The Next Great Thing

As Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of fintech startup Brex, Henrique Dubugras and Pedro Franceschi are true “friendpreneurs” – a​​nd they’re not even 30 years old. As teens, they met over Twitter in Brazil, hacking and jailbreaking their way through high school. After their payment startup Pagar.me (“basically the Stripe of Brazil”) achieved success, they left Brazil for Silicon Valley, where they used their unique insight into the payments landscape to start Brex in 2017. Originally offering credit cards to startups, Brex has moved and scaled at incredible speed, reaching $100 million in revenue just 18 months after launch, and expanding from credit cards into a global spend management platform that both startups and enterprise customers rely on. Today, the company is valued at more than $12 billion. But scaling this big, this fast hasn’t always been smooth. Henrique and Pedro share their journey, wisdom, and experience managing risk and making tough decisions and pivots. They also explain how their complementary skillsets, friendship, drive, and long-view approach fuel their ambition to build Brex into a global fintech powerhouse – one that’s challenging established financial services and payments players.

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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Noam Bardin is drawn to working on world-changing ideas. As the former CEO of Waze, the popular traffic crowdsourcing app, he got the chance to do that. Now, as Founder and CEO of social media startup Post News, he’s on to his next big idea: bring civil discourse and fact-based journalism back into our feeds. Post isn’t another “Twitter alternative,” Noam says; it’s an antidote to the toxic brew of misinformation and echo chambers that have been swirling on the big social media platforms and harming society for years. Noam explains how Post plans to reshape the media landscape by rewarding hundreds of publishers, journalists, and creators via micropayments as an alternative to ads and subscriptions. He also recounts important lessons learned from early on in his career and from his time at Waze on how to make big decisions and engage a community of users to create experiences they love. Having seen social media's harms firsthand, Noam wants to realign platform incentives at Post to reduce polarization, elevate fact-based discussions, and counter the global rise of authoritarianism. It’s a bold, ambitious mission. Is Post part of the next great wave of social media?

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Humanitarian aid organizations seeking donations to aid victims of the war in Israel: 

• Magen David Adom
• Alliance for Middle East Peace
• The International Red Cross

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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Marissa Mayer is one of the most successful and influential women in tech. As employee #20 at Google, she played a lead role in building the iconic products we use every day, like Google Search, Gmail, AdWords, and Google Maps. As President and CEO at Yahoo, she learned important lessons on leadership, growth, and engagement. Now, she's in a role she’s never had before: founder. As the Co-Founder and CEO of Sunshine, Marissa is focused on cleaning up our contacts and making us happier by improving our relationships -- with a little help from artificial intelligence. Marissa joins us to share how she’s seen AI evolve from her days as a Stanford student researching AI to now -- and why we might be on the eve of another technological revolution. She reflects on her experience in scaling and risk-taking at Google and always putting the user first. And, she discusses her long-term vision for Sunshine, why we should take a cautious view on AI regulation, and why search still has a long way to go. 

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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We’re off for the summer, but stopping by with a quick update on a few cool happenings at The Next Great Thing! Now through August 20th, vote for ‘The Paradox of Loneliness and Technology,’ our live podcast recording at SXSW 2024. We’ll be joined on stage by some incredible friends of the pod: Leslie Witt, Chief Product & Design Officer at Headspace; Kyle Rand, Co-Founder & CEO at Rendever; and Erick Hachenburg, the Founder of Tenor, which created the first-ever GIF Keyboard. Then, be sure to visit www.sfappworks.com to get your free copy of our new book, ‘Just Start (Up): The Founder’s Guide to Becoming The Next Great Thing.’ It’s chock-full of lessons, inspiration, and practical advice on growing and scaling your startup. You’ll learn from some of our favorite podcast guests, like Rahul Roy-Chowdhury, the CEO of Grammarly; Jenny Arden, the Chief Design Officer at Zillow; and leaders from thredUP, Coursera, Rover, Truepic, and more. See you in the fall for Season 3 of TNGT!
VOTE HERE: https://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/132358 

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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We’re constantly looking for ways to track, goal-set, and optimize our physical fitness. Why don’t we do the same with sleep – something we spend one-third of our life doing and foundational to our health? This question was Matteo Franceschetti's "ah-ha" moment. A former competitive athlete, Matteo has had a lifelong obsession with optimizing recovery and personal performance. Sleep is not just rest, he realized; it's fitness. So, in 2014, he co-founded and became the CEO of Eight Sleep, a sleep technology company whose smart mattresses and mattress covers -- or, “Pods,” as they’re called – utilize medical-grade sensors and AI to regulate mattress temperature and help you track and optimize your sleep fitness. Eight Sleep has been recognized as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies and TIME's Best Inventions. Matteo joins us to explain how the company got there, walking us through his founder journey and Eight Sleep’s early days – from a successful crowdfunding campaign to sourcing manufacturers in China, persistence in applying to Y Combinator (third time’s the charm!), securing investors, signing influencers, and navigating the push/pull dynamics of product-market fit.

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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Imagine exploring inside any building or space, right down to the tiniest details, from anywhere on the planet. That’s exactly what 3D “digital twins” allow you to do. With specialized cameras, a mobile app, sensors, AI, and deep learning, we can now use cutting-edge technology to capture detailed and precise data points inside physical spaces, then stitch them together to create immersive and interactive 3D models, or digital twins. These digital twins allow anyone, anywhere to virtually explore and navigate inside any real-world building or physical environment – from houses to hotels, from museums to factories to Egyptian tombs – with astonishing realism. RJ Pittman is the CEO of Matterport, a pioneer in the 3D digital twin space. A computer engineer, serial entrepreneur, and tech industry veteran, RJ has held senior leadership positions at Google and Apple, and, prior to Matterport, was Chief Product Officer at eBay. RJ joins us to explain why Matterport is much more than a virtual 3D tour provider on your favorite real estate app; it’s a data-first, AI-driven company that’s generating insights across more than 10 million buildings and spaces (and counting), creating the largest spatial data library in the world. He also shares insights he’s gleaned throughout his impressive 20+ year career as a founder and entrepreneur in tech, including lessons in scaled leadership from industry greats like Marissa Mayer, Tim Cook, and (yes) even Henry Ford.

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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We’re in a clothing waste crisis, buying more clothes than ever but tossing them out twice as fast. Americans trash 11.3 million tons of textiles annually – a whopping 2,150 garments every second! The fashion industry, especially fast fashion, is also one of the world's biggest polluters, responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions. But there’s a growing movement among consumers and retailers to give the unwanted threads clogging our closets a new lease on life. Enter thredUP, one of the largest secondhand apparel marketplaces for women's and kids' clothes, shoes, and accessories. Founded by a cash-strapped Harvard grad student named James Reinhart and his co-founders in 2009, thredUP is today one of the largest online resale sites But it’s also a massive technology and logistics company. With sprawling automated distribution centers and a custom-built, proprietary operating platform, thredUP processes an impressive 100,000 unique items daily. In addition to its consumer-facing marketplace, the company also runs a Resale-as-a-Service (RaaS) program to help brands and retailers participate in the growing secondhand economy. James joins us to share his unconventional founder story and how his lifelong obsession with market failures and solving really hard problems has been a driving force behind thredUP’s growth. He talks about how Gen Z is leading the sustainable resale revolution and why the circular economy will change the way the world shops.

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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The United States is in the midst of a mental health crisis. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five adults in the U.S. experiences mental illness each year. And yet, only about half of those who need mental health care receive it – often because of a lack of access to affordable, quality care. Increasingly, people are turning to technology to feel better. But, how do you design health tech to be as effective as traditional mental health care? And where does generative AI fit in? We explore these questions and more with Leslie Witt, Chief Product and Design Officer at Headspace Health, one of the world’s largest digital mental health and wellness platforms. Headspace Health has brought together the popular Headspace app for mindfulness, meditation, and care services from its merger with Ginger in 2019, which provides personalized mental health support, coaching, and therapy. Headspace Health has been used by over 100 million people in 190 countries. Leslie talks about the company's mission to make mental health care more accessible and inclusive; the opportunities and challenges of designing and building digital products for mental health and wellness; and the potential of large language models and generative AI to revolutionize our relationship with mental health care.

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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We’re at a global climate tipping point. Along with policymakers, public-private partnerships, and political will, technology is central to solving our planet's biggest existential threat. One solution that’s gaining momentum: buying and selling carbon credits. The market value for carbon credits is huge – it could be worth more than $50 billion by the end of the decade. But accessing these markets can be complex, and navigating them can demand significant investments of time and resources for businesses. But what if helping remove carbon from the atmosphere was as easy as a click of a button? Brennan Spellacy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Patch, a platform that enables access to 115+ verified carbon removal projects worldwide – like carbon mineralization in concrete, reforestation, and direct air capture – helping companies to achieve their corporate net-zero goals and embed climate action into digital products and services. Brennan joins the podcast to discuss the mechanics of carbon credit buying and how software makes this process easier; lay out the business case for participating in carbon markets; and highlight opportunities for climate tech growth and investment in the years ahead.

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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Before the decade is out, over 90% of all the content on the internet will be artificially generated. From deepfakes of famous faces to flattering (or not-so-flattering) Instagram and TikTok filters, we've already seen a glimpse of what's possible. But as generative AI rapidly evolves and becomes more widespread, fake media is getting real… deceptively real. Separating fact from fiction will soon become nearly impossible, and, left unchecked, the proliferation of fake and manipulated digital content will lead to the dangerous erosion of trust and transparency in institutions, services, relationships, and society. But Jeff McGregor sees a more optimistic future. As CEO of Truepic, a company named one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2022, he's on a mission to restore authenticity, transparency, and trust across the internet. Truepic's patented secure camera technology verifies and authenticates digital media at the point of creation by capturing, signing, and sealing the metadata inside of every photo or video, creating a tamper-evident digital fingerprint that can be tracked across the web. Jeff joins the podcast to explain why, in an era of AI-generated synthetic media, establishing a framework to ensure the authenticity of visual media is critical. He also shares his insights on the broader implications of digital manipulation for society and how Truepic is addressing these challenges to bring trust and transparency back online.  

Show notes, episodes, and more at thenextgreatthingpodcast.com. For more information on SF AppWorks, visit sfappworks.com.

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