Inspired with Alexa von Tobel

Latest Episodes:

Julia and Thomas Berolzheimer on Why the Future of Shopping Will Run Through Creators Feb 25, 2026

Show notes

Julia Berolzheimer and Thomas Berolzheimer have spent 15 years turning a fashion blog into one of the most powerful e-commerce brands in the creator economy. What started with a camera and an idea in 2011 has grown into a multi-platform empire spanning a blog, Instagram, Substack, ShopMy, Amazon, and their newest venture, Coreli.

What You'll Learn:

How Julia and Thomas built one of the most trusted brands in the creator economy
Why curation beats creation when it comes to driving real commerce
How they think about managing content, platforms, and technology as a team
Where AI fits in and where it doesn't for creators who've built on authenticity
What the next decade of the creator economy actually looks like

Chapters:

01:52 Intro
02:35 The Beginning of Julia and Thomas's Journey
04:45 Milestones and Evolution of Gal Meets Glam
06:41 Curation and How Julia Starts Every Morning
11:30 Managing Content Across Different Platforms
15:34 ShopMy
20:25 Tools and Technology
25:20 How Julia and Thomas Work Together
29:00 The Future of the Creator Economy
31:05 Using AI for Influencer Content
35:45 Quickfire Round

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Solace Founder Jeremy Gurewitz Raises $130M to Transform Healthcare Advocacy Feb 11, 2026

Show notes

Solace founder and CEO Jeremy Gurewitz is building a marketplace that connects patients with healthcare advocates—covered by insurance. After losing his mother to pancreatic cancer and witnessing firsthand how difficult it was to navigate the US healthcare system, Jeremy founded Solace to help every American manage the overwhelming complexity of healthcare, from finding the right doctors to dealing with insurance. Now, after raising $130 million in a Series C led by IVP, Solace is expanding into commercial insurance and scaling nationally. With a patient NPS of 90 and data showing improved outcomes and lower costs, Jeremy shares how he is building for a future where healthcare advocacy becomes as standard as having a primary care physician.

What You'll Learn:

Jeremy's personal journey from losing his mother to building Solace
How healthcare advocacy works and why patients achieve a 90+ NPS
Why the US healthcare system is so broken and how advocates fix it
Where Jeremy sees healthcare heading in the next decade

Chapters:
02:00 Growing Up with a Doctor Mother
06:45 From Quantitative Finance to Healthcare
09:00 What Solace Does for Patients
11:38 Why Inspired Invested in Solace
12:45 Real Stories of Solace Saving Lives
17:35 Why the US Healthcare System Is So Broken
20:35 Building a Marketplace of Healthcare Advocates
22:45 Measuring What Matters: Outcomes and Costs
28:50 Announcing Solace's $130M Series C
30:31 Building Culture at Scale
33:00 Where Solace Is Headed
36:30 When AI Helps and When Humans Are Essential
40:20 Jeremy's Predictions for Healthcare in 2035

Follow Solace and Jeremy:‍ • Solace Website • Solace LinkedIn • Jeremy Gurewitz LinkedIn Follow Inspired:‍ • Website • LinkedIn • X • Instagram • Substack

Kevin Ryan, the Godfather of NYC Tech, on AI in the Decade Ahead Jan 28, 2026

Show notes

Kevin Ryan is known as the godfather of New York City tech. Over three decades, he's founded or backed companies worth more than $40 billion combined, including DoubleClick (acquired by Google), MongoDB (now valued at $30 billion), Business Insider (sold for $450 million), and Gilt Group. As founder of AlleyCorp, Kevin has spent his career building category-defining companies and correctly predicting major technology shifts before they happened. From betting on the internet in 1996 to understanding AI's trajectory today, Kevin shares his framework for seeing what's next and why speed executed properly changes everything.

What You'll Learn:

How Kevin spotted the internet would change everything in 1996 and the patterns he uses to see what's next
The two categories Kevin is betting on: vertical AI applications and deep science breakthroughs
Why winning the first four years matters more than anything else
How to compete for top 0.1% talent in today's market
Kevin's 2036 predictions for work, NYC vs SF, and where technology is headed

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
02:10 Kevin's Childhood
05:00 Reflecting on His Entrepreneurship Journey
08:30 Speed Matters
11:15 The Feeling When You Know a Company Is the One
14:58 Why You Need Top 0.1% Talent
17:00 Two Categories Kevin Is Betting On
20:00 Drawing the Defensibility Line in Vertical AI
22:22 Thinking About the Product
23:10 Acceleration of Science and When Kevin's Antenna Goes Up
25:08 What the World Looks Like in 2036
27:00 Job Loss and AI Displacement
32:00 San Francisco vs New York City
38:18 What Kevin Hopes for NYC Tech
40:50 Interesting Topics Kevin Is Exploring
42:36 Quickfire Round

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How Flock Safety Became a $7.5B Crime-Fighting Company with Founder Garrett Langley Jan 14, 2026

Show notes

Flock Safety founder and CEO Garrett Langley is building the technology infrastructure to eliminate crime in America. A repeat entrepreneur who previously built and sold two companies for over $200 million each, Garrett now leads a $7.5 billion company serving more than 6,000 communities, 5,000 law enforcement agencies, and 1,000 businesses while helping achieve nearly a million arrests annually. He shares his conviction that safety drives economic prosperity, the surprising fact that drones arrive on scene 94% of the time before officers, and how AI will free police officers from paperwork to focus on community relationships.

What You'll Learn:

Why it's getting easier to commit serious crimes in America and what's driving that trend
How technology creates precision in law enforcement that's never existed before
Why drones are transforming emergency response and saving cities money
How AI will reshape policing by eliminating paperwork and doubling community presence
Why safety is the foundation for economic prosperity and job growth

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

02:08 Why Team Is the Only Thing That Matters

04:40 Growing Up in Atlanta: Learning Sales from His Father

06:45 What Is Flock Safety and How Does It Work?

11:20 The Crime Crisis No One Talks About

14:33 Serving Neighborhoods, Businesses, and Law Enforcement

17:00 Real Cases: From U-Hauls to Black SUVs

19:55 The Future of Policing in 10 Years

23:30 Building Technology While People's Lives Are at Stake

25:38 How Drones Are Changing Emergency Response

28:09 Scaling to $300M ARR at 70% Growth

29:38 Why Safety Drives Economic Prosperity

32:30 The "Do the Work" Culture at Flock

33:48 Quickfire Round

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2026 Predictions: Physical AI, Quantum Computing & the Future of Work Jan 07, 2026

Show notes

Alexa is sharing her bold predictions for 2026, from physical AI transforming our crumbling infrastructure to quantum computing breakthroughs that will reshape innovation. With her signature focus on walking into the office "in 2035," she explain why AI won't destroy jobs but will instead free us from mundane work, how autonomous vehicles will give suburban parents their time back, and why smart machines are finally taking us out of the Roman times.

Chapters:

00:09 Prediction #1- Physical AI

02:06 Prediction #2- Quantum

03:00 Prediction #3 - Jobs

05:04 Prediction #4 - Autonomous cars

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Mikey Shulman on Building Suno into a $2.5B AI Music Platform Dec 17, 2025

Show notes

Suno founder and CEO Mikey Shulman is building the future of music creation. A Harvard PhD physicist who led machine learning at Kensho before it was acquired by S&P Global, Mikey had a realization in 2022 that audio was a backwater in machine learning—despite being everywhere in human life. He turned that realization into $2.5B company Suno, which grew from zero to over 100 million users. Mikey shares how Suno scales to users generating seven million tracks a day, why music's format will change as dramatically in this era as it did in the shift from vinyl to streaming, and how AI is democratizing creativity for billions of people who never thought they could make music.

What You'll Learn:

How growing up in a loving, stable environment with parents who encouraged following your passions shaped Mikey's leadership style
Why audio was overlooked in machine learning and how Suno made it a first-class citizen
How Suno went from zero users to 100 million and zero revenue to $200 million in under three years
Why a quarter of songs on Suno are remixes of other songs on the platform
The difference between creation and consumption in music and why that boundary is disappearing
How Suno is growing the entire pie of music rather than just splitting existing revenue
Why the business model for music will change when the format becomes interactive
What Mikey learned about speed versus craft when building for billions of users

Chapters:
01:52 Growing Up: Following What You Love
03:45 From Physics to a PhD at Harvard
05:30 Kensho and the Path to Machine Learning
09:30 Teaching Machine Learning at MIT Sloan
12:10 The Birth of Suno
15:30 Why Audio When Everyone Chose Text
16:25 Zero to 100 Million Users in Three Years
18:55 Xania Monet: The First AI Billboard Artist
21:55 Stories That Keep the Team Going
24:15 Music Was Invented to Be Social
27:27 The Business Model for Interactive Music
29:44 Reshaping the Music Industry
32:45 New Boundaries of Music Creation
35:00 The Future: Interactive Albums and Fan Fiction
37:35 Growing the Pie for All Creators
40:00 Will There Be Agentic AI Stars?
41:15 Building Teams That Move Fast
43:30 Speed and Craft: The Cultural Balance
45:30 What's Coming Next at Suno
46:30 Guardrails in a Lower Stakes Domain
47:47 Managing Chaos as a First-Time CEO at Scale
49:55 Quickfire Round

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Dylan Taylor on Building Voyager Technologies and the Future of Space Innovation Dec 03, 2025

Show notes

Dylan Taylor, founder and CEO of Voyager Technologies, is building the infrastructure that will define humanity's future in space. Through defense, space solutions, and Starlab, Voyager is working on some of the most ambitious aerospace projects of our generation. In this conversation, Dylan takes us from watching Star Trek as a kid in Idaho to becoming a publicly traded space company CEO. He shares what it's actually like to reach space aboard Blue Origin, why we're living through the biggest space boom in human history, and how space will transform our global economy.

What You'll Learn:

Why space isn't an industry but humanity's eighth continent
His experience going to outer space
How perfect real-time information about Earth will create trillions in economic value
Projects that Voyager is working on
How ambition shifted from personal glory to reflected glory through leadership
Predictions for the space industry
The frontier innovations that will enable humans to live and work in space

Chapters:
01:52 From Star Trek Dreams to Space Reality
04:37 What is Voyager Technologies?
07:02 Winning the Contract to Build Starlab
09:40 Going to Space on Blue Origin
16:36 The Overview Effect and What Astronauts Feel
20:10 How Space Shifted Dylan's Perspective on Risk and Ambition
22:40 The Henry Crown Fellowship and Leadership Transformation
23:40 Inside Voyager Technologies' Projects
26:50 The Purpose of Starlab as a Microgravity Laboratory
31:00 Space Predictions
35:23 Space as the Eighth Continent
36:55 Perfect Real-Time Information About Earth
38:50 What Keeps Dylan Up at Night About Space's Future
41:07 Frontier Innovations in Quantum Computing and Beyond
45:15 Quick Fire Round
47:52 Outro

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Axion Founder Daniel First on Solving the $4 Trillion Manufacturing Problem with AI Nov 24, 2025

Show notes

Axion founder Daniel First is building the command center for American manufacturing that detects product failures before they reach customers. His AI-powered observability platform links IoT data, technician reports, and customer feedback across aerospace, medical devices, and consumer products to identify emerging issues manufacturers don't even know exist. Born from watching enterprise AI pilots fail at McKinsey, Axion is architecting customer-centric manufacturing where products iterate in real time based on what's breaking in the field.

What You'll Learn:

The trillion-dollar quality crisis plaguing American manufacturing and how AI is solving it
Why most enterprise AI fails and what makes the rare successes different
The future of American manufacturing competing on speed of customer learning
How real-time field data is transforming product development cycles
Unconventional founder habits that enable exceptional speed and deep thinking

Chapters:

2:00 From Orthodox Debates to Independent Thinking
3:00 Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Human Flourishing
6:00 The Pivot from Academia to Industry
7:20 Predicting AI as the Next Cultural Mania
8:10 What Axion Actually Does for Manufacturers
10:35 The Invisible Quality Crisis Costing Trillions
13:30 Surprising Multi-Department Platform Adoption
16:02 Surgery Equipment Failure With Two Root Causes
16:47 Why Axion's Organization Looks Different
18:00 Building an Ecosystem Across Product Lifecycle
20:28 How Quality Data Drives Product Innovation
21:58 American Manufacturing Winning on Empathy
26:00 How Axion Succeeded Where 95% Fail
28:50 Why Robotics Will Create More Quality Issues
31:10 What Enterprise Leaders Think About AI
32:50 Data Centers and Manufacturing Tailwind
34:09 The Experimental Mindset Driving Speed
36:30 Why 2010s Advice No Longer Applies
38:40 The Vertical AI Revolution
39:55 Quick-fire Questions

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⁠• ⁠Daniel LI

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Nate Berkus on What It Takes to Become the Best at Your Craft Nov 12, 2025

Show notes

Interior designer Nate Berkus is one of the most recognizable names in design. He started his firm at 24 with nothing but authenticity and hustle, building an empire spanning TV, books, product lines, and high-end interiors that's landed him on the AD100 list for a decade. His journey includes 12 years as Oprah's design expert, surviving the 2004 tsunami, and building a life with Jeremiah Brent as one of TV's first openly gay families. With his new book Foundations releasing November 18th, Nate reflects on what it takes to stay creatively obsessed for 30 years and build a household name in design.

What You'll Learn: • How he started his firm at 24 and convinced clients to take a chance on him • Working with Oprah and his strategic approach to media • How surviving the 2004 tsunami fundamentally changed him and his reflections on that experience • Why he believes design is part magic, part alchemy, and part sociology • How he and Jeremiah Brent collaborate as both partners and business collaborators • The future of design and how AI will reshape the industry

Chapters: 02:30 Intro 03:15 The Origin of His Design Obsession 06:10 Why Design Is Sociology 08:27 Starting a Firm at 24 With Nothing But Authenticity 14:28 How Surviving the 2004 Tsunami Changed Everything 19:50 The Strategy Behind Using TV as a Platform 23:00 A Funny Oprah Story 24:46 Why TV Was Always a Means to an End 28:40 How He Stays Creatively Obsessed After 30 Years 32:38 Never Stop Learning and Do What Feels Effortless 34:07 Partnership With Jeremiah as Parents and Business Partners 39:30 Why He Wrote Foundations and What It Means 42:15 How AI Will Impact the Future of Design 46:44 His Approach to Curation in the Creator Economy 50:05 Reflecting on His Biggest Life Moments 52:02 Quick-fire Round

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• Nate's Website

• Nate's Instagram

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May Habib on Building Writer into a $2B+ Enterprise AI Platform Oct 29, 2025

Show notes

Writer CEO May Habib is building the future of enterprise AI. Born in Lebanon as the oldest of eight kids, May grew up navigating chaos, multiple languages, and cultures, skills that shaped her into a founder willing to challenge assumptions. After pivoting from Qordoba, she built Writer's own foundational models and spent a decade solving real AI problems for Fortune 500 companies. Now leading a $2B+ company, May shares her bold vision for where AI is headed, from self-evolving LLMs that proactively guide us to why work in 2030 will be unrecognizable.

What You'll Learn:

How growing up as the oldest of eight in a Lebanese family shaped May's leadership style
Why Writer focuses on highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial services
The critical difference between generative AI and agentic AI
How self-evolving AI will proactively prompt you instead of waiting for commands
Why execution is going from scarce and expensive to abundant and on-demand
What the average knowledge worker's job will look like in 2030
Why narrow job specs are dead and career lattices are the future
The two disruptive forces that will make work unrecognizable in 30 years
Why May believes there's no AI bubble

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction
01:50 Growing Up as the Oldest of Eight in an Immigrant Family
05:30 Why Language Shapes Who We Become
09:05 The Decision to Leave Finance and Start Qordoba
12:05 The Risky Pivot from Qordoba to Writer
17:45 What Problem Writer Actually Solves for Enterprise
21:05 Building Trust at Scale in Regulated Industries
24:30 How Writer Stays Maniacally Focused
28:10 Writer's Vision for Self-Evolving AI
35:00 Why Narrow Job Specs Are Dead
37:30 What Work Looks Like in 2030 and the Two Unknowns Shaping the Future
39:26 What Most People Misunderstand About AI
41:44 The Book That Changed May's Life
43:06 Is There an AI Bubble?
43:15 May's One-Word Mantra: Forward
43:49 How May Manages Stress
44:00 Beyond AI: What Excites May the Most