Overcoming the Unsurmountable

Hello again and hope you have had a great week. As always, I have gathered together all my favourite pieces of content this week for your enjoyment this weekend.

I hope you get something from each of them, as I have.

PODCAST

How do we stop school shootings?

Can mass shootings be eradicated in our lifetime? If it can, I believe TAZER/Axon founder Rick Smith will be the man to do it. Listen here.

Something I don’t tell many people is that when I was seven years old, two of my school friends and their family were shot dead. As you can imagine, it has had a long-lasting impact on me and all those who had the privilege of knowing them.

Fast forward all these years and one of my former guests?Jimmy Soni? was kind enough to introduce me to?Rick Smith , founder of?Taser? ?now?Axon ?- a company which uses technology to replace the use of guns.

When I started my research, I immediately discovered that Rick started the company almost three decades ago, after two of his school friends had also been shot dead.

This interview is unlike any I have done before. Rick opens up about his childhood and how his friends' death spurred him on a life-long crusade to replace guns, and how he took on a huge problem in an extremely hard field at just 23 years old. It’s the tale of an inventor, an entrepreneur and someone desperate to change the world to ensure no more innocent lives are taken.

As I say in the intro of this episode,?please be warned that not all of this conversation is suitable for young ears - we discuss mass shootings and the recent horrific shootings at a school in Uvalde. And we discuss Rick’s book -?The End of Killing: How Our Newest Technologies Can Solve Humanity’s Oldest Problem.

Listen here.

QUOTE

INTERVIEW

One of my favourite interviewers Lex Fridman sat down to talk to one of my favourite founders Rana el Kaliouby, Ph.D.

Rana is a pioneer in the field of emotion recognition and human-centric AI. She is the founder of Affectiva, deputy CEO of Smart Eye, and author of Girl Decoded: My Quest to Make Technology Emotionally Intelligent – and Change the Way We Interact Forever which is now out in paperback here.

Watch the interview here.

Still want to learn more? You can listen to my interview with Rana here.

BOOK

Ahead of World Mental Health Day on Monday, I wanted to recommend Reasons to Stay Alive by the wonderful Matt Haig.

I know so many founders who suffer in silence (read this ) but I also know that this book has helped so many who are suffering.

Blurb: Aged 24, Matt Haig's world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live again. A moving, funny and joyous exploration of how to live better, love better and feel more alive.

"I wrote this book because the oldest cliches remain the truest. Time heals. The bottom of the valley never provides the clearest view. The tunnel does have light at the end of it, even if we haven't been able to see it... Words, just sometimes, really can set you free." - Matt Haig

Buy the book here. (And if you need it but don't have the money for it right now, drop me an email with your address and I will get a copy in the post to you).

FILM

COIN: A Founder's Story

Directed by Emmy award--winning filmmaker Greg Kohs, COIN chronicles the rise of founder Brian Armstrong - an early innovator in crypto who harnessing the power of this emerging technology to promote a mission of global economic freedom.

Coinbase is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform.

Watch the trailer / see the film here.

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Thanks so much for reading this, and for listening to the podcast this week. If you have time to leave a quick review for the pod, I would be eternally grateful ?? You can write your review here.

Until next time...

Danielle