Why are engineers and startup founders so excited about Artificial Intelligence? Is that because the field is hyped up, is that because we can ask ChatGPT all kinds of questions and get instant answers, or is it because of some deeper connection? My friend Bijan came to talk about his experience starting EventMobi at the time when mobile web was ju…

Welcome to The Novice. Today it is my pleasure to share with you my interview with Harley Sitner, the amazing Seattle entrepreneur and driving force behind Peace Vans, a company that embodies the spirit of adventure and community. This episode will show you what it takes to take the leap and to leave a comfortable office job in the pursuit of happi…

Stewart Alsop III is not just the host of The Crazy Wisdom podcast; he’s a friend and a fellow adventurer in the wild world of podcasting. Our paths first crossed when Stewart invited me onto his show to dive into the magic behind Smashnotes.com. Since then, he’s embarked on an epic journey, recording nearly 400 episodes, quenching his insatiable c…

Hey there, Curious Minds, Have you've ever wondered how to make startup equity distribution way less stressful, protecting the founders and enabling employees to have more? This episode of "The Novice" is for you. We're diving deep into the future of startups with Rafal Dittwald, the masterminds behind Venture Hub. What’s Venture Hub? Venture Hub i…

Gooooood Morning, Internet! Prepare for a rollercoaster of wit, insight, and a sprinkle of absurdity in my latest episode of "The Novice"! This week, I sit down with the enigmatic Jack Kuveke, a startup founder whose recent claim to fame was his masterful act as a Venture Capitalist from Jabroni Capital. Just hit that play button and you will see w…

Ladies, gentlemen, and intellectually curious souls of the internet, I am thrilled to announce a new chapter in the grand pursuit of knowledge. Welcome to The Novice Podcast a podcast where I, alongside my brilliant friends, embark on a quest to learn from the most interesting people on the planet, or maybe just your neighbor or something. Picture …

Paul Davis was once a 2nd employee at Amazon, on track to earn millions. Instead of sticking around to get filthy rich though, Paul decided he did not want to wait for the life to pass him by. He chose to spend time with his family, left Amazon, and twenty years later still has no regrets. His life has been nothing but wonderful. This is Paul’s sto…

This is a story of how Anthony Edent founded DNSimple to become the fastest DNS management solution provider in the world. He built himself a company that not only cares about their customers, but also created the perfect place for their employees. They work hard, but they also do it remotely, from around the globe. How did he do it, and what lesso…

Paul Orlando is a startup founder, entrepreneur, Director of USC Incubator Program & Adjunct Professor for the Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. Paul also has an avid interest in history, which he explores though his blog called Unintended Consequences. Paul's writing is a delight in the times of clickbait and social media. His blogs …

David Woodland is currently a Product Manager at Facebook, previously Head of Product at Palm.com and a Product Manager at Pebble. He is a father of 4, and a Management Consultant who found product-building life in Silicon Valley to be way more attractive than spreadsheets. On this episode we talk about his work and life balance, what it was like t…

Jason Calacanis is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He was one of the early believes in Uber, Calm, Robinhood and many others. He is a host of the show This Week in Startups, and the author of Angel. If that was not enough, he is a founder of a startup accelerator Launch.co, and the founder of Inside.com On this episode, Jason shares his v…

Raising kids could be daunting, or it could ba lot of fun. Nathan is a startups founder and a dad who is making the best of every opportunity. We talk about his family, his work, and how the two intertwine to create a happy and healthy lifestyle. You can find Nathan on Twitter and on YouTube. Full show notes are on SmashNotes. ----- Make your podca…

Noah Labhart is the CTO & Co-Founder of Veryable, an on-demand labor marketplace for manufacturing, logistics, and warehousing. He is also the Founder & CEO of Touchtap, a digital solutions studio. A dad of three, he also finds time to interview tech leaders on his podcast, Code Story. Get full access to The Novice at novice.media/subscribe…

Roberto from the Expeditioners is the dad many wish they could be. Instead of holding a steady job, he and his family are busy traveling the world, taking gorgeous photos for brands that pay for his living. Roberto is fit and happy, and is not concerned with the norm. Find out what it takes to be a self-made entrepreneur, and how to be paid to be h…

Anthony Armendariz is a founder and partner at Funsize, a creative design agency which he started with his wife Natalie. They spent years being laser focused on business, working day and night, and now count Facebook, Oracle, Adobe, EA, AT&T and many others among their customers. Can such an ambitious and hard-working couple have a baby, and to act…

Jonathan Sposato is a Seattle entrepreneur, investors, and a community activist. He is a chairman of Geekwire.com and Picmonkey.com We talk about his childhood and what it was like to be growing up in a mixed family, in a time and place when that was definitely not the norm, and how that shaped his life and his outlook on the future. We talk about …

How do you teach a child to learn a new language? You don't! Instead, you get her excited about learning, and one day she does it herself. The she goes to Yale. Stefan Weitz is the founder of Jetson Seasonal Probiotics and today he explains how to be a great dad, how to encourage and empower your kids, how international travel is the best thing you…

Mubashar Iqbal is a developer, dad, and a maker who just cannot stop creating products on the internet. Mubs is the guy behind Pod Hunt, Product News, Practical MVP and quite literally, 80 other projects. Some of them sold, some shut down, and some are making him passive income. He's been featured on Lifehacker, The Next Web, Mashable, Fortune and …

Jason Schuller is a dad, a husband, and the founder of Press75, a WordPress theme company that he started in frustration, when a consulting client decided to skip paying the bills. That incident caught fire and set Jason on an entrepreneurial journey full of joys and setbacks. His company, and his lessons enabled him to be a successful founder, an …

Vin is a dad of two girls, founder of a creative agency called Fixel, and when he is not busy doing those jobs, he is also a man's fashion model and entrepreneur, running a brand called Better Fellows where him and his partners sell men's apparel they would wear themselves. Vin is divorced and is running his own company, but that does not stop him …

Can you have a family, a successful company making millions of dollars in annual revenue, and do it all at your own pace, with a remote office company, while having a life that you want to live? Vlad sure can, and we think you can too. Life is too short to live someone else’s dream. The story of Webflow and life advice from Vlad, in this episode. L…

One day, needing a break from his entrepreneur endeavors, Drew rented an RV and took his entire family on a trip around the United States, for a whole year. This is his story. 👉 Drew Wilson Get full access to The Novice at novice.media/subscribeBy Kirill Zubovsky

Bryce Roberts is the founder of Indie.vc , an investment fund that is leading the new counter-culture startup movement, focusing on revenue and sustainable growth, rather than unhealthy obsession with raising money to achieve a billion-dollar valuation. Fueled by his own desire to do things differently, Bryce lives in Utah with his wife and five ch…

Jason is a co-founder of Dent, a company that creates and supports a community of entrepreneurs, executives, and creatives who are driven to “put a dent in the universe.” He lives in Seattle with his wife Monica Guzman, the founder of The Evergrey, and together they are raising two adorable multilingual kids. We sat down to talk about their startup…

When he was six years old, Roel lost his mom to cancer and ended up in the foster care. Abuse, drugs, physical violence and the entire system that is structured to keep the kids in it, instead of helping them grow, Roel tells is all. Valuable to hear for the adults that work in the foster care, and most definitely 10x more valuable for the kids, to…

Emily Campbell is a product designer based out of Moab, Utah where she lives with her husband and three kids. She makes the money, he plays with the kids, and together they are having an adventure of a lifetime. In this episode: (1:00) From being a law student in a big city, to a cross-country road-trip to be a raft guide in California, to eventual…

Michael FitzGerald is a prolific American writer and the founder of Submittable.com. He lives and works in Missoula, Montana with his wife and two kids. Although it isn't the easiest place to run a company from, Michael lives for the joy of living, and Missoula is where it's at. The day after raising their Series A funding, Michael found out that h…

One day a film student from NYU changed advertising forever. In a few short months Adam became the man who did it all - he was producing, casting, directing and starring in for the ads of the most recognizable names in tech. Square, Airbnb, Airtable, TrueCar, Slack, Webflow, Groupon ... the list goes on forever. The story of Sandwich video and how …

David Heinemeier Hansson is the founder of Ruby on Rails and co-founder and CTO of Basecamp. He is an outspoken defender of living a fulfilling life, and a true believer that it does not have to be crazy at work. When not writing code, David enjoys endurance car racing and time with his wife and two kids. Over the years, David has become a very inf…

How do you enable your kids to create rather than consume? If you are a serial entrepreneur like Dan Shapiro, the answer is clear - make a device that can cut through any material with lasers, then put it in every household in America. Shapiro got inspired to create this company by his kids, and now he comes on Rad Dad to talk startups, kids and cr…

Aubrey is a full-time designer living in Charleston, South Carolina. He was named one of Business Insider's Top 75 Designers in Technology and has worked for companies like Twilio, Authy, Science Inc., Color, Scoutzie and many others. While most people would consider running a business a full-time job in itself, Aubrey does all of this in a comfort…

Family life with three kids, the rising costs of education and where AI and machine learning will take us. Venture Capitalist Greg Gottesman shares business stories, as well as tips on parenting and education. It's a blast! Get full access to The Novice at novice.media/subscribeBy Kirill Zubovsky

Eight years ago John co-founded GeekWire.com and had a kid at the same time - Although life hasn’t always been easy, the only thing he regrets is not doing both ealier in his life. Follow along and learn a bit about both entrepreneurship and parenting. Get full access to The Novice at novice.media/subscribe…

A Bay Area native, Zack is a successful entrepreneur, wizard of all things growth, and currently the CEO of a company called Dribbble. While some of his peers are busy cranking 14-hour days in the city, Zack is working with a fully distributed team, which enables him to hang out with kids, enjoy life, and spend absolutely zero hours commuting. Get …

Sean Grover is a psychotherapist from New York City, dad of two children, and an author of the book When Kids Call The Shots. For 25 years Sean has been teaching parents how to embrace their challenges and to create a happy functioning family. If you think your kid might be bullying you, if you lost all hope and don’t know how to deal with tantrums…

Geoff Ralston is a successful investor and entrepreneur, living in the heart of Silicon Valley. He founded Yahoo Mail, invested in hundreds of companies, and has seen dozens of successful exists. On this episode Kirill Zubovsky and Geoff Ralston discuss the price of entrepreneurship, challenges of modern-day parenting, device addiction, performance…

Aviel Ginzburg is a Managing Director of the Alexa Accelerator here in Seattle, Partner at Founders Co-op and Co-founder of Simply Measured. We talk about the founding of Simply Measured, what it’s like to be a new dad, and how to survive high-stress work while having a baby. As always with other founders we will talk about his startup story and to…

Son of an Indian immigrant family, Giri is a Stanford graduate and a co-founder of Privacy Labs, a local Bellevue Washington startup. We talk about raising two kids in the new world filled with devices, what his company is all about, why privacy is going to be instrumental in the future, and how the world has changed since a few decades ago while G…

Parker Thompson is a Silicon Valley founder turned VC, known to many in startup circles for his anonymous personality of Startup L. Jackson. Hear Parker’s story and advice on raising three kids in a fast-paced world of tech entrepreneurship, and how to keep your kids safe and happy in a city full of millionaires. Get full access to The Novice at no…

Caspar Babypants is an adored Seattle-based musician and a songwriter. Previously known as the lead singer of The Presidents of the USA, he now brings joy to families around town with his whimsical music that is loved by both kids and parents. In this interview, Chris shares his life story, how he came to be known as Caspar, and what lessons he lea…

How do we make sure that when our kids grow older, they're happy and successful in life? To help answer this question my guest today is Professor Eric Koester. Eric is an entrepreneur, a professor at Georgetown University, a lawyer, a dad of two girls and a writer. After having more jobs that he can count, Eric has discovered a new philosophy for o…

We are joined here by Mike Folden and his son River. Mike is a filmmaker, photographer, and now a dad. Mike and his wife Priya are avid explorers of the great outdoors. When their baby boy was born, instead of changing their lifestyle, they bought a camper van and headed to the wild. If you think that baby life means sitting at home, Mike and Priya…

In this episode we talk to my friend Matt Wallington about his experiences of raising kids while at startups, then at Amazon, and how those impacted him, his kids and his marriage. We also talk about getting through a divorce, what to expect, and how to do it quick. Get full access to The Novice at novice.media/subscribe…

When Oleksiy’s daughter was first born, he didn’t feel the love for his child. Quite the opposite, he felt that his daughter was a new source of problems. Full of this difficult thoughts and busy at work, he was unable to share them with anyone, even his wife. In this episode we talk about balancing work and family life, while being in a stressful …

My guest today is my friend Michael Parentau, a dad of a teenage daughter and a rad human being. Michael is many things. He is an artist, a product designer, a developer, and a creative. In this episode we will talk about raising a child, while paying your bills on a salary of a starving artist. We will take a look at different paths one could take…

Galen Ward is a CEO of a tech company and a father of two awesome girls. Listen and learn how to share the labor of parenting with your partner and how to set your kids up for success from the young age. Do you want to know how to stay on track of your daily life and find time for kids? Do you ever wonder if you are going to change once you have ki…

Matt Shobe is a father of 3 boys, a serial entrepreneur, a private pilot and a rad dad, who came to the podcast to talk about startups and what it takes to have a happy family while you are busy building a rocket ship. Matt was previously a cofounder of FeedBurner which he and Dick Costolo (former CEO of Twitter) sold to Google for north of $100 mi…