inTheir20s

David Sacks is the co-founder and general partner at Craft. He has been a successful founder and investor for over two decades, building and investing in some of the most iconic companies in tech. David has invested in over 20 unicorns, including Affirm, AirBnB, Bird, ClickUp, Eventbrite, Facebook, Houzz, Lyft, OpenDoor, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, and Wish. David first got involved in the technology industry in 1999 when he joined early-stage startup Confinity, later renamed PayPal. Serving as the company’s first product leader and then as COO, David built and ran many of the company’s key teams, including product management and design, sales and marketing, business development, international, customer service, fraud operations, and HR. When the company IPO’d on the Nasdaq in 2002, David was 29 — the median age of the “PayPal Mafia” executives listed on the S-1. PayPal was later acquired by eBay and eventually spun back out into a publicly traded company. David is well known in Silicon Valley for his product acumen. AngelList’s Naval Ravikant has called David “the world’s best product strategist.” This episode was sponsored by DeoBlock, which is a reusable gym bag deodorizer founded by two guys in their 20s. DeoBlock deodorizes spaces with the use of a plant-based refill pod infused with essential oils that lasts for 30 days. Learn more at DeoBlock.com

Zeb Evans is a serial entrepreneur that's started several software companies with over $75 million in revenue. Currently, he's founder and CEO at ClickUp, a productivity platform where people plan their work. ClickUp is a Unicorn company, which means its worth over $1B. We spoke about why he founded @clickup, the best traits for aspiring entrepreneurs, managing mental health, and Zeb's plans for the future.

Meg Jay, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist, and an Associate Professor of Human Development at the University of Virginia, who specializes in adult development and in 20-somethings in particular. She earned a doctorate in clinical psychology, and in gender studies, from the University of California, Berkeley. Her books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and her work has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review and on NPR and BBC. Her TED talk “Why 30 Is Not the New 20” is among the most watched of all time.

Roberto Aguayo is a famous football placekicker who is known as the most accurate college kicker of all time. He played college football at Florida State University, where he won a National Championship with the team. While in college, Roberto won the Lou Groza award, which is the highest honor for a college kicker. Roberto was drafted into the NFL in 2016 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. During his time in the NFL, he played with such teams like the Chicago Bears, Carolina Panthers, Los Angeles Chargers, and New England Patriots. Roberto is the founder of the Roberto Aguayo Kicking Academy, a program focused on improving the physical, mental, and emotional strength of young kickers. Learn more about his program at: https://rakickingacademy.com

Brittany Davis is a General Partner at Backstage Capital, a VC firm that invests in companies led by underestimated founders, including women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ founders. So far, they've invested in 150+ companies. Brittany brings experience sourcing early-stage ventures for investment, conducting diligence, and managing an investment pipeline. Prior to working at Backstage, she has led many organizations in sourcing and evaluating early stage deal flow. Brittany was a principal for #ANGELS, where she sourced companies and contributed to the #TheGapTable initiative. She was a Manager at Village Capital where she analyzed opportunities and created investment recommendations in the fintech, education, health, food/agriculture, and energy sectors. She also gained experience supporting entrepreneurs as an Associate at Techstars and as a Mentor at Startup Jamaica. Prior to her work supporting founders, she had her own ecommerce startup, Runway Technologies, and built a solid foundation in finance working at Bank of America Merrill Lynch for 5 years. Brittany received her BS in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed her MBA at Harvard Business School. This episode features a special guest from the Black Venture Capital Consortium: Jahleesa Phelps, who is a Senior in College and Summer 2021 BVCC Cohort Member. 

Simon Squibb is a prominent member of the Hong Kong startup ecosystem and one of Asia’s leading public speakers in entrepreneurship, business and innovation. He's also the Chief Purpose Officer at The Purposeful Project. Simon has started 19 companies, invested in over 60+ startups and has mentored hundreds of founders. Having sold his award-winning branding and digital agency, Fluid, to PwC, Simon now focuses on inspiring, motivating and guiding both budding and experienced entrepreneurs by sharing his personal experiences, insights, ideas and tips. Part entrepreneur guru, part student.

Jonathan Javier is the CEO/Founder of Wonsulting, which is focused on turning underdogs into winners: helping hundreds of thousands who come from non-target schools/non-traditional backgrounds to get them into their dream careers. Jonathan’s story comes from when he was in college at the University of California Riverside. He was applying to hundreds of different roles expecting responses back from his dream companies but when he didn't receive responses back from any, he would always think "Is it my resume? My interview skills? My background?" However, Jonathan changed that perspective and realized that you can get into your dream job without applying, by simply utilizing LinkedIn. For all of his roles to work at Snap, Google, and Cisco, he never applied; Jonathan used unconventional methods which are shared throughout our discussion. Wonsulting started in 2019 as an idea at first; but quickly grew to something even greater with growing their community to 600K+ on all of their social media platforms combined.

Andy Dunn is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Bonobos, which is an apparel company founded with the goal of providing men with better fitting pants. The brand has grown to become a premier destination for men’s clothing. In 2007, Andy wanted to prove that the Internet was going to become the core medium for story-telling, for delivering great service, and for transacting goods.” In founding and developing Bonobos, Dunn helped define and prove a new model for vertically integrated fashion retail in the e-commerce era. Walmart acquired Bonobos in 2017 for $310 million, keeping Dunn on as Senior Vice President of Digital Consumer Brands. In addition to Bonobos, Andy is the founder of Red Swan Ventures and Monica + Andy.

Lainy Painter is a partner at Craft Ventures on the investment team, where she invests primarily in SaaS and Marketplaces and has a particular interest in complex vertical markets, such as real estate, healthcare, education, construction, and financial services. Prior to Craft, Lainy worked at Battery Ventures in San Francisco. Previously, Lainy worked at Gainsight, a B2B customer success startup where she helped lead business operations and strategy across the organization, including initiatives to grow services revenue and drive product adoption. Lainy started her career at Goldman Sachs on the technology, media and telecom investment banking team, advising companies including PayPal, LinkedIn, Zendesk and 2U. She graduated summa cum laude from the College of William and Mary. Lainy is an active member of All Raise, the non-profit dedicated to increasing representation in venture capital. She served as Co-Chair for the 2018, 2019, and 2020 Women Who Venture Summits.

Angel Onuoha is a Harvard University graduate who studied economics and computer science. He knew that Wall Street lacked diversity and decided to do something about it. Angel founded BLK Capital Management, which is a 100% black owned and student run hedge fund that focuses on educating members by exposing them to the field of active investment management. They are a long/short equity fund that employs capital across the globe delivering absolute returns seeking to outperform industry standards.  Outside of BLK, he is the founder of Zuvy, a mobile app that allows college students to create and request services for each other. Mr. Onuoha has spent summers in private equity and investment banking at The Blackstone Group. In addition, Angel is an incoming Google Associate Product Management.

On Episode #50 of the InTheir20s podcast, host Landon Campbell interviews Steve "Woz" Wozniak. Wozniak is an icon, technological genius, and philanthropist. In 1976, Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer Inc. with Wozniak's Apple I personal computer. The following year, he introduced his Apple II personal computer, featuring a central processing unit, a keyboard, color graphics, and a floppy disk drive. The Apple II was integral in launching the personal computer industry. Both the Apple I and Apple II were Apple's first line of successful products. Throughout our conversation, we reflect on the exciting moments of Wozniak's accomplished career. Wozniak talks about the moments when he first fell in love with computer programing and how he turned his passion into a career. We speak about his relationship with Steve Jobs and how their friendship evolved over time. Lastly, Wozniak shares his personal philosophy on kindness and his hopes for 20-somethings today.

Ezra Levine is a former Portfolio Manager at Hilltop Park, a NYC-based hedge fund in the Sports, Media, Consumer and Entertainment industries. He is now the CEO of Collectable, the #1 fractional ownership platform that is exclusively dedicated to high-end sports memorabilia. Their mission is to democratize the sports collectibles industry and make iconic pieces that have been hard to reach affordable and available to any sports collector, investor, and fan.

Bushra Amiwala is a Skokie native and daughter of immigrants who truly appreciates diversity in its many beautiful forms. As communities across our nation – the working poor, religious and ethnic minorities, and young changemakers who are ignored by political establishments – are pushed aside, Bushra is a committed voice for underrepresented citizens. As of April 2019, she is the youngest Muslim elected official in the United States. Amiwala was a Democratic candidate for the Cook County Board of Commissioners in the 2018 Illinois Primary Election. She seeks to ensure that our nation’s future is in good hands by building a compassionate, politically-engaged generation

Dan is the CEO of Strata Decision Technology where his focus is to ensure the company delivers on its mission to help heal healthcare. The company’s financial planning, analytics and performance platform is used by over 1,000 healthcare organizations, including many of the largest and most influential healthcare systems in the U.S.  The company has been recognized multiple times as one of the fastest growing companies in the nation by Inc. Magazine, as one of the best places to work in healthcare by Becker’s Healthcare and has received the prestigious “Best in KLAS” recognition for the highest customer satisfaction by KLAS Enterprises for the last six years.  Additionally, Dan is a two-time finalist for Illinois Technology CEO of the Year. With close to 30 years of healthcare experience, Dan has been one of the industry’s key thought leaders in developing the Decision Support, Financial Planning, Electronic Prescribing and Electronic Health Record markets, including serving on the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology and co-authoring the books Margin + Mission: A Prescription for Curing Healthcare’s Cost Crisis and The Electronic Physician. Prior to joining Strata, Dan spent 12 years as part of the leadership team that grew a healthcare software company from 100 to over 6,000 employees. He has provided strategy and process redesign consulting for many of the leading hospitals and health systems in the U.S. and served in leadership roles for Baxter Healthcare and AstraZeneca. Dan is the co-founder of projectMUSIC™, a benefit concert that sends underprivileged children to overnight camp and of HackHunger™, a collaborative of tech companies working to crack the code on hunger.  Dan earned his BS in Finance from Indiana University and his MBA from DePaul University.  He is an avid runner, having completed 17 marathons.

Ev Williams has revolutionized the internet as we’ve come to know it. With Blogger, he made blogging easier for everyone; with Twitter, he helped people share ideas from anywhere; and with Medium, Ev has created a digital network of curious minds. Thirteen years after co-founding Twitter, Ev Williams is still trying to reinvent online conversation. The billionaire Medium founder sees the present as another big moment—and he is ready to pounce. Born in Nebraska, Ev grew up on a farm where he assisted with crop irrigation in the summer. As a young man he was so interested in farming that he joined the FarmHouse International Fraternity, Inc., a professional agriculture fraternity, while he was studying in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. However, he did not stay long enough in the university to complete his degree as he was very much interested in becoming an entrepreneur as soon as possible. He teamed up with his father to set up a company to provide instructional material about the World Wide Web which they ran for a short while. He then worked as a web developer for several computer companies before co-founding Pyra Labs. Soon Pyra Labs developed the blog-publishing service Blogger which became a huge success and was ultimately acquired by Google. His entrepreneurial spirit did not allow him to stay with Google for long and he left the company to found other ventures like Odeo and Obvious Corp. The micro-blogging service Twitter was created as a project of Obvious Corp.