North Star Podcast

My guest today is Tren Griffin, a Senior Director at Microsoft and the man behind an excellent blog called 25IQ. Tren is one of the most prolific writers I know. He’s written books about negotiation, entrepreneurship, and Charlie Munger. He published an article every week for almost six years, and because of all that hard work, he’s now posted more than 1.3 million words online.

My guest today is Mason Hartman. For years, I’ve admired Mason's perspectives on the culture, childhood, and the education system. I teach an online writing course called Write of Passage. So education –  and especially writing education – is a subject that's close to my heart. We recorded this episode in Los Angeles, where Mason works at a school for gifted children and does most of her research.

My guest today is Jeff Morris Jr., the Director of Revenue at Tinder. We begin this episode talking about the future of education. Jeff recently completed an MBA at UCLA and wrote his thesis on the future of Lambda School, the San Francisco based education startup. We talked about the transition from marketing funnels to marketing loops and how Tinder is growing its average revenue per user.

My guest today is Steve Cheney, the cofounder of Estimote. Before founding Estimote, Steve was the head of business and platform at GroupMe, which was acquired by Skype. I’ve been reading Steve's writing for more than half a decade, but this year, he picked up the pace of his publishing and now I’m hooked.

My guest today is Matt Mullenweg, the founder and CEO of Automattic. Automattic is known for Wordpress, which powers a third of the internet. Matt and I talk about the democratization of the web, the early days of Wordpress, and how he makes sense of the incredible scale of the company. Then we discuss why Automattic bought Longreads, the content triangle, and the Caro books. Finally, we talk about his love of sci-fi, why writing is the ultimate long-now activity, and what’s next for Wordpress.

My guest today is Jason Zweig, a personal finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He's also the author of the revised edition of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor, which Warren Buffett has described as "by far the best book about investing ever written."

My guest today is Austin Rief, the Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Morning Brew, a daily email newsletter with the latest news from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Austin started the company when back when he was a student at the University of Michigan. And now Morning Brew has more than 1 million subscribers. This conversation is about all things email from growth through attention to strategy.

My guest today is Jason Fried, the Co-Founder and President of Basecamp, a Chicago based company that builds web based productivity tools. Jason is famous for his contrarian approach to work and his blog Signal vs. Noise.

My guest today is Jason Stein, a general partner at Steins, an investment management business and holding company that provides capital and strategic partnership to consumer brands, media and technology companies. Jason also founded Laundry Service, an advertising agency that sold to Wasserman Media Group in 2015.

My guest today is Erika Nardini, the CEO of Barstool Sports. Barstool was started by Dave Portnoy in 2004. And Erica first learned about the company when she was living in Boston and she immediately became a fan. Now if you don't know about Barstool Sports, they are one of a kind. They cover sports and pop culture through a uniquely Barstool lens and they produce blogs, videos, and podcasts.

My guest today is Nick Kokonas, the Co-founder of The Alinea Group of restaurants. His restaurant Alinea has been named the best restaurant in America and also the best restaurant in the World. Nick is also the Co-founder and CEO of Tock incorporated, a reservations and CRM system for restaurants with clients in more than 20 countries.

My guest this week is Andrew D'Souza, the Co-founder and CEO of Clearbanc, a fundraising alternative to traditional venture capital. The company is based in Toronto and helps businesses fuel their marketing spend – because right now 40% of venture capital invested in companies goes directly to funding Facebook and Google ads. Equity is an expensive way for founders to fund repeatable growth and Clearbanc exists to solve that problem.

In this conversation with Alex Danco, we spoke about all things cities, Silicon Valley, and technology. We discuss Amazon's organizational structure and what that means for the future. Then we talk about technological disruption and how industries shift from scarcity to abundance, and then back to scarcity. We explore the future of cities where it's easier to move stuff than it is to move people. That single shift speaks volumes about the changing landscape of cities, industries, and society at large.

My guest today is Web Smith, the founder of 2PM, Inc. a curated, subscription-based media company with quick commentary on brands, data, and eCommerce. He invests in and advises for digitally native vertical brands, and spends most of his time in the intersection of digital media and eCommerce. Within the eCommerce industry, Web’s done many tours of duty: he was the cofounding CMO of Mizzen & Main. Before that, he handled marketing at Rogue. Most recently, he was the Director of eCommerce at Gear Patrol.

My guest today is Tal Shachar, the Chief Digital Offer of Immortals, a global eSports organization in Los Angeles where he leads consumer-facing operations. Tal is a genius when it comes to the intersection between media and technology. We dive deep into the inner-workings of media consumption, how the media affects society, and much more.