Grit

Six leaders from across tech — from SaaS and semis to law and logistics — come together for our 250th episode milestone in this very special AI recap, where we unpack how new advances are transforming the way industries function, and how work gets done.

Featuring:

• Bret Taylor (Sierra Co-founder)
• Winston Weinberg (Harvey Co-founder and CEO)
• Matt Murphy (Marvell Technology Chairman and CEO)
• Yamini Rangan (HubS...

Daragh Murphy is giving brands their own credit-card platform—no legacy bank required.

On this week’s Grit, the Imprint co-founder and CEO traces the leap from being a junior lawyer to closing nine-figure card deals.

He breaks down the hidden economics of credit-card loyalty, the discipline of treating capital “like the last dollar,” and how AI will slash risk-and-support costs.

Guest: Daragh Murphy, CEO & Co-Founder ...

Bill Staples has spent 30 years redefining how the world writes, ships, and secures code.

On this week’s Grit, the GitLab CEO shares what it takes to lead a public, all-remote DevSecOps company trusted by more than half of the Fortune 100.

He breaks down the discipline of managing energy instead of hours, why weekly operating cadences beat quarterly plans, and how AI will 10× software engineers by auto-debugging code and cl...

What does it take to build the logistics backbone for the next generation of commerce?

Sean Henry, founder and CEO of Stord, joins Kleiner Perkins partner Ilya Fushman and Grit host Joubin Mirzadegan to talk about scaling a national fulfillment network that now moves 50 million packages a year and reaches 15% of U.S. households.

They explore how Stored is using AI to connect warehouses, middle-mile routes, and delive...

Eric Yuan turned a simple belief into Zoom, the platform that kept the world moving through a once-in-a-century shutdown and redefined modern work. 

On this episode of Grit, the Zoom CEO shares why velocity beats size, how a family-first ethos powered his leadership during COVID, and why the coming wave of AI dwarfs the original internet boom. 

He details how he’s refreshing Zoom’s culture for 7,500 people, opting for virtua...

Over the past two decades, Bret Taylor has quietly helped shape the arc of Silicon Valley.

From co-creating Google Maps to steering Facebook, Salesforce, and OpenAI, he’s been behind some of the most consequential products in tech. Now, with his new company Sierra, he’s starting from zero—again.

In this conversation, Bret opens up about how founders navigate identity, why the best ideas often come from everyday friction,...

Chris Urmson has spent the last 20 years pushing the limits of autonomous driving—first at Carnegie Mellon’s DARPA Grand Challenge team, then as co-founder of Google’s self-driving car project, now Waymo.

On this week’s episode, the Aurora CEO retraces that journey—from building robot cars in the desert to leading a public company pioneering driverless trucking.

He shares why autonomy was always a matter of when, not if, how...

John Chambers led Cisco through the rise of the internet—transforming it into the world’s most valuable company at its peak.

On this week’s Grit, the former Cisco CEO unpacks how he scaled the business from $70M to $50B+, pioneered M&A as a growth strategy with 180 acquisitions, and built what many called the best sales force in tech.

Now leading his own venture firm, Chambers shares how he’s backing the next gen...

Matt Murphy transformed Marvell from a broad-based chip supplier into a $100B data infrastructure leader—powering the rise of AI, cloud, 5G, and custom silicon.

On this week’s Grit, the Marvell CEO shares how he refocused the company’s strategy, led major acquisitions like Inphi ($10B) and Cavium ($6B), and positioned Marvell at the center of the next era of compute.

He also reflects on lessons from his father, a longtime CE...

From a 350-square-foot home in South India to leading HubSpot, a $30B CRM powerhouse, Yamini Rangan’s journey is nothing short of remarkable.

In this episode, Yamini shares how she’s guiding HubSpot through a post-pandemic shift toward product-led growth, the hard-won lessons behind building go-to-market alignment, and why human-centric leadership is her edge in an AI-first world. Plus, her take on why data is the new batt...

David Rubenstein helped pioneer modern private equity—building The Carlyle Group into a $400B global investment firm from a modest D.C. office and a relentless fundraising streak. But beyond PE, his legacy spans presidential libraries, historic American artifacts, and a lifelong obsession with civic contribution.

In this episode, David shares how he raised billions without a background in finance, why owning a baseball team...

Amplitude helped define the modern analytics stack, powering digital products with deep behavioral insights. But in a world shifting toward agentic interfaces and vertically integrated AI, even a category leader has to evolve.

In this episode, CEO Spenser Skates shares how he’s rethinking AI within the constraints of a 13-year-old codebase, why analytics remains Amplitude’s competitive edge—and why taking the company public...

Flexport was a breakout success—reimagining global trade with tech at its core. But when the freight market cooled and efficiency overtook service, things started to unravel. Founder Ryan Petersen stepped aside, handing the CEO role to former Amazon exec Dave Clark. Months later, he was back at the helm.

In this episode, Ryan explains what went wrong, how he’s rebuilding Flexport—cutting $300M in costs, restoring customer f...

Guest: Pedro Franceschi

Pedro Franceschi is the co-founder and CEO of Brex, a fintech company reshaping how businesses manage their finances.

Originally from Brazil, Pedro went from teenage hacker to leading one of the most well-known names in modern financial technology—building a platform trusted by startups and enterprises alike.

In this episode, Pedro shares what it took to launch “Brex 3.0,” why he moved to a sin...

Before Zscaler was a $32B cloud security giant, it was just 10 engineers—half in Bangalore, half in a borrowed U.S. office.

As founder and CEO of Zscaler, Jay Chaudhry bet $50M of his own money on one radical idea: secure the internet in the cloud.

Born in a Himalayan village with no electricity, he built Zscaler into one of the world’s top cybersecurity giants.

In this episode, Jay breaks down why 50% of the Fortune 500 trus...

Guest: Zac Bookman, CEO and Co-Founder of OpenGov

Thirteen years after co-founding the government transparency startup OpenGov, Zac Bookman is still finding ways to surprise people. In 2024, Cox Enterprises bought the company for $1.8 billion — but as far as Zac is concerned, “we’re just getting started.”

“ I left the vast majority of my net worth in the company,” he says. “So I'm a believer. I'm all in.”

The mission of power...

Guest: Ben Chestnut, Former CEO and Co-Founder of Mailchimp

If you find yourself selling your startup, then Mailchimp co-founder Ben Chestnut has some important advice for you: Get a dog. 

When Intuit bought Mailchimp in 2021 for $12 billion, the company asked Ben if he wanted to stay on as CEO, but he chose to “walk off into the sunset” and let the new owners take over. 

After that, he estimates it took 6 to 12 months before...

Guest: Blake Scholl, Founder & CEO of Boom Supersonic

“Passion and drive trumps knowledge and experience,” says Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl. Long before he was running Boom — which earlier this year successfully tested the world’s first privately-developed supersonic jet — he was enabling “the world’s most obnoxious spam cannon” at Groupon, or designing a barcode-scanning game for retail shoppers.

But eventually, Bl...

Guest: George Kurian, CEO of NetApp

For almost 10 years, George Kurian has been CEO of the data infrastructure firm NetApp, overseeing its pivot to cloud services. After he  took the job — a surprise promotion dropped on him just days before it was announced — he had to learn on the job how the job could be.

“ There are a lot more stakeholders that a CEO has to deal with than a chief product officer,” George says, referring ...