The Founder Hour

Warren Hogarth is the co-founder and CEO of Empower, a mobile app that helps consumers retake control of their financial lives by offering automated savings, personalized coaching, cash advances, and much more. In the episode, we chat with Warren about his childhood growing up in Australia, his college experience and where he got his entrepreneurial bug from, his biggest learnings from investing i...

GT Dave, a.k.a. the “King of Kombucha,” is the founder of GT’s Kombucha (now known as GT’s Living Foods), the #1 selling Kombucha brand in the world and the originator of bottled kombucha. Born and raised in LA, GT dropped out of high school and started the company at just 15 years old, and over the past 25 years, they’ve pioneered and dominated a whole category of beverages that merely didn’t exi...

Alexa von Tobel is the founder of LearnVest, a personal finance company that made financial planning affordable and accessible for everyone, which was acquired by Northwestern Mutual in 2015 for $375 million. She’s now the founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in the next wave of tech entrepreneurs. In this episode, we chat with...

Josh Luber is the founder of StockX, the world's first online consumer “Stock Market of Things” for high-demand, limited-edition products featuring a live marketplace where participants anonymously buy and sell limited-edition consumer products such as sneakers, watches, clothing, handbags, and trading cards. In this episode, we talk about everything from Josh’s formative years and how going to la...

Blake Mycoskie is the founder of TOMS, a for-profit company that designs and markets shoes, as well as eyewear, coffee, apparel, and handbags, that he founded in 2006 after a trip to Argentina. He recently launched his new company, Madefor, a simple 10-month program that harnesses the proven power of neuroscience to elevate your mental and physical baselines while cultivating a mindset that allows...

Jim McKelvey is the co-founder of Square, a financial technology company powering millions of small businesses that he launched in 2009 with Jack Dorsey, who’s also the founder and CEO of Twitter. The company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in 2015 and is currently worth about $53 billion. Jim is also the author of “The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a T...

Bedros Keuilian is the founder and CEO of Fit Body Boot Camp, one of the nation’s fastest-growing franchises, as well as a best-selling author, speaker, consultant, and investor in startups. In this episode, we spoke with Bedros about his early days and immigrating to the United States at 6 years old, what influenced his path to entrepreneurship, the valuable lessons he learned from his mentors gr...

Trevor Milton is the founder and executive chairman of Nikola Corporation. Founded in 2014, Nikola is an energy technology company that designs and manufactures hydrogen-electric semi-trucks, pickup trucks, and more. In June 2020, the company debuted on the Nasdaq and is worth over $20 billion. They are expected to fully reveal the Nikola Badger, the company’s first pick-up truck built with hydrog...

Chip Wilson is the founder of Lululemon Athletica, the athletic apparel company that pioneered a whole industry in performance clothing, which he launched in 1998. In this episode, we talk to Chip about his upbringing and younger years as a troubled student in school, how he was able to make $750,000 at 19 years old working on the Alaska pipeline, what motivated him to have his own business by age...

Paolo Pirjanian is the founder and CEO of Embodied, Inc. Founded in 2016, Embodied is an industry-leading robotics and AI company creating state-of-the-art companion robots to revolutionize human-centric care and wellness by enhancing quality of life for individuals and families. They recently developed Moxie, a revolutionary new animate companion for children designed to help promote social, emot...

Vicky Tsai is the founder and Chief Treasure Hunter of Tatcha, a modern skincare brand rooted in timeless Japanese beauty rituals. In this super candid conversation, Vicky opens up about what she was like growing up and her early personal struggles and insecurities and why she never fit with her surroundings. We chat about how she got her start on Wall Street as a credit derivatives trader after c...

Glenn Sanford is the founder of eXp Realty, CEO of eXp World Holdings, Inc. and Chief Strategy Officer for VirBELA. After being involved with a number of internet start-ups in the 1990s and early 2000s, including a stint at AOL, Glenn started a highly successful real estate career in 2002. In 2006, his fourth full year in the business, Glenn and his team closed over $60,000,000 in real estate almo...

Stuart Landesberg is the founder and CEO of Grove Collaborative (formerly known as ePantry), an online platform that delivers eco-friendly home essentials, including household cleaning, personal care, baby, kid, and pet products. In this episode, we chat about everything from Stuart’s upbringing to his experience working on Wall Street during the economic crisis of 2008 to where he got the idea fo...

Gaby Dalkin is a cookbook author, chef, entrepreneur, and writer. Founded in 2009, her website What’s Gaby Cooking established her as the go-to source for all things California, including delicious recipes, videos, and travel guides. After graduating from college, Gaby worked in fashion marketing and PR for less than a year before the financial crisis of 2008. Not sure what she wanted to do next,...

Born and raised in Canada and fresh out of college, Simon Huck found himself in New York City in the company of A-list celebrities after landing the job of his dreams in PR with Lizzie Grubman and Jonathan Cheban. After quickly establishing himself in the industry as a savvy PR executive, Simon grew to eventually take over Command PR from Cheban in 2012 and rebranded it to Command Entertainment Gr...

Known as the “Father of Modern Wellness,” Dr. Howard Murad is one of the world’s leading authorities on skincare and healthcare and has been practicing in the field of dermatology for almost 50 years. In 1989, he founded Murad, a global prestige skincare brand that he sold to Unilever in 2015. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Murad about his humble beginnings and immigrating to the U.S. from Iraq,...

George Arison is a serial entrepreneur and the founder & CEO of Shift, an online peer-to-peer marketplace for buying and selling used cars. Prior to Shift, George spent time as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and a Product Manager at Google before starting Taxi Magic (now known as Curb & acquired by Verifone), the first on-demand mobile transportation booking technology, before Uber...

Marc Randolph is the co-founder and first CEO of Netflix. He’s also the author of “That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea,” where he shares the untold story of what became known as one of the most successful companies in history. In this episode, Marc joins Pat and Posh to share stories from his upbringing that helped shape who he is today, how Netflix was born,...

For our first-ever virtual episode of The Founder Hour (thanks, Coronavirus!), we sat down with Melanie Wolff and Darien Williams, co-founders and co-CEOs of Brella, an on-demand and high-quality center-based child care. A little over 3 years ago, Darien met Melanie on a blind friend date. Darien was an architect living in New York, who brought up the idea of an on-demand childcare space with Mela...

Yancey Strickler is the co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter, a global crowdfunding platform that has helped bring hundreds of thousands of creative projects to life since its launch in 2009. As of today, the platform has received more than $4.6 billion in pledges from 17.2 million backers to fund 445,000 projects, such as films, music, journalism, video games, technology, and more. Some notab...

IN-Q is a National Poetry Slam champion, award-winning poet, and multi-platinum songwriter. His groundbreaking achievements include being named to Oprah’s SuperSoul 100 list of the world’s most influential thought leaders, being the first spoken word artist to perform with Cirque Du Soleil, and being featured on A&E, ESPN, and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. He’s inspired audiences around the world through...

Catherine McCord wasn’t your average teenager. While in middle school, she began modeling and traveling the world to be on runway shows and magazine covers such as Glamour, Elle and Vanity Fair, eventually being discovered by the likes of Calvin Klein and Patrick Demarchelier. She was also one of the 15 original Victoria’s Secret Angels. Her modeling career eventually turned into a career in journ...

Greg Steltenpohl is the co-founder and CEO of Califia Farms, one of the fastest-growing plant-based beverage companies in the world. However, Greg wasn’t always an entrepreneur; in fact, he got a degree from Stanford in Environmental Science and at one point in his younger days, set out to be a musician. However, when that didn’t work out, a series of fortunate events led Greg to found Odwalla, a...

Daina Trout is the co-founder and CEO of Health-Ade Kombucha. Before her entrepreneurial journey began, Daina found herself working in corporate America for several years after graduating with Master’s degrees in Nutrition and Public Health from Tufts University, all the while having an itch to start her own business. She finally took the leap after she and her best friend, Vanessa Dew, and husban...

Susan Sarich is the founder and visionary of popular cake company, SusieCakes. She grew up in Chicago watching her two grandmothers always baking and quickly realized that hospitality is something she’d be involved with. Her strong academic marks allowed her to get accepted to Cornell’s hospitality program - one of the best in the nation. After graduating and working at hotels and nightclubs and r...