SBUX $1.77B in unredeemed gift cards, my 2016 Startup Interview, Mark Cuban's Daily Show visit, LinkedIn Profile Roaster & 1992 Visionary Bill Gates

Welcome to the weekly newsletter What I Learned This Weekend, which brings posts worth saving, people to follow, articles I've read, what I found on social media, and "Innovative Profiles Headlines". Each week I share what I learned from the past week(end) so you don't have to. You can take a look at previous editions here.

First, catch up on the latest edition of the monthly Stop Selling; Start Helping newsletter with "Thoughts, Lessons, and Rumblings from 30 years of Sales and Sales Leadership."

If you're wondering what a holistic approach to businesses is, check out Growth?listic which delivers a powerful combo of a fresh, customer-centric perspective from outside your company and access to a meticulously curated network of specialists. You can learn about both here.

Posts worth saving from the past week.

• Melanie Ehrenkranz - Head of Content & Community at Business Class : "I have more friends that’ve been laid off over the last decade than not." Melanie wants to go deeper than lay-off posts on LinkedIn – I want to know how your boss handled it. If there were signs. Who the first person you told was. What you did for health insurance. If you have a group chat with your former colleagues (and what it’s called). That’s why I'm starting?Laid Off, a weekly interview series with smart and cool people who were laid off. If that’s you (or someone you know), I’m collecting interviews, and I’d love to hear from you.

Within a week she received 500 submissions, forcing her to pause it to have time to go through the answers. You can subscribe to and share your experience from her post. Make sure to read some of her findings already here.

• Parul Khosla - Co-Founder & CEO of Arena (Sports, Media & Entertainment Careers) is looking for an Angel Investor??. She's building a crazy cool platform that is going to totally disrupt the recruitment space in sports, media & entertainment. (her words) Some hurdles she's facing:

?? Doesn't yet have access to a strong network of investors (80% of investors are men)

?? All-female founding teams receive only 2% of funding

She's looking to connect with angel investors who invest in any of the following spaces:

Sports, media, and/or entertainment sectors, HR tech/Future of work, AI/Machine Learning, B2B2C/SaaS/Enterprise tech, Productivity/automation.

I've been following Parul, Olivia Schwartz , and Adriene Bueno 's journey and have seen the first iteration of their platform. They require a check size of $10,000 raised on a post-money SAFE. Check out the full post and more about what their building here.

• Ian Koniak - Sales Coach | Former #1 Enterprise AE at Salesforce: Talks about ADHD and sales. Although clearly written with a professional copy tone, Ian reveals his struggles with ADHD and a growing sales career. "Whitespace in my calendar was my Achilles Heel." and "At the end of most days, I felt like I was working all day but didn't get anything done." are relatable to many people with attention deficits. Full of perfectly spaced lines, there is some meat in his post. Check it out.

• Dariia Gerasymova ????♀? - Sales girl ???? @ Superdance: She correctly states there are so many "experts" and so much noise on LinkedIn and shares her list of maestros she recommends following and why you should. I was glad I was only following two of them!

• Elliot Grossbard?? - Yes! Me! Aside from the newsletters, I share a running list of 58 unsung heroes on LinkedIn that share regular updates of open roles they find in their network. We call them #HiringHeroes and are currently up to 80!! You can find the list as the top featured post on my profile.

Here I share who I recently followed this past week or random top profiles I follow.

• Amanda Goetz | Brand Builder & Creator ?? with a CV that includes 2x Founder (acquired) 3x CMO | Single Mom x3: I've been following and interacting with Amanda on X (still hard not to say Twitter...) since she moved to Miami during the Miami Tech explosion. She's got a great personality and her content shows it. Helpful tips for the startup community, marketing, and branding leadership verticals. Love what you do and who you are Amanda.

• Carrie A. Mitchell | Founder + Executive Leader: One of the 80 Hiring Heroes on my list, Carrie shares a weekly roundup of communications, marketing, and media jobs.

• David Goldberg | General Partner at Alpaca VC : Goldberg last week celebrated 10 years, 100 Investments, 3 IPOs, 4 funds, $200M+ raised, and 15,000 deals seen since launching his VC firm. "As I have learned from so many in the industry (whether they know it or not), this is my attempt to pay it forward, and share." His Top 10 Lessons Learned from 10 Years in Venture Funding is a must-read.

• Yifat Oron | Senior Managing Director at Blackstone Head of Tel Aviv Office: With more than 20 years of experience as a tech investor and executive in Israel, Oron has been driving innovation in Israel’s tech sector for many years. Oron was chosen to head Blackstone's office when they decided to have a physical presence with over $1 trillion in assets under management.

• Katerina Stroponiati - Founder of Brilliant Minds , the first fund for founders over 50: “Silicon Valley investors keep ignoring everyone older than even 40,” Katerina Stroponiati, who founded her firm, Brilliant Minds, in April, told Fortune. “They glorify youth, and it’s a misallocation of capital.” New York–based Brilliant Minds exclusively invests in founders 50 and older. “Besides age, there’s a lot of research that founders over 50 are three times as likely to succeed—have things like an IPO or an exit event,” she said. “But the Silicon Valley people are focusing capital on 20-year-olds.”

Each week I share articles I've read that I found interesting or helpful.

( The Pocket app has been a crucial tool for me over the years. I use it to save articles to read later and it's also helpful in printing them out in a better format.)

Peter Thiel tells Joe Rogan his next move is either to Nashville or Miami to avoid California taxes

By Christiaan Hetzner at Fortune : “I can’t decide whether to leave the state or the country,” Thiel told Joe Rogan on the latest episode of the latter’s hit podcast that dropped on Friday. Thiel drafted a list of other U.S. destinations based on how much tax he will have to pay before?whittling them down on the basis of their comparative attractiveness, with Miami emerging as the likely winner.

“I looked at all the zero [income] tax states in the U.S.,” said the Los Angeles resident, who now serves as chairman of data analytics firm Palantir Technologies as well as managing partner of the?Founders Fund. Peter Thiel sounded as if he was going to land on Miami, where he owns a second home and already spent the previous four winters. The Florida hotspot has recently become one of the fastest-growing cities in the country attracting the likes of Citadel hedge fund founder Ken Griffin and, more recently, Amazon founder?Jeff Bezos.

You must check out this LinkedIn Profile Roaster

The site brutally and hilariously dissects LinkedIn profiles. Ready for some tough love?

YouTube takes on TikTok Shop with expanded Shopify partnership

By Aisha Malik TechCrunch : As TikTok Shop gains traction, YouTube is expanding its partnership with Shopify to onboard more brands for its YouTube Shopping affiliate program, the company announced on Tuesday. The expanded partnership means creators will get access to thousands of new brands to tag in their shopping videos, marking a significant increase from the few hundred brands they currently have access to.

As part of the expansion, all eligible Shopify Plus and Advanced merchants in the U.S. can now sign up for the Shopping affiliate program.

Twitter history timeline

Office Timeline makes impressive PowerPoint timelines with just a few clicks. Their blog is a great read as it features different company timelines. They explored the fascinating evolution of Twitter , from Jack Dorsey 's 2006 microblogging idea to its transformation into “X” under Elon Musk. Their Twitter blog post covers all the major milestones, innovations, and controversies that shaped this social media giant.

The Attention Economy Is a Malthusian Trap

By Derek Thompson of the The Atlantic : "On September 28, 2018, tech died." In news reports, death has several definitions. When it applies to a person, it means the end of life. When it applies to a company or industry, it means the end of growth. Print is dead, live TV is dead, and Millennials killed American cheese; but you can still read a print newspaper with the TV on while eating a cheeseburger.

Under the latter definition, tech stocks really do look like goners. Publicly traded companies that are classified as “tech” now trade at one of the smallest premiums in history, according to a recent JP Morgan analyst note. (This post originally appeared in The Atlantic and was published on January 16, 2019.)

Each week I share what I've found on social media via Instagram, YouTube , TikTok , Facebook , Twitter/X , and other channels. Some I've found myself and others were shared with me.

Foundr Instagram - This clip from 1992 with Bill Gates is an inside look at him the visionary as he explains his view on books vs. computers.

If you didn't catch The Daily Show 's interview with Mark Cuban, it was an entertaining and thought-provoking conversation that included Cuban's thoughts on AI and the potential of it all.

Back in 2016, I owned my own Office Supply company, SupplyMart while also consulting in sales leadership for businesses. I did okay. I started a side hustle that turned into the experience of a lifetime as the founder of a startup called ZeeKah - Instant Rapport . (ZeeKAH means rapport in modern Hebrew) I attended Sage Summit in Chicago and was chosen to be interviewed and pitch to the Startup Van. The timing of the Zika virus wasn't great for the company.

It was nice finding this in my Twitter bookmarks. (Also check out the Facebook page. Man that was wild times.) Towards the end of the video, you can see the CEO of Sage pass by.

This figure is just beyond wild - From Boardroom (Credit to Yoni Mernick who I follow)

I've seen some pretty funny headlines of profiles on LinkedIn. Some are smart, others plain stupid, and others are a clear attempt at getting your attention, hoping you'll click to see their profile.

It's getting harder to find "stand out" headlines for better or worse, here's this week's profiles.

Lauren Holliday | Lauren Surman | Cindy Gallop | Daniel Abrahams | Sean Riley

Learned something new or enjoy this week? Let me know with a ?? like and a ?? comment!

If you have someone I should follow, posts you found interesting, articles you've read, found something you enjoyed from social media, or seen some crazy profile headlines, please share it in the comments!

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