Innovation with Mark Peter Davis

Zach Sims is the Co-Founder and CEO of Codecademy, an education company that empowers people to transform their personal and professional lives by helping them learn modern skills.

Zach started Codecademy 10 years ago when he was still an undergraduate student at Columbia University. As Codecademy gained momentum and took on investors, Zach decided to pursue it full time and left college. Now a decade later, Codecademy has helped over 45 million users in 179 countries learn new skills to gain a competitive advantage in our rapidly changing world.

Zach and I discuss his decision to leave college and pursue Codecademy full time, what coding languages are the most durable, and how education is changing.

Follow us on Twitter:

@zsims

@codecademy

@mpd

Show Notes/Links:

Documentary - Ivory Tower

Guest Links:

Codecademy

Show Links:

Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn

What is Israel doing to produce the most startups per capita, VC dollars spent per capita, and unicorns per capita?

Yaron Samid is the Founder of TechAviv, a global Israeli startup founders club that's 3,000 members strong.

He is also the Managing Partner of TechAviv Founder Partners, a pre-seed venture fund backed and powered by some of the world’s most successful company builders.

Yaron was born in Israel, grew up and began his career in the US, and is now back in Israel where innovation and venture capital is booming.

We discuss what Israel has done and is doing to support its startup community, why community is crucial for innovation, and what other countries and communities can do to mimic Israel’s innovation success.

Follow us on Twitter:

@yaronsamid

@techaviv

@founderpartners

@mpd

Show Notes:

Book Suggestions - Give and Take by Adam Grant, The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

Peter Boyce II is a Partner at General Catalyst, one of the preeminent venture capital firms out there. General Catalyst makes early-stage and transformational investments while backing exceptional entrepreneurs who are building innovative technology companies and market leading businesses. Investments include the likes of Airbnb, ClassPass, HubSpot, KAYAK, Oscar, Snap, Stripe, and Warby Parker.

Peter is also a Co-Founder of Rough Draft Ventures, an organization that helps university students in their journey from creating ‘rough drafts’ to startup companies by investing at the earliest stage.

Peter and I discuss the way his firm operates, why it’s important to give companies time to develop, and how universities can better assist their entrepreneurs.

Follow us on Twitter:

@badboyboyce

@mpd

Guest Links:

Twitter, General Catalyst Website, Book Suggestion - The Rainforest

Show Links:

Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn 

Host: Mark Peter Davis

Guest: Peter Boyce II

Lisa Barnett is the Co-Founder, President, and CMO of Little Spoon, a fresh, direct-to-consumer baby food and early childhood nutrition company reinventing the modern parent’s experience of keeping their child happy and healthy.

Lisa and I discuss her journey (which has a unique twist as she left a coveted job in venture capital to start Little Spoon), the importance of identifying an enemy when honing the focus of a company, special marketing tactics that everyone should embrace, and what her ideal legislation would look like if she could implement sweeping government changes to the food industry.

What is your enemy? What problem are you trying to solve with your business?

Special thanks to Lisa for joining the podcast.

Follow us on Twitter:

@LisaBarnett_11

@mpd

Guest Links:

Twitter, Little Spoon

Show Links:

Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn 

Host: Mark Peter Davis

Guest: Lisa Barnett

Jeff Wald is the Founder of WorkMarket, an enterprise software platform that enables companies to efficiently and compliantly organize, manage and pay freelancers. Jeff built WorkMarket from the ground up and sold the company to ADP for $400million. Along the way he learned some incredibly valuable lessons, some of which came during the exit process.

Jeff shares his journey, what it’s like to take on investors as a company grows, his thoughts on the future of work and Universal Basic Income, and why retraining will be key to a successful economy.

What lessons have you learned along the way as you’ve started and grown your business?

Follow us on Twitter 

@jeffreywald

@mpd

Show Links:

Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn 

Guest Links:

Twitter, Jeff's Book

Host: Mark Peter Davis

Guest: Jeff Wald

Max is the CEO of Launcher, a company that's developing the world’s most efficient rocket to deliver small satellites to orbit.

Max discusses his background (which includes an important role in the development of live streaming), the cost of sending satellites into orbit, what it's like working with the State Department, his take as to why space exploration is important, and important entrepreneurial/startup advice.

How would you use a satellite to help you grow your business or create a new one?

Follow us on Twitter 

@maxhaot

@mpd

Guest Links:

Launcher

Host Links:

Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn 

Guest: Max Haot

Host: Mark Peter Davis

Tal Kerret is the President of Silverstein Properties, a real estate development and management firm based in New York City. Silverstein Properties owns and operates 40MM square feet of office space and residential properties including the World Trade Center, which they bought just six weeks prior to 9/11. Tal shares his unique perspective of what it's been like to rebuild One World Trade and help rejuvenate downtown New York City. 

Before joining the family business of Silverstein Properties, Tal was a successful entrepreneur who was a part of the dot com boom in the early days of the internet. He used that experience and passion to start SilverTech Ventures, an accelerator, incubator, and venture capital firm. Tal tells us about SilverTech’s mission and a uniquely positioned company for the COVID era they’ve incubated called Dojo. By using their proprietary technology, Dojo allows companies to actually quantify the risk of contagion in their office space. It takes into account the airflow, the size of the space and other variables to give business owners a clear understanding of the risk in each room of an office.

How do you think the future of office space will look in this new COVID shaped era?

Guest Links:

Silverstein Properties, SilverTech Ventures, Dojo

Show Links:

Website, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn 

Host: Mark Peter Davis

Guest: Tal Kerret

I believe innovation is hope. We live in a world full of challenges. Innovation is how we solve problems and create the path forward. To me, innovation represents the best of mankind.

The mission of this podcast is to help entrepreneurs more efficiently innovate. I’m speaking with very successful entrepreneurs, investors, politicians and community organizers to share their stories and their views so that listeners can both better identify the best opportunities to add value and learn from their mistakes.

Enjoy.