Danielle Newnham Podcast (Danielle Newnham)

My guest today is Avery Wang – co-founder and Chief Scientist at music recognition app Shazam and now Principal Research Scientist at Apple.

Almost ten years ago, I conducted my very first interview for my first book and it was with the Shazam founders. The story of Shazam is one of pure innovation, foresight, and friendship. In 1999,  Chris Barton dreamed of a seemingly impossible solution to ambient music recognition and created the team — including friend Dhiraj Mukherjee, classmate Philip Inghelbrecht and engineer Avery Wang — to make it a reality. Even after 20 years post launch, Shazam currently has over 200 MILLION monthly active users and was acquired by Apple in 2018.

For regular listeners of this show, you will know that I spoke to fellow co-founder Dhiraj Mukherjee back In Series 1 but in today’s episode, Avery Wang talks me through the invention process – going all the way back to how as a child, he fell in love with science and maths and how his parents encouraged him to experiment, up to how he managed to invent the Shazam algorithm which every "expert" had said was impossible.

I am so over the moon to share this interview with Avery – a first of its kind because Avery doesn’t do interviews. Everyone who knows him refers to him as a genius and it’s easy to see why. He holds over 150 US and international patents, has a Bachelor of Science degree and a Masters in Mathematics and a Masters and PhD in Electrical Engineering, all from Stanford. He also went to Germany as a Fulbright Scholar and studied Computational Neuroscience.

I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.

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Let me know what you think of this episode by rating, reviewing and sharing - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Today’s guest is Dr Mohammad Al-Ubaydli – a physician, programmer and founder of Patients Know Best.

In this conversation, we talk about Mohammad’s upbringing from his family being exiled from Bahrain in the 1970s, to his childhood spent in the Yemen desert, Syria and Beirut during a civil war.

On top of that, Mohammad suffers from a one a million genetic immune deficiency called Hyper IgM Syndrome which, had it not been for his mother’s astute diligence would have probably cost him his life.

A deep love of technology and medicine led Mohammad to study medicine in order to understand the complexity of our bodies but he was destined to start a company in the technology field where he could combine his experience and passion and have real impact.

With over 3 million registered users, an integration with the NHS apps and plans for more countries using the Patients Know Best system, Mohammad talks me through how and why we should all have more agency over our healthcare.

This is an extremely inspiring and informative episode which I am sure you will enjoy.

Mohammad on Twitter / LinkedIn / Patients Know Best

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Books mentioned in this episode:

Irrationality: The Enemy Within

Selling The Wheel: Choosing The Best Way To Sell For You, Your Company, Your Customers

Chaos: The Amazing Science of the Unpredictable

Also, if you are looking to become a B Corp, Mohammad is happy to answer any questions he can help with over on LinkedIn. 

Today’s guest is David Byttow – a self-described engineer by trade and, very much an artist at heart. David is most famous for his role as co-founder of mobile app Secret which allowed people to share messages anonymously.

Whilst there was a lot of hype around Secret when it officially launched in 2014 - lauded by the press and tech industry, and with the company raising millions of dollars within just a few months – the company abruptly closed down a little over a year later. 

Some of the very public criticism David faced at the time was around the three million dollars that he and his co-founder each took off the table as part of their Series B deal. And, of course, there was the red Ferrari that David bought and which got a lot of column inches when things didn’t work out.

In this episode, we dig deep into the rise and fall of Secret and some of what David went through during that time from the exciting high - post launch - to the crushing low he felt in having to close the company down. We also discuss how he dealt with the backlash that came with Secret’s closure and how his pre and post Secret career has seen him work at many of the top tech companies from Google to Medium, Square and Snap.

I really appreciate David’s candour in this interview, he opens up about a lot of things which many founders would prefer to keep out of public conversation. And, in doing so, I believe David will enable others to do the same – to talk about the hard times which come with entrepreneurship. It also gives an insight into David – who he is as a person, not just a founder, and that’s exactly why I do these interviews. 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

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Mentioned in this Interview:
David talks about Andy Hertzfeld who appears in Series 1 - listen here.

David's ABC: Always be Coding article can be found here. 

Jim McKelvey interview can be found here.

Tweet about creator economy can be found here.

Philip Rosedale interview can be found here.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

David on Twitter @davaidbyttow / YouTube  David Byttow

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Richard Browning has been dubbed the real-life Iron Man for his jet suit invention which allows him to fly like a Marvel superhero... but he is far more than that.

Richard is an inspiring inventor, founder, engineer, ex-Royal Marines Reservist and author who is changing the paradigm in human flight.

In this episode, we talk about Richard’s childhood and how his father’s premature death impacted Richard’s life and career trajectory. We also discuss how being in The Royal Marines made him a better entrepreneur, what it takes to innovate, the difference between innovation and gambling, why all experimentation should be recoverable, and how to build a sustainable business around your invention.

Richard rarely gives interviews so it was a real honour to have such an in-depth conversation with one of the most exciting inventors of our time, and he offers so many great lessons and insights in this episode.

I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did and if you do, it would mean the world to me if you were able to like, share and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts – it offers me feedback, as well as helps others to find the podcast too.

Mentioned in this interview:

Richard’s TED talk can be found here.

Richard’s book can be pre-ordered from Amazon here.

Richard on Instagram: @richardmbrowning @takeongravity

YouTube: Gravity Industries

Twitter: Take on Gravity

Danielle on Twitter: @daniellenewnham

on Instagram: @daniellenewnham

This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng.

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

Today's guest is Polina Marinova Pompliano, writer and founder of The Profile –a  newsletter and media company that profiles the world’s most successful people from founders to athletes, actors to authors and many many more in between.

Previously, Polina was at Fortune magazine as a journalist and editor where she wrote Term Sheet – a daily digest on businesses deals and the people behind them.

Polina is also the author of Hidden Genius: The Secret Ways of Thinking That Power the World's Most Successful People – a book which distils the mental frameworks that so many of the high achievers she has profiled use to view the world and to achieve their extraordinary success - from Navy Seal David Goggins to Spanx founder Sara Blakely, Pixar’s Ed Catmull and Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York.

In this conversation, we talk about Polina’s upbringing in Bulgaria before moving to the US and how feeling like an outsider shaped her view of the world and how she learns. We also talk about some of the frameworks used by the high achievers which she details in her book and the lessons they share on taking risk, failure, building a community and the importance of storytelling. 

Enjoy!

Danielle 

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Pre-order Polina's book, Hidden Genius here

Polina on Twitter and Instagram / Sign up to The Profile newsletter here

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham  / Newsletter here

Today’s guest is Joe Macleod – designer, founder and author, former Head of Design at the award-winning digital product studio Ustwo, which brought the world the hit Monument Valley game.

At ustwo, Joe helped build a globally awarded team, working with the world’s favourite brands on the most pioneering of products but he now focuses his energy on product endings and improving that experience for consumers and has written two books on the subjects – Ends and Endineering which we discuss in today’s episode.

I have wanted to have Joe on the podcast for years now, after the first time I heard him talking about this concept of endings and how overlooked they are. In this conversation, we look at our rich history with endings starting with religion moving through to the plague, the industrial revolution, our over zealous consumerism and even cancel culture.

It seemed fitting to end 2023 with this episode for obvious reasons but I really enjoyed this conversation and think you will too. 

Joe on Twitter / LinkedIn / Ends site / Instagram / Endineering for Businesses website

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

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Below are some links to Joe's courses and books including special 25% discount codes for Danielle Newnham Podcast listeners!

Course here Starts 30th Jan 2024
Discount Code: 25offendscohort

BOOKS

The Endineering book on Amazon

Endineering eBook
Discount code: RN25W

Ends book on Amazon
Ends eBook
Discount code: EB55V

Welcome to the Danielle Newnham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

I know I probably say this every series but Series 10 might be my most favourite yet and I really can’t wait to share it with you! Upcoming guests this series include Simon Peyton Jones – Engineering Fellow at Epic Games, previously researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, and one of the designers behind the Haskell programming language. We also have Robert Langer - chemical engineer, scientist, entrepreneur and, inventor. Robert is the most cited engineer in history and is also a prolific entrepreneur, having founded more than 40 biotech companies including Moderna… which you may have heard of.

We also have Sarah Hamburg (a neuroscientist working in neuro-inspired computing and AI), Ian Livingstone – video game pioneer and co-founder of Games Workshop which launched Dungeons & Dragons in Europe, and is behind the cult-like Warhammer game, among many others. I will also be talking to Mike Slade (strategic advisor to Steve Jobs), and Kate Zernike (a Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter and author of The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT and the Fight For Women in Science, and many more.

So, as always, if you want to be the first to hear these episodes - please do make sure you subscribe to the Danielle Newnham Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from and I look forward to sharing these inspiring conversations with you over the coming weeks.

Enjoy.

Today’s guest is Simon Peyton Jones – a hugely influential computer scientist who has spent his career researching the implementation and applications of functional programming languages, particularly lazy functional programming. After a stint in academia, he joined Microsoft Research Cambridge (1998-2022) where he spent more than 20 years before becoming an Engineering Fellow at Epic Games last year.

Simon’s main research interest is in functional programming languages, their implementation, and their application. He was a key contributor to the design of the now-standard functional language Haskell, and was the lead designer of the widely-used Glasgow Haskell Compiler.

He is also the Chair of Computing at School, the grass-roots organisation which helped lead to the reform in our English computing curriculum in 2014, now making the subject compulsory in all schools.

In this conversation, we discuss how he fell in love with programming, how he approaches complex problems, what Epic’s Tim Sweeny’s vision is for the metaverse and why he believes all kids should code.

Simon’s enthusiasm for the field of computer science is hugely infectious and whether you know of him already or not, I think you will really enjoy this episode.

Simon Peyton Jones Website / Twitter / GitHub / Computing at School

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

I believe in pure intention. And if your intentions are pure, you're going to create something of value that people will connect with. Andrew Zuckerman

The medium that he works in is almost secondary to the fact that he's a thinker and an intellectual first. David Meredith on Andrew Zuckerman

Today’s guest is Andrew Zuckerman, a celebrated filmmaker, photographer, author, podcaster, founder who has worked with the likes of Apple and Puma.

Andrew is best known for creating collections of hyper-real images against stark white backgrounds which he has then turned into well-loved books including Creature which featured endangered species of animals, Bird and Flower which are self-explanatory, and Music which included these same format-images of greats such as Iggy Pop, Lenny Kravitz, Chrissy Hinde, John Legend and many more and it included interviews with them too. There was also his Wisdom book where he spent a year travelling all over the world photographing and interviewing esteemed elders including Nelson Mandela, Clint Eastwood, Dame Judi Dench, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many more!

As well as the photography and books, Andrew previously co-founded, co-created and co-hosted two podcasts with Spencer Bailey, Time Sensitive and At a Distance which I was a huge fan of.

If that wasn’t enough, Andrew has done creative work with many top name clients including Apple and Puma and is co-founder of Superflower a wallpaper and textile company that creates patterns from photographs of nature. 

I learned so much from this interview with Andrew and I am sure you will too.

Enjoy!

Andrew Zuckerman website / Instagram / Store / Twitter / Superflower 

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham  / Newsletter here

Today’s special guest is Dex Hunter-Torricke, a speechwriter and Communications leader who has had the unique experience of working closely with top tech leaders including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt.

After starting his career at the UN, where Dex worked with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Dex moved to Google before heading to Facebook where he led executive communications and served as Mark Zuckerberg’s personal speechwriter. 

He then went to SpaceX where he worked with Elon and the senior management team as Head of Communications there.

Dex is currently Head of Communications at the Oversight Board, an independent body that was created to help Facebook and Instagram make the most informed decisions when it comes to content permissions – essentially, what posts to leave up, which to take down and why. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss Dex’s upbringing as the son of a Burmese refugee, what tech companies get right and wrong about storytelling, and the importance of independent bodies like Oversight when it comes to content moderation in our digital age.

Enjoy!

Dex on Twitter / Instagram / Oversight Board

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

As a child, Philip Rosedale dreamed of creating a fully-fledged virtual society and that’s exactly what he did with Second Life. Despite it being conceived many years before, Second Life was launched in 2003. Almost two decades later, and with one million active users and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transactions, Second Life experienced a boom during the Covid-19 pandemic as the world went into lockdown and more of us spent more time online.

In this wonderfully wide-ranging conversation, Philip opens up about his early influences, his ability to see into the future and how he executes when the tech, not always the world, is ready.

He also tells me about his latest company – High Fidelity which specialises in spatial audio -  and where he envisions the field going, as well as the future of virtual reality, education, crypto, live music, how tech can and should be harnessed for good, and how closely he believes the link is between virtual reality and reality.
 

Mentioned in this episode:

Oxford Uni panel talk with Elon Musk and Baroness Susan Greenfield:  https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/silicon-valley-comes-oxford

Philip’s Writing/blog: https://www.highfidelity.com/blog/author/philip-rosedale

NB At 52:13, I asked Philip, “What do you wish your legacy to be? The words which are inaudible at 52:32 are “be together” so his answer was, “It’s what I am continuing to work on. I’d like to continue to use technology to build these places which allow people to be together.”

Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Philip on Twitter: @philiprosedale
High Fidelity https://www.highfidelity.com/
Second Life https://secondlife.com/

This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

“As a kid, I lived in a place where as a young Black man, you had only two choices: become a predator or become prey.”

This is a quote from today’s guest - Clarence Wooten – serial tech entrepreneur, investor and entrepreneur in residence at X, Google’s Moonshot factory.

Clarence grew up in a tough area in Baltimore which instilled in him a level of grit that ked him on to a hugely successful career in the tech industry. 

In this interview, we go back in time to what it was like growing up in that environment as well as how he got into tech and the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial journey.

From starting Envision Designs, whilst studying architecture as an undergraduate followed by that got acquired. Clarence then co-founded and was CEO of ImageCafe.com – regarded as the Internet's first online superstore of customizable websites templates, it was acquired for $23 million by Network Solutions in November 1999, just seven months after it launched.

Clarence was also founder and CEO and Chairman of Progress.ly - an enterprise SaaS platform that made it easier for enterprises to turn business processes into visual, repeatable, workflows in the cloud. Progress.ly was acquired by Box in June 2018 He also founded Groupsite.com in 2006, a self-serve SaaS platform for building private, branded communities of interest.

These are just some of his accomplishments. Clarence is also an investor and does a lot of work to encourage and empower more underrepresented founders in tech.

Clarence is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and has degrees in Business Management and Computer-Aided Design for Architecture and Engineering. He is also the only African-American to have founded and led two startups to successful acquisitions by publicly traded companies with the sale of ImageCafe to Network Solutions and Progress.ly to Box. 

This is an incredible episode with an amazing entrepreneur and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. 

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Clarence on Twitter @clarencewooten

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

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Mentioned in this episode:

Pitch Blck

Jim McKelvey interview 

Clarence's EIR at Google X appointment announcement 

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Magic Leap Founder Rony Abovitz is a serial tech entrepreneur and visionary. He co-founded Mako Surgical in 2004 — a robotics company specialising in manufacturing surgical robotic arm assistance technology utilised by hospitals worldwide. MAKO was acquired by Stryker Corporation in 2013 for $1.65 billion.

Rony went on to found Magic Leap — a spatial computing company which envisaged a futuristic world, many years ahead of its time. Starting out of his garage in 2010, Rony worked on Magic Leap at night whilst still working at Mako during the day. He partnered with award-winning Weta Workshop in New Zealand and assembled a world-class team of creative scientists before building their own high-tech factory in the US. He remained Magic Leap’s CEO until 2020 when he helped recruit Peggy Johnson to be his successor. Rony remains on the Board of Directors at Magic Leap and is also founder and CEO of Sun and Thunder – which incubates creative tech experiments. He is also strategic advisor to Lamina1, the Layer-1 blockchain for the Open Metaverse co-founded by none other than Neal Stephenson - who famously coined the term “metaverse” in his book, Snow Crash.

Rony is also working on another startup which we weren’t able to talk about but I am looking forward to having him back on the podcast next year to discuss it.

This interview was recorded during the pandemic and the sound quality isn’t great so please forgive me for that but it’s still a fascinating interview with a pioneer of our times.

Enjoy!

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You can read our interview here

Rony on Twitter / Magic Leap / Sun and Thunder /  Medium

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Today’s episode is with Deb Liu – CEO of Ancestry.com, the billion dollar genealogy company. Deb also serves on the Board of Intuit and is the co-founder of Women in Product. 

This is a Replay of S6:E48.

In this interview, Deb talks me through her personal and career journey from growing up in a small town where less than 1% of the community were Asian to how she overcame racism to become a VP at Facebook where she spent 12 years of her career.

After studying Civil Engineering at Duke, Deb got her master’s in business at Stanford and joined PayPal where she spent 6 years, working in different leadership roles including Director of Product management, focusing on Marketplaces which, at the time, made up around 70% of PayPal revenues. After that, she went to Facebook where she spent almost 12 years working in senior product leadership positions including founding Facebook Marketplace - an idea she had presented to Sheryl Sandberg years earlier.

We also talk about Deb’s new book Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work which is a great read for women who wish to climb the ranks like Deb did but also for men who want to understand the obstacles women face at work, how they can be better allies and to learn the stories of some incredible women that Deb features in the book.

There are lots of fantastic lessons in this episode on leadership, product management and overcoming the dreaded imposter syndrome.

Enjoy!

Deb  Twitter / Instagram / Substack 

Ancestry.com,  Women in Product

Order Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work here.

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Huge thanks to Jimmy Soni – author of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley for making the intro.

Dr Alvy Ray Smith is the co-founder of Pixar, a computer scientist and pioneer in the field of computer graphics. 

After starting his career in academia, Alvy had an epiphany following a serious skiing accident. He decided to move to California to combine his two passions - art and computers - in a place where he felt something good was about to happen. 

Alvy was always a pioneer. From creating his first computer graphic in 1965, Alvy became an original member of the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology, he witnessed the birth of the personal computer at Xerox PARC, and he was the first director of computer graphics at George Lucas’s Lucasfilm. It was there that Alvy gathered some of the smartest people he knew to develop computer graphics software, including early renderer technology. He and colleague Ed Catmull then spun out to co-found the famous Pixar, soon followed by the hiring of Lucasfilm colleague John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs as an investor. It was at Pixar that Toy Story would be made - the very first, entirely computer-animated, feature film. In 2006, Pixar was sold to Disney for $7.4 billion.

Alvy also co-founded Altamira Software and has created a number of computer art pieces including the famous Sunstone with Ed Emshwiller which featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Alvy was also the first Graphics Fellow at Microsoft.

In this interview, Alvy recounts his career from the early days at Xerox PARC to how Pixar got started. We discuss the Pixar journey in detail, as well as his latest book – A Biography of the Pixel  (here)- including how innovation is born from three strands: An idea, chaos and a tyrant. And how Steve jobs was both the saviour and the tyrant in the incredible Pixar story.

Alvy has combined his two passions – art and computer science – to spend his career showing the world what computers can do. 

 A true pioneer, this is one of my favourite conversations. 

I hope you enjoy it too.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Alvy Ray Smith on Twitter @alvyray / website 

Buy Alvy Ray Smith's book A Biography of the Pixel here. 

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Image of Alvy Ray by Christopher Michel.

Today’s guest is the one and only Stephen Wolfram - a physicist, mathematician, computer scientist and entrepreneur He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha and Wolfram Language, The Wolfram Physics Project and the author of bestselling A New Kind of Science among many other books.

A visionary polymath, Stephen published his first scientific paper at age 15, received his PhD in theoretical physics soon after his 20th birthday and became the youngest recipient of the Macarthur Fellowship Genius grant at age 21.

Over the course of his career which spans more than four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking, and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions, and innovations in the fields of science and technology.

In this episode, we discuss his childhood, how he might reimagine education, the process of undertaking ambitious, long-term innovation projects, why he works in public and the surprising advice he would offer a younger Stephen.

I really enjoyed talking to Stephen and I think you will learn a lot from this episode. 

Enjoy!

Stephen Wolfram website / Twitter 

I am not on social media this year but stay in touch via my Newsletter / YouTube

Hello and welcome to the Danielle Newham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

I wanted to come on here quickly to wish you all a fantastic 2023 and to thank you all for being part of this podcast journey with me. I appreciate everyone who has listened and shared their favourite episodes in 2022 – truly, I couldn’t do this without you all.

I also wanted to thank the incredible guests I had on in 2022 from Klout founder Joe Fernandez to Dr Mary-Lou Jepsen, Jack Butcher, Rony Abovitz and many more. I was honoured to share your stories with the world.

And I am looking forward to sharing more incredible inspiring stories with tech founders and innovators this year such as Steve Furber who was a principal designer for the BBC Micro computer and ARM’s 32-bit microprocessor which is now in many billions of devices.

But before we move into 2023, I thought I would re-share the most-listened to episode of last year which is my conversation with Jimmy Soni, author of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley. I think this is a great story revisit at the start of this year as it has all the elements which make up a great tech innovation – grit, hustle, immigrant entrepreneurs, many of whom have gone on to create huge waves in the world. A hugely inspiring and true story behind the well-known PayPal mafia.

Enjoy! 

Today’s guest is June Angelides MBE – a former founder, turned VC. June grew up in Nigeria before coming to London to study Economics. She then joined Thomson Reuters working on the news desk, covering syndicated loans before she got a call to join Silicon Valley Bank  (SVB) who were just starting up here in London. She joined a small team there, working on both the Venture Debt Team and Early Stage Banking where she started forging connections with early stage startups and founders.

It wasn’t long before June wanted a taste of entrepreneurship herself so she started Mums in Tech - the first child-friendly coding school in the UK - which ultimately taught over 250 women to code in 3 years and earned June an MBE from the Queen.

After Mums in Tech closed down, June joined Samos Investments in 2018, where she remains today, investing in high growth European businesses. She has also founded an angel syndicate that invests into African Startups.

In this episode, June and I discuss her career journey from working in the early days at Silicon Valley Bank here in the UK, setting up and subsequently shutting down her business, becoming an investor and the traits she looks for in founders, the importance of storytelling when pitching, as well as how representation and role models matter.

I learned a lot talking to June about her founder investor journey and I think you will too. So here is my conversation with June Angelides.

Enjoy!

June website / Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship

Mentioned in this episode:

UK Government backed women-led high-growth enterprise taskforce report

I am over the moon to kick off Series 3 with the incredible Alvy Ray Smith – co-founder of Pixar. 

Dr Alvy Ray Smith is a computer scientist and pioneer in the field of computer graphics. After starting his career in academia, Alvy had an epiphany following a serious skiing accident. He decided to move to California to combine his two passions - art and computers - in a place where he felt something good was about to happen. 

Alvy was always a pioneer. From creating his first computer graphic in 1965, Alvy became an original member of the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology, he witnessed the birth of the personal computer at Xerox PARC, and he was the first director of computer graphics at George Lucas’s Lucasfilm. It was there that Alvy gathered some of the smartest people he knew to develop computer graphics software, including early renderer technology. He and colleague Ed Catmull then spun out to co-found the famous Pixar, soon followed by the hiring of Lucasfilm colleague John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs as an investor. It was at Pixar that Toy Story would be made - the very first, entirely computer-animated, feature film. In 2006, Pixar was sold to Disney for $7.4 billion.

Alvy also co-founded Altamira Software and has created a number of computer art pieces including the famous Sunstone with Ed Emshwiller which featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Alvy was also the first Graphics Fellow at Microsoft.

In this interview, Alvy recounts his career from the early days at Xerox PARC to how Pixar got started. We discuss the Pixar journey in detail, as well as his new book – A Biography of the Pixel including how innovation is born from three strands:

An idea, chaos and a tyrant. And how Steve jobs was both the saviour and the tyrant in the incredible Pixar story.

Alvy has combined his two passions – art and computer science – to spend his career showing the world what computers and moreover, what computer graphics can do. 

 A true pioneer, this is one of my favourite conversations.

I hope you enjoy it too.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Alvy Ray Smith on Twitter @alvyray / website 

Buy Alvy Ray Smith's book A Biography of the Pixel here. 

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Hello and welcome to the Danielle Newnham podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

To see out Season 9, I thought I would do my second ever AMA. I do these because I want to be helpful and because I think it’s important for listeners to know me and understand where I am coming from and why I do the podcast. So I asked my listeners across social media for questions they would like me to answer and in this episode, I am going to do my best to answer as many of them as possible. I discuss addiction, networking, growing a startup and irrational fears!

But before we start, there is one slight trigger warning – I do talk about death and alcoholism in my first answer so you may want to skip that part if you are listening to this with episode with children around.

Let me know what you think and if you want to hear more AMA's!

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

Shellye Archambeau episode here

Richard Browning episode here

Kevin Kelly episode here

Colin Caffell's book: In Search of The Rainbow's End

Today’s guest is the incredible Ed Smith - one of only two known African American engineers who worked on the design of video games in the 1970s and the first African American to work in the design of a personal computer, and the only hybrid video game/personal computer ever released. 

In this episode, Ed talks me through his childhood, growing up in one of the toughest neighbourhoods in Brooklyn, New York and his desire to create a better life which he found through tech. A voracious reader and into electronics, Ed studied Computer Science before getting a job working on traffic control signals at Marbelite. Whilst there, Ed got the opportunity to go to Fairchild and learn early microprocessor-based circuit design which put his skills in high-demand. He soon landed at APF Electronics where he immediately starting work on the hardware design and built the prototypes, joystick and port design for the MP1000 video game – one of very few cartridge-based video game systems at the time. Two years later, Ed and the APF design team leveraged the processing power of the MP1000 and Ed’s hardware designs to create the Imagination Machine personal computer which was the first combined home video game console and personal computer.

This episode is inspiring and uplifting with many lessons from Ed on how to strive, thrive and find your role in tech.

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Mentioned in this interview:

Ed's book  Imagine That!: The story of one of the first African Americans to work in the design of video games and personal computers can be bought from Amazon UK here and Amazon US here.

Benj Edwards Fast Company interview with Ed Ed Smith And The Imagination Machine: The Untold Story Of A Black Video Game Pioneer

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Ed website / Twitter @slicer114

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Today’s guest is Gil Perry, Co-Founder and CEO of D-ID the technology company behind the viral MyHeritage clips where old photos have been brought to life.

A former Commander in the Special Forces unit of the Israeli Defence Forces, Gil and his army friends and co-founders started D-ID to work on protecting images and videos from facial recognition software but not long after and when Covid came, they pivoted their startup to focus on creating a suite of what they call Creative Reality tools that use their deep learning algorithms, image processing and neural networks to create high quality videos from still images. If you haven’t tried it yet, head to the MyHeritage site and give it a go - I can only describe the experience as magical.

I have long-been interested in how we can preserve the memory of our loved ones so Gil and I talk about this, as well as holograms, deepfakes, how and why the company pivoted, what lesson Gil took from the special forces to entrepreneurship and, of course, D-ID’s incredible work – from bringing history to life, right through to the metaverse.

Enjoy!

Gil on LinkedIn / D-ID website / Twitter 

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

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Mentioned in the episode:

MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia

Hologram of Robert Kardashian (gift from Kanye West to Kim Kardashian)

Glimpse Group

It’s hard to believe it but has been a year now since I kicked off the show and as I have gained tens of thousands of new listeners since then, I thought it might be nice to head back in time and re-share my very first guest – the one and only - Andy Hertzfeld who also happens to be one of my favourite people in tech.  Andy helped revolutionise the home PC industry as part of the original Macintosh team before founding his own startups including General Magic which imagined the iPhone - seventeen years ahead of time. 

In this conversation which was recorded on 11th November 2020,  Andy Hertzfeld shares his inspiring story from childhood through to creating the Macintosh and on to General Magic including the highs and lows along the way.

We discuss his career and friendship with Steve Jobs and what it takes to hold a seemingly impossible vision, build a pioneering team capable of achieving it and, most importantly, when and how best to execute.

There are many great stories in this episode, and anecdotes of a pivotal time in tech history but, best of all, Andy shares the lessons he learned from the successes, and the failures.

Enjoy!

Andy Twitter / Website

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Notes

In this episode, Andy and I discuss:

"Marc" which is Marc Porat - the co-founder of General Magic with Andy and Bill Atkinson. In 1990, Marc wrote the following note to John Sculley, imagining a truly smart phone: "A tiny computer, a phone, a very personal object . . . It must be beautiful. It must offer the kind of personal satisfaction that a fine piece of jewellery brings. It will have a perceived value even when it's not being used... Once you use it you won't be able to live without it." NB My interview with Marc can be found here.

The General Magic documentary can be found on iTunes here.

Andy's book - Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made - can be bought here.

Series 1 of this podcast and the original episode with Andy was sponsored by Sensate and edited  by Jolin Cheng.

"It was hard and we succeeded." This is a quote from David Sacks, entrepreneur, investor and an early PayPal employee and I think it sums up the PayPal story well.

PayPal is a unique and pivotal company in our wonderful tech history. Its founders alone include some of the most successful and prolific engineers, entrepreneur and investors from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel, Max Levchin and Reid Hoffman. But the story of PayPal traditionally only tells the PayPal mafia story and not the real, true, gritty story of a group of people, many immigrants, and lots of women, who helped shape the company and each other during one of the most critical times in history.

My guest today is Jimmy Soni – author of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley and he does what many others haven’t. Over five years, he sought out the very people who were there in the early days and not just the founders and big name early employees but all of those who shaped it and made PayPal what it was. 

He goes back in time to the very inception when Elon was just a young man still showering at the local YMCA and Max Levchin who sought relief from a very hot day by heading to a lecture given by Peter Thiel in a hall gifted with air con.

There are so many twists and turns and a huge sprinkling of serendipity, hard work and genius teams that made PayPal what it was and that’s what Jimmy and I dig deep into in this interview which I know you will enjoy.

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Jimmy Twitter

The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Episode edited by Jolin Cheng

In this episode, I speak to Al Alcorn – electrical engineer, Apple Fellow and the man who created Pong – one of the earliest arcade video games and one of the first video games to be commercially successful. Pong very much put Atari at the forefront of what became the gaming industry in the early 70s.

Al is a great storyteller and we dive into the early days of Atari from hiring an 18 year-old intern called Steve Jobs and watching him and Woz start Apple - to getting Pong into the hands of hundreds of thousands which launching an industry that is now worth billions. We also talk about the financial struggles Atari experienced, the copycats they had to deal with and what it meant for the company when Atari got sold and the suits came in to run it. 

We also talk about life post Atari for Al, as he continued to pioneer in the tech field, becoming an Apple Fellow.

It is rare that one gets to talk to someone who was at the dawn of an industry so I am grateful to Al for his time and hope you enjoy our conversation, as much as I did.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Al Alcorn on Twitter / LinkedIn

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive, limited offer, $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

Today’s guest is Sherell Dorsey, founder and CEO of The Plug – an online news and insights platform covering black tech founders, companies and ecosystems. 

She is also author of the book, Upper Hand: The Future of Work for the Rest of Us.

In this interview, we discuss what she was like growing up - from having a technophile grandfather who inspired and encouraged her to use tech, to her entrepreneurial spirit which was somewhat shaped when, as a child, she joined her mother in boardrooms. Sherrell was also heavily influenced by the black and brown role models she found herself surrounded by whether they were from church, through programmes like Technology Access Foundation co-founded by Trish Millines Dziko and/or held senior positions in business and her community. 

Sherrell always had a strong work ethic and started internships at Microsoft as a teenager. To get the internship, she had to pull a computer apart and then put it back together before identifying bugs in the software!

We also talk about her book, Upper Hand, how she had the idea for The Plug and what it took to get it off the ground, as well as how persistence, being consistent and a sprinkling of serendipity has shaped her life.

I was really inspired by Sherell and know you will be too. 

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Sherrell Twitter / The Plug / Instagram 

Upper Hand: The Future of Work for the Rest of Us

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Episode edited by Jolin Cheng

Welcome back to Series 2 of the Danielle Newnham Podcast. I am your host – Danielle Newnham and each week, I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human, stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

Today, I am thrilled to kick off Series 2 with Dan Bricklin – the man behind the very first electronic spreadsheet.

Dan received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from the MIT before coming up with the idea for VisiCalc whilst studying Business at Harvard Business School. Not only did VisiCalc form the basis of what we all know to be the spreadsheet today but at the time, Steve Jobs credited VisiCalc with helping drive Apple II’s success. 

In this episode, we explore Dan’s background, what got him excited about engineering as a kid and what it was like studying at MIT at the dawn of such an exciting age.

We also discuss the motivation behind creating VisiCalc and what it felt like to have someone so close to him essentially copy it – you’ll be surprised to hear there were no hard feelings!

Dan’s work has been critical to the innovation which followed and I am grateful that he shared his story with me.

I hope you enjoy it too.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Dan Bricklin on Twitter @danb / website / buy his book here.

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Today’s guests is Dr Robert Langer – a chemical engineer, scientist, entrepreneur, inventor and the most cited engineer in history - specializing in the biotechnology fields of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering. He is also the co-founder of Moderna a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company that focuses on RNA therapeutics, primarily mRNA vaccines which was used globally for Covid-19.

Bob Langer has received over 200 major awards– one of just four individuals to have received both the United States National Medal of Science and the United States National Medal of Technology and Innovation. He also received the 2002 Charles Stark Draper Prize, considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for engineers, and the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, among many others

In this conversation, we discuss how he fell in love with science, what discoveries led to his pioneering work in tissue engineering and drug delivery, and what it takes to positively impact billions of lives. We also touch on anti-vaxxers, what it’s like for scientists when misinformation rules social media and how rejection is par for the course for a scientist.

I honestly think this is one of the most important conversations I have had on this podcast so please do enjoy.

Bob Langer at MIT

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Today’s guest is Nicki Sprinz, co-founder of Ada’s List  (A digital global network of over 150,000+ women and non-binary in tech) and Group Managing Director of ustwo’s studios – London, Malmö, New York, Tokyo and Lisbon. For those who don’t know, ustwo is a digital product studio with top name clients such Google, Meta, DeepMind, Samsung, and Peloton to name a few. Ustwo games also created the Apple award-winning Monument Valley game.

But do you know what is really unique about ustwo which was founded by best friends Mills and Sinx almost twenty years ago now? I will tell you – it is employee-owned and B Corp certified. A hugely successful global studio that is completely independent and owned by its employees and one that puts its core values front and centre.

In this episode, Nicki and I discuss what those ustwo values are, what makes the studio special and how they look after their staff with mental health first aiders and more. But we also discuss Nicki’s childhood from attending the very same convent I did where the nuns thought nothing of hitting you for getting advanced work wrong and what that taught her about how she wants to lead to the two serious illnesses which impacted her formative years.

This is a really human story of one woman who overcame the odds to lead one of the world’s leading studios.

So please enjoy my conversation with Nicki Sprinz.

Nicki Twitter /  Newsletter / ustwo / Ada's List

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

Image of Nicki by Alex Cameron

Today’s guest is Sean Dadashi, co-founder of Rosebud. Born to Iranian parents who emigrated to the US after the revolution in 1979, Sean grew up in Los Angeles and was on a path of studying mechanical engineering before he switched courses after a year to study Cognitive Science with a minor in Computer Science.

He then became a CTO before starting his own company - Somatic Studios in 2016 – where he used his passion for both tech and wellbeing to experiment with ideas including a web app that provided a health and wellness index for over 160 cities across 6 continents.

The studio also developed VR experiences to teach pain management patients mindfulness and somatic therapy techniques. After Somatic, Sean then joined up with Chrys Bader, who you may have heard of because he previously co-founded several startups including Treehouse and Secret. Together, Sean and Chris have created Rosebud – the number one AI-powered journal for mental health and personal growth and a product I highly recommend. Try it yourself for FREE here.

In this conversation, Sean and I discuss the loneliness epidemic, the importance of good mental health, his passion for helping others, and how he has always leaned towards the marriage of psychology and the human mind with technology and his passion for creating things, which ultimately led to Rosebud.

I really enjoyed this discussion and think you will too.

Sean Dadashi / Rosebud

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

In this episode, Andy Hertzfeld shares his inspiring story from childhood through to creating the Macintosh and on to General Magic including the highs and lows along the way.

We discuss his career and friendship with Steve Jobs and what it takes to hold a seemingly impossible vision, build a pioneering team capable of achieving it and, most importantly, when and how best to execute.

There are many great stories in this episode, and anecdotes of a pivotal time in tech history but, best of all, Andy shares the lessons he learned from the successes, and the failures.

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This episode was hosted by me, Danielle Newnham - a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years, and produced by Jolin Cheng. https://twitter.com/daniellenewnham

Andy Hertzfeld https://twitter.com/andyhertzfeld

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Notes

In this episode, Andy and I discuss:

"Marc" which is Marc Porat - the co-founder of General Magic with Andy and Bill Atkinson. In 1990, Marc wrote the following note to John Sculley, imagining a truly smart phone: "A tiny computer, a phone, a very personal object . . . It must be beautiful. It must offer the kind of personal satisfaction that a fine piece of jewellery brings. It will have a perceived value even when it's not being used... Once you use it you won't be able to live without it." NB Interview with Marc coming soon!

The General Magic documentary which can be found on iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/general-magic/id1458835312

Andy's book - Revolution in The Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made - can be bought here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revolution-Valley-Paperback-Insanely-Great/dp/1449316247

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate.

Today’s guest is the incredible Megan Smith - award-winning entrepreneur, engineer, and tech evangelist. It would take me an hour to talk through Megan’s illustrious career but some of what we discuss in this episode includes working on multimedia products at Apple Japan, working on early smartphones at General Magic, 11 years at Google where she held a VP position, leading new business development including acquisitions of Google Earth, Maps, Picasa, she led Google.org, and later co-created Women Techmakers, and Solve for X before serving as the third U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Assistant to President Obama from 2014-2017, working on issues from AI, data science and open source, to inclusive economic growth, entrepreneurship, structural inequalities, government tech innovation capacity, STEM/STEAM engagement, workforce development, and criminal justice reform. 

Megan is currently founder and CEO of Shift7, a company working collaboratively on systemic social, environmental and economic problems -- finding opportunities to scout and scale promising solutions and solution makers and engage proven tech-forward, open, shareable practices to drive direct impact, together. 

Finally, Megan holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT where she is now a board member and Megan is also co-founder of the Malala Fund and UN Solutions Summit. She is also a board member of Vital Voices, LA Olympics 2028 and Think of Us, and is Algorithmic Justice League advisor and member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Academy of Engineering.

I told you she was impressive! But before we learn more about Megan’s story – a couple of quick notes. Firstly, we recorded this episode during the pandemic and so there are a few background noises we couldn’t eliminate. Secondly, I wanted to talk to you about sponsorship - if you want to sponsor this podcast, please do reach out and you can have your ad read by me, each week, at this point of the podcast and have your message reach over 120,000 founders and business leaders.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.

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Mentioned in this Interview:
Megan talks about her time at General Magic - worth watching this documentary on the now-famous company

Listen here to my interview with General Magic co-founder Andy Hertzfeld 

Megan mentions Dr Sue Black and her work at Tech Mums

and Sherry Coutu and her work at Founders 4 Schools

Coded Bias documentary

The Hōkūleʻa story can be found here

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Megan on Twitter  @smithmegan

Shift 7 website / Twitter @shift7 / Instagram @shift7

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Hello and welcome to the Danielle Newnham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human stories behind their work.

Today’s guest is Nir Eyal - best-selling author, entrepreneur, investor and business consultant teaching about the intersection of psychology, technology and business.

An American-Israeli immigrant, Nir co-founded and sold two tech companies before he started sharing the tricks of habit forming products that he had researched in his book, Hooked in 2013. Six years later and his second book - Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life became another bestseller.

Nir also previously taught as a Lecturer in Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford.

In this conversation, Nir and I discuss the fallacy that tech companies hold more agency over our habits than we do, how he learned to hack back his time and become indistractable and why school children have 10 times more restrictions placed on them than convicted felons in prison.

This is a truly fascinating episode with someone I have long-admired and which I think you will really enjoy.

Nir on Twitter / Instagram  / Website

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Mentioned in this episode:

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

 Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

Why The Social Dilemma Is Wrong by Danielle Newnham

Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE is the co-founder of Stemettes, an award-winning social initiative focused on getting girls, young women and non-binary people excited about, and encouraged into STEM fields through mentoring, qualification academies and STEM clubs.

But let’s go back a bit. Because to understand why Anne-Marie chose this path, you need to understand her life story. At age just 10 years-old, Anne-Marie got her GCSE’s in Maths and Computing –these are exams that are normally taken at age 16 here in the UK. By age 11, she had done her A levels (which are usually taken at 18) and by age 13, she had won a scholarship to study at John Hopkins University.

At just 20 years of age, Anne-Marie had graduated from Oxford University with a Masters in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Anne-Marie is also an author She’s In Ctrl: How Women Can Take Back Tech, she’s a seasoned speaker, a podcast host, a Trustee Of the Institute for the Future of Work, a TV presenter (Countdown), and Anne-Marie works with media companies like BBC and 20th Century Fox to ensure that we see more diverse tech role models on screen.

She was also awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2017 for her work with young women and the STEM sector.

Enjoy!

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Dr Anne-Marie on Twitter /  Instagram /  Stemettes / She's In Ctrl  book

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

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Photo credit: Sam & Simon Photography

Mentioned in this episode:

Hedy Lamarr Documentary  Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

Gladys West

Hidden Figures Book by Margot Lee Shetterly

As it’s International Women’s Day, I wanted to do what we did last year and hand the episode over to some of the amazing women I have had on the show in the past year, and of course I will link to each of their original episodes  below so that you can check them out in full.

In order of appearance in today’s show, we have the wonderful Cat Noone of Stark, Noor Shaker of X-Chem and Glamourous AI, Ayah Bdeir of LittleBits, Jane Metcalfe of Wired and Neo Life, Dr Mary-Lou Jepsen of Oculus and OpenWater, Deb Liu of PayPal and Ancestry.com, Jennifer Phan of Passionfroot, Polina Marinova Pompliano of The Profile and Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon of Stemettes.

These incredible women each share one piece advice to their younger selves – some of them are utterly heart warming whilst others are funny, useful, serious and above all, they are all important messages I wanted to share with you today. 

So I hope you enjoy them and check out the full episode of each because they are brilliant and I want you to know about them and share their inspiring stories. 

Enjoy!

Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, co-founder of Stemettes an award-winning social initiative focused on getting girls, young women and non-binary people excited about, and encouraged into STEM fields through mentoring, qualification academies and STEM clubs.

But let’s go back a bit. Because to understand why Anne-Marie chose this path, you need to understand her life story. At age just 10 years-old, Anne-Marie got her GCSE’s in Maths and Computing –these are exams that are normally taken at age 16 here in the UK. By age 11, she had done her A levels (which are usually taken at 18) and by age 13, she had won a scholarship to study at John Hopkins University.

At just 20 years of age, Anne-Marie had graduated from Oxford University with a Masters in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Anne-Marie is also an author She’s In Ctrl: How Women Can Take Back Tech, she’s a seasoned speaker, a podcast host, a Trustee Of the Institute for the Future of Work, a TV presenter (Countdown), and Anne-Marie works with media companies like BBC and 20th Century Fox to ensure that we see more diverse tech role models on screen.

She was also awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 2017 for her work with young women and the STEM sector.

Enjoy!

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Dr Anne-Marie on Twitter /  Instagram /  Stemettes / She's In Ctrl  book

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

NB If you would like to sponsor Series 8 of the podcast, do get in touch.

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Photo credit: Sam & Simon Photography

Mentioned in this episode:

Hedy Lamarr Documentary  Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

Gladys West

Hidden Figures Book by Margot Lee Shetterly

In today’s episode, I speak to Jim McKelvey – serial entrepreneur and inventor, co-founder of Square and author of The Innovation Stack. Jim is also the co-founder of LaunchCode, a non-profit which helps people learn to code and get hired and founder and CEO of Invisibly which aims to give consumers control over how their personal data is monetised by advertisers. He also serves as an Independent Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Jim is someone who has always had a lot going on. In his early twenties, whilst contracting for IBM, Jim was also a  glassblowing instructor and had founded a CD cabinet manufacturing company but just before Christmas in 1989, everything changed for Jim when his mother died suddenly. The incident made Jim re-evaluate his life and priorities and he realised that he no longer wanted to do lots of things to a mediocre level. He wanted and needed to focus on the work that matters most to him.

Soon after, Jim set up Mira – a digital company which still exists today and where he first met and hired intern Jack Dorsey. After handing the reigns of that company over, Jim co-founded a glassblowing studio and gallery called Third Degree Glass Factory and it was here where the idea for Square would come.

In this interview, we dig deeper into Jim’s childhood and how his mother’s death affected his path, how Jack Dorsey went from intern to friend to co-founder and how they built Square into a business that empowers small businesses, whilst taking on Goliaths like Amazon and winning.

There are so many great lessons in this interview about entrepreneurship, innovation and beating the competition which I think you’ll really enjoy.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Jim on Twitter @2000F Instagram JimMcKelvey1
Jim website
LaunchCode
Square
Invisibly 
Third Degree Glass Factory

You can buy Jim's book, The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time here.

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

In this Series 1 trailer, I will introduce to you the fantastic guests I have coming up on my show, as well as explain more about what got me excited about the tech industry and why I am passionate about sharing the human stories of the  inspiring founders and innovators behind the tech we use every day.

Today, my guest is Sir Ian Livingstone – games pioneer, entrepreneur and the bestselling author of the Fighting Fantasy book series.

Widely regarded as one of the founding fathers of the UK games industry, Ian co-founded Games Workshop in 1975 with Steve Jackson, launching Dungeons & Dragons in Europe, Warhammer, White Dwarf, Citadel Miniatures, and the Games Workshop retail chain. Whilst he exited the company in 1991, he soon embarked on a hugely successful career in the video games industry. In 1995, he co-led the merger which created video games publisher Eidos  where he served as Executive Chairman, launching blockbuster titles such as Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Hitman.

In this conversation, we discuss his brilliant book Dice Men – The Origin Story of Games Workshop, how games like Warhammer and Dungeons and Dragons came to be, the evolution of gaming and why he set up his own school – The Livingstone Academy.

Ian Livingstone was awarded a Knighthood (becoming a Sir) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to the online gaming industry.

I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Ian and I am sure you will enjoy it too.

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Sir Ian Livingstone Twitter / Fighting Fantasy / Games Workshop / Hiro Capital / Buy Dice Men here.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Today’s guest is Matthew Stafford – an investor and co-founder of 9 Others, a global community for founders, where once a month, ten entrepreneurs come together over dinner and help each other by answering this one question, “What keeps you up at night?”

Matthew started 9 Others with Katie Lewis in 2011 and it’s now a global network of thousands of entrepreneurs in over 45+ cities around the world from London to Manchester, Karachi to Yemen.

Matthew also works with startups, venture capital and angel investors, governments, NGOs and large corporations. He has invested in twenty three startups, and had two exits so far and he has written a book - Find Your 9 Others.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss what Matthew looks for in founders, why 9 Others is so special, the importance of having a network and what is keeping him up at night.

Enjoy!

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Matthew on Twitter / 9 Others

Find Your 9 Others - buy the book here.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Books Matthew recommended on the show

The Education of a Value Investor by Guy Spier

The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene

Unreasonable Success and How to Achieve It by Richard Koch

I wanted  to say a massive thank you for listening to Series 8 of the podcast and thank you to my wonderful guests Steve Furber, Dean Forbes, Michael Gibson, Jennifer Phan, Alvy Ray Smith, Polina Marinova Pompliano and Andrew Zuckerman.

Since the beginning of this year, we have learned so much from these inspiring stories - from Steve Furber’s quest to reverse engineer the human brain to Dean Forbes journey from homelessness to billion euro exits. I am forever grateful to my guests for trusting me with their stories and I hope you get what you need from these episodes too be it inspiration, valuable lessons or empowerment in the knowledge that if these people can do it, you can too.

So today, as we close out Series 8, I wanted to leave you with some of my favourite snippets from each episode where I ask each guest what’s one piece of advise they’d offer their younger selves.

In order of appearance in this episode:

Dean Forbes
Michael Gibson
Alvy Ray Smith
Steve Furber
Jennifer Phan
Polina Marinova Pompliano
Andrew Zuckerman 

Enjoy!

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham  / Newsletter here

What's coming up on Series 14 of the Danielle Newnham Podcast.

I have long toyed with the idea of branching out away from solely focusing on tech founders. I started the podcast 3 years ago now with the idea of interviewing people in the tech field because that’s what I knew – that was the field that I had been in and I believed that the human stories behind the game changing tech were important which I still do however, I really wanted to expand the scope of the podcast.

I guess, most importantly, I wanted to elevate the voices and stories you might not have heard before. If you listen to Series 9 of the podcast, you will see that’s when I started telling more of these stories and the response from you, my wonderful audience was amazing.

So, I think the time has come to focus on founders and innovators from all walks of life. I want to give my guests a safe space for them to tell their unabridged stories and I have some incredible guests lined up for Series 14.

So each episode of Series 14 will centre around the theme of hope as I ask each person – what were the top three most pivotal moments of their lives – how did they navigate and overcome them.

And there are some real tear-jerkers I can tell you. There are some unbelievably inspirational and uplifting stories which I can’t wait to share with you soon.

So do subscribe to Danielle Newnham Podcast wherever you get your podcasts from and you will hear more from me, and my guests, shortly.

This is a re-released episode from Series 1 with Second Life founder and High Fidelity co-founder Philip Rosedale.

As a child, Philip Rosedale dreamed of creating a fully-fledged virtual society and that’s exactly what he did with Second Life. Despite it being conceived many years before, Second Life was launched in 2003. Almost two decades later, and with one million active users and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transactions, Second Life experienced a boom during the Covid-19 pandemic as the world went into lockdown and more of us spent more time online.

In this wonderfully wide-ranging conversation, Philip opens up about his early influences, his ability to see into the future and how he executes when the tech, not always the world, is ready.

He also tells me about his latest company – High Fidelity which specialises in spatial audio -  and where he envisions the field going, as well as the future of virtual reality, education, crypto, live music, how tech can and should be harnessed for good, and how closely he believes the link is between virtual reality and reality.

NB This interview was recorded February 2021.
 

Mentioned in this episode:

Oxford Uni panel talk with Elon Musk and Baroness Susan Greenfield:  https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/silicon-valley-comes-oxford

Philip’s Writing/blog: https://www.highfidelity.com/blog/author/philip-rosedale

NB At 52:13, I asked Philip, “What do you wish your legacy to be? The words which are inaudible at 52:32 are “be together” so his answer was, “It’s what I am continuing to work on. I’d like to continue to use technology to build these places which allow people to be together.”

Let me know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Philip on Twitter: @philiprosedale
High Fidelity https://www.highfidelity.com/
Second Life https://secondlife.com/

This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng.  Series 1 was sponsored by Sensate.

Today’s guest is Guy Kawasaki – marketing guru, founder, author of 15 books including The Art of the Start, The Art of Social Media, and his most recent book – Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life. Guy is also an investor, host of Remarkable People podcast, Apple Fellow and Chief Evangelist for Canva, among other positions.

Some of you might recognise Guy’s name from the work he did at Apple in the 1980s when he was Chief Evangelist in charge of marketing the Macintosh.  He is also well-known for being an expert on social media, something he now says is overrated.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Guy discusses what he learned from Steve Jobs, what he thinks the Macintosh got right and wrong, and what work is required once a revolutionary product hits the market. We also touch on social media, the press, the Royals, why I don’t watch or read the news, and why he wishes he hadn’t quit Apple.

Guy is a fantastic storyteller and incredibly warm and giving so I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and look back at tech history, and hope you do too.

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Guy on Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Remarkable People podcast

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram 

Today’s guest is theoretical computer scientist Leslie Valiant - currently the T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University. Among his many accolades, Leslie was awarded the Turing Award in 2010 for transformative contributions to the theory of computation, including the theory of PAC learning which stands for Probably Approximately Correct, as well as the complexity of enumeration and of algebraic computation, and the theory of parallel and distributed computing.

In this episode, Leslie and I discuss his life and career journey – from what problems he has looked to solve in his career to how his PAC theory was first received and his latest book, The Importance of Being Educable.

Have you ever wondered what your digital footprint says about you? Or curious how you can make your pitch stand out?

Then check out WhiteBridge.ai – it’s an AI-powered digital identity research tool that finds, verifies, and analyzes publicly collected data about someone and structures it into an insightful report.

They actually ran a report on me and I was seriously impressed!

But not only can you use it to check your online digital profile but you could use it to help you quickly research and understand other people whether it’s a potential client, employee or investor – the report gives you more than enough useful info on the person for you to truly personalize your correspondence to them and help you build that early rapport.

Want to learn more? Head to https://whitebridge.ai and use my discount code DANIELLE30 for 30% off your first report.

Please enjoy my conversation with Leslie Valiant.

In today’s episode, I speak to Dhiraj Mukherjee, co-founder of Shazam – the music recognition app which was started in London in 1999, and acquired by Apple in 2018 for a reported $400 million.

The story of Shazam is one of pure innovation, foresight, and a twenty plus year friendship. In 1999, Chris Barton dreamed of a seemingly impossible solution to ambient music recognition and created the team — including friend Dhiraj Mukherjee, classmate Philip Inghelbrecht, and engineer Avery Wang — to make it a reality. Shazam has now been downloaded over 1 billion times and sees more than twenty million Shazams a day. 

I first met Dhiraj and Chris eight years ago when I interviewed the founders for my first book. Their story is so compelling that I wanted to bring them on to the podcast, as individuals, and learn more about each element of the business. So today, I am talking to Dhiraj about his background in India and traveling around the world as a child, meeting and starting a business with Chris Barton, the operational side of building Shazam in the early days from funding to how they physically got the music library together at a time when there were no smartphones, and also his role now as an investor and what he looks for in a founder. 

Shazam is the ultimate startup story - one of grit, foresight, perseverance and friendship – and I think you’re going to really enjoy it. 

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram: @daniellenewnham

Dhiraj on Twitter / website / Shazam

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Series 1 of this podcast is sponsored by Sensate – the device which can help to reduce stress and anxiety in less than ten minutes a day. To get an exclusive $25 off your first purchase, simply head to Sensate and insert my discount code POD.

50 years ago today, Atari was born! So I am celebrating with a REPLAY of Series 2 episode with the legendary Atari founder  Nolan Bushnell – serial entrepreneur and a pioneer of the video games industry.

After an early interest in engineering, Nolan went on to study Electrical Engineering before setting up Atari with Ted Dabney and Al Alcorn (I interviewed in Series 1, EP 8 - listen here). Atari experienced huge success with Pong which was one of the first computer games ever created but whilst it was hugely popular, Atari was born at a time when venture capital didn’t really exist, IP could not be protected and so the journey to keeping the company going was much tougher than it is today and by the time Warner Communications made an offer for the company, Nolan was ready to sell.

In this interview, we look back at gaming history, Nolan talks me through the highs and lows of building Atari, the traits he looks for when hiring, and why one of his biggest regrets was turning down an offer from Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to own a third of Apple.

Enjoy!

NB This episode was recorded January 2021.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Nolan Bushnell on Twitter @nolanbushnell

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

This episode with Wired Founding Editor Kevin Kelly is one of my favourite episodes!

His joie de vivre is infectious and I learned so much from his inspiring story and his fantastic new book Excellent Advice For Living which we talk about in this episode from which I know you will get a lot from too.

But stepping back in time, Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Review from 1984-1990 before he joined Wired in 1993 as its Founding Executive Editor alongside Louis Rossetto who we mention in this episode and Jane Metcalfe who I interviewed in Series 5, episode 40 (listen here). Kevin has also written some incredibly popular books including the New York times bestseller The Inevitable, Out of Control, which he wrote in 1992 and immediately became required reading on set of The Matrix film The Silver Cord, a graphic novel about robots and angels, What Technology Wants, a robust theory of technology, and Vanishing Asia, his 50-year project to photograph the disappearing cultures of Asia. Kevin is also co-chair of The Long Now Foundation with Stewart Brand.

Kevin is a living legend and the 400+ pieces of advice from his latest book have already become part of my son’s bedtime routine – that’s how good they are.

So without further ado, you’re listening Danielle Newnham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human story behind their work and this is my interview with Kevin Kelly.

Kevin on Twitter / Website / The Long Now Foundation 

Pre-order Kevin's latest book, Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier, here.

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

From this episode, Kevin's interview on This American Life here.

Episode image credit: Christopher Michel

Today’s guest is Ken Miller who was employee number twenty two at PayPal. Having originally joined Elon Musk’s X.com, Ken was in charge of anti-fraud which was a difficult job at the best of times, not least at the dawn of the internet. Ken spent seven years at PayPal dealing with everything from fraudulent accounts, the death of a much-loved colleague to the unceremonious ousting of then-CEO Elon Musk and even the Russian mafia.

In today’s conversation, Ken also talks to me about his upbringing and how that instilled a sense of grit and self-reliance which would serve him well at PayPal and beyond, as an entrepreneur himself.

This is a wide-ranging and fun conversation which I think you will really enjoy!

Ken on Twitter / LinkedIn

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

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As always, if you like the show, please do take a minute to write a review or hot the subscribe button so that you can be the first to hear all the new episodes before everyone else. 

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Mentioned in the episode:

The Max that Ken refers to is Max Levchin

The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

My interview with Jimmy Soni

Today’s guest is Deb Liu – CEO of Ancestry.com, the billion dollar genealogy company. Deb also serves on the Board of Intuit and is the co-founder of Women in Product. 

In this interview, Deb talks me through her personal and career journey from growing up in a small town where less than 1% of the community were Asian to how she overcame racism to become a VP at Facebook where she spent 12 years of her career.

After studying Civil Engineering at Duke, Deb got her master’s in business at Stanford and joined PayPal where she spent 6 years, working in different leadership roles including Director of Product management, focusing on Marketplaces which, at the time, made up around 70% of PayPal revenues. After that, she went to Facebook where she spent almost 12 years working in senior product leadership positions including founding Facebook Marketplace - an idea she had presented to Sheryl Sandberg years earlier.

We also talk about Deb’s new book Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work which is a great read for women who wish to climb the ranks like Deb did but also for men who want to understand the obstacles women face at work, how they can be better allies and to learn the stories of some incredible women that Deb features in the book.

There are lots of fantastic lessons in this episode on leadership, product management and overcoming the dreaded imposter syndrome.

Enjoy!

Deb  Twitter / Instagram / Substack 

Ancestry.com,  Women in Product

Pre-order Take Back Your Power: 10 New Rules for Women at Work here. Out in US 9th Aug, UK 13th Oct

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Huge thanks to Jimmy Soni – author of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley for making the intro.

Today’s guest is Jack Butcher, founder of Visualize Value, a media and product business that I like to say takes complex ideas and makes them digestible through visual design.

He also sells incredible courses which helps others to learn, teach, build and sell their value more effectively. 

‍‍Originally from the UK, Jack moved to NY to pursue his passion as a designer then, at the beginning of 2020 with very little money in the bank, his side project called Visualize Value took off.

In this interview, we talk about how that happened– how that first year of the pandemic saw everything align for his work and for finding his audience. We also discuss his thought process behind Visualise Value’s unique visual identity and how much he learned from a tweetstorm by founder, investor, philosopher Naval Ravikant.

Jack is completely a founder of our times. Someone who found his voice, niche and audience on the internet and how he leveraged all of it to build a multi-million dollar business that earns him money while he sleeps. The famous quote from Naval rings true for all of Jack’s work– Build Once. Sell Twice. 

In this interview, Jack shares insights into the importance of one true fan, the distribution channels and techniques which helped his audience grow massively and how experimentation and transparency are key to his success.

Enjoy!

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Jack on Twitter 

Visualize Value website / Twitter / Instagram

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson and illustrated by Jack Butcher

Ten years ago today, on 5th October 2011, we lost one of the greatest tech innovators of our time – Steve Jobs. It’s almost unfathomable how much impact Steve had on the world and how much his work will empower future generations but as he wished, he most definitely put a ding in the universe and left a wide, gaping hole when he passed.

To mark Steve’s life, it seemed fitting to talk to someone who knew him well – so today’s guest is John Couch, who was both Steve’s colleague and friend for many decades.

Steve personally recruited John to help him build a “revolutionary computer.” It was 1978, just two years after Apple had started, and thus making John Apple’s 54th employee. Soon after, John became Apple's first Vice President of Software and then became General Manager, overseeing the Apple Lisa computer division.

Prior to joining this new startup called Apple, John was one of UC Berkeley's first fifty computer science graduates and had a well-paying, secure job working at HP, under the tutelage of its iconic founder, and a hero of Steve Jobs, Bill Hewlett. But as he tells me, there was something about Steve’s vision that drew him in and made him leave his job at HP for the exciting yet vastly unknown.

Six years later, John left Apple to work in education before becoming the CEO of a biotech company called DoubleTwist. He was then recruited again by Steve Jobs again in 2002 and returned to Apple to take on the newly created role of Vice President of Education – a position he remained in until his recent retirement.

In 2018, John co-wrote "Rewiring Education and this year, he published his latest book - “My Life at Apple and The Steve I Knew" which is a book we dig deeper into in this episode. 

As Steve Wozniak says, “John is one of the most interesting, intelligent, and passionate people I've ever met. Both Steve and I viewed him as an essential part of what made Apple the most innovative company in the world, even as he remained one of our best-kept secrets.” 

You’re listening to the Danielle Newnham podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human, stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

And this is my interview with John Couch.

Today’s guest is Sarah Hamburg – a cognitive neuroscientist and researcher currently working as a post-doctoral Neuromorphic AI Engineer in Developmental Robotics. Sarah is also a DeSci (decentralised science) advocate and organiser, heavily involved in the decentralised science (DeSci) space since early 2021. After working as a core member of an Open Science DAO, she published a letter in Nature to increase awareness of DeSci and was then commissioned to write a DeSci "explainer" article for a16z's Future magazine. In 2022 she cofounded a "web3" consultancy which worked with UK Aid on blockchain for International Development. 

In this conversation, Sarah and I discuss her work and research, what neuroscience and consciousness is, why neuromorphic computing is such an exciting field to be working in. We also bond over a shared suffering of a chronic pain condition called fibromyalgia and I open up about the time as a kid when I nearly drowned and what I saw during that near-death experience.

This interview is a little bit different from most of the other ones I do but it was thoroughly enjoyable and I am so grateful to Sarah for exploring these truly fascinating topics together.

I am sure you will enjoy it too!

Sarah on Twitter / Research

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Mentioned in this episode:

The Case Against Reality: How Evolution Hid The Truth From Our Eyes by Donald D. Hoffman

Reframing Fibromyalgia by Sarah Hamburg

Brain Activity Detected in Dying

A Guide to DeSci, The Latest Web3 Movement  in a16z Future magazine

Call to Join the DeSci Movement in Nature

I am back! And I have an incredible lineup for Series 3 including Alvy Ray Smith, the co-founder of Pixar, Guy Kawasaki, Yodit Stanton, founder of OpenSensors, serial entrepreneur Clarence Wooten, who, among other roles, is currently Entrepreneur in Residence at X – Google Alphabet's Moonshot Factory - and Nicolas Cary, co-founder of Blockchain.com, among others.

As always, we will be digging deep into the lives of each founder and innovator – from the pivotal experiences in their childhoods through to their career journeys, highs and lows, and what the lessons they learned along the way.

These stories are a wonderful way to document history in one of the most exciting fields of our time but they are also TRULY inspirational. And I feel extremely lucky that I get to share these amazing stories with you. I know they will inspire you and hopefully help you on your own career journey.

The first episode will be with Pixar co-founder Dr Alvy Ray Smith where he will describe what he saw that others didn’t, how he helped pioneer the field of computer graphics and how Steve Jobs played the part of both saviour and tyrant in the Pixar story.

So don’t forget to hit the subscribe button to make sure you’re the first to hear each episode as it is published. I can't wait to share them with you.

Today, I wanted to close out Series 11 with a recap of the wonderful guests we have had on – from Mike Slade and James Vincent who both worked for many years with Steve Jobs, VC James Wise of Balderton Capital, Josh Dahn who set up a school with Elon Musk, pioneering tech entrepreneur Dame Stephanie Shirley, Kindred founder Anna Anderson, Google Developer Advocate Kelsey Hightower and Syreeta Challinger who taught us about the importance of storytelling and how to cope after trauma.

That’s something us founders don’t talk much about… how to cope better, whether it’s trauma, which drives so many of us, or the pain of simply building a startup with all the obstacles that comes with it.

One action I have found helpful is journaling – and I have just started using Rosebud which makes it easy for anyone to build and maintain an impactful journaling practice.

The number one AI-powered journaling app for mental health and personal growth, I have been using Rosebud for a week now and have already found clarity on some sticky situations, partly because instead of just writing my issues down in a physical journal, I am able to tell Rosebud what the issue is and then the app prompts me to go deeper which causes me to reflect more before offering some surprisingly good solutions which have helped me both in my personal and work life.

I now do this practice every day – setting my morning intention for the day and then an evening reflection, and I have found it has made me happier and more productive for four simple reasons. 1. I have to set my intentions by typing them into Rosebud at the beginning of the day which helps me to visualise my day – you’ll be surprised how useful that can be. 2. It forces me to set my priorities for the day and make them front and centre. 3. It urges me to note what obstacles I have to overcome that day which encourages me not to shy away from them and 4. Rosebud is able to take what I say are my priorities and my obstacles and then offer practical solutions with warm advice – like a friendly therapist guiding me through my day. In fact, due to the speed at which Rosebud responds to my issues with extremely wise and human-like advice, it’s hard to believe I don’t actually have a human therapist responding to me in real time!

Like I said, I am a big fan of Rosebud - I think it’s brilliant and I think you will like it too. So, if you want to try it out yourself, click the link here and try it for free.

Enjoy!

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter

Original Episodes:

Mike Slade

Dame Stephanie Shirley

James Wise

Anna Anderson

Josh Dahn

Syreeta Challinger

Kelsey Hightower

James Vincent

This is a REPLAY of last year's episode with Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen – serial entrepreneur, inventor, pioneer in VR, medical imaging and telepathic technology, former professor at MIT Media Lab and currently, founder of Openwater.

Mary Lou spent many of her childhood years unwell before she was finally diagnosed with a brain tumour in her twenties. And going through that had a huge impact on her life as you might expect. For the many years she was quite literally dying, she decided she only wanted to work on really interesting projects - as she says to me in this interview, “I never really thought I would live very long and so I wanted to find really interesting things to do with my life for however long I might live.”

Mary Lou became fascinated with holography and optics whilst at school and spent her career pioneering in VR and in the optics space as an engineering executive at Intuit, Google, Facebook, Oculus, and with her own four startups which included multi-billion dollar non-profit One Laptop Per Child.

She is now using her decades long experience in this space and her experience with a brain tumour to spearhead Openwater where the goal is to create the technology to be able to see deep into the body with the detail of a 3D camera. The implications of this technology will make critical diagnostics healthcare far more affordable and accessible for millions but it could also mean we achieve telepathy which is hugely exciting. 

Mary Lou website / Openwater / Twitter 

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

I Know What You're Thinking: Brain Imaging and Mental Privacy

Today's guest is Eileen Burbidge - esteemed early-stage VC, co-founder and Partner at Passion Capital and co-founder of co-working space White Bear Yard in trendy East London which witnessed the birth of incredible some incredible startups including Monzo and Go Cardless

Eileen spent her early career in Silicon Valley, working at tech stalwarts such as Apple and Sun Microsystems before joining the early team at Skype where she worked directly with the founders in London.

Eileen has also been awarded an MBE from the Queen in 2015 for services to business and also was an advisor to both our Prime Minister and London Mayor.

In this interview we talk about being at Sun Microsystems when Java was released, what the early days at Skype were like, why she got fired from Skype and the type of investments she looks to do through Passion. We also touch on Passion’s recent collaboration with crowdfunding platform Seedrs which marked the first time a European crowdfunding platform had facilitated access from the general to a private venture fund. 

Today’s episode is equally wonderful and very informative which I think you will really enjoy.

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Eileen on Twitter @eileentso  / Passion Capital

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Episode image of Eileen via Tech Crunch

Something I don’t tell many people is that when I was seven years old, two of my school friends and their family were shot dead. As you can imagine, it has had a long-lasting impact on me and all those who had the privilege of knowing them.

Fast forward all these years and one of my former guests Jimmy Soni was kind enough to introduce me to Rick Smith, founder of Taser  now Axon - a company which uses technology to replace the use of guns.

When I started my research, I immediately discovered that Rick started the company almost three decades ago, after two of his school friends had also been shot dead.

This interview is unlike any I have done before. Rick opens up about his childhood and how his friends' death spurred him on a life-long crusade to replace guns, and how he took on a huge problem in an extremely hard field at just 23 years old. It’s the tale of an inventor, an entrepreneur and someone desperate to change the world to ensure no more innocent lives are taken.

As I say in the intro of this episode,  please be warned that not all of this conversation is suitable for young ears - we discuss mass shootings and the recent horrific shootings at a school in Uvalde. And we discuss Rick’s book - The End of Killing: How Our Newest Technologies Can Solve Humanity’s Oldest Problem.

I learned so much from Rick and I know you will too.

Rick on Twitter / Axon website

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter
 

Mentioned in this episode:

Rick's book - The End of Killing: How Our Newest Technologies Can Solve Humanity’s Oldest Problem

Robb Elementary School Shooting

Welcome to the Danielle Newnham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human, stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day. I am so excited to be back and I have another incredible lineup of guests this year which I can’t wait to share with you so don’t forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts so you don’t miss out.

Just so you know, I am changing things a little bit this year and trialling weekly episodes vs different series so let me know what you think.

And as always, I will be talking to really inspiring founders, innovators and investors about a myriad of topics from reimagining education to NFTs, impact investing, accessible tech and the highs and lows of building game-changing products. There’s also a big focus on the human side of these stories this year so do hit the subscribe button to be the first to hear each one.

Finally, I hope you all had a wonderful break and are raring to go in 2022 – I cannot wait to share these really special episodes with you.

Today’s guest is the legendary Nolan Bushnell – serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Atari and a pioneer of the video games industry.

After an early interest in Engineering, Nolan went on to study Electrical Engineering before setting up Atari with Ted Dabney and Al Alcorn (I interviewed in Series 1, EP 8 - listen here). Atari experienced huge success with Pong which was one of the first computer games ever created but whilst it was hugely popular, Atari was born at a time when venture capital didn’t really exist, IP could not be protected and so the journey to keeping the company going was much tougher than it is today and by the time Warner Communications made an offer for the company, Nolan was ready to sell.

In this interview, where we look back at gaming history, Nolan talks me through the highs and lows of building Atari, the traits he looks for when hiring, and why one of his biggest regrets was turning down an offer from Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to own a third of Apple.

Enjoy!

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Nolan Bushnell on Twitter @nolanbushnell

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Hello and welcome to the Danielle Newham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

If you are a new listener, welcome. If you are a long-time listener, welcome back and thank you, thank you for sticking with me. I am really excited about Series 7 because we have some truly fantastic guests who are really candid with me which makes for great conversations. They open up about their career and life journeys, some of the harder lessons they have learned along the way and, really, lessons on how they did it. The steps it took for them to reach success because it’s never straightforward is it? It’s never linear and I hope these lessons will resonate with you as they did with me.

There will be deep dives with a wide range of guests from Jack Butcher, the founder of Visualize Value to Rick Smith of Axon who is trying to make the world a safer place by using technology to replace the use of guns. 

We also have classical musician turned founder Chris Sheldrick of what3words who is literally mapping the world and I will also be speaking to design guru John Maeda and child prodigy turned founder Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon.

To be the first to hear these new episodes, please do subscribe on your favourite podcast platform.

Thank you and I hope you enjoy Series 7 of the Danielle Newnham Podcast.

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Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Today’s guest is the wonderful Doug Menuez – a documentary photographer, director and photojournalist whose incredible career has seen him cover the AIDS crisis, the Ethiopian famine, the birth of the digital revolution in the 1980s where he documented founders like Steve Jobs, Marc Andreessen, Bill Gates, the Adobe founders and more and that is how he came on my radar.

His book, Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000 which highlights just a snippet of the over two million images which he took of that time is a such an incredible homage to the people that built the future we live in now.

And in today’s episode, we talk about it and the people he shot in his career– from the three years he had exclusive access to Steve Jobs to the time he got kidnapped in Sudan. We also discuss the three most pivotal moments in Doug’s life which include meeting his wonderful wife Tereza and the moment she was diagnosed two years ago with Alzheimer's.

There are some incredible stories of hope in this episode and some heartwarming lessons on the importance of patience and persistence and the ability of founders to keep going, despite the odds stacked against them.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Here is my conversation with Doug Meneuz.

Doug website / Instagram / Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985-2000

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

Image of Doug by Christopher Michel

Today’s guest is Peter Faulding - a world-leading confined space rescue and forensic search specialist. He has pioneered the use of side-scan sonar in forensic searches for missing persons underwater in the UK and is a world leader in underwater search techniques. He has assisted in the search in many cold cases and has located human remains and evidence that had gone undetected for years, in some of the most remote locations on land and underwater. Peter is a qualified commercial diver, helicopter and fixed-wing pilot, and holds both a UK and United States FAA pilot's licence. 

His first book which we discuss in this conversation is What Lies Beneath - a memoir on his life and career journey from caving with his father aged five to the many rescue and murder cases he has been involved with.

Peter has had such a varied and fascinating career - from his time in the caves and mines aged 5, to six years spent in the 10th Volunteer Battalion, Parachute Regiment where he passed the gruelling training to earning the coveted Maroon Beret and qualified as a military parachutist. To setting up his company Specialist Group International and his work in forensic search and confined space rescue, advising top police and military both here in the UK and in the USA, as a guest of the American Secret Service, presenting to their specialist teams and the FBI.

Peter has lived an extraordinary life – and it’s that I am sure will inspire you. 

Here is my conversation with Peter Faulding.

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Peter on Twitter / Website / Specialist Group International 

Buy Peter's book here What Lies Beneath: My Life as a Forensic Search and Rescue Expert

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham  / Newsletter here

Today’s guest is John Maeda – famed artist, designer, technologist, author, ex MIT professor, and once President of the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, among many other accolades - most recently as CTO at Everbridge.

He completed his bachelors and masters degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at MIT where he would return to become Professor of Design and Computation and Head of Research. He also earned a PhD in Design and a Master’s in Business.

In this wide-ranging conversation, John and I discuss his book How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us as well as the leadership lessons he has learned throughout his career through good times and more importantly, the bad, how we can create a world of optimism akin to the Obama era and why we should all remain curious creatures.

I have learned so much from John over the years and this conversation and I am sure you will too.

So here is my conversation with the utterly brilliant John Maeda.

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John Maeda Twitter / website / instagram

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

John's book - How to Speak Machine: Computational Thinking for the Rest of Us

Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Today’s guest is Riva Tez -  a philosopher, curious thinker, intellect, investor and one of my favourite people  on the internet. 

She studied Philosophy at UCL before digging deeper into technology and engineering and starting the Berlin Singularity.

She went on to co-found Permutation Ventures — an early stage VC fund which focused on AI startups and, she has also worked with Jim Keller at Intel as Senior Director for Strategic Technology Initiatives.

Whilst at university, Riva started a toy shop in Notting Hill where she encouraged her young clientele to become mini entrepreneurs and philosophers.

In this episode, Riva and I discuss how she got into crypto early, the link as she sees it, between mania and genius, cancel culture and what keeps her up at night. 

I really enjoyed talking to Riva and I think you will get a lot from this episode so here is my conversation with Riva Tez.

Enjoy!

Riva on Twitter / Instagram

I am not on social media this year but stay in touch via my Newsletter / YouTube

Mentioned in this episode:

The Madness of Genius

Riva essay on Pathogens here

Every Angel is Terrifying

Praxis

Balaji's Network State

My 2021 interview with Riva here

Today’s guest is Dr Anton Howes, a historian of innovation, with a focus on the inventors of the British Industrial Revolution. He is also author of Arts & Minds, How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation and author of the popular newsletter, Age of Invention.

For those who don’t know, The Royal Society of Arts or its full name - Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges which was founded in 1754.

Anton is writing a second book on why innovation accelerated in the eighteenth century in Britain, which in turn led to the Industrial Revolution and is also Head of Innovation Research at The Entrepreneurs Network, a UK-based think tank focused on encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.

In this interview, we look at:

• What ingredients are required to foster innovation
• What has surprised Anton most about his research
• The virality of invention as the improving mindset spreads
• How education could be reformed to encourage more polymaths
• The impact of how poorly the invention process is portrayed in traditional media.

Anton has done a vast amount of research in this area and is clearly excited about the subject which makes for a very enjoyable interview.

I hope you enjoy it too.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Anton on Twitter @antonhowes

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

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Links:

Anton's book, Arts and Minds: How The Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation

Anton's newsletter, The Age of Invention

RSA

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Firstly, huge apologies for saying Juicero wrong during this episode - I should have looked up the pronunciation beforehand! I thought the company was called Juiceroo!

Right, apology out of the way and back to today's episode. Today, I am answering listeners questions from why I started a podcast, what were the events that shaped me as a child and who my favourite guests were.

Trigger warning, in the first answer, I talk about a sad situation which happened when I was young - I do suggest you pause the episode here if you have children around you.

I really, really enjoyed doing this AMA and hope to do more in the future so let me know what you think! You can find me @daniellenewnham on Instagram and Twitter. And please don't forget to rate and review the podcast if you enjoyed it - it really does mean the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

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Mentioned in this episode:

The story of Nicholas and Daniel Caffell 
In Search of the Rainbow's End (book written by the boys' father Colin Caffell)

Richard Browning episode here

Andy Hertzfeld episode here

Juicero

Today’s guest is Danielle Strachman, co-founder of 1517 venture fund which, in their own words, backs dropouts working on hard problems and sci-fi scientists at the earliest stages of their startups. 

Prior to starting 1517, Danielle worked with Peter Thiel, and Michael Gibson (who I Interviewed in Series 8, Episode 60) and together, they ran The Thiel Fellowship for five years. For those who don’t know, The Thiel Fellowship was set up to fund students who were 22 or under, giving them a total of $100k over two years so that they could dropout of the traditional education system and pursue important work. The Fellowship guided them through this process which would often involve scientific research, creating a startup, or working on a social movement. Past founders backed by the Fellowship include Vitalik Buterin  who was still a teenager when the fellowship allowed him to drop out and work on Ethereum full time, as well as Laura Deming, the founder of The Longevity Fund and Dylan Field of Figma.

In this episode, we discuss how Danielle went from tutoring to starting the Thiel Fellowship to venture capital, what common traits the founders she has backed share and the lessons she learned from Peter Thiel.

Please enjoy my conversation with Danielle Strachman.

Danielle Strachman on Twitter / 1517 venture fund  / 1517 Substack

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship / YouTube

Mentioned in this episode:

Innovations Academy, San Diego

Danielle's writeup of recent 2E camp for teens 

Noor Siddiqui, Founder of Orchid

Today’s guest is Simon Brading who works at App Agency Brightec and is the co-founder of Mentora Money which he started in 2022 with his wife, Anna – a financial education instructor. Their mission is simple but important - to create a platform to help as many people as possible learn basic financial principles so that they can make money, look after their money and reduce money stress. 

In this conversation, we discuss Simon’s strong faith and how that has guided him through his life and career especially around community building, we also talk about how Covid left him with depression and how he managed to get out of that dark hole and, we ponder on what a financially literate society might look like.

But, before we get into today’s episode, a quick word from our sponsor. Paddle - and this is especially for the all the mobile devs in my audience. Paddle has produced an invaluable web monetisation guide which you can download for FREE here. As they say, selling your app on the web isn't just about avoiding hefty app store fees, it actually gives you the freedom and opportunity to leverage a direct-to-consumer model where you can reach a bigger audience, enhance your marketing efforts, and experiment with different ways to monetize and grow your app. So, if you are interested in learning more, then do head to here to get your FREE web monetisation guide from Paddle.

Please enjoy my conversation with Simon Brading.

What does the future of education look like? This is a question I have pondered for the last ten years or so and today’s guest - Josh Dahn – has the answer. 

Seven years ago, Josh was teaching Elon Musk’s kids at Mirman– a private school for highly gifted children in LA when Elon approached him about rethinking the traditional education model. Josh jumped at the opportunity and in today’s episode, Josh talks me through that first meeting with Elon and how they worked together to found the Ad Astra school based at SpaceX. 

Based at the SpaceX site, it was a school where the children weren’t separated out by year group or grades as you say in the US, but instead, the education matched the aptitude of the children, and the education was focused around problem solving and teaching to the problem, as opposed teaching to the tools.

Josh went on to co-found Synthesis which is an innovative online school, helping students to prepare for the future by getting them engaged and excited about complexity and solving for the unknown through specially-designed games.

Josh is Founder and Executive Director of Astra Nova School (previously Ad Astra) in Los Angeles.
 

Enjoy!

Josh Twitter / Synthesis

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Episode edited by Jolin Cheng.

Today’s guest is Ayah Bdeir, a Lebanese engineer, interactive artist, social activist, and founder and inventor of littleBits.  Pioneering in the open source hardware space, littleBits is the easy-to-use electronic building blocks used by millions of kids all over the world and was acquired by Sphero in 2019. (The prototype also holds a place in the permanent collection at MoMA).

Growing up in Beirut, Ayah always had a deep love of design and engineering and focused her career making engineering fun whilst on democratising open source hardware to ensure tech education and innovation became accessible to all, regardless of age, gender or background. Her passion was always to make it accessible and encourage more girls to get excited about engineering. 

She is also co-founder of the Open Hardware Summit, a TED Senior Fellow, and an alumna of the MIT Media Lab where she did her Masters.

In this conversation, Ayah and I discuss her passion for engineering and making it accessible, her call to activism in Lebanon and even, the significance of someone like Elon Musk owning Twitter and the impact it could have. 

This is a wonderfully wide-ranging conversation which I thoroughly enjoyed and think you will too.

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Ayah Bdeir Twitter / Instagram / website

littleBits website

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

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As always, if you like the show, please do take a minute to write a review or hit the subscribe button so that you can be the first to hear all the new episodes before everyone else. 

Today’s guest is Sharmadean Reid MBE, a serial founder and author. Sharmadean grew up in Wolverhampton, surrounded by strong female influences before she went to London to study at Central St Martins. She then became a successful stylist and creative consultant before starting her first business at 25 -  WAH nails – a pioneering nail salon in East London.  Despite wanting to quit after six months, she celebrated the shop's ten year anniversary before closing it down and launching Beautystack - a beauty tech startup (with outside funding) and, following Covid which hit the beauty industry hard,  she is now founder and CEO of The Stack World– a global media platform and community for women.

In this conversation, Sharmadean talks me through her life and career journey from the curious young girl in Wolverhampton with high aspirations to the powerful business woman she became, her likes and dislikes about being a founder in a male-dominated world, the lessons she has taken from her businesses to life, and her new book, New Methods for Women: A Manifesto for Independence– a book which I consider to be the new bible for women.

Like her book, this conversation will no doubt uplift women everywhere. Because Sharmadean gives us the playbook for how to succeed... on our own terms.

Enjoy!

Sharmadean Instagram / The Stack World

New Methods for Women: A Manifesto for Independence

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Today’s guest is the incredible Mark Murdoch, founder of Mahogany a multi-faceted music company which is behind the hugely popular Mahogany Sessions on YouTube, famed for its live acoustic sessions with amazing singers in phenomenal locations that include artists fields, warehouses, cemeteries, churches. All these acoustic sessions are filmed with beautiful cinematography making the experience even more enthralling. I am not exaggerating when I say this channel got me through the pandemic.

We discussed the adversity he overcame as a child trying to find his way in the world, how music saved him and led him on this wonderfully enriching career journey which has brought joy to so many millions whilst also empowering the very creatives that could have been left behind during the pandemic lockdowns.

This is one of my favourite conversations - honest, open, vulnerable, inspiring, heart warming. But before we get into it, here’s a quick word about today’s sponsor.

Vowel.com is a game changing AI powered video conferencing platform. Vowel has built-in AI powered meeting summary software that records all your meetings and automatically generates useful summaries at the end of each one! I use it for all my meetings now and have found it so invaluable that I’m also using it for the podcast too to summarise the top takeaways from each episode.

If you want to try it, sign up at Vowel.com using my code “daniellecode” for 3 months free of Vowel. Be quick though as this offer expires in 7 days.

Now back to the episode. Here is my conversation with Mark Murdoch.

Enjoy!

Mahogany Sessions on YouTube / Instagram 

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham  / Newsletter here

Today’s guest is entrepreneur and investor Soraya Darabi.

Soraya started her career as the New York Times’ first-ever Manager of Digital Partnerships and Social Media, right at the dawn of social media’s first wave. There, she positioned the global news leader on fast-growing social networks such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and partnered with startups and to establish award-winning campaigns.

Soraya went on to co-found the application Foodspotting, which was name App of the Year by Apple and Wired Magazine and was later acquired by OpenTable. She also co-founded Zady - a shopping platform focused on sustainable fashion in 2013 which was named by Fast Company as one of “The World’s Top Ten Most Innovative Companies in Retail.”

She is now co-founder and General Partner at TMV – a venture fund which focuses on investing in purposeful startups reimagining the future.

Soraya is also the founder of Transact Global - a virtual community for diverse emerging fund managers. She has also given great talks all over the world and was host of the podcast “Business Schooled.”

In this interview, Soraya opens up about her background from riding around in her father’s yellow cab as a child in New York to how and why her focus now is to empower more underrepresented founders and investors in the tech space.

Soraya is an absolute force to be reckoned with and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and I hope you do too.

Enjoy!

Soraya  Twitter / Instagram / TMV website / Transact Global website

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Today’s guest is Noor Shaker – a Syrian serial biotech entrepreneur, computer scientist and inventor.

Noor started life in Syria where she fell in love with technology and the potential of Artificial Intelligence. Flouting convention at the time, Noor moved to Europe to continue her studies, gaining a Masters in AI and PhD in Machine Learning. 

In 2006, she became Assistant Professor at Aalborg University in Denmark with research focused on the use of machine learning in affective computing and video games.

Noor then made her way to London and joined Entrepreneur First – the startup incubator/investor where she co-founded GTN (Generative Tensorial Networks), a startup aiming to combine quantum computing and AI for drug discovery. In our conversation today, Noor describes in detail what it felt like to leave her first company and what gave her the courage to move on and start Glamorous AI where she continues her work in AI-enabled drug discovery work. Glamorous AI was acquired by X-Chem at the end of 2021 with Noor taking on the title of Senior Vice President and General Manager, at London Chem-X.

In this wide-reaching interview, Noor opens up about what it takes to innovate in well-established scientific spaces, how her AI platform RosalindAI enables drug discovery at a far greater speed and far less cost than traditional methods, the importance of representation, and how losing her mother so young drives her to ensure she leaves behind a legacy that has a positive impact on as many people as possible. 

Noor is on a dedicated mission to cure disease with the marriage of human and machine learning. And I look forward to watching her achieve this.

Here is my conversation with the incredible Noor Shaker.

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Noor  Twitter / Glamorous AI / X-Chem

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Today’s guest is Michael Gibson, co-founder of 1517 – a venture fund he started in June 2015 with Danielle Strachman which backs, and I quote, “dropouts, renegade students, and deep tech scientists, at the earliest stages.”

Prior to starting 1517, Michael worked with Peter Thiel, and alongside, Danielle Strachman, they ran The Thiel Fellowship for five years. For those who don’t know, The Thiel Fellowship was set up to fund students who were 22 or under, giving them a total of $100k over two years so that they could dropout of the traditional education system and pursue important work. The Fellowship guided them through this process which would often involve scientific research, creating a startup, or working on a social movement. Past founders backed by the Fellowship include Vitalik Buterin who was still a teenager when the fellowship allowed him to drop out and work on Ethereum full time, as well as Laura Deming, the founder of The Longevity Fund and Iddris Sandu, co-founder of Spatial Labs.

Michael is also the author of Paper Belt on Fire: How Renegade Investors Sparked a Revolt Against the University which I absolutely loved.

It’s a book about startups, creating a fund with Peter Thiel, founders, reimagining education to empower the young to create great companies without the limitation of credentials, and it also tells the story of identity, specifically, Michael’s own challenging path to finding out who he is after his father - a suspected CIA agent was found murdered when Michael was still a toddler.

Honestly, I can’t tell you how good the book is but trust me, it’s well worth your time as is this episode so please enjoy my conversation with Michael Gibson!

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Michael on Twitter / 1517 Fund / Buy the book here

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Today’s guest is Rana el Kaliouby a pioneer in Emotion AI and, before I go any further, I wanted to say that this is one of the most honest, and authentic interviews I have ever conducted with a startup founder.

Rana is co-founder and CEO of Affectiva - a software company that builds artificial intelligence that understands human emotions, and cognitive states and activities by analyzing facial and vocal expressions. The company was spun out of the MIT Media Lab with Rana and Professor Rosalind Picard as co-founders.

A self-described nerd at heart who felt like a misfit growing up, Egyptian-born Rana also authored Girl Decoded: A Scientist’s Quest to Reclaim Our Humanity by Bringing Emotional Intelligence to Technology. As I touch on in the interview, this book is very much Rana’s inspiring life story - from her middle-eastern upbringing to her startup journey, why it’s critical for your company to have core values and the toll her chosen path took on her personal life.

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If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a review? It doesn't take long and would mean the world to me. It also helps others to find the podcast too. Thank you.

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Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Rana el Kaliouby on Twitter @kaliouby and Instagram @ranaelkaliouby 
Affectiva website 

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Today’s guest is Jennifer Phan - co-founder of Passionfroot - a platform empowering creators to partner directly with brands and agencies to monetise their product and services, be it a podcast, a newsletter or YouTube channel.

Born to immigrant parents, Jen started her career as VC investor before seeing a gap in the market for creators who are trying to earn money directly from their work. Passionfroot takes care of the admin and business side of earning a living from your work and helps to remove the barriers and gate keepers which have historically been in place and held many creators back.

In this conversation, Jen and I discuss the wave of creators turned entrepreneurs, why she wants to empower creators anywhere in the world, what the next frontier for creator entrepreneurs looks like, as well as some of the platforms she recommends to help you grow your community.

This is a great conversation with lots of fantastic lessons for founders and creators so I hope you get as much value out of it as I did.

Please let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Jennifer on Twitter / Passionfroot website / Passionfroot Podcast, Creators on Air here / Newsletter here

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham  / Newsletter here

Today’s guest before a little summer break is Yancey Strickler – previously co-founder and CEO of Kickstarter, currently co-founder of Metalabel. Yancey is also a writer and in 2019, his excellent first book was published - This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World. In the book and in this conversation, Yancey also discusses a useful decision making framework that he came up with called Bentoism

His second book which he put out on Metalabel is The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet which he co-wrote with some great collaborators.

And collaboration and community is core to Yancey’s career DNA. in this episode, we discuss both in great deal, as well as the highs and lows of running the innovative rocket ship which Kickstarter became and why he believes self acceptance is so importance.

I really enjoyed talking to Yancey and I think you will get a lot of great lessons from this episode so here is my episode with Yancey Strickler.

Yancey on Twitter /  Metalabel / This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

Welcome to the Danielle Newnham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

I wanted to try something a little different today. I have been asked for a while now about doing shortened versions of podcast episodes so I thought I would test this out with some takeaway tips from the brilliant Dhiraj Mukherjee, co-founder of Shazam turned investor.

In this fourteen minute episode, Dhiraj talks me through four lessons he learned from building Shazam into the one of the most recognised apps of our time.

And I think these lessons are useful for any entrepreneur looking to start, build, scale and sell their startup. From coming up with a viable idea to picking the right investors and what to do once you launch – these takeaways will help you get your startup off to a flying start.

As always, let me know what you think and if you would like to hear more of these shortened episodes with tangible take away lessons.

Enjoy!

Dhiraj website / Twitter 

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Today’s guest is Tamiko Thiel – lead product designer of The Connection Machine – a revolutionary massively parallel artificial intelligence supercomputer which was developed in the 1980s. Originally conceived by Danny Hillis from MIT’s artificial intelligence lab where he was studying under Marvin Minsky, Danny got an incredibly talented team together including Richard Feynman, Brewster Kale, Tamiko, and others to create what would become the fastest and most effective supercomputer of the time. And it’s this part of her career that we focus on today.

However, Tamiko went on to become a pioneering digital artist who has worked in the realm of virtual reality for the past thirty years, starting in 1994 when she worked with Steven Spielberg on the Starbright World project where they created an online interactive 3D virtual world for seriously ill children.

Tamiko also received a Bachelor of Science degree in Product Design Engineering, from Stanford University in 1979 and received a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1983, with a focus on human-machine design and computer graphics, as well as a diploma from the Academy of fine arts in Munich, Germany. 

In today’s conversation we dig deep into that special time in history when all the so-called experts said what Danny, Tamiko and co. were working on at Thinking Machines couldn’t be done and where… they proved them all wrong.

Enjoy!

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Image of Tamiko copyright Tamiko Thiel

Tamiko website / LinkedIn /  Instagram

I am not on social media this year but stay in touch via my Newsletter / YouTube

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Tamiko in London March 2024

The Travels of Mariko Horo interactive virtual reality installation
By Tamiko Thiel, 2006/2017, with original music by Ping Jin

In "GLoW: ILLUMINATING INNOVATION"
Bush House Arcade, King's College, Strand, London
Exhibition: 08 March - 20 April 2024

Panel and opening event: 07 March, 6:30pm
Location: Great Hall, King's Building, Strand, King's College London

The CM-1 t-shirt and Tamiko's Travels of Mariko Horo mesh top will be shown in the following, with information on how to order them (from my web shops: http://tamikothiel.com/cm/cm-tshirt.html)

Curiosity Cabinet, King's College
171 Strand/Corner of Surrey St., London
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/curiosity-cabinet-showcases-antiquities-and-oddities-on-the-strand

Today’s guest is Kevin Bethune – designer, innovator, founder, engineer and author.

Kevin has had a multi-faceted career, starting out as a mechanical engineer in the nuclear power industry before focusing on business and design where he ended up at Nike designing two shoes despite being employed on the business side vs a product designer. But that’s Kevin all over – he follows his heart and passion and leads the path for others to do the same.

Kevin is now the founder and Chief Creative Officer of dreams, design and life – a think tank that works with companies to deliver design and innovation services using a very human-centric approach – something much needed today. 

In this conversation, Kevin tells me how growing up feeling like an “other” whether it was in his school, his neighbourhood or workplace has somewhat shaped how he views what design should be today, and also how organisations should put design front and centre from the outset to ensure they create a more inclusive and forward-thinking business. 

And we talk about his great new book, Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation, published by MIT press which offers Kevin’s personal story as well as leadership lessons on design, innovation and forging a path which is aligned to your purpose.

This was a wide-reaching conversation which I really enjoyed and think you will too.

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Kevin Twitter / Instagram / dreams • design + life

Buy Kevin's book here

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Have you ever seen a picture of someone you've never met and wanted to know their story?

I first saw a picture of Donna Auguste in Doug Menuez's great book –Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985 - 2000 …and I had to know more about her. A black woman leading an engineering team at Apple – her photo stood out – for all the right reasons, among a sea of pictures of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, John Sculley et al.

Two years later, and I got the exclusive chance to sit down with Donna who shares her inspiring story for this podcast – from being the first African-American (man or woman) to enter the PhD program at Carnegie Mellon researching AI, to managing the Newton engineering team at Apple to selling her software business for $147 million. It’s all the more amazing when you learn the obstacles she had to overcome.

With a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Berkeley, Donna went on to research Artificial Intelligence at Carnegie Mellon where she spent the holidays interning at Xerox PARC in the early 80s before heading to IntelliCorp as a software engineer working on products which incorporated AI. She then went on to Apple before co-founding her own company - Freshwater Software.

This episode is one of my favourites – Donna’s story is one of grit, faith, determination, ignoring the naysayers and ultimately, a story of success.

As Donna says when discussing the VC’s reaction to her when fundraising, “They had a whole model of what they were looking for and I fit none of it.” Donna proved them wrong. And the lessons she shares shows that you can too, whoever…wherever you are.

As this is the final episode in Series 2, I wanted to thank you dear listeners for coming on this journey with me. I have so enjoyed speaking to my incredible guests: 

Dan Bricklin, Rana el Kaliouby, Nolan Bushnell, David Byttow, Avery Wang, Megan Smith, Ed Smith and of course, Donna Auguste.

I look forward to welcoming you back for Series 3.

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Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham

Donna on Twitter / Auguste Research website

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This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. 

Mentioned in this episode: Fearless Genius: The Digital Revolution in Silicon Valley 1985 - 2000 by Doug Menuez

Today’s guest is Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen – serial entrepreneur, inventor, pioneer in VR, medical imaging and telepathic technology, former professor at MIT Media Lab and currently, founder of Openwater.

Mary Lou spent many of her childhood years unwell before she was finally diagnosed with a brain tumour in her twenties. And going through that had a huge impact on her life as you might expect. For the many years she was quite literally dying, she decided she only wanted to work on really interesting projects - as she says to me in this interview, “I never really thought I would live very long and so I wanted to find really interesting things to do with my life for however long I might live.”

Mary Lou became fascinated with holography and optics whilst at school and spent her career pioneering in VR and in the optics space as an engineering executive at Intuit, Google, Facebook, Oculus, and with her own four startups which included multi-billion dollar non-profit One Laptop Per Child.

She is now using her decades long experience in this space and her experience with a brain tumour to spearhead Openwater where the goal is to create the technology to be able to see deep into the body with the detail of a 3D camera. The implications of this technology will make critical diagnostics healthcare far more affordable and accessible for millions but it could also mean we achieve telepathy which is hugely exciting. 

Mary Lou website / Openwater / Twitter 

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

I Know What You're Thinking: Brain Imaging and Mental Privacy

Today’s episode is going to be a little bit different as it is actually a podcast episode where I appeared as a guest as opposed to a host and I am sharing it here because I think you will find it useful. 

The podcast is called Digital Europe: Now and Beyond which is about European tech entrepreneurship and innovation and is hosted by serial Spanish entrepreneur Pau Garcia-Mila. In the episode you’re about to listen Pau talks to myself and South American but Ireland-based founder Alejandro Gutierrez, co-founder and CEO of Defactor Labs, a blockchain-based credit marketplace that links financiers with investors seeking opportunities in DeFi, about what it’s like to start a startup in Europe vs the USA including access to funding and networks, as well as why I believe in founders seeking out communities and networks at the beginning of their startup journeys, why we should be highlighting more female founders, and what Europe has to offer founders today vs the landscape here just ten or even twenty years ago.

The episode has a lovely international flavour and isn’t focused on just silicon valley like many tech podcasts usually are and I think you will find some useful lessons in here so please do enjoy it.

This episode features host Pau Garcia-MilaPau Garcia-Mila and guest Alejandro Gutierrez.

Original episode and Digital Europe podcast can be found here.

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

With special thanks to Hauwei

Today’s guest is Kelsey Hightower, a distinguished engineer and developer advocate at Google and speaker known for his work with Kubernetes, open source software and cloud computing.

As a curious and motivated self-learner, Kelsey dropped out of College and taught himself the skills required to start his career as an independent contractor for BellSouth – a telecoms company in Atlanta helping the community to get online. From there, Kelsey set up his own business – an electronics store before becoming involved in the open source world, working at New Relic, CoreOS, Puppet Labs, and most recently at Google.

A self-taught developer, Kelsey’s work on Kubernetes and at Google, from which he just retired, is well-known* so I wanted to focus our conversation on his life - how he got into tech, his love of learning, what drives him, what it means to be hopeful and the one piece of advice he would offer a younger Kelsey.

I know I am not meant to have favourites – these conversations are like children - but I have to say this is up there with one of my most loved conversations. I learned so much from Kelsey and I think you will too.

Enjoy!

Kelsey on Twitter

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Photo of Kelsey is part of the Faces of Open Source Project by Peter Adams

*If you want to learn more about Kelsey's work history, give this episode  from Ardan Labs a listen.

Today’s guest is Jane Metcalfe, co-founder of WIRED and founder of NEO.LIFE.

In 1993, Jane and Louis Rossetto founded WIRED leading the charge in informing, education and exciting the world about the digital revolution – a term Lewis coined.

25 years later and Jane is doing it all over again with NEO.LIFE and what she calls the neobiological revolution. NEO.LIFE is a digital media and events company set up to explore the rapid developments at the intersection of tech and biology and how its marriage will shape the future of our species.

A serial entrepreneur, innovator and investor, Jane was also President of WIRED ventures, author of Neo Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species and she also started a premium chocolate brand which was acquired in 2018.

In this conversation, we talk about feeling like a misfit, the genesis of one of the most important publications of our time and how it is inevitable that we will all become cyborgs.

Jane on Twitter / NEO.LIFE website 

Buy Neo Life: 25 Visions for the Future of Our Species here

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

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As always, if you like the show, please do take a minute to write a review or hot the subscribe button so that you can be the first to hear all the new episodes before everyone else. 

Image of Jane taken by Christopher Michel 

Today’s guest is David Senra, ex-founder host of  Founders podcast – one of my favourite podcasts where each week, David devours a biography of a founder and shares his favourite lessons with the world, whether it’s Charlie Munger, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Kobe Bryant, The Wright Brothers, Lucille Ball, Jay Z, Enzo Ferrari and many more!

But David has a really interesting story himself and one we dive into today. We talk about his tough childhood and how his escape came through his obsession with books because it was within those pages where he found the role models he wanted and needed to inspire him on his way.

We also discuss some key themes between the founders and innovators whose stories David has shared in the almost 300 episodes now from a self-styled delusion which helps them to ignore the naysayers and dream the impossible to the obsession which comes with a laser focus on what matters.

There are lots of great stories and anecdotes as you can imagine from David but there are also some great lessons that he has learned about success on his personal journey and why he wants to build something he’s younger self would be proud of.

Here is my conversation with David Senra.

Enjoy!

David's podcast Founders podcast / Twitter 

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Mentioned in this episode:

Tim Urban post that David mentions in this episode Taming the Mammoth: Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think

My episode with Jimmy Soni here

Steve Furber is a seminal computer scientist, mathematician and hardware designer whose work includes the BBC Microcomputer and the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor which can be found in over 100 billion devices today.

Steve studied both Maths followed by a PhD in Aerodynamics at Cambridge University before joining Herman Hauser and Chris Curry at Acorn Computers. For the next decade, he would work with a first-class team of engineers and designers to revolutionise the home computer market before he and Sophie Wilson went on to design the ARM processor with a relatively small team and budget and with little inkling of the consequence it might bring to the world.

In 1990, Steve left Acorn moved to Manchester where he is now Professor of Computer Engineering at the university there. He was charged with leading research into asynchronous systems, low-power electronics and neural engineering which  led to the SpiNNaker project - a super computer incorporating a million ARM processors which are optimised for computational neuroscience. He is basically trying to reverse engineer the brain – a lofty ambition even by his own admission.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss Steve’s life journey from studying maths with professors such as the famed John Conway and Sir James Lighthill to the highs and lows of building the BBC Micro and the story behind the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor.

I thoroughly enjoyed talking to Steve and am overly excited about his SpiNNaker project which we also discuss today.

Enjoy!

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Steve Furber info / SpiNNaker info / Micro Men film

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter 

Today’s episode is a special one as it is my very first LIVE recording of the podcast which took place last month with the one and only Chris Anderson of TED.

Recorded at the stunning Kindred in London, it was such a special evening and a delight to have so many fans of the podcast and Chris in the audience.

In this episode, we discuss Chris’ childhood, growing up with missionary parents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the huge professional peaks and lows of running a publishing company through the dot com crash. We also discuss how he came to acquire TED and his new book Infectious Generosity – The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading?

The overriding question we try to answer is, Can we outweigh the overwhelming negativity online by making kindness go viral?

…But a quick word about today’s sponsor before we get into the conversation. This episode is sponsored by Youll - This platform revolutionises how you connect with your audience and secure recurring revenue, through a subscription-based app tailored just for you and your community.

If you use social media for work, you will know that this week, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn all went down for millions of users, which is a nightmare for anyone with a large community. That’s why I am looking at building a community on Youll – whether you’re a content creator, coach, trainer or entrepreneur, Youll makes it easy for you to build your all-in-one branded app, giving you direct access to your community and revenue via its subscription model.

Want to try it today? Sign up for a FREE demo here

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Chris on Twitter / Instagram

Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading - buy here

Infectious Generosity site here

Kindred website

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship

Try Youll FREE today here

Today's episode is all about how to grow your podcast. I answer questions from listeners such as:  

Should I do audio or video?

How do you find your guests?

How to promote your podcast

What platforms work best to promote your podcast

Should you use YouTube?

Should you do clips?

Is the podcasting space too saturated?

Things I would do differently if I were starting a podcast today

How do you research?

Should each episode fit a niche?

I hope you find the answers useful!

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship / YouTube

Mentioned in this episode:

Canva

Descript

Simplecast

Today’s guest is Brit inventor Tom Lawton who has married the skill of design and engineering to create some really special products including BubblePix which would allow you to take 360 degree panoramic views, way before smartphones and beloved by many including Apple’s design team.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we discuss Tom’s childhood and inclination towards curiosity and truth telling, his ability to persist in the face of adversity and how his latest design – Wonder - is taking the world by storm.. and currently trending on Reddit.

Mentioned in this episode:

Tom Lawton Inventions

Wakeyoo

BubbliePix (originally called BubbleScope)

Uplift

Wonder

Tom website / Twitter / Instagram

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

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As always, if you like the show, please do take a minute to write a review or hit the subscribe button so that you can be the first to hear all the new episodes before everyone else. 

NCRJohWO8GagSHuH4HSC

Today’s guest is designer, founder and CEO,  Cat Noone.

Cat grew up with her grandparents in Brooklyn, New York. She started her career in web design and then worked in special education before founding the Iris app which was a modern-day emergency alert – and going on to co-found and be Chief Designer Officer at Liberio, an eBook publishing tool. 

Cat is now co-founder and CEO of Stark – which provides a beautifully designed suite of tools for designers and developers to ensure their software products are more accessible and compliant for all.

In today’s episode, Cat and I discuss the difficult childhood she had and how it shaped her a person as well the career path she has followed, making technology as accessible as possible to all. At the core of Cat’s mission is something close to her heart - this idea that no one should be excluded. No one should be left behind. 

It’s a truly heartfelt conversation and I am so grateful to Cat for opening up like this. As I say in the interview, I really believe that in being vulnerable as founders, we help others and I think that sums Cat up. She wants to channel her energy for good. And she does exactly like that.

I really enjoyed our conversation and feel I learned a lot from it. And I think you will too. 

You’re listening to the Danielle Newnham Podcast where I interview tech founders and to learn the inspiring, human stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.

Cat Twitter / Instagram / Stark / Substack Newsletter

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Today's guest is David Auerbach, a former engineer at both Microsoft and Google and now a technologist, writer and author of two books – Bitwise: A Life in Code and his most recent book, Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities.

Today, we talk about David’s background in software engineering and what it was like to work at Microsoft on MSN Messenger and then at Google in the relatively early days of the tech giant’s gargantuan growth.

We also discuss his latest book – he explains the meganets term that he coined and how As we increasingly integrate our society, culture and politics within a hyper-networked fabric, the interactions of billions of people with unfathomably large online networks have produced a new sort of beast: an ever-changing systems that operates beyond the control of the individuals, companies, and governments that created them.

But before we get into the conversation, a quick word about today’s sponsor.

Vowel.com is a game changing AI powered video conferencing platform that has an in-built AI powered meeting summary software that records all your meetings and automatically generates useful summaries at the end! I use it for all my meetings now and have found it so invaluable that I’m also using it for the podcast too to summarise the top takeaways from each episode.

If you want to try it, sign up at Vowel.com using my code “daniellecode” for 3 months free of Vowel. Be quick though as this offer expires in 7 days.

Enjoy!

David on Twitter / Website / Buy Meganets here 

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham  / Newsletter here

Today’s guest is Chrisman Frank – co-founder and CEO of Synthesis – the online platform that teaches kids how to solve complex problems and think critically. Born out of the school Elon Musk set up with Chrisman’s co-founder Josh Dahn (interview with Josh here),  Synthesis has two main products – teams where kids learn as a group to work on complex problems, and its AI tutor which was born out of some incredible DARPA research which we talk about in today’s episode.

We also talk about why Elon wanted to disrupt education and his views on teaching kids how to think vs what to think, what DARPA showed us when it comes to the potential of AI in learning and why John Holt’s adage that kids love to learn but hate to be taught is true.

I have followed the Synthesis journey since the beginning and am constantly blown away by their mission so I encourage you to listen to this episode in its entirety to learn how we can educate children in a way that will enable them to thrive in this ever-changing world of ours. 

Enjoy!

Chrisman on Twitter / Synthesis 

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship / YouTube

Mentioned in this episode

How Children Fail by John Holt

The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

DARPA study Digital Tutor in Navy Training

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What can I say about today’s guest? He started life in London before being sent to live with his grandmother in Ghana at a just a few months old. He was a young boy when he returned to live on a London council estate with his father and it was then that he said he realised that they were poor but that also his life thus far had not been down to his own doing. That he had found himself in these circumstances but he could also get himself out of them.

"At 19 years old, I said, I'm going to start this business, and in five years I'm going to sell it for tens of millions... and I did exactly that."

Today’s guest is Timothy Armoo, co-founder and CEO of Fanbytes – a tech powered social media and influencer marketing agency which helps massive brands reach Gen Z on social media and which was recently acquired by Brainlabs for a reported 8 figure deal.

Timo’s story is one of grit, resilience and an incredible entrepreneurial spirit which saw him start his first business at 14 and sold his second at 17 for six figures. He then went on to start Fanbytes when he was studying for a degree in Computer Science and with co-founders Ambrose Cooke and Mitchell Fasanya, grew Fanbytes into a multi-million-pound company.

Last year Fanbytes started a Fanbytes Impact Fund which is £250,000 fund dedicated to addressing the pay gap between black and non-black influencers which also provides funding and agency expertise to black-owned businesses. In its first year, the fund supported 14 black-owned businesses and more than 85 black creators which is incredible and a testament to what these three founders are building in the long run.

In this interview, Timo talks us through how he did it – from working out where the industry was going to how he strategically built a business with the goal of an exit in mind.

This is a special conversation with an incredible founder.

Enjoy!

Timothy Armoo Twitter / Instagram / Website

Fanbytes website 

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Today’s guest is Brendan Dawes - an award-winning artist whose career has focused on using generative processes involving data, machine learning and algorithms, to create interactive installations, electronic objects, online experiences, data visualisations, motion graphics and screen and print work.

His work has been celebrated all over the world including three Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) exhibitions in NY and his Cinema Redux project - which we discuss in this interview – actually became part of the permanent MoMA collection in 2008.

Brendan now focuses his time on NFTs with his first being sold within one hour of its launch on the KnownOrigin platform, and was acquired by the legendary NFT collector WhaleShark. Brendan went on to release a collection on Nifty Gateway which sold out in less than a minute! 

In today’s episode, we discuss NFTs and the impact they have had on the design world, how the tough times in Brendan’s career led to his success, and how being included in Sotheby’s first NFT auction was such a pivotal moment for him, and the industry.

I am a huge fan of Brendan and his work and urge you to find him on Twitter and follow him. And if you want to check out his work, he has another drop scheduled on Nifty Gateway for 23rd February so do check it out – it’s called 16Bit Machine Dreams and it’s the third and final part of his machine dreams series, inspired by video games.

Enjoy!

Mentioned in Episode:

The Art of Cyber Security

Brendan Twitter / Instagram / Website

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Episode edited by Jolin Cheng

Today’s guest is Joe Fernandez – A Cuban American entrepreneur, probably best known for being the co-founder of Klout which launched in August 2008. Klout was years ahead of its time because it measured social media influence years before others started paying attention to it. And the story behind Joe even starting the company and some of the adventures he had whilst building it before its sale for $200 million makes this an incredibly informative and engaging interview with lots of lessons for founders.

We also talk about the earlier obstacles Klout faced, how hustle played a big part in Joe’s success and why some Klout users became so attached to their scores that Joe even received death threats! We also look at how prescient Joe’s vision was when it came to social influence and what Klout might look like if it was built now.

Joe has a deep-seated passion to see the everyday person win. This is something he really cares about and the thread which links his businesses together.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Joe and I hope you do too.

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Joe Twitter / Blog

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter

Episode edited by Jolin Cheng.

Sean Dadashi is co-founder of Rosebud. Born to Iranian parents who emigrated to the US after the revolution in 1979, Sean grew up in Los Angeles and was on a path of studying mechanical engineering before he switched courses after a year to study Cognitive Science with a minor in Computer Science.

He then became a CTO before starting his own company - Somatic Studios in 2016 – where he used his passion for both tech and wellbeing to experiment with ideas including a web app that provided a health and wellness index for over 160 cities across 6 continents.

The studio also developed VR experiences to teach pain management patients mindfulness and somatic therapy techniques. After Somatic, Sean then joined up with Chrys Bader, who you may have heard of because he previously co-founded several startups including Treehouse and Secret. Together, Sean and Chris have created Rosebud – the number one AI-powered journal for mental health and personal growth and a product I highly recommend. Try it yourself for FREE here.

In this conversation, Sean and I discuss the loneliness epidemic, the importance of good mental health, his passion for helping others, and how he has always leaned towards the marriage of psychology and the human mind with technology and his passion for creating things, which ultimately led to Rosebud.

I really enjoyed this discussion and think you will too.

This is a replay from Series 12 to mark Mental Health Awareness Week.

Sean Dadashi / Rosebud

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

Interview with Dean Forbes - hugely successful turnaround tech CEO who has led several companies to massively successful exits. 

But let’s go back in time. Dean experienced hardship growing up and his family were made homeless twice but Dean always had big aspirations. His first goal was to make money doing what he loved which was football and whilst he did get to play for a Premiership, the experience was short-lived and he was soon ushered into a soulless call centre where he honed his sales skills.

He then found himself at Primavera – an American software company where he grew the business to its sale to Oracle where he stayed on, making him the youngest vice president at Oracle for 30 years.

From there, Dean joined Paris-based KDS a SaaS software company where as CEO, he led it to an acquisition by American Express – their largest tech acquisition at the time.

Dean then went on to be CEO at CoreHR - a cloud-based HR solutions provider, where he led its growth and expansion up to acquisition by The Access Group in the UK’s largest private to private Human Capital Management M&A deal. 

Then in 2021, Dean became CEO of Forterro which is home to a portfolio of specialised ERP (enterprise resource planning) software products (think the software that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities such as accounting, procurement, project management, risk management etc). Having been hired to drive the company’s growth in Europe - within a year, he led the business to a 1 BILLION Euro exit!

If that wasn’t enough, Dean is also the founder of Forbes Family Group where he coaches and mentors young leaders and entrepreneurs from underrepresented backgrounds. Like I said, this is a special episode where we focus on Dean’s journey as CEO and how and why he makes the decisions he does in business – all of which have led him to so many hugely successful exits.

Enjoy!

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Dean on Twitter / Instagram / Forterro / Forbes Family Group

Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham   / Newsletter