It's Not Magic, a Sixth Street podcast

What’s it like leading a family business that invests in everything from baseball to robotics to soft drinks? We went to Minneapolis to talk with Jim Pohlad, chairman of the Minnesota Twins and co-head of the Pohlad Companies, about the balance between building for the long-term and the desire to “win now,” the process behind designing the Twins’ much-loved Target Field, and his family’s enduring commitment to their home state and town. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back for Season Two of It’s Not Magic! We’re kicking it off with a woman who epitomizes what it means to be a tech leader: Stacy Brown-Philpot, former CEO of TaskRabbit and founding member of the SoftBank Opportunity Fund. Recorded live from the Concrete Rose Summit in Menlo Park, CA, Stacy walks us through her experience leading TaskRabbit and its community of "Taskers", the advice she received while founding the Black Googlers Network, and her love for Detroit pizza (it's the water!). We loved Stacy’s perspective on the need to leave things better than how you found them, and we hope you do too. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For our Season One finale, we sit down with Julie Jones, chair of Ropes & Gray, the venerable law firm founded in 1865 that today is a $2 billion enterprise with over 1500 hundred lawyers. Julie is the first woman to lead the firm, and we discuss her elevation to Chair in 2020 just as the world and business leaders faced unprecedented challenges. We talk about how she prepared and marketed herself with intention early in her career on her way to becoming one of the world's preeminent M&A lawyers, her experience as one of the inventors of the reverse termination fee, and how she's adjusted from being a lawyer to being a leader. We also learn about her firm's response to covid, how she approaches speaking authentically on divisive issues, and the advice she received from Lloyd Blankfein. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How do you build a business in a highly regulated industry? We asked the expert. Clip in to the via ferrata and join us with Igor Rozenblit, Managing Partner of Iron Road Partners and founder and former Co-Head of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Private Funds Unit. We learn about what it takes to build something new within a government agency, and we get Igor’s perspective as an entrepreneur from both sides of the regulatory fence. He takes us back to the days at the SEC post-Bernie Madoff, and we get deep on what motivates people. What do regulators care about most? Tune in and find out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's it like being the first to develop a new way to detect COVID-19 using gene-editing technology? Janice Chen joins us (with special guest Sixth Street's Jeff Pootoolal) to talk about building a business around CRISPR, the revolutionary gene-editing technology. We discuss how she and her co-founders prioritize the myriad potential applications for CRISPR, creating the first CRISPR-based COVID-19 diagnostic test, and how working in the collaborative environment of Nobel laureate, co-discoverer of CRISPR, and Sixth Street Chief Science Advisor Jennifer Doudna’s lab at UC Berkeley prepared her for life as an entrepreneur. We get into servant leadership, strategies for stepping back and connecting the dots, and how there’s no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and doing the work -- especially when that work is searching through thermal vents for life-saving enzymes. Learn more at https://sixthstreet.com/podcasts/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sean Mendy joins us to talk about founding Westbound Equity Partners, an early stage investment firm with a dual purpose: to invest in and build great companies, while addressing the dramatic under allocation of investment in founders of color. We discuss Westbound's first unicorn portfolio company, what's changed and what hasn't since George Floyd's murder, and we learn about the teacher that made the biggest impact on Sean's life. Learn more at https://sixthstreet.com/podcasts/Note: Westbound Equity Partners, formerly known as Concrete Rose Capital Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ambassador Michael McFaul joins us for a special episode from the Sixth Street Offsite in Austin, TX. He takes us back to his prescient warnings about the rise of Putin's autocracy in 2000. We hear about how Putin has changed since coming to power, what he's like in person, and the latest from leadership in Kyiv. We also discuss how to run an embassy, the value and limitations of historical analogues, and why the Secretary of State told him to get on Twitter. Learn more at https://sixthstreet.com/podcasts/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Evan Smith brings us back to the beginnings of The Texas Tribune. We talk about how the business model he spearheaded is saving local news and maybe even keeping the art of civil conversation alive. He tells us how he honed his pitch on the way to raising over $100 million from across the ideological spectrum, and we find out why they play Lyle Lovett for him wherever he goes in Texas. Learn more at https://sixthstreet.com/podcasts/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.