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

08/13/20 • 65 min

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.

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

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!

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

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.