Wharton Tech Toks

“We want clients to use our service in whatever way that’s best for you, your needs, your unique exposure to styling. In the longer term, we want to build a better way to shop that will change the retail paradigm and to become the blueprint for the industry to follow. ” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Cynthia Zhou on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to Janiece Okpobiri, Director of Product and Growth...

“The worst thing you can do in your start-up journey is being paranoid that someone is going to steal your idea. Most startups will fail because of their own doing and not because someone stole their idea. For a startup it’s important to be out there, talk to people and learn what the applications are, and listen - if someone is using the product then probably they are going to be using it in a wa...

“We know that AI is going to be a key differentiator in products and services, you are seeing this already in everyday life whether it is autocomplete of a search or it is within Gmail where over time it learns the words that you use and auto completes your sentences. So AI is already all around us in our everyday lives. Our principle is we want to make sure that all of our customers and users hav...

“During the highs of the 2020-2021 era, a lot of companies were encouraged to grow at any cost. We’ve always been much more oriented around trying to grow but making sure you are thinking about your profitability and building a sustainable business.” Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres on Wharton Tech Toks as they talk to AJ Jangalapalli , Principal on the Discover team at Thoma Bravo. Li...

Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres as they talk to Melissa Nguyen , the Regional Director for Vendor Performance Management for Google Customer Solutions Americas. Melissa has also held various positions in startups and private equity across East and Southeast Asia. By now I am sure you have, at some point, been surprised by how well targeted ads know you. Maybe you searched for a produc...

Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Emma Robinson as they talk to Sandeep Lodha, an entrepreneur and the current CEO of Gaana, India's largest commercial music streaming service. Sandeep shares more about his entrepreneurial journey starting and scaling Weddingz.in, and learnings he brought over to Gaana. Considering expanding your musical horizons? Tune in to learn about the unique aspects of the Indi...

Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Leon Zhang as they talk to Professor Gad Allon, an expert on operations management and award-winning professor renowned for the highly popular course "Scaling Operations: Linking Strategy and Execution" at The Wharton School. Listen in to get tips on how to scale start-ups in challenging macro environments, when robots will become mainstream, what's causing airline d...

Join Spandana Bhattacharya and Javier Torres as they talk to Cem Kansu , Vice President of Product Management at Duolingo . Cem is a fellow Whartonite, graduating with an MBA in 2016 who worked at Google prior to school. We’re sure by now you’ve seen their funny, ubiquitous green owl mascot (if not, check out Duo on TikTok ), but Duolingo’s mission to develop the best education in the world and ma...

Join us as we talk to Chris Best , co-founder and CEO at Substack , a leading newsletter subscription platform. Five years ago, email newsletters sound downright archaic. Today, reading email newsletters is society’s coolest hobby. From Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald’s newest take on current events, to Yem’s newsletter that sends 2 hours of music everyday at 3am to kickstart you...

Join us as we talk to Trond Wuellner , Director of Product Management at YouTube , an investor in more than 25 early stage businesses as an active member of the Hustle Fund Angel Squad, and a board member of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance. In this podcast, we talk about the growing creator economy and Trond’s previous experience at Google and YouTube, from learning about managing people from Shery...

Join us as we talk to Joseph Cohen , Founder and CEO at Univer.se. Ever wanted a website to launch and grow your business or side-hustle? Or perhaps you wanted a place to showcase your creativity online? Even if you have no idea where to start and are a non-coder, Univer.se has got you covered. Univer.se is a mobile drag and drop website builder that makes creating a personal portfolio to an ecomm...

Join us as we talk to Stacy Brown-Philpot, Founding member of SoftBank’s Opportunity Fund, Board Member of HP Inc., Nordstrom, Noom, StockX, Black Girls Code, the Urban Institute, and former CEO of TaskRabbit. We chat about launching new markets, scaling culture, leading authentically, and investing in founders of the future. How does the small size of apartments in Wembley, England and Ikea Pax w...

Join us as we talk to Sean Brecker , CFO and Board Member at Headspace Health , one of the first meditation apps and a leader in whole body wellness space! Let’s face it, this pandemic has shot up our cortisol levels to the moon! And there seems to be a never-ending torrent of things to worry about from elections to whether we’ll be able to see our families. So, what do we do about this constant f...

Join us as we talk to Jessica Lachs, VP, Analytics and Data Science at DoorDash, everyone's favorite food delivery app. In this episode, we dive into how data and technology are transforming the food delivery and restaurant industry, the role of data in solving optimization problems that arise from three-sided marketplaces, the steps involved in scaling operations at a startup, data-driven decisio...

Join us as we talk to Kartik Hosanagar, John C. Hower Professor of Technology and Digital Business and a Professor of Marketing at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Kartik’s research focuses on the digital economy, in particular the impact of analytics and algorithms on consumers and society, Internet media, Internet marketing and e-commerce. In this episode, we dive into the A...

Join us as we talk to Jay Richman, VP, Head of Global Advertising Business & Platform at Spotify, a digital music service that needs no introduction. In this episode, we dive into the streaming industry, the podcast landscape and trends, advertising technology, streaming targeted ads, creator platforms, the algorithm revolution, recent acquisitions, entrepreneurship and more! Spotify revolutio...

Join us as we talk to Sukanya Soderland, Chief Strategy Officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, one of the largest private health plans in Massachusetts serving 3 million members. In this episode, we dive into how big data is changing digital health, why patients will own their data, and the technology innovations that will bring about the Apple of EHRs. With the rise of COVID, we’re o...

Join us as we talk to Andrew Straus, VP of Sales Strategy and Planning at Snowflake, a cloud-based data warehousing company. Snowflake made history in September 2020 with the largest software IPO ever selling 28 million shares and raising nearly $3.4 billion. During this episode, we get an incredible understanding of the rise of cloud, the current state of the market, how cloud customers think abo...

Join us as we talk to Nash Ahmed, CEO and Founder of Undock about the Future of Work, the technologies that will change our daily lives and his 1 Billion user vision. Undock just raised $1.6M from big ol’ names like Bessemer Venture Partners and Lightship Capital. COVID struck. Zoom went Boom. WFH became “permanent”. Incumbents are snapping unicorns up like afternoon tea to stay competitive (yes,...

Space is the new Silicon Valley and Musk, Bezos and Branson are all competing to be the real life version of Tony Stark (nerds and their superheroes…). In fact, they're all playing a new game of: My Rocket Ship is Bigger than Your Rocket Ship. But, why the hell are we investing in space? Do we just plan on abandoning Earth like last week's leftovers (i mean, how much turkey can you eat)? Where are...

Healthcare is in the Dark Ages. Seriously. Even the DMV has better NPS scores. And we’ve been talking about ‘radically’ changing the system for what, two decades now? Telemedicine was supposed to be the best thing since the stethoscope but adoption was slower than a turtle racing in F1 before COVID forced us to change. Join us as we talk to Mount Sinai Health System’s Chief Product Officer and Hea...

Social media dominates our daily lives from a morning scroll through Instagram (hello enews), mid-day break to get ‘inspired’ by LinkedIn ( click to be influenced ) and evening rabbit hole on YouTube (1 hour, 3 funny dog compilations later). But where can I get advice from senior leaders on the daily struggles as a junior resource? Yes Bob, projecting my screen to watch me perform a financial fore...

Everything is connected - my car, my speakers, my TV,  my coffee machine, my toothbrush - what’s next? My toilet paper? Join us as we talk about human-centered design and connected devices, particularly Autonomous Vehicles , with Zafar Razzacki. Zafar is an expert on the design, development and launch of connected and innovative products. His experience spans over 15 years of product, marketi...