Podcasts about Sandbox

Nel caldo torrido novarese commentiamo a freddo gara 7, il draft e le prime caldissime trade. Finale di stagione lunghissimo e, mentre aspettiamo eurobasket e che il carrozzone NBA riparta ci prendiamo una meritata pausa estiva! Baci

Jon Jordan and BlockchainGamer.biz editor Jenny Jordan talk through the week's news including:[01:10] Animoca Brands and Moca Foundation have announced Moca Chain. [01:35] Originally this was the Mocaverse NFT collection, which has become Moca Network. [06:25] They've tried to build a reputation and privacy-focused ID system. Not clear who's using it.[12:25] The issue is you have to build something 10x better and still people won't use it. [17:59] Nexon has launched a Credit Level system to reduce botting in MapleStory N.[26:43] Wildcard will be launching on Steam in October 2025.[30:42] The project's longterm success is more about the Thousands streaming platform, however.[32:19] Startup Spekter Games has raised $5M. Its first game is Telegram roguelite Spekter Agency.[37:58] The Sandbox is partnering with Cirque du Soleil for the forthcoming Alpha Season 6.

Internet personality Sébastien Borget is the co-founder and COO of The Sandbox [TSB] decentralized Metaverse, a virtual world where users can create, compete, and monetize their experiences using NFTs aka SAND--the main utility token of the platform. Read more...

I am thankful for having the opportunity to get in front of the microphone these last five years and spill my soul, interview fantastic guests, and learn. Thank YOU, dear listener, and may our paths cross again! Until then, blessings as we journey on.My email: aprilific@gmail.com

Hablamos con Leire Arbona, Directora de Legal y Cumplimiento de Veridas

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with David Hirschfeld, owner of 18 year old business Tekyz, that boasts a hyperexceptional development team building high “ticket” products in the B2B space. They speak about ways in which AI is a gamechanger, how Tekyz backs their work for clients with relentless pursuit of quality, and how Tekyz practices ruthless compassion,to protect the company and enable it to grow Having collaborated with over 90 startups, he developed the Launch 1st Method—a systematic approach that minimizes risks and accelerates software company success with reduced reliance on investor funding, after observing that many companies launch a product first and then fail at a later stage – With Tekyz approach of Launch 1st exceptional founders are in love with the problem not the product.   David's expertise bridges cutting-edge AI technologies, workflow optimization, and startup ecosystem dynamics. When not transforming business strategies, he enjoys woodworking, golfing, and drawing leadership insights from his experience raising four successful sons. You can find out more about David and Tekyz at: https://sites.google.com/tekyz.com/david-hirschfeld?usp=sharing https://tekyz.podbean.com/ - Scaling Smarter Episodes. www.scalingsmarter.net - Schedule an interview https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://x.com/tekyzinc https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhirschfeld/ https://www.facebook.com/dmhirschfeld       transcription:  00:04 Welcome  back to the Founders Sandbox.  I am Brenda McCabe, the host here on this monthly podcast, now in its third season. This podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners that are scaling. 00:31 professional service providers that provide services to these  entrepreneurs, and corporate board directors who, like me, are building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests to this podcast are business owners themselves, professional service providers, and corporate directors who, like me, want to  use the power of the private company to build a better 01:01 world through storytelling with each of my guests in the sandbox. My goal is to provide a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one founder at a time to build a better world through great corporate governance. So today I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, David Hirschfeld. David is the owner and CEO of Techies, 17 or 18 year old business now that boasts 01:29 a hyper exceptional development team that are building high ticket products in the B2B space.  Welcome David to the Founder Sandbox. Hi Brenda and thanks for having me. Great. So I'm delighted that we  actually did a dry run in February.  We've known each other for some time  and AI, we're going to be touching on AI.  And I think that the world of AI 01:58 particularly in software development,  has changed significantly since we last spoke in February. So we're going to be getting into  some, I think, novel concepts for  the listeners of the Founder Sandbox. So I wanted to, you I always talk about how I like to work with  growth stage companies  that  typically are bootstrapped  and 02:26 It's only at a later stage do they seek institutional investment  by building great corporate governance  and reducing the reliance on investor funding  until such a time that they choose the right type of investors that can help them scale. So when I found out what you do at Techies with Launch First  and the type of work you do in B2B businesses, I absolutely wanted to have you here  on the  founder sandbox. 02:56 So let's jump right in, right? I think I'm eager to learn more about how to scale your bespoke development at Techies, right? To scale my own business? Okay. So there's a lot of different aspects to scaling my business and I bootstrapped for the last 18 years. 03:25 I've never taken any investment  with techies.  And I've  done that very specifically because  it gives me a lot of freedom. I don't have  a reporting structure that I have to worry about. That doesn't mean that I can be lazy with my team.  To grow my team, I have a philosophy 03:52 that I only hire people that are smarter than I am.  And the  ones that are in a position to hire, they can only hire people that are smarter than them. And by  really sticking to this philosophy, even though sometimes it makes us grow a little slower than we would like, it means that when we bring in people, those people  contribute immediately and contribute in a way 04:21 that it's our job to get the impediments out of their way and to facilitate them  so that they can contribute and  help us grow the company. So I call it  the ball rolls uphill  here because  my job is to support everybody that is above me, which is everybody. And then the people that I support directly, their job is to support the people that are above them. 04:51 Because if we're hiring correctly, then  people that we bring in can contribute in the area that we're bringing them in way more than the person that's hiring them. Okay. Thank you for that. So before you launched Techies, you had a career in companies like,  I  believe, Computer Associates, right? Texas Experiments and TelaMotorola. 05:19 There was a period of time between your  experience in these large corporations before your launch tech is where you actually had your own startup  and  you sold it in 2000, right? And I believe you also learned perhaps with the second startup about how hard it is to find product market fit. Can you talk to that for my listeners, please? 05:46 I don't know that it's that hard to find product market fit. It depends if that's your focus or not. If your focus is to nail down product market fit, then  it's not that hard to determine whether you can achieve that or not fairly quickly.  You can do that by  selling your product to potential customers.  That sounds strange. Of course, we all want to sell our products, but 06:14 What I'm suggesting is you start selling your product before you have a product, before you have a  full product. And I don't mean an MVP, but a design prototype. You go out to the market and you start to sell it. If you have product market fit and you've identified the early adopter in your market and you know that they have a very high  need from a perception perspective  and there's a big cost to the problem that you're solving. 06:45 then you can offer them a big enough value upfront that they'll buy your product early and you can prove that there's a market for your product and they'll buy it in enough numbers that you  can achieve a measurable  metric, which I kind of call the golden ratio, which is three to one in terms of what is the lifetime value of a customer versus what does it cost to acquire that customer? And you can get to that three to one ratio. 07:13 in a prelaunch sale model before you ever started developing your product as a way of proving product market fit. Or you pivot quickly and cheaply because you're not having to rebuild a product that you've built in the wrong way. Or you  fail fast and cheap. And every entrepreneur's first goal should be to fail fast and cheap. know that sounds backwards, but that should be your goal is that you can fail fast and cheap or if you 07:42 If you fail to fail fast and cheap, that means you've found a path to revenue  and  product market fit. And now you know you have a viable business. making the investment to build the product  is a no brainer.  And you came upon this methodology, right? Yes.  because you did yourself when you had your first company, you did not understand the funding part, right?  Can you talk? 08:12 a bit about your specific example and then how that's informed now 17 years of techies and over 90 projects with startups. Okay. So my first company was Bootstrap. Okay.  And that one was successful and we grew it despite  me, it was me and a partner. And  despite ourselves, we grew it  over eight years. 08:39 where he ended up with 800 customers in 22 countries and sold it to a publicly traded firm out of Toronto. That was in the product food, snack food distribution business because that was what our product was focused on. So I started another company about five years later, not realizing the things that I did the first time. 09:08 that made it  so successful,  which really fit the launch first model to a large degree.  But the second time I built a product that would have been successful had I followed my first model,  but I didn't. So I went the route of building an MVP and getting customers on a free version of it, and then going out and trying to raise money, which is the very classic approach that the SaaS products 09:38 take now.  And the problem is with that approach is that you end up digging a really deep hole  in terms of the investment that you make to build the product with enough functionality that you can convince people it's worth putting an investment in and you're not generating any revenue at the time. And I should have just started selling the product and generating subscription revenue right from the beginning. First of all, I would have been able to  raise money much more easily. 10:08 Secondly, I would have not needed to raise money as much if I'd focused on sales. The problem with a lot of founders is they fall in love with their product. They believe that people will buy it at enough numbers and that investors will see the potential. they're afraid of sales. I've fallen into this trap before too. I've done it both ways. And I can tell you selling early 10:38 and staying focused on the customer and the problem are the way to be successful. So founders who I find are consistently successful, they are focused on the problem, they love the problem. The product is just the natural conclusion to solving the problem, not something to be in love with. They spend their time talking to customers about the problems.  So how does a potential customer find you and work with you? 11:08 Oh, they can find me at Techies or they can find me at LaunchFirst, was spelled launch1st.com. And they can find me on LinkedIn. And then to work with me, it's just give me a call, send me an email, we'll set up a Zoom. I'll start to learn about what you're trying to accomplish and what your requirements are. And I'll typically spend quite a bit of time with any potential clients. 11:39 in  one to usually multiple calls or Zooms, learning and  creating estimates and doing a lot of work in advance with the idea that there'll be a natural conclusion at the end of this that they'll wanna start working with me in a paid fashion. So there's a lot of value that my clients get from me whether they end up contracting me or not.  And how, again, back to,  thank you for that and that. 12:08 how to contact you will be in the show notes. But what types of sectors do you work in?  You know, in your introduction, I talk about high ticket B2B, right?  who are the,  so  what founder that's has some idea today?  What would be  their call to action to find techies? And what would you, is it launch first before you go down? 12:35 No, it's not necessarily. It may be an existing company that  is trying to implement AI or implement workflow automation, or they have a project and they don't have the IT team or capacity to handle it.  We love those types of projects. It might be an existing startup that is struggling with their software development team and they're not 13:04 getting  to the end goal that they're expecting and the product's buggy, it's taking too long,  there's constant delays, they're way over budget  and they  need to get this thing done. And  I call those recovery projects,  they're probably my favorite because people  recognize very quickly  the difference  that we bring. 13:33 and they really, really appreciate us.  As far as what sectors,  business sectors,  healthcare, law enforcement,  prop tech, real estate, finance,  entertainment, I mean, we work in  many, many different sectors over the last 18 years.  So  regardless in  B2B, B2B2C,  not so much e-commerce unless there's some 14:03 complex workflow associated with your particular e-commerce, but there's lots of really good solutions for e-commerce that  don't require developers to be involved.  But  mobile, web, IoT,  definitely everything is AI now. Absolutely. And in fact, when we last spoke,  I'd like to say that you started to drink your own Kool-Aid at Techies. 14:33 you're starting to actually use AI automation for internal functions as well as projects at Techies. So can you walk my listeners through how you're using  AI automation  and what's the latest with agentic AI?  So let's do the first.  Yeah,  okay.  So there are a bunch of questions there. So  let me start with 15:02 that we're building products internally  at Techies to help us with our own workflows.  These products though  are  applicable to almost any development company or any company with a development team.  Some of them are, and some of them are applicable to companies that are, well, so one product  is  putting voice capability in front of project management tool. 15:32 and we use JIRA and JIRA is an incredibly technical tool for project managers and development teams to use to  their projects, requirements, their  track bugs, all of that.  And so your relationship with what I call relationship with project management is very technical one. If you're a client, some clients are willing to  go through the learning curve so that they can enter their own... 15:59 bugs and feature requests and things like that directly into JIRA. Most don't.  They  want to send us emails, which is fine,  and just give us a list of what's going on and the problems that they're finding or the things that they need  for a future version and the planning and the documentation, everything else. This is a real technical thing. We're going to make it a very natural personal relationship by  adding voice in front of all this so that you can 16:29 be sharing your screen with your little voice app and say, just found a problem on the screen.  And  the voice app can see the screen. It knows your project. It knows your requirements. And it can identify problems on the screen that you may not have even noticed.  And it can also prevent you from reporting bugs that have already been reported and tell you when they're planned to be built.  And all of this just with a verbal discussion with the app. 16:58 that basically knows your project.  Kind of like talking to a project manager in real time, but they don't have to write down notes and  they can instantly  look up anything about your project in terms of what's been reported in terms of bugs or feature requests  and update them or create new ones for you or just report them to you and tell you when things are planned to be built and released or. 17:24 where they've already been released and maybe you need to clear your cache so you can see the change, whatever.  Yeah. So it be like an  avatar, but it's trained and it's  specific to Jira  in your case?  In the first version, it's actually being built architected so that we'll be able to add other project management tools to it besides Jira in the future.  to begin with, because we use Jira,  it's going to work directly with Jira to start. 17:54 And this, by the way, you asked about agentic workflows,  right? So we're  building an agentic workflow  in this tool where we have more  different agents  that work together to resolve these issues.  so we have an agent that reads and writes documentation to JIRA.  We have an agent that communicates with  the user and the user might be the programmer 18:23 might be a person in QA, it might be a client for a lot of different things. And we have an analyst agent that when the person talks, the voice agent says to the analyst agent, here's what I understand. Here's the information I just got. Go do your work and come back and get me the answer. And it'll speak to the JIRA agent to get the information. It will also speak directly to us. 18:52 a vector database, which is a database where all the documentation from that project  is ingested into our own  separate AI model so that the context of all the communication is about their project and doesn't go off into other directions.  And then can  get back. So this is an agentic workflow.  The idea of 19:20 agents is like everybody keeps talking about agents. Not everybody is really clear on what that even means. Can you define  that?  an agent is an AI  model  that you can interact with that is focused on  one specific area of expertise.  So if it's a travel agent, the word agent fits very well there, then their expertise would be on everything related to 19:49 travel and booking travel and looking up  options and comparing prices. And  that would be an AI  travel agent.  So that's very different from an AI project management agent, very different from an AI financial analyst agent.  So each agent specializes in its own area of expertise and may draw from specific 20:18 repositories of information that are  specific to that particular agent's area of expertise.  And they actually look from the perspective of that type of person, if it was a person. So,  and so they'll respond in a way that is consistent with how somebody who is a project manager would respond to you when you're talking to them, asking you questions about your requirements, knows what 20:46 information it needs to be able to assess it properly, things like that.  wouldn't be very good about travel because that's  not its area of expertise. Right.  So is it  common to have companies that are creating with their own large language model, right? Or their workflow processes internally to the company to create their own agent AI? 21:14 Or is there a marketplace now where you can say, want this type of agent to get in. This is a very basic question, but  do build it? Right. Or do you buy it? Or is it something in between? It's something in between.  So there are tools that allow you to  basically collect agents out there.  And there's a difference between an agent and a context.  Cause you hear a lot about model context switching and things like, don't know. 21:44 if your audience knows these things.  Or model context protocol. A context is not an agent, but it has some agent capabilities because it's kind of specializing your model in a certain area. But you would use this, but you're not, if it's a true agent, then  it's probably tied to its own vector database. 22:12 that gets trained with specific information. It might be company's information. It might be information, let's say if I'm a security agent, then I'm going to be trained on the entire NIST system as well as all of my security architecture that's currently in place. And that so that it could monitor and 22:41 assess instantly whether there's  security vulnerabilities, which you wouldn't ask Chet GPT to do that. No. Right? Because it couldn't. Because it doesn't know  anything about your organization or environment. And  it  really also doesn't know how to prioritize  what matters and what doesn't at any given moment. Whereas a  security agent, that would be what it does. 23:10 I don't know if I answered that question. Oh, bad thing about building or buying.  there are- Or something in between,  Yeah. So there are tools that you can use to build workflows  and  bring in different agents that already exist. And  you can use something like OpenAI or Claude  and  use it to create an agent and give it some intelligence and- 23:37 give it a specific, in this case, you're giving it a specific context.  You could even  tie a special machine learning database to it  and make it even more agentic in that way.  And then  build these workflows where you're  like, let's say a marketing workflow,  where you're saying you first go out and research all the people who are your  ideal customer profile. 24:07 I was going to say ICP, but I'm trying not to use acronyms because not everybody knows every acronym.  Ideal customer profile.  And then it finds all these people that fit your ideal customer profile. Then it says, well, which of these people  are  in the countries that I do business? And then it illuminates the ones that aren't. then which ones, and it may be using  the same agent or different agents to do this.  Then once it's nailed it down to the very discrete 24:37 set of customers. Now  the next step in the workflow is, okay, now  enrich their data  of these people to find their email and other ways of contacting them as well as other information about them so that I have a really full picture of what kind of activity are they active  socially? they speak? Do they post? What are they speaking about? What are they posting about? What events are they going to? Things like that. 25:07 So that would be the next step and that'd be an agent that's doing all the enriching.  And then after that, the next step would be to call basically call a writing agent to go do, am I writing an email? Am I writing a LinkedIn connection post? Am I doing both?  Set up a drip campaign and start reaching out to these people one at a time  with very customized specific language, right? That  is in your voice. 25:34 It doesn't sound like it's written by a typical AI outreach thing. All right, so these would be  steps in a workflow that you could use with several different tools to build the workflows and then calling these different agents. 25:48 Let's go back to the launched first. What would be a typical engagement with a company? you know, they, um, the founders that have the greatest success in your experiences are the ones that love the problem space and not the product. All right. So walk my listeners through. 26:17 What a typical engagement. it's staff augmentation. it  full out  outsourcing? it tech?  because it's very complex. I can touch so many. can touch high  tech and high ticket B2B products,  sector agnostic. what,  put some legs on this for my listeners, please. Sure, sure. We're not. 26:46 so much a staff augmentation company, although we'll do that if asked to, but that's not  the kind of business that we  look for.  We look for project type work. So a typical engagement for launch first would be  somebody wants to launch a product, they're in the concept phase. We help refine the concept and we build out,  help that we do the design and then we build a high fidelity prototype, which is a design prototype. 27:16 When I demo a design prototype to somebody, they think that they're looking at a finished product,  but  it's not. It doesn't actually do anything. It just looks like it  does everything.  So it's very animated set of mock-ups is another way to look at it.  And it's important because you can build out the big vision of the product this way in a couple of months, whereas 27:46 it takes instead of, you so you're looking at the two year roadmap when we're done of the product. If we were to build an MVP, then you're going to see a very limited view of the product and it's going to cost a lot more to build that MVP than it takes to build this design prototype. Now we're in the process of doing this. We're also nailing down who that early adopter is. And there's a, there's a very, 28:14 metrics driven methodology for doing this.  your launch first. Within launch first, right. Okay. All right. And then  we'll help the client build a marketing funnel and help them start to generate sales.  We're not doing the selling, they're doing the selling. And it's important that founders do the selling because they need to hear what customers are saying about the thing they're demoing, why they want it, why they don't. 28:43 So that  if we need to pivot, which we can do easily and quickly with a design prototype,  then we can  pivot and then go and test the model again, two or three or four times in the space of a couple of months.  And we'll either find a path to revenue or accept the fact that this probably isn't the right product for the right time.  But in the process of doing this, you're learning a lot about the market and about the potential customer. 29:13 I want to be clear about something. Almost every founder that comes to  that I meet with, they love the product, not the problem. They started out with a problem that they realized they had a good solution for and they forgot all about the problem at that point. And so I spend a lot of time with founders  reminding them why the  problem is all that matters  and what that means and how to approach customers, potential customers so that 29:41 you're syncing with their problems, not telling them about this product that you're building because nobody cares about your product. All they care about is what they're struggling with.  And if they believe that you really understand that, then they  care about whether you can solve that problem for them or 30:01 And can  I be  audacious and ask you what a typical engagement duration is like? So this would be for launch first. Yes. If it's a,  and our hope is that they'll  find a path to revenue and start building the product and engage us for the development. Cause that's really our business is building the products.  So, but it's not a requirement.  And,  and our typical engagement with our clients are several years. 30:32 Not all of them, but most of them, would say. Once they start working with us, they just continue to work with us until they decide to bring in their own in-house team  or they fail eventually, which many of our clients do, which is why I  created Launch First. Right. You often talk about your hyper exceptional team at Techies. What is it that's so highly exceptional? Talk to me about your team. Where are they? Yeah. 31:02 And if you go to my website, which is tekyz.com,  you'll see at the very top of it  in the header above the fold, it says hyper exceptional development team. And I don't expect people to believe me  because I write that down or I tell them that I expect them to ask me, well, what does that mean? Do you have evidence? And  that's the question I want to get because I do.  Because when you work in an exceptional manner, 31:31 as a natural consequence of working that way, you produce certain artifacts  that the typical development teams don't produce. And I'm not saying there aren't other exceptional teams, but they're really few and far between. And what makes a team exceptional is a constant need to  improve their ability to deliver  and the level of quality that they deliver as well and the speed at which they develop. It's all of these things. 31:59 So,  and, you know, after 18 years, we've done a lot of improving and a lot of automation internally,  because  that allows our team to work in a really disciplined protocol manner without having to feel like they're under the strict  discipline and protocol of,  you  know, a difficult environment to work in.  And so we  create automation everywhere we can. The voice... 32:27 tool is one of those automations.  The way we  do status reports, it's very clear at the level of detail that we provide every week  to every client in terms of status reports  where we're showing here's what we estimated, here's the actual, here's our percent variance  on how much time we spent and how much it's costing.  We want to always be within 10 % above or below. 32:56 Either  being above or below is not,  know,  the fact that we're ahead of that doesn't necessarily mean that's a good thing, right? So we want to be accurate with our estimates.  And we are typically within 10%. In fact, our largest customer last year, we did a retrospective and we were within six and a half percent of what our estimates were for the whole year.  and that's a,  we're pretty happy with that number. 33:24 I think most teams are looking at many, many times that in terms of variance.  it's not that uncommon for teams to be double or triple what they're or even higher what the actual estimate was. So  when we do invoicing, we invoice for each person at their rate. 33:50 based on their level of expertise, which is all part of our agreement upfront. So the client is very transparent every month for the hours that they work. And we attach the daily time sheets to every invoice. I'm the only company I know of right now that does that. I know there are others. I've seen monthly, but I've never seen daily. Yeah. Yeah. Because for me, if I could ask, well, 34:18 why did this person ask a work that many hours that last month? What did they do? I hate that feeling that I get when somebody asks that question. I know they're only asking because they have to justify it to somebody else or whatever the reason, but I don't like the way it feels because it feels like my integrity is being questioned. I don't get upset at people for asking me that. I just feel like I'm not giving them enough information if they have to ask me that question. So we started about eight years ago. 34:47 providing the daily time sheets because I don't like that question. And we never get questioned on our  invoices ever anymore. I bet you it's informed you  as well in  future  projects,  maybe on  including workflow automation in your own internal processes, right? When you see people's time sheets, right? And you've gone over budget. So it informs you internally. So it's not only for the client. 35:16 I suspect, right? No, it's not. Right. And we use it ourselves to also, because it also helps us looking at our overhead costs because not everything gets built to the client. And so we track all our own times, you know, what we're spending doing what. And we don't get to, it's not like a developer has to spend a lot of time or a QA person or whatever, putting in a lot of detail. We just need a couple of bullets, you know, every day in the time sheet with the, whatever they spend. 35:45 If they spent four hours on one thing and three on another, they'll just break it into two entries just to make it easy.  And that's important for us, or they may be working on two different projects and each project. So when we do the timesheets also every month, we give our clients a breakdown by project. So if we're working on four different projects  for a client  or even one project, but it has four different really 36:15 functional elements that are very clearly different. Like let's say a mobile app and a web app  and a  particular client implementation. Each one of those gets assigned its own project and we break down summaries of the time spent on each of those every month and who spent the time on those, along with the daily time sheets, along with the invoice.  And nobody else does that because it takes a lot of discipline and protocol and you have to have lot of systems in place 36:45 to do that without  literally getting everybody to quit, right? That works for you. And nobody minds doing it because it's easy because of all the systems we put in place to do that.  That's the whole point, right? Right. were  not particularly happy of getting asked that question oftentimes. So eight years ago, you set out to  provide the information on a daily basis, which is incredible.  We started that with blended rates like a lot of companies do. 37:14 And then I didn't like that because at the end of a project when most of it's QA, people would start to get frustrated that they're still getting billed the same blended rate, even though for the more expensive period at the beginning of the project,  I thought, okay, forget this. Well, just bill based on individual.  And then I didn't get those questions anymore, but then I would get questions about individuals on the month. And that's when I started doing the time sheets. 37:43 And like I said, I'm sure there's other companies that do it, but I haven't run into  one or somebody that works with one. So  that's an exceptional thing that we do. But it also allows us to do  really, really good reporting to the client on status on what we've spent our time on, what we're expecting to spend our time on  next week, what we just spent our time on this week, where we are. 38:12 in terms of our plan for the month, things like that.  So let's switch gears, David.  Yeah. Back to  actually the podcast and  some of my guests and listeners  are corporate board directors. So they're sitting on either advisory boards or fiduciary corporate boards.  And with all the hype around AI. 38:39 it's not uncommon for them to be asking, what are we doing, right? For existing companies, right? And  I'd like you to walk my listeners through while it's in the, you know,  in the imaginary realm, what is it? I think any founder today that's actually scaling, right? Has to have some AI element. At least I've even heard you need to have it. 39:08 an AI officer in the company. So what's your take on that? What would you respond to either to your board of advisors, your advisory board, or your board of directors?  So,  and of course, a lot of it depends on the type of company you are. Absolutely. Right. If  you're making  alternative material I-beams, for example,  for skyscraper construction, then 39:37 AI, other than maybe in the design process of these specialized materials,  AI may not be as big a critical factor, although for invoice reconciliation and  distribution and  scheduling and all that, AI could be a huge value to you if you don't have super efficient systems already.  For most everybody else though, if you have not embraced the need to 40:06 leverage AI and everything you're doing,  then you're way behind already.  That doesn't mean you have to be in a race to do this. just, because  I'm  of the belief that  you have to slow down to speed up. But you do need to make it a priority.  And in a lot of different ways. Number one is, 40:36 The most obvious is workflow automation. You should be probably tackling  workflow automation as just a part of your constant improvement program  to become more efficient, whether it's with AI or not.  But AI is particularly good at workflow automation  because it can tackle steps in that workflow that couldn't be tackled without AI.  So the  first thing 41:06 the companies should be doing if they're not doing it is documenting all of their processes,  all of their tribal knowledge into playbooks. So when you have somebody who's an expert in something in your company and they're the person who's the only one that knows how to do it and so we can't live without them, that's a bottleneck for scaling. Because if you bring somebody else in to expand their capacity, they're going to... 41:32 put a big dependency on that person with all the expertise, which is going to cause problems.  So  anybody in a position like that should be documenting all of their  procedures and protocols and especially all the nuances and all the edge cases into playbooks.  And there should be some centralized playbook repository for the company. And this becomes part of your intellectual property and part of your value if you ever 42:02 you're trying to raise money or you're trying to sell your company. So it increases your value. So you do that, then AI,  you start to look at automating those workflows because now they're documented. So now what can be automated in them from just a workflow automation perspective. And then how much can you implement AI in there? Because now AI can learn to make the same kinds of decisions that this person is making. 42:31 And this is like the low hanging fruit that I'm talking about right now. Right. Exactly. Right. Because the bigger stuff is if we implement AI in here, what workflows would we totally  throw away and start from scratch?  Because we can think of way more sophisticated ways of addressing this now that we have intelligence involved in all these steps.  But that's later. 42:57 worry about that once you get your arms around implementing AI,  automated workflows and then- So workflow automation. So playbooks, workflows and AI in your automated workflows. That's sort of the stepped wise process. Excellent. You heard it here  on the founder sandbox. Thank you, David.  And if you're not sure how to do all that, 43:25 ask AI, okay, here's my company. What should I be focusing on if I wanna implement playbooks, workflow automation and AI? And AI will help you figure this all out. Right. That's a jewel here. So what'd you do? Chat GBT, co-pilot, what's your complexity? Where would you go to? All right. Well, it just depends on the flavor of the day. Right now. 43:53 I was using chat GPT primarily for this stuff just because it was a first and I'm very comfortable with the apps. have them everywhere. And Claude's recently come out with a  new version and it's in some ways I'm just finding the output way more organized and smarter. And so I've been using Claude more in the last couple of weeks, but that'll change in another week or two.  Any one of them will do a pretty decent job. 44:21 I'm  not using perplexity because it's built on top of the other ones.  But perplexity is a great tool if you're newer with this because it makes some of the... It's a little bit more accessible for somebody who doesn't know how to use AI.  Gemini is also  really good, but that's  more of a technical... And there's so many things you can do. 44:49 with AI that you wouldn't even think about. And I'll give you an example, more as a brain opening exercise for everybody than anything else. Because this is something I did about seven weeks ago.  I,  chat GPT had just come out a week or two before with their vision capability in the mobile app. And for  those of you who don't know it,  with chat GPT, there's a talk 45:19 button. It's not  the microphone. It's the one that looks like a sound wave  in the mobile app. You tap that, and now you have a voice conversation with chat, which I use this constantly. Even when I'm working with,  I've got some contractors at my house whose English isn't very good, so I ask it to do real-time translation for me. And it does matter the language.  And I start talking, and it translates to their language. And they respond 45:49 in their language and it translates to English and it's doing it perfectly. And so I can have a very natural conversation with anybody just holding my phone up in front of them now.  Right?  But it has this vision capability  where when you go into that voice mode, you tap the camera next to it, and now it's looking out the front of your screen while you're talking to it. And so I'll give you a couple of examples where I've used it  six weeks ago and again, like 46:18 weeks later and I now used it many times like this.  I was in  Lowe's, which is a  store for home improvement.  And  for some project I was on, my wife calls me and says, I need fertilizer for a hibiscus. And I say, well, what do I get? She says, anything that says hibiscus on it, it'll be fine. I said, okay, fine. And if anybody that knows these big box stores, there's like hundreds of bags of fertilizer of different brands. 46:48 And I couldn't find one that said hibiscus. This is a typical thing with my wife. Oh, just look for this. And of course, there isn't that. So I asked Chess GPT, okay, I'm in  Lowe's  and I'm looking for a fertilizer for hibiscus.  What would you suggest? And it said, oh, there's a number of brands that are high acid.  And I said, we'll recommend a brand. Tonal is a really good brand. And I said, okay. So I'm looking and I can't find it. 47:18 So I walked 30 feet back and I'm talking, right? I'm having this, know, people are looking at me like, what the hell is he doing? And I walked 30 feet back because there's many, many shelves, you know, columns of shelves with fertilizer. I walked back and I turned on the vision and I say, okay, there's all the fertilizers. And I'm moving my phone across all these shelves. say, do you see tonal here? And it says, yes, look for the one in the red and white bag. 47:48 And  I see it on the shelf. So I walk straight forward. see a red and white bag. That's not tonal. said, this isn't it. And she, cause it's a woman's voice that I have, she says,  it's two shelves to the left, second from the top.  I walk over there and it's right where she said it was. Crazy. And you're not a beta user. So this is available today. This is available. It's been available for a couple of months. And then 48:18 My daughter-in-law asked me to get something from the pharmacy, from CVS, another  big box pharmacy store, right? And this is something I don't even know if I'm in the right aisle because it's something I've never bought. So I ask it, I say, I'm looking for this brand  and I'm not sure if I'm in the right aisle or not, but I'm going to walk down the aisle and tell me if you see it. As I'm walking down the aisle, holding it straight forward so it can see both sides.  And it says, well, 48:45 Yes, I'm familiar with the brand. You should look for it in a green and white box. then she goes like this. Oh, I see it. It's down there on the right on the bottom shelf. And I turn and I look and it's right by my right foot. 48:58 You heard it here. This is crazy. think it's a bit creepy.  How many times have you been looking for something on a shelf? You know, and you're like, oh, how long, how many hours is this going to take me to spot it?  Good internet connection and all that. So, oh my goodness. It's creepy and it's wonderful. So  same time.  the same time. Yeah. Yeah. For quality of life and even for,  um, yeah.  So 49:25 That's a mind opening thing is all the reason I bring that up. Excellent. Hey, let's go. Let's continue on in the founder sandbox. I'd like to ask each of my guests to  share with me.  I'm all about working with resilient, purpose driven and scalable companies in the growth phase. So what does resilience mean to you? You can either answer, you know, what's the first thing that comes out of your, you cannot use chat, GBT. I'm not fancy. No hands. 49:55 No hands, and I don't have the voice version going because you'd hear it. Podcast we could do it.  And we are real. We're not. Yeah, we are real. We're not. So I think that's, I don't think that's a difficult question to answer. Resilience means opportunity. So no matter what happens, even if it seems terrible, what  opportunity does that create? Excellent. If you ask that. 50:22 keep reframing everything from that perspective,  it creates resilience. Right. Thank you. What about purpose-driven?  Purpose-driven  means having  a clear  long-term path and goal  and  asking yourself if the things you're doing keep you on purpose to that. 50:56 Scalable. What's scalable mean for you? Scalable for me means  eliminating tribal knowledge or not eliminating it, but documenting tribal knowledge.  First of all, figuring out how you generate revenue and then how you expand your ability to generate revenue, which means growing your 51:25 growing your team, growing your capacity  and identifying the bottlenecks and focusing all your energy on the bottlenecks. And usually the bottlenecks have to do  with tribal knowledge or with  lack of workflow automation. Wow, you know, it's easier said than done though, that tribal knowledge, it is resistant, right? Oh yeah,  because it's  career,  what's the word I'm trying to think of? 51:55 It  keeps you in your job forever if you're the only one that knows how to do the thing. Absolutely. That's for another podcast, David. My  final question today is,  did you have fun in the Founder Sandbox? Oh, yes.  I had a lot of fun. Thanks. That's a great question too. Thank you, Brenda. Did you have fun? 52:20 Did you? I had had fun. And particularly in this last part, right? Cause we're talking about some heavy duty, you know, uses of, um, agentic AI, right. And scalable, you know, LTV, CAC and all that. And then we get to hear these real life, you know, kind of creepy, um, uh, uses of, um, on our phones today with, um, with AI, which is, which is quite amazing. But I also know that in your world of techies, 52:50 your team, which is distributed, have a lot of fun events too. So you probably- have one more thing on the whole scalable thing. You have to be compassionately ruthless or ruthlessly compassionate, however you want to say it. Okay. So that the people, every, and the ruthless is anything that's going to get in the way of you growing your company, which benefits everybody in the company. 53:19 it needs to be addressed in a ruthless way. But if you build a culture of ruthlessly compassionate, then all the people that work for you feel that same level of ruthlessness to protect the company and make it grow. And you practice what you preach, I suspect, at Techies. Yes. Yes. It took me a while, but if we accidentally hire the wrong person, either because 53:45 we made a mistake in the process or they faked us out and we recognize they're not smart enough. Literally, that's usually the problem. They're not smart enough to carry their weight. We fire them immediately. We don't try to bring them along because you can't improve somebody's IQ. You can improve any other aspect, but their IQ is their IQ.  And  that will be a bottleneck forever. 54:13 in our team and it'll require other people to carry that person. And it sends the wrong message to the team that I don't value them enough to make sure that we only surround them with people that are going to inspire them and help them grow. Excellent. And I suspect they are not fungible by AI, your employees, not techies. I mean, we've gotten better and better. 54:40 at not making those mistakes over the years. So that doesn't typically happen. takes us, we're much more careful about how we hire.  AI gives us the ability to recruit faster, more broadly,  along with workflow automation. But  what I mean by real, this is the compassionate. Once my team understood this, now they embody that and  they will get rid of somebody if they made a mistake. I don't have to force the issue ever anymore because 55:10 they recognize how much, important it is to protect their teams. So to my listeners, if you liked this episode today with the CEO and founder of Techies, sign up for the monthly release of founders, business owners, corporate directors, and professional service providers who provide their examples of how they're building companies or consulting with companies  to make them more resilient, scalable, and purpose-driven. 55:40 to make profits for good.  Signing off for today. See you next month in the Founder Sandbox. Thank you.  

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On this week's episode of News & Views, The Fintech Times Podcast team speak about crypto scam losses exceeding $4billion in 2024 with an increase in Deepfake and AI Tech use, merchants and financial institutions not offering digital ID being at risk of losing customer trust & the Financial Conduct Authority unveiling its ‘supercharged sandbox'.

Hark and hearken, good folk, to a tale most joyous! Lo, after many a season spent in patient longing, bold AC doth at last return to the noble realm of tabletop role-playing! With great fanfare and mirth, he unveil'th his much-anticipated Planescapes campaign, and his fellowship of players taketh up the dice once more. As the Lords do revel and wax rhapsodic o'er the delights of their newfound quest, they dost turn back the wheel of time, revisiting a discourse of yore, nigh eight years past, wherein was debated the merits of sandbox tales versus the guided path of on-rails adventures. Sit thee down, pour thyself a flagon, and partake in their merry musings.

Il solito duo vi presenta le NBA finals con la freschezza delle grandi occasioni. Bang e sdeng come da tradizione e qualche vaneggiamento da intenditori di basket e motori. Che poi, conta davvero vincere??

Dr. Paulson discusses the difference between free will and dominion over creation. Here, the conversation turns to Genesis, but it demonstrates how Luther explained that Adam and Eve were not exercising free will but rather utilizing the gift of dominion over creation.  Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Preorder Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi More from the hosts: Caleb Keith Steven Paulson  

Richard Flynn pops by Morning Movers to discuss the A.I. headlines emanating from Great Britain. He says the U.K. is the 3rd largest investor in artificial intelligence technology, noting this week's the A.I. Sandbox announcement from Nvidia (NVDA). Richard discusses the state of the U.K. markets and how the government is changing the way investors approach the overall domestic investing picture.======== Schwab Network ========Empowering every investor and trader, every market day.Subscribe to the Market Minute newsletter - https://schwabnetwork.com/subscribeDownload the iOS app - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/schwab-network/id1460719185Download the Amazon Fire Tv App - https://www.amazon.com/TD-Ameritrade-Network/dp/B07KRD76C7Watch on Sling - https://watch.sling.com/1/asset/191928615bd8d47686f94682aefaa007/watchWatch on Vizio - https://www.vizio.com/en/watchfreeplus-exploreWatch on DistroTV - https://www.distro.tv/live/schwab-network/Follow us on X – https://twitter.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/schwabnetworkFollow us on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/schwab-network/About Schwab Network - https://schwabnetwork.com/about

June's Patch [FIX] Tuesday unpacks a lighter-than-usual Windows patch cycle — but don't get too comfortable. Join Automox cybersecurity experts as they break down high-risk vulnerabilities across macOS and Windows, including:A chained SSH vulnerability (CVE-2025-26465 & CVE-2025-26466) that allows memory exhaustion and bypasses host key verificationA WebDAV remote code execution flaw (CVE-2025-33053) actively exploited in the wildMultiple macOS threats, from sandbox escapes to keychain access and privilege escalationThe team also shares patching strategies, mitigation tips, and password hygiene advice you'll want to follow.

Fancy setting us a gaming challenge? Get in touch here!In this episode of the Gaming Blender podcast, hosts Matthew and Scott discuss the latest highlights from the Xbox Game Showcase, including the announcement of Final Fantasy for Xbox and the potential for a big year ahead for Xbox. They explore upcoming games, their trailers, and the implications for handheld gaming in a market dominated by the Nintendo Switch. We both then explore the concept of a sandbox game centered around vehicular warfare. They discuss the mechanics of building vehicles, the narrative of an underdog in a dystopian war, and the creative freedom players would have in designing their own combat machines. Thanks for listening and please leave us a review and subscribe if you enjoyed it. It really helps us out. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gaming-blender/id1597738101Also please get in touch with us at @gamingblendpod or thegamingblenderpod@gmail.com with your ideas for new games and challenges.We have begun to update our YouTube channel with video playthroughs and we hope to put more up there soon https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZTPuScm5BTf8DdwvaCj0jQKeep blending!

There's a phrase the kids are using these days– to be “ten toes down” is to live and act with integrity, standing firm on what one believes. For over 18 years, Fabric has been experimenting with what it means to be church closer to the margins (read: in the ecotone!). Who's in the sandbox with us, and what walls might we benefit from analyzing a bit further?

Et si la révolution du Web3 n'était plus bruyante… mais silencieusement en marche, portée par l'Asie, l'IA et les créateurs eux-mêmes ?Dans cet épisode de 135 grammes, Sébastien Borget, cofondateur et CEO de The Sandbox, revient sur 4 années de transformation profonde du métavers. Oubliez le buzz et les promesses creuses : ici, on parle d'un écosystème qui fonctionne, évolue et s'adapte.On y découvre comment l'Asie est devenue le moteur du Web3, grâce à une culture technophile, des gouvernements proactifs et une jeunesse connectée.On explore aussi le rôle de l'intelligence artificielle dans la création de mondes, la modération des expériences et, bientôt, l'invention de jeux entièrement nouveaux.Et surtout, on comprend comment créer, jouer et posséder devient une réalité concrète, à travers des outils no-code, des NFT utiles et un modèle phygital qui relie les mondes virtuel et réel.

Dr. Masoud Nafey is a technology expert who brings a wide array of views about how Optometry might utilize the tools at their discretion to best connect with the 21st century health and eye care consumer.  He provides an excellent insight to how we might advance as a profession while the patients advance toward more of a consumerist approach to consuming their eye care.  From a family of Afghan refugees, he has an incredible sense of the importance of education and shares why that has shaped his path in Optometry, following a wandering career of entrepreneurism that started in his youth.  He's a graduate of The Ohio State University College of Optometry and achieved an MBA to demonstrate his commitment to being a business person as much as a Doctor of Optometry.    The Stories within the Story include: 1:11 The Patient Mindset Story 4:53 The Online Shopper Story 9:22 The Professional Advancement Story 15:32 The Metaverse Story 20:04 The Afghan Refugee Story 28:06 The Athletics Story 31:23 The AI in Eyecare Story 36:03 The Mentorship Story 37:42 The Business Mindedness Story 42:13 The Hope Story   Runtime:  44 min.

Follow Video Podcast Channel: ⁠ANALYTIC DREAMZ: VIDEO PODCAST | Podcast on Spotify⁠Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/Analytic⁠Become A Patron Of The Notorious Mass Effect Podcast For Additional Bonus Audio And Visual Content For All Things Nme! Join Our Patreon Here: ⁠https://ow.ly/oPsc50VBOuH⁠⁠Follow Lil Oochie: ⁠Liloochie | Instagram, TikTok, Twitch | Linktree⁠SandBox VR: ⁠Sandbox VR Cerritos | Immersive Virtual Reality Experiences⁠ Join Analytic Dreamz on the Notorious Mass Effect podcast for an exciting segment diving into the first-ever vlog: Analytic Dreamz vs. Lil Oochie Full Gaming Gauntlet. This action-packed gaming showdown features thrilling experiences at Main Event Entertainment, immersive adventures in Sandbox VR, and intense battles in NBA 2K25. Analytic Dreamz delivers passionate commentary and expert insights, breaking down the highlights and cultural impact of this epic gaming event. Tune in for in-depth analysis and stay updated on music, gaming, and pop culture with Analytic Dreamz. Subscribe now! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/analytic-dreamz-notorious-mass-effect/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

What might we find when we dig in the sandbox? In this episode, Ian McConnell welcomes artist, educator, and author Dave Scherer (AKA Agape*) back among us to share some reflection and frameworks for really getting in the sandbox and planting our toes in it. How do we acknowledge fear without letting it get in the driver's seat?

Et si la révolution du Web3 n'était plus bruyante… mais silencieusement en marche, portée par l'Asie, l'IA et les créateurs eux-mêmes ?Dans cet épisode de 135 grammes, Sébastien Borget, cofondateur et CEO de The Sandbox, revient sur 4 années de transformation profonde du métavers. Oubliez le buzz et les promesses creuses : ici, on parle d'un écosystème qui fonctionne, évolue et s'adapte.On y découvre comment l'Asie est devenue le moteur du Web3, grâce à une culture technophile, des gouvernements proactifs et une jeunesse connectée.On explore aussi le rôle de l'intelligence artificielle dans la création de mondes, la modération des expériences et, bientôt, l'invention de jeux entièrement nouveaux.Et surtout, on comprend comment créer, jouer et posséder devient une réalité concrète, à travers des outils no-code, des NFT utiles et un modèle phygital qui relie les mondes virtuel et réel.

When you hear the word “interfaith,” what stirs in you? We're curious to learn more from Peter Digitale Anderson, Executive Director of Peace Catalyst about the gifts of “playing in the sandbox” with those of different perspectives and cultures.

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Alexa Steinberg – a corporate and transactional attorney for middle-market companies and entrepreneurs. Acting as outside general counsel, Alexa represents privately held companies in a wide range of general corporate and transactional matters, including entity formation, structuring, and commercial transactions. With a focus on mergers and acquisitions, she offers clients guidance on structuring deals and ensuring compliance with relevant laws and regulations. Brenda and Alexa discuss her journey from working at a small, all-female law firm to joining a full-service firm to better support her clients. Alexa shares how her parents—both deeply involved in business and community service—shaped her values around financial literacy, record-keeping, and the importance of building generational wealth. They speak about family-owned businesses and best practices in family governance, such as setting clear roles, regular meetings, and involving independent board members. Alexa also emphasizes the importance of building trust with clients and maintaining a purpose-driven, relational legal practice. Brenda and Alexa explore what "purpose-driven," "resilience," and "scalable" mean within the context of business and legal practice. You can find out more about Alexa at: https://www.greenbergglusker.com/alexa-steinberg/         episode transcript: 00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25 % off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:18 Welcome back to the Founders Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host of this monthly podcast where I have guests that are either founders, professional service providers, corporate  board directors  that actually share a mission with me, which is bringing change to the world through great corporate governance, but building resilient, scalable and purpose-driven companies.  On a monthly basis,  my guests are going to tell their origin stories and kind of how I've met them. 01:48 through the work they do.  And I've recreated a fun sandbox environment in which we do storytelling. And ultimately we will touch upon resilience, purpose-driven  and  scalable or sustainable growth in the  businesses that they are  working in or owners of.  02:17 l I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest today, Alexa Steinberg, Alexa is counsel  at Greenberg, Glasgow.  And before that, she was actually practicing in a smaller law firm and where her story today is going to kind of have some some 02:47 lessons learned on  why she chose to leave the firm and move into Greenberg, the Greenberg Lasker. But more importantly, you and I go back a couple years. are part of an informal group of women. We call ourselves Women and Wealth.  We meet periodically to really refer business to each other for those women business owners that 03:16 are seeking perhaps an exit in the next three to five years.  And through our skillset, some of us are CPAs, strategy advisors, yourself as counsel. A lot of these businesses are family owned. And so you and I and another, know, seven other ladies  get to meet each other over lunch and discuss these opportunities. And we're all very passionate about helping women business owners. Aren't we, 03:44 We are Brenda, thank you so much for having me on the Founder's Sandbox.  I am an avid listener, so I'm very excited that I get to be a guest. Thank you, thank you.  you know,  we've had many, conversations, obviously,  but I wanted for my listeners  to really dive into  what you do today, right? Which is really  purpose. 04:12 driven and it's preserving family wealth, right?  And I know that you actually come from a background where your father owned his business. So tell us  a bit, us down memory lane and that first story that you told me.  Well, you know, growing up, I watched both of my parents. My mother was a career woman.  My father, a financial planner. 04:38 running his  own book.  My mother,  a buyer and then in fashion and then into real estate.  I watched they were both very involved in the community. My mother sat on  the Studio City Council,  the Neighborhood Council. She was on many boards involved with the temple. My father as well  sat on many boards involved with the 05:07 Boys and Girls Club,  and  involved with the Jewish Federation. So I watched as my parents  really instilled the importance of being involved in  community, being involved in family, being involved  in the greater good and in purposeful and meaningful  organizations.  And I... 05:35 sort of learned a lot about that watching them both in their respective arenas being involved. And you know, they've, they've truly inspired me,  not only in my career path, but in  how I treat my clients  in the arenas that I've become involved in.  There's a specific story that I think I've shared with you, Brenda, about my father and how he sort of taught me 06:05 the value of wealth, the value of money, because as his career, that was what he did. He focused mainly on planning for retirement and financially setting yourself up and your family up to have generational wealth and what that looked like and how you could prepare for it when you were 10, 15, 20, 25 years old, preparing for family, preparing for children. 06:35 So when I turned 16, my father went into our QuickBooks. We had a family QuickBooks.  Oh, wow. That was before it was actually.  It was probably  a hard disk, right? Not even on the internet. Oh, yeah. It was like a hard disk. had a full set up, massive computers, the whole thing,  in our family office.  And he went into his QuickBooks. And he took. 07:03 what he spent on me in a year.  And he divided it by 12. And this  included insurance. Mind you, I just turned 16. So my car insurance, my car lease,  medical, entertainment,  my tennis lessons, all of these things that  were spent on me, what it cost  for me to function.  Children are expensive, you know. 07:32 I was very expensive because I will tell you that check was large  that he cut me every month.  And he laid out, these are the things that are monthly expenses for you that you need to pay with this money. And the rest you can use on entertainment,  gifts,  shopping, which I loved.  But I had to learn to balance my checkbook and balance 08:01 this amount of money, because I wasn't able to get any more until the next month.  And  that really taught me how that  money  was never something that was readily expendable to me. even if I went to Starbucks and I bought a drink with my father's credit card, he'd ask me for the receipt. He'd want to know where the receipt was, always. 08:28 I was very meticulous in his record keeping which I am now very much meticulous in my record keeping  and  I enforce with my clients and  make sure that record keeping is so important in your business as well.  You know and so when I when I graduated high school my father said to me okay the checks are done.  And you need to go get a job in college. 08:56 And what I will do is I will subsidize the paycheck that you bring home. So if you bring home $600, I will pay you 50 cents on the dollar for what you bring home, but only up to $300. So I could get a max of $300 every paycheck that he would subsidize. And then that was  how  I had money to live and to function. my parents,  I was lucky enough that my parents would pay for my college. 09:24 in my housing, in my dorms,  but  it was still really teaching me the value  of money.  And my father required that a certain portion of those funds get put away in savings and invested. And he would tell me how to do that.  And he would guide me.  because my father was a financial planner,  he would call me like a client and say, listen, 09:53 You're 70 % stocks, 30 % cash. I think you need to swap it. Let's talk about what that means. And of course, I'm like, you're my dad. Just do it. Why are we having this conversation? But it was so valuable because he wanted me to understand what he was doing and why he was doing it and how it really functioned. that I've also taken into how I guide and advise my clients. 10:22 I don't just do for them. understand, I want them to understand  how we're doing it, why we're doing it, what the alternatives  are and what it means if we do it this way or that way.  You know, a lot of my discussions with my clients are about strategy and about structure and  so they can make an informed decision.  You know, I think that that's extremely important, especially in a family business.  Working with your family is tough. So, 10:52 The way that you can make it that much easier is communication and understanding and knowledge. And I try to arm my clients with that. And that's something that my father really taught me.  my mother as well,  because my father managed our money and my mother  would bring it home and hand my father a check and be like, here, I don't know what you do with it, but do something with it. 11:21 She also  would, he would say, hold on a second. Like, I know you just sold a house and here's your commission check, but let me show you what we do with this and how we create generational wealth and how we invest it and what the best benefit for these funds are and how to use debt to our advantage.  Um, you know, and that's all of these things were such a value add that  I 11:51 I obtained understanding about and that I've now turned this value add to my clients  and how they run their business.  I'm not a financial advisor, I'm not a tax attorney. These are just really sort of  general  understandings and general guidance points for my clients to go out and  have knowledgeable conversations with the appropriate 12:21 guidance, appropriate people,  and the appropriate service providers that are going to help them accomplish those things. really,  this is very loaded, but I really like  the methods your father used. very, well, first of all, intentional  and bespoke. And that's really, and he did communicate to your mother, right? To instill also in her an understanding 12:52 of although she's bringing the check home because many, many women business owners today oftentimes do not own a majority of their companies. Right. And that is a shocking  statistic that I run into time and time again that women actually don't know how much  equity they have in their own business. Right. So just the informing and,  and you've translated that bespoke, you know, communicating 13:22 helping your clients understand,  pardon me, and  providing options as well as access to other professional service providers as  your own bespoke  offering to your clients. But it wasn't always like, yeah, go. That's sort of the benefit of the group that you and I met in and all of the networking opportunities that I've been involved in.  Of course,  networking is about building 13:51 um, your brand and your book and,  um, but a majority of it and the real value there  is  meeting and learning and understanding, um, and really coming to know people that can help your clients  where you can't,  um, and having  trustworthy referral sources to do that, because I'm not just going to tell my client, Oh, 14:18 this individual can help you with wealth management, call them without knowing how this person functions, without knowing  how they run their clientele,  how they do business. Those are really important things and to have trustworthy referral sources  is really important. And that's sort of what our group is  all about. That's right.  And it wasn't always like this. 14:46 Right, you graduated from law school  and started with a small, it was a, I think  a female-led law firm.  all female attorneys. Yeah, so what was your, this is right out of college, what were you doing  and what then informed your decision at a very tender age to leave?  So  right out of law school, 15:17 had worked my way through law school. I worked in family law for about five or six years. during the day, I was at a law firm. And in the evening, I took classes from 5 to 10 PM, four days a week for four years. took me four years to get through law school. And when I graduated, unfortunately, I wasn't afforded 15:47 All of the opportunities in law school  that most law students take advantage of, externships,  fellowships, things like that, because I was working my way through. I  had already been financially independent and I  wanted to stay that way. So I didn't want to quit my job  to go to school. I  wanted to be able to do it all. 16:15 So as a result, I really didn't have  the summer clerkships  that turn into job offers.  And I was a little lost because I had taken the bar exam and I was like, OK,  I'm not an attorney yet. But in three months, if I pass the bar exam, I could be.  Am I applying for law clerk positions? Am I applying for associate positions? Like, know, I was so lost.  And I went on Craigslist.  Oh my goodness. 16:44 And I found law firms that were hiring because I figured those people, you know, they're they're looking to hire somebody now, which is what I'm looking for. and hopefully those people, you know, will transition me into an associate role. If I pass the bar exam in a few months. And that was that was like my first sort of in. And I joined a very boutique law firm in West Hollywood. It was 17:13 By the time I left, we were three female attorneys. were  all female  for my entire tenure there. I was there for six and a half years.  And it was  in  late 2019,  early 2020 that I really decided I wanted more for my career and for my book of business. And I wanted to be able to  provide my clients  with a well-rounded 17:43 advice and guidance. I can't do it all, nor should I. I'm pretty sure my malpractice of insurance wouldn't like that. Not at all. But more and more, had clients that were asking me to help with litigation matters or employment matters. And those are arenas that I know just enough about to be dangerous. But I'm not going to run a full litigation. 18:13 I can't willfully and knowledgeably advise on employment matters.  You know, especially to  do justice by my client, do well by them.  I'd like to be able to  have somebody for them that they can speak to and trust and get the advice and counsel that they need.  And that really stemmed  my yearning to  branch out. 18:42 and go to a firm where I had all of those resources at my fingertips. I wanted more for my career, but my biggest drive was I wanted more for my clients.  I wanted really to be able to provide them with well-rounded, multidisciplinary  counsel.  And so I sought out  full-service law firms. 19:11 I found my home at Greenberg Gloucester, which  is a fantastic place to be.  I'm very happy there and everybody is so fantastic and  everybody is so good at what they do.  We've got employment and tax and  IP and litigation,  environmental, entertainment,  you name it.  And it's been such a benefit not only to my career, 19:41 to my clients, but I've learned  so much.  And is it true?  How would you characterize the typical clients without revealing, you know, confidential matters? Is it  also a firm that's  very oriented towards family owned businesses? Would you say that? Yeah, I would. You know, I'm  a counsel in the corporate and tax department. 20:08 And you we don't have a ton of institutional clients.  A lot of our clients are family owned businesses, mostly held entities,  you know, which I love on a daily basis. I am working with  two sisters that own a business together or a multi-generational company where, you know, senior is working with G2 and  G3  or 20:37 were actually this morning I was working on  assigning interests and reorganizing and restructuring a bunch of entities that own a bunch of real estate for clients.  And that's also  the kind of benefit that I get that I get to be pulled into  real estate matters with my corporate expertise to help a family office restructure their ownership. 21:04 You know, and I  love that stuff. We're extremely,  the way that Greenberg  provides advice and counsel  is on a very personal level. The way that  the firm  and myself, especially, we're a lifestyle firm.  You know, we understand that attorneys are people outside of 21:33 the walls of the office and that we all have lives.  And we, you know, I translate that to my clients. My clients have lives. My clients have other things going on than their business.  And especially when you deal with family offices and family businesses, there's a whole different dynamic  of  family interaction. Yes. You know, and, and I have now experienced that  not only with my clients  and sometimes I become 22:03 therapist in that regard, although I'm a very expensive therapist. I'm sure there people that are less per hour.  But  I'm experiencing it firsthand because my husband  has his own business with his brother  and I have  become  advice and counsel for them  as well. And so I'm  seeing it sort of from a different angle too, but I think that my clients truly appreciate 22:32 that when I talk to them, I talk to them as a person. It's not just as a business owner. It's not just as  I'm guiding you with this  legal advice.  It has to make sense.  And it has to  be actually applicable.  And sometimes what my advice and guidance would be  in sort of this like legal  box  is not the best. 23:00 for my client and how their business is operating.  And you've got to be  sort of fluid with that. And bespoke.  Yeah, so it's really beyond, it's not a transactional relationship. It is a trustworthy relationship based on the values of the family businesses that and their goals in preserving wealth  or continuing to generate family wealth. Yeah, absolutely. This is a great segue because you know, I also 23:29 passionate and have often guests that are sitting on corporate boards.  As counsel, have you observed any best practices and family governance structure? You talk about G1,  G2, G3, Have you observed any  best practices? We don't have to talk about bad practices, right? But any best practices that you would like to share here?  Yeah, you know,  I think that  I've observed that 23:59 Some of the most effective family governance structures prioritize clear communication,  well-defined roles,  professionalized decision-making.  I use this in a very loose  sense of the word, but you could establish a family constitution. Creating a board of advisors is always really important. 24:28 having independent members  in your board of advisors  is so incredibly valuable to have a knowledgeable, independent  person that can help through disputes. business disputes are one thing, but when you include a family dynamic in these disputes,  emotions can get high and heated. And so having  an independent third board 24:57 Third party board is extremely valuable. Somebody that can guide you, something that your family trusts. Those are some big things that I've seen as best practices. And I think that lastly, holding dedicated, regular meetings. 25:23 You'll talk about business, you know, at the dinner table or, you know, out and about you're at a kid, one of your niece's birthday parties and everyone's there and you're like, Hey, did you see that email from XYZ? We got to figure out how to handle that.  But  those are not the time and place and you're not going to have a productive conversation. And so you need to set aside and create boundaries between your family life and your business life  and set aside regular times. 25:53 weekly, bi-weekly, to have an hour conversation about what's going on, any disputes that need to be discussed, any decisions that need to be made.  And that's your time to solely be in your business mode.  Because having these conversation piece meals,  dinner on a Saturday night,  or  a family's birthday party, or  a holiday party, 26:22 It's not effective  for your business. And one of the biggest,  best practices  and the most, one of the most important goals  is to preserve your family relationships. Beautiful. You heard it here on the founder's sandbox to preserve family.  Absolutely.  Cause if you don't have family, do you have? That's right. 26:52 Family first. really important.  It's really important. And sometimes business can get in the middle of family relationships.  And it hurts to see that. It hurts to see  business  tear between  brothers,  tear between  father and son.  And I've seen those things in it.  There needs to be just a second to breathe. Yes. 27:21 and realize that there are bigger things than business  and that they need to be resolved, but they can only be resolved if you have a good relationship with your business partner slash your family.  They're your biggest support. 27:37 This has been immensely  actionable  in terms of  governance, the best practice you've seen in family offices. So thank you. Thank you for that. It's not often that I do have  a  lawyer  that works in this  arena.  Although family businesses just in the LA  ecosystem is 28:05 It's very predominant. very, very, you know, third, actually third and fourth generation now. So very relevant to your business and mine. Let's switch gears. You are, I believe, sitting on the board of directors or one of the committees of the Association of Corporate Growth. Yes. And tell us a bit what why what is the Association of Corporate Growth and what committees do you serve on? 28:35 And how do you further your business there? Thank you. The Association of Corporate Growth or ACG is a national organization  for professionals in the M &A sphere. So  you've got members that are  VCs, investment bankers,  M &A attorneys, wealth managers,  insurance specialists.  You sort of name it. Anybody that's 29:03 has some sort of involvement  in the purchase or sale of a business  or just surround sort of just general business governance that either prepare for an exit. You know,  those are the kind of people that are members of ACG.  And I got involved a few years ago.  And I think three years now, I've been sitting  on the Women's Committee,  which is a 29:31 Fantastic. We schedule and create women-focused programming within the confines of the ACG organization and really promote networking amongst women. More and more, I have had clients that have requested that they only work with women. 29:58 You know, and this sort of goes back to what I was talking about earlier about being able to provide  trustworthy referrals.  And I've met some incredible, incredible women in connection with ACJ. In fact, our group kind of came out of ACJ. This is how I met you, Brenda. And so  it's been a fantastic, fantastic  network to be a part of.  You know, I love planning the programming, our programming. 30:28 ranges everywhere from  talking about the state of the market  to  balancing family and career and what that looks like and  mental health. I think  I hate calling out a distinction that we are women in business  because I think a 30:57 A business person is a business person. I don't think it needs to be defined as such, but there is something to be said about the fact that  women have a different set of challenges in the workplace  than men do.  And a lot of those stem from  family life.  And that needs to be  balanced. And so there's a lot of programming  that the women's committee puts on that sort of 31:26 talks about that and  gears us in that direction  and gives us tools to be successful and to strive  in the face  of everything else that women just have to  deal with and take care of. That's for another episode here. Yes, very much so. Very much so, yes, as we all have balanced our careers and family priorities, right? 31:56 Let's switch gears. How do my  listeners contact you? How's the best way?  Well,  so I'm at again, I'm at Greenberg Gloucester. We're in Century City.  They can email me. It's  a Steinberg at gg firm.com.  And on our Greenberg Gloucester website, if you search people, I've got my whole bio and all of my contact information as well. Excellent. 32:25 Well, that will appear in the show notes. All right. So we're coming into the final  part of this podcast in which I actually  enjoy asking my guests  what the meaning is of certain terms that I actually practice with my clients. I'm working with purpose-driven companies, resilience. We work on resilience tactics  and  scalable business is sustainable. So I  always love the opportunity to hear 32:55 firsthand from my guess. What does purpose-driven mean to you, Purpose-driven means  a mission that goes beyond profit.  It taps into creating meaningful value for your customers,  for your employees,  for the community that  you operate in.  It's sort of about  building a company that 33:25 that stands for something.  And I'm very pleased to say that we have seen so many more companies  start out of a purpose-driven  goal.  There's a bunch of old companies and new companies. There's  a lot of companies that have this sort of one-for-one model. You buy one, we donate one. 33:52 There are socks companies, there are eyeglass companies, there are shoe companies, there are cleaning product companies  that sort of have  this  as their motto. And  then you see  additionally,  know, products and companies that are committed to the environment or sustainability and cleanup efforts. You know, that's really what  purpose-driven 34:21 means to me is that  these companies have a goal.  They want to accomplish something more than what they can show on their balance sheet. consumers of that product are helping them achieve that.  Excellent. Excellent. You've touched on even other aspects like  sustainable growth, right? Yeah. Right. What is resilience? You've been particularly resilient. 34:49 You having a father like your father,  building life skills early. would resilience,  what's the meaning to you? 35:00 Resilience is about  navigating challenges  with adaptability and with determination. It's about learning from your setbacks  instead of being defined by them, having them be a fire to your growth and having them  be the galvanization of your progress forward. 35:30 You know, and in business, it also can be about the ability to  pivot while staying aligned with your long-term goals, about the ability to,  you know, okay, there's a new regulatory,  new regulation that's gonna affect the way we operate. Okay, how are we gonna pivot to continue doing what we do,  but still can  stay in compliance?  You know,  that's really, 35:59 what it's all beyond your toes.  Excellent. And you're scalable. I'd like you to kind of share the meaning within the context of scaling the legal practice. What have you found to be  particularly  challenging or easy to do? Right. And scaling, right. Because it's a very bespoke practice. Is there any important, right? Scaling is absolutely important. Okay. 36:28 In my practice and in my business,  number one  goal  and  the biggest  galvanization point of scaling my practice  are my clients, my current clients. If you do a good job for them, they'll continue to come back. 36:59 and they'll continue to give you more business.  Creating a network. I watched my parents in their, both of their practices. All of our family friends  at this point have at one point or another been a client of my mother's or of my father's.  They've swapped clients,  referred to each other. And these individuals either started as friends and became clients. 37:29 or  became friends because they were clients.  And  that is the way that both of my parents have built their practice and their brands.  And that's how I want to do it too. It's a value add when,  attorneys are scary to begin with.  Nobody wants to talk to an attorney. It's expensive. Half the time you have no idea what they're talking about. It's language. 37:57 You know, but if you create this relationship of trust and of loyalty and friendship  and when you feel like your attorney  sees beyond just you as a dollar figure or you as a business,  it goes such a long way. And that's my main value add to my clients.  And in turn, they help me scale. 38:22 my business, clients continue to come back to me  and I'm able to continue to grow that because I can satisfy all of their needs with the network that I'm creating through places like ACG. You know, so that's, that's what I see is as scalable in my industry. It's extremely important.  And it goes to the heart of how I practice law and how, how I guide and advise my clients. Beautiful. 38:52 Thank you. heard it here on the Founder's Sandbox. Last question, Alexa.  Did you have fun in the sandbox today?  Oh, it was so fun.  Brenda, thank you so much for having me. This was fantastic. Thank you. So to my listeners, if you've enjoyed this monthly episode with Alexa Steinberg, counsel at Greenberg, Greenberg Gloucester, right? Greenberg Gloucester. Yep.  I encourage you to 39:22 sign up, subscribe either on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm on all main podcasts streaming services where my guests talk about how they felt resilient, scalable and purpose driven  practices informed by their origin stories. You can find it here on the founder sandbox. Thank you and signing off for this month.  Thank you, Alexa.  Thank you. This was fantastic.  

In today's episode, I dive into the complex dynamics of self-advocacy inside Big Law firms—especially when you know stepping up may trigger pushback or quietly harm your reputation. I talk about what it really feels like to raise your hand in an environment where power dynamics are murky, and how to do it strategically so you're not sidelined for asking for what you've earned.  Whether you've been burned in the past or you're simply unsure how to assert yourself without risk, I break down practical ways to navigate firm politics, advocate for your own advancement, and shift how you're seen by the decision-makers at your firm.  You'll hear real-world examples from my coaching clients, including how one partner successfully challenged a toxic situation by staying grounded in facts—not emotion—and how to use smaller, safer forums to build visibility before taking bigger swings. At a Glance: 00:00 Introduction and the real challenge of self-advocacy inside Big Law 01:20 Why internal negotiation feels riskier than client advocacy 02:12 The hidden rules of the sandbox—and how fear shapes behavior 03:12 How law firm culture discourages asking for more 04:00 Imposter syndrome and unclear rules for advancement 05:10 Why some partners turn cold—and how that shift derails careers 06:01 A mindset reframe to engage power players strategically 07:06 A junior partner's story: pushing through abuse to win a major pitch 09:07 How to build influence through low-risk contributions 10:14 Why tone and timing matter more than content in firm-wide conversations 10:35 How to read your firm's sandbox like a strategist 11:30 What to do when you've been cut out or undermined 12:43 Gut-checking your fears vs. firm realities 13:45 Advocacy isn't selfish—it's part of owning your career 14:26 How to show up consistently and shape your firm's future Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Do you enjoy listening to Big Law Life?  Please consider rating and reviewing the show! This helps support and reach more people like you who want to grow a career in Big Law.  For Apple Podcasts, click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let me know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven't done so already, follow the podcast here!  For Spotify, tap here on your mobile phone, follow the podcast, listen to the show, then find the rating icon below the description, and tap to rate with five stars. Interested in doing 1-2-1 coaching with Laura Terrell? Or learning more about her work coaching and consulting? Here are ways to reach out to her: www.lauraterrell.com  laura@lauraterrell.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauralterrell/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lauraterrellcoaching/  Show notes: https://www.lauraterrell.com/podcast  

Welcome to the Sandbox! Today, Megan and April talk with Reverend Rose Hope, who has been featured on several national news platforms regarding her NDEs (near-death experiences). In this episode, Rev. Rose Hope discusses these events as well as several other key themes of her new book, The Arc. She expounds on the amazing life she has found (and believes is available for us all) in the Now moment. GIVE-AWAY: The Sandbox is offering a free copy of Rev. Rose Hope's debut fantasy fiction novel The Arc to the first 5 listeners that email April at thesandboxpod@gmail.com. Please put "Book Giveaway" in the subject line.

Have you ever been repulsed by that sludgy, weedy zone between land and water? We're going to dive into the ecological concept of “ecotones” to walk a bit closer to the edges of what may feel comfortable… it turns out, there's some pretty rich soil in those borderlands.

THIS WEEK: Dan and Dan and Tiddly and Bona talk about the sandbox changes that come with the Rite of the Nine, Edge of Fate anticipation and HEAVY METAL!Listen to Destiny Digests:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/51utOpaycri2x7WotgVlFXApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/destiny-digest/id1638939545On Bluesky? Follow our Guest Starter Pack: https://bsky.app/starter-pack/danfinity.gg/3lbrtal4y7c2rFollow Bona: https://bsky.app/profile/bonafidehiro.bsky.socialFollow Danfinity: https://danfinity.ggFollow EpicDan: https://linktr.ee/epicdan22Follow Eseipha: https://bsky.app/profile/eseipha.bsky.socialFollow Sami: https://linktr.ee/samikatplaysFollow Tiddly: https://bsky.app/profile/tiddly.bsky.social

When your world's on fire, the schedule's in chaos, and the goblins are unionizing—welcome to West Marches. In this episode, Ash Ely and Tyler “RPGBOT” Kamstra venture deep into the untamed wilds of West Marches–style tabletop roleplaying games. With no regular party, no fixed storyline, and no safety net, they explore how this classic format redefines player agency and opens the door to truly dynamic storytelling. The hosts explain how to build a vibrant, reactive world filled with tension, consequence, and creative freedom. They also share tips for managing the behind-the-scenes chaos: prepping seasonal events, tracking a living timeline, and handling player-driven schedules without losing your mind. Along the way, they touch on the mechanical differences between Pathfinder 2 and D&D 5e in supporting exploration-based gameplay and share some clever ideas for managing treasure, experience gaps, and inevitable player death. The conversation expands to include updates on upcoming Pathfinder 2 spell list guides, their thoughts on reading vs. audiobooks, and why supporting local game stores is vital to the RPG community. As always, personal stories and sharp banter round out the episode, keeping things informative and entertaining. Links Hexploration on Archives of Nethys Mork Borg (affiliate link) Outdoor Survival PF2 GM Core (affiliate link) Shadowdark RPGBOT.Podcast Episodes Random Encounters If you want to get into a West Marches Campaign and join his personal Discord Server, contact Ash Ely at BlueSky: @GravenAshes  Key Takeaways West Marches Gameplay Design West Marches games emphasize flexible scheduling and nonlinear, player-driven adventures. The world is sandbox-style—no set party or plot—and players choose when and where to explore. Hex crawling and random encounters enhance exploration and inject unpredictability. A successful West Marches world is reactive, with consequences shaped by player choices. GM prep includes world timelines, seasons, and milestone-based time management. NPCs may be unreliable, adding narrative tension and misdirection. The format suits drop-in/drop-out play, allowing varied player participation. Players must prepare before sessions, as they drive the story. Storytelling and Worldbuilding The world should feel lived-in, with visible effects from past player actions. Incorporating pacing shifts and seasonal changes creates depth and realism. Building a sense of urgency can help motivate player decisions. Character death and level gaps must be handled carefully to maintain balance and satisfaction. Creative treasure systems can engage players more than traditional loot drops. System Considerations Pathfinder 2 excels at structured exploration, making it a strong choice for West Marches. D&D 5e is viable but may require tweaks for sandbox structure and time management. Community and Culture The hosts provide updates on upcoming Pathfinder 2 spell list guides. Audiobooks offer a practical way to enjoy fiction while multitasking. They tease an upcoming audiobook version of Randall's novella. Supporting local game stores is emphasized as critical to the health of the hobby. Listener engagement through reviews and shares helps sustain and grow the show. Ash and Tyler discuss personal struggles with reading and time, connecting with listeners on a relatable level. As always, the show mixes insightful advice with humor and camaraderie, the secret ingredients that keep listeners coming back. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. It's a quick, free way to support the podcast, and helps us reach new listeners. If you love the show, consider joining us on Patreon, where backers at the $5 and above tiers get ad free access to RPGBOT.net and the RPGBOT.Podcast, can chat directly to members of the RPGBOT team and community on the RPGBOT.Discord, and can join us for live-streamed recordings. Support us on Amazon.com when you purchase products recommended in the show at the following link: https://amzn.to/3NwElxQ How to Find Us: In-depth articles, guides, handbooks, reviews, news on Tabletop Role Playing at RPGBOT.net Tyler Kamstra BlueSky: @rpgbot.net TikTok: @RPGBOTDOTNET Ash Ely Professional Game Master on StartPlaying.Games BlueSky: @GravenAshes YouTube: @ashravenmedia Randall James BlueSky: @GrimoireRPG Amateurjack.com Read Melancon: A Grimoire Tale (affiliate link) Producer Dan @Lzr_illuminati  

The Mandalorian seems like a great way to explore how the walls created by traditionalism separate us from others, and even from ourselves. It turns out, “This” may not be the only way… 

As we continue our search for a permanent home in Connecticut, MSYH.FM is hosting monthly studio recording sessions in New Haven, CT. These sessions are taking place at The Sandbox, courtesy of the Greater New Haven Art Council. As a part of our monthly DJ showcase we will be highlighting our station's local resident DJs and hosts as well as guest DJ sets from some of the state's most talented selectors. This month we are featuring Koob. From the artist: Coming from Danbury, CT, DJ Koob is a up and coming talent focused on seamlessly blending the genres he loves. DJing has been a way for him to share that love of music with the world. Since a child hearing tracks like Percolator and Gypsy woman he's always known that he's loved dance music and to dance. Now his goal is to get you dancing to his mixes or at his live sets. Whether it's house, techno, or hip hop he's bound to bring a mix that gets you ready to move. Drawing inspiration from hard hitting DJs such as Dazegxd, Gum.mp3 and Mall Grab you never will know what's coming next. It can be a classic house track one minute then a hard-hitting techno track the next. Koob has constantly evolved his sound in ways to connect to his ever changing audience. Coming off a strong performance at our recent MSYH.FM mixer, Koob is ready to light the studio on fire with his upcoming mix for our radio show. Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/owSEVpMaktM?si=wY1L7BFbqdMrltzH ---------- Follow Koob ◊ https://soundcloud.com/david-gavi-776626918 ◊ https://www.instagram.com/lilasthmaattack_ ◊ https://www.tiktok.com/@lilasthma4ttack ---------- Follow MSYH.FM » http://soundcloud.com/MSYHFM » http://MSYH.FM » http://x.com/MSYHFM » http://instagram.com/MSYH.FM » http://facebook.com/MSYH.FM » http://patreon.com/MSYHFM ---------- Follow Make Sure You Have Fun™ ∞ http://MakeSureYouHaveFun.com ∞ http://x.com/MakeSureYouHave ∞ http://instagram.com/MakeSureYouHaveFun ∞ http://facebook.com/MakeSureYouHaveFun ∞ http://youtube.com/@makesureyouhavefun ∞ http://twitch.tv/@MakeSureYouHaveFun

As we continue our search for a permanent home in Connecticut, MSYH.FM is hosting monthly studio recording sessions in New Haven, CT. These sessions are taking place at The Sandbox, courtesy of the Greater New Haven Art Council. As a part of our monthly DJ showcase we will be highlighting our station's local resident DJs and hosts as well as guest DJ sets from some of the state's most talented selectors. This month we are featuring Justino. From the artist: Justino is a deep / melodic house DJ out of New Haven, CT. Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYCVrvfGlIM ---------- Follow Justino ◊ https://www.instagram.com/justino.dj ◊ https://www.tiktok.com/@justino_dj ◊ https://www.youtube.com/@Justino-DJ ---------- Follow MSYH.FM » http://soundcloud.com/MSYHFM » http://MSYH.FM » http://x.com/MSYHFM » http://instagram.com/MSYH.FM » http://facebook.com/MSYH.FM » http://patreon.com/MSYHFM ---------- Follow Make Sure You Have Fun™ ∞ http://MakeSureYouHaveFun.com ∞ http://x.com/MakeSureYouHave ∞ http://instagram.com/MakeSureYouHaveFun ∞ http://facebook.com/MakeSureYouHaveFun ∞ http://youtube.com/@makesureyouhavefun ∞ http://twitch.tv/@MakeSureYouHaveFun

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Dr. Keith Dorsey – Keith is joining to announce the launch of his book on May 6, 2025 “The Boardroom Journey Practical Guidance for Women to Secure a Seat at the Table”. Dr. Keith D. Dorsey is an internationally recognized governance expert and NACD Directorship 100™ honoree who equips senior leaders with proven strategies to secure and excel in board roles. With over 25 years of corporate leadership experience and active board service spanning private, municipal, university, and nonprofit sectors, he delivers engaging presentations that blend research-based insights with actionable guidance. Dr. Dorsey speaks on corporate governance, board effectiveness, and strategic leadership, helping organizations build stronger boards and executives navigate their path to the boardroom. His book, The Boardroom Journey, offers practical guidance for expanding boardroom impact and success. Read more about Keith's experience. You can find out more about Keith and his upcoming book at:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-keith-d-dorsey-798a2681/ https://www.boardroomjourney.com/book       Transcript:  00:04 Hi, I'm pleased to announce something very special to me, a new subscription-based service through Next Act Advisors that allows members exclusive access to personal industry insights and bespoke 00:32 corporate governance knowledge. This comes in the form of blogs, personal book recommendations, and early access to the founder's sandbox podcast episodes before they released to the public. If you want more white glove information on building your startup with information like what was in today's episode, sign up with the link in the show notes to enjoy being a special member of Next Act Advisors. 01:01 As a thank you to Founders Sandbox listeners, you can use code SANDBOX25 at checkout to enjoy 25 % off your membership costs. Thank you. 01:20 So welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox.  I am Brenda McCabe, your host and this monthly podcast.  We're now in our third season  and my podcast, the Founder's Sandbox, reaches entrepreneurs, business owners with guests. And these guests  teach us about building resilient, scalable and purpose-driven enterprises,  all with great corporate governance. My mission is simple. 01:49 with this podcast as I really want to assist through my content and my guests, those entrepreneurs and business owners and building the scalable, well-governed and resilient businesses.  And  I like to have in my  guests, corporate directors, primarily to speak about their own experience sitting on corporate boards and building with great corporate governance.  I like to think that we can use the 02:16 power of the private enterprise, be it small, medium, or large, to create change for a better world. And we do some of the storytelling in a fictitious sandbox on the founders or the corporate directors' origin story. I am absolutely delighted that this month I have Dr. Keith Dorsey as my guest. So welcome, Keith. It's great to be here. Thank you, Brenda. Thank you so much. 02:45 While you check many boxes, you're joining today because you have authored a book. It has a launch date of May 6, 2025, so just around the corner. And the title of your book is The Boardroom Journey, Practical Guidance for Women to Secure a Seat at the Table. So kudos to you. Thank you. For, wow, you're a busy person. We'll get to that later. 03:13 you know, where did you find the time and the courage to  publish a book, launch it  in today's  environment? And we'll get to those questions later. So for my guest, Dr. Keith  Dorsey and I go back  many years,  actually prior to you being a doctor, right?  You check many boxes  as a guest. You are a seasoned board member, executive advisor, 03:44 informal coach,  and researcher. I love that.  And it was in preparing your doctoral dissertation that you discovered that, I'm going to quote here, I was reading a compelling study on the effects of gender diversity on corporate governance.  And you basically repurposed your original dissertation to provide actionable guidance  on increasing boardroom diversity. 04:14 And when you switched your dissertation, that topic that you had to defend, otherwise you wouldn't be a doctor today, right?  Was the idea for the book that is launching on May 6th. So again, welcome to the podcast and thank you for joining me.  So we chose as a, my guests know, we chose a title because I at Next Act Advisors am about building purpose, purpose driven companies.  The title 04:43 that Keith and I came up with is, you know, bridging gaps for better governance. So Keith,  share with us kind of your origin story. Go back all the way, although I'm gonna encourage my listeners to purchase your book, but go back to your origin story.  You nailed it in like one page in the book, but tell us where your origins and what was your, not only your boardroom journey, but your journey to where you are today. 05:12 Thank you. I often tell people, Brenda, that this is my third chapter. You know, the first chapter was the US military. actually enlisted in the military in between my junior year of high school that summer and my senior year of high school. I knew before I started my first day of my senior year of high school when I was leaving for basic training in the Air Force. so my first 05:38 chapter was the Air Force for a number of years. was stationed  in Florida, the Republic of Panama, and the United Kingdom  for a number of years. And then I got impatient and decided I wanted to get out. I had a successful early career in the Air Force.  And I said, if I can be this successful in the US Air Force, which is like a large corporation,  imagine what I can do  in an actual corporation. 06:05 I set out on this journey to  explore sales. And that led me to my  second chapter, which was corporate America. And I worked for almost 30 years in corporate America,  primarily  as a turnaround specialist in the area of sales. I would take over the toughest sales  organizations within these large companies and really  lift the hood up  and figure out 06:35 were they having a people product or process problem within the organization and then begin to tweak the areas. And I worked for two large companies, Fortune 500 or Fortune 1000 for almost 17 years and then a Fortune 500 for almost 12 years. And I was just a strategic growth expert. I turn around teams and I would also start teams within the organization. 07:04 to  come up with ways for double digit growth and oftentimes triple digit growth.  And so that's what I did for almost 30 years. And then in January of 2019, I entered my third chapter, which was supposed to be  semi-retirement in this portfolio career.  unfortunately, I failed miserably at retirement and what I've been doing for the past six years in this  almost seven years and this 07:33 portfolio environment as executive advisory work. I also  started serving on boards in which today I served on five boards, two private,  one  municipality, one university, and one nonprofit. And then  I  decided to go back to school to get my doctorate. And so I went back to  school at the University of Southern California and 08:01 pursued my doctorate in organizational change and leadership. all my research was in  the,  you know, at this point,  at that point, all my research  was in the lack of gender and ethnic diversity on corporate boards.  And so-  So, and that's fascinating that you chose your doctoral kind of dissertation and then focus around organizational- 08:31 strategy, right? Yes. Was that based at all  on your 30 years of sales strategy? Were there any analogs? I wonder. There was.  Part of what I would do whenever I would take over a situation that required  me to turn it around,  like I said before, was to really look at the organization.  To look at  many components of the organization, people, product, processes. 09:00 artifacts that are going on, the subcultures, the cultures. And  so I've always been fascinated about it.  And I did things innately and I wanted to learn the science behind  many of the things that I innately did.  And after  really diving into research and studies around organizational change and leadership,  I wish I would have known many of those things that I figured out the science behind back when I was. 09:28 and an actual executive doing it. But nevertheless, by  learning it now and using that in my governance roles, I still have the opportunity to put the science  behind  what I'm doing  as a board member.  And I tell people, whether it's as a board member or my researcher or my writing roles that I have today, that I'm bilingual.  I speak business. 09:56 And I speak academia.  And boardroom lingo, right? Which combines a bit of the two.  I like how you use the word science. You know,  we were chatting  before actually  getting on  air today.  We've known each other primarily because we're both members of the National Association of Group Directors, right?  And  I've been a member since, I don't know,  2016. 10:26 I don't know how long you've been a member,  I, your book is truly a kind of a North star. wish I would have had it when  I began my board journey. I actually started my board journey while in Europe and I got onto public board and I went, Holy cow, I better get trained  and went to the local equivalent  of the NACD in Spain called Instituto de Consejeros Administradores, ICA. 10:56 So for my listeners, I do want to do a shout out  if you are intentional and want to learn more about  what the journey is to getting on  first or subsequent boards.  The  book that Keith has authored is launching on the sixth.  And there is a third section.  And specifically, it's around your capital that you need to 11:25 kind of package. It's called commitment capital. It's trademarked. We're going to get into that but it's truly unique because I've read a lot of board books over my 12, 13 years and I have not seen anything as unique as this. So shout out to you. Thank you. Okay. I wanted to also, you know, ask you what made you 11:53 decide to turn that dissertation into a book? What was the, because writing a book is not for the faint of heart. So it was not on my bucket list. So what happened? You know, this is kind of inspirational for me. You know, what made you go, all right, I've got to get a book out there. Well, I, this has been a serendipitous journey, you know, just even going to  get my doctorate was something that I kind of stumbled into. 12:23 I was dealing with a tiny bit of imposter syndrome  and in dealing with that,  I  assigned something to myself to get rid of my  imposter syndrome. And I said, it's hard to get into  a doctorate program. I just want to see what I, if I can even get in. And so in Keith Dorsey fashion, I probably went a little overboard and I applied to seven different universities and eight different doctoral programs.  And 12:53 But I didn't realize in filling out all those applications,  which was crazy,  was that I needed  a lot of former executives that I worked with and other CEOs and,  like I said, other executives to serve as a reference for me. So I collected 15 people that  I would use for all those applications,  two or three at a time.  And they wrote. 13:22 I guess great things about me because I got into all seven universities, all eight programs, but I really just wanted to boost my ego. I didn't really want to go back to get my doctorate. I needed to solve  for my little bit of imposter syndrome that I was dealing with. And, but when I did enough for were 15 accountability partners saying, which one are you getting in?  Which one are you going to choose? I wrote you a great reference. hope you choose the one that I wrote the reference for. 13:52 And I said, oh no, now what? I gotta get in. Now I really have to do it.  have to get my doctorate. So I really didn't have a strong enough why  to do this to begin with.  But what made me, once I got in and  I chose this problem of practice, which was my second problem of practice. My first was  around shareholder primacy on corporate boards.  And  I stumbled into 14:21 this problem of practice, which was around the lack of gender and ethnic diversity on corporate boards. But I ended up going down this path of corporate board diversity. And I just told you this wonderful story and forgot your question. But you know what made you decide to publish a book? So as I was going through this program, 14:50 and right beginning all this research and I really got into my research probably a little too much  and I was sitting with my dissertation chair and she said, Keith, there's something you need to know. I said, what's that? She said, a good dissertation is a done dissertation. And my friend, you have way too much research out there and you've written so much, you have to narrow your focus. 15:19 And I said, give me some examples. She said, you know, pick an industry, pick an ethnicity group, pick a gender, do something. You have to narrow this down.  And I really pushed back a lot. And one of the sayings at the University of Southern California  in this program, organizational change and leadership doctoral program was trust the process. And so she said, Keith, I know you're pushing back. I know you believe in all this research you  uncovered. 15:49 but you have to trust the process. You have to narrow it down.  I said, okay, if I narrow it down, what do I do with all this research over here  and all this research over there? She said, write a book. And that's how I ended up getting to this point where I actually wrote a book  with all this rich research before my dissertation.  And then I successfully completed my dissertation. had all this information. 16:17 And I did something most people wouldn't do immediately after getting my doctorate. I dove into more research studies. You're kidding. interviewed formally and informally  hundreds of women directors  who have made  that career shift into corporate,  into being an independent director.  And I got so much rich, even more information on their barriers, their enablers, their career. 16:47 and how they were  able to make that shift and  successfully get on corporate boards. And many of these women have been on boards for decades.  that's  how I ended up where I am today with this rich data.  And  I would ask you  to describe the four characters  that are in your book. 17:14 and their names and where were they in the career, right? I wanted to share. I wanted to take a unique approach,  know, any books out there and many  board readiness programs out there that will share  a lot of theory with you a lot of information that is rich that we need to know if you're going to be a student of your profession.  As you mentioned before, I highly recommend  everyone interested in being a board director  to 17:43 go to some sort of board readiness organization and get your education  and then get your certification if you can as well.  And so in  really diving into  all the  women that have successfully made this transition and  the hundreds of interviews, informal and both  formal interviews that I conducted,  I started to see themes. 18:12 in their career at certain ages and certain sections of their careers. And I took a lot of that data and I created these four fictitious women that I would use and talk about as a part of a case study and examples so that when you read a chapter and all this theory and all this information, you could then listen to how they took the information from that chapter and executed on it. And so 18:42 The four women that I created, the first one is Lauren. She's 25 and she's a brand new manager in a corporation. She's actually  been with the corporation for three years as a sales executive and got promoted into our very first sales management position, entry level sales management position. That's Lauren.  Then I have Denise, who is a brand new senior manager in a firm. 19:10 And then I have Michelle who, and Denise is 40 and a brand new senior manager. And then I have Michelle who's a 55 year old executive in a fortune 500 corporation. And, and she has said that she wants to retire in the next three to five years. And then lastly, I have Sharon who is a 62 year old CEO of 19:39 her family business and it's a set. She's the second generation of the family business. She's been the CEO for the past 12 years and she's going to turn the business over to her much younger brother and who will take over as the CEO. All four women said at some point they're going to want to serve on a private or a public corporate board. So what should the 25, 40 year old, 55 year old and 62 year old 20:08 do  at this point of their career  to best prepare themselves for board service? How should a 25-year-old really execute her career? And instead of taking, like many of us have done,  a promotion for the sake of a promotion because they want me and because it pays more,  instead of just doing that but really looking at 20:34 beginning with the end in mind. I ultimately want to be an independent director.  So how should I orchestrate my career? How should the 40 year old make a few more tweaks before she  is at that level where she wants to serve as an independent director?  And then this person who is actually thinking about retiring in the next three to five years,  what tweaks? 20:58 Should she make over the next three to five years the be most attractive and most prepared and known  in the industry to be an independent  director? And lastly, someone who has served on her own board as an executive director and CEO for the past 12 years, but never has been an independent director.  What are the things she should be doing right before she turns the business over? 21:27 to  really show up perfectly as an independent director versus an executive director moving forward.  Thank you.  While the characters are women  and the book  has a tagline,  what is that again?  The  guidance?  The guidance for women to secure a seat at the table by no means is this a book that solely can be read by women. 21:56 I think it speaks to the other gender.  And what I found really unique is that you  had characters at different times  and  moments and section moments and their careers and how to really be intentional.  My favorite chapter, I will tell you, is chapter three. Why?  Find your why. That's the name of the chapter. 22:24 Yes. And it is in alignment with the work I do with  business owners and founders. It's like, what is your North Star? Oftentimes they created the business, they're purpose driven, but articulating the why, you know, why did you go out and, you know, work these hours and put your, you know,  re-mortgage your house  to build this business. Finding that chapter, you know, find your why. And then you're probably the research you did with the over a hundred interviews. 22:54 You ideated this, but I'd love to for you to share. And I think it's very important of all your chapters. This is for me. I think if I were an aspiring  director, independent director, this would be the one that most resonates with me. Find your way. Tell me a bit more about that chapter.  It did for me, Brenda, as well for two reasons. One, because of the research that I uncovered and  the qualitative interviews that I conducted. 23:22 I found out that those that were successful  at making that transition from being an executive or a high-powered government official  to  actually being a board member,  they did find their why. And I also,  you know, in this chapter, this third chapter that I'm in,  I became a managing partner and a practice leader of CEO and board services at a global executive search firm. 23:50 And I would have  meetings with many executives who will actually say, Keith, I want to serve on corporate boards. And I will ask them why. And they really couldn't answer.  And I would ask them specific questions about what type of board, private or public.  And  they would say, Keith, I don't care. Just get me on a paid board.  And that's not going to work. And it doesn't work. 24:16 And so I  dedicated a whole chapter to finding your why,  because  as aspiring board members  or board members seeking their second or third board,  and they kind of found their first board because someone tapped them on the shoulders  and said, we want you,  but they don't know how to replicate getting on their next board because no one's tapping them on their shoulders right now.  I found that by  getting people to reflect  on 24:46 Number one, what brings them joy? What brings them joy in this world? Life's too short. And when you're interviewing for a board role, when you're interviewing for something that brings you joy versus the person who is equally as qualified as interviewing against you for that role, when you show up for something that brings you joy, you light up the room. 25:16 And that energy, that person interviewing you picks up on it and you end up having this banter  and they understand that, you know, this seems to be more important to this person versus that executive.  You all are exceptional executives. Your CVs are outstanding, but sometimes just the fact that you're interviewing some for something that brings you joy could be the differentiator. The other thing is the reflect  on 25:44 on your why and when you are successful, understanding why you're successful. When you do fail and you feel miserable, understanding why you failed and why you felt miserable. And by spending that time reflecting on that, you'll begin to figure out your secret sauce. You'll begin to figure out your superpowers.  You'll begin to figure out 26:10 the value that you actually bring to organizations because you uncover  when you are successful, why you're successful, and when you fail, why you fail, and when you feel miserable, why you feel miserable.  Most people don't take the time to reflect. And then as executives, we have conducted  many  of these vision, mission, and value exercises for our companies. We've met them, we've written them. 26:38 And we've done all these things for our companies, but how often do we actually bring that home and transfer those skills to figure out our own personal vision, mission, and values? And when you take the time to do that in this find your why period of time, you can begin  to figure that out and run  every single situation through those funnels. And that will help you  really find your sweet spot. 27:08 And then you're only interviewing in areas where you can truly bring value.  And so that's why I wrote this section. Wow. It sounds like a lot of work. All right. So your book, think, almost it's a guidebook.  So again, we have the four characters. You can pick up the book and read chapters that don't need to be read from the  sequencer order.  Talk to me. 27:36 I think was really unique about  commitment capital. There are five types you've identified.  And I never read or thought of a concept like this  when kind of packaging my board credentials or others. Speak to me about the commitment capital. Thanks. You don't mind, Brenna. I'll touch briefly on the other four, you know, and then I'll spend more time on commitment capital. But 28:01 The two capitals that you typically hear about when you go through any board readiness program,  as  one is human capital and that talks about your education, your expertise,  your experience throughout  your career. That's the human capital side of things. And then you'll, we talk often about the social capital. That's your network, the people you know  that,  and boards are interested in your human capital and your social capital. 28:29 The social capital side,  they want your contacts. They want your connections. They want your help with the M &A  and finding funding and different things like that, finding the right talent.  Your social capital is a big part of it. And your social capital can help you get on a board as well.  But those are the two that you often hear about. The other three that I wrote about,  one is director capital. 28:58 You don't hear much about that one. And that's similar to human capital. All these skills that you accumulated in education, you accumulated throughout your career that helped you along your career. Director capital is more narrow.  And what are the experiences and education like board readiness training that you need specifically to become a director? And so that's director capital. 29:25 Then I dove into cultural capital, which you don't hear much about. And cultural capital really looks at  from the back when you were five years old in  elementary school, middle school, high school, college,  and the experiences and the people you were surrounded by that you mirrored, you emulated, and the obstacles that you innately had to overcome back in those early years. 29:54 that you called upon either innately or on purpose intentionally  throughout your career to get you through some rough times  through your education period and through your career.  People that can  call back and understand their cultural capital can use that to get on boards.  That's cultural capital. And then the fifth capital was the missing link.  And that's about commitment. 30:21 the ability to do the things you need to do in order to get something done  and  call upon that. And I can give you an example.  I have two different groups  of  women  and directors and  executives that  have  very similar outstanding CVs. 30:44 And they  all have gone through a board readiness program and they all have completed some sort of certification. This group found their way on corporate boards. This group have been  really trying to get on boards for up to five years to no avail. But when you look at them on paper, education experience and success wise, they look similar. 31:11 And the missing ingredient that I found via research  was  those who got on boards did something differently than those who didn't. And the majority of the ones who haven't found their way on boards, when they completed their programs, they were proud of themselves. They took copious notes throughout the program. And they said, done. Let those board positions begin to come my direction. 31:39 And those who actually ended up getting on boards,  who also took copious notes, they were  studious throughout the process, but then they went back home and they executed. They started to make trade-offs in their lives and they started to do things differently.  Some of them gave up TV on Wednesday nights and they no longer watch the three Chicago shows. 32:03 You know,  traded that in so they could begin to do things differently and find the time to do that reflection work  and find the time to network differently and find the time. And so they started to hold themselves accountable via their commitment capital to get things done. To this date, I still have people that will say, Keith, I want to get on a private or a public board. 32:32 And I would look at their background and I said, you know what you really need right now? You really need to serve on a nonprofit board to get some human capital experience while surrounding yourself with some incredible social capital that will see you in action. And they said, Keith, I don't have time for a nonprofit board. Now, the NACD says the average board member, independent director, spends 250 hours a year on each board. 33:01 You're telling me you want me  to  help you find a private or public board  and you don't have time to serve on a nonprofit. Let me tell you, you don't have time to be on a for-profit board and you need to find your commitment capital to make the necessary trade-offs so you do have the times to dot your I's and cross your T's. That's what commitment capital is all about. And that was the missing ingredient.  I love it. So you coin it the missing link. 33:31 the analog with business owners and founders is grit. Yes.  Right. Thunder, but I get I get it. So I, I encourage those that are aspiring  for a  first or subsequent board positions to take a look at that. Now, I'm going to ask a question that  potentially has  in the current climate. And again, this is April of 34:01 2025.  There's been  a lot of backlash in our current administration to remove anything  with the acronym DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion,  remove it from  position, hiring, anything that actually is receiving federal funding.  I'm curious, you also have in your book coined  a term called 34:30 optimal diversity. while I think you had this  term  in all the research, right, in your original writing of this book, could optimal diversity be that analog to the downfall of DEI? I think so. And unfortunately, what's going on in today's society,  mostly in the US, but even  several other places in the world, 34:59 is that organizations, in my opinion, have confused the confused.  And they are saying we need to move away from diversity  and move towards meritocracy. And that we need to get away from checking the box  and move to bringing merit back. And the unfortunate part is diversity, equity, and 35:28 has always  had merit  as the  prerequisite.  It's never been about checking the box or just bringing in an unqualified individual  so that we can  look  from an observable diversity standpoint differently.  It's really been about  one, the  prerequisite and the  table stakes. 35:58 is merit.  And then two, to be able to fish in different ponds, to bring in different people.  So ultimately, we can have that cognitive diversity or diversity of thought brought into the room.  And unfortunately, because of this reason for bringing parody  and  make certain that  your boards and your C suites and your companies 36:26 resembled the stakeholders that you were going after for all obvious reasons.  Unfortunately,  the message has gotten lost as to why we want to do this.  And it's really about mitigating risk, disruption,  finding blue oceans,  and you mitigate your risk by having a representation of that diversity of thought to protect your business and to understand all the stakeholders that you're trying to serve. 36:56 And, the prerequisite was always merit. And so I share with people that meritocracy and diversity truly can and does coexist, do coexist.  And so optimal diversity is the combination  of observable or demographic diversity coupled with diversity of thought is optimal diversity. And that applies to every human being. 37:26 when they begin to reflect and to peel back their cultural, human,  social, all those capitals I mentioned before, they can begin to present themselves in such a way that they can  demonstrate their optimal diversity.  As a managing partner  and a practice leader, a CEO in board services, I will spend time with executives one-on-one from all walks of life and coach them. 37:55 And I remember when I typically would sit down with a white male executive during this period of time,  and I would tell them my story and what my background was on  and my research around my doctorate. They will start off because they're now interviewing with  a  search professional that can help them get on boards. And they will start to interview off like this.  And then as I begin to tell them my background and my research, 38:23 they would end up like this and angry. And then I would talk to them about optimal diversity and they would start to loosen up and then they go right back to this. And I remember in one of my conversations with a Fortune 500 executive, a white male, and I talked to him about optimal diversity and he said, wait a second. He said, Keith, I grew up on a farm and I went to this sort of school and he jumped out of the car. 38:53 like that. he said, I do bring diversity to the table. And I said, yes, you do. But I've never had to present myself that way before. And what you just did was you taught me to reach into myself and figure out how I differentiate myself from any other type of executive. And I never had to do that before. And that's optimal diversity. 39:20 Absolutely. So if you heard it here on the founder sandbox, optional diversity refers to ensuring that observable demographic diversity is coupled with diversity of thought. And meritocracy and diversity are not opposing  aims, but instead are symbiotic and share a common goal. So thank you, Keith, for developing the concept of optimal diversity.  And I must read. 39:50 coming out on May 6.  I would like you to have  your time on air to provide my listeners with how they may contact you because not only are you launching your book  on May 6,  the boardroom journey.  I do believe you have one on one coaching  as well as you do  speaking opportunities. 40:19 Keith, how's it best to contact you? Well, you can find me  on my website, is boardroomjourney.com. Okay.  And my email is keith at boardroomjourney.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn under Dr. Keith D. Dorsey. And so  those are,  you know, several different ways you could find me. And when you go to boardroomjourney.com, 40:47 I'm really attacking this  approach  of making certain that we take board governance very seriously  and helping to equip individuals at various stages of their career to be best prepared for board service.  I  want  everyone, as I mentioned before, to go through some sort of board readiness program with the many different type of board readiness programs out there. 41:16 But then once you've done that, I focus on three areas.  One is with, I'm sorry, Brenda, you want to ask me a question? No, that's okay, one.  One is with  the boards themselves. I'm gonna challenge via their consulting offerings,  challenge boards to really take a look at their board members they have today.  And really,  many boards will have skilled matrices. 41:42 Yes. And so they will look at the skills matrix and maybe highlight 12 different functional skills. And then they want to outline their board members and how they rate those different skills. And then they stop there. And I consider the skills matrix to be the top 10 % of a iceberg. OK. And that's the part you can see. The bottom 90 % below the surface is around their competencies. 42:12 And in our consulting,  I challenge boards to actually measure the  competencies  of their board members as well.  And those are the things below the surface, their behavioral traits and things like that, because you wanna have the right mix  of independent directors on your board.  And then  look at where they have a redundancy  of experiences in their  functional areas, skill sets, as well as competencies. 42:41 and think about their strategy moving forward and where do they have gaps?  And so that's one half of what, you know, Boardroom Journey does. The other part  is with individuals.  And what I have uncovered is that many people will go through a program, but they don't execute, as I mentioned before, a commitment capital.  So one of the offerings we have is you get an accountability partner.  And with the... 43:10 the accountability side of things,  the accountability partner will meet up with you and have 30 minute one-on-ones with you,  almost unlimited one-on-ones throughout the year,  the numbers so high. But you cannot get the next meeting with your accountability partner until you have proven you've done the things that we talked about in the prior meeting. And so that's an offering.  And then the other offering, 43:40 is six months  of one-on-one coaching, two times  for one hour each time, twice a month.  And that one-on-one coaching is taking a lot of the principles and action items from the book, The Boardroom Journey.  And instead of doing it in asynchronous sort of fashion, we're going through it together one-on-one  to make certain that you begin to do the things 44:06 differently to get different results. The saying is successful people do what unsuccessful people don't do. And the goal there with the one-on-one coaching is to have you do the things that you need to do in order to get to where you would like to go. And so that's what the boardroom journey as a company and a practice actually does for individuals. Thank you for sharing that. This will be in the show notes, And I'm very excited to. 44:35 provide some exposure and my listeners, particularly those that are considering  your own boardroom journey. I'm going to switch gears back to the founder sandbox. I am  passionate about  resilience,  purpose-driven and scalable growth. And I love to do a round the round with my guests and what does that meaning of resilience mean to you? Each of my guests has a different... 45:04 Yeah. So please. me, resilience comes down to when you truly have a true north and you believe in your true north, having the intestinal fortitude to do things that you need to do in order to get it done  and  not giving up right when you're at that point where things can actually turn around. That's to me what resilience is about. But you first got to know your true north. 45:33 have the intestinal fortitude, encourage  to stick with it until you hit them. Thank you. How about purpose driven? The title of your episode is purpose, Yes.  Bridging gaps for better governance. But beyond that, what is purpose driven? What has made you be so purposeful? That's a great question, Brenda. I would have to say 46:00 right back to that true north, know, finding your why and  really spending the time to think about where are there  unmet needs  in the marketplace.  And, you know, I've worked with some incredible organizations and sometimes we  are too insular and we come up with some great things. 46:25 that we created that we think the market should be interested in.  And the market says, you know what, that was cute, but no. And so  I feel when you start with from the client's perspective and you uncover where there are unmet needs, then and only then can you truly be purposeful  in meeting those unmet needs. And that feels good here  and you're solving something that's needed in the 46:55 I get  it. You heard it here. Q. Dorsey's definition of purposefulness. Scalable. So I think that what you have done here  by publishing what was originally your dissertation and then building  consulting a practice around is actually scalable. What's scalable for you?  You know, something  that can have a process. 47:24 Okay, repeatable process around it.  I've watched businesses  succeed and then fail because they built something  that was needed for in the marketplace, but they allowed themselves  to  get off the beaten track because they're trying to be all things for everybody.  And  for me, 47:52 when a business is truly scalable, they found something, they met an unmet need  and they know their sweet spot and they stay in their sweet spot.  Now, do they disrupt themselves  to stay ahead on the bell shaped curve? Absolutely.  But they build something that has a repeatable process and they can keep their margins down because they're not just being there for everybody. To me, that's what scalable is all about. Find in their sweet spot and execute it. 48:22 Excellent. 48:25 Fantastic. question. Did you have fun in the sandbox today, Keith? I actually did. The problem here, Brenda, is I just enjoy having conversations with you. so  we did that via podcast. We did what we normally do,  but via podcast.  That's  excellent. So I had a blast. Thank you. And what about you? I always have fun.  I love the fact that my guests 48:55 can tell their stories.  They're very authentic. You're very authentic.  You live your purpose.  actually, that's why  my guests come to me, right? And say, is  the podcast right now, a growing channel.  And I do have a large fellowship now. You can also follow me on YouTube.  to my guests, I hope you enjoyed this month's. 49:24 podcast. Actually, this month is a lot I published a lot about corporate governance the month of April. So if you like this episode with Dr. Keith Dorsey, sign up for the monthly release  of this podcast, the founder sandbox where my guests are founders, business owners, corporate board directors, authors.  And you'll learn about how to build strong governance for resilient, scalable and purpose driven companies to make profits for good. 49:54 So thank you for joining me again, Keith. It was a pleasure. Thank you.  

There's so much talk of division these days, and so much justified fear present in our minds and bodies. It seems like when fear is present, walls are built. It's as true in churchy spaces as it is in politics, cultures, neighborhoods, and families. What would it be like to recognize that we're all still playing in the proverbial “sandbox?”

This morning on the show I talked about "the myth of persistence' and the 'power of the pause'...I pointed out that if you have the incorrect plan, tools or strategy no matter how hard or long you work it STILL won't work.What you require is a pause to re-evaluate and create a new plan.The power of the pause also works in all areas of our lives.I also gave an invitation for some homework that might just change your life...if you do the work.

Enabling Firefox's Tab Grouping. Recalled Recall Re-Rolls out. The crucial CVE program nearly died. It's been given new life. China confesses to hacking the US (blames our stance on Taiwan). CISA says what Oracle still refuses to. Brute force attacks on the (rapid) rise. An AI/ML Python package rates a 9.8 (again!) The CA/Browser forum passed short-life certs. :( A wonderful crosswalk hack hits Silicon Valley. Android to add force restarting ahead of schedule. Maybe. The EFF is never happy. But especially now, about Florida. Interesting research into ransomware payouts. Windows Sandbox: The amazing gem hidden inside all Windows 10 & 11! Show Notesb - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1022-Notes.pdf Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now. You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page. For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit promo code TWIT drata.com/securitynow bigid.com/securitynow 1password.com/securitynow material.security

Enabling Firefox's Tab Grouping. Recalled Recall Re-Rolls out. The crucial CVE program nearly died. It's been given new life. China confesses to hacking the US (blames our stance on Taiwan). CISA says what Oracle still refuses to. Brute force attacks on the (rapid) rise. An AI/ML Python package rates a 9.8 (again!) The CA/Browser forum passed short-life certs. :( A wonderful crosswalk hack hits Silicon Valley. Android to add force restarting ahead of schedule. Maybe. The EFF is never happy. But especially now, about Florida. Interesting research into ransomware payouts. Windows Sandbox: The amazing gem hidden inside all Windows 10 & 11! Show Notesb - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1022-Notes.pdf Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now. You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page. For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit promo code TWIT drata.com/securitynow bigid.com/securitynow 1password.com/securitynow material.security

Enabling Firefox's Tab Grouping. Recalled Recall Re-Rolls out. The crucial CVE program nearly died. It's been given new life. China confesses to hacking the US (blames our stance on Taiwan). CISA says what Oracle still refuses to. Brute force attacks on the (rapid) rise. An AI/ML Python package rates a 9.8 (again!) The CA/Browser forum passed short-life certs. :( A wonderful crosswalk hack hits Silicon Valley. Android to add force restarting ahead of schedule. Maybe. The EFF is never happy. But especially now, about Florida. Interesting research into ransomware payouts. Windows Sandbox: The amazing gem hidden inside all Windows 10 & 11! Show Notesb - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1022-Notes.pdf Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now. You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page. For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit promo code TWIT drata.com/securitynow bigid.com/securitynow 1password.com/securitynow material.security

Enabling Firefox's Tab Grouping. Recalled Recall Re-Rolls out. The crucial CVE program nearly died. It's been given new life. China confesses to hacking the US (blames our stance on Taiwan). CISA says what Oracle still refuses to. Brute force attacks on the (rapid) rise. An AI/ML Python package rates a 9.8 (again!) The CA/Browser forum passed short-life certs. :( A wonderful crosswalk hack hits Silicon Valley. Android to add force restarting ahead of schedule. Maybe. The EFF is never happy. But especially now, about Florida. Interesting research into ransomware payouts. Windows Sandbox: The amazing gem hidden inside all Windows 10 & 11! Show Notesb - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1022-Notes.pdf Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now. You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page. For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit promo code TWIT drata.com/securitynow bigid.com/securitynow 1password.com/securitynow material.security

Enabling Firefox's Tab Grouping. Recalled Recall Re-Rolls out. The crucial CVE program nearly died. It's been given new life. China confesses to hacking the US (blames our stance on Taiwan). CISA says what Oracle still refuses to. Brute force attacks on the (rapid) rise. An AI/ML Python package rates a 9.8 (again!) The CA/Browser forum passed short-life certs. :( A wonderful crosswalk hack hits Silicon Valley. Android to add force restarting ahead of schedule. Maybe. The EFF is never happy. But especially now, about Florida. Interesting research into ransomware payouts. Windows Sandbox: The amazing gem hidden inside all Windows 10 & 11! Show Notesb - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1022-Notes.pdf Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now. You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page. For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit promo code TWIT drata.com/securitynow bigid.com/securitynow 1password.com/securitynow material.security

Enabling Firefox's Tab Grouping. Recalled Recall Re-Rolls out. The crucial CVE program nearly died. It's been given new life. China confesses to hacking the US (blames our stance on Taiwan). CISA says what Oracle still refuses to. Brute force attacks on the (rapid) rise. An AI/ML Python package rates a 9.8 (again!) The CA/Browser forum passed short-life certs. :( A wonderful crosswalk hack hits Silicon Valley. Android to add force restarting ahead of schedule. Maybe. The EFF is never happy. But especially now, about Florida. Interesting research into ransomware payouts. Windows Sandbox: The amazing gem hidden inside all Windows 10 & 11! Show Notesb - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1022-Notes.pdf Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now. You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page. For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit promo code TWIT drata.com/securitynow bigid.com/securitynow 1password.com/securitynow material.security

Enabling Firefox's Tab Grouping. Recalled Recall Re-Rolls out. The crucial CVE program nearly died. It's been given new life. China confesses to hacking the US (blames our stance on Taiwan). CISA says what Oracle still refuses to. Brute force attacks on the (rapid) rise. An AI/ML Python package rates a 9.8 (again!) The CA/Browser forum passed short-life certs. :( A wonderful crosswalk hack hits Silicon Valley. Android to add force restarting ahead of schedule. Maybe. The EFF is never happy. But especially now, about Florida. Interesting research into ransomware payouts. Windows Sandbox: The amazing gem hidden inside all Windows 10 & 11! Show Notesb - https://www.grc.com/sn/SN-1022-Notes.pdf Hosts: Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte Download or subscribe to Security Now at https://twit.tv/shows/security-now. You can submit a question to Security Now at the GRC Feedback Page. For 16kbps versions, transcripts, and notes (including fixes), visit Steve's site: grc.com, also the home of the best disk maintenance and recovery utility ever written Spinrite 6. Join Club TWiT for Ad-Free Podcasts! Support what you love and get ad-free shows, a members-only Discord, and behind-the-scenes access. Join today: https://twit.tv/clubtwit Sponsors: joindeleteme.com/twit promo code TWIT drata.com/securitynow bigid.com/securitynow 1password.com/securitynow material.security

Are you struggling to help SOC teams move beyond alert fatigue and scale investigations effectively? Curious how innovative startups are transforming security operations by empowering analysts, not just automating them? Wondering what truly sets apart the next wave of cybersecurity platforms—and what you can learn from their go-to-market approach? This episode delivers deep insight and practical lessons from the cutting edge of security operations.In this conversation we discuss:

The percussion quartet serves as faculty and ensemble-in-residence at the UMKC Conservatory. Playing on wine glasses and an empty bourbon bottle (in addition to a vibraphones and drums), Sandbox Percussion recently performed a dynamic Tiny Desk Concert at NPR.

This morning we were talking about watching people's behavior and actions vs. just listening to their words. There is a strategy for having successful relationships with people and it includes watching behavior as well as listening to words. Have a listen:)

Are you confident your organization's data is secure as employees rapidly adopt new AI tools? Are current security gateways truly enough to protect sensitive information in the age of AI? How can visibility into AI app usage transform your go-to-market efforts in cybersecurity sales? If these questions hit home, this episode is for you.In this conversation we discuss: 

All Aboard the Innovation Express: RSAC 2025 On Track for Cybersecurity's FutureLet's face it—RSAC isn't just a conference anymore. It's a movement. A ritual. A block party for cybersecurity. And this year, it's pulling into the station with more tracks than ever before—figuratively and literally.In this On Location episode, we reconnect with Cecilia Murtagh Marinier, Vice President of Innovation and Scholars at RSAC, to dive into what makes the 2025 edition a can't-miss experience. And as always, Sean and Marco kick things off with a bit of improvisation, some travel jokes, and a whole lot of heart.From the 20th Anniversary of the Innovation Sandbox (with a massive $50M investment boost from Crosspoint Capital) to the growing Early Stage Expo, LaunchPad's Shark-Tank-style sessions, and the new Investor & Entrepreneur track, RSAC continues to set the stage for cybersecurity's next big thing.And this year, they're going bigger—literally. The expansion into the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts brings with it a mind-blowing immersive experience: DARPA's AI Cyber City, a physically interactive train ride through smart city scenarios, designed to show how cybersecurity touches everything—from water plants to hospitals, satellites to firmware.Add in eight hands-on villages, security scholars programs, coffee-fueled networking zones, and a renewed focus on inclusion, mentorship, and accessibility, and you've got something that feels less like an event and more like a living, breathing community.Cecilia also reminds us that RSAC is a place for everyone—from first-timers unsure where to begin to seasoned veterans ready to innovate and invest. It's about showing up, making a plan (or not), and being open to the unexpected conversations that happen in hallways, lounges, or over espresso in the sandbox village.And if you can't make it in person? RSAC has made sure that everything is accessible online—600 speakers, 600 vendors, and endless ways to engage, reflect, and be part of the global cybersecurity story.So whether you're hopping in the car, boarding a flight, or—who knows—riding a miniature DARPA train through Northridge City, one thing's for sure: RSAC 2025 is going full speed ahead—and we're bringing you along for the ride.⸻ 

As the cybersecurity world gears up for RSAC 2025 in San Francisco, we hit the road again—this time with Chris Pierson, Founder and CEO of BlackCloak, for a pre-event chat packed with insight, community spirit, and some big news.Chris is no stranger to the RSA stage—this year marks his 21st year presenting—and he's bringing his energy to two powerful sessions. The first, titled “Protecting What Matters: Your Family and Home,” kicks off bright and early on Monday, April 28. It's not about blinky lights or enterprise networks—it's about us. The cybersecurity community often talks about protecting organizations, but what about protecting ourselves and our families? Chris will explore how security pros can apply their skills at home, covering identity theft, scams, and home network safety. It's a refreshing and much-needed call to action that connects the personal and professional.On Wednesday, Chris returns with co-presenter James Shreve for a two-hour Learning Lab, “When Things Go Boom: Supply Chain Risk.” This Chatham House Rule session dives deep into one of today's most complex challenges: managing third-party risk without stopping the business in its tracks. Participants will step into different roles—board members, CISOs, legal, finance—to engage in a live, collaborative scenario that pushes them to think beyond checklists. Real talk. Real collaboration. And practical takeaways.But that's not all. BlackCloak is also unveiling its new Digital Executive Protection Framework, designed to help organizations assess and strengthen protections for executives and their families. Chris teases that this framework includes 14 essential tenets that blend physical, digital, and organizational awareness—and he'll be sitting down with us again at the event to go deeper.With 15–20 BlackCloak team members on site, a full schedule of meetings, events, and community conversations, this year is shaping up to be a milestone for BlackCloak at RSAC. If you're attending, keep an eye on their LinkedIn page for updates, booking links, and suite details.As Chris says, it's about lifting our heads, scanning the horizon, and showing up for our community—and our families.Keywords: RSAC2025, Chris Pierson, BlackCloak, cybersecurity, RSA Conference, digital protection, executive protection, supply chain risk, identity theft, privacy, home network security, third-party risk, CISOs, cybersecurity community, digital executive protection framework, GRC, threat intelligence, infosec, personal security, cybersecurity awareness______________________Guest: Chris Pierson, Founder & CEO of BLACKCLOAK | Digital Executive Protection | Concierge Cybersecurity & Privacy Protection . . . in their Personal Lives | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drchristopherpierson/Hosts:Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast [@RedefiningCyber] | On ITSPmagazine:  https://www.itspmagazine.com/sean-martinMarco Ciappelli, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine [@ITSPmagazine] and Host of Redefining Society Podcast & Audio Signals Podcast | On ITSPmagazine: https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/marco-ciappelli____________________________This Episode's SponsorsBLACKCLOAK:https://itspm.ag/itspbcweb____________________________ResourcesLearn more and catch more stories from RSA Conference 2025 coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/rsa-conference-usa-2025-rsac-san-francisco-usa-cybersecurity-event-infosec-conference-coverageChris SessionsProtecting What Matters—Your Family & Home https://path.rsaconference.com/flow/rsac/us25/FullAgenda/page/catalog/session/1739369849404001eWtUWhen Things Go Boom! Your Supply Chain Riskhttps://path.rsaconference.com/flow/rsac/us25/FullAgenda/page/catalog/session/1727434586212001yGwMBLACKCLOAK WEBSITE:https://itspm.ag/itspbcweb____________________________Catch all of our event coverage: https://www.itspmagazine.com/technology-and-cybersecurity-conference-coverageTo see and hear more Redefining CyberSecurity content on ITSPmagazine, visit: https://www.itspmagazine.com/redefining-cybersecurity-podcastTo see and hear more Redefining Society stories on ITSPmagazine, visit:https://www.itspmagazine.com/redefining-society-podcastWant to tell your Brand Story Briefing as part of our event coverage? Learn More

The lads take a health check on the Heresy sandbox!TIMESTAMPSAct 3 Artifact Mods Update - 5:20Heresy Artifact - 9:50New Aspects - 27:00Bolt Charge - 39:00Other Elements Sandbox - 53:30Exotic Weapons - 1:12:40Legendary Weapons - 1:22:10Armor - 1:45:30PatreonBECOME A PVE PATRON: https://www.patreon.com/podcastversusenemiesSocialsPVE TWITTER: https://twitter.com/PodvsEnemiesPVE BLUESKY: https://bsky.app/profile/podvsenemies.bsky.socialPVE DISCORD: https://discord.gg/TheyfeQDestiny ScienceSCIENCE WEBSITE: https://www.destiny2.science/AudioAUDIO PRODUCTION (Autodidaktos): https://twitter.com/CameronChollarINTRO MUSIC (Radio Orphe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POdqgitXq64

As a listener of TOE you can get a special 20% off discount to The Economist and all it has to offer! Visit https://www.economist.com/toe What if you had a thousand doctors working for you 24/7, at virtually no cost? In this episode of Theories of Everything, a panel of leading AI and medical experts explores how “medical swarms” of intelligent agents could revolutionize healthcare, making personalized, concierge-level treatment accessible to all. This isn't science fiction, it's the near future and it will change everyone's life. Join My New Substack (Personal Writings): https://curtjaimungal.substack.com Listen on Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/SpotifyTOE Become a YouTube Member (Early Access Videos): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdWIQh9DGG6uhJk8eyIFl1w/join Links Mentioned: •⁠ ⁠Ekkolapto: https://www.ekkolapto.org/polymath •⁠ ⁠Ekkolapto's Longevity Hackathon: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLy5dPSW_KkniuHpoLwlzkYcxhxn50Mn0T •⁠ ⁠William Hahn's lab: https://mpcrlab.com/ •⁠ ⁠Michael Levin's presentation at ekkolapto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exdz2HKP7u0 •⁠ ⁠Gil Blander's InsideTracker (website): https://blog.insidetracker.com/ •⁠ ⁠Dan Elton's website: https://www.moreisdifferent.com/ •⁠ ⁠FAU's Sandbox: https://www.fau.edu/sandbox/ •⁠ ⁠Will Hahn on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr4R7eh5f_M&t=1s •⁠ ⁠Will Hahn's in-person interview on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fkg0uTA3qU •⁠ ⁠Michael Levin on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8iFtaltX-s •⁠ ⁠Stephen Wolfram on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YRlQQw0d-4 •⁠ ⁠Neil Turok's lecture on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gwhqmPqRl4&list=PLZ7ikzmc6zlOYgTu7P4nfjYkv3mkikyBa&index=13 •⁠ ⁠Robin Hanson on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEomfUU4PDs •⁠ Tyler Goldstein (YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/@theoryofeveryone GO TO THIS MAN'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL. HE HELPED WITH THE CAMERA WORK IMPROMPTU AND ALSO HAS A FANTASTIC CHANNEL ANALYZING THEORIES. THANK YOU, TYLER! •⁠ ⁠Joscha Bach on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MNBxfrmfmI •⁠ ⁠Manolis Kellis on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g56lxZwnaqg •⁠ ⁠Geoffrey Hinton on TOE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_DUft-BdIE Timestamps: 00:00 Introduction 4:43 A New Approach to Healthcare 5:33 AI in Medical Imaging 7:40 Cognitive Models 11:09 Education in Medicine 23:02 Exploring the Boundaries of AI 32:04 The Future of AI in Medicine 37:20 Swarming Agents 41:49 The Ethics of AI in Healthcare 45:17 AI into Clinical Practice 55:58 Preparing for an AI-Driven Future 1:15:03 The Human Element in Medicine 1:17:19 Emotional Intelligence in AI 1:20:11 Unified Theory in Medicine 1:21:31 Conclusion Support TOE on Patreon: https://patreon.com/curtjaimungal Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOEwithCurt Discord Invite: https://discord.com/invite/kBcnfNVwqs #science Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mozilla patches Firefox flaw similar to actively exploited Chrome vulnerability. Russia-based RedCurl gang deploys ransomware for the first time. Ukraine's railway operator recovers from cyberattack. India cracks down on Google's billing monopoly. Morphing Meerkat's phishing kit abuses DNS mail exchange records. 300,000 attacks in three weeks. Our guest is Chris Wysopal, Founder and Chief Security Evangelist of Veracode, who sits down with Dave to discuss the increase in the average fix time for security flaws. And Liz Stokes joins with another Fun Fact Friday.  Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Chris Wysopal, Founder and Chief Security Evangelist of Veracode, discussing increase in the average fix time for security flaws and percent of organizations that carry critical security debt for longer than a year. Selected Reading After Chrome patches zero-day used to target Russians, Firefox splats similar bug (The Register) Microsoft fixes Remote Desktop issues caused by Windows updates (Bleeping Computer) Firefox fixes flaw similar to Chrome zero-day used against Russian organizations (The Record) RedCurl's Ransomware Debut: A Technical Deep Dive (Bitdefender) Ukraine's state railway restores online ticket sales after major cyberattack (The Record) Google App Store Billing Policy Anti-Competitive, India Court Rules (Bloomberg) Morphing Meerkat PhaaS Platform Spoofs 100+ Brands - Infosecurity Magazine (Infosecurity Magazine) Fresh Grandoreiro Banking Trojan Campaigns Target Latin America, Europe (SecurityWeek) Malware distributed via fake DeepSeek ads on Google (SC Media) GorillaBot Attacks Windows Devices With 300,000+ Attack Commands Across 100+ Countries (Cyber Security News)  Share your feedback. We want to ensure that you are getting the most out of the podcast. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey as we continually work to improve the show.  Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In our journey together, we've explored the creative processes of authors, songwriters, interior designers, architects, and even scientists. Each guest has shared unique insights into how they bring their ideas to life and push creative boundaries. Today, we continue that journey with someone who knows all about transforming the 'impossible' into reality—Melissa Dinwiddie.Melissa's website -- https://melissadinwiddie.comMelissa's Instagram -- @a_creative_lifeMelissa's YouTube channel -- https://youtube.com/@MelissaDinwiddieMelissa's LinkedIn -- https://linkedin.com/in/melissadinwiddieSpecial Offer: Get book excerpt -- https://bit.ly/YWoCthankyouFrom dreaming of Juilliard as a teenager to now empowering leaders and teams through her Create the Impossible™ keynotes and workshops, Melissa has mastered the art of making big dreams come true.Your journey from taking your first dance class at 16 to attending Juilliard just three years later is inspiring. What mindset shifts did you have to embrace to turn what seemed impossible into reality, and how do you help others do the same?You have such an eclectic background—calligraphy, jazz singing, and now corporate innovation coaching. How have these diverse creative experiences influenced your approach to fostering innovation in major companies like Google and Meta?Your book, The Creative Sandbox Way™, encourages readers to play and experiment. What role does playfulness have in achieving breakthrough innovation, especially in high-pressure corporate environments?You work with analytical minds, helping them adopt a creative mindset, skillset, and toolkit. What are some common challenges these individuals face, and how do you guide them past those barriers?Your workshops and retreats are known for being highly interactive and results-driven. Can you share a standout success story where a team truly embraced your approach and achieved remarkable outcomes?Listeners, if you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to leave us a review—it helps more creative minds like you discover the show. And don't forget to tune in next time, when we'll continue to explore the many facets of creativity with another incredible guest.A big thanks to our sponsor, White Cloud Coffee Roasters. Enjoy a 10% discount when you use the code CREATIVITY at checkout. Visit whitecloudcoffee.com to grab your next favorite brew.