Building One with Tomer Cohen

Last week we welcomed Spotify Co-President and CPO Gustav Söderström to the show to discuss his professional journey and the evolution of Spotify. We’re back this week with a few more questions for Gustav to get to know him better.

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For our Season 1 finale, we’ve got a real treat for you. Spotify has been bringing music to listeners' ears since 2008. Today, they are the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription, offering over 100 million tracks, 6 million podcasts titles, and 350,000 audiobooks. Spotify Co-President, Chief Technology Officer, and Chief Product Officer Gustav Söderström joins us today to discuss the evolution of the platform, Spotify’s future, and his own professional journey. Over the course of his career, Gustav’s resistance to labels and entrepreneurial experience has allowed him to successfully innovate across various disciplines. He sits down with Tomer to discuss Spotify’s long term bets, why the company will never “move fast and break things,” the value of explanations, what AI means for the future of Spotify’s platform, and so much more.

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We’ve talked a lot this season about building various apps, platforms, and software. This week, we’re discussing a different type of product: seeds. Michelin Star chef Dan Barber joins us to talk about his new venture, Row 7 Seed Company, where he’s implementing a seed-to-table approach to optimize produce for flavor while also delivering yield and disease resistance to meet today’s needs. Dan draws upon his experience as the chef behind renowned farm-to-table restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns to help influence plant breeding and pioneer new paths in gastronomy. Dan sits down with Tomer to talk about the process of making his product accessible and sustainable and Row 7’s recent partnership with Whole Foods. He shares his approach to looking at chefs and cooks as tastemakers who can influence demand, as well as his strategies for connecting farmers and cooks at either end of the value chain. 

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Last week we welcomed Cerebral CPO Alex Stried to the show to discuss the benefits of directly connecting with your users. We’re back this week with a few more questions for Alex to get to know her better.

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Technology has an undeniable impact on mental health: not just on mental health issues like anxiety and depression, but also on mental health care and the way we access it. Founded in 2020, Cerebral provides online access to psychiatrists and therapists with the aim of offering affordable, high-quality, long-term mental health care to anyone who might need it. As Chief Product Officer, Alex Stried spends a lot of time focusing on user experience. Drawing from her experience at Cerebral, as well as her time at Ellevest and Weight Watchers, Alex talks about best practices for building user-centric products. She shares strategies for directly connecting with your users, building profiles of them, and retaining users once they're on board. 

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We're back this week with Noah Weiss, formerly the CPO of Slack. He's joining Tomer for a rapid fire round of questions.

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Since 2013, Slack has helped teams connect and communicate seamlessly. It stood out early amongst enterprise software - which is often characterized by layered complexity - by bringing the craft and frictionless experience of consumer products into its design. As a B2B product, Slack created a messaging platform with features like channels and huddles that make it easier for businesses to collaborate internally. Slack’s former CPO Noah Weiss helmed this innovation for 8 years. He joins Tomer to talk about Slack rediscovering its market fit, the company’s core building principles, and how Noah fostered curiosity across his team.

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We're back this week with Zoom CPO, Smita Hashim. She's joining Tomer for a rapid fire round of questions.

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When the pandemic began, workplaces quickly needed a way to operate without meeting in person and Zoom stepped up to the challenge. If you haven’t heard of Zoom, it’s the video conferencing software that supports remote workers around the world. Smita Hashim is Zoom’s Chief Product Officer. She’s a tech veteran, who has spent her career building at companies like Google and Microsoft. Smita joins Tomer today to discuss how her team responds to customer needs, the importance of great feedback, and her experiences coming up in a male dominated industry. 

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We're back this week with Plaid CEO, Zach Perret. He's joining Tomer for a rapid fire round of questions.

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