Finding Founders

We're back for part 2 of the Mac Davis' quest for immortality! (If you haven't listened to part 1 there are links below). In the second half of the episode we'll cover a near death explosion, revolutionary discoveries, mysterious deaths, incredible experiments, and the founding of a successful company: Minicircle. Listen to Part 1 Apple Podcasts Spotify Anchor --- 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 Mac Davis, founder of Minicircle, a company that aims to extend the length and quality of human life through gene therapy. Mac has an incredible story that starts out on a small island with a lone computer connected to the internet. From there he navigated through the dark underbelly of the web, unraveling its secrets which ultimately led him to a small fortune in bitcoin. That was just the beginning, Mac traveled the world seeking leaders in philosophy, came within inches of death after an explosion, started a biohacking lab that culminated in the mysterious death of his business partner, and faced an incredible number of interesting twists and turns. But first, I want to talk about how I came to meet Mac. I was interviewing Rob Rhinehart, founder of Soylent and asked him if he had any suggestions for our future interviews. He immediately suggested Mac Davis. So a few weeks later, Mac came in for an interview while he was crashing at Rob’s apartment in LA. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We started the episode a bit differently today, so hopefully you didn’t cringe too hard at my Jony Ive impersonation, but we wanted to set a particular framework for this episode. Today we’re talking to Roger Volodarsky, founder of Puffco, a company that creates the best cannabis concentrate vaporizers on the market. They pay particularly close attention to design, and basically it looks like if Apple made bongs. This attention to detail might seem ridiculous to the uninitiated, but as we tell Roger’s story you’ll begin to understand that these vaporizers change lives. Roger realizes that because it saved his own life from opiate addiction. There was a lot of iteration, heartbreak, and work that led Roger to evolve into the fully-fledged Steve Jobs of the vaporizers, however, before that metamorphosis could transpire, Roger would have to face a myriad of traumatic events. --- 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 Luciano Mazza, an international architect, and designer of H club in LA. The H.Club started as the brainchild of Paul Allen, global philanthropist and co-founder of a little company called Microsoft, and musician Dave Stewart. But Luciano, who’s been an architectural entrepreneur for the past couple decades, brought that idea to reality. Luciano currently is director of Hospitality Architecture at HKS Inc. in London, and his experience designing hotels and luxury resorts includes projects from the Four Seasons to Shangri-La. Luciano describes architecture as the balance between elegance and efficacy. But for Luciano, it’s those intimate, personal aspects of architecture that are most important. Luciano thinks deeply about the people he wants to serve, and the buildings he designs aim to guide emotional reflexes using space. Empathy is paramount to understand the emotional reflexes of various cultures, and in pursuit of this multi-cultural empathy, he’s worked everywhere from Los Angeles to London. Luciano has had an extensive career, and he’s indebted to the myriad of cities that helped to cultivate his creativity and empathy, but probably most impactful was the city where it all started. One of the most beautiful and storied cities in the world: the vibrant city of Mantua, Italy. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Usually, we interview an inspirational entrepreneur, but today we decided to break down User Generated Content, or UGC. It was brought up briefly on our episode with Jonathan Skogmo, founder of Jukin, and with Kevin Ramsey founder of Warren James, but UGC has a long rich history that continues to impact us today. Every day people post billions of pictures and videos of failures, triumphs, and all of life's most spectacular and ridiculously mundane moments. If you have ever posted a personal video or photo onto Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Reddit, Vimeo, or any other social media platform, you have posted User Generated Content. And with each post you make, you are contributing to the rapid evolution of UGC. But before we go any further, we need to know, what exactly is User Generated Content? --- 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 Kevin Ramsey, founder of Warren James, a custom merchandising firm that specializes in the content creator ecosystem. I just threw a lot of words at you there so let me break down what we’re actually looking at here. A decade ago when people heard the term content creator, they thought of a bunch of teens with crappy webcams recording vlogs in their room for YouTube. Now, those teens are all grown up and have developed themselves into some of the most recognizable brands in the world. And I’m not talking about small mom-and-pop shop off-brand brands, only known within their respective communities. Content creators are amassing millions of followers, and with those millions of followers are coming millions of dollars. And with this money, has come legitimization. Consequently, the gap between established brands like Gucci and new-age brands like Jefferey Star Cosmetics is shrinking. The brands these creators have built out of themselves have become so massive, so exponentially popular that I think it’s likely that their names will soon come to rival traditional name brands in terms of cultural impact. And this is where Kevin’s company, Warren James, steps in. Warren James is capitalizing on this personal branding, offering custom products that previously were only available to large companies. Basically, with the help of Warren James, these content creators can stop selling crappy off-center screen printed t-shirts, and instead market custom Nikes. Kevin has discovered a niche within an already-developed marketplace. Content creators were already generating merchandise for their personal brands. But now he was giving them a chance to expand their shops. He wasn’t breaking the wheel, or even reinventing it; instead, think of it as adding customized rims to the car. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The story of how Milt Larsen turned a century-old mansion into a world-famous, Hollywood cultural icon that brings magic lovers and magicians together form across the world. Countless celebrities have performed at the castle including Orson Welles, Johnny Carson, Steve Martin, Neil Patrick Harris, and many more. Together we'll dive into Milt's magical childhood, how he came to notoriety, and how the Magic Castle continues to stand as a pillar of the magical community to this day. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This past Monday we held a Virtual Summit with Dalton Combs on the Future of Artificial Intelligence. We talked about the history of A.I., how it can massively improve our lives, and how it also might kill us! Don’t worry if you missed it because you can hear the full live event right now. If you don’t want to miss the next live event and the opportunity to interact directly with our community of founders go to our website, findingfounderspodcast.com, and subscribe to our newsletter, trust me… it’s awesome. --- 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  Jonathan Skogmo. He’s the founder of Jukin which is an innovative media company that focuses on user-generated content. What is user-generated content? Well, it’s stuff like a video of a mom laughing hysterically while wearing a Chewbacca mask. That video is known as Chewbacca mom and the original video alone received over 140 million views. In fact, the video became so popular that this Chewbacca mask completely sold out around the world. Although the Chewbacca mom, otherwise known as Candace Payne, technically owns the video, the right to license that video belongs to Jukin. By acquiring viral videos, like this one, Jukin media has amassed 200 million fans and receives 3 billion views every month. We’ll get into all this and Jonathan’s current entrepreneurial ventures soon enough, but first, let’s go back to his first venture. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we talk to Hollis Carter, co-founder of The Baby Bathwater Institute. Alright, I’m going to give you guys a second to close your eyes and listen to that name one more time: Baby Bathwater. Without restricting that creative mind of yours, try and guess what his company does. Alright, ready? If you guessed it was a group that hosts outdoor networking conferences with healthy food, unlimited booze, outdoor activities, and live music, then you are kinda close. Hollis would probably rephrase that description and say that it isn’t a networking conference, but a connection conference. The word networking has a lot of professional baggage, so Hollis is trying to distance his events from that of the corporate vernacular. He’s creating an experience that guests will cherish for years to come and connection is something that Hollis has been promoting his entire life. Ever since he was a young boy, Hollis has worked to foster an environment focused on community. In fact, Hollis’ discovery concerning the tenets of an ideal community can be traced back to his childhood experiences with his parents. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/finding-founders/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices