

Inspired with Alexa von Tobel
Inspired Capital
Inspired with Alexa von Tobel dives headfirst into conversations with the most ambitious people on the planet. Host Alexa von Tobel, Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital, gets under the hood of guests’ ambitions, from pivotal childhood moments to the critical advice that shaped their life paths. What does it take to be a true visionary, one who stares down monumental challenges with grit and resilience? Learn directly from those builders and problem-solvers whose determination is shaping a brighter, more inspired future.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Aug 20, 2025 • 1h
Building a Global Parenting Tool with Dr. Becky from Good Inside
Dr. Becky Kennedy from Good Inside shares her journey from private practice psychologist to building the #1 consumer parenting tool on the planet. She reveals how blending emotional connection with practical action helps parents raise resilient kids and become sturdier themselves.
What You’ll Learn:
• How Dr. Becky built Good Inside into a global parenting movement
• The secret to becoming a “sturdy parent” and raising resilient kids
• Why parenting feels hard even for good parents and how to navigate it with confidence
• How to break cycles of shame and foster deep connection at home
• The lessons Dr. Becky learned while scaling a mission-driven brand
• Good Inside’s future
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:58 Becky’s Origin Story
5:34 Parenting Genres of Our Generation
9:38 Early Career and Education
14:11 Internal Family Systems (IFS) Explained
17:19 Private Practice to Parenting Work
21:15 Instagram and the First Viral Posts
27:39 Founding Good Inside
30:34 Parenting as the Last Frontier
39:15 The Good Inside App and Vision
52:30 Broader Societal Impact of Parenting
56:04 Two Mantras Dr.Becky Uses
59:30 One Habit Dr. Becky Does
Follow Dr. Becky and Good Inside:
• Instagram: https://bit.ly/3H9UWIa
• Website: https://www.goodinside.com/
Follow Inspired and Alexa:
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners
• X: https://x.com/InspiredCap
• Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/

Aug 7, 2025 • 54min
How to Turn Failure into Moonshots with Astro Teller of X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory
What if the secret to solving impossible problems isn't avoiding failure, but learning to leverage it? Serial entrepreneur and inventor Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at X (Alphabet's Moonshot Factory), discovered this counterintuitive truth growing up in a family where intelligence was everything. The grandson of Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb, and a Nobel Prize-winning economist, Astro learned that being smart wasn't enough. He had to develop his creativity into his philosophy of "being yourself on purpose." Today, Astro is responsible for steering X’s projects—like Waymo, Dandelion, and Verily—through the bumps and scrapes they meet along the road to reality. In this episode, Astro shares how childhood stories of the Manhattan Project's creative community inspired X's culture, why he transformed from trying to outsmart employees to becoming a "culture engineer," and why intellectual honesty is the real key to turning science fiction into reality.

Jul 23, 2025 • 52min
How to Swing Big with Alex Hawkinson of BrightAI
What if we could predict infrastructure failures before they happen instead of scrambling to fix them after disaster strikes? Serial entrepreneur Alex Hawkinson quips that the Romans would be laughing at us if they saw our current approach to managing the critical systems that power our world. Known as the father of IoT for creating SmartThings—a platform supporting over one billion connected devices before its acquisition by Samsung—Alex is now tackling his most ambitious challenge yet: awakening America's crumbling infrastructure through physical AI. With nearly 500,000 sensors already deployed across water, energy, and essential services, BrightAI is shifting entire industries from reactive maintenance to proactive intelligence. In this episode, Alex shares how BrightAI's observability layer creates an unbreakable competitive moat, how his "swing big" philosophy attracts world-class talent, and why transforming infrastructure management represents humanity's next great technological leap forward.

Jul 9, 2025 • 58min
How to Ask the Right Questions with Ben Lamm of Colossal Biosciences
What happens when humanity faces the sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history? Serial entrepreneur Ben Lamm believes we need a backup plan. With a track record of building and exiting companies across AI, gaming, and conversational intelligence, Ben took on his most audacious venture in 2021: co-founding Colossal Biosciences with Harvard geneticist Dr. George Church to bring extinct species back to life. The company has already successfully de-extincted the dire wolf and aims to return woolly mammoths to the Arctic by 2028. In this episode, Ben shares how his self-described "unemployable" streak became his entrepreneurial superpower, why asking naive questions helps him tackle impossible challenges across industries, and how Colossal's breakthrough technologies represent humanity's essential insurance policy for planetary survival.
Follow Inspired on Instagram
Follow Inspired on Twitter

Dec 23, 2024 • 30min
How to Innovate Without Compromise with Jon Perl of QA Wolf
With software powering every aspect of our lives, when does quality testing shift from a nicety to an absolute necessity? Despite the stakes, most companies fail to test everything—and even fewer automate their QA processes—leaving critical systems vulnerable to catastrophic bugs. Jon Perl is on a mission to change that. In 2019, he launched QA Wolf to help hundreds of companies automate 80% of their quality assurance processes, accelerating release cycles fivefold and saving customers over $100 million annually. By disrupting the outdated, manual QA status quo, QA Wolf empowers teams to ship faster and more confidently, delivering innovation without compromise. In this episode, Jon shares how a tech mistake sparked the idea for QA Wolf, how they settled on a pricing model that aligns incentives with their customers, and why he believes human-in-the-loop will remain essential until AI achieves flawless accuracy.

Dec 18, 2024 • 30min
How to Innovate at the Speed of Light with Nick Harris of Lightmatter
For 60 years, Moore's Law and Dennard scaling drove the exponential advancement of computers, making them faster, smaller, and more energy-efficient. But as Nick Harris explains, the era of transistor-based technology has reached its physical limits. The future of computing demands a new solution, and that solution is light. Nick founded Lightmatter in 2017 to fully transform AI data center infrastructure. By harnessing light to process and transmit data, Lightmatter is laying the foundation for the next generation of computing. The company invented the world's first 3D-stacked photonics engine and was most recently valued at $4.4 billion. In this episode, Nick shares why he chose to leave academia after receiving his PhD, how his go-to-market strategy hinged on building real friendships and understanding his customers' internal roadmaps, and why he believes that having an obsession is a gift.

Dec 11, 2024 • 31min
How to Pinpoint What Powers Your Growth with Avishai Abrahami of Wix
What if building a website wasn’t just for developers, but something anyone could do easily? This was the simple idea that led Avishai Abrahami to create Wix in 2006. What began as a no-code tool to help businesses establish an online presence has grown into a global platform that serves hundreds of millions of users. Under Avishai’s leadership, the company has reached many milestones including the launch of Wix’s first AI website builder in 2016—one the first commercial AI products available to consumers at mass scale. In 2013, Avishai took Wix public, and the company is currently valued at over $11 billion. In this episode, Avishai shares his take on what differentiates exceptional entrepreneurs from the rest, why he believes in meticulously tracking the most granular details, and how important it is to master the balance of seeking feedback while knowing when to trust your own judgment.

Dec 4, 2024 • 30min
How to Rewrite the Rules of Media with Chris Best of Substack
What if the media you consume isn’t just how you spend your time—but who you become? Chris Best began his career as a software engineer, driven by the idea that writing code could transform how millions of people work. But after nearly a decade of coding, he recognized an even greater potential with writing: the power to shape who millions of people become. In 2017, Chris launched Substack, a platform that empowers independent writers and creators to own their connection with audiences and earn through paid subscriptions. In this episode, Chris unpacks the “anti-media” philosophy at the heart of Substack—eliminating barriers for writers to share their work and creating a meritocratic space where the most influential voices can be heard. From political commentators and fashion gurus to sports enthusiasts, Substack has grown into a vibrant ecosystem where readers can discover their tribe. Today, the platform boasts over 35 million active readers and more than 4 million paid subscribers. Chris shares how he overcame initial skepticism about product-market fit, why he thinks of Substack as an index for culture, and how authenticity is increasingly vital in a world where AI generated content is limitless.

Nov 27, 2024 • 29min
How to Bend the Solar Cost Curve with Chris Hopper of Aurora Solar
Following the clean-tech bust of the early 2010s, the path to renewable energy was anything but clear. Yet in 2013, Chris Hopper took a bold step forward to co-found Aurora Solar, on a mission to accelerate solar energy adoption. Aurora’s platform streamlines and improves the processes of sales, design, and installation—making solar more accessible and efficient for all. Operating in a tough funding environment, he relied on grit to secure a seed round that enabled the company to bootstrap and grow steadily over the next five years. Today, Aurora Solar has raised over half a billion dollars, achieved a valuation exceeding $4 billion, and has empowered the design of over 10 million solar projects worldwide. Chris shares why he’s grateful for the challenging early days, how Aurora's cloud-based platform uses AI to streamline workflows, and why—despite his forward-thinking mindset—he encourages entrepreneurs to remain open to serendipity.

Nov 20, 2024 • 28min
How to Create Community with Sarah Harrelson of CULTURED
In 2011, as the rise of digital media cast doubt on the survival of print, Sarah Harrelson broke from convention and launched her own independent magazine: CULTURED. Sarah set out to spotlight artists, writers, curators, and designers overlooked by mainstream outlets and has since become one of the most trusted voices in the world of art and design. Beyond the magazine’s editorial prestige, CULTURED collaborates with leading fashion houses, luxury brands, and galleries. Sarah has had a decades-long career in magazines, beginning with an internship at Elle and including launching the Miami Herald’s Home and Design section, becoming the editor-in-chief of Ocean Drive and Art Basel Magazine, and ultimately founding her own publishing company. In this episode, Sarah shares how intuition shapes her approach to talent discovery, why her belief in the staying power of print remains unchanged, and how the magazine’s strategic focus has evolved to span global markets and adjacent industries.