What Fuels You

Jim Weber is a Director, Advisor, serial CEO, Author, and Speaker. Jim joined Brooks Running Company’s Board of Directors in 1999 and was named CEO in 2001. He stepped down in 2024 after 23 years in the position, during which time he is credited for the Seattle-based running company’s aggressive turnaround story. 

In 2022, Jim wrote a challenger brand, leadership memoir called “Running with Purpose: How Brooks Outpaced Goliath Competitors to Lead the Pack.”, with inspirational stories and tangible takeaways for current and aspiring leaders, entrepreneurs, and runners.

He currently serves as a member of the board of advisors at his alma mater, the University of Minnesota - Carlson School of Management.

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Sujal Patel is Founder and CEO of Nautilus Biotechnology, a life sciences company creating a large-scale, single-molecule platform for quantifying and unlocking the complexity of the human proteome, with the goal of enabling fundamental advancements across human health and medicine.  

With nearly 20 years of executive leadership experience driving innovation for high-growth companies, Sujal is a successful entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist who founded and served as CEO of Isilon Systems, an enterprise data storage company. After completing one of the most successful initial public offerings of 2006, Isilon was acquired by EMC in 2010 for $2.6 billion. 

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Dr. Oren Etzioni is the founder of TrueMedia.org, a free-use product that allows critical election audiences from around the world to quickly and effectively detect deepfakes.

He was the Founding Chief Executive Officer at the Allen Institute for AI (AI2), having served as CEO from its inception in 2013 until late 2022.

He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington where he helped to pioneer meta-search, online comparison shopping, machine reading, and open information extraction. He has also authored several award-winning technical papers, and founded and sold many companies.

In addition to his role at TrueMedia.org, he is currently a technical director of the AI2 Incubator and a Venture Partner at Madrona.

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Marc Rousso is the CEO of JayMarc Homes, a national award-winning home builder specializing in new custom homes in the Greater Seattle area. Marc founded JayMarc Homes along with childhood friend Jay Mezistrano in 2010, and together they’ve created a company culture that’s entrepreneurial, inclusive, and respectful. Marc has degrees from the University of Washington and the Sloan School of Management’s Executive Entrepreneurship Program at MIT. When not conversing with contractors, sharing ideas with real estate professionals, and talking to JayMarc homeowners past, present, and future, Marc balances his work life with a wonderful family: his wife, Leslie, and their two beautiful children, Lee and Siena.

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This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland's 2020 interview with Kate Wallich, the Founder and CEO of Dance Church.

Kate’s desire to study and practice dance led her to people and places she never thought possible while growing up in Michigan. When this pursuit took her to Seattle, she learned how sharing the power of dance can forge meaningful connections and inspire others.

In this recap episode, Kate emphasizes the power of expressing yourself and how movement can promote healing and create positive communities. 

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This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 interview with Sue Suh, then Chief People Officer at Time.

Before working at Time, Sue’s career took her around the world on campaigns for international cooperation and change at the U.S. Departments of Defense, State, and the Rockefeller Foundation.

In this recap episode, Sue shares great advice for younger people with stories from her college and early career days. She also emphasizes the power of gratitude and human connections in her professional and personal lives and how daily choices add up to big opportunities.

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This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 conversation with Jeremy Lott, President of SanMar.

SanMar gave Jeremy his first job, modeling on the cover of the company’s first catalog at the age of two. Since then, he’s learned the family business inside and out, from pulling orders to purchasing. Now as president, he focuses on creating a culture of opportunity and sustainability at SanMar and in their factories and offices around the world.

To learn more about SanMar, visit www.sanmar.com.

In this recap episode, Jeremy discusses SanMar’s philosophy that products should make positive impacts and how family values lead to success.

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This is a condensed version of Shauna Swerland’s 2019 interview with Dan Levitan, the co-founder of the venture capital firm Maveron. 

Dan started the firm with Howard Schultz in 1998 after helping the Starbucks team accomplish its IPO. Under Dan’s guidance, Maveron focused on “creating a cauldron of consumer passion” by forming partnerships with non-normal entrepreneurs. These partnerships have included brands like Allbirds, Ebay, Lovevery, and Zulily.

To learn more about Maveron and the team behind their consumer-focused culture, visit maveron.com.

In this recap episode, Dan explains the importance of investing in consumers and relationships, the significance of seeing the opportunity, and how to elevate your aspirations.

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In this condensed version of Shauna Swerland's conversation with Chad Robins from 2019, you'll hear the origin story of Adaptive Biotechnologies, the corporate culture Chad is building there, and what Chad sees as the most important tasks of a CEO.

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Emily Pesce is CEO of Joon, whose mission is to make mental healthcare and well-being broadly accessible and effective for 13-24 year olds. Emily has over twenty years of experience across healthcare, e-commerce, grocery, supply chain, technology, mobile, and cloud computing. She has led product, marketing, design, technology, forecasting and replenishment teams, among others. Her primary operating experiences were at Amazon (AmazonFresh, Kindle, Gaming, AWS) and Nerdy (Product). Emily has also been an investor, providing early stage capital, sometimes the first money in, to over 30 companies (Working Lab Capital, Pesce Family Ventures, NextGen Venture Partners). 

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