In this episode I had the pleasure of bringing on Katherine Rosa, a great investor, advisor and friend. Katherine is the former Global Head of Alternative Investments at JP Morgan and a current Board Member for Social Leverage’s SPAC. She has been in the banking world for quite some time, starting out at JP Morgan as a product specialist in the early 90s. So it’s great to have someone who is as knowledgeable and experienced as Katherine not only a part of our Social Leverage team, but also as a guest on Panic with Friends. And even more exciting, this is Katherine’s first ever time on a podcast! In this episode, we talk about the world of alternative investments, retail and institutional investors, her time working at JP Morgan, the best and worst parts of her work, risk, her first great investment, what trends she’s excited about and more. Enjoy!

Gregg is a super talented and creative entrepreneur, founder and storyteller. A former Goldman Sachs analyst, Gregg had a career shift and now works at the intersection of all things art, tech, and entertainment. Gregg is the co-creator, former CEO, writer and producer of Netflix’s StoryBots and co-founder and former CEO of JibJab, which was founded in 1999 and became somewhat of a legend in the history of the Internet. Now, Gregg is creating the Internet’s next best thing: HiHo. Gregg is HiHo’s CEO and co-founder, and I am also one of their investors. HiHo allows you to be in control of the conversations you engage with online, offering “asynchronous, threaded, vertical video conversations organized around areas of interest.” In this episode, Gregg and I talk about the future of video, apps, entrepreneurship, his companies, the old internet, what makes good content, algorithms, NFTs, decentralization and more.

I had the joy of having my great friend Brad Feld join me for his FOURTH appearance on Panic With Friends. Brad is Boulder-based early-stage investor, entrepreneur, writer, and speaker. More specifically, he is managing director of Foundry Group, founder of Techstars, and writer for the Startup Revolution series and his blog Feld Thoughts. Brad has also been a mentor and supporter of mine, investing in my previous company Wallstrip as well as Stocktwits. With over 30 years of experience in the field, Brad has dealt with and invested through his fair share of panics. So I couldn’t think of anyone better to talk to about the future coming out of the COVID pandemic. In this episode, Brad and I talk about his family and what their past year has looked like, building stronger communities, our post-COVID future, startup culture, decentralization and more.

If you want to learn about SPACs, look to Daniel Cohen. He has been with the SPAC phenomenon since the beginning and has been a major player in really innovating this space. He even inspired me to launch Social Leverage’s SPAC. In this episode, Daniel helps give some context into how the SPAC craze got to where it is today. Daniel is the Chairman of Cohen & Company and Managing Member of FinTech Masala, two SPAC powerhouses focused on Insurance and FinTech SPACs, president and CEO at FTAC Hera Acquisition Corp, chairman of Bancorp and former CEO of RAIT Financial Trust. Daniel’s a hustler, having launched 10 SPACs since his first deal in 2015 and currently working on his next. But as impressive as his resumé is, the most impressive aspect of Daniel’s career to me is that he works with his family. In fact, Daniel’s most notable and high-profile merger deal with eToro was with his mom Betsy Cohen. In this episode, Daniel and I chat about the SPAC craze’s opportunities and areas of concern, big data, money management, COVID’s impact on tech and business travel, working with his family and more.

Jens Hilgers is a Berlin-based serial gaming entrepreneur. He’s been investing at the center of tech, gaming and esports since the late ‘90s – so he has seen esports journeys to the mainstream and sees where it’s going. Over the years, Jens has racked up a laundry list of titles, including co-founder and former CEO of ESL, co-founder and Chairman of G2 Esports and co-founder and former CEO of Bayes. Most notably, he is the founding general partner of the global early- and mid-stage gaming-focused investment company BITKRAFT Ventures. Jens has helped the firm reach impressive and success numbers. He oversaw the firm’s growth to a portfolio of over 50 companies. More recently, he helped BITKRAFT raise a $165M Venture Fund I in 2020. For someone who is widely considered one of esports’ first entrepreneurs, I can firmly say Jens lives up to the hype. In this episode, we talk about how COVID accelerated the esports trend, predictions of the future of esports, gaming EFTs, cloud gaming, virtual reality, digital citizenship, emerging markets and more.

I was excited about having Jason Hirschorn on as last week’s ‘Panic’ guest and am even more excited to bring him back on for round two! I have not met another person who is not just passionate about the media, but is eager and willing to share that knowledge with others. In part one, we covered Jason’s long history at MTV, Slingbox, News Corp and MySpace. In this episode, Jason and I talk about the future of media, the fall of cable, the creator economy, NFTs, newsletters, social media streaming, decentralization and more.

It’s always fun when we can take a break from talking about investing and veer toward other topics, especially when the person we’re talking to is such a legend in the field. So as a media geek, I was excited (and dare I say giddy) to have media extraordinaire Jason Hirschhorn on this episode. Jason has been around the media for a long time, holding previous presidential titles at MTV and MySpace. He’s also sat on some impressive directors and advisory boards, including MGM, Sundance Institute and Pandora. Jason has also probably watched every show across Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, or any other streaming platform you can think of. So, he’s taken his vast knowledge of the intersection of tech, media and culture to create REDEF – a curated mix of the best and smartest articles, videos, movies and music across a range of fields. Think of Jason and REDEF as like your own personal DJ, mixing the best of all the media out there for an incredibly thoughtful and engaging experience. In this episode, Jason and I go in depth about all things media, the coolest job he’s had, how to fight unfair battles and his take on streaming platforms. He also shares a story about Bono you absolutely don’t want to miss (but you’ll have to wait until the end of the episode to hear it).

On this week’s episode, I got the chance to talk with Jamie Wise, a fellow Canadian and the brains behind the hottest ETF on the markets right now. The VanEck Vectors Social Sentiment ETF, trading under $BUZZ, garnered a lot of buzz (pun intended) when it started trading on March 4 thanks in-part to backing from influential Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. What’s exciting about the BUZZ ETF is that it uses AI to analyze investor sentiment across over 15 million online posts a month. The ETF currently holds 75 stocks with at least a $5 billion market cap. The power of measuring sentiment has been on my mind for a while; we even announced our own sentiment tracker at Stocktwits back in 2012. And on the heels of the GameStop event, conversations about sentiment and its power have never been more important. In this episode, Jamie and I chat about his company BUZZ Holdings, ETFs, measuring sentiment, algorithms, the GameStop event, the rise of the retail investor, how we approach the markets and more.

This week’s Panic guest, Sam Jones, called in all the way from Oxford to chat with me. Sam is a good friend, unbelievable entrepreneur, and co-founder of the social commerce app “OOOOO.” I was lucky enough to be a small investor in the company. To put it simply, OOOOO is basically “Only Fans” meets commerce – enabling live entertainment commerce. While Sam started “OOOOO” only about a year ago, it has seen impressive growth and success. The work Sam is doing is fascinating and he thoughtfully explains it so well on the podcast. In this episode, Sam digs into ecommerce, OOOOO, his company’s growth and retail share model, China & Pinduoduo, his plans for a documentary, the culture and business of live streaming, and more.

This episode is a continuation of my quest to learn more about the growing trend toward investing in the cannabis industry. A former podcast guest and industry expert CB1 Capital’s Todd Harrison actually helped me connect with the guest of this week’s episode – Jason Wild. Jason is a former pharmacist turned cannabis investor extraordinaire. He is Chairman of the Board at the Canada-listed cannabis company TerrAscend and President of JW Asset Management. Currently, 70% of his over $2 billion under management is invested in cannabis. Jason not only understands the cannabis industry, but also the long history behind it, rooted in racism and bad laws, that has had a major impact in the U.S. In this episode, Jason and I chat all about the cannabis industry, including: its growth, financing, misconceptions, impact from COVID-19, the types of people who do well in this industry, Jason’s work and investments, licensing, changing laws, CBD, education, and criminal justice reform in this space.

I had the pleasure of chatting with fintech entrepreneur – and more importantly fellow ASU alum – Jason Gardner on this episode of Panic with Friends. Jason and I were originally introduced through our mutual friend and former Panic guest Ryan Gilbert. While it was fun to reminisce about our time at ASU on this episode, it was even more fun to talk about fintech and Jason’s insights on this booming sector. Jason is at the center of all things fintech. His unicorn company Marqeta, Inc. is “the world’s first open API modern card issuing platform,” which basically means his company makes your payments a whole lot easier. You probably already use Marqeta without even realizing it, with clients such as Uber, Instacart and DoorDash to name a few. In this episode, Jason and I talk about how he got interested in fintech, Marqeta’s origin and success story, open APIs, building capital, neobanks, China, Bitcoin and more.

I’ll jump on any opportunity to bring a fellow Jewish Canadian who shares my love of startups and tech on as a podcast guest. So after sliding into Shopify president Harley Finkelstein’s Twitter DMs and a couple calls later, I got to do just that. Harley’s hustle, spirit and overall success story perfectly embody Shopify’s mission. At only 35 years old, Harley is leading a company that has collectively driven more than $40 billion worth of sales and holds the title of “second largest check-out in America'' after Amazon. But Harley doesn’t want Shopfiy to just be an e-commerce/retail company; he wants it to be the go-to place for entrepreneurs. I hope after listening to this episode you’ll also understand Shopify and why I love it so much. In this episode, Harley and I chat about Shopify’s journey and success, his career path, law school, turning passion projects into the next big thing, scalability, the evolution of e-commerce and retail, entrepreneurship and more.

Joanne Wilson is a powerhouse. She’s a prolific investor, mom and wife and a champion of female entrepreneurs – not to mention a tough cookie who knows New York better than anyone I know. When she’s not crushing it in the investing world, you can find this self-described “insatiable foodie” cooking over on her Instagram. I met Joanne about 14 years ago when she and her husband/previous Panic guest Fred Wilson invested in my company at the time WallStrip. Joanne’s investing portfolio has grown since investing in me back in the day to include more than 130 companies. It was a blast to have someone as smart, quick and entertaining as her on the podcast. In this episode, Joanne and I chat about angel investing, New York, tech, real estate, the restaurant industry, entrepreneurship and more.

I’ve listened to a lot of impressive people on this podcast, but Zach Weinberg truly blew me away. Zach’s made some incredibly smart investing moves in his life, and he’s only 34 years old. He is a grade-A hustler, habitual entrepreneur and prolific angel investor. Zach and his business partner Nat Turner sold their second start-up venture, an advertising technology company called Invite Media, to Google for $81 million in 2010. After taking a turn toward a foray in the healthcare sector, they sold data and software company Flatiron Health to Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche for $2 billion in 2018. Flatiron Health, founded in 2012, makes software that pools patient data from electronic health rec­ords for cancer treatment centers. Zach was the company’s co-founder, president and COO. He oversaw research, product, engineering and recruiting initiatives. He’s currently invested in over 30 tech startups throughout the U.S. In this episode, Zach and I chat about his backstory, healthcare, biotech research, connecting with founders, Google, Shopify, education and more.

In this episode, I chatted with the former CEO of what I deem as one of the most important real estate companies in the world – GoDaddy. That’s right, I’m talking about digital real estate. And who better to talk about this with than former GoDaddy CEO Scott Wagner. Wagner was President and COO of the company for over 4 years before serving as CEO from 2018-2019. With his years of experience in the domain industry comes a font of knowledge and insights he was kind enough to share with us on the Panic podcast. In this episode, Scott and I talk about his career path, the domain industry, the state of the markets, content syndication, ecommerce, digital real estate, SPACs, Scottsdale National, branding and more.

I always love getting to interview people who typically ask the questions. And this episode with guest Ted Merz is no exception. Ted has spent 30 years at Bloomberg, first as a journalist and later overseeing application and product building. Now, he works as their Global Head of News Product. Ted was there at the early days of Bloomberg when financial journalism was at its infancy. It was fascinating getting his perspective on this sector and how it has changed and grown over the years. In this episode, Ted and I talked about how he landed his first role at Bloomberg, the biggest story he’s covered, financial journalism, the value of content, integrating Twitter into Bloomberg, data and more.

If our last guest Tiffany Zhoug was the Gen Z whisper, then Douglas Boneparth might just be the Millennial version. And he has the titles to prove it, including the newly named millennial voice of CNBC’s Digital Financial Advisor Council. After spending well over a decade in the financial planning industry, Douglas noticed a gap – a Buzzfeed reading, avocado toast eating, Slack using gap. Millennials weren’t getting the same level of thoughtful time and advice as other older players in finance. Douglas stopped chasing after old money and started finding young people to invest in. He is the founder and president of Bone Fide Wealth, a Manhattan-based wealth management firm specializing in high achieving Millennials, young professionals and entrepreneurs. They currently advise more than $80 million in assets. Douglas is a funny, charismatic, driven and smart guy (even for a Millenial). In this episode, Douglas and I talk about high earning millennials, financial education, when he got interested in the financial world of business, his comedic perspective on his professional and personal life, what a day in the life of a financial planner looks like, his plans for the future, marketing, SEO and more. Enjoy!

OK boomers, we’re kicking off our first episode of 2021 with Gen Z whisper and Zebra IQ CEO Tiffany Zhong. I’m a big fan of Zebra’s annual Gen Z report and I recommend all my listeners take a look at it too. It’s important to stay in touch with audiences and perspectives other than those similar to you (something Tiffany talks about in this episode). Tiffany’s company Zebra IQ helps brands create communities to understand Gen-Z and Millennial consumers by offering real-time feedback. They’ve worked with more than 20 companies including Snapchat, Levi Strauss and Turner Broadcasting. Zebra IQ is just one example of how Gen Z can help you make a lot of money if you just listen to them. In this episode, Tiffany and I talk about Zebra IQ, dropping out of college, her twitter strategy, her “five Cs,” moguls, monetizing an audience, TikTok, startups, ecommerce and more.

Rajat has been an entrepreneur for a while now. He started his first company in college with the help of angel investor (and mutual friend/previous Panic guest) Brad Feld. The pair have now launched around eight companies together. Rajat mainly builds and invests in software companies, with his latest venture being Jump Cloud – a cybersecurity startup building a next-generation cloud directory platform. One of the things I love about Rajat’s company is that they foresaw remote work being the future before COVID-19 even hit. In this episode, Rajat and I talked about his company Jump Cloud, e-commerce, remote work, software, building a zero-trust network, SPACs, what companies he’s got an eye on, content marketing and more.

Well, it finally happened. I bought a Tesla. I fancy myself a trend follower, but I think this is the latest I’ve entered a trend. But this is about more than getting a self-driving car that I can nap in. There has been no hotter sector than that of electric vehicles. And lucky for my listeners, I brought on not one, but two experts – Lionel Selwood and Robert (Bob) Mancini – to talk about this booming sector and the SPAC taking it to another level. Lionel’s energy tech company, which specializes in EV battery production, Romeo Power and Bob’s SPAC RMG Acquisition Corp. recently announced a merger allowing Romeo Power to become a publicly listed company. In this episode, Bob, Lionel and I geek out over EV batteries, Tesla, Elon, SpaceX, NIO, SPACs, Romeo Power, electrification, market opportunities, who they would love to drive around for a day and more.

A year ago on my blog, I asked: “Could 2020 be as good as 2019?” From where I’m standing now, that’s going to be a different answer depending on who you ask. So, I called on two pretty cool kids over at Stocktwits to put something together and help us all make some sense as to what exactly happened this infamous year. That’s right, this isn’t just any episode of Panic – it’s a Stocktwits and Panic with Friends pandemic special! In this episode, Stocktwits’ Riley Roseberger and Tommy Tranfo break down what was going on in the markets from the pre-COVID days in January to the dark days of March to where we stand as of December. We talk about the industries, trends and stocks that dominated conversations on Stocktwits and beyond in 2020, including Tesla, oil, SPACs, EV companies, solar, gambling, social platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, crypto, weed and more. I want to thank Stocktwits again for putting this all together and continuing to put up with me as I make this podcast. I hope you’ve had as much fun listening as I’ve had making Panic with Friends this year!

I’ve had Ben Hunt on the podcast before, but I felt it was time to bring him back on to get his insights on the financial, cultural and political state of our country as of late. When I’m not talking his ear off, Ben is busy writing nonstop for Epsilon Theory, a newsletter and website that examines markets through the lenses of game theory and history. It’s a treat to have smart, thoughtful people like Ben on the podcast. He isn’t trying to spin a narrative, but genuinely wants to inform others about what’s going on and what they can do about it. I may even need to bring him on as a co-host – I love talking to him that much. Last time I had Ben on we talked about zero interest rates, writing and the politicizing of the stock market. This time around, Ben and I talked about his life as a publisher, media culture, the markets, the ‘mendacity’ of the world, crypto, SPACs, capital and what’s been going on with his company. This was a fun one to record. Enoy!

If you have missed going to the movie theater as much as I have during the pandemic, then this is the episode for you. I brought on Christie Marchese in this episode to talk about how her company Storyspaces is helping keep the spirit of the movie-going experience alive. As the founder of Storyspaces, she works to organize both virtual and in-person movie events with new and critically acclaimed films (basically the COVID-world answer to not getting to go to movie theaters). As founder and CEO of Picture Motion, she leads a team of impact producers, marketing strategists and communication specialists to develop grassroots marketing and social action campaigns for films. In this episode, Christie and I talk about all things film – how she got into movies, her favorites, working directly with filmmakers, virtual cinema and the post-COVID future of film. We also chatted about Storyspaces, human-centered distribution, the logistics of planning screening events, creativity and culture, social change and more.

I had the pleasure of having Octahedron Capital founder Ram Parameswaran on this episode of Panic. His firm Octahedron is a crossover fund that invests in the internet economy. Previously, Ram was a partner at the multi-billion dollar firm Altimeter Capital, focusing on public and private tech investments. He also has some big names in his past investments, including a pre-IPO Uber, Google and TikTok parent Bytedance. Ram has been inside the beast and is now applying it to his own markets. He’s a smart guy and public investor who knows a lot about a lot. In this episode, Ram and I discussed growth, the culture of Silicon Valley, tech, his work at Octahedron Capital, SPACs, trends in the public & private markets, crossover funds, global investing and more. Enjoy!

If anyone can stay calm in the face of panic, it’s Rick. He founded his VC firm FirstMark Capital, which focuses on consumer technologies, during the 2008 recession. Twelve years later, I think it’s fair to say Rick is doing pretty well. He’s invested in a variety of industries, ranging from commerce to gaming to data services to media and sports. His investments include big names like Pinterest, Airbnb, DraftKings and Discord. Rick’s a kind and generous guy who I can always count on to give thoughtful advice and insights. He’s even been kind enough to talk with me in the past about VC investing at Stocktoberfest East in 2018, so I was happy to have him on this episode of Panic to share all that sage wisdom with my listeners. In this episode, Rick and I talked about public and private markets, DraftKings’ success, his company FirstMark Capital, SPACs, the anti-portfolio, open source, being a dad, what sectors have surprised him, the future of gaming and healthcare and more. Enjoy!