Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:15 — 27.0MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a dialogue with Mike Maples Jr. on how artificial intelligence is changing startups and venture capital.

Mike Maples Jr. is the co-founder of Floodgate, one of the highest profile early stage venture capitalists. He also has a podcast called Starting Greatness, and it is one of my absolute favorites.

By the end of it, we hope that you’ll gain a new way to think about both technical risk for startups and market risk. And why in an AI world, you must either be radically different or radically disintermediate something.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

Mike Maples Jr. on AI

We begin the discussion on the topic of challenges of making sense of the rapidly evolving field of AI.

Mike also talks about the traditional funding model of startups, where the primary focus was taking out technical risk, and how the LAMP stack, which commoditized what was once expensive, made it easier to start a startup. Mike notes that the nature of the LAMP stack changed what startups were funded for.

“What I like to say is that the LAMP stack was deflationary in terms of the cost of starting startup. And so what does that mean? It meant that what you were funding was different, because if Kevin Rose can start dig for $1,500, over a weekend, there’s no technical risks there. I mean, he hired a contractor to do it that he didn’t even know at the time.”

– Mike Maples Jr.

Who gets Product Market Fit first

The conversation then moves on to the changing dynamics of venture capital investment. The discussion continues with the notion that technical risk and market risk are inversely related. Solving a technically difficult problem that is valuable to society will create a market; if the problem is easy to solve technically, it will all come down to who achieves product-market fit first.

To add value to the business, Floodgate and YC have taken the approach of funding market risk takedown. As technology becomes more commoditized and innovations become more accessible, the person who creates something people want the quickest wins. This is why YC was so successful: it offered young people $100,000 to either take market risks or leave.

He also mentions that the traditional venture capital model may not be appropriate for all businesses and that deflationary factors such as content, code, and data may change the way businesses are built.

Mike Maples Jr. on AI and the future of Venture Capital

Mike Maples Jr. then returns to the topic of artificial intelligence and its implications for the future of venture capital.

Here, Mike emphasizes two ends of the risk spectrum: high technical risk and high market risk. On the one hand, some projects require large amounts of funding for mass computation in order to build massive models that have the potential to change humanity. On the other hand, AI is being used in a variety of fields, including content generation for marketing, customer service chatbots, and lead generation, resulting in a deflationary effect on content, code, and data.

According to Mike, some businesses may not require traditional venture capital funding and should instead focus on achieving $50 million in revenue with a small team and minimal funding. There is also speculation that the current billion-dollar funds may be providing the wrong incentives to these companies.

To hear more from Mike Maples Jr. and how AI can affect the future of startups and venture capital, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Mike Maples Jr. is an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist.

He’s co-founder of Silicon Valley based, early-stage VC Floodgate. And the host of the popular “Starting Greatness” podcast.

Investments include Twitter, Lyft, Bazaarvoice, Sparefoot, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Doubledutch, Twitch.tv, Playdom, Chegg, Demandforce, Rappi, Smule, and Outreach.

Link

Connect with Mike Maples Jr.!

Floodgate | Twitter | LinkedIn | Starting Greatness Podcast

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:23:46 — 57.5MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More

Over the last three years or so, we’ve all been through one of the craziest most challenging times in modern history. On today’s episode, we have a conversation with Liz Hoffman on how we can take stock of what just happened, and how we can master ourselves during a time of Crisis.

Liz Hoffman is a legendary author and journalist. She used to be a senior reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and now she’s a business and finance editor at the new startup called Semafor.com.

She’s got a riveting new book out that I really enjoyed, called Crash Landing: The Inside Story of how the world’s biggest companies survived an economy on the brink. We’ll discuss more about this new book and much more in today’s Follow Your Different, so stay tuned.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

Liz Hoffman on the early days of the pandemic, and how we are today

Liz and Christopher discuss the emotional impact of the pandemic’s early days, which they regard as a global trauma. She then talks about how the emotional pitch of those days helped her set the emotional tone of her book’s characters.

Christopher reflects on the dramatic changes in the world since then, as well as his sense of loss for lost time and loved ones. Liz agrees and mentions a recent article on the pandemic’s delayed reckoning with global trauma. They then talk about the bumpy re-entry into the world and the pandemic’s lingering effects, of whether we are post-pandemic or not.

Liz Hoffman on the ending that never came

Liz and Chris discussed how they, like many others, had hoped for a clear endpoint to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that it had remained elusive.

And for Liz, there was an added layer of it as a reporter, looking for a conclusion to her work, but it never came. Christopher mentioned how both parties were hoping for a Hollywood-style ending, but the emergence of the Omicron variant dashed those hopes.

Liz Hoffman believes that, as humans, people prefer clarity and closure, but the pandemic has been a long-term experience that defies easy categorization. The pacing of Liz’s pandemic book reflects this, as it begins with a frenzy before settling into a long and uncertain funk.

What legendary leaders do in times of crisis

Christopher then asks Liz for insight on how leaders can rise to the occasion rather than crumble under pressure.

Liz believes that making a large number of decisions quickly and efficiently, without over-analyzing, can be beneficial. She cites the CEO of Hilton, who pulled their credit lines from banks in early March and received $2 billion to get them through the crisis.

Liz emphasizes the importance of making decisions early and anticipating what will happen next, rather than getting bogged down in lengthy decision-making processes. She also points out that leaders should never run a multinational corporation on instinct alone, yet there is frequently unnecessary “process fat” in corporate decision-making that can be trimmed off.

To hear more from Liz Hoffman and how to master yourself in times of crisis, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Liz Hoffman is the business and finance editor at Semafor.

Previously, she was a senior reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she covered financial markets, corporate dealmaking, and the machinations of Wall Street.

A native of central Pennsylvania, Hoffman graduated from Tufts University and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Links

Connect with Liz Hoffman!

Semafor | Twitter | LinkedIn | Crash Landing

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:06:40 — 45.8MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More

How do you take a startup, or really any game-changing idea, from conception to launch and success in the new native digital world? And how do we connect and celebrate with our colleagues in this new native digital world? Our guest Doug Camplejohn, has given a lot of thought to both of those questions.

Doug Camplejohn is the founder and CEO of Airspeed. And it has been remarkable to see how Doug and his team has stayed true to a true north vision to solving a problem that matters, but at the same time be super flexible in both thinking, product development, and marketing.

With over two decades of experience in the tech industry, Doug has held leadership roles at some of the world’s most innovative companies, including LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Salesforce.

Pay special attention to Doug’s wisdom about why the questions, “are you having fun?” and “do you care if you get fired?” are such powerful questions, and how they can affect a person’s business decision-making.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

Doug Camplejohn on how to create a Startup

The conversation starts with Doug sharing his approach to creating a startup.

Doug explains that entrepreneurs are constantly looking for patterns and problems to solve, and he keeps a “suck list” of bad things and ideas that stick with him. He believes in being firm on the vision but loose on the details, and that good ideas don’t die but instead become something he can devote the next decade of his life to pursuing.

Doug further explains that he and his team at Airspeed started with a clear goal in mind: to make employees feel more connected and celebrated, even if the details of how they got there changed along the way.

The Trap of following the “Perfect Plan”

The importance of having a clear problem direction rather than being solely focused on a product vision is further addressed by Christopher and Doug. They discuss how some entrepreneurs can become obsessed with a particular product idea and then struggle to pivot when it fails.

Doug also believes in solving a problem that is personally meaningful and resonates with others, rather than chasing after the latest hot technology. He maintains that if the problem statement is genuine and resonates with people, the solution and approach to solving it can be flexible and evolve over time.

Product Direction vs Problem Direction

They then talk about the importance of having a problem direction rather than a product direction. They discuss how many entrepreneurs become too obsessed with a product vision and then realize they need to pivot one day. Because there are other factors to consider, from the top to the bottom of the organization.

Finding a problem that is personally meaningful to the entrepreneur and resonates with others, according to Doug, is critical. They also discuss the difficulty of changing product direction and how it affects morale. Doug believes that taking a balanced approach, planning ahead of time, and breaking it down into smaller chunks, can help with flexibility and adaptation while still maintaining a clear vision.

To hear more from Doug Camplejohn and how one could create a legendary startup from the ground up, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Doug Camplejohn is an accomplished tech executive, entrepreneur, and startup advisor with over two decades of experience in the industry. He is the Founder and CEO of Airspeed, a platform designed to connect and celebrate employees digitally.

Prior to founding Airspeed, Doug held several leadership roles at innovative tech companies such as LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Salesforce. At LinkedIn, he was the Vice President of Product Management for Sales Solutions, where he led the development of LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator product. Doug also worked at Salesforce as an EVP and GM of Sales Cloud.

Doug is also an active investor and advisor to several early-stage startups, including Metadata.io, a B2B demand generation platform. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and has been featured in various publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and TechCrunch.

Doug attended Carnegie Mellon University. He is passionate about leveraging technology to drive innovation and improve people’s lives, which is reflected in his work at Airspeed.

Links

Connect with Doug Camplejohn!

Airspeed | LinkedIn | Twitter

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:03:24 — 43.5MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More

In good times and bad, every drop of revenue matters. Without it, none of us even has a business. On this episode, we have a riveting conversation about the past, present, and future of revenue operations with Andy Byrne – the entrepreneur, CEO, and category designer of revenue operations.

Andy Byrne is the CEO of Clari, and is known widely in the industry as the prime minister of revenue. And right now, Clari is doing an extraordinary thing, and has become the category King in revenue operations.

Pay special attention to Andy’s insights into how boards and investors are now starting to focus on revenue governance. As you listen to Andy, you’ll also be getting a masterclass in how a CEO can be an evangelist for their company, and their category.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

Andy Byrne on being the CEO of a Red-hot Company

The discussion begins with Andy being asked about his experience as co-founder and CEO of a successful startup, particularly over the last three unusual years.

Andy expresses excitement about the impact his company has made, including the creation of a new job category called Revenue Operations, which is now the fastest growing and most lucrative job in the industry in the United States. He also mentions how proud he is that their platform has managed over $1 trillion in assets.

He believes they are only getting started and will have a significant impact on the world.

How Revenue Operations and the rise of AI

Andy describes how he and his team saw an opportunity in developing an enterprise system to manage the revenue business process from beginning to end. They saw revenue as more than just an outcome, but as a critical business process in need of a dedicated system. He is pleased with the effect their company has had on the lives of many people, particularly revenue-critical employees, and believes that this is only the beginning.

With regard to AI, Andy is excited about the potential of machine learning and artificial intelligence to make a meaningful impact, citing an example of their system accurately predicting a healthcare life sciences company’s $1.6 billion quarter within hours of being turned on.

The Problem with the Three-Headed Hydra

Andy then chimes in on importance of revenue and the challenges that companies face when using antiquated revenue management systems. He re-emphasizes that revenue is a business process, and it is the most important process in a company.

Unfortunately, many businesses continue to rely on the three-headed Hydra: CRM, Excel, and BI, resulting in revenue leaks, reporting leaks, and inaccurate forecasting. Christopher shares his experience working with businesses that face unexpected deals in the final days of the quarter, which can be problematic if the company’s forecasting is inaccurate. Andy agrees and stresses that using these subpar systems increases risk and should put a stop to investor interest in that stock.

To hear more from Andy Byrne and how to avoid revenue leaks in your business, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Andy Byrne brings over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, business development and management to his position as CEO of Clari.

Clari is the category leader in the Revenue Software Platform market, with over $1 trillion in revenue under management.

Prior to Clari, Andy was part of the founding executive team at Clearwell Systems, which he helped grow from pre-product & pre-revenue in 2005 to $100 million run rate until its acquisition by Symantec (SYMC) in Q2 2011.

Prior to joining Clearwell, Andy co-founded Timestock, Inc., which was acquired by Computer Associates (CA) via the acquisition of Wily Technology. Timestock delivered world-class enterprise application management solutions to large fortune 500 corporations.

Before Timestock, Andy was VP of Marketing at Desana Systems. Prior to Desana, Andy was VP of Product Management at Lucent Technologies. Andy came to Lucent Technologies via the acquisition of VitalSigns Software. He has also held sales, marketing & management roles at Bay Networks and at MiLAN Technologies, which was later acquired by Digi International.

Andy holds a BS in Economics from the University of Nevada and received his MBA with honors from San Jose State University.

Links

Connect with Andy Byrne!

Clari website | Clari Revenue Leak Assessment | LinkedIn | Twitter

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:31 — 41.6MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More

All of us want the best healthcare for our families, our communities, and our country. But Legacy approaches and technologies in the United States often stop our healthcare heroes from being able to deliver the legendary care they want to deliver. So let us have a dialogue about this and much more with our guest, Dr. Ashwini Zenooz.

Dr. Ashwini Zenooz is a radiologist who became the chief medical officer of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. She then joined the technology industry, and became the chief medical officer at Salesforce.com. Dr. Ash is now the CEO of Commure, a venture-backed startup on a mission to produce a breakthrough in digital health. Her achievements thus far have been incredible, and we hope that her personal story will inspire you.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

Dr. Ashwini Zenooz on the current state of COVID

The conversation starts of with a question for Dr. Ash on the current state of COVID, particularly if we are past the crisis part of it.

Dr. Ash responds that there’s still a lot of things to look into, as COVID has not only affected our healthcare, but different parts of society and fields as well.

“I would say it’s yet to be seen. I think it’s not just the healthcare part. There’s a lot of other implications from the pandemic that were seeping into with the economy. There’s a lot of stuff that’s happening around us that’s related or as a result of the pandemic. So it’s yet to be seen. But yeah, I would say that at least the crisis is over.”

– Dr. Ashwini Zenooz

On how the US fared in the COVID pandemic

As much as it hurts to say, Dr. Ash shares that there were things that the US could have done better on. She thinks its partly because we try to “reinvent the wheel” every time there’s an epidemic or pandemic. As a society, we have had a lot of ways to learn how to properly respond and mitigate the damages, yet we tend to commit the same mistakes over and over again once it happens.

What’s even more frustrating from a healthcare standpoint is our lack of concern for future occurrences. When a major healthcare issue is resolved, it appears that no one is interested in researching how to prevent the next case, or what to do if the next one would be on a larger scale than the one before.

It’s like we only care to look back once the current one is already at our doorstep.

Dr. Ashwini Zenooz on masks and vaccines

On the topic of preventive measure, Dr. Ash was asked about what she thought about wearing masks and taking the vaccine.

For mask-wearing, Dr. Ash shares that for her, it is a personal choice. Even if airlines and public spaces don’t require you to wear them anymore, she opts to wear them because she wants to. For her, having that extra precaution for a little inconvenience is not a big deal, but she wouldn’t be offended if she sees someone not wearing one in a public place.

For vaccines, her thoughts as a layperson or a simple mom is that there would be more documentation or data available to the public on the tests that were done that passed the approval of the FDA, and have  someone who can explain it to the general public. This avoids confusion and misinformation from spreading out, and less hesitation for asking assistance when someone eventually decides to finally get their vaccines.

To hear more from Dr. Ashwini Zenooz and the future of American healthcare, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Ashwini Zenooz, M.D.

Dr. Ashwini Zenooz is the CEO of Commure, a venture-backed technology company dedicated to building a health ecosystem rooted in collaborative care and connected innovation.

Prior to Commure, Dr. Zenooz was Chief Medical Officer at Salesforce.

Dr. Zenooz was also the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) overseeing the national EHR modernization program, where she was responsible for organizational change management, business process redesign, and implementation of a new digital health platform. She has also held senior policy development and operational roles including serving as Deputy for VA Health Policy and Services, Legislative Health Policy Fellow with U.S.

Senator Richard Blumenthal, Committee Staff on U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, and Chief of Imaging Services.

Dr. Zenooz graduated with summa cum laude distinction in undergraduate studies and received an MD in the Medical Honors Program at the University of Florida.

She completed radiology residency at Henry Ford Health System and an Abdominal Imaging fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Dr. Zenooz is board certified in radiology and continues to practice medicine today.

Links

Connect with Dr. Ashwini Zenooz!

Commure | LinkedIn | Twitter

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:10:26 — 48.4MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More

Almost everybody wants to design a legendary life and make a difference, but it can be harder than it sounds. On this episode, you’ll get a very different conversation about designing a life with meaningful work that works for you. And who better to have this conversation than with our guest, Ollie Henderson.

Ollie Henderson is an entrepreneur, CEO, and bestselling author of the book called “The Work/Life Flywheel”. He is a great guy, and we really get into a heartfelt conversation about how we can all design the legendary life for ourselves. By the end of this episode, we hope you’ll have some new tools for living your life, your way.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

Ollie Henderson on Work/Life Balance

The conversation starts off with the two agreeing on how much they “love” work/life balance. Ollie responds that he had kept a few choice words in the book that his editor would rather not have, but it was important to the point Ollie was making.

That being said, Ollie shares that his issue with Work/Life balance is just a term people used to oversimply a supposedly complex matter in our lives, mostly due to laziness and have something easy to adhere to, like a schedule or a task to do.

“I think the thing about work life balance is that it’s a lazy feeling that we all have. It’s something we think we should adhere to. Like, ‘yeah, we should all have better work life balance’, and it kind of makes sense. It has the best intentions, but it’s frankly, wrong. It doesn’t make sense.”

– Ollie Henderson

Work vs Life

Another thing that Ollie pointed out is that the semantics of the word is also all wrong. Work/Life Balance conjures up the image of you pitting up Work versus Life; that you cannot have both at the same time, and that one of them is better than the other.

“I think when people say they aspire for work/life balance, what they’re saying is, ‘I am going to place work in life against one another, because work is bad and life is good. And if I can’t find this equilibrium, then my life is not complete’.”

– Ollie Henderson

The issue is that statement is not true for every individual, and there is no one-and-done balancing to be done. Nobody has achieved that precise equilibrium, because it doesn’t work like a countermeasure of one over the other.

Work/Life Flywheel

Christopher adds that we have to reject the notion of work and life are compartmentalized in different sections, and we somehow need to balance them on weighing scales. There is only “Life”, and we do a lot of things in that life.

So if not Work/Life Balance, what then? Ollie shares that there are some who use the term “integration” to add a new perspective to it. For him, he prefers to use the term “Flywheel”, because it entails that everything he does in life are interdependent of each other.

“It’s this idea that there isn’t a single part of your work your life that is any more important than the other; they’re all interdependent. For me, when I’m doing great work and I’m happy at work, I’m a better person, I’m a better dad, I’m a better partner. And when I’m a better partner and a better dad, that manifests more in my work.”

– Ollie Henderson

To hear more from Ollie Henderson and the Work/Life Flywheel, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Ollie Henderson

Experienced founder and CEO, Ollie Henderson, pivoted his career while juggling the pleasures and pressures of raising a young family.

He believes work/life balance is a myth. Rather than seeing career and personal life as two opposing forces, Ollie argues that the secret is to design an integrated approach that allows them to work in harmony.

Ollie’s weekly newsletter and Top 10 Careers podcast, Future Work/Life, provides news and analysis to thousands of people interested in the future of work, covering subjects like creativity and innovation, data and technology, peak performance and workplace culture.

He’s the author of the Amazon bestseller Work/Life Flywheel: Harness the work revolution and reimagine your career without fear.

Links

Connect with Ollie Henderson!

LinkedIn | Future Work/Life Newsletter | Work/Life Flywheel

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:02:57 — 43.2MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More

Have you ever had a conversation with someone where you feel very lucky to have been able to meet and talk to that person? My conversation with our guest, Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, felt like just that.

Simran Jeet Singh, PhD is the Executive Director of the Religion and Society Program at the world-famous Aspen Institute. He’s also the author of a new national bestseller, called The Light We Give: How Sikh wisdom can transform your life.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

Dr. Simran Jeet Singh on Sikh Wisdom

The conversation starts with one of the major proponents that Dr. Simran shares to everyone, which is Sikh wisdom. He defines it as such:

“I think Sikh wisdom is these experiences and insights that people before us have developed and we have access to if we want. And one of our choices is do we want to learn all the lessons the hard way, or do we want to step into these treasures that are already available to us. It is the Sikh philosophy and traditions that I didn’t really learn to appreciate until I got older and started meeting real challenges in my life.”

–  Dr. Simran Jeet Singh

Dr. Simran used these Sikh wisdom in moments of his life where he felt huge struggles and difficulties to guide himself into the person that he wants to be.

The Challenges of being Different

On such moment was when the events during 9/11 occurred, and the whole country was, in many ways, suffering a collective sense of trauma. It was a vulnerable feeling that people of the United States did not think they would feel. But the feeling of vulnerability was even more so for Dr. Simran and his community.

“In this moment of extreme difficulty for our country, of extreme anger and violence, all of a sudden, I and people belonging to my community fell into the stereotype of how Americans saw their enemy. And so that, I think, is partly what felt so difficult in this moment: on the one hand, I felt like I was an American and belonged here and was going through the same trauma as everyone else. Yet at the same time, so many people around me, my fellow Americans would look at me and be like, “no, no, you’re not one of us here.””

–  Dr. Simran Jeet Singh

It hurts doubly for Dr. Simran, as he understands the pain and vulnerability that they are experiencing, as someone who has lived in the US for quite some time. But at the same time, the hate created by the almost-kneejerk reaction that some had afterwards was something that his community and others did not deserve, simply because they were different.

Dr. Simran Jeet Singh on educating the masses

Dr. Simran believes that this reaction is fear born from ignorance, and is something that could be remedied by educating the people on what the Sikh ideologies and culture really stand for.

Sometimes, he would be surprised that an average American doesn’t know where Punjab is, let alone what a Sikh was. That gave Dr. Simran a sense of where he needed to start. Even before educating about the different cultures and ideologies, they might not even have an idea of where you came from, and they have been making assumptions about your culture based on the wrong information.

To hear more from Dr. Simran Jeet Singh and Sikh wisdom, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Simran Jeet Singh PhD is Executive Director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program and author of The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life.

He is a visiting professor of history and religion at Union Theological Seminary and a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations, and in 2020 TIME Magazine recognized him among sixteen people fighting for a more equal America.

His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, and he is a columnist for Religion News Service.

Author of the award-winning children’s book Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon, Simran is an engaging guest speaker who delivers keynotes and facilitates workshops.

His message has been described as “critical and essential” and he’s noted for his “unwavering and empathetic approach to anti-racist work.” Simran lives in New York City with his family.

Links

Connect with Dr. Simran Jeet Singh!

Website | The Light We Give | The Sikh Coalition

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 9:25 — 6.5MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Pandora | RSS | More

It’s been a crazy handful of days in Silicon Valley. But now that the federal government has made their announcements and has the ball rolling, I wanted to spend a few minutes with you just clarifying some things that seem to be creating confusion in the recent Silicon Valley Bank situation.

There seems to be more confusion about what just happened with the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and what the federal government just did as there was about COVID. So let me see if I can break this down for all of you.

There is no Bank Bailout for the Silicon Valley Bank

Let me say that again: there was no bank bailout here.

The executives got fired. None of the investors, creditors, nobody doing business with the bank, in that sense, are getting any of their money back, particularly the investors in the board. The Silicon Valley Bank is gone.

The Effect on the US Finance

The President has said that this will not cost taxpayers’ money. You may choose to believe it or not, but that is the current position of the government on the matter. What they’re saying is if there’s any protection money required, it will come from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).

The FDIC is an insurance company managed by the federal government, which is paid for by Wall Street and the banks. They pay insurance fees to the FDIC for drastic instances such as these.

Making that point clear as soon as possible was a good move by the federal government, because if they have wavered in their decision to do so, twisted narratives about bank bailouts and conjuring the past instances of it happening would have been a bad blow to the US government’s image.

The Silicon Valley Bank Depositors will get their money back

White there’s no direct timetable for when the depositors can get their full funds back, the federal government, via the FDIC, came in and said that they will make sure that the people will get 100% of their money back.

Here’s where most of the confusion lie at the moment, because there are some who spin the narrative like this resembles the recent FTX crash. But unlike the FTX crash where the money is in large parts gone, the Silicon Valley Bank’s money is still there. The main issue at the moment is that there were some horrendous mistakes in investing the money, which caused it to be stuck and become inaccessible at the moment. So when a bank run happened, they didn’t have enough cash. And that’s what caused this.

But the money is still there, unless we learn otherwise after the ongoing investigations.

To hear more updates and suggestions on how Silicon Valley, the federal government, and the FDIC can prevent such a crisis from happening again, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.

He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.

Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.

In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.

He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!