Aaron Huey is an award-winning National Geographic photographer, a three time Stanford Fellow and the founder and chief creative officer of Amplifier.org. He has broken crowdfunding records when he raised $3 million in a few weeks for projects like We the People and We the Future. Before he had kids he did a 3,349 mile solo walk across America with his dog Cosmo over 154 days. Most importantly Fatherly called Aaron the "3rd Coolest Dad in America" beating out Barack Obama and Childish Gambino. He's a husband and father of two kids.

In this episode we discuss:

• His life with his wife and two children


• Encouraging making, exploration and risk-taking


• How to foster a lifelong love of creativity and expression in your kids


• The complementary nature of his wife's steady personality with his high-speed ADHD personality


• The inspiration behind his kids unique names


• His thoughts on social media and when his oldest son skyrocketed to Instagram fame as a young kid


• His involvement in social issues, tech innovations and storytelling

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Where to find Aaron Huey

- Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/aaronhuey

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/argonautphoto

- His amazing website: https://www.helloprototype.com/ 

- Latest project on climate change: https://www.crisiscurated.com/

Where to find Adam Fishman

- Newsletter: https://startupdadpod.substack.com/

- Newsletter: https://www.fishmanafnewsletter.com

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/

- Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/fishmanaf

- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/

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In this episode, we cover:

[2:08 ] Welcome to the show

[2:25 ] Aaron’s professional life

[4:49 ] Record setting moments

[6:57 ] 3rd Coolest dad in America

[8:58 ] Aaron’s childhood

[10:20 ] Living all over the world

[10:57 ] Walking 3,349 miles across the country

[13:27 ] His wife and family

[15:38 ] All about his kids

[18:48 ] More about his amazing wife

[19:11 ] Their decision to have kids

[23:35 ] First memory of becoming a dad

[24:07 ] Most surprising thing about being a dad

[25:55 ] No blood, no foul

[28:14 ] Fostering creativity

[34:10 ] Exploration/risk taking

[37:08 ] Not always seeing eye-to-eye with his wife

[39:37 ] How his career affects family life

[43:37 ] Mistake made as a dad

[46:27 ] Pre-teens and social media

[50:51 ] Hustle culture

[53:44 ] Rapid fire round

[1:02:19 ] Thank you

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Show references:

Aaron Huey's Website - https://www.helloprototype.com/

Aaron's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/argonautphoto

Hawkeye Huey's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/hawkeyehuey/

Juno Huey's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/junohuey/

Aaron's Ted Talk - https://ed.ted.com/lessons/america-s-native-prisoners-of-war-aaron-huey

Amplifier.org - https://amplifier.org/

Fatherly.com - https://www.fatherly.com/entertainment/100-coolest-dads-in-america-2018

Kickstarter We The People - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amplifierfoundation/we-the-people-public-art-for-the-inauguration-and/posts

Kickstarter We The Future - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amplifierfoundation/we-the-future-art-for-the-classroom-and-beyond

National Geographic - https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/photographer/aaron-huey

2017 Women's March - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Women%27s_March

Lakota People - https://www.lakotamall.com/history-and-ancestry/

Rotary - https://www.rotary.org/en

John S. Knight Fellowship - https://jsk.stanford.edu/

Tom Shadyac - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Shadyac

Smithsonian Institution - https://www.si.edu/

Heyoka - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heyoka

Hayao Miyazaki - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0594503/

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Production support for Startup Dad is provided by Tommy Harron at http://www.armaziproductions.com/

Episode art designed by Matt Sutherland at https://www.mspnw.com/