What Fuels You

Howard Behar's career in business spans over 50 years, all in consumer-oriented businesses covering several industries. He retired from Starbucks Coffee after 21 years where he led both the domestic business, as President of North America, and was the founding President of Starbucks International. During his tenure, he participated in the growth of the company from 28 stores to over 15,000 spannin...

Dr. Elizabeth Wako is president and CEO of Swedish Health Services, where she oversees an organization with more than 1,500 licensed patient beds, 48,000 annual inpatient admissions and $3.4 billion in revenue.  Dr. Wako has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare field. Before stepping into her current role, she worked as a registered nurse in behavioral health and held several key exe...

Kristen Hamilton is a three-time technology entrepreneur and CEO with multiple exits, a board director of late-stage startups, and a professional CEO Advisor. She is a General Partner at Enjoy The Work, where she teaches founders to become great CEOs. She co-founded the predictive hiring software leader Koru, and was CEO until it was acquired by UK-based Capfinity in 2019.  Kristen grew up ne...

Jim Weber is a Director, Advisor, serial CEO, Author, and Speaker. Jim joined Brooks Running Company’s Board of Directors in 1999 and was named CEO in 2001. He stepped down in 2024 after 23 years in the position, during which time he is credited for the Seattle-based running company’s aggressive turnaround story.  In 2022, Jim wrote a challenger brand, leadership memoir called “Running with Purpos...

Sujal Patel is Founder and CEO of Nautilus Biotechnology, a life sciences company creating a large-scale, single-molecule platform for quantifying and unlocking the complexity of the human proteome, with the goal of enabling fundamental advancements across human health and medicine.   With nearly 20 years of executive leadership experience driving innovation for high-growth companies, Sujal is a s...

Dr. Oren Etzioni is the founder of TrueMedia.org, a free-use product that allows critical election audiences from around the world to quickly and effectively detect deepfakes. He was the Founding Chief Executive Officer at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), having served as CEO from its inception in 2013 until late 2022. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington where he helped to pi...

Marc Rousso is the CEO of JayMarc Homes, a national award-winning home builder specializing in new custom homes in the Greater Seattle area. Marc founded JayMarc Homes along with childhood friend Jay Mezistrano in 2010, and together they’ve created a company culture that’s entrepreneurial, inclusive, and respectful. Marc has degrees from the University of Washington and the Sloan School of Managem...

This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland's 2020 interview with Kate Wallich, the Founder and CEO of Dance Church. Kate’s desire to study and practice dance led her to people and places she never thought possible while growing up in Michigan. When this pursuit took her to Seattle, she learned how sharing the power of dance can forge meaningful connections and inspire others. In this recap epi...

This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 interview with Sue Suh, then Chief People Officer at Time. Before working at Time, Sue’s career took her around the world on campaigns for international cooperation and change at the U.S. Departments of Defense, State, and the Rockefeller Foundation. In this recap episode, Sue shares great advice for younger people with stories from her college...

This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 conversation with Jeremy Lott, President of SanMar. SanMar gave Jeremy his first job, modeling on the cover of the company’s first catalog at the age of two. Since then, he’s learned the family business inside and out, from pulling orders to purchasing. Now as president, he focuses on creating a culture of opportunity and sustainability at SanM...

This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 interview with Dan Levitan, the co-founder of the venture capital firm Maveron.  Dan started the firm with Howard Schultz in 1998 after helping the Starbucks team accomplish its IPO. Under Dan’s guidance, Maveron focused on “creating a cauldron of consumer passion” by forming partnerships with non-normal entrepreneurs. These partnerships have i...

In this condensed version of Shauna Swerland's conversation with Chad Robins from 2019, you'll hear the origin story of Adaptive Biotechnologies, the corporate culture Chad is building there, and what Chad sees as the most important tasks of a CEO. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Emily Pesce is CEO of Joon, whose mission is to make mental healthcare and well-being broadly accessible and effective for 13-24 year olds. Emily has over twenty years of experience across healthcare, e-commerce, grocery, supply chain, technology, mobile, and cloud computing. She has led product, marketing, design, technology, forecasting and replenishment teams, among others. Her primary operatin...

Kellan Carter is a founding partner of Bellevue-based FUSE where he focuses on early-stage investments in intelligent software in both horizontal and vertical categories. He currently sits on several Boards, including Zuper and Pictory. Previously, Kellan spent seven years at Ignition Partners, a leading early-stage venture capital firm, and two years in investment banking at Mooreland Partners in...

We're sharing some of the most insightful clips from past interviews. You'll hear from Jane Park, Matt Oppenheimer, Dan Shapiro, Robi Ganguly, and Sue Suh.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Powers is the Founder and President of Alliance Partition Systems, with over 20 years of experience in the industry. He has done everything from scrapping at Safeco Field as a 1st bracket apprentice, to successfully bidding and managing multi-million dollar projects as an estimator/project manager, to President of one of the largest drywall companies in the state. He has three children: two t...

Anoop Gupta is the CEO and Co-Founder of SeekOut, an AI-powered Talent Intelligence Platform helping organizations recruit, retain, and grow talent. Anoop started SeekOut after an 18-year career at Microsoft. During his tenure, Anoop was the Corporate Vice-President of the multibillion-dollar Unified Communications Group (Skype + Exchange). He was TA to Bill Gates, advising on technology and produ...

Christie Lagally is the founder and CEO of Rebellyous Foods, a food production technology company working to make plant-based meat price-competitive with animal-based meat. Lagally began her career in the aerospace industry working on testing, designing, and manufacturing commercial airplanes at Boeing. Now at Rebellyous, she focuses on designing novel manufacturing equipment that addresses the tw...

Nicole Schmidt has worked in the construction industry for 18+ years, starting as a designer for large and small hospitality and housing projects around the country before spending the second half of her pre-Source career at a variety of manufacturers in sales and business development. After teaching herself enough code to launch Source on her own, Nicole has become passionate about the ways in wh...

Varun Puri is the co-founder of Yoodli, an AI powered communication coach. Yoodli helps you ace your next presentation or interview by providing private and judgment-free analytics on your filler words, body language, content and more. Yoodli (www.yoodli.ai) is being rolled out to 300k+ Toastmasters members globally, has raised $7M+ in funding, and been featured across media outlets such as the Wa...

Spencer Rascoff is an entrepreneur and tech executive who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot. LA, Pacaso, Recon Food, Queue, and heyLibby, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. Spencer is an active angel investor and is starting new companies through his Los Angeles venture capital firm and startup studio, 75 & Sunny. He is also on the Board of Directors of Varo Bank. In the spring of 2022...

This is a repost of one of our most popular episodes of 2023. Happy holidays to you and your families. We look forward to bringing you new guests and conversations in 2024!  -- Dr. Daniela Braga is the Founder and CEO of Defined.ai, one of the fastest-growing startups in the AI space. She has been the recipient of several awards, including the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Pacific Northwest 202...

Listen to a short message from Shauna Swerland about wrapping up 2023 and plans for the podcast in 2024. Thanks for listening this year! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jon Staenberg has been an active venture capitalist for over 30 years, serving as a General Partner in three Funds managing over $250 million. As an angel investor, Jon has made over 250 investments. Currently, he is focused on building Agate Hound Fund, a fund for Search Funds. This asset class is relatively unknown but has shown exceptional performance over the past 40 years. Additionally, he sp...

Anna Gudmundson has been a senior tech business leader in the international high-growth scene for 15+ years. Her present-day focus is on transformational technologies which impact the world in a significant, positive way while also having strong commercial viability. As CEO of Sensate, a consumer stress-management technology company, she is tackling one of the biggest challenges of our time: stres...