Steph Smith is a creator, marketer and remote work thought leader. Six years ago, she left consulting and a 2+ hour commute to redesign her life as an indie-maker and creator. 

Most recently, she works for the Hustle acquired by Hubspot (you may know them for running one of the largest newsletters in the world), leading Trends which does millions in ARR and has 15000+ paying subscribers. In addition to her full-time job, she writes and blogs prolifically about continuous improvement, productivity, women in tech, and learning to code. Her book Doing Content Right has sold over $130K and 3300 copies.

Her latest project is a podcast about the sh*t you don't learn in school. It got thousands of listens in its first month and teaches you all you need to learn outside an academic institution. 

She even started coding and has since had multiple projects go to #1 on Product Hunt and was even nominated for Maker of the Year.

Links: 

This blog post is my favorite, and it has been read by 80K people:

https://blog.stephsmith.io/how-to-be-great/

Website: https://stephsmith.io/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniesmith93/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/stephsmithio

Bill Davidow has been a high-technology industry executive and a venture investor for more than 30 years. In 1985, he founded Mohr Davidow Ventures, a venture capital firm and continued as an active advisor after stepping down as a general partner. Davidow is the author of Marketing High Technology and a co-author of Total Customer Service and The Virtual Corporation.

While at Intel, Bill served as senior vice president of marketing and sales, vice president of thmicrocomputer division and vice president of the microcomputer systems division. Prior to Intel Corp.,Bill worked in various managerial positions at Hewlett Packard and General Electric. Bill’s community involvement extends to serving on the boards of California Institute of Technology and Stanford Institutefor Economic Policy Research. He also sits on the Foundation Board of the University of California, San Francisco, and on the Board of the California Nature Conservancy.Bill earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Dartmouth College, a master’s degree inelectrical engineering from both Dartmouth College and the California Institute of Technology, and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

In this episode, Bill talks about:

- His latest book "The Autonomous Revolution"

- Maladaptation to Virtual spaces 

- His advice on venture funding

- Role of exponential technology in our lives

Bill Davidow's latest book is "The Autonomous Revolution: Reclaiming the Future we've sold to Machines", which he has co-authored with Michael S. Malone.

We are at the dawn of the Autonomous Revolution, a turning point in human history as decisive as the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions. More and more, AI-based machines are replacing human beings, and online environments are gathering our data and using it to manipulate us. This loss of human autonomy amounts to nothing less than a societal phase change, a fundamental paradigm shift. The same institutions will remain--schools, banks, churches, and corporations--but they will radically change form, obey new rules, and use new tools.

 Many of the book's recommendations--such as using taxes to control irresponsible internet behavior and enabling people to put their data into what are essentially virtual personal information "safety deposit boxes"--are bold and visionary, but we must figure out how we will deal with these emerging challenges now, before the Autonomous Revolution overcomes us.

Links: www.davidow.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-davidow/

Nithya A. Ruff is the Head of Comcast's Open Source Program Office. She is responsible for growing Open Source culture inside of Comcast and engagement with external communities. Nithya has been director-at-large on the Linux Foundation Board for the last 3 years and was recently elected to be Chair of the Linux Foundation Board. She looks forward to advancing the mission of the Linux Foundation around building sustainable ecosystems built on open collaboration. She has been a passionate advocate and a speaker for opening doors to new people in Open Source for many years. Nithya graduated with an MS in Computer Science from NDSU and an MBA from the University of Rochester, Simon Business School. 

You can follow her on twitter @nithyaruff and you can find her on https://www.linkedin.com/in/nithyaruff/

Todd Kashdan - Personality/Clinical Psychologist, Best-Selling Author, Keynote Speaker. His latest book is The Art of Insubordination: How To Dissent & Defy Effectively. Preorder at: toddkashdan.com. 

Kashdan is Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. He is a leading authority on well-being, curiosity, psychological flexibility, and resilience. He has published over 210 peer-reviewed articles and his work has been cited over 34,000 times. He is the author of several books including Curious? Discover the Missing Ingredient to a Fulfilling Life (William Morrow), and The Upside of Your Dark Side (Penguin). His latest book is The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively (Avery/Penguin). His research is featured regularly in media outlets such as The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, NPR, Fast Company, and Time Magazine. He is a keynote speaker and consultant for organizations as diverse as Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, Prudential, General Mills, The United States Department of Defense, and World Bank Group. He received the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Early Career Contributions to Psychology. He's a twin with twin 14-year old daughters (and one more), with plans to rapidly populate the world with great conversationalists.

Todd is the author of five books, including Curious?, The Upside of Your Darkside, and Designing Positive Psychology. In his latest book, The Art of Insubordination, Todd synthesizes decades of psychological research to show how we can improve the health of organizations and our society. He teaches us how to be courageous enough to question the status quo and instills in us the intelligence to know when and how.

After receiving a Ph.D. in clinical psychology (2004), Todd founded the Well-Being Lab at George Mason University which has produced over 210 peer-reviewed journal articles on well-being and resilience, psychological flexibility, meaning and purpose in life, curiosity, and managing social anxiety.

Todd works out relentlessly for the freedom to consume copious amounts of steak, whiskey, and Italian rainbow square cookies. 

Links: 

Website: https://toddkashdan.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddkashdan/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/toddkashdan

Rebecca Seal is the Author of SOLO: How To Work Alone (And Not Lose Your Mind). Writer and TV presenter. Host of The Solo Collective podcast. She writes about the things which make us human: food, family, work, home.

In the process of writing "Solo",  she interviewed organizational psychologists, academics, and behavioral scientists, read hundreds of journal articles and talked with many solo workers, from professional violinists to TED talkers to designers to explorers, to find out how their work does and doesn’t work for them, and what they’ve done about it.

She also hosts the Solo Collective podcast, which is the #1 career podcast in UK.

In this podcast episode, she provides practical advice on thriving as a soloist, whether you are a solopreneur, remote worker or someone considering solo work.

Website: https://www.howtoworkalone.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccaseal/

Twitter: @RebeccaSeal

Instagram: @bexseal

Podcast: The Solo Collective

Monica Ortiz is a Mindfulness, Communication, and Leadership Coach

-Mindfulness, and why it is increasingly important

-Ebb and flow in communication

-Communicating in an increasingly virtual world

She helps executives build high-performing teams by establishing a new Communication Blueprint through Mindful Leadership | Speaker @ TEDx, Google, Stanford University | Published Author.

Website: https://www.exceptionallifeinstitute.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monica-ortiz/

Eddie Yoon is a growth strategist who has helped drive $8B+ in profitable growth for brands, companies and categories. He has done significant research, writing and speaking on the topic of Category Growth and Category Creation. He is also the Co-creator of Category Pirates, the newsletter authority on category design/category creation.  

In this episode he covers a broad range of topics including category design, solopreneurship and personal IPOs.

He talks about:

-->How to create a category

-->Who are super consumers and how are they different from regular consumers

--> How should one go about identifying their superconsumers?

--> Why solopreneurship is more important than ever

--> How to define career success and achieve a personal IPO, and more...

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddie-yoon-ewg/

Website: https://eddiewouldgrow.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EddieWouldGrow

Category Pirates Newsletter: https://twitter.com/categorypirates

Superconsumers: https://tinyurl.com/5e5jwj2f

Nancy Hauge, CHRO at Automation Anywhere, one of the fastest growing companies in the world,  oversees all "people" functions worldwide, including talent acquisition, communication, total rewards, learning and development, and employee engagement. She brings more than 30 years of experience in senior leadership and management consulting roles. Prior to joining Automation Anywhere, she was the chief people officer at HotChalk where she was responsible for all people functions, legal and facilities. Before that, Nancy served as the VP of global human resources and facilities at Silicon Image through its acquisition in 2015, and as SVP of human resources for K12 Inc. through their 2007 IPO.

She sees herself as Chief People Officer because she believes in putting people first even in the midst of disruption. Nancy has won the Stevie Award for women in hi-tech and is considered one of the most influential women in Silicon Valley.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyhauge/

Azeem Azhar is an award-winning entrepreneur, analyst, strategist, investor. He produces Exponential View, the leading newsletter and podcast on the impact of technology on our future economy and society. In addition, Azeem hosts the Exponential View podcast, distributed by Harvard Business Review.

In this episode, we talk about Azeem's new book "The Exponential Age".  In this new book ‘The Exponential Age: How the Next Digital Revolution Will Rewire Life on Earth’, to be released in September, he talks about a wholly new way to think about technology, which will transform your understanding of the economy, politics, and the future.

Many of us are familiar with the declining cost curves in computing, so well popularized by Moore’s Law. A single dollar spent today would buy 10,000,000,000 times more computing than a similar dollar spent fifty years ago. In The Exponential Age, Azeem  argues that this incredibly creative and world-changing experience of the computer industry is merely a harbinger for similar trends in other industries.

Links:

Book: http://hyperurl.co/exponential

Newsletter: https://www.exponentialview.co/

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/azhar/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/azeem

Exponential View Podcast: https://tinyurl.com/8mye2d4a

In Season 2 I interview authors, thought leaders and practitioners and provide actionable insights on how you can navigate your careers in the changing future of work.