In this episode of my Foundation video series, I travel to Las Vegas to interview famed illusionist, magician, and entrepreneur David Copperfield. David explains how he combines magic with storytelling, recounts the moment when Francis Ford Coppola taught him to text, and shares his theory that people who are eternally curious are never truly satisfied.
In today's episode of my Foundation series, serial entrepreneur Evan Williams talks candidly about his experiences building Blogger, Twitter, and his latest project, Medium. Ev recounts the early days of Twitter, shares what he's learned about how to scale fast-growth products, and explains his philosophy about the power of collaboration.
In the newest episode of my Foundation video series, I talk with NationBuilder Founder and CEO Jim Gilliam, a two-time cancer survivor and activist. Jim discusses growing up in Silicon Valley, how he made the jump from filmmaker to tech entrepreneur, and the power of community action to turn ordinary people into leaders.
Dave talks about getting his start in student marketing at Apple, and reflects that focus is one of the most important things he learned there. He goes on to describe his time at Facebook, where an intense focus on product utility set the product up for long-term growth. Dave also dives into the moments that inspired Path, and the different ways their team thinks about the social graph.
Kevin rose sits down with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh about entrepreneurship, fostering corporate culture, and his latest project to fuel a thriving tech community in Las Vegas. Tony opens up about starting his first company, LinkExchange, an early take on Web advertising which was acquired by Microsoft for $265 million. He tells why his first startup taught him to pay close attention to company culture, outlines how founders can map company culture to their personal values, and explains why Zappos actually pays people to quit. Tony also discusses his latest efforts to accelerate the tech ecosystem in Las Vegas and his goal to fund at least 100 local tech startups. Tony Hsieh's advice on how to hire the right people to build a great company culture: "From the beginning, company culture was always important. Is this someone I would choose to hang out with or grab a drink with, if we weren't in business? If the answer was no, we wouldn't hire them."
Kevin Rose sits down with the founder of StyleSeat, Melody McCloskey, and discusses her company and when it is the right time to start your own venture. Melody shares how her frustration with finding a stylist inspired her to build the platform. She also talks through the challenges of reaching an audience who isn't in front of a computer all day, and how the web helps them grow their businesses and improve their client relationships. Melody McCloskey's advice on when it's time to start your own thing: I started a company because the excitement about doing it suddenly outweighed the fear. I'd been fearful for two years; I sat on the idea for two years. Then finally it was like no I really want to do this, and I don't care if I fail. StyleSeat.com
Kevin Rose sits down with Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Opsware and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz The latest episode of my Foundation video series comes to you filmed live from the Google Ventures Founder & CEO Summit last week. I had the opportunity to sit down with Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Opsware and now General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Enjoy! Ben shares how he got his start as an intern at Silicon Graphics, and went on to found and build Opsware into a billion dollar company. He offers candid advice for entrepreneurs on the importance of establishing a thoughtful communication architecture, how to hire for scale, and the secret to getting the most out of board meetings. He also reveals what he looks for in a pitch: Above all else, he asks "does the founder have the courage to build the company?" Ben's advice for CEOs: "Being nice to everybody all the time or never telling them what's wrong turns out to be a really dangerous thing. It's really important in general to be giving feedback always. Negative feedback, not just about people, but about what's wrong in the company is critically important."
Kevin Rose sits down with Tom Conrad, CTO of Pandora, to discuss Pandora's success, his days spent as an engineer at Apple, why Thanksgiving is huge for Pandora and more! Pandora CTO Tom Conrad shares his inspiration for reinventing the radio. He reveals how a jailbroken iPhone played a key part in Pandora's success, and explains why Thanksgiving is the biggest day of the year for the service. He also tells the crazy backstory behind Web 1.0 flameout Pets.com, what it was like to be an engineer during the "dark years" at Apple, and how he made a killing in high school selling the Apple IIGS. Tom Conrad's advice for finding your dream job: "The happiest I've ever been, the most gratification I've ever gotten from a job, are always instances where two things are true: I'm working with people that I love, and I'm solving a problem that I'm personally passionate about."
Matt Rogers of Nest Labs shows off the newly refreshed Nest Learning Thermostat and also talks about his early days working at Apple where he worked on some of the early prototypes of the iPhone. Matt Rogers' must-do advice for startups: "Build your first core team right. For each of your core competencies of the company, you want to hire a seed crystal for that area - someone who can be hands-on, but also has the strategy and leadership to grow and build that organization."
South Africa-born entrepreneur Elon Musk joins Kevin Rose in an interview shot at Tesla Motors' Factory, the groundbreaking electric car company he co-founded. Born and raised in South Africa, Musk explains visiting the United States at an early age, his interest in comics and technology and how it all led to him striking out on his own back to the United States to chase opportunity. Musk continues to explain his experiences co-founding Paypal, Tesla, and SpaceX. Tesla is widely recognized for designing and shipping the first electric cars of the modern era. SpaceX is the first commercial company to launch a rocket delivering a spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station. Finally, Musk provides fresh details about his "Hyperloop" project, a new mode of transportation "kind of like a ground based Concord" that would take passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in just 30 minutes.
Kevin Rose and Om Malik sit down and discuss Malik's life growing up in India aspiring to be a successful writer and journalist. The interview traces how Malik made his way to the United States working as a writer, then trail-blazing online journalism starting various publications prior to GigaOM. Malik's passion for covering the tech industry, startups, and venture capital shines in this interview as the driving force that has led him to where he is today.
Sahil Lavingia is a born entrepreneur having created and coded numerous notable projects and recently raised $7M in funding for his first company all before his 20th birthday. Kevin sits down with the first-time CEO of Gumroad, a company that wants to make selling things online as easy as sharing things online. Lavingia talks about what inspires him to create new apps, having tough conversations with investors, plus why he made the decision to leave the founding team at Pinterest.
Kevin Rose and Scott Harrison sit down to discuss Harrison's path from childhood to New York nightlife socialite and club promoter to founding the non-profit charity: water. This interview brings out Harrison's fascinating personal story about the transformation from "selling selfishness and decadence" to a dedication to providing the most basic of resources (clean water) to some of the most impoverished people in the world through his own reinvention of how a charity can operate.
This week Kevin Rose sits down with Carsonified founder, Ryan Carson, to chat about the benefits and challenges of creating and organizing tech conferences, how to approach building new web products and more. Ryan also talks about his new company Treehouse, which aims to revolutionize technical education, and the way programming languages are taught with affordable online tutorials.
Kevin sits down with John Ham, Co-founder and CEO of the popular live-streaming service Ustream. They talk about John's time in the US Army, and how that sparked the inspiration for Ustream. They also delve into the challenges in scaling for live video, how to build a core team of employees, how to go about the difficult process of 'editing' your team, and more!
Kevin sits down with John Borthwick, Founder & CEO of Betaworks, the "company of companies" behind such properties as Bit.ly, Chartbeat, Tweetdeck and many more. Kevin and John chat about the early days of the internet, the challenges of creating products for mobile platforms, how to pitch investors, what to do and what not to do in the initial stages of starting your company, and much more!