YES Podcast Founder Series

Serial entrepreneur Jorge Soto joins hosts Armin Daneshbodi, Mike Steinthal, and Jenny Mao to discuss navigating the tricky and difficult world of entrepreneurship.

Allison Barr Allen is the COO and Co-Founder of Fast. Fast is a one-click checkout platform that aims to make buying online faster, safer, and easier for everyone. Fast raised $102 million in January of 2021. Allison was previously the Head of Product Operations for the Money Team at Uber.

Ken Nguyen is the co-founder and CEO of Republic. Republic aims to democratize private investing. They give people the power to invest in the future they believe in by providing access to startup, real estate, crypto, and video game investment opportunities. Republic has facilitated over $250 million in investments from over one million global community members. Republic announced a $150 million Series B in October of 2021.This episode was originally recorded on Twitter Spaces.

April Koh is the co-founder and CEO of Spring Health. Launched in 2016, Spring Health aims to improve employee well-being by allowing employers to easily provide comprehensive mental health benefits. About two weeks ago, April became the youngest female CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. April graduated from Yale College in 2016 (Class of ‘14 +2).This episode was originally recorded on Twitter Spaces.

Kevin Tan is the co-founder and CEO of Snackpass. Snackpass is a social food ordering app that has raised over $95 million from top venture capital firms like Andreessen Horowitz and Craft Ventures. In June 2021, Snackpass closed a Series B round of funding valuing the company at over $400 million. Kevin graduated from Yale with a B.S. in Physics in 2017.This podcast was originally recorded on Twitter Spaces.

Bing Gordon joined Kleiner Perkins in 2008 and serves as Chief Product Officer for the firm.Bing also leads Kleiner Perkins' sFund, the investment initiative to fund and build applications and services that deliver on the promise of the social web. The sFund, launched in 2010 with strategic partners Amazon.com, Facebook, Zynga, Comcast, Liberty Media and Allen & Co., has made 16 investments to date, including four seeds.Bing serves on the board of directors of Amazon, N3twork, Zazzle and Zynga. He was also a founding director at Katango (acquired by Google 2011), ngmoco (acquired by DeNA 2010) and Audible (acquired by Amazon in 2008).Before joining Kleiner Perkins, Bing had been a long-time executive at Electronic Arts, beginning with EA's founding in 1982 with initial funding from Kleiner Perkins. He was chief creative officer at EA from 1998 to 2008 and previously headed EA marketing and product development.Bing drove EA's branding strategy with EA Sports, developed EA's pricing strategy for package goods and online games, created EA's studio organization, and contributed to the design and marketing of many EA franchises, including John Madden Football, The Sims, Sim City, Need for Speed, Tiger Woods Golf, Club Pogo and Command and Conquer.Bing earned an M.B.A. from Stanford University and his B.A. degree from Yale University.(This episode was originally a live fireside chat.)Yale Entrepreneurial Society website: yesatyale.org Chris Hladczuk's Twitter: twitter.com/chrishlad

Kevin Ryan is the Founder and CEO of AlleyCorp, an incubator and venture capital fund that is responsible for founding some of the most transformative companies in New York, including MongoDB which is currently valued at $19B, Business Insider which he sold for $440M, GILT which he sold for $250M, Zola, Nomad Health, and CoEdition among others. At last count, Kevin has raised over $700M of funding across these companies and has employed over 2,500 people. Earlier in his career, Kevin helped to grow an adtech company called DoubleClick first as President and then as CEO, ultimately leading the company to IPO in 1998 and acquisition by Google in 2007 for $3.1B.In 2013, Kevin was named one of the 100 most influential New Yorkers of the past 25 years by the Observer. Kevin graduated from Yale with a degree in Economics.(this episode was originally a live fireside chat.)

Dan Lewis is the CEO and Co-Founder of Convoy, the most efficient Digital Freight Network. Convoy is valued at $3.3B with over $600M of funding from investors that include Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, former Starbucks president Howard Behar, and U2's Bono and The Edge.Before Convoy, Dan served as General Manager of New Shopping Experiences at Amazon, as well as Vice President of Product and Operations at Wavii (acquired by Google), and Group Product Manager at Microsoft.Dan started his career in technology and supply chain consulting for Oliver Wyman, after studying cognitive science at Yale University.This episode was originally a live fireside chat. 

Donna is a serial entrepreneur best known for her work as CEO of Palm Computing and then Handspring, pioneers of the first successful handheld computers and smartphones. Previously, Donna spent 10 years in a multitude of sales, sales support, and logistics functions—both at Apple and at Claris, an Apple software subsidiary. In 2005, she founded machine intelligence neuroscience company Numenta with her long-time business partner, Jeff Hawkins. She is still the acting CEO of Numenta today. Donna earned a B.A. from Yale University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. In addition to chairing Numenta's board, she currently serves on the boards of Stanford Health Care (Palo Alto, CA), and public company Twilio (which is valued at over $60B). Donna also served on the board of Yale from 2006-2018.This episode was originally a live fireside chat.

David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, an NYC-based seed stage venture capital firm that has invested in over 300 seed-stage startups, including Plaid, Roman, PillPack, Flatiron Health, Stripe, Warby Parker, Harry's, Oscar, Flexport, Classpass, Vine, Clubhouse, GroupMe, Airtable and more.He is also the co-founder of the startup incubator TechStars NYC, is a Rock Fellow at Harvard Business School and is on the Entrepreneur Board at New York University. David served as the Head of Startup Studio at Cornell Tech, where he taught two graduate classes for 5 years. He previously served on the board of New York Public Radio and Mayor Bloomberg's Advisory Council on Technology.David is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and New York University Law School.This episode was originally a live fireside chat. 

Jenny Fleiss is the co-founder of Rent the Runway, an online service valued at $1B that provides dress and accessory rentals. She was also the CEO of JetBlack, a firm operating through Walmart providing personal shoppers for customers. Recently, Jenny joined Volition Capital as the Company's first venture partner, where she'll focus on internet applications, e-commerce, digital health, and next-gen consumer brands. Throughout her career, Jenny has been honored with numerous recognitions including Inc. Magazine's “30 Under 30”; Fortune Magazine's “40 Under 40” and “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs”; and Fast Company's “Most Influential Women in Technology.”Jenny graduated Cum Laude from Yale in 2005 and then graduated from Harvard Business School in 2009.This was originally a live fireside chat. YES Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yale-entrepreneurial-society Host Chris Hladczuk's Twitter: twitter.com/chrishlad

Peter Boyce II is a Partner at General Catalyst, an $8B venture capital firm that invests in powerful, positive change that endures — for entrepreneurs, investors, people, and society. General Catalyst is well known for their investments in Airbnb, Snapchat, Stripe and many others. In addition to his work at GC, he also co-founded & leads Rough Draft Ventures: a funding platform to support technology entrepreneurship on university campuses.Peter graduated from Harvard with a degree in Mathematics and a secondary in Computer Science.This episode was originally a live fireside chat. Yale Entrepreneurial Society LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yale-entrepreneurial-societyYES Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yale_entrepreneurs/Donate to the Yale Entrepreneurial Society Non-Profit: https://www.yesatyale.org/donateChris Hladczuk's Twitter: twitter.com/chrishladPeter Boyce II's LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peterboyce2/

Michael Seibel is the CEO of Y Combinator which is the world's best startup accelerator. Since 2005, YC has helped launch over 2,000 companies such as Stripe, Airbnb, DoorDash, Twitch, and Reddit.Michael moved to the Bay Area in 2006, and was co-founder and CEO of Justin.tv from 2007 - 2011 and the co-founder and CEO of Socialcam in 2012. Socialcam sold to Autodesk Inc. for $60m in the fall of 2012. In 2014, Justin.tv became Twitch and under the leadership of previous Eli Speaker Series Guest Emmett Shear and Kevin Lin sold to Amazon for $970m.Before moving to the Bay Area, he spent a year as the finance director for a US Senate campaign in Maryland. In 2005, he graduated from Yale University with a bachelor's degree in Political Science. This episode was originally a live fireside chat.Yale Entrepreneurial Society LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/yale-entrepreneurial-societyYES Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yale_entrepreneurs/Donate to the Yale Entrepreneurial Society Non-Profit: https://www.yesatyale.org/donateChris Hladczuk's Twitter: twitter.com/chrishladMichael Seibel's Twitter: twitter.com/mwseibel

Barry Nalebuff is a professor at the Yale School of Management, a Rhodes Scholar, a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows and the co-founder and chairman of Honest Tea. Honest Tea was one of Inc. magazine's fastest growing companies and has grown (organically) from five thermoses to well over 1 billion bottles a year. In 2011, Coca-Cola purchased the company. In 2014, Barry then founded Kombrewcha, an alcoholic kombucha product. He is also the coauthor of A Mission in a Bottle which is the story of Honest Tea and multiple other books that focus on strategy, innovation, negotiation, and game theory. This episode was originally a live fireside chat.

Emmett Shear is the Co-Founder & CEO of Twitch, the world's leading live streaming platform for gamers and the things we love. Prior to Twitch's exit to Amazon for a reported $970M, Emmett raised over $42M in funding from some of the best investors including Bessemer, Paul Graham and Y Combinator.Prior to launching Twitch in 2011, Emmett co-founded live streaming service Justin.tv. He is also a partner at venture capital firm Y Combinator where he advises startups on product and strategy. Emmett graduated from Yale in 2005 with a degree in Computer Science.This episode was originally a live fireside chat.

Sander Daniels is a co-founder of Thumbtack, which he helped start with two friends while in his second year of law school at Yale. From plumbers and painters to DJs and personal trainers, Thumbtack helps millions of customers each year find the right professional for their project in about 500 categories. This translates to more than $1 billion in annual revenue for their professionals across the U.S., helping them grow their businesses on their own terms. Founded in 2008 and headquartered in San Francisco, Thumbtack is backed by over $400 million in investment from Sequoia Capital, Google Capital, and others. This episode was originally a live fireside chat.