Finding Founders

Today on the show we talk to Mac Davis, founder of Minicircle, a company that aims to extend the length and quality of human life through gene therapy. Mac has an incredible story that starts out on a small island with a lone computer connected to the internet. From there he navigated through the dark underbelly of the web, unraveling its secrets which ultimately led him to a small fortune in bitcoin. That was just the beginning, Mac traveled the world seeking leaders in philosophy, came within inches of death after an explosion, started a biohacking lab that culminated in the mysterious death of his business partner, and faced an incredible number of interesting twists and turns. But first, I want to talk about how I came to meet Mac. I was interviewing Rob Rhinehart, founder of Soylent and asked him if he had any suggestions for our future interviews. He immediately suggested Mac Davis. So a few weeks later, Mac came in for an interview while he was crashing at Rob’s apartment in LA. --- Support this

We started the episode a bit differently today, so hopefully you didn’t cringe too hard at my Jony Ive impersonation, but we wanted to set a particular framework for this episode. Today we’re talking to Roger Volodarsky, founder of Puffco, a company that creates the best cannabis concentrate vaporizers on the market. They pay particularly close attention to design, and basically it looks like if Apple made bongs. This attention to detail might seem ridiculous to the uninitiated, but as we tell Roger’s story you’ll begin to understand that these vaporizers change lives. Roger realizes that because it saved his own life from opiate addiction. There was a lot of iteration, heartbreak, and work that led Roger to evolve into the fully-fledged Steve Jobs of the vaporizers, however, before that metamorphosis could transpire, Roger would have to face a myriad of traumatic events. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Luciano Mazza, an international architect, and designer of H club in LA. The H.Club started as the brainchild of Paul Allen, global philanthropist and co-founder of a little company called Microsoft, and musician Dave Stewart. But Luciano, who’s been an architectural entrepreneur for the past couple decades, brought that idea to reality. Luciano currently is director of Hospitality Architecture at HKS Inc. in London, and his experience designing hotels and luxury resorts includes projects from the Four Seasons to Shangri-La. Luciano describes architecture as the balance between elegance and efficacy. But for Luciano, it’s those intimate, personal aspects of architecture that are most important. Luciano thinks deeply about the people he wants to serve, and the buildings he designs aim to guide emotional reflexes using space. Empathy is paramount to understand the emotional reflexes of various cultures, and in pursuit of this multi-cultural empathy, he’s worked everywhere from Los A

Usually, we interview an inspirational entrepreneur, but today we decided to break down User Generated Content, or UGC. It was brought up briefly on our episode with Jonathan Skogmo, founder of Jukin, and with Kevin Ramsey founder of Warren James, but UGC has a long rich history that continues to impact us today. Every day people post billions of pictures and videos of failures, triumphs, and all of life's most spectacular and ridiculously mundane moments. If you have ever posted a personal video or photo onto Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, Vimeo, or any other social media platform, you have posted User Generated Content. And with each post you make, you are contributing to the rapid evolution of UGC. But before we go any further, we need to know, what exactly is User Generated Content? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Kevin Ramsey, founder of Warren James, a custom merchandising firm that specializes in the content creator ecosystem. I just threw a lot of words at you there so let me break down what we’re actually looking at here. A decade ago when people heard the term content creator, they thought of a bunch of teens with crappy webcams recording vlogs in their room for YouTube. Now, those teens are all grown up and have developed themselves into some of the most recognizable brands in the world. And I’m not talking about small mom-and-pop shop off-brand brands, only known within their respective communities. Content creators are amassing millions of followers, and with those millions of followers are coming millions of dollars. And with this money, has come legitimization. Consequently, the gap between established brands like Gucci and new-age brands like Jefferey Star Cosmetics is shrinking. The brands these creators have built out of themselves have become so massive, so exponentially po

The story of how Milt Larsen turned a century-old mansion into a world-famous, Hollywood cultural icon that brings magic lovers and magicians together form across the world. Countless celebrities have performed at the castle including Orson Welles, Johnny Carson, Steve Martin, Neil Patrick Harris, and many more. Together we'll dive into Milt's magical childhood, how he came to notoriety, and how the Magic Castle continues to stand as a pillar of the magical community to this day. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

This past Monday we held a Virtual Summit with Dalton Combs on the Future of Artificial Intelligence. We talked about the history of A.I., how it can massively improve our lives, and how it also might kill us! Don’t worry if you missed it because you can hear the full live event right now. If you don’t want to miss the next live event and the opportunity to interact directly with our community of founders go to our website, findingfounderspodcast.com, and subscribe to our newsletter, trust me… it’s awesome. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to  Jonathan Skogmo. He’s the founder of Jukin which is an innovative media company that focuses on user-generated content. What is user-generated content? Well, it’s stuff like a video of a mom laughing hysterically while wearing a Chewbacca mask. That video is known as Chewbacca mom and the original video alone received over 140 million views. In fact, the video became so popular that this Chewbacca mask completely sold out around the world. Although the Chewbacca mom, otherwise known as Candace Payne, technically owns the video, the right to license that video belongs to Jukin. By acquiring viral videos, like this one, Jukin media has amassed 200 million fans and receives 3 billion views every month. We’ll get into all this and Jonathan’s current entrepreneurial ventures soon enough, but first, let’s go back to his first venture. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today we talk to Hollis Carter, co-founder of The Baby Bathwater Institute. Alright, I’m going to give you guys a second to close your eyes and listen to that name one more time: Baby Bathwater. Without restricting that creative mind of yours, try and guess what his company does. Alright, ready? If you guessed it was a group that hosts outdoor networking conferences with healthy food, unlimited booze, outdoor activities, and live music, then you are kinda close. Hollis would probably rephrase that description and say that it isn’t a networking conference, but a connection conference. The word networking has a lot of professional baggage, so Hollis is trying to distance his events from that of the corporate vernacular. He’s creating an experience that guests will cherish for years to come and connection is something that Hollis has been promoting his entire life. Ever since he was a young boy, Hollis has worked to foster an environment focused on community. In fact, Hollis’ discovery concerning the tenets of a

Pixar had sunk millions of dollars into Toy Story 2 and it was almost deleted... Today on the show we analyze how Pixar failed and the steps they took towards recovery. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

I’m Samuel Donner, and today on the show we talk to Markian Benhamou, a social media influencer with over 5 Million followers across Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram. When I first met Markian at USC through UCLA’s entrepreneurship club, he seemed like a nice, hardworking guy. I would have never expected that he had such a serious following. But he does have a serious following, and he’s serious about the business of being an influencer. While most might see influencers as frivolous, Markian sees entrepreneurs that can transform personal brands into businesses. Influencer marketing, which started as a $1.7 billion industry in 2016, is projected to grow to $6.5 billion this year alone. And by 2025, experts predict that it will balloon to a massive $26.4 billion industry.  I was fascinated to take a dive into the life of one of these influencers. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Brian Freeman, the founder and CEO of Heartbeat, a social media marketplace that empowers creators at any level, from 100 to 100,000 followers, to work with established brands. When I met Brian I noticed pretty quickly that he speaks with a lot of energy. This infectious energy pulled me into Brian's world. I felt that I could see his vision, it was almost tangible. I realized that this energy is an integral component of a captivating leader and an attribute that has propelled Brian to success.  But even more than an ability to inspire those around him , I think this energy also let’s Brian inspire himself when everything seems as though it’s on the verge of implosion.  Brian is incredibly resilient, and, as you’ll hear, his ability to jump from one venture to another without losing confidence in himself is what part of what makes him such an inspiring entrepreneur. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

We loved Rob’s story but there was a lot of sciencey stuff that came up and it just didn’t fit int he episode, so we wanted to dedicate a mini-episode to the science. To talk about that sciencey stuff I wanted to introduce Luke Riggan, an immunology Ph.D. student here at UCLA. Luke is smart, especially with sciencey things, so at the end of our interview, he used that big brain of his and talked to Rob about the microbiology stuff surrounding Soylent. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Rob Rhinehart, 27-year-old founder of Soylent, an innovative food replacement startup that has rocked the world of consumer packaged goods. Soon after the interview started I noticed that Rob has an incredibly intentional way of speaking. It seems like each word was meticulously chosen to most effectively communicate his internal dialogue. I think this intentionality directly contradicts the scrappy break it, then fix it later mantra that saturates the mentality of many Silicon Valley startups.  With an innate talent for creating and innovating, Rob has led Soylent to insane success with the young company having raised over $75 million. A natural-born inventor and trained engineer, Rob is redefining how the world views nutrition and food. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Dalton Combs, founder of Boundless Mind, formally known as Dopamine Labs. Dalton has built a company that specializes in persuasion AI, a technology that shapes human behavior. I know what you are thinking: IRobot, The Matrix, Ex Machina, Terminator, death, and destruction. It initially seemed like pretty nefarious stuff to me as well. I was curious on two accounts. One I wanted to see the birthplace of our AI overloads and two I wanted to see who was behind such powerful technology. So, I went to the Boundless offices in Venice to talk to Dalton. There are a lot of interesting points in Dalton’s interview, as you’ll hear, but a theme of this podcast will be free will, and the ability of technology to destroy or cultivate our free will. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to John Terzian, the owner and co-founder of The H.Wood Group, a Los Angeles hospitality and lifestyle company catered to curating some of the most iconic brands in the world. Ranging from upscale nightlife venues to groundbreaking new restaurants, H.Wood Group runs thirteen venues in Los Angeles, five others across the nation and continues to broaden its reach every year. With an artistic background and an innately creative personality, John puts great detail into every venue, concept or event he works on. What really distinguishes him as an entrepreneur is his love for connecting with new people from different backgrounds, cultures, and careers. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

In this podcast, we’ll explore how Cannabis is changing, and how the partnership between Wayv and Hypur will rapidly accelerate the growth of the Cannabis industry. But to understand how this partnership will shape the future of Cannabis we have to take a look at the history of Cannabis and where it is today. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to Glen Irani, a native Angeleno and the founder of Glen Irani Architects, an architecture firm that has been at the forefront of environmental research, sustainability, and breathtaking design for over 20 years. You have probably passed by one of his designs while in the LA area, which is actually how I first met him. I was walking on the outskirts of Venice when I was struck by this beautifully designed house. It was so striking, that I had to get out of the car and take a picture of it. I immediately searched for anyone who knew anything about the house and bumped into someone surveying the land outside. It turned out to be Glen, the architect behind this house. I knew I had to ask him some more questions, so we set up this interview. I want to momentarily go back to the house. When you find yourself in front of an Irani structure, there exists this immediate immersion and connection, not only to the physical structure but the design philosophy behind it. It engulfs you with its u

Today on the show we’re talking about holograms. Now you are probably most familiar with this tech from a little movie called Star Wars. Well, holograms are real and Ben Conway, co-founder of the company VNTANA, has been turning what was once science fiction into science fact. VNTANA is on the bleeding edge of an augmented and virtual reality revolution that will drastically change how we perceive the world. But on the road to change, the world presented a lot of unexpected twists, turns, and pitfalls… --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support

Today on the show we talk to UCLA undergrad Angel Herrera, and how he went from gang life to becoming a co-founder of Need (now Duffl), an online retailer that delivers everything in a matter of 10 minutes or less. I think the best way to put it is 7-Eleven on wheels.  Along the way, we'll introduce a few of the other cofounders including David Lin and Rohun Vora. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support