It’s not every week that Becca and Dom get to talk to a founder who has been building companies for the past 22 years. This week on Found, we’re joined by Eric Ly, co-founder of LinkedIn and the current co-founder and CEO of KarmaCheck  startup that is making the background check process quicker and more transparent. Ly discusses his vision for streamlining background checks, the challenges of building multiple companies, and how his entrepreneurial mindset has evolved since the early days of the internet. You’ll learn about the future of online trust and the potential impact of blockchain technology on identity verification.

In this episode of Found, Becca and Dom sit down with Gavin Uberti, co-founder and CEO of Etched, an AI chip startup focusing on developing specialized chips. Gavin shares the bold bet his startup is making on transformer models for AI chips, aiming to take on industry giant Nvidia. They discuss how Etched is developing specialized chips that they claim will be an order of magnitude faster than competitors, and Uberti shares his insights on the future of AI hardware as models continue to rapidly scale up in size and capability.

HR software is big, big business. And no one understands that better than this week’s guest, Parker Conrad the CEO and co-founder of Rippling, a global HR company that offers global payroll, onboarding, time tracking, benefits management and more. In this episode he talks about what goes into building a leading HR tech company—from what it’s like building out features companies love, to dealing with fierce competition in this ever growing landscape. Conrad also gets into the power imbalance that can arise between VCs and founders and the drama at his previous company that inspired him to build Rippling.

There is a whole marketplace for used tech, it isn’t just a good deal for the customer, but it also helps curb waste that can lead to soil contamination, non-pot able water, and dangerous living conditions.  On this week’s episode of Found, we’re talking to Thibaud Hug de Larauze from BackMarket, a global marketplace for refurbished devices.

Despite the fact that water covers 71% of the Earth, there is still so much we don’t know about the ocean floor and  today’s founder is looking to change that. Joe Wolfel is the co-founder and CEO of Terradepth, the company that is working towards increasing ocean knowledge through autonomous, high resolution, scalable data collection in the deep ocean. On this week’s episode of Found, Becca is joined by guest co-host, Tim De Chant to discuss why mapping geological features at the bottom of the ocean isn’t just something worth doing for curiosity’s sake, it’s important to a variety of players from companies looking to install offshore wind farms to the Navy. They also get into who is buying this kind of data, how Wolfel’s experience as a Navy Seal prepared him for entrepreneurship, and the trend of deeptech founders needing to find revenue streams early on as they’re developing their technology. 

The higher education system isn’t working. Students pay way too much, professors don’t get paid enough, and many community college students that aspire to go on to get a Bachelor's degree aren't able to. But one startup thinks they have the solution. Today Becca is talking with Tade Oyerinde, the CEO and founder of Campus, a fully accredited online community college. They discuss how Tade found a school that was willing to come on board and align with his mission, the challenges of getting investors on board, and what he thinks it will take to make the higher education system more equitable.

What is the right way to regulate AI? There appears to be as many different answers to that as there are regulators. In this week's episode of Found, we're bringing you a live interview from TechCrunch's recent Strictly VC event. Becca Szkutak talked with Helen Toner, the director of strategy and foundational research grants from the Center of Security and Emerging Technology and a former board member of OpenAI. Although she's not a founder herself, this conversation centers around topics crucial to every founder building today as AI continues to impact nearly every industry.

There are some companies that just have it, even if we can’t quite figure out what it is—and Masterclass is one of those companies, despite facing an onslaught of skepticism from the jump. Today on Found, we’re talking to David Rogier, the CEO and founder of MasterClass, a streaming platform where you can learn from the world’s experts on a variety of topics, from baking to screen writing to developing empathy. Before David launched MasterClass, he worked as a VC. Through his connections there received a $500,000 seed round before he even had an idea for a company. That was nearly a decade ago, and today Dom, Becca and David talk about how he’s built the company since.

It probably doesn’t come as too big of a surprise that cowboy boots aren’t typically sold online. So where is the modern cowboy supposed to shop? This week we’re talking to a founder who carved out a DTC market for western wear.  Paul Hedrick, the founder of Tecovas joins Dom and Becca to discuss the marketing strategy they came up with to change the perception of shopping for cowboy boots online and how the company has expanded to brick and mortar stores.

This week on Found, we have an interview from TechCrunch's Strictly VC event in DC. Becca sat down with Steve Case, the founder of AOL to discuss policy, innovation, and AI. Case, now the founder of Revolution Ventures, told the live audience that open access not only helped his company back in the 90s but is also why the internet was able to progress in the way that it did. Regulators should aim for the same goal with AI policy despite the potential risks. He argues that opening up access to horizontal AI players like OpenAI and Google would also help expand AI away from being concentrated on the coasts.

Many pots and pans on the market are coated in teflon, a poisonous chemical that can be harmful when it gets too hot. Luckily, there is an answer on the market — Caraway, a home goods brand that touts itself as being non-toxic but still high quality. Jordan Nathan founded the company after his own experience with Teflon poisoning that left him searching for a better — and healthier option. On this week’s episode of Found, Dom and Becca are joined by Nathan to discuss how he built a brand around aesthetically pleasing non-toxic home goods as we continue to dive into DTC companies.

There is estimated to be 40 million acres of lawn or turf grass in the U.S., making the grass in people's backyards one of the largest crops in the U.S. and yet lawn care products are full of harmful chemicals. So Coulter Lewis decided to start a sustainable lawn care company that will help people learn how to care for their grass in a way that’s good for the planet. Sunday is a DTC that allows consumers to sign up and send in a sample of the dirt from their lawn that is used to pick out what products someone needs and tell them how much and when they need them.

When someone starts two incredibly successful enterprise companies, they must really understand the issues enterprises face and how to solve them. This week on Found, Becca and Dom talk with Arvind Jain, the CEO and co-founder of Glean, an AI-powered work assistant that connects and understands enterprise knowledge. The idea for Glean was born out of Jain’s experience at his previous startup Rubrik.In this conversation they cover:

Food is medicine. This week’s guest on Found is Ashely Tyrner, the CEO and founder of  FarmboxRx which helps their customers manage their chronic diseases through bespoke grocery boxes  In this episode, Becca, Dom, and Ashley get into the logistics  of delivering fresh produce to their member and how they have become profitable while accepting SNAP/EBT and partnering with health plans.

This week we're bringing you a conversation from our friends over at Equity. Alex Wilhelm caught up with EarlyDay’s two former CEOs, Emma Harris and Melissa Tran, and their new boss, Chris Bennett at Wonderschool, to chat through the deal, what’s ahead for their sector, and more.

Clinical trials are ongoing for the first long-lasting, reversible male birth control which is the first innovation in male birth control since the vasectomy hit the scene in 1897. This week’s Found guest is Kevin Eisenfrats, the co-founder and CEO of Contraline, a biotech company developing innovative methods to use hydrogel as a contraceptive. Contraline’s first product, ADAM, is what some are calling the first male IUD. The company will begin clinical trials in the U.S. very soon.

Most OBGYNs are not specifically trained in menopause, which means that women are left to suffer through their symptoms on their own. This week’s guest on Found is looking to change that. Joanna Strober is the CEO and founder of Midi, a virtual healthcare platform built specifically for women in midlife staffed with healthcare providers specifically trained to care for people going through perimenopause and menopause.

Most skyscrapers have sky-high carbon footprints due mostly to inefficient methods of heating and cooling. Today’s guest, Joselyn Lai is the co-founder and CEO of Bedrock Energy, a company that works with buildings to install geothermal systems. They have developed a system to drill the exact amount of boreholes at the precise depth needed to create the most efficient system per building. Today Dom is joined by a special guest host, TechCrunch Climate reporter Tim De Chant.

In order to get drivers to convert from gas-powered cars to electric, there needs to be reliable charging infrastructure. Today on Found, Dom and Becca are joined by Louis Tremblay, the CEO and founder of FLO, a company that manufactures electric vehicle charging stations and has been creating charging infrastructure in the US and Canada for the last 15 years. Tremblay also talked about how he intentionally built this company to be a rewarding and fun place to work and what advice he has for new founders trying to do the same.

If you’re not in construction or in the middle of a renovation, you might not think much about wood waste but in 2018 alone landfills in the US received 12.2 million tons of wood. Most of this is useful material that could be reused, but the lack of infrastructure means the wasted wood can't always reach the developers, woodworkers, and creators who need it. This week on Found, we're talking to a founder who has a SaaS solution for this broken supply chain. Ben Christensen is the founder and CEO of Cambium, a company that is reimagining the wood supply chain and reallocating previously wasted wood to be used in new building projects.

Between the rising cost of groceries and the all too common food desert, access to healthy and affordable food in America is getting harder to find. Today’s guest, Nick Green is the co-founder and CEO of Thrive Market, a membership-based online grocery store that focuses on natural and organic food and household products. Thrive Market isn’t just focused on offering healthy options, they want to ensure everyone has access to them so they’ve become the first online grocer to accept SNAP and EBT benefits. In this episode, Green discusses how it’s possible to build a business that is a shareholder-driven business and a business that cares about the stakeholders.

Every wildfire season seems to be getting more intense than the last but today’s guest is here to tell us that wildfires actually have a good side. Today on Found, we’re joined by Allison Wolff, the co-founder and CEO of Vibrant Planet, a cloud-based planning and monitoring tool for adaptive land management. Wolff discusses why the wildfires we’re seeing today are hotter and spreading more quickly than we can contain and how proper land management can help create the environment needed for the lower, slower burning fires forrest need.

Of all the work tasks you could automate with AI, submitting expenses would probably be high on the list. Today on Found, we’re talking to Eric Glyman, the CEO and cofounder of Ramp, a spend management platform that is building AI tools to make financial workflows easier for employees and employers. In this episode they talk about what Glyman and his co-founder learned from their first startup and how they see AI changing fintech forever.

Recycling is one facet to solving the climate crisis, but most of us are doing it wrong. Today on Found, Becca and Dom are talking with Rebeca Hu, the CEO and cofounder of Glacier, an AI robotics company that is building robots to accurately sort recycling. They talk about how many of us are wish-cylers who hopefully throw non-recyclables into the bin and how Glacier’s robots are sorting the recycling and making sure all of our recycling mistakes are corrected.

Applying for government benefits is a slow, tedious process that often leaves applicants in limbo for several months. Advocate looks to help. Today on Found Becca and Dom are talking with Advocate’s founder Emilie Poteat, the company that helps Americans engage with federal benefits programs through its technology-enabled services platform. In this episode they discuss how the Advocate team is using AI to automate advocacy and get the wait time for people seeking aid to nearly nothing.