The Man Who Helped Salesforce Prepare For The AI Era Has Advice For The Rest Of Us

Her Organization Has A Perfect Track Record Preventing Maternal Deaths During Childbirth. But She Knows One Day It Won’t.

Aza Nedhari set out to solve an enormous problem facing women giving birth. The US has the highest rate of maternal death of any high-income country, and within the US, that rate is by far the highest for Black women. Researchers estimate that most of these deaths are preventable. To fix this, Aza helped invent a new type of community health worker, a perinatal community health worker, coordinating across medical professionals and generations of family members to reshape the environment around expecting mothers. Over more than a decade, her organization, Mamatoto Village, has a perfect track record: four thousand families and zero maternal deaths. But what kind of toll does perfection take when navigating complex health systems, economic inequality, and bias? And how important is it to celebrate now when you know that eventually, statistically, you will lose at least one? 1:25 Mamatoto Village’s history and the story behind its name 4:45 The stark maternal mortality statistics facing Black women and why these disparities persist across income and education levels. 7:30 The unique challenges facing families in Washington, DC’s Wards 7 and 8, where maternal mortality rates are especially severe 9:20 Aza traces the roots of today’s maternal health inequities through American history, public policy, and healthcare system design. 11:45 Black patients often must advocate forcefully to receive appropriate healthcare and be heard by providers. 18:55 Serena Williams’ experience gave these disparities a national audience. 23:10 Mamatoto Village’s intervention model and how it operates on the ground. It’s a three-generation approach, educating not only mothers but also partners, grandparents, and extended family members. 25:30 The Perinatal Community Health Worker credential that Aza and her co-founder created 31:20 How do healthcare providers respond to Mamatoto’s involvement with patients? 34:45 Mamatoto Village’s extraordinary track record: over 4,000 families served with zero maternal deaths. But should they continue to tout that number? 44:40 The first time they met, Lionel made Aza cry. 46:15 Aza explains the immense personal weight of leading a social change organization and carrying community stories. 49:45 Aza reflects on sustainable leadership practices and the need for strong support systems around founders and social entrepreneurs. 55:00 Mamatoto Village’s proprietary electronic health record platform 58:40 Aza shares future initiatives, including a new birth center east of the river in Washington, DC

The Founder of Facebook Marketplace Says Customers Will Tell You What Your Product Is—If You’ll Listen

If you can turn your business into a platform, you probably should. There are amazing multi-billion-dollar products out there, but any one product has limits. Companies that run platforms, by contrast, cultivate ecosystems that make it possible for other businesses and many products to thrive. That is a much bigger market. Deb Liu knows a ton about platforms. It took years of advocacy and strategy, but she literally invented Facebook Marketplace and ran Facebook’s entire platform group, helping monetize the different ways users wanted to leverage the network. Now she’s founded an AI startup helping small businesses go from zero to fully automated. Like platforms, Deb is multifaceted, so this conversation also goes deep on payments, the trust gaps that have to be filled to make online transactions possible, and some of the differences between running public and private companies. 1:40 Deb argues that any product with scale should become a platform that enables others to build businesses. 2:50 How APIs and developer ecosystems expanded Facebook’s reach 4:45 Observing user behavior and enabling emerging use cases 5:00 PayPal’s unexpected adoption by eBay sellers became its defining business opportunity. 7:00 Closing the trust gap in e-commerce enabled trillions of dollars in transactions. 8:50 PayPal was fundamentally a risk management company as much as a payments company. 11:50 Deb praises Starbucks’ rewards ecosystem as one of the strongest examples of customer lock-in and loyalty and argues that more brands should emulate it. 15:20 inKind as an example of how a platform uses stored value to drive consumer demand 20:00 Deb reflects on the pressure public companies face to manage earnings and expectations. 25:10 Why Deb chose to lead Ancestry. 27:45 How her engineering background shaped her systems-oriented mindset. 29:00 Everyone has a hidden superpower that often feels effortless to them. 32:10 Why Deb intentionally questions her own intuition. 35:10 Her new startup, Ember AI. 40:40 Deb compares today’s AI moment to the early internet and mobile eras. 43:00 Deb predicts that “fast eats slow” will define the next phase of competition. 43:40 Purpose is the fuel that sustains long-term entrepreneurship.

The Man Who Helped Salesforce Prepare For The AI Era Has Advice For The Rest Of Us

After the public launch of ChatGPT, Salesforce knew that AI agents were coming for it. AI agents are smart, autonomous programs set loose on an infinite number of specific tasks. The danger was that this giant company that revolutionized business software and popularized the very concept of software as a service might be overtaken by the next big thing. One of the people it turned to to help prevent that was Prasad Thammineni. Now Prasad has his own company, Agentman, which is focused on helping organizations deploy AI agents that can automate sophisticated workflows without requiring users to write code. In Prasad's view, yes, AI agents might be as disruptive as many people fear. But he's also convinced that, like Salesforce, we can adapt. It's still early enough that we can all choose to be pioneers. 1:30 Prasad reflects on his entrepreneurial journey and explains why he repeatedly returns to building startups. 2:55 How Salesforce recognized that AI agents could threaten traditional SaaS business models 4:00 The early limitations of copilots and why customer expectations initially exceeded technical capabilities 6:30 From copilots to agents 7:20 The creation of Salesforce’s Frontier AI team to prototype technologies expected to mature a year later 11:10 Prasad argues that large technology companies must lead publicly even while products remain unfinished. 17:20 How he landed the leadership role at Salesforce.\ 19:20 Using AI to write the business model 23:50 Building AgentMan 28:40 Why AgentMan chose healthcare as its initial vertical 30:40 Healthcare organizations accelerated technology adoption after COVID. 31:40 Focusing on small practices rather than large hospital systems 38:40 Are end-users ready to build their own agents? 40:40 Are concerns about AI-driven job displacement justified?

If You Want To Improve Your Community, Think Like A Developer

If you want to improve your local community, think like a developer. Federal government programs spur billions of dollars of investment in real estate. For example, Opportunity Zones alone account for more than $14 billion per year in private investment driven by tax incentives. But how do these programs work? What are we getting for all that spending? And how do the economic realities of building things in the US incentivize where money is and isn't placed? Brett Theodos can answer all of this. He's Director of the Center for Local Finance and Growth at the Urban Institute and a leading researcher in place-based development. Whether you're a mission-driven investor, a for-profit real estate owner, or a neighborhood advocate, looking at community through the lens of capital, as Brett does in this conversation, is incredibly helpful. He spoke with Camber Creek Partner Alexandra Nicoletti and Head of Platform Lionel Foster. 1:40 Brett reflects on growing up in Oak Park, Illinois, and how living in a walkable, racially integrated community shaped his worldview. 4:00 The physical design of communities profoundly shapes social, economic, and political outcomes. 06:30 Brett evaluates the largest government-funded real estate investment programs in the country, including Opportunity Zones, New Markets Tax Credits, Choice Neighborhoods, and Community Development Block Grants. What are we getting for the billions we’re spending? 09:10 The US is pretty good at subsidizing new buildings in poor areas and supporting market-rate development in affluent ones, but struggles everywhere in between. 13:30 US housing and community development policy has increasingly shifted from direct spending toward tax incentives. 15:30 How Opportunity Zones became one of the least targeted federal economic development programs in US history 25:10 Tax-credit programs create significant barriers to entry because of legal and financial complexity. 27:00 Brett praises smaller developers willing to invest in uncertain or declining markets for undertaking socially valuable work. 29:00 Financing gaps, regulation, labor shortages, tariffs, and demographic shifts continue to constrain housing supply. 30:00 The unrealized promise of automation and prefabrication in lowering construction costs 31:00 Policymakers underestimate the human and entrepreneurial realities developers face when deciding whether to pursue projects.

How Kevin Bacon Helped Spark a Social Impact Movement

At the University of Maryland, the actor Kevin Bacon funded a “Shark Tank”-style competition for young social entrepreneurs. Instead of investing in skincare brands or gourmet cookies, judges heard pitches from students who wanted to right some wrongs in the world and help people. That competition grew into the University of Maryland's Do Good Institute, which supports classes and research and uses social entrepreneurship to help students learn, lead, and grow. Camber Creek spoke with Jenny Cox and Nathan Dietz from the Institute about what happens to a giant college campus when an entrepreneurial mindset is taught, encouraged, and rewarded. 1:20 The Do Good Institute is a hub for social impact providing funding, education, and resources to students. 2:10 The Institute’s research function and focus on measuring the impact of social entrepreneurship programs 3:30 Expanding programming, from early student engagement to post-graduate entrepreneurial support 6:30 A student-led effort to reduce campus food waste led to the creation of the first Do Good Challenge. 8:00 Collaborating with Kevin Bacon’s foundation 12:50 Social entrepreneurship follows the same disciplined, problem-solving mindset as traditional entrepreneurship. 19:00 Intermediate and advanced offerings, including incubators, accelerators, and seed funding programs. 21:15 Approximately 10–15% of University of Maryland College Park students engage directly with Do Good programming. 29:30 Students increasingly want both financial success and social impact. 41:45 The Do Good Institute wants to do its part to counteract a broader trend of declining interpersonal connection