The Pomp Podcast

Nicholas Hinrichsen started his first company, Carlypso, in 2013. He participated in YCombinator and raised $10M in venture funding, before eventually selling the business to Carvana in 2017. Nicholas is now building a new company in the automobile space called Clutch.  In this conversation, we discuss learnings from building Carlypso, vertical integration, margin competition, propensity for actio...

Will Cole is the Chief Product Officer at Unchained Capital and Parker Lewis is the Head of Business Development at Unchained Capital. In this conversation, we discuss the recent trend of corporations holding Bitcoin as a reserve asset on their balance sheet, the macro and micro trends driving this transition, why corporations are the next group after individuals to do this, how businesses can hol...

David Kinitsky is the CEO of Kraken Financial, the first approved SPDI bank under Wyoming's new crypto-friendly legislation. He previously worked at Circle, Fidelity, and Grayscale Investments as well. In this conversation, we discuss the SPDI banking license, what it allows, why Kraken applied, how incumbents are likely to react, and what users can expect from the business moving forward. =======...

Fred Pye is the President and Chief Executive Officer of 3iQ Corp, who manage The Bitcoin Fund is a public bitcoin fund listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. In this conversation, we discuss the challenges with getting a crypto-related fund listed on a public exchange, how The Bitcoin Fund works, what the value proposition to investors is, and what else Fred is currently working on. ==============...

Web Smith is the Founder of 2PM, an unique company that creates some of the best reports and summaries breaking down the DTC industry.  In this conversation, we discuss the future of media, owning the relationship with your customer, linear commerce, DTC brands, and how Web has built 2PM. ============================== Athletic Brewing is re-imagining beer for the modern adult. We love beer. But w...

Today's episode features Congressman Warren Davidson, Avanti Bank Founder Caitlin Long, and BRD Founder Adam Traidman. We focus the conversation exclusively on Stablecoins. We spend time talking about what stablecoins are, what value they bring to the market, how governments plan to use them, what the impact on banks may be, and how the future is likely to play out in the eyes of our panelists. ==...

Matt Leising is a Los Angeles-based reporter with Bloomberg News covering the derivatives markets. He moved to Los Angeles from New York as part of Bloomberg's West Coast expansion. In this conversation, we discuss Bitcoin, Ethereum, the DAO, crypto Twitter's understanding of finance, and Matt's new book "Out of the Ether." ============================== Crypto.com is the only all-in-one platform...

Rachel Feinstein is a stand-up comedian. She is also a new mother and married to a NY Fire Department Captain, which provides a never-ending amount of hilarious content. In this conversation, we discuss having a baby during coronavirus, the impact of the economic shock to comedians, and what has been going on inside NY fire houses over the last few months. ============================== Smart inve...

Amanda Agati is the Chief Investment Strategist for PNC Financial Services Group. In this role, Amanda leads the team which establishes overall strategic and tactical asset allocation guidance of client portfolios, oversees the evolution of investment processes, provides thought leadership on key investment issues, and authors numerous publications. In this conversation, we discuss COVID-19, the F...

Lisa Shields is FI.SPAN’s founder and CEO. She previously founded Hyperwallet System, which sold to PayPal for $400 million.  In this conversation, we discuss the difference between marketing and sales, building an intentional business, open banking, embedded banking, rise of fintechs, and the importance of data ownership. ============================== BlockFi provides financial products for cryp...

Dave Portnoy is the founder of Barstool Sports. In this conversation, we discuss the business behind Barstool, the new sportsbook they launched, why Dave started trading stocks, how he manages his money, and whether he is going to buy Bitcoin or not. ============================== Athletic Brewing is re-imagining beer for the modern adult. We love beer. But we also love being healthy, active and a...

Eric Jorgenson is a startup growth guy, writer, and (rarely) an angel investor. He is on the founding team of Zaarly, and has been publishing online since 2014. His business blog, Evergreen, has educated and entertained over a million readers and he most recently wrote the best seller "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant." In this conversation, we discuss Eric's book, the process he used to write it, t...

Ben Golub is a serial entrepreneur and CEO, who has played a key role in building six start-ups. Three of these were as CEO, including Docker, Gluster, and Plaxo. Today he serves as Executive Chairman and Interim CEO of Storj Labs. In this conversation, we discuss decentralized cloud storage, economic incentives, scaling software companies, acceleration of computing trends, and real world use case...

Sam Bankman-Fried is the CEO of crypto derivatives exchange FTX and Alameda Research. He majored in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In this conversation, we discuss crypto exchanges, DeFi, yield farming, governance airdrops, toxic environments, SushiSwap, and the Effective Altruism Community. ============================== Smart investors know being early is critical to succe...

Robert Rosenberg served as the CEO of Dunkin Donuts for 35 years. He took a company with 100 shops and $10 million in sales when he first became CEO, to 6500 outlets including Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Shops and nearly $2.5 billion in sales the year he retired. In this conversation, we discuss how to hire, how to fire, finding culture fits, defining competence in specific areas, the four primary fu...

Tor Bair is the founder of Secret Foundation, an organization dedicated to building, researching, and scaling the adoption of decentralized technologies for the public good, with privacy at their core. In this conversation, we discuss privacy as a human right, why a risk to privacy is a risk to security, and general-purpose private smart contracts.  ============================== ExpressVPN lets y...

Richard Byworth is the CEO at Diginex based in Hong Kong. Previously he was Managing Director at Nomura where he ran Multistrategy Sales for Asia Pacific product globally.  In this conversation, we discuss Diginex, their Nasdaq listing, the SPAC structure, various products they have built, and Richard's time at Nomura.  ============================== Diginex is the first company with a cryptocurre...

Michael Saylor is an entrepreneur and business executive, who co-founded and leads MicroStrategy, a company which provides business intelligence, mobile software, and cloud-based services. He has become well known in the Bitcoin community for using the company's balance sheet to purchase more than $400 million of Bitcoin. In this conversation, we discuss how Michael built MicroStrategy, what his $...

Erik Torenberg is a co-founder and partner of Village Global, an early stage venture capital firm. He is also the host of Venture Stories. Erik was the first employee at Product Hunt and has also co-founded various companies, including Rap.fm, Token Daily, and OnDeck. In this conversation, we discuss personal moats, individuals over institutions, hundreds of people on cap tables, decentralization...

Jim Cramer is the host of Mad Money on CNBC. He is a former hedge fund manager as well as an author and a co-founder of TheStreet.com. In this conversation, we discuss Jim's early days in the business, how he views the current economic environment, and then we go really in-depth on Bitcoin, gold, and inflation-hedge assets. ============================== Choice is a new self-directed IRA product t...

Alex Konrad is a Senior Editor at Forbes covering venture capital, cloud and enterprise software out of New York. He also edits the Midas List, Midas List Europe, Cloud 100 list and 30 Under 30 for VC. In this conversation, we discuss the various stories Alex has written, including Dustin Moskovitz, Lee Fixel, Masayoshi Son, Chris Sacca, Canva, Clubhouse, Zoom, and Snowflake. =====================...

Andy Rachleff is a co-founder and Executive Chairman of Wealthfront. He also co-founded Benchmark Capital in 1995 and was a general partner until 2004. In this conversation, we discuss disruption theory, product-market fit, exponential organic growth, self-driving money, payment for order flow, and delight as the greatest form of virality. ============================= Athletic Greens is an all-in...

AJ Vaynerchuk is the co-founder of the athlete representation firm VaynerSports. He is also the former COO of VaynerMedia, a social-media-first digital agency. In this conversation, we discuss the current state of sports, how athletes are becoming entrepreneurs and investors, the best operational lessons AJ learned after building multiple large companies, and where he sees opportunity today.  ====...

Keith Grossman is President of TIME, where he leads the business operations of the company, including global advertising, marketing, and their digital and consumer businesses. He previously served as Global Chief Revenue Officer at Bloomberg.  In this conversation, we discuss the legacy media business model, the rise of creators, the importance of distribution, existing shift to digital, challenge...

Chris Ashenden is a serial entrepreneur, a health and fitness expert, an investor and world traveler. He is the founder of Athletic Greens, an all-in-one supplement that industry experts swear by as their nutritional insurance policy. In this conversation, we discuss the importance of food and sleep, nutritional disorders, fad diets, learning vs experimentation, immune system support, quantified s...