First Text with Cory Levy
36 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 4 years ago - ★★★★★ - 75 ratingsUncovering the hidden, behind the scenes thoughts and actions of successful people. Formerly known as OFF RCRD.
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Episodes
ANN MIURA-KO - VC at Floodgate (Lyft, Refinery29, and more)
May 20, 2020 06:00 - 27 minutes - 25 MBLearn more about Ann here: https://floodgate.com/ann-miura-ko/ https://twitter.com/annimaniac
35 - TILMAN FERTITTA - Owner of the Houston Rockets and CEO of Landry's
September 23, 2019 20:22 - 13 minutes - 19.1 MBThis week, Cory speaks to self-made billionaire, owner of the Houston Rockets and chairman of a hospitality and entertainment empire encompassing over 600 restaurants, various casinos and even amusement parks. Some of his famous restaurants you may of heard of include Morton’s Steak House, Chart House, Dos Caminos, the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and more. Fertitta shares the secrets to his success in his new business book, Shut Up and Listen! In this week's episode, he talks about his upbrin...
34 | MARC RANDOLPH - Co-Founder of Netflix
September 18, 2019 05:40 - 45 minutes - 62.1 MBMarc Randolph is a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, advisor, and investor. As co-founder and founding CEO of Netflix, he laid much of the groundwork for a service that’s grown to 150 million subscribers, and fundamentally altered how the world experiences media. He also served on the Netflix board of directors until retiring from the company in 2003. Marc’s career as an entrepreneur spans four decades. He’s founded or co-founded six other successful startups, mentored hundreds of early ...
33 | ADAM GRANT (Wharton professor & New York Times bestselling author) - Science of becoming well-known, Challenging the status quo, & more.
September 17, 2019 22:16 - 42 minutes - 38.6 MBThis week, Cory speaks to renowned psychologist and bestselling author Adam Grant. Adam is Wharton's top-rated professor and one of the world's 10 most influential management thinkers and a member of Fortune's 40 under 40. He's also the author of three New York Times bestsellers such as Give and Take, Option B and Originals, which combined have sold over a million copies. In this week's episode, Adam talks about how to strive for an extraordinary career, the science of becoming well-known,...
32 | MARISSA MAYER: Internapalooza keynote (former CEO of Yahoo and #20 employee at Google)
September 17, 2019 22:15 - 8 minutes - 7.34 MBIn this episode we hear from technology executive and entrepreneur Marissa Mayer, who is known for formerly serving as the President and CEO of Fortune 500 giant Yahoo and being the 20th employee of Google. She is currently the co-founder of Lumi Labs, an early stage technology incubator. Marissa recently gave a keynote address at Internpalooza 2018, an event which is the largest gathering of Silicon Valley interns, young engineers and STEM students, which was founded by Cory Levy. It was ...
31 | DANIEL GROSS: Investing in Coinbase, Cruise, & Github, Daniel's new project, and Y Combinator
September 17, 2019 22:14 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur and angel investor Daniel Gross. Daniel is the founder of Pioneer (an experimental fund that breaks down barriers to find the next great humans through tournaments and mentorship) and runs YC AI. Prior to this, he co-founded Cue, a personal search engine that was acquired by Apple. He is also a successful angel investor being involved with Coinbase, Cruise Automation, Github, Opendoor and more. In this week's episode, he talks about being admitted int...
30 | ELAD GIL - Serial Entrepreneur and Investor in Airbnb, Coinbase, Stripe, Pinterest, Square, and more.
September 17, 2019 22:12 - 35 minutes - 32.4 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur, technology executive and angel investor Elad Gil. Elad has assisted in the growth of tech companies like Airbnb, Twitter, Google, Instacart, Coinbase, Stripe, and Square as they've developed from small companies into global brands. Across all of these break-out companies, a set of common patterns has evolved that Elad has packaged into a repeatable playbook called "High Growth Handbook.” In this week's episode, Elad talks about why he invested in Air...
29 | ALEX BANAYAN - Author of the #1 international bestseller THE THIRD DOOR
September 17, 2019 22:08 - 30 minutes - 28 MBThis week, Cory speaks to author and keynote speaker Alex Banayan. Banayan is the author of the highly anticipated book release of “The Third Door,” which covers a decade-long journey tracking down Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Steven Spielberg and dozens of the world’s most successful people to uncover how they broke through and launched their careers. The Third Door is available in bookstores everywhere, including Amazon, iBooks, Audible and thirddoorbook.com. In this week’s episode, Banayan tal...
28 | JD Ross - Co-Founder of $3b+ OpenDoor
September 17, 2019 22:07 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBThis week, Cory Levy speaks to entrepreneur JD Ross, co-founder of OpenDoor, a company that makes it possible to sell a home in minutes. Opendoor has raised a total of $320 million in venture funding and has surpassed a multi-billion dollar annual revenue run rate. Before Opendoor, Jd started 2 successful businesses during college and went on to lead growth as the VP of Product at Addepar. In this week’s episode, JD and Cory talk about JD’s college experience, avoiding bankruptcy, landing i...
27 | SCOTT BELSKY - Founder of Behance and Chief Product Officer at Adobe
September 17, 2019 22:04 - 26 minutes - 24 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur, author and early-stage investor Scott Belsky, who is well known for co-creating the online portfolio platform Behance, which later sold to Adobe in 2012 and wrote top-selling books ‘Making Ideas Happen’ and ‘Maximize The Middle’. Scott is currently the co-founder of referral network startup Prefer, he is the Chief Product Officer and Executive Vice President at Adobe and a Venture Partner at Benchmark. He is also a seed investor with over 100 investmen...
26 | DEAR OLD PEOPLE by Cory Levy (recorded in 2018)
September 17, 2019 22:02 - 19 minutes - 41.8 MBDear Old People, Meet Today’s Teenager “THEY (TEENS) WILL CREATE MASSIVE CHANGES IN THE WORLD OVER THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS, AND FOR US TO BE ABLE TO TEACH AND INFLUENCE THEM AS THEY BEGIN TO MAKE THOSE CHANGES, WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THEM.” Today’s teenagers are part of what many call Generation Z, a group that is now the largest segment of people in the U.S. with over 26% of the population. With their recent success advocating for stricter gun laws and spreading awareness of issues that are i...
25 | KATHRYN MINSHEW - CEO of The Muse
September 17, 2019 22:00 - 25 minutes - 23 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur and author Kathryn Minshew, the founder and CEO of The Muse. The Muse is the fastest growing career discovery platform for 50+ million professionals a year and helps over 700 companies looking to hire talent and grow. Kathryn is also the co-author of “The New Rules of Work: The Modern Playbook for Navigating Your Career,” available on Amazon and other retailers. In the episode, Kathryn tells us about going from working in international relations to McK...
24 | 3 Teens on Mental Health
September 17, 2019 21:57 - 37 minutes - 34.4 MBThis week, Cory Levy speaks to three guests from different backgrounds in life who have each experienced depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. They are also willing to talk about it and to share how they’ve overcome their lowest points through entrepreneurship and technology. We hope this episode will help anyone listening who is going through a similar experience. If you are, you’re not alone. There is hope and people here to help. If you would like to speak with someone...
23 | ADAM BRAUN - COO of WeGrow by WeWork. 2X Founder (Pencils of Promise, MissionU)
September 17, 2019 21:54 - 21 minutes - 19.6 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur, bestselling author, and philanthropist Adam Braun, who is best known for being the Founder of Pencils of Promise, a non-profit organization that builds schools and increases access to education for children in the developing world. He also wrote a New York Times best selling book The Promise of a Pencil and more recently the co-founder of one-year debt-free college alternative called MissionU. In this weeks episode, Adam talks about his personal upbrin...
22 | CATHERINE HOKE - Prison Entrepreneurship Program
September 17, 2019 21:53 - 41 minutes - 38.2 MBThis week, Cory speaks to Catherine Hoke, the founder of the Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) and Founder and CEO of Defy Ventures. Defy is a national organization that transforms the lives of business leaders and people with criminal histories through their collaboration along the entrepreneurial journey. Before quitting her corporate job to start PEP, Catherine was an associate at private equity firm Summit Partners and went on to become the Director of Investment Development at Ameri...
21 | RYAN HOLIDAY - Best Selling Author and former Director of Marketing at American Apparel
September 17, 2019 21:51 - 28 minutes - 25.7 MBThis week, Cory speaks to author, marketer and entrepreneur Ryan Holiday, who is well known for being a controversial media strategist, particularly when he was the Director of Marketing at American Apparel and founder of creative consulting firm Brass Check Marketing. Ryan, in addition, is a bestselling author of six books, including “The Obstacle Is the Way”, “Ego Is the Enemy” and “The Daily Stoic” and has written for several of the worlds largest publications while being a media columnis...
20 | BILLY GALLAGHER - How To Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story
September 17, 2019 21:48 - 19 minutes - 17.7 MBThis week, Cory speaks to journalist, author and startup analyst Billy Gallagher, who is well known for covering early-stage startups at TechCrunch and being an analyst at Khosla Ventures. Billy attended Stanford and was in the same fraternity as Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel, which he has now written a new book out today on Amazon titled ‘How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars’ covering the events that lead to its skyrocketing multi-billion dollar success. In this week’s episode, Billy talks...
19 | GARY VAYNERCHUK - CEO of VaynerMedia
September 17, 2019 21:47 - 13 minutes - 12.7 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur, investor, author, speaker, influencer and future owner of the New York Jets Gary Vaynerchuk, who is well known for being the CEO and founder of digital agency giant VaynerMedia, athlete representation agency VaynerSports, venture capital firm VaynerRSE, host of the popular DailyVee show and a 4x New York best seller. Prior, he grew his family’s wine business from $3 million to $60 million in revenue and was an early investor in multi-billion dollar beh...
18 | PHIL STUTZ - Hollywood Psychiatrist and Best Selling Author
September 17, 2019 21:45 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBThis week, Cory speaks to the Hollywood psychiatrist and author Phil Stutz, who is well known for his client list boasting top writers, actors, producers, and CEOs. Together with Barry Michels, Phil is coauthor of Coming Alive: 4 Tools to Defeat Your Inner Enemy, Ignite Creative Expression, and Unleash Your Soul’s Potential and The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower—and Inspire You to Live Life in forwarding Motion, a New York Times bestseller. In this weeks e...
17 | JAMES HONG - Founder of HotOrNot
September 17, 2019 21:43 - 23 minutes - 21.1 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur and investor James Hong, who is best known for having founded fun viral project turned multi-million dollar dating property HotOrNot. He’s also an active angel investor and has invested in more than 80 startups. In this weeks episode, James talks experiencing virality back when it was rare, the importance of understanding peoples motives when designing products, the drastic differences in scaling today vs 2000’s, what it was like turning down multi-mill...
16 | NIKO BONATSOS - VC at General Catalyst & Investor in Snapchat
September 17, 2019 21:41 - 33 minutes - 30.5 MBThis week, Cory speaks to venture capitalist Niko Bonatsos, who is well known for being a managing director at General Catalyst, a multi-billion dollar venture capital firm where he was instrumental in the investment in Snapchat. In this weeks episode, Niko tells us about how he went from being an entrepreneur to a VC, the behind the scenes details on meeting Snapchat and what happened in the initials meetings that’d lead to being one of the most lucrative investments in the firm. He also gi...
15 | JUSTIN KAN - Co-Founder of Twitch
September 17, 2019 21:39 - 27 minutes - 25.3 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur and investor Justin Kan, who is well known for being the founder of Justin.TV turned Twitch.TV, a live streaming powerhouse that was bought by Amazon for close to a billion dollars. He is also a partner for Y-Combinator and recently has started video Q&A platform Whale and is the CEO of legal startup Atrium. In this weeks episode, Justin tells us how he got into technology, the story of selling his first startup on eBay, the inception of his billion-dol...
14 | JOSH ELMAN - VP of Product at Robinhood and Investor
September 17, 2019 21:38 - 23 minutes - 21.1 MBThis week, Cory speaks to product veteran and venture capitalist Josh Elman, who is best known for his integral roles in designing, building and scaling consumer products at Robinbood, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, & Zazzle. Josh is also a Venture Partner at Greylock. In this weeks episode, Josh talks about the early days of the dot com era, his roles at LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, what it was like working with what are now the icons of the industry and what are the questions and qualities h...
13 | ALBERT WENGER - VC at Union Square Ventures, Investor in Twitter, Tumblr, & Etsy
September 17, 2019 21:35 - 30 minutes - 27.5 MBThis week, Cory speaks to venture capitalist, angel investor, and entrepreneur Albert Wegner, who is best known for being a partner at venture capital firm Union Square Ventures. Before joining the firm, Albert founded several companies and was the president of del.icio.us through the company’s sale to Yahoo. He was also an angel investor in successful startups such as Etsy and Tumblr. In this weeks episode, Albert gives us his take on blockchain and bitcoin, tells us what skill every young ...
12 | ALOE BLACC - Grammy-Nominated Musician
September 17, 2019 21:33 - 21 minutes - 19.8 MBThis week, Cory speaks to musician, businessman and philanthropist Aloe Blacc, who is best known for his hit singles, “I Need A Dollar”, “The Man” and writing and performing vocals on Avicii’s “Wake Me Up”. In this weeks episode, Aloe takes us back to his teenage years, telling us the defining moment when he went from corporate America to landing a record deal and then he offers advice for how young people should feasibly follow their passions. Later in the episode, he very interestingly tou...
11 | JORDAN FELDSTEIN - Maroon 5 Manager
September 17, 2019 21:29 - 23 minutes - 21.3 MBRIP Jordan Feldstein. Thoughts & prayers go out to his family. He was an inspiring leader in the music industry who will be very missed It’s with a heavy heart but much gratitude that I was able to interview Jordan a few weeks before he passed. ---- This week, Cory speaks to prolific music manager Jordan Feldstein, who is best known for being the founder and CEO of Beverly Hills-based Career Artist Management overseeing 16 clients — among them: Maroon 5, who has sold 12.4 million albums ...
10 | NAVAL RAVIKANT - Founder of AngelList and Angel Investor in Uber & Twitter
September 17, 2019 21:25 - 39 minutes - 36.2 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant, who is best known for having founded Angel List, a platform where you can find a great startup job, invest in a startup, or raise money. He’s also an active angel investor and has invested in more than 100 companies, which includes Twitter, Uber, Yammer, Postmates and more. In this weeks episode, Naval talks about the perfect way to find what you’re good at, how to get started in learning about cryptocurrencies, what’s most ...
9 | MIKE POSNER - Grammy-Nominated singer & songwriter
September 17, 2019 21:22 - 37 minutes - 34 MBThis week, Cory speaks to singer-songwriter and record producer Mike Posner, who is best known for having multiple Billboard Top 100 hits while also writing chart-topping songs for other artists such as Justin Bieber, Maroon 5, Pharrell Williams and more. In this weeks episode, Mike tells us details on how he got started and what he did early on to become a success, what new artists should focus on when creating a project, how music distribution has changed and how up and coming artists shou...
8 | MATT MULLENWEG - Founder of Wordpress.com
September 17, 2019 21:17 - 38 minutes - 35.7 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur, founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg, who is best known for have founded Automattic, which is behind brands WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Jetpack, Simplenote and more; reaching more than a billion people a month. In this weeks episode, Matt talks about how he got into technology, what his high school and college days were like, being young and in a position within a big company to leaving and risking it all to become a founder, what’s his trick to meet great p...
7 | PAUL ROSENBERG - CEO of Def Jam, Co-Founder of Shady Records, and Eminem's manager
September 17, 2019 21:14 - 22 minutes - 21 MBThis week, Cory talks to music management veteran Paul Rosenberg, who famously became Eminem’s manager and recently the CEO of record label giant Def Jam. Paul describes his humble beginnings as a pre-med student and how he experienced a 180 turn into a profession that’d change his life forever. He talks about the risks of starting his own management company, insights into what he did differently to stand out from the crowd and a behind the scenes of what led his company to skyrocket to succ...
6 | SEAN RAD - Co-Founder of Tinder
September 17, 2019 06:09 - 31 minutes - 28.6 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur, founder and CEO Sean Rad, who is best known for creating the revolutionary dating app Tinder, which has made more than 20 billion connections, garnered more than 50 million active users across 195 countries and was recently valued as a public company worth a staggering $6 billion dollars. In this weeks episode, Sean talks about how he got into technology, advice to non-technical people getting started at building technology companies, he takes us back ...
5 | ARIA FINGER - CEO of DoSomething.org (5 million+ members)
September 17, 2019 06:06 - 30 minutes - 28 MBThis week, Cory speaks to business woman and social leader Aria Finger, who is best known for her role as the CEO of DoSomething.org, which is one of the world largest organizations for young people and social change, boasting over 5 million members in over 131 countries. In this weeks episode, Aria talks about her 12-year journey from joining as an associate to becoming the CEO, she also shares her method of overcoming hard decisions, the importance of transparency and her thoughts on the f...
4 | Jake Paul - Social Media Superstar
September 17, 2019 05:58 - 31 minutes - 28.4 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur, actor, investor and social media creative and mogul Jake Paul, who’s well-known for founding modern-day media conglomerate TeamDom, the talent incubator Team 10, starring in Disney’s Bizaardvark, partner and co-founder of venture capital firm TGZ capital and is currently one of the biggest YouTube stars, boasting over 11.2 million subscribers and over 2.6 billion views, at only 20 years of age. In this weeks episode, Jake talks about how he first start...
3 | KEVIN HARTZ - Co-Founder of TWO $1B+ startups - Eventbrite and Xoom
September 17, 2019 05:38 - 29 minutes - 26.6 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur and investor Kevin Hartz, who’s well-known for co-founding the leading global self-ticketing platform Eventbrite. In this weeks episode, Kevin talks about how he got started as a 26-year-old founder, gives advice on how to connect with brilliant people, the moment he knew he was onto something big, the best way to attract and retain talent and much more. -- Eventbrite Co-Founder and investor Kevin Hartz has always placed a significant amount of import...
2 | KEITH RABOIS - Former Square COO, Co-Founder of $1B+ startup OpenDoor, and VC at Founders Fund
September 17, 2019 05:35 - 31 minutes - 29 MBThis week, Cory speaks to entrepreneurial executive and investor Keith Rabois, who is best known for his early-stage startup investments in YouTube, Airbnb, Palantir and also his operative roles in building PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide and Square. He is also currently a partner at Khosla Ventures and the co-founder and executive chairman at Open Door. In this weeks episode, Keith talks about how he transitioned from law to tech, what convinced him to leave the safe path into the uncertain times o...
1 | ASHTON KUTCHER - Teenage Years, Future of Jobs, and Silicon Valley
September 17, 2019 05:31 - 30 minutes - 27.7 MBThis week, Cory speaks to venture capitalist, actor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Ashton Kutcher, who has famously transitioned from a successful A-list actor to starting venture capital firms A-grade Investments and Sound Ventures with a portfolio including Spotify, Uber, Airbnb and many more. Alongside he has founded non profit foundation Thorn, which drives technology innovation to fight the sexual exploitation of children. In this weeks episode, Ashton talks about how he transitioned ...