Tomorrow, built today by Lightspeed Ventures

In this episode, you’ll hear a conversation with Jay Simons, President of Atlassian and Arif Janmohamed Partner at Lightspeed. If you’re unfamiliar, Atlassian is an enterprise software company that went public in 2015 and has since doubled its market value to more than $12 billion. In Jay’s 10 years at the company, he has risen from vice president of sales and marketing to overseeing all revenue-generating activities such as operations, marketing and customer retention. Listen in to learn more and you can find him on twitter at @jaysimons.

In this episode, you’ll hear a conversation with Henry Ward, CEO and co-founder of Carta and Will Kohler Partner at Lightspeed. If you’re unfamiliar, Carta is a technology company that specializes in capitalization table management and valuation software. Prior to Carta, Henry was the founder and CEO of Secondsight, a portfolio optimization platform for retail investors. Listen in to learn more and you can find him on twitter at @henrysward

In this episode, you’ll hear a conversation with Chuck Robbins, CEO and Chairman of Cisco, and John W. Thompson, Venture Partner at Lightspeed and Chairman of Microsoft. Chuck likely needs no introduction - he took over for John Chambers as CEO of Cisco in 2015 and was unanimously voted in. Lightspeed has always been a big fan of Cisco. We count three former Cisco employees among our investing partners at Lightspeed – Barry Eggers, Arif Janmohamed, and Guru Chahal. As CEO, Chuck has been recognized for accelerating the pace of Cisco’s modern growth, while disrupting outdated working modes; promoting employee trust based on transparency of policy and process, and workplace diversity. Listen in to learn more and you can find him on twitter at @chuckrobbins

In this episode, you’ll hear a conversation with Christa Quarles, former CEO of OpenTable. Christa is all about culture, vision, strategy, and results and we absolutely loved having the opportunity to tap her deep knowledge base. If you’re unfamiliar, Christa was most recently the CEO of OpenTable, where she managed over 1100 employees and operations in over 20 countries for the beloved consumer brand. Prior to OpenTable, she was the chief business officer for Nextdoor and the SVP and general manager at The Walt Disney Company. Earlier in her career, she worked on Wall Street as an equity research analyst covering the internet sector. She’s also on the board of Lightspeed portfolio company Affirm as well as Kimberly Clark. Listen in to learn more and you can find her on twitter at @cquarles.

In this episode, co-host Nicole Quinn speaks with Stephen Hawthornthwaite, founder and CEO of Rothy’s. They discuss: How to build a product that is Comfortable, stylish, AND sustainable Why focusing on a great product and profitability has driven the success we have today, and How Rothy’s community has propelled our brand forward. You can follow Rothy’s at at rothys.com and @rothys on instagram and twitter.

In this episode, we hosted a panel on the future of investing from a LP. perspective. The panel was hosted by the amazing Female Founders Fund at an event in san Francisco on Monday, March 11th. You’re going to get to hear from three experts in the LP world today on their thoughts of what’s to come to 2019, diversity in the LP world and what makes a successful LP. The panel included Lo Toney, former partner at Google Ventures and now the managing Founder of Plexo Capital, second is Lisa Edgar - Managing Director @ Top Tier Capital Partners and David DiPeitro - Portfolio Director @ Greenspring Associates Lo Toney https://twitter.com/lo_toney https://www.linkedin.com/in/ltoney/ LIsa Edgar https://twitter.com/TTCP_SF ttcp.com David DiPeitro https://www.greenspringassociates.com/team/david-dipietro/ https://twitter.com/GreenspringVC

In this episode, you’ll hear from our friend Brian Lee. He’s a serial entrepreneur and the co-founder of The Honest Company (a Lightspeed portfolio company), ShoeDazzle, and LegalZoom. He’s also the co-founder and managing director of BAM Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Los Angeles. Today, we’ll talk about the intersection of pop culture and technology, how he made it as a serial entrepreneur without a tech background, and what’s ahead for the Honest Company. If you want to follow The Honest company you can visit them at honest.com. If you want to reachout to Brian, you can find him on Twitter @HonestLee888

This week are doing something a little different. We are bringing you three of the talks from Lightspeed’s first Negotiation Summit with #ANGELS: Demystifying Power & Wealth in the Valley that recently took place at Twitter. You’ll here from top negotiators, founders and investors to hear their tips for negotiating in the valley. In this episode Lightspeed Marketing Partner Meredith Kendall Maines sits down with Jana Rich, the founder & CEO of Rich Talent Group, who works with groundbreaking digital companies - from Peloton to Airbnb and Warby Parker -to build their leadership teams. If you want to find out more about Jana’s work, you can find her at richtalentgroup.com or on twitter @janarich

This week are doing something a little different. We are bringing you three of the talks from Lightspeed’s first Negotiation Summit with #ANGELS: Demystifying Power & Wealth in the Valley that recently took place at Twitter. You’ll here from top negotiators, founders and investors to hear their tips for negotiating in the valley. In this episode, you’ll hear from Maggie Neale. She is the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Author of Getting (More of) What You Want: How the Secrets of Economics and Psychology Can Help You Negotiate Anything, in Business and in Life. If you want to find out more about Maggie’s research, you can find her at gettingmoreofwhatyouwant.com or on twitter @MaggieNeale

This week are doing something a little different. We are bringing you three of the talks from Lightspeed’s first Negotiation Summit with #ANGELS: Demystifying Power & Wealth in the Valley that recently took place at Twitter. You’ll here from top negotiators, founders and investors to hear their tips for negotiating in the valley. In the last episode of our Negotiation Summit, I get the distinct pleasure to sit down with Max Levchin. Max is a Ukrainian-born American who moved to the states in In 1998. Soon after graduating from college, he co-founded Paypal, took the company public and then sold it to eBay. He then went on to found Slide, then sold it to Google, and is now the CEO & Founder of Affirm, a Lightspeed portfolio company. Max’s had to negotiate venture capital raises, sales of companies, partnerships, and more throughout his career and he talked with me about his top negotiation tips. If you want to find out more about Max, you can find him on twitter at @mlevchin ‏or levchin.com

Nick Vlahos is the CEO of The Honest Company. Before joining Honest, Nick was COO of Clorox and was CEO of Burt's Bees from 2011-2013. I recently sat down with Nick in his office, where I noticed quotes on his wall like "great leaders lead from optimism" and "curiosity makes a difference." In addition to discussing what's new with Honest Beauty, we talked about what those quotes mean to him and what motivates him as a leader.

Marcelo Camberos is the co-founder and CEO of Ipsy, a subscription-based beauty company that offers monthly deliveries of personalized makeup and beauty products. Marcelo's deep understanding of creators and of influencer culture has made Ipsy a leader in the direct to consumer beauty space. We had the chance to sit down with Marcelo and hear how he thinks about working with influencers, the challenges of subscription services, and how the thinks about culture at Ipsy.

Moj Mahdara is the CEO of Beautycon, the media platform that combines live events, influencer marketing and cosmetic commerce with events in LA, NY, and London. Moj was one of the early thought leaders in the influencer marketing space, and she has a real understanding of the power of content creators in the digital age. We sat down for to discuss her journey from newcomer to CEO, how celebrities are disrupting the beauty landscape, and the power of authenticity in the beauty world.

Taylor Lorenz covers the intersection of technology and pop culture for The Atlantic. Her work covers memes, internet culture, social media, influencers, and teens.  We always enjoy reading her work - she has her finger on the pulse of pop culture, and this conversation was no exception.

Today’s guest is Joey Zwillinger, cofounder and president of Allbirds. Alex and Joey spoke about a number of topics ranging from Joey's career journey from industrial chemist to “wool cobbler,” to the importance of brand values, to why it’s “the best of times” for e-commerce startups, to the role of Amazon in the ecosystem.

Jeremy sits down with Bonobos founder Andy Dunn for a wide ranging discussion that covers Bonobos' early days, transitions, and what happens when your greatest strengths as a leader become liabilities.

Some of the highlights of today's episode include: ● The history of Goop ● A description of the core Goop customer ● Building the culture of Goop ● Gwyneth's biggest joy that stems from working on Goop

Today we speak with Jacob Jaber, CEO of Philz Coffee in San Francisco. Jacob took the reigns from his dad Phil at only 18 years of age and grew the business from a single store to national scale over the past decade. Philz’ “one cup at a time” approach to coffee helped define a “third wave” of coffee culture in America. Listen to the episode to hear Jacob’s thoughts on the importance of a personalized experience and the challenges of scaling nationally while retaining a strong focus on culture, quality, and community. Jacob also reveals his favorite cup, and it’s not what you’d think!

3 million Americans spend over $90 billion each year on a single day. The wedding is one of humanity’s oldest social traditions and has yet to be brought into the modern age with technology. Until now. Shan-Lyn Ma is CEO and co-founder of Zola, the fastest growing wedding company on the internet. Prior to starting Zola, Shan-Lyn was a senior product leader at companies like Gilt Groupe and Yahoo!. Listen to this week’s episode to hear some of her thoughts on weddings, building beautiful products, and the future of retail. Highlights of today’s episode include: ● Why Shan-Lyn decided to get into the wedding business ● The incredible size of the wedding market in the US ● How Shan-Lyn’s experiences with Gilt Groupe helped shape her work on Zola ● How to flip the classic e-commerce businesses model on its head ● The benefits of empowering customers to fully personalize their experience ● The importance of building for mobile first ● How Zola uses data to measure performance ● How Zola competes in a competitive hiring environment ● How retailers can implement strategies and innovations created by online businesses ● What the future holds for Zola and retail in general Links: Zola: https://www.zola.com/

Nicole sits down with Affirm CEO Max Levchin for a wide ranging discussion. They cover Affirm’s use of technology as a means of inclusion, the number one characteristic he looks for when hiring, and his work on women’s health and fractionalizing home ownership. Show notes: Introductions [:08] Underlying problems with our current credit system [1:20] The impact of deferred interest [5:15] How Affirm is trying to change the industry [6:00] What does Affirm stand for [8:20] How Max hires and what he looks for when hiring [9:22] The origins of the women’s fertility app, Glow [11:30] How Max built the community around Glow [16:00] HVF: Hard, Valuable, and Fun [17:10] Divvy: fractionalizing home ownership [20:00]