Office Hours with Spencer Rascoff
Spencer Rascoff is a New York Times bestselling author who co-founded four tech companies, invested in over 50, and was CEO of Zillow for a decade. His first start-up, Hotwire, sold to Expedia for $685 million, and his second start-up, Zillow, is now a real estate colossus, worth around $10 billion dollars. Now, he’s cofounded dot.LA, a media company covering the cutting-edge LA tech scene. Hear Spencer speak with CEOs, start-up founders, venture capitalists, and prominent thought leaders about how to manage, how to lead, and how to win in business.
Episodes
Spencer speaks with Ian Cinnamon, the CEO and co-founder of Culver City-based startup Apex, which manufactures productized, configurable satellite buses for the expanding space industry. As access to space becomes democratized, Apex's is poised to offer its scalable solutions to both commercial and government customers.
Prior to Apex, Ian founded Synapse, a startup that built AI systems for the defense an...
Eddy Lu, CEO of GOAT, explains his pivot from a restaurant meet-up app, the ups and downs of working with his co-founder, and how insight into the sneaker vertical on eBay helped build the start-up into what it is today.
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In this episode of Office Hours, Spencer speaks with L.A.-based entrepreneur Shiloh Johnson, the CEO and founder of ComplYant, a digital tax assistant tool. The technology platform offers small business owners and entrepreneurs an easy way to handle business taxes. The fintech startup was originally bootstrapped by Johnson, who as a Black female founder thought she'd be o...
Growing up as the son of a nationally renowned veterinarian, Brandon knows first-hand the importance of having access to experts when your pet is sick. In 2018, Werber launched Airvet, a Beverly Hills-based digital health company for pets. Airvet works with employers and business partners to make sure pet parents get affordable and fast access to virtual vet care via video and chat. (Disclosure: dot.LA co-founder Spencer Rascoff is...
Roy Swan, Director of The Ford Foundation's Mission Investments team, is committed to increasing the impact of their portfolio of mission-related investments (MRIs). He works alongside the organization's leadership to identify opportunities and guide decision-making processes as they relate to its global activities. Prior to joining the Foundation, Roy served as managing director and co-head of Global Sustainable Finance at M...
Spencer speaks with Isa Watson, the Founder & CEO of Squad. Watson, author of the upcoming book, "Life Beyond Likes: Logging Off Your Screen and Into Your Life." In the book, she raises awareness around how social media has impacted our daily lives, self-worth, and real life relationships. With so much of our lives lived online, Isa argues, we’ve never been more connected—or disconnected—from what’s most important to us. It’s time ...
Diankha Linear, CEO of Community, an SMS marketing platform for business, speaks with Spencer in this episode of Office Hours. Ms. Linear was an officer and early executive team member at Convoy, serving as General Counsel and corporate secretary—overseeing one of Seattle’s largest VC transactions with a Series D Round of $400M, among other roles in the startup. Diankha comes from a strategy and leadership background, built on her ...
Spencer speaks with Sami Inkinen, the CEO and Founder of Virta Health. After winning the Ironman 70.3 World Championships in 2011, the triathlete found out that he was pre-diabetic that same year. Unsatisfied with the conventional wisdom of “exercise more and eat less,” Sami dug into the science of type 2 diabetes, by consulting experts on the science of carbohydrate restriction and metabolic health....
Julia Boorstin is CNBC’s Senior Media & Tech Correspondent and has been an on-air reporter for the network since 2006. She also plays a central role on CNBC’s bicoastal tech-focused program “TechCheck” delivering reporting, analysis, and CEO interviews with a focus on social media and the intersection of media and technology. In 2013, Boorstin created and launched the CNBC Disruptor 50, an annual list she oversees, highlighting pri...
Tricia Han, the head of MyFitnesesPal speaks with Spencer about her journey from being a Product Manager to becoming a CEO in this episode of Office Hours. MyFitnessPal is a leading health and wellness tech brand, whose popular mobile app allows users to track their daily food intake. Tricia talks about the differences of working in East Coast tech vs West Coast tech, heading a start-up through a change management process, and the ...
Host Spencer Rascoff speaks to David Fields, founder and CEO of both Afterparty and Wander. Afterparty is looking to evolve the event-ticketing space with NFTs to assist creators, musicians and collectors. Previously, Fields worked at Disney and was part of the team that helped acquire Pixar. David was also formerly the head of acquisitions and investments for Disney CEO Michael E...
As CEO and co-founder of Tomo, Greg Schwartz leads the company in its mission to transform the home buying experience. Tomo was founded in the fall of 2020 and raised a $70 million seed round, reportedly the largest in U.S. history. The company’s initial product, Tomo Mortgage, launched in June of 2021 to streamline the mortgage process by bringing e-commerce to the paperwork heavy part of home transactions. Previously, Greg was th...
Rand Fishkin, co-founder and CEO of SparkToro, and formerly of Moz speaks with Spencer in this revealing conversation about the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Rand started out as an SEO enthusiast writing about increasing organic traffic through his SEOmoz blog, and then realizing that his expertise had the makings of a business, he began consulting and then developing Moz into a SaaS. Rand helped grow Moz to more than 130 empl...
In this episode of Office Hours, Spencer speaks with Colin Walsh, CEO and Founder of Varo Bank about the importance of their startup getting its charter and being FDIC insured, what it's like leading the way of a "challenger bank" in the fin-tech space, the tough decision he's had to make to stay competitive, and how the bank aspires to create financial inclusion by focusing on its younger cus...
Blackstone Growth's Jon Korngold joins Spencer on this episode of Office Hours for a conversation about how the recent stock market downturn is affecting the tech sector and whether a market correction lies ahead. Korngold is Senior Managing Director and Head of Blackstone’s global growth equity investing platform, where he focuses on funding growth-stage companies. Prior to joining ...
Roman Kaplun is the CEO and Co-founder of Zoolatech, a custom software development company specializing in high-end software engineering based in the San Francisco area. Born in Leningrad in the former Soviet Union, his family moved to the United States as Jewish refugees in 1988, right after he completed High School.
Zoola...
On this episode of Office Hours, Spencer speaks with John Shegerian, CEO and chairman of ERI, the largest cybersecurity-focused hardware destruction and electronic waste recycling company in the United States.
Shegerian is a serial entrepreneur who helped found FinancialAid.com, Addicted.com and Engage, LLC, a speaker-booking platform, among other o...
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