Numbers and Narrative

Summary: Joe Flood sits down with Babiators sunglasses founders Molly and Ted Fienning to discuss how they turned a spontaneous idea on a military base runway into a children's fashion company.

SUMMARY: Our interview is with Simon Adler, a producer and reporter for the fantastic NPR show and podcast Radiolab. Simon reported and produced a story about an American millionaire who recently hunted and killed a black rhino—one of the most endangered animals on the planet. At first blush, it’s a disconcerting, colonial, image of a rich Western white guy gunning down an endangered African animal. But as Simon reveals in his story, there’s a lot more at play here. While extremely controversial, this kind of big game hunting has actually become one of the most successful ways of saving these black rhinos. One country where it’s done, Namibia, actually has an increasing population of rhinos, elephants and lions, and Namibian government officials and conservationists directly attribute those numbers to big game hunting. Whereas in many countries like Kenya, where hunting has been banned, animal populations are rapidly declining thanks largely to poachers and people encroaching on the animals’ habitats.

To put this very modern problem into an economic context, co-host Joe Flood starts out by looking at English economist William Forster Lloyd’s once-forgotten treatise on the “Tragedy of the Commons,” how the American environmental movements of the 1960s and 70s helped his theory and make it one of the most influential ideas in biology, economics and public policy. Then guest Simon Adler takes it from there…

Geoff Orazem, Managing Partner and co-founder of Eastern Foundry

Summary: Geoff Orazem created Eastern Foundry, the company he wished existed as he suffered through the maze of government contracting. A workspace, a community, and a beacon for cutting through the noise of the contracting process for innovative product and services companies, Eastern Foundry is growing rapidly. A Marine Corps vet, Harvard Law School grad, and McKinsey alum, Geoff combines many talents as he builds an important company for those who wish to have the government as a client. 

James Reinhart, CEO and co-founder of thredUP

Summary: James Reinhart, CEO and co-founder of thredUP, discusses how looking at his own closet several years ago led to what is now the biggest online consignment store in the world, thredUP.  Reinhart and his team over time learned how to make the experience of selling clothes as easy as possible for people who might not otherwise do so. Founded in 2009, the company has been incredibly successful as a pioneer in clothing resale, collaborative consumption, and in providing a concierge service in place of its early days as more of a pure marketplace. ThredUP continues to scale its business of providing like-new women's and kids' clothing at exceptional prices. 

Professor Aswath Damodaran with guest host Dan Rasmussen.

Summary: The world's leading expert on valuation, Aswath Damodaran, discusses his theory that valuing companies requires understanding both numbers and narratives. Damodaran talks about why he believes the future will be won by "poets with discipline" and "number crunchers with imagination" and why he wants his son to study English literature.

Marine Corps Vet Arthur Karell, VP Ops of Fiscal Note

Summary: Arthur Karell learned many management and culture lessons as a leader in the Marine Corps. Now these important lessons are coming in very handy as Arthur and the executive team scale the business, which just named former U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal to its board of directors.

A Numbers and Narrative interview with Jody Avirgan of FivethirtyEight.com

Summary: Five thirty eight. That is the number of delegates up for grabs in US Presidential elections and the professional home, FiveThirtyEight.com, of guest Jody Avirgan, podcast host and producer for the Nate Silver website that dives into the data for things like sports, news, culture and, of course, politics. Jody is one of the best in the business at finding ways to use data to tell compelling stories, particularly in radio and podcast form. Jody and co-host Joe Flood discuss Jody’s work on NPR, geek out about their mutual love of WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer, talk about the excitement and challenges of telling data stories through 538’s podcast channel, and about Jody’s own project, Ask Roulette.

Numbers And Narrative Podcast - Episode 51: The $350,000 in a Knapsack and Hyper-Scaling a Construction Business

An Interview with Isaac Lidsky, Speaker, Author, and CEO of ODC Construction

Summary: Isaac Lidsky and his business partner bought a Florida-based construction company five years ago. Since, they've hyper-scaled the company by installing processes and proprietary software. Isaac's story is inspiring. Isaac, who graduated Harvard at 19 and has been blind for nearly two decades, has worked as a childhood actor, an internet entrepreneur, a clerk on the Supreme Court and now leads ODC Construction. 

Summary: While pursuing his MBA at Harvard Business School, Peter Maglathlin and his co-founders came up with the idea to create a curated marketplace for MBA alums to offer consulting services. On the third birthday of HourlyNerd, Renny sits down with Peter to talk about how they got to where they are. Now with 20,000 experts or 'nerds' on the platform, and offering for the enterprise and SMB's, HourlyNerd continues its trajectory for success. 

Summary: For their final football pod, Joe Flood and screenwriter Jesse Andrews discuss the crushing loss their Patriots and Steelers suffered at the benumbed hand of Peyton Manning, misbehavior by key players, and their continuing obsession with the drug that is American football. Joe and Jesse she'd a few Skype tears over the last football pod, discuss Jesse's big wins for his novel/movie Me and Earl and the Dying Girl this time last year at Sundance, and promise to do a movies podcast before the Oscars at the end of February