In this episode, Klara Jagosova speaks with Brian Modoff, founder and CEO of MC3 Ventures, Advisory Partner at Summit Partners, and former EVP of Corporate Strategy at Qualcomm. Brian's journey spans enlisting in the US Navy at 17, eight years of night school while working full time, 23 years as one of Wall Street's most consistently top-ranked technology analysts, a pivotal role at Qualcomm leading M&A and venture strategy, and now investing in the next generation of breakthrough companies as a venture capitalist.

From a cryptology-equipped destroyer off the coast of Iran to the boardrooms of Deutsche Bank and Qualcomm, Brian's path is a masterclass in persistence, pattern recognition, and never crawling under your desk when things go wrong.

The conversation explores:

• How Brian built a 23-year career on Wall Street, outlasting an average analyst lifespan of 8 years
• Spotting Qualcomm's rise before anyone else — and having the courage to put a sell rating on them first
• The $30 billion conversation with Steve Mollenkopf that led to joining Qualcomm as EVP
• Why the right idea matters more than the perfect founding team in early-stage investing
• Why putting a CFO in charge of a tech company is an automatic sell signal
• Why America's venture capital community is its most important economic asset
• The one piece of advice Brian would give every young person entering the workforce today

🎙️ Watch Brian's 6G Keynote (B6GS 2025): https://ieeetv.ieee.org/channels/communications/keynote-brian-modoff-summit-partners-b6gs-2025

Key themes: venture capital, Wall Street, Qualcomm, MC3 Ventures, Summit Partners, tech investing, startup investing, innovation, persistence, leadership, AI, engineering careers, wireless technology, mosaic theory, M&A strategy.

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In this episode of the Grand Slam Journey Podcast, host Klara Jagosova speaks with John Madura, mechanical engineer, 2x USA Rowing National Team Member, and robotics innovator at Dexterity. John's journey spans from being recruited into rowing over pizza in a college lunch line at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, to representing the United States at the World Championships in 2012 and 2015, earning a PhD at UC Berkeley, and now building physical AI and autonomous robots at the cutting edge of the industry.

From an unexpected lunch line recruitment to the USA National Team, John's path is proof that seizing unlikely opportunities — and refusing to let go of them — can lead to a life you never could have planned.

The conversation explores: 

• How John discovered rowing by accident and made it to the USA National Team
• The parallels between elite rowing and long-cycle hardware engineering
• Building physical AI and autonomous robots at Dexterity
• Why hardware is the unsung hero of the AI revolution
• Teamwork, ego, and the 2016 Olympics sculling miss
• How to spot opportunities and seize them before they disappear

Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-m-madura-0651a82b/

Connect with Klara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/klarajagosova 

Key themes: robotics, physical AI, mechanical engineering, elite rowing, USA Rowing, Dexterity, performance mindset, career transitions, STEM, discipline, opportunity, resilience.

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Klara Jagosova speaks with Josh Simons — musician, songwriter, entrepreneur, and CEO of Vinyl Group — about his journey from touring internationally with indie band Buchanan to leading Australia’s only ASX-listed music company. Josh shares lessons on creativity, performance, and building sustainable careers beyond the stage.

Drawing parallels between music and sport, the conversation explores:

• Growing up in a music-driven family
• Transitioning from artist to entrepreneur
• Performance, discipline, and career longevity
• The creative process behind songwriting
• AI, leadership, and the future of music

Whether you’re a creative, founder, or leader, this episode offers practical insights on reinvention, mindset, and long-term success at the intersection of music, business, and technology.

🔗 Connect with Josh: 🌐 Website  ︱ 🔗 LinkedIn ︱ 🎤 TEDx ︱ 🎥 Final Investor Video of the Year (LinkedIn)

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Want a front-row seat to how a global CFO blends tennis-honed grit with people-first leadership to rethink telecom’s future? In this episode, Klara Jagosova sits down with Jurgen Arts, Vice President & CFO for Market Area Europe & Latin America at Ericsson, who brings nearly three decades of experience leading M&A, finance transformation, and cross-regional teams.

We trace Jurgen’s path from an introverted Dutch tennis kid to a global leader known for transparency, curiosity, and balance — in business and in life. He shares how authenticity builds trust, how honesty early in a role prevents friction later, and how sports resilience fuels strategic decision-making.

We explore:
• How culture shapes leadership across regions
• M&A lessons from integrating Cradlepoint and Vonage
• The evolving role of AI as a practical co-pilot
• Building connected global teams and financial agility
• 5G network APIs and the shift to pay-per-use models
• Continuous learning, mentorship, and curiosity as long-term success drivers

🎾 Plus: Jurgen’s reflections on cooking, running, padel, golf, and inspiring his two sons to carry forward the family’s love for tennis.

Connect with Jurgen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jurgen-arts-ba808a3/

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What if we could revolutionize healthcare and other industries by using the untapped computing power that sits idle in hospitals every night? Meet Rani Yadav-Ranjan, Chief AI Officer at Greycloud AI, who's pioneering a breakthrough approach to AI that respects both data privacy and urgency.

After watching her mother's medical journey, Rani had a revelation: doctors function as "databases" of knowledge, but these repositories remain isolated within individual hospitals. Her solution? A patented system that transforms existing computers in closed networks into distributed training devices, operating during off-hours to build sophisticated AI models without compromising sensitive patient data. "From six o'clock till six in the morning, that's twelve hours of computing power we could use," she explains, describing how her technology chunks and chains data through multiple nodes, each with a unique blockchain identifier to ensure validity.

This innovative approach reflects Rani's decades-long career at the intersection of emerging technologies. As one of the most influential women in tech, with over 20 patents, she pioneered mobile payments in the early 2000s, navigated cultural resistance to e-commerce in Japan, and continues to advocate for the ethical development of AI. Through personal anecdotes about balancing leadership with motherhood and observations about gender bias in corporate cultures, Rani offers a master class in resilience and strategic thinking.

Rani's perspective on AI's future is refreshingly nuanced. Rather than fearing job displacement, she sees AI as enhancing human capabilities while emphasizing the irreplaceable value of experience. "What I use AI for is code reviews," she notes. "It's awesome to say, 'here's 3,000 lines of code, tell me where the missing semicolon is." As she prepares to publish her book "Constitutional Democracy in the Algorithmic Age," Rani continues to champion responsible innovation that serves humanity's needs while respecting our rights and privacy.

Connect with Rani on LinkedIn to follow her groundbreaking work at the intersection of AI, healthcare, and ethical technology development.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryadavranjan/

https://yadav-ranjan.com/

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Noah Sturm, Senior Vice President of Sales and Revenue at Augment AI, shares his journey from an unstructured upbringing through professional golf aspirations to becoming a transformative sales leader building AI-powered relationship technology to transform and redefine how B2B sales are done.

• Raised in a dynamic, homeschooled environment that fostered creativity, resilience, and comfort with uncertainty
• Developed extraordinary resilience, helping his family through his mother's cancer battle and later his father's passing during his college years
• Transitioned from a potential professional golf career to sales excellence, starting at RR Donnelly, where he grew from $70,000 quota to multi-million dollar accounts
• Joined N3 and later Accenture, becoming a vice president at just 28 years old, by focusing on execution rather than conventional experience
• Now building Augment to transform B2B sales by focusing on durable relationships and addressing the 83% of buying decisions that happen without salespeople present
• Believes AI should enhance human relationships rather than replace them, focusing on making mid-performers act like top performers through situational awareness
• Advocates for kindness, empathy, and spending less time on social media to foster genuine human connection

Get in touch with Noah on LinkedIn at noah-sturm-augment or email him at [email protected]

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Josh Payne shares his unique journey from musician to tech entrepreneur, exploring how AI is creating a more personalized, adaptive internet experience that could revolutionize how we interact with the internet, websites, and overall digital experiences. 

• Personalization is fundamentally changing the internet, making it more contextual and adaptive to individual users
• Josh sees personalized experiences becoming essential, predicting A/B testing will eventually be obsolete 
• Founding multiple startups, including AccessBell, Autograph with Tom Brady, and now Coframe
• Coframe uses AI to transform website testing from months-long processes to minutes or hours
• Working with major brands like OpenAI and The Economist to drive millions in incremental revenue through personalization
• Finding balance through music, playing with the SF Philharmonic, and using flotation tanks for deeper thinking
• Partnering directly with OpenAI to train specialized models for website code generation
• The importance of choosing founding team members based on working relationships rather than friendship alone
• Josh's perspectives on AI's rapid advancement and the need for responsible governance while embracing its creative potential

Learn more about Josh and Coframe: 

https://www.coframe.com/

[email protected]

https://x.com/joshpxyne

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Abby Davisson shares a comprehensive framework for making life's biggest decisions, from career transitions to family planning, with a clear process that reduces anxiety and builds confidence.

• The Five C's Framework: Clarify what's important, Communicate with those involved, Consider broad choices, Check in with trusted resources, and examine Consequences across time horizons
• Rest is not something earned after work is done – it's essential to incorporate deliberate breaks to enhance creativity and decision-making
• Career success and family life can coexist with strategic outsourcing and focusing parental presence during truly critical developmental stages
• Who you partner with can be either a career accelerant or roadblock – early honest conversations about expectations and values are crucial
• Decision-making skills improve with practice – finding the right conditions for important conversations (like hiking or walking by water) can facilitate better communication
• Entrepreneurship requires letting go of one trapeze to catch the next – small experiments can build confidence before making the full leap
• Financial planning should align with your values – clarify your needs, wants, and wishes to make more intentional choices

Watch it on YouTube

Abby's Substack

Abby's website

📖 Get the book: MONEY & LOVE: AN INTELLIGENT ROADMAP FOR LIFE'S BIGGEST DECISIONS

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Picture this: a technology salesperson walks into a meeting armed with impressive specs—gigabytes, terabytes, processing power—only to face a small business owner who simply asks, "What will this do for my business?" This fundamental disconnect lies at the heart of why so many technology companies struggle to serve the massive small and medium business (SMB) market effectively.

In this conversation, "Magic" Maciek Szczesniak draws from his 25-year journey through Compaq, HP, HPE, and as a Chief Growth & Strategy Officer at B2SMB Institute to unpack the critical differences between enterprise and SMB technology sales. "SMBs don't care if the box is black or white," Magic explains. "They care what this box will do for them. It has to lower costs, make them more efficient, drive revenue, or please their customers." This business-first approach requires a complete rethinking of how technology is marketed and sold.

Beyond SMB insights, Magic shares powerful leadership wisdom that applies across organizations of all sizes. His approach to recognition stands out: "Recognition is a never-ending pot. The more audience you gather to recognize someone, the more everyone understands what behaviors are valued." He advocates for precise, public recognition tied directly to business goals — a practice that costs nothing yet yields tremendous results in building high-performing teams.

The conversation expands to explore international business dynamics, the critical transition from manager to leader, and how artificial intelligence offers SMBs a once-in-a-generation opportunity to close the productivity gap with larger corporations. Magic estimates this gap represents 5-10% of GDP — real dollars, which small businesses can capture by embracing AI strategically.

Whether you're selling to small businesses, leading teams across cultural boundaries, or navigating the AI revolution, this episode delivers actionable insights from someone who's mastered the intersection of technology, business, and human connection. 

Connect with Magic on LinkedIn

Watch it on YouTube. 

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This episode was produced by Google Notebook LLM using my latest blog post on my website: https://www.grandslamjourney.com/post/tennis-tuesdays

I'm curious what you think about it. I found this a fun experiment. https://notebooklm.google/

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