Danielle Newnham Podcast

Sean Dadashi is co-founder of Rosebud. Born to Iranian parents who emigrated to the US after the revolution in 1979, Sean grew up in Los Angeles and was on a path of studying mechanical engineering before he switched courses after a year to study Cognitive Science with a minor in Computer Science.

He then became a CTO before starting his own company - Somatic Studios in 2016 – where he used his passion for both tech and wellbeing to experiment with ideas including a web app that provided a health and wellness index for over 160 cities across 6 continents.

The studio also developed VR experiences to teach pain management patients mindfulness and somatic therapy techniques. After Somatic, Sean then joined up with Chrys Bader, who you may have heard of because he previously co-founded several startups including Treehouse and Secret. Together, Sean and Chris have created Rosebud – the number one AI-powered journal for mental health and personal growth and a product I highly recommend. Try it yourself for FREE here.

In this conversation, Sean and I discuss the loneliness epidemic, the importance of good mental health, his passion for helping others, and how he has always leaned towards the marriage ofpsychology and the human mind with technology and his passion for creating things, which ultimately led to Rosebud.

I really enjoyed this discussion and think you will too.

This is a replay from Series 12 to mark Mental Health Awareness Week.

Sean Dadashi / Rosebud

Danielle Twitter / Instagram / Substack Newsletter / YouTube

Today's episode is all about how to grow your podcast. I answer questions from listeners such as:

Should I do audio or video?

How do you find your guests?

How to promote your podcast

What platforms work best to promote your podcast

Should you use YouTube?

Should you do clips?

Is the podcasting space too saturated?

Things I would do differently if I were starting a podcast today

How do you research?

Should each episode fit a niche?

I hope you find the answers useful!

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship / YouTube

Mentioned in this episode:

Canva

Descript

Simplecast

Today’s guest is Danielle Strachman, co-founder of 1517 venture fund which, in their own words, backs dropouts working on hard problems and sci-fi scientists at the earliest stages of their startups.

Prior to starting 1517, Danielle worked with Peter Thiel, and Michael Gibson (who I Interviewed in Series 8, Episode 60) and together, they ran The Thiel Fellowship for five years. For those who don’t know, The Thiel Fellowship was set up to fund students who were 22 or under, giving them a total of $100k over two years so that they could dropout of the traditional education system and pursue important work. The Fellowship guided them through this process which would often involve scientific research, creating a startup, or working on a social movement. Past founders backed by the Fellowship include Vitalik Buterin who was still a teenager when the fellowship allowed him to drop out and work on Ethereum full time, as well as Laura Deming, the founder of The Longevity Fund and Dylan Field of Figma.

In this episode, we discuss how Danielle went from tutoring to starting the Thiel Fellowship to venture capital, what common traits the founders she has backed share and the lessons she learned from Peter Thiel.

Please enjoy my conversation with Danielle Strachman.

Danielle Strachman on Twitter / 1517 venture fund / 1517 Substack

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship / YouTube

Mentioned in this episode:

Innovations Academy, San Diego

Danielle's writeup of recent 2E camp for teens

Noor Siddiqui, Founder of Orchid

Today’s guest is Chrisman Frank – co-founder and CEO of Synthesis – the online platform that teaches kids how to solve complex problems and think critically. Born out of the school Elon Musk set up with Chrisman’s co-founder Josh Dahn (interview with Josh here), Synthesis has two main products – teams where kids learn as a group to work on complex problems, and its AI tutor which was born out of some incredible DARPA research which we talk about in today’s episode.

We also talk about why Elon wanted to disrupt education and his views on teaching kids how to think vs what to think, what DARPA showed us when it comes to the potential of AI in learning and why John Holt’s adage that kids love to learn but hate to be taught is true.

I have followed the Synthesis journey since the beginning and am constantly blown away by their mission so I encourage you to listen to this episode in its entirety to learn how we can educate children in a way that will enable them to thrive in this ever-changing world of ours.

Enjoy!

Chrisman on Twitter / Synthesis

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship / YouTube

Mentioned in this episode

How Children Fail by John Holt

The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

DARPA study Digital Tutor in Navy Training

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Today’s guest is theoretical computer scientist Leslie Valiant - currently the T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics atHarvard University. Among his many accolades, Leslie was awarded theTuring Awardin 2010 for transformative contributions to the theory of computation, including the theory of PAC learning which stands forProbably Approximately Correct, as well as the complexity of enumeration and of algebraic computation, and the theory of parallel and distributed computing.

In this episode, Leslie and I discuss his life and career journey – from what problems he has looked to solve in his career to how his PAC theory was first received andhis latest book, The Importance of Being Educable.

Have you ever wondered what your digital footprint says about you? Or curious how you can make your pitch stand out?

Then check out WhiteBridge.ai – it’s an AI-powered digital identity research tool that finds, verifies, and analyzes publicly collected data about someone and structures it into an insightful report.

They actually ran a report on me and I was seriously impressed!

But not only can you use it to check youronline digital profile but you could use it to help you quickly research and understand other people whether it’s a potential client, employee or investor – the report gives you more than enough useful info on the person for you to truly personalize your correspondence to them and help you build that early rapport.

Want to learn more? Head to https://whitebridge.ai and use my discount code DANIELLE30 for 30% off your first report.

Please enjoy my conversation with Leslie Valiant.

Today’s guest is founder and VC Brett Martin who I first started following ten years ago when we were both in the mobile space.

Brett is currently Co-Founder of Kumospace and co-founder ofCharge Ventures. Kumospace is a venture backed virtual office space platform that provides immersive and interactive virtual spaces for hosting team meetings, and social gatherings. Charge Ventures is a venture capital firm based in New York that invests in pre-seed to seed early stage tech startups.

In this episode of the podcast, we discuss Brett’s first taste of business as a kid, what lessons he learned about entrepreneurship from sailing 6,000 miles on a 50 year old, 30 foot sailboat which involved dodging water spouts, pirates and drug runners, what it felt like to shut down his first proper startup, and what he looks for in the founders he invests in.

Apologies that this is a shorter than normal episode but Brett and I spent some time catching up before we got started so I will have to get him back on the show another time.

But saying that, this was a fun episode with someone who has done it all, so please enjoy my conversation with Brett Martin.

Brett on Twitter / Charge VC / Kumospace

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship

Mentioned in this episode:

Sonar Post Mortem by Brett Martin

Scar Tissue by Brett Martin

On Giving Up by Adam Phillips

Today’s guest is June Angelides MBE – a former founder, turned VC. June grew up in Nigeria before coming to London to study Economics. She then joined Thomson Reuters working on the news desk, covering syndicated loans before she got a call to join Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) who were just starting up here in London. She joined a small team there, working on both the Venture Debt Team and Early Stage Banking where she started forging connections with early stage startups and founders.

It wasn’t long before June wanted a taste of entrepreneurship herself so she started Mums in Tech - the first child-friendly coding school in the UK - which ultimately taught over 250 women to code in 3 years and earned June an MBE from the Queen.

After Mums in Tech closed down, June joined Samos Investments in 2018, where she remains today, investing in high growth European businesses. She has also founded anangel syndicate that invests into African Startups.

In this episode, June and I discuss her career journey from working in the early days at Silicon Valley Bank here in the UK, setting up and subsequently shutting down her business, becoming an investor and the traits she looks for in founders, the importance of storytelling when pitching, as well as how representation and role models matter.

I learned a lot talking to June about her founder investor journey and I think you will too. So here is my conversation with June Angelides.

Enjoy!

June website / Twitter / LinkedIn / Instagram

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship

Mentioned in this episode:

UK Government backed women-led high-growth enterprise taskforce report

Today’s episode is a special one as it is my very first LIVE recording of the podcast which took place last month with the one and only Chris Anderson of TED.

Recorded at the stunning Kindred in London, it was such a special evening and a delight to have so many fans of the podcast and Chris in the audience.

In this episode, we discuss Chris’ childhood, growing up with missionary parents in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the huge professional peaks and lows of running a publishing company through the dot com crash. We also discuss how he came to acquire TED and his new book Infectious Generosity – The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading?

The overriding question we try to answer is, Can we outweigh the overwhelming negativity online by making kindness go viral?

…But a quick word about today’s sponsor before we get into the conversation. This episode is sponsored by Youll - This platform revolutionises how you connect with your audience and secure recurring revenue, through a subscription-based app tailored just for you and your community.

If you use social media for work, you will know that this week, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn all went down for millions of users, which is a nightmare for anyone with a large community. That’s why I am looking at building a community on Youll – whether you’re a content creator, coach, trainer or entrepreneur, Youll makes it easy for you to build your all-in-one branded app, giving you direct access to your community and revenue via its subscription model.

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Chris on Twitter / Instagram

Infectious Generosity: The Ultimate Idea Worth Spreading - buy here

Infectious Generosity site here

Kindred website

Danielle on Twitter / Instagram / Newsletter / Sponsorship

Try Youll FREE today here

Today’s guest is Tamiko Thiel – lead product designer of The Connection Machine – a revolutionary massively parallel artificial intelligence supercomputer which was developed in the 1980s. Originally conceived by Danny Hillis from MIT’s artificial intelligence lab where he was studying under Marvin Minsky, Danny got an incredibly talented team together including Richard Feynman, Brewster Kale, Tamiko, and others to create what would become the fastest and most effective supercomputer of the time. And it’s this part of her career that we focus on today.

However, Tamiko went on to become a pioneering digital artist who has worked in the realm of virtual reality for the past thirty years, starting in 1994 when she worked with Steven Spielberg on the Starbright World project where they created an online interactive 3D virtual world for seriously ill children.

Tamiko also received aBachelor of Science degree in Product Design Engineering, from Stanford University in 1979 and received a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1983, with a focus on human-machine design and computer graphics, as well as a diploma from the Academy of fine arts in Munich, Germany.

In today’s conversation we dig deep into that special time in history when all the so-called experts said what Danny, Tamiko and co. were working on at Thinking Machines couldn’t be done and where… they proved them all wrong.

Enjoy!

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Image of Tamiko copyright Tamiko Thiel

Tamiko website / LinkedIn / Instagram

I am not on social media this year but stay in touch via my Newsletter / YouTube

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Tamiko in London March 2024

The Travels of Mariko Horo interactive virtual reality installation
By Tamiko Thiel, 2006/2017, with original music by Ping Jin

In "GLoW: ILLUMINATING INNOVATION"
Bush House Arcade, King's College, Strand, London
Exhibition: 08 March - 20 April 2024

Panel and opening event: 07 March,6:30pm
Location: Great Hall, King's Building, Strand, King's College London

The CM-1 t-shirt and Tamiko's Travels of Mariko Horo mesh top will be shown in the following, with information on how to order them (from my web shops:http://tamikothiel.com/cm/cm-tshirt.html)

Curiosity Cabinet, King's College
171 Strand/Corner of Surrey St., London
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/curiosity-cabinet-showcases-antiquities-and-oddities-on-the-strand

Today’s guest is the one and only Stephen Wolfram - a physicist, mathematician, computer scientist and entrepreneur He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research, the creator of Mathematica, Wolfram Alpha and Wolfram Language, The Wolfram Physics Project and the author of bestselling A New Kind of Science among many other books.

A visionary polymath, Stephen published his first scientific paper at age 15, received his PhD in theoretical physics soon after his 20th birthday and became the youngest recipient of the Macarthur Fellowship Genius grant at age 21.

Over the course of his career which spans more than four decades, he has been a pioneer in the development and application of computational thinking, and has been responsible for many discoveries, inventions, and innovations in the fields of science and technology.

In this episode, we discuss his childhood, how he might reimagine education, the process of undertaking ambitious, long-term innovation projects, why he works in public and the surprising advice he would offer a younger Stephen.

I really enjoyed talking to Stephen and I think you will learn a lot from this episode.

Enjoy!

Stephen Wolfram website / Twitter

I am not on social media this year but stay in touch via my Newsletter / YouTube