Rod Drury who is the founder of the popular accounting software Xero.  Rod is a well known technology entrepreneur, CEO and co-founder of the online accounting software company Xero. He has been recognised as New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013, Business Leader of the Year in 2012, member of the New Zealand Hi-Tech Hall of Fame, NZ Hi-Tech Entrepreneur of the Year in 2006 and 2007, World Class New Zealander for ICT in 2008 and an Honorary Fellow of the NZ Computer Society. Xero has also recently been ranked No #1 by Forbes in its list of the World’s 100 Most Innovative Growth Companies. Xero was also recently valued at close to 2 billion dollars.  Lets listen into Rod Drury, interviewed by Startup Grind Melbourne Chapter Director Chris Jounnou. 

Amit Kapur who is the founder & managing partner at Dawn Patrol Ventures, a venture capital firm backed by AOL & Verizon. Amit loves building startups. He was the CEO of analytics company Gravity which was acquired by AOL for $90M. Prior to that he was the COO of Myspace, starting as a BD lead managing mobile and music efforts. MySpace was originally acquired by News Corp for $580M. Amit has a Mechanical Engineering degree from Stanford University.    Let’s listen into Amit Kapur interviewed by Startup Grind Los Angeles Chapter Director Joe Famalette. 

Today we are doing something a bit different and feature content from the Futurecast thought leadership series which is a collaboration between the ATT foundry & Ericsson. The featured guest of the event is young guru who is an esteemed  audio engineer, DJ, and producer on more than 10 of jay-z’s albums including his hit track “empire state of mind”  Young guru takes the audience on an exploration of technology, content creation, and the democratization of content. Andrew keen is the moderator of the discussion and executive director of the future cast series. Author of popular books like the cult of the amateur & the internet is not the answer, keen was named 1 of GQ’s 100 most connected men in 2015.  Directly prior to the discussion you are about to hear, several music industry related products were demoed to the audience. We’ll hear a bit about those products from their founders starting around halfway into the interview.  Running an hour and 20 minutes this episode is a bit longer than our normal ones but it is definitely worth it. It’s a true deep dive into the music industry and how new disruptive digital technologies are shaping it for better or for worse.  Lets listen into Young Guru interviewed in February by moderator Andrew Keen at the ATT foundry in Palo Alto. 

Julia Gillard was the first and, to date, only female Australian Prime Minister. As Prime Minister and in her previous role as Deputy Prime Minister, Gillard was central to the successful management of Australia’s economy during the Global Financial Crisis and as Australia positioned to seize the benefits of Asia’s rise.  Gillard developed Australia’s guiding policy paper, Australia in the Asian Century. She delivered nation- changing policies including reforming Australia education at every level from early childhood to university education, creating an emissions trading scheme, improving the provision and sustainability of health care, aged care and dental care, commencing the nation’s first ever national scheme to care for people with disabilities and restructuring the telecommunications sector as well as building a national broadband network.   In foreign policy, Gillard strengthened Australia’s alliance with the United States, secured stronger architecture for the relationship with China, upgraded Australia’s ties with India, and deepened ties with Japan, Indonesia and South Korea. Gillard has represented Australia at the G20, including winning Australia’s right to host the 2014 meeting, the East Asia Summit, APEC, NATO-ISAF and chaired CHOGM. Under Gillard’s leadership, Australia was elected to serve on the United Nations Security Council.   In 2014, Gillard was appointed chair of the Global Partnership for Education, a leading organization dedicated to expanding access and quality education worldwide.   In February 2015, Gillard was appointed Chancellor of Dūcere, Australia’s leading education provider for business and management courses from Diploma levels through to a world’s first MBA program. On her appointment Gillard said ‘the connection between higher education, industry and government is vital to the future success of academic institutions. So too are the links between academic underpinning and real world learning at all levels of education which is one of the main reasons for my involvement with Ducere’

Amish started his first company in 1998 when he was just 25. He has a proven track record in leadership, sales, marketing, strategy and recruiting. Venture Capital firms, C-level executives, and Founders of early and mid-stage startups from around the globe call on him directly for his consultation and advisement before making major decisions that will have an impact on their bottom line. Amish’s passion is contagious to the people around him, and his results oriented approach of getting things done paired with his success over the years have given him a keen eye for his firm SierraMaya360 when evaluating potential investments. He is also a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg and Fox News.   Lets listen into Amish Shah interviewed by Startup Grind Director Jeremy Berman in Charleston. 

Gerard Adams the Co-Founder of Elite Daily.  Elite Daily, quickly became the No.1 news platform for Generation Y. Gerard is an experienced angel investor, millennial thought leader and social entrepreneur who overcame early adversity to become a self-made millionaire by the age of 24. Now 30, he has built, backed or invested in nine businesses and trades across multiple industries that have all delivered over seven-figure profits. In December 2011, Gerard co-founded and invested in his fastest-growing business idea: Elite Daily. Known as the “Voice of “Generation Y,” the website quickly grew to become the No. 1 platform for news geared toward millennials and was acquired by The Daily Mail in 2015. Passionate about giving back to his community, Gerard helped develop affordable housing for communities in Newark, NJ, where his father and family grew up. He lives in Manhattan with his dog, a dachshund named GiGi.  Lets listen into Gerard adams interviewed at our New York City Chapter. 

Selcuk Atli, a serial entrepreneur and current entrepreneur in residence at 500 startups. He’s a YCombinator alumnus, an Endeavor Entrepreneur and a Fulbright Scholar. He's founded Boostable, Manifest and the non-profit Nomadic Mentors.      Selcuk most recently founded Boostable an advertising platform based in San Francisco and raised over 4 million dollars from silicon valley investors like YCombinator, 500 Startups and SVAngel. Boostable graduated from YCombinator's Winter 2014 class as one of the top companies featured by Techcrunch and Business Insider.    Boostable helps online marketplaces like eBay offer digital advertising as a service to their sellers.   Lets listen into Selcuk interviewed at our startup grind Toronto chapter by Director Murray McKercher. 

Co-founder and CEO of the 3D printing company Formlabs, Maxim lobovsky.    Maxim’s time as a student at the MIT Media Lab allowed him to experience the power of rapid prototyping and 3D printing technologies to produce custom designs for his work. Seeing an enormous opportunity, in 2011 Maxim Lobovsky and two other colleagues from MIT founded Formlabs, a startup developing an affordable high-resolution 3D printer enabling designers, engineers, and makers to easily realize their dreams in beautiful physical form.    After a highly successful crowdsourcing campaign on Kickstarter and additional rounds of funding, Formlabs announced the Form 1, their fist prosumer model, and on September 2015 launched the Form 2, a new model with larger capacity, upgraded features and simpler usability.    Maxim holds an MS on Media Arts and Sciences program at MIT, and a BS in Applied and Engineering Physics from Cornell University.   Lets listen into Maxim Lobosky interviewed at our Startup grind Boston Chapter by Director Carlos Cardenas. 

Manish Chandra the founder and ceo of the poplar fashion community app Poshmark. Poshmark is the largest community marketplace for fashion where millions of women come to buy, sell and share their personal style.    Manish has always been passionate about building communities and founded the first social shopping company, Kaboodle, which was acquired by the Hearst Corporation in 2007. With Poshmark, Manish has applied his understanding of technology to change the way women think about shopping, building a passionate community based around people’s love for fashion and each other. Manish received a Bachlors in Technology from  IIT Kanpur, and a Masters of Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and an the MBA from Haas School of Business. 

New York Times best selling author Brant Cooper at our San Diego Chapter. Brant is the author of "the Lean Entrepreneur" and the entrepreneurs guide to the lean brand.    Brant’s startup career includes Tumbleweed, Timestamp, WildPackets, inCode, and many others. Brant previously authored The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development, the first purpose-written book to discuss Lean Startup and Customer Development concepts.    He has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs across the globe. Brant is the Co-Founder of Moves the Needle Group, which has advised the innovation practices of such leading companies as General Electric, Intuit, Capital One, ADP, and Transamerica. He is Founder of StartupSandiego.co, Organizer for SD Tech Founders.    Lets listen into Brant Cooper interview in San Diego