The OMR Podcast International – Go inside the minds of the biggest names in digital and tech

By founding Snapchat in his mid-20s, Evan Spiegel reached billionaire status at a very early age. Today, some 350 million people use the app globally. In the OMR Podcast, he talks about the failure of his first startup, drops his take on when augmented reality glasses will become part of people's everyday lives and why he still believes in Twitter's potential.

CEO of Privacy-focussed and user-centric search startup Neeva Sridhar Ramaswa talks about the genesis for Neeva, how search without search history works, and opened up at length about his time as a high-ranking exec at one of Silicon Valley's Big 4

In less than a decade, Sridhar Ramaswamy went from Google grunt to Senior VP of Ads and Commerce. After a decade and a half at Google, Sridhar decided he’d had enough with data-driven search and that the sector was in need for disruption. Enter Neeva, a privacy-focussed, user-centric and subscription-based search engine. Funded in part by Greylock Partners, Neeva has raised over USD 100m—despite the seemingly long odds of outperforming Sridhar’s former employer.

In this episode of the OMR Podcast International, Tim spoke to me about becoming an entrepreneur, the Allbirds approach to sustainability, the importance of materials in footwear and how a skeptical professor's challenge got the company off and running.

Maybe when Tim Brown retired from professional soccer in 2012, he should have seen it coming: swapping out cleats for shoes. It was in fact his shock at the amount of plastic in the footwear freebies gifted to him during his playing days that gave rise to an obsession, which, eventually, evolved into Allbirds, a D2C stalwart and love brand for sustainable footwear founded in 2016.

With 30 million registered users, 2.7 million of those being "funded brokerage accounts, and a daily trading volume north of 5 billion US, eToro is a titan among fintech startups.

In the OMR Podcast International, co-founder and CEO Yoni Assia discusses the importance of user experience for eToro, the impact of the social component on growth, engagement and retention, platform features, crypto, investment tips for beginners and a rather unsucessful dinner with Warren Buffett. He also spoke at length about past, prominent ad and marketing campaigns, including sports sponsorship deals, ads featuring Alec Baldwin and a spot during last year's Super Bowl.

It has been an eventful 12 months for Contentsquare. From rolling out a slew of key new features, AI capabilities and a cookieless solution, among others, acquired a couple of companies, expanded globally adding a number of new offices and nearly doubled its workforce to approximately 1500 at present. On top of all that, you locked up approximately USD 600m in funding recently, the latest in a 12-month span that saw Contentsquare acquire a total of 1.4B in backing and helping CS’s total valuation double to USD 5.4B. And that’s not taking into consideration the mergers and acquisitions Contentsquare has undertaken in the past 3-4 years.

While the problems Prof. Yunus and Saskia Bruysten, CEOs and co-founders of Yunus Social Business, hope to solve may seem impossible, the way they laid out the path to success in this episode of the OMR Podcast, impossible seems plausible.

For the past 8 years, Margrethe Vestager has taken the fight to the world's biggest tech companies in her role as EU commissioner for competition. Despite the incredibly deep pockets of tech lobbyists, she has had some very high-profile "wins." In the OMR Podcast, she discusses what will happen next.

Almost exactly one year ago today, Morgan Selzer was appointed CCO at mindfulness platform Headspace. In that time, she has spearheaded content expansion on the platform, which now includes music, guided meditation, sleepcasts and, recently, content focussed exclusively on women's health. And her efforts have begun achieving widespread recognition, as well, as she was named Podcast Executive of the Year by Adweek last month. Morgan joined the OMR Podcast to discuss the brand partnerships and content strategy she has employed at Headspace, her role in making conversations on mental health less taboo and how her experience at CMT—of all places—helped her learn more about the audience at Headspace.

In this episode of the OMR Podcast, we are chatting with Mirko Caspar, CEO of omnichannel eyewear provider Mister Spex. Since Mirko has been at the helm, he has focussed on enhancing brand perception and convincing eyewear consumers to turn to online outlets as well as offline offerings. A decade later, a tenfold increase in annual revenue to EUR 194m is all you need to know about how it's going for Mirko and Mister Spex. We spoke about specifics regarding purchasing habits of prescription eyewear consumers, how a streamlined omnichannel shopping experience and local partnerships have contributed to growth and how AI is impacting the present and the future of Mister Spex.