Inspired with Alexa von Tobel

Latest Episodes:

Steven Simoni Built a $2.2B Company to Reinvent the Way Wars Are Fought Nov 04, 2026

Show notes

Steven Simoni, co-founder of Allen Control Systems (ACS), sits down with Inspired Capital's Alexa von Tobel and Charlotte Ross to share how ACS went from a pre-seed bet to shipping Bullfrog, its autonomous counter-drone weapon station, onto the battlefield in about three years.

He breaks down how modern war has shifted to long-range standoff and cheap drones, why the U.S. still relies on expensive interceptors like the Patriot, and how defense budgets actually reach startups.

Stevem also lays out his plan to turn ACS into an air defense prime, shares what he thinks is overhyped and underhyped in defense tech, and explains why he's still optimistic about the next 20 years.

🔗 Steven Simoni

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevensimoni

• X: https://x.com/StevenSimoni

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevensimoni/

• Website: https://stevensimoni.com/

• Steven’s Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@thedroneultimatum

Allen Control Systems (ACS):

• Website: https://www.allencontrolsystems.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allen-control-systems

• X: https://x.com/allencontrol

🎙️ Inspired Capital

• Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners/

• X: https://x.com/InspiredCap

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/

• Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Chapters:

0:00 Introduction

0:40 Meet Steve Simoni

2:15 From small-town Pennsylvania to the Navy

2:53 How Steve met his co-founders

4:03 What ACS is building

4:50 From restaurant tech to defense tech

5:48 How Bullfrog works

7:42 How modern war is really fought

11:27 How defense budgets reach startups

13:41 Why defense is a hits business

15:24 What Steve would build today

17:17 The first drone war and the lessons the U.S. missed

20:04 "We're in World War III"

22:14 Where China stands

24:30 Why the seas matter: Strait of Hormuz and Taiwan

26:22 ACS's plan to become an air defense prime

28:44 Why the military wants lasers

29:35 The next five years for ACS

30:44 Building teams in defense

32:30 What war looks like in 2035

35:05 Cyber warfare and AI

36:56 The weight of building in defense

39:20 Is defense tech overhyped?

40:21 Why you now need a working prototype

42:04 Overhyped vs. underhyped: hypersonics and interceptors

43:52 Why Steve is optimistic about America

45:29 Steve's favorite NYC restaurant

Penny Pritzker on Microsoft, Harvard, and Building Inspired Oct 22, 2026

Show notes

From the Microsoft boardroom to Harvard to Ukraine’s economic recovery, Penny Pritzker has held one of the rarest vantage points in business and public life. She sits on Microsoft’s board at a defining moment for AI, helps lead Harvard, served as U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and was the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery. She’s also the co-founder of Inspired Capital alongside Alexa von Tobel.

Alexa and Penny’s relationship started more than a decade ago, when Penny built the Presidential Ambassadors for Global Entrepreneurship program from scratch as Commerce Secretary and invited Alexa to serve. A shared belief in founders turned into a friendship, and eventually into Inspired Capital.

In this episode, the two sit down together and Penny shares what it was like growing up as her family built Hyatt, the letter to her grandfather that got her into business, and the framework she leans on when the stakes are highest.

They also talk about what makes Inspired different, from the hustle and the network to the intensity and care the team brings to every founder, and why, with the firm’s $450M Fund IV, they’re only getting started.

🔗 Penny Pritzker

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/penny-pritzker/

🎙️ Inspired Capital

• Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners/

• X: https://x.com/InspiredCap

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/

• Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Chapters:

0:00 Intro

0:49 Welcome to Inspired

1:19 Growing Up in the Hyatt Family

5:00 Taking Hyatt International

5:44 Losing Her Father at 13

9:14 The Letter to Her Grandfather

12:45 From Harvard and Stanford to Building Businesses

14:03 Starting a Senior Living Company at 27

16:48 Early Mistakes and Learning to Fire Someone

17:45 Why Building Businesses Is Noble

20:11 Seven Companies and Becoming Secretary of Commerce

22:16 Promoting Entrepreneurship Around the World

25:25 American Ambition and Risk-Taking

29:16 “Oh My God, I Work Here”: Life at the White House

31:51 Listening to American Businesses

33:11 Diplomacy, Privacy Shield and the CHIPS Act

36:17 A Fist Bump from President Obama

37:17 Helping Rebuild Ukraine

41:01 How to Make Hard Decisions

43:48 Life Is a Team Sport

45:33 Inside Inspired’s Culture

48:34 Closing Fund Four and Portfolio Results

51:49 Inside the Microsoft Boardroom on AI

55:07 AI and the Future of Work

57:40 Inspired’s Big Bets

58:48 Closing Thoughts

How AI Is Rewiring Marketing with Profound’s James Cadwallader Oct 14, 2026

Show notes

James Cadwallader thinks the most important reader on the internet isn’t human anymore.

When he asked ChatGPT for a better showerhead, it visited 65 websites. He expects that number to hit 6,500 within five years, and most brands have no idea what those agents are saying about them.

Profound is his bet on that shift, and it’s already inside a third of the Fortune 100. In this episode he explains why AI slop is a skill issue, why he thinks billboards and dinners are about to matter more than ever, and why he believes humans are quietly becoming the API between reality and AI.

🔗 James Cadwallader

• Website: https://www.tryprofound.com/

• X: https://x.com/thejamescad

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamescadwallader

🎙️ Inspired Capital

• Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners/

• X: https://x.com/InspiredCap

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/

• Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Chapters:

0:00 Intro

1:10 What Profound does

2:56 Lessons from his first company, Kyra Media

6:46 AEO and GEO explained

10:19 Why ChatGPT ran 65 searches for one showerhead

12:19 How one model update can swing a brand's AI visibility

14:27 Why marketers will need 100x more content

15:55 How Profound keeps pace with the AI labs

18:28 Building a paranoid culture

20:47 How Profound won a third of the Fortune 100

23:20 Dead internet theory: the internet in 5 years

25:30 Humans as APIs between reality and AI

27:25 Why every brand will own its own evals

29:08 Marketing a product in 2030

30:20 How to avoid AI slop

32:56 The barbell: agentic marketing vs. human marketing

34:26 What excites him most: Profound Labs

35:42 Building the next Salesforce

37:30 Social media as a "biozone" for human data

40:56 Contrarian take: the AI labs won't eat every industry

41:49 How he stays sane

Boris Sofman Went from Leading Autonomous Trucking at Waymo to Building Bedrock Robotics Jun 03, 2026

Show notes

Boris Sofman has spent his entire career at the forefront of physical AI. He co-founded Anki, shipping more than 3.7 million consumer robots globally, before leading autonomous trucking at Waymo, where he helped pioneer the world's most advanced driverless vehicle program. Now he's applying everything he learned to the machines that build our world. Boris is the co-founder and CEO of Bedrock Robotics, valued at $1.75 billion, which retrofits existing construction equipment into fully autonomous machines at a moment when demand is skyrocketing and the industry faces a shortage of more than 500,000 workers.

What You'll Learn:

How leading autonomous trucking at Waymo shaped Boris's vision for the future of physical AI
Where autonomous trucking is headed and what the next decade looks like for the industry
Why the construction industry is at a breaking point and what autonomy does about it
What it actually takes to make a machine driverless outside of a test environment
How autonomous heavy machinery will fundamentally change the way we build
What the world looks like when physical AI works at scale across the entire economy

Chapters:

2:16 Introduction
4:40 Boris's Time at Waymo
9:35 The Future of Autonomous Trucking
13:19 What Autonomous Trucking Looks Like in Practice
18:15 How Self-Driving Changes Our Cities
20:40 The Birth of Bedrock Robotics
24:55 What Bedrock Actually Does
26:10 Why Retrofit Instead of Build From Scratch
28:23 The Role of Humans on the Autonomous Job Site
30:45 The Advantages of Going Autonomous
34:05 Big Predictions for Physical AI
36:48 The Contrarian Take on Humanoids
38:50 What Excites Boris Most
39:59 Quick Fire Round

Follow Boris Sofman and Bedrock Robotics:

Website: https://bedrockrobotics.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bedrock-robotics/
X: https://x.com/BedrockRobotics
Boris's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bsofman
Boris's X: https://x.com/bsofman

Follow Inspired:‍

Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners
X: https://x.com/InspiredCap
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/
Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Max Shaw and Brian Distelburger on Reinventing People Management with Windmill May 20, 2026

Show notes

Windmill co-founders Max Shaw and Brian Distelburger are building the AI-powered people platform for how companies develop and manage their talent. Founded alongside Mark Tanner, Windmill replaces the broken, once-a-year performance review with something faster, smarter, and that employees actually love. Since launching in November 2025, they've reached more than 100 customers including Kalshi, The Farmer's Dog, and Rho, and Inspired is so proud to have led their recent seed round. As AI makes every employee more powerful, the companies that win will be the ones that put the best talent in exactly the right role.

What You'll Learn:

Why the current state of performance management is broken
How AI will change the relationship between managers and their teams
What the future of work looks like as companies grow more complex
Why skills assessment is about to become one of the most important things a company can do
Why Max and Brian are optimistic that AI will benefit people at work

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:33 Meet Max and Brian

03:44 What Is Windmill

05:38 The State of Performance Reviews

09:20 Where Windmill Is Headed

13:20 AI Coaching for Every Employee

16:15 Why They Chose This Problem

18:33 The Biggest Change Management Moment of Our Lives

24:15 Early Traction and What's Working

27:30 Where the World of Work Is Going

34:55 The IKEA Example

36:16 Skills Assessment and Workforce Redeployment

41:18 Why New York

43:35 Quickfire

Follow Max, Brian, and Windmill: • Website: https://gowindmill.com/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/gowindmill/ • X: https://x.com/trywindmill • Max's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-shaw-82287025/ • Brian's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandistelburger/ Follow Inspired:‍ • Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/ • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners • X: https://x.com/InspiredCap • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/ • Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Cristóbal Valenzuela on How Runway's World Models Are Changing Storytelling May 06, 2026

Show notes

Runway founder and CEO Cristóbal Valenzuela grew up in Chile before moving to New York to study at NYU's ITP program, where the seeds of Runway were planted. Since co-founding the company in 2018, he has built it into one of the leading generative video AI companies in the world, having raised more than $500M in funding and pioneered some of the first widely used text to video and video to video models. Runway is now pushing toward what Cristóbal calls world models, systems that can understand and simulate reality in ways that are reshaping film, advertising, gaming, and beyond. The next era of human creativity is just getting started.

What You'll Learn:

Why world models represent a fundamental shift in how we create and consume content
How the democratization of storytelling will change culture as we know it
What real time video generation means for the future of entertainment and gaming
How AI is poised to transform the advertising industry from the ground up
Why optimism, not fear, is the right response to AI and the future of work

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:30 Growing Up in Chile
04:20 What Is Runway
06:38 Real World Use Cases
10:25 The Technology Behind the Breakthrough
12:00 Underestimating the Speed of Progress
14:55 If Content Is Free Does It Lose Value
20:10 How Runway Makes Money
24:05 The Real-Time Generation Revolution
29:15 Gaming and Interactive Experiences
33:00 The Future of Advertising
35:45 The Consequences of Infinite Content
37:20 Why Billions of Stories Are Waiting
41:00 Will AI Kill Jobs
44:00 Quickfire

Follow Cristóbal and Runway:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runwayapp
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/runwayml/
X: https://x.com/runwayml
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/runwayml
Cristóbal's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cvalenzuelab/
Cristóbal's X: https://x.com/c_valenzuelab

Follow Inspired:‍

Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners
X: https://x.com/InspiredCap
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/
Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Dan Lorenc on Building Chainguard into a $3.5B Open Source Security Company Apr 22, 2026

Show notes

Chainguard founder and CEO Dan Lorenc is building the security layer the entire software industry should run on. After nearly a decade at Google working on open source infrastructure, Dan co-founded Chainguard in 2021 to solve a problem hiding in plain sight. 90 to 95 percent of the code powering the world's software is open source, free, and largely unsecured. Now leading a $3.5B+ company with more than 600 customers, Dan shares his unfiltered take on where software security, AI, and the future of engineering are all headed.

What You'll Learn:

How Chainguard is securing the open source software the world runs on
Why the AI coding boom is making software security harder, not easier
What the future of software engineering actually looks like
Why CISOs can't afford to say no to AI, even when it scares them
Whether we've already hit AGI in the software space
How to think about your own digital security right now

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:30 Growing Up a Builder
04:22 The Origin of Chainguard
08:20 How Chainguard Works and Who It's For
13:20 How Chainguard Cleans and Secures the Code
15:20 How Dan Decides Where to Expand
17:15 The Future of Software and Software Engineers
25:30 Where Chainguard Goes From Here
26:48 Are We Already at AGI?
28:30 The Security Crisis No One Talks About
31:27 Why CISOs Can't Afford to Say No
33:25 Biggest Trade-Offs and What's Next for Chainguard
38:00 What Disappears in an AI World
39:22 What Shocked Dan Most and What Scares Him
42:30 When Security Becomes Part of Engineering
44:39 Quickfire
Follow Dan and Chainguard:

Website: https://www.chainguard.dev/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/chainguard-dev/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@chainguard
X: https://x.com/chainguard_dev
Dan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc/
Dan’s X: https://x.com/lorenc_dan

Follow Inspired:

Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners
X: https://x.com/InspiredCap
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/
Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Teamshares CEO Michael Brown on Why Going Public Is Just the First Inning Apr 10, 2026

Show notes

Teamshares CEO Michael Brown is on a mission to address one of the biggest problems in the American economy. Millions of small businesses are owned by Boomers and Gen X approaching retirement, and most will never find a buyer. Teamshares buys these businesses from retiring owners. With more than 90 companies acquired across 30 states, over 500 million in revenue, and a Nasdaq listing on the horizon, Michael is proving that the small business economy deserves a better solution.

What You'll Learn:

How Teamshares actually works and why the model gets stronger as it scales
What nearly 100 acquisitions have taught Michael about small businesses that most people don't see
Why going public changes everything for Teamshares and why Michael says it's still the first inning
How he built through COVID and the 2022-2023 rate shock without losing conviction
The long-term mindset behind building a company with a 200-year plan

Chapters:

01:30 Michael's Childhood

04:04 What Is Teamshares

07:44 Why Going Public Is Just the Beginning

15:30 Lessons from 90 Acquisitions

18:50 The Future of Teamshares

28:19 The 200-Year Mindset

32:25 Building Culture at Scale

36:00 Leading Through Market Shocks

37:55 Quickfire

Follow Teamshares:

Follow Inspired:

Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners
X: https://x.com/InspiredCap
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/
Substack: https://alexavontobel.substack.com/

Important Disclosures and Disclaimers

This podcast episode features a discussion with Michael Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of Teamshares, Inc. (“Teamshares”), and Alexa von Tobel, Founder and Managing Partner of Inspired Capital. Ms. von Tobel and Inspired Capital are existing investors in Teamshares and may have a direct financial interest in the outcome of the proposed business combination described below.

Proposed Business Combination. Teamshares has entered into a definitive agreement for a business combination with Live Oak Crest Acquisition Corp. (“Live Oak”), a special purpose acquisition company. In connection with the proposed transaction, a registration statement on Form S-4 (the “Registration Statement”) has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). This podcast does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any securities. For important information about the proposed transaction, including where to find the Registration Statement and other legal disclaimers, please refer to the press release available at https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260403515446/en/Teamshares-and-Live-Oak-V-File-S-4.

Clarifications. References to Operating EBITDA throughout refer to Pro Forma Operating EBITDA, which includes pre-acquisition results of acquired businesses as if they had been owned for the full year. References to “Corporate EBITDA” throughout the episode refers to 2025 Pro Forma Adjusted EBITDA. Investors should review the full set of assumptions and risk factors accompanying these metrics in the Registration Statement, including a full reconciliation of any non-GAAP measures.

Replay: How Ben Lamm (Colossal Biosciences) is Bringing Back Extinct Species Mar 25, 2026

Show notes

What happens when humanity faces the sixth mass extinction event in Earth's history? Serial entrepreneur Ben Lamm believes we need a backup plan. With a track record of building and exiting companies across AI, gaming, and conversational intelligence, Ben took on his most audacious venture in 2021: co-founding Colossal Biosciences with Harvard geneticist Dr. George Church to bring extinct species back to life. The company has already successfully de-extincted the dire wolf and aims to return woolly mammoths to the Arctic by 2028. In this episode, Ben shares how his self-described "unemployable" streak became his entrepreneurial superpower, why asking naive questions helps him tackle impossible challenges across industries, and how Colossal's breakthrough technologies represent humanity's essential insurance policy for planetary survival.

Follow Inspired:

Taylor Francis on How Watershed Is Solving the Climate Crisis Mar 11, 2026

Show notes

Watershed CEO Taylor Francis is building the infrastructure for companies to decarbonize at scale. After building Stripe's climate program, he saw how technology could move the needle faster than policy alone and set out on his journey as a founder. With a 500 million ton CO2 reduction goal by 2030 and customers like FedEx, Walmart, Airbnb, and Spotify, Taylor is proving that climate action can be both urgent and profitable.

What You'll Learn:

Taylor's journey from An Inconvenient Truth to founding Watershed
What he learned at Stripe about scaling impact and building mission-driven companies
How supply chain collaboration is the real lever for decarbonization (and why it matters more than you think)
What the next decade of climate actually looks like and why the world is winning faster than predicted
The frameworks and principles that attract the best people to solve the hardest problems

Chapters:

1:57 Growing Up and An Inconvenient Truth

5:35 From Princeton to Policy

7:40 What Stripe Taught Him About Scale

9:54 The Origin of Watershed's 500 Megaton Mission

13:09 Breaking Down Scope One, Two, and Three Emissions

16:00 How Watershed Works With Fortune 500 Companies

18:50 The Story Behind the Name Watershed

21:00 Why Network Effects Matter in Decarbonization

23:15 What the Best Investors Taught Him

28:15 The Truth About Climate Today

33:10 Where the World Is Actually Headed