The Quest Pod with Justin Kan

Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 2: Episode 42 with Michelle Phan. Michelle is a pioneer of the online makeup and beauty genre. Since joining YouTube back in 2006, Michelle has since become one of the top beauty content creator and amassed a following of over 8 million subscribers. She is also an active investor and runs her own cosmetic line named EM Cosmetics (https://www.emcosmetics.com/) In this episode, Michelle talks about her origin story, the ups and downs of being a content creator, as well as her personal philosophies. She also shares the story behind her sudden hiatus in 2015. Michelle's Links:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuYx81nzzz4OFQrhbKDzTngInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/michellephan/?hl=enTwitter: https://twitter.com/michellephan?lang=en TRY MAGIC MIND: Buy Now ► https://www.magicmind.co/justin Get 20% with My Discount Code ► JUSTIN20  

Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 2: Episode 40 with Henry Schuck. Henry is the founder and CEO of ZoomInfo, a go-to-market intelligence solution for more than 20,000 companies worldwide. The ZoomInfo platform empowers business-to-business sales, marketing, and recruiting professionals to hit their number by pairing best-in-class technology with unrivalled data coverage, accuracy, and depth of company and contact information. Henry got the idea for the company after working as a marketing analyst in college nearly two decades ago, a job he took to help pay his undergrad degree. In this conversation, Henry discusses how to maintain a high-growth company and how to deal with imposter syndrome as a CEO. Check out Henry’s LinkedIn ►https://www.linkedin.com/in/hschuck/Follow Henry on Twitter ►https://twitter.com/henrylschuck The incredible stories on this podcast are made possible by our sponsors, check them out to support The Quest:Magic Mind: https://magicmind.co/

Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 2: Episode 39 with Matthew Stoltz. Matthew is a curandero, healer, renegade anthropologist and world traveller with vast experience in the world of plant medicines. He first sat with ayahuasca when he travelled to Peru at the age of 19. He didn’t touch it again for 8 years. During that time he studied at Stanford, crashed and burned, struggled with addiction and experienced suicidal thoughts. It took a lot for him to rebuild himself. Part of that journey involved ayahuasca. Matthew has now sat in over 500 ceremonies, 300 of which he was responsible for caring for a group of people. He’s extremely knowledgeable about psychedelic drugs, psychoactive medicines and spiritual awakening.  In this conversation, Matthew discusses finding freedom, connection and self-awareness with ayahuasca.  The incredible stories on this podcast are made possible by our sponsors, check them out to support The Quest:Magic Mind: https://magicmind.co/ Check out Matthew’s Instagram ►https://www.instagram.com/matthewstoltz/

Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 2: Episode 38 with Sahil Bloom. Sahil spent 7 years at Altamont Capital Partners, an investment fund managing over $3.5B.   He is now a Partner at The Room Where It Happens (https://theroomwhereithappens.co/), a community designed to spark conversation and bring entrepreneurial minds together. Sahil is also an active angel investor in 35+ tech start-ups.   To share his learnings and insights in business, finance and tech, Sahil runs a media platform with ~ 400K followers across his Twitter and newsletter, sharing insights into business, finance and tech. In this conversation, Sahil discusses his experience telling meaningful stories, the untapped potential of DAOs, writing Tweet threads and dealing with failure in public.   The incredible stories on this podcast are made possible by our sponsors, check them out to support The Quest: Magic Mind: https://magicmind.co/ Check out Sahil’s LinkedIn ► https://www.linkedin.com/in/sahilbloom/  Follow Sahil on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/SahilBloom 

It’s Balaji’s world, and we’re all just living in it. If you’ve been hanging out on tech Twitter long enough or listen to any other tech podcasts, then you’re probably familiar with Balaji. He is an angel investor, entrepreneur, and formerly the CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz.  In this epic episode, you’ll hear topics ranging from decentralization, crypto, media tech, social networking, China, machine learning, digital privacy and much more. Balaji has one of the most incredible minds I have ever met, and I am excited to bring you along on this journey.  You can find Balaji on Twitter, and read his personal blog here. The incredible stories on this podcast are made possible by our sponsors, check them out to support The Quest:Magic Mind (This episode was originally released as S2:E20 in 2021) 🎥 Watch the full episode in 4K: https://youtu.be/CHQi1HnCZGY🍎 iTunes: https://apple.co/3lU3fZs🎵 Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3srzJwq✍️ The Quest Pod in print: https://thequest.media🌎 Everything Quest: https://bio.thequest.media

Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 2: Episode 37 with Eren Bali.Eren was the founding CEO of Udemy, an open online course provider which now offers 180K+ courses to 40M students. He is now the co-founder and CEO of Carbon Health, a vertically integrated, tech-enabled healthcare provider which started in 2015 and was most recently valued at $3.3B. Eren started the company after his mother fell ill and the traditional healthcare system took several months to reach the proper diagnosis and treatment. It began as a mobile app enabling patients to communicate directly with doctors, store medical records and facilitate telehealth appointments. It now has 90 physical clinics located in 14 states within the US.In this episode, Eren talks about the up and downs of founding Udemy and Carbon Health, the importance of perseverance and many other valuable learnings.Check out Eren’s LinkedIn ► https://twitter.com/erenbaliFollow Eren on Twitter ► https://www.linkedin.com/in/erenbali/ 

Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 2: Episode 36 with James Beshara.James is the founder of Magic Mind (https://magicmind.co/) and co-founder of Tilt, an award-winning payments application acquired by Airbnb. He was also a seed investor in Gusto, Clubhouse, Bolt, Mercury and more. In this conversation, James and Justin open up about the bad habits they held as startup founders, which posed barriers to their productivity and success. They discuss sleep, diet, self-accusation, unrealistic expectations, lack of trust and substance dependence. More importantly, they discuss the impact these habits had upon their work life and how to go about eliminating them! Check out Jame’s LinkedIn ► https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjbeshara/Follow James on Twitter ► https://twitter.com/jamesbeshara

Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 2: Episode 35 with Scott Harrison: the founder and CEO of charity: water. After working as a nightclub promoter surrounded by drugs and booze, Scott wanted to find meaning in his life. He volunteered with a healthcare organisation in Liberia as a photojournalist, where he was exposed to one big issue: access to clean drinking water. He founded charity: water in 2006. Since this time, the organisation has provided fresh water to over 13.2M across 29 countries. In this conversation, we talk about starting a non-profit, innovating in charity work and finding purpose in life. Make sure to follow Scott on LinkedIn and Twitter! A huge shoutout to Magic Mind for making this podcast possible (use code JUSTIN20 to get 20% off).  If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

I always like to practice gratitude,  especially on my birthday. The past year has been tumultuous for us all, but I'm fortunate enough to have taken some positive learnings from it. In this podcast, I talk about the benefits of opening yourself up to try new things, zone of competence vs genius, investing your time in those who reciprocate and more. I hope these teachings can welcome more happiness into your life as they did to mine. I also shared this story on my YouTube channel and Twitter. Drop a comment to let me know what you think which startup stories you want to hear about next! THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Welcome to The Quest Pod Season 1: Episode 34 with Eric Glyman: a two-time fintech founder shares his advice for innovating in a crowded market. Eric Glyman is the co-founder and CEO of Ramp, the only corporate card that helps companies spend less. He also previously founded Paribus to help consumers get money back on their online purchases. Eric’s success reflects the power of customer-centric design: focus on building something that serves and created value for your market, instead of trying to extract as much money from your customers as possible. In this conversation, we talk about leaving a stable job to found a start-up, leading big teams and unlocking innovation. If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Sriram Krishnan is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He’s also the popular host of the Good Time Show, a late-night Clubhouse event that has featured guests such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Calvin Harris and more. Before getting into venture capital, Sriram spent more than a decade across Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.  Sriram has had an incredible journey: he grew up in India, came to the States and worked with Silicon Valley’s top 1%. In this conversation, we talk about what it’s like to be around people like Jack Dorsey and Evan Spiegel, his content creator learnings, tips for anyone hoping to break into tech and more.  I’m a big fan of Sriram’s content. You can find his YouTube channel here and subscribe to the GTS Clubhouse show here. If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Welcome to my new show OnlyFriends, where my Silicon Valley group chat comes to life. On this episode, we discuss the Billionaire tax, the antiwork phenomenon, Faze Clan's billion dollar SPAC deal, and the nature of paternity leave.Starring: Justin Kan: Twitch co-founder and investor at Goat Capital (https://twitter.com/justinkan)Emmett Shear: Twitch co-founder and current Twitch CEO (https://twitter.com/eshear)Michael Seibel: Twitch co-founder and CEO of Y Combinator (https://twitter.com/mwseibel)Nicole Farb: Darby Smart co-founder and investor at Headline (https://twitter.com/nicolefarb)Submit your story to Dear OnlyFriends here! If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Adam Jackson and Gabriel Luna-Ostaseski are the co-founders of Braintrust, a decentralized talent network connecting freelancers with organizations. The platform is 100% user-controlled, with the BTRST token being used as the incentive to vet talent and refer clients (BTRST is listed for public purchase on Coinbase).  I knew both Adam and Gabe from their past life investing and building web2 marketplaces. This episode is a crash course for me understanding how a web3 startup works: we talk about the cold start problem when building a marketplace, token governance, letting a DAO vote on protocols and tips for aspiring founders building on blockchains. Adam and Gabe also inspired me to start my own crypto project, which I can’t wait to share with you soon. Check out Braintrust at https://www.usebraintrust.com! If you liked this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Matt Mochary is an operator, investor and coach to top tech leaders at companies including Coinbase, Opendoor, Bolt and Clearbit. He is the best in the Valley at what he does, with a notable clientele spanning from Naval Ravikant to Sam Altman. After selling his startup in 1999 for millions, he surfed, made movies, worked with ex-cons then developed the Mochary Method to help tech CEOs excel.  Matt was my CEO coach during my time at Atrium. My friend Steve Huffman, CEO at Reddit, said he helped Reddit “save millions”. When I was confronted with difficult feedback, Matt helped me navigate my emotions. He also coached me out of my pit, and showed me what an effective leader does in their “Zone of Genius”.  In this conversation, we dive into the Mochary Method and his book “The Great CEO Within”. I ask him about tips that have transformed many into the world’s best CEOs, and actionable advice for personal growth. I also share a personal story of facing the anxiety from my past and overcoming it with an old friend. Check out the Mochary Method at https://mocharymethod.com and "The Great CEO Within" on Amazon. If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Welcome to my new show OnlyFriends, where my Silicon Valley group chat comes to life. On this episode, we discuss  my new companies, our new advice segment, Dear OnlyFriends, the COVID vaccine, Coinbase's mission-focused statement, and crypto gaming.  Starring: Justin Kan: Twitch co-founder and investor at Goat Capital (https://twitter.com/justinkan)Emmett Shear: Twitch co-founder and current Twitch CEO (https://twitter.com/eshear)Michael Seibel: Twitch co-founder and CEO of Y Combinator (https://twitter.com/mwseibel)Nicole Farb: Darby Smart co-founder and investor at Headline (https://twitter.com/nicolefarb)Submit your story to Dear OnlyFriends here! If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Airbnb almost didn't make it. Here's the story of how they got into Y Combinator, after a few screw-ups, tons of breakfast cereals sold, an improbable email and advice from a sad Emmett who could've invested at the perfect moment.  I also shared this story on my YouTube channel and Twitter. Drop a comment to let me know what you think which startup stories you want to hear about next! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible. THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Welcome to my new show OnlyFriends, where my Silicon Valley group chat comes to life. On this episode, we discuss  my new companies, our new advice segment, Dear OnlyFriends, the COVID vaccine, Coinbase's mission-focused statement, and crypto gaming.  Starring: Justin Kan: Twitch co-founder and investor at Goat Capital (https://twitter.com/justinkan)Emmett Shear: Twitch co-founder and current Twitch CEO (https://twitter.com/eshear)Michael Seibel: Twitch co-founder and CEO of Y Combinator (https://twitter.com/mwseibel)Nicole Farb: Darby Smart co-founder and investor at Headline (https://twitter.com/nicolefarb)Submit your story to Dear OnlyFriends here! If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

In this episode I get “Closer” with Alex Pall and Drew Taggart, known to the world as the DJ duo The Chainsmokers. I love the energy that Alex and Drew bring to everything they do, and this podcast was no exception. In a fun discussion, we talk about the early days of hacking Hype Machine to launch their careers, breaking out with Selfie, becoming Grammy winning musicians and DJs, the ups and downs of music and facing depression, and what they look for in founders they invest in.  Join us in a first interview and open discussion the duo has had since announcing their social media hiatus. (This episode was originally released as S1:E5 in 2020) If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

Welcome to my new show OnlyFriends, where my Silicon Valley group chat comes to life. On this episode, we discuss China banning crypto, the Theranos trial and fraud in Silicon Valley, whether Facebook is unethical, and free startup ideas. Starring: Justin Kan: Twitch co-founder and investor at Goat Capital (https://twitter.com/justinkan) Emmett Shear: Twitch co-founder and current Twitch CEO (https://twitter.com/eshear) Michael Seibel: Twitch co-founder and CEO of Y Combinator (https://twitter.com/mwseibel) Nicole Farb: Darby Smart co-founder and investor at Headline (https://twitter.com/nicolefarb)If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio

I sat down with my Justin.tv cofounder, Michael Seibel, to talk about how we turned our live reality show Justin.tv into the global platform that eventually became Twitch. Michael was previously the CEO of Y Combinator, the seed stage fund known as the first investor in Stripe, Dropbox, Instacart, Coinbase, Reddit, and thousands of other startups. Michael is one of my closest friends and an amazing mentor. In this episode we talk about his education at Yale, founding Justin.tv together, mentoring the Airbnb founders early on, how to get funded by Y Combinator, and so much more.  (This episode was originally released as S1:E1 in 2020) If you liked  this episode, check out our YouTube channel and follow us on Twitter! A thank to our sponsors Universe and CashApp for making this podcast possible.   THE QUEST MEDIA | CONTENT MEETS SILICON VALLEY | 📺 YouTube | 🍎 iTunes | 🎧 Spotify | 🗞 Print | 📌 Bio