Mike Gold has built a life defined by range. He ran an art gallery in New York. He scaled an animation studio to nearly 200 artists. He has built backend systems for massively multiplayer online games, collaborated with DARPA on next-generation engineering tools, and even mined gold on a beach in Nome, Alaska.

Mike traces the throughline that unites these pursuits: he loves learning, assembling strong teams, and building systems that improve the human experience. Today that compass points to two long-term missions: helping more children learn to read earlier, and reducing serious sports injuries through a short weekly training regimen that is proven to deliver outsized results.

Highlights include:

Mining gold in Nome and what it taught him about persistence and problem-solving

Why early reading is one of the most studied areas of learning yet still lagging in successful outcomes

An introduction to RIIP REPS, a 35 to 40 minute weekly program designed to reduce injuries and improve performance especially for teenage athletes

The Amherst classmate he nominates for a future episode

You can email Mike at [email protected]. Thanks to Jordan Hayslip for nominating him.