Danielle Newnham Podcast

Welcome to the Danielle Newnham Podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human, stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day. I am so excited to be back and I have another incredible lineup of guests this year which I can’t wait to share with you so don’t forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts so you don’t miss out.Just so you know, I am changing things a little bit this year and trialling weekly episodes vs different series so let me know what you think.And as always, I will be talking to really inspiring founders, innovators and investors about a myriad of topics from reimagining education to NFTs, impact investing, accessible tech and the highs and lows of building game-changing products. There’s also a big focus on the human side of these stories this year so do hit the subscribe button to be the first to hear each one.Finally, I hope you all had a wonderful break and are raring to go in 2022 – I cannot wait to share these really special episodes with you.

To end Series 3, my guest today is Yodit Stanton, co-founder and CEO of OpenSensors which is a technology company that provides advanced data-based solutions for workplace optimisation. It essentially uses internet of things data points to learn how your office building is being utilised and how that usage could be better optimised - something which is especially useful in the time of Covid where workplaces are doing their best to keep their staff safe.In this interview, Yodit and I talk about her background and growing up on a cargo ship, what it was like to be at Lehman Brothers when it collapsed, how she became excited about big data, and how her daughter’s asthma led to the birth of OpenSensors.Yodit is an Ethiopian founder who spends her work days helping businesses to optimise their space for health and wealth whilst a chunk of her time at the weekend is spent dedicated to helping black and brown founders with their startups.I couldn’t think of a more inspiring woman to close Series 3.As it is the end of the series, I would like to thank my incredible guests - Alvy Ray Smith of Pixar, John Couch of Apple, Guy Kawasaki, Eileen Burbidge of Passion Capital, Nicolas Cary of Blockchain.com, serial entrepreneur Clarence Wooten, historian of Innovation Dr Anton Howes, and of course, the fantastic Yodit Stanton.I will be taking a short break before I return in the new year with a whole new series of incredibly inspiring guests.In the meantime, you can revisit some of the previous 24 episodes and let me know which are your favourites. I can be found on Twitter @daniellenewnham.Until then, have a wonderful remainder of the year and I look forward to sharing 2022 with you.-----As it's the end of the first year of this podcast,  please do let me know what you think of it and what you want to hear more of in 2022 by reviewing the podcast - it also means the world to me and will help others to find it too.-----Yodit on Twitter @yoditstanton and LinkedIn Yodit Stantonhttps://www.opensensors.com/Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham-----This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng.  

Today’s guest is Dr Anton Howes, a historian of innovation, with a focus on the inventors of the British Industrial Revolution. He is also author of Arts & Minds, How the Royal Society of Arts Changed a Nation and author of the popular newsletter, Age of Invention.For those who don’t know, The Royal Society of Arts or its full name - Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges which was founded in 1754.Anton is writing a second book on why innovation accelerated in the eighteenth century in Britain, which in turn led to the Industrial Revolution and is also Head of Innovation Research at The Entrepreneurs Network, a UK-based think tank focused on encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship.In this interview, we look at:What ingredients are required to foster innovationWhat has surprised Anton most about his researchThe virality of invention as the improving mindset spreadsHow education could be reformed to encourage more polymathsThe impact of how poorly the invention process is portrayed in traditional media.Anton has done a vast amount of research in this area and is clearly excited about the subject which makes for a very enjoyable interview.I hope you enjoy it too.-----Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.Anton on Twitter @antonhowesDanielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham-----Links:Anton's book, Arts and Minds: How The Royal Society of Arts Changed a NationAnton's newsletter, The Age of InventionRSA-----This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng.   

“As a kid, I lived in a place where as a young Black man, you had only two choices: become a predator or become prey.”This is a quote from today’s guest - Clarence Wooten – serial tech entrepreneur, investor and entrepreneur in residence at X, Google’s Moonshot factory.Clarence grew up in a tough area in Baltimore which instilled in him a level of grit that ked him on to a hugely successful career in the tech industry. In this interview, we go back in time to what it was like growing up in that environment as well as how he got into tech and the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial journey.From starting Envision Designs, whilst studying architecture as an undergraduate followed by that got acquired. Clarence then co-founded and was CEO of ImageCafe.com – regarded as the Internet's first online superstore of customizable websites templates, it was acquired for $23 million by Network Solutions in November 1999, just seven months after it launched.Clarence was also founder and CEO and Chairman of Progress.ly - an enterprise SaaS platform that made it easier for enterprises to turn business processes into visual, repeatable, workflows in the cloud. Progress.ly was acquired by Box in June 2018 He also founded Groupsite.com in 2006, a self-serve SaaS platform for building private, branded communities of interest.These are just some of his accomplishments. Clarence is also an investor and does a lot of work to encourage and empower more underrepresented founders in tech.Clarence is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University and has degrees in Business Management and Computer-Aided Design for Architecture and Engineering. He is also the only African-American to have founded and led two startups to successful acquisitions by publicly traded companies with the sale of ImageCafe to Network Solutions and Progress.ly to Box. This is an incredible episode with an amazing entrepreneur and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. -----Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.Clarence on Twitter @clarencewootenDanielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham-----Mentioned in this episode:Pitch BlckJim McKelvey interview Clarence's EIR at Google X appointment announcement  -----This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng.     

What is money? It seems like such a simple question, doesn’t it? But, like anything, when you drill down to its inner skeleton, it becomes far more interesting. After all, currency is one of the most fundamental cornerstones of our being and yet how many of us could describe how it exists, how it evolved or even comprehend why the financial model is actually far easier to disrupt than we think?In today’s episode of the podcast, Nicolas Cary co-founder and Vice Chairman of Blockchain.com answers these questions and more. We even have a question from one of crypto’s leading thinkers – Balaji Srivinvasan so stay tuned to the end of the episode for that.Nicolas Cary is a serial entrepreneur and lifelong technologist. He co-founded Blockchain.com here in the UK with co-founders Peter Smith and Ben Reeves, as well as Sky’s the Limit which he is also chairman of – Sky's the Limit connects business mentors with majority-underrepresented first-time founders.Before we get started, I wanted to share three interesting and most likely surprising facts about Blockchain.comFirstly, the company celebrated its tenth birthday this month (which is October 2021) so it was very much one of the earlier companies in this space. Secondly, the company just reached $1 trillion in crypto transactions. Yes, you heard that right –$1 TRILLION DOLLARS WORTH of transactions.Thirdly, this U.K.-based privately-held company just announced its year to date revenue which has surpassed $1.5 billion. Yup, 1.5 BILLION. It’s kind of unfathomable isn’t it?Needless to say, this is a fascinating interview with someone at the forefront of this technology and a huge advocate for empowering everyone through digital disruption.Finally, for those who don’t know, Blockchain.com is the world’s leading digital assets platform – it builds software that makes using digital assets safe, easy, and secure for consumers and enterprises and has three category-leading products include block explorer which is the most widely used search engine for verifying transactions and accessing data about the Bitcoin blockchain. And has web and mobile wallets which have more users than the rest of the ecosystem combined. Finally, its API is considered by many as the bedrock of the industry - powering exchanges, merchant processors, ATMs and beyond. It’s both a fun and truly informative conversation which I hope you enjoy.----------This is the Danielle Newnham podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human, stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.----------Nicolas on Twitter @niccaryBlockchain.com / SkysTheLimit.OrgDanielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham  and on Instagram @daniellenewnham---------This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too. 

Today's guest is Eileen Burbidge - esteemed early-stage VC, co-founder and Partner at Passion Capital and co-founder of co-working space White Bear Yard in trendy East London which witnessed the birth of incredible some incredible startups including Monzo and Go CardlessEileen spent her early career in Silicon Valley, working at tech stalwarts such as Apple and Sun Microsystems before joining the early team at Skype where she worked directly with the founders in London.Eileen has also been awarded an MBE from the Queen in 2015 for services to business and also was an advisor to both our Prime Minister and London Mayor.In this interview we talk about being at Sun Microsystems when Java was released, what the early days at Skype were like, why she got fired from Skype and the type of investments she looks to do through Passion. We also touch on Passion’s recent collaboration with crowdfunding platform Seedrs which marked the first time a European crowdfunding platform had facilitated access from the general to a private venture fund. Today’s episode is equally wonderful and very informative which I think you will really enjoy.--------------Eileen on Twitter @eileentso  / Passion CapitalDanielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnham-----This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng. Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.Episode image of Eileen via Tech Crunch 

Today’s guest is Guy Kawasaki – marketing guru, founder, author of 15 books including The Art of the Start, The Art of Social Media, and his most recent book – Wise Guy: Lessons from a Life. Guy is also an investor, host of Remarkable People podcast, Apple Fellow and Chief Evangelist for Canva, among other positions.Some of you might recognise Guy’s name from the work he did at Apple in the 1980s when he was Chief Evangelist in charge of marketing the Macintosh.  He is also well-known for being an expert on social media, something he now says is overrated.In this wide-ranging conversation, Guy discusses what he learned from Steve Jobs, what he thinks the Macintosh got right and wrong, and what work is required once a revolutionary product hits the market. We also touch on social media, the press, the Royals, why I don’t watch or read the news, and why he wishes he hadn’t quit Apple.Guy is a fantastic storyteller and incredibly warm and giving so I thoroughly enjoyed this interview and look back at tech history, and hope you do too.----------Guy on Twitter / Instagram / Facebook / Remarkable People podcastDanielle on Twitter / Instagram 

Ten years ago today, on 5th October 2011, we lost one of the greatest tech innovators of our time – Steve Jobs. It’s almost unfathomable how much impact Steve had on the world and how much his work will empower future generations but as he wished, he most definitely put a ding in the universe and left a wide, gaping hole when he passed.To mark Steve’s life, it seemed fitting to talk to someone who knew him well – so today’s guest is John Couch, who was both Steve’s colleague and friend for many decades.Steve personally recruited John to help him build a “revolutionary computer.” It was 1978, just two years after Apple had started, and thus making John Apple’s 54th employee. Soon after, John became Apple's first Vice President of Software and then became General Manager, overseeing the Apple Lisa computer division.Prior to joining this new startup called Apple, John was one of UC Berkeley's first fifty computer science graduates and had a well-paying, secure job working at HP, under the tutelage of its iconic founder, and a hero of Steve Jobs, Bill Hewlett. But as he tells me, there was something about Steve’s vision that drew him in and made him leave his job at HP for the exciting yet vastly unknown.Six years later, John left Apple to work in education before becoming the CEO of a biotech company called DoubleTwist. He was then recruited again by Steve Jobs again in 2002 and returned to Apple to take on the newly created role of Vice President of Education – a position he remained in until his recent retirement.In 2018, John co-wrote "Rewiring Education and this year, he published his latest book - “My Life at Apple and The Steve I Knew" which is a book we dig deeper into in this episode. As Steve Wozniak says, “John is one of the most interesting, intelligent, and passionate people I've ever met. Both Steve and I viewed him as an essential part of what made Apple the most innovative company in the world, even as he remained one of our best-kept secrets.” You’re listening to the Danielle Newnham podcast where I interview tech founders and innovators to learn the inspiring, human, stories behind the game-changing tech we use every day.And this is my interview with John Couch.

I am over the moon to kick off Series 3 with the incredible Alvy Ray Smith – co-founder of Pixar. Dr Alvy Ray Smith is a computer scientist and pioneer in the field of computer graphics. After starting his career in academia, Alvy had an epiphany following a serious skiing accident. He decided to move to California to combine his two passions - art and computers - in a place where he felt something good was about to happen. Alvy was always a pioneer. From creating his first computer graphic in 1965, Alvy became an original member of the Computer Graphics Lab at the New York Institute of Technology, he witnessed the birth of the personal computer at Xerox PARC, and he was the first director of computer graphics at George Lucas’s Lucasfilm. It was there that Alvy gathered some of the smartest people he knew to develop computer graphics software, including early renderer technology. He and colleague Ed Catmull then spun out to co-found the famous Pixar, soon followed by the hiring of Lucasfilm colleague John Lasseter, and Steve Jobs as an investor. It was at Pixar that Toy Story would be made - the very first, entirely computer-animated, feature film. In 2006, Pixar was sold to Disney for $7.4 billion.Alvy also co-founded Altamira Software and has created a number of computer art pieces including the famous Sunstone with Ed Emshwiller which featured in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Alvy was also the first Graphics Fellow at Microsoft.In this interview, Alvy recounts his career from the early days at Xerox PARC to how Pixar got started. We discuss the Pixar journey in detail, as well as his new book – A Biography of the Pixel including how innovation is born from three strands:An idea, chaos and a tyrant. And how Steve jobs was both the saviour and the tyrant in the incredible Pixar story.Alvy has combined his two passions – art and computer science – to spend his career showing the world what computers and moreover, what computer graphics can do.  A true pioneer, this is one of my favourite conversations.I hope you enjoy it too.-----Let us know what you think of this episode and please rate, review and share - it means the world to me and helps others to find it too.Danielle on Twitter @daniellenewnham and  Instagram @daniellenewnhamAlvy Ray Smith on Twitter @alvyray / website Buy Alvy Ray Smith's book A Biography of the Pixel here. -----This episode was hosted by me - Danielle Newnham, a recovering founder, author and writer who has been interviewing tech founders and innovators for ten years - and produced by Jolin Cheng.  

I am back! And I have an incredible lineup for Series 3 including Alvy Ray Smith, the co-founder of Pixar, Guy Kawasaki, Yodit Stanton, founder of OpenSensors, serial entrepreneur Clarence Wooten, who, among other roles, is currently Entrepreneur in Residence at X – Google Alphabet's Moonshot Factory - and Nicolas Cary, co-founder of Blockchain.com, among others.As always, we will be digging deep into the lives of each founder and innovator – from the pivotal experiences in their childhoods through to their career journeys, highs and lows, and what the lessons they learned along the way.These stories are a wonderful way to document history in one of the most exciting fields of our time but they are also TRULY inspirational. And I feel extremely lucky that I get to share these amazing stories with you. I know they will inspire you and hopefully help you on your own career journey.The first episode will be with Pixar co-founder Dr Alvy Ray Smith where he will describe what he saw that others didn’t, how he helped pioneer the field of computer graphics and how Steve Jobs played the part of both saviour and tyrant in the Pixar story.So don’t forget to hit the subscribe button to make sure you’re the first to hear each episode as it is published. I can't wait to share them with you.