This Is Success

Adena Friedman has the top job at Nasdaq, one of the world's biggest stock exchanges. Early in her career, she learned how to impress her bosses by taking initiative, and when she became the boss, she found ways to make the whole company more efficient. Friedman tells us about competing with the New York Stock Exchange and shares her thoughts on cryptocurrency. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This week, we feature the first episode of Business Insider's new podcast, "Household Name," which you can find on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. Before TGI Fridays was the suburban strip mall staple it is today, it was a wild place in Manhattan, and likely the first singles bar in America. "Household Name" brings you surprising stories behind our biggest, household name brands. Host Dan Bobkoff finds tales of tragedy, love, strange histories, unintended consequences, and accidental success. And in each episode, we find out how these brands changed our lives – for better or worse. Enjoy this preview, and subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen. This is Success is back next week. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ryan Serhant moved to New York City when he was 22, hoping to launch a career on Broadway. When that dream didn’t pan out, he found a different route into show business—as a real estate agent. Serhant is now the star of Bravo’s reality TV show “Million Dollar Listing” and the Serhant Team is one of the top real estate groups in the United States. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Marie Forleo is a life and business coach with hundreds of thousands of followers online. When she first started giving strangers advice almost 20 years ago, Forleo barely had her own life together. She was working two jobs to scrape by, and when she wasn’t bartending or teaching dance, she collected emails for her newsletter. As Forleo’s business grew and she learned what it took to be an entrepreneur, she shared those lessons with her audience. Today she’s managed to incorporate all of her passions—including dance—into her YouTube channel, podcast, performances, and online lessons. And she’s found followers who want to be there every step of the way. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You may know Bethenny Frankel from her lead role on the "Real Housewives of New York." But her name is also the driving force behind an expanding empire of brands. She’s the brain behind Skinnygirl cocktails—a company she sold in 2011 for $100 million. And in her spare time she runs B Strong, a charity which provided disaster relief aid to Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria. Frankel says she doesn’t always have a grand plan, but she knows a good opportunity when she sees one. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For more than a decade, Eddy Lu tried to find the next big thing. Golf apparel, 99-cent smartphone apps, Japanese desserts — they all flopped, but he wasn’t headed back to the Wall Street world he left. Then he got into high-end sneakers, with an online marketplace called GOAT— as in “greatest of all time,” like they say in sports and rap. Today GOAT is the world’s biggest sneaker resale market. It has over $100 million in funding, seven million users, more than 300 employees, and 400,000 pairs of sneakers for sale. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sylvia Acevedo is a trailblazer in business and tech. She was one of the first Hispanic students to get a master's in engineering from Stanford, she worked for years as a Silicon Valley executive, and on top of that, she's an actual rocket scientist. As CEO of Girl Scouts, Acevedo is reinventing the organization to focus on STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math—and she hopes more young women will follow in her footsteps. Boy Scouts may now be recruiting girls too, but she says it'll never compete with the opportunities Girl Scouts offers. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Sedaris built a career by sharing his life through essays. He writes about everything from the death of family members to his love of picking up garbage, and his performances are both heart wrenching and hilarious. His comedy albums have been nominated for Grammys, and his books have sold more than 10 million copies. And while he likes the attention, it’s never been what drives him. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Katherine Power worked for years to land her dream job at Condé Nast. But when an offer came, she turned it down. Instead, she joined with a friend to start what became Clique Brands. It includes a mix of companies, like fashion blog Who, What, Wear and a clothing line at Target. Since 2006, Clique has grown to 220 employees and raised $28 million. But before she managed a fashion and media empire, Katherine worked as a dancer in the first Austin Powers movie. And that’s where she made her first big business decision: legally emancipating herself from her parents at age 17. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dan Gilbert runs a Midwestern empire. In Michigan, he founded Quicken Loans, which made him a billionaire. Now he’s trying to rebuild downtown Detroit. But you may know him as the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James’ NBA team. Our host, Rich Feloni, went to Detroit in early May to meet with Gilbert after getting a tour of his properties downtown. All of his real estate is under a company called Bedrock, which is part of Gilbert's larger parent company, called Rock Ventures. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sallie Krawcheck has run Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, US Trust, and Citi Private Bank, and was Citi’s CFO before that. Now she runs Ellevest, an investment firm that helps women create wealth. She may have been regularly referred to in the media as “the most powerful woman on Wall Street,” but that brought its own challenges. Krawcheck tells us what she learned from navigating the boys club of finance, working through the financial crisis, and dealing with two highly publicized firings. She also explains why she hates the phrase “empowering women,” and why she’s found a better alternative. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sam Yagan knows he’s been lucky. He tells us that one of the luckiest moments of his life was meeting his college roommates. Together, they built a study guide website called SparkNotes. Then, they built an online dating empire. They started the site OKCupid while Yagan was getting his MBA at Stanford. Yagan is now the CEO of ShopRunner, but he’s best known for his 7-year tenure as the head of the Match Group, which includes OkCupid, Match.com, and Tinder. He says it was his Syrian immigrant parents who inspired his drive to be an entrepreneur. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

For Jocko Willink, becoming a Navy SEAL was just like any other career. Willink was the commander of SEAL Team 3, Task Unit Bruiser. It was the most highly decorated US special operations unit of the Iraq War — and the one where Chris Kyle, of “American Sniper,” served. Willink retired from the SEALs in 2010 and started a consulting company called Echelon Front, which he founded with another SEAL named Leif Babin. He and Babin co-wrote the bestselling book “Extreme Ownership” in 2014. He’s also got a hit podcast, a line of jiu jitsu products, and even two bestselling children’s books. Willink says that passing on leadership lessons, whether to executives or kids, is just a continuation of what he did in the SEALs. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Business Insider's US Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell was in Berlin last week for the 3rd annual Axel Springer Award, which was an evening honoring Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos sat down with Axel Springer CEO Dr. Mathias Dopfner to talk about his career and future ambitions. (Axel Springer is Business Insider's parent company.) After an intro from Fiat Chrysler chairman John Elkann, Jeff and Mathias spoke about Amazon, and Jeff's investments in journalism and space exploration. This week's episode of "Success! How I Did It" features that conversation in full. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you’ve verified you’re not a robot online, you’ve used something Luis von Ahn has created. He tells "Success! How I Did It," that he doesn’t read stories about himself, and he’s probably the only CEO our host, Rich Feloni, has ever interviewed who believably says he doesn’t care about money. Von Ahn is the CEO of Duolingo, a popular language learning app. He’s also one of the guys who developed CAPTCHA, those online tests that ask you to type in a word or series of letters when you buy tickets or set up an email account. Von Ahn grew up in Guatemala and he came to the US to be part of the tech scene. He was driven by a goal of getting millions of people to work together online. It made him a pioneer of the now ubiquitous crowdsourcing movement. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.