Marcelo Claure is a Bolivian tech entrepreneur who founded Brightstar which was later sold to Sprint after they reached $10 billion in revenue, becoming the largest Hispanic-owned business in US history. Currently, Claure serves as Chief Executive Officer of SoftBank Group International and Chief Operating Officer of SoftBank Group Corp. 

Claure oversees the vast portfolio of the Group’s operating companies, including Arm, WeWork, Brightstar, Fortress, SB Energy, Boston Dynamics, among others, along with SoftBank’s ownership in T-Mobile US. He also runs Club Bolivar, Bolivia’s most popular and successful soccer team, and is Chairman and Owner of Club Internacional de Futbol Miami (Miami Beckham United).

Today, he talks about why he decided to invest in Career Karma and why data is now the future of work.

#126: Marcelo Claure - Why Softbank Invested in Career Karma

Kevin Lee is dedicated to teaching people the fundamentals of product management through Product Manager HQ and also currently works in Venture Capital at FundersClub. Before becoming a Founder, he previously worked in Product at AltSchool and as a Senior Product Manager at Kabam, where he worked on products through all lifecycles in San Francisco, Vancouver, and Beijing to help grow one of the company’s products to become the third largest revenue generating products in the company portfolio. 

Key Points:
Align your career with your personality type. Especially, when you find yourself questioning the role you’re currently doing, try to take a step back. Figure out your personality type and align it with your career.
There are many ways to break into any industry. Talk to the influencers. Get to know more about this industry. Network. Make yourself the product. Figure out your users’ needs and make sure you bring value to the table.
Once you’ve figured out a pain point within your industry, write about it and start blogging. Then make sure you create a community so people can still talk to each other right after reading your content.

SHOW NOTES (FOCUS ON THE  STEPPING STONES):

[1:11] Kevin’s background

[1:52] His passion for education

[3:04] Kevin shares the story of “the river of drowning babies” 

[6:14] Kevin’s big turning point 

[7:07] Where to start looking for resources about Product Management:

Quora (a Q&A website answered by some high profile people) as his primary source

Books: Cracking the PM Interview, The Mom Test

[10:22] Getting his first job as a product manager: Kevin landed a PM job at Kabam, a mobile gaming company.

[11:19] Strategies to break into an industry you’re interested in 

[12:45] What is Product Management?

[13:28] How product management in gaming differs from that of other industries

[17:39] Dealing with frustrations as a PM 

[18:52] Why Product Management HQ was created

 [20:21] Building the Community 

 [27:37] Do your Due Diligence – How to position yourself for an associate product management role at a startup

[32:12] Transitioning into a PM role within your organization

[33:26] The Lightning Round

1. Imagine if you were dropped in a new city, you had to start all over again and you only had $100, what would you do and what would be the first steps you would take to get yourself back to the point you’re at?

Kevin: Go to coworking spaces, hang out, use that $100 to buy a seat, and milk that for a month. 

2. When you were dealing with any frustrations on your first projects, did you listen to any music or videos  or something that inspired you to overcome whatever situations?

Kevin takes inspiration from his parents who were immigrants from Taiwan and coming to America with literally nothing and couldn’t speak English but worked so hard to provide for their family; so if they have done it, so could he. Never forget your roots. Never forget your family.

3. What is one piece of advice you would want someone to know who’s about to start on this journey?

Figure out your personality type (Take tests like the Myers-Briggs test or the Enneagram test) and be able to align that with your career.

4. What is one thing that you fundamentally believed in before that you changed your mind on after this process?

Kevin: Make yourself a product. These days, having that piece of paper from the university is no longer as relevant as what it used to be. It’s really important that you start to brand yourself. Make yourself a product because that’s what’s going to last forever.

5. What are you planning on doing next? What are you trying to do for the future?

It’s in Kevin’s blood to want to be helping entrepreneurs, helping founders, helping people. So he is going to try his hand at venture capital and work with great founders and support them in any way possible.

#3: Kevin Lee - Founder of Product Manager HQ where he teaches people how to become PMs.

Albrey Brown, is a Berkeley native who does not take ‘No’ for an answer. He was rejected on his first attempt to becoming a Hack Reactor graduate and went on to become a founder of Telegraph Academy. Most importantly, he found a love for teaching and is an educator that has completely changed the career trajectories for hundreds of students. Although he never graduated from college, he always knew that he was going to be a teacher. He grew up in a single family home where his mom raised him to become the man who he is today.

Key Points:
1. When you’re learning a new skill, it’s good to have resources (see below), but try to find someone to double check if you’re doing the steps “correctly”

2. Bootcamps need to be more accessible and there are resources like Telegraph Prep and Climb that are working to democratize this form of education

3. You’re always going to find another bug (another hill to climb, a new thing to conquer) so don’t be afraid of that. Take risks.

4. Mentorship comes through various channels. If someone invests time into helping you, the best thing that you can do is succeed.

SHOW NOTES (FOCUS ON THE  STEPPING STONES):
[1:12] – Albrey grew up in Berkeley, CA in a single family home with his mother and his aunt. He had no idea of what a startup was.

[3:15] Albrey’s mother got diagnosed with Cancer during his sophomore year and he took a couple of years off after he graduated high school (never graduated college)

 [5:32] Beginner Resources – What resources did you use to learn how to code? First, a mentor. Then, he started with The Odin Project and Learn Ruby the Hard Way

[6:35] What was your motivation to learning how to code?

[10:47] What led you to choose Hack Reactor instead of all the other bootcamps?

[11:52] How did you do with Hack Reactor’s Interview Process?

[15:10] Don’t let money stop you from acquiring a new skill – How did you pay for your tuition ($18,000)? When he passed his interview and got accepted into Hack Reactor he needed to figure out how to pay tuition. He had no more money and used a crowdfunding platform called GoFundMe to raise $18,000 in 30 days

[18:19] Tell us more about the Bootcamp Model as a new model for education

[19:06] What makes Telegraph Academy different from all of the other Bootcamps?

 [21:40] Take a Bootcamp Preparation Program if you are starting from scratch and need someone to guide you  

[22:22] What financing packages are available at Telegraph Academy? 

[24:58] What are some of the outcomes for Telegraph Academy?

[26:17] What do the demographics look like at Telegraph Academy? 

[29:00] How did you put this all together? He is a big advocate of taking the road less traveled. 

[30:40] What do you have planned for the future? Thoughts on education in general? 

[33:37] The Lightning Round
1. How would you get back to this point in your career if you were dropped into a new city with only $100? (assuming your food and shelter is taken care of)

Albrey: Become a Lyft or Uber Driver to get a car (here’s the Uber option), make money, learn about your city, and meet people

2. When you ran into roadblocks or struggles, was there any piece of music or a movie that you watched that helped you get over that situation?

Albrey: Always Be Closing by Glengarry Glen Ross

3. Looking back, what is one piece of advice that you would give to someone now that you’ve been through this journey?

Albrey: The best resource that you can have is a mentor

4. Have you been able to speak with anyone that Sponsored your GoFundMe now that you have executed on your promise to start a school?
Yes; His cousin Brian Tippens, who never told him what he did when he originally contributed. Now that Albrey reconnected with him after the launch of Telegraph Academy, he just realized Brian is the Head of Diversity

#1: Albrey Brown - Self-taught Engineer who founded Telegraph Academy to teach people how to code.

Edgar Pabon is a New York-native who, prior to his current position as a software engineer at Amazon Music, was a rapper, a communications degree graduate, and an active duty military. 

He knew that being a software engineer is what he has always wanted to be doing that even during his military years he never stopped learning about the tech industry. Edgar’s journey was not an easy one, having experienced police brutality, undergoing rigorous military training, dealing with the impostor syndrome, and overcoming rejections. Yet through it all, his passion for tech was what has always kept his fire burning.

#16: Edgar Pabon - Army Captain who became an Engineer at Amazon Music

Kush Patel is the Founder of App Academy, which is considered to be the MIT of coding bootcamps. Prior to breaking into startup, Kush previously worked at hedge funds until he finally decided to pursue his passion for learning how to code through and joined the first coding class of Dev Bootcamp. 

Seeing the huge gap between the amount of software engineers produced each year and the amount of software engineers needed in Silicon Valley and through the US, Kush, alongside co-founder Ned Ruggeri, saw great opportunity in the bootcamp space, thus the birth of App Academy.

#15: Kush Patel - Founder of App Academy

A South Californian native, Neil Shah would never have thought that a walking tour of Tenderloin with Del Seymour could practically change his life forever as well as the many lives of homeless people around the Tenderloin neighborhood. Neil basically never stopped hustling, jumping from med school to law school to business school, getting an MBA at UC Irvine, and getting locked up in prison for his third DUI. But it was his passion for helping people that got him volunteering at different non profit projects and organizations. Neil is now the Head of Business Development and Partnerships at Code Tenderloin where they have partnered with a whole bunch of startups and organizations in order to relentlessly help homeless people break into tech, basically disrupting the career pathway and transforming people’s lives.

#8: Neil Shah - Quit his Finance job to help Homeless folks get Jobs

An Alaskan-native, Ben Creasy wanted to pursue engineering since a young age but due to health issues, he ended up getting a degree in Economics and Philosophy in Oregon. At 24, Ben held elected office in Alaska but his passion for coding never faltered so he ultimately joined Hack Reactor. Currently, he works as a Software Engineer at BrightIdea. Ben is also an editor at Wikipedia, something he has been doing for 9 years now. He has also co-created the Bay Area WikiSalon where Wiki enthusiasts gather around to mingle and learn about new projects and ideas.

#9: Ben Creasy - Alaskan Government Official turned Software Engineer

A Boston-native and freelance designer, Melanie Araujo is the Founder of Front & Center, a company that helps underprivileged people break into tech through design. Prior to design, Melanie has a professional background in neuroscience, which she leveraged to position herself as a unique designer. Investing a few thousands to learn design at General Assembly, what she got in return was 10x as she is now making six figures. Melanie believes that if you have your heart and mind set on something, there is absolutely nothing that will get in your way to get into your goal.

#10: Melanie Araujo - Designer and Founder of Front & Center that helps people break into tech

An East Coast native, Richard Purcell travelled cross country and courageously took the risk of taking an entry level job even though he was overqualified because it meant a chance to break into tech. Through persistence and overcoming objections, he landed his first tech sales job in Palo Alto at Medallia Inc. Currently, he serves as the Sales Director at Performance Horizon. 

Having a multi ethnic background gives Richard an interesting perspective on race and privilege. He firmly believes that talent is universal and opportunity is not. That’s why he co-founded Medallia Medley to help give access to opportunity to underrepresented talent.

#11: Richard Purcell - Sales Director who worked his way up from an entry level role

Shawn Drost is the Co-Founder of Hack Reactor, a coding bootcamp founded in 2012 along with his college friends Tony Phillips, Marcus Phillips, and Douglas Calhoun with the primary motive to set people up for success as software engineers. 

They envision themselves transforming higher education to be more transparent, accessible and outcomes-driven. 

Hack Reactor’s community involvement is remarkable as they continue to offer curriculum, volunteer support and training to their nonprofit partners in their conscious effort to bridge the gap between underserved communities and the tech industry.

#12: Shawn Drost - Founder of Hack Reactor

Born and raised in Taiwan, Chia Lin has traveled far and wide. She came to Tennessee when she was 11, moved to California in high school and college, and lived in Tokyo for a year. Her love of food and travel has landed her a job as a flight attendant and a chef at a Michelin star kitchen, until she finally discovered her true passion for design. 

She believes that knowing who you are and being able to tell your story well will get you places. In fact, Chia wrote a blog post called 5 Things I Learned About Design in a Michelin Star Kitchen that got people coming to her and opened new doors for her.

#14: Chia Lin - From a Pastry Chef at a Michelin Star Restaurant to a Product Designer at a Startup

Ina Herlihy is a San Francisco local who knows what’s it like to hustle your way to get the thing that you want right at a very early age. She is passionate about journalism and was an editor-in-chief of her high school newspaper. She got to cover the 2008 Presidential Campaign and was the only high school student in the country to get a press pass for President Obama’s Inauguration. 

Leaving a would-be promising career in finance to break into tech, Herlihy attended Tradecraft and soon landed a job as a Growth Analyst at Zumper. Her prolific writing in Medium, called How I Hustled to Get the Perfect Job: From Tradecraft to Zumper got a lot of attention that it became one of the most popular blog posts on Medium in 2015.

#17: Ina Herlihy - How a young journalist hustled her way into Growth Marketing

Growing up in one of the poorest areas in Philadelphia, Rita Henderson broke a ton of barriers as a single mom proving to the society that she was more than just a statistic. Moving from North Philly to DC, Rita finally drove all the way to San Francisco in the hope of making things work for her family and carrying with her that burning passion of bringing change into the community. 

Rita is currently involved in the recruiting department at a startup company called Honor, an in-home senior care provider. Rita is the sister of Idalin Bobe who also came here on the show recently.

#23: Rita Henderson - Who broke into startups as a Teen Mom

A Newport-native, Divine started dealing drugs at 13, got incarcerated at 18, and found himself not only locked up physically in federal prison, but also, in a psychological cycle of recidivism. 

Always knowing he was bound to be more than that, Divine tapped into his spirituality, fortitude, and his quick grasp of knowledge and turned his 7-year sentence into a self-development workshop. Along with some help from his mentor, Divine was finally able to break out of his destructive pattern going from incarceration to innovation.

From crack to rap to tech, Divine currently provides financial literacy and entrepreneurship education to people through his new startup BLAK Fintech (where BLAK stands for Building Leverage Acquiring Knowledge).

#24: Divine - The journey from going in and out of prison to Breaking Into Tech

Rodney Urquhart grew up in a North Philly neighborhood ridden with gang violence and effects of the crack epidemic. After seeing people around him get involved with gangs and crime, he realized that staying in high school would result in getting arrested or shot. 

At 16, Rodney dropped out of high school and moved in with his grand mother. Being a high school dropout and having no college degree, Rodney had his fair share of companies casting doubt on his ability. But his willingness to learn and work well with others was what got him to create an impressive company portfolio including Comcast, Microsoft’s Yammer, and ThoughtWorks. He didn’t just want to survive, he wanted to thrive. 

Rodney currently heads the test infrastructure team at Slack. He is also part of a program called /dev/color, a non-profit organization that aims to maximize the impact of Black software engineers in the tech space.

#28: Rodney Urquhart - How a 16-year-old High School Dropout became a Software Engineer at Slack

An East Bay-local, Pavan Ravipati grew up in a family of tech people. He initially took Film and Media in college, landed some corporate sales roles, and worked his way up but he ultimately found his calling in tech. After taking some coding courses online, Pavan decided to join Hack Reactor and he eventually took part in the organization's Hacker in Residence Program. 

Currently, Pavan serves as a Solutions Engineer at GitHub, a leading open source software company.

#55: Pavan Ravipati - Deep Dive on Software Engineer vs. Sales Engineer

From New York to San Diego, Saron has launched one of the biggest coding podcasts called CodeNewbie. The show has over 1.4 million downloads and listened to over a hundred countries.

With a Twitter community of over 27,000 people, Saron hosts the #CodeNewbie Twitter Chat happening every Wed @9PM EST. She organizes meetups in ATL, Philly, New York, and DC. She caters to an early audience to get people to recognize that there are multiple ways to learn how to code.

Saron is also the producer of Codeland Conference, an annual event that gives a whole new light to how tech conferences should be done.

#63: Saron Yitbarek - Self-taught Engineer & Founder of CodeNewbie Podcast

Dan Burrill is not just the inside sales boss at Twilio but he's also a seasoned executive having spent time with other amazing companies including Box and Honeywell.

A man who’s big on commitment and the power of listening, Dan admits coming to Twilio for one big reason - market opportunity. 

Twilio operates in the telecommunications industry that has been around for decades and it's fast-forwarding the space into the future. No wonder it’s his favorite among all the companies he’s worked at.

#70: Dan Burrill - Director of Inside Sales at Twillio

Southern Californian-native, Ian Harriman is a rockstar salesperson. He started as a sales development representative until he rose up to the ranks of being a mid-market account executive at Checkr, a background check community that utilizes software (instead of people) to complete a majority of the parts to the process.
Ian also talks about his leadership role in the Bounce Back to Work Program at Checkr, where they help both applicants and companies through their background screening process.
We talk about how most companies fail, his experience at a failing company, and how he actually bounced back to where he is now.

#74: Ian Harriman - from a Sales Development Rep to an Account Executive at Checkr

In May 2015, the Congressional Black Caucus launched CBC TECH 2020 to bring together the best minds in the tech, non-profit, education and public sectors to chart a path forward to increase African American inclusion at all levels of the technology industry. 

Since the launch of CBC TECH 2020 in May of 2015, the following companies have added African Americans to their board of directors: 

AirBNB – (Kenneth I. Chenault
Former Chairman & CEO, American Express), 

Apple, Inc. (James A. Bell, Former Executive Vice President & CFO of Boeing Co), 

Facebook, Inc. – (Kenneth I. Chenault, Former Chairman and CEO, American Express), 

HP Enterprise – (Leslie A. Brun
 CEO, Sarr Group, LLC), 

HP Enterprise – (Pamela Carter, Former President of Cummins Distribution), 

HP, Inc. – (Stacey Mobley, Former Senior Vice President, DuPont), 

HP, Inc. – (Stacy Brown- Philpot, CEO, TaskRabbit), 

Twitter – (Debra Lee, Chairwoman  & CEO, BET Networks), 

Uber – (Ursula Burns, Former Chairwoman  & CEO, Xerox, Corp), 

eBay – (Adriane Brown, Advisor with Intellectual Ventures, LLC)

#86: Special Report - Congressional Black Caucus's Tech 2020 Initiative on Future of Work

Aline Lerner is the CEO and Co-Founder of interviewing.io, a platform for engineers that practice technical interviews and land jobs at the top tech companies. 

Millions of people have read her writing and thousands of engineers sign to work with her platform each month. You can easily check her out in TechCrunch, Bloomberg, and other publications.

From being a chef to breaking into startups, Aline is now the founder of one of the largest platforms in the game focused on getting people to tech companies.

#87: Aline Lerner - CEO of Interviewing.io on How to Reinvent a Technical Interview

Our guest on the podcast has a remarkable story. 

Madelyn Tavarez did a part-time bootcamp, while holding a full-time job. 

She taught herself how to code. 

And became a software engineer at Pinterest now building products for hundreds of millions of people. 

She is also a Dominican Republic-native who grew up in Washington Heights and due to her own drive and curiosity was able to change her circumstance. 

Her senior year of college she went from being a bartender to an “eat, pray, love” moment which took her to Italy. Which eventually played a big role in Madelyn deciding to teach herself how to code.

Fast-forward to today, she works as an Android engineer at Pinterest. She also continues to get actively involved in different community projects, including the TECHNOLOchicas among others.

#103: Madelyn Tavarez - How a Part-time Bootcamp helped her Become an Android Engineer

Dan Sommer is the CEO and Co-Founder of Trilogy Education Services. Dan has launched partnerships with over 37 of the world's leading universities, providing alternative forms of education on their campuses.

smarturl.it/trilogy_learn_more

They have instructors teaching 200 classes every week. They have thousands of students who have completed Trilogy-powered programs, and 1,500 companies employ them.

In May, Dan secured a $50-million Series B and he's been doing a lot of exciting things related to future work. Prior to Trilogy, he was the President of Zeta Global, also a large education company.

Interesting takeaways from this episode: learning how to learn, developing your superpowers, and being aware of not just engineering jobs but specific technologies companies are hiring for in different geographies!

#108: Dan Sommer, CEO & founder of Trilogy Education, workforce accelerator for leading universities

Angela Ceresnie is the CEO of Climb Credit. She has experience working in and starting multiple startups. She has led teams at Citibank and American Express. Interestingly, she studied computer engineering at the University of Michigan with a technical background. 

Today, Angela talks about skill-building and the work she's doing at Climb Credit as she tries to build the future for her own kids.

#115: Angela Ceresnie - CEO of Climb Credit on Helping to Finance People's Career Transitions

Today, we have a special group of people joining us who go by the #FFTSquad. 

#FFTSquad is a group of people on Career Karma who are working together to help each other grow, learn how to code and switch careers into tech. 

They were with us early from the very beginning. In fact, a lot of the members of the FFT Squad were part of Career Karma before the app even came out.

Here are their names: 

Meet the FFT Squad:
Melanie Harris (Ms. CEO, Lady Savage)
Jennifer Weaver (J-Smooth)
Elisabeth Earley (Lady Boom)
Benjamin Earley (Benny Boom)
Tyrone Smith (Fly Ty)
Elise Spain (Famous Amos)
Levar Morris (The Wizard)
Jennifer Carney (J-Chill)
Gregory Jordan (Papa Smurf)
Kesha Lake (Rose Code)

For those of you who may not know, Career Karma was started by Artur, Ruben & Timur as a result of us breaking into tech and launching the Breaking Into Startups Podcast together. 

Today, Career Karma is a community that matches people to the best coding bootcamps and gives them support for the rest of their careers. 

The FFT Squad is a living testament that developing your technical skills can totally change your life. No matter who you are, what color you are, what race you are, or what religion you are – you DEFINITELY can do this!

#116 - FFTSquad – A Career Karma Squad of Highly Motivated People Breaking Into Tech Together

Coming to the states with two suitcases and a pocketful of dreams, Chock Ooi is currently the CEO of Kenzie Academy. 

Chok is a startup veteran working at places like Loopt and AgilityIO, and is a 500 Startups mentor. He has a background in Finance and Technology at Goldman, Bank of America, and BNP Paribas during the financial crisis.

Today, Chok talks about how he has realized his dreams to help people break into tech and his thoughts on income share agreements (ISAs).

Career Karma now has over 30,000 members. Please come check it out and learn more about income share agreements where we've put together a comprehensive report highlighting emerging players, innovators, and potential influencers.

#117: Chok Ooi - CEO of Kenzie Academy

Darrell Silver is the CEO and Co-Founder of Thinkful. 

Their mission? To build the world’s next workforce. 

Since its inception in 2012, Thinkful has graduated thousands of students. Founded based on two elements – transparency and return on education – Thinkful has recently been acquired by Chegg. 

Together, they continue to help transform how people acquire tech skills in the most efficient way possible.

On this episode Darrell covers how Thinkful help career transitioners acquire tech skills through income sharing agreements and living stipends. Tune in to learn more.

#118: Darrell Silver - CEO of Thinkful

#119: Career Karma Origin Story (by the CEO of Free Code Camp)

Jerrick Warren has an inspiring story of breaking into the Blockchain Tech Startup Gemini coming from a background in medicine. 

He went from joining the Career Karma community, to getting accepted into Lambda School to getting a Software Engineering job in a year!

Today, he shares with us the many struggles he had to overcome and how Career Karma helped him pave his way to success.

Career Karma is a community that helps you figure out a road map that is customized to you, your preferences, and your needs. Lambda School is a coding bootcamp that offers a unique pay structure to its students. Find out more about them.

#120: Jerrick Warren - How Career Karma's first member became a Software Engineer at Gemini

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Kesha Lake is a member of the Career Karma community from Atlanta. 

She joined Career Karma in the beginning of 2019. Less than a year later, she got a job as a remote software engineer at Stitch Fix. 

Today, she talks about her life as a mother, her transition from nursing to tech, her bootcamp journey, and her job search experience.

#121: Kesha Lake - How a Mom from Atlanta became a Remote Software Engineer at Stitch Fix

Vaibhav Sahgal is the Head of Growth at Reddit, Inc. which has 500 million unique users around the world. Prior to this, he worked at Zynga for 8 years as a product manager. He led teams building games like Words with Friends, Cityville, and Mafia Wars.

Vaibhav immigrated from India to the U.S. to get a degree in Computer Science at Purdue University. Today, he talks about his journey into tech, the qualities of effective engineers, and how to build and grow products to millions of users.

#122: Vaibhav Sahgal - Head of Growth at Reddit - How to be a Growth Product Leader

Dan Friedman is the Co-Founder of Thinkful, a coding bootcamp that provides online courses Software Engineering, Design and Data Science courses. Dropping out of Yale, Dan is proof that you don't need a college degree or certain qualifications to find your way to success.
 
Thinkful is the first coding bootcamp that came out and created offerings for people impacted by the COVID-19. Listen in to find out more about their initiatives. Another thing Dan emphasized today is the principle of reversibility.

#123: Dan Friedman - COVID-19 Response from the Co-Founder of Thinkful

Jake Schwartz is the co-founder and chief executive officer of General Assembly, a global company advancing the future of work. Jake leads GA's growth, creating sustainable talent pipelines for businesses, and building transparent career pathways to the most transformational work. 

In the face of the COVID-19 crisis, about 33 million Americans have lost their jobs in the last seven weeks. GA has around 120 campuses globally which they had to shut down in two days and go completely online.

Today, Jake talks about how they’re disrupting the marketplace landscape and getting creative so they could be more accessible to students. It’s all about merging business excellence and education excellence!

#124: Jake Schwartz - CEO of General Assembly on COVID-19 Response

Not only a true believer in the power of networking, Erik Torenberg definitely walks the talk. Erik is big on community building and networking. He is known for organizing huge events as well as intimate meetups called On Deck, where they allow people to get to know each other on a personal level instead of a professional level.

Back in Michigan, Erik started his career by creating rapt.fm, which led him to go to 500 Startups, that also led him to become the first employee of Product Hunt. Later on, he started the Product Hunt Podcast. He then ventured into investing, having seeded notable companies including Omni, Metaverse, Bot.me, and Tribe.pm, to name a few.

In 2017, he launched a $100-million fund called Village Global, built around the concept of networking embedded in their company’s DNA. He has curated a group of people including some of the world's greatest in technology - Amazon's Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg - to believe in him. How did he do that? Let’s find out!

Recently, he also launched another podcast called Venture Stories Podcast by Village Global. Another one of Erik’s passion project is The Rise Awards, an awards series and community celebrating top talents across all positions.

#125: Erik Torenberg - What Is Venture Capital? & How It Helps Job Seekers

The Breaking Into Startups Podcast is a platform where we feature stories of people who broke into tech from non-traditional backgrounds. Curious about how startups work, how to get a job without a degree or what technical and non-technical careers are out there? We have news for you - tech fields are booming and you don’t need the best technical degree in information technology to break in and get a six figure job in technology. 

Our podcast gives you an inside look at the most disruptive startups by sharing success stories of people from all walks of life, including college drop outs, professional and student athletes, army veterans, teen parents, corporate folks, investment bankers, consultants, venture capitalists who acquired new skills and found jobs in technology. 

Our guests attended coding bootcamps and immersive programs like Hack Reactor, App Academy, General Assembly, Dev Bootcamp, Flatiron School, Iron Yard, Tradecraft and more. After graduating they found well paying jobs in big time startups focusing on education, medicine, financial services, healthcare, AI, machine learning, automation, sharing economy and more. If you listen to 500 Startups, Learn to Code With Me, Twenty Minute VC, This Week In Startups, Startup Radio, Startup Podcast, The Tim Ferris show, Startup School Radio, Course Report or other tech stuff news, then this podcast is for you my friend.

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