgan. We talked about everything from Michael’s background, life as a college athlete, his takeaways from working on Wall Street, what he believes mak...

Alex Lieberman is the co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Morning Brew is a media company bringing informative and digestible daily business news straight to the inboxes of over 2.5 million subscribers. What started out as a business newsletter by a couple of students at the University of Michigan in 2015 has since grown into a full-fledged media business with several newsletters, p...

Jeremy Cai is the founder and CEO of Italic, an online retailer on a mission to reinvent the way we shop. They currently offer hundreds of quality products ranging from clothing to cookware from the same manufacturers as top brands, such as Alo, Rag & Bone, and Armani, for up to 80% less. We had a blast getting to know Jeremy and talking about his upbringing and early career, why he started Italic...

Jon Stein is the founder and chairman of Betterment, the largest independent online financial advisor in the U.S. with over $22 billion of assets under management. Founded in 2008 during the global financial crisis, Betterment is one of the pioneers in the robo-advisory industry, using computer algorithms to generate personalized advice and manage investment portfolios. We spoke with Jon about his...

Anne Beiler is the founder of Auntie Anne’s, a chain of pretzel shops that she founded in 1988 alongside her husband, Jonas. Her story is simply incredible. In the episode, we spoke with Anne and heard all about her childhood and what life was like growing up in Amish culture, the series of traumatic events that led her down a dark path in her twenties, how she was able to overcome her struggles a...

Andrew Dudum is the founder and CEO of hims & hers. He’s also a co-founder and General Partner at Atomic, a venture studio backed by Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and many of the leading venture funds in the world. Founded in 2017, hims and hers is a telehealth company that sells prescription and over-the-counter drugs online, as well as personal care products. Their mission is to eliminate the st...

Morgan DeBaun is the founder and CEO of Blavity, Inc., home to the largest network of platforms and lifestyle brands serving the multifaceted lives of black millennials. Their mission is to "economically and creatively support Black millennials across the African scape, so they can pursue the work they love, and change the world in the process." During our conversation, we talked about everything...

Nolan Bushnell is the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, two iconic companies that have truly changed the world. He’s known as the “Father of Electronic Gaming” and the video game industry as we know it, and his story is just incredible. We talked about everything from Nolan’s early days and upbringing, how he built Atari and Chuck E. Cheese, the story of hiring Steve Jobs and why he decided no...