David Tisch | The Life Story of Box Group's Founder

The Story of Mercury | $5B Bank With 300,000 Customers

Immad Akhund is the co-founder and CEO of Mercury, a San Francisco-based digital banking platform for startups. He was born in Pakistan, with his mother working as a teacher and his father owning a mechanic shop. At the age of nine, he moved with his family to London. He would go on to attend the University of Cambridge and later move to San Francisco to participate in Y Combinator with his company Clickpass. Immad then founded Heyzap, a mobile developer tools company that successfully sold for $45 million in 2016. In 2017, Immad co-founded Mercury, which has since raised over $450 million from a16z, CRV, and Coatue. He is a former part-time partner at Y Combinator and recently launched IA Fund to formalize his prolific angel investing, which includes backing more than 350 startups including Airtable, Deel, and Substack. Beyond his illustrious career, Immad is a husband and the father of three children. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 02:11 Growing Up in Pakistan And Moving to London 06:37 “Yelp For London” and Early Entrepreneurial Endeavors 10:45 Pivoting From Flash Games to Mobile Ad Networks 12:15 Selling a Company After 8 Years of Pivoting 16:42 Thank You to Macroscope and Timeless Partners 17:56 Meeting His Wife Through Facebook 19:09 Finding Your Life’s Work 22:35 The Origins of Mercury 26:44 The Importance of Design at Mercury 27:37 How Mercury Landed Its Initial Customers 29:12 Raising Mercury’s Seed Round 31:09 The Choice to Not Work Weekends 34:58 Immad’s Best Startup Ideas 36:15 Are There Moats with AI? 38:05 Mercury’s 10-year vision 39:50 From Angel Investing to Formalizing a New Fund 42:13 Paul Graham’s Influence 44:33 Parenting Philosophy 46:27 Sources of Happiness This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit originsmedia.substack.com [https://originsmedia.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Kayvon Beykpour | Selling to Twitter, Rejecting Elon Musk & Getting Trolled by Kobe

Kayvon Beykpour is the co-founder and CEO of Macroscope, an AI code review agent, backed by Lightspeed, Thrive Capital Google Ventures, and others. Previously, Kayvon was the GM of Twitter’s consumer division until the platform was acquired by Elon Musk. He Joined Twitter after co-founding Periscope, a live video platform where people can create, watch, discover and share live video, Periscope was acquired by Twitter for $120M in 2015. Periscope pioneered technology that inspired Instagram Live, TikTok Live, Facebook Live, and other social networks’ expansion into livestreaming. Prior to Periscope, he co-founded Terriblyclever Design LLC, a software company that was sold to Blackboard Inc. Following the acquisition, Kayvon led Blackboard’s mobile division for four years where he grew its team from five to more than 100 employees and helped the company become one of the most downloaded apps in the education industry. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:54 Fleeing the Iranian Revolution to California 00:04:32 How Gaming Sparked a Career in Tech 00:08:28 Growing Up With 12 Kids 00:12:32 Pissing Off an Apple Exec with a Jailbroken iPhone 00:14:29 From a Cardboard Sign to Winning Emmys 00:19:20 Building Software for Colleges While Skipping Class 00:20:53 Selling $100k Apps to Best Buy & HP 00:22:32 Getting Acquired Over a Spam Call 00:27:03 The Importance of Passion 00:34:21 The Origins of Periscope 00:39:20 Scott Belsky Invented “Teleportation” 00:43:20 Six Months of Failed Designs 00:47:33 Selling to Twitter Before Launching 00:54:07 Trolled by Kobe Bryant 00:57:41 Turning Down Elon Musk 01:01:54 Founding Macroscope 01:10:21 The Two Most Consequential Life Decisions This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit originsmedia.substack.com [https://originsmedia.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Frank Guzzone | Head of Design at Thrive Capital

A conversation with ⁠Frank Guzzone⁠, Head of Design at Thrive Capital. He grew up in Virginia, the son of an immigrant father. Frank and I are from the same hometown & college. Frank enrolled at UVA with the plan to become a doctor. He took the MCATs, spent two years as a scribe but a chance opportunity to design the cover of a textbook accompanied a change of course, he decided to pursue a masters degree at the VCU Brandcenter. He interned at AKQA in San Francisco in the summer between grad school years, worked at Mother New York in advertising, moved to Google’s Creative Lab, and joined Oscar Health - Arriving at the Puck Building in 2015, where he would return years later… From there: City Block Health and four years of freelancing, meanwhile, posting Cinema 4D animations on an Instagram account now approaching 100k followers. Frank then arrived at Thrive already having worked with brands like Apple, Google, Adidas, plus touring musicians like John Mayer and Fatboy Slim. He is now Head of Design, helping portfolio founders design and name companies, designing Thrive’s merch and brand, commissioning the flags on the building, and running a design fellowship. Frank is an amazing designer and an even better person. I hope you enjoy our chat: A glimpse into Frank’s life, past work, and the journey that led him to shaping one of venture’s great brands. Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:57 Hospitality and Hard Work 00:03:06 Choosing UVA Over Art School 00:07:37 Early Creative Outlets 00:13:49 Oscar Health 00:23:02 Going Viral on Instagram 00:25:06 Freelancing for Apple, Rimowa, and More 00:31:32 Building Thrive’s design function 00:37:52 How to Name a Startup 00:42:12 Design as an expression of Thrive’s Values 00:47:20 Why Good Design is Invisible 00:48:48 Design Fellowship 00:57:08 Work-Life Balance 00:59:43 Adaptation is a Superpower This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit originsmedia.substack.com [https://originsmedia.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

James Currier | How Your Life is Driven by Network Effects

James Currier is a Founding Partner at NFX and an angel investor in DoorDash, Lyft, and Patreon. James grew in New Hampshire to a carpenter father and music teacher mother. He left home at 13 on a full scholarship to Phillips Exeter Academy. Then Princeton, then HBS, all three on scholarship. After college, he sailed to Tahiti, then went to work for Rupert Murdoch building Asian satellite TV at STAR TV in Hong Kong. At 24, a mysterious misdiagnosis forced him back to the US and led him to Boston. After a stint at various venture firms, James would go on to co-founder Tickle. As CEO, James grew Tickle to the 18th largest website in the world with over 150 million registered users - before being acquired in 2004 by Monster for $110 million. James then co-founded three other successful companies — Wonderhill an online video game studio which merged with Kabam in 2010 and later sold for $800M, IronPearl a growth analytics SaaS, acquired by PayPal in 2013, and Jiff an enterprise healthcare software which raised $68M from Venrock, GE, J&J, merged with Castlight in 2017. Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 01:31 Selling Worms to Fishermen at 6 Years Old 03:20 From a Dirt Road to Phillips Exeter Academy 04:49 The Hovercraft Corporation of America 07:48 Sailing Across the North Atlantic 09:18 Misdiagnosed in Communist China 10:41 Joining Battery Ventures in the 90s 12:25 Throwing Parties for Hundreds of Tech Associates 13:25 The Origins of Tickle 16:42 The $100M Healthcare IT Clusterf*ck 18:19 The Next 30-Year Technology Window 23:50 When to Start Your Own Company 26:26 The Importance of Geography: San Francisco vs. New York 29:34 AI, Consciousness, and Talking to God 31:51 Discovering Meditation and the Awakened Mind 34:27 Why You Work Best From 10 PM to 2 AM 36:07 Founder Psychology, Psychedelics and Self-Discovery 39:05 Status & Human Interaction 40:49 The Preferred Attachment Theory 42:40 The Real Value of College 44:01 People vs. Capital 47:56 What True Hustle Actually Looks Like 49:56 “Dad Talks” About Sex and Drugs 53:41 Quitting Alcohol at 21: The Ultimate Life Hack 54:42 F*cking Around at Scale This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit originsmedia.substack.com [https://originsmedia.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

David Tisch | The Life Story of Box Group's Founder

A conversation with David Tisch, founder of BoxGroup.We talked about the importance of taste, why you can't replicate career paths, playing in the world series of poker, and a bunch more.I hope you enjoy!Timestamps:00:00 Intro01:33 Focusing on Tomorrow04:22 A Bet Against the Cable Monopoly06:02 A Historical Lens to Understand the Future of Tech09:40 Tech is Filled with Rebels11:55 Jumping Into the Early NYC Tech Scene14:26 Building a Skunkworks Team Inside a "411" Company16:25 Co-Founding Techstars NYC19:56 Baseball Cards and Collectibles23:42 Rejecting Analogies: Extracting Lessons vs. Forcing Comparisons24:56 The Myth of Linear Success Stories27:19 Why You Can't Replicate Career Path30:17 The Emotional Toll of Failure32:21 No One Can Give You Good Advice34:01 Peter Thiel, Facebook, and Uber36:36 ChatGPT Beating Google37:37 Focus on the Founder's Story38:26 The Box Group Competitive Edge40:44 Why Social Media is Inherently Good43:11 Parenting Philosophy45:19 Playing The World Series of Poker While Bored in Law School46:34 The Importance of Taste52:26 The Doorman Becomes a Famous Instructor55:05 Meet Interesting People56:50 Why Cold Emails Fail This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit originsmedia.substack.com [https://originsmedia.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]