Episodes
The Mikey G podcast goes beyond the pitch. Browse founder stories by person, turning point, and the questions that surface.
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Find guests by the topics, challenges, and ideas that interest you.
Chooses from your current results. A different guest each time, when available.
Editorial starting points from the published archive, independent of the filters above.
Personal turning points that explain the work that followed.
Alfredo describes immigration, a public mental-health crisis, and the patient work of rebuilding purpose and identity.
Open episodeConversations about what machines change and where human judgment still matters.
Igor explores explainability, multiple-model consensus, and governance at the boundary between machine speed and human judgment.
Open episodeReinvention after a plan, role, or identity stops working.
After a public crisis and professional losses, Alfredo rebuilt through therapy, reflection, and the practice of character strengths.
Open episodeCreative work shaped by taste, pressure, failure, and a clearer direction.
Film school, agency work, COVID, and industry strikes changed Sway’s plans. AI filmmaking helped him find a clearer direction with Absrrd.
Open episode68 conversations
Co-founder of Augmented Imagination and award-winning brand designer
Jonny Ashcroft traces how loss, mentors, music, and design shaped his creative work. With Mikey G, he examines the difference between being a designer and a founder, his search for focus, and why Augmented Imagination keeps an artist in the AI loop.
President of Brand Federation and former CEO of The Martin Agency
After 27 years at The Martin Agency, including five as CEO, Matt Williams lost the job that had become part of his identity. He talks with MikeyG about creativity, leadership, the hard exit, and building Brand Federation around promises a business can keep.
President and Executive Director, The AI Collective
AJ Green's athletic path ended after a weightlifting injury. In this archival conversation, he tells MikeyG how he redirected that drive toward AI and community building.
Larry Klosowski on the group-home rulebook that helped him leave early, lessons from cannabis partnerships, and why he sees compliance as a way to build more useful infrastructure with Citrate.
Chris Ross planned to wait until 2030 to build the company he'd carried for years. Then life changed the timeline. Chris was raised by his mum and grandma. They called themselves "the tripod. " Money was tight, but love, curiosity and the belief that he could build anything made him feel rich long before he had money.
Sean Weisbrot went to China because it was next to Japan. He planned to stay for 1 year, stayed for 10, learned Mandarin, and built an English-language event series that grew from 100 attendees to a 700-person cap. An entrepreneur in the audience eventually showed Sean the value of the network in the room.
A story shaped by communist Czechoslovakia, art as truth, unconventional ideas, and the communities that help them survive.
Technology can do a lot. It still has to earn trust. Dr. Omoruwa German is a community pharmacist and the founder of ChroniTrack Health. We get into the family discipline that shaped her, the illness that taught her to slow down and listen, the Web3 lessons she carried into healthcare, and the scrappy path from patient BP messages to a real monitoring product.
JT grew up in tiny Tasmanian towns, bounced through gap years in Europe and Canada, and spent 25 years building Mitchell Lake, one of Australia's first internet-focused executive search firms, surviving the dot-com bust and every hype cycle since. Now living in Spain, he's building socialmedium.
Alfredo traces a life from Argentina to America, through a public breakdown, and toward a different understanding of recovery.
Doc spent 7 years as a Navy Corpsman, lived homeless in East Hastings Vancouver as a kid, and now runs Blue Box Gaming where every NFT ships with a physical comic to your door.
In this episode, we sit down with Parzival, a visionary in Web3, crypto, and AI. From exploring the intersections of ARGs (Alternate Reality Games) and AI agents to building Project 89 over two decades, Percival’s story is nothing short of inspiring. He shares insights into navigating creativity, decentralization, and the transformative potential of blockchain and AI technology.
A conversation about childhood instability, reinvention, self-worth, and the person behind a new approach to financial access.
Chris looks back on 15 years inside agency life and the choices that pushed him to build an AI-native creative company.
Mike Merker got thrown out of class every other day, quit chemical engineering in tears at 18, and couch surfed for 7 years before he ever built anything. Today he's the founder of Song Puzzle, encoding any song in any language into a color-coded puzzle. This is his human story.
Mark failed school, hacked its network, and built a 3-decade cybersecurity career. The technology story starts with the kid behind it.
Igor talks about taking systems apart, rebuilding his own life, and why boredom may protect something deeply human.
Danilo spent multiple years in Swiss banking, surviving the 2008 financial crisis at age 18 by fielding calls from furious clients. Then his wife said four words that changed everything: "We will not starve. " In this conversation, the CEO of The Miracle breaks down how he pivoted twice before landing integrations with MetaMask and Solflare wallets.
In this episode of The MikeyG Podcast Experience, entrepreneur and enterprise architect Joe Kristiansen shares his unique journey from 13 years in Canadian military search and rescue to creating CMEF, a model-agnostic measurement layer designed for large language models.
Join us for an inspiring founder story featuring Toufic, whose journey from seeking conditional love to authentic leadership shapes his mission to transform the world through DAOs, AI, and blockchain. This episode dives deep into the founder mindset-how personal experiences and societal challenges intersect with entrepreneurial drive.
In this episode, discover powerful founder stories through Austin's journey from a lower middle-class upbringing to pioneering authentic leadership in Web3. Austin challenges traditional extractive patterns, showcasing a founder mindset focused on community impact and innovative AI-driven creative studios.
In this insightful episode, Shannon Smith, former Microsoft and entrepreneur, shares her founder story and reveals how authentic leadership can transform sales success for founders and entrepreneurs. Drawing from her extensive research on the neuroscience of trust and rejection, she explains why mastering your mindset is crucial for thriving in today’s competitive landscape.
Kevin Denman is building Agent Graph, a marketplace connecting AI engineers with enterprises that know they need AI but have no clue where to start. In this conversation, he shares lessons from Deloitte to bootstrapped startups, the co-founder dynamics that make or break companies (Jobs/Wozniak vs co-CEO models), and why the fastest-growing AI role is the forward deployed engineer.
In this compelling episode of The MikeyG Podcast Experience, we dive into founder stories with Andrea De'Marsi, a visionary entrepreneur who transformed his telecom engineering background into successful podcast ventures. From growing up in Ravenna, Italy's historical capital, to co-founding Spreaker and later PodSEO, Andrea exemplifies authentic leadership and the founder mindset.
Explore an inspiring founder story as Jesse shares his incredible journey from a dyslexic kid in special education to directing the world's biggest bands and leading creative ventures.
Dive into this authentic founder story with Dru, whose journey exemplifies the founder mindset and authentic leadership in the emerging Web3 space. From growing up in split-family poverty eating mac and brown gravy to navigating the challenges of losing $5. 6 million, Dru's resilience shines through.
Rob went from aspiring dentist to broadcasting student before finding his true calling in 2005 watching Hurricane Katrina unfold - specifically heartbroken by people forced to evacuate without their pets due to FEMA policy gaps.
Anton was born in Belarus right after the Soviet Union collapsed, spending summers in Germany learning adaptability while navigating between two drastically different cultures and educational systems. His journey took him from acting on Belarusian national TV to Harvard Business School to Duolingo, where he learned that 400 simultaneous experiments matter more than grand visions.
Nick grew up watching his trumpet-playing mom get ostracized at 19 in Louisianna and experiences that taught him "you can't be happy when" after watching his grandmother die the day her dream house was finished. His journey included fashion industry exploitation, forex trading, building Web3 projects, and living full-time in an RV with his wife and toddler.
Art grew up in one of the most remote corners of Russia and went on to become a serial entrepreneur, building across tech, trading, and education. In this conversation, he shares how childhood adversity, ADHD, and family lessons shaped his resilience and outlook. Together, we explore why human connection and education are the foundation for thriving in Web3 and beyond.
In this episode, we dive into Karn’s path from a creative childhood in Mumbai to building Rage Effect, India’s first AAA cross-play shooter. Karn opens up about resilience, creativity, and how surrounding himself with the “greats” shaped his mindset.
In this episode of The MikeyG Podcast Experience, Jordan shares his journey from designing skyscrapers in Southeast Asia to pioneering a new category of applications - InfoFi - through Reply Corp. We dive into the intersection of creativity, AI, and community, exploring how distribution and personal branding are becoming the real currencies of the digital age.
What happens when a late bloomer takes on Web3 with a vengeance? MikeyG and Daniel (Founder of NOMU) unpack the inner fire that led from ECB (European Central Bank) to building in Web3. A deep dive into identity, ego, fear, finding purpose and flipping the script!
Sudu and Red, lifelong friends from Sri Lanka, turned a bond formed over video games into a mission to build Hapi3 - a blockchain project rooted in fun, community, and real impact. From daring motorcycle rides at 300 km/h to organizing grassroots events for kids without opportunities, their story weaves curiosity, competition, and resilience into a vision bigger than themselves.
What’s the connection between healing off-grid and building on-chain?Join MikeyG and Mystik as they explore her journey from holistic farming to founding Quack Life on Solana.
What does it mean to grow up in constant motion? From diplomat parents and African warzones to losing himself in college and finding peace through “The Power of Now,” JB's story isn’t about success - it’s about survival, identity, and grace. His resilience has lead to building one of the strongest gaming communities in Web3. This one’s raw, unfiltered, and filled with the kind of truth that only comes from chaos.
What’s the secret to turning nostalgia and creativity into Web3 innovation?Join MikeyG and Ford, creator of Frankie the Frog, as they explore how a love for animation and gaming fueled a journey from a small village to leading a vibrant Web3 brand.
Yot, founder of Fugz, opens up about the creative chaos behind building original IP in Web3 - from growing up in remote villages to finding clarity in the ocean. This episode explores why stripping away everything inauthentic is key to making timeless work. A raw conversation about co-creation, long-term vision, and what it really takes to stand out in this space.
Jonah, co-founder of DYLI, shares how childhood curiosity and social intelligence paved his path to Web3. From early passions to navigating Deloitte and working with the biggest brands in the space like Goblintown, he shows that risk doesn’t have to be reckless. Tune in for a grounded, thoughtful conversation on purpose-driven innovation in crypto.
What does it take to build a global movement at the edge of AI and Web3?In this episode, MikeyG sits down with Sander, founder of Perxify and BananaConf, to explore commerce innovation, distributed trust, and the grit behind building future-forward tech from South Africa to Silicon Valley.If you're curious about the Agentic Web, founder resilience, or redefining loyalty, this one’s for you.
Daila’s journey spans cultures, and multiple industries - but her mission has always been the same: help people feel seen. In this episode, she breaks down why clarity matters more than aesthetics and how real brand work starts with deep self-awareness. A powerful story about boundaries, identity, and building spaces where people truly belong.
From overcoming early learning challenges to launching Web3 platforms, James built his path with grit, vision, and relentless curiosity.In this episode, he breaks down what creators really need and how Tribe is redefining what community means in the crypto space.A story about second chances, deeper thinking, and solving problems worth caring about.
What do folding origami in rural China and building a breakout Web3 brand have in common?MikeyG sits down with Exceed to explore how childhood adversity, deep thinking, and raw hustle shaped the creator of Kaze.A story of resilience, adversity and building something real - no shortcuts.
What happens when personal loss meets creative rebirth?Join MikeyG and Dunks as they explore resilience, creativity, and building a Web3 brand rooted in real human connection.
Mustayaki of @FinalBosu_ shares how trauma, anime, and late-night sketching led him to find purpose through art-and how flow state fuels everything.From childhood struggles to Web3 storytelling, this one hits different.
Raised by powerful women and sharpened by struggle, B-Roc shares how empathy, identity, and resilience shaped his journey from London to Web3.MikeyG and the founder of OG Triple Media go deep on emotional intelligence, content with integrity, and the quiet strength behind real leadership.This isn’t just a conversation-it’s a blueprint for building with soul.
Join MikeyG and Dith as they explore childhood creativity, intellectual honesty, and building GigaVerse from 0 to 20,000+ players.🎮 A conversation about long-term vision, community, and building in the bear
How does grief shape purpose-and why is simplicity the secret to mass adoption in Web3?MikeyG and Max dive into a raw, honest journey from Thai fight camps to blockchain innovation, exploring identity, resilience, and the human side of tech.
What fuels the underdog mentality in Web3?MikeyG sits down with Daniel-founder of Underdog-to unpack the power of soft skills, creativity, and grit in building through chaos.
What does it take to build a Web3 company at 18? Join Mikey G and Ilan, founder of Mana, as they unpack lessons on ambition, balance, and building community in the fast-moving world of Web3 gaming. 🎧 Listen now for a raw and inspiring story of purpose, failure, and finding your lane.
What happens when an artist leaves everything behind to travel the world, only to return and reshape the creative landscape? Mr. Kat, a character designer who’s worked with Apple, Nike, and Facebook, shares his wild journey-from childhood in multiple countries to finding "home" in creativity. This episode has lessons in reinvention, resilience, and the power of play in artistry.
What does it take to turn raw creativity into a thriving Web3 brand? John, founder and CEO of OKD, shares his journey-from pirating Photoshop as a kid to tattooing and finally building one of the most passionate NFT communities in the space. Tune in as we uncover the hard lessons, mindset shifts, and sheer perseverance that fuel his success.
How does a childhood shaped by resilience lead to building in Web3? Paul, founder of Pupilz, shares his journey-from surviving a traumatic accident and navigating early struggles to building a brand inspired by his past. Tune in for a raw, inspiring conversation on perseverance, creativity, and the future of digital storytelling.
Web3 is full of hype, but few founders actually deliver. Kirsch, co-founder of Rec Tech, didn’t just survive the 2021-22 cycle-he gave away millions in rewards, built real products, and played the long game. In this episode, we dive into his journey, the hard lessons learned, and his new an improved version of Internet Game - Rektech - trying to gamify the social experience with the most important thing - fun.
What happens when a brilliant mind meets adversity-and then reinvents itself in Web3? Join MikeyG and Will as they dive into his journey from battling addiction to mastering mathematics and pioneering DeFi innovation. A raw, inspiring conversation about resilience, creativity, and the future of decentralized finance.
How do you create a builder’s paradise in Web3? Join MikeyG and Toli from Bearish as they dive into his journey from UX and product design to launching a thriving Web3 community. Discover how Bearish is empowering developers, founders, and creatives to build, innovate, and win together.
What does it take to navigate the highs and lows of entrepreneurship in Web3? Join MikeyG as he dives deep with Kilay, founder of DSTRCT, to explore his wild journey-from building businesses in sports, music, and consumer goods to his passion for decentralization and community-driven ecosystems. A raw and inspiring conversation about failure, resilience, and why human connection is at the heart of Web3.
What does it take to bring crypto to the masses? In this episode, MikeyG sits down with Michael from Abstract to explore the rise of consumer crypto, the evolution of Web3 founders, and the lessons learned from past successes and failures. Tune in to hear how Abstract is reshaping the landscape with innovation, execution, and a mission-driven approach.
How does an introverted dreamer transform into a Web3 innovator? Join MikeyG and Dan a.k.a. Sadboy as they delve into his personal story of rebellion, resilience, and creative entrepreneurship-unpacking the lessons that shaped his path to success.
How do childhood challenges, relentless creativity, and the evolving cannabis culture intersect in Web3? Join MikeyG as he dives deep with Filip, the visionary behind Cannasapiens, exploring the grit of production life, the flow state of passion, and the groundbreaking potential of Web3 communities.
What happens when the principles of blockchain meet the tangible realities of tokenized assets? Join MikeyG as he delves into a rich conversation with Jack, blockchain innovator and CEO of Aryze, exploring how stablecoins and decentralized technologies are transforming global finance.
Kev's story is one of resilience and transformation. From overcoming personal and professional setbacks to building a powerhouse Web3 anime franchise, he shares his most intimate lessons, including life-defining moments with his family and how they shaped his mission to inspire growth and connection. And don't forget, never lose hope.
Join MikeyG and Lauris for an unfiltered conversation about DeFi Summer, building in bear markets, and the relentless pursuit of innovation. From navigating million-dollar wins (and losses) to the mindset of creating lasting impact, this episode dives into the heart of what makes Web3 founders tick.
In this episode, we delve into the transformative potential of Web3 with two visionaries at the forefront of blockchain innovation: Naveen and Ricky Ricardo. From their early experiences tinkering with technology to their ambitious work on Tari, this conversation reveals how passion, perseverance, and privacy come together to create a brighter digital future.
Creator of the Eliza AI agent framework and open-source developer in the ai16z ecosystem
In this deeply engaging episode, Shaw, an AI pioneer and creator of the Eliza framework, shares his extraordinary journey. Shaw’s story begins with a unique upbringing in a single-parent household surrounded by New Age culture, where his mother’s resilience and work ethic became foundational to his character.
Candy Digital leaders focused on sports collectibles and fan experiences
Unlocking Fandom: Candy Digital’s Journey to Reinvent Collectibles In this episode of The Web3 Journey with MikeyG, we dive deep into the innovative world of Candy Digital with co-founders Matt and Shane. Together, they share their mission to redefine fan engagement and collectibles through cutting-edge digital experiences.
Next up, Episode 3! We expand on Thrilld Labs, the future and wrap up with lessons learned. Navigating Web3 Complexity: Alexandra discusses the intricacies of the Web3 ecosystem and how Thrild Labs seeks to simplify and support builders in navigating the space. She highlights the need for user-friendly tools and resources to make Web3 more accessible to newcomers and seasoned builders alike.
Join JR from DSTRCT as he delves into the depths of Web3, discussing the power of "I love you", failing and learning, creativity, being a math teacher, and the importance of community in the digital age.
