THIS WEEK: 5 Things I Think You'll Love
Happy weekend! I hope you have had a great week. As always, if you are looking for a podcast to entertain you, a quote to embrace you, an interview to educate you, a film to inspire you or a book to embolden you, please read on...
PODCAST
Jim McKelvey is a serial entrepreneur and inventor, co-founder of Square and author of The Innovation Stack. Jim is also the co-founder of LaunchCode, a non-profit which helps people learn to code and get hired and founder and CEO of Invisibly which aims to give consumers control over how their personal data is monetised by advertisers. He also serves as an Independent Director of the?Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
In his early twenties, whilst contracting for IBM, Jim was also a?glassblowing instructor and had founded a?CD?cabinet manufacturing company but, just before Christmas in 1989, everything changed for Jim when his mother died suddenly. The incident made Jim re-evaluate his life and priorities and he realised that he no longer wanted to do lots of things to a mediocre level. He wanted and needed to focus on the work that matters most to him.
In this interview, Jim talks to me through his career and life journey from St Louis to Square to becoming a billionaire philanthropist and the work he does now to empower others. It's a truly inspiring listen and great to hear from such a successful inventor, innovator and entrepreneur.
Watch a clip here as Jim discusses hiring a 15 year-old Jack Dorsey, and listen to the full podcast episode here.
QUOTE
“The function of art is to do more than tell it like it is – it’s to imagine what is possible."
bell hooks
INTERVIEW
This is a long but truly fascinating conversation between Jamie Metzl - an author specializing in topics of genetic engineering, biotechnology, and geopolitics - and host Lex Fridman where they discuss the probable origins of Covid and why it's important to discover and learn from all that has happened since the pandemic started two years ago.
Watch the full interview here.
领英推荐
FILM
What sets most successful founders apart from everyone is the level of grit and this week's film recommendation is all about that - GRIT. 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible?is a 2020?documentary film that follows Nepalese mountaineer?Nirmal Purja?and his team as they attempt to climb all fourteen?eight thousand+ m?peaks within a record time of under seven months in a mission entitled "Project Possible."
The documentary follows Purja and his team as they smash the record with successful climbs of all fourteen peaks in six months and six days between April 2019 to October 2019. The first record of climbing all those mountains was achieved by Reinhold Messner?between 1970 and 1986, taking sixteen years. This film is about grit, perseverance, dedication, a laser focus, and what it means to be a good human. I highly recommend it.
Watch it on Netflix, trailer here.
BOOK
Out of PayPal, came three billionaires and dozens of multi-millionaires, including well-known names like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and Reid Hoffman. PayPal's alumni have built, funded and advised almost all of the billion-dollar-plus companies to emerge from Silicon Valley in the past two decades.
This book tells the gripping story of how the so-called PayPal Mafia turned a scrappy startup into one of the most successful businesses of all time, worth over $70 billion today. Full of fascinating characters and anecdotes about Silicon Valley's biggest titans,?The Founders?also shows how its founders continue to shape our future today.
Pre-order here.
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I hope you enjoyed this week's recommendations. I will be taking a short break before returning in the new year with more podcast interviews and more weekend recommendations to help you on your journey, whatever that might be.
Have a great break and see you on the other side.
Danielle
PS If anyone has two minutes over the Christmas break and feels inclined, I would love to see your feedback on the podcast. Feel free to rate and review here.
Thanks so much!