Traction Podcast

Silicon Valley Veteran: “Why Buddhist Monks Won't Get Us to Mars”


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Andy Johns helped build some of the most important growth engines in Silicon Valley.

Facebook. Twitter. Quora. Wealthfront.

He worked across nine billion-dollar companies, became one of the most respected growth leaders in tech, and reached the level of career success most founders dream about.

Then he walked away.

Because achievement had stopped working.

In this episode, Andy joins Lloyed Lobo on Traction to unpack the hidden cost of high performance. We talk about burnout, workaholism, childhood trauma, addiction, therapy, spiritual awakening, and the identity crash that hits when the thing that made you successful starts destroying you.

Andy shares why he left a seven-figure VC career, how he rebuilt his life through deep inner work, and why so many founders are running from pain under the cover of ambition.

This is not a conversation about hacks.

It is a conversation about truth.

You will learn:

  • Why external success can mask deep internal suffering

  • How childhood trauma can drive achievement addiction

  • Why workaholism is often socially rewarded self-abandonment

  • How to know when enough is enough

  • What burnout feels like before it becomes a collapse

  • Why therapy, writing, spirituality, and community can become performance tools

  • How high performers can rebuild identity after leaving the game

  • Why the body often keeps score before the mind admits the truth

  • What founders need to understand about mental health, meaning, and self-authored success

This episode is for founders, operators, and high performers who have won on paper but feel something breaking underneath.

Because sometimes the most important growth is not company growth. It is inner growth.

Lloyed Lobo- https://linkedin.com/in/lloyedlobo

Andy Johns- https://linkedin.com/in/andrewjohns/


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