Divot

Steve Young is a Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback, two-time NFL MVP, and Super Bowl MVP who threw six touchdown passes to lead the San Francisco 49ers to victory in Super Bowl XXIX. From eighth on BYU’s quarterback depth chart to the NFL’s biggest stage, he built a career under extraordinary pressure. His book, The Law of Love, explores what success means beyond the scoreboard. In this episod...

Astro Teller is the entrepreneur, AI scientist, and Captain of Moonshots who has led X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory, for more than 15 years. Under his leadership, X helped incubate Google Brain, Waymo, Wing, and Verily, breakthroughs spanning artificial intelligence, autonomous driving, drone delivery, and precision health. In 2026, Waymo alone raised $16 billion at a $126 billion valuation. In th...

Zachery Dereniowski, better known as MDMotivator, left medical school after the pandemic, a devastating breakup, a torn ACL, and crushing isolation pushed him to the lowest point of his life. Today, his videos about kindness, mental health, and human connection reach more than 50 million followers, have generated over 40 billion impressions, and helped raise more than $5 million for strangers. In...

Eric Ries created the Lean Startup methodology and wrote "The Lean Startup," a New York Times bestseller that has sold more than a million copies in over 30 languages, teaching a generation of founders the MVP and build, measure, learn. He later founded the Long Term Stock Exchange, an SEC-approved exchange that has raised over $170 million, and just published his newest bestseller, "Incorruptible...

Blaine Anderson is the Shark Tank dating coach for men who built Dating by Blaine from a COVID-forced career pivot into a company with 7,000 clients and over 1 million followers. She accepted Mark Cuban's $100,000 offer on stage and became the first credible female voice on social media telling men the truth about what is actually going wrong in their dating lives. In this episode with Derek Ander...

Daniel Kottke met Steve Jobs at Reed College in 1972, traveled with him to India, and spent the summer of 1976 hand-assembling the very first Apple computers in the Jobs family garage in Cupertino, for $3 an hour. He was among Apple's earliest employees, hand-wired the Macintosh prototypes, and left his signature cast inside every original Mac ever made. Apple is now worth $5 trillion. In this epi...

Grant Cardone grew up in the bayous of Louisiana with no money, no connections, and no plan, and spent a decade battling drug addiction before rebuilding from scratch. Today, his privately held companies generate $750 million in gross annual revenue, Cardone Capital manages more than 15,000 apartment units, and the 10X brand has shaped how millions of founders think about ambition and scale. In th...

Mark Manson is a three-time NYT number one bestselling author whose book "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck" has sold more than 20 million copies across 65 languages, hitting number one in 14 countries. He co-wrote Will Smith's memoir and recently co-founded Purpose, an AI mental health startup that hit seven-figure revenue in 12 days. In this episode with Derek Andersen, Mark breaks down the bu...

Greg Isenberg is the entrepreneur and AI strategist behind Late Checkout, a portfolio of AI-native businesses powered by agents and online communities. He founded FiveBuy, acquired by StumbleUpon, and built Islands, acquired by WeWork. Through Idea Browser, Greg's Letter, and the Startup Ideas Podcast, Greg has shared over 2,000 startup ideas with millions of followers and advised the world's larg...

Nick O’Neill is the entrepreneur, software developer, and creator behind Choose Rich, the provocative online character that transformed crypto commentary, luxury satire, and internet outrage into a media business generating millions of dollars a year. After one yacht post exploded to more than 45 million impressions, Nick discovered how attention spreads, how perception shapes reality, and how to...

Ed Catmull co-founded Pixar and helped build the creative engine behind some of the most beloved films of the last 30 years, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up. Long before Pixar changed animation forever, Ed helped pioneer 3D computer graphics, build RenderMan, and partner with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter to create one of the most influential creative...

After more than 50 episodes of Divot, Derek Andersen celebrates conversations that have inspired, educated, and reached millions. This special recap features Doug Leone, former Global Managing Partner at Sequoia Capital, the legendary venture firm behind Apple, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, WhatsApp, Stripe, and Nvidia; Justin Kan, the Twitch co-founder behind a nearly $1B Amazon exit; Charlie Rocket,...

Ali Ansari is the founder and CEO of Micro1, the human data engine helping AI labs train foundational models and enterprises build better AI agents. With more than 5M people screened, Micro1 provides expert data, frontier evaluations, reinforcement learning environments, and contextual agent evaluations for the next generation of AI systems. In this episode with Derek Andersen, Ali explains how la...

Charlie Rocket believes your dream may already be done; time just has not caught up yet. In Part 2 of this conversation, the Dream Machine Foundation founder explains how the things that light you up can become a signal, a direction, and a reason to move before the world gives you proof. In this episode with Derek Andersen, Charlie breaks down manifesting backwards, speaking the future before it e...

Charlie Rocket helped create major cultural moments in hip hop, working with artists like 2 Chainz, contributing to Grammy-winning campaigns, winning an Emmy, and managing some of the biggest names in music. But after facing obesity, depression, burnout, and a brain tumor, Charlie reinvented everything: he lost 120 pounds, became a Nike athlete, ran across America, and turned Dream Machine Foundat...

James Dumoulin built School of Hard Knocks into a 22M-follower business media empire by turning street interviews into a new form of financial education. By 23, he had interviewed 52 billionaires and major icons like Tom Cruise, Tom Brady, and Shaquille O’Neal, after once posting hundreds of times with almost no audience. In this episode with Derek Andersen, James breaks down the creator economy,...

Justin Kan helped build Twitch into one of the most influential companies in internet history, changing gaming, streaming, and creator culture forever. After selling the company for nearly $1 billion to Amazon, becoming one of Silicon Valley’s most recognizable entrepreneurs and investors, Justin realized something uncomfortable: achievement alone does not create fulfillment. In this episode with...

Navin Chaddha is the Managing Partner of Mayfield, one of Silicon Valley’s most legendary venture capital firms with over $3B under management and more than 120 IPOs. A 17-time Forbes Midas List investor, Navin was an early backer of companies like Lyft, HashiCorp, Poshmark, SolarCity, and Nuvia, which sold to Qualcomm for $1.4B. In this episode with Derek Andersen, Navin Chaddha breaks down why A...

David Spinks spent years building one of the most respected communities in Silicon Valley, co-founding CMX, advising top companies on belonging, and helping define an entire industry around community building. But beneath the success, achievement, and ambition, he still felt empty. In this episode with Derek Andersen, David Spinks breaks down the hidden emotional cost of high performance, why so m...

Shardul Shah has backed some of the most important technology companies of the last decade. From Datadog to Wiz, his investments have helped shape the future of cybersecurity, cloud infrastructure, artificial intelligence, and enterprise software. In this episode, Derek Andersen, Shardul Shah, partner at Index Ventures, breaks down the mindset behind billion-dollar startups, how elite founders thi...

Sahil Bloom grew up with one scoreboard: money. He worked his way into top private equity firms, built a career most would envy, and still felt hollow, until he started questioning what wealth actually means. In this episode with Derek Andersen, Sahil Bloom, NYT bestselling author of The Five Types of Wealth, breaks down the framework redefining how millions think about success, time wealth, socia...

Before becoming a global spiritual leader, Neil L. Andersen was a farm boy learning discipline, responsibility, and faith long before the world ever knew his name. For Derek Andersen, this isn’t just another interview, it’s a conversation with his father. In this conversation, he shares his journey from building a successful business to serving worldwide as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apo...

Brian Santiago is the Athletic Director at BYU, one of the most respected leaders in college sports. Over nearly three decades inside BYU athletics, he rose from the coaching staff to Athletic Director, helping lead one of the most competitive and values-driven programs in the country into the Big 12 and national relevance. But his journey wasn’t just about winning. From losing control as a young...

Tina Roth-Eisenberg is one of the most influential community builders in the world, founder of Creative Mornings (25,000+ people, 70+ countries), and the creator behind multiple iconic products like Tattly, TeuxDeux, and CreativeMornings’ global movement. Often called the Michael Jordan of community, she has spent nearly two decades building brands, products, and spaces that bring people together...

Before leading a $4B company, Adam Edmunds spent years trying to prove he was good enough. From cold emailing CEOs as a student to building his first company, his journey started with uncertainty and a relentless need for validation. In this conversation with Derek Andersen, Adam shares how he became CEO of Entrata, a platform powering over 20,000 apartment communities worldwide, raising $700M+ an...