The Next Great Thing

In this episode of The Next Great Thing, we sit down with Konstantine Buhler, a Sequoia Capital partner and AI pioneer, to explore the transformative journey of artificial intelligence. From his early days at Stanford to his influential roles in startups and venture capital, Konstantine shares his unique perspective on the evolution of AI, highlighting key milestones such as the deep learning revolution and the impact of groundbreaking algorithms like AlexNet. He explains how AI has already generated trillions of dollars in value by predicting user behaviors and optimizing business processes, long before the advent of ChatGPT.Konstantine also shares his insights on the differences between startup and venture capital worlds, advice for entrepreneurs, and how AI can enhance human creativity and connections. He emphasizes the importance of focusing on real customer needs and using AI as a tool to solve significant problems and discusses Sequoia Capital's pre-seed and seed program, Arc, which leverages decades of experience to help startups with market approach, hiring, scaling, and more.One fascinating point Konstantine makes is about the future of AI. He envisions a world where multiple AI models collaborate and compete, each excelling in different areas, leading to better outcomes for consumers and businesses.Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com. Follow Andrew on LinkedIn at @Andrew GreensteinQuestions? Feedback? Guest recommendations? Email us here.

Renate Nyborg has been building consumer-focused apps for as long as the App Store has existed. She's held senior leadership roles at Apple and Headspace. She was the CEO of Tinder, the world's most popular dating app, at the height of the pandemic. It was during this critical time that Renate saw up close the importance of human connection and the profound negative impacts of loneliness, especially among men and younger people. This experience ultimately inspired her to create Meeno, an app that uses AI to offer personalized advice for any relationship issue – with friends, family, coworkers, roommates, dating, and more. Renate shares her journey in founding Meeno, explaining how she's developed and tested the app and gathered critical user feedback along the way. She highlights Meeno's unique approach to delivering bite-sized, expert-validated advice that empowers users to build confidence, communicate better, and improve their relationships. Finally, Renate discusses the challenges of launching an AI startup in the current landscape, emphasizing the importance of staying focused on customer needs and happiness, user experience, and solving genuine problems rather than getting swept up in the AI hype machine.Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com. Follow Andrew on LinkedIn at @Andrew GreensteinQuestions? Feedback? Guest recommendations? Email us here.

As the planet warms, we're experiencing more frequent and destructive extreme weather. Yet, 85% of the world lacks critical atmospheric data for precise forecasting that could help us better prepare. John Dean and Kai Marshland, Co-Founders of WindBorne Systems, are on a mission to close this gap. Born out of the Stanford Student Space Initiative, WindBorne began as a project to extend the flight duration of conventional weather balloons. Realizing the impact of their technology on climate change, they turned their project into a venture-backed startup serving both private and government partners like NOAA and the U.S. Air Force. John and Kai share how WindBorne deploys a global constellation of autonomous, navigable, AI-powered balloons that fly longer, are more sustainable, and collect more real-time measurements than standard balloons. Their data is fed into powerful AI models to create the world's most accurate forecasts – better than Google DeepMind's GraphCast – unlocking the potential to improve disaster preparedness and climate resilience worldwide.Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com. Follow Andrew on LinkedIn at @Andrew GreensteinQuestions? Feedback? Guest recommendations? Email us here.

Technology connects us more than ever. Yet, we feel lonelier than ever. Worldwide, one in four adults (more than a billion people) feel lonely. And 36% of all Americans — including 61% of young adults aged 18-25 — feel “serious loneliness.” It's gotten so bad that, in 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a health advisory about America's loneliness epidemic, equating social disconnection to the physical health risks to that of drinking alcohol, obesity, physical inactivity, and even smoking 15 cigarettes a day. In this session from SXSW 2024, Andrew Greenstein, Co-Founder and CEO at SF AppWorks and host of ‘The Next Great Thing' podcast leads a thought-provoking discussion, joined by panelists Leslie Witt, Chief Product and Design officer at Headspace; Kyle Rand, Co-Founder and CEO at Rendever; and Erick Hachenburg, Founder at Tenor, creator of GIF Keyboard. Together, they dive into the paradox of loneliness in our hyper-connected world, explore how the complex relationship between loneliness and technology impacts different cohorts (especially young people and older adults), and offer their vision for a mentally healthy digital future.Background reading:Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation 2023: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on the  Healing Effects of Social Connection and CommunityHealth Risks of Social Isolation and Loneliness - Centers for Disease Control and PreventionTechnology's role in the ‘loneliness epidemic' - The Washington Post Loneliness or social isolation linked to serious health outcomes, study finds - CNNThe Global State of Social Connections - Meta-GallupShow notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com. Follow Andrew on LinkedIn at @Andrew GreensteinQuestions? Feedback? Guest recommendations? Email us here.

Arvind Jain, Co-Founder and CEO of generative AI workplace search startup, Glean, has an impressive, 25-year career in Silicon Valley. It's safe to say he's learned a thing or two along the way. He's held engineering roles at Microsoft and Akamai, spent more than a decade working on Search at Google as a Distinguished Engineer, and started two companies, Rubrik, in 2014, and Glean, in 2019. Arvind joins us to reflect on key takeaways and pivotal moments across his career as he's moved between engineering and entrepreneurship – and shares lessons he's learned about himself as a founder, what it takes to scale a startup, and how to build the right team. He also takes us inside Glean's AI-powered enterprise search platform, built on technology that combines AI models like GPT-4 with a powerful search engine. Finally, Arvind offers his vision for the future of productivity, where everyone – regardless of their role or title – will use a personalized AI assistant to help them be more efficient and productive at work.Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com. Follow Andrew on LinkedIn at @Andrew GreensteinQuestions? Feedback? Guest recommendations? Email us here.

Named to TIME's inaugural AI 100 list, Nancy Xu is an AI innovator who worked on early foundation models at Stanford's AI Lab before founding Moonhub. It's here where she's revolutionizing recruiting with AI-powered assistants. But Moonhub didn't start as an AI company. Nancy reveals invaluable insights she learned from her company's early days as a traditional recruiting agency, explaining how these lessons fueled an AI recruiter that frees human recruiters from manual, repetitive tasks like candidate sourcing and outreach. She argues that AI will revolutionize hiring efficiency while empowering career mobility and purpose. Workers will get greater access to job opportunities. Recruiters will be able to source larger, more diverse talent pools and focus on building meaningful candidate relationships. And companies will save time and money. Nancy also shares her optimism for our AI-assisted future, making a pragmatic call for policies and training programs to ensure a smooth transition into this transformative era. Background reading:Moonhub's Nancy Xu on the TIME100 AI listTIME100 AI - full listThis Startup's AI Is Used By Billion Dollar Companies To Hire Top Talent - ForbesShow notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com. Follow Andrew on LinkedIn at @Andrew GreensteinQuestions? Feedback? Guest recommendations? Email us here.

Devo Harris isn't your typical tech founder. He's a builder. A creative visionary who's most comfortable at the intersection of media and technology. From co-founding G.O.O.D. Music with Kanye West, to launching John Legend's career, to snagging a Grammy, to pioneering interactive choose-your-own-adventure web videos before they were cool, Devo's entrepreneurial journey is nothing short of extraordinary. Now, he's the founder and CEO of Adventr, an AI-powered smart video platform that lets any creator make interactive, Internet-connected, hyper-personalized videos at scale – across the web, ad networks, and social media. Devo explains how Adventr is disrupting the digital media landscape with videos you can talk to, stories you can steer, and brands that come alive. He shares how he's not just building a tech company; he's forging the future of storytelling – one interaction at a time.

AI is booming, but transforming industries still requires custom models that most companies can't build, customize, and deploy themselves. That's the opportunity May Habib saw early and seized. As Co-Founder and CEO of Writer, May and her team have built a full-stack generative AI platform tailored for enterprise companies, giving knowledge workers across a range of industries access to AI's unprecedented capabilities. Combining generative language models with specialized training and guardrails, Writer lets enterprises generate content, analyze data, automate workflows, and more through a no-code interface. Its secret sauce? Palmyra, Writer's own family of LLMs optimized on customers' data for accuracy and tailored to their security needs. May joins the show to share her entrepreneurial journey, trace Writer's pandemic-era origin story, and walk through how business teams are using the platform to build their own tools. She also shares her vision for an AI-augmented business world — one where “if you aren't an AI-enabled team, it'll feel like you're working without the Internet.”

AI like ChatGPT and DALL·E 2 is raising important questions about human creativity. Will AI one day replace us as creators and storytellers? Keith Peiris believes AI can boost creativity rather than hinder it – and he's built a platform to do just that. Keith is the Co-Founder and CEO of Tome, an AI-powered storytelling and presentation platform that lets anyone turn their ideas into stories and presentations within seconds – from fundraising pitches and sales proposals to landing pages and classroom presentations. He joins the podcast to explain how Tome helps anyone tell compelling stories that convey ideas and persuade others. A former product leader at Instagram, Keith traces Tome's origins from the start of the pandemic – releasing early prototypes to friends and launching on Product Hunt – to going viral and reaching 10 million users in the months after ChatGPT was released. He shares how, as Tome has scaled, he and his co-founder, Henri Liriani, have balanced using off-the-shelf LLM models with proprietary technology.  And he discusses why critical thinking remains an essential and enduring human skill, even with increasingly intelligent generative AI. 

How does the 171-year-old Gray Lady stay so innovative? Design and technology. Georg Petschnigg, Head of Product Design at The New York Times, shares how his team collaborates with editors, journalists, and experts across the organization to design multimedia experiences that make the most of readers' time and help them understand the world. From unraveling complex topics like the pandemic and elections to creating utility, delight, and moments of clarity across The Times's vast product ecosystem, Georg reveals the design cues that signify the tone of a story and the dynamic elements used to convey unfolding events. He explains how new formats are being used to enrich reporting and storytelling at The Times. And, he shares his perspective on ongoing efforts to humanize generative AI and its potential to enhance news accessibility and comprehension. With decades of digital product and business experience, Georg is uniquely positioned to understand where tech has been and where it's going – giving a rare and fascinating look at the intersection of design, technology, and news.

As Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of fintech startup Brex, Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi are true “friendpreneurs” – a​​nd they're not even 30 years old. As teens, they met over Twitter in Brazil, hacking and jailbreaking their way through high school. After their payment startup Pagar.me (“basically the Stripe of Brazil”) achieved success, they left Brazil for Silicon Valley, where they used their unique insight into the payments landscape to start Brex in 2017. Originally offering credit cards to startups, Brex has moved and scaled at incredible speed, reaching $100 million in revenue just 18 months after launch, and expanding from credit cards into a global spend management platform that both startups and enterprise customers rely on. Today, the company is valued at more than $12 billion. But scaling this big, this fast hasn't always been smooth. Henrique and Pedro share their journey, wisdom, and experience managing risk and making tough decisions and pivots. They also explain how their complementary skillsets, friendship, drive, and long-view approach fuel their ambition to build Brex into a global fintech powerhouse – one that's challenging established financial services and payments players.

Noam Bardin is drawn to working on world-changing ideas. As the former CEO of Waze, the popular traffic crowdsourcing app, he got the chance to do that. Now, as Founder and CEO of social media startup Post News, he's on to his next big idea: bring civil discourse and fact-based journalism back into our feeds. Post isn't another “Twitter alternative,” Noam says; it's an antidote to the toxic brew of misinformation and echo chambers that have been swirling on the big social media platforms and harming society for years. Noam explains how Post plans to reshape the media landscape by rewarding hundreds of publishers, journalists, and creators via micropayments as an alternative to ads and subscriptions. He also recounts important lessons learned from early on in his career and from his time at Waze on how to make big decisions and engage a community of users to create experiences they love. Having seen social media's harms firsthand, Noam wants to realign platform incentives at Post to reduce polarization, elevate fact-based discussions, and counter the global rise of authoritarianism. It's a bold, ambitious mission. Is Post part of the next great wave of social media?*******Humanitarian aid organizations seeking donations to aid victims of the war in Israel: Magen David AdomAlliance for Middle East PeaceThe International Red Cross

Marissa Mayer is one of the most successful and influential women in tech. As employee #20 at Google, she played a lead role in building the iconic products we use every day, like Google Search, Gmail, AdWords, and Google Maps. As President and CEO at Yahoo, she learned important lessons on leadership, growth, and engagement. Now, she's in a role she's never had before: founder. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Sunshine, Marissa is focused on cleaning up our contacts and making us happier by improving our relationships -- with a little help from artificial intelligence. Marissa joins us to share how she's seen AI evolve from her days as a Stanford student researching AI to now -- and why we might be on the eve of another technological revolution. She reflects on her experience in scaling and risk-taking at Google and always putting the user first. And, she discusses her long-term vision for Sunshine, why we should take a cautious view on AI regulation, and why search still has a long way to go. 

We're off for the summer, but stopping by with a quick update on a few cool happenings at The Next Great Thing! Now through August 20th, vote for ‘The Paradox of Loneliness and Technology,' our live podcast recording at SXSW 2024. We'll be joined on stage by some incredible friends of the pod: Leslie Witt, Chief Product & Design Officer at Headspace; Kyle Rand, Co-Founder & CEO at Rendever; and Erick Hachenburg, the Founder of Tenor, which created the first-ever GIF Keyboard. Then, be sure to visit www.sfappworks.com to get your free copy of our new book, ‘Just Start (Up): The Founder's Guide to Becoming The Next Great Thing.' It's chock-full of lessons, inspiration, and practical advice on growing and scaling your startup. You'll learn from some of our favorite podcast guests, like Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, the CEO of Grammarly; Jenny Arden, the Chief Design Officer at Zillow; and leaders from thredUP, Coursera, Rover, Truepic, and more. See you in the fall for Season 3 of TNGT!VOTE HERE: https://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/132358 

We're constantly looking for ways to track, goal-set, and optimize our physical fitness. Why don't we do the same with sleep – something we spend one-third of our life doing and foundational to our health? This question was Matteo Franceschetti's "ah-ha" moment. A former competitive athlete, Matteo has had a lifelong obsession with optimizing recovery and personal performance. Sleep is not just rest, he realized; it's fitness. So, in 2014, he co-founded and became the CEO of Eight Sleep, a sleep technology company whose smart mattresses and mattress covers -- or, “Pods,” as they're called – utilize medical-grade sensors and AI to regulate mattress temperature and help you track and optimize your sleep fitness. Eight Sleep has been recognized as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies and TIME's Best Inventions. Matteo joins us to explain how the company got there, walking us through his founder journey and Eight Sleep's early days – from a successful crowdfunding campaign to sourcing manufacturers in China, persistence in applying to Y Combinator (third time's the charm!), securing investors, signing influencers, and navigating the push/pull dynamics of product-market fit.

Imagine exploring inside any building or space, right down to the tiniest details, from anywhere on the planet. That's exactly what 3D “digital twins” allow you to do. With specialized cameras, a mobile app, sensors, AI, and deep learning, we can now use cutting-edge technology to capture detailed and precise data points inside physical spaces, then stitch them together to create immersive and interactive 3D models, or digital twins. These digital twins allow anyone, anywhere to virtually explore and navigate inside any real-world building or physical environment – from houses to hotels, from museums to factories to Egyptian tombs – with astonishing realism. RJ Pittman is the CEO of Matterport, a pioneer in the 3D digital twin space. A computer engineer, serial entrepreneur, and tech industry veteran, RJ has held senior leadership positions at Google and Apple, and, prior to Matterport, was Chief Product Officer at eBay. RJ joins us to explain why Matterport is much more than a virtual 3D tour provider on your favorite real estate app; it's a data-first, AI-driven company that's generating insights across more than 10 million buildings and spaces (and counting), creating the largest spatial data library in the world. He also shares insights he's gleaned throughout his impressive 20+ year career as a founder and entrepreneur in tech, including lessons in scaled leadership from industry greats like Marissa Mayer, Tim Cook, and (yes) even Henry Ford.

We're in a clothing waste crisis, buying more clothes than ever but tossing them out twice as fast. Americans trash 11.3 million tons of textiles annually – a whopping 2,150 garments every second! The fashion industry, especially fast fashion, is also one of the world's biggest polluters, responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions. But there's a growing movement among consumers and retailers to give the unwanted threads clogging our closets a new lease on life. Enter thredUP, one of the largest secondhand apparel marketplaces for women's and kids' clothes, shoes, and accessories. Founded by a cash-strapped Harvard grad student named James Reinhart and his co-founders in 2009, thredUP is today one of the largest online resale sites But it's also a massive technology and logistics company. With sprawling automated distribution centers and a custom-built, proprietary operating platform, thredUP processes an impressive 100,000 unique items daily. In addition to its consumer-facing marketplace, the company also runs a Resale-as-a-Service (RaaS) program to help brands and retailers participate in the growing secondhand economy. James joins us to share his unconventional founder story and how his lifelong obsession with market failures and solving really hard problems has been a driving force behind thredUP's growth. He talks about how Gen Z is leading the sustainable resale revolution and why the circular economy will change the way the world shops.

The United States is in the midst of a mental health crisis. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five adults in the U.S. experiences mental illness each year. And yet, only about half of those who need mental health care receive it – often because of a lack of access to affordable, quality care. Increasingly, people are turning to technology to feel better. But, how do you design health tech to be as effective as traditional mental health care? And where does generative AI fit in? We explore these questions and more with Leslie Witt, Chief Product and Design Officer at Headspace Health, one of the world's largest digital mental health and wellness platforms. Headspace Health has brought together the popular Headspace app for mindfulness, meditation, and care services from its merger with Ginger in 2019, which provides personalized mental health support, coaching, and therapy. Headspace Health has been used by over 100 million people in 190 countries. Leslie talks about the company's mission to make mental health care more accessible and inclusive; the opportunities and challenges of designing and building digital products for mental health and wellness; and the potential of large language models and generative AI to revolutionize our relationship with mental health care.

We're at a global climate tipping point. Along with policymakers, public-private partnerships, and political will, technology is central to solving our planet's biggest existential threat. One solution that's gaining momentum: buying and selling carbon credits. The market value for carbon credits is huge – it could be worth more than $50 billion by the end of the decade. But accessing these markets can be complex, and navigating them can demand significant investments of time and resources for businesses. But what if helping remove carbon from the atmosphere was as easy as a click of a button? Brennan Spellacy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Patch, a platform that enables access to 115+ verified carbon removal projects worldwide – like carbon mineralization in concrete, reforestation, and direct air capture – helping companies to achieve their corporate net-zero goals and embed climate action into digital products and services. Brennan joins the podcast to discuss the mechanics of carbon credit buying and how software makes this process easier; lay out the business case for participating in carbon markets; and highlight opportunities for climate tech growth and investment in the years ahead.

Before the decade is out, over 90% of all the content on the internet will be artificially generated. From deepfakes of famous faces to flattering (or not-so-flattering) Instagram and TikTok filters, we've already seen a glimpse of what's possible. But as generative AI rapidly evolves and becomes more widespread, fake media is getting real… deceptively real. Separating fact from fiction will soon become nearly impossible, and, left unchecked, the proliferation of fake and manipulated digital content will lead to the dangerous erosion of trust and transparency in institutions, services, relationships, and society. But Jeff McGregor sees a more optimistic future. As CEO of Truepic, a company named one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2022, he's on a mission to restore authenticity, transparency, and trust across the internet. Truepic's patented secure camera technology verifies and authenticates digital media at the point of creation by capturing, signing, and sealing the metadata inside of every photo or video, creating a tamper-evident digital fingerprint that can be tracked across the web. Jeff joins the podcast to explain why, in an era of AI-generated synthetic media, establishing a framework to ensure the authenticity of visual media is critical. He also shares his insights on the broader implications of digital manipulation for society and how Truepic is addressing these challenges to bring trust and transparency back online.  

Our pets aren't just furry friends, they're family. And the pandemic brought this bond into focus for millions of Americans, with one in five households adopting a new dog or cat. But like any family member, pet parents need to care for their pets – and many of them turn to Rover, the world's largest online marketplace that connects pet owners with pet sitters and dog walkers. That wasn't always the case. Back in 2011, when Aaron Easterly and his two co-founders started Rover, they faced two big challenges: building trust with customers and convincing investors of the market potential. Back then, the pet care industry was haunted by the failures of companies like Pets.com during the dot-com boom, leading to negative perceptions of tech in the pet space. Furthermore, pet owners were relying on friends, family, and neighbors to take care of their dogs and cats – would they really trust a stranger? Aaron, Rover's CEO, joins the podcast to reflect on the company's early days and share how Rover used data-driven decision-making and patience to build and grow the world's largest online marketplace for pet care.

The robots are coming! Actually, they're already here. Every day there's a new story in our newsfeeds about how AI technology is disrupting everything from education to healthcare to the workplace. Remarkably, one of the greatest benefits of AI is its ability to improve human communication. AI communication assistants are quickly becoming our trusted advisors, stealthily upgrading our language skills and making us sound like bona fide geniuses across all of our digital platforms. But according to Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, we haven't even scratched the surface of what's possible. He should know. Rahul spent more than 14 years at Google, where he served as the company's VP of Product Management, and today is the Global Head of Product at Grammarly, one of the most popular and advanced AI communication assistants. Grammarly's platform reaches more than 30 million users and 50,000 organizations worldwide. It uses natural language processing and AI to check written digital text for grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors, and it can even give you suggestions for improving your tone, sentence structure, and clarity, and help you make your writing sound more engaging. Rahul joins the podcast to talk about how AI communication assistants like Grammarly won't replace human communication but, rather, through improving our communication, give us the capability and confidence to be our best selves.

Buying a home ain't easy. It can be a fragmented, frustrating, often downright painful experience. You scour the market for your dream home, only to find that each property has its own unique set of flaws. You waste another weekend visiting open houses, only to find that what looked so perfect on your phone is a total dud in person. And that's all before you even get to the nitty-gritty of financing and paperwork! But there's a massive opportunity to revolutionize the way people buy homes, and it all starts with how the experience is designed. That's Jenny Arden's mission. As the first-ever Chief Design Officer at Zillow Group, Jenny and a team of diverse and talented designers are building the ‘Housing Super App' we've all been dreaming of but (so far) haven't yet experienced. It's an ambitious goal, but Jenny is well-suited for the challenge. She brings more than 20 years of design experience to her role, having held senior design positions at Airbnb, Lyft, Nike, Google, and IDEO. Jenny joins the podcast to talk about why design is fundamentally all about organizing chaos, solving problems, and putting users' needs at the center of that work. She explains the value of simplicity, inclusivity, and quality in design and makes the case for instilling human-centered design thinking into the culture of product development and across the business.

Look around you. Chances are, most of what you see has, at some point, been shipped on a truck and driven around by a truck driver. Trucking is a massive, $800 billion industry in the U.S. — 80% of every dollar spent moving freight is spent on trucking. Despite its size and scale, America's traditional freight network of brokers, shippers, and carriers is fragmented, inefficient, and antiquated. It's also harming the planet. Nearly 35% of all trucks on the road are empty, and all those empty miles create 87M metric tons of carbon emissions a year. But trucking's digital transformation, and zero waste mission, has begun. Dorothy Li is the Chief Technology Officer at Convoy, the nation's leading digital freight network that uses AI, machine learning, and data analytics to optimize and automate a marketplace for matching a trucker to a shipper. Before Convoy, she spent 23 years at Amazon innovating everything from the initial launch of Amazon Prime, to Kindle, to AWS Cloud. Dorothy joins the podcast to explain how her team is creating more efficiency across — and visibility into — the freight network and expanding elastic capacity for shippers, just like cloud did for compute capacity. 

What if software could actually treat a disease? That's the question that Eddie Martucci, a biochemist and biophysicist whose focus is in drug design, wondered 10 years ago. It's also the question that set his digital therapeutics company, Akili Interactive, into motion. Today, as Co-Founder and CEO at Akili, Eddie and a diverse team of cognitive neuroscientists, data scientists, software engineers, and video game designers (who've worked on games like Medal of Honor, Plants vs. Zombies, and Bejeweled) have developed EndeavorRx, the first-ever FDA-approved prescription video game to treat kids 8-12 with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Eddie joins the podcast to talk about the new and growing field of medicine called digital therapeutics and share how “software that is the medicine” is innovating and disrupting traditional medicine as we know it. He explains how software has the potential to treat a range of health conditions – like depression, anxiety, insomnia, chronic pain, multiple sclerosis, Long COVID brain fog, and more – and how digital therapeutics are on track to becoming “a brand new pillar of medicine.” 

Seeing your favorite band or artist in concert can be a life-changing experience. Live music bonds us to one another in a way that no other art form can. And with the pandemic waning, live music is having its renaissance moment. Artists are hitting the road, and fans are packing into concert halls, clubs, and arenas to see them play live. But knowing when your favorite artist is coming to town – and when and where to buy tickets before they're sold out – can be tricky to navigate. Or is it? Fabrice Sergent is the Managing Partner at Bandsintown, one of the most sophisticated and powerful architectural engines in music. Fabrice joins the podcast to talk about how this mobile app, massive database, and powerful discovery engine is connecting more than 70 million music fans to over half a million artists worldwide. He shares how artists – especially new and emerging artists – use the platform to connect directly with fans under their own branding and voice and (finally!) own their fan engagement data. Fabrice also gives his perspective on the future promise versus current reality of Web3 and the metaverse, and how both could impact the music industry and the fan / artist relationship in the future.

Every year we throw away nearly 40% of our nation's food supply – perfectly edible – leaving it to rot in landfills and release harmful greenhouse gasses. Meanwhile, more than 10% of U.S. households are food insecure. Why do we throw this food away instead of getting it to people in need? Hunger isn't a scarcity problem, it's a logistical one. That's according to Jasmine Crowe-Houston, the founder and CEO of Goodr, an Atlanta-based startup that's using technology to fight both battles: food waste and food insecurity. Jasmine joins the podcast to explain how Goodr has built a mobile app that uses delivery partners (like Uber Eats, Roadie, and DoorDash) to redistribute millions of surplus meals from businesses to nonprofits that feed people from Atlanta to Dallas to Denver. She also shares her fundraising experience as a Black female founder and gives advice to social entrepreneurs on how to raise money, pitch a solid business case, scale, and, ultimately, become “a company that can do well by doing good.” 

Nearly 100 million new digital jobs are projected to emerge in the next five years, while another 85 million will be displaced. But with a global shortage of tech talent, there simply aren't enough highly skilled workers available in areas like data science, programming, cybersecurity, and engineering. Businesses are therefore looking internally to upskill and reskill their employees. At the same time, workers in industries outside of tech are eager to learn new skills, get certified, and earn new degrees to level up their careers -- all at their own pace to fit their busy lives. And, they're learning it all online. Shravan Goli is at the forefront of this educational transformation. He's the Chief Product Officer and Head of Consumer Revenue at Coursera, one of the world's largest online learning platforms. Shravan joins the podcast to talk about the shifting dynamics in the global workforce, and why online learning creates a more equitable and sustainable future of work. He also explains how his product team is building hands-on digital learning products and experiences designed to fit the needs of today's learners -- and empower them with the confidence, skills, and certifications they need to land the careers of tomorrow.

It's official. Electric vehicles are out of the R&D and early adopter phase and racing towards mainstream adoption. In 2022, EVs account for about 8% of all vehicles sold in America, but in the next 10 to 15 years that figure could approach 100%. But there are plenty of roadblocks ahead – most notably, our EV charging infrastructure. Charging today is a fragmented and frustrating experience, full of disparate hardware, unreliable networks, inconvenient locations, and wonky mobile apps. Zak Lefevre, Co-Founder and CEO of ChargeLab, is creating a smarter, more seamless way to charge our EVs. His team is building an intelligent, open-source software layer that sits on top of any EV charger, giving customers the flexibility to use whatever hardware they want with a simple, consistent, and elegant user experience. Zak joins the podcast to discuss the current EV charging landscape and the major challenges that lie ahead in creating an expansive and reliable EV charging infrastructure. He explains how ChargeLab's technology aims to be “the Android of EV charging systems” that will provide a critical software infrastructure for the future of refueling. He also shares stories from his experience as a founder navigating the VC-backed tech landscape and argues why it's never too early to think about product distribution.

Social isolation has a profound negative effect on our mental and physical health. Many of us experienced the effects of this first-hand during the height of the pandemic. But for millions of senior citizens, there is no escape from social isolation as they get older. The impact is devastating, often resulting in increased rates of depression and anxiety and an increased risk of stroke, heart disease, and dementia. Kyle Rand has made it his life's work to help seniors feel less alone and make aging a lot easier for all of us. He's Co-Founder and CEO of Rendever, a virtual reality platform that's designed specifically for seniors. In senior living communities across the U.S., Canada, and Australia, older adults are using Rendever's VR platform to travel the world, revisit their past, get fit, swim with dolphins, see the Aurora Borealis, and even climb Mount Everest. Kyle joins the podcast to talk about why VR is such a powerful and promising technology to combat social isolation in older adults, helping to create connection, community, and joy through positive shared experiences. He also shares what it's like to be a “longevity entrepreneur” in the AgeTech space – and the massive opportunities that exist to create social and economic impact for our growing aging population.

As a former professional poker player, Nima Ghamsari learned that poker is a game of psychology and understanding how people make decisions. That you have to focus on outputs and make the right small bets over time. That there are times when you go all in, even if you're unsure of the outcome. Today, as the Co-Founder and Head of Blend, Nima is applying the lessons he learned at the poker table (and studying computer science at Stanford) to transform the financial services industry and fundamentally change the way people interact with their money. Used by more than 350 big banks like Wells Fargo and US Bank, credit unions, fintechs, and community banks, Blend's cloud banking infrastructure software powers billions of dollars in financial transactions every day, including mortgages, vehicle loans, credit cards, deposit accounts, and home equity. The software aims to simplify, streamline, and take the friction (and mountains of paperwork) out of the consumer banking journey, from application to close. Nima joins the podcast to share his vision of “proactive finance” — a future where banks can proactively offer personalized financial products the moment consumers need them — and Blend's goal to increase financial freedom, broaden financial equity, and create more value in the world.

We all know what it's like talking to a chatbot. Or, dealing with an automated customer service phone assistant (and ending up yelling, “Representative!” in frustration just to speak to a human being!). Either way, the robot on the other end doesn't really understand and treat us like a human. But what if it did? What if it had human “soft skills,” like empathy and humor? What if it actively listened and could read between the lines of your semantic subtleties? And, what if, like humans, it learned and got better at listening to and understanding you? That is exactly what Michelle Zhou has created. A computer scientist by training and an expert in human-centered AI, Michelle is the co-founder and CEO of Juji, a company that's aiming to be “The Apple of AI” by building the world's only no-code AI cognitive chatbot assistants. She previously spent 15 years working at IBM Research and is the inventor of IBM Watson Personality Insights. Michelle joins the podcast to talk about how she's creating no-code AI chatbots that feel and act more human – and her mission to democratize AI so that it's easy and affordable enough for any organization (or any person) to use.

Millions of Americans struggle to afford and access health care. Some delay seeking care because they lack transportation or child care. Others are simply too nervous to visit a doctor's office. All these issues hinder people's ability or willingness to see a doctor, which, in turn, directly impacts their health. But the rise of telehealth is starting to change all that ​​– especially since the start of the pandemic, when virtual everything became the norm. Donna Boyer has experienced this change up close, both as a mother who sought virtual mental health care for her son and as a product innovation leader. Currently the Chief Product Officer at Teladoc Health, Donna is a seasoned tech executive who previously led product teams at Yahoo, Airbnb, and Stitch Fix. She joins the podcast to talk about how telehealth is fundamentally changing the relationship we have with health care and how technology is breaking down barriers of affordability, access, and convenience. Donna also shares how Teladoc Health is personalizing the virtual care experience with products designed to meet us where we are and seamlessly integrate into our lives.

Climate change, a growing global population, and land degradation are depleting the natural resources we rely on to grow our food -- causing massive volatility and instability in our food supply chain. But it's not all agricultural doom and gloom. In the heart of Appalachia, in Kentucky, is an agtech company called AppHarvest that operates acres upon acres of glass-encased, high-tech greenhouses. Inside these controlled environments grow hundreds of thousands of tomato plants that soon will be followed by berries and salad greens. The crops thrive on precise amounts of light and rainwater and get picked at the peak of ripeness by AI-powered robots and their human coworkers. From Central Appalachia, the fruits and veggies can reach nearly 70% of the U.S. population, delivered to a grocery store or restaurant within a single day's drive. Josh Lessing, Chief Technology Officer at AppHarvest, joins us to share how the company is developing sustainable agricultural practices, helping to reduce food insecurity, and collecting vast amounts of data to predict and perfect the way we grow our food.

How can we ensure a focus on the human element, well-being, and a better health state in a world of exponential technology? In this episode, Andrew Greenstein's guest is Jeannette McClennan, president and co-founder of The McClennan Group, a digital product and marketing innovation agency. She talks about their work for AARP and Humana and the way they are navigating the challenges and opportunities—all while discovering the pain points and prototyping winning solutions.Join us on our exploration on how the power of human ingenuity and technology can be applied - through innovative initiatives like Humana's nudge engine - to help people achieve their best health.

Andrew Greenstein welcomes Chris McCarthy, VP of Strategy and Design at Hopelab, a social innovation lab focused on designing science-based technologies to improve the mental health and well being of teens and young adults.Chris pulls from his experience leading innovation at Kaiser Permanente to talk about the importance of getting frontline workers involved in innovation efforts, how a game helped save children's lives, and why an innovation lab that works is flipping its model.

We're joined by Iain McIntyre, founder of humm, the biotech company that developed a wearable patch to accelerate learning and other cognitive functions by modulating the brain's electrical currents.

Andrew Greenstein welcomes Andrew Smith, the Chief Operations and Innovation Officer at Vituity—a physician-owned-and-led partnership and leader in acute care innovation. Joining Vituity in 2012, Andrew is responsible for integrating cutting edge innovations into core operations to improve the lives of patients and providers. 

A conversation with  Eric Redmond, the best-selling author of Deep Tech. He's a 20 year veteran technologist who always happens to show up wherever deep tech history is being made, from the first iPhone apps, to big data, to bitcoin. He has advised state and national governments, Fortune 100 companies, and groups as varied as the World Economic Forum, and MIT Media Lab. He's also authored half a dozen technology books, including 2 tech books for babies, and spoken on every continent except Antartica—yet. Today, he's a husband, a dad, and the leader of a global tech innovation team.

Glenn Gonzales joins The Innovation Cookbook to speak with Andrew about innovation in the skies. Glenn is the Founder and CEO of private jet company, Jet It. He served in the United States Air Force as an F15 flight commander before working as a regional sales manager for the Honda Aircraft Company, where he loved the small but mighty Honda Jet so much that he started a company around it. He has an MBA, a Masters in aeronautical science, and a BS in Behavioral Science with a concentration in Human Factors Engineering. He's also a speaker, a spokesman for Make a Wish, and the founder of a military community outreach organization, The 71st Fighter Squadron Iron Foundation, and now the Regional Entrepreneur of the Year for Ernst & Young.

Andrew interviews Scott Kirsner, CEO and co-founder of Innovation Leader, an online resource helping change-makers at large organizations deliver real impact. Scott's organization has interviewed numerous executives, visited innovation labs of all kinds, and chronicled patterns and insights in publications including Wired Magazine, Variety, Fast Company, Variety, and The New York Times.

Today's guest is Make Wehde, the Chair of the Mayo Clinic division of engineering. Mark is the executive leader of a team of engineers, software developers, and project managers working on product discovery and delivery of solutions to healthcare problems. Andrew speaks with Mark about Mayo's unique approach to innovation, technology as the great enabler and shaper of better healthcare, and forecasting how the future of medicine might look.

When Patrick Baron learned about cryptocurrency from a colleague at a retail bank in 2013, his intrigue sparked a timely exploration of the technology and its potential applications. Several years, prototypes, and iterations later, Patrick is now leading his own three-fold charge in the rapid-emerging realm of crypto; as a steward of Celo Community Fund, GP at Vladiator Capital, and founder of blockchain non-custodial money market, Moola Market, Patrick is materializing his vision of building impactful technology that democratizes access to yield and credit. 

Andrew welcomes Kayte Compton and Kelley Naylor, creative strategy designers at Insidesource, a global furniture dealer and workplace innovator reimagining how companies work. 

Andrew speaks with Alexis Wichowski, the Deputy Chief Technology Officer of Innovation for the City of New York, and author of The Information Trade: How Big Tech Conquers Countries, Challenges our Rights, and Transforms our World.  She's also an associate professor at Columbia University, where she teaches media, government, & technology. 

Today's guest is Shashi Jain, an Innovation Manager at Intel who explores new applications for Internet of Things and Machine Learning. While Shashi draws on Lean Startup and design thinking to cook innovation, he's also developed his own methodology: The Startup Ladder.

We interview Benjamin Maxim, the Assistant Vice President of Digital Strategy and Innovation at MSU Federal Credit Union who started his career in innovation at the ground level - as a developer.  Our conversation spans how experimentation works in a large organization, various approaches Ben's enacted through his role, and what's next in fintech. 

Nigel Simpson, former influential technologist at The Walt Disney Company,  joins us for a conversation about how he used his ten-year role to make strategic shifts in company policy to empower collaboration and enable innovation. We discuss what did and didn't work at Disney, the power of open source, and what it means to be a technology rebel. 

A conversation with Luke Chatelain, former VP of Innovation and Digital Product at West Elm, about the agile approach and adaptive mindset he's used to 'work with ambiguity' and build some killer products for brands like West Elm, Nike, and more.

Erick Hachenburg is a serial entrepreneur who's been at the helm of several big acquisitions, most recently that of Tenor by Google. We sit down to talk about startup innovation, acquisitions, and his journey through Silicon Valley. 

We speak with Andrew Greenstein, CEO and Head of Production at SF AppWorks, about how he defines innovation, as well as his agency's experience in integrating with digital innovation teams for Fortune 500 companies.