This Is Your Life In Silicon Valley

Austen Allred is the Founder/CEO of Lambda School - a company pioneering the ISA model (Income Share Agreement) wherein students only pay for their education after they successfully land employment. Austen is also a prolific Tweeter and thought leader in Silicon Valley. We discuss the future of Lambda, the future of journalism and more in this wide ranging interview. Austen is spending quarantine in Southern Utah - we talk to him a bit about his perspective on how long things will last, and how life is in Utah, away from Silicon Valley. We talk to Austen about differences between peoples' online personalities and offline personalities. Notably, Austen does throw in a controversial tweet here and there - we ask him about his thought process before tweeting and what his expected responses generally are.Austen share his perspective on the future of education, shares his thoughts on why some consider the model of Lambda to be controversial, and the potential unbundling of education. We talk to Austen about the gr

David Pierce is the Editor-at-Large of Protocol - a new publication covering technology in a similar way Politico covers politics (with the same owner). We recorded this episode in January pre-COVID-19 - and asked David at the time - why was there increasing tension between technologists and journalists? David was clearly highly concerned about COVID-19 a couple of months ago - we dig in on why at the time he was concerned, which is a unique snapshot in time as to what we were all thinking just a few weeks ago. David talks about tension between founders and journalists. And how both sides can continue to do better. In an authentic moment, David recounts some of his own mistakes in covering companies and individuals and what he might have done differently. We talk about Protocol - the new publication David is working on and what it's like working on a publication during what many perceive to be a time where media is dying. David talks about the investment in great people and great content as a competitive adva

Tony Hale is a world-famous actor known for his roles in Arrested Development (Buster Bluth) and Veep (Gary Walsh). You would think someone who has won numerous awards and performs in front of people for a living would feel comfortable in crowds. You might be wrong. We talk to Tony about his struggles with anxiety, and a bunch of other subjects in this can't miss edition of TIYLISV. Tony talks about his temporary move to San Francisco for a play with the American Conservatory Theater and what it was like to adjust to life up here. We learn about what Tony did for outings, how he passed the time, and most important - his motivation behind doing the play to begin with (which might surprise you). We talk about Arrested Development and how it was one of the first shows everyone 'binge watched'. Tony talks about growing up in Florida and how that affected his view of the world. Tony currently resides in LA, so we talked about his Instagram and social media usage, and what people usually do when they recognize him

Cory Weinberg is a reporter for The Information, covering the intersection of tech and cities.  We wanted to bring Cory on the show to talk about San Franicsco housing policy, Coronavirus, and of course AirBnb. You won't want to miss this one if you're thinking about the housing crisis, or the looming AirBnb IPO. We learn a bit about Cory's background and why he emigrated to San Francisco. Cory talks a bit about his status as possibly one of the foremost experts in the Bay Area on the housing crisis. We ask Cory whether he's going to use the reporting platform he has to write a book an AirBnB (not to dissimilar to what Eliot Brown did with WeWork, or Mike Isaac with Uber). Cory  plays it cool. We ask about the affect of Coronavirus on Airbnb business and whether it's decimating enough to actually postpone their projected IPO. Cory explains some technical dynamics which may explain why they have to IPO soon despite having a (presumably) bad quarter post COVID-19. We ask Cory about his favorite social follows a

Justin Forsett is a former NFL Running Back who hailed from a small town in Florida. Justin's NFL career hit its pinnacle when he made the Pro Bowl. Prior to the NFL, Justin shared the backfield at Cal with Marshawn 'Beast Mode' Lynch. But what is life like after hitting the absolute pinnacle of professional sports? Justin talks about his second act as an entrepreneur. Justin talks about his days at Cal, and what it was like moving from Florida to Berkeley and the culture shock that ensued. Justin talked about his experience as a student athlete at Cal, which commands both high performance in academia, and high performance on the field.  Justin came from abject poverty, and he talks about life in FL, where he was homeless for parts of his childhood. We talk to Justin about his second act post NFL as an entrepreneur and the Founder of Hustle and Clean - a direct to consumer brand. Justin talks about his motivation behind starting the company while he was still in the NFL. We hear Justin's take on life in the N

Prakash Janakiraman is the Co-Founder and CTO of Nextdoor - the 'other' social network that we all use, but rarely discuss publicly. Nextdoor has quietly amassed a huge userbase across multiple countries and is growing in influence. But are people using Nextdoor for more than just crime alerts? We explore this and more on today's episode of TIYLISV. We talk to Prakash about his time growing up in Hayward, CA and his HS mascot. Prakash talks about his time at Berkeley during Jason Kidd's tenure in Cal Sports, and the influence tech had on his life from a young age. He talks about living at home in college and joining Cal as a 16 year old. Prakash talks about his early career, and the first dot com boom. Prakash talks about the original idea that pivoted into Nextdoor - focused on sports. And how it morphed into ND based on the power of a NYT column from Charles Blow. We learn what people use Nextdoor for, and whether people use it for just crime alerts or more. It turns out the number one use case is not what

Kate Clark is a technology reporter for The Information - a well-reputed publication read by tech industry insiders. In our first solo episode in a while - Sunil sits down with Kate to ask her about the state of journalism and tech. Are reporters inherently biased against tech companies? We talk to Kate about her transition from Techcrunch to The Information, and she dives deep into her first story - about Lambda School. Kate explains what Lambda is, and explains the concept of ISAs (Income Share Agreements). Kate talks about her beat - Venture Capital - and what about VC makes it worth covering. We ask Kate whether she thinks things have veered too far in an 'anti tech' direction, to which she provides a thoughtful response. Kate talks about Philz Coffee vs. Starbucks, what the future holds for her, and does a great job in her 2nd appearance on the show. If you're interested in tech companies and venture capital, this episode is for you. 

Adam Mosseri is the CEO of Instagram - which is arguably the most important social network on the planet at the moment. Adam also ran Facebook's News Feed product. In short, Adam has been influential in your life without you even knowing it - the decisions he's made have influenced how you've viewed your social media feeds over the past decade. We talk to Adam about how he wound up in San Francisco from New York - and what role a bad relationship my have planed. We ask him about his outlook on San Francisco overall - and whether government can fix the problems that ail the city at the moment. Adam voted for Mayor Breed over other choices and talks about that for a bit. We asked Adam about big product decisions he may have coming up over the next year, and he talks about the potential for election interference perhaps even over Instagram. This is a must-listen interview that covers a great deal of ground. We even asked Adam what his favorite startups are, and Lambda School made an appearance. 

How will the 2010s be remembered in Silicon Valley? So much happened - between the rise of Instagram, Facebook's dominance, Teslas everywhere, tech going from beloved to reviled... And the 2020s should bring even more fun. We have the return of two previous podcast guests - Molly Wood and Antonio Garcia Martinez - to discuss some of the decade's biggest milestones. We discuss whether the 2010s will be the decade that will be remembered for killing off love through dating apps. AGM and Molly talk about their own experiences both with dating apps and covering the whole concept of 'swipe dating' as journalists.We discuss some of YouTube's most popular videos - including the streams of cabs from Russia. And Rebecca Black's Friday. We talk about the whole concept of celebrity in general in the 2010s and the short and long term effects on media. We make some predictions on what the largest companies in the world will be 10 years from now, and speculate on Facebook's position over that period. We talk about cultural

When you look back on the decade in tech, one of the biggest stories will be the rise and fall of WeWork. And while the company is still around, it has shed around $40B in valuation in the past few months. At the forefront of the story is the mercurial Founder of WeWork - Adam Neumann. And a Wall Street Journal Reporter named Eliot Brown - who broke some of the now-infamous stories about the company. Today, we hosted Eliot as a guest on This is Your Life in Silicon Valley. We talked to Eliot about numerous topics, including why WeWork was valued like a high flying tech company even though the core of its product was basic real estate. We ask Eliot to explain WeWork's basic business model, and what Adam did in order to sell the vision of the company to employees and investors. Eliot recalls his first meeting with Adam and what it was like to be at WeWork HQ in 2013. Eliot goes on to talk about corporate governance (or lack thereof) at the company, explaining the amount of power Adam had over the board. We get

Tiffani Bell is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur working on a not-for-profit funded by Y Combinator. Tiffani's mission? Help people pay their water bills. The consequences are direr, and the stakes are much higher than you'd think. Tiffani is helping families in Detroit pay their water bills. You will walk away absolutely shocked with what the consequences are if you skip paying your bills - on what everyone considers to be a basic human right. We talk to Tiffani about her journey to Silicon Valley and her first startup. Tiffani talks about her experience on a CNN show, and what it was like having cameras follow her around every hour of every day. And how the experience changed her and her perspective. We talk to Tiffani about bias in Silicon Valley and how she would explain bias in simple terms to investors and other entrepreneurs. Tiffani talks about pattern recognition being a massive driver of bias, and what the ramifications are. Tiffani provides a detailed explanation of water rights, how they work, and h

We hosted our second live show in San Francisco featuring Amanda Bradford - the Founder/CEO of The League. We asked Amanda about why online dating is broken, what she thinks of all the major dating websites, and how The League's approach differs. We invite audience members to share crazy online dating stories at the end of this episode - it's a must-listen. Amanda explains her love for data, which she developed during her time at Salesforce. She talks about Marc Benioff's influence on her life as an entrepreneur, and how she employed data to find her current boyfriend. She even goes into details behind the 'funnel' stats and how many people she had to meet in order to find her current beau. What we discover in the process is that most people constrain their preferences quite extensively. We ask Amanda about what she thinks of other popular dating websites such as 'Bumble', which she calls a 'fake startup'. It's a provocative section of the podcast for sure which you don't want to miss. We learn about how The

Lisa Fetterman is here to tell it like it is. She's a gifted entrepreneur and inventor, and she cannot understand why Silicon Valley doesn't care about female founders. This is a must-listen edition of the show featuring some great insight on how to fix the diversity problem in tech. Fetterman started her current company with her husband, and when we asked her about an anecdote about the company, we heard the horrible tale of an investor who had other intentions when he put money in the company. We hear from Lisa about how her experience is fairly common, but it's what motivates her ultimately. Lisa shout-outs some of her favorite female founders (including Jessica Scorpio from Getaround, and Sara Mauskopf from Winnie. We hear about the groups that Lisa runs, and what female founders say about VCs and male founders when they are not in the room. We learn the ultimate, and easiest solution to fix the diversity problem Silicon Valley is plagued with. A lot of ground covered on this episode, so please do give it

Tim Kendall is a Silicon Valley OG. Tim ran monetization at Facebook, and later became Head of Product At Pinterest (and eventually President). Tim is responsible for thinking through products that impact our lives on a daily basis. His latest mission is to get people to use their smartphones less through an app called Moment. We talk to Tim about how he ended up joining Facebook, his meeting with Peter Thiel, and what he worked on in the early days of the company. Tim met Eric Schmidt through a Stanford lunch that very few others attended, which is what ultimately led to this life and career changing opportunity. We ask Tim about the Chris Hughes NYT OpEd and his opinion on the matter. Tim talks about whether Facebook knew what it would be capable of in the early days, and what it was like in DT Palo Alto back in the day. Tim talks about Pinterest and why it gets less media scrutiny than other competitors in the social media space. He talks about Pinterest's culture, and it's ability to respond to crises suc

Susan MacTavish Best is a San Francisco cultural icon. Originally from Scotland and Canada, MacTavish worked in the PR business and got to know some of technology's top executives since the 90s. MacTavish now splits time between San Francisco, New York and London, and has a starkly unique perspective on how life in the Bay Area has changed in recent decades. Susan talks about her time in San Francisco in the 90s, her move to India, and her view of life in San Francisco vs. New York vs. LA vs. London. Susan is famous for her dinner parties, but we learn that she is surprisingly an introvert. We ask Susan what it takes to become a cultural figure in San Francisco, and ask her to share some of the prominent guests she's hosted at her house (from Michael Pollan to the Founders of Yelp). 'Salons' are becoming trendy in part because of Susan's influence. We ask Susan how they became a thing, and about her upcoming book wherein Susan will be branded as the 'Marie Kondo' of salons. We talk to Susan about the growing

Special episode alert! Techcrunch reporter Kate Clark sent a tweet out about how she hates Philz Coffee. We decided to bring her on the show with Philz CEO Jacob Jaber to convince her otherwise. Hilarity ensued. Kate's tweet said she 'hated Philz more than Starbucks'. Co-host Sunil decided to reach out on the thread since he is a Philz fan and tag the official Philz corporate account along with CEO Jacob Jaber. Jaber agreed to join Sunil, Jascha and Kate for a special edition of the show. Jacob served Kate, Sunil and Jascha special drinks before the show to convince Kate that she just had a bad experience in the past. To begin with, Kate shares her thoughts about the drinks she tasted, and compares them to her favorite coffee beverage at Starbucks (iced vanilla latte). She also talks about her pre-disposition to love Starbucks because of its brand. Clark talks about her journey from Seattle to San Francisco and her relatively recent arrival to San Francisco. While Jaber talks about how he was born in South Sa

The podcast is growing. So we decided to take it to the next level by hosting our first ever live event - in San Francisco - where we hosted Oakland's charismatic mayor Libby Schaaf. We were nervous that we'd screw up somehow and forget to hit the 'record' button, but thankfully the conversation is intact. Mayor Schaaf is a great, great interview - for longtime listeners - or first-time listeners - this episode is a great place to start on our podcast. We cover a lot of ground - including homelessness, the 2020 Presidential Race, Sports, and more. We spoke to Mayor Schaaf about her view of the 2020 race, and which candidate she's supporting. We speculate on which tech CEOs may be considering a 2020 run, and spend some time talking about both sides of Prop C (Mayor Schaaf weighs in on the Jack vs. Benioff debate). We talk extensively about the growing homeless problem in San Francisco, and what Oakland is doing to address the issue. We talk to Mayor Schaaf about the recent Oakland Teachers' strike and the num

Pam MacKinnon is a Tony Award-winning Director. She's spent decades atop the theater world, directing shows on and off-Broadway. Andy Donald is a west-coast native but has spent recent years on the East Coast as an artistic director. Both are now part of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco (as Artistic Director and Associate Artistic Director respectively). But what is it like running a high profile theater in the technology epicenter of the universe? We talk to Pam and Andy about their journeys to San Francisco, their times on the East Coast and the ongoing SF/LA rivalry. We have a deep conversation about what it's like to run a show to audiences with short attention spans who are looking at smartphones constantly. What does theater need to do in order to evolve to the Instagram age? What about the arts scene in San Francisco? Andy and Pam pontificate on both and describe what it's like to be in San Francisco at this day/age and time. We talk about the American Conservatory Theater, its missi

Jessica Powell ran communications at Google. She's now a bestselling author. We asked Jessica - who has seen her fair share of PR crises over the years - how she would handle communications issues facing some of the top tech companies in the world. You might be surprised where she stands on various issues plaguing some of technology's top players. We asked her about Jack Dorsey's now infamous 'tweetstorm' about his meditation retreat to Myanmar and her reaction to it. We examined the broad spectrum of reactions that played out on social media. We dig into Jessica's journey to San Francisco, which started in sunny So Cal, and the 'fake' Los Angeles San Francisco rivalry. Jessica dishes on some of her favorite athletes and sports teams. As a communications exec, we had the opportunity to ask Jessica how she would handle PR crises at Facebook. And what was inherently different about Facebook and Google culture. We also asked Jessica about where change needs to occur at these companies - whether regulation will w

Kara Swisher needs no introduction. She is one of the top business journalists, and covers technology for various outlets. More recently, Swisher became a contributor for the New York Times Opinion section - and she has a lot to say about Facebook. In this episode, we learn a lot about Swisher's background, where she grew up, and what her thoughts are on San Francisco. Swisher provides us with her perspective on Facebook's problems, and whether one individual can even solve them at this point. We have an extensive discussion with Kara about ethics and technology. We talk about the next wave of big innovation, and/or the lack thereof. We talk to Kara about whether she likes Scooters or not. And who her favorite social media follows are. We discuss Chrissy Teigen and why she's a great follow. You don't want to miss this episode - Kara is a living legend, is candid, and opens up to us about a wide variety of subects.