Finding Founders

This is Finding Founders, I’m Samuel Donner, and this is the story of Jason Stapleton. Initially we see Jason as a Blackwater mercenary in Iraq and this experience embodies a certain magnitude of intensity that he’s taken with him throughout all his endeavors. He’s been a sniper in the marines, a broke truck washer, a trader, and a wealth coach. Nowadays, he sits safely behind a microphone, hosting his libertarian podcast Wealth, Power and Influence. The though line of his life and his business ventures is built on the core foundation of pursuing liberty and achieving authentic freedom. Growing up, though, he was anything but free. He was stuck in a crummy little town in the middle of nowhere. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can you use emotion to structure goals? This is the Founder Wisdom. Where we’ll answer that question by distilling advice from our founders and the books they recommend. Then we’ll show you how we are applying that knowledge ourselves! I asked Masterclass founder David Rogier what book I should read if I’m trying to manage people more effectively. He recommended “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop by Clifford Nas. So I think a lot of us think about emotions as this wide ranging huge complicated swath of feelings. I mean just off the top of my head I can think of admiration, adoration, anger, anxiety, awe, disgust, excitement, fear, horror, joy, nostalgia, relief. There seems to be so many ways to feel, but when we really boil these emotions down they all fall somewhere on the arousal/valence xy chart. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show we talk to Jen Sargent, founder of the entertainment news site HitFix, and current COO of Wondery, the largest independent podcast publisher. They have a whole hosts of podcasts and I imagine you’ve heard of at least a couple. Before the Cambrian explosion of podcasts we live in today, Jen tapped into a myriad of exciting ventures. From an engineering degree to a JP Morgan desk to work abroad to Harvard Business School, she’s done it all. But the one constant in her zig zagging career is her knack for fixing things. You could say it runs in the family. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So last week we went over the first pillar of team building which was ‘identification’, check out Founder Wisdom episode 2 if you want a refresh. This week we’ll go over the other pillar of team building which is interdependence. What is interdependence? This is a trait of teams that occurs when both of the following are achieved: The team members believe that their efforts and the efforts of other team members are integral to the success of the team The team members believe that achieving the group’s goals will serve their own personal goals --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show we talk to Nick Loper, founder of Side Hustle Nation. Side Hustle Nation is a business podcast, but it’s also more than that. It’s a lifestyle, a way to break the chains of the typical 9-5. It doesn’t talk about giant VC backed startups trying to IPO, it’s a bit simpler and more attainable. But long before he became the side hustle guru, he based his identity around academia. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can you build stronger teams using identification? This is the Founder Wisdom. Where we’ll answer that question by distilling advice from our founders and the books they recommend. Then we’ll show you how we are applying that knowledge ourselves! I asked Masterclass founder David Rogier what book I should read if I’m trying to manage people more effectively. He recommended “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop by Clifford Nas --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show we talk to Barry Ritholtz, co-founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Ritholtz Wealth Management LLC, Bloomberg columnist and host of the Masters in Business podcast. I’ll give you a bit of a heads up: you’re in for a wild ride with this one. Barry is an ebullient storyteller with an encyclopedic knowledge of just about everything, whether it be behavioral economics or science fiction literature. Ideas ding and flash around like a pinball. His breadth of knowledge and interests, his big time personality and renegade attitude brought him a lot of success in his many and disparate business ventures. He has this “me against the world” vision of his life, where he is the protagonist bowling over everything holding him back from his way to the top. And boy, does he have a compelling way of telling his story. Act one of Barry’s story: growing up. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’ve probably been giving your team the wrong criticism. This is the Founder Wisdom. Where we’ll answer that question by distilling advice from our founders and the books they recommend. I asked MasterClass founder David Rogier what book I should read if I’m trying to manage people more effectively. He recommended “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop" by Clifford Nas. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show we talk to Sheera Goren, founder of Zygo. Zygo is the first underwater headset for streaming audio and live communication. I swam competitively for 15 years and always joked to my friends that swimming was the most boring sport imaginable. For hours on hours all I did was swim back and forth on the same stretch of pool looking at the black line below. But Zygo is bringing a little more fun to a sport that is too often dismissed as a monotonous activity for the old and frail...and Michael Phelps. But hey, if trendy Soul Cycling studios can make riding a bike that goes absolutely nowhere fun, why can’t Zygo do that for swimming? While Sheera's days are now spent smelling of chlorine with a constantly damp head of hair, she didn’t start out in swimming. In fact, her early passion for sports can be traced back to the soccer field. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on the show we talk to David Rogier, founder of Masterclass. Maybe you’ve seen the ads? Masterclass is an online platform where you can learn directing from Martin Scorsese, basketball from Steph Curry, singing from Christina Aguilera and everything in between from luminaries in their fields. Its founder, much like its intended audience, is an avid self learner who values education above all else. Education is David’s way of putting himself in the driver’s seat of his life. But as a kid, it didn’t always feel like he was behind the wheel. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices