Podcasts about Sandbox

Centenas de pessoas na TIM fazem data analytics fora da área de tecnologia. Advogados criando modelos no Vertex. Profissionais de marketing usando DataProc. Como equilibrar autonomia com governança sem criar Shadow IT? No décimo sétimo episódio do Hipsters.Talks, PAULO SILVEIRA, CVO do Grupo Alun, conversa com JONE VAZ, Diretor de Data e IA da TIM, sobre cultura de dados, citizen developers, IA Academy e como democratizar tecnologia em uma empresa de 60 milhões de clientes. Uma conversa sobre o futuro da TI corporativa. Prepare-se para um episódio cheio de conhecimento e inspiração!

Comment on this episode by going to KDramaChat.comToday, we'll be discussing Episode 5 of Start-Up, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Bae Suzy as Seo Dal-mi, Nam Joo Hyuk as Nam Do-san, Kim Seon Ho as Han Ji Pyeong, Kang Han Na as Won In Jae, and Kim Hae Sook as Choi Won Deok. We discuss:The songs featured during the recap: "Running" by Gaho and "Shake Shake."The intense and emotional hackathon that tests our characters' ambition, determination, and self-worth.Seo Dal-mi's rising ambition and her impressive performance as the new CEO of Samsan Tech.Nam Do-san's growing confidence, his romantic development, and his beautiful metaphor involving Tarzan.The theme of imposter syndrome and how both Dal-mi and Do-san feel they're not worthy — but believe in each other.The critical role APIs, GPUs, data sets, and artificial neural networks play in tech — and how they're introduced in the show.Han Ji Pyeong's internal turmoil, guilt, and shift from dismissive investor to personal mentor and backer of Samsan Tech.The heartbreaking reveal that Dal-mi didn't go to college because she wanted to buy a corn dog truck for her grandmother.Dal-mi's smart and humble recruitment of Jeong Sa Ha, a designer with top-tier credentials, by literally going down on her knees.The competitive and cold dynamic between the sisters, especially in the brutal bathroom scene.The sly arrival of stylish twins to In Jae Company and the challenge they pose to Samsan Tech.Alex Kwon's savvy evaluation of Samsan Tech's potential, not just performance — and his pivotal vote that secures their place in Sandbox.The ethics and motivations behind Han Ji Pyeong's involvement in the letters, and Seo Dal-mi's growing suspicions.Our reflections on the character of Han Ji Pyeong and whether redemption is possible.The amazing career of Kang Han Na, the actress who plays Won In Jae, including her roles in Moon Lovers, Bon Appetit, and her stint as a top DJ for KBS.ReferencesKang Han Na on WikipediaGUI Steakhouse in New York CityData.gov, the home of the US Government's Open DataRunning by Gaho

[1:58] 2025 was the end of play-to-earn cycle which started in 2021 with Axie Infinity.[3:10] However, crypto had a great year in terms of Tradfi adoption; ETFs, stablecoins, DATs etc.[7:50] Why have crypto incentives not worked for blockchain games?[11:00] Adding real-world value has overwhelmed the other reasons why people play games.[14:30] The killer feature of blockchain games shouldn't be making money but assets having value. [17:40] Tokens are dead; at least tokens that are available for trading on centralized [24:58] Do stablecoins eat all other forms of payment including in games?[26:01] Mythical Games is launching a new USDC-based NFT marketplace in 2026.[33:03] Funding for games in general and blockchain games in particular has been [36:53] In 2025, blockchain game funding was $350 million, $1 billion in 2024, $1.7 billion in 2023.[41:03] Pixels and its forthcoing Stacked rewards app is going for a mass audience.[44:44] YGG gave up on mass market guilds and is making Casual Degen games for crypto people. [49:11] (An aside - the rise of prediction markets.) [55:06] Another trend is large games like MapleStory and EVE Frontier building an ecosystem.[1:03:00] The Sandbox is launching its new community memecoin Corners platforms.[1:04:45] An example of the sector's change in 2025 is Mighty Bear Games rebranding to Wearemighty. [1:09:25] Immutable also had a significant change of focus from games to marketing in 2025.[1:13:15] The products that die in 2026 will be the ones with exactly the same strategy as 2025.

Mike, Manny and Dan return to talk the Quinn Hughes, would the Flyers pay the price via trade? Would he re-sign here? Other teams making competitive offers, more!

Episode 4 of The State of Innovation's Voucher Series features  David Griggs, Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, of Sandbox Carbon. David discusses how the Illinois Innovation Voucher Program funding provided his team with the resources and equipment needed to test their technology, validate its effectiveness, and transform their vision of a “pollution dumpster” into a tangible, operational solution. Learn more about the Illinois Innovation Voucher Program and other ISTC initiatives at https://ilinnovoucher.istcoalition.org/   

This is the second and final part of our discussion on blending improvisation with solid story plotting/structure as you carry on drawing a comic. The esteemed and famous John Celestri put the question to us: "Are you a plotter or pantser?" i.e. do you work out what's going on in your comic in advance or do you improvise when you go to create the page? Many DDers responded and we read those out as well as lending our own insights and going a bit off topic. The main thing we gained from this is that most people fall somewhere in the middle because webcomicing is all about retaining the passion and the fun of the work, especially when you're working alone. That means you have to nurture the flame of that passion: plotting things too far in advance can kill it because it takes away all the fun and inspiration and the exercise of creation becomes too much like work. Improvising everything as you go can maximise the fun and joy of creation but it can eat up all your inspiration SUPER quickly and leave you empty and unable to continue with more pages so that your comic dies, hence finding a middle ground is desirable! Try to plan and plot but leave a lot of room open for inspiration. This week we have another best off from Gunwallace and this time it's Mechaniko - The sound of nodes on a neural network firing, connecting, and cascading with shared knowledge: Multilayered, technological robo-future rock. - Originally from 308, 30th January 2017 Topics and shownotes Links Topic based on a thread by John Celestri - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/180165/ Content from: Marcorossi - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/marcorossi/ TheJagged - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/TheJagged/ Bravo1102 - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/bravo1102/ Casscade - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Casscade/ J_Scarbrough - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/J_Scarbrough/ JohnCelestri - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/JohnCelestri/ plymayer - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/plymayer/ Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ BarakoThePirate - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/BarakoThePirate/ Featured comic: Sandbox - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/dec/10/featured-comic-sandbox/ Featured music: Mechaniko - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Mechaniko/ - by Yves Ker Ambrun, rated E. Special thanks to: Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/ Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/ Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/ VIDEO exclusive! Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks! - https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts! Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS

Comment on this episode by going to KDramaChat.comToday, we'll be discussing Episode 4 of Start-Up, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Bae Suzy as Seo Dal-mi, Nam Joo-hyuk as Nam Do-san, Kim Seon-ho as Han Ji-pyeong, Kang Han-na as Won In-jae, and Kim Hae-sook as Choi Won-deok. We discuss:The songs featured during the recap: “I Know” by Seunghui, Jiho, and Yubin, and “Let's Go To Sandbox” by Kim Dong Hyuk.The history and meaning behind Korea's first snow superstition and how it shows up in K Dramas and real life.Netflix's evolution and its global strategy as it reportedly acquires Warner Brothers.The symbolism behind the money plant that Dal-mi gives Do-san and the Joseon-era significance of In-jae cutting her hair.How Sandbox reflects the early 2000s .com startup culture — including casual offices and office dogs.The origin of the word “bug” in computing and its metaphorical meaning for Do-san's emotional crash.How all three leads — Dal-mi, Do-san, and In-jae — are sailing without a map, trying to prove themselves independently.The parallel journeys of the sisters, and their complicated relationships with their mother.The growing love triangle tension and the deepening emotional complexity between Dal-mi, Do-san, and Ji-pyeong.The Go-Stop card game birthday celebration — a wish from Ji-pyeong's past that's now come true — and the bittersweet memories it revives.The pivotal moment where Do-san asks Dal-mi what she likes about him and struggles with the weight of living a lie.Ji-pyeong's bold promise to the grandmother that Dal-mi won't get hurt — and the emotional and logistical risks behind it.The drama and stakes of the Sandbox hackathon selection process, including the surprise that Do-san isn't chosen as a CEO.Nam Do-san's decision to choose Seo Dal-mi as CEO, based on both heart and logic, and the critical contrast between Dal-mi and In-jae as leaders.Nam Joo-hyuk's acting journey, from modeling to his acclaimed roles in Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo, Start-Up, and Twenty-Five Twenty-One.ReferencesThis is Nodeul IslandGo-Stop - WikipediaKorean Blood Type Personality - Traits & Compatibility

The Sandbox's new Corners platform, MocaProof, Soccerverse's FIFPRO license and BGA 2025 report.[0:37] The Sandbox launched its Corners UGC content-memecoin platform into invite-only beta.[3:00] It's an attempt to inject some dynamism into the SAND token aside from The Sandbox. [4:28] Corners lets user collate and curate weblinks on specific content topics.[6:33] Users can then buy each Corner's memecoin, spending it to upvote links.[7:24] Users are rewarded for their activity with SAND.[9:00] It's easy to criticise such projects but it's about trying new things around simple UGC.[13:00] The wider question is what does The Sandbox brand brings to this cultural launchpad?[21:25] Moca Network launched its ID and reputation system MocaProof.[22:10] It uses zero-knowledge proofs to preserve users privacy while proving your credentials. [23:44] This is gamified with a Mocat pet that you level up by verifying your actions.[27:25] Blockchain Game Alliance released its report for 2025.[30:00] Representation in MENA region (mainly the Gulf) had grown from 1% in 2021 to 20% in 2025. [32:00] 66% of people were extremely or somewhat optimistic for 2026.[35:17] 46% thought AI would be game-changing for blockchain gaming.[38:08] Spider Tanks launched on PC and mobile with Immutable. [41:14] EVE Frontier Cycle 4 is live with new manual ship controls.[43:48] Soccerverse signed a license with Fifpro to get access to 65,000 football players.

It feels like asbestos has been having more than it's fair share of limelight over the last few years. But it's manufacture, sale and import was banned in Australia in 2003. So, where is it coming from?Guest: Angelique Donnellan, reporter for ABC's 7:30 program.---------If you liked this chat, you might also like our episode about whether Australia has a problem with class.You can find Angelique's articles about her investigations here.Thanks to my producer Jessie Kay. Drop us a line at quick.smart@abc.net.au

Comment on this episode by going to KDramaChat.comToday, we'll be discussing Episode 3 of Start-Up, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Bae Suzy as Seo Dal-mi, Nam Joo Hyuk as Nam Do-san, Kim Seon Ho as Han Ji Pyeong, Kang Han Na as Won In Jae, and Kim Hae Sook as Choi Won Deok. We discuss:The songs featured during the recap: One Day by Kim Feel and Dream a Dream by Park Sejun. Kim Feel's music is soulful and widely featured in K Drama OSTs.Joanna's trip to Europe, highlights from Nice and Monaco, and her growing confidence speaking French thanks to Duolingo Max.The hilarious and emotional interactions between Nam Do-san and Han Ji Pyeong, including reciting the South Korean national anthem to cover a fake business discussion.The poetic metaphor of the music box, representing Nam Do-san as someone full of potential and how Seo Dal-mi's belief in him gives him the courage to grow.The layered sibling rivalry and estrangement between Seo Dal-mi and Won In Jae, and the complex emotions tied to their mother.An in-depth explanation of startup funding terms like angel investor, pre-series A, series A, mezzanine financing, and term sheets.The theme of equity and control in business, illustrated by how Won In Jae is ousted as CEO due to lack of shares, despite holding the title.The metaphorical and literal meaning of taking the elevator to the top—used by Seo Dal-mi as a symbol of her ambition.Seo Dal-mi's bold bet that she'll be more successful than her sister in three years, likening herself to a future Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg.Samsan Tech's win at the CODA competition, their failed video presentation, and the intrigue by the Korean American judge.Sandbox as a metaphorical and literal safe space for entrepreneurs, inspired by the “sandbox” described by Dal-mi's father.The motivations behind each character's application to Sandbox: Seo Dal-mi wants to take the upper floor elevator, Nam Do-san wants to turn a misunderstanding into reality, and Won In Jae wants to shed her image as “chewed-up gum.”A profile of actor Kim Seon Ho, including his traumatic childhood experience, strong theater background, rise through Strongest Deliveryman, and breakout role in Start-Up.ReferencesWhat is a sandbox?Venture capital terms you need to know

In the first of a multi-part series, I go through my process for making a sandbox campaign, this one based on longhouses.Share your thoughts via:

Comment on this episode by going to KDramaChat.comToday, we'll be discussing Episode 2 of Start-Up, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Bae Suzy as Seo Dal-mi, Nam Joo-hyuk as Nam Do-san, Kim Seon-ho as Han Ji-pyeong, Kang Han-na as Won In-jae, and Kim Hae-sook as Choi Won-deok. We discuss:The songs featured during the recap: “Day and Night” by Jung Seung Hwan and “Start-Up” by Kim Dong Hyeok.The parallels between this episode and Cyrano de Bergerac, with a mysterious letter-writer and mistaken identity.The warmth and complexity of the relationship between Choi Won-deok and Han Ji-pyeong, and how their past connects them to Dal-mi's present.Seo Dal-mi's struggle to prove her life choices were valid, especially when compared to her sister's seemingly perfect life.Dal-mi's determination to attend the networking event and show off a successful partner, despite the nonexistence of Nam Do-san as she imagines him.The brutal and unfair treatment Dal-mi receives at her job, and how her lack of a college degree limits her opportunities.The curated social media life of Won In-jae, which masks a dysfunctional and lonely reality.The complicated dynamics between Dal-mi, In-jae, and their estranged mother, especially the painful lack of contact over the years.The reveal that Han Ji-pyeong has been receiving business plans from the real Nam Do-san, who's been living in obscurity with his quirky tech partners.Nam Do-san's surprising and bold move to ask for a spot in Sandbox instead of money, showing a steely ambition behind his awkward exterior.The moment Nam Do-san reads the heartfelt letters from Dal-mi, realizing how much he unknowingly meant to her during a difficult time.Choi Won-deok's panic as she realizes Dal-mi might meet the real Nam Do-san, threatening to unravel their entire ruse.The transformation of Nam Do-san from a rumpled, unknown developer into the stylish man who shows up at the networking event.The emotional significance of the unopened music box, and how it symbolizes Dal-mi's feelings for Nam Do-san.The episode ends with Samsan Tech posting the highest score in an AI competition and being selected by CODA, just as Nam Do-san steps into Dal-mi's life.ReferencesTIME: Marriages tick up in Asian, but long-term demographic challenges persistChan Ho Park - WikipediaCosmos (plant) - Wikipedia

Comment on this episode by going to KDramaChat.comToday, we'll be discussing Episode 1 of Start-Up, the hit K Drama on Netflix starring Bae Suzy as Seo Dal-mi, Nam Joo-hyuk as Nam Do-san, Kim Seon-ho as Han Ji-pyeong, Kang Han-na as Won In-jae, and Kim Hae-sook as Choi Won-deok. We discuss:The songs we featured during the recap: “Future” by Red Velvet and “A Small Post Box of Hope” by Park Se-jun.The heartbreaking and hopeful relationship between Han Ji-pyeong and Choi Won-deok, who gives him a place to stay and helps launch his future.The idea that sometimes, people don't fall on soft sand—they fall on concrete—and what that means for those who risk everything to start a business.The many business concepts introduced in this episode: startups, angel investors, venture capitalists, incubators, and accelerators.The heartbreaking story of Seo Dal-mi's father, who dies just as he achieves the first step in scaling his business.The metaphor and origin of the name “Sandbox” and what it means for entrepreneurs.The painful separation of sisters Seo Dal-mi and Won In-jae, who make opposite choices after their parents' divorce.How letters from a fictional Nam Do-san helped a lonely Dal-mi through the darkest period of her life.Why Han Ji-pyeong's role in writing those letters may have brought healing to him as much as it did to Dal-mi.A powerful early reveal: Han Ji-pyeong is now a wealthy VC who may hold the future of many young entrepreneurs in his hands.The moving reunion between Choi Won Deok and Han Ji-pyeong after 15 years.The harsh confrontation between Dal-mi and her sister, where In-jae mocks Dal-mi's struggles and claims she has no regrets about choosing to stay with their mother.Dal-mi's bold lie that she's in business with Nam Do-san—and the fallout as she must now find him and make the story real.The cliffhanger introduction of the real Nam Do-san, who's quietly working on groundbreaking AI recognition software.What we're watching now, including The Uncanny Counter, Under the Queen's Umbrella, Typhoon Family, and more!ReferencesWikipedia: Chang Yŏngsil

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Recorded live at 542 Sandy Walk for BADBUI Halloween2:30am-4:00am

Court, Impetus and Saint Kabr react to the Renegades weapon sandbox preview and discuss the Portal's pros and cons.TIMESTAMPSPortal Discussion - 10:20Renegades Features - 27:30Weapon Sandbox Preview - 1:00:30Exotics Preview - 1:10:10PatreonBECOME 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

Shoot us a Text.Episode #1199: Ford launches CPO sales on Amazon—but the dealer keeps the keys. Plus, Hyundai teases a high-riding electric concept for the off-road segment, and Netflix pivots to a massive experiential retail strategy.Show Notes with links:Ford is leveraging Amazon's massive consumer reach, partnering with the e-commerce giant to allow franchised dealers to sell their Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) inventory directly through the platform.The transaction flow is highly digitized: customers can secure financing and complete the initial paperwork online, streamlining the final steps required in the dealership.The dealership remains the seller of record, ensuring they handle the final transaction and subsequent service.Ford will evaluate the results of CPO-only sales before considering expanding into new vehicle sales on the platform in the future, mimicking the Hyundai model.Hyundai is doubling down on the rugged-SUV trend at the LA Auto Show, teasing the "Crater Concept," an extreme off-road show vehicle that aggressively amplifies the brand's popular XRT trim line.The Crater is a boxy, high-riding SUV, a true off-road direction for the brand, possibly targeting the Ford Bronco.The design uses a closed-off grille and no visible exhaust, suggesting it is part of Hyundai's electrification pushHyundai Design North America just unveiled "The Sandbox," a new creative hub dedicated exclusively to developing future outdoor adventure vehicles and XRT-branded gearNetflix is betting that the future of retail is experiential, as it opened its first 100,000-sq-ft "Netflix House," setting a new benchmark for brand activation and customer engagement.The space converts a former Lord & Taylor anchor store, demonstrating a highly creative use for large, vacant mall real estate.Initial press reviews were overwhelmingly positive, with critics comparing the staff's training and execution to "Disney and Universal staffers."The model uses a high-low structure: free exploration drives traffic, while paid, premium immersive experiences ($15–$39) are the key revenue drivers.Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/ JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/

THIS WEEK: Join Tiddly, Samikat & the Dans as the SONY CFO sets the tone, Bungie settles their copyright suit, Renegades Calendar & Sandbox changes pop into view and the Equilibrium Dungeon trailer brings the hype! Join the conversation every Sunday at 6:30 PM ET on Twitch: https://twitch.tv/destinydigestListen to Destiny Digests wherever you get podcasts! Remember to rate and review:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/51utOpaycri2x7WotgVlFXApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/destiny-digest/id1638939545PocketCasts: https://pca.st/iczgzkt1On 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

Special movies reviews today!It's #56 and it's all Streisand movies.Barbra Streisand made 9 movies in the 70,s and we have already reviewed 3, (The Way we were 1973-For Pete's sake 1974-and A Star is Born 1976) So now you get our reviews of the remaining 6.1 (On a Clear Day 1970) Here rad director Vincent Minnelli (yes Liza's dad) gives us a weird musical about a woman with esp who can also make plants grow. Bob Newhart and Jack Nicholson are here along with a French guy and the racist ass cop from West Side Story. Babs sings her way into space at the end of this, and I'm extremely here for it.2 (The Owl and the Pussycat 1970) This one has a director that I really like Herbert Ross (Footloose, Goodbye Girl, the Turning Point, the Sunshine Boys, the Last of Shelia, and T.R. Baskin) giving us a zany movie that I love less than all those others. this movie is still good but for me Babs could be more of a Xanadu Muse, than an insensitive crack addict. 3 (What's Up Doc 1972) I might be getting this confused with the last film, and Maybe the “Muse” comment more applies here, I'm not sure cause it's been a minute. Also both of these films are a bit similar and Zany, I like this one better though and we might have Madeline Kahn and San Francisco to thank for that. people loved this when it came out and it pairs Babs with Ryan O'Neal which just may come up again soooooon.4 (Up the Sandbox 1972) Here Babs plays a rad woman and mother who says some of the coolest shit I've ever heard. Film ain't perfect but this was a treat for us. Watch this and then The Empire Strikes back, 2 great films from the same director.5 (Funny Lady 1975) Herbert Ross directing again in this messy sequel (ish) to 1968's Funny girl. Not the worst film but I guess it's not what people ordered at the time. I like That Cornelius from the planet of the apes is here, and that Roddy got to play an “out” character standing next to Babs.6 (Main Event 1979) This pairs Babs with Ryan O'Neil again. this one was a place in my heart cause I saw it as kid in the theater, so I'll always enjoy watching it. It's fun and light, it's got an issue or two and hey, why listen to us tell ya all about it. thank you film chums for listening.

Welcome back to Stoppage Time with Uncle Rob — that sacred space between the end of a long week and the start of whatever the weekend has in store. This week, Los Angeles is gearing up for a rare “rainy winter” stretch, and I'm settling in with you for a thoughtful, creative, and energizing catch-up.In this episode, I reflect on another fast-moving week of 2025—from an eye-opening conversation with Brand Strategist & Designer Lynne Door on Entrepreneurial Thinkers, to a much-needed creative sandbox session with my powerhouse producer, Diana Bernal. Lynne helped us understand what it really takes to build a meaningful brand today: telling your unique story, deeply understanding your audience, and designing with real authenticity. At the same time, Diana and I have been dreaming, experimenting, and tinkering with the future of Stoppage Time itself.Together, we're exploring new ideas to make this show even more valuable and fun for you—whether that means highlighting wisdom from our Entrepreneurial Thinkers guests, answering your questions, digging into insights from our 185+ past episodes, showcasing partner stories, or sharing behind-the-scenes moments from my week. Nothing is off the table… because in the creative sandbox, imagination sets the only limits.Through personal updates—including my knee injury saga, the chaos of American healthcare, and the political moment we're living in—I'm reminded of something essential: we all own our stories. In this age of decentralized media, you don't need permission to share your voice, your lessons, or your ideas. As Lynne said: “We are all our own unique living, breathing brand story waiting to be told.”So join me for this week's journey—part reflection, part inspiration, part brainstorming session—and a whole lot of heart. If you're in LA, stay dry out there… and if you've got creative ideas on how Diana and I can evolve this show for you, reach out. I'm always listening.Wishing you peace, love, joy… and full permission to play in the sandbox of your own life, career, and business.

In this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, host Brenda McCabe sits down with Chris Daden, CTO of Criteria Corp, to explore what it takes to scale purpose-driven businesses in the era of Work 4.0. Chris shares his fascinating origin story—starting with a childhood shaped by tech-savvy parents and leading to multiple exits, international teams, and leadership at a global talent success platform. He breaks down how Criteria uses science and AI to remove bias from hiring, why soft skills matter more than ever, and how to future-proof your workforce in an AI-augmented world. Learn about his nonprofit, SoCal Tech Forum, and why building trust is essential for AI adoption at scale. transcript: 00:18 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. The Founder's Sandbox is in its fourth season. I'm here, your host, Brenda McCabe, and I'm live this month's podcast is 00:31 from the Founders Space in Pasadena. And I'm joined with my guest, Chris Daden of Criteria Corp. um And a colleague of mine in the startup ecosystem. Welcome, Chris. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. So am I. So um I want to briefly give some background on the Founder Sandbox for those that are listening in today. um 00:56 Each episode features in-depth conversations with founders of small and mid-sized owner-operated companies and operators that support the ecosystem. And together, through storytelling, we explore how to build scalable, resilient, purpose-driven businesses with great corporate governance. And you're going to discover today with Chris, his origin story. I always like to start with how the person 01:24 that's a guest to my podcast, really started getting involved with the ecosystem of startups. And your story is quite fascinating. I'm gonna give a spoiler alert here. You and I met, I guess two years ago, at a Thai con event where you were on a panel. I was the MC em and we got to talking over dinner and just your origin story and the multiple exits you've had. 01:53 really um lit up a bulb in my mind. said, Chris, you have to be in my podcast. So it's two years later, and I'm so glad that we're making this happen. Lucky to be here. Thank you. forward to it. So this podcast, again, we're going to talk about a lot of things because Chris, not only are the CTO of Criteria Corp, a talent success company, where you help organizations meet objective evidence-based 02:23 talent decisions that both reduce the bias and drive better outcomes. But also, you're a two times 40 under 40. You've had multiple exits of prior companies. You're a speaker, a founder, a board member, and recently you started your own nonprofit in SoCal called the SoCal Tech Forum. 02:51 Oh, and I forgot you're a member of the Forbes Technology Council. we're going to have... Couldn't have said it better. Thank you, Brenda. So with that, again, my episodes on particularly Spotify, we have a title that's on each episode and we've chosen Scaling Work 4.0 for this month's podcast. Again, it's Chris Daden, CTO of Criteria. So let's start. What would you... 03:21 Call your tagline. Tell us about your origin here in Southern California. Sounds great. Well, just a little bit about myself personally. I've been in tech for ah quite a while now. It's really the only career I've ever had working in tech. So I started in my youth, frankly. My father was a member of the British Merchant Navy. you can imagine with that career involved, he traveled all around the world. uh 03:50 Also, of course, gave me lot of inspiration for the global companies that I run today and the teams that I've started around the world. So although my father wasn't directly in computer science, you know, that career of being in the merchant Navy definitely shaped my global perspective. when he stopped working in the merchant ship Navy as an officer, he started developing his own software for weather routing for large 04:21 merchant ships and container ships. So what was amazing about that was it was ran out of a spare bedroom in my parents' house just upstairs while I was growing up there. And uh we used to even have a rack of kind of four by four Dell just desktop computers that were stacked on top of each other with a switch to switch between them. And we're running the workload that my dad made with the software there on those computers. 04:51 It was very visible and evident in my childhood. My first kind of internship was maybe when I was 13 or so ah in the closet of that office. We pulled the doors off and put a desk in it and that was like my internship desk for the summer. started with programming in the dotnet ecosystem. So what year is that more or less? Yeah, it's probably like 2005, 2006. uh 05:21 So it uh was a great introductory language. Fun fact, there's a YouTube video online of me when I'm about that age doing a tutorial of how to make a calculator. So very few people have found that. I'll leave it to the public to find. But you can hear my very young 12-year-old voice in a YouTube video. it's still there. So anyway, that's part of my origin story for sure. That's what got me into computer science. 05:48 My first company, started my senior year of high school. I was aqua hired into an organization in Irvine. And then I got to join what I would call kind of a real company at that time. um One that had, you know, engineers around the globe working on solving problems and SAS for organizations of all kinds. So that's kind of where I kick started my career. I'm spending the next maybe eight to 10 years in Orange County building companies and 06:16 Now I find myself as the CTO of Criteria, which of course I'm not a founder of, but the energy that I like to bring to the team and the passion I have for what the next era of work has to offer gives me that founder-like energy. Yes. So um how long have you been with Criteria? Were you the first CTO? Were you an aqua hire? Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, great question. So Criteria has a great history, almost 20 years of science and 06:46 um just developing a great core platform that's been used by thousands of customers around the world. I've been there as CTO for the last three and a half years. So when I joined, was right after acquisition of a couple companies in Australia that were great additions to our product portfolio. And one of my roles right away after joining was to help integrate those teams, finish retiring some of the technical debt that comes with acquisitions. um 07:15 really just all the excitement around building for the next chapter of criteria and making sure that I can contribute in my many ways to our success. So back to that tagline that due to your father's um origins in the Navy, m you have a wide global perspective. Tell me about those teams that you had in India before Criteria. 07:41 Yeah, look, I started doing business in India a little over 10 years ago. I was just reflecting on that last week. I had the luxury of visiting my team again. We also just created a new team for criteria. So I was able to go visit them. We all got together for the first time. It was a lot of fun. But about 10 years ago, I started in a city named Indore and that's in the state Madhya Pradesh. And when I started, it was a tier three city. And, you know, I really stumbled across 08:09 who is now my general manager for my last company. I stumbled across meeting him through like a development agency and we really hit it off and you know at the time I was 18 years old and you know was willing to take some risk I guess because I wanted to work with an engineer and had to build my product and company and you know what it's like being a scrappy founder and I just rolled the dice and said sure like 08:34 Why don't you come work for me full time? Let's find your friends as well and let's start a company together. And his name is Vikram. And to this day, he's still the general manager of my last company in automotive SaaS that I had recently exited in like 2021 timeframe. He's still operating that team. Company's going great. So that's been a lot of fun to see that success. But yeah, over a period of 10 years, it's become... 09:00 from a tier three to a tier two city. So things like basic infrastructure have been developed. So just so much fun and so much reflection there. I'm lucky to have, know, that's my, Criteria's new team is now my fourth India venture. So this is my fourth generation. Oh my goodness. It's a scaling work 4.0. So let's go back to Criteria. again, over dinner a couple years ago, 09:29 You started talking about how the science of finding talent is really the bedrock of criteria. And you've been there three and a half years. Talk to us about that, the talent and the science that is driving this company's technology and being used today in hiring across the world. Yeah, I think. 09:58 Hiring is one of those things that we don't always teach hiring managers or people in organizations. I think we were laughing about that. If you're, say, a great senior software engineer and you've been coding for 15 years or something, I think it's assumed that when you get promoted into, say, an engineering manager role, you're now going to be a great hiring manager. And I think hiring science is something that is often... 10:22 underappreciated in organizations, particularly startups and mid-market companies who may not have the resources, right? Because to be good at hiring science, you also have to invest resources in it, right? So really you don't see most really advanced hiring science or like, you know, psychology teams being involved in hiring until the enterprise level. for criteria, we're all about using technology to harness as many what we call talent signals as possible. So we have a 10:52 an assortment of assessment tests that can measure things like your cognitive ability, your adaptiveness, your personality fit to a job role. And we do that in rigorous and scientific ways. I think there are probably more ways to do hiring wrong than to do it correctly. And we take a lot of pride in making sure that our products are always designed to measure those talent signals and even compound them. So as you find 11:19 multiple talent signals across the life cycle of that pre-employment hiring engagement, you get a compounding, really almost like a talent blueprint of the person you're looking to hire, or maybe even like the candidate DNA of that person. And it gives you a depth of information and data about the likelihood they are to succeed for that specific job role you're hiring. And that's really, really valuable to us. And we can talk a bit about why 11:46 that matters more as we enter into this new era of work. Before we go there though, I'm fascinated. What types of talent can Criteria be used for in the hiring process? Is it across all verticals? mean, tell me a bit about that. Criteria is a pretty diverse company. So with 4,000 customers around the world, we are really present in maybe 20 different verticals. So that makes us pretty... 12:15 pretty broad in who can use us for hiring. So, you know, we joke around anything from, you know, hiring for truck drivers all the way to rocket scientists. Like there's customers across the whole spectrum in engineering, venture capital, uh you know, executive management, truck drivers for uh companies, uh frontline workers, all the way up to rocket scientists at companies. 12:45 So recently you were a keynote speaker in London and you provided your closing thoughts on AI in the workforce. So I'm going to steal your thunder right now because you gave this to me and set it up. So work 4.0 belongs to those who pair adaptive mindsets with distinctively, yeah, human skills. Workplace. 13:14 AI will be our most tireless colleague, but the future's real competitive edge is still human potential, continuously renewed. Wow, unpack that for my listeners. Because we're all getting a bit nervous about will we have job security, what do we need to do to retool, and is everybody suitable? Yeah, I think what's kind of amazing is 13:44 um You look at some reports from the World Economic Forum or other entities and they're saying things like by 2030, 39 % of skills related to kind of the current candidate applying in the workforce will be obsolete. Wow, that's a lot. That's a lot. It's almost half, right? And what's amazing about that is then what are we hiring for, right? Because the last few decades of us 14:12 hiring has been so focused on how many years of experience did you have, what degrees do you hold. And it doesn't mean for many people who, right, college is the best fit, getting a degree is the best fit for many people. But ah I think what it highlights is there's more to being workforce ready than only getting these static credentials. And for people like me, I've dropped out of college twice. Both times I had some... 14:41 transactional event with one of my businesses. And that was obviously the right choice for me, right? And I've reflected on that and I feel good about where I'm at and where I came from. But I think workforce readiness these days is going to continue to index on the more dynamic talent signals and the more dynamic credentials we have as opposed to static credentials. So what that means is my ability to think on my feet, critical thinking, adaptive reasoning. 15:11 Those are all things that we kind of measure, if at all, we measure them kind of secondarily in our current process. And these other core talents like digital fluency, AI literacy, self leadership, resilience, those are all things that are more of these dynamic credentials that we need to make sure we measure really, really well, because the reality is with the advent of AI in the work 15:40 place, hard skills are more immediately attainable. And what I mean by that is maybe if I'm hiring for an accountant role, I care more about is that accountant a strategic thinker? Do they understand the tax code to the right depth? Do they understand the strategy for valuation of the business? And then of course they have to click some buttons in QuickBooks or NetSuite or other systems. But I think AI is going to... 16:09 augment the hard skills of our workforce. And that's going to make us more index on the softer skills, emotional intelligence, the adaptability, right? Those dynamic credentials as opposed to how many years have you been clicking buttons in QuickBooks? And it will require, I guess, more critical thinking, right? True. Right? Because you will be your... uh 16:36 day-to-day job will be augmented by AI, leaving you time to upskill or to make those critical decisions, more, I don't know, avenues of strategic development in the company. that's right. Yeah, redeploy to higher value opportunities for sure. think if 30 to 40 % of your day is... 17:04 tasks that can be augmented with AI, then that 30 to 40 % of your human first excellence can be redeployed to other parts of the business. an example is at Criteria, we serve uh tens of millions of assessments, um about 10 to 12 million per year. And we have about five or six million candidates that come through that process. 17:31 when they need technical support or help with the software, they often reach out to our live chatbot. we at Criteria um want to make sure we prioritize a five-star candidate experience. So even though candidates aren't the ones paying for the service, our customers are, we know that our customer satisfaction is tightly linked to how satisfied our candidates are. Got it. uh 17:54 One of the things we had was thousands and thousands of tickets every month from those five million plus candidates coming into our support system. And what we were able to do was augment our support staff with uh AI chat bots that are trained on deep knowledge bases of criteria and past candidate issues and technical troubleshooting. we were able to achieve about a 94 % candidate ticket deflection, which is really, really massive. And it didn't mean that we 18:24 know, laid off half of our support team or something, it means that, you know, those support team members moved into other high value roles in the organization or were able to now redirect their energy to making long lasting materials like help docs and guides that can then further retrain the AI to make that even better. So that's just an example of augmentation of skill and then redeploying that human excellence to another part of the business to help you grow. So it has criteria use the same time. 18:54 methodology for their staff? For our staff, every single person at Criteria goes through our assessment products, of course. We drink our own champagne. I had to ask that question. I'm a little biased, but I think I didn't know about the category before joining Criteria. And again, with my origin story, I've hired hundreds of people around the world. And I will never run another team without using 19:22 a criteria talent success platform to hire those people. So I'm a firm believer and because I didn't know about it before and now I'm using it, it's a big gap in my knowledge. So I would say most of our market potential for criteria doesn't actually know that these tools exist. A lot of them have a retention challenge or they're having an issue hiring the right people and people like me before I joined criteria don't actually know that this tool set is available. part of my mission is to... 19:51 make sure that startups and founders and mid-market companies are aware that this is available because it solves a big problem for us building the best teams. so uh last plug for Criterion, then we're going to move on in the interview here. uh How do um customers experience Criterion? How do they uh get onboarded? mean, what is it, the HR department? Where does, where's the origin? Yeah, really great. So 20:19 We call ourselves a talent success platform because we help people pre-hire with our assessments and video interviewing products. And that's normally the HR talent acquisition leader. So someone who's in charge of recruitment for a company or essentially all the pre-employment functions. And then because we have this rich data set that comes from those pre-employment activities, we have a post-hire product that we call Develop by Criteria. And Develop is designed to use all of that psychometric data 20:48 weekly check-ins with your employees, uh frameworks for behavior to help grow those team members after they're hired using all of that data and science. So a lot of our customers experience criteria on the pre-employment side and then continue to follow through on the post-employment side with our develop product. Wow. Is there patent protection with all of the science that you have developed over the years? I think there's obviously copyright. 21:17 um of our assessment tests. think patents and software are inherently tricky, but we feel really good about the protection of our IP. Excellent, excellent. So let's switch gears. um I met you at the TICON. um You haven't been our keynote speaker yet, but you have moderated panels, and I've seen you in other events. Tell us about what do you enjoy, what do you like to talk about when you're keynote speaker? 21:47 For me, it's just such an honor to share my learnings as an entrepreneur, as an executive with the world. I still am in this phase where when I give a keynote or moderate a panel, it doesn't really feel like a real thing. It just feels like another discussion for me. That's just kind of my style. I just think that the world stays connected by sharing information like that. And for me, 22:16 I'm lucky to be at the convergence of 20 years of Criteria's product, helping people make hiring decisions and this once in a lifetime emergence of generative AI intersecting with our workforce skills. So I talk a lot about that. Of course, I'm building my own teams to build the Criteria software and platform. 22:42 So I'm also thinking about what is next for my team, how do I upscale and enable? And then of course I'm talking to our thousands of customers on a regular basis trying to make sure that we are leaders in the industry. those are areas I really love talking about. I'm an engineer at heart as well. So I tend to be quite good at bridging kind of the commercial and business side with like core engineering. So I have a deep background in 23:11 AI and ML um even more traditionally prior to the generative AI boom and now even more so post generative AI boom. We're applying generative AI in ways that um we are on the frontier fine tuning models for our uh really predictive models at criteria. So those are all areas I love to talk about and it's really an honor to be able to share that with people no matter the forum. Well maybe there'll be a podcast episode two with Chris on this. 23:41 What about, you you love to share, I don't know where you find the time. You've recently started a nonprofit, the SoCal Tech Forum. So share with my audience the types of activities, where's the venue, who is gathered, and what made you start a nonprofit, right? Yeah, it's a great question. I didn't know I would be starting a nonprofit either, but that tends to be how these things go. 24:11 It's been just a journey. ah We started off as a meetup group. my goal for the meetup group was in the Inland Empire specifically here in Southern California, we don't have many tech meetups. I'm of course networked well in Orange County and Los Angeles. And I think that particularly with these technologies that are 24:35 in our day-to-day life, it's very important that we build community around information and knowledge sharing so we can all learn and get up to speed on AI. A lot of business owners are going through transitions with their workforce, with their team that just were never really imagined. for us, we started this meetup group in the Inland Empire because there was definitely a market gap in getting together. I started off 25:02 paying for and hosting the events, breakfast, etc. And we had so much good interest. had sponsors that decided to volunteer to support, starting with a company called Clutch Coffee and Rancho Cucamonga, who has a deep history of roasting coffee and brewing technology in Rancho. And uh we've since got some other great partners to support us. And in just a little under two years, we've... 25:30 surpassed 750 members in the group. uh that was the reason once we started getting sponsors involved that it made sense to have a 501c3 nonprofit formed. And we have a leadership board now, which I'm really proud of. And we host an event at least once every month on the first Saturday of every month. And they're always technology or technology adjacent topics. They always involve. 25:56 technical and non-technical folks, business owners, entrepreneurs, startups. yeah, it's been really fun. Again, an opportunity to funnel and give back to the community and teach people about disruptive technologies. Well, you heard it here on the Founder's Sandbox, the SoCal Tech Forum. It will be in the show notes, all right, how to um get involved and perhaps attend one of those Saturday meetings. um I wanted to give you an opportunity. 26:25 to provide how people can best contact you, either for speaking opportunities, a CTO of Criteria, the nonprofit. How is it best to contact you, Chris? Yeah, I'd love to hear from you. So you can contact me on LinkedIn. So linkedin.com slash in slash Chris Dayden. All one word. And you can learn more about me as a speaker or CTO of Criteria at chrissdayden.com. excellent. 26:56 have that in the show notes. All right, I want to bring you back to the Founders Sandbox, all right, which is the platform and the podcast. I really get excited about um this part of the podcast. um I work with my clients on resiliency, um scalability, and purpose-driven, right? All with great corporate governance. I always like to ask my guests what... 27:24 the meaning of each of those three words has for them. And each of my guests has a different oh interpretation. And it's just a lot of fun to listen to what I resiliency, what's resiliency for you? I think it's appropriate that I answer that in light of kind of work 4.0. So for me, when it comes to resiliency in work 4.0, um it's about the art of constantly reinventing yourself. 27:53 but in faster cycles. And I think what's really important to everyone is that in Work 4.0, hard skills can become obsolete quicker than before. And that reinvention is critical to really being resilient in this new market. How about scalable? You've scaled a couple of companies, you've been an aqua hire. What does scalable mean to you, Chris? In Work 4.0, scalable will mean 28:22 adequately augmenting the talent you have in humans in your organization with the ability to harness the true power of AI and to do that without losing culture or trust. I think many organizations think of the first half of that. Very few of the organizations can execute on human plus agentic AI and also maintain trust. 28:51 and without losing culture. Have you seen any best practices? This is a little bit off script in terms of companies that have, or are scaling, right? Because this is just scaling pretty quickly in the last year or so. Sure. And are there any best practices out there in building that trust? Yeah, I think having a real holistic AI strategy is key. 29:18 One main component of a holistic AI strategy is how can you get tools to the fingertips of every staff member in your organization so that it's embedded in their workflow? Because a lot of the top-down AI strategy from organizations, like a CEO says, you must use AI and we must be 25 % more efficient, is really shallow when it comes to strategy. And it very rarely results in a culture 29:48 sustaining in a company for this AI growth and augmentation. So what I've been really impressed by is, you know, when I host things like AI monthly global office hours at Criteria, or I host one-on-one sessions with employees to learn about how they're using AI, because you're able to push those tools down to your team members and let them use it in a safe and comfortable area, it allows you to see what people creatively do with AI. And most of the time, 30:17 I could say there's probably 60 or 70 % of use cases that I would never have expected my staff to use AI for, and I would have been the bottleneck of creating if they were waiting for me to do it, and instead give them a safe experimentation zone. And I think that is key to a sustaining AI strategy for So your best practice is actually a criteria from what I'm hearing here. And it's very becoming because I'd like to talk about playfulness in the sandbox, right? 30:46 I read recently, was an EY um study, I think it was this last week, that about 40 % of employees that are forced to use AI tools give up after a month. They don't see the utility in their day-to-day tasks they're doing. So there is something to what you just said, building trust, but building it from the bottom up, right? Yeah, I resonate with that for sure. And I think the only way people break that barrier 31:16 is by seeing their colleagues successful with it. Very rarely is a demo from an executive leader going to be, I mean, it might be enough to begin a culture of AI. Like I had to do a lot of demos and show people kind of the art of the possible. And then as soon as I saw pockets of AI intelligence in the organization, the quicker you can elevate those people to lead and present their findings, the faster... 31:45 you build up kind of the natural human competition between your team and everybody all of a sudden will get more behind it. And that's really important. I think you've reached a point of success in your AI strategy when you were once leading the AI learning sessions and now you are not. How cool is that? You heard it here in the founder sandbox. All right. Purpose driven. What's a purpose driven enterprise for you? I think that 32:12 This is timely based on our discussion just now where organizations need to harness AI at the right times. think purpose for criteria, for example, means how do we measure talent signals that are able to give us the best candidate blueprint or the best candidate DNA possible? And for us, 32:40 every single day, regardless of the technology, what fuels us is having that purpose-driven statement of collecting talent signals around the world for any team. And you really do get lost in that sometimes, for good and for worse, when you're just trying to collect as many talent signals as you can. And being purpose-driven means always doing the right thing when it comes to that. 33:09 mission statement that you've set. And for us, it's collecting talent signals. I think that AI can do that well in a lot of areas, but AI can also be very dangerous in those areas. So when it comes to Work 4.0, having that purpose-driven enterprise statement is very, very important because it anchors us for our new product development. It anchors us for how we're using new technology to help people make the best teams. 33:39 Going back to that, to build the trust, we might clip this out, um does criteria maintain a group of scientists to actually peel back the layers and make meaning out of the signals that you are capturing to create new signals? That's one question. The second is, does criteria have an ethicist on board? 34:08 on call or how do you ensure there is guardrails around talent signals? Yeah, those are really great questions. think for criteria, when we say we're rooted in science, it wouldn't mean very much if it was just a bunch of engineers and product managers kind of deciding what science is, right? So for us, we take a lot of pride in our product IO psychology team. So a lot of them are 34:37 industrial organizational psychologists by trade that are working full time for criteria. And their role is assessment development, assessment validation. uh And particularly in the light of fine tuning AI models, they are very, very hands on in creation of those models, validating those models. There's a lot of legislation we have to comply with, not only the normal data privacy stuff like GDPR and CCPA, but also 35:07 industry specific laws like the New York bias laws and others that help protect uh candidates as they are applying for roles. So that is very, very near and dear to our heart. And also we conduct adverse impact studies and we do case studies with customers to make sure that the product is uh behaving the way that they intended to behave. 35:32 You know, we've got norms for all of our assessments and we adjust those norms based on massive populations of data. So all of that is how we ensure scientific signal. This is amazing. Last question. Did you have fun in the Founder Sandbox today, Chris? I had a lot of fun in the Founder Sandbox. Really a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Chris. So to my listeners, if you like this episode with the CTO of Criteria, Chris Daden. 36:02 Sign up for the monthly release for more podcasts where I have business owners, professional service providers, and corporate board directors who are all working to build with strong governance, resilience, scalable, and purpose-driven companies. Thank you. Signing off.

Send us a textData's everywhere, but so often it feels… stuck. Joining us today is JureLeskovec, Chief Scientist at Kumo and a Stanford Professor who'sfundamentally reshaped how we understand networks—from Pinterest'srecommendations to tracking the spread of disease. We'll unpack whystructured data is lagging behind the AI revolution, exploring howtechniques like Graph Neural Networks are finally unlocking its potential,and how this all plays out in real-world applications00:57 Meet Jure Leskovec02:31 Knowing When to Move On04:01 Academia versus Industry07:30 Learnings from Pinterest10:28 The Kumo Pitch17:57 The Secret Sauce25:51 Monetization27:12 Only the Enterprise?29:49 The Sandbox to Try Before Buy31:42 The Best Use Cases35:00 Summarizing37:38 Predicting AI40:15 What's True and No One Agrees41:19 LearningLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leskovec/Website: https://kumo.ai/Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at almartintalksdata@gmail.com and tell us why you should be next. The Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Technical Sales, IBM, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.

Send us a textData's everywhere, but so often it feels… stuck. Joining us today is JureLeskovec, Chief Scientist at Kumo and a Stanford Professor who'sfundamentally reshaped how we understand networks—from Pinterest'srecommendations to tracking the spread of disease. We'll unpack whystructured data is lagging behind the AI revolution, exploring howtechniques like Graph Neural Networks are finally unlocking its potential,and how this all plays out in real-world applications00:57 Meet Jure Leskovec02:31 Knowing When to Move On04:01 Academia versus Industry07:30 Learnings from Pinterest10:28 The Kumo Pitch17:57 The Secret Sauce25:51 Monetization27:12 Only the Enterprise?29:49 The Sandbox to Try Before Buy31:42 The Best Use Cases35:00 Summarizing37:38 Predicting AI40:15 What's True and No One Agrees41:19 LearningLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leskovec/Website: https://kumo.ai/Want to be featured as a guest on Making Data Simple? Reach out to us at almartintalksdata@gmail.com and tell us why you should be next. The Making Data Simple Podcast is hosted by Al Martin, WW VP Technical Sales, IBM, where we explore trending technologies, business innovation, and leadership ... while keeping it simple & fun.

Recorded live at 542 Sandy Walk for BADBUI Halloween1:00am-2:30am

Jeffrey Mosher welcomes back Joe Steele - Executive Vice President, Public Affairs - LIFT, Detroit, MI. Tell us about LIFT – It's a public/private partnership? How does that work? LIFT has a wide range of educational initiatives. Please explain what they are and why LIFT is involved with education. The Ignite manufacturing curriculum is now installed at two Michigan high schools. How did this come about? Will there be more schools implementing this program? Within the last year, LIFT has inaugurated two programs at its Corktown Detroit facility, Advance Materials Processing and Production and the Critical Materials Processing program. Can you tell us why these programs are important to Michigan's leadership role in advanced manufacturing and our national defense? What does the future hold for LIFT? What new projects are on the horizon? » Visit MBN website: www.michiganbusinessnetwork.com/ » Subscribe to MBN's YouTube: www.youtube.com/@MichiganbusinessnetworkMBN » Like MBN: www.facebook.com/mibiznetwork » Follow MBN: twitter.com/MIBizNetwork/ » MBN Instagram: www.instagram.com/mibiznetwork/ Driving American Advanced Manufacturing Into the Future Through Technology and Talent Development LIFT is a nonprofit, public-private partnership between industry, academia and government which supports our nation's economy and enhances its national security by accelerating innovative advanced manufacturing technology and talent development. The LIFT Advantage Trusted Advisor With experts in-house and partners across industries, LIFT is the trusted advisor for small and medium-sized manufacturers to help them transition toward the future. Technology Accelerator LIFT helps organizations move emerging technologies from advanced concepts to commercialization so they can be adopted by industry and the warfighter faster. Talent Developer Developing new venues, tools and teaching techniques, LIFT's competency-based, technology-infused talent development program is redefining manufacturing education. Connector LIFT is a public-private-partnership between government, industry and academia, connecting needs, ideas and people. We connect organizations to move the needle and drive American manufacturing into the future. Convener With a national network of manufacturers and educators, together with leaders at the highest levels of the Department of War, government, and industry, LIFT convenes experts in advanced manufacturing. Government Partner LIFT's partnerships across the federal government eliminate barriers of entry for your organization and ensure rapid and efficient contracting combined with expert program management. Technology Showcase Bringing the “art of the possible” to reality, the LIFT Future Manufacturing Technology Showcase and Sandbox is where American manufacturers can see the benefits of connecting materials, processes, systems and talent.

Sonia Gokhale, Co-Founder and General Partner at VentureSouq, breaks down how founders can build and scale fintech across the Gulf. We unpack why Saudi Arabia and the UAE are the first markets to crack, how government sandboxes and clear licensing paths reduce friction, and why B2B fintech often delivers the strongest unit economics. Sonia also walks through lessons from recent exits like Tabby, fundraising dynamics for seed through Series B, and the infrastructure opportunities in payments, credit, and compliance. If you are a founder aiming to land your first enterprise customers in the region or an investor mapping the next wave of MENA fintech, this conversation delivers a practical playbook.What you'll learnHow to navigate sandboxes and licensing in KSA and the UAEThe go-to-market order that shortens sales cycles with enterprisesPricing and unit economics that work for B2B fintech in the GulfSignals from Tabby-style outcomes and what they mean for foundersFundraising expectations and how global capital views MENA todayWho it's forFintech founders, product leaders, and investors evaluating MENA as a primary or expansion market.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonia-seth-gokhale-b0906014/

Animoca's Nasdaq listing plan, Spider Tanks reborn, Moonfrost goes web2 and IMX is fully liquid. [0:24] Animoca Brands has announced a reverse merger to get a Nasdaq listing. [4:25] It's started the process to merge with tiny Nasdaq listed company Currenc.[6:03] Currenc shareholders will get 5% of the new company. Animoca's 95%.[7:58] There's no official valuation for Animoca, but it's likely somewhere between $3-4 billion.[11:30] But the entire process will take 9-12 months, so Animoca won't be listed until late 2026.[14:16] Moonfrost has gone pure web2 but is also launching web3 degen platform Frost Arcade.[22:30] Immutable's IMX is the first major gaming token to become 100% circulating.[25:18] The Sandbox has committed to be majority UGC-focused in 2026.[30:45] Spider Tanks is being rebooted on Immutable, with early access from 8th December.

Recorded live at 542 Sandy Walk for BADBUI Halloween11:30pm-1:00am

Nov. 5, 2025 We want what we WANT! Indulging our fantasies, if we could create ANYthing we wanted, cast with ANYbody from ANY era...what would we do? Lets create!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Imagine a world where your kids learn directly from Einstein in the metaverse. That's the bold vision Mete Al is building at ICB Labs.In this episode, I sat down with Mete live at Token2049 in Singapore to explore how ICB Labs is fusing AI, blockchain, and immersive metaverse experiences to reshape education. From building a global network of university partnerships to creating age-appropriate AI mentors for kids, Mete shares how his team is creating a safe, scalable, and gamified learning environment for the next generation.We talk NFTs with real utility, selling $3M in an ICO, and how AI is quietly training itself through student interactions. This one is full of practical insights, bold predictions, and the clarity of a founder with a big mission: to build the future of learning.Key Learnings + Time Stamps[00:00] Selling $2.5M in NFTs in 3 days — how they did it[01:20] How Mete got into Web3 from real estate & farming[03:50] The shift to AI in education: problems and promise[06:30] Why current AI use in schools is broken — and ICB's fix[08:00] What sets ICB's metaverse apart from Meta & others[10:20] How their AI matches students by age with safe, tailored content[12:00] B2B model: partnering with 9+ universities globally[14:00] The real reason previous metaverse hype failed[16:00] Roadmap: language learning, talent hubs, AI avatars & fashion street[18:30] Their monetization model: KYC, NFTs with utility, and their own token[20:00] What startup founders should focus on: Mete's #1 advice[21:00] The upcoming “Talent Hub” to fund and build student ideas[23:00] Who inspires Mete in Web3: shoutout to 1inch and Sandbox[25:00] ICB Labs' next big milestone: scaling to 400+ staff and beyondConnectMete's Socials:https://www.instagram.com/meteicb/https://www.linkedin.com/in/meteicb/ICB Labs:https://x.com/ICBLabshttps://www.linkedin.com/company/icblabs/https://icblabs.com/ICB Verse:https://x.com/icbversehttps://icbverse.io/ DisclaimerNothing mentioned in this podcast is investment advice and please do your own research. Finally, it would mean a lot if you can leave a review of this podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this podcast with a friend.Be a guest on the podcast or contact us – https://www.web3pod.xyz/

In this eye-opening episode, Animoca Brands co-founder & chairman Yat Siu joins host Constantin Kogan to unpack his extraordinary journey - from a 15-year-old Austrian kid coding MIDI software on Atari and getting paid via mailed checks, to building one of the first ISPs in Hong Kong, dominating early mobile gaming (200M+ downloads!), and getting deplatformed overnight by Apple in 2012.Yat Siu reveals:

Recorded live at 542 Sandy Walk for BADBUI Halloween10:00pm-11:30pm

In this episode of The Corner of Story and Game, we sit down with Winter Mullenix and Tormod MacLean to explore what it really means to tell stories in open-world, player-driven spaces. Together, we dig into the challenges and opportunities of crafting narrative in sandbox MMOs, where story doesn't come from scripted quests alone, but from the players themselves.Winter and Tormod share insights from their work on large-scale projects, unpacking how narrative design can survive (and even thrive) in worlds defined by freedom.Whether you're building your first open-world game or looking for ways to weave narrative meaning into systems-driven experiences, this episode will help you think differently about what “story” really means in a sandbox MMO.Where to find Winter & Tormod:LinkedIn (Winter): https://www.linkedin.com/in/wintermullenix/LinkedIn (Tormod): https://www.linkedin.com/in/tormod-maclean-6b230012/EVE Online: https://www.eveonline.com/The Corner of Story and Game:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bluesky⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠gerald@storyandgame.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠#NarrativeDesign #GameWriting #MMORPG #SandboxGames #OpenWorldDesign #EmergentStorytelling #GameDevelopment #StoryInGames #PlayerAgency #InteractiveNarrative #GameDesign #StorytellingInGames #TheCornerOfStoryAndGame #IndieDev #SystemsDesign #WritingForGames #BuildingWorlds #GameNarrative #NarrativeCraft #WorldBuilding

Listen to Carol's book on audio!Read Carol's book!Follow us on Instagram: Memwah PodcastJoin our Facebook group! Memwah PodcastVisit us at Pronounced MemwahMusic: "Promenade" themeBuy Wendi's booksI'm Wearing Tunics NowGinger Mancino, Kid ComedianSocksWendi's SubstackBuy Ann's bookListen to Your MotherMariana's SubstackWant to know what else we're reading and watching this week? It's on the pod, have a listen!

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda McCabe sits down with Jen Apy, Area Managing Partner and Chief Marketing Officer at Chief Outsiders, to explore how scaling companies can unlock growth through fractional marketing leadership. Jen shares insights from her 30+ years of marketing experience—spanning Mattel, Adobe, Intuit, and now Chief Outsiders—and introduces listeners to the Growth Gears framework: a strategic methodology designed to help small and mid-sized companies grow efficiently and sustainably. Jen and Brenda also dive into key trends such as the rise of “flash teams,” how AI is transforming the marketing playbook, and the importance of being a learning organization in a fast-moving world. You can find out more at https://www.chiefoutsiders.com        transcript:  00:04 So  welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, the host of this monthly podcast where I am joined by business owners, founders, and professional service providers that are scaling businesses. 00:34 with great corporate governance. This podcast is now in its fourth season and very excited to have Jen Apy as my guest today. For those that are subscribed to the Founder Sandbox, you always know that we have a story that's going to be told about the origins of the company and the founder  and the professional's experience as the introduction here. And we will always come back to the... 01:02 the sandbox where we're talking about resilience, purpose-driven and scalable growth. And when Jen, who I've known now for several years, we work in the same ecosystem, spoke to me about the growth gears, that is kind of the overarching framework  of chief outsiders. I was fascinated and wanted to offer the platform of the podcast to get the message out to  business owners that are 01:30 scaling and have not yet thought about using fractional marketing services. So welcome, Jen, to this fourth season. um Absolutely delighted to have you here. Oh, I'm delighted to be here. Excellent.  So we did choose a title. We're gonna you're gonna hear the word growth gears throughout this podcast. So the title for the podcast today is growth gears for scaling. And 01:56 Jen and I kind of share a similar background in the sense that we've been out there over three decades.  I um had my own consulting business. I worked in the McKinsey & Company and reinvented myself uh around really bringing the expertise that I had at multinationals into the ecosystem  of growth stage companies. Jen, tell me you are multifaceted marketing professional over three decades. 02:26 of experience contributing to marketing excellence. Tell us a bit about your origin and your currently, I think since five years ago, the area managing partner and chief marketing officer of Chief Outsiders. So share a bit how your role has evolved and what's it like to be with this company that was once a startup itself. Well, thank you so much for having me, Brenda. It's been a wild ride. 02:56 I feel like I was so lucky  early in my career to work with fabulous marketers at Mattel and Intuit and Adobe.  And now to have  the opportunity to apply those skills to help small to mid-sized companies grow. It's really been a fantastic experience. I feel like this is my purpose. Oh, beautiful. To share these enterprise little marketing skills with smaller companies that 03:25 are hungry for growth.  you when I, when I meet founders or I meet CEOs, I'm always really curious about, know, what's working, what's not working. You know, how do we create this flywheel that can help them grow in scale? It really is, is something I enjoy. You know, you found your purpose and then  I guess your purpose found you  working with chief outsiders because you were also a solopreneur  for years. What would be your 03:54 tagline if if anybody were to just listen to five minutes of the founder sandbox, what would be. Jen appease tagline such a good question. I think it would be be something like committed to growth. I feel like that is my purpose. That's what I enjoy. And you know now it's part of outsiders. I I now have 125 colleagues who feel the same way. They've all been fortune 1000. 04:23 and larger company marketers from a variety of different industries. think collectively we've probably covered over 80 industries, over 5,000 engagements. I mean, it's just incredible that the people at Cheap Outsiders that I get to work with every day. And I do feel like commitment to growth is almost a shared purpose for all of us. That's why we're here, because we love to make an impact, to see that impact on smaller companies and  be a part. 04:52 of their leadership team. We say that we're outsiders, but we're really embedded as insiders and therefore we can have that impact on  companies and watch them grow in scale. It's very gratifying as a marketer. m I  also work in the small and medium sized enterprise area.  And last month I actually wrote a blog on enterprise,  forms of enterprise and the like. 05:18 Did some research  on actually SMEs.  How many  SMEs in your estimation actually  reach  or go beyond $10 million in revenues? SMEs are 47%, I believe, for the number of enterprises in the United States. But how many actually scale beyond the $10 million revenue? You know, it's a surprisingly small number,  like maybe less than 1%. But you know, that's why we're here. 05:47 We want to increase the chances that those companies can scale, you know, 10 million, 50 million, 100 million. We believe that by really applying the market insights, customer insights, competitive insights into, you know, the strategies around positioning and offers and target marketing will lead to the cost of 06:14 efficient and cost effective strategies and execution that will help companies scale. that really is the heart of the growth gears methodology and approach. Well, that's  a great segue. You and I met at the recurring revenue conference, I guess, in the seventh year. And as you walk me through  the growth gears,  you also have an assessment tool. Would you like to  share? 06:42 overarching what is what are the gears, the growth gears, what are the key aspects that  one can be surveyed about and then and how to engage with  the chief outsiders, because I found it fascinating.  And I actually used it with one or two of my clients to kind of get the wheels, no pun intended, right to  to start moving, right? 07:12 Yes, so the assessment that we use asks companies and leaders questions about the business, about how much do they know about their customers, their competitors,  the company, they looked at market trends? And then starts to ask about, do they know where their revenue  comes from, where their growth is gonna come from? they  understand what channels are most efficient and are they measuring uh the effectiveness  of the marketing? 07:41 programs that they have in motion. And it's not every single question that we could ask, but just enough to get them thinking about where growth is gonna come from. And so we use this assessment, usually around this time actually, we're getting close to Q4. And we use it about this time in order to help them think ahead in terms of what are the priorities that are needed for the following year in order to stimulate. 08:08 enable or actualize growth. So if anyone's interested in doing this assessment with me, it's free. Just, you know, reach out to me on LinkedIn, happy to provide you with the link and then have a conversation about what the answers mean. Absolutely. Jen, we'll put those, the survey or the assessment, pardon me, in the show notes. All right. Great. In addition to other areas. So talk to me a little bit about Chief Outsiders. You did say it was a startup at one time. 08:37 How long has it been around? What's the organization look like? And what are the challenges that you particularly are dealing with with the advent of AI? That's a very little question.  That's a great question,  though. But  Chief Outsiders has been around for over 10 years. I think we've been around before the term fractional  executive or fractional marketer was even a term. think 09:01 Maybe early on we might've been discussed as strategic business consultants, right? Because we're helping companies grow in scale. But we've been around for over 10 years. We've been on the Fortune 5000 for quite a few years. I think definitely 10 or more. the way that we've grown is by really focusing on what marketing leadership needs to do. 09:30 for companies, which at the end of the day, it's about  knowing who your customers are, where to find them,  and  then how to grow the company  based on  that focus on finding and retaining customers, whether it's increasing market penetration within a certain target segment or  finding new markets or launching new products,  whatever that growth strategy is, how to harness that  and  help 10:00 a company,  um, scale over time  and marketing has changed so much. I know over the years, mean, I've seen that with your companies is  overwhelming. I pardon. I will get back to the question, but I, many, many years ago, McKinsey, was a marketing expert research. We didn't have all these amazing tools we have today to conjoin analysis, you know, with your Excel sheets, right. And focus groups. 10:29 Right. So the sophistication, channel, you know, growth explosion is, you know, I threw my talent a long time ago. Well, you know, it used to be, you know, direct mail and then websites, right. And then e-commerce and, and then it was about social media and content marketing and then SEO. I mean, it's just daunting. And now we have to be thinking about AI in all facets of the 10:59 the marketing toolkit, right? It's  impacting every aspect of what we do as marketers.  And we have to be thinking about AEO, like answer engine optimization in addition to SEO. So it really is rather overwhelming. So I think that over the years, Chief Outsiders has recognized that the marketing tactics and strategies are going to change and we need to change with it. But that the focus on 11:27 growth is going to come from really the growth gears, right? The approach to understanding the market, understanding how to go to market,  understanding how to  execute cost effectively. So recently in the advent of AI, knowing that it was going to impact so much of the marketing mix, we actually started to develop an AI platform for us to use. Yes, for us to use internally. What it does is confidentially, 11:57 takes all of the insights for all of the engagements that we've done with companies so that when we are working with clients, we can benefit from that collective knowledge and be able to deliver  better, deeper, faster insights from day one for our clients. So deeper insights, proven strategies, best practice execution. There isn't a workstream for marketing sales that isn't going to be impacted by AI. 12:25 So we've definitely thought about that and made sure that we can  leverage all this knowledge in order to help us be better marketers for our clients. That's  fascinating. It's kind of scary, right? So you've basically like in the healthcare industry, you've anonymized, right?  The plethora of data, right?  Within the  walls  of 12:54 chief outsiders of the 10 years of experience and I don't know how many clients, right? To then really document and have your own, for lack of another word, I guess, is it? The knowledge base. The knowledge base, but it's kind of an ocean, right? Data ocean. Yeah. And, you know, and this is how the AI tools work. 13:19 We figured we might as well have something that we can use on a proprietary basis and that can help us not only create our deliverables and have better deliverables, but also to help us manage processes.  Because as we talked about with marketing, there's just so much going on, so much to consider, so much to do. This AI platform also helps us to manage those processes.  And one of the things we haven't talked about yet is fractional resources. 13:47 I believe really are the future of work. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so excited to be a part of Chief Outsiders because we believe that as well. And that's also part of the reason why we built this platform.  Right. So one thing that I want to  highlight just from the last discussion here is 14:08 AEO rather than SEO or in addition to SEO that I mean, heard it here on the founder sandbox. Not only do we have to be looking to have our SEO optimization, it's AEO optimization. Yes. So answer engine optimization. And that's coming of course, from the AI tools. You know, I think the stat is something like 70, 71 % of searchers, anyone searching. 14:37 They're now using the AI engines instead of, or sometimes in addition to regular search. But it's the reason why Google is losing traffic share, right? Because people are going to these AI engines sometimes exclusively for certain things. And so this has had an impact on marketing in a couple of ways. One is we need to now optimize our content for answer engines, which it's not that much different from SEO. We still have to adopt the same good. 15:06 SEO practices, you keywords, relevance, backlinks, things like that. But now we call it LL  or large language model optimization in 2025. uh In order to be able to rank in those answer engines, we need to also consider  brand strength and authority, oh citations, quality of content, sentiment.  You know, we really 15:35 PR  from  authoritative sources is really going to become  more important. And so we do a lot of testing ourselves  in terms of how Chief Outsiders ranks in these engines. I was going to ask you, have you done that?  Yes. And that's how we know that it's not just the SEO good practices that's helping to rank in answer engines. um 16:02 It's also these other things, brand strength and authority. The content needs to answer questions. these engines are understanding when content is authoritatively answering a question. And there's so many factors involved in figuring that out. There are a number of tools we use to see how we're ranking. There are a number of tools we use to figure out how we're 16:33 uh how we're able to, uh I guess, for lack of better words, out the competition, right? And score, right? In our content. And we use this knowledge of how it's working for us  to help our clients as well. And we've been doing this from the beginning because we were very aware of all the changes. um So you have your own growth gears operating system. 17:00 It's a remote working AI enabled platform, right? That also enables remote and hybrid teams  that come together.  Speak to me a little bit about that. GrowthGear's operating system is effectively your LM?  Yeah, that's the, well, that's the AI platform that we developed is called the GrowthGear's operating system. And so not only does it leverage  the best content, the best tools, but because of the way that we're designing it and it's really to support us, right? And how we work. 17:29 we are really enabling fractional resources  and remote and hybrid teams to work together effectively on  the projects,  the marketing, the growth plans that companies need to scale.  this is kind of the way, I mean, if we believe that fractional resources are  of economic benefit to both companies because they don't have to hire 17:56 A lot, you know, heavy talent, right for long term. They can hire just what they need when they need it.  And also as they evolve and grow, they might need different resources, right? So they can they can cycle through  the skill sets they need, but but also because there's economic value because workers, if they want to be more flexible, if they want to leverage a specific skill set and not necessarily be tied to one company gives them  the freedom and flexibility to. So I think for for both reasons, there's there's a lot of. uh 18:26 momentum toward this style of working. the platform that we have, you know,  it  can enable these operational fractional resources, not only marketing, but any part of the organization in the future.  Let's go. Let's take that idea or what you're observing in the market and actual client work a little bit further. So how would a potential client 18:54 engage with chief outsiders. They're at, you know, 3 million AR, they have not yet hired a marketing full time, right? How, what would would walk us through a typical, for lack of another word, engagement, or how do they engage with chief outsiders? And particularly, the second part of that is, if you're talking about 19:21 Flash teams, I think is the term that you and I discussed, right? Yeah, it's actually the title of a book being launched by a professor from Stanford,  Melissa Valentine. She's coined this phrase flash teams, which essentially  is what cheap outsiders does, right? We  pull together the resources that a company needs at that moment in time in order to solve their growth problems.  we're essentially a flash team enabled by 19:51 the growth gears operating system. Cool. So I'm not I'm the CEO. I've got to hit some revenue milestones. I've interviewed some candidates. I'm not yet sold for you know, bringing in full time, full time chief marketing officer. Jen gives me a call. How do I how do you how do I engage with you? Yeah, well, the first thing I want to understand is, is what what keeps you up at night? 20:21 Right? What, what are some of your growth challenges that, you're struggling with? Because the first thing I want to do is really understand, you know, what resources do you need at this moment in time in order to get you from A to B?  so oftentimes  we'll look at this and say, is this, is this going to be solved by a marketing led team or sales led team? Sometimes that's the first  thing that we're thinking about. And then how much do we know already about the situation in terms of. 20:49 customers, competitors, market insights, customer buying journey, channels that are working and not working. We're wanna know all of that so that we can figure out the most efficient way to approach solving those growth challenges and what work streams are needed. So we'll bring in a fractional executive that's a good fit for that company and then orchestrate the resources that are required to get to the next step. And then when that engagement  is through, 21:18 we'll figure out what the next level is. Maybe the next level is bringing in full-time permanent resources to help execute and to help scale where we paid ourselves out of the picture. Or maybe it's just dialing back to more of an advisory role and then bringing in fractional resources from different places in order to be able to test and scale and see what's going to work, what's going to land  before we orchestrate on a more. 21:48 So we're very flexible with what a company needs at any point in time. And no two companies are alike. You when you're a $3 million company, you might have talent and skills and gaps that are different from the last client that we had. And we know that. We can recognize those situations just because we've had so much experience working with so many different companies. We can very quickly figure out what's needed for the next step and just give a company exactly what it needs. 22:16 to it. You do tap into your, your network of your 125  professionals with them, know, goodness,  the years of experience that you all have obtained while at fortune 1000 companies. Amazing. Oftentimes, I've seen you  with as keynote speaker, you do give conference speak and you speak at conferences. What one of the most recent 22:42 conferences.  I'm not uncertain where it was, but you the topic you spoke to, Jen, was winning website traffic in the age of AI, what CEOs need to know? Can you without sending us to  you know, that I don't know whether it's on online, we can put that in the show notes. But what's the top, you know, line messages from that conference where you spoke about winning website traffic? Yeah. 23:10 Well, I did it with a couple of my colleagues who are very experienced in digital transformation and now how to win traffic with the answer engines. And  so we talked about some of the uh tactics that we're finding work nowadays and how that's going to change how companies need to think about orchestrating their marketing mix. So Mike. 23:36 Colin Angela gave an example of a very specific example of an article that had been written for SEO that now needs to be written for AEO just so that people  could see the difference. But I think the main message that we were trying to send uh to companies is uh marketing is not static. Just because you've figured out your marketing mix doesn't mean it's going to work two years down the line. It's constantly evolving. And so you need leadership. 24:04 who can be thinking about how are customer behaviors changing? How do I reach them differently?  And the fact that  71 % of searchers are going to answer engines, that's a huge shift and marketers need to be ready to  address that. So  if you're a smaller company and you just don't have the resources to keep retraining your staff. 24:29 every year or so  and you need that expertise in the know how do I compete now today? How do I set myself up for success? That's where we as Fractional Resources can come in and help you be that learning organization, that resilient organization that's going to survive through the next sea of change. 24:51 That is  fascinating. Yeah, it's it's a living beast, right? marketing and it's moving so rapidly, it would be hard. I'm to actually have the inside resources, the talent inside unless they're constantly being retooled. So it is  an opportunity to use fractional resources, depth of expertise that you have.  Yeah.  And that's one thing that I value about the chief outsiders culture is the fact that I think what's made us 25:21 so resilient is the fact that we're really a learning and sharing organization. We've recognized that change happens rapidly. To be resilient, we need to change and constantly be learning and retooling ourselves. And that is something  we highly value.  But to be able to do that quickly,  no one person can do all this on their own. It's nearly impossible and very overwhelming. You can't do it in a silo. So we have a culture of sharing where 25:50 If we learn something new, um we'll share with the rest of the organization. So that, that, uh, that webinar that we did was just as much for us and our executives as it was for the clients that we, that we serve in this culture of sharing really creates resiliency in the sense that  if, a company brings in one of our fractional executives and let's say they encounter a market challenge or a sales challenge that that particular 26:19 executive hasn't seen before, they can turn to the other 125 marketers and say, hey, let's get together. Let's put our best brains on this business and determine what things we might be able to try or what things we should put in place in order to benefit this organization. And I think there's no individual fractional out there that has access to that much talent and expertise. 26:49 on a moment's notice as we do. And that's part of what's going to create the resiliency that we need as an organization  to survive in the next decade, because everything is just going to start to move faster and companies are going to just need that much more speed. So, but we also believe that's a value that we can bring in addition to being interim  and not being full-time and bringing in the expertise they need to write at that moment.  We can also draw on the collective expertise of the tribe. So the brain trust. 27:19 Well, that's a good term. love that. Right. Brain trust. I love that brain trust. One  technical question of the 125  professionals within chief outsiders and interim roles. Is it solely in the marketing area or do you also offer maybe in the sales?  there other interim roles?  That's a really good question. So we do focus on marketing and sales primarily, but sometimes we're actually brought in as fractional COOs. 27:49 as well or division heads. And it's because of our broad leadership expertise. And some of our executives have been  CEOs  of their own companies. They founded companies, they've sold companies. So they do have that broader business perspective, but primarily it's marketing and sales. Excellent. We're going to switch gears, to  the standby. No pun intended. 28:17 That's right. That's  here in the founder sandbox. I'm passionate about building resilience, scalable and purpose-driven companies. And I like to ask my guests briefly, what is the meaning of resilience? What does that mean to you? Or does he chief outsiders? It's a fascinating part of the podcast for me become that you have very different definitions. And that's the beauty of asking this. Yeah.  Well, I think that resilience, at least for for me, for us, a chief outsiders means 28:46 being able to survive and move forward and grow in the face of massive change.  Right. It's not, it's not bending to the will of the market. It's,  it's, it's basically saying, you know what? We know how we can add value at this moment in time. And we have the tools to address this change and add value. that, you know, it is one of the reasons why we constantly are thinking about 29:15 how do we bring more  to the table for our clients? So in addition to the growth years operating system that we created, we also have an ecosystem called team outsiders of fractional marketing execution resources that we can draw on at any point in time and create our own flash teams for our clients. So let's say we've gone through the strategy and we've determined that we really need an e-commerce expert 29:45 that can optimize Amazon or we really need somebody who can take charge of developing the content that's going to  address not only SEO and or but also AEO and we'll draw from our pool of team outsiders resources and we'll put together that fractional team for the client at a moment's notice. So we believe that that is going to make us a lot more agile. 30:13 for our clients because sometimes they just need to get started,  but they don't have time to go higher or they don't have time to go evaluate a new agency. We can bring somebody in. We can, we can set the stage. We can get things going and then let them have the time to decide really who they want on a longer term basis. So, you know, agile teams, flash teams, it comes from our ability to be able to,  draw on this network  of. 30:42 team outsiders and to be resilient.  How about purpose? What's purpose mean to you?  Purpose. You know, I think that when I look back on my career and also what I'm doing here at Chief Outsiders, I get the most satisfaction from seeing smaller companies grow from helping founders make their dreams come true. You know, there are so many great companies out there. 31:12 that just need a shot at the big time, right? And we can do that because we've seen it. We know how to get a company from one to a hundred. We've seen it. We know what a company at one or a company at zero, what they're faced with from the standpoint of  challenges, time, resources, focus, right? And so we can adjust what we do in order to adapt to that environment. But we know what an organization is going to need 31:41 to be competitive and to need to grow at 30, 50, 100. And we can keep our sights on what that needs to be and advise the companies we're working with on how they're gonna get there. So yes, we're implementing this today, but it's gonna look like this tomorrow, but we're not ready for that yet. We're just gonna do this here today because you don't have the time or the bandwidth or the money to do that many things. But this is, we've done the analysis, we've done the research, we've done the testing. 32:11 This is what you need to scale for right now. So, you know, being able to do that and then see  these companies grow from 10 to 30 to 50 million, it's a thrill. it  is very, very rewarding. So I think that, you know, I found my purpose and this is the, in speaking with my colleagues, they're all, we're all here for the same reason. So we really do have that shared. 32:39 purpose and we really enjoy what we do. Fantastic last one and then we'll move to how to contact you scalable growth. I'm certain you're going to talk about those the growth gears, but what's scalable right? What's that mean to you?  Scalable growth to me means we figured out what works and we can replicate it cost efficiently and cost effectively. So that is 33:07 our focus when we're working within the growth gears methodology, we're looking for the way to scale most cost-efficiently effectively. I know that one of the things that you are really big on with your  companies, the companies you invest in is governance. Yes. You're really big on governance.  And when I think about governance, I think about responsibility and accountability. And what that means to me as a marketer, 33:35 And  as a revenue leader is making sure that the spend that we commit to in marketing and sales is going to drive revenue and growth cost effectively.  so by making sure that we've done the analysis, that we figured out what's going to work, that we've tested before we scale is that responsible governance approach, right? To marketing and so 34:05 You know, I think that there are some companies that are in situations where they have to scale no matter what. They just throw money at it, you know, scale no matter what. And there are situations where that needs to happen. But we find with the companies that we work with that the more responsible, prudent, accountable, you know, organic growth is what the founders are looking for. And we know how to do that. 34:35 Replicable, right? Replicable, yes.  Amazing.  So Jen, um last question before  we listen to how to contact you. you have fun today in the Founder's Sandbox? Oh, it's always a pleasure to talk with you, Brenda. I really enjoy our conversations. We're of like minds. That's true. That's true. Avid readers and bringing the best to our clients. So thank you. How can my listeners 35:04 find you  and best reach chief outsiders. Yes. So they can find me on Jenna,  but they can also find me on the chief outsiders website on the leadership tab. And from the chief outsiders website, you can also learn about all of the things that we do. can meet all of the 125 executives that we have. You can learn more about growth gears, OS and team outsiders. Excellent.  And 35:32 In the show notes, will provide the assessment so that you listeners that are actually considering, you know, what do I need to do at this last quarter of the year, right? To plan my marketing resources, just download the assessment. It's a very interesting tool. So thank you. Well, to my listeners, if you enjoyed this episode with Jen Appie of 35:56 chief outsiders. I'd encourage you to subscribe to this monthly podcast where we have founders, business owners, corporate board directors and professional service providers that are really building scalable, purpose driven and resilient companies with great corporate governance. Signing off for this month. Thank you for joining us here on the Founder's Sandbox.  

In this episode, Casey sits down with Chris Crittenden, entrepreneur, educator, and co-founder of Sandbox, for a conversation on courage, innovation, and rethinking what education should be. From selling a startup to Walmart to leading at BYU and now building Sandbox into a movement across multiple universities, Chris shares why closing doors and going deep often leads to the greatest returns.He and Casey explore the flaws of traditional higher education, the trap of chasing prestige, and the power of learning by doing. Chris outlines how Sandbox is equipping students to launch real companies while reshaping themselves in the process. Their discussion dives into resilience, resourcefulness, and why the greatest opportunities often lie off the beaten path.This episode is both a critique of the old system and a vision for a new one, where students learn through building, failure is embraced as part of the process, and desire becomes the ultimate differentiator.What you'll learnHow traditional higher ed's incentives produce shallow learning—and how changing the “soil” unlocks genuine growth. The launch of the Sandbox Fellowship: a 12-month, accredited master's built around one job—build a company. The “neobank for universities” model: partnering with New Mexico Highlands University to innovate on top of accredited infrastructure. Why desire beats pedigree for founders, and how door-to-door grit translates into startup success. Chapters00:00 | Welcome & Chris's background 00:16 | Walmart exit, BYU connection & early influences 06:30 | Resourcefulness as the core Sandbox skill07:14 | Growing up: farm roots, do-it-yourself mindset09:51 | BYU → Consulting: chasing “stamps” vs. depth 10:27 | McKinsey, prestige traps, and closing doors 16:05 | Leaving Duke's PhD for a startup17:19 | Joining an unsexy company → billion-dollar outcome31:11 | Teaching at BYU: joy vs. the politics of change32:24 | Running the Rollins Center & building inside BYU 33:24 | Sandbox thesis: learn by doing, start real companies 35:58 | Early wins: teams into YC, model effects41:29 | Scaling beyond BYU: UVU story & lucky plane ride 43:02 | Six campuses: BYU, UVU, Utah State, Utah Tech, Boise State, Louisville 43:41 | The “neobank for higher ed” insight 45:27 | Announcing the Sandbox Fellowship (12-month MS, build a company) 46:42 | Why for-profit: hire the best, build the best experience 51:39 | Education as human transformation 53:36 | Sales, rejection, and D2D grit in startups 56:56 | Failure isn't opposite of success—it's part of it 59:55 | Fellowship launches today + how to apply 01:01:32 | Who gets in? One word: desire 01:03:46 | Scale: cohort sizes, no equity, partner funds 01:05:20 | Faith, purpose, and building for impact Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

CitizenCon Direct has delivered a lot to think about regarding the next 14 months of Star Citizen. A new star system, new factions, teh Vanduul, and mechanics like crafting. But how does it fit into the rest of this game's roadmap? Today I'm joined by youtuber and editor for the channel, TenPoundFortyTwo, to discuss the future of Star Citizen and what the latest info drop and tell us about it.Today's Guests:TenPoundFortyTwo:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tenpoundfortytwoTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/tenpoundfortytwoToC:00:00 Introductions02:00 Summarizing CitizenCon Direct09:55 Nyx is Coming18:40 Where is The Sandbox?30:00 Setting Expectations41:00 Crafting Coming To Star Citizen51:40 Planet Tech v5 is CRAZY01:05:30 New Content in 2026!01:39:45 What Wasn't There?Support This Podcast:Patreon Paypal Ko-FiFollow Space Tomato on social media:Website  Youtube  My Other Youtube  Instagram  Twitter  Facebook  Discord

Alan Gregerman is an internationally renowned authority on business strategy, innovation, and the hidden potential of grownups who has been called “one of the most original thinkers in business today” and “the Robin Williams of business consulting.”As the president and chief innovation officer of Washington, D.C.-based consultancy VENTURE WORKS, a best-selling author, sought-after keynote speaker, and community volunteer he focuses on helping companies and organizations unlock the genius in all of their people in order to deliver the most compelling value to their customers. He is also the founder of Passion forLearning, an award-winning nonprofit that teaches girls technology skills as a key to life and career success.His work has been featured in over 250 leading publications and media outlets in the U.S. and in other countries including the Wall Street Journal, NPR, CNN, The Economic Times, Business Week, Dagens Industri, and Fast Company and his writing, speaking, and teaching has informed and hopefully inspired over 700,000 people.His three previous books—The Necessity of Strangers, Surrounded by Geniuses, and Lessons from the Sandbox—challenge conventional thinking about people, the world around us, what it means to be remarkable, and where brilliant ideas come from. His new book, “The Wisdom of Ignorance: Why Not Knowing Can Be the Key to Innovation in an Uncertain World,” provides a powerful formula for making a difference in a world moving super-fast.Fun? fact…In March 2021 I had a rare and remarkable stroke and lost the ability to see and speak. It happened during dinner with my family and was a very clear reminder that we all live in an uncertain world. Fast forward and after eighteen months of speech, vision, and occupational therapy I am doing great, traveling, climbing mountains, kayaking, walking our dogs, and speaking with audiences around the world. Definitely grateful!The Wisdom of Ignorance is out October 14th! Thank you for listening to "Can You Hear Me?". If you enjoyed our show, please consider subscribing and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform.Stay connected with us:Follow us on LinkedIn!Follow our co-host Eileen Rochford on Linkedin!Follow our co-host Rob Johnson on Linkedin!

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 d-twista. From the artist: My name is d-twista! I got a DDJ-400 when I was in high school, but I really started after my sophomore year in college. My favorite genre is garage and my favorite DJ right now is salute. I hope to one day play a set at Boiler Room! Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/KHoXsg7BVUs ---------- Follow d-twista ◊ https://soundcloud.com/dean-cruz-3 ◊ https://www.instagram.com/dtwista__ ◊ https://www.tiktok.com/@deeeaaanooo ◊ https://www.instagram.com/deanangelocruz ---------- 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 Gian. From the artist: Open-format DJ inspired by love, life, and the moments that shape us. With a passion for diverse sounds, I blend genres seamlessly, infusing my sets with a unique Latin twist that reflects my Puerto Rican roots. Music is my language, and every mix is a story from beginning to end—crafted to connect hearts, ignite memories, and celebrate the beauty of genuine love. Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/YdIu7O9w7kU ---------- Follow Gian ◊ https://soundcloud.com/slyzobnhni97 ◊ https://www.mixcloud.com/203gian ◊ https://www.instagram.com/203gian ◊ https://www.tiktok.com/@moneywavegian ◊ https://www.facebook.com/gian.melendez.54 ---------- 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

Talking SANDchain, Pudgy Party hits 1 million installs, KGeN raises $13.5M and Proof of Play. [0:25] The big announcement is SANDchain; a Patreon-type rewards platform for creators.[1:25] It's more to do with providing extra utility for SAND token than for The Sandbox platform itself.[5:10] Verified creators can use SANDchain to take a loan to invest in their business.[7:01] Some creators will also be able to launch their own memecoins.[8:05] It feels like a smorgasbord of current blockchain trends. But will anyone actually use it?[9:44] Pudgy Party has hit 1 million mobile downloads and Mythos chain has also hit an ATH.[13:03] But the MYTH token is at a (near) ATL.[14:58] Web3 rewards platform KGeN has raised $13.5 million taking total funding to $43.5 million.[15:56] It started out as an Indian guild but is now a global platform with 66 million MAUs.[17:32] It verifies all its users across 5 categories, giving them an overall reputation score.[22:07] One thing to be aware of is KGeN's current users are being incentivized by a future airdrop.[24:29] South Korean web2/3 game item marketplace Overtake has launched its beta on Sui.[28:01] The continuing fall out from Pirate Nation's shutdown and the $50 burn price for its NFTs.33:10 Proof of Play is now working on a new mobile game.[34:53] It's also generated $500,000 in two months from its Proof of Play Arcade on Abstract.

If you've ever felt stuck running the day-to-day while the future rushes past, this conversation is your permission slip to step outside the building and rethink how your company actually innovates. In this episode, I sit down with innovation strategist and author Alan Gregerman to challenge the way leaders pursue “new.” We unpack his upcoming book The Wisdom of Ignorance and the counterintuitive idea that breakthrough ideas often come from not being the expert. Alan shares why most companies confuse process improvement with innovation, how to unlock the genius in your teams (especially your newest hires), and six leadership habits that keep organizations relevant in a world that won't slow down. You'll leave with practical ways to fuel curiosity, test faster, and future-proof your business. Here are highlights: -Innovation ≠ Incrementalism: Alan draws a sharp line between improving what exists and pursuing big, valuable problems, urging CEOs to imagine their company five years out and backcast a path to get there. -The 99% Rule: Breakthroughs are rarely born on a whiteboard. 99% of new ideas build on something that already exists. Get your team out into the world (museums, neighborhoods, other industries) to borrow and remix smarter. -Six Keys to Relevance: Be purposeful, curious, humble, respectful, future-focused, and a bit paranoid. You're creating value while scanning for the competitor who might “eat your lunch.” -Use Fresh Eyes on Purpose: In onboarding, hand new hires a clipboard and ask them what you're doing well, where you're stuck, and what other industries are doing better—before you “teach” them your way. -Ship the Half-Bake (Responsibly): Stop waiting for perfection. Launch minimally viable ideas that deliver real value and let customers help you iterate your way to remarkable. About the guest: Alan Gregerman is an innovation strategist, author, and the President & Chief Innovation Officer of Venture Works. For more than two decades, he has helped companies of all sizes remain relevant in fast-changing markets by unlocking the “genius” in their people and organizations. Alan has been featured in over 250 outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and CNN. He is the author of Lessons from the Sandbox, Surrounded by Geniuses, The Necessity of Strangers, and the forthcoming The Wisdom of Ignorance, a blueprint for leading breakthrough innovation. Based in the Washington, D.C. area, Alan works across industries and donates 20% of his time to small nonprofits, bringing the same tools and rigor he uses with corporate clients to missions that make the world better. Connect with Alan: Website: www.alangregerman.com  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-gregerman-a33b236/  Connect with Allison: Feedspot has named Disruptive CEO Nation as one of the Top 25 CEO Podcasts on the web, and it is ranked the number 6 CEO podcast to listen to in 2025! https://podcasts.feedspot.com/ceo_podcasts/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/  Website: https://www.disruptiveceonation.com/   #CEO #leadership #startup #founder #business #businesspodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of On the Brink with Andi Simon, I had the pleasure of speaking with Alan Gregerman, an internationally recognized authority on business strategy, innovation, and the hidden potential within all of us. Known as the “Robin Williams of Business Consulting,” Alan brings humor, humanity, and deep insight into how we can adapt, grow, and innovate in a world changing faster than ever before. I couldn't wait to share this podcast with you! My friend and innovation mentor, Alan Gregerman, joined me on On the Brink with Andi Simon for a stimulating conversation that digs into the interesting challenges facing all those who want to find their own best way of innovating. The "Robin Williams of Business Consulting," Alan injects humor, humanity, and leading-edge thinking into the brutal truth about how we need to adapt, change & innovate so now we win in a world changing faster than ever. Alan's latest book, "The Wisdom of Ignorance: Why Not Knowing Can Be a Catalyst for Innovation in an Uncertain World," reminds us that our lack of knowledge can be the source of the greatest discovery. During our conversation, we discussed his unique personal journey, his desire to help others reinvent themselves, and the most critical skills for all of us to cultivate to succeed in a world of disruptions. Curiosity Begins Early Alan revealed that his interest in other cultures began in early life. His mother, a specialist in world history, and one cherished gift — an atlas — prompted him never to stop learning and exploring. That early sense of curiosity would eventually form the basis of his career: to help businesses and individuals look beyond what they know, he tells them, to find new ideas in unexpected places. This investigative spirit has characterized his writing, from Lessons from the Sandbox (about reclaiming the creativity of childhood) to Surrounded by Geniuses (on how ordinary people and ideas can spur innovation) to The Necessity of Strangers (for why we must connect with people unlike ourselves). Now, with The Wisdom of Ignorance, he contends that expertise is not sufficient: we must develop the courage to say "I don't know" and use that humility to drive our future expos. Why Adults Resist Change A common refrain in our conversations was how hard it is to make a change. Alan reminded us that whereas 10% of people are quick to embrace new concepts, and another 10% resist vigorously, the rest of us tend to be somewhere in between. This resistance is not only cultural — it's neurological. Because our brains are wired to conserve energy, they will always prefer established habits over new things to learn. It's why Alan emphasized that innovation frequently demands creating small, quantifiable experiments. We can try ideas out incrementally rather than insisting on wholesale change overnight. These experiments help build confidence, reduce fear, and allow us to adjust more organically to the world as it changes. Watch our video of our podcast on YouTube. Wisdom of Ignorance Alan's methodology is based on what he dubs the six fundamental skills for flourishing in uncertain times. Central to them is purpose. Without something transformative and exciting enough to wake up for, innovation merely wanders around aimlessly. Clarity of purpose, whether it's in a for-profit or not-for-profit organization, is what leads to curiosity and experimentation, which begets growth. "When I speak with people at non-profits, one of the common themes you'll hear is a greater sense of purpose than businesses," Alan says that both sectors need to revisit and sharpen their "why constantly." "Best is a space that's kind of a moving target," as he put it. What works today is no guarantee of relevance tomorrow, and without purpose, even the greatest idea can lose its impact. The Six Essential Capabilities of an Innovative Organization Alan boiled it down to six related skills - all of which are the building blocks of his book and consulting practice: 1. Purposefulness – Commit to something worth doing that is meaningful. 2. Curiosity – Ask for inspiration and you will find it, remembering that behind most great ideas is the thinking of others. 3. Humility – Acknowledge we don't have all the answers, discovery starts with an open mind. 4. Respect – Respect everybody and everything, they are coming from somewhere unexpected. 5. Focus Forward – Peer into the future with a focus on newer trends, cultures, and ideas. 6. Paranoia: Stay aware of the fact that competitors and threats are always on your heels. These habits together prompt us to adopt what Santayana gleefully termed "enlightened ignorance" — a stance that appreciates not knowing as yet as the beginning rather than the end of knowledge. Lessons for Leaders As an anthropologist, Alan's take felt eerily familiar. We both believe that growth is often staring organizations in the face, disguised in plain sight — if only they can look beyond their routines and assumptions. Leaders need to push teams out of their comfort zones, provoke new ways of thinking, and acknowledge progress along the journey. Alan cautioned us that our customers aren't loyal because they're devoted to us — they stay with us because switching to another provider seems more complex. But they'll leave as soon as something better comes along. Innovation, therefore, isn't optional. It's survival. Human-Centered Change All this talk of disruption nowadays is mainly centered on technology — and current trend words like AI, Bitcoin, blockchain, or the Fourth Industrial Revolution — but Alan warned us to remember that much more critical forms of change are human and social. From changing values across generations to increasing loneliness and shifting work habits post-COVID, leaders need to pay attention to the people side of transformation. He urges us to reach out to strangers, listen more closely, and pay attention to the subtle signs of change that are all around us. In it, we can transform ignorance into discovery and shape futures that count. A Final Thought Alan's lesson is that you don't have to have all the answers in your mind to do something remarkable. All you need is a sense of purpose, curiosity, humility, respect for others, and a focus on the future — together with just enough paranoia to keep you from being complacent. Most of all, you need to warm up to the wisdom that eighth graders get every single day going into high school: not knowing. For, as these people remind us: "We all actually do have the ability to make a difference. It's something we can attain if we engage in a few crucial behaviors each day." His new book, The Wisdom of Ignorance, was published on October 14 and is available wherever fine books are sold. Key Takeaways: • Lean into what you don't know — that's where the wonder is, and that's where you'll feel becoming. • Purpose orients; small experiments build confidence. • Remain curious, humble, respectful of norms and traditions while remaining future-oriented, and a bit paranoid. • The human and social change is at least as important as the technological disruption. • Each and every one can make a difference one step at a time. Connect with Alan:  Alan's Profile: linkedin.com/in/alan-gregerman-a33b236 Website: alangregerman.com/ (Personal Connect with me: Website: www.simonassociates.net Email: info@simonassociates.net Books:  Learn more about our books here: Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business Women Mean Business: Over 500 Insights from Extraordinary Leaders to Spark Your Success On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights Listen + Subscribe: Available wherever you get your podcasts—Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, YouTube, and more. If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and share with someone navigating their own leadership journey. Reach out and contact us if you want to see how a little anthropology can help your business grow.  Let's Talk!

On this episode of The Founder's Sandbox, Brenda speaks with Anbern R. Guarrine: a partner of The Guarrine Group (tGG), a global training company based in Illinois. tGG has facilitated team building, leadership, and organizational development workshops around the world for over 30 years. tGG partners with excellent facilitators who help groups have FUN, which is a hallmark of tGG Anbern R. Guarrine calls herself a "Facilitator of Family Play." By facilitating games, she helps participants gain insights about their strengths, their relationships with peers, and how they can use their skills to move forward in their professional and professional lives. As a partner in tGG, Anbern enjoys challenging herself by taking on uninteresting topics and developing them into fun, game-based learning modules. She is Gallup trained in Strengths Coaching and has received the Family Firm Institute (FFI) Certificate in Family Business Advising. She enjoys sharing best practices with professionals of various disciplines and continually grows her understanding of the consulting space. You can find out more at: https://www.theguarrinegroup.com/       Transcript:  00:04 Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe, your host, now in this fourth season  of the Founder's Sandbox podcast. This monthly podcast reaches entrepreneurs, business owners who learn about 00:33 building resilient, purpose-driven, and scalable businesses with great corporate governance. My guests also share this mission and actually working with entrepreneurs and um business owners  to also work on those aspects, each in their own manner. My guests are  founders,  professional service providers, who like me want to use the power of the enterprise, be it small, medium, or large. 01:02 to make change for a better world. Through storytelling with a guest on topics that's gonna touch on their, you know, why they do what they do today. And we are recreating a fun sandbox environment where we can equip one business owner at a time to build a better world. Today, I'm absolutely delighted to have as my guest, Anberne Guarrine. Guarrine? 01:31 Anberne Guarrine. Yes, Anberne Guarrine. um And she is, thank you, Anberne, for joining the podcast today as CEO and founder, the co-founder of the Guarine Group out of Illinois. As the founder sandbox host, Brenda McCabe and blogger, I often have guests who speak about playfulness and innovation. 01:59 And I write about the hidden value  that playfulness brings to innovation and creativity in teams. When Anber was introduced to me by a fellow guest, um she truly brings uh the playfulness that is used in the  business environment to a next level. As facilitator of family play, think listeners. We're team building. 02:27 rubber ducks and beach balls meet second and third generation family business owners. So I am absolutely delighted to have you here today. Thank you, Ann-Bern.  Oh, thanks for having me. I'm so excited.  Fantastic. So  I would love you to share with uh my listeners the origin story. I mean, how did  you use playfulness  in the business environment in a very structured 02:56 manner now you're going on I believe 10 years  with the Guarine group working with family owned businesses. What was the origin? What was that seed that you had in your mind? Thank you. Yeah, so when I was in college undergrad  is psychology and  I learned that I like working with groups. Okay. And so while I was 03:21 you know, doing my day job  of whatever it was that I was doing, I knew that I always gravitated towards doing team buildings and leadership programs. And so  at some point I said, you know what, I should start making this a business. And so the entrepreneurial spirit came in and I created a training company with a friend of mine. And so we were doing team buildings and leadership and communication programs. 03:51 We had corporate groups. We also had  government contracts.  And at some point, it was really all fun. I was doing what I wanted to do, but at some point there was just a tug in the heart, know, in my spirit. I was looking for something more. I was looking for sustainable impact because I was thinking as fun and as wonderful as our experience is with the groups that I was doing. 04:20 I just felt like  there's gotta be something more. There's gotta be more sustainable  impact. And around that time, my business partner's brother  said, you know, I'm going into inheritance planning. I'm thinking maybe my clients need some team building.  And  you know, I know a whole lot about team building and groups. 04:46 I did not know a whole lot about families and especially families who own businesses together. That's  a whole different dynamics. And so my, my business partner and I,  you know,  went through what resources can we get? And we found that there is a group that actually does this  for a living. Yes. They do family business consulting. And so  we both got our certificate for family business advising. 05:15 And then we hit the ground running. um But we cannot shake off our fun activities and our games. We can't shake it off. And so we took it with us in the family boardroom. And that's how I got started. And I still use rubber ducks and beach balls and whatnot. Right. And later on in the interview, you'll talk about what a typical engagement looks like, right, with the Guarani group. 05:45 in which uh you not only touch on  the family use family play, right playfulness, but you also get into kind of the um Constitution of the family. So let's carry on. Let's carry on. You know, what have you found is unique  about the family business experience? Unlike working for the corporates, right?  What is that? I don't know secret sauce. 06:12 that are the uniqueness that you've had to kind of curate your business around? Yeah, so what I found out  is that uh family businesses actually live in three ecosystems, okay, whether they're aware or not, there's the ecosystem of the family. There's the ecosystem of the business. And then there's the ecosystem of  ownership. 06:41 And those three systems have different values. They protect those values differently and they have different goals. So let me explain this. If you think about your family, you think about your objective is to support the growth and development of everyone in the family. Your values are love, unconditional regard, you know, you want everybody to thrive. There's  all of that  social. 07:10 Connections. Yes. When you think about the business experience, you think about people, what are their contributions? How can they help this business grow? We're thinking of keeping the business for the long term. You know, you're making decisions for the long term. And so  you're thinking of profit. You're thinking of growing the company. So those are the values and those are your mindsets, right?  As an owner, oh 07:38 If you are investing in the business, you're thinking of  what's my ROI?  How can I get as much profit in a short period of time? And so those are the values and the objectives. Now, if you think  of all these three circles as not just individual circles, but connected kind of like a Venn diagram. Yes, like a Venn diagram.  A family business is right in the middle of it. 08:04 So you're making decisions, thinking about the family, thinking about ownership, thinking about the business. And  whether you're aware of it or not, you're making the, you have different hats that you're wearing, right? And so what we do as family consultant or consultants to family businesses is we help you kind of untangle that and kind of understand this is my situation and these are my goals for the family, my goals for the business. 08:34 there could be some friction there, but there's also a unity there. And so just the awareness and the appreciation of your unique experience. So uh how do  you, is it typically the CEO, the chairman? um Is it the general counsel? Again, because you're working on uh family wealth um creation,  who is the typical 09:03 uh decision maker that would get engaged with a querying group? So sometimes the people, yeah, no, that's a great question.  Sometimes the people that  make the decision are actually not sometimes not always not the people that have the title. 09:26 So sometimes it is the people that are in the family ecosystem that are not necessarily part of the business or not necessarily owners, but they have a big say in terms of the family dynamics. Interesting. So a confidential mentor is it maybe general counsel, so an outside they're already an outside advisor to the family.  It could be because sometimes when you're very close to the situation,  you 09:54 don't know what you don't know, right? Right, right. Yes. um Sometimes on the rare occasion, there are family leaders who are very in tune to what their family needs and they're constantly looking out, right?  But sometimes there have to be somebody  else that is not currently involved in the day-to-day that says, hey, you might want to have a conversation with this person. Right. 10:24 That makes sense.  Yeah.  Particularly as some family companies evolved to bring in professional management, right? So there are probably many, many aspects or many entry points. All right, you're 10 years into uh the great chlorine group. uh I would love to ask, you know, what are some best practices, right, that you've identified without revealing the names of the businesses? But what have you found to be 10:55 best practices  in, I guess, G2,  G3, right? Yes. um Before I say anything, I want to preface it to say that you see one family business, you just see one family business, so they're not all the same. But there is a thread that is common.  And I'd  like to say three things. So first  is, there is a clear 11:22 and conscious separation  of the family ecosystem and the business ecosystem. And they have two separate government structures. Okay. So for the business, you have your board, have, you know, typically the board would have an independent non-family member that sits on the board.  They have regular meetings that are prepared and scheduled. 11:50 And in the same manner,  the family also has that type of family governance structure. So not as formal as the family board, but you do have what they call a family council. Yes. So it could be a  council of cousins, a council of  siblings, all branches are represented. And this is a way for the family to keep the business of being a family. Right. And so they talk about um 12:19 They talk about uh family gatherings. They talk about traditions.  They talk about, you know, family fun, you know, what do we do,  birthdays and all of that thing. um And so, yeah, so this is, so they're very conscious about keeping the two separate. Yes. So that's the first one. I think the  next um best practice would be that they have a shared purpose. 12:50 They know why are we in business together?  Or why are we hanging out together? What is our what is the legacy that we are leaving in the world? So they have they're very connected to that. And they're, they acknowledge it and they articulate it. And I think that's a great  best practice that I've Yeah, I guess I would call that purpose, right? Purpose. Yes, driven. And it's shared purpose, or purpose. 13:18 And I think the third one would be that they have  a sense of what their values are. Okay.  guides them. And so where their purpose kind of helps them soar and go into the future, their values kind of keep them grounded. Oh, so that they don't just fly away where the wind blows. Does that make sense? It's it does. um I had never it doesn't the at the 13:48 I don't work with family businesses, right? So it's,  I've seen this in very well run  growth companies. They, right? um The shared practice  or the leaving a legacy is typically the founding team, right? Whereas it's a family here.  So I do see a lot of similarities.  And I love your  sharing that values,  it keeps them grounded while the 14:17 shared purpose, right?  Is kind of their long term vision soaring. Yes.  Well, we'll get to meanings of purpose driven later. And I'm certain you'll come back to this. All right. Thank you for sharing that best practices. Now, what does a typical engagement look like? Are you playing all day long?  Or how does play come into how right or  more? um 14:47 Seriously, how would we've already talked about how you may be retained for an engagement, but what would be a typical engagement or typical engagements, right? Depending on the stage  of uh evolution of that, family business. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So  we start with finding out what the goals of the family is.  So we talk to individual members. What is it that you want? What are you? 15:14 engaging us for? Are you engaging us for just one day of family fun, which is great?  Are you trying to clarify your values or are you trying to  go deeper dive and create a family constitution? Okay.  And in all of those,  I always lean on my experiential learning background where I take, you know, the the  fun tools, the rubber ducks and the beach balls and the plastic balls. 15:43 sticks  and we play  and I  get everybody to kind of break that ice and forget their hats, know, the  CEO hat or the accounting hat or  whatever hats you have to kind of shed that a little bit and be more human.  And  once we get to that level, then we can talk about,  what are your goals? If your goal is trying to clarify your values, 16:13 what is it when you were playing earlier, how did your value show up? You know,  or when we're talking about a family constitution, we talk about, you know, how do we pass on things from one generation to the next? So when you were passing on the beach ball, how what made it successful? Let's look at that. And are there ways that we can make sure that we do those similar things  as we pass on the baton from  one generation to the next? And,  yeah, and so m 16:43 A typical engagement could be  one day,  we'll do fun and then we'll talk about why does that matter? Okay. Or it could be more deeper dive. And at the end of the day, we have a family constitution that everybody can sign and commit that we can then turn over to their legal counsel to make it more legally binding. Right, right.  So it could be anywhere from three months to six. 17:11 to 12 months, right, depending on the level of engagement and the actual oh whether it's to G2 G3, right, the complexity. Yes. Oh, and these  engagements by  design are probably in person. Okay. Is that correct? They have to be right? Particularly? 17:38 Yeah, so we in the beginning, there's when we're trying to kind of get everybody on board, we could do it online, we could do zoom. But the actual engagement, it will have to be we all have to be breathing the same air. Right?  Yes. Yeah, there's something to be said about sharing the space. There's something to be said about being in the same place. 18:06 being able to touch somebody, being able to hear their laughter real time in the same room. There's just something about that. Yes, that comes from a practitioner's  experience and been  worrying from the worrying group.  And facilitating, I would say good governance and family businesses. 18:32 I just that just occurred to me while we're talking, right? I was so set on playfulness, but also it's really about achieving good corporate governance because you alluded to something here. Well, you know, what does a typical family constitution comprise? What is the comprised of family constitution? Yeah, that's a really good question. So, yeah, so we first off, we define what does family mean to everybody? 18:58 And then we talk about, you know, what are the family practices that we want to keep? So,  um, so that's the, so again, when, when I was talking about the three ecosystems,  the family constitution is meant to kind of  set the stage for governance structures for each of the three ecosystems. Okay. So for the family, what are our values? What are the, what's our legacy? What is our history? 19:27 know, m what is our hopes and dreams for  the family members? Do we have an educational program for, you know, understanding what our history is about? um If there are people that are coming in as married-ins  or in-laws, how do we kind of educate them into our culture? And so that's the family piece.  For the business piece,  we talk about 19:54 What is our hiring process for family members? Do we hire straight out of college? Do they have to have so many years of experience? And then we talk about the tricky things like, okay, do they have  job  evaluation?  Do they have an annual performance reviews? What happens if they don't quite meet the standard? um Can they work directly under their parents? 20:23 know, or their siblings, you know. So, one of these questions that are potential sticky spots, we talk about them ahead of time before  you're actually in that situation and then  all the emotions are wrapped up in  both the brainstorming, trying to figure out the solution, and then you're also in the thick of it. 20:47 So I mentioned the family system, the business system, and then in the ownership system, we talk about things like, do you even have a shareholder's agreement? What happens if somebody wants to sell their shares?  And how do we figure out what the  value of the shares are?  What's the process going to be like? How long will it take? we pay them immediately, or do we want to think about  long term? 21:14 Do the other siblings or the other family members have the right of first refusal?  Can they just share, you know, all these things. Right.  So we talk about those things again, hopefully before you meet the situation, you already have systems in place that allows the family to say, Oh, you know what? We've talked about this. This is our process. This is what we're going to do. Or if we don't have a process. 21:39 then we say, this is our decision-making matrix. This is how we're going to come up with decisions. Because you can't potentially talk about everything. No. There are emotions involved.  Yes. Possibly on a greater scale than in a private company, right?  Yes. so  we recognize that. And so we create systems. How do we make decisions together  if we come up with or if we find ourselves in a situation that we haven't anticipated? 22:10 you know, preparing for your node. Yes, I wonder, you know, why do you continue to have the role of play in your toolkit? Right? Gosh, that's a wonderful question. I see it at the beginning, but do you use it throughout? Just? Yeah. Why is that part of your toolkit? Yes, because it's fun. And, and I, I now say fun, as in both 22:39 F-U-N and also F-U-N-N.  So a friend and colleague of ours,  the late Carl Runke, he  is known, very well known and a  key individual in creating adventure programming.  He coined the term  F-U-N-N, meaning functional understanding, not necessary. Sometimes we do fun things because we have to have fun. 23:09 know, we don't need that said,  my husband in his career as an outdoor education um specialist and director,  he took Carl's idea of FUNM and said, Okay, what if fun has an acronym? And he came up with fundamental universal need. Okay, and he said, it's very basic, as basic as food and water and shelter, the sense of I need to have fun. Like if you look at 23:39 children all over the world, you give them a stick and mud and they're clean, right? And so it's fundamental, it's universal and it's a need.  And  with  neuro-psychology um and all these studies, we now know that FUN is actually a very good tool, not only for brain development for children, but also for neuroplasticity for grownups, right? So if we want to keep our brains fresh, m 24:09 we need to play and it's a need,  right? Right, almost like biological.  And we learn so much better and so much easier when we're in a state of play. So when we're talking about creating a family governance structure,  if the family doesn't know what that is, if the family is not used to having a formal meeting talking about family matters,  it's really hard  to learn that unless you're in a state of 24:38 play.  And so that's the reason why I use play because it brings down the boundaries.  Take the hats off, you know, so you're not formal. You're engaged. You're engaged with your whole body, your whole mind and your soul. Okay, it's easier to learn about the other person and it's easier to learn new skills and new mindsets when you're in a state of play. So yeah, and uh 25:07 I like sharing this story. Einstein  had said when he was, when he gets  stuck in a problem,  he steps away from it and he does something that's not related at all to the problem that he's doing. So sometimes he plays the violin or  he tickers around and he says something about  activating that different part of your brain.  Helps him so that when he goes back, 25:36 and looks at the same problem that he was stuck in, it kind of changes his mindset and he finds different ways to solve that situation. And so if I'm thinking, you know what, if it works for Einstein, it should probably work for us, for ordinary people, right? You heard it here on the founder's sandbox. I love that. You know, I know that quite a few, like mathematicians, scientists, 26:05 even composers, Beethoven like walking, right? Being in nature is an area that foments their creativity. I hadn't thought of that or hadn't heard about the Einstein like stepping away, maybe playing violin, maybe just right doing another activity. Why not play? Why not plenty? Right? Yes. No shame adults. We can increase and improve our neuroplasticity. 26:35 Yes.  Being playful. Yes. Thank you. Can I share with you a story? Yes. So one time I was doing, you know, the typical activities that I was doing.  And  one time a family member in the midst of all the laughter and the like  really big shouts and all of that. And he just said, you know what? I don't remember the last time I played with my siblings.  Oh. 27:03 And this was the time that they got to do that  with their parents. Their parents were all in on the fun. it's like, that is such a gift.  It is such a gift for them to have that experience, but it's a gift, a privilege that I got to see that. And so, yes, it is fun. Wow. Wow. I almost, okay. I got emotional. 27:33 Thank you.  I would like you to have uh this opportunity to provide information  on how to contact you, your group.  This information will be in the show notes. So take it on that, please.  Yeah. Yeah. So our website is the Guarrien group. That's G like George, U-A-R-R-I-N like Nancy. 28:02 Theguarriengroup.com and my email is Anbern, N like Nancy,  B-E-R-N like Nancy at Theguarrienroup.com. That's the best way to get a hold of me. 28:19 But I  like to bring my guests back to my sandbox so we can be playful.  No, seriously, um I am passionate in my own work um with  growth stage companies to provide uh good corporate governance practices while scaling, while finding or increasing the purpose,  and um really 28:48 building that resiliency. And I like to ask each of my guests, you know, what does the term resilience mean to you and your own practice? Yeah. So to me, resilience is like, think of a river that's flowing. Okay.  Even if you put a boulder in front of it, it's going to find its way. It's going to keep going to where it wants to go. Yeah. And to me, that's resilience. Wow. Beautiful. 29:19 and very  visual, I can imagine a boulder and a river. How about purpose driven enterprise? What's purpose driven? ah Purpose driven, I feel like it's our ability to know that our time on this earth is limited.  Okay, we have a role to play. And so  what is my role? And that kind of gives me 29:48 a sense of direction. What am I in this world for?  Wow. 29:59 And that goes for individuals, businesses, families, organizations.  Yeah, I guess you could interchange role with legacy. Yes. Right. Oh, I like that. I like that. Well, you just said it here. And I'm just taking notes. uh And I listen. That's my gift is to my guests.  Final. Well, second to last question, scalable growth. What's scalable? So how can you 30:28 scale those. I imagine you in your daily work, generation two, generation three, that's you think about this a lot. Yes. I think scalable  is creating the right foundation. Okay. So that when  as you grow,  your if your foundation is strong, then you can build on top of it anyway, in any way, however big you want to build. So I feel like scalable growth has to be 30:58 on a good foundation.  You know what you're about.  You're rooted in your values. And so you can grow exponentially. Nice. Last question. Yes. Did you have fun in the sandbox today? Gosh, did talking with you savor or satisfy my fundamental universal need? Yes, it did. And we didn't have to revert to  rubber ducks. 31:27 Right? No rubber ducks.  No. Thank you.  So to my listeners, if you like this episode with Anne-Bern Guarine, sign up for the monthly release where founders,  professional service providers, and business owners  share their experience on how to build with strong corporate governance, resilient, scalable, and purpose-driven companies to make profits for good. 31:55 Signing off for this month. Thank you again, Anne-Bern. It was a true pleasure to have you here. My gosh, I had so much fun. Thank you.    

In this episode, we will dive deep into Innovation Sandbox on AWS, a new AWS solution offering that transforms the management of temporary sandbox environments, by offering a ready-made solution that enables customers to reduce sandbox setup time from weeks to hours while automating spend controls, security policies, and usage monitoring. Learn how AWS customers – from Universities to Enterprises – are using the Innovation Sandbox on AWS to empower their teams to learn, experiment, and innovate faster on AWS. Product page: https://aws.amazon.com/solutions/implementations/innovation-sandbox-on-aws/ Implementation Guide: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/solutions/latest/innovation-sandbox-on-aws/solution-overview.html Source code on GitHub: https://github.com/aws-solutions/innovation-sandbox-on-aws

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz said he would introduce legislation to establish AI sandboxes to allow companies “room to breathe” without running up against regulations. Cruz announced that proposal as well as a legislative framework for AI policy ahead of a Wednesday hearing before the Subcommittee on Science, Manufacturing, and Competitiveness on the administration's recent AI Action Plan. The concept of regulatory sandboxes were among the more than 90 policy recommendations outlined in that document. Cruz said during the hearing: “Under the Sandbox Act, an AI user developer can identify obstructive regulations and request a waiver or a modification, which the government may grant for two years via a written agreement that must include a participant's responsibility to mitigate health or consumer risks,” adding that “a regulatory sandbox is not a free pass. People creating or using AI still have to follow the same laws as everyone else.” Drew Myklegard is stepping down from his role as deputy federal CIO after nearly four years, FedScoop has learned. Two sources with knowledge of the matter said Myklegard told colleagues he's taking a role in the private sector and that his last day will be Sept. 22. A holdover from the Biden administration, Myklegard was appointed to the deputy federal CIO role in early 2022, after a more than eight-year stint in supporting IT operations at the Department of Veterans Affairs. During his time in the Office of the Federal CIO, he championed a number of key governmentwide technology modernization initiatives, including rolling out a new policy reforming federal cloud security authorizations under FedRAMP and guidance on how agencies acquire and inventory AI tools, among others. On Monday, Myklegard was recognized with a FedScoop 50 award in the Golden Gov: Federal Executive of the Year category. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

What do you do when your company is running out of money, your industry has collapsed, and even you think your idea is dumb? That's the situation Siqi Chen, now founder and CEO of the finance platform Runway, faced in 2016 when he became CEO of Sandbox, a VR startup. Yet through a bold move, Chen managed to get the right people to believe, securing funding for a product that was a stupid good time.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anil Lulla and Yan Liberman host Sapijiju, co-founder of Pump.fun. Sapijiju shares Pump.fun's bigger vision: beyond meme coins, it's aiming to be the most rewarding social platform, revolutionizing creator monetization, and building a $2B-backed financial ecosystem.Pump.fun: https://pump.fun

If you're planning the perfect Sand Valley golf trip, this podcast has you covered. We talk through all the courses, food, and lodging with a full itinerary to make the most of your trip. In this episode of The Golf Podcast, we take you inside our bucket-list trip to Sand Valley Golf Resort and break down the perfect golf itinerary for anyone planning to go. We played every course on property—Sand Valley, Mammoth Dunes, Sedge Valley, the Lido, and the Sandbox—and share what makes each one special. From short courses with legendary architecture to wide fairways built for scoring, we detail exactly how to structure your rounds to get the most out of your trip. But it's not just about golf. We also dive into the food, lodging, and off-course experiences that make Sand Valley such a complete destination. From Craig's Porch and its famous dollar tacos to Bill's Barbecue and the Gallery's surprisingly excellent pizza, we cover all the must-eats. You'll also hear about lodging options from the Mammoth Suite above the clubhouse to the secluded cottages by the new Commons course. Whether you're a group of buddies, a bachelor party, or just chasing your golf bucket list, this episode lays out the step-by-step playbook for doing Sand Valley right. If you're planning your first trip—or already booking a return—you won't want to miss this guide.   Listen to This Week's Show Download on iTunes here Listen on Spotify here Thanks to this Week's Sponsors Titleist is committed to ensuring that every golf ball delivers superior quality and consistency.  From ball to ball, dozen to dozen we should expect our golf ball to perform exactly the same way, shot after shot. That's why Titleist owns the design, the technology and the manufacturing to make sure consistency spot on every time. They even conduct all the testing and quality checks to make sure nothing slips through the cracks.  Titleist is the #1 ball for every player and the #1 ball in golf.  Choose the best for your game and find out more at Titleist.com. Trust your golf game to FootJoy, the number one Shoe in Golf. Shop now at FootJoy.com. Thanks for tuning to The Golf Podcast! Cover Image via X