You know her right? The woman who started two venture funds and a wealth management firm? You don’t? Meet Ba Minuzzi. Ba was born in Brazil, where she started a fashion business in her teens. That soon gave way to a real estate business, and then the venue changed to Miami. In Miami, she realized she wanted to start a venture fund – and that Silicon Valley was the place to do it. Today she is founder of Babel (an early stage healthtech venture fund), Ausum (a blockchain fund) and UMANA (a wealth management firm for tech self-mades, conscious celebrities and athletes). She is the first Latina to start a Silicon Valley venture fund.
In this episode, we discuss her path to Silicon Valley, why she started not one, not two, but three funds. She also responds to recent episodes that poked a bit of fun at Burning Man.
Listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jerry Colonna is the author of Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up, and cofounder of Reboot – a coaching company, which he started along with Ali Schultz, Khalid Halim, and Dan Put.
Before building a successful coaching firm – Jerry was a “Prince of New York” – he co-founded the VC firm Flatiron partners and then ran JP Morgan Partners’. But walked away from it all at the age of 38, wracked with depression. Today he’s a bestselling author, Buddhist, and a sought after coach for the most influential people in business and beyond.
In this podcast we discuss some fascinating parts of Internet history that you may have forgotten – including the first internet newspaper. We speak about the legacy of “Coach” Bill Campbell and how Jerry found himself as a coach to some of the most powerful and famous executives in the world. We also track his harrowing path through depression and suicidal thoughts to a fulfilled life, in which he is transforming the lives of others.
Listen on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Maha is a partner at Canaan Partners, one of Silicon Valley’s largest and most successful venture firms. She spots technology trends early and partners closely with her companies to drive growth and exits. Maha focuses on e-commerce and enterprise / cloud, and was one of the first investors to recognize the potential of social gaming. She represented Canaan as the first institutional investor in TheRealReal – which recently went public.
Maha is a founding member of All Raise, an organization with the mission to “accelerate the success of female funders and founders”. She is also a trustee for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Before becoming a venture capitalist, Maha was an executive at Qwest Communications and studied Economics and Sociology at Stanford, and Economics at MIT.
In this podcast Maha shares her journey to becoming a venture capitalist. She discusses the changes she’s seen in the venture industry and what does – and doesn’t – excite her today. We also talk about the evolving path for women in Silicon Valley, and what an ally of women can do to be helpful.
Listen on iTunes,Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts
Esther Wojcicki is a journalist and educator. She founded and runs the Palo Alto High School Media Arts Center, which engages over 600 students directly in media such as magazines, newspapers, radio, television and photography.
She wrote the book “How to Raise Successful People: Simple Lessons for Radical Results”. Her qualifications? Her three daughters, Susan, Anne and Janet are the CEO of Youtube, Founder and CEO of 23 and Me, and a professor of medicine at UCSF.
In this podcast, we discuss her path through the male dominated world of journalism, to becoming a teacher and founding the Media Arts Center. She relates how she raised her children to be particularly independent, and discusses the rise of ‘helicopter parents’ — parents who sometimes hover over their children even as they go to college.
We also discuss the evolution and state of journalism from typeset newspapers, to the massive changes brought on by the Internet, Facebook, YouTube and Google.
Alison
McCauley is the Best Selling Author of Unblocked: How blockchain will Change your Business and
What to Do About It.
Why
does blockchain matter? Alison points
out that disruption is no longer a moment in time. It’s a continual state. How
do you understand new opportunity? Set priorities in a complex and
ever-shifting landscape? Prepare for what’s ahead? Alison helps you navigate
the human side of digital acceleration.
In
this episode we discuss the moment Alison came to be blown away by the
potential of blockchain, how it’s like the early Internet…and the surprisingly
large role of women in this industry.
I
also conduct a thorough podcast investigation of whether Alison is Satoshi
Nakamoto. Don’t miss it!
More
about Alison McCauley:
Alison
is founder and CEO of Unblocked Future, a consultancy that helps executives
drive adoption at the forefront of emerging tech. She helps companies
communicate their vision, resonate with stakeholders, and activate communities
for change. She is a keynote speaker who, in addition to spending time in the
blockchain rabbit hole, helps
teams to educate and drive adoption in their markets at the front edge of
innovation in IoT, robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and
other developing technologies.. A social scientist by training, she spent her career studying the
intersection of human behavior and emerging technology, with 20 years of
consulting to technology-first startups and Fortune-500 companies across
industries including healthcare, education, telecommunications, energy, retail,
finance, hospitality, and manufacturing
Keller Fitzsimmons is the author of Lost in Startuplandia: Wayfinding for the Weary Entrepreneur. She gives lie to the idea that entrepreneurship is a thrilling, lucrative adventure. All is great, of course, until things go horribly wrong. “As crisis after crisis hits, even the most seasoned founder can get disoriented. Whether you’re in the throes of business woes or just getting into the game, E. Keller Fitzsimmons has written a field guide outlining the terrain to help you avoid getting Lost in Startuplandia.”
Keller is a serial tech entrepreneur, artist, and mother of two. She
is the cofounder of Custom Reality Services, a virtual reality production
company whose first two projects, Across the Line (2016) and Ashe ’68 (2019),
premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Keller is the recipient of the
Silvertip PwC Entrepreneurship Award and Speech Technology’s Luminary Award.
Her work has been published by Network Computing, InformationWeek,
and Inc. An active angel investor, she serves on the technology committee for
BELLE USA, a venture fund that invests in women-led startups. Originally
trained as a classical archaeologist, Keller holds a master’s degree from
Harvard University.
In this podcast Keller discusses a wide range of topics, including losing her ability to read (before becoming a best selling author). She discusses the surprising prevalance of anxiety, depression and suicide in Silicon Valley.
Listen on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
Lost in Startuplandia https://www.lostinstartuplandia.com
Adriana
is the Founder and CEO of Girls in Tech, a San Francisco-based non-profit
organization that empowers women in the tech industry across the globe. Before
founding Girls in Tech, Adriana served in executive roles at Ogilvy &
Mather, Interpublic Group of Companies, Social Gaming Network (SGN), and
SecondMarket. She has been named one of
the 20 most influential Latinos in Technology by CNET, among other awards.
She
is author of the book Tech Boss
Lady: How to Startup, Disrupt and Thrive
as a Female Founder.
In this episode, Adriana charts the influence her immigrant grandparents, and entrepreneurial parents had on her. She shares her early experience with Silicon Valley’s unwelcoming male culture, and how she came to create the global enterprise that is Girls in Tech. She discusses how sexual harassment in Silicon Valley has – and hasn’t – changed. From roller skating to balling up stress like a travel t-shirt – this episode has a bit of everything.
Listen on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts
Anne
Dwane is co-founder and partner of Village Global, the venture firm backed by
an impressive and diverse group of investors that includes: Jeff Bezos, Sara Blakely, Reid Hoffman, Magic
Johnson, Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg, Diane Green, Judy Estrin, and Ken
Chennault.
Before
becoming a venture capitalist, Anne was a tech company co-founder, a private
company CEO, and public company executive. She built Military.com with previous
podcast guest Chris Michel, and was CEO of Zinch before it was acquired by
Chegg. At Chegg she had P&L
responsibility as the company became public, with a value over $1 billion.
In this episode, Anne shares her journey from Harvard Business School, to Silicon Valley, and her path to becoming a public company executive to her latest role as a venture capitalist at Village Global.
Listen on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
After attending the University of Illinois, Chris Michel began his career as a Naval Flight Officer, flying aboard P-3 Orion “sub-hunters”.
Today, he is a photographer, chronicling Silicon
Valley and the World. His photography has taken him from the edge of
space, to the North and South Poles and everything in between. Chris’s
path from the Navy to photographer was not a straight line, and in this podcast
you’ll hear his story.
In this wide-ranging discussion we talk about how
Chris made it from the Navy to Harvard business school, where he met his
business partner (and future podcast guest) Anne Dwane. Also covered are
his path to founding two Silicon Valley companies, and his struggle to guide
them through difficult times.
Finally, we discuss Chris’s advice on how to think
about structuring a career and life.
Listen on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.
Julian Guthrie is a journalist-turned-author, covering such topics
as Larry Ellison’s quest for the America’s Cup, and the new age of private
space exploration. She gravitates to tales of underdogs and innovation, and her
latest book is no exception.
“Alpha Girls: The Women Upstarts Who Took on Silicon
Valley’s Male Culture and Made the Deals of a Lifetime” is the story of 4
women: Magdalena Yesil, Mary Jane
Elmore, Theresia Gouw, and Sonja Hoel Perkins.
Each of these rose – against the well-known odds of Silicon Valley – to
the top of the game.
Well before “me too” these 4 women juggled work and family, overcame
unequal pay, and faced the sexist attitudes prevalent in male-dominated Silicon
Valley. Nevertheless, they rose to
rewrite the rules of an entire industry.
Each story is amazing on its own. Magdalena Yesil, came from Turkey
with $43 to her name, and would go on to help Marc Benioff build Salesforce.
Mary Jane Elmore went from the cornfields of Indiana to Silicon
Valley and landed at the storied venture capital firm IVP – where she was one
of the first women in the U.S. to make partner at a venture firm.
Theresia Gouw, Asian American from a working-class town, ultimately
helped venture firm Accel Partners invest in firms like Google, Facebook,
Imperva, Forescout, and Trulia.
Sonja Hoel Perkins, a Southerner, became one of the first women
investing partners at white-glove Menlo Ventures, and invested in McAfee,
Hotmail, Acme Packet, and F5 Networks.
In this wide ranging conversation, Julian shares her experience in writing this book, and previous books including “How to Make a Spaceship,” with a foreword by Richard Branson and an afterword by Stephen Hawking, and “The Billionaire and the Mechanic,” about Larry Ellison. We also discuss the current state of sexism in Silicon Valley, her predictions for the future, and the in-the-works adaptation of her book for television.
