Podcasts about norwest

I have known Skip Vaccarello for more than 12 years. When we first met both Skip and I lived in Northern California. Neither of us seem to remember the event at which we met, but we both discovered that we were people of faith. Over the years we lost touch until early January 2025 when I received a bulk email from Skip and reached out to see if we could get him to come on Unstoppable Mindset. He accepted and today's episode is the result.   Skip has over 40 years of experience leading Silicon Valley high tech companies. One of his first efforts was leading VisiCorp, the creator of the industry's first pc-based spreadsheet VisiCalc. What? You never heard of VisiCalc? Look it up. VisiCalc was one of those products that revolutionized so many endeavors.   In addition to leading and working with many Silicon Valley ventures Skip is a man of faith with a deep belief in Christianity. We talk about Skip's fait journey and why he believes faith makes a big difference in the lives of so many people especially in the high-tech world of Silicon Valley.   We talk a bit about Skip's retirement years and what he would advise anyone when they ask him about retirement. His answer may well surprise you, but his response is spot on and quite thought provoking.   I believe you will find Skip's insights fascinating and well worth the listen.       About the Guest:   Skip offers podcasts on faith and business topics at SkipVaccarello.com, and is a Partner with 1Flourish Capital, a venture firm investing in technology-based start-up companies led by entrepreneurs of character who understand that corporate culture is vital to success. He is also the author of Finding God in Silicon Valley:  Spiritual Journeys in a High-Tech World. From 2005 through 2021, Skip led  Connect Silicon Valley, a non-profit organization offering speaking events featuring high-profile leaders encouraging conversations about faith and life. In addition, he has served on corporate and non-profit boards and speaks at various organizations on leadership and organizational health.   Skip has over 40 years of experience in leadership positions for Silicon Valley technology companies, including VisiCorp, the provider of VisiCalc, the industry's first spreadsheet. In addition, he served as President and CEO of Applied Weather Technology, a global company providing software and services to the maritime industry. His other experience includes CEO of Communications Solutions, Inc., a communications software company; division general manager of 3Com, a networking product and solutions company; and co-founder and CEO of The Saratoga Group, an Internet-based training company. In addition, Skip has served as an executive coach, a merger and acquisition consultant, and for three years, taught a course on Principled Leadership and Ethics as an Adjunct Professor in the MBA program at William Jessup University.   He earned an A.B. with honors in economics from Harvard College and an MBA with honors from the Boston University School of Management. Skip has been married for over 44 years and has two daughters and six grandchildren. Skip and his wife reside in Bristol, NH and have a home in Chapel Hill, NC. Ways to connect Skip:   Website, Skip Vaccarello -- https://skipvaccarello.com/ Podcasts -- https://skipvaccarello.com/podcasts/ Podcasts on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@skipvaccarello Podcasts on Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/who-do-you-want-to-become/id1737471615 LinkedIn -- https://www.linkedin.com/in/skip-vaccarello-50114/ Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/skipvaccarello Book (Amazon) -- https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Silicon-Valley-Spiritual-Journeys-High-Tech/dp/0996371923/ref=sr_1_1?crid=CYTLPJWTA4EA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XlOGN69ci4cxDNHGjoi-JuD6ISwr4bFCY65xSabhw59got9YrjbPWyBlSgWLjuFi6IlTA5ZOM3PI6YIg7LMkVFA3-yicQ-VXc1rBHHgDi3xyo7FeIiH80ZEm9FOEUglAwOtKx3OhnXkJc3uSq4YGINJzgGTpHsoyAA1-awAGK0-BdSo8l8c9KgO7rkwwqftSaRDi9H2bQjMrgMvEHYQcjq7cHTZn0cthcSjrexplqk4.IyefTEA2Au7cl-nPpjb6_CBqiRn5kgQnZ-eUCT4qJWE&dib_tag=se&keywords=finding+god+in+silicon+valley&qid=1737478219&sprefix=finding+God+in+sil%2Caps%2C104&sr=8-1   About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:21 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Today is a fun day for me, because I get to talk with a gentleman who I met many years ago. His name is Skip, Vaccarello and Skip and I we were just trying to remember where we met. It was at some event in San Francisco, and I am now not remembering what it was, but anyway, we met and got to know each other pretty well, and we've talked over the years about faith in God and a variety of things like that. Skip wrote a book entitled finding God in Silicon Valley. We'll have to talk about that. Skip, because Ray Kurzweil keeps talking about the fact that at some point the singularity is going to hit and we're going to marry computer chips in people's brains. I'm not convinced about that. I'm not sure, but Skip, welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're really glad you're here. Well,   Skip Vaccarello ** 02:16 Michael, it's such a pleasure to be with you, and I'm glad that we were able to make the acquaintance again after many years. Thank you. Thank you.   Michael Hingson ** 02:24 And now you're not in California anymore. You're back in New Hampshire.   Skip Vaccarello ** 02:28 No. Oh, well, I split my time between New Hampshire and North Carolina. Yeah, yeah. So I'm in North Carolina now. We were in I lived in Silicon Valley for 42 years, I think, is what it was, and but we moved grandchildren left, or my daughters and grandchildren left, one to the state of Washington and one to North Carolina. So we decided to go to go to North Carolina. So we live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and and a lake in New Hampshire. What lake? It's called newfound lake. It's close to Lake Winnipesaukee. It's less lesser known than some of those. Yeah, we've had a house there for many years, and love it.   Michael Hingson ** 03:06 I spent time in and around Lake wind and Pesach. That was a lot of fun.   Skip Vaccarello ** 03:10 Oh, yeah, yeah, the lakes are just beautiful, crystal clear water and and it's a real, real nice area. I had   Michael Hingson ** 03:17 a friend who had a summer home on an island out in the middle of Lake Winnipesaukee. And I remember that when we first went there, you had to go out to the to the home by boat. And it was so nice, because at night time there was absolutely no sound. It was so quiet. I loved it. Yeah,   Skip Vaccarello ** 03:35 yeah. In the sky was you probably could see all the stars in the sky too. I would imagine,   Michael Hingson ** 03:39 oh yeah, I'm sure, yeah.   Skip Vaccarello ** 03:43 But beautiful, beautiful place, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 03:46 I'd love to get back there. At some point, we'll have to do that and and go visit it. Well, tell us, tell us a little bit about the early skip, growing up and all that sort of stuff, if you would, sure.   Skip Vaccarello ** 03:57 Well, I grew up in the in the Boston area. You probably, people will probably detect a little bit of my Boston accents, a little bit. So I grew up there. I grew up, grew up just outside of Boston. And where did you grow up? I grew up in Waltham. Was the time in Waltham, okay, grew up in Waltham, and I went to school there. I went to undergraduate school at Harvard and graduate school at Boston University and, and you love, love the area. So that's, anyway, that's where I grew up. I was, we have family of there are four of us. I was the first boy, and pretty involved in sports and, you know, as a reasonable student. But enjoy the area. And it's, it's nice, you know, coming back when I have the chance, you know, going to New Hampshire, I still enjoy the city of Boston. It's a wonderful   Michael Hingson ** 04:42 city. Do you ever go by and visit the Harvard coop?   Skip Vaccarello ** 04:47 Oh yeah, oh yeah. And especially if I'm at a reunion, I'll go there and pick up some paraphernalia, that's for sure.   Michael Hingson ** 04:57 Well, I there was another place in. Are there that I like to go to, because I collect old records, cheapo records, and so I went there to got a lot of vinyl records and and things like that. I'm not sure if it's still around or not. I heard somewhere it wasn't, but then somebody else said it was still around.   Skip Vaccarello ** 05:13 Interesting. Your vinyl records? I mean, there are collectors item now,   Michael Hingson ** 05:16 oh yeah, well, I have a whole bunch here. So they're, they're fun.   Skip Vaccarello ** 05:23 Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I remember collecting some as a kid, but if you have some, you're probably worth a lot of money. Michael,   Michael Hingson ** 05:30 I do. I even have a few. I bought duplicates of and they're still sealed. So they're probably worth, they probably are. They're definitely worth something, absolutely well, so you went to Harvard and all that. And then what did you do?   Skip Vaccarello ** 05:44 Well for my career? Yeah, I went, I went to Harvard. I was there in the in the late 60s and early 70s. And your listeners may recall from history that was a time of real turmoil. Oh, yeah, yeah. The war in Vietnam was going on. 1968 was sort of a pivotal year that there was a war in Vietnam. There were racial riots in the city. There was the rise of feminism. You know, drugs were rampant on the college campuses, so I went to school in the midst of that, and I'll have to say it really was not a fun time to be in school, although I made good friends, and we've maintained the friendship for for quite a long time, but, but anyway, so I was there, and when I graduated, I really wasn't sure what I wanted to do. And it was, it was interesting, because there had been a study done of my class at Harvard, and many people, you know, didn't know what to do. Some immediately went on to medical school or law school or something. But then there were a group of us that were, you know, just kind of wandering around and did various things. But anyway, I finally got my my first job. Well, one thing I should say is that I always felt an inclination for business, but business and capitalism at that time was, was kind of on the outs. It was bad words, bad word, bad word. But I kind of I enjoyed business anyway, I took a job. My first job was in a nonprofit organization helping mentally handicapped adults, and I was doing the sort of the business activities. And so I was doing what I want and doing something that I felt was socially useful. And I ended up staying in that that area for around seven years one of them was with a sort of a bigger organization. I ended up being the Assistant Executive Director. Then I was asked to start one, and I refer to her as my very first startup. We had taken over an old school building and renovated it and and began a program for these for the mentally handicapped people. It was a lot of fun to do that. So I did that. And then what happened is we would get contract work to help employ people. And one of the pieces of work we got was from a software companies. This was in 1978 1979 and personal computers were just cut out then. I mean, there are games and nothing much very useful. But anyway, we got a little job to package some games. And some of your listeners may not, may not remember this. Michael, you probably do. But software then on personal computers came on audio cassettes. Hard to believe you'd have to load this cassette into the computer and run it so that. So we, we had the job of kind of packaging these with the manual. And the night is I got to know the founder of the company and one of the founders of the company. He showed something that was in the works, which was a spreadsheet that eventually became known as VisiCalc, the very first spreadsheet in the industry. And then he asked me to join him and the other co founder, who was from the Toronto area, and we moved to Silicon Valley. And during that time I was I was really ready to make a change. Wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I was fascinated with personal computers. So went to Silicon Valley, and it was an amazing place. During the whole personal computer revolution, small industry, traveled around the country, you know, giving out, you know, demonstrating what a spreadsheet could do. And people were fascinated with that we had, I remember one day we had this sort of nerdy kid came into the office. It was Bill Gates. We had about five employees, and the whole industry was really small then, so it's fun to be part of that. And then for from there is sort of the what happens in in Silicon Valley and technology business, visit Corp was a really hot commodity, and then competition came in. They made some mistakes. They bought a company that specialized in network and communications, and I went over as the as the CEO and president of that we eventually spun it out as visit Corp eventually went out of business, but this little company we had, and we were successful and grew it, and in fact, sold that three different times, and, you know, continue to grow the company. And then I left that to have what I'd call my second startup, and this was to do computer based training to try to teach people. Of technical subjects on a computer, and that ended up morphing into one of the first e learning companies. So we did that, and that was that was a lot of fun, eventually sold that I did a little bit of executive coaching and mentoring. And one of the CEOs that I was mentoring asked me to join his organization, which was called applied weather technology. And I should say, I knew, in most cases, I really knew very little about the domain that I was going into, but I think pretty good business sense. So in this case, the company had software and services for the maritime industry, so we would help captains have the safest, most fuel efficient route to take around the world. So it was, it was really an interesting business. So I did that. I said I'd do it for a year. We ended up doing it for four years, and it was exciting and fun to be part of that. And they had a chance to travel around the world. We had offices around the world. So enjoyed that experience. And then then I left and to write the book that you mentioned finding God in Silicon Valley and and so anyway, that's what I ended up leaving that eventually got involved to help start a venture capital firm, a faith based venture capital firm called one flourish capital. So anyway, so that's a little bit of the background. There's a lot more I could talk about that, but that but that kind of gives your audience a little bit of an overview. I hadn't   Michael Hingson ** 11:26 thought about it for a while, but you mentioned the software back in 1979 80 and so on, all being put on audio cassettes. I remember the original Kurzweil Reading Machine for the blind used a Data General Nova three, so a small micro computer, well, kind of more like a mini computer, but it had a cassette recorder in the front of it, and every time you turn the reading machine on, you had to run the cassette to reload the Software, because there was no disk storage or anything available yet, right? And, okay, continue. I'm just saying so it was, it was kind of fun. It didn't take too long, and it and it really did work. I think once or twice there was some sort of a load error, and you had to start it over again. But really that didn't happen very often. It was, it was pretty good. Yeah,   Skip Vaccarello ** 12:22 it was really interesting. I just threw one sort of funny story we had. Remember, we had a product that was returned to us and we couldn't figure out what was wrong. I forget what it was. Was probably one of the games we had, the best selling game, which was called micro chest anyway, decided to just put it into a an audio player. So he put the cassette in, and what we heard was a sermon by, I think it was a Baptist preacher, and so, and it was labeled, I think it was labeled micro chess. So anyway, the duplicator had, had messed it up. And so this, this pastor probably got our little beeps and beeps instead of his instead of his sermon. So it was kind of it was kind of   Michael Hingson ** 13:07 comical. I remember once I took one of the program cassettes and put it in my cassette recorder because I was really curious to to hear what it sounded like. And I had heard military teletypes and so on in the past. And when I heard this, I went, Ah, those teletypes are really slow compared to the code speed on these cassettes. But it was, it was a lot of fun,   Skip Vaccarello ** 13:31 yeah. Well, it's fun for me to be involved in all the changes. Their changes was so rapid in Silicon Valley. So I really appreciated my opportunity to be involved in all of that for the 40 some odd years that I was,   Michael Hingson ** 13:46 well, yeah, and, and it, and it certainly was rewarding. You were pretty successful at it, and it all worked really, really worked out well. And so, you know, can't complain about that. What, what got you into the whole idea of doing more faith based things? Was that going back to childhood? Or how did all that come? Yeah,   Skip Vaccarello ** 14:10 I'll give you maybe a little bit of my my faith and story. So I grew up in a Christian home. We were I was raised as a Catholic, and as I said, when I went to college, though, there was all sorts of turmoil, and many of us rejected all sorts of things, including in faith. So it became and I can't say that I rejected it, but it just didn't. Wasn't very meaningful to me. I didn't think about it, I didn't pray, I didn't read the Bible. But if you were to ask me, I would have called myself a Christian, but certainly wasn't, wasn't practicing any of that. And then I when I was, I'm, this is maybe so that was that went on for about 15 years, or then I remember there was, we had, then children, a couple of children. And I remember I was in a business trip. I was in Paris, and I called home and I asked. My wife, Jackie, I said, Well, what did you do for the weekend? And she said, Well, I went to church. I said, You did what? That wasn't even in our conversation, and I was just so surprised that that's what she did. She said, Yeah, and she found it really helpful. And so anyway, when I came back, I followed her along and went to church. And I also found the messages really, meaningful. And anyway, I started to go, and then I decided this, I have to figure out if this stuff is really true or not. So I spent a fair amount of time, you know, listening to the sermons, but also looking at the evidence for Christian faith. And I became convinced that that Jesus is who He says He is. And so that at that point, I committed my, you know, my life to Him, and it became the most important thing in my life. And really, God, put two things on my heart once I made that and this was mid 80s by 1985 1986 two things on my heart. One was to do the best job I could, to try to live out my faith in business. And the second thing was to help people know who Jesus is. I was convinced that was this sort of the key to life, and so I enjoyed getting involved in in one on one conversations. And anyway, that ended up leading to starting with a group of people, what we eventually called the Silicon Valley prayer breakfast, and now it's called Connect Silicon Valley, feeling that, especially in Silicon Valley, you know, people may not go to go to a church. They may for a variety of reasons, you know, not want to even consider faith. But if there were a speaking event in which there was some celebrity, especially celebrities from the computer industry talking about their business, but also about their faith that might attract people. So that was the sort of the premise with which we started the Silicon Valley prayer breakfast, specifically for people who not were not necessarily your faith, but maybe curious about it. So we had series of great, great speakers. And it grew from, I think our first event was about 150 people, and in the last event, which I and then I the pandemic came, and we had about 1000 people at the at the last event. So it really grew. In fact, the people at there was one, it was at the Santa Clara Convention Center. They said it was the biggest event that they had at that time of the morning would start the event at 730 in the morning. So anyway, that's that was really helpful. And we and we just did that help open up conversations about faith and and it was, is, I think it was pretty successful doing that. So anyway, that was a little bit of of my background. And maybe one thing I didn't say, but I had this sense, you know, as I grew up, my family, we didn't have very much money, and but as I began to achieve some success and some financial success, I realized that it seemed like there was something missing in my life, and and later on, I learned, and I didn't know this at the time, Blaise Pascal called that a God shaped vacuum, or void that's in each one of us, and most people try to fill it with success or money or whatever else. But as Pascal says, and I agree, the only thing that can adequately fill that void is God. And I didn't know it, but that was ended up being, being true for me. I felt that there was that there was something missing, and life wasn't all about, you know, success and finances and and anyway, I'm glad that I took that journey. I'm glad for the people that helped me along in that journey to become a follower of Jesus. I   Michael Hingson ** 18:39 hear you. I know for me, I've, I've always had, I think, a pretty strong faith. My father and I talked a lot about God and religion and so on as I was growing up, and he read things to me, so I was, was pretty used to the whole concept right from the outset and and one of the things that I learned along the way, and I think it fits in fits into what you just said, is, as you said, people try to fill that, that void with so many different things. And the thing we never do is we never listen. And the thing that frustrates me most about prayer is that people are so busy praying to God about what they want that they forget God already knows. The issue is, are we really willing and and are we? Are we ready to take the time to listen, to get the answers?   Skip Vaccarello ** 19:38 And that is such a good point. Michael, I absolutely no, that's the issue. Go ahead. No, as I say, I agree with you that, you know that a lot of us and I do this time to time, I just pray, okay, that's it, but taking the time to then listen, and then, if you really are aware of it, you know, you'll see various things along the way where God is is communicating. Creating with you, either through other people and things that your opportunities, you're presented with, and so on. So it's that whole idea, I think in the Bible, it talks about praying continually, and in my own myself, I kind of have an ongoing, just a dialog in my head. Well, God, what do I do in this situation or or thank him for something I see, or whatever, but, but, yeah, that whole idea of just being aware and listening is a very important one. Yes, very good point. Thank you.   Michael Hingson ** 20:29 Well, and one of the things that we talked a lot about as I was growing up was the fact that, yes, we believe in God, we believe in Jesus and so on. But there are other religions that really, when you analyze them, come essentially to the same place. They're peaceful, they're loving. And unfortunately, we have all too many people who say there's only one religion that works, and that just isn't so either. Well, I I think that there, there there are issues, but the fact is that there are a lot of people who believe in God, and come at it from a different point of view, but still believe in God.   Skip Vaccarello ** 21:10 When I agree, I think that there is there the lot of there's a lot of commonality among all the world religions, and there's a most of them all have a moral code to them. In fact, the Golden Rule, do unto others, as you would have them do unto you, is common to all religions, but at the same time, there are also some real differences. And you know, it's interesting where you know what you said, and many other people say that, that there are many different paths to God. But typically, if you were to ask anyone in any one of those religions, they would say, know that if it's a Muslim, I think that we have the path or Jewish person, right? You know, you know, and so on. And so I would encourage people to, I mean, you may not like this idea, but, you know, I would, I would, I believe that really, I mean, I'm covering this in an upcoming podcast, that that Jesus is, is, is the way. I mean, he's the only, the only one in a in any of these world religions, most, or most world religions, you know, say that, that we have to sort of earn our way. You know, to salvation. Am I a good enough person to earn eternal life? Whereas with Jesus, the other way around, he wants us. He's very, very inclusive and and offers his love and His forgiveness to everyone. And you know, he says, you know, in John 14 six, I am the I Am the Truth or way in the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. So it's a that is an exclusive statement, but it also Christian faith is inclusive anyone who wants to come. It's not, you know, is is ready to come. So we probably don't want to get into that too much. But, no,   Michael Hingson ** 23:01 I don't, not too much. But by the same token, I take it in a little bit different slant. Not I don't I agree with what you said, but I also know that I am goes beyond what we're talking about. God in in Exodus And Moses said, Who do I say? Is Sending me? Says I am, that I am, thou shalt say I am, has sent me to you. And I think we I think a lot of people miss that, and they miss the fact that I am is, is God,   Skip Vaccarello ** 23:33 yeah. However, where is your way? Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 23:38 yeah. And I think that that's the thing, and I think that that was what Jesus was saying as well. Because Jesus also said, I am my father. Are One. And all the works that I do, greater works you can do as well. I think we, what we, what we really need to do is to recognize that, in fact, from a mindset standpoint, it's ultimately believing in God. And if you're an atheist, that's fine. Sorry if we're offending you, but that, that's a different story. But I but I do know that that in reality, we all need to recognize that if we listen, if we really work at it. We can be better people than than we probably think we are.   Skip Vaccarello ** 24:24 Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, that that is the you know. The point of it is, is, you know, to be, you know, the, you know, the message of Jesus is one of love. I mean, he loves everyone, and we're called, you know, to love everyone. That that means not just fellow Christians, but no matter what faith you're part of, or whatever you know you may have done or do or whatever. Yeah, we're called to love everyone. You think how different the world would be if we all really acted that way?   Michael Hingson ** 24:53 Gee, wouldn't that be something, especially today, right? And it's absolutely, yeah. Yeah, absolutely crazy. So the prayer breakfast and so on, kind of, I assume, ended when the pandemic began. Well,   Skip Vaccarello ** 25:08 it did for a while, yeah, but there is a group that that's that's restarted it, and we, by the way, we changed the name from Silicon Valley prayer breakfast, and a few years ago, we changed to connect Silicon Valley, and we did that because we really wanted to be open to people. It's not an event just for Christians, but for anybody that was interested in in attending. So it is active, and in fact, it's, it's now had a I'm only minimally involved, and they've made me Chairman Emeritus, but, but there's, there's a new group that's running it, and they've had several different events. So it is, is going on, if any of your listeners are in and around Silicon Valley, it's called Connect Silicon Valley, and I'd encourage them to go. I think they have a speaker that we had earlier. It's coming up in March. I think it's promote. Hawk. Promote is a one of the top venture capitalists in the world. He's with Norwest ventures, and I think he's, he's a speaker at an event that's coming up in a few weeks.   Michael Hingson ** 26:10 I may end up being in San Francisco, but not till May. I'll have to find out when they meet and see if there's a way to get down there. Be kind of fun.   26:17 Yeah, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 26:19 But it's, I think faith in and having beliefs as extremely important to do. And one of the things that I always quote when I am giving speeches is something Jimmy Carter once said, which is, we must adjust to changing times while holding to unwavering principles. And I think that all too often we we miss the principles part.   Skip Vaccarello ** 26:45 Yeah, that's right, I agree, Yep, yeah, absolutely.   Michael Hingson ** 26:51 It is something that we need to do. Well, I'm glad that connect Silicon Valley is is still continuing to function. That's really a pretty important thing to do. Well, when did your   Skip Vaccarello ** 27:04 I think it is especially in, you know, in Silicon Valley, which is a pretty secular place, yeah, you know. And I think it's a secular place because, you know, it's, it attracts a lot of people with Type A personalities, people that are feeling very self sufficient. And why do I need, why do I need God? But, but it's been interesting. I really feel that there's a movement of God going on in Silicon Valley, and it has been for a while. And you know, what's kind of motivated us, our vision with Connect Silicon Valley was that if Silicon Valley ever could be known as a place not just of technology and innovation and wealth creation, but a place of God, the world would take notice, and to me, there's lots of evidence that that's beginning to happen.   Michael Hingson ** 27:48 Yeah, well, I think that's true. And sometimes we're not necessarily hearing a loud voice, but the voice is still there, and more and more people are going to get drawn to it, I'm sure.   Skip Vaccarello ** 28:01 Well, I think so. I mean, ultimately, as we said earlier, I think each one of us has a sense of a need for something beyond ourselves, and people might call it a force or a god or whatever else, and, and so I think there is that need and and, and hopefully, I would encourage your listeners, you know, to explore the evidence for faith to, you know, take a risk. And, you know, people might have been turned off by religious people, and I can understand that. But, you know, take look at it. And I would specifically say, Look at what, what Jesus has to say. And take, take the time to look at the evidence, because there's plenty of evidence out there for Christian faith.   Michael Hingson ** 28:41 I participated in a number of programs. It's a Methodist program, but it's ecumenical, called the walk to Emmaus. And have you heard of that? No, I haven't. It's It's actually called a short course in Christianity. It's not intended to convince people what they should believe, but rather it's to develop leadership within the church. Whatever church it doesn't, it doesn't, although it was started by the Methodist. Actually, that's an outgrowth of a Catholic program called crusio, but it's the same thing. And when I was lay director of one of the walks to Emmaus, and we could talk about the history, but walk to Emmaus is basically based on after Jesus was crucified and Rose. That day, there were people walking to a town called Emmaus, and he joined them, and they didn't know who he was, and they talked, and they all went to to Emmaus, and they sat down and they had dinner. And it was a dinner that He revealed Himself to them, and then he disappeared. But the whole idea is, it's a way to bring a little bit more enlightenment to leaders. But one of the things that, as the lay director, I had to do was to give a talk on perseverance and so on. And of course. Thought that has always struck with me, and I think it goes beyond Christianity, Christianity, but Tolstoy once said The biggest problem with Christianity is a lot of people don't practice it. There's truth to that. And what you you know you said earlier that so many people and are not necessarily the best Christians, and there's so much of that we really need to go back to basics and everything that we do.   Skip Vaccarello ** 30:28 Yeah, I think that a lot of people get turned off to faith, or in Christian faith, because they look at the some of the behavior of people who claim to be Christians. And the fact is that every one of us is flawed in some ways, in one way or another. What I like to do is, is look at people who what was their life before they you know, they had Jesus in their life, and what's their life after that? And, and you can often see the difference. But people are we're all. We all make mistakes. We're all imperfect people, and, and, and in faith, the church is not for it's not for perfect people. It's for sinners, people that are imperfect. And that's that's really why, why? You know why Jesus came to us? So to why would you add encourage your listeners to try not to get turned off by some of the behavior of Christians, because some of it is, is certainly not good, but to really look at what Jesus says, and, you know, engage people who who are believers, and I think they admit that what's what's right and what's at fault and so on, the basic principles are the basic principles,   Michael Hingson ** 31:35 and they hold no matter where you come from and what you do. And it's important to really deal with that. Although I'm with Mark Twain, I wonder if God had written man because he was disappointed in the monkeys, but that's another story   31:49 I had heard that crook.   Michael Hingson ** 31:52 So, so you wrote the book finding God in Silicon Valley. When did you write that?   Skip Vaccarello ** 31:56 It was, it was published in 2015   Michael Hingson ** 32:00 Okay, and   Skip Vaccarello ** 32:02 it's been, yeah, it really was an outgrowth of some of the talks people gave at the Silicon Valley prayer breakfast. And I felt that it really the reason for writing. It was to encourage people to to consider faith, because in the book, they'd read about Silicon Valley leaders who in their faith story, how they came to faith, what they went through. Some, you know, some stories were a little bit like mine, where they found the evidence, but others, you know, went through personal tragedy and found faith that way. And then the stories are also about how they're trying to live out their faith, day to day, and whatever, whatever business they're involved with. So they're a variety of people. There are nonprofit leaders, companies, CEOs, venture capitalists and so on. And you know, it's, I think we all like to hear stories, and that was what was attractive about the Silicon Valley prayer breakfast. I know that sometimes when I'm sitting in church on a Sunday morning, and I may not quite remember what the pastor said, but I usually remember the stories that he tells. And so I think stories are an effective way to communicate things. In fact, I'd call Jesus the Greatest storyteller of all time. He told his stories often in parables. And those are things that we, you know, that we that we remember. So yeah, the the book was I what I enjoyed it. I just enjoyed is I just enjoyed sitting down with people and hearing their stories and interviewing them, and I did the best I could to compile those stories. There were 26 of them in the book, and yeah, it's it's available on on Amazon, so I encourage people to to pick it up and take a look. And you can go through with a person you know, or one story, or, you know, that seemed to attract your attention. So it was a, it was quite a, quite a project to undertake, but I'm glad that I did it. And let me just maybe the I'll tell you the way I got the idea is I went back to a Harvard reunion. This might have been in the mid 1990s and there was, they had a little sometimes at these reunions, they have little groups that get together. And there was one that I was as part of a Christian cohort, and even though I wasn't a Christian in college anyway, as part of this group. And we're all, we're given a book called Finding God at Harvard. And you know, although Harvard was founded as a, you know, as a, as a Christian college, it's certainly not thought of that these days. And so the writer Kelly Monroe, and she's now, her name is Kelly Monroe Kohlberg, had put together stories of Harvard graduates in how they came to faith and what they were doing. So I thought was a great book, and I so that's what planted the idea in my mind. I said, well, people don't think of Harvard as a place of of faith. They certainly don't think of Silicon Valley as that. So I had the idea, and this was in the mid 1990s but as I said, it wasn't published until 2015 because I found it was really difficult for me to work full time and write the book. So after I left my last full time position is when I had the time to write the book.   Michael Hingson ** 34:59 Well. Well, and I assume it's been pretty successful.   Skip Vaccarello ** 35:03 That's beyond, I think. So it's, I mean, I get some, you know, to me, successful is, if people have read it and they say, Yeah, you know, and you know, I'm considering faith. And to me, that's, that's the success of it. So it's, anyway, it was a, it was really quite an experience. And and happy to do it. And I'm still in the process. I'm looking at a couple of other books now, maybe following up with and writing.   Michael Hingson ** 35:30 Writing is fun, as you know, I've written, yeah, now three books, and I haven't figured out what to write next, but I'm sure something is going to come along. I haven't written fiction yet, and I haven't really come up with a a hot idea yet, but we'll see. It's kind of fun to think about,   Skip Vaccarello ** 35:50 sure, absolutely,   Michael Hingson ** 35:52 but, but, you know, we we we do what we can, and we keep moving forward, and that's what it's really about. But it is a lot of fun. And meanwhile, I do get to travel and speak, and I'm working with accessibe and helping to make internet websites more usable and inclusive. That's something that VisiCalc never did, was to make an accessible version of the product. But that's okay. That's okay. It took it took Excel and and other products a while before they became accessible, too. So not a problem. We, we, we all grow, which is what it's really about. But so what? What is your Well, let me ask it this way. So you wrote the book. You've retired and so on. What kind of projects do you have coming up, other than thinking about other books?   Skip Vaccarello ** 36:46 Well, a few things you know that I'm doing right now. As I mentioned, I was part of a startup venture capital coming company called one flourish capital, and I'm still a little bit involved, but not as involved as I was there on a second fund. And I was very involved in the first fund, so I spent a little bit of time with that, but I'm more engaged with things like, I love mentoring. I mentor some students, and mentor some entrepreneurs and and enjoy those those opportunities I've and as I said, I'm putting together a series of podcasts, not as active as you are in it, but I did a series last year, and I titled it, who do you want to become, encouraging people to put together a personal strategic plan. You know, when we're involved in business, is often the company does a strategic plan. Of you know, what's our vision, our mission, our values, our goals and so on. And something that I've practiced for many years is putting together a personal strategic plan. So some of that podcast series is just encouraging people to consider doing that, which again, give a clearer direction for where, where you want your life to go, where God wants your life life to go. So anyway, that was a podcast series, and right now I'm in the midst of of putting together series that I'm calling why I believe, exploring the critical questions about Christian faith. And so I'm going around interviewing experts on, you know, some of the tougher questions you know, you've we talked about one earlier, is Jesus the only way? Other questions, you know, what about what about heaven? How? Another question is, how could a loving God, you know, allow innocent people to suffer? So question, questions like that, that that are often stumbling blocks for people. And I know, question answering, questions like that was very helpful for me in my faith journey. So anyway, I'm in the process of of putting that podcast series, which I expect will be ready in April, and if your listeners are are interested, it'll be on, it's on skip, vacarello.com, so that's where you can find the first podcast series. The last name is V, A, C, C, A, R, E, L, L, O. So anyway, it's there. It's also it'll be on Spotify and Apple and YouTube. So anyway, so I'm involved in that, but I should also say that one of the important things that I do is we moved here to be close to her daughter and grandchildren. So I love spending the time, you know, with my grandchildren. And we just traveled out to Spokane, Washington to see the other family and and that's just, that's just so enjoyable. So while I'm actively involved in in doing things like that, I I, you know, love, you know, spending time with the grandchildren, and also I try to stay, you know, physically active. Still play some tennis and golf and pickleball, and, you know, it's so, you know it's and anyway, I'm involved in a lot of different things, and enjoy them. You   Michael Hingson ** 39:53 know, it's interesting. You were talking about the issue of, how could a loving God let any. And suffer. My reaction to that question, and I've heard it a lot, my reaction to that has always been, how could God not it's really an issue of we listen to God, and what did we miss along the way that would have prevented us from suffering, but God gave us free will and free choice.   Skip Vaccarello ** 40:18 That's exactly right. And so that is the crux of the issue. We have free choice. And you know, when some of those choices aren't good ones that we make, and grad doesn't force anything on any of us, and that was probably one of the things he gave us, was that we're free, free to choose, and we can choose bad or we can choose good,   Michael Hingson ** 40:37 yeah. And the question is, it's always the question, do we learn from mistakes that we made? And, you know, I have rejected the concept of failure. I think that failure is such a horrible thing to say. I think that there are things that don't work out. But did we fail that means we can't ever deal with it or do anything about it? Or can we take the time to analyze what didn't work right? And even when we did something and it worked out, could we do it better? That's one of the basic cruxes of live like a guide dog. My latest book, which is all about teaching people how to control fear, and the whole idea is that we don't take nearly enough time at the end of the day, or at some point in the day, to do more introspection and self analysis to understand why whatever happens to us happens to us, and what could we have done to make it have a better outcome, or even a or did we come up with The best outcome possible?   Skip Vaccarello ** 41:41 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I absolutely agree. What did we learn from it? I mean, you would see that time and time again. Some of the most successful people had many failures along the way, and you know, hopefully you're going to learn from that failure, and you're going to try something else, you're going to fail, and you're going to try something else and, and that's, I think that's just what goes on in life   Michael Hingson ** 42:02 well, and that's why I say that it isn't really a failure. It is a mistake, perhaps, right? We didn't intend for it to be a mistake, but, but if it, if it was a mistake, and we acknowledge that, why and what do we do about it? And I think that's one of the important things that so many of us could do a better job of thinking about was, why did this happen? What was I afraid of, or what could I have done differently? And the fact is that if we open our minds to those questions, we'll get the answers, yep, yep, I agree, which is, I think, really important.   Skip Vaccarello ** 42:41 I was listening to, I don't remember the I wish I could remember it, but I was watching something on television the other night, and there was a quote that kind of stuck with me, and it's in the quote we're doing something like this, is it was an encouragement of, I think it was a mother to a son. He said, Don't, don't think of what life has done to you. Think of what life has done for you. What we're talking about is you might have run into some difficulty, some okay, but maybe that's an opportunity to learn from it, and to go on and to do something else and and, you know, I think life, life is like that. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 43:15 you know, people talk to me a lot about the World Trade Center, and don't you have guilt of surviving while other people didn't, right? And and I tell people, no, I don't have any guilt about that, because the fact is, I did survive. Why others did not is is really, in part, possibly an issue of what choices they made. But the bottom line is, it isn't whether I feel guilty or not about surviving because I had no control over the World Trade Center happening. What I do have control over the though is how I deal with it and how I move forward, and that's the choice that I get to make.   Skip Vaccarello ** 43:56 Yeah, very good point,   Michael Hingson ** 43:59 which I think is really important. And someone asked me that just the other day, and then that was in this is the response that I gave, is, the reality is, it's we have no control over a lot of things that that may happen to us, but we do have total control over how we deal with it, no matter what it is, yeah,   Skip Vaccarello ** 44:19 and you think of it, the, you know, I'm sure, the lives that you've changed, you know, writing about that and talking about that with your speaking appearances, and it was such a tragedy that, you know, the 1000s of what was 1700 or 18, I don't remember the number, the number of people that died in that, and they're all 200 Yeah, 3200. Was all the people that were affected by it. You know, on the other hand, I mean stories like yours came out of that, and you've been an encouragement to many, many other people so that you know, you've, you know, taken advantage of that opportunity, and you've affected the lives of many, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 44:56 tell me more about what you're doing today with mentoring students and so on. More. How do you do that? Or how do they find you? How does that all work?   Skip Vaccarello ** 45:03 Well, I one of the things is I mentioned earlier that there's a whole bunch of things that have gone on in Silicon Valley where I where I really feel that that God is at work. And there was a guy that I got to know that I actually mentored him a little bit, and he founded an organization called scholars of finance. And it started in a and it's not a quote a Christian base, but it's a, it's sort of an ethics based organization. And his idea was to to go to college campuses and encourage people who were in finance, accounting, finance of some sort or another, to look at the ethical side of business. So he put together this thing called scholars of finance, and then they were started on maybe a couple of universities in the Bay Area. I think they now want maybe 70 campuses around the US and and he's so I've had the opportunity to speak at a number of those campuses, some in person, most of them virtually. And the idea is that they have people like me that come and speak and try to, you know, we tell stories, encourage people about, maybe the ethical issues that we ran across and, and how you can kind of navigate some of those issues and, and, and part of that whole program is, if you want to put yourself up to mentoring, you know you can have the opportunity to mentor some students. So I have, and I've had the opportunity, and I have the opportunity to mentor some students and and I really, I really love it. And what are the differences I find? I think that, you know, sometimes there are negative things that people say about college students these days, but one of the things that I find encouraging is that they're really open to to mentoring, to getting advice from an from an older generation. I remember when I was in school was what was the mantra that you don't trust anyone over 30, you know they don't know what they're talking about, but, but I find students these days are really looking for that for that advice and guidance and and so I enjoy when I have those opportunities to speak to people. And I would say also that a lot of these students are incredibly motivated and driven. And it's, it's just, it's interesting to see. It was, I think it was even different than than when I was in when I was in college. But anyway, that's that's kind of a fun thing to do. And then I also have entrepreneurs, people that either find me or, you know, that may be a company that we've invested in, that have an opportunity to help those, those entrepreneurs, with their business plans. And one of the, one of the areas I like to focus on is helping them develop the right culture. I think, to have a successful business, you have a successful business is you need a culture, you know, a positive culture that's encouraging to people. So, you know, I do that. I try to encourage them to start out and build the right culture. You know, in your organization, doesn't mean that business will succeed, you know, but that's one of the things I like to to help entrepreneurs consider as they're building a business. So it's not just about the product. Certainly, you need a product, and you need to market that product, and often you need technology to make a success. But ultimately, it's the people in that organization and how you deal with them, and how you deal with your customers, and how you deal with your vendors and so on that can can help make or break a business. So anyway, those are the the mentoring opportunities that I have, and as I say and do, enjoy   Michael Hingson ** 48:31 them. What are some of the typical questions that students ask that you find to be sort of common among a lot of students?   Skip Vaccarello ** 48:40 Well, they'll, they'll, you know, they'll sometimes ask me about, you know, ethical situations that I've come across. Often, they'll ask, since I've been involved in the in the venture capital business, is, you know, what is it? What is, what does a venture capitalist look like? You know, how can I get, get get funded? And that, that's sort of an ongoing topic of of conversation, and it's in that environment, you know, it certainly changes a lot over time, but that's a that's a common, a common side of it. You know, occasionally there'll be discussions on technology, and I'm not, even though I've been involved in Silicon Valley for a long time, not a technologist, and they're real, usually, typically very far advanced in that, in that side of things. But, you know, get questions on, you know, what's a go to market strategy? How do I, if I have this product, what do I, what do I do with it? And often, you know, just, you know, I get presented a business plan, what do you think about this, and you know, where can I make changes? And sometimes, you know, often they're very well done, but sometimes there might be some, some blind spots, things that they don't, that they don't see. And interestingly enough, and this is not, you know, something that that I push for, but some of the students then they, you know, they pick me up. Ask because they they've seen my bio, and I've had a number of students who were weren't brought up with any faith background, that asked me about faith and what was my story, and in what should I do to consider faith? So I, you know, I find that very interesting, and I'm very happy to answer any questions that they may have. So that's that's enjoyable when those opportunities come.   Michael Hingson ** 50:22 Yeah, it's kind of cool to be able to enter into those discussions and just talk a little bit about faith and what what they're looking for, and what you're looking for and so on. And getting a chance to in a in a non confrontive way, help people understand the value of faith, whatever that may end up being for them, I think is important to do, yeah,   Skip Vaccarello ** 50:50 and often, you know, I end up, well, I, well, I, you know, I'll offer things if they ask. But I usually what I like to do is just ask lots of questions to them. And I think it's very helpful, you know, where are they coming from? What are they considered? What are their experiences been? You know, especially if it's in the, in the faith environment. And I think it really helps open up conversations, when, when, when you end up not just being there as the, you know, as the advisor that knows everything, because certainly I don't, but it's very helpful, I think, as a method, as a mentor, is to ask lots of questions.   Michael Hingson ** 51:29 I love to have question time when I speak, because I find every so often I'll get a new question. It doesn't happen as often as it used to, but every so often, something new comes along and and or people ask questions in a different way. And what I really love about it is it helps me learn, because it makes me think, and I think that's as important as anything else. And as I tell people when I'm talking about speaking or doing these podcasts, if I'm not learning at least as much as anyone else on the podcast, or when I'm speaking, I'm not doing my job, right, right? Yeah,   Skip Vaccarello ** 52:05 I agree with you. Yeah. I think I learned more. You know, occasionally I'm asked to give a sermon at a church or a speak at a at a public place, and I think that I learned when you're I think I learned more than anything else when I'm when I'm gonna have to prepare for these, these opportunities, isn't it fun? Oh, it is. It certainly is.   Michael Hingson ** 52:26 Well, so you've been retired for a while. What kind of advice would you give to somebody who may be thinking about retiring?   Skip Vaccarello ** 52:34 Good question, you know, and it's funny sometimes people ask me that question, and I think that, well, I'm retired from making money, but I'm still pretty busy doing things. And that would be my encouragement to people, is to, you know, don't, don't just think you're going to go sit on a beach or or whatever else. I mean, I think that that can get boring pretty quickly. But, you know, and if I would say, continue to do what you're doing if you love it, you know. But consider what your maybe your spouse has to say, your children or grandchildren have to say, and and, you know, make sure you spend, spend time with with them. But my encouragement would be just is to keep busy, find activities. If it's in your case, or my case, has been doing some writing or podcasts, or, you know, whatever it is that you're passionate about, just just you have an opportunity now to do it, but also to take time for relationships. And one thing I didn't mention that is one thing I encouraged students to think about, it's really a question of life. Is life is about relationships. And you know, you want to hopefully along the way, people haven't sacrificed relationships. So you see that sometimes in business, where they sacrifice, you know, their family or other relationships for success in business. But you know, when you're retired is a time to eat, to deepen those those relationships, to really spend some time, you know, with with other people, so and and, as I say, to do things that you love. The other thing I'd say is, is to keep moving. You might I had a chance to visit my mom about a few weeks ago. She's in she's in Cape Cod, in Massachusetts, and she's 103 103 and a half. And three and a half and and people ask her, What's your key to longevity? And she says, Just keep moving. And although she's not physically as active, she tries to get up and keep moving. And she's also one that's and always keeps alert. She volunteered she's not, she hasn't, doesn't have the capacity to do that now, but up till about 9998 she was, she had volunteer activities going on. So, you know, stay engaged, keep keep moving, keep doing things and and anyway, that's my encouragement. Don't, you know, don't just think that it's going to be, you know, time at the beach, or certainly not time in front of the. Television, you know, keep moving, if you can, and keep keep mentally stimulated.   Michael Hingson ** 55:06 That's the real key. Is mental stimulation, I think is extremely important. Just I think retirement is, is overrated in terms of what it really or what people think it is. And I think mental stimulation is is an important thing. And when you're stopped working at a job full time, because it's time to not do that anymore, you should have more time to be able to develop the relationships stimulate your brain, keep your brain thinking, and maybe go off and look at doing things in a different direction. That always is a great challenge. Absolutely,   Skip Vaccarello ** 55:40 yeah, absolutely. It's a, it's a very, it's a neat time of life now. I mean, I enjoyed the time that I had while I was working, but, you know, when you retire, you have a little bit more freedom you had before. So, you know, but use it wisely. It's really true with anything we all, we all are given, you know, resources of various sorts, and time is one of the most valuable resources that we have. And you know, we're, you know, invested. Invest it wisely. Because, you know, life is life is short, and as I get older, realize how short life is, so invest that time wisely and and invest in relationships, as I say, is probably the most important   Michael Hingson ** 56:24 thing. Yeah, I think that's extremely crucial, and makes a lot of sense. And you'll meet people and find things that you never knew before, and you continue to learn, which is what it's all about. Yep, absolutely. Well, I want to thank you for spending an hour with us today, and in doing this, we'll have to do it again, and I think it'll be a lot of fun, but I really enjoy you being here and appreciate you taking the time   Skip Vaccarello ** 56:48 Well, Michael, thank you so much. I've enjoyed it. It's fun for us to to reappoint, yeah, yeah. And it's a it's a great conversation, and hopefully listeners will get some benefit from it, but I've enjoyed the time that I've that I've spent with you today again. Thanks. Thank you so much for having me.   Michael Hingson ** 57:06 Well, I hope all of you have enjoyed listening and watching us, and that you'll give us a five star rating wherever you're watching or hearing the podcast. We really appreciate five star ratings a lot. And just your thoughts. So if you have any thoughts about today's episode, please email me. I'm easy to reach. It's Michael H I M, I C, H, A, E, L, H i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S i b, e.com, and if you want to subscribe to the podcast, do it wherever you're listening, or you can always go to Michael hingson, M, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, s, o n.com/podcast, and I, and I hope you'll do that, but also skip for you and all, all people out there who are encountering our episode today, if you know of someone, including yourself, who might want to be or you think ought to be a guest on unstoppable mindset, I'd love you to reach out to me. We're always looking for more people to have on and talk about various things, and like I said, for me, in part, I get to learn what we do that. So we really appreciate you finding other guests for us. So don't ever hesitate to reach out and let us know if people we ought to interact with. But again, skip. I just want to thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun, and we really appreciate your time.   Skip Vaccarello ** 58:24 Michael, thank you again. Enjoy the rest of the day. Appreciate it.   Michael Hingson ** 58:32 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

In today's Tech3 from Moneycontrol, we decode Donald Trump's message to Apple CEO Tim Cook: don't build in India unless it's for India. We also break down IKF Finance's massive $175 million fundraise led by Norwest, and what it means for India's MSME lending. Plus, Infosys slashes bonus payouts amid tough macros, and a surge in cancellations as Indian tourists boycott Turkey and Azerbaijan. Tune in for the sharpest updates from tech and startups.

We talk with Will Messiter, Chief Operating Officer - Residential Communities and Home Building at Sekisui House Australia at the opening of their $4.8 Million Asora Norwest Community Park.  Providing 9,553 sqm of essential green space and recreational amenities to residents in Norwest, one of Sydney's rapidly expanding suburbs in the Hills Shire, Irongum Terrace Reserve responds directly to rising demand for premium outdoor spaces, with the Hills Shire population forecasted to grow nearly 70% by 2046.Messiter, who is also an architect, gives his views on the housing shortage, the changes in Australia's housing markets and the Asora Norwest Community Park.  

Norwest Carpentry is enhancing home security in Kununurra with expert Crimsafe security screen installations. These durable, high-quality screens offer superior protection while maintaining airflow and aesthetics. Committed to safety and customer satisfaction, Norwest Carpentry provides tailored solutions for homes and businesses. Norwest Carpentry City: Kununurra Address: 8 Salacca Loop Website: https://norwestcarpentry.com.au/

In this episode of Private Equity Spotlight, Sean Mooney sits down with Ran Ding and Chris Scullin from Norwest to discuss why private equity is ultimately a people-driven business. With deep insights into founder-led businesses and long-term partnership strategies, Ran and Chris share their unique approach to building trust, creating value, and fostering alignment with the companies they invest in. From their personal journeys to the principles that guide their work, this episode offers timeless lessons for investors and founders alike. Episode Highlights 2:15 – Discover how Ran Ding and Chris Scullin turned personal challenges into professional purpose in private equity. 8:45 – Building trust and alignment: The secret to lasting partnerships in founder-led businesses. 17:30 – Winning strategies for scaling founder-driven companies while preserving their culture. 26:15 – How a people-first mindset sets Norwest apart in the world of private equity investing. 36:50 – Real-world examples of value creation and supporting businesses through thoughtful capital allocation. 48:20 – How to craft your own adventure: Lessons in finding energy and fulfillment in your career journey. For more information on Norwest, go to  https://www.nvp.com/ For more information on Ran Ding, go to  https://www.linkedin.com/in/randing For more information on Chris Scullin, go to https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisscullin/ For more information on BluWave and this podcast, go to https://www.bluwave.net/podcasts

ICON, which builds homes using 3D printing, has closed on $56 million in Series C funding co-led by Norwest Venture Partners and Tiger Global, the company has confirmed to TechCrunch exclusively. The raise represents a first close for the Austin-based ICON, according to a spokesperson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode we speak with Ran Ding, General Partner at Norwest, a global venture and growth equity investment firm managing more than $15.5 billion in capital. Since its inception, the firm has invested in more than 700 companies and currently partners with more than 250 companies in its venture and growth equity portfolio. Ran joined Norwest in 2011. As a General Partner and Co-Head of the Growth Equity team, Ran focuses on growth equity investments across a wide range of sectors including technology, business services, and consumer. His most recent investments include Banyan Software, Datacor, Elite Business Ventures and SpryPoint. Ran is a two-time awardee of GrowthCap's Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors, as well as GrowthCap's Top Software Investors. I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show.  If you like the episode, click to follow.

In this episode of the Karma School of Business, Sean Mooney hosts Lisa Ames, an accomplished marketing operating executive at Norwest Venture Partners. Lisa shares her unique journey into private equity, the value of fostering trust as a business leader, and actionable strategies for marketing and value creation at portfolio companies. Whether you're a business builder or a marketing professional, this conversation is packed with insights to elevate your approach to leadership and growth. Episode Highlights 3:07 - Lisa's unexpected path to private equity and how her SaaS background shaped her role at Norwest. 6:05 - The concept of a "business therapist" and why trust is pivotal in operating roles. 14:25 - Key traits of high-performing businesses, including ruthless prioritization and inspirational leadership. 26:37 - Norwest's unique approach to value creation and the resources they offer portfolio companies. 35:11 - Advice on refining Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP) and crafting impactful messaging for targeted growth. 50:16 - Lisa's timeless advice on networking and how building authentic connections transforms careers.   For more information on Norwest Venture Partners, go to  https://www.nvp.com/ For more information on Lisa Ames, go to  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisaames For more information on BluWave and this podcast, go to https://www.bluwave.net/podcasts

In episode 196 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership, you'll hear how recognising your team's value and structured processes can fuel efficiency and growth. Darren Krakowiak uncovers this and more with Grant Beaumont, the Managing Director of Beaumont Property and Head of the Coutts group and Norwest Commercial in Sydney. Discover how Grant balances responsibility for multiple businesses, works with virtual assistants, and optimises performance across the group. You'll also hear why he believes in empowering his executive assistant and invests in external coaching to unlock his full potential and elevate his leadership. Listen now for practical leadership strategies, insights on commercial real estate business growth, and ways to recognise your team without losing sight of your strategic priorities. --- Find @cresuccess on Instagram and then DM us the word "GROW" to take the first step towards accelerating revenue growth in your business with the right people in your team, serving ideal clients, inside a business that just works. Visit the brand-new CRE Success website online: cresuccess.co Read the episode anecdote, get the transcript and watch the video recording of the podcast here: cresuccess.co/blog/196 To share this episode or your thoughts on it, tag us on socials: @cresuccess or use our hashtag: #cresuccess If you enjoy the show, leave us a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Connect with Darren Krakowiak on LinkedIn Podcast music sourced from audioblocks.com

In this episode we speak with Mike Uchrin, CEO & Co-Founder of Monogram Health, a leading multispecialty value-based provider of in-home, evidence-based care and benefit management services for patients living with polychronic conditions, notably, chronic kidney and end stage kidney disease. Backed by Frist Cressey, Norwest, and TPG Capital, Monogram Health has numerous value-based partnerships with leading health plans, integrated delivery systems, and risk-bearing primary care platforms to care for patients across 35 states and all insurance products. Previously, Mike led the growth of Health Choice, the managed care and insurance business unit of private equity sponsored IASIS Healthcare. I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show.  If you like the episode, click to follow.

Armed with an educational background in computer science and biomedical informatics, Amit Garg switched to venture capital after a long, successful career in the corporate world, which included stints at companies like Google and Samsung.And that's just the way he never planned it. That's right, the almost-doctor didn't intend to get into venture capital, and he certainly never planned on starting his own fund. He was drawn in by his innate need to build things, including relationships with people. He partnered up with his officemate from Norwest, Sanjay Rao, and the two started Tau Ventures in 2019, an AI-first, early-stage fund focused on healthcare, enterprise, and automation. Amit tells us about his very targeted approach to investing, which is different from the “spray and pray” method we've seen from friends of the pod and other investors in general. We also get to hear first-hand accounts about the importance of building trust with your investing partners and your founders. Plus, Amit gives us his take on the state of healthcare and AI and why – despite all the challenges – he's hopeful about where it's headed. Amit primarily invests $500K in Seed-stage healthcare, enterprise, and automation startups and occasionally in Series A, B, and C through Tau Ventures. Highlights:Amit turned down a spot in medical school and pivoted his original ambition to become a doctor by first joining Google, pivoting to VC, and then becoming a digital health founder.He got into the corporate side of venture capital after business school, but he never had any interest in starting his own fund. That is until his friend and former officemate convinced him that an AI-first venture fund was a great idea in 2019. Amit explains that the “why” behind his investing does come from a place of self-interest – which is much different than selfish. He feels that when he pursues and realizes his own self-interests, he can help others to the same.Why a founder shut down a company in his portfolio and why Amit decided to back him again basically the next day. How he sees the interplay between angel and institutional investors and why they're both necessary Amit's frustration with healthcare and how it fuels his passion to make it better. Plus, he explains why he keeps his focus on the three legs of the healthcare tripod.  (00:00) - FIFU 11 - Amit (02:30) - Amit's journey into venture (06:08) - Why Amit likes venture capital as someone who wants to make the world better (13:01) - Memorable moments from the first conviction-driven investment: Iterative Health (19:18) - The machine gun vs. the shotgun style of investing (21:05) - Lessons from the worst investment (24:34) - Be careful who you partner with, optimize for good investors (28:22) - What the best investment with a $450M exit taught Amit (32:57) - Investing is about humans believing in humans (35:42) - The state of healthcare and AI today (46:39) - Venture vs. angels in the healthcare space (51:12) - Outcomes in the digital healthcare space are starting to behave like tradtional SAAS software outcomes (58:13) - Lighting round (01:01:51) - Takeaways

In this episode, we speak with Vijay Tella, the Co-founder and CEO of Workato, a platform for intelligent integration and workflow automation. In 2013, Workato was founded by Vijay Tella, Gautham Viswanathan, and Harish Shetty. Their intention was automating workflows through a no-code platform. Prior to Workato, Vijay was CEO of Qik, a consumer video communications company acquired by Skype. Workato has raised over $400 million and is backed by Battery Ventures, Altimeter, Insight Partners, Norwest, and other notable investors. I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show.  If you like the episode click to follow.

Tomer Shiran is Founder of Dremio, the data lakehouse platform for self-service analytics and AI based on open source frameworks Apache Arrow, which the Dremio team created, and Apache Iceberg. Dremio has raised over $400M from investors including Norwest, Redpoint, Adams Street, Sapphire, Insight, and Lightspeed. They are currently valued at $2B. In this episode, we dig into Tomer's journey from MapR to Dremio, his initial vision for making the data stack more accessible, their first breakthrough with Apache Arrow and a columnar-format approach, focusing first on project-market fit before monetization, adding support for Apache Iceberg, how they're using AI to improve user experiences & more!

So teachers don't actually live at school?Join Ardin and Jonathan as they sit down with special guest Felicity Marlow, Principal of Norwest (+ Ngarra) Christian College. From working her way up from parent to Principal, Felicity shares her passion in building up the younger generation to know their God-given purpose.With over 20 years of experience in the education industry, Felicity highlights the importance of Norwest's teaching and learning framework: Building Purposeful Lives - and how it sets Norwest apart from other schools in the independent sector. Along the way she opens up about her own family and what led her to begin exploring these ideas.Tune in to hear how God can be found on every page of our life and how he often brings us back to the place where we started ... for different reasons?

Ten years ago, Irem Rami became one of the first Fellows to join StartUp Health. In her role she helped vet the very first companies to join our community. That was back when it seemed very audacious indeed to have a goal of supporting 1000 healthcare startups. A few years later and we've now welcomed 500 startups into the community and are still going strong. In that time Rami moved on, went to business school, and is now a principle health investor at Norwest, a $3B multi-stage fund. We called up Rami up for this StartUp Health NOW podcast episode to give us that decade look back – you know, it's hard to understand where you're going if you don't know where you came from. She's got a unique perspective on the durability of the StartUp Health vision and what it means to chase the same seemingly impossible dream for more than 10 years. We also wanted to hear Rami's advice for health innovators seeking to raise funds in this difficult market. She evaluates opportunities on a daily basis and had some sage advice to share for our listeners. Enjoy the episode. — Innovators: Health Transformer University fuels your health moonshot Funders: Become a Health Moonshot Champion Want more content like this? You can subscribe to the podcast as well as other health innovation updates at startuphealth.com/content. Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox. Looking to break down health barriers? If you're an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our Health Equity Moonshot. Passionate about Type 1 diabetes? If you're an entrepreneur or investor, contact us to learn how you can join our T1D Moonshot.

Mary Miller is the Head of Business Development within Growth Equity Investing at Norwest Venture Partners. Prior to joining Norwest in 2023, Mary was a Director at SoftBank's Vision Fund and has held a number of other positions focused on investments in consumer technology companies. First, we explore some of the administrative and investing roles that Mary has worked in as she explains how she ended up in her current role. Next, we talk about some of the advantages and opportunities that working for SoftBank's Vision Fund gave Mary as well as some of the lessons learned while working at such a large fund during the downturn of the market in 2022. After that, Mary explains a case study of the company Fanatics and explains the tremendous growth and evolution of the company over the past few years, focusing on her role in creating value for the company. Then, Mary breaks down what consumer technology is and how the industry has evolved over the recent past. Finally, we open the floor to members of the Notre Dame Venture Capital club (students who are actively trying to or already have broken into venture capital careers) to ask their insightful questions.

Dave Zilberman is a General Partner at Norwest Venture Partners. Norwest Venture Partners manages more than $12.5 billion in capital. They have invested in over 600 early-to-late-stage companies, with more than 200 currently active. Dave primarily focuses on early to late-stage investments in enterprise and infrastructure—some of his portfolios include Slack, DocuSign, Amagi Corporation, and more. Before joining Norwest, Dave was the Managing Director of Comcast Ventures.   You can learn more about:  1. How to identify and invest in the next generation of Slack and DocuSign  2. Investing career advice from corporate venture arm to traditional VC fund 3. How do you construct an excellent portfolio to produce good results and stay competitive? ===================== YouTube: @GraceGongCEO Newsletter: @SmartVenture LinkedIn: @GraceGong TikTok: @GraceGongCEO IG: @GraceGongCEO Twitter: @GraceGongGG =====================   Join the SVP fam with your host Grace Gong. In each episode, we are going to have conversations with some of the top investors, superstar founders, as well as well-known tech executives in silicon valley. We will have a coffee chat with them to learn their ways of thinking and actionable tips on how to build or invest in a successful company.

In der Rubrik “Investments & Exits” begrüßen wir heute Stephan Jacquemot, Investment Partner bei TS Ventures. Stephan bespricht die Finanzierungsrunde von Habyt und Purpose Green. Habyt, ein Berliner Anbieter von flexiblem Wohnraum, hat in einer Series-C-Finanzierungsrunde 40 Millionen Euro eingeworben. Die Runde wurde von den neuen Investoren Korelya Capital und Deutsche Invest angeführt. Außerdem beteiligten sich die neuen Investoren Exor Ventures und Endeavor Catalyst sowie die bestehenden Gesellschafter P101, ITALIA500-Azimut, HV Capital, Vorwerk Ventures, Norwest, Kinnevik, Burda Principal Investments und Inveready. Habyt ist von 5.000 Einheiten in 18 Städten im letzten Jahr auf 30.000 Einheiten in über 50 Städten auf drei Kontinenten gewachsen.Das ClimateTech Purpose Green hat eine Finanzierungsrunde in Höhe von 3,3 Millionen Euro abgeschlossen. Investoren sind Speedinvest und Atlantic Labs. Mit den neuen Mitteln will das Berliner Unternehmen sein Team erweitern, seine Präsenz in Deutschland ausbauen und seine Dienstleistungen weiterentwickeln. Purpose Green ist auf die Dekarbonisierung des Gebäudesektors spezialisiert. Eigentümer, Hausverwaltungen und institutionelle Fonds werden bei der Sanierung und Energieberatung unterstützt.Shownotes:

Join host James Mackey and his guest, Parker Barrile, Partner at Norwest Venture Partners as they explore career progression, market dynamics, and the trials and triumphs of building thriving tech companies. Learn how market conditions and tech developments impact the HR landscape and gain a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by founders and investors. They open up about surviving economic downturns and the resilience required to succeed.      0:34 Parker Barrile's background     1:59 Market conditions and HR tech developments     9:07 Surviving and thriving in business20:39 Leadership and hiring during a crisis30:24 Effective strategies for hiring and recruiting Thank you to our sponsor, SecureVision, for making this show possible! Our host James Mackey Follow us:https://www.linkedin.com/company/82436841/#1 Rated Embedded Recruitment Firm on G2!https://www.g2.com/products/securevision/reviewsThanks for listening!

Paul Dix is Cofounder & CTO of open source time series data company InfluxData. The company's open source datastore, InfluxDB, has 26K stars on GitHub. InfluxData has raised over $200M from investors including Norwest, Battery, and Sapphire Ventures. In this episode, we dig into building the category of time series data, how an open source company's monetization plan should tie to fundraising, some of the hardest decisions the team had to make during InfluxData's journey so far & more!

In this episode, we speak with Rajeev Shah, the Co-Founder and CEO of Celona, the enterprise 5G company that enables a new generation of AI-powered business critical apps in the enterprise and helps organizations accelerate their digital transformation journey. Before founding Celona, Rajeev was the VP of product management and marketing for Federated Wireless, where he launched the industry's first and leading Spectrum Access System. Prior to Federated, Rajeev held multiple product management leadership positions at Aruba Networks, including creating its Cloud Wi-Fi business. Taking advantage of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum, Celona's solution architecture is designed to simplify and automate deployment of cellular wireless technology by enterprise IT organizations and managed service providers. The company was born with the idea that a combination of 5G radio technology, edge computing and machine learning software will fundamentally change how organizations work and do business. Celona is backed by Digital Bridge Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Norwest, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and other notable investors. I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show.  If you like the episode, click to subscribe.

A 3-part podcast series, in partnership with OfBusiness, India's youngest profitable unicorn! Background: OfBusiness is a B2B procurement and fintech platform, which is the youngest profitable Indian unicorn that has crossed over $2 bn in revenue in FY2022-23. The 7-year-old startup which turned unicorn in July-2021 has leapfrogged with a $6+ Bn valuation, operating across 20+ countries. It has impressive backing from top global investors like TigerGlobal, Norwest, Softbank, etc. Both co-founders, Nitin Jain and Vasant Sridhar will share valuable insights based on their own journey of building OfBusiness into the profitable unicorn that it is today. The first part of this series covers: How did the idea of OfBusiness evolve? Key pain areas/challenges that founders observed in the procurement sector? Composition of their founding team and complementary skill sets? Some of the challenges founders faced in the early stages, and the way they overcame them? Advice for the founders/B2B startups that are at the initial stages? Key milestones in the early growth of OfBusiness, and how did they navigate their first fundraising?

In this episode, we speak with Sonya Brown, General Partner and Co-Head of Growth Equity at Norwest. Norwest is a leading venture and growth equity investment firm managing more than $12.5 billion in capital. Since its inception, the firm has invested in more than 650 companies and currently partners with over 200 active companies in its venture and growth equity portfolio. Sonya is focused on growth equity and buyouts investing across a wide range of sectors including consumer, retail, internet, education and business services. Her current investments include Babylist, Forum Brands, Jolyn, Junk King, Kendra Scott, Madison Reed, Senreve, and SmartSign. Before Norwest, Sonya was at Summit Partners for almost a decade. Sonya was recognized by GrowthCap as one of the Top Women Leaders in Growth Investing of 202. I am your host RJ Lumba.  We hope you enjoy the show. If you like the episode, click to subscribe and drop us a comment.

Send us a Text Message.We take a look at the recent consumer pool and spa expo in Melbourne that was run in partnership by MPBAA (former SPASA Vic) and SPASA.  Was is a success? What happens now?We take a look in brief at court case in NZ where a local council has been found negligent around it's barrier certifications and homeowners have been awarded damages.Plus, an interview with recently appointed Poolwerx CEO, Nic Brill.  We discuss the recent investment from Norwest, consumer and industry trends and the future for Poolwerx.Ready. Set . SPLASH!For you free industry news updates and SPLASH! Magazine copy simply go to:https://www.splash.online/subscribeWith thanks to our sponsors:FluidraAIS WaterPentairHayward

Amanda Robson is a partner at Cowboy Ventures. She works with enterprise companies focusing on software infrastructure companies. She has a passion for open source companies and co-hosts the Open Source Startup Podcast. Before joining Cowboy, she was an early-stage investor at Norwest where she worked with a number of enterprise software companies including 6 River Systems, Fossa, and Dremio. She is the proud founder of Modern Angels - a community and database of 200+ female and non-binary angel investors. She also co-leads the VC Champions program for All Raise, and co-chairs NextGen Partners, an organization that helps up-and-coming investors get the support and access they need to be successful. In this episode, we cover a range of topics including: - How she got into VC - Open source projects - How she invests in open source companies- Software infrastructure market landscape - Investment framework - Trends in AI/ML - The role of AI in software infrastructure --------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: http://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

In this episode, Scott Becker shares 12 notes & headlines on what is currently happening in the venture capital space of healthcare.A huge explosion in HC VC in 2020 and 2021. Both fundraising and investing.A significant slowdown in 2022 particularly the 2nd half of 2022.There are lots of funds that do a huge number of smaller investments. Funds like Rock Health, Arch Venture Partners, New Enterprise, 7Wire Ventures, Martin Ventures, Flare Capital, Costonoa and Khosla for example.There are also mega funds that tend to make much larger investments per deal. For example, funds like Sequoia, A16Z (Andreessen Horowitz) General Catalyst, Tiger Global, Kleiner Perkins, Norwest and more. Remiss to not mention rock star investment firms Frist Cressey and Thoma Bravo. Amazing what Bill Frist has accomplished. Bill Frist, M.D.There are an increasing number of partnerships between VC funds and health systems and payors. General Catalyst has really made great advances here. See also “Venture Capital firms are partnering with healthcare organizations to improve digital health” Forbes Sai Balasubramanian, M.D., J.D.There are also an increasing number of systems that have funded and self manage or outsource their only venture efforts. For example, Advocate Aurora Enterprises led by Scott Powder. Providence Ventures formerly led by Aaron Martin and a ton more. Kaiser Ventures et Al.Earlier Series A rounds (and seed rounds) tend to be much smaller than larger rounds.VC investing generally is more binary than PE investing. Pre Ebitda vs Post Ebitda investing. VC studies show that an overwhelming majority of profits come from 10 to 20% of investing and more than 50% of investments barely return the invested capital. Generally the earlier stage the higher risk.Healthcare venture can include several different sectors- digital health, provider health, biotech, pharma, diagnostics and devices.See Modern Healthcare opinion piece by Eric Epstein and Douglas French "Healthcare Venture Capital Potentially Peaked-Now What".See also WSJ " Digital Health Venture Funding Pulls Back From Last year".Also see Kaiser Health News "Mission and money clash in non profit hospitals' venture capital ambitions." Kaiser Health News.

The Daily Shower Thoughts podcast is produced by Klassic Studios. Shower thoughts are sourced from reddit.com/r/showerthoughts [Promo] Check out the Daily Dad Jokes podcast here: https://dailydadjokespodcast.com/ Shower Thought credits: VictoryFlaky2004, GooglyEyeThing, ThePettyPilot, pauko13, UniqueCold3812, eveningsand, ShadowLord_11, Comfortable-Seat9365, Cool-Shot, SomeonePlzTurnMeOff, Grouchy-Current-8832, Fanatic_Foxx7422, iburnmyfeelsaway420, jrtrue, Dr_Photo_Popper, Slow-Razzmatazz-4005, hopefulmilk_, Roivas14, Akseium, , BattleTranny97, TreeBearOne, LiwetJared, Background-Relief-37, DVXC, Norwest, Proud_Durian_8353, WrongReviewThrowAway, jeephistorian, 25sigma, Mikey10158 Podcast links: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZNciemLzVXc60uwnTRx2e Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daily-shower-thoughts/id1634359309 Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/daily-dad-jokes/daily-shower-thoughts iHeart: https://iheart.com/podcast/99340139/ Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/a5a434e9-da18-46a7-a434-0437ec49e1d2/daily-shower-thoughts Website: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/dailyshowerthoughts Social media links Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DailyShowerThoughtsPodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DailyShowerPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/DailyShowerThoughtsPodcast/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dailyshowerthoughtspod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A NEW MODEL FOR HOME OWNERSHIP: Yifan Zhang, CEO & Co-Founder of Loftium Yifan Zhang is the CEO & Cofounder of Loftium, a Norwest and Threshold-backed startup that creates affordable homeownership in expensive cities through management of an onsite Airbnb. Loftium and Yifan's own experience hosting has been featured in The New York Times, and Yifan was named in Entrepreneur's “50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs”. Yifan served on former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan's Innovation Advisory Council and currently serves on Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell's One Seattle Civic Partnership. She was previously named Forbes “30 under 30” as the founding CEO of top mobile fitness startup GymPact. She is a Techstars alum and current mentor. Yifan graduated magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard University.   Loftium is re-defining home ownership by providing buyers a home with built-in savings for a down payment.  Loftium makes the American dream of homeownership possible for people that may have ordinarily been left out by buying dream homes. Host to Own clients paying Loftium 1% of their home price while generating income from hosting AirBNB guests in their homes.  Learn more here.  For this episode of the Impact Report Series Producer, Katie Ellman, speaks with Yifan about how Loftium is creating next-generation affordable housing  in cities around the United States.  ImpactReportPodcast.com  

On today's episode we hear from Rick Marini.  Rick is a serial entrepreneur with 25 years of operating and investing experience in the technology space. He founded and successfully sold 3 companies (Tickle, BranchOut and Talk.co). He is an active angel investor in 50 tech start-ups including 17 unicorns (including Snapchat, Reddit, Opendoor, and AngelList).  In 2018, Rick was named a "Top 50 Angel Investor" by Forbes. Rick is also the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Catapult Capital - a private equity firm that focuses on transactions in the Internet, advertising, media, consumer and broader technology sectors. Full buyouts include Grindr and JibJab. Rick currently serves as the COO of Grindr and on the Board of Directors for JibJab.Rick was the Founder & CEO of BranchOut, the largest professional network leveraging the social graph with more than 800 million professional profiles. BranchOut raised $49 million in funding from Accel, Redpoint, Mayfield, Norwest and Floodgate. In 2014, BranchOut was acquired by a publicly-traded recruiting company.Rick was Founder & CEO of Talk.co, an enterprise messaging app. In 2014, Talk.co was acquired by Hearst Corporation. Rick ran the Digital Innovation Group at Hearst from 2014-2016.In 1999, Rick co-founded Tickle.com, one of the largest social media sites on the Internet. In 2002, Tickle won the “Rising Star” Webby Award as the fastest growing site on the Web. Tickle grew to more than 200 million registered users and was a top 20 Internet site. In 2004, Monster Worldwide acquired Tickle for $100 million.Beyond Rick's depth of knowledge and experience, he is an amazing human being - he generously gives his time to coach and mentor early-stage companies and is a huge advocate for new founders looking for advice, support, and investment in Silicon Valley.------------------------------------------------------------------------This episode is brought to you by Exitwise:  https://www.exitwise.comExitwise helps business owners create the exits they deserve by assembling the best teams of industry specific, M&A experts, who will help maximize the sale of each business.How Does It Work:1. Schedule A Call:  Schedule a call with one of our M&A Advisors and we'll walk you through the entire process of selling your business, from market valuations to M&A expert fees and from due diligence to the signing of your purchase agreement. We're here to answer any questions you may have.On this call, we'll want to learn about the history of the business, your financial performance, your management team and listen to your thoughts and requirements for selling the business so we can make sure to find the best M&A experts to help maximize your exit.2. Review Top Experts:  Once we've had a chance to process all your business information, we'll share with you, our top choices for investment bankers, M&A attorneys, and tax accountants to help maximize the sale of your business.We'll present each M&A expert's transaction history, estimated valuation range for your business and their fee structures. Then we'll talk through the pros and cons of each choice to help you prioritize and make the best decisions.3. Negotiate & Hire:  Finally, when we've narrowed it down to your top choices, we'll negotiate your engagement letter with each M&A expert to make sure fees and terms are fair for everyone. We know what to look for and we know how to keep everyone incentivized for your optimal outcome.Once your M&A experts have been selected and you're ready to move forward, we'll collect signatures and get everyone to work.

The final week of artillery fire that preceded the Canadian assault on Vimy Ridge, was an experience that German soldiers holding the ridge would never forget.  Known by the Germans as "Die Liedenwoch" or "The week of suffering",  one veteran stated that his experience at this time was the worst week he went through in four years of war.In this episode, we look at the Canadian preparations for the assault on Vimy Ridge, and hear about how the French experiences at Verdun drove Canadian planning.  Canadian units sought to outdo each other in terms of trench raids and we hear about the disaster of the 1st March 1917, where over 600 Canadians were killed, wounded, or missing in a trench raid that went wrong from the moment it began.We hear the story of a German soldier's first encounter with a "Red Indian" and look at the contribution of indigenous Canadians to the war effort.  We meet "Ducky" Norwest, a Cree Indian who became the most feared sniper on the Western Front, whose stalking skills earned him the sobriquet "The Ghost of No Man's Land".  Our episode concludes with a remarkable visceral document found in German archives, written by a man who survived the week of suffering.Support the podcast:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/footstepsbloghttps://www.patreon.com/foostepsofthefallen

In this episode, let's talk about what the NDIS is, who's eligible, the application process as well as the steps to creating the NDIS plan. References: Calder, S., Ward, R., Jones, M., Johnston, J., & Claessen, M. (2018). The uses of outcome measures within multidisciplinary early childhood intervention services: A systematic review. Disability and Rehabilitation, 40(22), 2599-2622. doi: 10.1080/09638288.2017.1353144. Centre for Community Child Health, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne (2011). DEECD early childhood intervention reform project: Literature review. Melbourne: Communications Division for Programs and Partnerships Division, Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development. Retrieved 7 September 2020 from http://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/childhood/providers/needs/ecislitreviewsept2009.pdf. Early Childhood Intervention Australia (2018). Best practice in early childhood intervention report 2018. Norwest, NSW: ECIA. Retrieved 7 September 2020 from https://www.flipsnack.com/earlychildhoodintervention/ecia-best-practice-in-early-childhood-intervention-report-fcmf2ii51/full-view.html. Ellison, C. (2019). People living with disability: Navigating support and health systems. In E. Willis, L. Reynolds & T. Rudge (Eds), Understanding the Australian health care system (4th edn, pp. 191-207). Chatswood, NSW: Elsevier Australia. Roberts, J., Williams, K., Smith, K., & Campbell, L. (2016). Autism spectrum disorders: Evidence-based/evidence-informed good practice for supports provided to preschool children, their families and carers. Canberra: National Disability Insurance Agency. What is it and how do to get started video links; https://raisingchildren.net.au/disability/ndis/about-ndis/ndis-what-is-it- https://raisingchildren.net.au/disability/ndis/about-ndis/ndis-getting-started Let's Talk About Autism is now on Instagram. Click https://www.instagram.com/letstalkaboutautismpodcast/ to follow so you can stay tuned for new episodes, extras and much more! For more information, head over to Aspect Australia - www.autismspectrum.org.au. Disclaimer: I'm not a professional, just a student with a passion for autism.

Monica and Mike are joined by the magnificent Adam Norwest! We talk about road stories.

Elliot Shmukler, CEO and founder of Anomalo, needed a better way to monitor data quality at scale. He previously led growth teams at Wealthfront, Instacart, and LinkedIn and experienced firsthand the impact of incomplete or inaccurate data. Anomalo has now raised nearly $40M from amazing investors including Norwest, Two Sigma, and Foundation to make data problems a thing of the past.Listen and learn...What Elliot means when citing Jeff Weiner from Linkedin: "If you're launching a rocket even a one degree course change can mean you won't land on the moon."About the data quality issue nobody noticed at Instacart that impacted millions of users.How the role of the data scientist will change as AI platforms automate data quality monitoring.When there's a need for humans in the loop to override AI systems.Why every product will soon be as good at personalization as Spotify and Netflix.The number one skill every student needs to learn that will never be replaced by machines.Past episodes referenced in today's discussion:Milin Desai, Sentry CEOBarr Moses, Monte Carlo CEODerek Steer, Mode Analytics CEOPeter Fishman, Mozart Data CEOKrishna Gade, Fiddler CEOCharity Majors, Honeycomb CTO

Parker Barrile of Norwest Venture Partners joins Nick to discuss Norwest's New $3B Fund, the Effects of VC Capital Explosion, and Scaling LinkedIn's Product 20x. In this episode we cover: Norwest's Largest Ever Fund The Capital Allocator's Environment How Parker Scaled LinkedIn's Product to $2B Compelling Customer Acquisition Strategies & Much More! Missed a recent episode? Go to The Full Ratchet blog and catch up! Also, follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

If you know anything about Balance then you must surely know off Richard Kan. Ever heard that massive rapturous laugh at the Norwest clinic? That's Rich. In the second last episode of the season Rich and his delightful laugh join Nick and Jac. In this episode Rich talks about his story at Balance as a practitioner in its youth he then talks about how he got to where he is now. Richard is known in the community for being a reputable and knowledgeable mentor and when talking to the boys he talks about the importance of having one himself and the relation having good mentors has on your success.Along with Mentors, mistakes are a crucial ingredient in success and Rich talks about the importance of making mistakes and how they help you fast track your growth and development. Finally the trio discuss shoulder pain and injuries, with particularly focus on a commonly under diagnosed condition.Please enjoy a fantastic podcast that not only applies to practitioners but anyone who is striving for success in their own personal field.

Ilias is a Co-Founder and Head of Product of Celential.ai, a Series A startup in Silicon Valley offering AI-powered recruitment services. Celential created a talent graph of 100M+ profiles of working professionals, focusing on 4M software engineers in North America. The talent graph uses proprietary algorithms to map professionals across the web and derives deep insights about their roles, strength, career preferences, and many more. Before Celential, Ilias was head of product and growth at Good&Co (an HR startup funded by Norwest and acquired by StepStone.com) where he built the world's first quantitative culture graph of US companies. Prior Ilias held executive and PM roles at various startups and built hit games at Zynga and Scopely. Ilias is the first Harvard graduate from Kyrgyzstan.

Erica Westbury is the Managing Director of Norwest Recruitment, a multi-award-winning business, which has also ranked 47th in the BRW Fast 100. Erica herself has previously won CEO of the Year with The Executive Connection.The recruitment industry was hit very hard in the early stages of the Covid pandemic, so this was a critical time for Erica, who really went to great lengths to protect the mental health of her staff. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Topics discussed in this episode: Enterprise being SaaS by nature Solving SaaS infrastructure problems The leaky bucket of B2B and B2C The one responsibility CEO's can't forget This is a ProfitWell Recur production—the first media network dedicated entirely to the SaaS and subscription space. 

Today’s episode is with Sergio Monsalve, founding partner of Roble Ventures, a seed firm based in Silicon Valley that invests in solutions that help human progress. Their portfolio includes Kahoot, Mosaic, and Dragonboat, among others.  Prior to Roble, Sergio spent 14 years at one of the longest standing VC firms, Norwest Venture Partners, where he early invested in unicorns such as Udemy and Adaptive Insights. He has also held various roles in high-growth technology companies like eBay and Portal Software. He currently teaches at his alma mater, Stanford, on education and entrepreneurship.  We chatted with Sergio about equity and diversity in the VC world, adapting to a smaller GP model after so much time at a large firm, and how he thinks about investing in human enablement technologies. Get on the email list at ventureunlocked.substack.com

Hear what exciting things are planned for Norwest Smart City in the coming months and yearsTim Spencer Head of Development Mulpha Norwest joins us to discuss Tune in 3pm every Thursday on our Facebook and Instagram pages to catch the latest episode while it is aired live

How do you have a budget that is driven by vision and mission rather than just by taking last years and adding a CPI increase?  And what does a pledge and commitment season look like in 2021?What's the process for developing a budget that works to grow your vision each year?And how do you roll it out with your church?Plus what if the amount pledged is not enough to cover expenses?Pete Stedman is senior pastor of Norwest Anglican Church in Sydney's North West and joins us today to talk about how not to have ‘Step off a cliff and cross your fingers church budgeting.' Links: Norwest pledging strategy,  Norwest 2019 pledge letter, Norwest 2020 pledge letter,  Village 2020 pledge brochure, Village 2020 pledge videos,  Village 2020 Intergenerational gift brochure, Village 2020 Intergenerational gift videosWatch the discussion hereSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/thepastorsheart)

After the loss of her mother and father and battling COVID-19, owner and chief curator Asia Hamilton found solace in nature and wanted to bring that experience to Detroit.

Scott Beechuk, Partner at Norwest Venture Partners discusses his experience as a startup founder and his move to VC, the latest market trends, Scott's investment process, as well as qualitative and quantitative characteristics of companies he likes to invest in.Scott Beechuk's BioScott brings more than 20 years of product, engineering, and SaaS expertise to his role as a partner on Norwest's enterprise team. He focuses on early- to late-stage investment opportunities in enterprise SaaS with a focus on companies building business applications taking advantage of human-assisted AI, advanced behavioral analytics, client-agnostic platforms and industry-specific solutions. He currently serves on the boards of Bluecore, Leanplum, MindTickle, Qualified, Singular, and Socrates AI.Scott most recently served as Senior Vice President of Product Management for Salesforce Service Cloud, the industry's #1 enterprise customer service platform. While at Salesforce, he also served as Head of Engineering, Product, UX, and Documentation for Desk.com.Before joining Salesforce, Scott cut his entrepreneurial teeth building multiple consumer and enterprise software companies including a multi-brand e-commerce service with an integrated multi-channel customer service platform, an enterprise privacy middleware platform and consumer metasearch engine.Time Stamps00:10 Scott's background and why he joined Norwest Venture Partners05:18 COVID's effect on startup creation09:50 Post COVID SaaS valuations11:10 Investment Process – from sourcing to investing18:30 Qualitative and quantitative characteristics Scott is looking for in startups26:57 Common mistakes startups make32:35 Fundraising advice to founders34:32 Bonus QuestionSIGN UP at https://www.saashimi.cloud to receive transcripts of the interviews and news about upcoming guests and events.

Satya Prabhakar is the CEO of Sulekha, an Indian firm funded by GIC, Norwest and Mitsui . He worked at Honeywell as an engineer and AT&T as a business manager before founding Sulekha with Sangeeta Kshettry. Having been a founder for over a decade in the Indian Startup Ecosystem, he brings insights about working with SMBs, the secret to a long living business, building for Bharath and more in this episode. Some Key highlights in this episode are: Working with SMBs Building a sustainable business with profits Evolution of the Indian Startup Ecosystem Connect with Satya Linkedin: https://in.linkedin.com/in/satyaprabhakar ​ ----------- Found this episode informative? Let us know by clicking the like button and share with your friends. Connect with Us: Linkedin: https://in.linkedin.com/company/startup-operator ​Twitter: https://twitter.com/OperatorStartup --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/startup-operator/message

Asia Hamilton of Norwest Gallery, shares how her experience as an artist led her to create a platform to showcase artists of color and exhibit their work.

Why is Amit Garg, Managing Partner at Tau Ventures bullish on healthcare AI? 'A lot of treatments were POSSIBLE before AI, but not PLAUSIBLE...' View video --> https://www.linkedin.com/posts/adamfodonnell_why-is-amit-garg-managing-partner-at-tau-activity-6757329005181067265-VZLH

Why Listen Vincent's story is pretty much the opposite of the standard entrepreneurial success story you hear. Yes - he has experienced incredible success - his company, VisitPay, now has over 100 employees, 3 of his 7 C-Suite executives are Service Academy graduates, and he has received over $26M in funding from some of the best investors in the world, like Norwest. However, where his story differs is that this didn't happen overnight.  Vincent has been at this for nearly 12 years. His success didn't come all at once, it came through a sustained effort over a decade. What I love most about Vincent's story is how he elegantly merged two vital aspects of entrepreneurship that - to me - often seem to be complete opposite skill sets - that of rapidly iterating (building, learning, and reacting as quickly as possible to feedback from customers), and at an opposite extreme, building for scale (slowing down to build things properly so that it can sustain the load of a massive influx of customers). I learned so much from my conversation with Vincent and hope you will too.   Vincent Vincent Martino is the Co-Founder of VisitPay, a company he started nearly 12 years ago that now has over 100 employees and has raised $26M in funding from top notch investors like Norwest. 3 of his 7 C-Suite executives are Service Academy Grads. His journey started at the Naval Academy, included five years in the Marine Corps, followed by an MBA at the Wharton School, and includes work at Dynamicsoft, Capital One, COO at Balihoo and co-authoring the book, The Marine Corps Way.

American Fans Discuss The Global Sport

On this episode of The Smart Property Investment Show, host Grace Ormsby is joined by Dylan Whalan, a 21-year-old university student who has just purchased his first property. Dylan took advantage of the HomeBuilder grants and stamp duty subsidies currently on offer, and the fact that he has already locked in employment for 2021 to buy an apartment in a new Norwest development. The soon-to-be graduate chats to Grace about how COVID-19 very much accelerated his decision to buy, why procrastination can prevent good investment decisions being made, how his university education made him more aware of the importance of investing and why budgeting is vital for young property purchasers. If you like this episode, show your support by rating us or leaving a review on Apple Podcasts (The Smart Property Investment Show) and by following Smart Property Investment on social media: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you have any questions about what you heard today, any topics of interest you have in mind, or if you'd like to lend your voice to the show, email editor@smartpropertyinvestment.com.au for more insights!

With the pandemic impacting so many aspects of our daily lives – both personally and professionally – I was curious to find out how it is effecting how things in the venture capital space. And last week I had the opportunity to speak with Scott Beechuk, Partner at Norwest Venture Partners. Norwest is a leading venture and growth equity investment firm managing more than $9.5 billion in capital, and Scott focuses on early- to late-stage investment opportunities in enterprise SaaS with a focus on companies building business applications taking advantage of human-assisted AI, advanced behavioral analytics, client-agnostic platforms and industry-specific solutions. Scott shared how his experience as an entrepreneur and later at Salesforce as SVP in product management has helped shape his approach to being a VC, and how COVID-19 has impacted how he operates.

Symmetrical Dumpster PC Stacking, just like the Norwest mass turbulence of 1984. Dave’s been dumpster diving again for small form factor PC’s. Forum: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/eevblog-1342-symmetrical-dumpster-pc-stacking/

Lanham Napier of BuildGroup joins Nick to discuss Scaling Rackspace, The Evolving Responsibilities of a Venture-Backed CEO, and Confronting Big Tech Monopolies. In this episode, we cover: You took on capital from Seqouia, Norwest and others while at Rackspace.  What was the biggest challenge to taking on venture capital? How were you able to move from the early product-market-fit days to true scale... what were the defining decisions/actions that helped you expand exponentially? As a company leaves the product-market-fit stage and reaches scale, what is the job of the CEO or how does the job of the CEO change as the company scales? You've talked about investing "long-term capital"... what do you mean by that? How have you created a fee-light model, where management fees are eliminated? How do you guide CEOs that have been conditioned to think in 12-18 months cycles, when the long-game is much more critical? You've hired and developed a lot of folks over the years.  What advice do you have for young CEOs with regards to selection and/or development of people? Leadership -- great ones emerge in hard times.  What are some of the most important lessons you've learned about leadership? We're in an environment where the largest tech companies have monopolized a lot of the upside in the market.  Of course recently many of the CEOs appeared in front the house judiciary committee.  Where do you stand on the position of large tech companies and how that impacts emerging startups? Do you think China is a threat to the U.S.'s position as world power and tech leader? What would suggest we do about it?

Dr. Hay­ley Char­trand from Nor­west Co-op Com­mu­ni­ty Health dis­cuss­es her two cur­rent roles sup­port­ing youth, how Nor­west is sup­port­ing the com­mu­ni­ty and her own career jour­ney with YES Employ­ment Facil­i­ta­tor Melissa.Our theme music is by Nathan Crowe.

Today's guest is Trevor Robson from Norwest Chiropractic. In this cool chat Trevor breaks some of the old myths that some people have about chiropractors and shares his approach on a combined approach to treating chronic problems. Well worth the listen and your time. If you like the show, please rate, review and share with your friends. If you know a dad who'd make a great guest, or you'd like to be interviewed yourself to share the story of your family and your business, please email daniel@dpmtransformation.com.

How are different arts organizations around Detroit celebrating Black History Month? Edward Foxworth of the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History talks about their exhibits, and Asia Hamilton discusses the HAIRarchy exhibit at the Norwest Gallery of Art.

Today on Open Studio: Conversations on Art, GMAS sits down with Asia Hamilton, artist and founder of Norwest Gallery of Art in Detroit, MI, on the eve of the gallery’s two-year anniversary. Asia shared some of her early days of collaborating with “Dopest Ethiopian Collective”, dedicating her current exhibition “Hair-Archy” to her legendary father who was a hair giant in Detroit and around the world, and why she stays focused on giving artist opportunities to have a place to showcase their work!

In this episode, Tej Singh interviews Brad Hargreaves, the Founder and CEO of Common Living, a company that is dedicated to making housing better by providing convenient, community-minded shared homes. Since opening its first home in 2015, Common has grown to over 650 members in five cities. It has raised over $63M from investors like 8VC and Norwest. Before starting Common, Brad founded General Assembly, a global education institution, and was a Venture Partner at Maveron, General Assembly's lead investor.

Memphis Meats, a developer of technologies to manufacture meat, seafood and poultry from animal cells, has raised $161 million in financing from investors including Softbank Group, Norwest and Temasek, the investment fund backed by the government of Singapore. The investment brings the company's total financing to $180 million.

Asia Hamilton is an artist and entrepreneur who has become an anchor for the city’s art and culture scene through her gallery in Grandmont Rosedale. And now she’s taking the conversation about the value of arts and culture to city hall.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week Kate was in China, so TechCrunch's Danny Crichton and Alex took the helm while she was out grilling Lime. So, with our producer (the excellent Mr. Gates) in San Francisco and Danny in New York and Alex in the provinces, we got into the following to start:Jetpack Aviation and it’s seed round to build a flying motorcycle, because of course why notAn endurance racing startup raising money from Usain BoltNorwest’s mega new $2B fundEQT’s mega new $750 million rumored European growth fundAnd a new round for Peanut, the social network for mothersPivoting into the biggest news from the week, 1Password raised a comically-large $200 million Series A round of funding. The firm quite obviously hadn't raised much capital before but had grown to be quite large. Hence the large check. Recall that Series A really means a company's first institutional round, not a specific dollar range.Next we discussed DoorDash and its possible $100 million add-on to its $600 million round from earlier this year. The new capital should keep the on-demand technology company's valuation pegged just above where it was set during its preceding round. So, a down round this is not.Meanwhile, Docker received a $35M investment from Benchmark and sold much of its business to Marantis, which has all the appearances of a recap for the formerly high-flying unicorn.What else? JUUL is laying off staff, WeWork is still losing an ocean of dollars, and Line is partnering up with Yahoo Japan.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week Kate was in China, so TechCrunch's Danny Crichton and Alex took the helm while she was out grilling Lime. So, with our producer (the excellent Mr. Gates) in San Francisco and Danny in New York and Alex in the provinces, we got into the following to start:Jetpack Aviation and it’s seed round to build a flying motorcycle, because of course why notAn endurance racing startup raising money from Usain BoltNorwest’s mega new $2B fundEQT’s mega new $750 million rumored European growth fundAnd a new round for Peanut, the social network for mothersPivoting into the biggest news from the week, 1Password raised a comically-large $200 million Series A round of funding. The firm quite obviously hadn't raised much capital before but had grown to be quite large. Hence the large check. Recall that Series A really means a company's first institutional round, not a specific dollar range.Next we discussed DoorDash and its possible $100 million add-on to its $600 million round from earlier this year. The new capital should keep the on-demand technology company's valuation pegged just above where it was set during its preceding round. So, a down round this is not.Meanwhile, Docker received a $35M investment from Benchmark and sold much of its business to Marantis, which has all the appearances of a recap for the formerly high-flying unicorn.What else? JUUL is laying off staff, WeWork is still losing an ocean of dollars, and Line is partnering up with Yahoo Japan.

Two years after the Los Angeles-based fintech startup Dave launched with a suite of money management tools to save consumers from overdraft fees, the company is now worth $1 billion thanks to a nascent banking practice that had investors lining up.

Dror brings to Norwest more than 20 years of operational, technology and entrepreneurial experience, having worked extensively in both the U.S. and in Israel in various senior positions at leading global organizations. Dror most recently invested in and serves on the boards of CyberX, Cynet, Gong, Personali, SundaySky, VAST Data, Weka.IO, and Wiliot. Dror has served as a board member of Veraz Networks since 2004. Dror was a previous board participant at Fireglass (acquired by Symantec), Pontis (acquired by Amdocs), ScaleIO (acquired by EMC), Seculert (acquired by Radware), SolarEdge (Nasdaq: SEDG) Unisfair (acquired by InterCall), and Velostrata (acquired by Google) and was a board observer for ConteXtream (acquired by HP). At Norwest, Dror focuses on multi-stage (seed to pre-IPO) and multi-domain (enterprise, cloud, consumer, semi) investments in Israel. Prior to joining Norwest, Dror served as executive vice president and Chief Strategy Officer of ECI, which he joined in 2004. In this role, he was responsible for ECI's strategy, mergers and acquisitions, business development, and strategic marketing. Before joining ECI, Dror was CEO of Axonlink, an optical components start-up company. Prior to Axonlink, he was President of I-Link, a US-based VoIP service provider which acquired MiBridge, the VoIP software company he founded. Dror was also a senior research engineer at AT&T Bell Labs where he developed voice and video compression technologies, including the speech coder that is now the standard for CDMA cellular in North America. Dror holds a BSc in electrical engineering from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. About The Project EGG Show: The Project EGG Show is a video talk show that introduces you to entrepreneurs from around the world. It is broadcast from studios in Metairie, Louisiana to online platforms including YouTube, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify and Stitcher, and hosted by Ben Gothard. Our goal is to give you a fresh, unscripted and unedited look into the lives of real entrepreneurs from around the globe. From billionaires to New York Times best selling authors to Emmy Award winners to Forbes 30 Under 30 recipients to TEDx speakers – we present their real stories – uncensored and uncut. Subscribe To The Show: https://projectegg.co/podcast/ Get Access To: 1. Resources: https://projectegg.co/resources/ 2. Financing Solutions: https://projectegg.co/epoch/ 3. Payment Solutions: https://projectegg.co/sempr/ 4. Services: https://projectegg.co/resources#services 5. Courses: https://projectegg.co/resources#courses 6. Software: https://projectegg.co/resources#software 7. Book: https://projectegg.co/resources#books --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/projectegg/support

Barry talks with Norwest Minerals (ASX:NWM) CEO, Charles Schaus.

The Detroit Art Week exhibit opening Friday examines how we present ourselves on dating apps — and how we deal with the bad experiences.

Amit Bendov is the Founder and CEO @ Gong.io, the startup that provides you with powerful visibility into your customer conversations with conversation intelligence. To date, Amit has raised $68m in funding for Gong from the likes of Norwest, Battery Ventures, Cisco Investments and Wing Venture Capital just to name a few. As for Amit, prior to founding Gong, Amit was the CEO @ SiSense BI software that enables business users to connect to multiple databases of any size. Before that Amit was the CMO @ Panaya, helping companies that use SAP or Oracle to reduce 80% of their ERP upgrade. Finally before that Amit was the Founder & CEO @ SparkThis, an outsourced marketing and sales service for cloud companies. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Amit made his way into the world of SaaS and came to found Gong, the leader in conversational intelligence driving deal conversion and rep success? How does Amit approach the process of idea validation? What can founders do to make sure their idea is a hit before they start work on it? How many customer conversations should they have? What questions are crucial to ask? What are the answers they want to hear? What is enough proof that there is a ready and willing customer base for this idea?   With many products starting as free, how does Amit think about when is the right time to start charging for your product? What does Amit think about the differing variable price mechanisms that one can choose? How does one have a variable pricing mechanism without disincentivizing users to use the product? What does Amit advise founders should charge in the early days? Should they leave money on the table? How does Amit think about monthly/vs annual deals? What are the core benefits and drawbacks of each? How important is it that multi-year deals are paid upfront? What must you account for with regards to multi-year deals? How do you know when you have the right pricing mechanism in place from the sales cycles of the reps? 60 Second SaaStr: What does Amit know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning? The hardest role to hire for today? The hardest element of Amit’s role as CEO of Gong? SDR is the most important function in the sales org, agree or not and why? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Amit Bendov

Life’s too short to not be passionate about what you do. Trying lots of things in your 20s. How to succeed in venture and important advice for your first year on the job.

This episode we talk to our friend and Chiropractor James. James works at Balance Health & Performance in Bondi and Norwest. We talk about his approach to treating clients and how Balance differs from your standard clinic.

Hello and welcome back toEquity, TechCrunch's venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Connie Loizos and I were joined by Norwest's Scott Beechuk. Sadly, Matthew Lynley was reading slam poetry to ambivalent cacti in the Sonora Desert and thus couldn't join us. He'll be back soon, we promise. But we had a good crew on deck and a grip of news to sift, so let's get to what we got into.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Connie Loizos and I were joined by Norwest’s Scott Beechuk. Sadly, Matthew Lynley was reading slam poetry to ambivalent cacti in the Sonora Desert and thus couldn’t join us. He’ll be back soon, we promise. But we had a good crew on deck and a grip of news to sift, so let’s get to what we got into. First up was the latest headlines in the on-demand transportation sector. Lyft raised a huge new pile of cash at a staggering valuation, Uber got the go-ahead to operate once more in the great city of London, and Bird’s $300 million round officially closed. So that’s another $900 million for domestic transportation-sharing, at least, in a single week. Right. Next up Sequoia’s epic new $6 billion in fresh capital. Recall the famous line about a million dollars not being cool, but a billion dollars being cool? Sadly a billion dollars isn’t cool, 2012 Andreessen Horowitz. But maybe $6 billion is cool. At least 2018 Sequoia thinks so. (Good luck returning a multiple of that figure!) Speaking of a16z, that shop has a new vehicle in the market focused on the crypto space. With $300 million ready to go and no 20 percent cap on crypto investments, a16z can now do what it wants inside of the surprisingly-still-nascent space. All that and we tried to squeeze AppNexus into the show. (Update: We failed!) Stay cool and we’ll see you in a week!

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This week Connie Loizos and I were joined by Norwest’s Scott Beechuk. Sadly, Matthew Lynley was reading slam poetry to ambivalent cacti in the Sonora Desert and thus couldn’t join us. He’ll be back soon, we promise. But we had a good crew on deck and a grip of news to sift, so let’s get to what we got into. First up was the latest headlines in the on-demand transportation sector. Lyft raised a huge new pile of cash at a staggering valuation, Uber got the go-ahead to operate once more in the great city of London, and Bird’s $300 million round officially closed. So that’s another $900 million for domestic transportation-sharing, at least, in a single week. Right. Next up Sequoia’s epic new $6 billion in fresh capital. Recall the famous line about a million dollars not being cool, but a billion dollars being cool? Sadly a billion dollars isn’t cool, 2012 Andreessen Horowitz. But maybe $6 billion is cool. At least 2018 Sequoia thinks so. (Good luck returning a multiple of that figure!) Speaking of a16z, that shop has a new vehicle in the market focused on the crypto space. With $300 million ready to go and no 20 percent cap on crypto investments, a16z can now do what it wants inside of the surprisingly-still-nascent space. All that and we tried to squeeze AppNexus into the show. (Update: We failed!) Stay cool and we’ll see you in a week!

Scott brings over 20 years of deep product management, engineering, and SaaS expertise to his role as a partner on Norwest enterprise team. Scott most recently served as Senior Vice President of Product Management for Salesforce Service Cloud. While at Salesforce, he also served as Head of Engineering, Product, UX, and Documentation for Desk.com.

Jon Lee is the Founder & CEO @ ProsperWorks, the #1 recommended CRM for G Suite. To date, ProsperWorks have raised over $85m in VC funding from the likes of True Ventures, Norwest, GV, Bloomberg Beta and more incredible names. As for Jon, prior to ProsperWorks, he started in investment banking at Merrill Lynch before moving to run a large operations team at Yahoo. Jon then founded Bazaar Advertising Solutions, a business self funded from a Palo Alto apartment that Jon scaled into a highly profitable $47m business in less than 2 years. Jon then sold Bazaar to Epic Media in 2006. Following the acquisition, Jon founded DNA Games, the number one casino simulation game on Facebook with more than 20 million players, ultimately acquired by Zynga in May 2011. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Jon made his way into the world of CRM having successfully founded and sold 2 prior business in the lead gen and gaming space? Why does Jon believe building a SaaS business is very much like building a gaming business? How does on think about the scaling of company culture with the scaling of headcount? Where does Jon see the inflection points where this culture starts to break down? What does Jon mean when he suggests “the importance of a culture of innovation”? Why does Jon believe it is so important to insert a culture of risk into the organisation? How does this risk mindset differ and look across different segments of the business? How does Jon aim to create a culture of risk and ambition without a fear of failure and not hitting targets? Why does Jon think it is always better to start in SMB and move to enterprise? How does this decision change how one thinks about product roadmap? How does this change how one approaches traction building ahead of fundraising? What should one look to learn from rapid iteration and testing before moving to the enterprise market?    60 Second SaaStr? What does Jon know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? What keeps Jon up at night? What is Jon’s favourite SaaS reading material? Read the full transcript on our blog. If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Jon Lee

Medtech and Digital Health technology increasingly have more and more in common. In this Medtech Talk Podcast, Robert Mittendorff, MD, a partner at Norwest Venture Partners, explains how Digital Health companies are facing many of the same challenges that vex Medtech start-ups, including the need to obtain approval under new FDA guidelines and to secure reimbursement payments from insurers

How can you run a marketing department with 2 people and satisfy a sales team of 50? What are the 3 marketing categories you should know about? What goes into a Competitive Battlecard? In this week’s episode of SaaS Insider, Adam Stein, the founder of APS Marketing, and the host Shira Abel discuss product marketing, solving problems for customers, and getting a sales team to buy in. About Adam Stein • APS Marketing and Adam’s marketing leadership of more than 20 years both center on building underlying differentiated product messaging strategy, hands-on writing, and program development. These three ingredients scale category development and high performance content syndication. He’s undertaken marketing strategy and programs that strategically develop and deliver revenue at growth firms fortunate to expand into category leaders including MobileIron, Broadcom (Epigram), Cisco, Fortinet and Juniper. He helped build many of these award-winning marketing teams from day one by partnering with leading VCs including Accel, Benchmark, Foundation, Mohr Davidow, Norwest, Redpoint, Sequoia and Storm. • Adam founded APS Marketing in 2015 to offer Product marketing as a Service for content creation, marketing planning and ROI program development. He focuses on client needs in Big Data, enterprise software, networking, security, semiconductors and mobility. Services APS Marketing offers include defining a measurable B2B Marketing strategy and industry-relevant content. The results deliver revenue-driven goals including sales & product marketing content creation and the implementation of global GTM programs. Key Takeaways: • If there is a shift in your industry and you have to cannibalize one of your own products, do it before somebody else will. • Product Marketing defines what your services are, their benefits for a customer, and how you’re better from your competitors. You need to make it easy for people to understand what problem you’re solving in order to make a sale. • In order for your marketing strategy to work, all three marketing categories have to be aligned. Please rate this podcast. About Shira Abel Shira Abel is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Hunter & Bard (http://www.hunterandbard.com), a PR, marketing and design agency. Clients include: Folloze, Totango, Cyara, Sarine Technologies, Pushbullet, AXA Tech, CloudEndure, Pitango VC, Allianz, and more. Creator and host of the SaaS Insider podcast. Mentor at 500 Startups. Former professor of Marketing for Startups at Tel Aviv-Jaffa Academic College. MBA from Kellogg School of Management. Loves family time, cooking, and traveling. Hates writing about herself in the third person. She lives with her husband, teen and tween sons and a very large Great Pyrenees. If you would like to be interviewed on SaaS Insider - please contact Shira at the URL above. The SaaS Insider podcast is brought to you by Hunter & Bard, an agency specializing in PR, design, branding, and marketing strategy – helping SaaS companies develop mindshare. It’s also a member of the C-Suite Radio Network. Check out Hunter & Bard today at http://hunterandbard.com Tags and Keywords: product marketing, sales, software business Facebook Status: Adam Stein and @shiraabel discuss product marketing and providing sales teams with the right tools on this week’s episode of #SaaSInsider. They talk about the right time to cannibalize your own product and defining what your benefits for a customer are. Twitter Status: @apstein2 and @shiraabel discuss product marketing and providing sales teams with the right tools on this week’s episode of #SaaSInsider.

Chef Grant Michell from the Norwest Co-op Community Food Centre who will be working alongside a rock star line up of other talented chefs next Wednesday June 14th at the Qualico Family Centre at Assiniboine Park for the Art of Good Food. Join us for a night of creative artistry as Winnipeg's most talented chefs and artists come together to create delicious food tastings, and a live art auction in support of the Norwest Co-op Community Food Centre. Chefs will include... Ben Kramer – ChefBenKramer.comKelly Cattani – Hilton HotelKristen Chemerika-Lew & Kyle Lew – ChewTalia Syrie – The Tallest PoppyAaron Epp – PEG Beer Co.Norm Pastorin – CornerstoneHeiko Duehrsen – Assiniboine Park ConservancyGrant Mitchell – NorWest Co-op Community Food CentreMandel Hitzer – deer + almond. Tickets on sale at norwest.ticketbud.com. #winnipegfood#themainingredient #680cjob

Robert Mittendorff, MD, MBA, Principal at Norwest Venture Partners discusses how he brings his experience as a physician to his role at Norwest, top digital health themes to get excited about and tips for entrepreneurs pitching VC's. GUEST: Robert Mittendorff, Norwest Venture Partners HOST: Steven Krein LOCATION: Wearable Tech + Digital Health Conference 2015, New York, NY IN THIS EPISODE: Medicine and Venture Capitalism What Makes Norwest Venture Partners Unique? Common Mistakes + Tips for Entrepreneurs Pitching to Investors

Monica and Mike are joined by the magnificent Adam Norwest! We talk about road stories (one embarrassing ...

Round one with Mike Colletta, Brett Hamil, Adam Norwest, Monica Nevi, and Tanner Hodgeson. Recorded at Tacoma Comedy Club, January 6, 2014.

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