Episodes

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Lauren Antonoff, CEO of Life360, to talk about leading a roughly $4 billion technology company through its next stage of growth, expanding from family location sharing into a broader platform for keeping people, pets, and things connected. Lauren shares how her career at Microsoft, GoDaddy, and other major technology companies shaped the way she thinks about product, leadership, and customer experience. She ...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Linda Tong of Webflow to talk about what it takes to reinvent a $4 billion technology company in the middle of the AI revolution. Webflow helped democratize building for the web, but as AI makes it easier than ever to create websites, apps, content, and digital products, Linda argues that simply being able to build is no longer the advantage. The real differentiators are taste, craft, usefulness, and wheth...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Matthew Hedger, a former CIA non-official cover officer, for a rare conversation on undercover work, criminal cover, money laundering, cartels, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and the psychology of trust. Matthew explains what it really means to operate without diplomatic cover, why non-official cover is so different from the spy stories most people see in movies, and how his work eventually led him into criminal...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Seth Streeter, Co-Founder of Mission Wealth, for a conversation about building an $18B wealth management firm, redefining what true wealth means, and helping successful leaders design a more fulfilling next chapter. Seth shares how he and his co-founder started with zero assets under management and built Mission Wealth around independence, objectivity, comprehensive financial planning, and a proactive serv...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Sam Bremner for a fascinating conversation on licensing, private equity, brand psychology, and the hidden business model behind some of the world’s most powerful intellectual property. Sam breaks down why licensing should not be treated as a side project or simple marketing play, but as a serious engine for low-capital, high-margin growth. From Harry Potter and Marvel to Care Bears, Starbucks, branded real...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Andrew Rubin, founder and CEO of Illumio, for a timely conversation on cybersecurity, AI, investing, and what leaders need to understand about risk in a world where attacks are becoming faster, cheaper, and more sophisticated. Andrew explains the core philosophy behind Illumio: cybersecurity can no longer be only about preventing every breach. Companies still need to stop as much as they can, but they also...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Tom Shea, co-founder and CEO of OneStream, for a deep conversation on building a multibillion-dollar software company, going from private to public and back to private, and what it really takes to create lasting enterprise value. Tom shares the journey behind OneStream, from his early days building software for the office of the CFO to creating a unified platform for consolidation, planning, reporting, and...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Bazzel Baz, a former Marine Corps officer, former CIA Ground Branch operator, author, actor, filmmaker, and founder of the Association for the Recovery of Children. Bazzel shares his extraordinary path from the Marine Corps and counterterrorism work after the Beirut barracks bombing to his time in the intelligence community, where he served during some of the most consequential conflicts of the Cold War era. ...

This is for Ben Miller, founder of Fundrise, and the strongest angle is how Fundrise built a platform that opened private markets to everyday investors, reaching 2M+ investors and managing billions across real estate, credit, and venture/private tech. In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Ben Miller, founder of Fundrise, for a deep conversation on private markets, real estate, venture investing, and what it really takes to build a platform tha...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Dennis Woodside, CEO of Freshworks, the $2.5B public software company helping IT and customer support teams use AI to work faster, smarter, and more efficiently. Dennis shares how Freshworks serves more than 75,000 companies around the world, including major names across technology, sports, education, entertainment, manufacturing, and enterprise software. Dennis breaks down how AI is transforming the way comp...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Lucas Ngoo, CEO of Cortex AI and co-founder of Carousell, the Southeast Asian marketplace that grew to a $1 billion valuation. Lucas explains why the next major leap in AI may not just be chatbots or software, but general-purpose robotics. While robot hardware is getting cheaper and more powerful, Lucas argues that the biggest bottleneck is still data: the real-world human and robot data needed to train ma...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Rich Diviney, retired Navy SEAL, former SEAL Team Six operator, founder of The Attributes Training Company, and author of The Attributes and Masters of Uncertainty. Rich breaks down the difference between skills and attributes, and why elite performance is not just about what someone knows how to do, but whether they have the internal wiring to perform when pressure, chaos, and uncertainty hit. Drawing from ...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with James Henderson, CEO of Exclusive Resorts and The Exclusive Collective, for a fascinating conversation on the future of luxury travel, community, and what it really means to live well. James shares how Exclusive Resorts evolved from a destination club into a luxury lifestyle platform with more than $1 billion in real estate, hundreds of residences, once-in-a-lifetime trips, and a growing family of brands d...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Dan Eberhard, Founder & CEO of Koho, one of Canada’s most exciting fintech companies. Dan shares how Koho grew from a scrappy idea challenging Canada’s powerful banking system into a company with 2 million customers, hundreds of millions raised, and a real shot at building the next great bank in Canada. Dan opens up about his unconventional path from growing up in a small mountain town in British Columbia to ...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Michael Winn of Chartered Wealth for the first installment in a new mini-series on one of the biggest questions founders face: why do so many exits fail? Michael breaks down the surprising statistic that 75% of founder exits are unsuccessful, and explains why selling a company is not just a transaction, but a deeply personal, financial, and strategic process. Michael shares the three areas every founder mu...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Anthony Di Iorio, co-founder of Ethereum and one of the earliest builders in the crypto ecosystem, for a wide-ranging conversation on Bitcoin, Ethereum, AI, decentralization, and personal sovereignty. Anthony shares how he first discovered Bitcoin in 2012, bought in when it was under $10, and helped build the Toronto Bitcoin community where he eventually met Vitalik Buterin and became part of Ethereum’s found...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with JP Newman, CEO of Thrive FP and founder of Fulfillionaire, for a powerful conversation about success, money, meaning, and what happens after you finally achieve the life you thought would make you happy. JP shares his unconventional path from Sony Pictures and family entertainment to building a real estate platform with more than $2 billion in transactions, and how his early struggles shaped the way he thinks...

Most people don’t realize how broken drug discovery really is. According to Liran Belenzon, companies can spend seven years and hundreds of millions of dollars on a drug candidate—only to see it fail in human trials. In this episode, Liran explains why biology is one of the most complex systems humans have ever tried to understand and how AI can help researchers uncover patterns humans miss. The discussion explores why even small improvements in success rates could completely reshape healt...

In this special co-hosted episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess Larsen is joined by top Compass broker Holly Parker for a fascinating conversation with Cayman Islands attorney Daniel Altneu of Bedell Cristin. Together, they unpack why the Cayman Islands has become one of the world’s most sought-after destinations for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, family offices, entrepreneurs, and global investors. Daniel breaks down the realities behind Cayman residency, offshore ...

What does it really take to build a $100M–$300M+ home—and work with some of the wealthiest people in the world? In this episode, Grant Bowen, founder of Peak Projects, breaks down the hidden world behind ultra-luxury residential development. From managing complex projects to acting as a trusted advisor, Grant shares how his firm became one of the leaders in the space. But this conversation goes far beyond real estate. Grant reveals what it’s actually like working with ultra-high-net-worth clients—and how the reality is often very different from the stereotypes. He also dives into trust, relationships, and why transactional thinking fails at the highest levels. If you’re building a business, raising capital, or serving elite clients, this episode is packed with lessons you won’t hear anywhere else.

Former Navy SEAL Diego Ugalde returns to The Jess Larsen Show for one of our most thought-provoking conversations yet. In this throwback episode, Diego opens up about the journey behind his book Leading From the Deep and the lessons he learned from BUD/S training, combat deployments, leadership, trauma, and healing. Jess and Diego explore the realities of mental toughness, what elite performance actually feels like under pressure, and why so many high achievers unknowingly run on fear, shame, a...

In this episode of Innovation & Leadership, Jess Larsen sits down with Alex Yeh, founder of GMI Cloud, to explore the rise of AI infrastructure and the idea of a new “AI internet.” Alex explains how this next wave of computing is fundamentally different—where information is generated on demand rather than stored—and how his company is building the systems that power it.Alex shares his journey from fintech founder and crypto investor to building large-scale data centers across the U.S. after Chin...

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with serial entrepreneur Diaz Nesamoney to explore the evolution of data, AI, and the future of commerce. Diaz shares his journey from growing up across multiple countries to co-founding Informatica—one of the early enterprise software giants that rode the wave of the internet boom—and the hard-earned lessons that came from building and scaling billion-dollar companies. He dives into the realities of entrepr...

What if the software running the world’s supply chains could predict the future 10 billion times a day? In this throwback episode of The Jess Larsen Show: Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Duncan Angove, CEO of Blue Yonder, the company powering supply chains for many of the world’s largest brands. From orchestrating fleets of trucks and warehouses to leveraging AI for real-time decision-making, Duncan breaks down how modern supply chains actually work—and why they’re one of the mos...