Smart Humans with Slava Rubin

Ben Miller is Co-Founder and CEO of Fundrise, America's largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager. Fundrise’s mission is to use technology to build a better financial system for the individual investor, one that is simpler, lower cost, more reliable and transparent. They build software that enables the company to develop and manage investments uniquely well positioned to grow and preserve their clients’ capital in any economic environment. Since launching America’s first online real estate investment platform in 2012, Fundrise has now become the largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager with more than 1.6 million active users, more than $3.3 billion worth of equity under management, and $7 billion worth of real estate transacted. From private credit to real estate private equity to growth-stage venture capital, Fundrise offers investors exposure to some of the most prized asset classes in the world. Prior to Fundrise, Ben has decades of experience in real estate and finance. As Managing Partner of WestMill Capital Partners and President of Western Development Corporation, Ben was responsible for acquiring, developing, and financing more than $500 million worth of property.

Josh is the co-founder of Fanatics Collectibles and the founder of zerocool, the company’s pop culture, art, and entertainment vertical. He is also a co-founder of StockX, the world’s first ‘Stock Market of Things’, where he led the rise from idea to billion-dollar company in less than three years, cementing StockX as the world's leading marketplace for sneakers, apparel, and collectibles. In 2019, Josh stepped down as CEO to focus on StockX’s ‘startup within a startup activities’, including leading the nascent trading cards vertical. A year later, he left StockX to return to his entrepreneurial roots with the goal of revolutionizing the trading card industry as he’s done for sneakers. Before StockX, Josh founded and ran four other startups and, in between each, had varying corporate jobs ranging from IBM strategy consultant to Alston & Bird bankruptcy attorney. He has an undergraduate BBA and joint JD/MBA from Emory University.

Stewart A. Kohl is Co-Chief Executive Officer of The Riverside Company, a $10 billion global private equity firm founded to invest in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market. Since 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 700 companies globally. The firm’s investors include leading pension funds, endowments, funds-of-funds, insurance companies and banks. The firm employs more than 300 people in offices across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Kohl joined Riverside in 1993. Prior to that, he was a vice president of Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd., the private equity arm of Citibank. In addition to his work with Riverside, Mr. Kohl serves as an Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College and of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. He is also on the Board of Directors of Cleveland Clinic and Co-Chairs its $2 billion Power of Every One Capital Centennial Campaign. He was inducted into the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges Hall of Excellence in 2009. He previously served as Co-Chair of the Building for Hope Capital Campaign of the Center for Families and Children. Mr. Kohl earned the George S. Dively Entrepreneurship Award in 2018. He was inducted into the Northeast Ohio Business Hall of Fame in 2014. After spending 16 years as a “Heavy Hitter” participant in the Pan-Mass Challenge bicycle fundraiser, Mr. Kohl founded VeloSano, a similar event that has raised more than $20 million to fund cancer research since 2014. Mr. Kohl holds a BA from Oberlin College.

Logan Allin is the Managing Partner & Founder of Fin Capital where he is responsible for management of the firm, sourcing/making investments, maintaining board responsibilities, and adding operating value across the portfolio. Logan was most recently Vice President of SoFi Ventures, where he was tasked with investing in and working hands-on with FinTech companies, as well as running SoFi’s accelerator and corporate development efforts. Prior to SoFi, Logan was focused on entrepreneurial advisory and operating roles at Light Street Capital, Formation 8/Group, Zanbato, Addepar, Point Finance, Price, BridgeAthletic and ONEHOPE. Prior to his entrepreneurial pursuits, Logan was a corporate executive, as Head of Strategy, overseeing the enterprise FinTech strategy and execution, while serving as a member of the Operating Committee at Atlantic Trust, the Private Wealth Management arm of Invesco (and now CIBC). Previously, Logan was a Senior Vice President in City National Bank’s wealth management division (now part of RBC) where he led the technology strategy, open product architecture platform, and other strategic initiatives. Logan spent his earlier career in management consulting, in leadership positions at PwC, EMC, and Capgemini, focused exclusively on the intersection of Financial Services and technology. Logan earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in public policy and political science from Duke University and a M.S. in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business where he was a Sloan Fellow.

Jake Brukhman is Founder & CEO at CoinFund. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia to computer scientists, Jake learned how to code at the age of fourteen. Starting from this early age, Jake closely followed the adoption of computing, the Internet, and mobile. Achieving degrees in mathematics and computer science, Jake spent the following 12 years of his career in pure and financial technology, quantitative research, and blockchain.

Kendrick Nguyen is CEO of Republic, an investment platform connecting tech startups and blockchain projects with global investors. Prior to Republic, he served as general counsel of AngelList and Fellow of Stanford University’s Center for Corporate Governance. He is a founding adviser to NOW Ventures and CoinList, an ICO platform. An immigrant from Vietnam, Kendrick has a strong interest in improving access to capital for underserved entrepreneurs in the US and beyond.

Before co-founding StartEngine, Howard co-founded Activision and was the Chairman of Activision Studios from 1991 until 1997. As a former Board Member and Executive Vice-President of video-game giant Activision, he and a partner took control in 1991 and turned the ailing company into the $37 billion market cap video game industry leader, selling millions of games. Howard was also the founder and CEO of Acclaim Games, a publisher of online games that was later sold to The Walt Disney Company. Howard is the 2015 “Treasure of Los Angeles” recipient, awarded for his work to transform Los Angeles into a leading technology city, and a member of LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s technology council. He is bilingual and a triple national of the United States, United Kingdom, and France.

Jason Calacanis is an entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster.  Jason is the Founder and CEO of LAUNCH and Inside.com. As a prolific podcaster, Jason hosts All-In alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, and David Friedberg as well as This Week in Startups. Through private funds, the LAUNCH accelerator, and his public angel syndicate, Jason has invested in startups including Uber, Robinhood, Wealthfront, and Trello. Prior, Jason served as general manager of Netscape, Entrepreneur in Action at Sequoia, and founded numerous media companies during the dot-com era including Weblogs and VentureReporter.net. 

Frank Rotman is a Founding Partner and the Chief Investment Officer of QED Investors. His investment focus has been on emerging next-generation fintech and proptech companies. Frank was one of the earliest analysts hired into Capital One and he spent almost 13 years building and managing many of the company’s business units, credit organizations and operational areas. Frank graduated from the University of Virginia with degrees in Applied Mathematics (B.S.) and Systems Engineering (M.S.). He writes prolifically on Twitter as @fintechjunkie and posts additional content frequently on qedinvestors.com and fintechjunkie.com.

Milind Mehere is an award-winning entrepreneur with a track record of building large scalable businesses and creating new product categories.  Milind is the Founder and CEO of Yieldstreet, a next-generation digital investment platform reimagining the way wealth is created by providing access to private markets previously reserved only for institutions and the ultra-wealthy. Yieldstreet was named Financial Times's 12th Fastest Growing Company in the US, and for two consecutive years, Yieldstreet was named one of the top 50 Fastest-Growing Companies by Inc. Previously, Milind Co-founded and scaled Yodle (an ad-tech platform for SMBs) to $200M+ in revenue and 1,400 employees. Yodle was ranked four times in the Inc. 500 list and was acquired by Web.com for $342M in 2016. Milind was named an Innovation Fellow at Columbia University’s Lang Center, and is an international keynote speaker, having spoken at Forbes, Bloomberg, Cheddar, LendIt, Citi Bank, Goldman, Columbia, and Harvard among others.