What Fuels You

Kellan Carter is a founding partner of Bellevue-based FUSE where he focuses on early-stage investments in intelligent software in both horizontal and vertical categories. He currently sits on several Boards, including Zuper and Pictory. Previously, Kellan spent seven years at Ignition Partners, a leading early-stage venture capital firm, and two years in investment banking at Mooreland Partners in San Francisco. Kellan also currently sits on the Board of the Bellevue Boys and Girls Club. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're sharing some of the most insightful clips from past interviews. You'll hear from Jane Park, Matt Oppenheimer, Dan Shapiro, Robi Ganguly, and Sue Suh. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Powers is the Founder and President of Alliance Partition Systems, with over 20 years of experience in the industry. He has done everything from scrapping at Safeco Field as a 1st bracket apprentice, to successfully bidding and managing multi-million dollar projects as an estimator/project manager, to President of one of the largest drywall companies in the state. He has three children: two teenage girls and a tween boy, who he enjoys spending time with, as well as traveling. His goal is to keep APS rated as the best place to work in the industry, and as a side effect grow to be the largest drywaller in Washington and Oregon. Mike Powers founded this company in September, 2007. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anoop Gupta is the CEO and Co-Founder of SeekOut, an AI-powered Talent Intelligence Platform helping organizations recruit, retain, and grow talent. Anoop started SeekOut after an 18-year career at Microsoft. During his tenure, Anoop was the Corporate Vice-President of the multibillion-dollar Unified Communications Group (Skype + Exchange). He was TA to Bill Gates, advising on technology and product strategy, and as a Distinguished Scientist at MSR, he led work on AI, Natural User Interfaces, and Telepresence. Prior to Microsoft, Anoop was a tenured professor at Stanford University and he holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Christie Lagally is the founder and CEO of Rebellyous Foods, a food production technology company working to make plant-based meat price-competitive with animal-based meat. Lagally began her career in the aerospace industry working on testing, designing, and manufacturing commercial airplanes at Boeing. Now at Rebellyous, she focuses on designing novel manufacturing equipment that addresses the two most significant obstacles facing the plant-based meat industry: cost and quality at scale. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nicole Schmidt has worked in the construction industry for 18+ years, starting as a designer for large and small hospitality and housing projects around the country before spending the second half of her pre-Source career at a variety of manufacturers in sales and business development. After teaching herself enough code to launch Source on her own, Nicole has become passionate about the ways in which technology can serve the construction industry and cognizant of the places that complicated projects will always need a human touch. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Varun Puri is the co-founder of Yoodli, an AI powered communication coach. Yoodli helps you ace your next presentation or interview by providing private and judgment-free analytics on your filler words, body language, content and more. Yoodli (www.yoodli.ai) is being rolled out to 300k+ Toastmasters members globally, has raised $7M+ in funding, and been featured across media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and Inc. Before Yoodli, Varun led Africa Operations for a GoogleX initiative that used invisible lasers to bring the internet to unconnected areas. He also ran special projects for Sergey Brin, one of Google’s founders. Varun is a TEDx speaker, part of Forbes 30 under 30, was voted the Best Young Entrepreneur in the Pacific Northwest, and gave the commencement speech at Claremont McKenna College, his alma mater. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Spencer Rascoff is an entrepreneur and tech executive who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso, Recon Food, Queue, and heyLibby, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. Spencer is an active angel investor and is starting new companies through his Los Angeles venture capital firm and startup studio, 75 & Sunny. He is also on the Board of Directors of Varo Bank. In the spring of 2022, Spencer was a Visiting Professor, where he taught Harvard College's first-ever startup class, "Startups from Ideation to Exit," in the fall of 2019, he co-created and co-taught the Harvard Business School course, "Managing Tech Ventures. Spencer hosts "Office Hours," a podcast featuring candid conversations between prominent executives on leadership, diversity and inclusion, and startups. Spencer graduated cum laude from Harvard University. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is a repost of one of our most popular episodes of 2023. Happy holidays to you and your families. We look forward to bringing you new guests and conversations in 2024! -- Dr. Daniela Braga is the Founder and CEO of Defined.ai, one of the fastest-growing startups in the AI space. She has been the recipient of several awards, including the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Pacific Northwest 2020 Award, #27 Deloitte Fast 500 2020 (#1 in the Pacific Northwest region); #27 in Inc.5000 in 2020, and Goldman Sachs Most Intriguing 100 Entrepreneurs in 2021. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network as a Tech Pioneer and AI Expert in WEF Davos 2022. She’s also a YPO and a Chief member. Dr. Braga has raised over $80 million of Venture Capital, making her the woman founder in AI who has raised more capital in the world. Dr. Braga has been appointed to the National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research Resource Task Force, a 12-person body that advises the US president on the AI strategy of the United States. She is also an advisor to the President of Portugal. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen to a short message from Shauna Swerland about wrapping up 2023 and plans for the podcast in 2024. Thanks for listening this year! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Jon Staenberg has been an active venture capitalist for over 30 years, serving as a General Partner in three Funds managing over $250 million. As an angel investor, Jon has made over 250 investments. Currently, he is focused on building Agate Hound Fund, a fund for Search Funds. This asset class is relatively unknown but has shown exceptional performance over the past 40 years. Additionally, he spends his spare time working on his vineyard in Argentina, www.handofgodwines.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Anna Gudmundson has been a senior tech business leader in the international high-growth scene for 15+ years. Her present-day focus is on transformational technologies which impact the world in a significant, positive way while also having strong commercial viability. As CEO of Sensate, a consumer stress-management technology company, she is tackling one of the biggest challenges of our time: stress and mental health. Apart from a passion for technology business, Anna has a huge curiosity for personal growth and the human potential - both in what she produces and how she leads. Anna leads Sensate to mobilize cutting-edge science and technology, informed by wisdom drawn from old traditions and practices, to bring greater calm and consciousness to our current, overstressed world. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Krish Ramineni is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai, an AI meeting assistant that transcribes, summarizes, and analyzes meetings. Named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, Krish graduated from UPenn. He was one of the youngest Product Managers at Microsoft, leading projects in customer voice and growth. He has guest lectured at Stanford on machine learning and holds patents in workflow automation. Krish is a thought leader in SaaS/AI and an active startup advisor. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Raquel Barrett is a dynamic entrepreneur and leader known for her expertise in e-commerce, technology, and operations. As one of the co-founders of FUNBOY, a leading leisure and lifestyle brand, Raquel has played a pivotal role in shaping the brand's success. Driven by an innate passion for problem solving and a keen understanding of consumer behavior, Raquel has always been at the forefront of adopting new technology and e-commerce strategies. Before co-founding FUNBOY, she served as the Head of Marketing for a Seattle-based consumer tech startup. Beyond her professional achievements, Raquel is a mom to two young boys, balancing the demands of entrepreneurship with the joys of raising a family with her husband and fellow co-founder. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Alessya Visnjic is the CEO of WhyLabs, the AI Observability company building tools that power robust and responsible AI deployment. Prior to WhyLabs, Alessya was a CTO-in-residence at the Allen Institute for AI, where she evaluated commercial potential for the latest AI research. Earlier, Alessya spent 9 years at Amazon leading ML initiatives, including forecasting and data science platforms. Alessya is also the founder of Rsqrd AI, a global community of 1,000+ AI practitioners who are committed to making enterprise AI technology responsible. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Gaurav Oberoi is the CEO and co-founder of Lexion. He started his career as an engineer at Amazon, before moving on to found and sell two startups (BillMonk, and Precision Polling), and build a $20M+ ARR business from $0 as a VP of Product at SurveyMonkey. Gaurav co-founded Lexion as the first EIR at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. He thrives on building products that customers love, with diverse teams that enjoy working together. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Case brings nearly three decades of industry leadership in cloud services, software product management, marketing, partner sales, digital promotion, and brand development to his role as CEO of Acumatica. Before joining Acumatica, John served as president and CEO of Unify Square, a leading provider of operations and performance management software and cloud-managed services. He also spent 16 years at Microsoft in a variety of executive-level positions, including corporate vice president of Office and Office 365, where he spurred the digital transformation of Microsoft’s most successful cloud business; and vice president of the worldwide OEM division in marketing and sales, where he jointly oversaw the global distribution and reseller channels for Microsoft. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Walter Berger currently serves as President and Co-CEO as well as a director of Kymeta Corporation. Under his leadership, the company successfully released its second-generation product and broadband service, improving performance through an integrated WAN device providing seamless satellite and cellular communications, accelerating Kymeta's global market penetration. Walter has served on several public boards including REG a renewal energy company and private boards including Sirius Computer Solutions, a national integrator of technology-based business solutions. He holds a BBA from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hope Cochran is currently a Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group. Previously, she served as the CFO of King Digital, the creators of Candy Crush. At King, she not only led the company through an IPO and acquisition to Activision but also became a rockstar Candy Crush player. Prior to that she was the CFO of Clearwire through its sale to Sprint in 2013 and was the founder of her own company, SkillsVillage which she went on to sell to PeopleSoft. In 2013 Fortune named her to the top 10 Most Powerful Women in Gaming and in 2018 Women’s Inc named her Most Influential Corporate Director. She is also on the boards of three public companies, Hasbro, MongoDB, and New Relic. Hope has a passion for the arts and holds a B.A. in Economics and a B.A. in Music/Opera from Stanford University. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Derek Streat is the Co-founder and CEO of DexCare, a data-driven intelligence company that makes healthcare access better for everyone. He is an accomplished healthcare technology entrepreneur and executive, having co-founded and/or led six venture-backed companies including three in health tech and four acquired by public companies. Prior to joining Providence as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence to commercialize DexCare, Derek served as Vice President of Digital Solutions at Johnson & Johnson after it acquired his surgical AI company, C-SATS. Derek is also actively involved in national healthcare data transparency efforts for the improvement of patient care as a Co-founder and Board member of two leading data-sharing organizations, PEDSnet, and the Improving Renal Outcomes Collaborative. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.